ATLANTA —
Nearly three months have passed since Valerie Kasper was attacked while walking with her three-year-old son along the Peachtree Creek Greenway in Brookhaven.
The man arrested for allegedly stabbing Kasper multiple times was indicted by a DeKalb County grand jury on Monday.
Kasper, though, tells 11Alive, while she is happy the grand jury returned an indictment, she is focused on her family’s recovery, not the criminal case.
The DeKalb County mother needed an emergency C-section following the attack. She gave birth to her newborn son Theodore four months early.
According to Kasper, after four surgeries and months in intensive care, he now weighs six pounds and continues to grow.
Gallery | Theodore Jude
She recently has been able to hold him more often, is helping nurses change his diapers, and gave her son a sponge bath for the first time on Monday.
“We have these little milestones that keep happening, that keep the hopes and faith alive, and it is also fun to be part of,” she said on Tuesday.
Kasper said there have been setbacks along the way, but there also have been plenty of good days for Theodore.
Currently, no date has been set for him to potentially be discharged and head home.
“He just needs to get better at breathing and better at eating,” Kasper said. “So we will know once we reach those milestones.”
Also recovering through counseling is Theodore’s older brother, three-year-old Benjamin.
The young boy was with his mother at the time of the attack. While he wasn’t physically hurt, he remembers the incident.
“If it is just me and him walking down the street to the pool or something, he will say ‘Is a bad guy going to push you down?’, daily he says it,” Kasper said. “We are working on it and working through it.”
Kasper is also recovering. Similar to her oldest son, she is in counseling.
After being stabbed multiple times and undergoing an emergency C-section, she is also in physical therapy. Kasper said she’s seeing major improvements thanks to her physical therapist.
“It is helping in day-to-day for sure,” she mentioned. “Just sitting, standing, walking, driving. It takes an effort from me. It exhausts me throughout the day. I have to take breaks.”
As she makes progress, Kasper has yet to return to work as a teacher. She said perhaps she will return to the classroom next school year.
“We don’t have the baby home yet; I’m still in recovery,” she said. “I don’t think I can handle just the stress of the classroom, but the physical part of standing, sitting, walking around the class. Those normal things teachers do, I don’t know if I could handle that yet.”
Five days after the attack in June, 30-year-old Christopher Jones was arrested. At the time of the arrest, Kasper called the development a relief.
“They arrested him (the suspect), he confessed, it’s done. And it’s a huge relief that that monster is not on the street doing this to other pregnant women walking with their three-year-old,” she said in June.
On Monday, the grand jury charged Jones with attempted murder, attempted feticide, aggravated assault, and child cruelty in its indictment.
While Kasper has been focused on her family’s recovery, she occasionally talks on the phone with prosecutors as they call to keep her updated.
“I knew I was going to get a call yesterday at some point,” Kasper said. “So I was happy to get the call that I got, then we kind of go from there. They will keep me updated. I appreciate the space, but I also appreciate the updates.”
Since June, strangers from around the area and well beyond have reached out to help Kasper through two online fundraisers that have gathered more than $140,000 combined.
“It’s just been overwhelming,” Kasper said. “The first couple of weeks there, I was just crying, crying all the time. I could see we were getting these donations, and I was like, ‘We don’t even know these people,’ but felt well supported, and we appreciate it, of course.
She also credited a support system including her family, her partner’s family, and a team of doctors and nurses.
“We are just appreciating all of it; we couldn’t do it without everybody’s support,” she added.