Neither infidelity nor prison nor gunshot injuries shatter this marriage.
Forgiveness helps couple move on after devastating gunshot injury
Dranell Barlow Guinn waited 111 days for her day of reckoning.
In a Memphis courtroom on Thursday, she was ready to confront the man who shot her to show him that she was a survivor. But when the moment came, the emotions were too much and Guinn said apprehensively, “not ready. Not ready.”
On Feb. 20, Guinn was shot twice in the head allegedly by Deuterondus Anderson, a man she once dated.
Anderson, 32, was charged with attempted first-degree murder and could face an additional charge because the baby that Guinn was pregnant with at the time of the incident died last month. She says she remembers the shooting, yet she is prevented from fully relaying the details because the gunshot wounds caused brain injuries that limit her speech. For now, her husband Christopher Guinn speaks for her.
“I hope nobody else has to go through this to see how much somebody mean to them,” he said.
Christopher Guinn and Dranell Guinn married in 2012, but they separated when Christopher went to jail for nearly a year on a parole violation for a drug charge. During that interim period, Dranell and Anderson dated and conceived a child. When Christopher was released, he and his wife reconciled and made plans to rebuild their family.
“I knew she dated the dude and was pregnant by him. I agreed to raise the baby because I wanted to save my marriage,” Christopher Guinn said. “If I was going to accept her back, I had to accept what went on in the process while we were not together.’’
On the night of the shooting, Christopher Guinn was waiting for his wife to pick him up from his job at Pearl’s Oyster House, but she never arrived.
Later that evening, he got a call that his wife had been shot as she got out of the car outside of her sister’s Raleigh apartment.
While Guinn fought for her life at the Regional Medical Center, Anderson was on the run. He was arrested in April after barricading himself in the Arlington home of his new girlfriend, who is also
pregnant by him.
Guinn gave birth to Anderson’s daughter on May 13. Miracle Guinn died hours after her birth.
Guinn admits that she had conflicted feelings about losing the baby of the man who she says tried to kill her. Emotionally and physically, it’s been a tough recovery. After the shooting, her head swelled to the size of a pumpkin because of the pressure from the gunshot wounds. And she was in a coma for weeks.
“Then one day she said, ‘Hey, baby,’ ” Christopher Guinn recalled.
Dranell Guinn was discharged last month after 89 days in the hospital. Because of the enormous medical expenses, the couple is now living in Christopher Guinn’s mother’s house with their 18-monthold son.
She is getting physical therapy and speech therapy. The phrase that she repeats most often is “thank you,” a remarkable display of gratitude given the trauma that she has endured.
The 27-year-old is learning to navigate life from a wheelchair. She can take steps if someone holds her by the arms. Christopher Guinn is often her stabilizing force.
Dr. Jacques Samson, who works in internal fetal medicine at the Regional Medical Center, has been amazed at the couple’s story of recovery and redemption.
“I cannot believe after all of the challenges they went through, they forgave and kept going, kept moving forward,” Samson said.
What could have broken Christopher and Dranell Guinn, has made their bond stronger. And it was this strength that they wanted to show Anderson in court, but given all that she has endured, she wasn’t ready to look him in the eye, just yet.
She quietly said “yes” when her husband asked her if she wanted to come back to court for Anderson’s preliminary hearing on June 24.
“Dude thought the shooting was the end, but my baby is strong,” Christopher Guinn said. “I want him to know, he didn’t win.”