By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
What Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Davis has to say about family violence begins over Christmas vacation 2005 while home in North Dakota.
A couple of days after the holiday, he was the first person up in the house when the phone rang.
It was his sister-in-law, a woman in her 30s he has known since she was 4.
He told the Cass County Candlelight Vigil Honoring Victims of Domestic Violence Thursday evening in Dowagiac's Beckwith Park that when his wife returned with her sister, "I couldn't recognize her" with her face "swollen six times normal," Davis said.
She and her husband were both tribal police officers.
"They had been having problems," but only learned later and "are continuing to learn" that domestic abuse went on for about 10 years.
"That night they had separated and she had asked him to leave the house," Davis said. "Before we got home, he went to her and said, 'It's going to look bad if your sister and her husband come home and we're not together. The family's not going to have an enjoyable holiday because of you.' As a result of that, she moved back into the house."
In hindsight, he said, they can recall "exchanges," followed by her "completely shutting down" and retreating to another room.
"My wife and I talked about it when we went to bed," Davis said, "but we didn't really focus on domestic violence because, quite frankly, we liked our brother-in-law a lot. We'd known him for about 15 years. He was the nicest guy to us and to our kids. We didn't think this would ever happen in our own family."
"He beat her for about six hours that night," Davis continued. "He beat her with his hands and that wasn't enough, so he slammed her head through a big-screen TV they had just bought for Christmas for their kids. He broke that. She was bleeding, but he beat her some more. Then he let up because he got tired.
"He must have went to another room because she was able to walk to the front door. He grabbed her by the hair as she went down the front steps, kicked her a couple of times out on the stoop and pulled her back into the house. He went and found her service revolver that she used as a tribal police officer and split her head open. She needed six staples to close the wound. He broke her jaw. He smashed most of her teeth. She actually thought when he hit her with the service revolver and she blacked out that she was going to die."
When she tried to call 911, he broke the phone.
She awoke to find herself in bed, her spouse apologetic for what he had done.
Then he blamed her.
"You made me do this," the brother-in-law claimed.
And he resumed beating her.
When it began to get light out, he undressed her and put her in the bathtub slick with blood, cleaned her up as best he could and dressed her in a sweater intended to conceal her bruises.
"He told her, 'I think I went too far this time. I think they're going to know,' " Davis related to more than 50 people attending the annual event sponsored by the Cass County Task Force Against Domestic VIolence, Domestic and Sexual Abuse Services (DASAS) of Three Rivers, the Cass County Prosecutor's Office, Cass County Youth Council and the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians.
"We had a difficult time getting police to investigate the matter," Davis recalled.
"At the same time, we had social services and victim advocates come forward. They talked to her briefly, and that was the last time we saw those folks."
Even with the cycle broken and her husband in jail, his sister-in-law continued to blame herself.
"I caused this," she would say.
When he was released from jail back into the community, "She started making excuses for him to the point that she wasn't going to go forward," Davis said. "It took a long time for me to understand why this was happening. She was recanting things, and I still struggle with that, but I'm beginning to understand how powerful her survival instincts were and how powerful her ability to cope with this was. They're some of the strongest people I know, but it's difficult to convince them from the perspective I come from. I think the most important thing we can do for these folks is to keep the door open – tell them we love them, we respect them and honor them, and not pre-judge them. They've been through a hell of a lot more than I ever will be, and they've been able to survive much more difficult things than I can."
Davis, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan for 14 years, was introduced by Assistant Prosecutor Diab Rizk.
Before that, Davis practiced law privately with a firm in Boulder, Colo., representing Indian tribes throughout the United States on issues ranging from gaming and water rights litigation to protection of tribal treaty rights.
Davis graduated from the University of New Mexico Law School in 1989.
He is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.
He grew up on a reservation in north-central North Dakota, about 10 miles from the Canadian border.
Davis, who has three children, was accompanied to Dowagiac by his wife.
They relax by riding their four horses.
Survivor Angela Strauss said, "There is not only hope, there is also life after domestic violence. Second, to all those we have lost to domestic violence, we may never know the whys of who will survive. That is the danger of domestic violence – never knowing when it will take someone. But I do know that my name, along with other victims, could be on that list we read tonight. It's of the utmost importance that we educate everyone about the dynamics of domestic violence and how potentially dangerous this can become … we must not allow one more name to be put on that list."
"It is critical to hear from people who have been through this," Davis said.
"When people like Angela come forward and talk about being there, that's important. I have a victim advocate in my office, Janet, who talks to me about why they're doing the things they do."
The list of women, children and men killed from 1975 through 2007 fills five pages up to Denise Simpson, 41, from Dowagiac.
Her mother came to read the passage about her estranged husband, Michael Simpson, luring her to his house to talk. She left her two children with her sister.
When she entered the house he shot and killed Denise, then killed himself.
"I'm raising the youngest one now. We're doing better now, but I do miss her," Denise's mother said.
"We stand in the gap for those who are hurting … who may even now be dealing with such abuse in their lives … praying for courage for them to step out of that as we pray for us to have courage to step up and into that place You want us to be," Pastor John Kasper of First United Methodist Church said in the invocation.
DASAS Executive Director Mary Lynn Falbe welcomed everyone to Beckwith Park.
DASAS Volunteer Outreach Coordinator Rita Reed served as mistress of ceremonies.
Jeff Robinson directed Union High School choir members for musical selections.
Refreshments served afterward at Beeson Street Restaurant were provided by Pokagon Band Social Services.