Early numbers suggest domestic violence homicides may be on the rise around the country

 Early numbers suggest domestic violence homicides may be on the rise around the country

In two major counties, preliminary data shows domestic violence homicides are already twice 2019 totals—with nearly all occurring since the pandemic began.

 

NBCNews.com Multiple Vids Available on Original Page

 

Oct. 18, 2020, 5:02 AM EDT

By Adiel Kaplan

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), visiting www.thehotline.org or texting LOVEIS to 22522.

Domestic violence homicides are on the rise in many cities around the country, according to preliminary data from local law enforcement. In at least two major counties, they have doubled — a reversal of multi-year declines. Experts attribute much of the alarming increase to the social and economic pressures of the coronavirus pandemic.

Annual national data on domestic violence murders is not released until well into the following year, but violent crime and homicides have increased this year in cities from Milwaukee to New York, and some cities are already reporting spikes in domestic violence homicides.

In Memphis, Milwaukee and Jefferson Parish, a New Orleans suburb, domestic violence homicides had equaled or surpassed last year’s total by Oct.13, NBC News found. In Tarrant County, Texas — home to Fort Worth — they had more than doubled.

In the Seattle area, there were 14 domestic violence homicides in 2020 through Oct. 8, equal to the combined total for 2018 and 2019, according to the King County District Attorney’s office. All but one of the 2020 homicides occurred after the governor issued a Covid-19 state of emergency.

It is too soon to draw conclusions about trends, or assign any statistical significance when working with small numbers, but any increase in domestic violence homicide is worrying, said Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“Hard national data is impossible to come by, but we know domestic violence is on the rise” during the pandemic, she said. “My bigger concern is those [victims] who aren’t reporting, particularly during this time when things are even more frightening and it’s potentially harmful, potentially lethal to call.”

As the pandemic stretches on, domestic disputes have turned lethal across the country.

In late July, a Milwaukee man strangled and killed his girlfriend during an argument, then put her body in a dumpster before turning himself in to police several days later, court records show. A month later, a Seattle-area man with a previous domestic violence conviction got into a fight with his girlfriend on their way home from celebrating her 23rd birthday with her family. He repeatedly punched her in the face before running her over with his car, killing her, according to a police report. Just last month, a man in Jefferson Parish fatally shot his partner in front of sheriff’s deputies who were responding to a domestic disturbance call made by a neighbor, the New Orleans Advocate reported. The officers then opened fire, killing him.

Domestic violence lawyers and advocates in eight cities told NBC News that anecdotal information supports their belief that during lockdowns victims have had fewer opportunities to report abuse or seek help. The reports that do come in are more violent and dangerous.

“When people reach out, they’ve experienced greater abuse and the situations are more dangerous,” said Sue Chandler, the executive director of Dove Inc, a domestic violence agency in Quincy, Mass. “The very conditions that keep us safe in the public health pandemic are creating greater danger for victims of domestic violence.”

Increasing Violence

Advocates, shelter providers and law enforcement work to reach domestic violence victims before things get deadly. But that work has become more challenging during the pandemic. Not only are victims and abusers facing more isolation and stress, but many of the ways victims first find help remain severely limited seven months into the outbreak.

While the tightest coronavirus safety restrictions from March and April have largely lifted, the hurdles for reaching victims have not gone away, advocates and lawyers said.

“We’re very concerned that we probably serve only a fraction of survivors out there,” said Lupe Artiga, the managing attorney for the Northwest Justice Project’s family law unit, which provides free legal aid in King County, Wash. With things largely functioning virtually, her team cannot be at the court to provide in-person services to people who walk in.

“There is probably a vast number of victims that aren't coming forward because they don't know where to look, or the system — maybe they try it on their own and it's very confusing, and they give up.”

Women Against Abuse in Philadelphia, which provides shelter and legal services for victims, used to have lawyers at the court every day to serve people seeking help, said Molly Callahan, the nonprofit’s legal center director. Protection orders are now filed virtually, so her team has shifted to making outreach calls on cases referred by the district attorney.

“We’re really trying to figure out, since we’re not in the physical places we used to be, how do we make sure people know about us?” Callahan said.

Identifying victims of domestic violence as early as possible can be a matter of life and death. They are less likely to die once they’ve made contact with advocates, police or the courts, said Allenna Bangs, chief of the domestic violence prosecution unit for Tarrant County, Texas, which includes Fort Worth and Arlington.

“If you even have made contact for a regular assault or for a strangulation or for something, you're less likely to die,” said Bangs, who also serves on a task force with advocates and police that reviews domestic violence deaths in the county. “We know statistically that most of the people that we deal with in the fatality review had not made contact with the system in some way.”

With abusers and their victims sharing the same space during lockdown, victims have less opportunity to call police. Add the lack of access to outlets where signs of abuse in the home often first appear — work, visits with family members, school — “that combination of things is going to cause more homicides. The violence is going to increase,” said Bangs.

She believes it’s already happening in her county.

High Risk

On April 23, police in Arlington, Texas, discovered the body of a 65-year-old woman wrapped in a trash bag inside her home. Joseph Sudduth was charged with murdering his wife Sue Sudduth and then leaving her to decompose for two weeks. According to the indictment, Joseph confessed to his brother that he “snapped” and used a cord to strangle her during an altercation on April 11.

Sudduth is awaiting his trial on home confinement after being released from jail on bond. Tarrant County has not held any jury trials since February.

The county has seen 18 domestic violence murders (classified in Texas as interpersonal violence homicides) so far in 2020, according to the criminal district attorney’s office. Its previous high — 16 — came in 2016. A new chief prosecutor wanted to bring that number down, and began reforming how domestic violence prosecution worked in the county, including creating the team Bangs leads.

As part of that push, the DA worked with the local domestic violence agency, SafeHaven of Tarrant County, to launch a collaborative “high risk team” in 2017. The team, led by SafeHaven, brought together prosecutors, advocates and law enforcement to assess cases for indication of potentially lethal future violence and ensure the highest risk ones did not fall through cracks in the system.

It was working, team members told NBC News. Domestic violence murders were on decline for three years before the pandemic hit, with just eight reported last year. High risk teams like the one in Tarrant County are seen as a successful model to prevent domestic violence homicides, springing up around the country in recent years. The team in Cleveland, created a year prior to Tarrant County’s, is part of the Department of Justice’s Domestic Violence Homicide Prevention Initiative, and has been the subject of positive reports by Case Western Reserve University annually.

But Tarrant County’s team can’t keep up with all the potentially high risk cases that have come in this year, said Kathryn Jacob, the CEO of SafeHaven, who manages the team.

“There are easily 400 cases we could take on any given day,” she said. Jacob was able to hire a new case manager for the high risk team this year, for a total of four, an improvement, she said, but nowhere near enough. “There are thousands of potential cases. But the bigger the case load, the less effective your work is.”

With the court system hamstrung by the pandemic and concerns of overcrowding jails and violating due process rights, many domestic violence suspects have been released on bond.

In May, watching the number of domestic violence suspects and offenders out on bond grow and homicide numbers climb past last year’s count, the high risk team in Tarrant County made a decision: exclusively take on cases where the perpetrator is out on bond.

“We pivoted to focus on that high risk population and the bond condition,” said Bangs, the prosecutor. “The majority of these people are not going to go to shelter, but we need them to have a safety plan in place when we know that this is not going to get resolved in a timely fashion.”

The district attorney’s office has made other changes in recent months, including following up on misdemeanor family violence charges the day they receive them, when it previously might have been a week or more before a victim would hear from a prosecutor. But it’s an uphill battle, Bangs said. Two more interpersonal violence homicides were reported just last week.

Tarrant County is not alone in dealing with a surge of domestic violence bond cases. Jefferson Parish has seen such an increase in cases that the court expanded its domestic violence bond hearing days from three per week to four, just to manage them all. Cuyahoga County in Ohio has seen lower bond granted in more domestic violence cases since the pandemic began to avoid jail overcrowding. The county’s Witness Victim Services Center has a victim advocate at the court daily to “encourage higher bond” for alleged abusers “where appropriate,” said Jill Smialek, the center manager.

Yet both domestic violence agencies and prosecutors are bracing for budget cuts as the economy contracts, while they expect the need for their services to increase.

“I guarantee you that once we are out of the stay at home orders across the nation — whatever those look like — once things go back to ‘normal,’ we will see a jump in reporting to police or shelter needs,” said Glenn of the national coalition. “My concern is places having the capacity when this influx comes.”

Read Original: NBCNews.com Multiple Vids Available on Original Page

Abuser wanted for Murder of his Wife

 Monday's Child, Full Of Woe 

In 1980, Pat and John Poulakis were set on adopting a little boy into their family. That all changed when the Poulakis' saw 12-year-old Deana Schermerhorn and her brother Paul on "Monday's Child," a television program in Knoxville, Tenn., aimed at finding children permanent homes. The couple instantly fell in love with the two and were almost immediately adopted into the family.

"It's a wonderful story about adoption," says AMW correspondent Angeline Hartmann, who worked on the story. "They gave the two kids a beautiful life."

While Deana grew up to be a beautiful and talented hair stylist, friends and family said a few rocky relationships left her unlucky in love. She was struggling as a single mother to her young son, Gabriel, when things started looking up in 2006. Deana met someone who seemed to be the man she had been waiting for -- Christopher Meade. The two began dating and eventually moved to North Carolina for a fresh start.

"Deana thought he was a good father to her son, Gabe," Angeline says. "Her sister tells me that Deana just liked him -- thought he was cute in his cowboy hat and boots."

But the rest of the family was less than impressed. From the beginning, their relationship appeared to be a tumultuous affair.

"They had a history of domestic violence," Angeline says. "They would break up, get back together, etc. So when they got married on New Year's Day 2009, her family was really surprised. She was in love with him, so they couldn't really argue with her. It was her life."

Deana's brother Jack even took it upon himself to have a heart-to-heart with Meade, asking him to end the toxic relationship before anyone got seriously hurt. According to Jack, Meade obnoxiously brushed off the advice and said something along the lines of, "I've already made my bed, and I'm going to sleep in it. If I kill her, I kill her. If I go to prison, I go to prison."

In early November 2009, those close to Deana grew even more concerned when they hadn't been able to reach her or her husband at all. Deana had always been good about keeping in touch, so family and friends alerted the police of this development.

When police arrived at the couple's home, they found a note on the door indicating that the family took a trip. Deana never mentioned anything about a trip to her parents, and they spoke on the phone every day.
After about a week, cops say Meade showed up at his mother's house to drop off 4-year-old Gabe, and then Meade took off with no word about where he was going.

Happy to see Gabriel home safe and sound, family members still worried about Deana, knowing it was highly unlikely she would simply leave her son behind. Suspecting possible foul play, cops began searching the couple's residence and the surrounding areas, but the search yielded no results. Things started to look very fishy, however, when it was revealed Meade had been using Deana's credit cards illegally. His November 2009 transactions took place in North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and other areas. The transactions and photos taken at ATMs are the last traces of Meade, and he hasn't been heard from since.

The investigation picked up momentum in December when a meticulous cop decided to take visit the couple's home again.

"This is a very tiny department; officers would all kinda search on their own spare time," Angeline says. "He was just walking around her house and saw where animals appeared to be digging. Even though he was searching for her, it was a very emotional moment for him. He couldn't believe he found her."

Deana was dead, and her child had become an orphan. Her story had sadly come full circle. Worse yet, cops believe young Gabriel was there on the day of Deana's death.

"The biggest thing for me is the 4-year-old left behind," Angeline says. "Turns out his biological father committed murder-suicide years ago, so the Gabriel has no mom or dad. Cops think he probably saw what happened that day."

Gabriel now lives with Deana's sister and her husband, who have lovingly adopted him. Cops have charged Christopher Meade with credit card theft and want to talk to him about his wife's murder. Tune in Saturday night to get the full story and call in with any information regarding Deana's death. In the meantime, get all the info from the case file at AMW.com

A National Child Custody Crisis: Why are Moms Punished in Court?

I know both of these moms personally, and they are beautiful women. This was written for Mom Logic...please go to their website and leave a comment on this important topic of mothers losing children to their abusers.

Custody Crisis: Why Moms Are Punished in Court

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Talk to mothers, divorce lawyers, and child advocates and you'll hear tales of a family court system that's badly broken.

Gina Kaysen Fernandes: To an outsider, Linda Marie Sacks had the perfect life. Her husband was rich, and they lived in a huge home in Daytona Beach, FL, where she spent her days shuttling her girls to school and various activities. Linda Marie describes herself as a "squeaky clean soccer mom" who "lived my life for my children." Behind that façade, Linda Marie says she married a monster -- a man who verbally and emotionally attacked her for years and sexually abused their two young daughters.

When she finally left him and tried to take her girls with her, she encountered a new monster -- family court. Rather than protecting Linda Marie and her two young daughters from a sexual predator, a family court judge denied Linda Marie custody and put her daughters into the hands of their sexually abusive father.

Talk to mothers, divorce lawyers, and child advocates and you'll hear tales of a family court system that's badly broken. It's one that routinely punishes women for coming forward with allegations of abuse by denying them custody of their children. Instead of protecting children from abusers and predators, the court often gives sole custody to the abusive parent, say child advocates. Mothers who tell judges their children are being molested or beaten are accused of lying and are punished for trying to intervene. Some are thrown in jail for trying to keep their kids from seeing an abusive parent. Women, many of whom have few financial resources at their disposal, are often at the mercy of a court system that is not designed to handle domestic violence.

Linda Marie first suspected something was wrong in 2002 when she received a shocking phone call from a school administrator. Her 7-year-old daughter was acting out sexually, with knowledge beyond her years. A short time later, the Sunday school teacher reported overhearing Linda Marie's daughter saying, "I suck my dad's penis." She received more phone calls from school about her little girl using Barbie dolls to simulate oral sex with a boy in her class. "I was very concerned, these are alarming red flags," said Linda Marie.

She consulted family therapists who also expressed alarm and concern, but failed to report these claims to an abuse hotline. In one of the therapy sessions, the oldest daughter drew a picture that depicted her father as an erect penis on legs. Linda Marie says she once walked in on her husband wiping her daughters' vaginas in the bathroom before school, "because he told me he wanted them to be fresh." When Linda Marie confronted her husband, he ignored and dismissed the allegations.

After 11 years of marriage, Linda Marie filed for divorce in 2004. Armed with detailed documentation, she believed the judge would grant her sole custody of her two daughters for their protection. "I was sheltered. I didn't know I had stepped into a national crisis in the courts," said Linda Marie, who spent tens of thousands of dollars in a legal battle that ended in the loss of her parental rights. Linda Marie has only seen her children during supervised visits for a total of 54 hours over the past two and a half years. "I'm one of the lucky moms," she said, choking back tears. "Some bonds are severed forever. I'm thankful for my two hours a month."

Some mothers like Lorraine Tipton of Oconto Falls, WI, have served jail time as the result of contentious custody arraignments. In November, a judge sentenced Lorraine to 30 days behind bars because she didn't force her 11-year-old daughter to follow the court's order to live every other week with her abusive father. "She's terrified of going; she has night terrors and severe anxiety," said Lorraine.

Her ex, Craig Hensberger, was arrested three times for domestic violence and once for child abuse. His criminal record also includes two DUI arrests, one of which happened while driving with his daughter. The court ordered Hensberger into rehab and demanded "absolute sobriety," but his daughter claims he still drinks excessively when she visits.

Hensberger admitted in court that he still continues to drink, but the judge punished Lorraine instead for trying to protect her child. "My abuser is continuing his abuse of me and my daughter with the help of the court," said Lorraine, who spent three days locked up until her daughter made the heart-wrenching decision to return to her father's home so her mother could be released from jail. "He can't get to me physically. The only way he knows how to hurt me is to take my child away."

"What we are seeing amounts to a civil rights crisis," says attorney and legal writer Michael Lesher, who co-authored the book From Madness To Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts -- and What Can Be Done about It. Many judges and court-appointed guardians act above the law with apparent impunity, he argues.

"There's no hearing, no evidence, no notice -- they can take your child away from you," Lesher tells momlogic. If a mother raises concerns or openly discusses child abuse in court, she typically ends up being the one under investigation. "Mom is guilty until proven innocent," he says.

A family court judge with the Los Angeles Superior Court refused momlogic's request for an interview to respond to these allegations.

Unlike criminal court, family court does not rely on criminal investigators to gather evidence in an alleged child abuse case. Instead, the court appoints family advocates known as "guardian ad litem," or GAL, who are expected to investigate the abuse allegations and make their recommendation in the best interest of the child. GALs are sometimes licensed psychologists, social workers, or attorneys who are not necessarily trained in evaluating sexual abuse or domestic violence. They have the judge's ear, and their opinions can alter a child's future. There are no juries and there's no mandate for legal representation. In fact, most women end up representing themselves because they can't afford the attorney fees.

Most moms don't want to take the case to criminal court because they prefer to keep the matter private. Legal experts contend the evidence in sexual abuse cases isn't typically strong enough to hold up in criminal court to overcome the threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt." While the bar is set much lower for proving evidence in family court, advocates argue Child Protective Services frequently doesn't want to get involved. "If there's a custody battle going on, CPS won't touch it," says Irene Weiser of the advocacy group StopFamilyViolence.org.

There's no doubt fathers play a critical role in a child's life, and in most cases, are equally loving and capable parents who deserve custody. However, studies find when a wife accuses her husband of abuse, more than half the time, she faces a counter-accusation of "parental alienation syndrome," or PAS. Although PAS is not a medically recognized disorder, divorce attorneys often successfully argue that it emerges when a parent brainwashes a child into thinking the other parent is the enemy.

The psychiatrist Richard Gardner, who first coined the phrase "parental alienation syndrome" in 1987, has written more than one hundred articles on the subject, but has offered no scientific data to support his theory. While it's not considered a certifiable medical condition, PAS is widely accepted in the legal community.

"Parental Alienation unequivocally, categorically exists, and it's a form of child abuse," says author and forensic consultant Dean Tong. While he believes more studies need to be done to validate PAS, "it does exist, anecdotally speaking," he says. As an expert witness, Tong has been called a "fathers' rights prostitute" for his work in court clashes. But he also testifies for mothers who are fighting to appeal unfavorable rulings. For Tong, it's about using forensics to find the truth. "I'm not here to protect guys who are guilty," he says.

In years past, mothers were typically considered the "protective parent" in custody decisions when courts relied on the "Tender Years Doctrine," which states that children under the age of 13 should live with their mothers. Recently, several courts have ruled that doctrine violated the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th amendment, and replaced it with the "Best Interests of the Children" doctrine. It's a huge victory for the increasingly powerful Fatherhood Movement that contends dads are systematically alienated from their children after a divorce.

Tong argues the current legal climate continues to put fathers on the receiving end of false allegations. "It's handcuffs first, speak later," said Tong, who experienced that firsthand. In 1985, Tong's ex-wife falsely accused him of sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter. He spent time in jail and went through "a year of hell" trying to prove his innocence. While Tong was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, he never regained custody of his kids, and remained under supervised visitation for years. Tong became a self-taught expert on the subject of family rights and abuse accusations. He has written three books, including Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused.

"There's an assumption that maintaining a child's relationship with the father is a good idea -- even if the father is abusive," says Stop Family Violence's Weiser, who believes when the overburdened court system is unable to sort out a custody conflict, it relies on misogyny. She argues there are many judges, GALs, and evaluators who believe that women are inherently vindictive and will lie to get a leg up in a custody battle. "We see it over and over again in family court, where judges or professionals don't believe the violence is occurring," Weiser says.

"All we have is 'he said, she said.' Who's telling the truth? That's up to the judge," says Tong, who believes the justice system isn't working for either side. "The system is not doing a good job interviewing kids, we're still in the dark ages there," says Tong, who thinks there needs to be more formal education and training for the professionals, including judges who are hearing child custody cases.

According to the American Bar Association, child abuse allegations in custody disputes are rare -- occurring in only six percent of cases. The majority of those accusations are substantiated. In terms of false allegations, fathers are more likely than mothers to intentionally lie (21 percent, compared to 1.3 percent). In fact, abusive parents are more likely to seek sole custody than nonviolent ones, and are successful about 70 percent of the time.

After three years of litigation, Linda Marie Sacks says she was no match for her ex-husband's financial resources and powerful connections. "He was buying his way through the courtroom." Despite 10 calls into the abuse hotline by licensed professionals, Linda Marie's ex-husband still claimed she was making false allegations of abuse to alienate his children, and the judge believed him. Linda Marie was kicked out of her home and put on supervised visitation with her two daughters, who are now ages 10 and 12. "The judge legally kidnapped my daughters and won't give them back," she said.

In some extreme cases, a custody decision will be reversed, which is what happened to Joyce Murphy. The San Diego mother was charged with kidnapping after she took her daughter out of state, away from the girl's father, because she believed he was a child molester. The father, Henry Parson, accused Joyce of parental alienation and she lost custody. "Despite my pleas for protection to the police and the DA and the family court representatives, and even psychologists, Mr. Parson was able to convince them and the community at large that he was the victim, and I was just an angry, embittered, divorced woman," explained Joyce.

Six years later, Parson was caught in the act and pleaded guilty to six counts of child abuse, which included oral sex with a child, molestation, possessing child porn, and using a child to make porn. After Parson received a six-year prison sentence, Joyce told reporters that family court's only good decision in her case was granting her full permanent custody of her daughter after her ex-husband was jailed.

Lorraine, the Wisconsin mom who was jailed for protecting her daughter, knows her daughter's nightmare will continue for the rest of her childhood. "He's never going to stop, it's never going to end until she's 18." Linda Marie says she's putting every penny towards her legal efforts to win back custody of her daughters. "I will never stop fighting for my girls. I know one day justice will prevail."

Critics argue that not only is the family court system broken, it was never designed to deal with issues like child custody. The goal is to develop solutions that are in the best interest of the child. "Unfortunately when judges and guardians start thinking of themselves as super government, all sorts of abuses will occur," says attorney and author Lesher.

Activists are working towards making reforms through legislation. "The heartbreaking challenge is that there's not one quick fix," says Stop Family Violence's Weiser. "This is a war -- it's very ugly, it's bloody, and very bitter," concludes Tong.

Read more: http://www.momlogic.com/2010/01/custody_crisis_why_mothers_are_punished_in_family_court.php#ixzz0d6gnoB5W

10 Myths About Domestic Violence

I think this blog post is something that anyone that has dealt with Domestic Violence, or has a family member or friend involved in Domestic Violence should read.  I agree with many points within this blog, and feel that one of the most important things that we as Advocates and Survivors need to do is help dispel the myths and misconceptions that many have surrounding Domestic Violence.

10 Myths About Domestic Violence 

1. Only women are victims of domestic violence.  

Between 2001 and 2005, 22% of all reports regarding nonfatal violence cited females over the age of 12 as the victims and...

 2. Domestic violence occurs only in lower-class, uneducated, or minority households.

Domestic violence does not discriminate against socioeconomic, educational, age, sexual preference, or racial lines any more than it does gender. It can happen to anyone...

3. Instances of domestic violence are actually quite rare.

In May of 2002 alone, 16 of the largest urban counties in the United States reported a combined total of 3,750 cases of intimate partner violence. Trending data shows...

4. Domestic violence is usually a one-time-only occurrence.

In May of 2002, 46% of convictions for nonfatal intimate partner violence had a history of prior abuse towards the victim. While some instances of domestic violence only involve one incident...

5. Victims of domestic violence usually provoke the abuse. 

A blame the victim philosophy surrounds many violent crimes, with fingers pointed towards men and women alike who find themselves on the receiving end of abuse questioned almost as intensively as their assailants. Many mistakenly believe...

6. Substance abuse is the root cause of domestic disturbances. 

Drugs and alcohol amplify aggression, and many men and women abuse their spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, or other intimate partners while under the influence. However...

7. Domestic violence is an issue that only needs addressing between the people involved.

The fact that 21.8% of female victims and 39.2% of male victims fail to report their abuse at the hands of an intimate partner because they believe the matter is best handled...

8. Improving a broken relationship can stop a batterer.  

In believing that working on the relationship between abuser and victim makes for a solution to end abuse, the mindset that...

9. Victims stay in violent situations because they secretly enjoy being beaten.  

Another corollary to the blame the victim perspective labels repeat recipients of domestic abuse as masochists who stay in violent situations because...

10. Domestic violence is a side effect of a patriarchal society or filial structure. 

Many perceive domestic abuse as a negative aspect of living within a patriarchal society or a family where men dominate over the women. Studies have shown...

Original Blog Post

Knight in Tarnished Armor

One of our members shared the link to a story written by a Domestic Violence Survivor, and I've since talked to her and gotten permission to share with you the below.  Not many Survivors are able to put in book form what they went through for many various reasons, and it's always amazing when yet another Survivor is able to do so.  I not only thank Erin for writing this book, but for reaching out to others that are in need of her courage!

Knight in Tarnished Armor by Erin Donovan

I often have said that if domestic violence was going to happen to anyone, it was a good thing it happened to me.  I was raised in a very loving, kind, stable household.  My parents are the best, and there was hardly ever a voice raised in our house, let alone people beating on others.  I grew up with a strong sense of self, fierce independence and a lot of self esteem.  I had supported myself for years before I got married and really wasn't all that interested in getting married, until my "knight" came along.  So when it came time to get out - I did - after almost three years of abuse.  But I couldn't get off my mind the women who have gone through similar circumstances and didn't have the fortitude or the support group that I did.  I didn't have children, didn't have to go to a shelter, didn't have to go find a job or place to live.  I had it easy - and still almost ended up dead.  I just kept thinking of the thousands and thousands of women who go to bed at night praying they will wake up in the morning and almost wishing they wouldn't because they will have to go through another day of abuse.  So, this book kept writing itself in my head.  Heck, I'm not an author, but I wrote a book about what I know, and I know domestic violence.  I'm stronger for it and my goal is to help anyone, woman, man, child, whomever, make it out and live life the way it should be lived - without fear of being abused, beaten or killed. 

In addition to my book, I've taken classes and courses and attended seminars and have read countless books on abuse.  I co-founded a support group for women which meets once a month.  This group isn't just for abuse victims, it's for anyone woman who needs the support of other women. Then I have "Sit and Sip" - which I call comfort sessions. These are conversations - either e-mail, phone or in person - with domestic violence victims where basically I let them talk.  I have found that I'm a very good listener and have the knack to ask questions that draws out what a victim needs to get out without making them feel pressured.  One woman, a stranger, called me out of the blue and talked for 4 hours.  At the end, she said, "You know, I've never told anyone my story from beginning to end before.  My life really sucks!" And she left her abuser right after that and is a very successful real estate agent now.  All she needed was to see her life in perspective, for someone to listen, and that's what I do.

The Knight has been out since September 8, 2009 and the feed back I have been getting is exciting and humbling at the same time.  I wrote this book for one reason - to help other victims - and I'm glad to say what I have been hearing is that it's doing just that.  There is a safety plan (compliments of Focus Ministries - a WONDERFUL organization for victims) and encouragement after my story.  One woman ordered one for herself and after she read it she ordered four more to send to each of her granddaughters.  I've have done a few radio interviews, but I do have to be careful with where I do what because my ex is still out there and if knows I've revealed his dirty secrets for all the world to see...I'm dead...he WILL kill me, no doubt in my mind. 

I guess the best way to sum it up is to read what I have written on my website and I'll include it here:

Welcome to my World

During the years of marriage to the man I thought was my knight in shining armor, the violence that quickly escalated took me by surprise.  I had no idea the man he truly was, was not the man I married; sweet, considerate, loving and gentle.  There were reasons for the abuse, I was told, so I waited, hoping it would stop. As the violence increased, I started a journal to document what  was happening.  I would document our latest "encounter", make a copy and give it to my mother to hold in a large manilla envelope - just in case he killed me, there would be enough proof to put him away forever.  Sounds a bit sad, but when you are a victim, you think like a victim.

What you will read in my book are those actual journal entries, as well as letters I had written to my husband and his doctors.  I have filled in with facts between the entries to flesh out my story and give you a glimpse into the world of a domestic violence victim.

But the important part of Knight in Tarnished Armor is not my story.  The important part is the advice at the end, the safety plan, the encouragement, and hopefully the realization that if you are a victim, you are just one step away to being a survivor - that one step out the door that will lead to your freedom. I'm not saying it's easy, but believe me, it's worth it.

I have my life back. I've never been happier and I'm stronger for having walked through the fire.  You can do it too and become the woman you want to be.  Take that step, we are here to help.