Living in the Wake of Tragedy

So, Allison and Jen, thank you so much for joining us. I am sure it is very painful to bring up the worst experience of your lives again and again, but I know you are doing it for the right reasons. But let us talk about that. Allison, if we can start with you, please. Why do you continue to go public and tell your story when it has to be difficult for you? Why do you do it, Allison?

We continue to share our story because we want to make a difference. Jen and I, our lives were stopped a little over a year ago, and we did experience the worst thing, and we have been constantly looking for a way to make a difference through this horrible tragedy, and so we feel by sharing our story in any way we can that hopefully... We can make that difference. Yeah. Jen, how about your thoughts? Is it difficult, and why do you keep persisting?

Well, the difficulty is different on different days, and with tragedy, it's kind of like a roller coaster where you never know when it's going to be a day where you're, like, completely taken over by grief, or a day where you're happy to have had your children for the 18 or 19 years that we got to have them. I will continue to Like Allison said, make a difference to try and prevent this from happening to other families. We've had a lot of people that are supporters, a lot of people that don't understand because they're unaffected by things like this, so they just don't understand, and nor did we before any of this happened.

So, my biggest thing is, is if I can prevent tragedy like this from happening to one single family, like, we will never be the same people. Again, I'm not going to be the same wife, the same mom, the same daughter, the same friend. Like, we're different. That person that Brady and Hallie knew, they're gone. They're gone forever. So, if I can prevent this, that's the biggest thing, and to make any type of impact on any of the matters that this has on families would be a success to me.

I will fight through the emotion just to help. Protect people that don't even necessarily agree with what we're doing, and they can't. We're not wired to understand this type of pain until you're actually living it. Yeah. Jen, that awful night, how were you notified? Can you talk to us about how it happened?

Sure. Brady and Hallie were celebrating their third anniversary, and they were heading to college shortly after this weekend. We talked to them quite a bit that weekend on the phone. They were over in Wisconsin at a concert, and about sometime in the early morning, my husband's phone was ringing.

And I was completely, didn't understand what was happening, and I'm like, your phone, your phone, your phone. I mean, it's early, early hours. And so, he answers the phone, and it is somebody from the hospital. Your son is in our trauma unit. He is being airlifted. And I immediately called Allison. I said, have you heard from the kids?

None of it makes sense. I couldn't process what was being said, and nobody could tell me where Hallie was. I said, where's Hallie? Where's Hallie? And I said it so many times, where's Hallie? And they couldn't tell me. So, I was talking to Allison. I said, you have to call these numbers, and we have to find a Hallie, because we thought they were being separated. And she is this quiet, silly girl that...

A big, strong Brady would protect, and if he's being airlifted, where is Hallie? And so, that phone call led to me calling Allison, and Allison trying to find Hallie, and it took us a long time. To find somebody who would tell us where Hallie was. So, Brady had an iWatch, and we have Life360 on our children. It did send for help immediately, and that's where the calls started coming in. So, my phone was alerted, Josh's phone was alerted, and my middle daughter's phone was alerted, because we're all on it together.

So, that's initially what sent out the emergency, that there was a crash detected. Our kids were driving down the freeway at 70 miles an hour, and it went from 70 to zero. There was nothing in between. And Allison, the drunk driver, illegal migrant who was driving the wrong way on the highway, had been previously arrested for drunk driving in Wisconsin, correct?

Yes. Yep. She had been previously arrested more than one time, and as we kind of went through this, that was kind of our thing. Like, she's done this before. Granted, she had not, you know, killed anybody or hit anybody, but this was not the first time she had been.

Pulled over for drunk driving, and she didn't even have a driver's license. So, we're like, if she didn't have a driver's license, and she's been pulled over before and has had, I think in Wisconsin they call it OWI, operating while intoxicated, why is she still out on the road? And I think the thing that made me the most angry is here are two innocent children.

That had been murdered by this woman, and she's out walking around on the freeway, totally uninjured. Nothing had happened to her, and so that was kind of, as we started learning about it, that was the huge, huge thing for us, is why was she even allowed on the road? Right.

So, Allison, in addition to the criminal herself, who, of course, she's principally responsible for killing your children, but do you also blame radical politicians who allowed her to stay in this country after breaking into our country and then being arrested on top of that initial crime? Do you blame those politicians?

Definitely do, and I think Jen and I have both said this would never have happened if she was not in this country. She shouldn't have been here. And if she wasn't here, she wouldn't have been driving drunk on the wrong side of the interstate, and our kids would be here. She's here legally. She doesn't deserve to be here. She's not following the rules that we're following, that our kids were following, driving down the interstate, you know, nothing in their systems, driving safely, have their seatbelts on, and someone who shouldn't have even been here in the first place has now taken their lives.

Take in our lives, our families' lives, our communities' lives. And like I said, she shouldn't have been here in the first place. Yeah. Jen, it seems to me that this really shouldn't even be political. It has become a partisan issue, but it shouldn't be, correct?

It shouldn't, and Allison and I talked about this early on. As we were devastated at losing Brady and Hallie, we also were so, so scared that this was going to turn into a huge political thing, and we talked about this often, that we're like, we don't want our kids to be some agenda. We don't want our kids' lives to turn into this huge political war or propaganda, or we've heard it all. I'll tell you that. It shouldn't be political. This is common sense.

I drive without a license. I should be held accountable for that. I'm an American citizen, and I am expected to follow the laws. Okay, so she comes into this country illegally. There's no punishment for that. We're not holding her accountable for that. Not only does she come here illegally, she doesn't ever obtain a driver's license. She doesn't follow our laws because she has previously done her OWI, like Allison had mentioned, and she never installed her blow-and-go. She didn't do anything. There was nobody that held her accountable.

This is just common sense stuff, no political. I don't care if you're right side, left side, if you're Democrat, Republican, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. This is completely, like, we're just letting people in, and we're not letting our Americans be safe anywhere. Like, my son, Brady, is the biggest rule follower. The biggest rule follower. He would dress up in a little officer uniform. He was Officer Brady Allen, was what his little tag would say, and he would write. Little citations on those notepads, and rip them out and hand them to you, like he was a rule follower through and through.

So, to have a woman come into this country illegally, not respect our laws and rules, not respect our citizens continually over and over, because we're allowing her to. Take Brady and Hallie from us, two kids living the American dream, ready to start their lives together. I mean, he had huge plans for the two of them. Huge. It was all laid out. He worked so hard. Hallie, too. Like, they knew. They had a goal. And this woman just comes in, doesn't care, has been in trouble multiple times, but I'm the awful person.

Because I want to hold her accountable, and I want to keep our children safe. Like, that's what's being attacked. I'm not saying anything political. Yeah, our politicians, you know, to blame. I don't know, to play the blame game, nobody wins, but to not be held accountable for anything we're doing here, that's, we're playing a dangerous game, and we lost our kids to that dangerous game, and it makes me sick. It makes me absolutely sick.

It's understandable. Allison, why do you think... Can you understand in any way the argument of people who believe that somebody like the woman who murdered your children should be allowed to stay in this country once they break in, they trespass in our country, commit additional crimes? Is there any justification to keeping that person in the United States that you can fathom?

Obviously, there's no reason that I can fathom, that I can even think of, why we should do that. I feel like, you know, as Americans, we're always looking to help people. We want to allow them, you know, in our country, we want to be helpful. We want them to be able to experience freedom, and we want them to be able to have a good life. But I can't fathom the thought of Them coming in here illegally. I've had the conversation with many people, and I know Jen and I have talked a lot about it.

I would never imagine or I would never dream of going into someone else's country illegally. Without following their laws. Right. I just couldn't imagine it, and I would expect myself to be held accountable if I was going to do that. So, there's no, I can't even come up with the words to fathom why we allow the open borders, why we allow her or anybody in this country.

Yeah. Allison, what would you like people to know about Hallie? I would like people to know what a caring soul she was. A lot of people, as we've been going through this, have said that she's just been a light.

She was a very caring person. She was a great student. She was involved in athletics. She was involved in the community. She was a giver. She was constantly volunteering, giving to people, helping people. She had a very strong faith, and I think that is one of the things that really Keeps me going is that I know where she is, and as Jen and I have talked also, you know, our kids were organ donors, and that just kind of brings me back to who she was.

Always thinking about other people. She was not a selfish person. She was always looking for ways to better the people around her. Wonderful. Jen, how about Brady? What would you like people to know about Brady? Hmm. Brady was a big, big guy with a big, big heart. The surgeons and the trauma unit and all of his doctors, they said, what was the word that they used?

He's a, give me just a second. Sure. He's a phenomenon. The trauma team said, he's a phenomenon. We can't understand him. And I said, you said it. Smartest, smartest doctor in the trauma unit is stumped by Brady. Brady was an athlete.

He was a hard worker. He was goal-orientated. He loved hard, and he worked hard. He had big dreams and big plans. He wore a watch from the time he was three, because he was very much about being orderly. About being on time, about knowing when and where things were going to happen. He was very organized, very tidy. He was thoughtful, like Callie.

He had a strong faith, like Allison said, for us to know that they made it home is a huge deal. For us to be uncertain of that would be a different day. We would be feeling a lot, a lot different than what we do. Brady and Hallie loved each other very, very well, and it was shown by everyone around them. When you were in a room with Brady, he made you feel seen and heard. He took the time. He was a big, big guy, you know, 6'3", I think.

Just, he worked hard at building muscles his entire life to protect people and to take care of people, and he was proud of it, and he was fast and strong and loved to show people how to do things if you were interested, and that's part of just the whole feeling like you're being seen and heard by him. You have this big, big guy who could be doing all of these things for himself, and he would take the time with his little sisters or his cousins.

Whoever it was, they just were attracted to him. Like, Hallie was a light, people would say. Brady was the magnet, you know? It was incredible to watch him around people. They just were drawn to him, but he was quiet. He was an introverted, quiet person that people were drawn to, and he loved helping people. Yeah.

Well, listen, both of you are obviously very properly and validly proud of your children. I have to believe that they are also proud of you and looking down at you from heaven and saying that you're doing something valuable out of this tragedy and trying to prevent other parents from suffering the way you've had to suffer in an unnecessary way, in a tragedy that was 100% preventable. So, Allison and Jen. Deepest condolences to you and to your entire families for what you're going through.

And thank you, though, for being advocates and for doing your very best to keep other families safe from this kind of suffering. Thank you. Thanks for asking us.