Warren victim's reluctance to charge abuser costs her her life

WARREN

One of the challenges of helping women protect themselves from abusive men is that the women have to be willing to assist prosecutors handling the case against their abuser, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor says.

“The only way to stop these is to break the cycle of violence. A victim must follow through. It’s tricky for them,” said Gabe Wildman, who has been prosecuting felony-level domestic violence cases in Trumbull County for about 10 years.

“Many times, victims will change their story or lie,” he said of what they tell prosecutors or judges later about the incident when it’s time to decide if they are willing to testify against their attacker.

Some of the reasons they refuse to follow through are “love, kids, marriage, money, mortgages,” Wildman said.

And the situation doesn’t appear to be getting better. When he began prosecuting domestic-violence cases, about half of victims were uncooperative; now, it’s about 90 percent, Wildman said.

Judge Thomas Gysegem of Warren Municipal Court runs the court’s specialty domestic-violence court. Culver, 27, of Howland, was convicted in Warren Municipal Court three times of domestic violence and one time of assault on a girlfriend – all since 2007, when he was 18.

Culver’s most-recent conviction was last fall, when he was convicted of domestic violence against his girlfriend, Jessica Crowder, 36, of Hamilton Street Southwest. He got two months in the county jail.

He had been convicted in that court of domestic violence against a different female in 2013 and went through Judge Gysegem’s domestic-violence court, meaning he attended 26 sessions over one year to receive counseling and learn about the impact crime has on victims.

But in the end, he killed Crowder.

Read what happened in Tuesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.