Scathing Obituary: Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick Recalled As Abusive Mom, Children Celebrate Death

The obituary of Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick paints a picture of an unfailingly abusive mother, whom her children would never condescend to mourn.

Penned by her surviving children, Johnson-Reddick’s scathing obituary appeared on Tuesday in both the online and print edition of Nevada’s Reno Gazette-Journal:

“Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick born Jan 4, 1935 and died alone on Aug. 30, 2013. She is survived by her 6 of 8 children whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible. While she neglected and abused her small children, she refused to allow anyone else to care or show compassion towards them. When they became adults she stalked and tortured anyone they dared to love. Everyone she met, adult or child was tortured by her cruelty and exposure to violence, criminal activity, vulgarity, and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.

On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively exposed to her evil and violent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after-life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty, and shame that she delivered on her children. Her surviving children will now live the rest of their lives with the peace of knowing their nightmare finally has some form of closure.

Most of us have found peace in helping those who have been exposed to child abuse and hope this message of her final passing can revive our message that abusing children is unforgiveable, shameless, and should not be tolerated in a "humane society." Our greatest wish now, is to stimulate a national movement that mandates a purposeful and dedicated war against child abuse in the United States of America.”

The harsh remembrance of Johnson-Reddick had been submitted through a “self-service online submission,” Gazette publisher John Maher told KRNV. Since it went viral, it’s been removed from the paper’s website, while it remains in the printed paper that hit newsstands Tuesday morning.

In the 1960s, six of Johnson-Reddick’s children were admitted to the Nevada Children’s Home orphanage in Carson City over a period of two years. When the children were forced to visit their mother over the weekends, that was when she would abuse them – lining them up and striking them with a steep-tipped belt, Patrick Reddick told the Daily Mail.

So, why did the Reddick children write the obituary shaming their late mother's memory? “We wanted people doing this to their kids to ask themselves: "Do you want this to be your legacy?” they told the U.K. paper. “Do you want this to be your obituary?"’

– Chelsea Regan

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