TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Nancy Gahwiler, I’m the sister of Tom DeVocht.
I’m very surprised that Tom would to a TV show on disconnection. There’s really no basis to it. Even in the past for probably 30 years, Tom and I were never that close. We never had problems, we never had disagreements or there was no problem between us but we just went our own separate ways. He went to do this thing, I went to do mine and once in a while we’d meet for minutes only and he never once said, “There’s a problem” never once said, “I miss you” never once said, “let’s get together” It was just an understood thing that each we were doing what we were doing and we were happy at it. So to say now, he’s upset about disconnection makes no sense because it was never that close a connection. It was just—we were happy for each other to be doing what we were doing so it never, ever, ever came up that he wanted to spend more time with me or do anything else with me or that he missed me. It just never came up. I’ve had two children over the last 30 years and I don’t even have a problem with this, Tom rarely if ever, maybe never even sent them a birthday present or a card or he was never in communication with them, never called them. A few times when we were visiting in Florida where he was at the time, he stopped by for maybe 3 minutes. This was not a big deal to him and I granted him that freedom, I didn’t need him to do that either you know? And there was just no problem, it was kind of like, “Okay, that’s the way it is, let’s live like that.” And it was totally okay. So now to bring up disconnection, you go, “Disconnection from what?” There’s no disconnection.
So the only person who ever created a problem in the family was Tom himself when recently he is the one that contacted my daughter and told her things about me that upset her and made her worried about me and what I was doing and this created a problem more than anything else and why would he do that? If he’s trying to make us come closer together, if he wants us to all be close why does he go talk to my daughter and tell her bad things about me and make her worry about me and make her less in communication with me? That is not, that’s not trying to bring the family closer together.
Tom’s actions really are a total betrayal of the whole family. He has created problems that we’ve never had in the last few years, last 10 years or so, he’s the one creating major problems. I know he’s upset one of my brothers. Once he was using his nieces for a job to help him and he did silly stupid things. Like he refused to pick them up—they were teenagers, he refused to pick them up from the job and bring them back home when they were helping him which upset my brother.
He’s the one creating problems, he’s the one who is pushing the family apart, rather than together, is not anything else, is not the Church, is not disconnection, is Tom himself getting involved in illegal things, doing criminal actions, that’s what’s driving the family apart. We do not want to be connected to someone who’s a criminal and a chronic liar and who betrays your trust and who tries to upset your own daughter. That is not, that’s not a family member.
If my mother were alive today, she’d be extremely disappointed on how Tom turned out. I think she totally expected him to turn out extremely well, to do wonderful things in life, to be a mover and shaker in the world and I know she trusted him. She just loved him to death. And to see what’s happening now and now he’s attacking the family, it would totally destroy her. She would be so upset, she’d be beyond herself. It would be such a betrayal, it’s not even funny, it would just be horrible.
I don’t know who he is anymore, I had this idea of what he was like when he was a child and I found out that that’s not what he is. He is, he’s been violent with people, and he’s threatened really—and he’s threatened me with violence by saying he would tie me up in a chair if he got a hold of me so I can’t trust him, I don’t know what he would do, I don’t know what has gone into him and I definitely don’t want to have anything to do with him. I mean I don’t know what would happen.
