Women broke free from prisons at home

Editor’s note: The following are the stories of three area victims of domestic violence. The names of the victims and others mentioned in their accounts have been changed to guard their identities. Their situations are recounted at times in graphic detail.

BY JENNIFER AMATO

Staff Writer

Lisa was 18 years old when she met her boyfriend. They got to know each other for about three months before pursuing a relationship, which seemed perfectly normal at the time. Scott stopped using drugs and left his bad-natured friends in the first few months, but Lisa said he still acted secretively, lying a lot and projecting an attitude.

In May 2006, the two broke up, much to Scott’s dismay. Although he had shown a bit of a temper during their yearlong relationship, like punching the windshield of a car, driving fast after an argument and disrespecting his mother, Lisa thought that was just his way of dealing with things, and she felt she could change him. However, on one fateful night last July, he called her around 1 a.m. crying, asking that they get back together.

Lisa, realizing Scott was clearly upset and possibly under the influence, told him to come to her house instead of her visiting him. Scott arrived with a friend and they both brought Lisa back to Scott’s house. Although Scott’s friend left, his mother was home, so Lisa felt a bit protected. Since she hadn’t seen his mother in a while, Lisa went to say hello and then returned to Scott’s bedroom.

Scott proceeded to tell Lisa how he had seen her a few months before with a group of friends, assuming she had a new boyfriend. He had held his anger in, although Lisa told him she was not in a relationship with anyone at the time, but Scott started to “act like a lunatic.” She said he started punching the walls and throwing things, so she locked herself in his bathroom. He opened the door and came in, punching the mirror, so she brought him back into his bedroom, hoping he would pass out.

Instead, Lisa said her 200-pound ex-boyfriend grabbed her and pushed her into the wall, choking, biting and punching her. She claims his mother saw what was happening but ignored the situation.

She finally was able to kick him and poke him in the eye, and as she was bleeding everywhere from bite marks which left scars, she ran out into the neighborhood.

“I never ran so fast in my life,” she said.

Although he chased her, she hid behind a bush and tried banging on neighbors’ doors to gain some attention. Eventually a man came upon her and called the police. Although Scott told officials that Lisa had brought a group of guys to beat him up, Scott’s mother finally told them what had actually happened.

Scott received three years’ probation without any jail time for his actions, although Lisa still suffers from physical and mental scars as well as time off from work and extensive medical bills.

Despite the warning signs, Lisa said she had hopes for Scott, thinking that he would change if he saw the error of his ways.

“I felt very upset because I still wanted to help him. I really wanted to help him because there was no one there to fix his problems. … I blamed myself but it is his fault. I can’t change him; he didn’t appreciate it,” she said.

“See, if you keep going back and you think it’s going to change; it just gets worse; it just escalates,” she said.

Patricia was 24 years old when she met her future husband. They both left their current spouses to pursue a relationship with each other. She said that Bill was very nice when they first dated, but he had a jealous streak: one time when they were out he thought someone was looking at her, so he poured beer on her in the parking lot and then cut her outfit off with scissors at home.

However, they continued their relationship and Patricia eventually gave birth to their first daughter. When the baby was 2 years old, Bill punched Patricia in the nose during a heated argument. He wouldn’t call an ambulance, instead telling his wife she would be fine. She eventually stopped bleeding on her own, but he kept her as a prisoner for four years after that, taking her car away and not letting her leave the house.

“All through everything he was very controlling. I was not allowed to be with my family, I was not allowed to go anywhere. Shopping, I was allowed to do that, but of course I was not allowed to go to work,” she said.

The couple had two more daughters, although Patricia says the abuse was still there, even during her pregnancies. However, she said she was made to feel that she was worthless, brainwashed that no one else would accept her if she were a single mother toting around three young children. She never told her family, who lived out of state, about the abuse.

“I thought, I had three kids who were young, where was I going to go? But as they got older, they started to see things,” she said. “I used to just shut my mouth, I was so afraid.”

When her middle daughter was 8 years old, she witnessed her father choke her mother and push her because she planned on taking the girls to the store instead of cleaning up a mess he had started. He threw the kids out of the house, so they wouldn’t see the rest of the incident, and eventually the neighbors called the police.

Afterward he tried to reconcile with Patricia, claiming he went to anger management classes and a marriage counselor. She wanted to give her kids their father.

“I went back and forth, back and forth, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “It took time for me to realize he made me have no self-esteem.”

During her 16 years of marriage she, too, thought Bill would change, but she felt trapped because she didn’t know where to go. She eventually told her parents what had happened.

“My father never laid one hand on me … that’s why I didn’t know what abuse was about. I thought, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be,” she said.

She finally left, buying him out of his house. She has not had contact with him except for court hearings, although he does not pay child support. She said her children have not spoken to him in about eight years and do not want it any other way.

Kelly was 18 when she met her boyfriend, Matthew. She stayed with him for three years despite his being 35 at the time and hooked on drugs. Her mother did not approve of the relationship but she did not care, leaving her mother’s house to live with and take care of him.

By the end of the first year, their relationship was on the rocks. Despite wanting the child Kelly was pregnant with, Matthew attempted to choke her during her pregnancy for unrelated issues.

“That’s why I stayed: he always tried to do it but never really did it,” she said.

One day he invited her down into the basement to see a room he redecorated, but after showering, she felt sick and did not want to go. After an argument, she left for five days and she eventually decided to have an abortion. They were engaged to be married, but he would cheat on her while accusing her of cheating on him, so they stayed apart for a few months to try to fix things from a distance.

“Eventually I went back to him, but now I realize I shouldn’t have done that because he almost killed me. He ruined me.”

Unfortunately, Kelly’s realization came too late. Although Matthew was in and out of jail and she made sure she worked to save money for him when he came back home, one night his jealousy got the best of him. Kelly said he used to stalk her and one night saw her talking to a man where she used to work and Matthew instead misinterpreted the conversation and made her out to be a prostitute.

The next night, from 3 to 8 a.m., her 6-foot-tall, wrestler/football player fiancé choked her eight times, tried to rip her neck off, made her pass out in the shower, threw her into the wall, hit her in the face and kicked and bit her. She suffers from hearing loss and extensive back trouble to this day.

“All I knew how to do was stay alive,” she said.

Kelly also claims Matthew said he had a gun hidden somewhere and that he was going to kill her, but that he decided to beat her to death instead. She believes he felt threatened by her because she was supporting him, and that he couldn’t fulfill his obligations as a man.

“I don’t know what made him like that. He created a scene in his head while he was drinking and on drugs because he knew he was guilty [of cheating],” she said. “Every time he asked me questions it didn’t matter what I said to him.”

She said he beat her until he was tired, and then he started crying because he couldn’t believe what he had done; she believes it was the effect of whatever substances were in his system at the time. At the only opportunity she had to run out the door, she escaped into broad daylight despite his trying to bring her back inside.

“He was mad I got outside again. He thought he had me, that I was just going to pass out again,” she said.

Kelly said that eventually someone called the police department, but she cried because she knew they were going to take him away.

“I was in love with him. I didn’t talk to my mother because of him,” Kelly said, crying.

Now she has a permanent restraining order against him and has reunited with her mother. They are set to go to trial but all she wants is to “move on … forget about it, but I can’t.”

“He took me and made me nothing and he did it intentionally. He turned everybody against me and made me stay in the basement,” she said. “Everything I was trying to do was make our life better and he never saw that.”

Among the lessons the women have learned is to be more aware of aggressive behavior and to remove themselves from a dangerous situation immediately. Lisa warned that if a man doesn’t respect his mother, he is probably not going to respect any other woman in his life.

They also said that broken homes filled with abuse can spur future abusers: Scott was mentally abused by his father and Bill lost his father at 18 and his older brother died of a drug overdose, and received no recognition as the middle child.

And the lasting effects are evident on the victims as well: Patricia says she cannot resume a normal relationship because she still has a fear of men.

“That’s not right. I live alone because I live in fear,” she said. “No man in this world is worth putting you down, making you feel less or that you’re worth nothing, not worth it. We’re all God’s children – no man can play the judge, jury and executioner. It’s a 50-50 relationship.”

The women said they now keep their relationships open to their loved ones so there is no way to hide any negative behavior. They are just as cognizant of verbal aggression as physical, and realize that they cannot change someone who is mentally unstable.

“If I can save one woman, if I can open her eyes to see, it is a beautiful thing. You really, really do suffer, you really suffer,” Patricia said.