Prologue: The Call

Tuesday, February 15, 2022, 1:44 PM

At 1:44 in the afternoon my phone rang. The call came from (330) 468-3515, the number of the Sagamore Hills Police Department.

I didn’t need it. The police were already standing in my house.

My phone bill records the call as “Incoming,” two minutes long, with a “CW” beside it, which means call waiting. I was already on the line with my mother in West Palm Beach. That call started at 1:39 PM and ran forty-four minutes. While I was talking to her, the police department rang through on the other line.

People who hear my story usually say “the day you called 911” as if it were one moment. It wasn’t one moment, and the record shows that more clearly than my memory does. Dispatch logged my call at 1:30 PM. The first officers came through my front door at 1:35. At 1:44 the department’s number was ringing my phone. By 2:15 the officers had cleared the scene, my husband had been handcuffed, and the box cutter had been taken out of his hand.

Every date in this book traces back to that afternoon: the protection orders, the custody orders, the hotels, the supervised visits, the decree, the petitions. So I’m going to begin there. I’ll go through the afternoon minute by minute, using what I wrote and what the officers wrote while it was happening. After that I’ll skip ahead to the hardest day of my life.

12:27 PM: The Hotline

Before I called the police, I called the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

My phone bill shows it: 12:27 PM, (800) 799-7233, “Toll Free Call,” one minute.

The record shows what I did first that day. I didn’t start with 911. I started by asking for help.

12:34 PM: “How do I file a restraining order?”

Seven minutes after the hotline call, I texted my friend Milo, who would stand behind me through the worst year of my life:

“How do I file a restraining order?”

“PleSe help me”

“Get him out of this house”

He wrote back within a minute:

“Call Mike you’ll have it done in one day”

“Or I will come over”

At 12:37 PM I texted my mother:

“[My husband] just kicked a wine glass out of my hand into the wall”

At 12:38 PM I wrote to Mike:

“Please help me file a restraining order”

“He just came in my office and kicked a wine glass out of my hand into the wall”

At 12:41 PM:

“please help me”

“i don’t feel safe”

At 12:43 PM Mike answered in four words:

“Call the police”

In the same minute Milo offered me a way out:

“Let me put you in a hotel for a week”

At 1:10 PM I wrote Milo two words:

“He’s psycho”

At 1:23 PM my phone logged a two-minute incoming call from my husband’s cell number. The same number appears as his in the police report written later that afternoon. We were in the same house when he called.

What happened in that room

I’m going to let the officer tell this part. She wrote her report that afternoon, and nothing I add now could carry more weight than what she wrote then.

Here is how Patrolman Emily Roxbury of the Sagamore Hills Police Department recorded my account, in Incident Report 22-00040:

“She said that today she was in her home office in a therapy session when [my husband] came in the room and began mocking her therapists. They began arguing and then [my husband] kicked a glass of wine out of Careyann’s hand striking her hand and leg in the process. The glass of wine then shattered against the wall. Careyann did have a splash of wine on her shirt. She then stated that she tried to get away from [my husband] and locked herself inside their bedroom. [My husband] then kicked open the bedroom door. After more arguing [my husband] then went back downstairs and Careyann heard him running the vacuum in the office. She then decided to call for the police.”

In my own office, in the middle of a therapy session.

The report puts the incident between 1:20 and 1:30 PM. My texts show that the glass had already been kicked by 12:37 PM. Whatever the exact sequence was, the record has me spending close to an hour asking for help before the police were called. I called a hotline. I asked a friend how to file a restraining order. I asked another friend to help me. I told my mother.

1:30 PM: “Speaking in low tones”

The police report logs my call as received at 13:30:02, by telephone. Officers were dispatched forty-eight seconds later.

The dispatcher’s note is the first sentence of the narrative:

“Dispatch stated the caller, identified as Careyann [married surname omitted], was speaking in low tones and said that her husband was abusive.”

He was still in the house.

At 1:31 PM Milo’s number called my phone for one minute. At 1:31 he also texted:

“Will you please call me come and see me I want to stand end”

At 1:33 PM my mother answered the text I’d sent her almost an hour before:

“I just saw your text.”

“Prayer is supposed to change things and I’m expecting some things to change because it’s getting a little bit too old”

1:35 PM: The officers arrive

The report says the officers reached my house at 1:35 PM. Patrolman Roxbury and Lieutenant Brian Piekarski came to the door.

“Upon arrival Careyann and her husband, [name omitted], let us into the home. Lt. Piekarski asked them what was going on and Careyann stated that [my husband] kicked her. [My husband] then rebutted that he only kicked a wine glass. We quickly separated the parties. I went outside with Careyann and Lt. Piekarski stayed inside with [my husband].”

He only kicked a wine glass. That was his first sentence to the police: an admission, worded to sound like a denial.

Outside, I told the officer something I had never told a police officer before:

“She said that [my husband] is abusive to her and the kids, but was unwilling to call the police in the past.”

Three months later, under oath in Summit County Domestic Relations Court, Patrolman Roxbury testified to the same thing. Judge Susan K. Steinhauer’s June 8, 2022 order sums up her testimony like this: “Wife told Officer Roxbury that Husband was previously abusive with both her and the children and Wife was fearful of Husband -but afraid to call the police.”

The officer handed me a written statement form and I filled it out. When I looked at my car, I saw something else:

“While outside she noticed her left rear tire was flat on her vehicle.”

At 1:39 PM I called my mother. The bill shows forty-four minutes. Five minutes into that call, at 1:44 PM, the police department’s number came through on call waiting.

Inside the house

Inside, the lieutenant was talking to my husband. The report says:

“He said he did not want to speak about the incident. When I came back inside I asked him about the wine glass. [My husband] stated that Careyann threw it at the wall herself. I then asked him about the bedroom door and he stated that Careyann kicked the door. [My husband] did have a cut on his hand that was bleeding.”

So the officer looked for herself.

“I took a look at the bedroom door and could see that the door frame was split indicating it had been forced open. This was photographed. I then checked the office and did not find any glass or wine on the wall. Careyann indicated that [my husband] had already cleaned up the mess. I located a bathroom towel that appeared to have darker stains in a nearby bathroom. A vacuum was also located near the office that had blood all over the handle.”

The officer wrote down the sound I’d heard from the bedroom. It was the vacuum.

At the May 20 hearing, my husband admitted on cross-examination that “he bumped a door with his shoulder and damaged the door frame” (June 8, 2022 order, p. 11). Patrolman Roxbury testified that “Husband had tried to clean up: Husband had a cut on his hand; there was blood on the vacuum handle; there was a towel with a dark liquid stain; there was glass in the vacuum; and the bedroom door frame was cracked, indicating it had been forced open at some point in time” (p. 15).

The box cutter

Then came the moment that would later get rewritten.

“While I was taking photographs of the scene, I heard Lt. Piekarski yelling at [my husband] to stand up and drop the knife. I ran upstairs and helped place [my husband] into handcuffs. Lt. Piekarski handed me a box cutter that [my husband] had in his hand while he was sitting on the couch. Lt. Piekarski indicated that he noticed [my husband] was attempting to cut his hand with the blade. [My husband] stated he was attempting to remove a splinter from his hand.”

Read it slowly. A lieutenant yelled at an armed man to stand up and drop the knife, and the officer ran upstairs to help get him into handcuffs. The lieutenant’s own observation was that my husband “was attempting to cut his hand with the blade.” The splinter was my husband’s explanation, given to the police while he was being handcuffed.

“Careyann had stated she wanted to sign charges against [my husband] for domestic violence. [My husband] was taken outside and placed in the rear of cruiser 616. He was then transported back to Sagamore Hills PD for booking and then transported to Macedonia Jail for housing.”

“Careyann stated she also believed that [my husband] had slit her vehicle’s tire with the blade we took off his person.”

“[My husband] was charged with Domestic Violence 2919.25A an M1.”

The report lists me as “VIC,” the victim, and him as “ARA,” arrested adult, arrest number A-2299. It notes that “There is body camera and booking video available. Photographs were taken of the scene and will be attached to this report. Victim’s assistance information was provided to Careyann.”

The officers cleared at 2:15 PM. Patrolman Roxbury signed her report at 3:11 PM.

1:57 PM: “I called 911”

While they were still in the house, I texted Milo:

“I called 911”

“They’re taking him into custody for the night”

He answered right away:

“Good I want to see you”

“Did you say he was violent”

At 1:59 PM I sent him my address so he could come, along with the thing that kept running through my head:

“My left back tire is flat on my Range Rover”

2:09 PM: Texting his mother

My Older Son had a game that evening, someone had to get him there, and I had a flat tire. At 2:09 PM I texted my mother-in-law:

“Your son got violent with me so he’s spending the night in jail - would you like to take [my Older Son] to his game or would you like me to?”

A minute later I told her what he’d told the police:

“he told the cops I pulled a knife on him after his slit his own hand with a razor”

“It’s time for him to go to a rehab facility”

At 2:16 PM:

“My tire is flat - I don’t know if he slit it or what”

“I’m calling to get a tow truck to get it fixed”

“he Also kicked my bedroom door down when I had it locked”

At 2:17 PM:

“He needs help”

She replied: “Yes.”

At 2:32 PM I wrote, “Yup he slit my tire with his razor blade.” That was what I believed then and what I told the police. In fairness to the record: at the May 20 hearing my husband testified that he did not slash my tires, and the June 8 order notes that the officers “did not independently observe the alleged slashed tires.” I’m telling you what I believed and what each side said.

His mother answered at 2:32 PM:

“Just for the record. I do not believe [my husband] needs to go to rehab.”

I wrote back:

“He needs something [Mother-in-law] I don’t know what but he needs help”

“these kids deserve better than this”

“he needs to fix himself”

“i told him I’d pay for whatever he needs”

Weeks later he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, a first-degree misdemeanor. Judge Steinhauer’s June 8 order records that, at the time of the May hearing, he “was still on probation and being monitored for alcohol and drugs,” had “completed a substance abuse class,” and had “a violence class starting the week after the evidentiary hearing.”

2:48 PM: “Less said the better”

At 2:47 PM I asked Mike, “How fast can we get this done?” At 2:48 PM:

“My husband is spending the night in jail and I’m getting a protection order”

At 2:55 PM he wrote: “If you have a protection order he can not come back to the house.”

At 2:56 PM:

“He slit my tire”

“Told them I pulled a knife on him”

Mike’s answer:

“Don’t talk too much. Less said the better.”

At 2:57 PM I told him, “I’m supposed to go down and sign the paperwork for filing a report today” and “have to get my tire fixed first.” At 3:01 PM he wrote, “Get a ride.”

3:03 PM: The children

At 3:03 PM my mother-in-law wrote that she would take my Older Son to his game and keep him overnight. At 3:06 PM I answered, “I’m fine with that,” and asked whether she could also pick up my Younger Son from preschool, because “The tire people aren’t here to fix my tire yet” and “i don’t know where the Honda key is.” At 3:26 PM she said she would go get him from school. Both of my boys spent that night at their grandmother’s.

At 3:11 PM I texted my husband’s phone, though he was in custody:

“Where are the Honda keys? You slit my tire”

“I have to pick up [my Younger Son]”

At 3:18 PM I told his mother: “i have triple a coming to replace my tire now.”

The rest of that afternoon was logistics: who would pick up which child, where the second car key was, when the tow truck would arrive. Survivors get asked why we didn’t leave sooner. Partly it’s because the minutes after violence are full of errands. My children still had to be picked up.

5:00 PM: “So I called the cops”

That night I had plans with a friend. At 5:00 PM I cancelled:

“Can’t come tonight - [my husband] is in jail”

She wrote back, “What!?!?!?” and then, “No problem with rain check, but what the hell happened?”

“He kicked my wine glass out of my hand all over the wall and kicked my locked bedroom door down”

“So I called the cops”

She asked if I was OK. I told her:

“I’m alright / he’s in jail”

“Going to court tomorrow”

She wrote: “Wow that is scary - good for you though. What time do you go? Shitty Valentine’s Day”

At 9:17 PM my mother wrote:

“Love you and it’s gonna be ok things are gonna get better. Just call if you need us.”

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

At 5:54 AM my mother wrote again:

“Good morning beautiful daughter inside and out. Praying for you and thinking of you deeply. We are here to stand with you if you need us. We love you and you will get thru this. You are everything you believe you are and that is an amazing mother…loving, caring, and wants the best for everyone. We love you and call if you need to talk, we are here for you”

At 11:20 that morning, in Stow Municipal Court case 2022-CRB-00434, Judge Lisa L. Coates issued a temporary protection order in the criminal case against my husband. The police department’s follow-up report says that when he came to the house that day with an escort, he turned over twenty rounds of ammunition in a Blazer box and a Bucheimer pistol holster. The property log notes: “These items were turned over to SHPD by order of the Judge’s TPO.” The garage opener was given to me.

At 3:14 PM his mother wrote: “Just to let you know [he] got out.” At 5:16 PM a friend asked how court went. I wrote: “Fine I got a restraining order.” At 6:42 PM I told Milo: “I’ve been puking all day.”

My parents flew up from Florida the next day. My mother’s text gave the flight: Spirit Airlines, leaving Orlando at 11:44 AM and landing in Cleveland at 2:15 PM. Her message ended: “We will do as much as we can to help you out while we’re there and then after we fly back I can always come back.”

Three weeks after the arrest, on March 4, 2022, I became a client of the Victim Assistance Program in Akron. Their letter to the Domestic Relations Court, dated August 18, 2023, verifies that I received Victim Assistance Program services “from 03/04/2022 to 08/18/2023.” Their file lists the victimization as “Domestic / Family Violence,” dated 2/15/2022, with Stow Municipal Court as the referral source.

That was supposed to be the beginning of my protection.

What came next, in one breath

On Friday, May 6, 2022, I sat in front of Magistrate Stephan Collins in Summit County Domestic Relations Court and asked for a civil protection order. When he asked what my husband had been doing that brought me there, I gave him the truest sentence I had: “He is monitoring every move I make.” He granted the order. From the bench he said: “Carey Ann [married surname omitted] will be sole custodial parent.”

The written order was journalized on Monday, May 9, 2022, in case DR-2022-05-1201. Under “Person(s) Protected by This Order” it listed me, and below me my Older Son and my Younger Son.

On May 13, through his attorney Lisa Carey Dean, my husband filed a sworn affidavit stating: “During my marriage, I was a stay-at-home father while Defendant was the primary income-earner for our family.” On May 20 there was a full hearing. Patrolman Roxbury testified. So did my husband. Asked about the box cutter, he told the court he had gotten “a splinter in his hand and was using a box cutter in an attempt to remove it when the police arrived.”

On Wednesday, June 8, 2022, Judge Susan K. Steinhauer issued a twenty-eight-page order. On page 23 she wrote:

“It is undisputed that Husband was arrested for domestic violence on 2/15/22, the children were not present for the incident, Wife was uninjured, and upon the police ordering Husband to drop the box cutter he was using to attempt to remove a splinter, he complied.”

Here are the two versions side by side, both from the official record:

I didn’t agree that it was undisputed, and the officer’s report doesn’t read that way. I believe the court adopted his version over the one written that day by a trained officer. That belief is mine, but the two documents above are not my opinion. They’re the record.

On page 24 the order found that “until May 6, 2022, Husband was the primary caregiver for the children.” On pages 27 and 28 it made him “the temporary legal custodian and residential parent” of my sons. It limited me to two hours of supervised time on weekends and two more during the week at a supervised visitation facility, and it said “Wife shall not be permitted to remove the children from the facility even under the supervision of one of the facility’s employees.” It ordered “Any law enforcement agency” to “assist in returning the minor children.” And it said:

“A DV/CPO is currently in place where [my husband] is the Respondent. It is NOT violation of that Order to return the children to [him].”

At 3:13 PM that day my attorney, Kimberly Valenti, texted me: “Do not get the rental. I will call you this evening.” At 7:39 PM I wrote back the only question I had:

“What am I supposed to do with the kids”

The next morning, Thursday, June 9, 2022, at 7:45 AM by the clerk’s stamp, the same judge signed the full Domestic Violence Civil Protection Order. It protected me from him until June 6, 2023. On the lines under “Petitioner’s Family or Household Members,” where my sons’ names had been on the ex parte order, it was blank.

The court had found that I needed protection from this man. In the same week, it handed him my children.

Saturday, June 11, 2022, 7:45 AM

This is the hardest day of my life, and I’m going to tell it the way I’ve told the rest: by the clock, using the record.

At 7:45 AM I texted my attorney:

“What’s the last day and time I can drop them off? I’d like to keep my children as long as I can”

No mother should ever have to ask that question.

1:51 PM: Fred Greenwood Park, Medina

My mother had my boys with her in her RV. At 1:51 PM she texted: “Call me.” At 1:52 PM I wrote:

“ETA 3:02”

“Where you at?”

“I’m on the phone”

She answered:

“Fred Greenwood Park Medina”

“When will you be here”

“It says 2:59”

“Had to stop for gas”

That’s all the record says about the drive. What happened between that park and the drop-off isn’t in my texts, and they go quiet until evening.

At 5:43 PM my mother sent me a video with three red hearts. At 5:45 PM I texted, “On the phone with lawyer.”

5:51 PM: “I’m home”

At 5:51 PM I texted a friend: “I’m home.”

At 5:52 PM my neighbor texted that her family was heading to the Macedonia fun festival, and asked how everything was going.

“House is a wreck”

“kids got ordered to [my ex-husband] today”

“Now I have to fight to get them back”

She asked: “So does he have them for now all the time or shared”

“no he’s got them”

At 5:59 PM she asked: “Are you allowed to see them”

“not right now”

At 6:09 PM I texted a friend in Florida:

“I’m back in Ohio”

“Just dropped them off”

My ex-husband later confirmed the date in a sworn affidavit: the children were returned to him on June 11, 2022.

6:22 PM: “Stay inside”

At 6:22 PM my attorney texted:

“Do nothing.”

“Stay inside.”

“Is neighbor next to you good?”

I answered: “yes.”

7:00 PM: The RV

At 7:00 PM my mother sent me photos with the caption “June 11.” At 7:02 PM she sent one more:

“[My Older Son] and [my Younger Son] sleeping on our RV couch / In the RV”

My mother had captioned them “June 11.” Both of my boys, asleep on the couch in my parents’ RV.

At 7:14 PM I texted my attorney:

“I need to get out of this house with shit ass memories of his abuse”

At 8:19 PM she wrote: “Your guy is coming to the back door.” At 8:23 PM: “Always talk less, listen carefully.”

At 8:55 PM I told her something I hadn’t told anyone:

“I’ve now been bleeding for two weeks and heavily”

“with all this stress”

9:05 PM: “He needs me”

At 9:05 PM my mother wrote: “I love you♥️”

“Love you too”

“I can feel your pain”

“I feel for [my Younger Son]”

“he needs me”

He was five years old. Four weeks earlier he had been listed by name as a person a court had ordered protected from his father. That night he was sleeping in his father’s house.

At 10:02 PM I wrote to a friend who asked whether being home was good:

“so I’m just by myself until hearing in two weeks unless it’s moved sooner”

The hearing in two weeks didn’t bring them home. Neither did the next one. I was allowed to see them for two hours at a time inside a supervised visitation center, and then not at all for seventy days. Two years after the day in this chapter, I signed a final decree under duress, because signing was the only way I would be allowed to see or speak to my children again.

Why I’m telling this

I had no drug or alcohol record. I had no criminal record. I had no history of violence. I was the parent the schools emailed, the parent in the pediatrician’s office, the parent who hired the sitters. On February 15, 2022, I did exactly what every survivor is told to do. I called a hotline. I asked for help. I called the police. I filed for protection.

The police came. They arrested him. They took the box cutter out of his hand. They took his ammunition. A victim advocate took my case. A magistrate made me my children’s sole custodian and listed my sons as protected persons.

Four months later, a judge found I needed a protection order against him, and she gave him my children.

I believe the system I trusted is broken. I believe survivors who use it have almost no protection. I believe a protection order can be turned against the person who asks for it, and in my case I believe that’s what happened. I believe, though I know not everyone will agree, that if you are a mother, you should think very hard before you ever ask a court for one. These are my beliefs, and they come from living it. The rest of this book is the record of how I came to them.