The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘I HAVE A LOT MORE FIGHT’
Daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal, living in Winsted, battles rare cancer
NEWTOWN — Ten years ago, Erica Lafferty faced the fight of her life to grieve her 47year-old mother who was slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School with 25 first graders and educators.
Then the conspiracy-based harassment started, culminating in hate mail and rape threats until Lafferty and other Sandy Hook families sued Alex Jones for defamation, winning a stunning $965 million verdict after a monthlong televised trial in state Superior Court in 2022.
Now just a few months after the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, the 37year-old Winsted woman is confronted with a newfight — a “rare and challenging” cancerous tumor behind her eye, and pre-cancer in her lymph nodes.
An aggressive course of radiation and chemotherapy started Thursday.
“My only hope is it is enough to keep me alive, because I have a lot more fight in me,” Lafferty told Hearst Connecticut Media during an interview on Monday. “I want to live to see my 48th birthday because my mom was murdered before she could see hers.”
Principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was hailed as a hero for confronting the gunman in an attempt to protect the children at her school.
To treat Lafferty’s stage 2 primary orbital lymphoma, and the stage 0 cancer in her lymph nodes, Lafferty needs at least $60,000 of out-of-pocket money that she doesn’t have.
“[T]hey called it ‘rare and challenging’ to diagnose. This type of cancer makes up for only 1-to-2 percent of non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” Lafferty wrote in a post. “Typically these are slow growing tumors, however, mine tripled in size in just 14 weeks.”
A friend has organized a crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds from everyday people.
“Her family is opting for the most aggressive treatment in hopes to rid her body of this poison as quickly as possible,” wrote fundraiser organizer Melissa Lewis on the crowdfunding site, GoFundMe.
“Unfortunately, the chemotherapy drug, Leukeran, that Erica will be taking is not covered by insurance and it is costly — about $7,650 per treatment cycle and her doctor’s plan is at least three cycles. They’ve looked into many different grants and organizations that offer assistance but as of now, they have not found anything that they qualify for.”
By Tuesday evening, people on GoFundMe had contributed nearly $74,000 of the $100,000 goal.
Lafferty is grateful for the response but disheartened that some people don’t understand her situation.
People have seen the headlines and know Lafferty won a $76 million jury award from Jones as part of the larger defamation verdict in 2022.
Jones, who owes Sandy Hook families a total of $1.4 billion in defamation damages, is in personal bankruptcy. “I haven’t seen a penny of that, and I probably won’t for a very, very long time,” Lafferty said.