Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 20, 1994 TAG: 9402200061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In the waiting area outside Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, a woman screams about her husband's refusal to pay child support.
A boy cries as his father disappears into a courtroom.
A mother argues with her son. "You were outside. You didn't see nothing," she says through clenched teeth. "That's what you'd better tell the judge."
Marianne Wooldridge watches - and paces. For the fourth time in three months, she is waiting to face her husband in court.
A trip to court had once meant a 10- to 15-minute drive. This time, she's had to travel 10 hours.
A week before, while her husband was behind bars, she had fled with her two children and all the possessions she could squeeze into her car. She was leaving for a new home, a new job, a new life. She was not supposed to return or tell anyone where she was going.
Marianne was running for her life.
Her husband, Leonard, had become obsessed with the idea of killing her, she told Judge John Ferguson. She had left him, she said, because "I had no doubt he was going to kill me."
Through a relocation program operated by a Roanoke agency, Marianne had found a place to start over. She had returned to Roanoke to testify against Leonard on charges of violating a protective order, brandishing a firearm and making threats over the telephone.
Ferguson found Leonard guilty on all charges. The judge sentenced him to 60 days in jail, with 50 days suspended, on each of two charges of violating the protective order. On the charge of making telephone threats, Ferguson sentenced him to six months, with four months suspended. On the firearms charge, Ferguson gave him 12 months, with six months suspended. All of the sentences were to run concurrently.
"What does that mean?" a confused Marianne asked. "I just want to know when he's getting out."
Running away is the only escape for some victims of abuse. They leave home with instructions to keep their destinations a secret, to change everything about their lives.
One Roanoke program, whose director asked that neither she nor the program be identified, relocated 12 women last year. Another relocated four.
"Sometimes, women feel they have to relocate," said Darlene Young, director of the Turning Point, a Roanoke shelter for battered women. "Some fear for their lives. We have a lot more women here who need to relocate. But that's a big decision, especially when children are involved."
At a preliminary court hearing early last month, Marianne was advised to leave - and to do so before Leonard could be released.
"The judge told me, `I've given you three weeks. Don't count on him getting much more,' " Marianne said.
Virginians Against Domestic Violence - a Williamsburg-based statewide coalition - operates a 24-hour hot line that offers support, referrals and advocacy for victims of abuse.
Since its debut in November, the hot line has received a number of calls from women seeking to relocate, said Joy Wright, hot line coordinator.
"We do hear from a lot of women who feel the system can't protect them and they have to leave to start a new life in order to be protected," she said. "A lot of women go to a shelter and find another home in their own area, get protective orders, take out assault charges, and that works for them.
"For others, that's just not enough."
"It's awful that they have to leave," said Betty McQuatters, a hot-line assistant with Virginians Against Domestic Violence. "It's like the legal system breaks down for them, and they're the ones who have to get out and find a place to go. They can get a protective order, but that isn't going to reach out and grab him."
Virginia's stalking law can be applied in cases of domestic violence, said Deb Downing, victims service analyst for the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, but the victim must initiate action by taking out a warrant.
No one told Marianne about the law.
Seven of the 11 slaying victims in Roanoke last year were women. Authorities have said at least five were killed during arguments with boyfriends or estranged husbands - making 1993 Roanoke's worst year for domestic killings in at least five years.
Marianne says she doesn't want to risk becoming one of those statistics for 1994.
"I'm being forced to leave, not only forced to leave a job I like and friends and co-workers, but to leave everything and start over," she said.
"I'm going to be 40 years old next year. How many start-overs do you think I have left in me?"
People tell Marianne she's one of the lucky ones. She had a job, a car, supportive people around.
"I guess it's much more devastating for other women who've never worked and really depend on their husband and don't have resources," she said.
"But if this is lucky, somebody needs to take a look at something."
Marianne says she is frustrated with a criminal justice system that appears to offer little protection for victims in cases where people have an established relationship, such as husband and wife. If her case had involved one private citizen against another, it might have been handled differently, she contends.
Marianne and Leonard have been married 18 years. They moved to Southwest Virginia from upstate New York 16 years ago - first to Martinsville, later to Roanoke.
Though their marriage was troubled, Marianne did not consider herself a physically battered woman.
"He'd get angry and say some things to me. But there was never anything where the police were called."
Until November. Leonard had come home late, cursing and abusive, Marianne said. Things got out of hand. Marianne's 17-year-old son called the police, who came to their Northwest Roanoke home but explained there was little they could do, she said.
They advised Marianne to see the city magistrate. With her son and 13-year-old daughter in tow, Marianne spent two hours with the magistrate, hashing over details of the incident.
Marianne said she left with an informational pamphlet and a card with the name of a Roanoke agency that counsels victims of domestic violence.
The next morning, Marianne went to the agency and explained her situation to an employee. The employee asked Marianne to think about relocating.
"I told her that sounded pretty drastic," Marianne said.
The employee also advised that Marianne file for custody of her children and for a protective order. Marianne followed her advice.
Marianne returned home, got a handful of her clothes and some for her children, and told Leonard their marriage was over.
"I said, `I got a protective order against you, so that means you're not supposed to have any contact with me or the kids. They'll be serving it to you, and good luck,' " Marianne said.
He threatened her life, she said.
Marianne and her children moved to a neighbor's house across the street. She knows now that wasn't the best decision. Leonard's attorney would say later in court that moving to the neighbor's may have encouraged his behavior.
"I didn't want to disrupt my kids' life that much," Marianne said. "It was free. My kids were safe, and there was someone there to help me. And I figured it wouldn't take me long to get on my feet financially and be able to get an apartment and live happily ever after."
Marianne said Leonard followed her to work. Standing in the front yard of the couple's home, he destroyed some of the children's furniture with an ax. He screamed obscenities and threats across the street, she said. He slashed the tires of her car and those of her friends' car, she said.
Marianne filed complaint after complaint against her husband, most of them for violating the protective order. Each time, charges were dismissed, or he would spend a few hours or days in jail.
The night of Dec. 26, according to court testimony, Leonard called the couple's son, Eddie, and asked him to come over. Leonard said he had some papers to give him.
Leonard was wearing a gun in a shoulder holster when he met Eddie at the door. At Eddie's request, his father took the gun off and removed the clip.
"He said he wanted to tell me goodbye," Eddie testified. "Like forever. Like he was leaving, going somewhere. He had letters to everyone that would explain why he had to leave."
Eddie went home and told his mother about the gun.
"I was scared he was going to try to kill her," Eddie testified. "We stood watch at the window all night."
Just before dawn, Eddie heard his father outside, across the street. He was yelling - and pointing the gun at the window where Eddie was standing.
"I called the police," Eddie testified. "I was scared he was going to shoot up the house."
The police could not arrest his father on a gun charge, because they did not see the incident, Eddie testified. They did arrest him for being drunk in public, however.
After his father was taken away, Eddie said he and his mother went to their house. They retrieved the box that the gun had been packaged in, the clip and a stack of letters - one to the children, one to Marianne's mother and one to Judge Ferguson.
The contents of the letters were not revealed in court. But Marianne had earlier shared them with the newspaper. The letters - which Marianne insists were written by Leonard, though he has refused to give a handwriting sample - were written as though they were to be delivered after Leonard had killed her and himself.
A letter written to the children, included the following:
"You know what's happened by now so there's only an explanation left to say. I never wanted it to end this way but y'all shouldn't have kept callin' the cops. I expressed that to everyone many times. Your mother is dead and I'm very pleased she is. Well, I'm dead too but that's of my own choosing . . .
"Why did you people keep calling the cops??? That was stupid. Everyone would still be alive. The cops, on Thursday night, a week before Thanksgiving, gave your mammy real poor advice by this `protection order.' That only resulted in me murdering her."
Two mental evaluations concluded there was no reason for Leonard to be psychiatrically detained.
Contacted at the Roanoke City Jail, Leonard said he objected to his wife's involving the police in their marital disputes.
"If she was interested in keeping the marriage alive, it seems her first call would have been to a marriage counselor or maybe one of those rehab places and try to mediate through a counselor, not a cop," he said.
Marianne is outraged that her options have dwindled to relocation.
"The commonwealth can't protect me," she said. "The police can't protect me. When they know they're dealing with someone like this, there ought to be something they can do."
Greg Phillips, an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Roanoke who worked on Marianne's case, said it was regarded seriously, as is any domestic dispute that passes through the system.
"But we cannot offer 24-hour round-the-clock protection," he said. "It's sad that [Marianne] is in a situation where it's not safe for her to live where she's living. It's unfortunate that for victims, no matter how much we do, we can never do enough.
"But you have to protect his rights, no matter what crime he's charged with."
Relocating seems so extreme, like a witness protection program, Marianne says. She has told no one where she is living. She did not tell her children where they would be moving until they were in the car and on the road. She has considered changing her name.
"I can't believe there's no way to stop it," she said. "It's out of control when you have to scurry women away in the middle of the night."
by CNB