I left my home state in 2013 after a marriage marred by emotional and verbal abuse escalated to the threat of physical abuse. There is no more sobering realization than accepting that the wall/door/kitchen island that cracks under punches and kicks could have been your face.

 

Both of my daughters supported my decision. They never said it out loud, but I suspect they wonder what took me so long.

The decision to move almost a 1000 miles away before I filed for divorce seemed wise when Kelly J Robarge of Charlestown NH disappeared the day she filed for divorce from her husband. He was eventually convicted of murdering her, but in our court system being convicted of murdering your wife or girlfriend is harder than you’d imagine. (Yes, I’m thinking of OJ Simpson).

On October 20, 2014 my daughter’s boyfriend, Caleb Linart of Walhalla, called me and asked me to come to his house to get my daughter as they’d been fighting and he couldn’t get her to leave. I arrived to find her half clothed, face down on the bedroom floor. I stayed on the phone with the 911 dispatcher as I attempted to start CPR, but she had been dead so long she was too stiff to even turn over. After the paramedics ushered me out of the house, and the police arrived I texted Caleb a short message, “Alana is dead.”

When he arrived back at his house, crying and distraught, I didn’t have a lot of questions. My mind reeled, thinking perhaps Alana had an accidental overdose of pain pills and alcohol from an injury she suffered a few weeks before. She’d returned home from a weekend with Caleb with a bruise that stretched over her entire side. It was so painful I wondered if she’d broken a rib and when I asked how it happened she’d had a plausible story: Caleb and her were moving a couch and he pushed it too hard and the arm of the couch hit her in the side.

I didn’t think twice about it.

A detective introduced himself to me and asked questions. I patiently waited on the lawn in the hot South Carolina sun, knowing my daughter’s lifeless body was behind the front door of the house I stood in front of and having no idea what to do next.

Eventually the medical examiner came out and asked if I wanted to come inside and see her before they moved her. She was in a black body bag, unzipped just enough so that I could see her face. I had no idea that underneath the bag her body was covered with bruises and markings from being beat. I had no idea they’d asked to photograph Caleb’s hands to document any evidence of his fists being the ones that beat her. I had no idea they’d bagged her fingernails to protect any evidence they might provide.

I had no idea.

The next day when the medical examiner drove up with a woman he said was the victim’s advocate assigned to Alana’s case, I was more than a little puzzled. It had never crossed my mind her death was to due to domestic violence. No clue her autopsy showed signs she had been both beaten and strangled.

They later told me she also had a lethal level of heroin in her system. Another surprise as she was not an addict.

Two medical examiners, two different outcomes. Both agreed she’d been beaten and strangled. The Oconee one said the heroin killed her before the strangulation. The other maintained she’d died of strangulation. On some level it didn’t matter, she was still dead.

And I will never know exactly how she died. The State of South Carolina Victim’s Assistance Fund heard the testimony of the detective in charge and paid for her funeral as a victim of violence. The court downgraded Caleb’s charge to attempted murder and eventually, after Caleb’s former girlfriend withdrew her statement that he had a history of domestic abuse, the solicitor encouraged me to file a civil complaint as we would not prevail in a criminal case. The police never found the heroin that contributed to her death, and even the pictures that Caleb snapped of her that morning, dead on his bedroom floor, didn’t show any drugs. By calling me to come to his house, he’d left open the defense that she had taken the drugs herself and I had covered it up.

As so often with murder victims, our court system would not extract a price for her death.

What I do know is the part I played in my daughter’s story of domestic violence. I, like so many other women, endured years of verbal and emotional abuse and explained it away. I was the one who made excuses, kept the peace, and normalized a relationship that was not normal.

Some of you may see yourself in those words. You tell your children things like daddy didn’t mean it or dad had a hard time at work or dad just had too much to drink, he really does love us. To you, I want to say stop.

Just stop.

Teach your daughters that they are deserving of relationships that are founded on love and respect. That alcohol or stress or jealously is no excuse for abuse. Be clear there is no acceptable level of abuse. Most of all, show by your example and if that means leaving an abusive relationship, seek the proper help so you and your children can escape without becoming victims of further violence.

Most of all, don’t blame yourself. On Alana’s facebook page she posted:  “So there were two choices: I could close myself off, resign myself to the fact that the world is an imperfect place and I could carry my hurt like a security blanket. Or, I could forgive myself. I could decide that loving people isn’t a weakness and trusting people isn’t a flaw. I could decide when others wrong me that’s a reflection on them, not me. That’s the beauty of it. Something that could have damaged me and made me bitter ended up opening my heart in ways I never knew. So yes, I believe there’s always a chance.”

Think on the line that says “when others wrong me, that’s a reflection on them, not me.”

It is not your fault. You do not deserve to be abused.

In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and my daughter, who never got a chance to escape an abusive situation, consider donating to Safe Harbor, Turning Points, or any group providing services for victims of abuse.

If you are a victim of abuse, call The Domestic Violence Hotline  at 1−800−799−7233. Your mothers, your fathers, your sisters and brothers, and your children are all counting on you. You deserve the chance not to be another statistic in a government national domestic violence report. There are already too many women that are.