If Christina Colon would be alive today, she'd probably be chasing her 3-year-old around, said Colon's mother, Carmen Potts.

"I would have loved to see her as a mother," said Potts. Christina, who should be 28, was a very caring, nurturing, sensitive and playful person.

"The baby probably would have been a little spoiled," Potts said.

But Colon is not alive; neither is her baby. Colon's boyfriend shot and killed them more than four years ago.

Potts can't and won't let her daughter's memory die.


Both mothers are hoping to help others by telling their daughters' stories through a domestic violence exhibit, "Silent Witness."

The life-size wooden cutouts in the exhibit bear the names and stories of Lancaster County women, men and children who have died because of domestic violence during the last four years.

Mae's and Christina's names and stories are on two of the figures. Christina's baby is represented by a bassinet. Five other women and one man will be named in the exhibit.

Several unnamed figures, painted bright red, will represent about 15 other people who were killed since 2004 by a family member or by someone with an intimate relationship with a family member.

The exhibit, which will open on Oct. 1 at Lancaster General Hospital's Health Campus, will travel around the county throughout October, Domestic Violence month. It will be accompanied by information on how to get help and how to give help.

Sponsored by the hospital, Domestic Violence Services of Lancaster County and the Victim Witnesses Program, the exhibit is designed to draw attention to the problem and provide resources.

"It happens in every part of society; it happens in every class; it happens in every area of Lancaster County," said Karen Bradley, a social worker for Healthy Beginnings Plus, a program for low-income pregnant women.


A year ago at the Solanco Fair, 17-year-old Mae Davis met Mike Hollow and invited him to come to her church youth group. Her mother, Vicki Davis, was the youth group leader.

Davis soon realized that Mike stirred up conflict in the group. Sometimes he would really be a charmer and the next minute he would be getting into a fight with someone, she said.

"'Didn't you say that Jesus loves everybody?'" Mae would chide her mother if she complained about Mike's behavior.

"Yes, yes, I did," her mother would reply, with chagrin, "so we just kept trying to work with him."

Mae was a strong voice in their youth group, which included a number of teens with troubled pasts and families. When she spoke to teens about needing to have Jesus in their lives, they listened, her mother said.

Mae choreographed worship dances for the youth and insisted that everyone participate. They did.

However, she was also attracted to Mike's world, where alcohol and drugs were commonplace. When Michael brought wine coolers to a Saturday night youth group meeting at Mae's house in November, Davis forbade Michael from coming to their house anymore.

Angry at her mother's decision, Mae took Mike home and showed up at church the next morning with alcohol on her breath. Heartbroken, her mother took her keys, but Mae ran away. When police brought her back, Davis agreed it was best for Mae to move in with her grandmother until things calmed down. That was November.

On Jan.2, Mike threatened to kill himself with a gun. Police took him to Lancaster General Hospital where he was admitted to the psychiatric unit, state police said.

Davis said Mae tried to break up with Mike before the suicide attempt. Afterward, she went back to him.

Becca, 16, Mae's sister and best friend, said she's not sure why Mae returned. At one point Mae told her, "I know I shouldn't be with him, but I really think he'll change. If he doesn't change, I'll leave."

Later in January, Davis remembers Mae calling her father to come pick her up from Mike's trailer. She alleged that Mike slammed her hand in the car door and smashed her face against the steering wheel when she tried to leave.

"That's when she started to realize what he was like," according to Davis. Nevertheless, Mae maintained an on-again, off-again relationship with him.

Two days before Mae was killed, she stopped by her parents' house, hoping her dad would help with her car. Davis and Mae were "on the outs" over this situation.

Davis said she felt such a "heaviness in her heart," that she just went to her and hugged her. "I said, 'Mae, I want you to know that I love you with my whole heart, and there's nothing that you can ever do to make me stop loving you. Nothing.' "

In hindsight, Davis wishes she would have stated that message more clearly throughout the conflict with her daughter.

"Mae already knew I didn't approve of what she was doing," Davis said. "I think somehow amongst the message of not approving, I think she also thought that I didn't accept her. And that's two entirely different things."

That encounter seemed to heal some of the hurt between them, said Davis. Later that evening, as they drove to Ephrata together, Mae talked about breaking up with Mike.

"I do believe that she was wanting out of the relationship," Davis said. "She thought if she explained to him that she wanted out of the relationship, but wanted to be friends and help him, that he was going to be OK with that."

Perhaps that is what Mae tried to do the next night when she went to Mike's trailer, no one knows for sure. What her mother knows is that Mike and Mae argued outside, and then went back into the trailer — Davis said a witness told her Mae was dragged by her hair, but police said none of the witnesses they talked to said she was forced.

About 40 minutes later, Mae and Mike were both dead. Police say Mike killed her and then himself.

"I think — what did she go through before he finally killed her; how long did she beg for her life before he finally shot her; how scared was my little girl?" Davis asked as she held back sobs.


Colon's mother understands the agony.

"It's like as if someone goes into your chest and pulls your heart out," said Potts. "You can hit low, but I think that's the lowest you can be. It's like you're dragging your heart."

Any time a parent loses a child, it's painful, said Bonnie Glover, director of Domestic Violence Services of Lancaster County. "I don't think you ever fully recover."

Yet domestic violence has a unique pain, said Glover, because someone chose to deliberately kill your child.

"There's a sense of coldness and evil," Glover said. "It's just horrific."

It's the kind of horrific that happens when Damien Michael Schlager killed Colon.

"I don't see what could make a man kill his baby," Potts said.

Or her daughter.

"There was such a big emptiness when she was taken, because she had a strong presence, whether she was happy or whether she was really sad. If she walked in the room, you would know she was there. When she was happy, she was so funny," Potts said.

Colon used to make up original tunes and sounds on her keyboard and then hand the microphone to her older sister who would make up lyrics.

Perhaps it was that charisma that attracted Schlager, a married man with two children, to Colon. They worked together at the former Kemp's Foods, where Schlager was a union representative, Potts said.

"It seemed like she thought he was separated from his wife," said Potts. "She wasn't trying to break up a marriage or be the other woman. She just fell for a lie."

A week and a half before she died, she moved into her own apartment and bought a car. She was excited about the baby, Potts said, and her mother was happy to see her embracing her independence.

But on July 21, 2004, police said, Schlager lured Colon, who was about five-months pregnant, to Funkhauser Quarry in southern York County and shot her in the back of the head.

The motive, police said, was because he thought she was carrying his baby. In a wiretap presented at trial, Schlager denied being the father, but said Colon had been demanding money from him and threatening to tell his wife. A jury convicted Schlager of the deaths of the unborn child and Colon, and sentenced him to life in prison.

"Killing is not the end. It's just the beginning of a lot of pain," her mother said.

E-mail: Lespenshade@Lnpnews.com