Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs
In hindsight, the red flags were everywhere.
But when Florida mom Megan Hiatt, 22, decided to end her abusive relationship back on Nov. 13, 2015, she never imagined her ex, Gawain Rushane Wilson, would grab his AR-15 and fire several shots as she cradled their 5-month-old twin daughters, Hayden Rose and Kayden Reese, in her arms.
By the time he was done, Wilson, 28, killed both girls, Hiatt’s father and himself.
Hiatt was shot seven times. Bullets struck her chest and abdomen. Her lungs and kidneys were the only organs not pierced. The gunfire hit her left wrist and shattered her left leg and knee.
She lost her left eye and was unable to walk.
Now, nine years and 50 surgeries later, and long after the national headlines, the 31-year-old Texan can get around without a walker or wheelchair, and is ready to start her life again.
She’s even yearning for another chance at motherhood with her husband, Joseph Johnson, who she married in 2021.
She’ll soon learn from doctors whether the couple may still be able to conceive naturally, or need to turn to in vitro fertilization. She has started a GoFundMe to help with related costs.
“I’m completely physically independent, and that has been such a complete blessing. It took me nine years, but it was worth every second of it,” she said.
Hiatt had packed her things ready to leave Wilson for good on that tragic day. A close friend and her dad, Travis James Hiatt, 49, stood outside Wilson’s Jacksonville home to provide support. She was discussing a co-parenting plan with him when he “started shaking physically” and became “visibly distraught.”
“We were on the couch; he had Reese, I had Rose, and we were feeding them bottles,” she said. “My things were packed into a truck outside, and he flew into a rage.”
“He asked, ‘Are we over?’
“Yes,” she replied.
“Are you sure we’re over?”
‘We’re not meant to be in a relationship together,’” she said.
Wilson stood up, “threw Reese on the couch,” and went to the closet where he kept his firearms.
“He told me, ‘I am going to murder your dad, and you’re going to watch. I’ll show what’s over, bitch.’”
When he heard Hiatt scream, her father came barreling through the front door. Wilson opened fire. Over and over, Hiatt’s fearless father was downed by bullets, yet continued to push himself back up.
Wilson, who was an engine mechanic for the Navy, then turned the weapon toward Hiatt and the girls.
“At this point, I know we’re going to die,” she said. “What am I going to do battling an AR-15? I was hysterical, and I was ready to die with daughters in my arms, protecting them the best way I could.”
After fatally shooting the “sweet and beautiful” babies and critically wounding Hiatt, Wilson stood over the mother of his dead daughters and shot himself in the head.
“At the end, when everything had happened, I could hear my dad dying, and I was crying,” Hiatt recounted. “I told him, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know he was going to do this.’”
When asked why he wouldn’t just stay down, her father “said he wanted to take every bullet he could so there wouldn’t be any more bullets left for me and the girls,” she said.
Hiatt, who is a fraternal twin herself, said she had two options after the shooting: Give up on life or find hope, and make the best of her second chance.
“I can’t keep living in the past, because I will never get to live the second chance I’ve got, she said. “I am immensely blessed and grateful I was given the willpower and confidence and hope to be more than what happened to me.”
Today, Hiatt is a staunch domestic violence advocate. She’s a project manager for non-profit eGrab Foundation, which aims to provide housing for domestic violence and human trafficking victims.
Hiatt and her husband are open to adoption and serving as foster parents. “Joe and I would like to adopt a few children who lost their main caregiver to domestic violence. There’s that level of understanding that they wouldn’t otherwise get.”
She’s also attending first birthday celebrations and baby showers again — a recent development, she said.
It’s her faith, she said, that has helped her through it all.
“What gives me hope is my faith,” Hiatt explained. “Everyone needs to find hope in something, and my hope is that I will one day get to hug my daughters again — to see my father again.”
