Lynn Messer: Adventurous Bride or Not? Q’s & A’s

 

 Editor’s Note: Abram is answering questions and sharing what he recalls of his relationship with his parents, and the relationship he observed between his parents. He is sharing his facts, opinions, and what he believes to be true. (I fully understand there are more than two sides to a story: Abram’s side, Aarron’s side, Lynn’s side,  Kerry’s side—which all have limited views; and God’s complete view; the whole truth.) Abram’s dad, Kerry Messer, is a public figure of interest. It is not illegal or defamatory to share opinions, beliefs, and personal stories publicly. In order to prove that anyone is being defamatory, it would need to be shown that Abram, or I, did so with intentional malice.  

Abram and his family have lost friends, family relationships, and community relationships for publicly bringing into the light what Abram calls a different side to his dad than other people have seen. He is putting all this aside to help ensure more people are not deceived, his mom’s memory and spiritual heritage are not tainted or destroyed, women who are in destructive relationships see hope, and churches who minister to these women rank safety, sanity and truth over the institution of marriage. Abram’s private conversations and correspondence with me have emphasized his resolve.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The below questions are in response to points made about Lynn on the Find Lynn Messer Facebook page, or comments Kerry Messer made in media interviews.

 

Question: Your dad tells story after story of your mom’s many adventures. Was your mom known for being highly spontaneous and adventurous?

Answer: Sometimes. She was spontaneous when it came to helping others. She would change her plans at the drop of a hat to help someone out… doing things like pick up people who were stranded and drive them hours away. But she typically would plan, or rather over plan, most things. She was adventurous in that she was up for trying just about anything. Rather than adventurous I would say she was creative.

Question: Referring again to Ma’s many adventures in your dad’s Facebook posts. Did she often refer to life’s happenings as her adventures?

Answer: I have heard her use the phrase “it was quite an adventure…” but no, she did not use that kind of phraseology on a regular basis. It was extremely rare. And when she did it was her way of trying to stay positive about a circumstance that went wrong.

Question:  Was your dad in the habit of referring to your mom’s antics as adventures while she was alive?

Answer: No. never. EVER. The only time he ever told stories about things that she did was in one of two circumstances. 1. If they had company over, or they were someplace where he was trying to seem friendly, then he would often bring up something that she did. However, there was ALWAYS this underhanded connotation that she was either incompetent or just too dumb to know better. She was the punchline of her “adventures.” 2. He would relate something that she did to me or to others as a complaint. I’ve mentioned that I have never felt comfortable with the way he has treated her pretty much my whole life. That extends to the way he talked about her. Here again she (aka the “woman”) was the punchline.

Question: Kerry refers to her as his bride in the Facebook posts. Did your dad ever, or often, refer to her as his bride while she was alive?

Answer: I have never heard him call her that… ever… in my entire life. He just called her “woman.”

Question: Had your dad mentioned any household items or your mom’s personal belongings as missing? Her pillow, clothes or pajamas?

Answer: No, not till after the fact… He told a reporter with the Missouri Times in an interview that he had the matching John Deere pillow there at the house with him. According to him, absolutely nothing was missing from the house, none of her personal items or anything was gone.

Question: Had you noticed any of the items found with your mom’s remains missing from the house over the last 2+ years?

Answer: Honestly, no. I was focused on the medications (antidepressants, Viagra etc.) But after seeing the pillow that my mom made with the John Deere cover at the scene I really feel like we should have noticed.

Answer from Elizabeth Messer: I recently recalled a memory from around the first week. Lynn’s pajamas were not on the bathroom hook where she kept them. I asked Kerry at that time about Lynn’s pjs and he said the police took them, the hair brushes and some other stuff… but… Lynn was in her pjs when they found her remains.  I also asked about other stuff belonging to Lynn, but Kerry sent me on a goose chase and told me to check the basement, the attic, the Jefferson City house; he only immediately said that the police took the pajamas.  I’ve asked the police about this but I haven’t received an answer; other than, they did take stuff for the dogs to smell.

Question: Did the sheriff show your dad where your mom’s remains were located?

Answer: Yes. After the FBI released the scene the Sheriff took my father up to the scene. I am not privy to everything in the investigation, but I do know that because of my father’s lack of cooperation most communication is going through the coroner—although he has told media outlets that the FBI took him to the scene.

Question: At one time you mentioned to me that some quilts belonging to your children were missing. Were those found with your mom’s remains?

Answer: No. They were not. My oldest son’s baby quilt that my mom made can be seen in photos that have been posted on social media where my father used them as props at missing persons’ events.

Question: Did your mom tend to stay grounded and on task regardless of circumstance?  Had it been a pattern in her life, or was she easily shaken? (I would think she was a strong woman since she had endured your dad’s alleged treatment of her for most of her life.)

Answer: I would say yes. She tended to muscle through whatever she decided that she was going to do, even when it caused her pain. Like going out to work with the cows after her hip replacement or sewing for hours after her shoulder surgery.

Question: Were you aware of her being emotionally downcast over health issues? 

Answer: Sometimes. But she typically kept things hidden pretty well. I was totally shocked when I found out that she was going to have hip replacement surgery. I didn’t even know that the doctors had told her that the replacement hips where not going to fix her hip pain until I was talking to Elizabeth, after I had argued with my mom. That’s when Elizabeth told me.

Question: If her pain level was as severe as mentioned in the Find Lynn Messer Facebook posts, how did she help your dad on the farm in the days leading up to her death? 

Answer: Thursday she drove the tractor mowing for several hours. Friday and Monday she didn’t do any farm work, but Saturday we were all supposed to go to a get together for a friend (the husband was home from the army so it was a big deal for us all to go and see them), and I had talked to my dad asking if we were going to need to work on Saturday (July 5th) hauling the hay out of the field. But he told me that we didn’t need to worry about it until Monday since there was no rain in the forecast till Monday night. On Saturday, my mom called Elizabeth to tell her that she wasn’t going to be able to make it to the party. Heading to the get-together we drove past the field with the hay that we were going to move on Monday, and there they were, my mom sitting in the truck while my dad was loading round bales with the tractor. That is all that I know of the farm work that she did leading up to her disappearance.

Question: The Find Lynn Messer Facebook posts cause me to wonder if her pain level was so high that she should have been bedridden. Did she spend a significant amount of time in bed or sitting around the house due to pain?

Answer: She had an insanely high pain tolerance, so she would literally force herself to do things. Like spend hours on the tractor in pain… come home sit for a few hours with ice packs on her hips… then get back up and start doing house work. Or get on the treadmill for a few hours. Or simply go back to work.

Question: I don’t know if you read the Find Lynn Messer FB page but it appears to me, over the last few weeks that your dad has possibly been writing in a way that could portray your mom as emotionally abusive, or borderline emotionally abusive to him with the way she, according to him, laughed at him when he made mistakes or was hurt. Which leads to my next question: Was your mom emotionally abusive to your dad? Did she often laugh at him or take delight in him making mistakes or getting hurt?

Answer: No, I would not say that my mom was emotionally abusive of my dad at any time. You have to understand that my father is so controlling and demanding that when we would be working on the farm doing different things, he demanded that everything be done a very specific way. Most of the time he would come up with a new way of doing things, almost every single time (which was of course the “right way” to do it). The result of changing the way we do things all the time occasionally meant that somebody got hurt. Safety has never been a concern. From time to time when he would get hurt while we were working, it was a direct result of the specific way he was doing things; such as arranging the cattle panels or the truck differently when working with the cows, or something like that. So because of his insistence that we didn’t know how to do anything and he did… the results were from time to time a little bit humorous (obviously not the slightest bit funny when anybody actually got hurt). But his descriptions of laughing along or finding the humor in things are total misrepresentations. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen him scream at my mom for her nervous giggling. Even though he would outright laugh and mock us if we got hurt (doing things like making me run the chainsaw with a broken hand and laughing at me as I turned pale and winced in pain, and making me cut and haul brush with broken ribs). I have never seen him respond the way he has described in his FLM Facebook page. The most common response has been outrage, and placing the blame on others for his mistakes. Responding by basically saying it’s your fault that my plan didn’t work, even when she would gently try to redirect him to a much more reasonable way of doing something. I have seen him hit my mom with sticks of firewood he was tossing out of the truck and then yell at her for not paying closer attention to him.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

You may be asking why Abram feels the need to talk about all this here on my blog, and Aarron on his Facebook page notes.  In my opinion, it’s common for individuals suffering through trauma to repeat their story over again – not only to tell us, but to tell themselves that it really happened. They possibly believed lies and have a need to repeat the truth so it will cement in their minds. If this is the case, remember that it will take a long time to mend their hearts and minds from the past way of incoming information being tightly controlled—to freely and logically thinking through new information, memories and experiences.