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Charlotte Boatwright
Two of Chattanooga’s five homicides this year have been of women slain, not by strangers in random attacks, but by men they knew, according to police.
Last week, a former Chattanooga woman was killed, and a man she feared would harm her has been charged.
In an apparent murder/suicide in January, Lester Anthony Roden, 48, shot his wife Deborah Roden, 48, at their 1502 E. 49th St. home before turning the gun on himself, officials said. Earlier this month, police said, Kenneth Gann strangled his estranged wife Robyn Burns Gann, 25, and apparently had been digging “what appeared to be a possible grave” for her in a crawl space in the basement of his Hixson home.
And last Wednesday, Carrie Daugherty’s body was found near her north Knoxville home. Police arrested 21-year-old Micah Johnson, of Maryville, Tenn., and charged him with first-degree murder. His Knox County Criminal Court warrant indicates Ms. Daugherty, 24, was struck with a blunt object.
Ms. Daugherty had written in her diary that she feared for her life, according to the warrant.
Last September, Mr. Johnson was charged with aggravated assault after breaking the jaw of a fellow University of Tennessee student, who required reconstructive surgery, according to Knox County records.
A Violence Policy Center study in 2005 found that 92 percent of women homicide victims knew their killers, while three in five victims were wives or intimate partners of their killers.
In 2006, 83 women in Tennessee were homicide victims. Of those, 36 died as a result of domestic violence, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Chattanooga actually has seen a decrease in the number of domestic violence victims since 2001, according to the TBI. That year, more than 3,000 people were reportedly victims of domestic violence. In 2006, slightly more than 1,900 people were, records show.
Lt. Kirk Eidson, who previously supervised the domestic violence division at the Chattanooga Police Department, said he did not think the number of actual victims changes much year to year. But statistics show variances because more or fewer people report incidents in a given year, he said.
Several factors contribute to the cycle of increases and decreases in reports, Lt. Eidson said. More women tend to report abuse after they are educated about the signs of domestic violence. The numbers also increase when high school and college students get in abusive relationships and report them.
“It’s becoming more prevalent,” Lt. Eidson said. “We’re getting younger victims and younger perpetrators.”
Lt. Eidson, who also oversaw the homicide division at the department, said police usually had no prior knowledge of domestic abuse in spousal homicide cases because abuse, if it existed, had not been reported.
Charlotte Boatwright, chairwoman of the Domestic Violence Coalition of Greater Chattanooga Inc., said situations do not improve if abuse is not reported.
“Our experience has shown that domestic abuse increases over time both in the danger to the victim and in number of injuries and the severity of injuries that occur,” she said.
Women report abuse more often today than they did a decade ago, but they hesitate before calling police because they are not sure how a partner, the officers or the court system will react, she said.
Ms. Daugherty’s cousin, Courtney Phifer, 25, said her father began advising people to speak up if they feel threatened.
“If you have a fear of someone, just let someone know so that something like this can be prevented,” she said.
But women do not always express fear because they worry what others will think, said Robert Martin, vice president of Gavin de Becker & Associates, a fear management and assessment firm in Studio City, Calif.
“They’re reluctant to voice that concern because they can’t prove it,” he said. “So they shut up and rationalize it.”
Mr. Martin said people should listen to intuition when something legitimately prompts them to feel unsafe.
“Make sure you’re personally, physically safe first,” Mr. Martin said. “Then philosophize, moralize, worry what people will think.”
