that 4 months after that last entry my brother would barge into my house at 10:30 in the morning and nearly beat the life out of me in front of our, then, 91-year-old mother.
It’s too painful to write out again, so I’m just going to copy and paste what I wrote (ironically) on facebook in November of 2018, when I could finally muster the wherewithal to put the series of events into writing. The picture of Steve and me is added for context. By this time, I still had the faint reminder on my face of the black eye my brother gave me that day in July of 2018.

Playing with the web cam.
Figuring now’s as good a time as any to explain the scenario as I understand it. I haven’t had the frame of mind to be able to explain what happened and how, until now. To some, the details are not important. For some reason, at this juncture of things, the details are important to me. I doubt I’ll ever really make sense of what happened, but the mind cannot help but try. One of these days I’m sure I’ll figure out what to do about that. For now, I’m not going to do any editing, so if there are grammatical errors and so forth, so be it. I just feel the need to get this out.
On the morning of July 13, at around 10:30, Mom had just finished her breakfast and was sipping on some tea. She looked out the window and said, “Dailey’s car is here, but I don’t see him.” He usually came on Tuesdays to visit with her. This was a Friday, so right off the bat, there was bewilderment. I didn’t see him either, so I stuck my head out of the storm door to peek around and see if I could see him. From seemingly out of nowhere, he came barreling up the front walk with a look in his eye that I hadn’t seen for years but was all too familiar with, and I knew in that instant it was going to get bad. I didn’t have enough time to act on my impulse to shut the front door and lock him out before he had barged in and gotten right up in my face. He was waving a sale barn check around and screaming at the top of his lungs, and every time I would try to say, “Whuh” I couldn’t even get that one word out. He was yelling, “Shut up” every time I tried.
The next thing I remember, I was cornered and backed up against my furniture, which was backed up against the wall. He had me completely fenced in with no way out and was towering over me, still screaming. Fight or flight kicked in, and I started screaming back. Then I felt a blow to the side of my head. Steve had just left the room for a second to try and retrieve some information that he thought might be relevant to what was going on. See, there was a terrible tragedy that happened in the family which resulted in the death of an infant. A man was behind bars for first degree murder, and it was the worst possible thing that anyone could imagine, so we got that emotions were running high, and wanted to help him navigate through it. Since he was waving the sale barn check around, and I did get a glance at the total, and it was half what he normally would get for a cow at auction, I figured it had something to do with paying for the baby’s funeral, but he was screaming too incoherently for me to know exactly what he was so riled up about. There was a GoFundMe set up for help with the funeral expenses that was advertised in the local news where the infant was killed. I had donated $100 to the GoFundMe on behalf of myself, and Dailey, and Mom, and Steve. The campaigne had generated over $800 the last time we had checked, then there started to be all these rumors about that it was a scam and that the person who started the fund would pocket the money instead of sending it to the funeral home. As a result, some people asked for their money back and left the account with over $500. The reason Steve had left the room was to contact the funeral home to see whether or not they had received the funds. They had. At this point, the baby’s body had not even been released for burial and wouldn’t be released for quite some time while the investigation into her death was ongoing. I don’t know if he thought I started the fund and was scamming people or what the hell was rolling around in that twisted head of his, but whatever it was he was upset about when he drove to my house, there was nothing in the truth to make him that upset, angry, what have you. It was clear, that he wasn’t interested in the truth. He was looking to hurt somebody, and, for some reason he felt that I was the appropriate target.
Steve was a few feet away after having come out of the other room when the first punch landed. I don’t know how he managed it, but with great effort he was finally able to get bodily between me and Dailey, but that did not stop the punches. We were both being punched at this point. For all Steve’s effort to shield me, Dailey still managed to land a punch that knocked me to the ground. I don’t know if I was stunned or knocked completely unconscious, but I don’t remember landing on the concrete floor. I only remember coming to and being disoriented as I realized I was now on the floor. Once I was down, Steve put himself completely over me to cover me while Dailey still tried to do his worst. The next thing I remember, Steve walked me with his back to Dailey and got me safely to the couch.
I could tell that he still wanted to keep pounding on me, but he couldn’t get at me due to a very large ottoman that extends the length of the couch without losing his balance and hitting the ground himself. He was still screaming, however. I was pointing over to Mom, who’d been inches away in her recliner to have to watch this whole scene unfold, and there was not a thing she could do. She was trapped where she was, unable to move. Steve managed to keep her safe as well. As he was screaming at me, I pointed over to Mom and yelled, ‘There is a 91-year-old woman with a heart condition sitting right there!’ I said this 2 or 3 times and finally just started shouting, ‘Get out of here! Get out!’ as forcefully as I could.
The next thing I remember he and Steve are out on the front porch exchanging words, then Dailey stormed off to his car and drove off like a maniac.
So that’s what happened. I hope I don’t have to ever tell these ugly details again, but if I do, I do. Dailey just got out after spending a week in jail for his failure to appear for his court date. I feel vindicated. I know it was awful for him, but what he did was awful for me. I am still having trouble with the shoulder I landed on when I hit the floor, and my eye is still black, 4 months later. All that I’ve wanted was for him to be behind bars as a direct result of what he did to me, and to Mom, and to Steve. I didn’t care if it was a night, or 24 hours, or 24 years. The time didn’t matter because I had not been given much hope from the prosecutor’s office that he would do jail time, since it was his “first offense” (it wasn’t his first offense in any realm except the eyes of the law because no one had dared to turn him in to authorities that had the power to hold him accountable).
There is a 10-year final protection order in place, and it is now a matter of public record that he is a violent person. I sincerely hope that jail was so awful that he will not want to do anything to ever go back there again. That is my hope. I have many measures in place to equalize him and his rage should he ever decide to do anything like this again, whether it be here or out and about – and you can believe that I am ever vigilant.
Here is the link to the original post:
https://www.facebook.com/carolsherman21211/posts/10156918761862533
What happened next:
After this happened, we started the long, arduous journey of getting my brother off of the family farm where I grew up so that we could sell it.
This is a highly emotional time, so this will be an emotional post, but I’ll do the best I can to get through it.
We’re selling the farm our family has owned for over 50 years.
We had to get a court order to remove my brother from the property so we could start the process of cleaning up the mess he left behind. It had been building up for a number of years, but after his wife left him, and he beat me up 7 months later, it got much worse.
The farm is a beautiful place, and a very special place, and it deserves so much better than the way it was being treated. Thus, we’re handing it off to people who will hopefully treat it with the love and respect it deserves.
This farm has been many things to many people through the years. What this farm represents for us now is justice. When I started the process of turning my assault case over to the city of Springdale, I was not given much in the way of hope that he would do any jail time – or even suffer much in the way of any kind of penalty for barging into my home screaming incoherently at 10:30 in the morning, cornering me in my living room where I had no way of escape, then punching me repeatedly – with our then 91-year-old crippled mom sitting helplessly just inches away.
He did spend a week in jail for his failure appear for the court date he essentially requested by pleading not guilty to assault at his arraignment. After the case was closed, he had pled guilty to a “lesser charge” of harassment. Not sure how a black eye that lasted for 7 months, a sprained wrist, and a shoulder that gave me trouble for nearly a year qualifies as harassment, but what-the-eff-ever.
So…, it just so happens that Mama is the sole owner of the farm where he’s been living for most all of his adult life. We didn’t arrive at this place of putting it up for sale hastily but with much careful consideration and a very heavy heart. The county judge granted our request to eject my brother from the property so we could begin this process – helping us do what the legal system before could not and/or would not do: hold my brother accountable and send a clear message that there are consequences for hurting people the way that he hurt us.
Mama and I both saw in my brother that he was getting some sick kind of high with every blow he delivered to my body that day. I had been thinking it to myself, and when Mom said it out loud, it was pretty startling to find that it wasn’t just me, it wasn’t just in my head. I made up my mind in the weeks that followed that my life’s mission from here on is to make sure that this kind of high would cost him, and cost dearly. He had been living his life up to that point like it was some kind of entitlement/by-God right to wound creatures any way he felt like it that didn’t stand much of a chance in defending themselves against him. He was wrong. It is not his right.
The cleanup is ongoing. With each thing that gets accomplished, it only confirms to my heart and mind that what we are doing is the right thing – a hard thing, but often the right thing is not the easiest thing to do.
I’m brokenhearted. I’ve had a broken heart before, so I know the pieces will get put back together, somehow. It will not resemble what it did before, but that’s just part of it.
We’re hoping to get a smaller farm. When Mama was in the assisted living and then independent living place, she hated the latter worse than the first but was obligated by contract to stay for 2 years. Toward the end, she would tell doctors, nurses, anyone who would listen that they ought to have not just homes and facilities but farms where people who can no longer care for themselves can still be part of the land with animals around, etc. We’re working toward making that happen for her. She was born a farm girl and lived the biggest part of her life that way.
We’ll see what the next chapter brings!
Here is the link to this post:
https://www.facebook.com/carolsherman21211/posts/10157430674672533
These are pictures of the way my brother left the farm when he left and the cleanup I embarked on getting it ready to sell.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10157430637327533&set=pcb.10157430674672533
I have had to grapple with cutting my brother completely out of my life, most likely for the rest of my life.
My therapist describes him as a classic narcissist. A google search of psychopath is a chilling description of this person who had the power to change the trajectory of my life (for the time being). He checks almost all of the boxes of the definition of a psychopath. I am not the same person I was before that beating. I overcame – or thought I had overcome – the childhood abuse that he had subjected me to. I also thought I had been broken in my life before this happened. All those broken times before were merely dress rehearsals for what was to come that awful and bloody day in July of 2018.
If interested, here is what was posted on the day the beating happened. It was a chaotic day, to say the least.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlL07MtHlXA/?igshid=1eqy5rxj6y6ac
Life today
I’m on my 4th therapist since this whole thing unfolded. My primary therapy goal at this stage is not to return to the person I was before that beating happened – because I can find no evidence of the existence of that person. The best hope I’ve been able to find at this juncture is to clean up enough of the muck to see who is left and see if that person is someone I am okay with being. If I’m not okay with it, the next goal will be to find a way to be okay with being whoever that person turns out to be.
We have bought a smaller farm in another town, and Mom loves it! Having to quarantine has been made bearable due to being here. She recently said this about our new farm, “It feels like home.”
If one has to let go of a place that is as special as my childhood home was to us, one cannot ask for more than this!