The Baby Killer’s Daughter

I was only a little girl when I learned what it meant to carry someone else’s name like a burden.
Not a last name — a label.
The baby killer’s daughter.

At first, I didn’t understand why people looked at me the way they did. My family tried to protect me the only way they knew how — by hiding the truth. They told me my dad was in the hospital. I believed them. I thought that’s why we wrote him letters and visited him in that cold, echoing building. I thought the glass between us was just part of the rules, not part of a sentence.

So when people started whispering, when teachers stopped smiling the same way, when parents pulled their kids a little closer — I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I was too young to know that the world had already made up its mind about my father, and by extension, about me.

I went to a small, private Christian school — the kind where everyone knew each other’s families, where the teachers went to church with the parents, and where “faith” was supposed to mean forgiveness and love. But forgiveness didn’t seem to apply to me.

Even as a child, I could feel it.
The way the room would shift when I walked in.
The sudden silence when my name was called.
The quick, whispered conversations adults thought I couldn’t hear.

I remember standing at the classroom doorway, clutching my backpack, and watching teachers glance at one another when they realized whose daughter I was. They’d smile — but it wasn’t the same smile they gave to the other kids. It was tight, polite, and full of pity.

At recess, parents would pull their children a little closer when I ran by.
During school events, I’d see them whisper to each other — heads bent, eyes darting toward me. I didn’t know the full story yet, but I knew enough to understand I was different.

Once, at a holiday program, I overheard one mother say quietly,

“That’s the one. That’s his daughter.”
And in that moment, I wanted to disappear.

The adults around me talked about grace and faith, but they didn’t show it to me. I wasn’t the little girl who loved to draw or who knew all the words to the Christmas songs — I was him, by association.

While other kids went home to their parents, I went home to my grandparents — the people who became my safe place when the rest of the world felt too cruel to face. My grandmother was the one who brushed my hair before school and packed my lunches. She was the one who drove me to those prison visits, trying to make the long ride feel lighter than it really was.

My mom wasn’t always around. Sometimes she tried, sometimes she didn’t. But my grandparents never left. They filled the spaces she couldn’t — offering love that was steady when everything else in my life was uncertain.

There’s something deeply confusing about being judged for something you didn’t do, especially before you’re even old enough to spell the words they’re using against you. I didn’t understand the details of the case then, but I knew my dad wasn’t what they said he was. I could feel it in the way he talked to me on the phone, the way he said “I love you” like it was a promise.

But the world didn’t care about the truth — they cared about the headlines.
And in a small town where gossip spread faster than grace, I became part of the story they whispered about in church pews and parking lots.

As a little girl, all I wanted was to belong. But instead, I learned early what it means to live under suspicion, to carry a shadow that wasn’t mine.

What they didn’t know — what they never asked — was that behind every story they judged was a child just trying to survive it.

Looking back now, I realize I spent so many years trying to be smaller — quieter — hoping that if I was kind enough or good enough, people would forget the label they’d given me. But no amount of good behavior could erase the whisper of “that’s his daughter.”

It’s taken me a long time to understand that their judgment was never about me. It was about fear — about how easily people believe the simplest story, even when the truth is much harder to face.

My grandmother taught me strength through grace. She showed me that love doesn’t have to be loud to be powerful. She taught me how to carry pain without letting it turn me bitter — how to keep showing up, even when people look away.

I’ve spent most of my life living under a shadow that I didn’t create. But now, I tell this story to step out from under it. I speak because there are so many others — children, families, and loved ones — who have lived through the same silence, the same judgment, the same quiet shame.

The truth is, I’m not “the baby killer’s daughter.”
I’m the daughter of a man who never stopped fighting for the truth.
I’m the granddaughter of a woman who refused to let love be buried by pain.
And I’m a woman who believes, with everything in her, that someday soon — justice will finally catch up.

One day closer,
Amber