Posted: Aug 15, 2010 7:10 PM EDT
Updated: Aug 16, 2010 6:54 AM EDT
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - A vigil was held Sunday for a woman found murdered inside a Louisville hotel room. Police found 21-year-old April O'Donnell's body in hotel room on Aug. 9.
O'Donnell's throat had been slashed inside room 242 of the InTown suites off of Hurstbourne Parkway. Her 25-year-old husband, David O'Donnell, was arrested a day later and jail charged with that crime.
On Sunday, April's family spoke out. They are very angry the system did not do more to protect their daughter. David has been in trouble with police for assaulting April a number of times. Court records show he beat April up three years ago when she was four months pregnant with the couple's son, Dylan.
David was arrested again on June 23 for another assault on April. Both times judges ordered David to stay away from April. But the family says she kept going back because she was caught in that cycle of violence, which often happens with abuse victims.
"She loved her little boy, and unfortunately she loved David, and she wanted to make a home," said April's father, Ray Whittaker.
"You got to know when to draw the line," Whittaker said. "You can only be smacked so many times, you can only have so many black eyes, so many bruised up knees before you finally have to give it up."
Since April's murder, the suspect's family has reached out to her parents, and they attended her funeral on Saturday.
"At first I didn't want them there because their son killed my daughter," Whittaker said. "There is one thing I want to hear, walk up to me man to man, eye to eye and say I'm sorry. That isn't asking a whole lot. That is mild to what most people would want. Just tell me I am sorry for what my son done, meant more to me than anything."
David O'Dnnell's parents now have custody of Dylan. They reportedly told April's father that if their son did kill April, he should go to jail for a long time.
April's parents would like to use her tragic story to help others do what she couldn't: escape the cycle of violence.
In July Kentucky passed "Amanda's Law," which allows judges to require anyone who violates a protective order to wear a tracking device to help keep abusers away from their victims.
State leaders plan to use an $875,000 federal grant to pay for the tracking devices.
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