Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

Assistant District Attorney Bailey Woolfstead was too busy to attend her own goodbye party on her last day in Bethel.

Woolfstead recently moved to Southeast for a job in Juneau’s District Attorney’s Office and took a few minutes to speak with KYUK before she did.

She was only free to speak with KYUK after work while walking her dog, a black-spotted sweetheart named Wyatt, and fielding last minute text messages.

They were leaving town in about two hours and Woolfstead didn’t want Wyatt to get nervous on the plane.

Woolfstead is used to being busy.

Over the past four years she’s worked on thousands of cases. Like other Assistant District Attorneys in Bethel she wrangled 150 to 200 of them at any given time, but over 95 percent of her cases involved domestic violence.

Woolfstead moved to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for its tight-knit communities.

After living in cities, she wanted a place where people all knew each other. She felt incredibly welcome in Bethel, but she says that the intimacy that makes YK Delta communities strong can occasionally turn against them.

“The smaller a community we are, the more likely we are to sweep things under the rug,” Woolfstead said. “Because we know people.”

In Alaska, the sexual assault rate is almost three times the national average and Western Alaska has one of the highest rates in the state. “It’s just so pervasive out here,” Woolfstead said.  “It was really incredible to me.”

Working in the courts, Woolfstead confronted a series of common misunderstandings that surround abusive relationships.

She said that people don’t understand why women stay with violent boyfriends or husbands, but it can be very dangerous for women to escape an abusive partner and, according to Woolfstead, it is also financially difficult.

In villages where families rely on subsistence, women struggle to hunt, fish, and run their household entirely on their own.

Woolfstead said that women sometimes asked the court to release their abusive partners just so they could help fill the family’s smokehouses.

“To watch the kids, to get wood, to haul water,” she remembered women telling her. “I can’t do all of these things that I need to do on my own.”

Then there’s the psychological toll that women endure in abusive relationships, which can make it almost impossible to leave.

Woolfstead brought up trauma bonding as an example, a process by which a victim and an abuser bond over their shared experiences.

The cycle is familiar, she said. A woman is beaten by her boyfriend. She’s devastated, scared or furious. He says he feels horrible about what he’s done, but he asks her, “Do you think I deserve this much time in jail? I mean yes, I did this to you, but do you really think I deserve 10 years?” and slowly, Woolfstead said, the girlfriend starts to sympathize with him.

“‘Everybody’s telling me that I should leave you,'” said Woolfstead, describing the girlfriend’s thought process. “‘But I still love you and nobody understands us.’ It really becomes you and me against the world.”

Another thing that most people don’t understand about domestic violence? Exactly how dangerous it is.

Woolfstead said that some abusers prefer to strangle their partners.

“When you hit someone you’re telling them you can hurt them,” Woolfstead said. “When you burn someone you’re almost branding them; you’re telling them that you own them. When you strangle someone, you are telling them that you can kill them at any moment.”

She said that half the time, strangling doesn’t leave any marks and it’s quick.

The victim could pass out within five to 10 seconds. Within 30 seconds, their brain could be permanently damaged. In 50 seconds? The victim could be dead.

“It takes very, very little pressure to kill someone,” Woolfstead said. “Less pressure than it takes to open a Coke can.”

What can communities do about this? According to Woolfstead, speak out and don’t make excuses.

“This is not accepted, she said. “This is not accepted in this community. We all see the bruises, we all know what’s going on, but nobody says anything.”

When she worked in the YK Delta, Woolfstead said that she saw people do terrible, horrible things to the people they loved.

She also said she saw acts of heroism, like tribal police officers who walked unarmed into a house and took a loaded gun from a man’s hands, or victims of violence who spoke out at trial.

At their core, she said, the communities here truly care about each other. It’s something she’s going to miss.

A Sitka man accused of murder will ask the court to move his trial to another town.

39-year old Reuben Yerkes, a former clerk in Sitka’s Legal Department, is accused of shooting and killing his 28-year old girlfriend, Ali Clayton, in an argument in her home in the early hours of Saturday, May 6.

Yerkes turned himself into Sitka police later the same morning.

In an omnibus hearing on Thursday in Sitka Superior Court, public defender Jude Pate advised Judge David George that he planned to file a motion to change venue. Judge George gave him until September 29 to do so.

Pate also asked the judge to schedule a bail hearing. Since his arrest, Yerkes has been held first in Sitka’s jail, and then was subsequently moved to the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau. His bail was set at $500,000.

Pate asked the court to schedule up to an hour to review the monetary posting, and to make an argument for third-party custodianship.

George agreed and scheduled a hearing for 8:45 a.m. Thursday, August 31.

Judge George also questioned Pate on other possible defense motions. In particular, whether he planned to file any motions over issues regarding Yerkes’ “competency, sanity, or diminished capacity.”

Pate said no.

George ordered the state to provide the defense with the complete results of its investigation by September 15.

The defense has asked for access to the autopsy report, all physical evidence from the crime scene, a ballistics study, and the contents of computers, iPads, and phones owned by both the victim and the defendant.

Amanda Browning, representing the state, agreed. She also supported the idea of allowing at least 12 days for the trial, which is scheduled for January 2018.
Yerkes appeared in court via teleconference from Juneau.

As with all prior hearings in the case, the Sitka courtroom was crowded with friends and supporters of Clayton and her parents.

Bail for a Bethel man accused of killing his wife is set at $75,000. He also will need a third-party custodian.

Jason Joseph Lupie, 39, was arrested Sunday afternoon and charged with second-degree murder, a felony, in the death of his wife, Marie Beebe Lupie, 46.

Her body, covered in bruises and lacerations, was found in a Bethel home that morning.

The felony charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 to 99 years in prison.

Jason Lupie already has one pending charge for assaulting his now-deceased wife. He has had 25 criminal convictions over the past two decades; seven of them for assault.

He is being held at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Correctional Center.

Throughout Sunday, yellow caution tape surrounded the alleged crime scene.

Police are working on the case with State Troopers and the Alaska Bureau of Investigation.

Police are asking anyone with information about this incident to contact them at 907-543-3781 and speak with Investigative Sgt. Amy Davis.

More than half of female homicide victims were killed in connection to intimate partner violence — and in 10 percent of those cases, violence shortly before the killing might have provided an opportunity for intervention.

That is according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published Thursday, that takes a close look at the homicides of women.

More than 55 percent of the deaths were related to partner violence, and the vast majority of those were carried out by a male partner.

“What’s notable is that this is across all racial ethnic groups,” says Emiko Petrosky, a science officer at the CDC and an author of the report. “Intimate partner violence can affect anyone … it really just shows that [this] is a public health problem.“

The report also found that black and indigenous women are slain, in general, at significantly higher rates than women of other races. Black women are killed at a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 people, and indigenous women at a rate of 4.3 per 100,000; every other race has a homicide rate of between 1 and 2 per 100,000.

Hispanic women who were killed, meanwhile, were the most likely to be killed in connection to partner violence (61 percent of all homicides of Hispanic women).

It’s a well-established fact that a large percentage of female homicide victims are killed by intimate partners. Worldwide, the World Health Organization says a partner or spouse is the killer in 38 percent of women’s homicides. Previous research in the U.S. suggested that intimate partners carried out more than 40 percent of homicides of women and about 7 percent of homicides of men.

But the new report drew on coroner’s reports and death certificates, as well as crime data. It gives an even higher percentage — and provides a much more granular look at women’s deaths.

The CDC examined more than 10,000 homicides between 2003 and 2014. In female homicides in which the circumstances are known, the killer was a current or former intimate partner about half of the time, the report found. The number of killings related to partner violence rose to 55 percent if you include other kinds of victims.

“This can include family members who may have tried to step in to prevent an intimate partner violence incident that was happening,” Petrosky says. “This could include bystanders, even, that just were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

More than 98 percent of those homicidal partners were men. (In general, men are more likely to be involved in a homicide than women. Seventy-seven percent of homicide victims are men, according to the FBI, while more than 90 percent of known offenders are male.)

Of slain women of reproductive age, about 15 percent were pregnant or had recently given birth; the CDC suggests more research to determine whether that is higher than the general population.

The report was meant to find information that could help prevent such homicides — for example, by focusing programs on women who are at the highest risk of being killed.

For example, the researchers note that patterns of non-lethal domestic violence — referred to as IPV, or intimate partner violence — could be used to prevent homicides.

First responders could assess risk factors for violence to “facilitate immediate safety planning and to connect women with other services, such as crisis intervention and counseling, housing, medical and legal advocacy,” the report says.

“We found that approximately one in 10 victims of intimate-partner-violence-related homicide experienced some form of violence in the preceding month,” Petrosky says. “And when we look at it for the non-intimate-partner-violence-related homicides, that was less than 2 percent. So this indicates that there could have been potentially an opportunity for intervention for those women.”

The report also analyzed the method of homicide — more than half involved firearms and 20 percent involved some sort of blade.

Statutes limiting firearm access for people who are under domestic violence restraining orders can also help reduce the risk of homicide, the report suggests.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The state’s Ombudsman’s Office has released reports for two investigations into the Office of Children’s Services – both involving the same caseworker.

In the first investigation, a father who lived out of state was trying to gain custody of his daughter. According to the Ombudsman, the father called the caseworker more than 130 times to try to start a complicated interstate placement agreement. During that time, the 8-year-old girl was sexually abused by her foster father. The caseworker was alerted to the possible abuse by multiple people, including the girl’s teacher and her counselor, but it was several months before she investigated and removed the child from the home. The foster father is currently awaiting trial for nine counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

In the second case, a baby was taken from her mother at birth about three years ago. The mother told the caseworker to contact the child’s great-grandfather in Arizona so he could take custody of the girl. OCS is legally required to try to place foster children with relatives first. Instead, the girl was placed with a non-relative foster family in Alaska. The caseworker was asked 27 times to contact the great-grandfather but didn’t for more than two years. She told the court twice that she had started the out-of-state placement process even though she hadn’t.

Out-going state Ombudsman Linda Lord-Jenkins said the cases show that in the foster care system, failing to complete administrative tasks can have long-term impacts.

“In both of these cases relatives were very interested and took very proactive steps to try to get OCS to initiate the studies that could lead to the children being placed with them,” Lord-Jenkins said during a phone interview. “And the caseworker didn’t initiate them and didn’t initiate them for long periods of time despite the obligations and reminders to do so. And that’s very distressing.”

Since 2015, there have been eight complaints against this worker. Lord-Jenkins recommended that OCS review all of her cases to see if there are other problems. But OCS Director Christy Lawton said that wouldn’t necessarily help because many of these problems stem from excessively high caseloads.

“Which isn’t to say it’s okay for there to be delays or untimely communications,” Lord-Jenkins said. “But that is the reality when caseworkers are carrying twice or three times the recommended average, which has been the case, particularly in our Mat-Su office for the past year.”

Additionally, Lawton said the worker is now being overseen by a different supervisor.

Lawton said with the high caseloads — more than 3,000 kids are currently in foster care — these types of problems are not unique to this caseworker. She said her employees are doing the best they can.

“I think if we reviewed any number of cases, we would find similar problems where everything wasn’t done to the ‘T’ that it should in terms of every single policy, every single phone call returned, every single thing happening timely,” Lawton said. “It’s simply impossible to do that virtually for every single caseworker we have, who has more than the recommended national average of cases. It’s an impossible job.”

OCS recently underwent a federal review and the agency will be implementing their recommendations over the next few years to try to improve, said Lawton. Additionally, legislation that would increase the number of caseworkers and decrease their case load, House Bill 151, is working its way through the state legislature.

Ombudsman Lord-Jenkins said she hopes OCS will start examining how they handle different administrative processes to potentially prevent these problems in the future.

“I would like the public not to lambaste these folks who are doing the best they can with what they’ve got,” Lord-Jenkins said. “But to also recognize that these things should not happen.”

The state’s Ombudsman’s office can only make recommendations. It cannot force any agency to do anything.

A jury in Nashville has convicted former Vanderbilt football player Brandon Banks for his involvement in the 2013 gang rape of an unconscious female student. Two of his former teammates have also been convicted, and another is awaiting trial.

Banks was found guilty on one count of aggravated rape and one count of aggravated sexual battery, The Associated Press reports. He was acquitted on five other counts. The aggravated rape count carries a minimum 15-year sentence.

“He’s shocked but understands that this is only the first part of this process, there’s a lot more to do from here on,” Banks’ lawyer, Mark Scruggs, said after the verdict, according to The Tennessean. “We have some really good issues to raise.”

Banks has said he participated in the dorm room rape out of fear his teammates would bully him if he didn’t.

He testified that the other players often chided him because he was smaller and had a girlfriend, so he didn’t sleep with lots of women.

Defense attorney Scruggs contended that Banks was “clearly under duress” and was “the classic example of someone who has been abused by a group, whether it be a football team, a fraternity or any other group nowadays, that requires complete loyalty, complete obedience,” the AP reports.

But Assistant District Attorney Roger Moore argued that Banks chose to join in the assault.

The AP reports that in his closing arguments, Moore said even if Banks were being bullied, “it doesn’t give you a legal defense to commit a crime, particularly not an aggravated rape, an aggravated sexual battery. I mean if that’s the case, then we’d have the ‘football team defense.’ ”

Former teammates Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey were also convicted in separate trials and sentenced to 17 years and 15 years in prison, respectively. Jaborian McKenzie testified in the trials with the hope that he can make a plea deal, AP says. He has not yet been tried.

The victim also testified in the trials. She said she was 21 years old at the time of the rape and was dating Vandenburg, but didn’t know the other three men.

The last thing she remembers on the night of the assault, The Tennessean reports, was Vandenburg giving her a blue drink at a bar where they were drinking. Six hours later, the paper continues, she woke up in an empty, unfamiliar room.

The men used their cell phones to take videos and photos of the assault and those were used as evidence in court.

Banks confirmed on the stand that he had assaulted the woman with a water bottle — as one of the videos showed — and touched her and took photos.

The AP says only two of the men were accused of raping the woman, but all four were charged with rape because prosecutors believe they were criminally responsible for their actions.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.