I went back to my tent after a row with my dad on a family holiday – hours later my boyfriend was dead
It was the first time she and her boyfriend had gone on holiday with her parents, and it would be the last.
3
The 26-year-old was just 20 when she met her boyfriend Alex Fitchett on an online dating site.
The pair immediately hit it off and soon began a serious relationship, and two months later he was invited to her family vacation to Pennsylvania, US.
But things took a turn when Jessi went to bed early after having an innocent argument with her dad.
She said: "We were playing cornhole that evening. Me and my dad got in like some dumb little argument. I was like, whatever, I'm gonna go in the tent.
"I told Alex, I was like, I'll just see you when you come in the tent.
"So I go inside, I go in the tent and I like lay down and I go to sleep."
But in the middle of the night, she woke to someone banging on one of the camper doors and woke up.
She figured Alex might have been drinking and was messing around, but when she got out of her tent she soon realised something was seriously wrong.
She told the We're All Insane podcast that she found her dad's friend outside who told her 'Alex wrecked the four wheeler and he's not doing very well."
Jessi and her sister then got on the other four wheeler to make their way over to Alex, but she was met with flashing lights from the ambulances.
3
'I'm 25 and my boyfriend is 76 – people call our relationship disturbing and family say I'm ruining my life'
"Once I got close enough to see what was going on, it's like I didn't even want to drive any further," she recalled.
"I just like stopped the four wheeler and we got off and we ran. And this lady, I don't know why I think of this lady very often, but she grabbed me and she wrapped her arms around me.
"And I'm screaming. And she's like, 'is that your boyfriend?' And I said, 'yeah'. And she said, 'honey, I need you to stay right here.'
As Jessi was held back from getting close to her partner, she remembers screaming and sobbing.
Where to seek grief support
Need professional help with grief?
Child Bereavement UK Childbereavementuk.org
Cruse Bereavement Cruse.org.uk
Relate Relate.org.uk
The Good Grief Trust Thegoodgrieftrust.org
You can also always speak to your GP if you're struggling.
You're Not Alone
Check out these books, podcasts and apps that all expertly navigate grief…
Griefcast: Cariad Lloyd interviews comedians on this award-winning podcast.
The Madness Of Grief by Rev Richard Coles (£9.99, W&N): The Strictly fave writes movingly on losing his husband David to alcoholism.
Terrible, Thanks For Asking: Podcast host Nora McInerny encourages non-celebs to share how they're really feeling.
Good Mourning by Sally Douglas and Imogen Carn (£14.99, Murdoch Books): A guide for people who've suffered sudden loss, like the authors who both lost their mums.
Grief Works: Download this for daily meditations and expert tips.
How To Grieve Like A Champ by Lianna Champ (£3.99, Red Door Press): A book for improving your relationship with death.
"I just remember screaming 'he has to be okay,'" she said.
Jessi's dad was on the scene helping to give Alex CPR but he was already gone.
While they put a white sheet up to block the scene, shadows were visible from the flashing lights.
It was when they brought out another white sheet, that Jessi knew Alex was gone.
She said: "They brought the second white sheet out, that's when I was like 'oh my gosh he's gone.'
"I remember it felt so much like a dream it felt so much like a movie."
Ambulance services took Alex to the hospital while Jessi made her way back to the campsite in shock.
She recalled lying down on the air mattress in her tent and forced herself to go to sleep, 'if I was asleep, it wasn't happening,' she explained.
A pothole was located next to the crash scene, and it's assumed Alex braked the ATV and hit it, sending him off the bike causing the fatal injuries.
At the hospital, she saw Alex's mum for the first time and broke down apologising.
But Nina, Alex's mum told Jessi: "You cannot apologise, he was the happiest when he was with you."
Five years on, Jessi is still close to Alex's family and she revealed on social media that Nina sends Jessi flowers on their anniversary every year.
Jessi has also moved on and now has a fiance, Will, and a child, who are also close to Alex's family.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump contorting justice department into his ‘personal weapon', experts warn
As Donald Trump's Department of Justice expands investigations of his foes and ousts dozens of lawyers and staff who worked on cases targeting himself and his allies, scholars and ex-prosecutors say the rule of law is under siege in the US as the department morphs into Trump's 'personal weapon'. The justice department's politicization to please Trump was underscored by an announcement on 23 July of a new ' strike force' to investigate unsubstantiated charges that ex-president Barack Obama and top officials conspired to hurt Trump's 2016 campaign and his presidency with inquiries into Russian influence operations to help Trump win, say critics. The announcement came the day after Trump dodged queries from reporters about the justice department's failure to produce long-promised files about the notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and pivoted to blast Obama without evidence for 'treason'. Trump's conspiratorial charge echoed dubious claims by his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, who days before called for a justice department inquiry into a purported 'treasonous conspiracy'. Likewise, the FBI earlier in July announced investigations into the ex-FBI director James Comey and ex-CIA director John Brennan, which critics see as political efforts to placate Trump who has often voiced anger at them for their roles in the Russia investigations before and during his first term. Legal scholars and ex-prosecutors say Trump and his loyal attorney general, Pam Bondi, have turned the justice department into his personal law firm to pursue his political and legal agendas. 'It's not unprecedented for presidents to deploy their powers for personal ends, but no one including Nixon has done this with the intensity of Trump,' Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University, told the Guardian. Shane added: 'DoJ is now being used as a personal weapon on behalf of Trump to a degree that is without precedent. Trump has a team of sycophants and enablers at DoJ. They're not behaving the way office holders sworn to uphold the constitution are expected to behave. 'The idea that the Obama administration fabricated the story of Russian interference has been refuted multiple times, including by the Senate intelligence committee when, under the chairmanship of then senator Marco Rubio, the committee determined that Russia had indeed launched an aggressive covert effort to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf.' Other scholars raise similar alarms. 'Trump is using the justice department to target his perceived enemies and pursue his political goals,' said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who now lectures on law at George Washington University. 'The guiding principle for any DoJ prosecutor has always been loyalty to the constitution and the rule of law. Under this administration, it appears that the primary job requirement for any DoJ prosecutor, up to and including the attorney general, is loyalty to Donald Trump.' The premium that Trump has placed on loyalty at the justice department was revealed early by his choices of Bondi as attorney general, Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general and other senior officials. Bondi, an ex-Florida attorney general, helped defend Trump in the Senate during his first impeachment, and Blanche was his lead counsel in New York where Trump was convicted in 2024 of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide payments during his 2016 campaign to a porn star who alleged an affair with him. The justice department's drive to please Trump was evident in July when Bondi fired about 20 departmental employees. They included support staff and several prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases for special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with improperly retaining hundreds of classified documents after he left office in early 2021, and for engaging in an 'unprecedented criminal effort' to stay in power after his 2020 election loss. Notably, Bondi this month abruptly fired without explanation the department's top ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, and Maureen Comey, a key prosecutor in New York who had worked on charges against Epstein and is James Comey's daughter. Several senior justice department and FBI officials were ousted in the first months of Trump's second presidency. For their part, Trump and Bondi have been blunt about axing lawyers and staff they deem political foes for allegedly politicizing the justice department against Trump. In February, for instance, Trump ordered the department to oust all remaining 'Biden-era' US attorneys, claiming the department 'has been politicized like never before' under Biden. In a similar vein, before taking office Bondi pledged during a confirmation hearing to eliminate what she blasted as 'the partisanship, the weaponization' of the Department of Justice under Biden. Some ex-prosecutors say Trump's charges that he was the victim of justice department weaponization stem from his penchant for conspiratorial thinking. 'The inane claims of weaponization we hear from Trump and his associates are particularly extraordinary because Trump regularly calls for the criminal investigation and prosecution of his political enemies,' said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Columbia University. 'Baseless claims of crimes by his political opponents have always been a staple of Trump's rants. But now that he is president and has picked justice department leaders for their loyalty and not their competence or integrity, the risk of abusive investigations grows.' The justice department's intense focus on targeting Trump critics was evident after Bondi became attorney general when she quickly issued a memo establishing a 'weaponization' working group, say critics. Barbara McQuade, who teaches law at the University of Michigan and used to be a federal prosecutor, said Bondi's memo actually 'weaponizes law enforcement and undermines public confidence in government' because it pushes a 'false narrative' about the two special counsel investigations of Trump. McQuade stressed that 'federal grand juries returned indictments in both cases, meaning that they found probable cause that the crimes were committed.' Other justice department veterans have been appalled at its transformation including the wave of firings. Stacey Young, who spent 18 years as a federal litigator at the Department of Justice before leaving voluntarily in January, launched the group Justice Connection to help remaining justice department employees deal with ethical and legal headaches and find jobs for those who want to leave. 'These unprecedented firings at the justice department are growing exponentially,' Young told the Guardian. ' They happen with no notice and no opportunity to be heard, in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act and due process. Many people, and even their supervisors, have no idea why the firings targeted them or why now. Employees now wake up each day wondering if they're going to be next. 'It's screwing with people's lives, and it's also creating a culture of fear among the entire workforce. DoJ leadership is making clear the ability to keep your job is not tied to your performance, your expertise, or your commitment to uphold and defend the constitution.' On 24 July, three justice department officials including Tirrell who were abruptly fired this summer, filed a lawsuit against Bondi seeking reinstatement and back pay arguing that they were axed improperly and without cause. Other ex-federal prosecutors say the department is now being weaponized to please Trump. 'There is literally no reason to fire these people, other than to continue molding the department into Trump's personal law firm,' Mike Romano, an ex-justice department prosecutor who left voluntarily in March after almost four years working on prosecutions of Trump allies who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. 'Trump and Bondi are bringing us back to the spoils system, where the government is not staffed by merit but based on favors, and is not staffed with experts, but with hacks and cronies. As a country, we decided almost 150 years ago that the spoils system is terrible and corrupt.' Further, Bondi and Trump have stepped up attacks on judges who have rebuked justice department lawyers for presenting arguments in court that were specious or failed to respond to judges' queries, several of which have involved the administration's hardline anti-immigrant actions, say critics. 'There are certain things lawyers should avoid doing because they are sure to pique the ire of federal judges,' said ex-federal judge John Jones, who is president of Dickinson College. 'These include patronizing, temporizing, lying and making baseless arguments. The Trump DoJ lawyers have hit them all before multiple judges.' Likewise, Emil Bove III, a key Trump defense lawyer in 2024 who was the justice department's number three for several months before Trump nominated him as a federal appeals court judge that the Senate recently approved, was cited in one whistleblower complaint for telling department lawyers they could flout court orders to further Trump's immigration agenda. More broadly, scholars and justice department veterans see the Trump administration breaking sharply with historical norms and rewriting history to burnish Trump's image. 'The firing of the January 6 prosecutors and the pardons of the Capitol rioters are all part of an effort to whitewash what happened on January 6,' said Eliason. 'The goal is to portray the rioters as the true victims and falsely suggest that the law enforcement professionals who pursued these cases did something wrong. 'A key foundation of our constitutional system is adherence to the rule of law and the independence of the justice system from politics. That's all being discarded by the Trump administration.' Shane likewise stressed: 'Trump has placed his own lawyers in key justice department positions, expecting them to continue thinking of themselves as personal lawyers for Donald Trump, not government lawyers for the president as an office-holder bound by law.'
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Texas governor orders arrest of Democrats absent at Monday redistricting vote
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered Democratic lawmakers to be brought back to the state capital after they left Texas in a bid to prevent voting on a Republican plan to redraw the state's congressional districts. The exodus by Democratic members of the Texas legislature was intended to deny Republicans the quorum necessary to vote on the redistricting plan, which President Donald Trump has championed. By redrawing district lines in hopes of flipping some seats currently held by Democrats, the Republicans aim to protect the party's narrow U.S. House of Representatives majority in next year's midterm elections. At Monday's session the Republican speaker of the state House issued civil warrants for the Democrats - most of whom have gone to Illinois, New York or Massachusetts - to be brought back to Austin. But the orders apply only within the state, and breaking quorum is not a crime. "To ensure compliance, I ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans," Abbott said in a statement. On Sunday, Abbott cited an opinion by the state's attorney general that district courts may determine whether legislators have forfeited their offices "due to abandonment," saying that would empower him to "swiftly fill vacancies." But even if Abbott succeeded in ousting the absent Democrats, it would take time to hold new elections. Attorney General Ken Paxton told Fox News' Will Cain on Monday that he expected the Texas Supreme Court to ultimately weigh in on any abandonment cases filed against the Democratic lawmakers. "And they're obviously a Republican court," he added. In another possible tactic, Abbott said that any lawmaker who solicited funds to pay the $500-per-day fine that Texas House rules impose on absent legislators could violate bribery laws. He vowed to try and extradite any "potential out-of-state felons" among the group. Republicans hold a 219-212 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, with three Democratic-held seats vacant after deaths and one Republican seat vacant after a member resigned. A stronger Republican majority in the U.S. House would enable Trump to further advance his agenda. The session - which was also called to address flood prevention and relief - is due to reconvene on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Central Time (1800 GMT). Democrats have threatened to stay out of state until the end of the 30-day special session, which began on July 21. Democratic U.S. Representatives Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett led several dozen protesters in a march outside the governor's mansion on Monday afternoon. "Governor Greg Abbott is a coward for saying that our law enforcement should go out and arrest our local elected officials," Casar told Reuters. "This is America. This is a place where you're not supposed to be sending law enforcement to go and handcuff elected officials that you disagree with." Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, told Reuters on Monday that the calls for the arrest of the members of his caucus were "a warning to the public of what they're doing. They're threatening us with arrest because we're defending you." Wu said the current congressional districts in Texas already dilute the voting power of racial minorities in the state, and the new redistricting plan represented "turbocharged racism." "To accomplish what Donald Trump wants, you would have to take that racial gerrymandering and kick it up like ten notches," he added. Abbott in a Monday morning appearance on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" called Wu's accusation "bogus". He said the redistricting would expand the number of Hispanic-majority districts and that it was necessary to give Trump voters in Democrat-majority districts the ability to elect Republican U.S. representatives. A White House official told Reuters that Trump supports Abbott's threat to remove absent Democratic lawmakers and wants "whatever is necessary" done to get the new map passed. Trump has told reporters he expects the effort to yield as many as five additional House Republicans. States are required to redistrict every 10 years based on the U.S. Census, but the current Texas map was passed just four years ago by the Republican-dominated legislature. While mid-cycle redistricting occasionally takes place, it is usually prompted by a change in power at the legislature. Leaders of Democrat-led states such as California and Illinois have recently raised the idea of redistricting their own U.S. congressional maps to boost the number of Democratic seats in response to Abbott's push in Texas. Under Texas' current lines, Republicans control 25 out of 38 seats, nearly two-thirds of the districts in a state that went for Trump last year by a 56% to 42% margin. Texas Democratic lawmakers have before tried the strategy of leaving the state to block a redistricting plan. Some fled in 2021 in a similar bid to deny Abbott the quorum needed to pass a voting restriction measure. That bill passed after three of the lawmakers returned, saying they had achieved their goal of bringing national attention to the issue.
Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
US DOJ to open grand jury probe into Obama officials, source says
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury probe into allegations that members of Democratic former President Barack Obama's administration manufactured intelligence on Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday. The Justice Department said late last month it was forming a strike force to assess claims made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard about "alleged weaponization of the U.S. intelligence community." Republican U.S. President Donald Trump has leaped on comments from Gabbard in which she threatened to refer Obama administration officials to the Justice Department for prosecution over an intelligence assessment of Russian interference. Fox News first reported that Bondi personally ordered an unnamed federal prosecutor to initiate legal proceedings and the prosecutor is expected to present department evidence to a grand jury, which could consider an indictment if the Justice Department pursued a criminal case. The report cited a letter from Bondi and a source. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. Last month, Trump accused Obama of treason, alleging, without providing evidence, that the Democrat led an effort to falsely tie him to Russia and undermine his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump won the 2016 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. A spokesperson for Obama had denounced Trump's claims, saying "these bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction." Gabbard had declassified documents and said the information she released showed a "treasonous conspiracy" in 2016 by top Obama officials to undermine Trump, claims that Democrats called false and politically motivated. An assessment by the U.S. intelligence community published in January 2017 concluded that Russia, using social media disinformation, hacking, and Russian bot farms, sought to damage Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and bolster Trump, who won that election. The assessment determined the actual impact was likely limited and showed no evidence that Moscow's efforts actually changed voting outcomes. Russia has denied it attempted to interfere in U.S. elections.
