She made headlines fending off an abusive husband with a ceramic elephant and a knife, but Donna Cobb has been quietly trying to resume her life since her acquittal in his killing. Cobb's four-year roller coaster began when she was awoken by her coke-and booze-addled husband and ended with a jury deeming her an innocent battered woman nearly six months ago.
Now Cobb has returned to work as a nurse's aide at Harlem Hospital and continues to live in the same nearby apartment where she stabbed Kevin Cobb to death in November 2006.
"I'm taking it one day at a time," she told the Daily News in a recent interview.
"I still think about it a lot, you know. I don't think I'll ever fully get over what happened."
Instead of criticizing and scorning her, she says, the neighbors and co-workers who watched her saga unfold have mostly rallied around her - but not everyone.
"I have had some negativity from Kevin's friends, saying 'Murderer!' whenever they saw me," the 42-year-old mother of six said. "They pretty much didn't know what was going on, and I didn't feel the need to explain anything to them."
In her 10 years with Kevin Cobb, with whom she had 12-year-old twin girls, he continually abused and threatened her, spitting on her and stealing her money, she said.
On the night of the killing, the couple threw a party in their apartment. Kevin, who was unemployed, spent the evening guzzling a bottle of tequila and snorting cocaine .
When a fight broke out, the couple kicked everyone out, but Kevin began muttering threats and accusing his wife of cheating, she said.
She went into her daughter's room to sleep but said she was awoken by Kevin punching her in the face, pulling her out of bed by her hair and kicking her.
"I tried to fight him off," she said. "I ... ran into the living room. He came right behind me, punched me in my back. I fell. He started stomping me."
'I didn't want him to die'
Cobb grabbed an elephant statue off the floor - one of many elephant-themed objects that decorate her home - and struck him over the head with it, temporarily stunning him.
She ran into the bedroom, but Kevin gave chase, grabbed her and began choking her.
"I was feeling for anything," Cobb said. "I felt the knife, and I just poked him with it."
"I didn't want him to die," she added. "My kids have to be without a father, and it's painful."
Her lawyer, Earl Ward, said he was pleased his client was acquitted but questioned why Cobb - a churchgoing woman and the family's sole breadwinner - was prosecuted in the first place.
"This is a woman who had no record, who goes to church every Sunday, and Fridays, too," he said. "The idea that she was looking at a life sentence was extremely, extremely troubling. She was a classic battered woman."
Cobb said she and Kevin met in Harlem and had a true connection when they began dating in 1996.
"In the beginning, Kevin was really sweet," she said. "Kevin was very attentive to the children. He was a helpful, really charming, bubbly kind of person."
Things began to change in 1997 after Kevin moved in and started slapping her.
Also around that time, Cobb realized Kevin had a drug problem after finding cocaine in his pockets.
"He promised me that [he'd get help] a lot," Cobb said. "I found a program for him to go to. ... He wouldn't show up."
Domestic abuse experts say it is not uncommon for victims of violence to make excuses for someone they love.
"Love is complicated," said Adwoa Akhu, author of "Metamorphosis: Journaling the Path from Domestic Violence Victim to Victor."
"People stay because things don't usually start off violent," she said. "Abusers are good at getting someone to love them."
Cobb said she is now focused on her grandchild and moving her family out of the apartment where the murder occurred. She said she still is coming to terms with Kevin's death.
"Throughout all the years of the abuse I experienced ... I don't think that's something I'll ever fully recover from," she said.
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