The relationship between a husband and wife is dependent on one very major factor, trust. And a lot of times you trust your spouse blindly and never even think of doubting them. You feel like you know the person inside out and there is possibly no side of them that has been concealed from you.
But what if your partner turns out to be a total contrast of what you had ever known about them? What if your own spouse has been hiding their own true self from you all this while?
The Chelekis have been a very loving family, a perfect one so to say. But soon enough, their lives will fall apart in a way that will leave you with goosebumps!
Amanda was a working woman residing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She had a family of her own, as perfect as it could be, a husband and two little daughters. Amanda worked as a nurse-practitioner where her career was climbing the stairs to success.
Amanda's life was nothing less than an American dream for her. She and her husband had worked really hard to get a beautiful house and to provide everything possible that was within their reach for their beautiful daughters. Amanda had everything she could ever ask her.
James Philip Chelekis, a 32-year-old man, husband of Amanda, was a Mathematics teacher in Kentwood Public School. James and Amanda had been married for 10 years and were deeply in love with each other, or so it seemed.
Life is a two-way process. So with happiness comes sadness as well. Amanda and James seemed to have a perfect life, full of happy colors. But soon all was going to change and things were going to turn out to be very unpleasant.
In June of 2017, Amanda and James were going to experience the worst days of their lives. Their perfect life was going to be the most imperfect life any person could have. And the reason would be something that every spouse has a fear of.
On the night of June 26th, 2017, Amanda's perfect life collapsed into a million pieces. She discovered something that every married person fears about. Her husband, whom she had trusted with all her heart had cheated on her.
Amanda felt like she had been a fool all this time to think that she could look forward to James for anything in the world. She had always thought that her relationship with James was forever. She could not understand a thing.
Amanda was shook when she realized her whole life and marriage with James was under question. She had heard numerous stories of spouses cheating on each other but she had never thought that anything like that could happen to her.
The only solution to calm down her disturbance a little was to confront the cheating husband. And so Amanda decided that she would talk face to face to James and ask him what had provoked him to ruin such a wonderful family.
The night of June 26th was the longest for Amanda. She had confronted James and asked him about the betrayal. James gave numerous explanations to Amanda about his unfaithful act but nothing seemed to be working.
Since Amanda was deeply hurt by what James had done, she could not believe a single word that came out of James' mouth. She felt like her whole body was aching because of his lies. But this was just the beginning of her pain.
That night, Amanda and James had a discussion all night long. James seemed sorry for what he had done but the damage, on the other hand, seemed irreplaceable. Their whole life was at stake and everything was on the verge of ending.
By the end of the night, Amanda and James decided they would give the marriage another chance. None of them wanted to lose the beautiful life they had built together and wanted to try once more for the sake of their daughters. But Amanda was going to regret the worst decision of her life.
The two decided that they would go to a couple-counselor to save their marriage. They owed this to themselves and their children who were nowhere at fault here to suffer the separation of their parents. But there was a lot of suffering in its way...
Although Amanda and James had a night-long discussion, there was one thing that was bothering Amanda to the core. James told her everything about his affair except for that one major thing, who was the girl he had cheated her with? And James had been adamant about not disclosing that.
James had confessed everything about his affair, from the duration to the number of times the two had met and where. But no matter how many times Amanda asked, James refused to tell her the name of that girl.
After asking about the woman countless times, Amanda got frustrated. She could not get to terms with the fact that despite cheating on her, James would not even disclose the name of the woman. Amanda was disturbed and said she wanted a break from all this. But this break was going to be very heavy for her.
After not being able to understand what to do and being frustrated to the core, Amanda wanted some me-time. She requested James to leave her alone for the night. What happened next will make you jump from your seat.
Amanda was deep in her thoughts with her eyes closed. She was unaware of everything around her and had thought that James had left when she told him to. But James gave a surprise. He jumped out of the closet behind Amanda while her head was tipped back on the chair and eyes were closed.
At around 5 am on the morning of June 27th, after James jumped out from the closet, he did the unimaginable. Standing behind Amanda, James kissed her forehead and then took out a knife and slit her throat from one end to the other!
Amanda tried to fight back James by snatching the knife from his hands. She got a lot of cuts on her hands which were really bad wounds. As if the gaping cut across the neck wasn't enough to bring her end.
Struggling for her life, Amanda fell on the floor. She was bleeding badly. The slit on the throat, the gnarly wounds on the hands, all were bleeding and there seemed to be no escape for Amanda. She was now too feeble to even call for help.
It seemed like something had gotten inside James. As soon as Amanda fell on the floor, he started reading the bible verses out loud. Amanda kept on begging to call 911 but he ignored her. Amanda was nearing her end.
As Amanda was struggling for her life, James laid beside her on her blood and whispered in her ear, "This is the end". After this Amanda was certain that she will have to say goodbye to her daughters forever.
Suddenly Amanda realized that she could try to help herself by using her nursing-practitioner knowledge. She quickly positioned her body in a manner where her airways would not be blocked by the wound of the neck and she could have a chance to survive.
James was furious and confused to see that why was she not dying. "He asked why I hadn’t bled out yet. I was constantly praying to find a way to live," Amanda Chelekis said. "I told him I was going to die very soon if he didn’t do something and he would regret it the rest of his life."
In anxiousness, James quickly took out his cellphone and dialed a number. Amanda kept on pleading to call 911 but it was a different number that James had dialed. He had called the woman he had been cheating on Amanda with.
It was when James talked on the call that Amanda finally came to know that the person who was with James was not even a woman. She was a 14-year-old girl who was James' student at school. It disgusted Amanda even more.
After 55 minutes of the attack, the 14-year-old finally convinced James to call 911. Shortly after, local police officials and an ambulance arrived at Amanda's rescue. She was taken to the hospital and James was immediately taken under custody.
After the police did the investigation, it was revealed that the 14-year-old student and the teacher were in a relationship for one and a half years. The police had collected evidence from the texts and pictures that were exchanged between the two and it proved that the two were in a sexual relationship.
On January 23rd, 2018, James was charged with attempted murder and with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct against a minor. But even all of these charges were not sufficient for the blasphemous crime he had committed.
When the fourteen-year-old child's mother was notified of her daughter's relationship, she was taken aback. The victim of the assault and her family did not attend the court but her mother did send a letter to tell the people what their daughter had been through.
Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Monica M. Janiskee read the letter sent by the child's mother. "She went from having lots of friends to no friends," Janiskee read. "Somehow James managed to manipulate her to where he was the only one she trusted, which resulted in total isolation from activities and friends and an inappropriate relationship with him.’"
The teen's mother actually felt guilty for not being able to take care of her daughter. "He robbed our daughter of her innocence and childhood and it’s something she’ll never get back. He even went as far as buying her a ring and told her he was going to leave his wife so they could be together. All the things he did was mind numbing", read the letter.
During the trial, James' lawyers left no tables unturned to save their client. The lawyer tried to blame James' untreated mental illness for the heinous crime that he had committed. And they hoped blindly that the Judge would buy this reason.
Kent County Circuit Court Judge Paul Sullivan obviously did not buy the excuse. He said clearly, "It’s pretty clear to me that you did want her to die...You expected her to die, you were wondering why it was taking so long to die."
The Judge continued to say, "I don’t buy this mental health stuff. That’s not snapping because of some kind of an emotional event that happens. And then what happens when you are confronted with this affair by your spouse? You end up slicing her throat."
James was finally sentenced for 30 to 60 years for the attempted murder and in addition to that, 15 to 40 years for the sexual assaults. There was no sympathy or pity for the kind of person that James was and the kind of crimes he had committed.
As soon as James heard the sentencing, he started crying like a baby. "I am truly sorry for how I failed and hurt people that I care about," he told the court. "I will never stop trying to say I’m sorry and apologize."
Amanda, on the other hand, was heartbroken. What wrong had she possibly done to deserve something like that? She could not believe her destiny. She said, "I can’t imagine anyone doing something so violent to their worst enemy, yet my husband of 10 years did this to me with our children across the hall in bed."
What kind of a person James actually was, was not known to Amanda even after spending more than 10 years with the man. She cried, "He went from being a good person in a good marriage to attempting to murder me to cover this relationship with the student."
James was never really guilty for what he had done. Even after being arrested and spending his days in jail, he wrote letters to the teenage girl from the jail also. "He tried to keep her in his web by telling her that he was on suicide watch the first week he was in jail because he was mentally unstable,’" Janiskee read from the letter.
Meanwhile, Amanda truly proved to be a strong woman, who can fight any situation that comes her way. Her main strength has been her daughters and she will continue fighting with the world for her daughters.
After all that happened with Amanda, the biggest fear that she has is that she would have to tell her little sweethearts about who their dad actually was and what he did. She cannot hide such a big incident from them but she doubts if she will ever have the strength to tell them of it.
Amanda fears with tears in her eyes, "Even through all this pain, the hardest impact is knowing what my children will have to through. Someday when it’s developmentally appropriate, I have to tell them their father is not with us because he tried to kill me. I fear the psychological impact it will have on them."
Amanda will never be able to forget the morning of 27th June. She recalls, "Standing behind me, he kissed my forehead and slit my throat from one side to the other. The trauma I was forced to endure was horrendous."
Amanda filed for divorce from James soon after the incident and it was approved. Ever since that, Amanda has never seen James' face and she never will. Even though the effect of that incident will forever stay inside her head, she will not let it stop her life.
Since February of 2018, Amanda has started a new life. Her small family with her two daughters now live happily and Amanda goes with a different name now. She has left everything in the past and will never look back at it.
James had destroyed not just one but two lives. He had played with Amanda as well as the teenage girl's emotions. And to make things worse, he never understood the intensity of the wrong things that he kept going on with.
After all that has happened, maybe Amanda will never be able to trust anyone anymore. It will take all her strength and energy to trust somebody else again. She had given her all to her relationship with James but it turned out to be something she could never have imagined.