In three weeks Tim Nielsen will leave North Carolina return to his hometown of Layton, Utah, to start a new life. In June of 2007 as Nielsen puts it he "lost everything" when someone murdered his wife, Jenna Nielsen, behind a Raleigh convenience store as she delivered newspapers. She was eight months pregnant with their third son, already named Ethen. In Tim's mind there is nothing left for him here in North Carolina. He hopes to go back to school and provide a better life for the two young sons he is now raising as a single father.
Nielsen's family had just arrived in the Triangle in 2006 to start a new life. Tim and his father-in-law were working together at a company in Lillington. The whole family followed. None of them could have know what would happen less than a year later, a tragedy that would undermine their warm feelings about their adopted state.
Looking at newly posted pictures of the young mother in her wedding dress on the family's web site- www.justice4jenna.org, one can't help but wonder if Jenna Nielsen thought she was was getting a fresh start when she married Tim, started a family, and moved to North Carolina. She never got the chance to fulfill that dream. Maybe with a lot of love and a lot of support from family and friends Tim Nielsen will get that chance, and so will his children.
