VIOLENCE RESULTS IN STRESS, DEPRESSION AND FLASHBACKS.

Children of violence may experience deep, constant sadness.  They may also experience flashbacks of the violent episodes they have witnessed.  It is not uncommon for a child to block out violent scenes that are emotionally overwhelming for years.  The conscious mind may protect itself, until the person feels safe or has enough distance from the event to remember.  Repeated exposure to violence can overwhelm and exhaust the child’s nervous system.  The result may be a child whose nervous system is “shot” by the age of 4, or a child who knows how it feels to be unhappy enough to want to die – by the age of 6.  Moreover, although our conscious minds may forget events which have stress us, our bodies keep count of repeated traumas.  Down the road, a victim’s body will “pressure bill” in terms of nervous disorders, a low threshold for stress, or other serious illnesses. 

A child’s view:  Zeke’s Nightmare

He does remember Zeke says.  But he’s had violent dreams of a “mean man” coming through his bedroom window and hurting his mother ever since it happened.  I asked him if the dreams had anything to do with what happened to her.  Though he said, “No,” the involuntary look of remembered terror that flashed across his face told a truth more horrible than any child should have to bear.

Zeke’s mother Dawne (pronounced Donnie) Tellez was 30 years old when she died.  She had been married for a number of years to Miguel Tellez, a man with a violent temper and problems with alcohol.  She was going to divorce him.  This is Dawne’s story up until the time she made that fateful decision to leave, as told by Thelma Johnson, her mother.

They moved back to Klamath Falls in April of 1989.  They lived with us for almost a year.  While they were here he was very verbally abusive to her.  He’d tell her she was dumb.  That she wasn’t a very good mother, and he refused to eat a big percentage of the food she cooked.  He’d rant all evening about how it wasn’t fit to eat.  He was always picky, picky with her.

They moved out the first part of January.  He was afraid of responsibility and he didn’t want to go.  She was supporting him.  But she wanted her own house for her family, which included Zeke, born in December of 1988.

In the fall of 1990, he came home one night while she was putting the baby to bed.  He beat up Dawne so badly she later ended up in the hospital with bruises all over the top of her body and badly split lip.  Then he grabbed Zeke up, with just a diaper and t-shirt on, and took off with him.  Dawne ran across the street to where four college students lived who called 911 for her.  They came over and blocked his getting away and they took the baby and gave him back to Dawne and told her to go back in the house.  Miguel was arrested and out of jail before noon the next day. 

The KCC helped Dawne fill out a restraining order and had it served as he left jail.  He was also supposed to take anger management classes and he never did, even though he was mandated to.  “He didn’t have time, “he said.

From that time on he was constantly harassing her.  Every time he saw her, he demanded money from her and she repeatedly wrote checks to get him to leave her alone.  She was soft hearted and she had this thing about not wanting to deprive Zeke of a Dad.  She would let him visit with Zeke.

His abuse continued until Memorial weekend, 1991.  She came by on Friday after work and she told me she was going to file for a divorce on Monday.  I asked her, “Are you sure?”  “Yes,” she said.  “I’ll go to my grave loving him, but I can’t live with him, he’s so abusive.”

On Saturday she went to Medford to go shopping.  That same day we got a call from Miguel, who now lived in Medford, wanting to know where Dawne was.  An hour later he called from Klamath Falls asking where she was.  He must have called us 12-13 times that day, and we know from calling card records that he drove back and forth from Medford and Klamath Falls all day long looking for her.  When she came to pick the baby up we tried to get her to stay with us because those calls were very frightening.  She said, “I can’t run and hide the rest of my life.”

She took Zeke and went home.  I talked to her about 9:30 and she was OK.  My other daughter talked to her about 10:30 and she was still OK.

But by three minutes to midnight Dawne was dead.  Her husband, Miguel Tellez broke in to her house (by crawling thru the window above Zeke’s bed) and battered her with a claw hammer before asphyxiating her by pulling a plastic bag over her head.  Neighbors, who heard her screams, knew she didn’t die easily.

Life for Zeke has been a living nightmare since then.  He’s now nearly 12 years old.  For the first few months, he woke up sobbing between 11 and midnight every night.  He’d want his mother.  He’s sob and sob for her.  He’d say, “Don’t hurt, NO! No!”  he was in such shock he didn’t grow for 18 month afterwards.  And today he is emotional and cries easily and is having trouble in school because kids don’t understand his behavior and tease him.  And he can’t talk yet about the dreams….

Miguel Tellez served 8 years in prison and is now free to resume his life.

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