Naman Shrestha
When Bethany Decker traveled to her Ashburn house on January 29, 2011, a day after staying overnight at her husband’s parents’ house in Maryland, her mother Kimberly Nelson, and any of her loved ones did not expect it to be the last day for her on the face of the earth. Her then-boyfriend Ronald Roldan got into an argument with Bethany and ended up killing the pregnant mother. ‘Dateline: Bethany Vanished’ gives us a detailed account of the Bethany murder case, which included the struggles of Kimberly to get justice for her beloved late daughter.
Who is Kimberly Nelson?
Mother to Bethany Decker, Kimberly Nelson was quite young when she gave birth to Bethany. So, in a way, they both taught each other various lessons in life as they did some growing up together. Caring and loving as most of the mothers, Kimberly also shared a deep bond with her daughter and wanted the best things for her. So, when she started having an extramarital affair with a man named Ronald Roldan and was subjected to abuse, Kimberly and her husband Alex warned Bethany to leave him several times before things got uglier.
After things started getting out of control in their daughter’s relationship with Ronald, both Kimberly and Alex started plotting a plan to get her out of the toxic relationship. Friends of the three-month-pregnant Bethany in late January 2011 called Kimberly and told her that they had received messages from Bethany’s Facebook account that did not appear to have been sent by her personally.
Adding to that, when the cardiac nurse did not hear from her daughter herself for several days by February 19, 2011, she asked her parents, who resided near her Ashburn house, to visit Bethany’s place and check if she was doing fine. When she was nowhere to be found, she was reported to be missing. Suspecting foul play from Ronald, who managed to roam free despite the motive as well as incriminating evidence for several years, Kimberly challenged him to take a polygraph test to prove his innocence, three years after Bethany’s disappearance. On February 21, 2023, Kimberly’s daughter Bethany finally received justice for her murder when Ronald was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Kimberly Nelson is Now Focused on Her Grandkids
Even though Bethany’s perpetrator, Ronald, was brought to justice, Kimberly didn’t seem to get her closure. She said in a statement, “It was quite tragic for us to go from missing to murdered in just a sentence and in a day,” Feeling like she was drowning at the time, Kimberly expressed her gratitude towards the members of a support group that went by the name Team Bethany. This group stood by her and her family throughout the 12 years while the investigation was going on.
Apart from that, Kimberly admitted that even the simplest of gestures of kindness and concern meant the whole world to her. While the investigators kept giving her reassurance that her daughter was not forgotten and that she would receive justice, her church community and even strangers provided her emotional support, which gave her the strength she needed to keep her hopes alive. According to reports, Bethany’s son, Kai, was in the custody of Kimberly for a while after her daughter’s disappearance.
However, per the latest updates, Kai currently resides with his father, Emile Decker. Though Kimberly did not receive the closure she hoped for in the case of Bethany, we believe she is putting all her focus on healing her emotional wounds and showering all her love on her surviving daughter, Ashley, who is purportedly an Old Dominion University graduate. It is not surprising that Kimberly doesn’t seem to have any social media footprints and likely prefers to keep her personal life devoid of unwanted media attention.
Read More: Emile Decker: Where is Bethany Decker’s Ex-Husband Now?
