Dear Prudence,
Three months ago, a horrible accident occurred just a few blocks away from my house. My good friend “Grace,” was the main witness, and ended up being essential to defining what happened. A mom was standing with her 3-year-old son in the front yard, on the phone with someone. She had her back to the street and was loosely holding her son’s hand. Grace’s cat followed her outside, and it started playing with a toy on her porch (across the street). The little boy pulled away from his mom and ran into the street, presumably to reach the cat. They lived midway up a hill, and cars come down fairly quickly. Tragically, the toddler ran directly in the path of a pickup truck and was killed. Grace not only saw what happened, but the security camera above her garage filmed the entire awful event. The driver was below the speed limit, it was getting dark, and the video shows the mom facing in the opposite direction from the street and her son while speaking to someone else, but she was holding his hand tightly and clearly didn’t expect him to tear away from her that quickly. In the end, it was determined to be a tragic accident.
But the family of the little boy believes that the driver was in the wrong, and are convinced that Grace missed something, that her security camera was pointing at the wrong angle, and even have blamed her for allowing her cat to leave the house, as she should have known that children would come and pet it, or that she was an irresponsible owner for letting it outside and couldn’t be trusted. (The cat is 11 years old and walks with a limp, it can barely run, and is very attached to Grace.) The parents, as well as their relatives, friends, and even other neighbors, have been implying that it’s thanks to Grace that “a murderer is going free,” both in public and on Facebook. Grace has been accosted in front of her house by family members, and her neighbors have become incredibly cold and no longer include her in their social events. She has received cruel messages and is the subject of multiple nasty posts that all but spell out name her directly.
Grace and I are both widows in our mid-60s, and her closest family is several states away. Witnessing a horrific accident was already incredibly traumatic for her, and now she’s being isolated and bullied by our community, led by the family who she thought she was helping find the truth of what was ultimately an awful accident with nobody at fault. The same people who she used to attend church with have now implied they no longer want to see her on Sundays. My friend, once a social butterfly and widely recognized good citizen, now frequently tells me that she is scared to leave her home and that I am the only support she has left. I desperately want to do something to help her, but it’s obvious that the people targeting her are angry and grieving. How should I go about this? Write an op-ed about “loving thy neighbor” in our church newsletter? Send a letter to the parents who seem to believe that an elderly woman is purposely covering up a murder? Find Grace a therapist?
—Worried Widow in WI