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Residents of Washington, D.C., and its environs were panicked in autumn 2002 when John Allen Muhammad, later known as the D.C. Sniper, terrorized the region with seemingly random shootings. So his ex-wife Mildred was stunned to hear later from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the shootings only had looked haphazard — she was the target.
The goal was apparently to kill Mildred in what looked like a random shooting so her ex-husband would regain custody of his children.
Mildred will tell how she survived it all — years of emotional abuse, the kidnapping of her children for 18 months, the public scrutiny — at the 19th Annual Crime Victims’ Tribute and Candle Lighting by the Delaware Victims’ Rights Task Force. The event will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, April 19, at Delaware Technical & Community College Terry Campus, Conference Center.
Mildred said John was especially charming when she first met him. He was thoughtful and affectionate. As the relationship developed, so did the abuse. He would find her favorite clothes and throw them away, or destroy her favorite things as a means of control. He kept a stringent log of her spending, and punished her when she overspent.
And when she asked for a divorce, the abuse escalated.
He told her he was going to kill her. His goal was to get their three children back, so he went so far as to kidnap them, keeping them hidden for 18 months until he registered for food stamps. When he gave the children’s names and birthdates, they were cross-referenced in a database of missing children and finally returned to Mildred.
A year later, the D.C. shootings started.
“I knew he would kill me, but I never thought he would bring other people into that situation,” Mildred said.
Her story is a shocking one, but not unique, according to Stephanie Hamilton, event chair. Hamilton is the domestic violence coordinator for victim services with the Wilmington Police Department.
“We see when our neighbors have issues and we hear yelling and screaming and crying from next door, we hear and think, ‘Oh, it’s a private issue.’ But it’s a public safety issue,” she said. “Even though it’s happening in the house next door, it can spill out.”
The event is for victims of all crimes to gather, talk to other survivors, check out resources and hear others’ stories.
Residents of Washington, D.C., and its environs were panicked in autumn 2002 when John Allen Muhammad, later known as the D.C. Sniper, terrorized the region with seemingly random shootings. So his ex-wife Mildred was stunned to hear later from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the shootings only had looked haphazard — she was the target.
The goal was apparently to kill Mildred in what looked like a random shooting so her ex-husband would regain custody of his children.
Mildred will tell how she survived it all — years of emotional abuse, the kidnapping of her children for 18 months, the public scrutiny — at the 19th Annual Crime Victims’ Tribute and Candle Lighting by the Delaware Victims’ Rights Task Force. The event will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, April 19, at Delaware Technical & Community College Terry Campus, Conference Center.
Mildred said John was especially charming when she first met him. He was thoughtful and affectionate. As the relationship developed, so did the abuse. He would find her favorite clothes and throw them away, or destroy her favorite things as a means of control. He kept a stringent log of her spending, and punished her when she overspent.
And when she asked for a divorce, the abuse escalated.
He told her he was going to kill her. His goal was to get their three children back, so he went so far as to kidnap them, keeping them hidden for 18 months until he registered for food stamps. When he gave the children’s names and birthdates, they were cross-referenced in a database of missing children and finally returned to Mildred.
A year later, the D.C. shootings started.
“I knew he would kill me, but I never thought he would bring other people into that situation,” Mildred said.
Her story is a shocking one, but not unique, according to Stephanie Hamilton, event chair. Hamilton is the domestic violence coordinator for victim services with the Wilmington Police Department.
“We see when our neighbors have issues and we hear yelling and screaming and crying from next door, we hear and think, ‘Oh, it’s a private issue.’ But it’s a public safety issue,” she said. “Even though it’s happening in the house next door, it can spill out.”
The event is for victims of all crimes to gather, talk to other survivors, check out resources and hear others’ stories.
“Victims are often kind of pushed to the side during a lot of the criminal justice process, so they can feel like they are less the center of what’s happening and just a part of it,” Hamilton said. “So this is a chance to pause and let some attention be placed on the victim, and let them reflect and think about what’s been done to them and also to pay attention to survive and get through this really tough situation in their life.”
Part of Mildred’s healing process was working with other victims of domestic abuse. Event co-chair Kim Book has used the same strategy, helping others, to survive.
Book runs the Victims’ Voices Heard program through People’s Place. The program connects offenders who have taken responsibility for their actions with their victims and allows them to have a dialogue.
Book started the program seven years ago, eight years after her daughter Nicole was murdered in Dover.
Nicole was 17 and living with her father while going to night school when she met LeVaughn Walker, 16. The two got into an argument one evening and Walker stabbed Nicole multiple times with a butcher knife. Walker is serving a 38-year sentence for second-degree murder.
Book said when a crime is committed, there is a flurry of immediate attention.
When that dies down, the victims are left to cope while most people forget and move on. The upcoming event is a healing one for the victims.
“It’s a way to pay tribute to those who are no longer here, but also to pay tribute to those who are still here,” Book said.
Mildred said it is an evening for reflection and learning, and for informing guests about victims’ rights.
“A victim is an individual in pain. And out of that pain, comes a direction in which they are trying to go, which is to seek justice. Victims should not be dismissed, nor should they be looked over, disrespected or mistreated when they’re only trying to get justice for what has occurred to them,” she said.
Book said Mildred is the perfect speaker for this year’s event.
“We are always trying to educate people about crime in our state, and a huge crime that we are trying to bring light to is domestic violence,” she said.
For Mildred, the hardest part of her abuse to overcome was not what was done to her, but what was taken from her.
“Admitting that he hurt me to my core when he kidnapped the children, that was the hardest part for me because in that I lost 18 months of their lives that I would never get back,” she said.
If she could offer a younger version of herself advice, knowing what she knows now, the advice would be simple: run away.
“Your radar goes off if someone has violated a boundary. Something is not quite right here. We should listen to that, we should not just pass it off as the circumstances of the day, what happened the night before, that needs to be looked at,” Mildred said.
