Sylvia,
That is horrifying. You must still think of her every day.

Amazing all those "red flags" we all have been guilty of ignoring one time or more in our lives. I don't think women especially stop to think it may just cost your life to ignore them.

Your story is very very moving & sad and a startling reminder to pay attention early on in those honeymoon days.

Have you ever tried doing searches on the internet for her?

~Cata

how awful....I had couple of similar stories in my life. here is one. sounds like soap opera but it is true.

we had a neighbour (and my grandma's colleague also RN at the same hospital as my grandma), lady, who was never married, kind of older.

she has met this guy and he proposed right away, she got excited and did everything he told her to do. she was so desperate for male attention that she would do anything. and she was this trusting kind of type, "too nice".

he made her to sell her summer cottage, and whatever other vaulable possessions she had. then she did early retirement. then he insisted they sell her place and buy a house in a country with her money. when she protested, it ended with him beating her and trying to chock her, she ran out and hid her valuables at our house.

then we convinced her to press charges, which she did. but when my grandmother went to police to testify about abuse, all of a sudden this lady changed her mind and said that he was just joking and never chocked her, she withdrew charges.

they sold her place, bought something in a country with her money (maybe on his name) and moved and we never heard of her. my grandma tried to locate her but she dissapeared no where to be found. she never called no one and never returned any phone calls, not one person at the hospital or in the neighbourhood heard of her again. we thought he killed her. oh actually she was afraid to move to a rural area because he would kill her there, then my grandma called the police again to report that the lady is scared to move, but police would not do anything.

we still think that he maybe killed her. in any case he took advantage of all her finances and posessions. as a single her whole life and RN she made a decent living and had a decent property, she lost everything. and maybe her life too, who knows.

how scary...people who want to get serious too fast and push for commitment too quickly always scare me.

You know, after I posted this, I thought "one more time" & checked google & found that there is some property in both their names;
his address is the same as the property, but hers, except for the property records, is in another town.

He does have some money, a lot of which he got after the marriage, & they've been married a number of years, so he might fight a divorce...
but at least it sounds like she's still out there & maybe she got away from him.

fd, there was a time in my life when I'd have thought all this stuff was melodrama, paranoia, tv shows, etc.

but I think it happens a lot more often than we ever find out about, especially since abusers cut the ties between their victims & the victims support system.

Tragically, victims are almost always estranged from any support by the time their abusers kill them, & the abuser often has re-located geographically so that no one knows the victim's likely behavior;

if he moves her to a rural area & does all the grocery shopping & so forth, & tells people that she's a poor relation, down on her luck, separated from her husband, then no one is surprised when she "returns to her husband".

No one has any reason to think, "Did she go somewhere, or did she just disappear?"

I had a friend who went through it as well. He loved her soooo much. He talked her into quiting her job and he moved her hours away from her family. No one heard from her for almost a year untill she managed to call her sister and law and I saying he had been beating her and she was pretty much held hostage. SHe lost her car because he wouldn't allow her to work and it got reposessed and she had no money for a bus. She didn't even have a phone. She scrapped together enough change to sneak down to a pay phone and call while he was gone to work one day.

Her brother had to drive to Jacksonville to get her. She was black and blue. Reports were filed but no arrests ever took place. He has since done this to ANOTHER woman whom he actually married. Their infant child DIED under mysterious circumstances when talks of divorce came up so the wife got in touch with my friend to ask her to testify against this man in court. This woman suspected this a$$hole poisoned the child to avoid support. The baby was 7 months old.

He has managed to skate through the sytem for years beating women and DESTROYING them financialy. He steals identities and runs up HUGE debts. My friend had over 10,000 in debt this man racked up using HER social security number. He also beat a man half way to death when he was a police officer. He served a short jail sentence and was kicked off the force. He also bragged he has killed a man. HOW DO THESE PEOPLE FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS? It makes you really wonder about the system.

Same thing with the girls BM....she should of been arrested years ago but manages to sail right through the crap she stirs up without a scratch.