A victim’s first scream is for help;
a victim’s second scream is for justice.
- Coral Anika Theill
Attorneys with drinking problems often become judges. Judge Albin W. Norblad was suspended by Oregon’s Supreme Court on Valentine’s Day, 2002 for driving drunk and “substantial doubt that he comprehends the gravity of his recklessness.”
Fourteen years ago, Judge Norblad ordered Kathryn Hall Warner to surrender the infant she was nursing and her two youngest children to her abusive husband V. Martin Warner. During Mr. Warner’s testimony, the judge made a joke and laughed with her husband about the two times Mrs. Warner became pregnant during marital rape.
What Is Humorous About Rape?
Before March 10, 1996, Mrs. Warner had devoted twenty years of her life to being a loving mother of her eight children. Except for one son, she hasn’t been allowed to see any of her children since 1998. Judge Norblad awarded custody to her ex-husband Martin, who has been characterized as a volatile, sociopathic, controlling, abusive monster by the children’s former tutor, Tashi Smith Gremar, in a letter to the couple’s pastor, Ron Sutter of the Bridgeport Community Church in Monmouth, Oregon:
I immediately noticed how demeaning and controlling Mr. Warner was toward his wife. . .witness to Mr. Warner’s extreme mood swings, angry outbursts, and unrealistic expectations towards his wife. . .
Kathy had been working for twenty years as a full-time mother of eight kids, ranging from teenagers to a newborn, as well as a full-time cook, housekeeper, and home-school teacher. . .her sterling character. She is a beautiful, fragile treasure.
How tragic that such a sweet soul would be oppressed by an enraged husband who only treated her with contempt. . .violently angry. . .I witnessed the level of fear both Kathy and the children lived with every day. Although the family scrambled to please Marty, their efforts were never good enough. He was unable to be satisfied. . .bark out his commands. . .I saw the children ignored by Mr. Warner until they accidently did something “wrong”. . .violently spank them for the smallest of offenses. . .blatantly wicked. . .
Marty had been violently abusing Kathy physically, emotionally, and sexually for the last twenty years. She had been continually raped and beaten. . .hospitalized. . .kept a prisoner in her own house.
. . .abusive rage-aholic. . .swings wildly from vicious threats to love poems. . .Marty has been continually slapping lawsuit after lawsuit against her in a sick attempt to break her once again. . .
I fail to understand why he is not in prison and shunned by his community. . .
He has everything, but won’t quit until she “pays” for escaping him.
Why Wasn’t Marty Imprisoned for Rape?
If the Warners had lived in Benton County instead of Polk, Marion, and Wasco Counties in Oregon, I’m fairly certain he’d be doing hard time. Rape is a Class A felony in Oregon. Mrs. Warner went to the Oregon courts for protection from her husband’s criminal behavior including rape and assault.
She quickly discovered the tables had turned. Her husband was a wealthy engineer who owned a large debt-free estate in Independence. He was a pillar of their fundamentalist church and had the deep pockets to fund never-ending, spurious litigation. Therefore, he was able to make good on his threats that if she left him that she would never see her children again.
Litigation Abuse Is a Form of Legal Stalking
The Oregon courts were an ideal environment for this spurned husband’s quest for revenge. Several judges and one state representative enabled his manipulation of the legal system as an instrument of abuse. John Haroldson, the district attorney in Benton County observed:
. . .the degree to which the legal system can also be used as a vehicle to further perpetuate abuse even after the victim has chosen to take a stand against the abuse.
. . .Coral Theill [Mrs. Warner legally changed her name] has clearly chosen to take a courageous stand. It is a stand the comes with a cost, but whose dividends are measured in the strength of the soul.
The judicial system treated Mrs. Warner ~ her husband’s prized prey ~ like a criminal:
I have fewer rights than a criminal in America and I have no criminal record and have no history of alcohol, drug or child abuse.
. . .twenty-three days in court. . .twelve hours of psychological exams. . .thirty-five hours of depositions that were oppressive, mentally abusive and cruel. . .no one seems to have the ability or the authority to help me become truly emancipated from my former husband, Mr. V. Martin Warner. I have lost hope of ever seeing my children. I desire a life free from legal harassment in Oregon’s courts.
Despite the fact that she had never worked outside the home and was disabled by Complex-PTSD and is frequently homeless, Mrs. Warner found herself ordered to pay child support and attorney fees to her wealthy ex-husband. Her passport has been revoked because the amount of her child support payments exceed her income:
It is not money that Mr. Warner wants. He wants vengeance and power and control over me.
BONSHEÁ: Making Light of the Dark
On April 22, 1999, Mrs. Warner legally changed her name to Coral Anika Theill and started writing. She learned to cast light on darkness.
In 2003, she published BONSHEÁ: Making Light of the Dark. It is the only book I’ve seen on Amazon that got five stars from every reviewer. The reviews at BarnesandNoble.com are also all five stars! Amazing!
Dr. Barbara May, who was Ms. Theill’s mentor and counselor, said in her endorsement:
. . .her recovery. . .is truly remarkable. . .indominability of her spirit and light. The strategies she shares with the reader can make a difference between being a victim and being a survivor.
She has been nominated for Boston’s R.O.S.E. Fund Award, the Sheila Wellstone Award, and for the Women of Courage series.
Breaking the silence and “telling secrets” takes courage.
But I have discovered there is more danger in keeping secrets.
Keeping secrets only protects the abuser.
- Coral Anika Theill
Groomed to Accept Abuse
Kathryn Hall had been reared to be subservient and accept abuse. She was forced to share a bedroom with a great uncle, who was a sexual predator:
As a young child I learned that abusers were embraced and protected. There was no help, nowhere to go and no one to tell. When my great uncle was allowed, by my own parents, to continually molest me for years, nothing I said or did could make it stop.
. . .as an adult, I have discovered the rules of this game have not changed much. My abusers, still, have been repeatedly embraced and protected.
My married life continued the pattern of my childhood. After surviving 20 years of multiple pregnancies, sleep deprivation, [religious] ritual, emotional, and mental abuse, rapes and physical assaults within my marriage, I had finally suffered a severe physical/emotional breakdown due to the constant ongoing violence. While in this near catatonic state, I was again physically assaulted and raped by my husband, causing my eighth pregnancy despite the warnings of my doctors.
. . .I had had enough. . .continuing this way of life would eventually kill me. . .Long-term abuse had left my senses blunted. I felt numb.
Tim King, executive news editor of Salem-news.com, has been Ms. Theill’s champion. He’s a war correspondent and former Marine with a “SEMPER FI” attitude:
I have always held the lowest opinion of men who abuse women, especially those who parade as impeccable members of their communities. . .
Any one raised in a household that puts a higher emphasis on mindless obedience than critical thinking, is in a dangerous place, no matter how many Norman Rockwell paintings decorate the walls.
Mr. King has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sees parallels between Ms. Theill’s experiences and those of Afghan women.
A Single Pebble Affects an Entire Ocean
Ms. Theill wrote hundreds of letters. She refused to be silent. Her only fear was being imprisoned in the cage of her abusive marriage.
Dr. May helped her transform her life from victim to survivor. She believes the system has failed Ms. Theill:
. . .even the strongest person, reaches a breaking point, especially when all avenues turn into dead ends and you are let down, rejected, turned away by everyone again and again.
I know how this feels. I’m sure many of y’all do too. A woman responding to one of Mr. King’s articles about Ms. Theill said:
We can give victims all the well wishes and support in the world, but unless we give them proper legal care first, and then proper trauma care second, then the system is still a failure. Domestic violence advocacy has been watered down to grant writing, politics, and lots of talking at the victims’ expense, while leaving women like Coral no better off than before millions were spent to “study” this phenomenon.
Ms. Theill and I have been on parallel paths for more than a dozen years. She appeared on my radar screen via BettyJean Kling last summer. About six weeks later, Pam Darwin left a comment asking me to help her friend Coral. Today, I read a post on Nancy Carroll’s excellent blog Rights for Mothers about Coral:
After fourteen years of personally seeking assistance from advocacy groups on a local, state, and national level, the advocacy system, as is, has offered me nothing.
. . .sadly, I met a few advocates who wish to keep their clients as “victims.”
Not all individuals who offer help as therapists and advocates have good intentions.
I decided it was time to connect with Coral. We had a very long chat this afternoon, and I was blown away by her tenacity, grace, wisdom, and faith. She has been to hell and back so many times that it must feel like a commute. I did something I rarely do ~ I trusted her with the details of my own story so that she could fully appreciate why the system had failed her so miserably.
We may have to go without many comforts for the duration.
We can go without most things for long periods of time,
anything almost, but not our joy.
- Clarissa Estes, Ph.D., Women Who Run With the Wolves
To Heal from Our Trauma, We Must Face It Squarely
Via the Internet, survivors have been connecting and finding we have power in numbers. The system seeks to isolate us. I write this blog because I believe we can learn so much from each other if each of us contributes our unique wisdom. This is what I learned from Coral today:
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Respect and honor the sacredness of our beings. She is now in touch with the “wildish and sacred part of [her] soul.”
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Healing is the process of rounding up all the fragments of our shattered self and reconciling them. . .integrated. . .aware. . .conscious.
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Individuals heal themselves, conselors simply offer support.
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Intuition and a still quiet voice are our greatest coping tools.
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Each of us has a right to live without fear, to be treated with respect, to have and express our own feelings and opinions, to be listened to and taken seriously, to set our own priorities, to say “no” without feeling guilty, to ask for what we want without reprisal, to ask for information from others, to have our own needs met, to have privacy and support and friendship.
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Surrendering lost dreams helps us prepare for new dreams.
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Freedom begins the day we walk away from fear, scarcity, blame and guilt.
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We can created a “safe place” ~ a home ~ within our spirits.
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A breakdown is essentially a “reset” button ~ a catalyst to spiritual awakening ~ an opportunity to learn to love, respect, and honor ourselves.
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Our trauma is not who we are. It is just what happened to us.
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One solution to stepping out of the cages that imprison us is to empower ourselves via education and raising awareness of violence and injustice.
I’d like to give a special shout-out to Tim King at Salem-news.com, Dr. Barbara May at Linfield College, and District Attorney John Haroldson in Benton County, OR.
© 2010, Anne Caroline Drake
All rights reserved and strictly enforced.
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