Woman speaks for first time about Washington Co. parents' murder-suicide

Miller says she grew up in a happy home. She didn't realize her mother and father had anything other than a good relationship until she was 12 years old.

"My mom picked me up one day early from school and basically said, 'We're leaving,'" she recalled. "We had none of our stuff. And that was the day everything changed."

Miller says her mother took her and her brother to a women's shelter in Washington County for safety. She says it was at a court hearing that she first found out what her father had done to her mother.

"It was after he had gotten out of jail," she said. "He was bringing us back home after spending Easter weekend with him. After that, he came back and held my mom at gunpoint all night."

In 2016, Kevin Ewing was arrested, accused of holding his wife captive for two weeks. Police say he branded her, beat her and tortured her.

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Channel 11 was in court for his preliminary hearing in June of 2016. Tierne Ewing was there, too. In court, she said she was afraid to face her husband. A police officer read her statement instead.

In that statement, Tierne Ewing wrote that if her husband was let out of jail, he would kill her. Morgan Miller spoke to us about the statement.

"People don't understand the courage it even takes for someone that's living that life to write those words down," she said.

Channel 11's Cara Sapida asked Miller why she thinks her mother stayed with her father. She said she thinks her mother always went back for her children and their protection. She also says she believes he convinced her mother the abuse would not happen again.

"I honestly believe that they loved each other to a fault," she said. "There's no doubt in my mind that either of them loved one another. It was just unhealthy. And I'm sure that's a common thing in a lot of abusive relationships."

Miller said she never believed her father would actually kill her mother.