Authors of viral vicious obituary about their mom verify it was not a hoax

Patrick and Katherine Reddick

The identities of the children who wrote a scathing obituary about their mother that went viral have been identified.

Patrick Reddick and his sister Katherine Reddick (above) have opened up to the Daily Mail about their published and then removed obituary that was a celebration of the death of a mother they called “evil.” In case you missed it here is a sample:

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.

In their discussion, the Reddicks showed absolutely no remorse about the public scolding of their late mother Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick. Patrick stated that he sang “ding-dong the witch is dead” when he learned of his mother’s death. He also confirmed that  the writing’s intent was to publicly shame his mother and to be a warning to those who abuse their children.

“She thrashed the maternal instinct out of her children and replaced it with the hate she had for us. We wanted people doing this to their kids to ask themselves: ‘Do you want this to be your legacy? Do you want this to be your obituary?'”

Patrick, Katherine and their siblings are now planning a celebration of their mom’s death at the end of the month.

Patrick and Katherine claim that she used to beat all of her family and would force them to sleep on a floor while she ran a prostitution business around them. Patrick revealed that the last time he saw his mom was a week before she passed. He wore sunglasses and made sure she was asleep so that she could not recognize them. He made the visit simply to verify that it was his mom who was dying.

Katherine Reddick

Another one of Johnson-Reddick’s children who requested to remain unnamed, stated that she had been “in hiding for years” from her mother and that Patrick and Katherine, a teacher, were her protectors. “They are my protectors. They have protected me since I was tiny,” she said.

The newspaper’s original obituary incorrectly published the date of death as September 30, 2013 – instead of August 30 – and the obituary was removed from the Reno Gazette-Journal. Due to that typo, the removal and lack of a positive identification of the authors at the time, many were wondering if it was a hoax.

You can read the piece in full here.


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