Fear, control lock women in abusive relationships

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She also has a titanium plate in the left side of her face from the day two years ago this July when she became a victim of domestic violence. The blow shattered her eye socket and broke her nose in two places.

It was the first and last time that Galbreath endured severe physical violence at the hands of the man she loved, an episode that also left her mentally scarred.

Galbreath's case is just a single digit in South Carolina's staggering domestic abuse statistics. The year of her reported assault, 51,814 domestic assaults were logged in South Carolina, according to the most recent statistics available from the State Law Enforcement Division. Roughly a third were assaults between "intimates" — a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.

South Carolina also consistently ranks among the top states where women are killed by their husbands, according to the Violence Policy Center, a national non-profit agency that works to reduce violent deaths.

Last week the state House Judiciary Committee killed a bill that sought to make second-offense criminal domestic violence a felony, while approving one making cockfighting a felony. In South Carolina, the first two offenses of criminal domestic violence are considered misdemeanors punishable by up to 30 days in jail, according to The Associated Press.

Rep. John Graham Altman, a Charleston Republican who serves on the panel, tabled the domestic violence measure.

"The woman (who is abused) ought to not be around the man," Altman told a WIS-TV reporter after the committee hearing, The AP reported. "I mean, you women want it one way and not another," he told the female reporter.

When Galbreath heard of Altman's comments, she like many Upstate advocates was incensed.

"He and his family probably didn't grow up like some of us do. They don't have the kind of lives, like I did," Galbreath said.

Her message to Altman: "I think if he's going to fight for roosters more than he's going to fight for women he shouldn't be a representative."

On a tape of the hearing recorded by committee staff, legislators can be heard mocking the bill.

"Can you tell me why the subcommittee, in its great wisdom, entitles this Protect Our Women in Every Relationship (POWER)?" Altman is heard asking.

In the background, someone is heard suggesting it be renamed "Protect Our People In Every Relationship," or POPER. Someone then jokes, "Pop her again," prompting laughter in the room.

Like many who have suffered from domestic violence, Galbreath said hers started as verbal abuse and then escalated, something experts and victim advocates say is common.

"A lot of people say, 'I don't know why she stays,' but it doesn't happen overnight," said Lillian Garcia, the bilingual victim's advocate for the Greenville County Sheriff's Office.

An abuser often begins by telling his girlfriend he wants to spend all his time with her, Garcia said. "The girl is thinking, 'Oh, he loves me so much, he doesn't want me to go out.'"

Then the abuser begins controlling what she wears, whom she sees, whether she works and whom she can go out with after work.

By the time the woman realizes she wants out of the relationship, it's often too late, Garcia said. The woman often has children, a dependency on her husband and a fear of being killed, she said.

"It's a control thing," Garcia said. "It starts a little bit at a time, and it just escalates to controlling her whole life."

Getting people to understand that notion of fear and control is a constant challenge, victims' advocates report.

As executive director of Safe Harbor Inc., Renee Middleton said she has spent the better part of 15 years trying to understand battered woman's syndrome.

Safe Harbor is the leading domestic abuse advocacy organization in the Upstate and shelters battered women from Anderson, Oconee, Pickens and Greenville counties.

Middleton said her phones have been ringing off the hook in response to the legislator's comments earlier this week, but the reality is that many men and women share his views.

Her hope is that it will end up promoting positive awareness of the problem. "You need to be humble enough to know there's always more to learn," Middleton said.

On average, an abused woman will go back to her abuser five to seven times before she finally leaves. That's a difficult concept to understand, said Fay Brown, executive director of Foothills Alliance, which serves abuse victims in Anderson and Oconee counties.

She said the experience is similar to being a prisoner of war. "Any way you choose to try to get out means bodily harm or death. You're a prisoner in your own home.

"It's being held captive and knowing that you're probably going to die eventually, but if you try to escape, you most definitely will die, or the people that you love most will be harmed."

The biggest problem with criminal domestic violence cases is proof and reconciliation, said 13th Circuit Judicial Circuit Solicitor Bob Ariail.

Typically there are no witnesses, making the cases difficult to prove, and often children are involved, which leads husbands and wives to reconcile for the sake of the family, he said. Ariail's office has a unit dedicated to prosecuting criminal domestic violence cases.

"We take criminal domestic violence in this circuit seriously," Ariail said. "When we get (these cases) we treat them as serious offenses. We are out to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law."

Heidi Coryell Williams can be reached at 306-3302.