From The Voice of the Victim

This is the story about what happened to Cynthia McQueen and Philip Galimanis in 1983 from the voice of the victim, her youngest daughter. To understand why I went through everything I have gone through, you need to understand what happened to me to make me different than most children.

The following content may not be suitable for young children.

A Little About The Women I Call MoM in the voice of the victim

My mother, Cynthia McQueen, was a loving, caring woman. My mother was the type of woman who would hold the door for a stranger trying to carry groceries inside. She wore her heart on her sleeve and cared about everyone and everything in life. She was a ray of sunshine with a great sense of humor. As a child, Cynthia lived with her mother and father. She had two siblings, an older sister, and a younger brother. They lived peacefully with their parents in Michigan and then eventually moved to Colorado.

When my mother was older she married my father. They had my sister and I. Although before I was born my father left and divorced my mother. So my mother had to live with her parents for a small amount of time. She ended up renting an apartment not too far from her parents. She did not know it was going to be the worst decision of her life.

The Man We Didn’t Really Know

It was a cold snowy winter morning, on April 20, 1983. The snow was light, but bitterly cold. Neighbors would not hear the sound of the tragedy in their neighborhood. The sound no one wants to hear. The sound of a woman being killed. My mother was only 23 years old at the time, and was coming home with my sister’s 3-year-old sister and myself only 1 1/2 years old. When we reached the steps to go up to the apartment, our neighbor Philip Galimanis (20 years of age) was sitting on the steps.

My mother asked him if he was okay. Philip replied, “I locked myself out of my apartment and am now waiting on the blacksmith.” Cynthia had replied, “Do you want to come inside while you wait?” Seeing as the kind woman she was, she didn’t want to see him get cold sitting on the stairs. Philip made his way up the stairs and into Cynthia’s apartment. Cynthia put my sister and I down for a nap, since we were up early. When she came back out, Philip looked as if he were asleep on the couch.

The Worst Day

Cynthia then proceeded to her bedroom and started talking on the phone to her best friend. A little while later, Cynthia told her best friend, “I don’t want to be friends with Philip anymore. He’s starting to scare me.” While my mother was talking to her best friend, she did not realize that Philip was awake and listening to her every word. When he heard my mother say she didn’t want to be friends anymore, it enraged him. He silently got up from the couch and walked over to my mother’s room and began to beat her. He hit her so hard that it rendered her unconscious.

The End of A Beautiful Woman

Philip then decided that wasn’t enough and that he had to hurt her more. He walked out of the bedroom and to the front door. He then opened the door and went across the hall to his apartment. Philip grabbed a 4′ buck knife (similar to the one in the picture) and returned to our apartment. My mother slowly woke up when he entered the bedroom again. He noticed her moving, so he decided to beat her some more. When she fell unconscious again, he took the knife and sliced her under the ear. He kept slicing under the chin to the other ear in one connected motion.

Philip then rolled Cynthia over and proceeded to do the same motion from ear to ear. After that, Cynthia’s head was cut off from her body.

My sister heard the commotion and got up to see what was going on. She had witnessed the entire encounter. Cynthia’s body at this point was twitching as it would when the brain got separated from the body. It freaked Philip out, so he stuck the knife in her back. He then left the apartment and got into my mother’s car and drove off.

All Alone With Our Mother

After Philip drove off, my sister tried to get me out of the crib. She eventually succeeded and took me to Mom’s bedroom, where we stayed for the duration of the time we were alone with her. We would draw and try to fend for ourselves. At one point, I ended up in the bathtub. We were unsure of how I ended up in it, but I was soaked from head to toe. We would spend the next 14 hours with our dead mother. My sister had also gone over to my mother and tried to reattach her head to her body.

Mom is missing from work

Within 14 hours after the murder, my mother’s boss worried about Cynthia. He decided to call her, but got no answer. So he called her best friend, who told him she was worried about her. Cynthia’s brother was then notified, and he immediately went over to Cynthia’s apartment. When he arrived, it was a gruesome scene. Blood everywhere, and his sister lay dead on the bedroom floor. He immediately called my grandparents, and they rushed to the scene.

The police arrived before my grandparents and started working at the crime scene. Shortly after, my grandparents arrived. They immediately tried to go up to the apartment, but my uncle stopped them and said “you don’t want to go in there.” My grandmother replied “Is she dead?” My uncle then responded with “yes, she’s gone.”

After securing the scene, the police would receive a call from a neighborhood watch member. When she called, she told the police she was getting ready to leave with her children when she noticed a strange car and a strange man covered in blood sitting in front of her house. The police immediately responded and found Philip in my mother’s car covered in her blood. The police arrested him and charged him with 1st degree murder.

After the murder

The trial was lengthy, and anyone who testified would do the best they could. They eventually convicted him of 1st degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison. He spent the next 11 years in prison. My grandparents adopted my sister and I a few years later. Then one day, my grandparents got a letter in the mail stating there will be a sanity trial. The sanity trial was a nightmare for my family, as we would have to re-live the worst day of our lives. When the trial started, my family felt angry at the whole situation. By the time the trial was over, the courts deemed him insane and moved him to the state penitentiary.

After the sanity trial, life was a bit harder, as I started to develop signs of PTSD and Major Depression., that persisted throughout a major portion of my youth and young adult life.

For more on my journey with mental health and how I came to be free of my mental health issues, please check out the journey section of this site..

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