Forgiving the Drug Dealer That Killed My Daughter

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Mike and Deborah Bailey lost their daughter Ashlynn to a fentanyl overdose, their world stopped. For months, they wrestled with heartbreak and rage, knowing the man who sold her the drugs was still alive. Then their son came to them with a quiet conviction: he wanted to forgive the dealer. What began as an act of faith became a family’s path to healing.

The Baileys wrote a letter offering forgiveness—not to excuse the pain, but to release its hold on their hearts. They believed that letting go was the only way to honor their daughter’s spirit. Their story is a powerful testament to grace in the face of loss and to the strength it takes to choose love when everything else falls apart.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and your stories too. And up next is the story
of Mike and Deborah Bailly. After losing their daughter to
an overdose, the Bales did what some would consider to
be the unthinkable by forgiving the dealer who sold the

(00:36):
drugs to the daughter.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Aslan was really fun, little tiny thing, always smiling, full
of energy.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
She's one of those just magnetic people.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
She was at church all the time, so she was
very familiar. So she was six years old when she
became a Christian. She just was like, mom, I want
to do that. She talked to the children's minister as
well as the pastor and they were like, yes, she
totally gets set and totally inderstand.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
From a little bitty age, she wanted to be a cheerleader.
She was the one that they would just see how
high they could throw her, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
And she loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
When she started in kindergarten, she came home upset because
some of the other girls wouldn't let her be in
the club because she wasn't big enough, and it really
crushed her.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
When people would tease her about it, she would just
kind of laugh with it. They didn't really think it
bothered her. She would forgive and just kind of move on.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
I think it's something that started at an early age,
built that toughness up. I think she kind of went
over and above to prove to everybody that she was important.
So I really think she started experimenting with drugs just
to prove that she was you know, she was cool
like the rest of.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
The gang, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
So our son's addiction started kind of in ninth grade
as her just sampling we just to try to fit in,
and that kind of grew into, you know, a stronger
addiction over time and stronger pills. Her senior year, it
was really taking a pretty hard slide her attitude around us,

(02:14):
and we had been trying to parent her through it.
She ended up deciding to go to rehab. Came back
from that a very strong Christian But she went right
back into the same environment that she was in before
she went out there, and within two or three days
she was already back to smoking wheed again. Two or
three years, it was just a downhill spiral. Her drugs

(02:35):
kept getting stronger and harder. She got on, you know,
a pretty hard opiate addiction that led to heroin. Ashson
went to purchase heroin, ended up purchasing heroin that was
mainly fenton On. They told us that they had found

(02:56):
her dead of an overdose in an abandoned house downtown Birmingham.
It was leading up to the sentence and hearing for
the drug dealer.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I don't know that I felt anything for or against him.
We don't ever know if she would have been clean.
You know that chance was taken away from her.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I'm dealing with anger at times. You know, it's like me,
he needs to get what he got coming to him.
I mean, that's the earthly side as a dad, because
you know, what I love so much got taken from me.
And about that time, our son came to us and said,
can I go see because I want to go talk
to him and I want to offer him forgiveness.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
I like that, and I knew that I needed to
go and talk to him or write on the letter
or something just to let him know that I forgive him,
that I get freedom from it. But he also knows
that I don't have any anger or hatred towards him,
so I knew that I had to because Jesus forgave me,
and I'm glad to forgive others.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
If he's got it. That's just confirmation for me that
we're doing the right thing by doing it, because all
three of us are being convicted of the same thing.
So we want ahead, and we wrote him a letter
of forgiveness. As a family, we write this letter to you,
hopefully through the eyes of Christ, not to condemn you,

(04:23):
but to allow your conviction to change your heart and
your life. You need to know that we do not
hold any ill feelings towards you as a person created
by God. We extend forgiveness to you for the wrongs
against our family in the same way that Christ has
forgiven our wrongs. I really I think it kind of

(04:44):
hit home. I hope anyway. Forgiveness is not writing a wrong,
It is not reconciling the wrong, fixing it. But what
forgiveness is is what's happened can keep me in bond
and I'm not gonna allow that. What you did to
have a stronghold up for me, So I'm releasing this

(05:06):
to God. Our goal also is God loves Roderick, the
guy that killed him, as much as he loves anybody.
So I mean, he's got a story. God's got a
plan for him, just like you've got from me. You know,
I don't want to be the thing that keeps him

(05:28):
from that number one, but I want to be the
one that helps or we do that leads him maybe
closer to God. As many things as Ashton may have
gotten wrong, the one thing she did get right with forgiveness.
And all of us are going to have some struggles,
We're all gonna have some failures, We're all gonna have
some people that hurt us. Forgiveness like changes at all.

(05:51):
And I think that's one thing that she really did
get right. And if I could copy her on that,
you know, I think I would be in a lot
better place them then I would have been without it.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
And what a story. And the power of forgiveness Christian
or not forgiveness, well, sometimes that's all you have. And
if you don't forgive, well you are in bondage and
that hate will consume you. What a story. Indeed, that's
Mike and Deborah Bailey, their daughter Ashland lost to fentanyl

(06:28):
and to opioids, And my goodness, we've been doing any
number of stories about families losing children to drug overdoses,
and fentanyl has been the chief problem over the last
few years. Ventanyl knows no class, it just comes in.
It's a killer. And what a forgiveness story here, folks,

(06:50):
the son teaching the adults the power of forgiveness. That letter, well,
what better thing can you do to let go of
that hate? What a thing to read if you're the
person who sold those drugs. What a second chance you're
about to have if you'll just allow yourself to And
we do a lot of prison stories here on this

(07:12):
show too, The power of forgiveness, the power of love,
Mike and Debor Bailey's story, Ashland's story, and of course
the Sun's story, and that dealer's story here on Our
American Story lie hbib here and I'd like to encourage
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(07:36):
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(07:56):
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