Battered Mom Dies Despite Doing All the Right Things

By Anne La Jeunesse
Daily Journal Staff Writer
(Posted with permission from the Daily Journal)

LOS ANGELES -- The battered 21-year-old wife did everything right: She had her husband arrested, fled with her 6-year-old son to a women's shelter, and got a restraining order to stop the violence from recurring.

When the court ordered her to turn the child over to her husband for a
six-hour visit, Maria Letitia Vasquez arranged for a public handoff at the
police station and brought along a trained shelter advocate to supervise.

Nevertheless, Vasquez was stabbed to death by her husband last week in front of Santa Monica City Hall.

After killing her, Juan Vasquez fatally slashed himself while their child and a crowd of 100 people looked on.

Advocates say the case calls for a new level of vigilance in domestic
violence and custody arrangements.

"I think that courts often do not underestimate the danger to these victims
in helping them to make a safety plan," said state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, a longtime advocate for domestic-violence victims. "It's possible that the law is adequate and that the execution of the law, in terms of supervised exchanges, just didn't work this time."

Commissioner Bobbi Tillmon issued the visitation order two days before the murder-suicide.

A respected family law commissioner, Tillmon recently was chosen as a
"champion of the community" by Santa Monica's Sojourn Services for Battered Women and Their Children.

In response to Maria Vasquez's entreaties, Tillmon also had issued the
restraining order and placed Juan Vasquez in a batterers' treatment program.

Tillmon didn't return a request for comment. Attorneys for the court said
that she couldn't comment because the Vasquez matter is being treated as an open case.

"It's a terrible tragedy. I'm sure the judge is just in agony," Kuehl said.

The Vasquezes, immigrants from Mexico, had lived in Palmdale and West Los Angeles, according to court documents. This was not their first go-round with domestic violence. Nearly a year ago, Maria Vasquez sought assistance from the Domestic Violence Clinic at the Santa Monica Courthouse. Vasquez v. Vasquez, SD019600 (Los Angeles Super. Ct., filed Nov. 27, 2001).

Her husband pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of spousa battery, and Judge Richard Stone ordered him into a batterers' treatment program. People v. Vasquez, 1BH01766, (Los Angeles Super. Ct., filed Nov. 27, 2001).

When Juan Vasquez beat her this July, and again in August, Maria Vasquez decamped with her son to a shelter in Santa Clarita and later sought a restraining order, alleging that her husband threatened her life and
assaulted her repeatedly, according to court records.

"I am afraid of the Defendant for my personal safety and respectfully ask
the court to issue a restraining order," Maria Vasquez said in the Sept. 6
court declaration.

Tillmon issued a temporary restraining order that day and barred visitation
for Juan Vasquez. On Sept. 26, however, Tillmon, while extending the
restraining order for three years, also granted Juan Vasquez Saturday visits with his son.

Tillmon also ordered the couple to attend a conciliation court appointment
on Oct. 8. Two days after the September hearing, Maria Vasquez was on her way to the Santa Monica Police Department lobby to deliver her son when her husband struck.

The circumstances of the attack are unclear, but Kuehl and others said a
building project at the Civic Center might have been a factor.

While a new public safety building is under construction, people must walk
down a long sidewalk and through a construction tunnel to reach the police department lobby.

"She did [take precautions], except for the construction, which wasn't
something she could take care of," Kuehl said.

Some observers have said that, if her walk was shorter, she might have
gotten to the lobby safely. But others said her husband appeared so intent
on doing her harm, that wouldn't have made a difference.

An order detailing the visitation conditions was found with Maria Vasquez's body, police said.

"She had the document in her custody; it was bloody, and it was lacerated," said Santa Monica police Lt. Frank Fabrega.

Greg Boles, a former Los Angeles police officer and director of global
threat management for Kroll Associates, one of the world's largest private
investigation firms, said police should get those orders from the court
before a station-house drop-off.

"It means a copy [of visitation orders] should be provided to the police
ahead of time, so if there are some red flags that need to be noted, they
can be prepared," Boles said.

Fabrega agreed. Under current practices, however, police are notified only when one of the parties arrives with a copy of the court order, Fabrega said.

Safety plans for battered victims need to be worked out "to the last detail," Kuehl said.

"That is where this broke down -- she could not protect herself in what was supposed to be a safe exchange," Kuehl said.

It was difficult to conceive of legislation that would have prevented the
killing, Kuehl said.

Even threat-assessment professionals cannot predict when spousal abuse will turn deadly, said Ellyne Bell, executive director of the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence.

"The state has decided it is in the child's best interest to see its father," Bell said. "I think the incredibly scary thing about this is, there's no safer place, the police department, with 100 people outside. If it can happen then, when can it not happen?"

Alana Bowman, a deputy Los Angeles city attorney who headed the office's domestic-violence unit for nine years, said she hopes Maria Vasquez's fate does not dissuade other abuse victims from seeking help.

"It's so imperative to know that so many victims get away, so many survivors survive, and what this woman was trying to do was admirable," Bowman said. "It took an untold amount of courage to do what she did."