Behind the Badge: A Police Wife Survives Blue Against Blue

 Yesterday I watched the news from Minneapolis — a woman killed by ICE. It was shameful. A blight on our history. The explanations offered did not reconcile with what people saw on camera.

I thought: that could have been me.

A few years earlier, while working from home for Microsoft, I was SWAT’ed by Salt Lake City Police.

In 2015, I married a police lieutenant in Glynn County, Georgia: Bill Daras. Bill was not an ordinary officer. He helped solve Georgia’s largest mass murder case — the Guy Heinze case, in which Heinze murdered his family in an attempt to obtain drugs. Bill testified at trial, rose to lieutenant, and helped correct investigative errors attributed to the department.

I met Bill after leaving my first husband, who had briefly been a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. We had an IBM business together — he ran operations, I did the technical work — which led to my internal hire at IBM. He was handsome, younger than me, pursuing a doctorate in Homeland Security, and carrying severe PTSD from Iraq, where a close friend was killed by an IED.

When he joined Savannah PD straight out of the academy, he was assigned to some of the most violent neighborhoods. It triggered his trauma. He began drinking. He became violent at home. One day, he held his service weapon to my head.

I filed a restraining order. When it was served, he escalated with his sergeant, resulting in a standoff in our home. Multiple officers responded. He had access to several weapons. He was placed on psychiatric leave and eventually offboarded. I never spoke against him. He recovered his career.

That experience led me to volunteer as a statistician with a group training first responders in peer-to-peer counseling for PTSD and trauma. During his later clearance process, I was contacted. I said nothing negative. Despite what I endured, I believed he had not been institutionally supported when his trauma was most acute.

When I married Bill, I was working in IBM’s i2 division in counterfraud and anti–money laundering with a retired FBI mentor. Bill was a wonderful husband — quiet, decisive, respectful. He cooked, cleaned, did laundry. We didn’t share work details. Our life was grounded in the ordinary: our dogs, our families, the beach. We rode cruisers. We attended a Mormon law-enforcement ward near FLETC. Bill wasn’t Mormon, but many members were colleagues he knew.

One day, while I was working from home and Bill was off duty, I heard shouting on the lawn. Tires squealed. Bill came inside angry — something I had never seen. He said narcotics officers had been on our lawn attempting to bug my work call, and that I was being targeted due to alleged drug activity in my family. I didn’t understand.

The next day, after speaking with his chief, Bill told me he had a plan — but offered no details.

We moved out of state for a time. I took a project in Utah. Bill worked in Homeland Security. I later learned he was investigating airport police who were not turning in seized narcotics. Wherever I went — doctor, salon — Bill accompanied me. Arms crossed. Watching. My gentle husband became someone I didn’t recognize. He went through my phone. He had my friends and family investigated.

When we returned to Georgia, his behavior intensified. Someone sat in a parked car outside our house when he was at work. A friend driving to visit me was pulled over, breathalyzed, and searched. Bill returned to a different squad. I was introduced to undercover officers — some embedded in high schools, others working civilian jobs. My life shifted onto a different plane.

When my father was dying, I was prevented from contacting my family. A week later, I left. I still loved Bill, but I knew I had lost both men who anchored my world.

I worked for a year as a federal contractor, then moved back to Utah after being hired by a private company. Within a year, strange things began. Officers I didn’t know told me my husband was “a dirty cop.” I was working for Microsoft in Data and AI for State and Local Government when I was SWAT’ed at home during a Teams call.

I was wearing a sundress, cardigan, and heels. I had my black lab, Bella. She had lived with Bill and a retired K-9 and loved police. She danced, expecting treats. I stood perfectly still. Eventually, the team realized they’d been called improperly and left.

As the spouse of a police lieutenant, you receive informal training: compartmentalization, situational awareness, how to interact with law enforcement. Policing is paramilitary. Bill was also prior military police. That training mattered in what followed.

After that came break-ins where only lingerie or heels were taken. My glasses smashed on my desk. My car vandalized. Money disappeared from my bank account. My Microsoft-managed phone was stolen, returned, and later discovered to be cloned. I was subjected to two federal polygraphs.

Then it escalated.

At an ACFE conference for Mountain America Credit Union, the former Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Tim Ballard — now both under investigation — were speaking. The then-president of the Utah ACFE chapter approached me. He claimed to have served a Mormon mission in my childhood ward, named friends, claimed BYU attendance, and wore a tie from my grandfather’s university. I later learned it was all false — social engineering. He was closely associated with Reyes and Ballard.

He repeatedly put his arm around me. I moved away. He tried to separate me from my friend. Later he emailed me about a job. There was no job.

Soon after, my car “malfunctioned.” A dealership claimed it wasn’t mine, called police, and had me trespassed. The next day police called it a “marketing ploy” and accompanied me back — only to find my car dismantled. While I was on the phone at a nearby café, the same man appeared. He showed me a covert photo of my daughter on her college campus. He described injuries from a case he claimed to have worked and told me that to prevent such harm to my daughter, I had to go with him.

He drove me to my apartment — an address I had not given him. That is where I was assaulted.

He demanded information about my ex-husband’s undercover work. I had none. I suffered severe injuries — blood in my urine for weeks, a dislocated jaw, dental reconstruction, plastic surgery. I told him nothing. I escaped by throwing his computer out the door and locking him out.

During the assault, he bragged about favors and influence. He called himself the “Roger Stone of Salt Lake City.” He told me where bodies were buried — figuratively and literally. I later took another polygraph.

After reporting the assault, once my daughter was safely home, I was hit with retaliatory charges. One accused me of carrying a firearm on an airplane — demonstrably false. I was nowhere near an airport.

Two charges ultimately stuck. I could not explain the assault in court because my ex-husband was undercover. My attacker claimed we had a consensual relationship. He smeared me as immoral, unstable, unintelligent, and opportunistic.

In February, my ex-husband finally testified. He helped dismantle his narcotics squad — GBNET — the same unit once on our lawn. The squad was disbanded. His signature appears on indictments against his chief.

I spent ten months in Salt Lake City jail — taken from my bed without a warrant, no hearing, no trial, no discovery. Every week I was told that if I filed false domestic-violence charges against Bill to prevent his testimony, I would be released. I did not.

My father was a POW. He taught me: Doing the right thing doesn’t guarantee the outcome you want. It guarantees a clean conscience.

My conscience — and my hands — are clean.

The links below include my husband’s testimony, the related cases, and the false KSL article that remains online despite correction requests.

References:

Campisi, Charles, and Gordon Dillow. Blue on Blue: An Insider’s Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops. Scribner, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_on_Blue_(book)

Daras, D (2026). “ Brady-Giglio: How Police Conduct and Integrity Can Impact Your Rights” Medium. https://medium.com/@dawndarasms/brady-giglio-how-police-conduct-and-integrity-can-impact-your-rights-6027b86e90ec

Daras, D. (2026). “HEARTWORK-HEALING OUR FIRST
RESPONDERS WITH TRAUMA AND PTSD”. Medium https://medium.com/@dawndarasms/heartwork-healing-our-first-responders-with-trauma-and-ptsd-b2283967ed05?postPublishedType=initial

Butler, M. (2025). “Former Georgia prosecutor testifies in own trial over hindering Ahmaud Arbery murder investigation” Courthouse News Service. https://www.courthousenews.com/former-georgia-prosecutor-testifies-in-own-trial-over-hindering-ahmaud-arbery-murder-investigation/

Associated Press (2022). “Investigator says drugs motive of Ga. killings” https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/state/2013/10/19/investigator-says-drugs-motive-ga-killings/15453131007/

Shore, J. (2022). “As trial approaches, indicted former Glynn County police chief’s history shows controversies” https://thecurrentga.org/2022/12/19/as-trial-approaches-indicted-former-glynn-county-police-chiefs-history-shows-controversies/

Jackie Johnson, DAs indictment: https://www.google.com/url?esrc=s&q=&rct=j&sa=U&url=https://law.georgia.gov/document/document/indictment-superiorcourtglynnpdf/download&ved=2ahUKEwjKl7jM5_yRAxV4EGIAHV8cF8cQFnoECAIQAg&usg=AOvVaw2Mjdb2TPtKnF1dTTFVLd3s

False KSL Article about me: https://www.ksl.com/article/50195582/woman-threatened-to-kill-judge-who-ruled-against-her-charges-say