It started off as a sweet love story.

Sarah Warmbo was a senior in high school when she fell for a guy for the first time. She excitedly described her new boyfriend to mom Priscilla Warmbo as fun, cute and nice.

But after a few weeks of dating, things changed.

“All of the sudden his attitude was completely different,” Priscilla Warmbo said. “He became mean, manipulative. He wanted to control who Sarah talked to and where she went.”

Priscilla Warmbo serves on the Domestic Violence Impact Panel in Federal Way. She travels to churches and schools around the state sharing her daughter’s story in the hopes it will help an audience member suffering from domestic violence.

“If I can help just one person in the audience, I will be honoring Sarah,” she said. “One thing I always want to do is point out signs of violence, because I remember the day the abuse started.”

Priscilla Warmbo recalled looking out the window of her home and seeing her daughter’s boyfriend standing there waiting for her to return home from school.

“If she didn’t come home on time he would freak out,” she said. “He wanted her to quit school and move in with him.”

Sarah Warmbo insisted on graduating high school and moved in with her boyfriend right after her graduation day. It was in their new home where he raped her and she became pregnant.

“She tried to leave many times, but somehow he managed to talk her into moving back with him,” Priscilla Warmbo said. “I had to sit back as a mother and watch my daughter change. At the time I thought I was doing everything I could to help her, but looking back I wish I had done more.”

As the birth of her son came closer, Sarah Warmbo finally gathered the courage to leave. Her boyfriend shot at her and told her if she left him he would find her and kill her. She sought refuge in the home of a friend she didn’t think he would know about, so her family would be safe.

It only took a few days for Sarah Warmbo’s now ex-boyfriend to find her.

He left her threatening voicemails, slashed her tires and left pictures he had taken of Sarah Warmbo leaving the grocery store and doctor’s office on the doorstep of the place she was staying at. It was clear to Priscilla Warmbo he wanted her daughter to know he was stalking her.

“She had to live in fear, knowing he knew every step she was taking,” Priscilla said. “We reported it and sought the help of an attorney, but legally, there was nothing we could do.”

Sarah Warmbo had filed multiple protection orders against the man and moved six times in a single month. Each time, her ex-boyfriend found her.

“We all wound up going to court to battle child custody,” Priscilla Warmbo said. “During that time he kept breaking into Sarah’s car and home, stealing papers she had from our attorney, her keys, her purse and other items.”

On June 13, 1997, Priscilla Warmbo woke up with a bad feeling. She was expected to pick up her daughter and grandson to take them to the custody battle at court that afternoon.

“I just remember everything went wrong that morning,” Priscilla Warmbo said. “I went to put on my blouse and a button popped off. My nylons started running and when I went to start my car, it wouldn’t start.”

When she arrived at her daughter’s house, she noticed several cars and caution tape. The first thing she saw when stepping out of the car was a chaplain carrying her grandson, John, in his arms.

“When John saw me he leaped into my arms,” Priscilla Warmbo said. “He said to me, ‘Daddy pow-powed mommy. Daddy pow-powed Charity. Daddy pow-powed me.'”

The ex-boyfriend had broke into Sarah Warmbo’s home through his son’s window. He scooped up his toddler, placed the boy’s hands on the cold metal of a gun, and went to find Sarah. He shot her in the head. He then shot her twin sister, Charity, who was in the home at the time as well. When his child tried to flee the scene, he shot at him too.

“I actually think I knew they were dead as I stood in the kitchen that morning before I left for Sarah’s house,” Priscilla Warmbo recalled of her twin daugthers. “I felt a bubble come around me and I felt my daughters there. I kept thinking, ‘I will be there soon girls.'”

Priscilla Warmbo and her grandson were placed in a safe house for four months as the shooter had fled the scene and police did not know where he went. During that time, Sarah Warmbo’s ex-boyfriend killed himself by shooting himself in the head with the same gun he’d used to kill Sarah and Charity Warmbo.

“The first thing I did was get counseling for me and my grandson,” she said. “I knew John would suffer from what he went through for the rest of his life.”

Her grandson is now 19-years-old and still battles post traumatic stress disorder. Yet years of counseling and care from his grandma have made him grow into a stable and healthy adult.

“He’s a sweet and thoughtful guy,” she said. “He is always the first to help others and he comes around with me often to share his story of domestic violence.”

She noted many people she speaks to don’t even realize they are going through domestic violence.

“Domestic violence almost always is a result of upbringing; so often children don’t know they are being abused because it’s all they know,” she said. “If people grow up in a violent home, they are likely to become violent and abusive some day. It is my hope to shed light on what they are going through, tell them it’s not OK and help break the cycle.”

Priscilla Warmbo said domestic violence can be verbal and physical.

“What I say is that any time a person is trying to instill their power, their control on someone else to the point that it changes that person, that is domestic violence,” she said. “When there is more than that, when there is killing or physically harming, it is no longer domestic violence, it is terrorism in the home.”

She also hopes she can help victims of domestic violence move on to a happy and healthy life.

“It is horrible and it can paralyze your whole life,” she said. “But I want to remind people that bad things happen to everyone, all around us, every day. And we all have a choice to turn that into bitterness and let it affect how we treat others. Or we can grow from it and not let it taint our hearts, but let it help us have more compassion and love for those around us.”

This is the first story in a series called In Her Shoes the Mirror will publish regarding domestic violence.