April 30, 2020 • 38 mins
In this post-season bonus episode, we hear Mildred Muhammad's story of surviving John's abuse, rebuilding her life and helping other domestic abuse survivors. [This episode contains stories of domestic abuse. If you or someone you know may be experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit the website thehotline.org.]
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of I Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those
of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. Mill Dad, you let me know when
(00:23):
we're rolling and Hi, lady, Hi, I know it won't
be easy. Um, what won't be easy talking about some
of this stuff? Easy? Yeah? Really, it may not be
easy for you to hear it. For you? Is that
because you're processed it? I'm done? What does that mean?
(00:45):
You're done? It means I do not have any emotional
charge to this story. You may have one, Other people
may have one, but I don't. How long do you
expect me to hold onto that kind of pain? It's
been two thousand two, We're in two thousand nineteen. I
still supposed to be crying, and I'm still supposed to
feel some type of emotions towards him. Some people think
(01:07):
I'm still supposed to love him and forgive him. No,
I'm not supposed to do that. That's your interpretation of
what I'm supposed to do, and I have my interpretation
of what I will do. I get to choose that.
So the idea that I would think that this might
be painful as a projection, exactly, it's an assumption. You're
(01:29):
basing your assumption on other people's or your own perspective
of how you feel I should be with this story.
That's not my reality, that's yours. So we're a minute
in and she's already dropped the mic. She's already well,
(01:52):
thank you for that, no problem, thank you for that.
I'm Tony Harris the special episode of Monster DC Sniper.
I'm proud to present our interview with Mildred Mohammed. Mildred
is a domestic violence awareness advocate and the ex wife
of John Mohammed. John kidnapped her children, threatened her life,
(02:15):
and many believe the DC Sniper attacks were part of
a plan to disguise her eventual murder. This interview covers
topics we couldn't fit into the series. If you haven't
listened to the whole season yet, it might be a
good idea to finish the show first. All right, back
to the interview, So could I have you a state
your name and your professional speaker's title. I am Mildred Mohammed.
(02:40):
I'm an award winning global keynote speaker. I'm a certified
consultant with the Office on Victims of Crime, as certified
Personal and Professional development coach. And my former husband was
John Ala Mohammed, whom you all know to be the
DC Sniper. I was laying on the sofa and I
(03:05):
was having this dream about women calling me asking me
for help, and they were just all around me, and
I fell off the sofa and I went to my children.
I said, look, I got to help other women, and
the only way I can do that is to share
my story and yours about your dad. And I need
your permission to do that. And they say, Mom, you
(03:27):
do what you need to do. Just tell the truth.
Just tell the truth. And so that's when I went
to the library. I got a book on how to
become a professional speaker. Decided to have the Lowest Flower
as my logo because it was a flower that came
out of the darkness into the light. I looked up
domestic violence conferences on Google. I found two, contacted them
(03:51):
and I was able to land those two engagements, and
I've been speaking ever since. When did you realize for
yourself that you were in an abusive relationship. I was
watching TV in Washington State and that was a p
s A. I understand that coming out of a domestic
(04:13):
violence relationship is not And it was a woman speaking
and she told of all of the signs associated with
domestic violence and as she's going through up. Okay, that's wine. Okay,
that's too but well, I'll be in an abusive relationship.
And I called the number seven nine nine safe. It's
(04:39):
time for everyone to allow for their voices to be heard.
And they talked to me. I'm in the room, My
children are in the living room. John is at work,
and they say, well, we'd like for you to come in.
I say, nope, not coming in. They said, well, we
really need to get you help. Nope. I just wanted
to call to make sure at I'm seeing what I'm
(05:02):
seeing and I need to come to terms with that,
and then I'll call you back. I never called them back,
but at that point, that's when I knew, because I
just thought it was a part of a relationship, you know,
that's how relationships are. I didn't grow up in an
abusive home, so I didn't know that I was in
(05:23):
an abusive relationship until I saw that commercial, and they
don't even have p essays anymore. They don't not even
in the month of October, which is Domestic Holenesce Awareness month,
they're no PSAs on TV. So that's when I knew
most people don't really know that they're in abusive relationships.
(05:43):
Eighty percent of victims do not have physical scars to
prove that they are victims, although do I choose to
concentrate on the eighty percent, the verbal, the psychological, the spiritual,
the stock game, and it is my mission to shift
(06:03):
the thinking of society to understand that you do not
have to have physical scars to be a victim or
a survivor of domestic violence. And because this is a
worldwide epidemic, the person that you're sitting next to could
be a victim or a survivor. It is how you
(06:27):
have responded to this person as to rather or not
they will confide in you and ask you for help.
Before I left John, he came over and said we
need to talk. My brother was there, so I felt
(06:50):
I was safe. We're going to garage, so he says,
you are not going to raise my children by yourself.
You have become my enemy, and as my enemy, I
will kill you. He charges at me. I ran around
(07:12):
him into the house where my brother was and he
leaves and I tell my brother, I said, John's gonna
kill me. He's gonna kill me. He said, girl, John,
I gonna kill you. I never went to my brother
again for help because he didn't believe me. And a
victim does not have time to clarify to the people
(07:36):
who she's going to for help how dangerous the situation is.
He was hiding from everybody else, but I was the
one that got to see it all. So when I
go to people and say, you know, John is treating
me is such and such a way. He's doing this
to me, Well, that's not to John. I know, of
course it's not. I tell victims of domestic violence be
(07:59):
careful who you talk to, du to touch tests, touch tests.
Tony Johnson is not treating me, right, I mean, he
is humiliating me and making me feel that I shouldn't
even be here. And depending on his response is how
I will either continue to talk to him or never
speak to him again, because he is gonna put my
(08:22):
life in jeopardy. He's gonna go back and tell him, hey, man,
you know Milda came in. Damn So no, that's the
touch tests. When he took the children, I stopped eating.
I was eating. I have a slice of bread and
crushed ice. That was it, just enough to sustain me.
(08:48):
I was signing for a package from my mom or
Mother's Day and I passed out. Get to the hospital
and I had to have a blood transfusion. Two people
knew I was in hospital. My phone rings and it's John.
He had people watching the house and he says, how
(09:08):
you doing how? I said, I'm good. He said how's mom?
I said she's fine. I say, why won't you let
the children call me? He said, we don't always get
what we want, do we. So there's a dialogue that
goes on between the victim and the abuser, and only
those two people know what that means. He had already
(09:30):
said you have become my enemy, and as my enemy,
I will kill you. So I had two choices. I
could go back to him and die, or I could
hang up the phone and never see my children again.
(09:50):
And I hung up the phone. I let out a scream.
The nurses came. My mother call the hospital. Shortly thereafter,
and told them that John just called her and said
he was on his way to the hospital to kill
(10:11):
her daughter. So they moved me from one room to another,
posted a guard outside my door, took my name off
of the register and stated that anybody who was coming
up to see me needed to send up their I
d to identify rather or not it was John. A
(10:36):
social worker came and said, you can't go back home.
I said, well, my mom is at home. Said we'll
take care of your mom, but we have to disconnect
from everybody that you know, because we have to put
you in hiding so that John will not find and
kill you. So they waited till it got dark, took
(10:58):
me out of the back door of the hospital. They
told me I needed to slouch down in the car
so no one could see that I was in the car.
But I watched the rooftops and I was watching the
open windows because I knew it was gonna be a
head shot, just as sure as I'm sitting here talking
to you, I knew it was gonna be a head shot.
(11:20):
I go into the shelter and the staff person said, Miller,
you're in luck. You get your own room, like I
want to be in a shelter. So we go upstairs
and I'm sitting on the bed and I'm thinking, how
did I get here? Married for twelve years, three children,
(11:41):
a business, I'm a businesswoman, taking care of my mom,
and I'm in a shelter. When a victim is still
emotionally attached to her abuser, she or he, they are
more concerned with what the abuser thinks instead of what
(12:06):
they need to do to get away. Because even in
the shelter, I was watching a commercial about a family
and the husband, and that's when it clicked that John
didn't love me. That's when it clicked. That's crazy. And
that's when I had to swallow that pill. And he
(12:29):
didn't love me. After all of that, that was the
moment in the shelter, in the shelter, watching TV and
don't love me? The light came on, so to speak.
Was there anything in the commercial that triggered that? It
was a family setting and it just clicked just but
(12:55):
once I swallowed that pill, it was only like popcorn.
What knowledge did your children have of the difficulty you
(13:15):
guys were having in your relationship? Were they're aware of it?
Children are always aware of a couple's issues. As much
as we try to keep things from them, they know.
September two thousand one, I gained custody of my children.
(13:39):
We are trying to put our lives together. I did
not interrogate them to inform me of what happened. We
would watch TV and they would recognize, say An Island,
and my daughter said, Mom, we were in Antiga. Really yeah,
(14:04):
that was a lady that we stayed with. And she
asked us why were we there? And I told her
that my daddy took us from you, and then she
told us we needed to leave. I say, really, m okay,
anything else you want to share? Nope, that's it. The
(14:25):
person that I had the most issues with was my son.
Out of all three of them, I knew that John
would turn him against me. He was jealous of our
relationship and he wanted to break him from being so
(14:46):
attached and sensitive towards me. So I would ask him
to take out the trash and he would jump ab
off the sofa and come right in my face. You
don't tell me what the dude? Boy, you need to
back up. Don't you know I'm from Louisiana. Do you
know we don't take this type of disrespect you know what.
(15:08):
Let me just take a pause and walk away from you.
And so the girl said, John, why are you so
disrespectful to mommy? You know you shouldn't be treating her
like that. And I said, again, take out the trash.
He took it out reluctantly, but he did. So. I'm
sitting on the sofa journaling because journaling is therapeutic for me. Actually,
(15:30):
I journal because I had no one else to talk to.
People were judging me, victim blaming, telling me that everything
was my fault. And John walks up and he says,
you want to know what Dad said about you. I said, yeah,
I do. He said, okay. Dad said you didn't want me.
(15:52):
Dad said you love the girls more than me. Dad
said you wanted him to take us because you wanted
to live the rest of your life without us. Say
anything else? He said, yeah, he said a lot of things.
I said, well, tell me the rest of you. No,
I don't want to hurt your feelings. I say, I'm
(16:12):
a big girl, I can take it. Say no, mom,
I said, okay, this is what I want you to do.
I want you to compare what your dad said to
what I do. If you find that I am doing
something negative that He said to you, I want you
(16:34):
to talk to me. I want you to tell me
about it so that we can talk about it. You
need to know why I do the things I do,
and then you can come up with your own interpretation.
Because the only way we're going to get through this
is with the truth. And I will tell you the
(16:55):
truth even if it makes me look bad. But that's
the only way we're going to get through this as
a family and be stronger afterwards. Can you promise me
you'll do that? He said, yes, ma'am, I can do that.
I said, And by the way, what can I do?
He said, Mommy, if you could just spend time with
(17:15):
me and talk to me, I think that will help.
I said, when do you want to get started? Can
we start today? Absolutely, Let's go for a walk and talk.
And I had to tell him what happened. I used
age appropriate language he was a lovin to describe to
(17:36):
him what happened and how we got to the point
where we were. I'm thinking about possible issues. I don't
know how many of these were present. I'm thinking about
little John having questions issues surrounding maybe betrayal, abandonment. They
(18:00):
all had abandonment issues. I would go to work and
I told them I would be back at five o'clock.
I didn't show up until five fifteen. Opened the door.
They were hysterical. I said, okay, let me give myself
some room. So I told them I will be home
between five thirty and five forty five, and I showed
(18:22):
them on the clock what that looks like. But I
always made sure I came home at about five fifteen
five twenty to give them a routine. After we got
all of that cleared up, then there were no more
abandonment issues. I didn't find out about the conditions in
Antiqua until years later. I went to the Virgin Islands
(18:46):
for a speaking engagement. One of the ladies was explaining
to me the conditions in Antiqua is as if you
went back a hundred years and I lost it, you know,
speaking engagement. I'm glad I was finished speaking because I
(19:07):
I was a mess. It took everything to hold myself
together until I got home. And when I got home,
my son came home and he said, Mom, this is
what I want to tell you. They had to wipe
themselves with leaves to use the bathroom. They had to
(19:28):
carry painter buckets of water with worms in it back
to wherever they were living and put a sheet up
so that they could bathe. He said, Mom, we almost
lost hope, and that just stabbed me in my heart
when he said that, And I said, Honey, I'm just
(19:49):
so sorry you went through that. I did not bring
you in this world to suffer. And I've lost you,
guys for eighteen months, and that's eighteen months I can't
get back. But I hope that since I've had you back,
that I have done everything that I possibly can do
(20:11):
to make you feel like your home. And he said, Mom,
you did that. You went over and above. We know
everything you've done, and you've done a great job. You
taught us that we have to go through our emotional breakthroughs,
and we're gonna give you time to do that. Just
(20:34):
go through this process, go through this crime, and then
once you're done with it, then we can keep going.
When you speak, when you look out into the audience,
describe what you see. I see individuals who have taken
the time to come and hear my story, but also
(20:56):
there are victims in the audience that are looking for
something that would help them leave strategically without being hurt
or killed, because up to seventy of women who try
to leave an abusive relationship or either hurt or killed.
(21:17):
Share some of your your knowledge on how do women leave?
Everybody has a different way. Some leave abruptly, some plan,
some stay. I saw instead that it takes women in
abusive relationships up to seven attempts to ultimately leave for good.
That is correct, but that speaks to how difficult it
(21:40):
is to leave. It does the short answer. The long
answer is it wouldn't take me seven times to leave
if I had support. It wouldn't take me seven times
to leave if people didn't blame me for the abuse
that I'm in. So I have to not only handle
the abuse that I am in with my boyfriend or husband,
(22:03):
but I also have to deal with his family who's
coming after me, telling me not to report him or
turn him over to the police. I have to look
at my friends who are telling me that I'm stupid
and I should get out, but nobody's offering me a
way out. Nobody asked me what I want to do.
You're too busy telling me what to do. But if
(22:25):
you was in my shoes, what would you do so?
Don't give me medicine you won't take. Is there a
story that you've heard or that comes to mind that
demonstrates for you the key differences between violent abuse stories
that we hear a lot about and verbal abuse stories
that we don't pay as much attention to. I'll give
(22:47):
you the case of Rihanna and Chris Brown. When it
first came to light of the abuse, we only had
her word. She told how he was hurting her. What
do we do? We praise the abuser and we silenced
the victim. Why would you do that to Chris? He's
(23:08):
a good man. Why are you saying these things about him?
Then they started to bring up her past and how
terrible of a person she was until those pictures hit
the news and then it flipped. He lost endorsements. People
couldn't understand why he would do this to her, and
(23:28):
whatever she did, it shouldn't worry that. When it came out,
my first instinct was, she's calling out for help, but
no one is listening. When the pictures came out, everybody listened.
Why does it take a picture for you to understand?
(23:52):
So what I would say to victims and survivors in
the eight percent who do not have physical scars. Document document,
document time and date. Write it down as soon as
it's fresh in your mind. If there are people there
to witness, ask them to write affidavits so that you
(24:15):
can help the police by building your case, because the
police only goes off of evidence, and if you have
it written down, then you are actually building your case,
which is evident that you are in an abusive relationship
and you need help. And it goes the same way
for men. Men, You know, y'all just summarize stuff because
(24:40):
you feel you don't want to get the woman in trouble,
and it's not until your backs are against the wall
that you start to explain the physical assaults that you're
going through. Mom. Dad passed when I was nine from
a domestic violent situation, not with my mom, but with
(25:03):
another woman. What happened my mom and dad were separated
and he had decided to come back to my mom.
The woman who he was with said no, and she
waited until he was asleep. She pad locked the doors
and the windows and set the house on fire. You're
(25:23):
telling me your dad was killed and a domestic violence
murdered in a domestic violence situation, when I was nine
years old. I found this out when I was twenty one.
I went to my cousin's funeral. While we were at
the repass, there was some men playing cards and I
heard them call my dad's name, and so I went
(25:44):
over by the doorway, you know, just to listen. And
they said, you can hear him screaming from miles and
no one could get close to the house because it
was too hot, and so they waited until the Friday
harmon came to put the fire out. I say, Mom,
you told us he died in the Navy, that he
(26:05):
died on a ship. That's why they had his casket
draped with the flag. She said, well, he wasn't a military.
They gave him the flag because that's what they do
with soldiers. But I was waiting for you to get
old enough to tell you. But that's how my dad died.
(26:39):
How do you know what are the warning signs that
you're in an abusive relationship and that it's not some
quote unquote tough love. Love is not tough. There are
many signs to domestic abuse and violence. And I could
go over the signs and you can look them up
on the computer. But I'm a say it like this.
(27:00):
It really depends on your tolerance for pain. It really
depends on how you grew up. If you grew up
in a household where you witness your father or your
mother abusing the other parent, then your tolerance for pain
is high, and so it wouldn't be much of a
(27:21):
surprise if someone yelled at you, if someone tried to
restrict you, or something to that nature. There are many
men who grew up in an abusive home, and there
are many men who choose not to abuse when they
are in relationships. So that tells you right, there is
(27:44):
a choice. You are making a conscious decision to control
a life you did not create. So the question is
why do you feel entitled to control someone else's lie
life when you don't have control of your own. Disappointments
(28:05):
and frustrations are dealt with in different ways, but if
you were not taught how to handle your frustrations and disappointments,
then you will blame other people for bad decisions that
you've made instead of holding yourself accountable for your own actions.
(28:26):
Can you explain from your work with other victims and
survivors the control dynamic in abusive relationships? Well, it's the
honeymoon cycle. You know, I love you. Then you do
something too to make me hurt you. I'll call you
out your name, I'll even physically assault you. Then I
(28:47):
look at you and go, oh my god, I'm so sorry.
I'll never do this again. I go by flowers, or
I go get your favorite perfume or whatever, until you
do something again and then I beat you again. I
never hold myself responsible for beating you. It's always your fault.
It's always your fault. If you wouldn't have done that,
then I wouldn't have had to do see what you
(29:08):
made me do. No, that's a choice you made. Why
is control required by these abusers? It must speak to
lack within themselves. Absolutely, it's lack within themselves. They're insecure
about their own life. Again, it goes back to the
childhood and how you were raised in your home. If
(29:31):
you didn't have anybody to talk to to understand your
emotions and how you process those emotions, and you're watching
TV instead of having a sit down talk with an
actual person in order to understand why am I feeling
this way? It's got to be a reason, absolutely, as
a reason. So we have to understand the emotions that
(29:55):
are coming up or lessons that we need to learn
for ourse elves and understanding how to handle them. You
may not know yourself how to do that, but go
to a friend that you trust to help you to
process those emotions. When you finish your talks, describe for
me what are you thinking. What you hope people get
(30:16):
from your discussion of these issues. I never cry on stage.
I never cry at a presentation. If there's a victim
in the audience that's coming to see me, for me
to cry on stage tells them that they will never
get out. They look at me hoping I will say
(30:39):
something that will help them not only to get out,
but they can be strong, they can be strategic, they
can put the tools in place and become healed like me.
Crying tells them I'm not healed. Crying doesn't give them hope.
Some people say, well, you know it's okay to cry
(31:00):
to show people how you feel, not at that moment.
Not at that moment. When you're done, go crying in
your room, But don't cry in front of an audience
that's looking to you for hope, for empowerment, and for
the ability to know that once I get out of this,
(31:23):
I'm gonna be just like that, and I'm going to
share my story and I'm gonna be strong and help
other people. Is there a question that you get more
often than any other after I share my story? Mostly
what I get is I'm so glad you're still alive.
I'm so happy that I drove so many miles to
(31:45):
see you. I'm so glad that you're here. I remember
one when I was speaking in three different locations in Virginia,
and it was this one woman that was at all
three locations and I saw her and she came up
to me and she said, hey, Miss Mohammed. I said, hey,
how you doing. She say, you know, I've been to
(32:07):
all three of your presentations in Virginia. I said, yeah,
you're my little stalker. Huh. She said Ms. Mohammedan, You're right,
but I just had to hear you say this one
statement because I never heard that before. I said, well,
what was that said? I never heard anybody say that
(32:28):
you don't have to have physical scars? Ms Mohammed. I
have been in an abusive relationship for seventeen years and
he never hit me. I'm the breadwinner. He stays at home,
and he terrorizes me and my children. The first time
you said that, I went home and I looked forward everywhere,
(32:52):
and I couldn't find it on the internet where anybody
else said that. So I had to make sure that
I heard what you said. So I went to your
second session and you said it again, but this time
I applied what you said when you told us you
may not realize you're in an abusive relationship. So go
(33:13):
home and get a sheet of paper, draw a line
down the middle, pros and cons. Right, so you write
down the pros, you write down the cons. But when
you write them down, you don't make excuses like he
hit me because ABC and D. No, he hit me,
and your only evaluating the relationship and not the individual
(33:35):
because we change every day. Right, So she said, I
went home and I did that, and like you said,
if the pros outweigh the cons, then we can work
on the relationship. But ms mohammed, the cons outweigh the pros.
So that man, I needed to make a decision. But
I just had to hear you said one more time
(33:57):
before I made that decision. And when you said it again,
I knew I had to leave, and so I left
miss Mohammed, and guess what, me and my children we
are happy. And I would never have left if I
didn't hear you say you don't have to have physical scars.
(34:18):
What does hearing something like that do for you? That
makes me feel that what I started to do its
working because it's my mission to shift the thinking. And
I shifted her thinking so that she can take a
comprehensive look at her relationship and then strategize on how
(34:42):
to effectively leave. And that's what she did. I want
you to dig in a little bit more on that
sheet of paper concept and what you're writing. So can
you talk about that bit of guidance again? What you
tell people to go home and do again? You may
not know that you are in an abusive relationship. So
(35:02):
get a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle.
Pros on one side, cons on the other. Pros and
cons of the relationship, of the relationship only not of
the person. Okay, because we all have flaws, we all
come with bags. We just choose the person who's willing
to deal with the stuff that's in my bag. So
(35:24):
you got the pros and the cons on the paper.
The next thing you need to do is separate your
emotions from the actual facts. Just like Judge Judy, she says,
what all I want are the facts. I don't want
no emotions. You want to be emotional, go talk to
Dr Phield. So we only want the facts because the
facts will help you to see who you dealing with.
(35:50):
A pro could be he put gas in the car
because the tank was empty. No, he put gas in
the car. It doesn't matter the reason. There's no except
in no condition he put gas in a car. A
con would be he disconnected my phone because he didn't
want me on the house phone. No, no, no, he
disconnected the phone, simple as that. So once you come
(36:12):
to the end of that, if the pros outweigh the cons,
the relationship is worth analyzing and saving, and you have
to create a new normal. You can't go back to
what it was. You have to start fresh. If the
cons outweigh the pros, you really have a decision to make.
(36:36):
Are you gonna stay in a relationship. A lot of
people don't leave because they got a lot to lose.
Or I helped to build that house, I put money
in that account to I'm not having another person to
come in here and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I mean, all of that stuff goes on. So that's
a decision you have to make, and the decision is
completely yours. You don't need outside people telling you what
(37:01):
to do. Nobody's living your life for you but you.
But make sure it's a decision that you can live with.
If you suspect you or someone you know is experiencing
domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline A
(37:24):
seven two three three, or go to the hotline dot org.
Once again, that's the hotline dot org. Remember you are
not alone because domestic violence reports are on the rise.
Mildred Mohammed also recently released an e book called Being
(37:47):
Abused while Teleworking during COVID nineteen. You can find it online.
That's it for this bonus episode of Monster. We'll be
back soon with another bonus episode, an interview with John
and Mildred's daughters, Taliba and Selena. Subscribe to make sure
you don't miss it. When you're coming from a position
(38:09):
of being nine years old and all you've known is
my dad adds this type of way because I'm a
child that when you see him on TV, it's like, well,
I don't know what they're talking about because my dad
was consistent, consistent, consistent of right and was doing all
of the things that he was supposed to be doing
Welcome to Monster DC Sniper, a production of I Heart
Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those
of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. Mill Dad, you let me know when
(00:23):
we're rolling and Hi, lady, Hi, I know it won't
be easy. Um, what won't be easy talking about some
of this stuff? Easy? Yeah? Really, it may not be
easy for you to hear it. For you? Is that
because you're processed it? I'm done? What does that mean?
(00:45):
You're done? It means I do not have any emotional
charge to this story. You may have one, Other people
may have one, but I don't. How long do you
expect me to hold onto that kind of pain? It's
been two thousand two, We're in two thousand nineteen. I
still supposed to be crying, and I'm still supposed to
feel some type of emotions towards him. Some people think
(01:07):
I'm still supposed to love him and forgive him. No,
I'm not supposed to do that. That's your interpretation of
what I'm supposed to do, and I have my interpretation
of what I will do. I get to choose that.
So the idea that I would think that this might
be painful as a projection, exactly, it's an assumption. You're
(01:29):
basing your assumption on other people's or your own perspective
of how you feel I should be with this story.
That's not my reality, that's yours. So we're a minute
in and she's already dropped the mic. She's already well,
(01:52):
thank you for that, no problem, thank you for that.
I'm Tony Harris the special episode of Monster DC Sniper.
I'm proud to present our interview with Mildred Mohammed. Mildred
is a domestic violence awareness advocate and the ex wife
of John Mohammed. John kidnapped her children, threatened her life,
(02:15):
and many believe the DC Sniper attacks were part of
a plan to disguise her eventual murder. This interview covers
topics we couldn't fit into the series. If you haven't
listened to the whole season yet, it might be a
good idea to finish the show first. All right, back
to the interview, So could I have you a state
your name and your professional speaker's title. I am Mildred Mohammed.
(02:40):
I'm an award winning global keynote speaker. I'm a certified
consultant with the Office on Victims of Crime, as certified
Personal and Professional development coach. And my former husband was
John Ala Mohammed, whom you all know to be the
DC Sniper. I was laying on the sofa and I
(03:05):
was having this dream about women calling me asking me
for help, and they were just all around me, and
I fell off the sofa and I went to my children.
I said, look, I got to help other women, and
the only way I can do that is to share
my story and yours about your dad. And I need
your permission to do that. And they say, Mom, you
(03:27):
do what you need to do. Just tell the truth.
Just tell the truth. And so that's when I went
to the library. I got a book on how to
become a professional speaker. Decided to have the Lowest Flower
as my logo because it was a flower that came
out of the darkness into the light. I looked up
domestic violence conferences on Google. I found two, contacted them
(03:51):
and I was able to land those two engagements, and
I've been speaking ever since. When did you realize for
yourself that you were in an abusive relationship. I was
watching TV in Washington State and that was a p
s A. I understand that coming out of a domestic
(04:13):
violence relationship is not And it was a woman speaking
and she told of all of the signs associated with
domestic violence and as she's going through up. Okay, that's wine. Okay,
that's too but well, I'll be in an abusive relationship.
And I called the number seven nine nine safe. It's
(04:39):
time for everyone to allow for their voices to be heard.
And they talked to me. I'm in the room, My
children are in the living room. John is at work,
and they say, well, we'd like for you to come in.
I say, nope, not coming in. They said, well, we
really need to get you help. Nope. I just wanted
to call to make sure at I'm seeing what I'm
(05:02):
seeing and I need to come to terms with that,
and then I'll call you back. I never called them back,
but at that point, that's when I knew, because I
just thought it was a part of a relationship, you know,
that's how relationships are. I didn't grow up in an
abusive home, so I didn't know that I was in
(05:23):
an abusive relationship until I saw that commercial, and they
don't even have p essays anymore. They don't not even
in the month of October, which is Domestic Holenesce Awareness month,
they're no PSAs on TV. So that's when I knew
most people don't really know that they're in abusive relationships.
(05:43):
Eighty percent of victims do not have physical scars to
prove that they are victims, although do I choose to
concentrate on the eighty percent, the verbal, the psychological, the spiritual,
the stock game, and it is my mission to shift
(06:03):
the thinking of society to understand that you do not
have to have physical scars to be a victim or
a survivor of domestic violence. And because this is a
worldwide epidemic, the person that you're sitting next to could
be a victim or a survivor. It is how you
(06:27):
have responded to this person as to rather or not
they will confide in you and ask you for help.
Before I left John, he came over and said we
need to talk. My brother was there, so I felt
(06:50):
I was safe. We're going to garage, so he says,
you are not going to raise my children by yourself.
You have become my enemy, and as my enemy, I
will kill you. He charges at me. I ran around
(07:12):
him into the house where my brother was and he
leaves and I tell my brother, I said, John's gonna
kill me. He's gonna kill me. He said, girl, John,
I gonna kill you. I never went to my brother
again for help because he didn't believe me. And a
victim does not have time to clarify to the people
(07:36):
who she's going to for help how dangerous the situation is.
He was hiding from everybody else, but I was the
one that got to see it all. So when I
go to people and say, you know, John is treating
me is such and such a way. He's doing this
to me, Well, that's not to John. I know, of
course it's not. I tell victims of domestic violence be
(07:59):
careful who you talk to, du to touch tests, touch tests.
Tony Johnson is not treating me, right, I mean, he
is humiliating me and making me feel that I shouldn't
even be here. And depending on his response is how
I will either continue to talk to him or never
speak to him again, because he is gonna put my
(08:22):
life in jeopardy. He's gonna go back and tell him, hey, man,
you know Milda came in. Damn So no, that's the
touch tests. When he took the children, I stopped eating.
I was eating. I have a slice of bread and
crushed ice. That was it, just enough to sustain me.
(08:48):
I was signing for a package from my mom or
Mother's Day and I passed out. Get to the hospital
and I had to have a blood transfusion. Two people
knew I was in hospital. My phone rings and it's John.
He had people watching the house and he says, how
(09:08):
you doing how? I said, I'm good. He said how's mom?
I said she's fine. I say, why won't you let
the children call me? He said, we don't always get
what we want, do we. So there's a dialogue that
goes on between the victim and the abuser, and only
those two people know what that means. He had already
(09:30):
said you have become my enemy, and as my enemy,
I will kill you. So I had two choices. I
could go back to him and die, or I could
hang up the phone and never see my children again.
(09:50):
And I hung up the phone. I let out a scream.
The nurses came. My mother call the hospital. Shortly thereafter,
and told them that John just called her and said
he was on his way to the hospital to kill
(10:11):
her daughter. So they moved me from one room to another,
posted a guard outside my door, took my name off
of the register and stated that anybody who was coming
up to see me needed to send up their I
d to identify rather or not it was John. A
(10:36):
social worker came and said, you can't go back home.
I said, well, my mom is at home. Said we'll
take care of your mom, but we have to disconnect
from everybody that you know, because we have to put
you in hiding so that John will not find and
kill you. So they waited till it got dark, took
(10:58):
me out of the back door of the hospital. They
told me I needed to slouch down in the car
so no one could see that I was in the car.
But I watched the rooftops and I was watching the
open windows because I knew it was gonna be a
head shot, just as sure as I'm sitting here talking
to you, I knew it was gonna be a head shot.
(11:20):
I go into the shelter and the staff person said, Miller,
you're in luck. You get your own room, like I
want to be in a shelter. So we go upstairs
and I'm sitting on the bed and I'm thinking, how
did I get here? Married for twelve years, three children,
(11:41):
a business, I'm a businesswoman, taking care of my mom,
and I'm in a shelter. When a victim is still
emotionally attached to her abuser, she or he, they are
more concerned with what the abuser thinks instead of what
(12:06):
they need to do to get away. Because even in
the shelter, I was watching a commercial about a family
and the husband, and that's when it clicked that John
didn't love me. That's when it clicked. That's crazy. And
that's when I had to swallow that pill. And he
(12:29):
didn't love me. After all of that, that was the
moment in the shelter, in the shelter, watching TV and
don't love me? The light came on, so to speak.
Was there anything in the commercial that triggered that? It
was a family setting and it just clicked just but
(12:55):
once I swallowed that pill, it was only like popcorn.
What knowledge did your children have of the difficulty you
(13:15):
guys were having in your relationship? Were they're aware of it?
Children are always aware of a couple's issues. As much
as we try to keep things from them, they know.
September two thousand one, I gained custody of my children.
(13:39):
We are trying to put our lives together. I did
not interrogate them to inform me of what happened. We
would watch TV and they would recognize, say An Island,
and my daughter said, Mom, we were in Antiga. Really yeah,
(14:04):
that was a lady that we stayed with. And she
asked us why were we there? And I told her
that my daddy took us from you, and then she
told us we needed to leave. I say, really, m okay,
anything else you want to share? Nope, that's it. The
(14:25):
person that I had the most issues with was my son.
Out of all three of them, I knew that John
would turn him against me. He was jealous of our
relationship and he wanted to break him from being so
(14:46):
attached and sensitive towards me. So I would ask him
to take out the trash and he would jump ab
off the sofa and come right in my face. You
don't tell me what the dude? Boy, you need to
back up. Don't you know I'm from Louisiana. Do you
know we don't take this type of disrespect you know what.
(15:08):
Let me just take a pause and walk away from you.
And so the girl said, John, why are you so
disrespectful to mommy? You know you shouldn't be treating her
like that. And I said, again, take out the trash.
He took it out reluctantly, but he did. So. I'm
sitting on the sofa journaling because journaling is therapeutic for me. Actually,
(15:30):
I journal because I had no one else to talk to.
People were judging me, victim blaming, telling me that everything
was my fault. And John walks up and he says,
you want to know what Dad said about you. I said, yeah,
I do. He said, okay. Dad said you didn't want me.
(15:52):
Dad said you love the girls more than me. Dad
said you wanted him to take us because you wanted
to live the rest of your life without us. Say
anything else? He said, yeah, he said a lot of things.
I said, well, tell me the rest of you. No,
I don't want to hurt your feelings. I say, I'm
(16:12):
a big girl, I can take it. Say no, mom,
I said, okay, this is what I want you to do.
I want you to compare what your dad said to
what I do. If you find that I am doing
something negative that He said to you, I want you
(16:34):
to talk to me. I want you to tell me
about it so that we can talk about it. You
need to know why I do the things I do,
and then you can come up with your own interpretation.
Because the only way we're going to get through this
is with the truth. And I will tell you the
(16:55):
truth even if it makes me look bad. But that's
the only way we're going to get through this as
a family and be stronger afterwards. Can you promise me
you'll do that? He said, yes, ma'am, I can do that.
I said, And by the way, what can I do?
He said, Mommy, if you could just spend time with
(17:15):
me and talk to me, I think that will help.
I said, when do you want to get started? Can
we start today? Absolutely, Let's go for a walk and talk.
And I had to tell him what happened. I used
age appropriate language he was a lovin to describe to
(17:36):
him what happened and how we got to the point
where we were. I'm thinking about possible issues. I don't
know how many of these were present. I'm thinking about
little John having questions issues surrounding maybe betrayal, abandonment. They
(18:00):
all had abandonment issues. I would go to work and
I told them I would be back at five o'clock.
I didn't show up until five fifteen. Opened the door.
They were hysterical. I said, okay, let me give myself
some room. So I told them I will be home
between five thirty and five forty five, and I showed
(18:22):
them on the clock what that looks like. But I
always made sure I came home at about five fifteen
five twenty to give them a routine. After we got
all of that cleared up, then there were no more
abandonment issues. I didn't find out about the conditions in
Antiqua until years later. I went to the Virgin Islands
(18:46):
for a speaking engagement. One of the ladies was explaining
to me the conditions in Antiqua is as if you
went back a hundred years and I lost it, you know,
speaking engagement. I'm glad I was finished speaking because I
(19:07):
I was a mess. It took everything to hold myself
together until I got home. And when I got home,
my son came home and he said, Mom, this is
what I want to tell you. They had to wipe
themselves with leaves to use the bathroom. They had to
(19:28):
carry painter buckets of water with worms in it back
to wherever they were living and put a sheet up
so that they could bathe. He said, Mom, we almost
lost hope, and that just stabbed me in my heart
when he said that, And I said, Honey, I'm just
(19:49):
so sorry you went through that. I did not bring
you in this world to suffer. And I've lost you,
guys for eighteen months, and that's eighteen months I can't
get back. But I hope that since I've had you back,
that I have done everything that I possibly can do
(20:11):
to make you feel like your home. And he said, Mom,
you did that. You went over and above. We know
everything you've done, and you've done a great job. You
taught us that we have to go through our emotional breakthroughs,
and we're gonna give you time to do that. Just
(20:34):
go through this process, go through this crime, and then
once you're done with it, then we can keep going.
When you speak, when you look out into the audience,
describe what you see. I see individuals who have taken
the time to come and hear my story, but also
(20:56):
there are victims in the audience that are looking for
something that would help them leave strategically without being hurt
or killed, because up to seventy of women who try
to leave an abusive relationship or either hurt or killed.
(21:17):
Share some of your your knowledge on how do women leave?
Everybody has a different way. Some leave abruptly, some plan,
some stay. I saw instead that it takes women in
abusive relationships up to seven attempts to ultimately leave for good.
That is correct, but that speaks to how difficult it
(21:40):
is to leave. It does the short answer. The long
answer is it wouldn't take me seven times to leave
if I had support. It wouldn't take me seven times
to leave if people didn't blame me for the abuse
that I'm in. So I have to not only handle
the abuse that I am in with my boyfriend or husband,
(22:03):
but I also have to deal with his family who's
coming after me, telling me not to report him or
turn him over to the police. I have to look
at my friends who are telling me that I'm stupid
and I should get out, but nobody's offering me a
way out. Nobody asked me what I want to do.
You're too busy telling me what to do. But if
(22:25):
you was in my shoes, what would you do so?
Don't give me medicine you won't take. Is there a
story that you've heard or that comes to mind that
demonstrates for you the key differences between violent abuse stories
that we hear a lot about and verbal abuse stories
that we don't pay as much attention to. I'll give
(22:47):
you the case of Rihanna and Chris Brown. When it
first came to light of the abuse, we only had
her word. She told how he was hurting her. What
do we do? We praise the abuser and we silenced
the victim. Why would you do that to Chris? He's
(23:08):
a good man. Why are you saying these things about him?
Then they started to bring up her past and how
terrible of a person she was until those pictures hit
the news and then it flipped. He lost endorsements. People
couldn't understand why he would do this to her, and
(23:28):
whatever she did, it shouldn't worry that. When it came out,
my first instinct was, she's calling out for help, but
no one is listening. When the pictures came out, everybody listened.
Why does it take a picture for you to understand?
(23:52):
So what I would say to victims and survivors in
the eight percent who do not have physical scars. Document document,
document time and date. Write it down as soon as
it's fresh in your mind. If there are people there
to witness, ask them to write affidavits so that you
(24:15):
can help the police by building your case, because the
police only goes off of evidence, and if you have
it written down, then you are actually building your case,
which is evident that you are in an abusive relationship
and you need help. And it goes the same way
for men. Men, You know, y'all just summarize stuff because
(24:40):
you feel you don't want to get the woman in trouble,
and it's not until your backs are against the wall
that you start to explain the physical assaults that you're
going through. Mom. Dad passed when I was nine from
a domestic violent situation, not with my mom, but with
(25:03):
another woman. What happened my mom and dad were separated
and he had decided to come back to my mom.
The woman who he was with said no, and she
waited until he was asleep. She pad locked the doors
and the windows and set the house on fire. You're
(25:23):
telling me your dad was killed and a domestic violence
murdered in a domestic violence situation, when I was nine
years old. I found this out when I was twenty one.
I went to my cousin's funeral. While we were at
the repass, there was some men playing cards and I
heard them call my dad's name, and so I went
(25:44):
over by the doorway, you know, just to listen. And
they said, you can hear him screaming from miles and
no one could get close to the house because it
was too hot, and so they waited until the Friday
harmon came to put the fire out. I say, Mom,
you told us he died in the Navy, that he
(26:05):
died on a ship. That's why they had his casket
draped with the flag. She said, well, he wasn't a military.
They gave him the flag because that's what they do
with soldiers. But I was waiting for you to get
old enough to tell you. But that's how my dad died.
(26:39):
How do you know what are the warning signs that
you're in an abusive relationship and that it's not some
quote unquote tough love. Love is not tough. There are
many signs to domestic abuse and violence. And I could
go over the signs and you can look them up
on the computer. But I'm a say it like this.
(27:00):
It really depends on your tolerance for pain. It really
depends on how you grew up. If you grew up
in a household where you witness your father or your
mother abusing the other parent, then your tolerance for pain
is high, and so it wouldn't be much of a
(27:21):
surprise if someone yelled at you, if someone tried to
restrict you, or something to that nature. There are many
men who grew up in an abusive home, and there
are many men who choose not to abuse when they
are in relationships. So that tells you right, there is
(27:44):
a choice. You are making a conscious decision to control
a life you did not create. So the question is
why do you feel entitled to control someone else's lie
life when you don't have control of your own. Disappointments
(28:05):
and frustrations are dealt with in different ways, but if
you were not taught how to handle your frustrations and disappointments,
then you will blame other people for bad decisions that
you've made instead of holding yourself accountable for your own actions.
(28:26):
Can you explain from your work with other victims and
survivors the control dynamic in abusive relationships? Well, it's the
honeymoon cycle. You know, I love you. Then you do
something too to make me hurt you. I'll call you
out your name, I'll even physically assault you. Then I
(28:47):
look at you and go, oh my god, I'm so sorry.
I'll never do this again. I go by flowers, or
I go get your favorite perfume or whatever, until you
do something again and then I beat you again. I
never hold myself responsible for beating you. It's always your fault.
It's always your fault. If you wouldn't have done that,
then I wouldn't have had to do see what you
(29:08):
made me do. No, that's a choice you made. Why
is control required by these abusers? It must speak to
lack within themselves. Absolutely, it's lack within themselves. They're insecure
about their own life. Again, it goes back to the
childhood and how you were raised in your home. If
(29:31):
you didn't have anybody to talk to to understand your
emotions and how you process those emotions, and you're watching
TV instead of having a sit down talk with an
actual person in order to understand why am I feeling
this way? It's got to be a reason, absolutely, as
a reason. So we have to understand the emotions that
(29:55):
are coming up or lessons that we need to learn
for ourse elves and understanding how to handle them. You
may not know yourself how to do that, but go
to a friend that you trust to help you to
process those emotions. When you finish your talks, describe for
me what are you thinking. What you hope people get
(30:16):
from your discussion of these issues. I never cry on stage.
I never cry at a presentation. If there's a victim
in the audience that's coming to see me, for me
to cry on stage tells them that they will never
get out. They look at me hoping I will say
(30:39):
something that will help them not only to get out,
but they can be strong, they can be strategic, they
can put the tools in place and become healed like me.
Crying tells them I'm not healed. Crying doesn't give them hope.
Some people say, well, you know it's okay to cry
(31:00):
to show people how you feel, not at that moment.
Not at that moment. When you're done, go crying in
your room, But don't cry in front of an audience
that's looking to you for hope, for empowerment, and for
the ability to know that once I get out of this,
(31:23):
I'm gonna be just like that, and I'm going to
share my story and I'm gonna be strong and help
other people. Is there a question that you get more
often than any other after I share my story? Mostly
what I get is I'm so glad you're still alive.
I'm so happy that I drove so many miles to
(31:45):
see you. I'm so glad that you're here. I remember
one when I was speaking in three different locations in Virginia,
and it was this one woman that was at all
three locations and I saw her and she came up
to me and she said, hey, Miss Mohammed. I said, hey,
how you doing. She say, you know, I've been to
(32:07):
all three of your presentations in Virginia. I said, yeah,
you're my little stalker. Huh. She said Ms. Mohammedan, You're right,
but I just had to hear you say this one
statement because I never heard that before. I said, well,
what was that said? I never heard anybody say that
(32:28):
you don't have to have physical scars? Ms Mohammed. I
have been in an abusive relationship for seventeen years and
he never hit me. I'm the breadwinner. He stays at home,
and he terrorizes me and my children. The first time
you said that, I went home and I looked forward everywhere,
(32:52):
and I couldn't find it on the internet where anybody
else said that. So I had to make sure that
I heard what you said. So I went to your
second session and you said it again, but this time
I applied what you said when you told us you
may not realize you're in an abusive relationship. So go
(33:13):
home and get a sheet of paper, draw a line
down the middle, pros and cons. Right, so you write
down the pros, you write down the cons. But when
you write them down, you don't make excuses like he
hit me because ABC and D. No, he hit me,
and your only evaluating the relationship and not the individual
(33:35):
because we change every day. Right, So she said, I
went home and I did that, and like you said,
if the pros outweigh the cons, then we can work
on the relationship. But ms mohammed, the cons outweigh the pros.
So that man, I needed to make a decision. But
I just had to hear you said one more time
(33:57):
before I made that decision. And when you said it again,
I knew I had to leave, and so I left
miss Mohammed, and guess what, me and my children we
are happy. And I would never have left if I
didn't hear you say you don't have to have physical scars.
(34:18):
What does hearing something like that do for you? That
makes me feel that what I started to do its
working because it's my mission to shift the thinking. And
I shifted her thinking so that she can take a
comprehensive look at her relationship and then strategize on how
(34:42):
to effectively leave. And that's what she did. I want
you to dig in a little bit more on that
sheet of paper concept and what you're writing. So can
you talk about that bit of guidance again? What you
tell people to go home and do again? You may
not know that you are in an abusive relationship. So
(35:02):
get a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle.
Pros on one side, cons on the other. Pros and
cons of the relationship, of the relationship only not of
the person. Okay, because we all have flaws, we all
come with bags. We just choose the person who's willing
to deal with the stuff that's in my bag. So
(35:24):
you got the pros and the cons on the paper.
The next thing you need to do is separate your
emotions from the actual facts. Just like Judge Judy, she says,
what all I want are the facts. I don't want
no emotions. You want to be emotional, go talk to
Dr Phield. So we only want the facts because the
facts will help you to see who you dealing with.
(35:50):
A pro could be he put gas in the car
because the tank was empty. No, he put gas in
the car. It doesn't matter the reason. There's no except
in no condition he put gas in a car. A
con would be he disconnected my phone because he didn't
want me on the house phone. No, no, no, he
disconnected the phone, simple as that. So once you come
(36:12):
to the end of that, if the pros outweigh the cons,
the relationship is worth analyzing and saving, and you have
to create a new normal. You can't go back to
what it was. You have to start fresh. If the
cons outweigh the pros, you really have a decision to make.
(36:36):
Are you gonna stay in a relationship. A lot of
people don't leave because they got a lot to lose.
Or I helped to build that house, I put money
in that account to I'm not having another person to
come in here and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I mean, all of that stuff goes on. So that's
a decision you have to make, and the decision is
completely yours. You don't need outside people telling you what
(37:01):
to do. Nobody's living your life for you but you.
But make sure it's a decision that you can live with.
If you suspect you or someone you know is experiencing
domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline A
(37:24):
seven two three three, or go to the hotline dot org.
Once again, that's the hotline dot org. Remember you are
not alone because domestic violence reports are on the rise.
Mildred Mohammed also recently released an e book called Being
(37:47):
Abused while Teleworking during COVID nineteen. You can find it online.
That's it for this bonus episode of Monster. We'll be
back soon with another bonus episode, an interview with John
and Mildred's daughters, Taliba and Selena. Subscribe to make sure
you don't miss it. When you're coming from a position
(38:09):
of being nine years old and all you've known is
my dad adds this type of way because I'm a
child that when you see him on TV, it's like, well,
I don't know what they're talking about because my dad
was consistent, consistent, consistent of right and was doing all
of the things that he was supposed to be doing
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