Mother’s video revealing ex-husband sexually assaulted her daughter goes viral

This isn’t your typical Facebook video of cute puppies tumbling down stairs.

In this video, Catherine St. Germain of Loveland, Colo. looks somberly into the camera as she shares her heartbreak, a story she has written out on note cards she silently holds up, one by one.

How she fell in love and married a hard-working, romantic, charming, intelligent man named Aaron Scott, an ex-cop and Navy veteran who loves his mother and motorcycles.

How she thought she’d finally found her “happily ever after.”

How Scott was convicted of sexually assaulted her 15-year-old daughter last year.

She posted the video to her Facebook page with this message: “Many of you know what Hell the last year has been for my family. I ask that you share this short video. I believe we must not remain silent, and instead shine a light in this dark subject.”

Her message has struck a strong chord. The video has been seen nearly 50 million times since she posted it on Friday. In the last few days she’s made the media rounds, telling her story to HLN, the Associated Press and lots of local media.

“I had less than 200 friends on Facebook when I posted this video, I was hoping for maybe 50 shares,” she told Fox 31 in Denver.

Messages, mostly of support, are pouring in, so many that on Wednesday St. Germain stopped posting to it, inviting friends and family to find her on a private page by searching her “standup comedy name.”

“You have a powerful message that others need to hear,” wrote one woman on Facebook. “You are giving others the strength to stand up to their predator.”

However, one of the first messages posted to her Facebook page appears to be from the mother of one of Scott’s three children who accuses St. Germain and her daughter of making “this up to ruin him.”

In the video St. Germain recalls the phone call from police that came on April 23, 2015. Her daughter was at the police station when she got there.

“The policeman handed me her statement. And I started reading, and I don't even think I made it more than a couple of lines in,” St. Germain told KUSA in Denver.

“And I just collapsed on her. And hugged her and told her I was so sorry and how much I loved her.”

Her daughter, she said, is the brave one in all of this.

“I keep saying I didn't do anything brave my kid did. My kid did the bravest thing," St. Germain said. “She spoke out against the person who sexually assaulted her within 24 hours.”

She told KUSA how she met Scott when she was going through a break-up and he provided the support she needed at that point in her life.

She decided to go public with his crime because “I don't want this to happen to anyone else,” said St. Germain, who has tried to kill herself twice since her daughter’s assault.

In the video she warns parents that “monsters look and act normal” and urges single mothers in particular to check sex offender registries to keep their children safe.

Scott, convicted of sexual assault in November, is listed on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s sex offender registry. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 11:20 AM with the headline "Mother’s video revealing ex-husband sexually assaulted her daughter goes viral."