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Continued from our November/00 Newsletter
 From a speech on Domestic Violence given to York Regional Police re: the murder of Susanne Smith's sister, Donna.
"Wife Killers Are Not "normal guys." 
by Susanne Smith
S Smith Police Speech names.jpg (14443 bytes)
From L. to R. Elizabeth Willcox, Steve Jennings,(Domestic Violence Training Coordinators) Suzanne Smith, (Guest Speaker, Family Member 'Murder Victim')Les Young (Head Homicide Detective on Donna's case and keynote speaker))

Introduction
My name is Suzanne Smith. Donna is my sister. Donna was brutally murdered by her husband Tony who then committed suicide. This is Donna’s story, which is one of betrayal by an abusive husband and a justice system that failed to protect her.  Donna and Tony’s story is a compilation of facts and personal research that I have conducted during the last year of Donna’s life and the five years since her murder. It is my hope that through our family’s tragedy and mistakes potential spousal killers can be identified before  further abuse escalates into murder.  It is my hope that the justice system will evolve to recognize, establish control, and ultimately stop potential domestic murders.

 Telling Donna’s story is intended to assist in recognizing the signs and traits leading up to domestic homicide.  This report demonstrates beyond any doubt that domestic homicide is predictable and therefore is preventable. Certain identifiable behaviour can foreshadow extreme violence. The information introduced here establishes that wife killers are a specific category of murderers. Wife killers are not “normal guys except for the fact that they beat and threaten to kill their wives”. However, abusers look normal; they aren’t glaring madmen or twitchy neurotics.  We cannot tell a perpetrator by looking at him.  We also cannot comprehend why they seem so vulnerable and obsessed, to the loss of an intimate partner they themselves have driven away or how that vulnerability turns into a rage to destroy her.

 What we are aware of, is that abusers have borderline personalities. Abusers all use the same language, have the same specific and identifiable characteristics and behaviour, as if they attended a school and completed a course on how to be abusive. Domestic violence is a combination of escalating threats, control, insults, morbid jealousy, and inability to accept responsibility for one’s own faults, blind rage and obsessive possessiveness.

We are beginning to learn that intimate abuse is not just about hits and punches. It is about psychologically and physically trying to control their victims’ use of time and space in order to isolate them from all social connection, both past and present. It is an all-out attempt to annihilate their wives’ self esteem and to enslave them psychologically. It is performed repeatedly in order to maintain and to inflate the damaged self-identity of the abuser. The passion to have absolute and unrestricted control over a living being is the transformation of impotence into omnipotence.

 We know what “normal” anger is, as it is directed at an enemy. Abnormal anger is directed at a total stranger or a loved one triggered by trivial irritations. We all need some power and control in our lives but we don’t generate it by dominating others. The control an abuser views as essential a normal man views as abhorrent.

 Emotional and physical abuse are significantly related to one another. Both are based on a need for control and domination.

 Wife killers have the attitude “if I can’t have her no one is going to have her”. This suggests that abusers see their wife and children as essential possessions; property that has to be controlled and maintained, the way a junkie would keep his drug supply flowing.

 Psychologists have designated three types of abusers.

1.     Cyclical/Emotionally Volatile Abuser – Over controlling. Verbally abusive towards their wife. Usually a large gap between physically violent episodes (years). Police rarely called.

2.     Psychopathic Wife Assaulter – History of criminal activities, antisocial behaviour. Violent with others as well as with their partners. Frequently arrested for non-violent crimes.

3.     Cyclical batterer - is the most dangerous and the least understood. They are the batterers who will eventually try to kill their wife. Their harmfulness stems from the serial and private nature of their violence. It is repetitive and transcends women and relationships. They appear to have two personalities, one at home with their partners and another in public – and even in private they undergo changes, alternately acting abusive and contrite.  

 I have explored the facets of abuse and examined the various types of abusers and the predictable pattern of behavior known as the cycle of abuse. It consists of three phases that can vary in timing and intensity from one couple to another. The first is tension building, the second, explosion of acute battering, and the third, loving contrition. Within Donna and Tony’s story, I will retrace the creation of an abuser’s personality and explain how a batterer became a full-fledged perpetrator.  Research data on wife assault suggests this is not a random act. Something more is going on that guides the direction or the focus of the rage, something assumed or perhaps learned about male-female relationships.

 Abusers are usually, but not always, victims of physical, mental and sexual abuse.

Assaultive men in general use alcohol and drugs. What results is a volatile combination of unhappy, angry men who have lost all restraint. While there may be an association between alcohol use and violence, one does not cause the other. Both can be traced back to an earlier aspect of a dysfunctional personality. A personality is formed much sooner than one learns to use alcohol or to hit. 

 Batterers and domestic killers know that the current judicial process is ineffective and that in most instances, they can get away with murder.  It will require the effort of all facets of society, and every sector of the justice system to shed the light of understanding into the dark hellish minds of abusers and prosecute them vigorously at the first instance.

 Brief Family History

 Donna was a very gentle, sensitive, well-behaved little girl. She had a special adoration for horses and all other animals and plants. She would spend hours reading, studying and playing with them. She had many friends and relatives in the neighborhood and Donna was well thought of by both adults and children. Donna was able to make it to church each Sunday without getting her clothes dirty, had excellent grades in school, posed nicely for pictures and was never the one who got into mischief. 

 At a very young age, Donna developed a crush on a neighborhood boy named Tony. Tony’s aunt had married an uncle of ours and we would see Tony at family celebrations. Tony was an only child born to unmarried, alcoholic parents who fought continuously and beat him. Tony lived with and was raised primarily by his maternal grandmother. Donna knew nothing of his background or misfortunes. He was just another kid to play with in the neighborhood. However, Tony was viewed by family and friends as moody and having a volatile temper.

 Donna and Tony’s adult relationship always had an element of domineering controlling behaviour from Tony. Over the years, many of our family members had witnessed how Tony would explode into fits of rage at the slightest provocation. At these times his face would become distorted, his mouth would become frozen down at both corners and his eyes became shark like (dead). I referred to this as the “kink” in my brother in laws brain.

 This past year, I have learned that science has already verified the existence of brain abnormalities within abusers. For me, it was the single most important and intriguing discovery which proved that abusers are not normal. I had seen it and now I was reading scientific studies that proved it. 

Abused wives often mention how their abuser's face becomes terrifying during a physical beating. Their expressions become contorted. Scientifically we now know that this is the physical expression of the dissociative rage that accompanies the enormous physical arousal inherent in violent episodes.

 Donna began dating Tony during her teenage years. Tony had joined the Air Force and was stationed in Prince Edward Island. When she finished high school, he sent for Donna to visit him. She returned two years later, married to him.

  There were times when Donna would confide in me and describe some of the fights that she and Tony had been having.  I was stunned at the venomous accusations and soul crushing language Tony used towards Donna. He undermined her confidence, insulted her abilities, and dominated her every turn. Intermittently he exploded in tirades of abuse, insulting her and even unwanted sex.

 Many times over the years,  I became extremely frustrated and angry with Donna for not leaving Tony and I let her know my feelings. I was constantly telling Donna to leave him.  Donna became defensive of Tony saying how he was “ really a good man” and that she was the “only love and support he had on this planet, he had no one else”.  Donna said for the most part he made her happy. What I didn’t realize at the time, was that I was in some respects alienating my sister. I now know that I had inadvertently created a situation within which she could not confide in me that the verbal abuse had escalated to extreme physical abuse and torture. I was wrong in my approach to Donna because I was ignorant of the psychological factors associated with domestic abuse. Abused women require gentle support and understanding.

 One of the most eye opening discoveries I have learned since that time is why women stay in an abusive relationship. The reasons are inherently contradictory as they are both fear and hope.

 The main reason a woman stays in an abusive relationship is fear. They are afraid of what will happen to them because they are no longer living with a mate but a killer. They are afraid of what will happen to them if they leave. Their fears are justified as evidence shows a woman is at greater risk of injury and death after she leaves an abusive relationship than if she stays.  The secondary reasons are for religious and cultural influences, for the children, financial dependency and fear of never finding another mate.

 The bonds that bind abuse victims to their tormenters are legendary.

Something similar to this happens in battered women. It is called traumatic bonding.

Traumatic bonding is based on two aspects, one person holding more power than the other and intermittent abuse. Unpredictable, intermittent reinforcement is a powerful motivator that keeps one coming back for more. The victim’s hope is that maybe this time it will be better. Abused women can, unconsciously collude with their abusers in denial and begin to interpret the abuse as love.  Others become so beaten down that they seem to lose all will to care for themselves.  The judicial system needs to recognize this abnormality and imbalance of power within this situation and take drastic steps of assuming full responsibility for prosecuting the abusive men, with or without the victim’s testimony or pleadings.

 After physical violence, a victim’s reactions are similar to those who have experienced a natural disaster.  These typically involve emotional collapse within twenty-two to forty-eight hours after the catastrophe and symptoms of post-traumatic stress such as listlessness, depression and feelings of helplessness. Victims tend to isolate themselves for some time in an attempt to heal and to avoid having their injuries detected by friends.

 There is a contrition phase after physical abuse. A wife often chooses to believe that this is her husband’s true nature. It hooks her on the potential of the relationship and appeals to her need to rescue him. During the contrition phase the man throws himself on his wife’s mercy giving her the illusion of holding all the power. He arouses her optimism and her sense of nurturance. Codependence evolves from the two partners trying to convince each other that they can battle the world together and that their “love” will triumph. The abuser may beg his wife to think of his career, of  the family unit and religious reasons. Unfortunately, for the most part, social conditioning within our society backs him up.

 There isn’t any special deficit in a battered woman’s personality that makes her susceptible to getting trapped in an abusive relationship. The features of the relationship itself are sufficient to account for the trapping. Victims begin living in a surrealistic state of existence. As the days pass, the bad memories fade, and only the good ones remain, fed by the woman’s desire to satisfy her man’s neediness.

 Abusers know exactly how hard to hit in order to scare and intimidate their wives without leaving marks. The wives often refuse to call police because they cannot believe the violence really occurred and the unreality paralyzes them. Abusers play up to police perfectly, respecting their authority, ostensibly cooperating trying to 'recruit’ them by forming a male bonding where the common grievance is hysterical females; saying things like “Does your wife ever get like this?, she’s mentally deranged, she can’t get her act together’. Abusers maintain a cool, dismissive tone when talking about their wives, or complain about their wife’s behaviour in part to deflect the focus from their own abusiveness. This illusion of detachment allows the abuser to overlook his own hidden dependency needs.

 For most women, the single act of having to call the police is an extremely tense experience; notwithstanding that their lives may be in danger. Often times, behind that first phone call to you is an accumulation of many years of hardship and terror. For the most part, we are raised with the belief that the police would never be needed on our doorsteps. Unfortunately, the conditioning is still prevalent that only “trash” ever gets involved in the type of personal disputes to need the Police.

 The Police in Ontario have done a superlative job over the past decade in making themselves approachable and available to the average citizen. Particularly so to women in distress due to abusive situations.

However, to this day, the  majority of Canadians respect the police but continue to live with the understanding that police are to be avoided. As adults, we share information as to where the “spot checks” are so we can stay clear of them. When those big cruisers come out of nowhere on our highways, Torontonians miraculously become courteous drivers and move over to let the “police go by”. Dealing with law enforcement is not a normal and routine practice in our lives.

 I am aware that the average policeman will be exposed to more danger on a daily basis than the average Canadian military member. I am sorry that my family contributed to the very essence of what your nightmares are made of.

  The military had hospitalized Tony on several occasions during his tenure for “anger management control problems”. Tony walked through life as if he were the perfect man who had been cursed with a wife who didn’t recognize his perfection. Some days he wouldn’t let her leave the house, physically restraining her and threatening her with violence. Tony displayed a constellation of feelings involving rage and jealousy. He found ways of misinterpreting and blaming Donna, holding her responsible for his own feelings of despondency, making impossible demands on her, and punishing her for inevitably failing. Tony held himself in the grip of cyclical moods that ebbed and flowed with a fearful rhythm. He would become pathologically jealous, drawing ludicrous conclusions about nonexistent problems. He didn’t merely react to events but created a different view of the world in which emotional bumps become earthquakes. Many times Donna could see Tony’s dark side coming and his tension growing. Then the gradual descent into her living hell would begin, paved with sarcasm, put-downs and insults about her abilities as a wife, housekeeper, lover, cook etc. Donna, in a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable battle, would go into survival mode. She would swallow her own outrage and cater to his every whim. She would try to pacify him, making sure nothing and noone would upset him, doing little extra favors. It was hopeless.

 In 1992, Donna and Tony purchased their dream house in Newmarket. They were going to renovate an old farmhouse and this was to be their final home, as he was not going to accept any more transfers. Donna was working full time as a patent law clerk for a law firm in downtown Toronto.

Tony was retired from the airforce at age forty. He was an unemployed soldier.

 In October of 1994, Tony threatened to kill Donna. However, she managed to escape under dramatic circumstances. Donna finally acknowledged that their relationship transcended anything considered normal. A marital counselor was engaged who specialized in domestic violence. Donna proceeded to do all the things the counselor suggested such as seek the help of the police, her workplace, and her  doctor, her family and friends.

 Donna returned home only with Tony’s agreement that he address his anger problems, attend counseling and get a job. Tony attended just one counseling session; Donna continued on her own.

Abusers routinely quit therapy from therapists who confront them. They have a particularly abhorrence towards female therapists.  When abusers are referred to treatment groups for wife assault, they are considered a poor bet for improvement. Abusers don’t look back; as a result, they never learn from past mistakes. Progressive, constructive solutions to move beyond an abuser's flaw is not part of their make up.

  Tony became extremely unhappy that the family knew of their marital problems and that Donna was beginning to spend time with her friends and family again.

  On January 22nd, 1995 on a Sunday afternoon, Tony exploded in yet another violent rage. His tirade escalated to such a degree that he picked up a bible and began quoting religious text in how he was the “grim reaper”. He then tried to kill Donna. He beat her, threaten to cut off  her fingers with a kitchen knife, picked her up by the skin of her face, hung her there and then threw her against the refrigerator. Tony then flipped her upside down and threw her across the room.  Tony threatened to kill her and then kill everything that she loved including her family members and her dogs. Tony went upstairs to load a gun. It was at this time, Donna regained consciousness, grabbed the car keys and fled. While Donna was  backing out of the driveway Tony threw himself at the car and managed to stop her escape. He pulled Donna out of the car while smashing her head against the car door and threw the keys into a snowbank. He pulled her back into the house and beat her again.  Tony again thought Donna was unconscious and went back upstairs to continue loading the gun.

While upstairs, Tony systematically called each of Donna’s immediate family members including me and announced that Donna had two minutes to live and then he was coming to “annihilate” all of us. I immediately called the police. Donna had managed to escape and drive herself to the police station and tell them what had happened.

  Tony was arrested and spent three days in jail. The Justice of the Peace released Tony with bail conditions not the least of which was a restraining order stating that Tony stay away from Donna and her family. Tony was also to receive anger management counseling. The details of the fight were provided in written form to the Justice of the Peace but were not spoken aloud in court. The Crown Attorney and the Justice appeared embarrassed, clinical, and uninterested in the details of the actual fight. Tony was released to our mutual uncle in London Ontario.

  Because Donna was able to get away that day, and because the Newmarket police were swift and vigilant in their response, Donna’s life was extended by four months. The police provided protection and compassion in a time of great need. The remainder of Donna’s life granted her a brief reprieve from an abusive marriage. Her final months were filled with daily reminders of the love and support of family and friends and unrestrained sisterly laughter.   

   The deadliest mistake Donna and I  made was the false sense of security and protection the restraining order gave her. We projected our own values, such as honouring and abiding a court order, onto Tony who recognized no authority other than his own.  What in fact was happening was that Tony’s rage was being fuelled by Donna’s overtures to leave the marriage. He had lost control over her; and had now experienced  being controlled through minimal jail time and the issuance of the restraining order. Tony was embarrassed and enraged that Donna’s  family members supported her and were in attendance during the court proceedings.  The loss or impending loss, created extreme anxiety, rage, and tunnel vision within Tony. THE MOST DANGEROUS TIMES FOR A WOMAN ARE WHEN SHE SEPARATES, WHEN SHE SEEKS SHELTER OR ASSISTANCE FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY, AND WHEN SHE BECOMES PREGNANT (the husband fears the baby will replace him in his wife’s affections).

  Tony’s rage then progressed to a state of  “rumination”. A perpetrator ruminates on his wife’s malevolence, driving his arousal and fury even higher. When he finally explodes, his rage is uncontrollable. He wants to annihilate his victim, and he will at least terrify and humiliate her. This specific type of tunnel vision occurs just prior to abuse and murders, including murder/suicides. In murder/suicides, the victim and abuser have typically been in a long-term relationship, with repeated discord and battering. His depression worsens with an apparent final breakup, and this perception triggers violence. The abusers’ tension builds, spilling over into an obsession of the “problem”, which is his wife. The wish to destroy her becomes overwhelming.  The thought that repeats itself is simply “she ruined my life, she can’t leave me, I’ll show her” and “if I can’t have her nobody else will”. Abusive men obsess on a pattern of blaming, bad feelings and fantasized recrimination. They are agitated, tense, frenzied, cannot sit still or relax and feel some inner force overtaking them.  The abuser’s thought process feeds on itself, leading to faster and harder blows until the weapon is empty or the abuser is exhausted. For the abuser, it releases the pent-up tension and the physical action is pleasurable. The repeat abuser becomes addicted to this tension release. It is the only way he knows to rid himself of his bad feelings, it is the only thing that makes him feel good. When this type of situation escalates into murder, homicide detectives call the results “overkill”.

  Cyclical abusers have no remorse; there isn’t any looking back only a relentless unrealistic view of the future. A lack of emotional responsiveness sets them apart from other criminals.  Their defining feature is described as a missing conscience. Conscience is the ability to punish the self for violating ones own standards of conduct. Most normally socialized men do go through some remorse for hurting their wives.  Abusers find ways to neutralize the guilt by blaming the victim – “I warned her not to make me angry, she drove me to it, she ruined my life”.

  Abusers do not have any guilt pangs. In fact, psychologists have found that cylical abusers brains do not function like those of normal people when they are observing emotionally provocative events. Brain scans performed on abusers and normal men show dramatically different processing. The brain scans for abusers look as though nothing is happening; just a bit of bright colour in the brain. These same x-rays were shown to a group of doctors who laughed and said the scans were of people who were dead or nearly dead.   By contrast, the scans of normal men showed huge bright colour patterns indicating extensive brain activity.

  Another factor is that batterers show a decline in heart rate during the course of a violent argument. In other words, batterers become calm internally despite their emotionally aggressive behaviour. There is a disconnection between physiology and behaviour. Abusers look aroused, they act aroused, but on the inside, they are getting calmer and calmer.  They function like trained martial artists, cool and composed with a suppressed autonomic reaction while highly alert and tuned to the environment.

  Donna became immersed in the ugly court proceedings, which accompany domestic violence issues.

She made all the right moves and followed all the procedures according to the law. She was working with and had the guidance of the Victims Services division of the Newmarket courthouse, her marriage counsellor and the lawyers at her workplace. She had the support of friends, family and neighbours.

For whatever reason, the Crown Attorney informed Donna that he believed Tony would be sentenced to three months in jail for his crime. At the same time, for whatever reason, Tony’s lawyer was telling Tony that he would not be spending any time in jail and that the matter was not considered all that serious in the eyes of the judicial system.

  Donna began divorce proceedings. She had also asked the NewMarket criminal court to move up the date from October to June 1995; primarily to have Tony show proof that he was attending anger management sessions. Donna believed that anger management training was a six-month stay at a secluded, lock down facility.  She believed it would be to her benefit to have Tony locked up for six months with counseling rather than a sentence of three months in jail. She understood Tony’s volatile temper and feared that he would kill her once he was let out of jail. She thought  that with intense counseling he would learn to control his temper. She was wrong. Presently, our society does not have any effective counseling for cyclical batterers which works to dispel the need to control and/or kill their intimate partners. Counselors who work with severely abusive men have privately admitted to me a success rate of only one- percent. Psychologists are of the opinion that they do need to keep trying in order to reach a breakthrough in understanding and averting further abuse.   In my opinion, jail is the only option.

 Four nights after her fortieth birthday, four months to the day he was arrested, Tony drove from London Ontario to Newmarket. He cut the telephone cord from the outside and broke through the back door to get in. He then beat and stabbed Donna to death using two butcher knives he had taken from the kitchen. Donna died in abject terror and in agony. Tony washed his hands at the kitchen sink and then drove to Oakville.  Tony killed himself and left a suicide note on the dashboard of his vehicle. Tony died the way he had lived, blaming everyone but himself for what he had done.  That horrific night marked the conclusion to years of abuse.

  After Donna’s death, I met with a Senior Crown Attorney. During our conversation he made the ridiculous statement that society in general was to be blamed for the violence that Donna had to endure. He went on to blame Donna for not being more vocal in regards to her fear for her life. He dismissed the multiple and lengthy discussions she had with the Victim Services Division of the Court as “just conversations and not any real indication that she was afraid for her life”.  The Senior Crown Attorney said that Tony was a model citizen, a decorated officer of the Canadian Air Force who had not broken any laws, including the parameters of his restraining order except for the one fact that he had committed murder. Tony was never viewed as a threat to the public at large, notwithstanding his threats to kill his wife, all her family and her dogs.  The Senior Crown Attorney concluded our conversation with  “just because one woman died doesn’t mean there is a problem, the judicial system worked exactly how it was supposed to. No mistakes were made, nothing went wrong here.”

  Victims who lay charges against abusive spouses must know for certain that the system will safeguard them. If women come forward and stick their necks out, the system must be seen as a protective shield. Blame and responsibility for prosecuting the offender should be completely taken away from the victim. It was not Donna’s place to identify and recognize a potential killer.  It was not her place to decide what his legal punishment should be. It was not within her power to restrain his movements and actions.

  Abusers place an inordinate amount of strain on our society. They are painful to live with and exact a huge toll through policing and court time, which all too often goes nowhere. Judges continue to view abusers as not dangerous to the public at large. Why do judges and defense attorneys view victims of abuse as not as important as the collective public? That one life is important and deserves to be protected. The word ‘domestic’ does not render a situation any less dangerous; it merely identifies the victim.  Bail is an important part of our legal system; but we must ensure stricter enforcement of bail conditions and protect potential victims. We now know that the most dangerous time for a victim is after the arrest of the abuser.

  Since Donna’s murder, I have had the opportunity to speak with many family members of domestic murder cases. One of the most glaringly obvious realizations is that many of these deaths had identical profiles. Several Law Enforcement Agencies are on the brink of making meaningful headway in protecting domestic violence victims. Questionnaires are being developed categorizing abusers and identifying offenders most likely to kill. These questionnaires will provide a common language and therefore create a unified understanding of the level of danger an abuser poses to a victim. The questionnaire is patterned to increase jail sentences and bail amounts, as the primary focus is victim protection.

  Someday, it will be a powerful experience to hold abusive men fully accountable for their actions and not as the courts do, diminish their responsibility.  It will be a powerful experience to hold judges and lawyers accountable for their mistakes. The current judicial system is not progressing and changing at the same pace as our society. It has become desensitized to victims and has become all engrossed in the rights of the offenders. All facets of our society are displeased with the current manner of courtroom rulings. Canadians are banding together forging relationships out of frustration, to wage a campaign on several fronts in order to make changes to the methods used by our judicial system. A system where there is a never-ending succession of innocent murder victims. Groups such as CAVEAT (Canadians Against Violence Everywhere) has been formed by family members of murder victims who will not rest, who will not go away until such time as victims have a greater standing then perpetrators.

  Caveat has three mandates: Justice Reform, Victims Rights and Violence Prevention. Our focus is a search for justice not revenge and to protect society from violent offenders who slip through the cracks in the system. One of the many vital contribution CAVEAT has made are the submissions to the Justice Committee. Research is conducted and recommendations submitted which relate to a particular piece of legislation that addresses a specific issue. These submissions are then presented to the Senate. Caveat also hosts Safety Net Conferences which bring together different disciplines of the judicial system including judges, lawyers, politicians, crown attorneys, police and surviving victims. Surviving victims offer a point of view from a different perspective and their experiences are included within this process. No one group has all the answers but collectively we are making progress.

  In closing, if I had the power to change what happened to Donna I would. The power to prevent future domestic killings is within you, may it get stronger every day.
Written by Suzanne Smith  




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