De l'autre côté de l'amour

In the real story as told on the ID Channel's true crime series "Evil Stepmother," Donna Yaklich allegedly, both physically & verbally, abused her stepchildren, especially the youngest, which was her 5 year old stepdaughter. Also, during the autopsy there was no evidence found of steroid use in Dennis Yaklich's remains. Moreover, the decease's family accused Donna of stealing $11,000 from his parents & that she was motivated by greed. Dennis had $325,000 worth of life insurance.

This woman was a horrific child abuser and murder that murdered her husband and then destroyed his reputation. Her own son wants nothing to do with her. This move was fictional in its' entirety. She was anything but a victim.

Typical battered wife movie overlooks the main point in that it offers virtually no corroboration for Donna Yaklich's supposed abuse at the hands of her husband, a decorated police officer, and instead attempts to justify her decision to hire two bumbling petty crooks to gun him down in cold blood by showing, well, nothing. A scene of the husband forcibly removing her from a battered woman shelter begs the question: did no one at the shelter make any attempt to notify the authorities that he had essentially assaulted and kidnapped her? Isn't that what shelters are for? Endless scenes of him lifting weights (and obviously not Brad Johnson) and steroid taking do little except pad out the running time. The story is obviously told from one point of view only, but then since the other point of view was gunned down by the first POV there isn't much to tell.

Halfway through watching it, I discovered that it was supposed to be based on a true story. I made a Google search and found that the reality was totally different to the portrayal in this TV drama. Even though it claims to be based on a true story, it isn't. That was very misleading. Regards to the facts of the story, one wonders why they made this rubbish and omitted what actually happened. The acting was good, which is why I voted two stars.

Unless you have walked that path of abuse it is really hard to say what is rational and what is not. I know from experience that all you do is try to escape and when there is no out because he comes after you every time then your mind begins to think of any means out for a normal life. It is sad when I read the comments of others about yelling HELP etc. because she did when she went to a shelter and asked his friends for help. The only thing to do is to look for red flags in a relationship and get out at the first sign of violence. She should have left when he threw the can at her but unless you know about abuse and violence you have no idea of what you are in for.