THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996 TAG: 9606180306
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 109 lines
Rhonda Deloatch, 33, was bathing her daughter at their Hertford County home when she was shot fatally in the head and chest. Her daughter, 9, was injured trying to protect her.
The victim's husband, Tyrone Deloatch, was charged with murder in the June 23, 1995, shooting but has yet to be tried.
In November of 1993, Mary Fleetwood was still reeling from a severe beating when her live-in boyfriend, Stacey Tyler, doused her with gasoline and set her on fire.
The 40-year-old Hertford County woman died 15 days later. Her boyfriend later was convicted of first-degree murder and given the death penalty.
In April of 1991, Dorothy Mae Mason of Murfreesboro had tried to leave an abusive relationship when she was stabbed four times while leaving work. She died.
Her boyfriend, Robert Gatling, who had previously been charged with domestic assault, is serving a life sentence for the 26-year-old woman's murder.
On Thursday, these three women will be remembered when The Silent Witness Exhibit makes its debut in Raleigh.
The exhibit includes 27 free-standing, red, life-sized silhouettes of women from North Carolina who authorities say died at the hands of a spouse or boyfriend.
Deloatch, Fleetwood and Mason are the only victims memorialized from northeastern North Carolina, although one statue, ``The Uncounted Woman,'' represents abused women everywhere.
``We wanted to make sure that we were not leaving anyone out,'' said Abby Charles, the special projects coordinator for the North Carolina Victim Assistance Network in Raleigh.
``We wanted people to understand that these women are not the only ones being hurt,'' she added of Silhouette No. 23, which, like the others, will bear a gold crest on its chest.
According to Charles, about 117 women died of domestic violence in 1994, the latest year statistics are available.
``That number is really just an approximate from checking the relationship between the assailant and the victim. North Carolina does not classify any of its crimes as domestic or non-domestic,'' she said.
The exhibit will be unveiled in conjunction with the North Carolina Victim Assistance Network Annual Training and Educational Conference at the Brownestone Hotel.
Family and friends of the victims, including those in the Roanoke-Chowan area, plan to attend.
The presentation, which will include music and poetry readings, is part of a national effort among artists and activists to increase awareness of domestic violence.
The National Silent Witness Initiative was started six years ago in Minnesota by Janet Hagberg and Jane Zeller, who plan to attend this week's opening in Raleigh.
Similar exhibits exist in 24 other states and are expected to expand to the entire country by next year, Charles said.
The North Carolina exhibit will travel across the state and include a stop at the Safe House - a battered women's shelter - in Ahoskie from Oct. 7 through 14.
The three women from the Roanoke-Chowan area were included in the statewide exhibit because of the Murfreesboro-based Families of Murder Victims and Traumatic Deaths Support Group.
Sisters of Deloatch, Fleetwood and Mason are among its members.
The group, begun in 1988 by Judicial 6B District Attorney David H. Beard Jr., has almost 100 people on its mailing list. Most are from Hertford, Bertie or Northampton counties, but monthly newsletters also are sent to families outside the district who are affected by local crimes.
Beard said he started the support group ``because I can tell folks what to expect in the court system, but I can't tell them what to expect outside the court system.''
About 25 active members meet the first Thursday of the month at Beard's office in Murfreesboro to help surviving family members cope with their losses and the legal system.
While Deloatch, Fleetwood and Mason were killed under different circumstances, they also shared things in common, said Melinda Hardy, a victim/witness assistant within Beard's office.
``They all had been abused over a period of time,'' Hardy said.
``In all three cases, family members were aware of the abuse but, as is typical where the man is so controlling and so domineering, the families couldn't come in and get the victims to leave because they were so afraid of what would happen if they left.''
Beard said the reluctance to report domestic abuse stems from a variety of reasons, including embarrassment, fright and the threat of having children takenaway from them.
Since he became an assistant district attorney about 20 years ago, Beard has had a policy of prosecuting all assault cases, even if the victim who filed the charges later wants them dropped.
Many women change their mind, he said, after being intimidated by their spouse or boyfriend.
``This way, I take the heat off the woman and put it on me,'' said Beard, who became district attorney in 1983.
Added Hardy, ``Too many times we've had situations where people are murdered later on. If you felt threatened enough to take out a warrant. . . we're not just going to let it go.''
The three victims also had something else in common.
``All three were extremely nice individuals. Everybody loved these ladies because they were just very, very nice and kind and caring people,'' Hardy said.
Beard is hoping to have their silhouettes, which his support group sponsored for $75 apiece, eventually housed at a local courthouse.
``One thing it does is give the victim's family something to carry on the memory of their daughter or sister,'' the district attorney said.
``It also brings home to the women who come to the courthouse that unless they deal with what's going on, this may come to pass onto them.
``And it should have some deterrent effect for the men - that people end up dead, and that the people who do it end up in prison or on death row.''
KEYWORDS: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MURDER by CNB