Getting My Father Convicted for Sexual Abuse Is the Hardest Thing I’ve Done & I’d Do It All Over Again

Deanna Hynes

Trigger warning: Content contains explicit details of sexual abuse, incest, and child abuse. This story was written by Deanna Hynes and edited by Lauren Gordon for length and clarity.

My name is Deanna Hynes and first and foremost, I am a survivor. 

I was the fourth born in my family out of five children. My eldest sister, who is eight years my senior, remembers her first experience of sexual abuse by our father at 3 years old. When she was around 6, there was a DCFS report that included allegations against our father for sexual abuse. This was the first time on record that my mother was made aware of my father's abuse. When I was born two years after that, I entered into an established chaotic and sexually abusive household.

My parents were not good with finances, though they both worked.

Deanna Hynes

We often had major utilities, like heat, electricity, and water, shut off. Our actual house was in shambles; a bowing and leaking roof, mold, water damage, and unclean conditions throughout each room. 

I can’t honestly put a number to the amount of times I was abused. So much of my childhood is foggy and unclear.

What I can say is that I endured sexual abuse from as early as I can remember, around 4, until the day after I turned 18 and fled from my childhood home. There were times when my father would brush up against me in his robe, try to pull my towel off of me after getting our of the shower, make vulgar comments about my body, and grab my breasts as I would walk by him. It wasn’t until years later that I considered these interactions as abuse; I thought it was just how fathers treated their daughters.

There are two instances I do remember, and ultimately the ones that would be my father's downfall.

In 1997, after a daddy-daughter dance, my father abused me. I remember thinking how uncomfortable I was and confused as to why he was doing that. At one point, someone had come into the house and he told me to run and hide. When he called me back down the hallway to his bedroom he asked me if I wanted more. I remember shaking my head “no” but that is where my memory goes blank. 

The second instance of abuse where the state's attorney could attach a criminal charge occurred between 2004 and 2006. I had fallen asleep next to my mom in her bed, since the bed I shared with my younger sister was full of other family spending the night. My mom must have woken up earlier than me and left me alone in her bed with my father. I woke up to him abusing me. I was frozen for a few seconds and then opened my eyes. Immediately my father stopped moving and pretended to be asleep. After another moment I said out loud, “I need an aspirin.” I felt like I needed verbalize an excuse to leave his bed, as if him molesting me weren’t enough of a reason to flee.

I went downstairs where my mom was getting ready, and told her what I had woken up to.

During one of these interrogations she asked me if this had ever happened before and I told her about the daddy-daughter dance. At one point she told me, “Maybe you should talk to your sister. She went through it, too.”

My mother is a very cruel and harsh woman. Even though my father was sexually abusive, she controlled him and set the tone of our home. She would spit on us children, refuse to give us lunch or lunch money as punishment, and sleep deprive us. In my teen years, she would accuse me of allowing my father to touch me and state she would never have let her father do that.

I did, however, take her "advice" and talked to my sister.

I found out he has also abused her, though I wouldn’t know the extent of her abuse until 2015. I told her what our father had been doing to me and that I was scared. She listened and then dropped me back off at home.

Years later she told me that when I disclosed to her, she was relieved that she wasn’t going through it anymore. At the time she was unable to really process what I was telling her. Even though she was an adult at that point, she had never confronted her own abuse and therefore was not emotionally able to help me.

In early 2009, during my junior year of high school, I was offered a scholarship to play Division 1 soccer.

Deanna Hynes

I accepted and began a countdown to my 18th birthday. 

I finally had a light at the end of the tunnel, a way to get out, and a way to leave without the help of my parents. The day after I turned 18, I left my childhood home for the last time with nothing but my soccer bag. I was heading to school and had no real plan except to go to practice that afternoon. My boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband and the father of our son, was told to stop seeing me. My parents did not like how close we were and were afraid of me telling him about their abuse. I made the choice not to return home that day. It was the first time I truly defied them. That decision set off a chain reaction from my parents. 

They tried calling police, my school, my high school soccer coach, and even my future college coach to try and force me home. Still, I refused. I couldn’t bring myself to tell everyone why I truly stayed away; the shame and embarrassment I felt about the sexual abuse was still too powerful to overcome. Instead, I stated simply that they were abusive and I wanted nothing to do with them. Seeing as I was legally an adult, there was nothing anyone could do. I felt, for what might have been the first time in my life, that I had the power to make decisions. 

My parents attempted to have my scholarship taken from me and end my journey before it began. Ultimately, they failed at doing so. I graduated from college in 2014 with a Bachelor’s in Family Social Services, focusing on helping those in crisis.

When my sister and I went to police in 2015, they were only able to take the two instances of abuse I recounted and attach them to charges.

It was five years after I had left home, and both my sister and myself decided we weren't going to cover for him any more. We've suffered through harassment from our biological family — they supported our father and either didn’t believe our allegations of abuse or thought we should just keep them to ourselves. I told my sister I was sick of being called a liar or an attention seeker for wanting to speak openly about the home we grew up in. That is when she fully disclosed what our father had done to her. Starting at 3, he was sexually abusive to her. At 9, he raped her for the first time and continued to do so well into her teenage years. 

We decided together that enough was enough.

My sister and I spoke with a legal advocate at my work.

She helped us determine that we were still within the statute of limitations; our father could still be brought up on criminal charges if there was sufficient evidence. Next, we went to the sheriff in the county where the crimes occurred. We had to interview with detectives and have it taped, as our testimony counted as evidence. The sheriff had to conduct a complete investigation including going over old DCFS case files, interviewing possible witnesses, and researching what we told them.

My sister, the bravest woman I know, participated in a phone tap with our father and and at a later date “wore a wire” when she visited him at work.

At the conclusion on the investigation, the sheriff and state’s attorney were able to charge our father with 10 criminal felonies, two for the abuse against me and eight for the abuse against my sister. 

Those recordings my sister helped obtain were played in court and showed the judge what our father was like when he believed no one was listening. 

After years of waiting, dealing with harassment from our mother, and fearing the unknown, a trial was finally set. Our trials and charges were severed, meaning there would be two separate trials for my sister and myself. A motion was granted shortly after that allowed us to testify at each trial.  On November 1, 2018, my sister underwent hours of testimony and cross examination. On November 2, I testified, as well as a woman who made the original report to DCFS back when my sister was just 6 years old. My mother and two of my sisters testified for my father.

On November 28, 2018, our father was found guilty and convicted for six of the seven charges brought against him by my sister.

He was sentenced to a total of 60 years in prison, but will serve between nine and 18 years due to sentencing guidelines when the crimes occurred. 

On April 11, 2019, my father took a plea deal for the two remaining charges that pertained to my abuse. For avoiding a second trial and admitting to his actions, he was sentenced to six years.

On May 5, 2020, I will be celebrating 10 years of abuse-free living. I consider that date a day of rebirth and the start of my current life.

Deanna Hynes

In these 10 years I have become a wife, a college graduate, a mother, and an advocate for those who are still suffering through sexual abuse.

I hope people understand that waiting for a trial to be set is excruciating. It’s fearing the unknown and that your future is in the hands of people who did not experience what you experienced. It’s dealing with harassment from people you once considered family. It’s living with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and navigating through thoughts of suicide and trying to unlearn what you were taught as a child: I am unlovable, I am unwanted, and I am broken.

I hope people understand coming forward only leads to justice a fraction of the time; most often it can lead to feeling victimized all over again.

Deanna Hynes

I can’t say that I felt sad, but I did have a weird feeling of guilt. Like I had done something wrong. But after going through therapy I now understand that is what I was groomed and manipulated to feel. 

Implementing Erin’s Law as an adult has given me the opportunity to heal through educating others. Working with a fellow survivor, my boss and mentor Victor Pacini and founder of “Be Seen and Heard,” I am able to tell children what we were never taught growing up:

“Your body belongs to you.”

“You have a right to say no, even to grownups.”

“You have a right to fight for your body.”

“If one person doesn’t believe you, tell someone else.”

“If someone you love hurts you, it’s still OK to tell.”

“It’s never too late to tell.”

The evil that is sexual abuse breeds in secrecy and darkness, and thrives on silence and complicity. I cannot change our past, but I can certainly use it to change our future. If there is one thing I can ask of anyone who reads this, it’s please educate your children. Empower them. Believe, support, and validate them. Protect them. There is power in the words we use and the language that we teach our children.

Though it was years of pain and uncertainty, I would go through the process of getting him convicted all over again.

Deanna Hynes

First of all, I know the outcome. We saw justice and I now know he can no longer hurt children. Second of all, I needed to speak openly about the truth of my childhood. Keeping it on the inside for so many years felt like a slow-acting poison, killing me a little more each day. Living authentically and without unsafe secrets is freedom in its purest form, and I hope all survivors have the opportunity to feel that.