A Central Texas woman authored a harshly worded obituary about her recently deceased mother that has generated online buzz around the world.
On Tuesday, the Reno Gazette-Journal published – in print and online – an obituary for Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick that ripped the 78-year-old mother for allegedly torturing her children “in every way possible.” Johnson-Reddick, who died following a bout with bladder cancer, is survived by six children.
“On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively exposed to her evil and violent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after-life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty and shame that she delivered on her children,” the obituary said.
Media outlets have identified Katherine Reddick, who is a psychology consultant for the Pflugerville Independent School District, as the author of the obituary. Reddick’s mother – who once ran escort services – died Aug. 30 in Reno, Nevada.
Reddick told the Reno Gazette-Journal: “The things she did to us were horrible. But it’s still happening to kids every day.”
Reddick told The Associated Press that she decided to share the story of her and her siblings’ physical and mental abuse after consulting with her brother Patrick Reddick, who lives in Nebraska. Katherine, Patrick and four of their siblings spent years in a Nevada orphanage. Katherine left the orphanage in 1974 at age 18.
“You can imagine that the lives we lived, it has been hard to have a normal one,” Katherine Reddick said.
Here’s the full, unedited text of the obituary:
Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick born Jan 4, 1935 and died alone on Sept. 30, 2013. She is survived by her 6 of 8 children whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible. While she neglected and abused her small children, she refused to allow anyone else to care or show compassion towards them. When they became adults she stalked and tortured anyone they dared to love. Everyone she met, adult or child was tortured by her cruelty and exposure to violence, criminal activity, vulgarity, and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.
On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively exposed to her evil and violent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after-life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty, and shame that she delivered on her children. Her surviving children will now live the rest of their lives with the peace of knowing their nightmare finally has some form of closure.
Most of us have found peace in helping those who have been exposed to child abuse and hope this message of her final passing can revive our message that abusing children is unforgiveable, shameless, and should not be tolerated in a “humane society”. Our greatest wish now, is to stimulate a national movement that mandates a purposeful and dedicated war against child abuse in the United States of America.
