Donna Cinnamon Story

 Here is a bit about my life story and me. I am from Lubbock, Texas And I was born in Dumas, Texas up North .I had both Parents and was blessed with six siblings. I had two older Brothers a younger Sister, And two younger Brothers. I was the third born.  Growing up wasn’t too bad until I reached the age of ten. My Mom started telling me that I needed to see a Psychiatrist and being very negative to me. One day my Mom got very mad at me and she literally beat me with a belt. I had belt whelps all over my body from my head to my toes she made me shows my Grandmother, like she was proud of the way she had beat me.

 My Dad was working a lot to be able to take care of the family. My Dad and I were very close.

 When I reached the age of ten to twelve my older brothers started raping me. And it continued for a long time. I tried to tell my Mon but she didn't seem to care. So I didn't try to tell anyone else. After  about a year or so my oldest brother sold me to a friend of the family for drugs. This Man gave my brother drugs to have sex with me. This man who was 35 years old at the time he raped me. I was only thirteen or fourteen at that time. He continued to rape me over a period of a time. He told me that when I turned 18 he was going to marry me. Thank God it never happened. During that time my brother was still having sex with me.

 While I was young my parents taught us how to dance country. And I loved it a lot. My Dad love to sing country music. So he started  a band up. And we started to play at the clubs, and retirement centers and etc. Later we found out that I was gifted and I learned how to play the drums in about 15 minute. Or less I had fun being around my Dad a lot. As I was growing up I would go dancing with my parents and siblings. When I was sixteen years old I met a guy at a club. He dances with me a few times. And apparently he decided that I was his Girl. So he came to my home a few time to see me off to school. My Mon told me I was never to see him again. One morning my mom and me had another real bad argument. She was screaming at me. I don't remember if my mom hit me that morning or not. All I remember is hitting her and telling her that I hated her. Then I ran out the door and went to school. Later I regretted everything that happened that morning. During this time I was working at Grandys. So after I went to work after our argument that morning. I called my boyfriend up and told him that I was not going back home. So when he came to my job, I changed my clothes. I walked away from my job and my family.

This is where my nightmare gets worse. So I ran away from home at sixteen. My parents did call the Cops but the Cops couldn't do anything about it. Me and my boyfriend was living with his dad and when his dad was at work my boyfriend would start hitting on me .I couldn't figure out what I did wrong.

 We got married and the beating became more frequent, During all that he starting to force sex on me in ways that I didn't consent too.  During the six years he's been verbally abusive to me. He refused to let me see any of my family, He would say that I wasn't any good, no one would wanted me but him. I was ugly and if I tried to divorce him that he would kill my children my family and me. So I stay with him I also found out that he way messing around with my best friend. And later I found out that he had fathered a Baby with a 14-year-old girl that I baby set, And having sex with  her sibling. So I told the Police after I left him and they didn't do anything. Later my Mom called and told me that my Dad was dying of Cancer and he didn't have much time left.. I got the call from my Mom. So we went to visit my Dad several times before he died. The last time I saw my Dad alive, I promise him I would leave my abusive Husband. On February the 18th. My Dad passed away. So one day my husband was gone. I called my Mon and she helped me get what I needed from the apartment and I left for good. While I was going through the divorce from my husband. I had to go into hiding because he threatened to take my Children from me .So while I was in hiding I met another man at my brothers house, his best friend, Eventually we got together. Later I found that I was pregnant with our first, But my third. I had miscarriage and It devastated me real bad. Bad enough that I went on a drinking binge with my Mon and Boyfriend, at the club. We knew a lot of people and they bought me all kind of drink of hard liquor all throughout the night. I literally had a black out. Because I don't remember very much of that night. All I remember was dancing to a song and pointing at one of the Band member that I liked. The next thing I remember is my Boyfriend caring me out while I was crying I want my Baby and my Daddy. Later I found out that I was pregnant again. We had a beautiful daughter. When she was a few weeks old her Daddy went to jail. My oldest brother kicks me and my newborn Baby and two sons out  In the middle of the winter. So I had to stay with my Mother until I was able to find a place to live. So while my boyfriend was in jail. I visited him on visitation day. I ask him one day if he would marry me. He said no. I don't even know why I ask him because when we was dating he would go to clubs or bars right after work and wouldn't come home until 04am. He would then wake the boy up then tell me to cook his breakfast. The last time he came home at 04am and wanted breakfast I told him no, and not to wake the kids up. So he hit me that was the first time and the last time he hit me. I found out that he would go to bed with other females then come home to me. While he was in Jail I left him, I promised myself that I will not allow a another man to hit me or my children and if he did I was leaving him with my children. I met couple little boys that was friend of my neighbor and fell in love with them, and finally I met the Father of the boys one night at a club. He had just buried his wife that morning. We had friend that lives in front of me. And they wanted me to meet him. So I did on the night of his wife's funeral. He had his back toward me for a while. Eventually I ask him to dance with me and he said no. He wasn't in the mood then since he had buried his wife that morning. I dance with other people that I new. Eventually we went to another club across the street, which wasn't very busy.

I ask him again if he would dance with me. He finally said yes. We started talking more about our lives. A couple of month went by with him coming to my house quite often. My youngest brother was watching my two son's when James came over and he asked for me. I had taken my infant daughter to the emergency room. They admitted her into the Hospital with the RS virus; She was put into a plastic tent for a few days. That night James shows up at hospital worried about Ashley. He put on the necessary items that needed before coming into her room. He treated her like his own child. We dated some even though I was not looking for a man at that time .He kept chasing me, wouldn't leave me alone. I eventually gave in. So my three beautiful children and I  moved in with him and his two beautiful children. We decided to get married after a while. While I was getting our wedding plan ready, I didn't realize that I was pregnant again I was so busy getting everything ready for our wedding. Then one day I had a miscarriage. Again, I was devastated!

 This time I had help coping with the loss of this child. Eventually we had another child, a Baby Girl.

 Now we are married with six beautiful children. Four handsome sons Joshua, Daniel, Taylor and Jacob.

 And two beautiful daughters Ashley and Priscilla. Their age was 14,14,12,12,10 and 8 years old.

Here is how me and my husband wound up in prison for a crime we did not commit.  In 1998 my in-laws moved to a town call Eden, Texas where my mother in law was born. We still lived in Lubbock. We visited his family on holidays  and birthdays if possible. One day in 1998 my oldest brother kicked his oldest son out of the house. So James and myself took him in. That was a big mistake . One day I was cooking dinner, Daniel came to me and said that Johnathan was sexing with Joshua. I ran to the bedroom where the children was playing and the door was locked. So I ran out back and looked in the window and saw with my own eyes what Daniel said was happening. I called the Police and the C.P.S.

Because Johnathan was only 15 years old. I told the Police what had happened and he was arrested. We them took are children to the hospital.

He had not done anything to my two daughter's .A few months later my children was getting restless in the house where we lived. We then moved to Eden where James folks lived. Even though I had bad feeling about the move. I didn't want to make the move. James wanted to live there because his parents live there. It seemed like we started to have trouble with the C.P.S. as soon as we got there because of the school. From then on it just escalated out of control. In 2001 we was accused of neglecting our children. They had everything that they needed, food, clothes, a home, discipline, and a lot of love. James and I both worked so hard to give the children what they needed and most of what they wanted. And we never had trouble paying our bills. In may of 2001 they took our children away from us and they made a plan that we each had to fulfill and we was doing everything that they wanted us to do.  They gave a date when they would return our children. We kept driving four to six hours one way to visit our children on a weekly basis.  One day when we were celebrating two of our children's birthday's. The C.P.S. worker told us that we could not see our children anymore. That day our children were hanging onto us begging us to take them home with us. Then the C.P.S. dropped the bombshell on us so naturally it devastated James and me. We kept going to orientation and to the Psychiatrist. A year after they told us we could not see our children they charged me and James with aggravated sexual assault. As soon as we found out we had been indicted we turned our self's in. After a while being in county jail we was force to sign over our parental rights. Now we have been going to pre-trails off and on for two years while in county. My husband went to tiall first and the court system was told by one of the foster parent that one of the ladies from C.P.S. was telling the children what to say and bribing then with candy, trips to Disney land and telling them they was going home. Now my husband is doing 75 years for a crime he did not commit, but for lies told by others.

Then a few months later I pled no contest to 15 years, I knew it was a loose - loose situation and I was tired of my life being threatened. I didn't want to put my children  back through all the pain of testifying again. I know that it would mentally destroy them so I gave up my life for them, I love my children that much and I would do it again in a minute. My testimony will explain why. So I plead for 15 years for a crime neither my husband nor me committed. My husbands is in the process of appealing it. I believe this time we will win because there is no evidence, just what the C.P.S, workers and possible foster parents put in their minds. There are a lot of people that believe me and James were set up and they know that we are innocent of this crime .So there is some of my life story. We do take a lot for granted but most people don't realize it until it is too late.  I know I did. I know I have been forgiven of it.

As I look back on my life I realize that our Father in Heaven was always there for me. Even though I didn't know him, He knew me. I don't do drugs and I very seldom drink. But my Father has protected me from a lot. I could have been pregnant at an early age after  being raped repeatedly since the age of 11 or 12 until I was 23 when I left my first husband. Because of the mental, physical and sexual abuse toward me .I could have been kidnapped by one of the men that had rape me. I could have been brutally beat to death by or been shot by my ex-husband I know now that our Heavenly Father was protecting me through everything that happened to me. It took me being set down in prison to finally realize that Jesus has wanted me to turn my life over to him. I finally did. I found the love, peace and happiness that I could not find anywhere else but in Jesus. I am not ashamed of where I am. Or the false charges against me. I know it took this to open my eyes and my heart to my Jesus He is refining me to be the bride that he wants me to be. And I love him so much for it I wouldn't change anything. I now realized just how much Jesus loves me when he died for me on the cross. My Spiritual Journey started in jail.

While growing up I didn't attend a lot of church not until I was put in County Jail. Then I started going to a Bible study. After a while I started to really enjoy it. You couldn't keep me from going. I got me a Bible and I started to read it from Genesis to Revelation. It took me only seven months to read the whole bible. After being in the Bible study for a while Jesus pointed out a chapter in Ephesians for me to read, I dated it a year later I finally asked the preacher about it. He said that Jesus could set his prisoners free. I through at the time for me it was physically free from jail. But later I found out that our Father was speaking to me Spiritually free at the time. I didn't know that till I got baptized. All my worries, all my burdens and all the hatefulness that I had were lifted off my shoulders. Since then I still didn't understand Ephesians, and one day after being Baptized it came to me that Jesus was speaking to me about getting Baptized and he would free me from my Spiritual prison that I was in. So now I cast all my cares worries, and burdens on his Shoulders. My Brother, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He has been helping me to conquer the evil though and temptations, Since I turned my life over to him. I have forgiven everybody that ever did me wrong. 

I have asked several people to forgive me for what I did or didn't do for them. Now I have a lot of peace and happiness in my life. I know that I am loved and that God will never leave nor forsake me. He used this to sit me down so He could open my eyes and my heart to him. So he could show me just what he would do for me. And what work he had for me. I am still growing with him each and ever day. I pray that after reading this you don't judge me I would understand if you don't want to write .I know our Heavenly Father knows the truth in mine and my husbands Situation, I know that the truth will set us free when the time comes. I know that Vengeance belongs to God. Is not ours. I hope you  use some of this to put in you books or use it to help another person who needs encouraging

  Springtown Prison Outreach Has my permission to use my story, to tell it as I have written.

  Thank you for Caring

 your Sister in Jesus

  Love Always

Donna Cinnamon

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