When Robin Buonodono saw the TV spot, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. The ad described the 1994 murder of her 5-year-old daughter, Nicole VanNoty. The story of the killing had been repurposed as a political attack ad without her knowledge by a Republican super PAC seeking to defeat Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.

“I had a panic attack,” said Buonodono, who left Michigan after her daughter’s killing. “Why are you using someone’s child’s death for political gain?”The Senate Leadership Fund spent at least $3.7 million on ads that recounted how Jason Symonds raped and killed Nicole. Buonodono said SLF never contacted her.

The ads, which began running in September, were among many funded by SLF, the Republican Party’s most powerful Senate super PAC, that turned real killings into attacks on Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan and North Carolina. A CNN review of ads using the tracking service AdImpact found SLF spent at least $17 million on spots naming victims or perpetrators.

In at least three cases, relatives said SLF never told them their loved ones’ deaths would be used. Family members who spoke to CNN described the spots as haunting, heartbreaking and distressing.

The ad campaign reflects a familiar Republican strategy: invoking violent crime to cast Democrats as soft on public safety. But the reach of streaming, digital and social platforms has made such messages harder for victims’ families to avoid and raises ethical questions about whether political groups – and some Republican campaigns – should seek consent before broadcasting a family’s trauma.

“These ads can circulate in so many different mediums and be present in ways they weren’t before social media,” said Daniel Kreiss, a professor of political communications at the University of North Carolina, who added that notifying a family before an airs is a matter of human decency. “You owe it to those people, that family, to give them a heads up,” Kreiss said.

SLF, which is affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has spent more than $325 million on political ads since the beginning of 2025 to defend the GOP’s Senate majority. It funded the ads examined here in Michigan and North Carolina. Across the political landscape, ad spending is on pace to top $11.6 billion this cycle, which would make this the most expensive election cycle in history, according to AdImpact.

The Senate Leadership Fund did not respond to questions about its advertising practices but provided a statement. “Every life lost to violent crime is an intolerable tragedy, made even worse when it is entirely preventable and the direct consequence of failed liberal policies,” communications director Chris Gustafson said.

In Michigan, SLF pledged $45 million — a state record — to support former Rep. Mike Rogers against El-Sayed, then added another $6 million in August.

SLF also spent roughly $2 million on Michigan ads recounting the 1999 rape and murder of Jessica Ledford. Her fiancé, Robert Homrich, said SLF never contacted him and that for awhile he saw the spots several times a day on YouTube.

“It’s haunting me every day,” Homrich, who still lives in Michigan, said. “They’re using my own personal tragedy to spin an election.”The Michigan ads target El-Sayed’s 2018 proposal to commute life sentences for “low risk” people convicted as juveniles. The Supreme Court had ruled in 2012 mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional, requiring states including Michigan to resentence such inmates.

Symonds, who was 16 when he killed Nicole, was ordered in August to remain in prison for life without parole. Marc Osborne, who killed Ledford shortly before his 18th birthday, is expected to become eligible for parole in 2039 after resentencing.

“Abdul believes we absolutely need to fund law enforcement to protect communities from violent crime,” said El-Sayed’s campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak. “Mike Rogers and his allies will continue to tell absurd lies about Abdul’s record to distract from Rogers’ record of voting against funding for law enforcement.”In response to CNN’s request for comment on this story, the Rogers campaign responded with a statement criticizing El-Sayed’s connections to super PACs.

In North Carolina, SLF spent at least $4 million on ads that showed Jimmie Speight Jr. and said he “murdered an innocent man.”That man was Edmond Moore Jr. His mother, Pamela Moore, said SLF never contacted her.

“It’s heartbreaking, really. It’s heartbreaking and numb. How could you use a mother and a father’s son’s death to give yourself some credibility?”

Moore said. The ads blamed Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper for letting Speight out of prison. As governor, Cooper’s administration settled a pandemic-era lawsuit over prison crowding in 2021, leading to the release of roughly 3,500 inmates.

But Speight had already been released from prison when the settlement was reached.

“Independent fact-checkers have called these attacks false and misleading – Michael Whatley and his allies are desperate and it’s shameful they are using heinous crimes to boost his campaign,” a Cooper campaign spokesperson said in a statement. Whatley’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Democrats have put out few s this year that describe specific victims and crimes. One notable exception: Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign spent at least $5 million on an ad that criticizes his opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, for a plea deal his prosecutors offered a Waco attorney charged with sexually abusing a child. The deal has become a flashpoint in the race that could determine control of the US Senate.

Before this ran, a woman who said she was a spokesperson for the victim’s family posted on Facebook: “Note from the victims’ family: We have not given any statement to Talarico. We have not spoke to him. We are tired of being used in this election. We are tired of lies being told by both Paxton & Talarico, tired of the divide and just tired.”CNN has not been able to verify the post.

“Elected officials on both sides of the aisle have called out Ken Paxton for this corrupt plea deal. The judge presiding over the case has called out this plea deal. Residents of Waco have protested this plea deal. Texans are demanding justice to ensure this never happens to another family,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement. Republicans are leaning on crime because voters tend to trust the party more on the issue, said Travis Ridout, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project. The talking points also give the GOP a potential message at a time when they’re dealing with persistent inflation, high energy costs and an unpopular Republican president.

These types of soft-on-crime attacks have been a Republican staple for decades, from Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign to the 1988 Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis. Last month, President Donald Trump invoked Horton while campaigning for Whatley in North Carolina, arguing that Cooper had failed to keep the state safe. That attack ad featured Horton, a black man imprisoned for murder who was convicted of rape and assault after he failed to return from a Massachusetts prison furlough.

While widely criticized as racist, it proved effective: Dukakis was leading in the polls, but after the ad aired, George H.W. Bush overtook him and went on to a landslide victory.

In that speech, Trump also cited the 2025 murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in Charlotte. Video captured the moment that Decarlos Brown Jr. stabbed Zarutska – footage that was used in an ad funded by Whatley’s campaign without Zarutska’s family’s consent.

“We’ve been very clear: We do not want her death to be political. It’s a public safety issue,” said the family’s attorney Lauren Newton. “No one asked us.”