By Erin Heffernan
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By Erin Heffernan A 64-year-old man is charged with second-degree murder in the 1987 death of a woman whose body was found in a wooded…
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By Erin Heffernan
By Sandy Hodson In the past, domestic violence incidents in which the victim was choked rarely warranted more than a misdemeanor charge. Not anymore. “Strangulation…
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By Sandy Hodson
In the past, domestic violence incidents in which the victim was choked rarely warranted more than a misdemeanor charge. Not anymore.
“Strangulation is trying to kill someone,” District Attorney Natalie Paine said. By definition then, the crime is aggravated assault — an assault likely to or does cause serious injury.
Paine said prosecutors have always been able to charge aggravated assault in a strangulation case, but they may have become more proactive since The Augusta Chronicle’s series about domestic violence in July.
Victims can lose consciousness in seconds and death can follow within minutes, according to the Alliance for Hope International which is dedicated to ending domestic violence. But the seriousness of strangulation has only recently been understood.
In Augusta, felony domestic violence battery cases jumped from 13 in 2018 to 47 in 2019, according to court records. Allegations of strangulation are included in many of the 2019 cases.
Studies have found victims of non-lethal strangulation are seven times more likely to become murder victims of the same partners, Dr. Gregory Postma, professor and vice chair of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia of Augusta University, said he learned recently.
Strangling can cause severe physical damage such as stroke, seizures, and cracked voice box, for example. Victims can develop anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress disorder, Postma said.
″(PTSD) which makes obvious sense,” he said. It would be a horrific experience to lose consciousness to strangulation, he said.
Victims should be seen and evaluated, Postma said. While victims often don’t have obvious physical signs like finger-size bruises, a doctor can check for internal signs of strangulation injury by using a tiny camera to look into a patient’s throat and voice box, and doing a chest X-ray.
The Georgia Domestic Violence 2018 Fatality Review Project determined 23% of domestic violence murder victims had previously reported strangulation. But the number is believed to be underestimated because the source of the information was from previously reported abuse to law enforcement.
The Chronicle’s investigation of domestic violence found those arrested for the crime rarely spent any time behind bars.
But earlier this month, Royston E. Johnson was sentenced to three years in prison for aggravated assault domestic violence, the third time he had been charged with domestic violence. In the latest case, Johnson beat a woman with his fist and choked her.
In two cases in 2014, he was sentenced to a month in jail for punching the same victim in the face and knocking her to the ground with punches and then kicking her.
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By Sa’iyda Shabazz When we think about domestic violence, we often think of broken limbs, bruises, or even a black eye. But there’s a form…
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By Sa’iyda Shabazz
When we think about domestic violence, we often think of broken limbs, bruises, or even a black eye. But there’s a form of domestic violence assault that we don’t talk about enough, and it’s the most deadly form of domestic violence — strangulation.
According to Joni E. Johnston, Psy. D, “Batterers who strangle their victim are more likely to engage in other extreme acts of violence; it’s a message that there are no limits to which he won’t go. The odds are, he’s willing to kill,” she writes in Psychology Today.
When we think strangulation, we think bruises around the neck, or fingerprints, scratches, etc., but sometimes the signs of strangulation are less obvious. Johnston notes that more than half of the time, signs of strangulation aren’t visible. Some of those symptoms include hoarseness and/or a sore throat, not being able to swallow or experiencing discomfort doing so, and shortness of breath. The victims may potentially have lapses in their memory as well. Incontinence (losing control of the bowels or bladder), loss of hearing, and mood changes are also less obvious signs of strangulation.
Author Stephanie Land is one of the women who have experienced non-deadly strangulation at the hands of her partner. Her ex-husband, Matt Boland, was arrested on a strangulation felony, one of the first in Montana. But while Land called the police and had him arrested, she chose to stay quiet about her abuse for a long time.
“I was embarrassed. I wanted to keep living out this fantasy perfect relationship thing I had created on social media,” she explains. “Even though there were red flags, I wasn’t sure. I was like, ‘he seems committed and he really wants to do this.’ And so I was like: ‘this is fine.’”
But things weren’t even remotely fine. After the arrest, a no contact order was issued. But the couple chose to break it. When she and Boland began talking again, he tried to make her believe that the strangulation was her fault. “He immediately started telling me, ‘I was trying to calm you down.’ That’s why he was holding me down to the bed by my neck,” she says with an ironic laugh.
“He said, ‘I was trying to get you to settle down.’ He just kept saying, ‘because you were just so crazy, I just had to restrain you.’ I kind of believed him in that moment.”
After several months of trips to court and conversations with lawyers, Boland moved back in with Land and her two daughters. He legally adopted Land’s younger daughter. However, breaking the no contact order was haunting him, and the charges of felony strangulation hung over him like a black cloud. His increasing paranoia took a further toll on Land’s already fragile mental health. The paranoia led her to believe that it was only a matter of time before he hurt her again, and maybe this time it’d be deadly. Finally, after months of stress and fighting, she asked Boland to leave for good.
Knowing what he’s capable of, Stephanie tries to warn any women who may come in contact with Boland. She’s even reaching out to women directly to tell them what he did to her. Her refusal to stay quiet ultimately saved her life, and she’s aware it may save someone else.
In an article for the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, a 2008 study from the Journal of Emergency Medicine is cited. The study found that 43 percent of women who were murdered in domestic assaults, and 45 percent of the victims of attempted murder, had been strangled by their partner within the year before.
As the National Domestic Violence Hotline website points out, there isn’t a more potentially deadly form of domestic violence than strangulation. You can lose consciousness within seconds of strangulation, and death can happen in minutes. If you’re lucky enough to survive being strangled, the odds of your partner doing it again are ten times higher. And even if you survive non-deadly strangulation, the effects can certainly be permanent.
Johnston notes that women in domestic violence shelters are reporting multiple strangulation attempts by their partners. But because the signs aren’t always visible, many health care providers and law enforcement officers overlook them. Now things are changing because of the training. Additionally, there’s no data showing that the amount of non-deadly strangulations is becoming more frequent; however, the amount of felony charges for strangulation has quadrupled in the last six years.
This is because police are sending victims to highly trained professionals for proper assessment. They’re asking strangulation victims the right kind of questions: how they were strangled, and if there were previous threats made. They’re also asking about any prior physical assault that wasn’t strangulation, which is important to be aware of. Finding out how many times there has previously been either threat of violence or an assault is also a crucial part of the assessment.
Recently, there was a large case study on domestic violence-related strangulation. Ultimately, the study found that domestic violence strangulation is a significant predictor of attempted and completed murder. If you want to look at the numbers end of things, it statistically increases the odds by seven. Non-deadly strangulation is, without a doubt, an indication that the person isn’t against the idea of killing their partner.
Knowing the likelihood of completed murder via strangulation is important for domestic violence victims to know. But it’s also important for everyone to know — because we never know when we may be in a position where we need to help a friend or family member get out of an abusive relationship. According to Psychology Today, 20% of the victims of domestic violence homicide are the people who tried to help: friends, family, even law enforcement. If a man is willing to strangle his female partner to death, he’d kill anyone, even a cop.
Domestic violence-related strangulation is always a serious matter. Reporting it can be the difference between life and death. If your partner strangles you, call the police immediately. Or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233.)
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By Frank O’Laughlin TEWKSBURY, MASS. (WHDH) – A Tewksbury man has been indicted on a murder charge in connection with the brutal beating death of…
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By Frank O’Laughlin
TEWKSBURY, MASS. (WHDH) – A Tewksbury man has been indicted on a murder charge in connection with the brutal beating death of his girlfriend in September, authorities announced Friday.
Eric Griffin, 40, was indicted this week on charges including first-degree murder, strangulation, and domestic assault and battery in the death of 39-year-old Jennifer Kalicki, also of Tewksbury, Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan and Tewksbury Police Chief Timothy Sheehan said in a news release.
Griffin was also indicted on an additional count of domestic assault and battery and intimidation of a witness in connection with a previous assault on Kalicki in March.
State police detectives responding to a report of a suspicious death that occurred in an apartment complex on Archstone Avenue on Sept. 15 found Kalicki unresponsive in bed, officials said. She had sustained significant injuries consistent with a physical assault and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Griffin was arrested later in the day and charged with assault and battery on a household or family member.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later determined that Kalicki’s death was caused by blunt force trauma. The examination also found that Kalicki had sustained injuries to her body and neck, as well as blunt force trauma to the head that resulted in a fatal brain bleed.
During a month long grand jury investigation into Kalicki’s death, authorities learned of an incident on March 16 in which Griffin allegedly attacked Kalicki. That case was later dismissed when Kalicki asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege.
Additional evidence that later came to light reportedly indicated an escalation in violence between the couple and that Griffin had convinced Kalicki to assert her privilege.
Griffin, who is being held without bail, is slated to be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court on Jan. 7.
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By Dan Field Having recently testified in several legal cases involving strangulation, here are some facts we all need to know about this extreme form…
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By Dan Field
Having recently testified in several legal cases involving strangulation, here are some facts we all need to know about this extreme form of domestic violence (DV). I invite other subject matter experts to share their personal opinions on what is important.
1. Strangulation is assault with a deadly weapon – an act with known potential lethal consequences. Formally defined, strangulation is an external force applied to the neck cutting off blood supply to the brain and/or air intake to the body, frequently done for dominance and control. Criminal strangulation begins when external force applied to the neck causes a change in the body’s physiology.
2. Strangulation should be considered one of the most serious forms of domestic violence because the victim is only seconds away from death at any time.
3. Strangulation is different from choking; choking is defined as a blockage of the airway by a physical object such as a hot dog.
4. There are two main forms of strangulation: manual and ligature: the manual form involves hands, arms, or other body parts, while ligature means the use of a cord, rope, bed sheet, or similar accessory. Hanging is a variant of ligature strangulation.
5. 99 percent of the domestic violence cases involving strangulation are a male strangling a female; same-sex strangulation is less often fatal than hetero DV.
6. Loss of consciousness occurs, on average, in 6.8 seconds of continuous pressure on the carotid arteries.
7. Death can occur in as early as 62 seconds (judicial hangings or executions have a different mechanism of injury and timetable). As little as eleven pounds of pressure to the carotid arteries, applied for 62 to 157 seconds will result in death.
8. Serious injuries, including carotid dissections and fractures, and death can occur with little or no physical external evidence of trauma.
9. A CTA of the neck is the test of choice to rule out the presence of internal injuries, including carotid and vertebral artery dissections.
10. Victims surviving strangulation frequently suffer lifelong physical and psychological trauma and are 7.5 times more likely to be a victim of domestic homicide at the hands of the same strangler.
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