S8-E76 Alisha-Domestic Abuse In the Military

Murder + Horrific = Murderific.

According to studies, women are at a greater risk of being in an abusive relationship if they are involved with a partner in the United States Military.

In this episode Alisha, a survivor of domestic abuse and coercive control tells her story, in the hopes of empowering anyone involved in an abusive realtionship right now. This is her story.


Thank you to executive producers-patrons, Heather B., Mike T., and Angie S.

National Domestic Violence Hotline
800-799-7233


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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Murderific True Crime podcast,hosted and created by Bernadette from the state
of Maine. We have everything atrue crime connoisseur could ask for. Remember,
murder plus horrific equals Murderific. Welcometo Murderific True Crime Podcast. My

(00:44):
guest today is Alicia Helloo. Thetopics we will be discussing today involved domestic
abuse and maybe triggering to many peoplewho listen, so just keep that in
mind. According to multiple studies andstatistics, women are at a greater risk
of violence within a relationship if theyare involved with someone within the United States
military. Domestic abuse within the militaryhas been a large issue for many years.

(01:11):
Many offenders face no accountability for theiractions. We cannot even grasp the
real level of domestic abuse because oflapses in the way the military reports incidents.
The Department of Defense does not collectaccurate data of domestic abuse, and
many times when abuse is reported tosuperiors, it is not taken seriously and

(01:32):
no action is taken, or evenworse, there is victim blaming and the
abuser is defended. A woman isbeaten every nine seconds in this country.
And I didn't say minutes, Isaid nine seconds. Many times victims become
trapped in abusive relationships. Yeah,others still ask why didn't they just leave?

(01:52):
There are many barriers that stop peoplefrom walking away, whether that psychological,
emotional, financial, or physical threats. The danger and fear is very
real, and the likeliness of violencegoes up greatly when a partner tries to
leave the relationship. On top ofthat, sometimes a victim may be isolated
with little support from friends and family. Many times a victim doesn't even realize

(02:17):
they're in a cycle of abuse untilit's too late. There may be an
element of shame and denial. Theremay be children and feeling financially trapped.
One fact that jumps out at me, the presence of a gun in a
domestic violence situation increases the risk ofhomicide to five hundred percent. One thing

(02:38):
is true, It is time tostop blaming victims. They are survivors.
Despite all the barriers to getting outof an abusive relationship, many people have
and today we have one such story. Again warning, this episode will contain
graphic descriptions of domestic violence and physicalassaults. Please use your discretion when listening.

(03:00):
We will not use the offender's fullname for obvious reasons. In this
episode, we will have Alicia tellingher story. It was a hard story
for her to tell, and abig thank you to her for being so
vulnerable. There's something to be saidfor telling your own story. I hope
it empowers her and others. Thankyou for listening somebody. Upbringing was pretty

(03:24):
normal. I've two older sisters andwe were raised by a single mom,
and you know, she worked hardfor us. She did what she had
to do to provide a good lifefor us. And you know, I
get along really well with my sistersand we have a really close relationship.
So that's continued through adulthood, whichis great. I was twenty three when

(03:46):
I met John. Our early relationshipwas great. It was a lot of
attention from him, a lot ofI would say love bombing. At the
time, I didn't know that's whatit was, but he was very attentive.
He called me all the time.He wanted to spend a ton of
time with me, and I wascoming off of my first divorce and that

(04:11):
was the attention that I saught.So things were great in the beginning.
He was a really good listener.He gave me exactly what I needed,
so he was in the Marine Corps. He was an artillery mechanic at the
time. We didn't move in togetherright away. I was living with my

(04:32):
two best friends at the time,and he would stay over a lot,
but we did still have that boundarysince we weren't married. He couldn't live
with me, We couldn't move intogether because that was a stipulation in the
Marine Corps, especially at the rankhe was at that you couldn't live off
base unless you were married. Sowe did have that sort of separation.

(04:54):
I mean, he would spend thenight all the time, but we didn't
actually live together until after we weremarried. So he deployed almost a year
after we started dating. He wenton a deployment for eight months, and
he had proposed before he left fordeployment. We didn't really set a date

(05:15):
or anything like that for getting married, but as soon as he came back,
he'd been back for about a week, and we decided that now was
the time we wanted to get married. So we went to the magistrate's office
on a Wednesday night, because that'swhat happens when you live in a military
town. The magistrate's day is openreally late, and we got married jeans

(05:38):
and T shirts in front of mybest friend and her boyfriend at the time,
and yeah, we were sealed fromthere. When we first got married,
we found a house to rent outin town, which was really great,
and it was a nice house.We were really excited. His military
stipend barely paid for the house.But I was working at the time too,

(06:00):
so financially we were in a goodplace. And you know, we
would go out every weekend on thislittle boat that we had, and we'd
go out fishing and just we'd spenda lot of time with friends. So
we'd have people over at the houseand it was just, you know what
young couples in their early twenties do. Shortly after we had gotten married,

(06:21):
he was in a unit in theMarine Corps that he really just didn't like.
He didn't like his superiors, theydidn't like him, and he was
really struggling at work. There wasa lot of stressors from his upper leadership.
He brought that home a lot.He started to argue with me a
lot more because of the stressors atwork, and you know, he was

(06:45):
pissed off at work all the time. We started to fight quite a bit,
and that's when I first really sawearly warning signs of his temper because
it wouldn't be just like a normalmarital fight. He would literally start screaming
at me and start getting right inmy face. Just a few months after

(07:06):
we were married, my best friendand her husband came to visit us,
and we'd all gone out to dinnerone night. I had made a joke
towards John about something. I don'treally remember what it was, but he
said to me, how do youthink it would feel to get knocked the
fuck out? And I was justkind of taken back by that because he'd

(07:28):
never been that way towards me,never jokingly or anything like that. But
when he said this, it wasnot joking. He was very stern,
and he didn't talk to me forthe rest of the night. So when
we got back to our house,my best friend and her husband had come
over for just a few minutes,and she pulled me aside and she said,
we need to leave because my husband'sready to fight your husband, to

(07:53):
fight John over what he said toyou. And I was kind of taken
back by that because at that timeI never thought John would put his hands
on me. Ever, So theylaughed. I was upset that they'd laughed,
but I was upset at John becauseit was his fault, so I
said something to him. I said, you know, they had to leave

(08:15):
because of your behavior. He snapped, and this was the first time that
he'd really like snapped at me.He started screaming in my face. I
was between our bed and a wall, so there wasn't a ton of space,
but he had me right there andwas screaming in my face and pushing

(08:35):
towards me so much that I hadto literally like crouch slash, fall down
on the floor and cower in acorner to get away from him, because
he was seconds away from putting hishands on me, and he knew what
he was doing. It really scaredme for the very first time. He

(08:56):
didn't like it when I hung outwith my friends. He wanted my time,
all of my extra time, andI guess I didn't really realize that
until much later, but he wantedto isolate me from everybody else. And
I remember I had a work functionto go to his my boss's birthday,
and I was their manager at thetime, so I kind of had to

(09:18):
go, and he absolutely did notwant to go, and I was like
all right, that's fine, butI'm still gonna go, and that pissed
him off. I went to theparty. I didn't stay too terribly long.
But when I got home, itwas dark out and he was sitting
in the house in the dark onthe couch and I walked in and I

(09:39):
didn't say anything. I just wentinto our bedroom because I didn't want to
fight. He came into our bedroomand he said, get in the fucking
truck right now. And I waslike, I'm not going anywhere with you.
He goes, get in the motherfuckingtruck right now. So I got
in the truck and I I distinctlyremember texting my two best friends and said,

(10:03):
if you don't hear from me intwo hours, this is what has
happened. I got in the truckand he went back in the house and
grabbed his shotgun. And at thatpoint I was terrified. I thought something
bad was going to happen to me. He drove out to this national forest

(10:24):
that was near us. It washuge. There's not like one entry point.
There was a ton of entry points, and we went to this entry
point that was just off the beatenpath. I guess I was scared from
my life. At that point,I texted my two best friends and told
them where we were, just incase. And turns out he was just

(10:48):
getting rid of some debris, likesome hunting stuff that had been in the
bed of the truck, and Ididn't notice. But I was terrified he
was going to take me out thereand shoot me or worse. I didn't
know that he was sort of groomingme or emotionally abusing me at the time

(11:13):
because I didn't have family. Welived in a different state from my family,
and so I think that was idealfor him because I didn't have that
support system. I mean, Ihad my two best friends there, but
it wasn't the same as having somewhereto go. I didn't realize it because

(11:33):
they weren't around very much, youknow. My family came to visit sometimes,
but not very often. It washard for me to recognize that he
was really just pulling me away fromeverything that felt safe to me. So
the escalation of abuse came after Ifound out I was pregnant. He had

(11:54):
been telling me that he wanted achild, but I knew that I wasn't
ready for a child, and Iwasn't sure or than I wanted a child
with him, but we weren't usingprotection or anything. And I got pregnant,
and when I found out, itfelt like everything all of a sudden
changed. I mean, there hadbeen warning signs before that, but this

(12:16):
was really what drove the big change. I think he was not supportive of
me at all during my pregnancy.You know, stupid little things like when
you're pregnant, you're not supposed toclean out the litter box, but he
wouldn't do it. He went outand bought me paint masks so I could
clean out the litter box while Iwas pregnant. So it was just small

(12:39):
things like that that really started theprogression of the abuse. I guess we
were set to move duty stations whenI was seven months pregnant. We moved
from North Carolina to New Jersey,which was a huge stressor being seven months
pregnant. I had to take careof everything as far as the house,

(13:01):
like setting up the movers, settingup the cleaners, and all that kind
of stuff. Because I was sevenmonths pregnant, I couldn't do it myself.
That was a lot on me,and he was just nowhere to be
found doing any of that, whichwas hard and then when we moved to
New Jersey and I had my sontwo months later. After we moved to
New Jersey, that's when things reallystarted going downhill. He was not a

(13:26):
present father while I was in thehospital having my son. When you're pregnant
or when you're in labor, you'renot allowed to eat, and he sat
right next to me the whole timewhile I was laboring, eating right in
front of me, which at thattime I wasn't you know, hungry or
anything like that. Was in alot of pain, and you know,

(13:48):
but it was just little things likethat. He was super just inconsiderate and
didn't care. After I gave birthto my son, I had to have
an emergency C section, so Iwas in the hospital for five additional days
afterwards. He never once spent thenight in the hospital with me, and
when we got home it just continuedfrom there. You know, he didn't

(14:11):
get up with the baby at allat night because, well, I have
to work the next day. Itdoesn't matter that I'm healing from a major
surgery. And I think the stressof being a father really just got to
him. He was the moneymaker.At this point. We were being supported
solely by his income because I justhad a baby. We got a stipend

(14:35):
from the military for housing. Welived in military housing at the time,
so that money just went into hispaycheck and then directly to the housing office.
Which was fine, but we wereliving off of one income, and
he liked to spend. He likedto spend a lot of money. In

(14:56):
the first year after we moved toNew Jersey, he'd bought two boats that
we couldn't afford, and he hada truck payment of almost four hundred dollars
that we couldn't afford. And then, you know, my car died,
so I needed to go get anothercar, but I was going to be
the one that was solely responsible forthat payment. And I mean I did

(15:20):
all the grocery shopping, but therewas never any money left for that.
He had racked up credit card debtfrom credit cards that I had no idea
about. That apparently I had cosigned on. There was a personal loan
that apparently I had co signed on, which I never did. He had
complete financial control over everything because hewas the only one making money at the

(15:46):
time. He absolutely was a differentperson around other people. We had gone
to barbecues with the people in hisoffice where he presented as a loving,
doting father and husband, and hetalked to me, because there were other
times when we were at these functionswhere he wouldn't even acknowledge my existence.

(16:07):
He was also a volunteer firefighter,so there were functions we went to with
the firehouse where he just acted likeI didn't completely exist at all, but
again presented as the loving, doubtingfather that you had everything to do with
his son. I absolutely thought thatthe decline in our relationship was my fault

(16:30):
initially, especially because I wasn't workingand I wasn't contributing financially, and I
wanted to be this really good wifeto him. You know, that was
the persona that I took on aswell. If I don't have a job,
at least I can do this forhim. I can be the good
wife. I can have meals cooked, I can have a clean house,

(16:52):
and I can take care of thebaby. And maybe that'll make things better.
Maybe that will make him love memore, Maybe that will make him
want me more, and maybe Ican be more worthy to him if I
do these things because I'm not contributingfinancially. So the very first time he

(17:14):
put his hands on me. Ihad found out that he was cheating on
me with somebody else that he hadhad over to our house. So I
had gone home to Maine for amonth or two to sort of get a
reprieve from him and really sort oflet him cool down and for myself reevaluate

(17:34):
if this is what I wanted.When I came back, one of my
neighbors had pulled me aside and said, hey, there's been a woman coming
around for the last few weeks.Do you know who she is? And
I know what are you talking about? So I confronted him about it,

(17:55):
and I said, who is thiswoman that they're talking about. Oh,
it's just so and so as shewas picking something up. At the time,
I was suspicious of it, butI was like, you know what,
No, I'm just gonna let itgo. I'm gonna let it go.
A few weeks later, I'd hadthis vivid dream that he'd been cheating
on me, which is really stupidsounding. I know, he had drill

(18:19):
that weekend, so he was inthe shower. It was really early in
the morning, like five o'clock,and I went through his phone because he'd
left it in our bedroom, whichis something he never did, and I
found out that my suspicions were right. I saw pictures of this woman in
his phone, messages between the twoof them, pictures of them at our

(18:40):
house, and I confronted him withit while he was in the shower.
I was pissed. I was tryingto be quiet because our son was in
the other room. It didn't stayquiet. He at first denied it,
and then I told him, like, the evidence is right here in your
phone. You can't deny that.He came after me. He'd pushed me

(19:02):
down on the bed. He gotwithin inches of my face and was holding
me down, just screaming at me. I don't even remember what he was
saying, just absolutely screaming at me, and I couldn't move. He had
his knees between my legs, whichis something he'd done before, and held
me down and I just I couldn'tmove, and he was screaming in my

(19:22):
face and just making me feel absolutelyawful for even going through his phone,
like why did you ever do that? You didn't want to find out anyway,
and just all this bullshit basically,so I told him to get out.
I didn't want him in the house. I didn't want him to wake

(19:42):
our son up. I just Iwanted him out. He had drilled that
weekend and I just just just leaveand don't come back. Well, he
didn't leave. He walked down thehall and to this day I have no
idea why, but he walked downthe hall to our spare bedroom, which

(20:02):
was right next to our son's room, like they shared a wall, and
started throwing shit. He ended upputting a small hole in the wall of
our spare bedroom. So I wasfreaking out because obviously we're renting this house,
it's a military house. I startedyelling at I'm like, what are
you doing? You just put ahole in this wall, and he goes,

(20:25):
you want to see a fucking hole, and literally kicked a hole through
the wall into the hallway so youcould see clear through from the hallway through
to the bedroom. This woke oursun up, and I ran into his
room and grabbed him and I shutthe door behind me. I sat in
my little rocking chair that I hadfor him, holding him, shaking,

(20:48):
crying because I didn't know if hewas going to come in there or not.
And that was the first time Iwas really really scared after finding out
about the initial cheating that was goingon, It almost felt like that was
his hall pass. I guess like, Okay, I'm just gonna keep doing

(21:12):
it. I always had my suspicionsthat he was cheating because he would act
different when he was cheating. Hewould act a lot more standoffish, and
he would be gone to the quoteunquote buy our house more often, and
I could kind of tell. Therewas one incident where we had been in

(21:32):
a really good place for a fewmonths and things were going well. You
know, he wanted to be thatinvolved dad and I had gotten a job
at this point, so I wascontributing financially, and things were going better
for us at that point, orso I thought. There was one day
where he had an extra day off. It was a Friday. He was

(21:56):
going to take our boat out andgo fishing by himself because I had to
work that day. Great, cool, no big deal. So he asked
if I could pick our sun upat daycare when I got out of work.
So, yeah, sure, nota problem, he said he would
be home shortly thereafter. On myway to pick our Sun up from daycare,

(22:17):
I passed him in his truck pullinghis boat with another woman. So
I call him immediately. I'm stilldriving, and I am furious, and
I said, who the fuck isthat in your truck? I just passed
you. I know you saw mebecause you were both laughing, and he
goes, I don't even know whatthe fuck you're talking about, and I

(22:40):
said, yeah, you do.You looked right at me. I saw
you, and she tried to duckdown in the seat, and he goes,
whatever and hung up. So atthis point, I'm pretty close to
my son's daycare and I'm bawling.I'm trying to pull my shit together because
that's a hard thing to see.It's a hard thing to know about it

(23:02):
or to find out about it,but to see it happening right in front
of your face fucking sucks. Ipicked my son up from daycare. I
go back home and he's still tryingto deny, and I said, I'm
not as stupid as you think Iam. I saw you, and I
know you saw me too. Sothen he says, well, it's just

(23:23):
somebody from this class that I'm takingthrough the military, and I was like,
so she had to spend the daywith you, Like that's not okay.
He started getting angry and yelling andscreaming, and I didn't want that
around my son. So I pickedup my son to bring him next door
to my neighbor's house because she hada child the same age, and she

(23:48):
wouldn't mind, you know, ifthey just played together while him and I
hashed out what we needed to hashout. So I went to leave our
house, and right by our frontdoor we had a bathroom. He ran
in front of me and blocked thefront door from us leaving and was screaming
in my face. You're not buckinggoing anywhere. You're not taking my son

(24:08):
anywhere. So I did the firstthing I thought to do, and I
stepped into the bathroom. I wastrying to shut the door, but he
blocked the door from shutting and camein the bathroom and I'm holding my son
at this point, and my backwas to the sink, and he was
right in my face, threatening topunch me with my son in my arms,

(24:33):
and I'm just I can't back awayanymore. But I'm trying to like
bend my body backwards to get awayfrom him, and my son is crying
and screaming, and he just won'tlet up. He's in my face with
his fist rage, like he's goingto hit me, And finally I was

(24:53):
able to like squirm out of thebathroom and run to my next door neighbor's
ex. I stayed over there fora while. A few months later,
he had proposed the idea of anopen marriage, because you know, I'm
not happy and this is what's goingto make me happy. And I still
love you, but I'm just notgetting what I need. I didn't want

(25:17):
it to happen, but I knewit was going to anyway. So I
kind of said to myself, Well, if it's gonna happen anyway, isn't
it better that I know about it. So that was kind of this stance
I took. I was like,fine, whatever. He went out and
did his thing, and it killedme. It hurt, it really really

(25:37):
hurt. But I didn't want himto see that. So I had made
plans with my girlfriends to go outone night. And it wasn't late or
anything like that. I was likefive o'clock and I had told him about
this previously, like, Hey,I'm gonna go out with my two girlfriends

(26:00):
and we're gonna go have dinner.You've got our son for the night.
I'm not going to be home late, no big deal. He was fine
with it throughout the week before.I had told him like okay, yeah,
sure, whatever. But it comesdown to the night that I'm getting
ready to go out and have dinnerand I'm making our son dinner. He

(26:25):
comes in from work and he goes, you know what, I'm tired.
You're you're not going out. Iwas like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Like I've made plans with these girls, like we're gonna go out and
we're gonna do something fun. Well, how do I know you're not going
out to see somebody else, Isaid, because I haven't told you that
I've found anybody else. Like that'sthe point of this whole open relationship is

(26:49):
you told me when you went andslept with somebody else, and if I
did, I would tell you too. Well, you're just not going out
tonight. And I was like,yeah, actually I am. You know.
At this point, I was Iwas pissed. I had never got
any time to myself, let alonego out with friends because I didn't have

(27:10):
many, and he just wasn't havingit. So I our son was playing
in the living room and we hadan open concept at the time, so
I was in the kitchen. Icould see my son playing in the living
room. He was feet away.I was standing at the stove making macaroni
and cheese, and he pulled myshoulder and pushed me up against the refrigerator

(27:32):
and said, you're not fucking goinganywhere, and I said, yeah,
I am, and he's screaming inmy face. For a split second,
there was a knife on the counter. I thought about grabbing it, but
I didn't because my son was rightthere and he was too at the time.
So He's got me up against therefrigerator, holding me by my hands

(27:55):
and just screaming and screaming and screaming, and I'm like, I don't understand
what I'm done wrong at this point, Like I feel like, am I
being a bad mother by going out, you know? And that's kind of
how he was trying to make mefeel. But I kept my bearings and
no, this is what I'm gonnado, this is what I wanted it.
So he finally let go of me, and I made the mistake of

(28:18):
walking away from him, and heshoved me from behind and I fell over
a footstool or something and busted myknee open. Like it was gushing blood
pretty good. He looked at meand said, that's what you fucking get.
At this point, like my sonis watching all of this happen,
which is mortifying. I'm sitting therebleeding, and my son came over to

(28:42):
me, and then he's two.He doesn't really know what's going on,
but he knows that this isn't supposedto be happening, and he was checking
on me and his John just lookedat him and walked out of the house
and left and didn't come back andhill the next day. At some point

(29:03):
throughout the course of our relationship,we had like extreme highs and extreme lows.
When we were in those extreme highs, things were good. You know,
we were able to laugh together,we were to joke around, we
made things work really well. Butwhen we were in those extreme lows,

(29:23):
it was terrifying. I hadn't toldmy family what was going on at this
point because there's a lot of shameinvolved in being in an abusive relationship and
a lot of well, nobody's goingto believe you. That's sort of the
stance that he took in telling methat nothing's going to happen to me.
You know, if you report meto the military. All that's going to

(29:47):
do is they're gonna paycheck me ordock my pay half my pay. That's
it. That's all that's going tohappen. They're going to make me go
to counseling or whatever else. Butyou're going to suffer too. And at
that point, like, yeah,I had a job, but he'd been
spending so much money that I hadno idea about. Because we didn't have

(30:07):
a joint make account at the time, I had no idea how financially much
we were struggling. I knew thatwe were paying our car payments late and
things like that. So I didn'twant to be the cause of worse financial
strain because all that was going tohappen was that the military was going to
dock his pay and that was goingto be the end of it, and

(30:30):
it was going to put us ina worse situation. I had talked to
my neighbor about this a little bit, and I didn't really let her know
what was going on, but weshared a wall. She was pretty aware.
I remember having this conversation with herand her husband was in the military
as well, and he was there. He was in a different branch of

(30:51):
the military than John was. Herhusband was in the Air Force. John
was in the Marine Corps, andhe said, yeah, sadly, like
that's pretty much all that happens ishe'll get his pay docked for a certain
amount of time and they'll make himgo to some sort of counseling. But
that's pretty much it. They tryto keep this stuff hush hush. One

(31:12):
time, we'd gotten into a fightbecause yet again I found him cheating on
me. He had been trying tocall prostitutes, luckily, with no luck.
None of them answered the phone,thank god, because I pulled our
cell phone bill at the time andfound out, and I'd confronted him about
it and we got into a fight. This was the first time he hit

(31:37):
me with a closed fist. Hehad me up against a wall. I
tried kicking him in the balls,because when you're backed up against a wall,
that was my only defense at thetime. I didn't succeed, but
I pissed him off enough trying thathe hit me with a closed fist on
the side of his head and Idropped like. He didn't knock me out,

(32:01):
but there was a few seconds therewhere I was really dizzy and I
dropped to the ground. He wasn'tsure if he'd knocked me out or not.
When I came to I finally said, you know what, fuck this.
I'm telling your superiors about this becausethis can't this can't keep happening.

(32:22):
So I went next door to myneighbor's house just to have some time to
myself. I told her what hadhappened, and she just let me stay
and sit and be there by myself. I was probably there for an hour
or so, and when I wentback home, he was sitting on the

(32:45):
stairs with his head in his hand, crying, and I was like,
what's the problem, and he goes. I called my master's sergeant and told
him what happened, and I wasshocked. I was floored about this,
Like you did that yourself. Ithreatened to do it, but I wasn't

(33:08):
going to because of fear of nothingwas going to change and that things were
going to get worse if I did. I thought that was progress. I
thought it was a step in theright direction. A week goes by,
two weeks goes by, and amonth goes by, and nothing's different.

(33:29):
You know, his pay is theexact same, his behavior is the exact
same. I'm just kind of wondering, like, did he really call and
tell them? Did he really dothat? Because I thought that that was
a step forward and a step towardshim wanting to change. After about a
month, I asked him, Iwas like, did you really say anything

(33:50):
to your superiors? And he saidyeah, and they're making me go to
anger management. Oh well, I'mthinking to myself, I guess it's not
really working out because nothing is changing. And that was it. There was
nothing else. Later on, duringour divorce process, it came out that
he did actually tell his superiors thathe had an anger problem, and they

(34:15):
didn't do anything. Nothing. Theysent him to anger management, and that
was it. Nobody checked on me. Nobody reached out to me ever to
see if I was okay, tosee if my son was okay. And
that really hit home. Even ifI had said something, it would have

(34:37):
been the same reaction. They buriedit. They didn't want the stain on
their record that, you know,one of their inferiors was beating his wife.
They they didn't do anything. Soat this point I have learned to
just keep my mouth shut, don'tdo anything that's going to cause an argument,

(35:02):
don't do anything that he may ormay not like, and just give
in given whenever he wants sex,given whenever he wants to do something that
you don't want to give in whenhe doesn't want to even parent his own
son. I had to work mywork schedule around what he was doing,

(35:23):
and I had no social life atthis point because as I had learned,
that wasn't allowed. At this time, I'm just doing everything I can to
keep the peace, to keep thingsas calm as possible, not just for
myself but for my son, becausehe'd already witnessed the abuse and I didn't

(35:44):
want him to do that again.He is now out of the military.
At this time, I'm thinking,you know what, fresh start. He's
out of the military. Things aregoing to get better because he doesn't have
all that work stress and quote unquotePTSD from being in the military and deploying
and all that. Like, thingsare going to get better. You know,

(36:06):
we're both working. He got areally good job when he got out
of the military. We moved toa town that was right outside the base
that we had previously been living on, and I thought, we're going to
get better. He's out of themilitary for just a couple months. At
this point, I had been gettingthe mail recently and we had been getting

(36:27):
this bill from a doctor's office,from like a quick care. It had
been coming for months, and Ijust it wasn't addressed to me, so
I didn't open it, and Igot to thinking to myself, Okay,
I've been seeing this bill come inthe mail for months, like even when
we lived in military housing and hewas in the military. He has free
healthcare. What is this? SoI opened it up and it was from

(36:52):
an urgent care in the state ofFlorida, where he had previously right before
he got out of the military.Been on a work trip for about three
weeks in Florida, and it's fortwo doses of bactrum, which is an
adult antibiotic, and it just clicked. I called him and I told him

(37:17):
that I opened this mail and whatdid you get? Because I know my
son growing up had severe ear infections, so he'd been on every kind of
antibiotic you can think of, soI knew bactrum was an antibiotic. I
said, what did you get whileyou were in Florida? It was,

(37:37):
what are you talking about? AndI again explained, this is from a
quick care. This is for anadult antibiotic. What did you get?
He goes, oh, I gotthe flu. I said, no,
no, they don't give antibiotics forthe flu. What did you get?
And he was quiet for a minuteand he said, well, I got

(37:59):
chlamydia while I was there, butI got it cleared up before I came
home and had sex with you.And I was floored because he was fine
with it. There was zero remorsethere because he'd gotten it cleared up and
that was it, because you know, I've been hiding those from you for

(38:19):
months, those bills from you formonths. I was shocked. It was
my birthday. Every time I'd foundout that he cheated on me, I
had to go get an STD test, and I had a military doctor at
the time, and that's really fuckingembarrassing. I hung up the phone and
I just went about the rest ofmy day trying not to think about the

(38:42):
fact that, like, oh mygod, what else could I have gotten
from this man? Luckily I keptup on my STD screenings because of this.
Who knows in six months, amI going to get HIV? Am
I going to get something herbes orwhatever else? Because this was the first
time that an STD had been presentin our relationship. When he got home,

(39:05):
he totally avoided me, wouldn't speakto me, nothing. So I
went about my night as if itwas a normal night, you know.
I fed our son dinner, Iput him to bed, made sure he
was sleeping, and then I confrontedJohn again and I said, what the
fuck you could have potentially brought homean STD to me? Did you even

(39:29):
care? And again his defense was, well, I got it cleared up
before I came home, so whatdoes it matter. I didn't give you
anything. All I'm thinking about inmy head is well that you know about.
And this was outside. We wereoutside at the time because he wouldn't
come in the house, had towork on his truck or some bullshit.
I'm upset at this point, andI'm being louder than I should be because

(39:51):
I don't want anybody else in ourbusiness. But it's the summertime, our
neighbors are outside. He goes,I'm not going to do this with you.
So I turned to go in thehouse and I said something smart like
I don't even remember what I said. I didn't know he was right behind
me, and he shoved me throughthe door. I got into our kitchen
and he pushed me down and I'mup against sort of our kitchen cabinets.

(40:14):
At the time, I had myphone in my hand and I said,
you know, I didn't say thisout loud, but I'm thinking into myself,
you know what, but this,I'm tired of this, and I
start dialing nine one one. Hegrabs my phone out of my hand and
throws it across the room and withhis work boots on, starts kicking me
in the stomach. I'm trying notto scream, and I'm trying not to

(40:35):
cry because I don't want to wakemy son up. And he's kicking me
in the stomach with his work bootson, which is steel toe boot,
and he's kicking me in the legsuntil I don't know what happened, but
he finally just stopped. He leftthe house. He went outside into the

(40:55):
shed, turned on his music reallyloud. We lived in a small neighborhood
at the time, so you know, I was afraid that our neighbors were
going to complain, so I checkedon my son. Thankfully, he was
still asleep. I went outside totell him to turn it down. He
had tied a noose in the shedand was just sitting there staring at it.

(41:19):
So I was afraid that he wasgoing to hurt himself, and he
liked to do this a lot.Threatened that he wasn't going to hurt himself
or say he wanted to hurt himselfevery time that I found out he was
cheating or he had done something wrong, and I got upset. So I
called nine one one, and Idid not report the abuse because past had

(41:42):
told me doesn't matter. He waspart of the volunteer fire department at the
time, and I knew they weregoing to show up, so what does
it matter. They're not going tobelieve me, and even if they do,
they're not going to do anything.Paramedics show up, but of course
he knows them. Buddy buddy withthem. Fire department shows up, and
I thank God every day for thisman by His fire chief called me the

(42:07):
next day because they took John toa mental hospital for evaluation. His fire
chief caught me the next day andhe said, what's going on? You
know? He said, we've seena change in John at the firehouse.
Are you okay? And I toldhim what happened? You apologized and he
said, you know, Unfortunately,there's nothing I can do about it,

(42:28):
but you need to get out.You need to leave. For the sake
of you and your son. Youneed to leave. That was the conversation
that really hit home for me,because this was somebody that John looked up
to, it was somebody that hadmentored him, and for somebody to be
on my side it was a relief. So at this point, after that

(42:51):
conversation with his fire chief, Ireally just headed in my head that this
was the beginning of me having toleave. I had to get out.
I didn't want my son to witnessthis. I didn't want my son to
grow up knowing that or thinking thatthis was okay. I started another bank
account in my own name. Ihad part of my paycheck going into that

(43:13):
bank account. I started stashing moneyaway. I started selling things of my
own that he wouldn't know about,just to scrape together anything that I could.
At this point, I'm not makingthat much money, but I'm making
enough to keep us afloat barely.But at this point, I'm paying all
the bills. He's making twice asmuch money as I am, and I

(43:36):
am paying everything, both car payments, groceries, and I am desperately trying
to scrape together rent and I couldn't. We were served in eviction. Notice
this was sort of my aha momentof Okay, this is the time this
needs to happen. So I startedbringing up the idea of moving back home.

(44:00):
I said, you know, we'llhave a place to go. My
mom will let us rent one sideof her apartment. We'll have a place
to go, we can start fresh. And I start bringing this idea up
to him slowly because he doesn't likemy family. You know, I'm slowly
introducing this idea. You can geta job at this place. It's going
to be so great. This iswhat you've always wanted to do. He

(44:22):
starts coming around to the idea,which shocked me because where we were living
was much closer to his family.So I called my mom and I said,
hey, Mom, can you comedown and get me and my son
and we'll all ride back together.You know, we'll just pack a few
things because John will come in anotherfew weeks after us. And she's like,

(44:44):
yeah, sure. My mom flewdown and I'd scraped up enough money
to help with a rental vehicle todrive us back because I wanted to pack
some stuff to take with me,because I knew at this point I was
only going back with what I couldtake with me, what I could fit
in a vehicle. He was atwork one day and we packed up as

(45:05):
much as we could fit. Nobeds, no nothing. It was basically
closing toys and we laughed. Iknew driving away that I wasn't ever going
to have to see him again,because I knew he wasn't kind of come.
That was made abundantly clear after wegot back to my home state.
He didn't call for weeks. Henever called to see if we got there.

(45:28):
He never called to see if wewere okay. He never even called
to talk to his son. Hejust never call. Come to find out
he'd been seeing his current wife beforewe even left. When I got back
home to my mom's, I felta sense of relief, but also like

(45:50):
a loss. Well, he wasn'tcalling. Why wasn't he calling? Didn't
he miss us? Because I missedhim? My son missed his dad.
It was a really confusing time becausehe was supposed to move up to Maine.
We had talked about it and hewas going to and still in my
head I'm thinking, well, wecould still have a fresh start. I
also knew in the back of mymind that that was never going to happen

(46:14):
when we first got up here.To mean, I'm feeling that loss of
he's not going to come up here. I really miss him. I want
him to miss us too. Iwant him to be heartbroken that we're not
together and we're not together as afamily, and I want him to want
to call his son, but hedoesn't. It took me a few months

(46:35):
to really realize, like time tomove forward. He's not going to come
up here. He doesn't want tobe part of our lives. So I
used to call him and try toget him to talk to our son,
to have some sort of relationship,because why wouldn't you He was a great
kid. I didn't think that fathersdid that, just completely abandon their kids,
you know. So I tried formonths, and I was hurting.

(47:00):
I knew he was with somebody else. I was hurting that hurt. It
sucked. Why wasn't I enough?I wanted to make him feel that hurt.
So I was calling and texting,like telling him what a piece of
shitty was and all this kind ofstuff. And I distinctly remember the day
where I just did you know what, This is the last time I'm going

(47:20):
to call you. This is thelast time I'm going to ask you to
have a relationship with your son,and it's the last time I'm going to
facilitate it. And it was I'llnever forget that day because I was calm
when I had that conversation with him. I wasn't yelling, I wasn't screaming.
I wasn't calling him an asshole,you know, none of that.
That was the last time I've calledhim ever. So I didn't realize I

(47:45):
was being abused while I was beingabused, which I think is pretty common.
But my sister at the time hadbeen a victim advocate, so she
had seen a lot of abusive relationshipsand things like that. And her and
I had a conversation one day andshe said, I'm not talking to you
as your sister, I'm talking toyou as a professional. And she asked

(48:08):
me, what's gone on, becausewe've all seen a difference in you.
You are not the person that youused to be. What has gone on?
And I told her a majority ofthe things that had gone on.
There were things that I left outbecause she's my sister, and there are
just things that you don't want yourfamily to know that they shouldn't hear.

(48:29):
She said, you know what,these are classic signs of abuse. All
of it, from the emotional keepingyou away from your family, making you
feel like you're not enough, tothe keeping you strapped financially, as well
as the physical. These are allsigns of abuse. And it started to
kind of sink in a little bitat that point. This hit home the

(48:51):
most for me. When I filedfor divorce, I hired an attorney.
I went over every gritty, dirty, awful tale with her about what happened.
I was sitting there crying, andI apologized for crying and being so
descriptive, and she sat there andsaid, don't you dare She said,

(49:13):
I have done this for many years. You sound like you're suffering from PTSD,
which that doesn't happen, you knowwhat I mean. I'd never seen
combat or anything like that that isnormally associated with PTSD, but I never
thought that that could be a thingfor me. And she said, you

(49:34):
know, you're sitting here apologizing tome, and you have absolutely no reason
to apologize. She said, thoseare classic sides of abuse, and I
guess That's when it really started tosink in. For me. It's like,
holy shit, I got away,and I'll be perfectly honest, it
was fairly easy for me to getaway. But there are plenty of times

(49:57):
where he could have hurt worse,hurt my son. Thankfully, he never
laid a hand on him where hecould have killed me. I got away
from that. I'm still working onthe thinking that's a powerful thing, because
like I said, it was easierfor me to get away. I didn't
get out for myself. I gotout for my son because I didn't want

(50:21):
him to grow up thinking that that'show you treated a person or women,
and to thinking that any of thatwas okay. Initially, when I moved
back home, I started going toa support group for a little while.
Hearing other stories and sharing parts ofmy story were super helpful. Talking about

(50:42):
it for me has been really helpfulbecause I feel like every time I talk
about it, I get a littlebit stronger, I care a little bit
less. The thing that I'm workingon the most now is my son.
Even though he was young when hewitnessed the abuse, he still remembers.
He can tell you down to everylast detail what happened. What he was

(51:07):
doing, well, I was beingabused, which is really really hard for
me because I still feel all thatguilt because you should have never had to
witness that. And I struggle withthe fact that he doesn't have a dat
because even though we were married atthe time, it's basically just been my

(51:28):
son enough. I've been his soleprovider, his sole caretaker. I struggle
with the fact that even now myson doesn't feel like he's enough for his
father because his father's dips in andout of his life. He's court mandated
to see him and doesn't. Hegoes months without seeing him, and their

(51:49):
relationship has reduced to a ten minutephone call once a week where it's the
same bullshit questions. My son isn'tinterested anymore. That's where I still struggle.
I don't want my son to feellike he's not enough, to feel
like, well, why doesn't Dadlove me enough? As far as me

(52:12):
feeling is still a work in progress, and I think it's going to be
for years to come. But Ihave come a long way from the hatred
and anger that I felt towards himfor what he did to me. I
forgive him for what he did tome. What he did to me is
done and over and I'm never goingto get an explanation why, and I'm
never gonna get an apology, althoughI did get a half assed apology through

(52:36):
text message after we've filed for divorce, so I guess that's all I'm gonna
get, which is whatever I mean. He's moved on, he's remarrying,
he's about to have another child.I'm angry at him for what he's done
to my son and making him feellike he's not enough because that's how he

(52:57):
made me feel. As hard asI try, I can't replace that feeling
for my son. I struggle withthat a lot. So the long term
effects of being in an abusive relationshipare I am superguarded. I have been
with somebody else since dated somebody longterm, but I'm very guarded. It

(53:17):
takes a long time to build mytrust, and even then, there's still
that nagging feeling in the back ofmy mind, like, all right,
when's this going to fall apart?When am I going to see the true
side of this person? Because nobodycan be this nice, nobody can treat
me this good. When's the othershoe gonna drop? I'm still struggling with

(53:37):
that. Some of the red flagsthat I look out for now and missed
in the beginning of my relationship withJohn is the love bombing, Like he
was all about me in the beginning, and very shortly after we started seeing
each other, he wanted to marryme, and he wanted to have kids

(53:58):
with me. And you know,I mean my early twenties and this all
sounds great to me me now inmy mid thirties. Hold up, wait
a second, that's not normal ina relationship. They're early signs of getting
screamed at for something minuscule, orthe threats of physical abuse, joking or

(54:22):
not joking, because whenever somebody saysthat and they're joking, they're not joking
about that. It's something that they'vethought about before. Being isolated from friends
and family is a huge red flag. I didn't realize it at the time.
I just thought he wanted all mytime and attention, and he did,
But there was a reason for it. So things I would tell somebody

(54:45):
in an active abusive relationship, telleverybody, tell one person, but talk
about it. Talk about it,because it's not okay, even if there's
no physical abuse yet. Talk aboutit. Reach out to your friends,
reach out to your family in anyway you can just talk about it,

(55:07):
tell somebody. Get away as soonas you possibly can, no matter how
you have to do it. Youknow, you don't have to have money,
you don't have to have all yourbelongings. Just go and if there's
children involved, go for the sakeof them, if nothing else. I've
learned a lot about myself. Youknow, before I met John, I

(55:29):
always considered myself a strong, independentperson, and he broke that down.
In the years since I left andthe divorce, I've built that person back
up and I'm a lot more vigilantand who I let in my life,
especially because of my son, andI've learned that I can be that strong

(55:49):
person again. I can rebuild mylife and I don't have to be the
victim. I don't have to livethere. I don't have to live my
life. I like being abused tofind it because it didn't. I'm just
trying to be the best person thatI can be, the best mother that
I can be for make son.I'm a survivor and not a victim.

(56:16):
Thank you, Alicia so much fortelling your story. I really appreciate how
you just laid it all out there. Thank you so much for letting me
tell my story, and I hopethat this helps. It's important that these
stories are told so people can hearthe warning signs of when abuse begins within
a relationship and how to identify it. Also to let you know if you

(56:39):
are in an abusive emotional or physicalrelationship right now, you are not alone.
It happens to many people and thereis hope. As you can tell
by Alicia's story. You can goto the hotline dot org online for people
who can help you and support youand give you someone to chat with.
They'll also give you resources and playends for safety and just so you know,

(57:01):
you can leave that site suddenly ifsomeone walks in and it doesn't stay
on your cookies or no one willbe able to see it, and also
call the domestic violence Hotline one eighthundred seven nine nine safe. I hope
this episode makes you feel empowered andgives you some hope things can get better.

(57:24):
Everyone deserves to be in a healthyand safe relationship. Thanks for listening.
If you have any thoughts you wantme to let Alicia know how this
story affected you, then let meknow. You can email me at Murderific
podcast at gmail dot com. Thankyou for listening to Murderific. Also,
Alicia is one of the lucky oneswho made it out alive from an abusive

(57:46):
relationship. Again, thank you somuch. Thank you. A big shout
out to our executive producers Heather be, Mike T and Angie s. And
also, I know times are toughright now, so it might be hard
to join our Patreon, but wedo have a venmo which is in the

(58:07):
show notes, and you know it'sfree. Leaving a review on iTunes or
anywhere you listen to this episode,we would appreciate it. Thanks. You've
reached the end of another Murderific truecrime podcast. Ways to support us go
to buy meacoffee dot com slash Murderific. You can also find us on Patreon,

(58:32):
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Until next time, we will beexecuting podcasts, one crime at a time.