Thread: Dani's death: The darkness wins

Dani's death: The darkness wins
A brief bright spot - The 15-year-old found fun and family in Oregon after terror and trouble in Texas
Sunday, August 12, 2007
JESSICA BRUDER
The Oregonian Staff

Behind Dani Countryman's warm smile was a hard life, a depth of distress and fear that never seemed to show on her face.

Her final days, spent vacationing in Oregon, were the bright spot in a year of agonies back home in Texas -- the father accused of drawing her into his drug world, the precarious health of the grandmother who raised her, the pending trial of a man accused of molesting her -- problems that were dark enough to shatter most grownups, let alone a 15-year-old girl.

Oregon was different. Dani relaxed in the company of extended family at an outdoor wedding in Troutdale. She joined close relatives at a rented beach house in Lincoln City. She reunited with her half-sister, Ashley Countryman, 20, whom she hadn't seen in nearly two years.


Together the sisters cooled off at High Rocks along the Clackamas River and picnicked in Oregon City, Ashley's home. And for the first time, Dani met Ashley's 17-month-old daughter, Jessa.

"She did everything for Jessa," Ashley said. "She was so proud to be an aunt."

That cheerful stretch ended July 28 with Dani strangled on the floor of a Milwaukie apartment. Ashley discovered her sister's body after a long night of partying, just hours before Dani planned to fly home to Kaufman, Texas, a small town near Dallas. Two men who had been hanging around Dani's informal going away party -- Alejandro Emeterio "Alex" Rivera Gamboa, 24, and Gilberto Javier "Gabe" Arellano Gamboa, 23 -- were charged Tuesday with her murder.

Everyone's friend

On the outside, she seemed like a prototype for the modern American teenager. Dani loved clothes and shopping and was, in Ashley's words, a "MySpace junkie." She enjoyed music, particularly rap and hip-hop, and had a soft spot for Fergie's hit "Big Girls Don't Cry."

Her mother, Jeri Lea Countryman, said Dani talked about being a beautician when she grew up but that she always imagined her becoming a veterinarian, because she loved animals so much. "There was no one who met her who didn't like her," Jeri Countryman said. "She was beautiful inside and out."

In the days after Dani's death, her young friends in Texas sold $10 memorial T-shirts and set out collection jars to help raise money for her funeral. On Aug. 4, a crowd of 700 people attended her memorial service, filling every available seat, pressing up to the walls, and spilling into the foyer of Kaufman's First Assembly of God Church, family members said.

Jeremy McLain, Dani's 21-year-old brother, was one of the pallbearers. "Dani always wanted her family and friends to be closer," he said. But what ended up uniting them was grief.

"It's like she's up there praying" to bring everyone together, he said. "I can tell you: Kaufman, Texas, was inside this building."

"Terrified little child"


At age 15, Dani had already known years of hardship and worry.

"She's really been a very terrified little child," said Sandra Wright, Dani's grandmother. Wright said she raised Dani because the girl's parents -- Wright's son, Donald "Gene" Countryman, and his wife, Jeri -- didn't provide a stable home.

Dani's mother saw it differently. Asked whether Dani was raised by her grandmother, Jeri Countryman responded, "That is not so." She added that even when Dani was staying with her grandmother, she and her husband were always part of Dani's life: "We worked together, because she needed all of us."

Wright said that through much of Dani's childhood, neither of Dani's parents had a permanent residence. Donald Countryman has been in and out of jail, logging 17 arrests over the past 20 years.

"This was her safety zone," Wright said of the home she provided for Dani. "Some parents just don't step up at the plate at the time they need to, when they're young. Some people raise children, and some people don't."

In 2000, Wright learned she had colon cancer and recently lost her hair to chemotherapy, which she believes frightened Dani.

"Dani was afraid if something happened to me, she wasn't going to have a place to go. She was petrified that she was going to be left alone," Wright said. "In her mind, she was trying to take care of herself. She was trying to grow up way too fast, because she thought she had to."

In January, Dani dropped out of Kaufman High School, though she planned to go back and restart her freshman year in the fall, Wright said.

Dani's brother Jeremy, who lives in Kaufman and works as a collections agent in Dallas, said he tried to help steer Dani back toward her education. "I had a rough life, too, and I didn't want her to go though the same thing," he said.

He said he and Dani had hoped to launch a support group for troubled teens in Kaufman, a place where kids could get together and talk with other young people who would understand them. After all, sometimes the adults did things that didn't make sense. Jeremy and Dani knew that well.


Arrested with her father

On the week before Christmas last year, Dani and Jeremy were riding in a car with their father when he was stopped by Kaufman police for a traffic violation. According to a detective's sworn statement, which was based on interviews with Dani and Jeremy, when Donald Countryman saw the police coming, he handed Dani a glass pipe and a matchbox that held two rocks of crack cocaine and told Dani to "stick it inside her."

Instead, the pipe and matchbox were placed in a jacket on the car's rear passenger seat. When police found it, Dani was arrested.

According to a police statement that led to charges against their father, Dani and Jeremy "waited until later to tell police the truth" because "they were afraid of the defendant." The case, combined with a previous drug case, is scheduled for trial later this month.

Donald Countryman denied asking his daughter to hide drugs. "That is a lie," he said, noting that he has been accused but not convicted. "I loved my daughter. None of this is going to bring her back."

Jeremy said Dani was angry with her father but that she was determined to take away something positive from the experience. "We had a long talk," he said. "We both decided that we wanted to change our ways of doing things, move in the right direction."

Donald Countryman was in jail during Dani's visit to Oregon; he was released July 28, the day of her death.

Troubled days ahead

Dani knew that August would be a difficult month.

In addition to her father's drug trial, family members said Dani was preparing for another painful situation: the Aug. 27 trial of a 47-year-old man accused of sexually abusing Dani and another child in January 2005, when Dani was 12.

The defendant, Melvin Eugene Tucker of Kaufman, was connected to the family of one of Dani's friends, according to Wright, Dani's grandmother, who declined to discuss details of the case.

Wright was determined to see Dani through that trauma, too.

"My purpose in staying alive is to raise that child," said Wright. "I've got to find another reason to live now."

Jessica Bruder: 503-294-5915; jessicabruder@news.oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonia ... xml&coll=7

I am absolutely disgusted by this hit piece on the deceased.

What in the hell does Dani Countryman's family dirty laundry have to do with her rape and murder?

Her mother lost her hair due to cancer?!?!? Her dad smokes crack and is in jail !?!?! She dropped out of school !?!?!? She was molested by an older man and faced going to court to prosecute !??!? She did not have a stable home !?!?

Someone please tell me if I'm losing my mind here.

Since when do reporters contact family members of murder and rape victims, dig up all the dirt they can and launch it out in an article after the death?

If someone sees it differently, please tell me.

W

W

I don't see it any other way. This is just as low as you can get. Instead of looking at the high points in Dani's short life. They foxus on the hardships. The mainstream media is utterly discusting.

I can't hope or pray enough for them to collapse from the weight of their own arrogance.

Looks like they got a little bit of information from the grandmother, which gave the reporter the name of Dani's father and picked up on a difficult childhood from her brother and then the reporter went digging in the arrest records to smear the crap out of her father. Everything said about him came from the arrest records. His only quoted statement seemed rather defensive. I bet the other things he had to say, couldn't be published.

I don't feel like this is the type of article this family expected.

Really, none of this justifies what happend to her. Sounds like her life was good and she had hopes and plans for the future but it was cut short when she crossed paths with a pair of illegal alien statutory rapist.

Dixie

A girl is brutally raped and murdered and instead of shock and anger, the reporter goes into private details that have nothing to do with the crime, nothing to do with the illegal alien criminals. It's as if the media is setting the victim up as deserving of what happened to her. At first no media was even reporting this murder and we must ask WHY??? What kind of insane slant has moved into the reporting of crimes against Americans by illegals?

You could tell from the first sentence that it was a "trash" Dani paper.

Also it was just 2 men - not 2 illegal aliens from Mexico. I thought journalists are supposed to be precise and accurate.

This is what happens to women at rape trials. They spend the whole time trashing the victim to make it look subconsciously like she deserved it.

She didn't deserve this at all.

This is a prime example of demonizing the victim in an attempt to diminish the vile crime committed by illegal aliens. They are trying to dehumanize Dani. In other words....no great loss.

The MSM will stoop to any level to protect illegals. It's appalling, to say the least.

I agree with all the above.As I was reading this I was thinking it almost appeared to attack the young woman and her family and to gloss over the heinous crime by 2 illegals....maybe I am wrong but it seemed,to me, to be done on purpose........

Bottom line...

1. Dani Countryman was a minor child, not an adult criminal who's life and past should be allowed to be picked apart by a bunch of unscrupulous reporters.

2. Dani Countryman was a victim of sexual assault and cold blooded murder. The ONLY focus should be on bringing her killers to justice and alerting the rest of the country to the dangers of allowing illegal aliens to run amok and do whatever they damned well please.

Dani's privacy, as a minor and a victim, should be protected even after her death.

The privacy of underage criminals is almost always protected, even when they commit heinous crimes.

Dani was a victim, not a criminal. She and her family deserve better than what they're getting from the media since they've finally decided to take notice.

Originally Posted by fedupDeb

This is a prime example of demonizing the victim in an attempt to diminish the vile crime committed by illegal aliens. They are trying to dehumanize Dani. In other words....no great loss.
The MSM will stoop to any level to protect illegals. It's appalling, to say the least.

That is exactly what is going on! It is OUTRAGEOUS!!!! How do these people look themselves in the mirror???!!!! I am furious!!!!