chapter ten

Now in this chapter I will introduce you to Katelyn's ex-husband Eric Thompson. To be honest he was not a nice man to begin with. But let me start from the beginning of their relationship. 

Katelyn was not always a member of the Mormon faith. The faith that she was born into was the FLDS faith. If you do not understand what FLDS stands for and trust me I was a little bit confused when Katelyn first told me about this part of her family history.

FLDS stands for the fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. Anyway, both of her parents were a part of that faith. They had escaped from that faith when Katelyn was 3 years old then when she was 8 they all were baptized into the mainstream Mormon faith.

From the age of 8 until the age of 18 being a part of the Mormon faith is all that she knew. 

At the age of 18 she got married to her now ex-husband Eric Harry Thompson. This was also when she had been introduced to the world of competitive figure skating.

At first Eric was doing the coaching but when he had started hitting her she went with a different coach. The name of this coach was Michelle Peterson. At that time Michelle had been coaching another girl .

The name of that girl was Vanessa Esperanza Martinez. Katelyn and Vanessa soon became fast friends. Soon it was to the point where Vanessa and Katelyn would do everything together. 

Eric soon grew jealous of this. Katelyn tried to explain to him that Vanessa and her were just good friends but he would not believe her. That was when the hitting had gotten worse and worse. One Sunday at church she went to see her bishop.

She wanted to see if he could convince Eric to stop with the hitting episodes. She had wanted this to stop because of the fact that she had just found out that she was pregnant with Eric's child.

She told her bishop that she did not want to bring a child into a marriage that was already falling apart. Her bishop had told her to pray for Eric to stop the hitting episodes but that did not work. As it came closer and closer to her due date the hitting episodes increased.

Then when the baby was born it took one breath and then died. That was when the hitting started to get worse and worse. So she did the only thing that she could do. She got the cops involved. At first they told her to keep a close eye on him. But the hitting sessions just would not stop. 

So again she got the cops involved. That was when he was arrested. While he was in jail she filed for a divorce. She also got a restraining order against him. In order to do this she went to her stake president. 

He said " did you pray about it?" 

She rolled her eyes and said "Yes and that did not do anything. Honestly, what is praying going to do?" 

He said "You are not thinking about leaving the church are you?" 

She said " maybe." 

He said "just do what you need to in order to make yourself feel safe." 

She said " Thank you." 

That was when she left the church for good. She had also moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. She got a job as a paramedic. She soon wrote a letter to Eric and the letter had told him why she had left him.