The stress from the past 24 months was evident on Joy Bardwell-Kittrell’s face as she sat at a conference table in her attorney’s office Wednesday morning.
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Clutched in her hands was a small pink urn filled with her daughter’s ashes. The same daughter whose face was on Kittrell’s shirt and mug that she often reached for, but barely drank out of.
When asked how she was coping, the thin wall Kittrell built for herself in preparation quickly crumbled.
“Unbearable,” she said through tears. “It’s a pain no one should ever feel and there’s just no way to describe it.”
Two years and one day before, 19-year-old Amber Bardwell died after ingesting what she believed was cocaine.
According to court documents, Bardwell and her boyfriend were living with a maintenance worker at the Altamonte Springs Hotel & Suites in Feb. 2022 when they found a white bag in the floor of a stairwell.