Escape from Colorado

Newly married and just a month into her pregnancy, Toni’s husband becomes physically abusive. Thousands of miles from her family, Toni carefully plans to escape with her children as her estranged husband’s harassment only escalates. Today, Toni hopes that telling her story will help others suffering from abuse to get help and to find safety. 

Show Notes:  

The National Domestic Violence Hotline: thehotline.org

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's around nine o'clock. I believe at night we hear
the garage opening, and my son hears it, we freak out. Honestly,
I didn't tell my sonus, but I thought that was it.
I was like, he's gonna, you know, hurt us, Like
this is it?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Welcome to the Knife I'm Hannah Smith. I'm Patia Eton,
and this week we'll speak with a woman named Tony Nova.
In twenty twenty, Tony was living in San Diego when
she met a man and quickly fell in love. Like
so many people experienced during COVID, her relationship timeline escalated
since she and her boyfriend seemingly spent every waking moment

(00:54):
together as the world shut down around them. Tony hoped
that this would be the start to a long, beautiful
lifetime together. Instead, it morphed into a dangerous nightmare. She
had always avoided dating men who seemed angry or violent,
but somehow she found herself trapped in a dire situation
thousands of miles from friends and family. Tony fought to
protect herself and her children. Now, Tony is sharing her

(01:17):
story in the hopes that she can offer insight to
others who might find themselves in a similar situation. This
conversation with Tony happened on February fifteenth, twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Let's get into the interview. Tony, thank you so much
for speaking with us today. Do you want to go
ahead and just start with a little introduction.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yes, and thank you for having me. I'm Tony.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm a mother of two and I share my story
after surviving domestic violence. I recently became a single mother
after leaving my expolls.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
So first, you know, we'd love to start off with
if you could tell us a little bit about your
upbringing where you're from.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, so I was born in Virginia and I would
live there until I was about I want to say three,
and moved to Delaware for about a year, and then
after that I had moved to Philadelphia and that's when
I was placed in foster care with my siblings. So
we were placed in foster care up until about age eleven.

(02:22):
Me and my younger sister were adopted together. And then
I have five brothers who none were adopted, So I
grew up in foster care. I was adopted you know,
when I think of my upbringing, I think of a
lot of trauma and trying to survive, and I think
that molded, unfortunately the person I am today, and good
ways and bad ways.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
When you were a kid, when you like thought about
your life for your future, do you remember, like what
kind of hopes and dreams that you had.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I actually only just wanted a family. I always wanted
a mom. I had this thing where I just wanted
a mom that loved me. It was all about me.
Those are the little things I would, you know, daydream
about fantasize that was an important thing. It wasn't about
what I wanted to be when I grew up. It
was about having a family. And then as I got older,
teenage years, it was actually me the idea of what
type of family I wanted to have, your typical American

(03:12):
family is what I thought in my head. We left
our biological family because we were neglected. They were not
capable of taking care of us. There was no physical
abuse on me and my sister, and there was no
sexual abuse on me and my sister. Where we entered
our adopted home, not our foster home, our adopted home.
That's what we both experienced physical and sexual abuse for
the first time.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
At age sixteen, Tony became pregnant, and at seventeen, she
gave birth to her son. Toni's adopted household was not
a place that she felt loved or supported. She knew
she needed her own space where she could create a
loving home for herself and her son, So on her
eighteenth birthday, Tony signed a lease on her own apartment,
and shortly after her younger sister also moved in. By

(03:56):
age nineteen, Tony was employed full time as a bank teller,
and over the years she worked her way up into management,
a career that nearly a decade later presented an opportunity
for her managing a bank in San Diego. She and
her son traded in their East Coast roots for sunny
weather and warm beaches. Everything was going well until one
day in November of twenty nineteen, Tony was at work

(04:17):
when she heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I believe I was living in San Diego for about
a year and a half and things were going pretty well.
To be honest, I met a lot of people, I
had a group of close friends. Like it was going good,
but at this particular job I was at.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
It was a Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I always remember it was Wednesday, and it was about
it was dark, so it was November on a Wednesday,
and it was dark outside. And this particular job, I
am a manager here, so I'm a big manager again,
and I'm sitting with one of my employees, who, by
the way, is my best friend now, and all of
a sudden, there is a gunshot that goes off and

(04:59):
something flies between us and I stand up because.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
I'm very confused.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
She bends down and I look down at her, and
to be honest, the rest is kind of like a
blur because at some point I kind of did things
like lock the door, things that I don't remember doing,
but it's on camera with me doing it. I can't
get too much into that to this because there was,
you know, a lawsuit involved, and that's all been settled,
but it traumatized me.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Tony reached a settlement with the bank she was employed
by that doesn't allow for her to say much about
what happened, but the incident was traumatizing, and all of
a sudden, Tony had time off work, something she'd never
had since becoming a single parent. So she decided to
download a dating app.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
So I swipe on this guy named Alex. He's not
the typical type I go for, but again, I think
he's super cute. I remember on his Bumble profile he
had a lot of like outdoor activities of hiking, and
I love hiking, so that was like the first thing
I liked is seeing that he hyped probably just as
much as me, according to his pictures. I think the

(06:03):
outdoorsy piece connected us the most. I don't remember the bio,
to be honest with you, I have no idea what
it said, but it had to say something good because
when I swipe, I actually read bios to make sure
it's not anything crazy or rude.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
By the way, Alex isn't his real name. We've changed
his name and the names of others for Tony's privacy.
As soon as Tony and Alex matched on the dating app,
Alex reached out to schedule a date. Tony accepted his invitation,
but decided to cancel at the last minute and gave
the excuse that her leg was hurting. Alex didn't take
it personally, and instead he called Tony to check on her.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
And then he called the check on me and say like,
how's your leg? What happen?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
And it just a casual conversation. Then we started talking
and goofing and laughing. We ended up being on the
phone for an hour, just goofing around because he called
me to check on my lefe to make sure I'm okay.
The next morning, after talking to him, I was like,
all right, my leg's going to be fine.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
I think I don't know what reason I gave him,
but I'm like, we could go all some more.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Suddenly it feels great.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
Yeah, you're normal, you seem nice.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
So we went to breakfast that morning. We went to
this place called Mom's. It was like a breakfast place
in San Diego. First of all, he arrived before me
and then he stood up walked, you know, behind me.
We got our table very like gentleman, like, I know
this sounds silly, but little things like let me order first,
you know, wait till I'm done, Like the little things
that you noticed. He had like bright eyes, like happy eyes.

(07:23):
I really pay attention to those things about people I
don't know, because I feel like sometimes I have sad
eyes even when I try not to. He had really bright,
happy eyes, which drawed me in because I like that.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
I remember our first date.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
We did a lot of talking, but I don't think
we got We did not get deep. We didn't get
super deep. We talked about like our siblings and things
like that. I let him know I was adopted, but
we didn't get like deep on this first date.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Was there an immediate chemistry?

Speaker 4 (07:48):
Yes? I thought he was cute as hell. Yeah, I
remember thinking that. I remember thinking like, oh my god,
he's really adorable.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Actually, I remember thinking adorable because he was three to
four years younger. Okay, ironically, that's also what made me
think I'm not going to really take him seriously because
he was also younger, and I think.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
I did say that. I was like, oh, you're so
young though, like but he was like, oh, you know,
the typical.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's just age. It doesn't mean anything. So after the
first date, the same day, he had texted me and
he said thank you for going out with me. I
thought that was cute. Another winner right there, like that's
a cute, No, that is cute. I agree, yeah, And
I replied like, well, thank you for taking me out
because you paid. In my head, I remember saying that

(08:29):
so about I would say four weeks after just going
on dates, having Vawn hanging out. He had went on leave,
so I think it was like a week leave in which,
you know, I took him to the airport, but we
went out to eb for the airport. And that was
a very pivotal conversation because we're sitting, you know, in
this restaurant and I'm about to drop off for the airport.
He's not my boyfriend. We're just dating and he's going

(08:52):
to be going for just a week or two. He
says like, I don't know what you're going to do
while I'm gone, but just so you know, like I
only want to date you. So that was like that
exclusive conversation before he was leaving.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
How did that make you feel?

Speaker 4 (09:02):
I really really excited.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
I was kind of shocked he brought that up because
I wasn't going to and I wasn't dating anybody else
at the time. But I think I was just not
going to bring it up in a way. It was
only like a month, right, so in my head, like
that's a good amount of time to figure out if
you like someone and you know, have that conversation. But
I also didn't want to add pressure again. That age
thing is where I kind of was okay, being a
little bit more casual. So you had that conversation and

(09:27):
I said, oh, like, you know, I'm going to do
the same. I'm not dating anyone else anyway. And that
was kind of like when we decided we're not you know,
boyfriend girlfriend, but we're just not seeing other people. Dropped
him off at the airport, and then when he came
back is when we made it official. He was saying
how much he missed me and all those things. Then
we've decided to date.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, and how long did you to date before, you know,
talking about marriage?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh, not long enough? About four months? Four months of dating.
You know, when you think back on it, it's like
red flag right there. Four months is not enough time?

Speaker 3 (09:58):
What prompted the marriage converse? So early? Did he bring
it up? Did you bring it up?

Speaker 2 (10:03):
So COVID was happening around this time, and he was
supposed to go away again for a deployment, but things
got delayed because of COVID, And when they got delayed,
that meant we were around each other a lot more
because of lockdown and things like that.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
We were always together.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
We were just always around and we had this linging
thing of oh my god, randomly, they're going to tell
him it's time to go, and he's going to go
for six months. He shared it with me that he
had a fear that when he went, I would leave him,
because he did share that happened to one of his
older brothers who was in the military. So he had
this overwhelming fear that when they called him to go
on deployment, he would come back and I would be

(10:41):
with someone else or just moved on. And I kept
telling him, no, that's not going to happen, but it
did put a rush on things of the longer that
they pushed it back, the more we felt like we
had limited time, like I don't know he felt like that,
but I also felt that too. For some reason, when
we started talking about marriage, that was a big factor
of it. We knew that if we were married, and
a sense for him, probably I wouldn't leave, I guess,

(11:02):
But for me it was more so like maybe I
could show him that I'm not going to just leave,
like I really care about him, I love him at
this time.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
It's interesting this idea of like a fear that he
would be left prompting a marriage and not sort of
this overwhelming desire to build a life together.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Right, And I never had anyone have that particular fear. Ironically,
I would have that fear in family situations. So seeing
that he had that fear, I really did feel like
I wanted to show him that that's not going to happen.
Saying it wasn't enough because he always had that fear,
even though I knew in my heart I wouldn't have
done that. I felt, in a sense, loved that he
was worried about losing me that much.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah, that makes total sense.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
What was it about him that made you love him? Like,
was there anything about him that you were like, this
is something I really love about this person, or I
am attracted to or I could build a family with him,
or what was that feeling?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
It was how he was with my son right off
the bat when they finally met. He was just really
communicative with him. My son had had a birthday and
he was like, hey, like, do you mean to do this?

Speaker 4 (12:08):
You can do that.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
He would take the time to bond with my son
like without me, which is a big thing for me
because I don't want to date someone that's just liking
my son because he's my son, right, Like I want
them to get to know him on his own, and
he did that. He would go and hikes with him
without me. They would plan their own little things, kind
of gang up on me in jokes and situations. They
had their own bond, they really did. And I really

(12:30):
like seeing how much he cared about him, and that
kind of was it for me as far as like
he's the one.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
And so when did you make the decision to get married.
Did he propose?

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yes, Actually, he planned it with my son. He proposed
on a hike. My son knew about it. My son
kind of led me to know about it because of
how he was acting. He was being really odd. He
proposed on the hike. My son was there. It was
like a you know, cute moment. It was one of
those funny moments because it was a hike, so like
it wasn't the easiest hike. I'm like, out of all
the places, time sweating, but it was still one of

(13:03):
those cute memories. And I remember the proposal came and
I was excited, but I knew. I was like, this
is going to be one of those like two year engagements.
So we had talked about the wedding being after deployment,
like you know later like there's no rush.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
That didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
So it went from us getting married after he comes
back from deployment. Again, we knew he was going to
get employed at some point and be gone for six months,
like that was the perfect amount of time to plan
a wedding and you know, figure everything out soon. The
conversation changed from after deployment to he wanted to get
married before he left.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
The urgency was.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Like there, and I think at first I said, like,
we'll think about it, because that's such a short time
to plan a wedding. So I said, well, think about it.
Covid was dying down around this point, but there was
still a lot of limitations. So he said, well, we
could just do it on the beach.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
It doesn't have to be a whole plan, like, we
don't have to plan a wedding.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
So every like opposition I had with you know, that's
a short time to plan a wedding, it was like, well,
we really can can't plan a wedding. It's Covid. COVID's
still here. It's dying down, but it's still here. So
it's like he kind of won. But also at the
time I was letting him win. I'm in love, So
I'm not seeing this as an issue. I'm seeing as that,
like he's persistent, he wants to do this. I'm okay, waiting,
but you know what, let's do this. And that's when
his parents had flew out to meet me, because now

(14:17):
obviously I'm engaged with their son.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, and meeting his family, how did they respond to you.
You guys had only known each other and been dating
four months.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
So his dad seemed nice, you know, talked a lot.
His mom barely communicated with me. I think she would
only talk to him mostly like she just seemed very
uninterested and getting to know me, more interested in seeing
her son again. I realized that not only was I
at the first you know, minority that had entered that
family in that way. They didn't seem, according to them,

(14:48):
to be around many African American people in general. It's
the comments they were making. This is a really tough time,
this is twenty twenty, right, Black Lives matter going on.
There was a lot happening, and they would bring that
up but in a negative way in front of me,
so I just would ignore it, like they would blame
more African Americans for the issues and that. How you know,
his dad at the time was an active police officer,

(15:10):
so he would say how he's going to retire, and
he did retire, but he would say, like, I'm retiring
because if I don't retire, you know, it is very
negative about black people, maybe like ruining his job in
a sense. Wow, it just became very weird.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, when they would make those comments with Alex stick
up for.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
You, and looking back, I wonder if he did hear.
But he wouldn't hear all of this. Sometimes he would
and he would say something but like according to him,
I would have to tell him and.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
He would be like, oh, I didn't even know they
said that, and then he would stick up for me.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
But he always would often say he didn't hear it
or he didn't pick it up, and I believed him.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
But he understood why it might make you uncomfortable some
of their comments.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
He did understand we would have like our first big
argument because of that. He would say, I told him
not that close with him, even though obviously we experienced
that he was.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
But he would say things like that, So, just so
that we can be clearer, Alex and his family are white,
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, So you have this argument with Alex about these
comments coming from his family, and that's your first real disagreement,
is that when you called off the wedding.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, I call off the wedding because more comments. His
father was saying, I don't want to get obviously to political,
but he was making a lot of comments that were
really just offensive and obviously against me as a woman,
a black woman, And at that point I realized, like,
what am I marrying into really, and I felt like
he was dis honest with me about that.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
He said he didn't even.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Know they were like this at one point and then
later on changed it, but it just it felt so confusing.
I felt so conflicted, and he had went away for training,
and I probably should have did it over text, but
I did because I knew, like, if I did over text,
like you know, he's already away, this would be a
little bit easier. And I said, like, I still love you,
I so want to be with you, but I just
don't want to get married right now. And according to

(17:00):
his friends, he had a whole breakdown and was crying,
and that's when his friend started calling me saying, like,
don't call off the wedding because of his parents.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
He's nothing like them.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
He loves you in a sense guilt triving me, and
I actually agreed with them. I was just like, oh, like,
you know, you're right, I shouldn't call it the wedding
because of his parents. Like that's not fair to him.
I'm judging him because of his parents. Oh God, I
wish I would have stood on business and called it
off because I knew, I felt deep in my heart
I should have. But I ended up changing my mind
and we went on with the wedding.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
So a month after the wedding, I became pregnant, and
that was the first time he was physical at the time.
I don't think it was some big argument. I don't
remember it being a chaotic day. I can say though,
life happened fast. So after the wedding becoming pregnant, so fast,
life just goes. And at this particular time, he had

(17:52):
really full force started like standing up for me against
his parents. So he was stressed about a deployment that's
coming up. And then I remember he's just still arguing
with his parents about me, in particular, going back and
forth about me. So I hate that I excused it
for the stress.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
He was dealing with.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
But he was physical for the first time, and I
did call a friend who came over. She did, you know,
say like, this isn't normal. He should never have done that.
There's no excuse. She had to talk with him. And
I always appreciate this friend because for her to come
over and have a talk with him, a stern talk,
like as she was like a parent in a sense,
like she said, what you did is manipulative, it's abusive.
I was really proud that I had a friend like that,

(18:32):
but I also was like, wow, I wish I could
talk to him like that.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
She was very matter of fact, and he seemed to
listen to her, and he apologized and said it wouldn't
happen again. Every time I look back on that day,
I remember all the excuses I had in my head already.
I was really surprised because I've dated obviously before him,
and I've never had a man harm me in that way.
I've barely had men I dated lift their voice. Like
I kid you not, that's a trigger for me when

(18:58):
someone yells at me. Actually a man because what I
didn't share is one of the reasons that we were
taken from our home is you know, our mother showed
us abusive relationships often. We've watched or be abused by
men as kids a lot. So what I dated, I
always dated with that in front of mine. I don't
like when a man raises his voice to me. That's

(19:18):
a no for me. So because I've never had experienced that,
and I felt like I was really good at dating
people that didn't do that, I was shocked at the
man I married ended up being the person to do that.
So I was very confused and shocked, and I always
told myself it would never be me, and it was.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
And that's so scary because you're already married to him,
and it's just like he didn't do this until you
were married.

Speaker 4 (19:40):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, that's really scary.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Married and pregnant and purchasing a home in a whole
new state, exactly. Tony and Alex saw a therapist following
the first incident, a physical abuse by Alex, but Tony
didn't tell that therapist about the incident. She was pregnant

(20:05):
and hoped that he could better himself before becoming a
father to the baby girl they had on the way.
Alex was then deployed for much of Tony's pregnancy, but
Tony always had the support of her son, who stepped
in to care for her.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
So that's a big gap of time where it was
just me and my son. And I want to highlight
him because you know, I was getting morning sickness. My
son would hear it, come in with bags like I
know this stuff.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
One time you.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Started cleaning up and I'm like, don't clean up, I
got this, like bye, just get out. Like That's how
helpful my son was throughout everything. When we would go
to the beach, he'd make sure he's lded my hand.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
Down the stuff. So I'm like, oh my god, this
little boys amazing.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
So when I had ended up moving to Colorado with
him and my daughter, it was okay, Like I know
that sounds crazy, but we're okay. We were okay without him.
We managed without him, but I didn't miss him.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Of course we moved.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
To Colorado, I had had the baby at this point,
so we had our daughter in California, and that's when
we had purchased the home sight unseen by the way,
so we did with the real litter virtually. So when
we're in Colorado, we miss each other a lot. Like
I remember missing him. I remember being able to be
fine with the kids, but we weren't always together because
he was in California, still finishing off his contract in

(21:15):
the military. I remember that. A really important sign that
I didn't that made me very confused of his mental
state was there was a day in particular, nothing had
happened between us. We weren't argue or anything like that,
but I didn't hear from him like all day. And
at first it was nothing. I was like going about
my day. But when I started texting and no reply
for hours, I'm like, this is so odd, Like I

(21:36):
hope he's okay. So I had called one of his
friends and I said, hey, like, is he okay? Is Alex?
Where's Alex? I haven't been able to reach him. So
I saw him a few hours ago. I'll call him.
He called me an answer, He's like, hey, I don't know,
Like he's probably fine, though, don't overthink it. Hours go
by and you got to think I haven't heard from
him since like eight in the morning, And at first
I'm not noticing it. It's now like seven and I'm like,
oh my god, like he got in a car accident

(21:58):
or something. I'm super nervous. Now I'm like calling, calling, calling,
calling his friends some more. I think I had a
whole cry session. I'm like, oh my god, I can't
reach them. He calls back like nothing happened, like he
didn't just disappear all day and like he doesn't have
Probably thirty minus calls me. He's like, hey, what's up.
And I'm like, are you okay? He's like, yeah, I'm fine.
I just hurt myself skateboarding. I FaceTime him, like you

(22:21):
know what's going on? And he has his eyes are
red like he was crying. There's blood on his arms
from like the skateboard, you can see the strap marks.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
And I was like, were you crying? He was like
I was. And I was like, what's wrong? Are you okay?
And he's just like, yeah, I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
I was so confused. I had no idea what just happened.
I haven't heard him all day. I FaceTime him and
he has red eyes like he's crying, and then I
hang up and I remember thinking like what was that?

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Like what just happened?

Speaker 3 (22:43):
So did you ever get answers like why are you
behaving this way? After a day of no contact?

Speaker 2 (22:50):
I did, in the sense of he he said, he
goes through depression, and this is like one of the
first times I have found out his mental state because
he told me that he was suicidal.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Unfortunately, what was your reaction to that?

Speaker 2 (23:05):
I felt really bad. I even blamed myself a little,
and like life happened fast for him, like you know,
baby marriage. I thought maybe this was too much, too overwhelming.
I thought I was a problem. I really didn't. I
hate that I resulted to that, but I thought, maybe,
like this is a lot for him, and I started
really thinking about his needs and his mental state more
than mine.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
At the time. There was other.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Incidents that had happened, physical and just mental outbursts that
would happen throughout our marriage, and I would hide a
lot of it from my son until one time, you know,
there was a violent incident where I did call the
police because I was worried for my life and my safety.
At the time that I called the police, he knew
I had called him and left the house with a
firearm and was texting me that he was going to

(23:49):
use it. So when the police arrived, I said, like, hey,
you know, nothing happened, Can you just go make sure
he's okay? And they saw his car pull off. They asked,
was that his car that pulled off at the end
of the street. Said yes, so can you go make
sure he's okay? He said, he's legally allowed to have
a firearm and leave, so they couldn't like go chase
after him unless I said something happened. But I knew
that if I said what had happened, he'd get arrested.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
And I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
In my head, I thought when he realized the cops
were saying, Hi, he's going to do it. So I
called his mom, told her what was happening, told her
to tell him not to do it. Had the cops leave,
told them nothing happened. I don't want to talk about it.
They left like a domestic violence pamphlet. I think they
saw through it, but they couldn't do anything. He came
home the same day. It was probably like three hours
after that. We had already been texting and here to

(24:34):
let me know he wasn't going to do it. By
this point, even in text, I told him, you know, hey,
I didn't tell the police what happened, Like, please just
come back and don't do it. That was my biggest thing.
So the incident where I called the police. We had
been married at this point for I want to say
two years, okay, and again, you know, I want to
be clear things happened before, but this was the first
time I had called the police.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, And so you know, it's interesting You're dealing with
worrying about his safety because he has a gun that
he is threatening to use on himself, but then he
also is clearly threatening you are safety, and you're in
the safety of your children exactly.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yes, So you're.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Having to feel like you have to protect everybody in
this scenario basically, right. Was this like a breaking point
for you you decided to call the police. Was there
something different in his demeanor or something that had changed
to escalate the situation?

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yes, I don't know if I didn't notice before, but
he had a different look in his eyes, and I
truly felt like he was going to unlively. I think
this is the point where I started realizing all the
great things about him wasn't really him, that this is
really him. I think this was the point where I
stopped thinking I did this, you know, the stress from
marriage and a new baby, Like I finally got into

(25:51):
my head that it's not that it's him. That was
really important for me to realize because that's the first
time I told my son that the cops had came.
And why it was a weird situation to tell him,
because again, he's a teenager at this point, and it's
odd that I felt the need to tell him, but
I thought it was important for him to know because
growing up, we knew, Like when we were kids, we

(26:14):
knew what was happening, and they pretended nothing was happening.
I wanted to make sure that I was honest with
him because I think he already knew. I told Alex,
you have to get help or you have to leave.
And that's when we had started the process of him
getting help. We got a marriage counselor, he got his
own counselor, he got his own therapists and psychiatrist. He
started getting prescribed medications, and he seemed to after that begins,

(26:34):
he seemed to start doing good for a little bit.
But yeah, my son never forgave him. They never had
a close relationship after that. My son truly felt and
he's right, if a man can put his hands on you,
that he's not a good man. And my son was right,
So I told you things were going good for a while.
Of course, it never laughed. Went to visit a friend
of mine for her baby shower. This incident was probably

(26:56):
one of the most chaotic ones. But he had attempted
on highway to jump out of a moving car. It
was very traumatic. The kids were there to see it.
My sister were going to the beach, so she was
there and she saw everything. And because she saw everything,
it heightened it because she was so confused and shocked,
and you know, yelled at him. Because we have kids
in the car. I was driving with one hand on

(27:18):
the stand and while the other hand on the lock
because he kept moving it, so I had to keep
pressing it.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
My daughter's crying.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
My son takes out his phone and starts reporting because
he's just like, I need proof of this.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
This is insane. It was just a lot.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
It was the most chaotic et fears I've ever been
in because we have so many moving parks here. I'm
trying to make sure he doesn't do anything insane, trying
to make sure my kids stop witnessing this, trying to
keep him calm. Ended up calling his parents at this
point because I can't do this on my own.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Right What happened in the car that day was terrifying.
When they returned home from the baby shower, Tony and
Alex mutually agreed to separate. He would move into the
base of their home to give her and the kids
more space after behaving so erratically putting them all in danger.

(28:06):
The moment in the car when Tony tried desperately to
stop Alex from jumping out of their moving vehicle, all
while trying to protect her children from the trauma of
witnessing it, this was a moment of no return for Tony.
She knew ending her marriage with Alex would be a long,
difficult and dangerous road, but she no longer had energy
to hope for change. Tony began quietly making preparations to leave.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And about I would say a week after him being
in the base, and we started crying, saying, he's moser
voice to press and he wants to come back upstairs
the usual.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
And I let him.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
But my little sister and me were saying in touch
about the situation. Because I was still planning to leave.
I just knew I had to. I started the process
of opening an account, you know, just preparing I actually
joined domestic violence supports groups told them what was going on,
like I couldn't even with letting her I'm come back upstairs.
I felt bad, but I also knew I did. I
didn't feel safe, and I didn't feel like my kids

(29:04):
were safe, and I actually was doing it for my
safety and their safety.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
First.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
I wasn't caring about how much I cared about him
and wanted him to be better. I was caring about
us living. So one thing I learned is when you're
in a domestic violence situation, you really can't. They say,
make a plan, but it's so hard to make a
plan because your plans will go Hey, why when you're
dealing with a person that is not stable, interrational? Because
why I'm planning and I'm thinking, I'm secretly doing this.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
I'm secretly doing that.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I even talked to my boss and let them know, like, hey,
I might have to, you know, transfer, So I'm talking
to you know, my boss. I'm getting the sport of
domestic violence support group. I'm moving some of my paycheck aside.
Like I'm planning well randomly, one day I wake up
and there's another blow up, another blow up in the morning,
and I don't know where it's coming from came out

(29:50):
of nowhere. And he told me, he said, last night,
you told me you hate me, you don't love me anymore,
and you're leaving me. And I look at him and
I'm like, no, I didn't. And I started thinking did
I say this? Like was I have sleep?

Speaker 4 (30:04):
We fell asleep watching a movie by the way the
night before.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
So when he said that I said these things, I
actually like thought I did or something, But I don't
remember saying them. I don't I still till today, like
I know I didn't say them now, but at the time,
like thinking, did I say these things? And he started
saying all these mean things I said to him, and
I'm like, why would I say that? I know better,
Like I know better than them, just say those things
because I know they would upset him. And now I
realized that that was just a part of his mental help.

(30:30):
I remember him having the outburst, me just crying. I
called her friend, told her what's happening, and he left
for an hour, came back with flowers.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
My kid.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
You know, I saw him walking in through the window
with flowers, and I was disgusted. I remember it, just
wanting to throw up, like is he serious. He walks
in with these flowers and I asked him, like, I
put them down because I don't really care about them.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
I say, like, what was that this morning? And he
was like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
And then he went about his day and I felt
like I was in the house with a zombie or
something because he was just like going to today like
nothing happened.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
And then we ordered pizza. We're eating the pizza.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
I asked him to give me plates because he starts,
I know, this is so silly, but we ordered the pizza.
The first thing he does is get up, get the
pizza and then go sits back down, doesn't get it
for the kids, doesn't do anything. I was like, you
can at least show me some plates, help me with
the kids. That set them off. He threw all the
plates at me. He went on a tyrant. Another incident,
this time it involved our child, so I'm not going

(31:24):
to get into that too much. Our daughter, and then
my son overheard it and he called the police, and
that is when the police arrived arrested him.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
And that was the.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Last time I've been in the house with him. That's
the last time we were together. So what happened is
he was arrested. I think he was in jail for
two days, and the judge released him on a strict
no contact order. But at night, it's around nine o'clock.
I believe at night, we hear the garage opening, and
my son hears it.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
We freak out.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Honestly, I didn't tell my son that's but I thought
that was it. I was like, he's gonna, you know,
hurt us, like this is it because we heard it opening.
And then I rush up, I turn on the lights
and by the time I get to the garage, it
is no longer open. And then I call his brother's wife,
the only person I was kind of in touch with
you all this time, and tell her what happened, and
she calls him, and he did admit that he was

(32:16):
just there. He said it was to get a bong,
a bomb.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
He broke the no.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Contact scared us to get a bong, so he said.
And then he had opened the garage because we have
like a monitor. He opened it halfway just to roll under,
which is even creepier to get a bob.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
To get a bomb.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yes, but at this point the court does state that
the only way we can communicate is to a third
party about the children only who were like needs for them.
I asked his brother's wife, Karen, if she could be
the third party communicator. She agrees, and the reason why
I felt comfortable asking her is throughout the relationship, she
was one of the people that would apologize for others' behaviors.

(32:55):
She would apologize for my mother in law's treatment towards me.
She didn't have the best relationship with either, so she
understood where I was kind of coming from with some
of the issues. Hers weren't obviously racially motivated, but it
was just the way she treated her she didn't like.
So we kind of bonded on the fact that like
we both kind of don't like our mother in law.
I guess I thought, because she's like the in law too,
that she would choose right over wall, and she did

(33:18):
for a while, she really did, so she was our
third party.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
When he came by the house and rolled under the
garage door, did you call the cops or just your
sister in law just Karen? Did you guys have any
discussion about whether or not it might be best for
you to call the cops since he had violated his
protection order so quickly?

Speaker 2 (33:41):
No, because I knew he was already in trouble with
the police. I guess that work where that protection comes
in again. I think I wanted to protect him because
I didn't want him to be arrested again.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
So no, I didn't.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
And plus in my head, I'm like, well, at list
it was just a bong and not too you know,
a lie of us.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Since he had agreed to the separation, was the divorce
spend in motion.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
The timeframe of him agreeing to the separation was in
August twenty twenty three. He was arrested in October twenty
twenty three, so no, nothing was in motion even with him.
You know when I told you he was upset whened
to come back upstairs, he wanted to call off the divorce.
That was part of him being upset. And when it
comes stairs, he actually said he has no reason to

(34:23):
live if he doesn't have his family, things like that.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
So although like I may have, I feel like reassured.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Him like okay, like we'll talk about it, just you know,
you need to keep getting help. I was still making
the plans with my sister and still doing the task
that I needed to do to make sure I got.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Out Once Alex was arrested. Tony felt like she could
finally put a plan in place to move herself and
her children out of Colorado. She listed their house for sale.
She worked with a nonprofit in her home state on
the East Coast to help her find new housing site unseen.
This was October of twenty twenty three. Ideally, Tony wanted

(34:58):
her son to be able to finish out the school
year before their move.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
But unfortunately, again, you can't make plans when you're dealing
with an abuse of situation because they don't always happen
and go through. And that's what had happened. It went
for me, saying I had till January to February to
me having to leave as soon as possible because my
ex decided to harass me and the children at the
family home. So at this time, it's fall in October,
so it's about thirty degrees that night, maybe thirty four

(35:24):
around that, and because of that, you start turning on
your heat.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
I turned the heat on. I would turn it.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
I'd leaved to seventy two, seventy four, I don't remember
around there. I go seventy two, and every like maybe
two hours, I'd wake up freezing cold because the heat
was off and the AC was on, and it was
to the lowest point, the lowest you can put it
at sixty two. You can't like put it lower than that,
so it be to the lowest point.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
And I'm like, why is the heat off? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (35:49):
And in my head I'm like, I can't. I can't
fix this, like it's just me. I don't know how
to fix this. So I would go back to the thermostat,
turn it back on heat. I would fill the vent
and I'm like, Okay, the heat's coming out and I'll
go back to bed. It will happened again. I woke
up the next morning with my daughter coughing, she's cold.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
I'm cold. My son wakes up for school. He's like,
why is this so cold in the house. I was like,
I don't know. I think the thermostats broke. This went
on for four days.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
On the fourth day, I thought about and I was like,
oh my god, could this be Alex like toggling on
the thermostat. We had a smart thermostat, And it was
indeed Alex. I don't know how he was awake all
these times the night or day or whatever, but he
would literally routinely go in, turn off the heat and
turn on the.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
AC so we'd be cold.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
From his phone.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
From his phone, Yep, he had access just like I did.
So I had removed the access and it stopped.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Wow, but it's colder than sixty two because it's like
thirties outside and he has the AC on.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yeah, we were cold. We were really cold.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Do you think he was watching you?

Speaker 2 (36:48):
That was another thing he had admitted to, So we
did have cameras. I ended up changing the pass cold
that he was. He also tried to log into it
after I changed the pass where it didn't work because
I got the.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Alert you had cameras inside your house.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
It was in the den.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
We had a camera in the den and then like
the common areas, so he knew when I was home.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
So he's like in theory watching you get up called
and be confused about the thermostat Yep.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Did you ever tell your son that Alex was responsible
for that?

Speaker 2 (37:17):
No, because at this point he knew we were leaving
and he was already really stressed and sad to say
goodbye to his friends. I wanted to make the rest
smooth as possible, so I did not Karen you know,
she was definitely the only person I felt supported by
in that family. So I would tell her these things,
and that's how I found out he admitted it, because

(37:38):
he admitted it to her. So after he was arrested
and she became our third party, she said she laid
it out to him. She called him, like, what is
wrong with you? You know, giving him the whole you
know what is happening, right, And his response was, I
sometimes black out and I don't remember what I do.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
You know. He was released from.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
JEL at this point, and he said, tell her that.
They said that if she needs help with the kids,
she has to like amend and no contact. So when
she called me back, it was like he said this,
he said that, and I told her, I said, I'm
not amending though, no contact.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
I'm leaving him. And she had told me he.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Was remorseful on the phone, but I didn't care. I said,
I'm leaving him. So another incident had happened, of course, right,
It's around eight o'clock at night. Me and my daughter
were watching TV. My son's in his room, and all
of a sudden, the power goes out. You know how
when you lose power in the neighborhood or something like that.
So we're like, oh my god, the power's out. And
my daughter's scared of the dark. At this time, she's

(38:32):
just a toddler, so she's crying and I'm trying to
find a flashlight. I use my phone to find you know,
the phone flashlight to find a flashlight. I get it,
and then my son meets up with me and he's like,
oh my god, the power went out. And we go
out on the porch. The power's not out. All our
neighbor's porch lights are on. It's just us and we
see his car speed buy in front of us. It's
like so fast, and my son just freaks out and

(38:54):
he's very He's such a nonchalant kid. I've never seen
him so upset. He freaks out. He says, oh my god,
it was him, and I'm trying.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
To listen to him.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
I'm trying to figure out where the power boxes on
the outsids. I don't know where it's at. We go
around the house. I see it on the side of
the house where there's no cameras. We have to toggle
through it in the dark, and we lifted up all
the lights come back on it. That was that was
too much for me, and I called the police because
I knew he was going to keep doing stuff.

Speaker 4 (39:17):
I knew it.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I was like, this is not going to stop. He's
making me pay. I called the police, told him everything.
I said, the car, you know, sped by, and they said,
but did you see him in the car? I said
no because I didn't, and that they can't do anything
unless he admitted it because I didn't see him. And
I'm like, oh my god, it was his car. They
said they'll add it to like, you know, his case,
case anything else happens. And I remember thinking like, well,

(39:37):
if anything else happens, m'd be too late.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Like you know.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
And that's when I said, fa, I'm leaving, like I'm
not staying here. He's going to continue to do things.
So I had packed in two weeks and left. I
had my car shipped, put items in the car to
ship it. I had some type of long distance truck
go out. I didn't drive, but I showed up at
the airport with two suitcases and my two kids.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
And a dog.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Even that experience as one person was just a lie.
And my son was doing so much like what he
could do with his hands, like you know he has two,
and he had the dog, and we had our had
a car seat by the way. On top of that,
because my daughter, it was just I look back, I
feel like I was running on adrenalin because I don't
even know how I did all these things.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
I don't know how I functioned.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
To be honest with you, and you moved to the
East Coast, yes, right, how did you land on that decision?
So my older sister, my little sister, my brothers, everyone,
we're all from the East Coast, so I wanted to
be closer to them. I wanted to have family support.
I thought about staying in Colorado so my son can graduate,
but I knew I had a toddler, my daughter, she

(40:43):
was two at the time, Like I knew that I
needed support more than I would get there. I didn't
want my son to be some sort of parental figure
for our daughter. I didn't want him to have the
burden of babysitting, you know, and things like that when
he should be a child having fun. I didn't want
any of that experience to overtake his life. Now that
I knew, I'm a single parent, so I knew if

(41:04):
I moved, I had my siblings. You know my civilly
uses sounds like that's what answer for right, they are
the babysitters.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yes, but in my head, I just wanted him to
have a normal experience, and I have the support that
we need to create that normal experience.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
When you got to the East Coast and you had
your new apartment, did you feel a new sense of
relief for safety with that.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
By the way, this is another place I moved into
sight Unseen. I got pictures and videos, but I walked
in and I remember thinking like, uh, carpet, So it
was carpet everywhere. It was like, you know, and I
remember thinking like, I hate carpet, but I feel so safe.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
I felt so safe.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
You really feel the change of coming from this mode
of survival to like, oh my god, I'm safe. I
thought he didn't know where I lived, so I felt
super safe. I'm like, we did it, we got here,
we did it. And I have a picture of my
son just holding my and he's like they're sleep and
they're sleep on the couch. Because I had a little college,
we were waiting for everything to come. It was just

(42:06):
one of those moments I think I like cried a
little bit because they just looked so peaceful. After all,
they had just been through the traveling, the packing, the chaoticness,
and I just felt like we were finally at peace.
I remember not forwarding my address because I was scared
to forward it, and then finally I forwarded it to
my sister's address instead because I just didn't know if
he would find out somehow by logging in. I didn't

(42:29):
know at the time I could get an address protection.
I know that now and I have that now in
my new place, but at the time I didn't know,
so I just didn't share it. But I did get
a call from Karen about three days after being there
letting me know that he did find my address, and
I said how did he get it? And she said
it was from Thumbtack. So remember how I told you
I had a long distance mover, I had my car shift.

(42:50):
I got that stuff from Thumbtack. That's how I arranged
the move, and we both had the same Thumbtack log in. However,
he would get the alert and of course didn't say anything.
He waited until I provided the moving address, because they
get the address for me the pickup where I was
at in Colorado, so he was getting the alerts of everything.
He knew what I was doing the whole time, and

(43:10):
I just didn't know he knew.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
And you had just had this really beautiful moment of
you know, your falling asleep in your new apartment, your
kids look so at peace. How did it feel to
learn that he now again knew where you lived?

Speaker 4 (43:24):
I got scared.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
I knew he was still in Colorado at this time,
so I felt like I had a short amount of
time to figure this out for he gets here.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
That's another thing.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
He had asked permission and it wasn't granted just yet,
but to move here to the same state, and that
means he would be about an hour away from me,
living with his parents, So they may be a little
over an hour, but that's around the distance. So I
knew I had a short time before they approve it
to figure this out.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
And it's just a pure coincidence. He happens to also
be from the same state on the east coast that
you are from, and so his parents were already there exactly.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
That's one of the things laughed about on one of
our early dates was, oh, my dad, we're both from
the same state. There was a court date set up,
and you know, the DDA assistant called me.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
They let me know the plea deal they were offering.
If I was okay with it. I said, I don't care.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
As long as he stays away from me, like I'm
okay with whatever plea deal. And they told me the
terms of what his probation would because that was a
part of the plea deal, probation and dropping some of
the charges if he accepts it. I remember thinking about
our daughter, who would often ask about him, and I
said to the DA assistant, I said, how can he

(44:33):
talk to our daughter? How can we figure that out
besides the third party? And she had said, you have
to ask the judge to amend the no contact so
I had to ask permission to allow him to talk
to her. So I went virtually and I had to
ask the judge to amend this and he said on
my shore and I said yes. I asked just for
electronic I didn't want any in person communication, just so

(44:53):
he can FaceTime, and the judge did granted. So I'm thinking, okay,
at least like he could stole some some way be
a father to our child. However, he did not do that,
and he used that to her ask me instead, and
then he was able to text me and he would
start her asking me via text. The hard part is
there was a part where he was texting so fast,

(45:13):
so much, and then at one point he called me
a racial slur and then he unscent it. But I
had already screenshot it, and this is something that I
wanted to use for court, so I already had the
proof of that. But he kept going on and on
and on. Some of his texts were hard to understand.
He wasn't really coherent. He would say, speak to me daughter, now,
like that's how they were, and I'm like, okay, that's

(45:34):
all you should be texting me about. When do you
want to speak to her? And then he would say
the time and then like we had set up something
and he didn't call, and I waited with her. Yeah,
he set her up because she knew. That's why she
was at her tablet waiting for it. And I realized
quickly like, oh my god, this is not working. I
need to get the no contact back to what it was.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
So it just.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Continued and I didn't call the cops. I know I
should have, but I didn't.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
I mean, who could blame you that's a terrifying, say,
situation to be in, and you don't know what he's
going to do, and.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Right, I just want to answer his questions and not
get him more upset at this point.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, it's just like you talking about way back when
when he was not defending you to his parents and
pretending like he's not hearing all of this coded language,
right like or maybe overt racist language, right and saying
I'm on your side, I'm on your side or whatever,
and then having mental health issues and very violent and

(46:29):
a lot of problems and saying a lot of negative things.
But the fact that then he brings out this you know,
racial slur, like, right, I can't, I don't know. That's horrible.
Did that feel like, oh yeah, like you actually are
just like your parents all along? Like how did that
make you feel?

Speaker 2 (46:45):
It was definitely a gut punch, because out of everything,
I never thought he'd do that, Like, I mean, there
was he was already very low, right, like he was
already putting us through a lot, since the bar was
already to the ground. I shouldn't have been shocked, but
I was. He still continued to shock me with his behavior.
I did think that I was like, oh my god,
he is like his parents. I was mad at myself
because it's like I knew it, and I don't know,

(47:06):
deep down, I feel like I knew it. When I
wanted to call off the wedding, that was actually a concern.
I'm like, what if he's like that and he just
likes me and I'm the exception to the role for him.
I thought about those things and that was one of
the reasons I wanted to call off the wedding. But again,
his friend said, he's nothing like his parents, and you know,
it was definitely a good punch, and it was hard
because I also think about our daughter, the fact that

(47:27):
I have a daughter with this person, and then safety
comes into play of oh my god, well he treat
her bad because of that, and if he does well,
his parents do the same.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Like I just it was a lot.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
His family, who lives, you know, within an hour or
so of you, is in law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yes, his dad is now retired, a retired police officer.
He has two brothers that are current active police officers,
and then Karen is a police officer.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Oh wow, yeah, I mean, has that impacted your sort
of willingness to call law enforcement no, but.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
I'll explain why. You know, growing up in foster care,
police were always there to protect us, you know, as kids.
And I know there's like the controversy, and I'm not
invalidating anyone else's experience, right, because things do happen that
aren't okay. My experience is I always felt safe with
police always, because of course I have a unique situation

(48:24):
being as though they were the.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Ones that helped me right as a kid. They helped
me many times.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Now did it validat or make me feel like maybe
I had the you know, be careful, Yes, But what
I did instead is I would screenshot a lot of
things and communications because in my head, I'm like, well,
these are police officers.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
I think I need evidence for everything.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
And I know one should not always think like that,
but that's how I thought, like evidence for everything, evidence
for everything, because it's going to be my word against
police officers, right or police officers.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
Family.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Tony was connected with a domestic violence advocate and a therapist.
She knew that Alex would likely continue harassing her, but
she found some solace in the physical distance she'd been
able to put between them. But then Tony got a
call from Alex's probation officer. The officer told her that
Alex had knowingly violated his probation. He was driving from

(49:14):
Colorado to where Tony now lives on the East Coast.
Tony had worked so hard to keep herself and her
kids out of harm's way, away from Alex, but now
he was headed in their direction, and he had their
new address.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Anytime a car drove by that was like his. He
had a truck and our maintenance men had the same truck.
But the difference is it had like the name of
the building on it, and it was on the other side.
So wherever I see that truck, my heart just stopped.
And then I'd keep looking and it'd be the maintenance men.
So it was things like that that would just panic me.
I was just I was super alerted, to the point

(49:49):
I did have to go to urgent care because I
was having heart populations and shortness of breath.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
Now I was feeling really dizzy.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
I was having daily panic attacks, just super skared, and
still I don't call the police. Karen stopped being helpful
at some point. I think at the end of the day,
that is their family member. I think they made excuses
just like I did. Where when someone's in the family,
and especially if we're having mental health concerns, I think
they probably excuse it as that a lot, you know,

(50:17):
his mental health concerns. I truly can't say exactly what
made her change, but I can say she did what
a lot of family members do to abusers, is end
up enabling and making excuses.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
So the shift really took a hard hit.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
When I had told her about the racial slur and
she told me not they're reported.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
She told you not to report it.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
M Yeah, she texts me.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
So now she's.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Telling you don't call the police on him.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
Yes, I think she knew. I was like really upset.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
So she even called me and said, like, how would
my daughter feel if she found out I put her
dad in jel over.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
A word that is so manipulative? That's awful.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Yeah, And I think that's when I finally realized she like,
wasn't you know truly my supports. She was more still his.
She stopped being the person obviously I called. And I
noticed that once she stopped being the person I called,
I finally felt like I could report him when he
continued and continued, and I did, and I ended up
reporting him, and it was at the day after the

(51:15):
probationian team had warned him to stop harassing me, and
then he continued harassing me the same day. So I
did call the police. I reported it. They came and
they saw the communication. They had everything they needed pretty quickly,
and I didn't even send them all of it. They
just said send me these, and you know, we're good
because they didn't need all of it because he it

(51:35):
was a clear violation. They had put a warn out
for his arrest. I don't know why they didn't just
go and arrest him, but he knew he had a
warn him, assuming because he stopped harassing me, like it
was a good month of him not harassing me. And
then one time he reached out towards the end of
that month and asked to speak to our daughter, and
obviously I didn't get the no contact amended, so he

(51:57):
wasn't in violation by asking to speak to her. I
set up a FaceTime and he did speak to her,
he actually did, so I was like, Okay, maybe like
he's getting help, but yeah, my head out thought maybe
he's like doing better.

Speaker 4 (52:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
And then the next day he asked speak to her again,
and this time we were out, we were not home,
and I remember saying like, hey, we're out, like and
then he just kept texting like, so you're not gonna
let me see to my daughter? When am I going
to speak to her? And if you see the text,
they were coming in minute by minute, like just so much.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
He's like, why are you norming?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
You're not answering, and it was just a lot and
I had a panic attack while I was out, I
couldn't focus.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
I drove back and had her face time him. I
was that scared. I was like, you know what a.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
You're gonna I feel so bad now thinking like I
should have never let her did it. Clearly he wasn't
in the right state of mind. But I had her
face time him for just I think it was like
fifteen minutes, such a short time. But in the text
when he kept going on and on and on, he
had stated, I can pull her out of the daycare
you have her in. I didn't even tell him she
was in daycare, so I was.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Like, oh, my god, you know she's in.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Daycare because she had just started daycare. That was all
I needed to obviously go get a protection from pase order.
In my new state, a temporary order was issued, and
I think I got it on a Friday, and the
way it works is the next business day they're served.
I believe the next business day was a Monday. My
domestic violence advocate would typically tell me when he served. However,

(53:11):
in this case, I got a text from his brother,
so Karen's husband stating in a text that says, you're petty.
Now I know why you block Karen and me and
Karen are washing our hands of you.

Speaker 4 (53:24):
That was the text.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Because his brother was served and arrested for that outstanding warrant.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
It's so wild to me that these people work in
law enforcement, and I know obviously law enforcement had what
they needed to move forward with, like serving him and
arresting him, and exactly still they're having no compassion for
what you're going through or understanding that he is truly
in the wrong here.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Right, And I think it goes back to a little
bit of you know, we're not dealing with just domestic violence.
We're still dealing with like that racism where they're prejudice.
I think that fell into the fact that maybe they
didn't see me as a victim, Maybe they didn't see
me as somebody worthy of safety, and this is just
me feeling like that. But it kind of goes.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Back to that, Yeah, you know you've said a couple times,
which I just think is such an important point to
really drive home. Is that, like, there were so many
different times where you sometimes yourself, but also a lot
of people around you, specifically Alex and then his family
members who maybe felt like they were on your side
but then very quickly turned against you. All of this

(54:33):
is like pointing back to an indication that this is
somehow your fault or that you've perpetuated any of this. Right.
I'd love to hear you speak about that, because I
think that there's a lot of people that find themselves
in situations of violence and like where crimes are being
perpetuated against them, whether it's you know, in domestic situations

(54:53):
or not, where they're like being told or feeling like
they're the ones to blame they somehow brought this on
themse and it's just like, how do you have the
presence of mind to remind yourself that that's not true?
And what does that take? I guess for.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Me, it takes seeing this situation differently or stepping out
of it. When you're away from your abuser, you're able
to see a lot more clear than you were when
you were in it. But also, I had told you
that my turning point was my son, So seeing it
in a different light, I had to see how it's
affecting him, to realize, this is this is Alex. This
isn't me, this isn't the kids, this isn't his life
being stressful, This is Alex. And I saw that by

(55:33):
looking at it in a different light. And I needed
to see it that way because if I didn't, I
would probably continue excusing it. I would probably still be
in it, and we'd still be in the cycle.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
When the police reached out to Alex's brother and his wife, Karen,
they tried to blame Tony and to say that she
was actually the one her asking them the same victim
blaming mentality that Tony had gotten used to, but the
police saw right through it. Communication ceased.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
Where do things stand now with Alex?

Speaker 2 (56:03):
We ended up going to court again for this new violation,
and you know the continued harassment. I got a three
year protection order in my current state. He was in
a violation of his probation order in Colorado. He had
to go back and have court cases for that. I know,
because this was his first like offense in this manner.

(56:23):
They were going to do a program where you know,
they remove it from your record after some type of
deferred judgment or something. I'm not sure how that works,
but he no longer qualifies for that because he violate explbation.
They had a warrant issued off for him for a
little bit, so he had additional legal issues that I
just didn't get involved in. I didn't care about an update.
All I focus on was the fact that I had
a three year protection order. And I know they don't

(56:44):
protect you fully in the sense right like it's a
piece of paper, but it still felt.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Good to have it.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
I didn't move again, and I'm under the address confidentiality
program in the state. I did file for divorce and
I am divorced now and I haven't heard from him
in any capacity throughout the divorce process. There's a child
custody piece of it, and I felt like, if he
can get help, I would want him to be in
his child's life. Obviously not my sons. He doesn't want

(57:10):
anything to do with him, But I did ask the
judge to grant supervise visits of some sort with him
and our daughter.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
However, he didn't.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Show up for the custody portion of it, so he
has no custody and have full custody of our child.
So I would say, you know, we're doing a lot better.
He hasn't reached out since. In my head, I'm like,
it's three years going to go by and then we're
going to randomly hear from him. But I try not
to think like that. I try to be in the
moment and be positive and think that, you know what,
like we're safe, We're going to continue to be safe,

(57:39):
and I'm going to continue to.

Speaker 4 (57:40):
Take the steps to make sure of it.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
I haven't communicated with any of his family obviously, so
my daughter like doesn't know, you know, her grandparents on
that side, and her aunts and uncles on that side.
So what we do with her and my son is
obviously like try to give him as much love as
we can, even with extended family. My my older sister,
her husband, his family's amazing, and we keep you know,
my daughter around them, and that's like her cousins, even

(58:02):
though they're through the in law portal of being family.
We just really want her to have a family, and
because me growing up in foster care, I didn't feel
like I had that right, Like I didn't feel like
I had family that was for me. So trying to
make sure my kids feel that way and they're supported.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Petia saw your Instagram and you know, shared it with me,
and we're both really touched by your story and so
glad that you came on here to tell us, you
know more about it. What inspired you to share your
story and kind of what do you hope comes from it?

Speaker 2 (58:31):
If I could help you know, just one person, that's
what matters to me, and that's what I get. I
get messages about how they're happy I'm sharing my story
and they could relate, and even in the comments, knowing
how many women could relate, it's heartbreaking. But it's also like,
you know, we're not alone, and we need to use
our voice if we feel comfortable to speak up against it.
And you know, I did a five K and my

(58:52):
son ran with me in the five K and it
was a fight against domestic violence. And I found by
doing that that like speaking up and standing up against
it really does matter. And at first I thought, how
is that going to help prevent it?

Speaker 4 (59:05):
But it does. It allows abusers.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
To be more scared and embarrassed about their behavior. It
holds them accountable. It lets you know, states and cities
and counties know what women are going through and how
we need to be more protected, and it helps with
lawmaking too around this. So I just find it really
important to speak up if you can and if you
feel safe to do so.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
I am so thankful to Tony for trusting us with
her story. Yeah, that was a really powerful interview.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
I wanted to touch on something that Tony mentioned in
her interview that was definitely the more difficult part of
what she went through because it involved Alex's family members,
which her third party communicator between Tony and Alex was
her sister in law who was married to Alex's brother.

(59:55):
And this sister in law that Tony referred to as Karen,
which is not her real name, is a law enforcement officer,
as is her husband. Yeah, his brother.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
I was surprised when she said that, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Because what we learned is that Karen and her husband
sent Tony text messages that were really harmful and manipulative,
encouraging her not to report things to the police, victim blaming,
and Tony knew at this time that they were no
longer interested in right and wrong. They were trying to
protect a family member, and she was very aware of that.

(01:00:30):
But it was her domestic violence advocate that said, you
need to report this to police because you have no
contact order with Alex and that does extend to his
immediate family.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Yeah, which is something that I was not aware of
me either, But yeah, because she explained, I believe it
was after she moved to Colorado that Alex's brother was
texting her like really rude things, calling her petty just
for trying to protect herself and her kids, and that is,
you know, harassment, It's harassment, and they ought to have

(01:01:02):
known that as people who work in law enforcement, and
so it's like, well, did they know that?

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Did they not know it? And then when Tony did
report it to local police where she was living and
they reached out, Karen and her husband then tried to say, well,
Tony's harassing us, and whoever they connected with knew that
was not the story and had Tony's back with what
was actually going on. But I just think it's another

(01:01:28):
layer of someone dealing with domestic violence or abuse is
going through, especially if it's a spouse because you have
extended family that has I don't know what you could
call it. There's probably some sort of natural instinct to
protect a family member, but you at some point have

(01:01:48):
to say to yourself, can I look at this situation
in an unemotional way, Because if I can't, maybe I
should not be inserting myself totally.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
And then Tony had to to kind of make that
decision for them and realize that they were not going
to be a support system for her. And I think
this ties in to something else that Tony talked about
being really important and being able to defend herself, is
that she took meticulous documentation of all of her correspondences.

(01:02:21):
Even if it didn't seem important at the time or
she wasn't sure if law enforcement could use it, she
just went ahead and took screenshots. She took screenshots anytime
Alex was reaching out to her, as well as when
Karen and her husband reached out to her, and that
all ended up being incredibly useful. So that was something
that she wanted to communicate to people that it was
a really helpful course of action for her at the time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Definitely, we do want to call out that the National
Domestic Violence Hotline, which you can find online at Theehotline
dot org, can help you find an assistance provider if
you think you might be experiencing abuse, or if you
know you are experiencing abuse, you can plug in your
location and find support in your local area. I think

(01:03:07):
it's important to point out that abuse is not always physical.
Justice dot gov defines domestic violence as domestic violence as
a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is
used by one partner to gain or maintain power and
control over another intimate partner. It says it can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic,
or psychological. Just domestic violence is an all encompassing term,

(01:03:29):
but abuse doesn't have to be physical for someone to
be right to seek help for it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
So if you think you might benefit from some support,
why not just reach out and ask about it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
You can find a link to the hotline dot org
in our show notes We'll see you next week. If
you have a story for us, we would love to
hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com,
or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
This has been an Exactly Right Production host it and
produceduced by me Hannah Smith.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
And me paytia Ety. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and
Alexis Samarosi.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.