Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994 TAG: 9406270030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Wylene Doran stayed because she didn't know how to get out.
Because of the abuse, she remembers only bits and pieces of her three-year marriage: the beating that landed her in a Washington emergency room with a concussion and ruptured eardrum. The final assault on the night of Jan. 26, 1990, that forced her to seek help.
"All I remember is that he had gotten me and tried to pull my head off from my body," she said. "In my mind I was screaming, but I couldn't actually scream because I couldn't breathe . . . He had choked me plenty of times before, but that was nothing compared to this."
Educating the families, law enforcement agencies, the court system and the community at large on domestic violence is the only way to combat it, say those involved with the issue.
Doran says that education saved her life.
She had stayed because it was almost impossible to leave. She said her husband kept track of where she went and didn't allow a telephone in their home.
She stayed because her husband used her children as bargaining chips. When she went out, she recalled, he would insist that one child remain home with him.
"I'm not ashamed of where I've been," she said. "I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I'm a woman who couldn't look anyone in the eye; I was afraid of any contact with others whatsoever. But I am not the person I was then. And education is why I am where I am now."
She didn't know much about shelters; she hadn't heard about counseling groups. It wasn't until a co-worker badgered her about doing something that Doran looked for help.
The friend kept "hammering away that this [relationship] was wrong," Doran said. "I was not capable of anger because I was too beaten down. She had the anger for me."
Doran, 32, a nurse who now lives in Roanoke with her two children, said she persevered with the help of shelter counselors who taught her about public assistance, gave her legal support and provided a safe house for her and her children.
But dealing with domestic violence victims is difficult, Doran says. Even for her.
"I meet other victims and I get frustrated," she said. "And it's the same thing that frustrated other people who knew me. I know that these people can survive outside of the relationship, that they can be whole people. A whole life can be opened up for them if only they'd leave. It's hard. But it's worth it not to live under that oppression."
The lack of clear-cut solutions is what makes the issue so complicated, advocates say. It can't just be a problem that is spearheaded by the domestic violence organizations, the courts and the police. It has to be a communitywide effort.
"The first thing that's got to happen is that the community has to say with one voice, `We're not going to tolerate it,' " said Ellen Weinman, a Salem attorney who is a member of the Virginia Women Attorney's Association, which lends legal support to women at area shelters.
Abuse should be looked at as "it's wrong and it's a crime, as opposed to it being a family matter," she said.
"One of the things that is so frustrating is that the dynamics are so intertwined and complicated," Weinman said. "Generally, the battered wife really does love the perpetrator. She doesn't necessarily want him to go away. She wants him to stop battering her."
Gradually, the issue is emerging from the protective shroud of "family matters" into the public eye. But it remains unwieldy; very few studies of the success of current programs exist.
In Virginia, for instance, programs available to abusers are scant, and there is a lot of controversy on the effectiveness of those that are available, said Ruth Micklem, advocacy director of Virginians Against Domestic Violence, a statewide organization that offers counseling and training.
A study on how arrests affected domestic violence cases conducted by the state Department of Criminal Justice Services in Richmond found that too little data was available from police departments to analyze.
Among its recommendations, the study said communities should author a domestic violence arrest policy, get the abusive partner counseling earlier, and form an interagency committee to study a coordinated approach for handling domestic violence.
The media hype following the O.J. Simpson arrest might have been a "wake-up call" for domestic violence, but the Roanoke Valley didn't need one, said Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Philip Trompeter. For the past several years, a committee has researched the issue in the valley.
Among the results: group counseling for offenders, better assistance for victims and education for police about a law that allows them to swear out a charge against an abuser. Until recently, the victim had to swear out a warrant before an arrest could be made.
Often, after the police make an arrest, the couple make up and the victim asks to drop the charge. Trompeter said he explains to the victim that a judge is the only one who can drop a charge and that he has a "no-drop" policy for domestic violence cases.
"It has to do with my philosophy that domestic violence is very serious," he said. "If the matter is so bad that they're seeking help through our system, the matter needs to be looked at."
Despite some strides, last year ranked as the worst in five years for domestic-related murders in Roanoke. Five women were killed during arguments with boyfriends or estranged husbands. Between January and April of this year, Roanoke police responded to 539 domestic disorders.
In Virginia, about 15 percent of the murders in 1993 were committed by a spouse or a boyfriend/girlfriend.
The numbers reflect how much more needs to be done, advocates say.
"We've pretty much come to terms that domestic violence is a bad thing and that victims need a place to go," Micklem said. "There are certain parts of the country dealing more effectively than others, and Virginia falls somewhere in the middle."
Many domestic-violence advocates support jail time as well as therapy for abusers. In Roanoke, most offenders do not get jail time, said Roanoke Chief Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Betty Jo Anthony.
The courts often will sentence offenders to counseling programs in lieu of jail, Anthony said. But there's no study to track if that method is working.
"There is no sure answer," she said. "We're working in the dark with each individual situation, and we're the outsider all the time . . . We've allowed people to drop warrants who have been killed. We've had people who weren't allowed to drop warrants who have been killed."
Anthony said prosecutors listen carefully to the woman's fears and concerns. When possible, she said, they can use other evidence besides the victim's testimony - children's testimony or 911 tapes.
Doran said the physical terror overwhelmed her; the mental abuse trapped her. To others, her husband was a charmer who was very loving and giving. People who work with abusers say these personality traits are common.
Doran grew up in a middle-class family but said she had little support from them. She went from shelters in Maryland to ones in Norfolk and Roanoke in search of a new life. For two years, her husband stalked her, she said. When he showed up at her Roanoke apartment one night, she left for a nearby shelter and prosecuted him for trespassing.
He was convicted, sentenced to a year in jail and released after a month if he agreed to leave Roanoke.
Her husband left. Doran says her struggle continues.
She has been in two psychologically abusive relationships since her split from her husband. And she has suffered a nervous breakdown.
But the journey is worth it, she says. She has survived where many others could not. And the freedom feels really good.
by CNB