Amanda Blackburn was 13 weeks pregnant when she was killed in a home invasion in November 2015. Since then, her husband has been putting the pieces of his life back together. He chronicles his recovery in his new book, "Nothing Is Wasted."
The Blackburns were, to many, the perfect American family who had it all. And then that changed, violently and permanently, in an instant.
In November 2015, Pastor Davey Blackburn walked into his Indianapolis, Indiana, home to find his pregnant wife lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She was attacked in a gruesome home invasion while their 15-month-old son, Weston, was home as well.
Amanda Blackburn, 28, died at the hospital the next day while her husband held her hand.
“It was a very safe neighborhood,” Davey Blackburn tells Inside Edition Digital. “It felt so safe that we hardly ever locked our doors. Sometimes we'd go for a walk with our garage door flown wide open. It was just such a random thing, that it was so disorienting, not only to have to deal with the upending crisis, catastrophic event of losing my wife in such a violent way, but also just not knowing how to sort through the pieces of, ‘How do I help Weston through this? How do I help our congregation through this?’ Then there was a media firestorm surrounding it too. It just was layer upon layer upon layer of just complexity with that.”
The pastor chronicles his personal and spiritual repair in his new autobiography, “Nothing Is Wasted: A True Story of Hope, Forgiveness, and Finding Purpose in Pain.”
Blackburn said writing the book was a “cathartic” experience and in it, takes readers on his journey to spiritually recover while mending the broken pieces of his life and caring for his son.
“The way that I talk about it in the book is that what used to be an open wound, that every time it was touched, I would recoil. But now it feels more like a scar, and it's a scar that tells a story,” he says.
Struggling With the Hate He Held for His Wife's Killers
Davey Blackburn's road to recover from his wife's killing was a winding one.
In 2015, not long after Amanda's murder, Davey Blackburn told Inside Edition he didn't forgive those responsible for his wife's death.
The preps, who were teenagers when they broke into the Blackburn home and shot Amanda, were all sentenced to time behind bars.
Larry Jo Taylor Jr. was sentenced to 86 years in the Indiana Department of Correction for murder.
Diano Gordon entered a guilty plea to robbery resulting in serious bodily injury and burglary in 2018. In exchange for his guilty plea, other charges, including murder, were dismissed. He was sentenced to 30 years, with 25 years to be served in prison with five on probation.
Jalen Watson was sentenced to 29 years for robbery resulting in serious bodily injury and 10 years each for two counts of burglary. The sentences will be served concurrently.
Both Gordon and Watson took plea deals and testified against Taylor Jr. in his bench trial, according to WTHR.
With years to reflect on what happened, Davey Blackburn now has forgiveness for those that changed his life and took Amanda’s and hopes that the three men change for themselves.
“I've changed considerably. Change is both spiritually and scientifically very evident,” he says. “In this journey, I would've absolutely [wanted to unload on them]. You read about that that I fantasized about what would happen if the prosecutors and investigators just let me in a room with them. I don't feel that anymore.”
“It is possible for them to change,” he adds.
Diano Gordon learned the pastor had forgiven him. "He couldn't believe me telling him, ‘Hey, I've chosen to forgive you," Blackburn says. "And really the reason I've chosen to forgive you is because Jesus has forgiven me.’”
Part of Blackburn’s recovery included wrestling with the feelings of hate, bigotry and racism he felt for any Black man of any age he encountered following Amanda’s murder.
Blackburn is candid in his book about his feelings of racism and bigotry and how he sought out the help of a Black pastor in Indianapolis, where he lived, to help him get rid of this hate.
“I sat down with him and he asked me, ‘How do you feel about these men?’ I told him very honestly about these new feelings of prejudice and racism. I was grateful that he met that with a lot of empathy. I think that's what really turned a lot of that for me and changed that for me. Then I told him about how I've had to wrestle with forgiveness,” he recalls. “When that racism, prejudice began to arise in me, it shocked me. But what you read about in the book is a couple of really pivotal conversations, one with a Black pastor that really helped me to begin to untangle some of that stuff.”
Davey says the pastor told him, that because his wife's killers were three Black teenagers, “This is a normal emotion that you're feeling right now, but you know it's not right."
Blackburn says the pastor told him, “Just because these three men are Black does not mean that that particular act is superimposed onto everyone who is Black. Not everybody who has a particular race are guilty of doing things like this.”
“Of course, I knew that, but it was very difficult to try to untangle that emotionally," Blackburn says. "Part of that reconciling was for him to even point out, ‘Hey, many people believe that you did this. But can you blame them? Because this is the story. Some husbands do murder their wives.'"
Facing Suspicion While Grieving His Wife and the Emotions That Followed
Following the murder, Blackburn went on a media blitz to try and help get Amanda’s story out there and plead with anyone who had any information about his wife's murder. While authorities were searching for suspects, people online zeroed in on Blackburn, who they said they believed killed his wife and was covering it up.
“I wish people would just be able to sit in our shoes and understand how much pain we were in," he says. "I think across the board, generally, there's so many things that people say or people do in the middle of grief. Whether they're well-intended or not, that sometimes it's just better to just walk with people and just be there rather than heaping on all kinds of what you think are helpful phrases or what are not very helpful at all."
That Blackburn didn’t cry in interviews following Amanda’s murder sent many wannabe citizen sleuths into a frenzy. Though his support network shielded him from much of the online hate, he did eventually discover what was being said.
“I step back and I look at it, I go, ‘OK, well, It makes sense because most people, that's the first place that they're going to revert to. They're going to think that because they hear so many stories like that,’” he says. "On some level I understand it, but it doesn't change how much it affected our family and how difficult it was.”
But it were those complex emotions that in part helped him view the people responsible for Amanda's killing in less stark terms.
He learned from his fellow pastor that shooter Larry Jo Taylor Jr., who that pastor knew personally, grew up in foster care of fellow pastors but came from a broken home. While those caring for him tried their best, he still went down the wrong path.
Blackburn says that after hearing Taylor’s story, he says he became more empathetic to the three teenagers.
“I began to make that choice, then over time my heart began to catch up with that. My feelings began to catch up with that,” he says. “Now vengeance, to me, hatred, bitterness is not channeled on these three men because I realized that they're not my real enemy. The real enemy is the mastermind behind all of it, Satan. But the way that I get vengeance on Satan in this whole thing is not let him fill me up with bitterness and unforgiveness.”
The widower also says that he understands how awful it must sound to harbor those feelings of racism and prejudice as a man of God, but that by being candid, it leads to truth and reconciliation not just for himself but for his congregation as well.
“I think it's really important for us to be vulnerable and to confess those things because that's the only way that true healing happens," he says. "We can't whitewash it and act like that we don't actually have some of these kinds of feelings. We need to be honest about those feelings and then begin to get healing. Scripture says, ‘Confess your sin to one another so that you will be healed.’ That's what it says. That's why it was really important for me to make sure that that was included in the book to lead the way in helping other people to be vulnerable and honest about their own feelings so they can heal as well."
Blackburn has not spoken to the three men since reading impact statements at each of their sentencings.
“There was a stronghold that was broken, I believe, in my own heart when I read those [impact statements]. It really shifted once I got to look them in the eye, each one of them and tell them, ‘Let me tell you who Amanda was, because if you knew who she was and if you knew how she would've given you the shirt off her back. She loved people. And if you knew her, you would've never done this. And you stole something really, really beautiful, someone really beautiful in this world,’” he says.
Blackburn says he would one day welcome the idea of meeting with them face to face, he just doesn’t know if now is the time to do so.
“I would tell them that this doesn't have to be the end of their story. I would tell them that I'm hoping and pleading that they would change, not just a change of behavior, but they would have a heart change,” he says. “Rather than stealing from people, rather than robbing and taking life, that they can actually give and contribute to people. I would implore them that they would turn the page in their story, because I don't want their life to be wasted either. The pain that we've gone through has been so deep that we don't want any of it to be wasted. Now I have to do my part to make sure that I don't waste my pain. But I would also implore them to do their part to make sure that Amanda's life and everything that's happened, isn't wasted in their life too.”
With this belief, his heart, mind and spirit turned and he was able to practice what he preached, he says.
“I knew as a pastor the right thing to do and the right thing to say. I had preached messages prior to all of this about how it's important to forgive, that if you don't forgive other people, then it becomes a cancer that rots you on the inside. Bitterness rots the hand that holds it. Prior to this, I had preached some really great messages I felt like about forgiveness,” he says. “Then I was confronted with, ‘Davey, do you really believe what the Bible says and do you really believe what you're saying?’ Or, ‘What you say you believe?’ Early on I had to choose to forgive. It wasn't a feeling. I had to make a decision. I think that that is conventional wisdom for everybody. No matter what, if you don't feel like forgiving, you're not going to feel like forgiving. You have to choose and you have to make that daily decision.”
What Came Next
While trying to figure out the next steps in his life and his congregation, Blackburn had to look out for his toddler.
Weston was just 15 months old at the time of his mother’s murder. He was too young to realize what was going on that Tuesday morning in November 2015 and didn’t know that he was going to be a big brother.
Amanda was 13 weeks pregnant with their second child, who Blackburn says he believes was going to be a girl. They never got far enough to find out the sex of the child.
In the immediate aftermath of Amanda's killing, Blackburn knew he needed to focus on Weston. He was grateful to have the guiding light.
Weston, who is now 11, is sometimes curious about what happened to his mom, his father says.
“As he gets older, and especially now as our story has again experienced a lot of exposure with the book and we've got books lying around in my house, he knows more of the details of what happened," he says. "We have always tried to walk the tension of being age appropriate, to not expose them to something that's too heavy for them to hold. But at the same time, not try to pull the wool over their eyes in thinking that this world is easy,” Blackburn says.
“I think that with Weston early on, he's going to have to grapple with that more than what another 10 year olds going to have to grapple with because of what's happened to him. But I'm trusting him, believing that when he's 20 years old, he's going to have a more substantial understanding of how to suffer well, of how to live well in a difficult world," he continues. "We just take it a day at a time, a decision at a time and go. Then we usually take cues from him. If he's curious and he's asking questions, then his heart is probably postured to hear some things. But we don't try to superimpose anything on him. If he's not grieving right now, we don't need to put grief on him.”
In his journey to finding himself and reconciling with what happened as well as his relationship with his faith, he says it all has brought him closer to God and his bond.
Blackburn says his relationship with his beliefs is the strongest it has ever been and it has helped him come to terms with what happened as well as forgiving those who did this.
“Now I can apply these tools to it and it's not going to put me in that state of despair like it used to. What's so beautiful about how God works is He works like a great judo artist. He takes the opponent's momentum and turns it around on the opponent,” he says.
Living Life After the Murder
As Blackburn put his life back together, another unexpected twist occurred: he found love again.
“I was 30 years old when [Amanda was killed]. Of course, I had people come to me and say, ‘Well, at least you're young, you're going to find love again.’ Which I didn't want to hear in the first place at all…But they were well-meaning,” he says.
“When I finally decided, like about a year later, after I'd gone through a really intense healing journey over that next year, I decided it was time to poke my head up and go, ‘Alright,’" he says.
In his conversations with God, he asked if a second wife would love Jesus, would love him, would love Weston as her own, he says. "And would she love Amanda? Because it would take a very secure woman to step in these shoes,” he says.
Though some women in the community appeared to be interested in the widower, it wasn't until one day at a local gym that someone caught his eye: Kristi.
“I cannot explain to you other than the fact that for reasons I don't know, it just woke my heart up when I saw her for the first time,” he says.
He says Kristi brought her daughter to his congregation but she avoided him. Months later, when he spotted her at the gym, he approached her.
“She winds up explaining a bunch to me and then she said, ‘Davey, I'm more connected to your story than what you'd feel comfortable with,’” he says. “She said, ‘My stepdad is one of the chaplains for the Marion County prison system, and he visits the three men who killed your wife every week. Shares the good news of Jesus with them.’”
The news of Kristi’s connection to his killers took Blackburn by surprise.
“Here, this girl that woke my heart up that I've been interested in for three or four months, and now she's that closely connected to my story. And not just connected to it from the standpoint of like, ‘Oh, I know somebody.’ Her stepdad is ministering to them, is actually leading the way and doing what Jesus told us to do,” he says.
He took what Kristi told him as a sign.
“Jesus said, ‘Don't return evil with evil, but return it with good.’ That's been a real challenge to me, and it felt like in that moment that God was inviting me into a couple of things. One, to proactively began not returning evil with evil, but returning it with good. And to be praying that these men have a heart change and maybe even form a relationship with them,” he says. “The vengeance in my life—it's taken it into the spiritual realm, not the natural realm.”
The couple married in 2017. They blended their families together and share a 4-year-old daughter together.
The couple work together at their ministry and continue to live in Indianapolis.
While his life is anew, Amanda is always in the back of his mind and heart every day.
“I always joke about this, that one day we're going to get to heaven and I'm going to get a chance to introduce the two of them, and then they're going to talk about all their frustrations with me, and then they're going to share all kinds of beautiful memories of Weston,” he jokes.
He says that he felt as if Amanda, who was an avid runner, passed a baton to Kristi to help him mend.
“Amanda passed the baton to Kristi and Kristi's taken up the baton, especially when it comes to Weston,” he says. “It wasn't something volitionally they did, right? Obviously, Amanda didn't know any of this was going to happen, but it's something that helps us to think through, ‘Okay, this is this chapter and that's a meaningful significant chapter. And then this is a new chapter.’”
Inspiration for Good
In order to get to a new chapter, Blackburn began writing about his old one and while that story will never end, it has helped him craft something with his new wife amid his new life.
He and Kristi founded the Nothing Is Wasted Ministries. Through that they have branched out into podcast and have become guidance counselors. And now, he is an author.
The company's title is an ode to Amanda.
"It signifies just that, that God doesn't waste our pain,” he says. Amanda never let anything go to waste, including furniture others tossed that she then would remodel or fix to sell, Blackburn says.
“She believed nothing was wasted. She got me go pick up like ‘American Pickers,’ pick up a dresser off the side of the road and I'd bring it home. I'm like, ‘What are you doing? How are you going to bring value to this at all? This is garbage.’ And she would say, ‘Davey, trust me. Give me a little time and I'm going to turn this into something beautiful,’” he recalls.
Amanda’s legacy is seen through her family and what her husband is doing with his new wife.
“Amanda was probably the most selfless person you have ever met in your entire life," he says. "She made her life about other people. That's why people were so impacted by her. We all felt like Amanda cared about us, loved us, because she didn't make her life about herself. I think that is one of the most amazing attributes about Amanda, is that she lived her life for something bigger than herself, and she wanted her life to be poured out to help other people. She was faithful. She was steadfast. She was balanced. She was rhythmic.”
By taking what he learned and observed from her, the widower says he is able to honor his late wife. And he hopes his wife's killers can also do the same.
“The pain that we've gone through has been so deep that we don't want any of it to be wasted. Now I have to do my part to make sure that I don't waste my pain," he says. "But I would also implore them to do their part to make sure that Amanda's life and everything that's happened, isn't wasted in their life, too."
