Denver – The 40-year-old woman told a Denver jury today that there was no escape from her abusive husband.
For nearly two decades, she said, her husband told her that if she ever left he’d kill her.
And she said that for more than 18 years, after she had the first of their children, he said that if she left – or didn’t force the children to participate in sexual acts with him – he’d kill both her and the kids.
The woman is on trial, facing 24 criminal counts including sexual assault on a child and aggravated incest.
The woman is accused by prosecutors of dressing her son as a schoolgirl, painting his face with makeup, and then leading him to his stepfather who would rape him as she watched. She is also accused of taking her daughter, now 10, to her husband on a regular basis, placing a washcloth across her eyes, pulling the child’s gown up and letting her husband rape the girl.
The woman testified she never wanted to participate in the perverted actions of her now 59-year-old husband. But she said that she was often beaten up right to the point where she went to the boy and gave him the clothing.
“He said I had to watch and if I didn’t, he’d hurt (the boy) and he’d hurt me,” she told the jurors. The jurors listened intently to the visibly distraught woman, who often wept as she recounted years of abuse.
She said she first met her husband in 1986 when she was 20. At first he treated her “very special,” she said. But by 1988 , he started to be obsessively controlling, saying she couldn’t be with her family.
“If I was going to be with him, I was going to be with him only,” she said he told her. And it was around this time that the physical abuse began, normally her being back-handeded once a twice or month.
But by 1994, when they moved into a home in southwest Denver, the abuse occurred on almost a daily basis, she said.
From 1994 until August 2004, when she fled her home after being brutally beaten and in fear that her husband was about to kill her, she said she suffered severe physical abuse.
On one occasion, she testified, her husband was so angry that she hadn’t properly cleaned the bathroom that he made her lick the toilet.
But she said the regular abuse came in all forms of physical attacks.
“I’ve been hit by his fists, punched, slapped, kicked, grabbed hard, and my hair pulled,” she said. “I’ve been choked. I’ve also been choked with a belt. I’ve been struck by TV remotes, brooms and shoes. I’ve been shot in both legs by a high-pressured BB gun.”
She said that other “punishment” included being forced to eat soap, hot peppers and hot sauce.
And over the decades, she said, her husband claimed he was a member of the Mafia and had connections that could track her down if she ever tried to flee or displeased him.
He said that she should never should talk to the police.
“He said if I ever talked to the police, he’d come and find me and kill me and then kill the kids,” the woman said.
She said he told her he’d “kill me as slow and painful as he could and then kill himself.”
The husband has pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault on a child and faces up to life in prison for the assaults on the boy and girl.
Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
