An Ohio couple returned from Thanksgiving vacation to a trashed house, with swastikas and white power harassment spray-painted on the walls, destroyed appliances, and cement poured into their drains.
Pat and Joe Jude are an interracial couple.
They planned on retiring in the home that they currently serve as landlords for, but the damage they returned to is going to cost a huge amount of money to fix.
Pat discussed the damage they faced upon their return with WCMH:
“They hit every cabinet with paint… They hit every wall with paint. They hit every appliance, they poured paint into the appliances. They poured cement down the drains.”
News footage shows the the Jude family is not exaggerating claims of damage done to their property.
This is not the first time the Jude family has had to deal with tragedy in the face of harassment. The couple had a son, Jake, who committed suicide in 2010 due to being bullied for being biracial. Jake was sixteen years old at the time. About the wounds being reopened, Pat said:
“We’ve gone through that… You never get over it, but then you come in here, and it’s the same kind of stuff.”
Hate crimes are always a serious issue, but they have seen a sharp uptick since the election of Donald Trump.
The Jude family did not only have spray paint and cement in their plumbing to deal with. The couple also found their stair railing kicked down and second story pipes ripped out, causing flooding and collapsed ceilings due to heavy water.
Joe perhaps summed up the hate best, when he said:
“Who would have that much hate in their hearts, to take that much time to do this?“
Watch the full story from WCMH below, and see the footage of what the Jude couple had to endure upon their return from vacation:
Featured Image via WCMH
