Community Stepping Up To Help Family After Theft, Terminal Diagnosis
THORNTON, Colo. (CBS4)- A Thornton family, already struggling with the news that their baby daughter is suffering from a terminal illness, is trying to recover from a home invasion. Now the community is stepping up to help.
Lindsay Murphy and Matt Cannon's baby Maddie is 8 month old. Two weeks ago she was diagnosed with Type 1 spinal muscular atrophy, which affects about 4 out of every 100,000 people. The muscle disease is fatal and doctors say Maddie probably won't make it past 2.
Only a week after the diagnosis Murphy and Cannon's apartment was vandalized. The thieves used a crowbar to jam open the apartment door and they made off with iPods, computers, a PlayStation and a digital camera.
The electronics contained all of the couple's pictures of their daughter.
Now, people are coming forward to help the family. After watching the story about Maddie on CBS4, Ron and Vickie Thomas said they just had to help.
"This morning Ron said he needed to do something for this sweetheart so you can have pictures of this sweet baby," said Vickie. "I felt so bad about it and when I found out the baby was sick it even made it worse."
"I thought, well, they're going to have pictures for Christmas if I have anything to do about it," said Ron.
They wanted to replace the stolen camera with a new one.
"These are not nice people who did this to us but there are kind people in this world and that's amazing. From tragedies there comes miracles," said Murphy.
The stolen pictures are irreplaceable but with a new camera more memories can be made. The first picture was reserved for Ron.
"Memories live on until the day you die and they need all the precious moments you can have," said Ron.
The family is holding out hope that someone will come forward about the crime and they can get their valuable digital photos back. They are also hoping to raise awareness about spinal muscular atrophy.
Additional Resources
A Facebook page has been set up for Maddie at facebook.com/PMCMARCH.
