Isabelle decided to sue her second husband for a lie to receive his estate, but the tables turned when her daughter decided to testify against her and not her stepfather.
Isabelle had two daughters, Sandra, 20, and Linda, 16, with her first husband, Thomas. When they first met, Thomas had high hopes and dreams for himself and his family.
However, he once made a bad investment that lost him most of his money. He ended up drinking heavily, and his financial situation caused him to treat his family badly as well.
After a while, Isabelle had enough. She did not want to live a poor life, so she kicked her husband out and he never showed up in their lives ever again.
While her children were teenagers, Isabelle taught them to end up with a rich man. “I made a mistake marrying your father for love. He was too ambitious and look where that brought him. You must marry rich men so that you can be taken care of like princesses,” she would say.
That all changed when he met a man named Brendan at a local coffee shop. Brendan approached her and found her beautiful, but what caught her eye was how he was dressed neatly in a suit and tie as he carried a briefcase. He must be rich, she thought to herself.
Brendan courted her and took her to all the fancy restaurants in their area. When he asked for her hand in marriage, she quickly said yes. She believed that he would be their ticket to a secure life.
Brendan embraced Isabelle’s kids as his own. He worked day and night to provide for their needs, but Isabelle always wanted more. She didn’t want her needs taken cared of, she wanted to experience luxuries as well.
Meanwhile, her children were able to enjoy their teenage years thanks to Brendan. He would shower them with presents and give in to their requests. As he loved them as his own, he would drive Sandra and Linda to school and pick them up whenever they had places to go. He would also attend all of the games, recitals, and parent-teacher conferences that the girls had.
Sandra didn’t enjoy being with her stepfather because he always wanted to spend time watching movies and eating together. She found him clingy and didn’t enjoy the idea of him thinking they were a family. “I want to go shopping, not watch a movie,” Sandra would say, refusing his invitation time and time again.
Meanwhile, Linda would always oblige. She saw how hard he worked for their family, and she appreciated it. After all, he didn’t need to – he was their stepfather, and it’s supposed to be Isabelle’s responsibility to provide for them.
Whenever Linda felt like Sandra and Isabelle were giving Brendan a hard time, she would keep him company by talking about how her day went, asking him about sports, and sometimes even inviting him to eat at his favorite local diner.
While Linda and Brendan kept a close relationship with one another, Isabelle was already plotting to get rid of him. She was envious of her friends who would get luxurious gifts and surprise trips around the world from their husbands, and she wanted the same for herself.
All she needed was an incident to prove that Brendan was not as good as people thought he was. She was thinking of framing him, that way she could get away with his assets without him fighting back.
One day, that opportunity finally came. Sandra asked her mom if she could go to a party, and she came home at 2 in the morning, extremely drunk.
Sandra asked her mom if she could go to a party. | Photo: Pexels
As she was heading up the stairs, she suddenly slipped on her own and rolled down, incurring minor injuries and bruises in the process. Instead of helping her daughter immediately, Isabelle saw this as an opportunity to get rid of Brendan once and for all.
He was standing at the tip of the staircase about to help Sandra when Isabelle yelled, “Brendan, how dare you beat my daughter! I’m calling the police!”
Isabelle called the police, and while Brendan tried to explain that he had nothing to do with what happened, he was arrested. A couple of days later, a trial took place.
If Brendan was proven guilty, Isabelle would receive a huge compensation from his estate. He would also need to serve time in jail.
Before the trial, Isabelle made sure that Sandra and Linda had their testimonies in order. She asked each of them to lie and support her claim that it was Brendan who pushed Sandra down the stairs.
Isabelle also asked her friend Camille to lie in court. “Tell them he has abusive tendencies, and that what happened to Sandra was just the most recent event of his abuse,” she told her.
When they were finally in court, everything seemed to be going according to plan for Isabelle. She was the first to say her testimony.
“I was awakened at around 2 in the morning after hearing a large ‘thump.’ When I got out of the room, Brendan was standing at the top of the staircase, and Sandra was almost unconscious at the bottom. He had just finished pushing her at the time,” Isabelle said, lying.
Brendan was being blamed for something he didn’t even do. | Photo: Pexels
Sandra put on a tearful display in court as well, claiming she came home intoxicated, and Brendan didn’t like it. “He started cursing at me, and when I told him to stop, he got angry. He started hitting me, and when he was finished, he pushed me down the stairs.”
Camille echoed what Sandra and Isabelle said. She claimed Brendan had abusive tendencies and would always be angry at home. When it was Linda’s turn to speak, her mom told her to lie about Brendan as well. But Linda shocked her family during her testimony.
“I was at home the entire time this happened. I was awake, in the living room,” she began. “Suddenly, I heard my sister go up the stairs intoxicated. Brendan was about to help her out, but she told him to get away from her. ‘I’m not your daughter, stop trying to care for me,’ was what my sister said,” Linda revealed.
Everyone in the courtroom was shocked. Her mother and sister were glaring at her, warning her to fix her story. However, she was not afraid of them and did not want Brendan in jail.
“Brendan is my father. He may not be my biological father, but for as long as I can remember, he’s worked day and night to provide for our family. Never did he raise a hand on any of us at home. He cares for us more than he cares for himself, so I don’t know why my mom and sister are trying to pin him on something he didn’t do,” she told the court.
Isabelle was furious at Linda for not going along with their plan. | Photo: Pexels
In the end, the court found Brendan not guilty. They also ordered Isabelle to pay him $20,000 in damages for giving false testimony and for plotting against him.
As Linda no longer felt safe with Isabelle and Sandra, Brendan was allowed to become her caretaker until she turned 21. They lived together and spent a lot of time doing enjoyable things like traveling the world, watching movies, and eating at delicious restaurants.
Meanwhile, Isabelle and Sandra had to find jobs to support themselves. She never ended up remarrying and her daughter Sandra relied on her financially for years despite being of legal age.
What can we learn from this story?
- The truth will set you free. Linda refused to give a false statement against Brendan because he didn’t deserve to suffer for something he didn’t do. After all, he’s worked hard for their family all those years.
- Karma will catch up with you one way or another. Isabelle and Sandra’s greed eventually caused them to have to work in order to survive. Meanwhile, Linda and Brendan enjoyed their lives together while traveling the world and enjoying life’s luxuries.
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