Karen Keith's saving grace came in the form of her then-husband's best friend.
The man had spent plenty of time with her and her husband and had never stepped in before, so she didn't even think he had been paying close enough attention to recognize the signs of domestic abuse.
“I don’t understand myself at that time for staying as long as I did," the current Tulsa County commissioner told a crowd at a community panel last week. "I was a (television) news anchor at the time; I didn't want anyone to know."
Her ex-husband's family was convinced that she was going to fix him, Keith said, and he had brain-washed her into believing that things would change and that she had nowhere else to go.
People are also reading…
After revealing to a counselor that she had been chased with a knife, Keith said, she was told to "stick it out."
"My ex-husband’s best friend finally came to me, and he said, 'You will not survive,'" she said.
Every time she tried to leave, her husband would try to kill himself, she explained, so she would return because of the "Catholic guilt thing."
But his friend told her: "'You have to leave. I’ll be here when he gets back; I won’t let him hurt himself, and you have to go: You’re not going to survive,'" she said.
"And he basically saved my life."
The public official's story came in bits and pieces throughout the nonprofit Domestic Violence Intervention Services’ inaugural community talk at a downtown coffee shop on Thursday.
DVIS recently announced that “Conversations to Confront Violence” will be held across the city in different iterations over the next year, and Thursday’s event recognized October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
The theme of the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s Week of Action this year was #Every1KnowsSome1, and Keith was one of four panelists and several survivors in the room who shared their stories in hopes that they might change the conversation around the sometimes taboo topic.
The topic, City Councilor Lori Decter Wright pointed out, seems to be even more swept under the rug in her southeast Tulsa district.
Noting that she has recently been anecdotally tracking high-profile domestic violence cases, Wright mentioned several that were in or near her relatively affluent area, including the summer murder of her friend and community leader Sherry Gamble Smith and the 2019 murder of Allyssa Fielding, a "horrific" case that rocked the psyche of most anyone who touched it.
“If this was in east Tulsa or north Tulsa we’d have a task force; we’d have wraparound services; we’d be mobilizing," Wright said. "I feel like in our community, where people are more resourced, there’s an assumption that (domestic abuse) is a family issue behind closed doors. 'We should not, as a community, be talking about this.' And that goes to the shame and blame, right?
"What’s going on in our households? There’s a lot of drug abuse happening that people don’t talk about, and most people are getting their drugs in an orange bottle with a white top from their doctor. There’s a lot of child abuse going on, but, again, middle-class and upper-class families sometimes get to hide those things a little bit better.”
Caroline Shaw came from a socio-economic class in that range. Shaw, whom DVIS also featured on the panel as a survivor of domestic abuse, said she was lucky to have some resources available to her, but that didn't necessarily help her reach out for help any sooner.
Shaw's mother used to work for DVIS, and Shaw imagined aloud what it must have been like for her to see her daughter going through what she dedicated part of her life to working against.
Born in Tulsa, Shaw went to college out of state and soon married and had her first son. She began noticing what she described as patterns of controlling behavior but continued in the marriage and had two more children.
“Oftentimes people will say, … 'Why’d you do that?'” Shaw said, her eyes brimming with tears. “Part of the reason is you know in your mind that it’s actually going to get worse when you say you’re going to leave before it gets better.”
"I just finally said in front of everyone, 'This is it; I’m leaving,'” Shaw said. “The decision to do it at that moment was very easy, but the road to get to where I am right now is very challenging.”
Besides the initial safety issue of leaving — with which Keith sympathized, saying she had to hide out at a friend's rural home for months after she left her husband — Shaw said the family court system has been one battle after another.
"It's not conducive to support women and children in this situation," she said. "The control of the situation is perpetuated."
The women discussed ideas for generating further discussion and reaching people who may feel like they're stuck in their situation.
DVIS has several resources available to help victims of such situations before they turn deadly, Chief Development Officer Cathy Wilkie said. Those resources include an emergency shelter where survivors can stay up to 45 days; transitional housing that's available rent-free for up to two years; a kennel for pets; free counseling; and necessities such as food and clothing.
DVIS also provides rehabilitative services to batterers, which is important, Keith said, because they often wound others out of their own hurts and don't stop after one partner leaves.
"My husband went on to another marriage and did the same thing" before dying of alcohol poisoning, she said.
Tulsa Police Department Family Violence Unit Detective Amy Hall also lamented the cycle of abuse. Hall said the mother of Allyssa Fielding's killer told police officers that her son probably learned his behavior from watching his father beat her while he was growing up.
How can the community function as a better support system for victims who are in that situation, like the friend Keith spoke about who stepped in, Wright wondered aloud.
It starts with reaching out and sticking around, said Sandy Leatherman, DVIS later-in-life advocate.
“It’s everyone’s responsibility,” Leatherman said. “If you think something’s not right, trust your gut. It’s OK to check on somebody; it’s OK to call and maybe have some law enforcement come by to do a welfare check if you think something’s happening.
And for families and friends of victims: "Be that support," Leatherman said. "Because we know victims — it takes a long time for them to leave. Don’t give up on them, because they’re going to need you when they decide.”
