Domestic violence could have roots in economic recovery
Experts point to a variety of pressures in spate of recent crimes
It’s an irony that isn’t lost on La Donna Burgess.
The executive director of the Washington County Domestic Violence Resource Center believes the pending economic recovery could have something to do with a spate of local murder-suicides during November.
In the last 30 days, murder-suicides have occurred in Tualatin, the Bethany area of Beaverton, Forest Grove and Hillsboro, as well as one incident in Multnomah County.
That’s a sharp rise from last fall, Burgess said, and could have more to do with reports of the recession’s retreat than the 2008 financial free-fall.
“A year ago, when people were losing their jobs and everybody seemed to be affected, it was indiscriminate,” said Burgess. “But now, there are reports that things are better. So those who are still out of work are wondering, ‘What’s wrong with me?’
“Now it’s personal, and that adds all kinds of additional stress.”
So much stress, Burgess said, that someone in a fragile mental state could conceivably be pushed over the edge – particularly if they are predisposed to violent behavior.
Systemic issues
“There are families with systemic issues that sometimes develop into acts of domestic violence,” noted Burgess, citing the murder-suicides in Tualatin and Bethany – and even the first murders of the year that occurred in Beaverton last March, when Namegabe Kelekele Mushgero, 51, allegedly bludgeoned to death his 49-year-old wife, Nabinta Kelekele Kalamb, in the couple’s Vose neighborhood apartment.
“In that case, the father had been out of work for a full year,” said Burgess. “That kind of pressure, whether a person can find work or not, can manifest itself in really bad ways.”
Fourteen months ago, when the economy began to turn sour, the Beaverton domestic violence center began receiving additional calls for counseling help. “But it’s nothing like we’re seeing today,” Burgess said.
She concedes that economic stress alone isn’t always the culprit, and that there are typically other warning signs of impending trouble.
Still, she said, joblessness can lead to an inability to pay for basic family needs, which can then spiral into feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness.
“When people are left behind and struggling after a year of unemployment, a year of no improvement, it can be pretty dire,” said Burgess.
According to a 2006 report by The Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit think-tank that researches violence in America, between 1,000 and 1,500 deaths a year are a direct result of murder-suicide cases in the United States. Of these crimes, the vast majority – 74 percent – are committed by male suspects against their wives, most using some sort of firearm.
From 2003 to 2007, Oregon averaged eight cases of murder-suicide a year, according to statistics from the state health department.
Katherine van Wormer is the co-author of the 2009 book “Death by Domestic Violence: Preventing the Murders and Murder-Suicides” and a professor of social work at the University of Northern Iowa who researches crimes of domestic violence. She said she’s seen an increase in reports of murder-suicide cases in the United States since the economy started souring.
“The economy is definitely a factor,” van Wormer said. “Fathers in the family have a sense of failure. And these crimes occur in otherwise low-crime areas because they have nothing to do with the crime rate.”
She said the idea of a “contagion” – that people are more likely to commit similar crimes when they see other instances of it occur – is also important, and adds to the complexity of figuring out why these crimes occur.
“The men here have often provided for the family (and) are suffering a grave crisis such as financial and employment difficulty,” van Wormer said. “Feeling disgraced, they think they can’t protect the family so they decide to wipe them all out. A twisted protective motive seems to operate.”
No indication
There’s no indication that money woes were on Steven England’s mind when he shot his wife and stepson and then killed himself last Friday in the family home on 21st Avenue in Forest Grove.
Dead are Cindy England, 52, her son Kevin Coleman, 28, and Steven England, 56, who turned the gun on himself after killing the others.
But England reportedly was unemployed last January, when Forest Grove Police picked him up on domestic violence charges.
Burgess, who said she experienced feelings of “extreme frustration” when she heard the tragic story on the TV news over the weekend, met with her staff Monday morning to determine whether Cindy England had ever reached out to her agency.
“There had been no contact,” Burgess said. “This family had not availed itself of our services.”
The resource center counsels victims of domestic violence and helps them apply for restraining orders through Washington County. Classes and workplace trainings on what domestic violence is and how it can be prevented are available as well.
Restraining order
Of all the people involved in the five most recent Washington County murder-suicides, only one had been in contact with the resource center, Burgess said.
Aloha resident Sheena Mendoza, 20, who was shot by her boyfriend Sunday inside the Hillsboro hair salon where she worked, had been at the center for a counseling appointment Nov. 23 and filled out a restraining order application last week.
“She would have been at the (county) courthouse this morning to get that order,” Burgess said.
Instead, Mendoza died at the hands of the alleged shooter, Curt Wayne Wise, 40, also of Aloha, who remained in critical condition Monday at a Portland hospital after he apparently shot himself in the head with a .357-caliber revolver after shooting Mendoza.
“We believe a fair amount of this has to do with the economy, but it’s also clear that people sometimes go to great lengths to keep their lives private even when they are at great risk,” said Burgess.
In last weekend’s Forest Grove case, Burgess thinks that’s exactly what happened.
“They likely kept this to themselves and didn’t reach out to others,” she said. “Unfortunately, those in their close circle did not recognize the signs that indicated something was about to happen. It makes me wonder what could have been done.”
It’s incumbent on everyone in the affected communities to look out for one another, Burgess noted.
“We can make it our responsibility and desire to understand this sort of thing better, and to respond if we see it happening,” she said.
– Ed Johnson of Pamplin Media Group contributed
to this story.