Amy Hunter this week cradled a cup of tea in her West Sacramento mobile home, choosing to remember the sweet memories of her daughters rather than dwell on what went so horribly wrong on New Year’s Eve.
“I want people to remember how they lived, not how they died,” said Hunter, 47, speaking publicly for the first time since she discovered their bodies in her ex-husband’s Hyundai.
Hunter on the evening of Dec. 31 went to a Subway parking lot near her home to pick up her daughters, Sophia, 12, and Sara, 9, from their father, Hamdy Rouin. By the time the paramedics arrived, Rouin, 46, was already dead. The girls later were pronounced dead at UC Davis Medical Center.
West Sacramento police allege that Rouin killed the girls before killing himself. Their deaths are still under investigation.
For years, Hunter had been involved in a legal battle to try to free herself and her daughters from Rouin. Hunter said her alcoholic ex-husband had long been a ticking time bomb, and there was a “disconnect” between Yolo County’s family law court, which had issued several restraining orders against him, and the criminal justice system, which was responsible for enforcing those orders. [Read Full Article]