This week’s domestic violence awareness luncheon spotlighted two women to show the impact of violent crime committed among family. One is Kay Roberts, a survivor of an assault so severe she suffered brain damage. After a remarkable recovery, Kay still has problems with short-term memory and so she relied upon written notes for her presentation.

The second focal point of the awareness program centered on Rose Stone-Gibson, who grew up in Lees Creek in eastern Clinton County, and who was murdered in 2000 by her husband.

Julie Watson, a sister to Stone-Gibson, was scheduled to speak but surgery prevented her. Instead, Watson’s friend Brenda Harris read Watson’s speech notes and then read a poem written by the deceased victim’s daughter, Amber Koehler, who attended the luncheon.

Rose Stone-Gibson was one of 11 children and is described by those who knew her as kind and tender hearted.

When Rose was murdered on Nov. 26, 2000, at the age of 38, she left behind three sons and her daughter Amber who at the time was pregnant with a baby girl.

Rose already had filed for divorce and been separated from her husband Chuck for several months when he killed her.

About a week before she was killed, Rose went to her sister Julie’s house and told her Chuck had displayed a .22-caliber pistol to their 11-year-old son and said, “This is for your mom.”

Rose went to law enforcement in Highland County and was told her son would have to make a statement against his father to make a charge stick. She didn’t want her son to do it.

According to Watson’s written remarks, Rose had gone to see police multiple times and the family and Rose felt the peace officers didn’t take her seriously.

Reportedly, Rose was unable to meet the burden of proof to get a protection order.

The family got together on Thanksgiving a few days before Rose was shot dead. The holiday gathering would be the last time the family was whole.

Rose’s sister Julie, who lives in Hillsboro, still has nightmares nearly seven years later. She sees Rose in the coffin, she sees her with the gunshot wound.

At other times in the nightmares Rose is walking around, but in each dream Rose tells Julie she wants to be alive and she wants to see her family.

Daughter Amber wrote a poem in memory of her mother which was read aloud at the awareness program held in Wilmington City Hall. The poem is written from the vantage point of Rose.

One excerpt is: “People would just walk by everyday / Never once would they say, ‘Are you OK?’”

Another line reads: “Why did nobody listen when I cried out for help? / Did I not matter? Was I not a person who deserved to be helped?”

The poem concludes: “I feel as though I’m trapped inside a soundproof room with no way out and nobody to listen. / If only someone would have listened and been there to help. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to die the way that I did.

“Life must go on but please never forget, always listen and help, any life is worth saving,” ends the poem.

The sponsors for the awareness luncheon were ABX Air, Rose & Dobyns law offices, United Way of Clinton County, Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati, the Cassner Foundation and Eileen Nevel and John Brandstrator.