July 17, 2010 8:39 PM
Katie Tammen
Daily News
DEFUNIAK SPRINGS — For the first time since her mother’s murder, Jennifer Gess was allowed to talk about the nightmare she’s lived with for four years.
She’s not certain how she’ll do it, or where the funding will come from, but she wants to start a foundation to save people who are victims of domestic violence, something she wishes she could have done for her mother.
“It’s got to stop,” Gess said. “If I can save one person, it’s worth it.”
In early October 2006, Gess’ mother, Susan Littrell Dykes, was killed by Kirk D. Williams, a former boyfriend who lived in her home.
Williams was arrested and eventually convicted of her murder and sentenced to death.
For Gess, the horror of her mother’s death, and the trial that followed, flooded back in May when the Florida Supreme Court voted 5-2 to overturn Williams’ death sentence. He was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
The day Gess heard the news about Williams’ sentence being overturned, she had a long conversation with her only brother, Ricky Hulett, and old anger reignited.
She couldn’t keep living her life the way she’s been, her brother told her. It was time to take action.
“He said, ‘Mom’s not going to be at peace until she knows you’re at peace,’” Gess recalled. “I can’t help her now, but I can help other people.”
Dykes was only 48 years old when her body was found in Lake Cassidy, near the Holmes and Walton county line, tied to three cinder blocks – one behind her head, one around her abdomen and one on her legs.
An investigation would later reveal Dykes was gagged and beaten on the head with an aluminum baseball bat before her body was put in the lake.
Gess said her mother dated Williams for only a short period, but the man remained in her life, using her debit card without permission and taking her car long after they’d broken up.
Dykes changed her pin number on the card shortly before she died, Gess said, to try to keep her money out of his hands, which court records indicate Williams used to buy cocaine.
In the weeks before her death, the 95-pound woman Dykes spent countless hours hiding at her daughter’s home and putting her car behind the house so Williams couldn’t find her.
It was hard for Gess to watch because her mother had been her rock since childhood.
Dykes was a woman who knew how to take hold of life and hang on tight. In her free time, she rode bulls in the rodeo, raised horses and doted on her children and grandchildren.
“She was a free spirit, and I loved that about her,” said Gess with a smile as she picked up a pink hard hat.
Dykes wore the hard hat decorated with animal stickers that looked like her own animals when she worked security at a construction site.
“She was a character,” Gess said.
Before she was killed, Dykes called the Walton County Sheriff’s Office to try to find out how to get Williams out of her home, Gess said.
She was told her best option was to evict him, but that he would have 30 days from the time deputies notified him to get out of the home. Even if Dykes had started the process, it would have been too late. She was killed a few days after that phone call.
The last time Gess saw her mother, her instincts were screaming something horrible was going to happen. She wishes she’d listened.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” Gess said with a shake of her head.
Since her mother’s death, Gess has put several floating wreaths into the water to honor her mother, but she and her brother want something more permanent.
Ideally, a plaque with their mother’s name and a reminder to stop domestic violence will be posted at the site where Dykes’ body was found.
Once that’s been accomplished, Gess wants to start a foundation.
As tears formed in her eyes, Gess said her mother didn’t deserve what happened to her and neither do all the other people out there who are being abused.
“Today, it’s just like it happened yesterday, but I need to find closure,” Gess said.
She wiped away her tears with an impatient gesture and took a deep breath.
Her eyes afire with determination, Gess asked that anyone who can help her accomplish her goals call her on her cell phone at 419-5235.
“I don’t know how to do all this,” she said. “But it’s got to start somewhere.”
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