In 2017, Crystal gave me something I could never have known would become priceless.

A collection of little notes.

Her words. Her handwriting. Her thoughts about me, preserved on paper.

At the time, they were simply something sweet my sister had done.

Today, they are pieces of her I can still hold.

Crystal had a way of making me laugh while reminding me exactly who I was.

Reading these words now means more than she ever could have imagined.

Her handwriting, her humor, her love—and a little piece of my big sister that I still get to keep.

Nobody saves a note from their sister because they think someday they'll need proof that they were loved.

You save it because it makes you smile.

Until one day, the handwriting becomes sacred.

One of Crystal's favorite songs was Faith Hill's “You Can't Lose Me.”

I don't think I could have understood then what those words would eventually mean to me.

Some songs belong to a period of your life.

That one belongs to her.

Ten years older than me, Crystal was part sister, part second mom, and always my best friend—but being a sister was one of the many roles she carried in our family. She was Dane’s little sister, Josh’s big sister (he’s my twin), and my big sister. Different bonds, different memories, but the same Crystal at the center of all of them.

The four of us shared a lifetime of growing up, laughing, fighting, forgiving, inside jokes, and memories that only siblings can understand. Losing Crystal didn’t just leave an empty place beside me—it left an empty place in our family, between three siblings who were supposed to have their sister for a lifetime.

She will forever be our sister. And she will forever be loved.

She didn’t just love my girls—she showed up for them, spoiled them, and made sure they always knew Aunt Crystal was theirs. Crystal also was an amazing aunt to two nephews.

Crystal’s two boys were both pieces of her heart walking around outside of her. Being their mom was one of the greatest parts of who she was.

Funny, stubborn, loving, completely herself—and always capable of making an ordinary moment a story we’d tell for years. And she carried these plastic teeth around with her everywhere she went! It is only fair if the world gets to see her infamous “Billy Bob Buck Teeth” up close and personal.

There are dates that divide your life into before and after.

Mine is February 9, 2023.

Crystal was 43 years old when she died from a gunshot wound inside her home in Oak Grove, Louisiana.

It was a Thursay… I hated Thursdays for the longest. At 4:44 PM my oldest brother, Dane, called and asked if I was sitting down. I wasn’t. I had just gotten home from work. I told him just tell me what was wrong.

He proceeded to tell me that Crystal’s husband had called him just one minute before and told him Crystal had been found deceased.

I don’t know exactly what else my brother said but I remember me telling him NOT to go to the crime scene. I told him I would call our other brother and I was on my way to Crystal’s house in the neighboring Parish.

I told him he needed to be close to our mom in case she received the call that we did…

For years, Crystal had been only a phone call away.

And grief does something cruel to habit.

Your mind knows someone is gone long before the rest of you learns to stop reaching for them.

There were still things I wanted to tell her.

There still are.

There is the Jana who existed before February 9, 2023.

And there is the Jana who came afterward.

I recognize both of them.

But they are not the same woman.

This collage was made by me on May 9, 2023… I still count the 9th of every month.

I did not wake up one morning and decide to become an advocate.

I wanted to grieve my sister.

I wanted to understand what happened to her.

And I believed the records created by the institutions responsible for investigating her death would help me do that.

Instead, those records created more questions.

Pictured is my actual filing cabinet pertaining only to my sister’s case.

Those files all conect to a single document called “The Timeline.”

Different records contained different information.

Basic questions appeared unanswered.

Basic testing seemed to be not performed.

Recordings of elected officials didn’t match the evidence I was given.

Records were amended. Details conflicted.

Evidence was eventually returned.

And an investigation I had been told was complete (just one hour and forty minutes after Crystal’s body was first discovered) was later described in writing as

“open without a formal disposition.”

If only the inconsistencies stopped there….

I wasn't asking anyone to agree with me about how Crystal died.

I was asking something much simpler:

Was her death investigated to the standard every family should be able to expect?

That question eventually became bigger than Crystal's case.

So I read.

I requested records.

I asked questions.

I hired professionals.

I learned about death investigations, coroners, evidence preservation, public records, forensic pathology, conflicts of interest and the enormous differences in how suspicious deaths can be investigated.

And eventually I realized something:

Families should not have to become investigators just to understand the investigation of someone they love.

Losing Crystal changed the trajectory of my life.

What began as a sister trying to understand one death became years of records, phone calls, meetings, letters, denials, interviews and unanswered questions.

There were times it consumed me.

There were times I wanted to quit.

After completely losing my mind on the one year anniversary of Crystal’s death and being diagnosed with a Severe Diagnosis of Delayed Grief,

I took a leave of absence from work after 10 years of teaching, withdrew my retirement and said I was done with people not listening to me.

I went back to school at Tulane University.

I learned systems. I learned policy. I learned advocacy.

I learned that accountability does not require accusing someone of intentionally doing something wrong.

Sometimes accountability simply begins with being willing to say:

This should have been done better.

Follow a future page coming soon about how Tulane University changed and saved my life.

I cannot change what happened on February 9, 2023.

I cannot go backward and give Crystal a different investigation.

But I can use what happened to her to ask whether another family can be spared from experiencing the same thing.

That became the mission.

Not Justice for Crystal at any cost.

Not prove Jana right.

Not decide how Crystal died.

Demand the Standard.

Because the quality of a death investigation should never depend on someone's age, race, sexuality, past history, socioeconomic status, history of domestic violence, mental-health history, how mysterious their death appears, who they were married to, or how loudly their family is capable of fighting afterward.