Here is a story about Kathy Roever, a remarkable woman who is currently living, nearly on the streets, of Colorado Springs.
On June 23, 1997, life sucker-punched Kathy Roever.
That was the day her 24-year-old daughter, Deidre, was raped and murdered, tossed into a shallow grave up Old Stage Road, her slight body crushed under heavy rocks. Everything that’s happened since, Roever ties to that fateful, heartbreaking day.
At the time, Roever had a good job, making $9.56 an hour working in the mailroom at Focus on the Family. A single mom, she was raising her two sons in their three-bedroom west side home. They weren’t wealthy, by any stretch, but they were comfortable enough.
Nearly a decade later, Roever has lost nearly everything. While still grieving, she was fired from the family ministry for missing too much work. She sold her house. Her adult children, including another daughter, are scattered; she rarely speaks with them. She lost the rest of her belongings, including most of her photographs and life’s mementos, when she couldn’t pay her storage bill last November.
But there are two things that no one can take away from a woman who earned notoriety for publicly forgiving her daughter’s murderer during a face-to-face prison encounter: her strength and her faith.
Roever, now 56, is getting ready to spend her third winter living inside a cramped, 20-foot mobile home. She and her fianc
