Cover Story
by Andrea Laurita
Domestic Abuse Statistics
In 1994, the Surgeon General stated abuse by a partner is a leading cause of injury to
women between the ages of 15 and 54.
One in three women murdered in the United States each year is killed by an intimate partner.
According to estimates, more than one out of eight women in Oregon were victims of physical abuse in 1998.
Women's Abuse Hotlines
503-256-2353 Shepherd's Door
503-222-6222
Raphael House
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Christian family torn
apart by secret abuse
Multnomah County statistics show that 42 percent of all violent
crimes reported are domestic violence crimes. -Andrea Laurita, photo.
While walking through a newly budding park on a beautiful March day in 1995, Dave L. Jeffries dropped to one knee and proposed to his girlfriend, Robin Thornstad. "He pretended to have to tie his shoe and pulled out a ring," Robin said.
Jeffries had met 15-year-old Robin in the youth group at church where his father was the senior pastor. Robin was not interested in dating, so Jeffries spent a lot of time at her house and with her family. The outgoing 18-year-old waited for Robin to arrive at events so he could open the door for her and always saved her a seat. Soon they were dating.
"He did everything right," said Mrs. Thornstad, Robin's mom. "It felt good that he was treating her so well." In July of 1995, after dating for three years, Dave and Robin married.
Three weeks after the wedding, Jeffries came home angry from work. Spitting venomous words, he pushed his wife against the wall. When she got up, he pushed her down again. "I wasn't scared, just shocked," Robin said. "Nobody had ever pushed me before." This was the beginning of numerous attacks that 5-foot-4-inch Robin endured and dismissed.
Every Saturday, Jeffries's day off from work, he assaulted her. Throughout the week, the tension thickened in their 1,000 square-foot apartment. Jeffries became upset if Robin left her toothbrush on the counter. He would play with a knife or smack their cats. "I had no way of knowing what he was going to do," she said. When Saturday arrived, the assault was premeditated and calculated.
For up to an hour and a half, he punched her, threw her and kicked her. Still wearing bruises from the previous week's attack, Robin was powerless to stop him from pounding her back, arms and stomach. A couple women at Robin's work asked about the bruises on her arms. "I just made up lame excuses every time they asked until they finally quit asking," she said.
Sunday morning started the cycle again. As the couple prepared for church, Jeffries often acted confused about the cause of Robin's markings. "He never ever admitted it or said he was sorry," she said.
The abuse was more than a physical lashing each Saturday. Jeffries constantly told Robin that she was stupid. He repeatedly reminded her that a wife must submit to her husband. He was unkind and rough while having sex with Robin. On a few occasions, Jeffries beat his wife unconscious. When she was knocked out, he left her body on the floor and sat down to watch a movie.
"I felt like I just had to be a good wife," Robin said, "but it certainly wasn't a two-way, giving relationship like it should be." Robin did not understand the seriousness of her situation until one day in December. She was sitting on the couch, when Jeffries exploded. "I don't want you sitting on the couch, you don't deserve to sit." He head-butted her face, breaking her nose and front teeth. She screamed for help, but no one called 911. Jeffries finally called his mom, and they took Robin to the emergency room. Social workers temporarily isolated Robin from her husband and mother-in-law; they informed her of ways to escape the danger.
One week later, while Robin's eyes were still nearly swollen shut, Jeffries rolled over on top of her in bed and began screaming in her face. Afraid that he was going to really hurt her, Robin grabbed the keys to her car and drove 10 minutes down the road to her parents' house. She stayed away for two months.
During that time Jeffries sought counseling. After pastors from church told Robin that her husband was better, she returned to him. "There's always that hope that the person will be the real person you knew, that he'll be safe," she said.
"That was horrendous," Mrs. Thornstad said. "I never knew if I would get a phone call that she was dead."
During their first week back together, Robin got pregnant because Jeffries no longer permitted her to use birth control. Jeffries temper worsened. One night, he pinched her leg viciously. When she tried to run, he pushed her face into the carpet and smothered her unconscious.
Knowing that her baby's life was in jeopardy gave Robin the courage she needed. "I didn't want to raise a baby with him or lose the baby because of him," she said. She left Jeffries, moved to her parent's house and hired an attorney.
Slowly, Robin told more and more of her secret abuse. "She couldn't communicate very well, she was just so shut off," Mrs. Thornstad said.
When Robin filed for a protection order, an organization dealing with domestic violence welcomed her into its support group for young women. She also met weekly with a counselor. "I got to see that I wasn't the only girl who had been in that," Robin said. "I was shocked and then I was angry, and I felt so stupid that I'd married him."
A psychologist gave Jeffries a mental health evaluation. The results showed that he suffered from an anti-social tendency and poor reality. Mrs. Thornstad said, "he basically makes up his own reality and believes it." The psychologist likened Jeffries's test results to those of Ted Bundy.
Jeffries want to jail for forty days for assault. When he was released, he went back to church, and convinced his friends that he had spent the last 40 days on vacation. "He actually told all my friends that I made it all up," Robin said. "I lost 90 percent of my friends, and so I left the church. I stayed home, and I stayed safe. He was left to tell his story."
Although Jeffries fought the divorce, Robin ended her nightmare marriage.
On September 8, 1996, 19-year-old Robin gave birth to Jack Daniel Thornstad. Her ex-husband filed for custody, claiming she was an unfit mother. After two criminal trials in family court, Jeffries was granted supervised visits of the baby every Saturday afternoon for one hour. He agreed to commit himself to two years of batterer's therapy. But after those two years of counseling sessions, support group meetings and homework projects, he passed a polygraph while claiming he had never hit Robin.
Although emotionally fragile, Robin started to gain a healthier perspective on life. She attended a new church and formed a new circle of friends. She didn't work and instead devoted herself to healing.
Cautiously, Robin began dating again. "I was always looking to see what the guys were like when they got mad," she said. She met Simon Addly at an adult Bible study group. "I wasn't nervous around him," she said. "The scariness wasn't there at all." Addly and Robin dated for three years, before getting married.
Jeffries also remarried.
Robin has five capped front teeth, and her nose is skewed from Jeffries's horrible attack, but she has moved forward. With a new husband who is "Dad" to Jack, the family will expand in February because Robin is expecting another baby boy.
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