Ann O’Neill is 34. She’s attractive, dynamic and intelligent and many people wonder why she’s single. Ten years ago her life was very different. She was a married woman, 24, with two small children, Kyle, 6 and Latisha, 4. Then one violent night she lost everything and almost her life.

In the early hours of the morning as Ann slept with her two children beside her, her estranged husband, Norm broke into her home and turned a gun on all of them. She was the only one to survive. Hours later her leg was amputated.

That catastrophic event ripped away all the roles she had ever known and she had to negotiate a whole new life as a disabled person stripped of her motherhood. Determined not to allow her children to have died in vain, Ann O’Neill threw herself into an advocacy role as a powerful support for others grappling with the aftermath of homicide.

Yet, despite all this, Ann O’Neill has real compassion for the man who perpetrated this shocking crime and with extraordinary courage has drawn on her experience to become a powerful advocate for victims of crime.