Welcome to my first entry on this Substack. I’m glad you’re here, even if the reasons that brought us to this point are heavy.
Where should we start? Honestly, it started on a summer walk into downtown Springfield. Jimmy and I were walking and talking — or, to be more accurate, I was doing all the talking while he did the listening. He’s always been good at that. At the time, Jimmy was still new to Springfield, but I’m a child of five generations of Donahues. My family has called this city home since 1871. My roots here aren’t just deep; they are the foundation of everything I know. Almost everyone in my family was a cop for Springfield, or one in a neighboring community.
As we walked, I asked him if he’d seen the paper. There were over 20 people arrested for domestic violence in a single day. He told me it’s like that every day — that seeing fewer than ten charges would be the real rarity. We passed the old, closed “Main Stop” convenience store, and I pointed to the pavement. “Do you know about all the murders that have taken place right here?” I asked.
He didn’t, so I told him. And that was the spark.
What began as a conversation turned into a years-long descent into the dark heart of our city’s records. Together, we uncovered more than 50 women who had been murdered or gone missing within a 20-year span.
Jimmy approaches this like a scientist. As a criminologist and Social Network Analysis expert, he quantifies social relations to find the patterns of victimization that everyone else chooses to ignore. He wanted to know why these homicides remained dormant while the same names kept appearing in the city’s criminal landscape. He realized these women weren’t just “isolated statistics.” They were human beings connected in a densely woven web of social failure.
But data only tells half the story. I dug in from the other side — as a domestic violence advocate and a tracker of serial abusers. I focused on the seriality of the abuse, watching how predators exploit the systemic vulnerabilities of women trapped in the drug trade and sex work to maintain control. I saw how they used the very systems meant to protect women as tools for further evasion.
I didn’t just stay behind a desk. I took this to the people in charge. I attended City Commission meetings. I spoke out until my voice was hoarse. I wrote letters, I confronted the Mayor, and I sat across from the Police Chief. I made myself a problem for the city because the status quo was killing women.
While I was on the news, Jimmy found the smoking gun: the Springfield Police Department was underreporting murders to the FBI. We held news conferences and public meetings. The people of Springfield listened, but the politicians in power? They stayed silent.
Then came the final blow. Jimmy discovered that while our police were making record-breaking arrests for violent crimes, domestic violence, and the rape of girls younger than 16, the city prosecutors were dismissing 85% of those cases. They were letting offenders walk free to assault, rape, and eventually kill the same women who had begged the court for protection.
The City Prosecutor eventually resigned and fled the city, but as the old song goes: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The names on the office doors changed, but the indifference remained. The system continues to fail the most vulnerable among us while the men in suits congratulate themselves on a job well done.
That is why we are here. This Substack is for the women who were silenced, the families left behind, and the people tired of being lied to by a leadership that views justice as a budget line item.
We aren’t going anywhere. It’s time to look at the math of crime and the reality of the survivors.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
— Elie Wiesel
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