Broken Butterfly is the sorrowful story of a young woman enticed, betrayed, and monetized by a vicious lover, as told by her heartbroken but unrelenting mother, with excerpts from her daughter’s diary. 

It is not an easy read. But author Wanda Gray summons the courage to emphasize grace over pain and calmness over vengeance as she compellingly recounts in chilling detail, the fathomless ordeal of captivity and abuse her daughter endured at the hands of a serial predator—and the downward spiral to which it led.  

We’re introduced to Erin Gray, a little girl who loves swimming and horses.

In one recollection, the dainty five-year-old offers a dandelion to Dude, a breeding stud completely at ease with its innocent and giggly young feeder. 

Gray describes a parent’s obvious trepidation in watching her child navigate around the large animal, but as Erin’s tragic story unfolds, the author’s concern shifts to her 20-year-old daughter’s safety in the presence of a true beast.

“This is a memoir and cautionary tale by two writers: one in the physical realm, one in the spirit realm,” Gray writes in the prologue of the book, which has been described as part elegy, part true-crime chronicle, and part love letter to a departed daughter.

The story is peppered with Erin’s firsthand insight in the form of despairing journal excerpts describing three years of detention, drugs, and sexual exploitation. 

“Tonight, I know I’m going to die,” reads Erin’s journal. “I walk fearlessly down the sidewalk toward the hotel where my captor waits, confident that I will return to him, as I have become the obedient once-beautiful doll he has destroyed.” 

Another disturbing excerpt reads:

“I was begging him. ‘Please, I’m in so much pain. I should go to the hospital,’ Erin tells her boyfriend, turned captor, D.H.

“Suck it up, Princess,” he smirked. “You are in this because of your stupidity. I put out an ad, and you’ll start earning money tonight.”

No teenager should have to go through what Erin did.

No mother, either. 

Writing helped, Gray says

“There were a lot of elements at work, but I do know that I felt a need to get the events written down in order to try and make some sense out of it all,” Gray tells Capital Daily. 

“I also knew I needed to do something with my grief that was bigger than journaling and reading self-help books.”

It took Gray three years to chronicle a first draft of the hell Erin—and by extension, her family—was exposed to, mostly in Victoria as well as in Prince George, and not surprisingly, there were times the Saskatchewan-born Gray couldn’t take it and had to walk away. 

“Sometimes, it would just get all too overwhelming and begin to affect my sleep and my thoughts during the day,” she says.

Gray says she thought continually about how Erin had to relive her trauma: first as her daughter journalled her assisted spiral, and again—after her rescue in 2012—when she had to recount every physical, mental, and oral abuse for the courts. 

“I understood on a deeper level just how re-traumatizing and painful that was for her because I was doing the same thing, telling the story from my point of view as well as hers,” Gray says.

“It could sometimes feel both excruciating and liberating at the same time.”

Often exhausted from each day of writing, whether a session in which she wrote 2,000 words or one in which fewer points hit the pages, Gray would hike in the woods near her North Saanich home to decompress. 

As it had for her daughter, nature had always been a panacea for Gray’s pain. 

She didn’t keep a journal during the entirety of the ordeal, which began when Erin met D.H. in 2009, so she was forced to piece together dates and times from a profusion of emails, texts, and the documents from treatment centres and court appearances.

‍Gray, whose how-to and humour writing has for decades appeared in Canadian and international magazines, also jotted down short remembrances to boost her mental health. Some of those notes contributed to Broken Butterfly’s accuracy.

“I found those bits of paper pretty much everywhere, but they helped in establishing the timeline and remembering my emotions and actions at the time.”

Gray says sharing Erin and her story “has been incredibly difficult,” and many times she thought about pulling back and not having it published. 

“I come from a family of private people who worry about what others might think of them, so it took a lot of work on myself to let go of the fear,” she says. 

“I feel different now in that I don't feel as wounded—sharing the story helped me with that, and I hope others will feel that same sense of less woundedness.”

Erin's assailant had other victims

Gray says her daughter’s captor had at least four other victims, whom he kept and used one at a time, and that D.H. was only one of many predators out there.

“There are hundreds if not thousands [of sexual predators] in Canada, and it is a growing criminal activity,” says Gray, who recently spoke at a Saskatoon fundraiser for an organization that helps rescue and provide a home for young girls and women who are taken from Ukraine and sold into the sex-trafficking trade.

“But it is not just an international problem in a war-torn country; it's also happening here.”

Many women report abuses

Gray says discussing her book has exposed her to many women who have quietly whispered their personal stories of abuse. Gray tells Capital Daily she's received many messages thanking her for helping to change perspectives and inspire positive change.

“There is so much secrecy and stigmatism still at play for women in telling their stories,” she says.

“I know it sounds very cliche, but families need to be open and talk about it,” says Gray, who adds she “learned more about trauma and addiction after Erin died” than she did while she was still alive.

Remaining silent only leads to more pain, which she says only festers, and often leads to debilitating loneliness. Gray says many women who’ve experienced sexual abuse find it difficult to open up for fear of being perceived as a “bad parent” or having a “bad child."

“Some people who are quick to judge or have no compassion will say that if someone is a good parent, their child will never use drugs or allow themselves to become a victim. This is a very narrow view and is wrong in so many ways. But that view is what keeps a parent/loved one/child from talking about their experience.”

‍Broken Butterfly is not the story of a parent or a bad child. It’s the heart-wrenching story of two courageous women—a mother and daughter—plunged into the evil world of a lowlife manipulator.

It’s a mother’s ode to a beautiful soul, taken and exploited. It's also a reminder that addiction can overtake even the most cautious, but it needn't define them.

‍

Wanda Gray will be presenting at the Vancouver Island Festival of the Word on June 7, where she will be signing her book.

Broken Butterfly can be purchased here through FriesenPress, via the author’s website, or Amazon.ca , and can be purchased at the following local bookstores: Bolen Books on Hillside; Tanner’s Books in Sidney; Ivy's Bookshop in Oak Bay; Russell Books on Fort; Fresh Cup Roastery Cafe in Saanichton; and Talisman Books & Gallery on Pender Island.