Something happened to me in May 2006. It was so horrible that it bothers me even today. Someone tried to kill me.

It was the Friday before Mother’s Day, May 12, 2006. Our house was for sale, but my husband had let the sales contract expire. He lived there without paying rent, as he still lives today. I had contacted a real estate agent to list the house. He was leaving town for a period of time and as a result I asked him if he could see the house that Friday before he left. She agreed to meet me there in the late afternoon. She called my husband to make the appointment. In an effort to ease the situation, I also called him to try to ease the tensions between us. It was abrupt and, as usual, he hung up on me.

It had been one of those hot, muggy days that we have here in the south. When I arrived at the house fifteen minutes earlier, the sky opened up and a deluge began. The thunder was directly overhead and the lightning struck the ground around me. After a few minutes, instead of risking the lightning, I decided to go inside.

I walked through the garage like I always had. I knocked on the door to the laundry room, and from there to the living room and kitchen. From the laundry room, you can see part of the kitchen, but because the laundry room is carved out of a corner of the family room, you can’t see that room.

My husband opened the door. At first there was a big smile on his face, but that changed the moment he saw me. He asked me what I was doing there and I informed him that I was there for the appointment. I assumed he knew he was coming as we both had to sign the contracts as the house is in our name and this was something he wanted to accomplish that night before the agent left town.

At that time, he was standing in the laundry room. He grabbed me and tried to push me towards the door, but suddenly he let go of me and yelled at our son who was a few feet away: “Grab her. If I touch her, I will go to jail.” My husband had been convicted of assaulting me and threatening to kill me in June of the previous year, but Judge Jeff Fairbanks sealed the records of that attack.

When I entered the laundry room, I could smell something that was disgustingly sweet. I thought it was incense. My husband loved smoking marijuana in his youth, and my son had been smoking it for the last year or two that I know of. He was high when he came to visit. I knew something was wrong. I could hear movement in the family room, but because there is a wall between the family room and the laundry room, I couldn’t see who it was. I assumed it was my husband’s girlfriend. I asked him why he wouldn’t let me into my own house. That’s when things got surreal.

By then my son had grabbed my arms and pinned me against the door. He was six foot one and two hundred and eighty pounds. Around the corner and behind me a figure appeared. My mother-in-law appeared. She screamed at me: “Get out of OUR house.” I told him that the house was not his, it was half mine. It was then that he pounced on me and tried to strangle me while my son was holding me.

I could feel my airway closing as his grip tightened on my throat. I could hear myself gasping and trying to beg for my life. I was able to beg him to stop. When he released me, I ran to the phone that was only a few feet away, but my husband beat me to it. He pulled the cord from the wall. My mother-in-law kept yelling that it was her house and for me to get out. I remember he had referred to me as “the whore” so many times in the past. For her, that’s the worst thing you can call a woman. That was the word I gave him in my panic.

I ran out and got my cell phone out of the car and dialed 911. For some reason, it seemed like the police took a long time to arrive. Through the open window, he could hear them talking. I think they were talking to someone on the phone. Then I heard my son yell that, because he was holding my throat, he was trying to choke me.

When the police arrived, the storm had passed. The first to arrive was a short black policeman. I never knew his name. Instead of checking if I was okay, he walked past me, treating me like the perpetrator, not the victim. I don’t remember if the realtor was already there or not. I think it was. He entered the house leaving me standing outside, without even stopping to check if I was okay. A few minutes later another police car arrived.

It was the same police officer who had come forward in all the previous violence calls. Two of those times, when my husband had physically hurt me, he refused to take pictures. This time it was no different. I always had a disposable camera in my car in case I saw something of interest while driving. I had the real estate agent take pictures at the scene. Those images clearly show the handprint on my neck. One of them even shows the background officer.

I asked for an ambulance to be called. When he arrived, the young man who was the assistant said he could see the handprint on my throat. The officer had said he couldn’t. Stupidly, I let the officer talk me out of going to the ER. Instead, I got in my car and headed to the doctor at the local grocery store.

It is only 10 miles from the home to downtown Williamsburg, VA. As I was driving on Route 60, the rain started to fall again and my hand kept going to my throat. It hurts both physically and mentally. I couldn’t understand why they treated me this way. Why didn’t the police help me?
I got to the doctor’s office around 6 or 6:30, filled out the forms, and sat down to wait. I guess because of the rain there weren’t many people, but time passed slowly. Finally they called me to the exam room.

After the usual pre-examination by the nurse, the doctor came to see me. On the chart, he noticed the handprint on my throat. He was outraged that the police did not take photographs. He left the exam room and headed for the inner office common area. I continued.

I stood up while making the call to the police to ask why no pictures had been taken. His demeanor changed as he listened to the person on the other side. He never looked at me again. He hung up the phone and informed me that if I wanted to, I would have to press charges to the magistrate. He told me they would take pictures. He handed the card to the nurse to write down follow-up instructions and went into an exam room. That was the last time I saw him that night.

By now, it was dark and the deluge was once again over Williamsburg. The Magistrate’s Office is located in the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail, several miles across town. I headed there.

When I got there, it seemed like forever. The magistrate took a long time to answer the bell. I told him why I was there and filled out the forms, but when I went to give them to him, he said he needed a copy of the doctor’s report. By now, it was after 8 o’clock. He didn’t know if he would be able to get to the office on time. But I swore to try. Before I left, she told me that if my mother-in-law left town, she would not be persecuted, no matter the circumstances. I remember calling my husband and leaving a message on his machine informing him of what I had been told regarding her leaving town.

Somehow that night, fighting the rain, the wind, and the pain, I was able to return to the doctor’s office and the Magistrate. On the second visit, I was allowed to file a battery charge, nothing more. They didn’t tell me who to cite. The only person I thought of was the real estate agent.

The next morning, there was blood in my sputum and marks on my arm where my son had held me. I went back to the doctor. I received rough treatment and brushing regarding blood. He told me it was “normal”.

That Sunday was Mother’s Day. My husband did not allow my son to visit me. On Monday, he bought her a $ 300 iPod, saying it was for her birthday. His birthday was not until July, this was in the middle of May. There was a pre-trial hearing, but I was never informed.

The trial was about a month after the incident. My mother-in-law, who had been living in the house, left town right after the hearing, but returned for the trial.

The day before the trial, a phone call was recorded on my answering machine. It was placed from a cell phone. The Assistant Commonwealth Prosecutor left a message that he had called, nothing more. When I got home from work, I couldn’t locate him. I was finally able to get him to answer the phone the next morning at 11:00 a.m. M. informed me that he could not use the medical evidence because I did not summon the doctor to answer for the validity of the evidence. I asked him to request a postponement. He refused to tell me that “you are supposed to know who you are to date.”

The trial was scheduled for 2 in the afternoon. I went to the doctor’s office to ask him to appear. The receptionist said it was not possible.

The courtroom was packed. Cases related to the appearance of lawyers were called first. It is a courtesy, as they often have to appear in more than one courtroom during a set period of time. Then the cases without lawyers were called. One by one, they were called and dispensed with. The entire time, my husband and his mother, along with his attorney, the former James City County Commonwealth Attorney where the incident occurred, sat waiting on the other side of the courtroom. The attorney never handled any other cases that afternoon.

Finally, around 4 p.m., with the courtroom devoid of spectators, my case was called. I took the stand first. My mother-in-law was dressed in an oversized dress with a large flower print covered by a sweater that was obviously 10 sizes larger. The combination visibly reduced her actual size and made her appear larger than she was. He is eighty years old, but like my husband, he exercises every day. You can drive across the country in the blink of an eye. In fact, he simply fell and broke his hip. Unlike most people her age, according to my husband and son, she was up in a couple of days. In short, her family lives around 100. She and I are roughly the same size. A friend from Eastern State Hospital told me that I could see her attacking me. He spends all his time in the hospital.

They called me to the stand first. The district attorney only asked me to give my side of the story. He asked no more questions. When I mentioned that my son had hugged me while my mother-in-law attacked me, his lawyer objected saying that he was not there to testify because he would incriminate himself (?). They never showed me what evidence was being presented, even though the prosecutor had copies of the photographs and the doctor’s reports. His lawyer questioned me, being belligerent. The district attorney never objected. After testifying, Laura French, an employee of the district attorney’s office, accompanied me from the courtroom.

Next on the stand was the real estate agent. Judging by the amount of time between when I left the courtroom and she left, she did not testify or was not asked any questions. When he left, he came up to me and apologized for what had happened in the courtroom. I didn’t understand that statement until after the verdict.

I never saw the police officer go out. He probably came out of the holding cells. My husband was the last to leave the stand before the verdict.

When they called us back in just a few minutes later, I was stunned by the verdict. The judge announced “Not guilty due to lack of evidence.”

He had heard of the Williamsburg Railroad, the way the courts and police treat women when they file for divorce for abuse. It was that day that I discovered that the railway exists.