April Balascio has unveiled a harrowing account of her life under the shadow of her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, a notorious serial killer.
In her book, she reveals how familial instability and secrets led to the unmasking and conviction of her father for multiple murders, New York Post reported.
From the age of 11, Balascio endured a whirlwind of fear and suspicion as her father uprooted the family every six months to a year. This pattern began in earnest in 1980 when Edwards woke his family in the middle of the night and urged them to leave their home in Watertown, Wisconsin, in a hurry.
Edwards frequently uprooted his family, justifying each move by claiming unnamed threats were pursuing them. For the young Balascio, each relocation painfully forced her to relinquish friendships and constantly reshape her life amid ambiguity and fear.
Balascio recalls, "Each time we moved, it was hard. You develop new friends each time, and then you have to leave them." These moves were not just geographical shifts but emotional upheavals, thrusting the family ever into isolating uncertainty.
By 2010, the twisted background April Balascio had escaped sharply came into focus. Authorities arrested her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, who later pleaded guilty to murdering two young couples—one in Ohio in 1977 and another in Wisconsin. A court sentenced him to life in prison in Ohio, where he died of natural causes in 2011.
Although Edwards faced a death sentence by lethal injection, he passed away before its enactment. His confessions exposed the grim reality Balascio had sensed during those tumultuous years, unveiling the gruesome extent of her father's crimes.
Sharing her side of the story became a crucial outlet and coping mechanism for Balascio as she matured. "It was hard having to upend everything," she noted, speaking on the emotional toll these incessant moves and her father's ultimate truth had taken. This cathartic expression found its ultimate form in her book "Raised by a Serial Killer: Discovering the Truth About My Father."
Writing this book was no trivial feat. It dredged up painful memories and stark revelations about her father, a reality she at one point feared and hated. "It was scary. He was abusive... I would wonder how he was going to walk through the house. Was he going to be in a good mood or a bad mood?" she reflected on the daily terror Edwards' mere presence would evoke.
The process of narrating her story, though laden with difficulty, was an ultimately empowering undertaking for Balascio. “I wanted this story to be told, but it took a long time to write it. It was a very difficult thing to do. I was protecting my memories,” she explained during one of her promotional tours, which included a visit to BuzzFeed's "AM To DM" podcast in 2019.
Her experiences, laid bare across various platforms, have become a beacon for others grappling with dark familial legacies. Balascio’s voice serves both as a catharsis for her and a stark warning about the hidden lives that could unfold within a family, guided by deception and fear.
Today, as she shares her father's sinister legacy wrapped within her resilience, Balascio's story underlines profound truths about family, trust, and the healing power of truth.
