October 29th, 2007
Domestic Violence - Following “The Burning Bed”.
Domestic Violence is something I have very little experience with, but I do know October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We hear much less about domestic violence because it is not as profitable as Breast Cancer. Yet there is some indication that 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year1 to three million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.
If people of my parent’s generation thought pronouncing Francine Hughes not guilty by reason of insanity all those years ago, not guilty of setting the bedroom in which her husband was sleeping on fire, would somehow spit in the face of it all and put a halt to domestic abuse, they were clearly mistaken. Domestic Violence did not go away.
I have no direct first hand knowledge of domestic violence. I’ve had only one boyfriend who had potential in that area and I got rid of him rather quickly, though not without some difficulty.
This weekends local news coverage of a horrific incident, and the subsequent rehash of other local cases, provoked me to write this.
A twenty-six year old teacher and mother of twins, who had recently filed for divorce and moved out of the home she shared with her thirty year old husband, was murdered by someone with blunt force to the head, that someone then poured chemical accelerant on every level of the town home and set it on fire. The woman’s body was identified and it was pronounced a homicide and arson. The other body hasn’t been identified as yet, the best guess is it was her husband as he lived there, and is unaccounted for. Many assume he poured accelerant on himself making it rather difficult to identify his body. The twins were unharmed, it appears she had dropped them off at the neighbors home prior to entering her old townhouse, the home her husband still lived in. Questions unanswered but family members say “things had not been going well for some time“.
I’ve only been living here a few months. Since that time there have been a number of incidences nearly just as high profile. A couple weeks ago a women was found bludgeoned to death with her husbands drugged body near-by, earlier this summer a man took the life of his children, and then committed suicide after murdering his wife and dumping her body in the woods some ways away – she wasn’t found for a couple of months. Shortly after this, not too far from here in another county, a man murdered his wife and dumped her on the side of the highway, and just this past Sunday morning, after the shock of the townhouse murder and arson, it turns out another man in the northern part of the county fatally shot his wife early this morning inside their home.
This seems more than excessive to me, and these are only the high profile cases, the ones I remember off the top of my head. This is one county in a suburb of DC, and this is in a matter of a few months.
In all of the cases above there was an unhappy woman, a woman about to leave her spouse and a history of, if not abuse, significant problems between the spouses.
I’m going to leave you with a few recommendations from the experts.
Denial is often an issue for the victim as well as the victim’s and abusers family members.
If the relationship is already unhealthy acts of separation or divorce can precipitate acts of violence even though it’s hard to predict who will become violent. If they already have a have a history - be forewarned.
This simple red flag I’m going to post, taken from a few local experts, has always been one of the most obvious to me.
“the “too much, too soon” concept —-people who are overly amorous at the start of a relationship with cards, roses, declarations of love or the constant need to see their partner.
“That’s a big red flag for relationships, an empty spot that person needs to fill,”. “That intensity is an indicator to a loser lover.”
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Domestic Violence dot Org
Women’s Law dot Org
Coaching Boys Into Men
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Domestic Violence and Abuse:Warning Signs and Symptoms of Abusive Relationships
Domestic Violence Information Center:FMF
The Women’s Center
Heartly House Inc
Domestic Violence Facts
Women Safe dot Org
