Article: 22 Women Gone

Traci Grant died sitting in a kitchen chair in her Simpsonville home.
Shivani Boparai’s six-year-old son showed officers to a bathroom, where he found his mother stabbed to death.

Allison Cross died with her mother in a bedroom of her mother’s home.

They had been covered with a comforter.

They are among the 22 women and three girls murdered in Greenville County in the past two years. In 16 of those murders, the person accused was either a husband or a boyfriend. And, in three, the accused is a son.

Greenville County has long lead the state and the nation in criminal domestic violence, especially in cases in which a woman is killed.

Criminal domestic violence is an under-reported crime overall, said Becky Callaham, the executive director of Safe Harbor, which provides shelter, counseling and legal services for abused women.

Moreover, the statistics on the number of murders are compromised by the fact the solicitor’s office reports to the state, and those records show only the crimes in which someone is charged. In Greenville County in the past two years, six of the murderers killed themselves as well.

“I hate when they do that,” said Sharon Totherow, founder of Domestic Violence Assistance, which provides food, clothing, furniture and toys to victims. “It’s an easy out for them.”

Singular Crime

It is a crime like no other, experts who work with abused women say, and that makes it tough to prosecute. In addition, they say, the first charge of criminal domestic violence is a misdemeanor, the same as first offense shoplifting or driving under the influence, punishable by 30 days in jail.

Gamecock fighting, by comparison, is a felony carrying a sentence of six months to a year in prison.

“Too many people are turning a blind eye,” said Totherow. “Some are just not educated.”

Totherow and Callaham said they fight against the perception in the community that a battered woman dropped out of school, lives in a trailer park and has low self-esteem.

But the truth is spouse abuse cuts across all socioeconomic lines. Also, about 5 percent of the cases are men being abused by women.

In April, Juan Luis Tafona-Gonzelez was shot multiple times at his Greer home and his body dumped in a field near Woodruff. His girlfriend Elvira Seay has been charged with murder but not found.

Callaham said it invariably happens that someone will come up to her after she speaks to a group and say she or a sister or a daughter is living through abuse. That, after the people in the group seem genuinely horrified such a thing is happening in Greenville County.

While she doesn’t advocate changing the law, Callaham said the system has let victims down. Not taking the first offense charges seriously leads to women being murdered.

“This is a crime that escalates,” said 13th Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins, whose office has stepped up investigation and prosecution of all levels of criminal domestic violence.


Why stay?

“The question we ask as a community is why doesn’t she just leave,” Callaham said. “She does leave. They’re leaving all the time. What are we doing to help them be safe and stay safe?”

Victims have so many reasons for not staying away: financial, threats to take the children away, no place else to go. By the time a victim contacts law enforcement – and it is usually a neighbor reacting to hearing violence who reports it – six or eight incidents of violence have already taken place. The woman’s self esteem is low. Perhaps she feels she deserves it.

The abuser often makes himself the victim. He says to her, I’m in jail. You put me here. You’re going to cause me to lose my job. Or, I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.

“Manipulation and control.” Totherow said.

It is all too common for a victim in that time known as the cooling off period to decide to drop the charges. But Wilkins has taken the position that his office, when the crime is egregious, will proceed with prosecution whether the victim testifies or not.

His policy is law enforcement must do a better job of investigating: pictures, statements, medical records in case the victim refuses to testify.

He has seen too often cases sent to pre-trial intervention when someone has been hit, choked or almost run over by a car, which would not rise to the felony level of criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature.


On Notice

“We have a societal duty to proceed,” he said. “This could be the first of many spouses or girlfriends and we need to put the world on notice this individual has done this.”

All victims are shown a movie, which was finished last month, on what they will face in the courts and what they might face at home, particularly if they refuse to testify. If they do, they are required to sign an affidavit not to cooperate.

In a soon to be tried case, the prosecutor will use an expert witness to testify about reasons victims won’t testify.

“The expert will testify to the psyche of an individual and can explain exactly why someone might recant,” Wilkins said.

Callaham said she has testified similarly in the 10th Circuit, which encompasses Anderson and Oconee counties. The solicitor is also looking into the idea of having a court just for criminal domestic violence cases.

Callaham said that would allow for more standard sentences and expertise among lawyers.

She said she feels optimistic about the changes in the solicitor’s office and the more thorough investigations done by law enforcement. The crime that has flummoxed authorities because it delves into family relationships is finally being taken seriously.

“It’s our responsibility as a community to remove the barriers,” she said.


Victims

Barriers that perhaps could have doomed Grant, Boparai and Cross.

Grant, 45, was shot to death on Oct. 20, 2010, by her husband, from whom she had been separated for two weeks. That afternoon, Grant’s daughter and mother arrived at the house and were met by James Bazzle, 58.

The coroner’s report states Bazzle said to his daughter, “You need to leave. I just shot your mother.” The daughter went outside to try to get in another way and heard three gunshots. Her father had killed himself.

Boparai, 31, was stabbed many times in the head and chest on Jan. 21, 2009. Her husband, Harvinder Singh, 37, was charged and is serving a 35-year sentence at McCormick Correctional Institution for voluntary manslaughter. Deputies found their son outside their Ashton Woods Apartments with blood on his clothing. Officers had never been called to the residence before and her co-workers at Security Finance in Spartanburg knew nothing about her personal life.

On Aug. 2, Cross, 26, suffered multiple head fractures so deep her brain was cut. Her mother, Jane Lanser, had wounds to her hands and neck. Blood was in four rooms and a hallway. Sitting on the floor of the room with the dead women was Cross’ boyfriend Michael Crane, 35.

He is in the Greenville County Detention Center awaiting trial on charges of murdering the mother and daughter.