Jules shared her story with us in September, when three hundred and five people, plus twenty-five partner organizations and sixteen volunteers, filled the Schauer Arts Center in Hartford, Wisconsin for ‘The Butterfly Legacy: Tales of Resilience.’ Today, we at LOVE>hate, along with Jules, share her story with you, as part of our 2024 winter campaign to raise funds and awareness to help both survivors and perpetrators heal and stop the violence.
We can’t do this alone. Will you make a donation today and join us in the fight to END interpersonal violence, promote Forgiveness, and presence Love?
Jules’ Sentencing Statement from December 4, 2017:
Your Honor,
Thank you for the opportunity to tell you my story. This is taking a lot of courage for me to be here. I’m looking forward to closing this chapter of my life and starting a new one. Seeing the defendant, Jessie, brings back intense emotions. I hope Jessie takes this to heart and HEARS how his actions affected me. Regardless of my anxiety and fear, this statement is part of my healing process, finding my self-worth, standing against domestic violence, and not being a victim anymore. I endured five years of violence with Jessie. By the grace of God, I survived.
I met Jessie in Austin, MN in 2012. It was a difficult time in my life; I had just divorced my husband of 17 years. We became friends quickly. We had so many great times when we were just friends. He was loving and supportive, he would do anything for me. That meant the world to me, and I fell in love with him. But once we decided to have an exclusive relationship, Jessie’s treatment toward me quickly changed from love and support to jealousy, mistrust, and physical, mental, and emotional abuse. This baffled me. I thought he would return to the person I fell in love with. But that didn’t happen. He began to accuse me of cheating and isolated me from family and friends. The following incident is the first time Jessie was violent, the first time I feared for my life, and the first time I lost a job due to domestic violence.
It was the day before Valentine’s Day, 2013. I was a Manager at Caribou Coffee. I was at a dinner with coworkers. Jessie had one of his friends over, and a 19-year-old girl. After dinner, I arrived home, and the fun night I had with co-workers quickly changed to a terrifying situation. Jessie’s friend told me that the girl showed him her breasts, and Jessie looked too. I felt hurt and disrespected. I asked them all to leave, even Jessie.
I needed to get to bed, as I started work at 4 a.m.
30 minutes later I heard the front door being kicked in. Jessie threw open our bedroom door, pinned me on the bed, and punched me repeatedly in the head and face, because he didn’t think he acted inappropriately that night and how dare I ask him to leave.
I went into the kitchen, blood dripping, black eye forming. Jessie dared me to call the police stating that if I did he would do it again. Out of fear, I didn’t call but tried to calm him down from being so angry. Eventually we went to bed.
The next morning, I woke up with a gash on my forehead and a black eye. I was still in shock from the night before, too embarrassed to go to work. I lied to everyone, said I slipped on some ice, and never reported this incident. I hoped that, seeing my eye every day, he would never do it again. This was the first of many times that I lied to family, friends, and co-workers about my abuse.
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Over the years, I fled from Jessie many times due to fear, intimidation, and violence. I always had to leave fast, with just some clothes and my dog, and drive to my Dad’s in WI ormy Mom’s in NE for safety. Anything that I left behind was cut up, thrown away or destroyed. I had to call work and tell them I was assaulted, again, and not coming back. I left numerous jobs due to domestic violence. As if that wasn’t enough, he would also send my parents, siblings, children, and friends texts and pictures to try and defame my character and have them side with him. If they disowned me then I would have nowhere to go except back to Jessie. Obviously his tactics made him look worse in my family’s eyes. At one point my ex-husband sought a harassment order against Jessie so he would stop contacting my 2 boys. My boys are my pride and joy and don’t deserve to receive such vulgar, graphic texts. My whole family feared for me. My parents told me they feared getting a phone call from the police saying they found me dead in a ditch. My family has no idea how many times Jessie has come at me with scissors, knives, slammed my arm and hand in doors, slapped me in the face, abandoned me far from home with no money or phone to call for help. I’ve had to rely on strangers to help me get home.
These are only a few examples of the abuse. He emotionally abused me daily, accused me of cheating, asked for timecards to prove I was at work, and put down my appearance. It was hard to stay positive, and I began to believe his lies and think I was of no worth or value.
You might ask, “Why did you go back and put yourself in danger again?” The answer isn’t simple. I loved Jessie. I knew the good in him and hoped that he could change. After each incident he always called me crying, apologizing, promising he would never do that again, and telling me how much he truly loved me. He was sincere and I wanted to believe that this was the last time he would hurt me. I thought he needed and loved me. It traumatized my family every time I went back.
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The night of June 26, 2017 changed my life forever. Jessie had been drinking when I came home from work. He had lost his job, and he was going to be trespassed from my apartment, as they don’t allow felons at my complex. I was suggesting people he could call for temporary housing when he came at me, slapped me in the face, and strangled me. I broke free. He threw a glass of wine on me, told me to get on my knees, told me to grab the hammer out of the drawer and beg him not to beat me with it. I was terrified. All I could think of is “I won’t see my boys ever again.” When Jessie reached for something, I saw my chance. I ran out of the apartment shoeless, down to the second floor, where a Good Samaritan lent me his phone to call 911. I hid in the emergency stairwell. Thus began a very public, humiliating, 4-hour stand-off with police. Jessie barricaded himself in my bedroom and proceeded to destroy my furniture, cell phone, and clothes. He punched holes in my closet, broke out my window with the bed frame, and threw out my dresser drawers, to humiliate me.
Then he went live on Facebook, telling his friends that the cops are outside the door and his dumb bitch girlfriend ran out the apartment for no reason. He emailed my employer and property manager, lying about me, hoping I would lose my job, get evicted, and lose my dog. He said if he was going to suffer in prison he wanted me to suffer too.
A few days later, I found a video of him yelling in my face while I was getting ready for bed. This wasn’t the most violent situation I’ve been in with him, but watching him raise a fist to me, the look in my eyes, the fear in my voice, hit me hard. I saw my terror and the evil hatred in his eyes. This video was a defining moment for me. I knew I had to leave him for good.
Since the incident I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. I’m currently on short-term disability from work. With treatment and therapy, I finally feel a sense of hope. I’m getting stronger every day.
Jessie’s probation officer said there is nothing we can do for him anymore. The State has exhausted all resources on him, with no sign of rehabilitation. That’s a scary and eye-opening statement to say the least. I’m done thinking and believing that I was never good enough for him when in fact, he was never good enough for me. Until he accepts that he needs to change he will continue to assault his victims and go back to prison again.
Your Honor, thank you for listening. Thanks to all the agencies who helped me; without them, I would not be here today. And thanks to the LOVE>hate Project and their book “A Message from Jessie.” It’s about the murder and rape of a daughter and only child. This book is a true inspiration to me. It’s teaching me about love and forgiveness. I quote directly from it, “We cannot hate the murderers, the rapists, the thieves, the abusers, the selfish, the greedy. They are sick. If we want to heal the world, we must start with the sick. If we hate them, we ADD to the hate in the world, we join their side. We MUST find it in ourselves to love them, to pray for them, and mean it. This is VERY important! LOVE>hate. We must increase the Love in the world. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying, “Let them out of jail, feel sorry for them, don’t punish them, or don’t put them away and protect the public. I’m not saying that. I’m saying LOVE THEM.”
