Abuse Victim Tells Cops About Evolution, Complexity of Domestic Violence

Susan Still, a nationally-known woman who survived years of psychological and physical abuse, spoke to area police officers today about the complexity of domestic violence and answered the question she's most frequently asked: Why didn't you leave sooner?

"I thought it was me. He had me programmed to believe that everything was my fault," Still said in a second-floor conference room in the Fairfield Police Department.

Still said she also wanted to preserve her family, which included two sons and a daughter, that victims of domestic violence often don't have money to leave because their husbands control the family's finances and that women don't easily let go of love and emotional attachments.

"Imagine telling your children they cannot go home and can't stay in school with their friends, can't have anything they have tomorrow," Still said to about two dozen area police officers and others involved in law enforcement. "My mindset was on: Where am I going to live? How am I going to eat? Where can I go to get a job? My mindset was on...survival."

Still also indicated that the abuse she suffered evolved from her husband gaining control of her and destroying her self-worth and that the abuse escalated gradually - from criticism of how she handled a phone call to Cablevision and "family meetings" where Still's husband would identify everything he thought she did wrong to turning her children against her and beatings that he had their 13-year-old son videotape to prove he was justified in abusing her.

"He was very much Prince Charming for a while. He made me feel loved because he cared for me. In that guise of caring, he sort of took control," Still said.

Still said her husband started to gain control of her by saying he didn't want her to go out at night without him because it would be dangerous and he couldn't protect her. She said she interpreted his comments as romance.

"That decision, right there, set a precedent for the rest of my relationship with my husband...I let a precedent get set early in the relationship. It seemed like a loving and caring gesture," she said.

When her husband was in another country and tried to reach Still by phone at night - forgetting that the 12-hour time difference made it day where Still was - he sent relatives to look for her, Still said.

Still said her husband gained more control of her by commenting on the clothes she wore, saying her jeans didn't look "quite right." Still said she listened to him because she saw no reason not to at the time and trusted his opinion. "It set a precedent for him picking and choosing what I put on and what would be appropriate for me to wear," she said.

"It allowed him to control a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more," Still said.

Once he gained control, Still's husband then criticized her by saying she couldn't do anything right, Still said. Still cited an example of the time she called Cablevision's customer service department and the call didn't turn out the way her husband wanted. Her husband blamed her, though he wouldn't make the call himself, Still said.

Still said abusers often accuse their wives of having affairs and that her husband was no different. When their daughter's prom dress arrived, Still said she was happy and, in her husband's eyes, smiled too long at the UPS man who delivered the dress. To her husband, that meant she was having an affair with the delivery man, Still said.

Still said it also was common for abusers to criticize and denigrate spouses in front of their children and that her husband turned their two sons, then ages 8 and 13, and daughter against her.

Still's husband forbid her from hugging and kissing their children but didn't say that in front of the children. He then called a "family meeting" and told their children that Still didn't love them anymore because she didn't hug or kiss them before they left for school and didn't tuck them in at night.

"It seemed like a little thing, but the impact on my children was huge," Still said.

Still's husband called family meetings to identify everything he thought Still did wrong and encouraged their older son to join in. If the older son remained quiet, Still's husband turned on him, Still said.

Still's older son, in a 2007 interview with Oprah Winfrey that was played on a television for area police officers, said he called his mother a slut and a whore before he left for school to please his father. He said his father also required Still to call him "master."

"We just listened to him," Still's son said in the interview in which he wasn't identified and spoke in shadow. "We were brainwashed into thinking this was what was supposed to happen...but I always loved her."

Still's son broke down in the interview when he recalled the day his mother came home from work while Still's husband and their three children were having a great time. "When she came home, everyone gave her a dirty look," Still's son said, adding that he didn't think he wanted her to come home and feels guilty about that to this day.

Still said her husband began beating her in the last two years of their marriage and had their 13-year-old son videotape the beatings. Still's husband then downloaded the video onto his computer and kept Still within arm's reach so he could hit her again when she did something on the videotape that displeased him, Still said.

Still's husband decided that she wasn't fit to be mother of their children and installed their daughter in that role, Still said.

As programmed as she was to believe that everything was her fault, Still said she knew the beatings she received were not right and that she made the decision to call the police after she felt her son may be her husband's next target. "When he posed a threat to my son, that was the line in the sand," she said.

Before she decided to call the police, Still's boss, Lynn Jasper, had noticed injuries on Still that she believed were the result of abuse and started a journal in which she identified what she saw and the date she saw it.

That journal, along with the videotapes of Still's husband beating her, were important evidence in gaining a conviction.

Still's husband, a musician named Ulner Lee Still, was sentenced in December 2004 to 36 years in prison, which was the longest sentence received in a domestic violence case that didn't result in the death of the victim.

Still said a victim's advocate helped relieve her of the complications associated with leaving her husband so Still could concentrate on the case against him.

Fairfield Police Detective Kerry Dalling, who arranged to bring Still to the Fairfield Police Department today, said she hopes police officers no longer view domestic violence calls in the same way. "Don't let her walk out of here only to have us go back and do our jobs the same," she said.

Judy Stevens, a senior assistant state's attorney assigned to the agency's Domestic Violence Unit, said it was important for police officers who respond to domestic violence calls to gather names and phone numbers of witnesses; document if the victim is upset, crying or shaking; document the demeanor of the accused; get statements while the alleged victim and abuser are separated; and note if injuries to the alleged abuser could be the result of the victim attempting to ward off an attack.

Dalling said police need to focus less on wondering why the alleged victim stays in the relationship because they're imposing their values and judgments on a person who may not share their experiences.

Still said she and her children have reconciled and that they no longer see her in the same light they did during the years of abuse.

"My children and I are Ok. We've got some issues, but, for the most part, we're Ok. We're on the better side of a lot of things," Still said.

Still said her daughter went to counseling after her father was sent to prison and that her daughter broke her heart when she asked why Still didn't take her away from him when she left with the two sons. At the time, Still's daughter seemed to be completely against her and testified against her in court, Still said.

"For her to ask me that means she doesn't realize how she was acting or thought I got some kind of telepathy that she was really on my side, but that message never came across," Still said.

Still's 13-year-old son, in the televised interview, said beatings his mother received seemed like a normal routine in the house and that victims of domestic violence shouldn't stay with their abusers. "I know that they think they want them to grow up in a healthy home with both parents. It's not a good idea because what's happening is not healthy," he said.