She Wrote About Wanting a Loving Father. Then She Killed One.

The woman charged with the premeditated murder of Weakley County Sheriff’s Deputy Derrick Bonham had spent two decades working in the corrections system, according to news outlets near her hometown in Ohio. She also published a memoir just 15 months before the shooting that explicitly detailed a childhood full of abuse, an attraction to violence, and hatred of men.

Khristi Dawn Cunningham, 44, of Canal Fulton in Stark County Ohio worked as an operations manager at Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility in Massillon, Ohio. She also previously served as a corrections officer at Richland Correctional Institution from December 2023 until September 2025, when she resigned.

On January 30, 2026, Cunningham allegedly ambushed and killed Deputy Bonham in what authorities describe as a carefully planned attack involving a false 911 call. You can read the full affidavit here.

Memoir

In November of 2024, Cunningham published “Damaged Goods: Memoir of a Phoenix Rising” on Amazon. The self-published book recounts her early life of severe abuse in graphic detail.

It isn’t a manifesto that explains why she committed the alleged act, rather, it serves as a glimpse inside her mind.

In the memoir, Cunningham recalled extensive physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by her father, stepfather, and other men in her life. She described her abusers as “monsters” in her life.

According to her book, the abuses began during her infancy and persisted all throughout her formative and teenage years.

She explained that each time Child Protective Services became involved, her parents would move the family to another state, effectively shielding her abusers from accountability.

Throughout her childhood, Cunningham’s family moved constantly between Ohio, Indiana, and Texas.

Beyond documenting her trauma, the book also reveals Cunningham’s own propensity for violence.

In the book, she explained that during her freshman year of high school, she got involved with a gang while living in Dallas, Texas.

“I had no problem inflicting violence on others, and I was really good at collecting owed debts for my ‘homeboys’. The sound of flesh striking flesh, and the smell of fresh blood had taken on a new meaning for me. It empowered me. It allowed me to have control, and release the rage I had been carrying,” she wrote.

She added, “I f***ing loved fighting, and the protection the gang provided. My monster was coming to life.”

Later on in the book, Cunningham described ongoing anger and distrust.

“I feel alone and drowned in anger, at the loss of that little girl,” she wrote. “I don’t trust a lot of people, and I don’t like being touched or complimented. I hate men. I know there are real monsters hidden in plain sight everywhere.”

Cunningham also described in graphic detail incidents where she claims to have committed vigilante violence against men she believed had harmed children.

A Cruel Irony

Throughout her memoir, Cunningham wrote about what she never had with a palpable longing.

She described feeling “jealous of the ‘normal’ big families, filled with positivity and real love.”

She wrote about her own children growing up differently than she did.

“They get to grow up in a house where they are loved and appreciated,” she wrote. “Jokes are told. Pranks are played. Communication is open and honest… My kids have never known a beating, or the feeling of being hungry. They have never seen their parents fight.”

On January 30, 2026, Cunningham took from the Bonham family the very thing she spent decades grieving she never had.

Deputy Bonham was, by all accounts, the kind of father Cunningham wrote about wishing she’d had. He was a devoted husband of nine years to his wife Nicole and a loving father to three young children, ages 7, 4, and 3.

Just the day before his murder, State Representative Tandy Darby of Greenfield recalled seeing Bonham sledding with his kids.

Weakley County Sheriff Terry McDade described him as “quiet and humble”.

Now, three children will grow up without their father. Not because he failed to protect them, but because he was murdered while protecting his community.

In her book, Cunningham described breaking “the generational curses” and giving her own children the stable, loving home she never had. But in killing Deputy Bonham, she inflicted a different kind of devastating loss on three children who had exactly what she claimed to value most: a loving, present father who came home to them each night.

Until he didn’t.

The Bonham children will now carry their own trauma, their own loss, and their own questions about why their father was taken from them. Not through the neglect and abuse Cunningham experienced, but through a premeditated act of violence by a woman who wrote about the very thing she destroyed.