No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

Latessa is taking down a lengthy and detailed statement from Grace about the abuse she has suffered to ensure that no chargeable offense gets missed. Watching Latessa, Snyder cannot help but speculate on how Michelle’s case might have turned out if Latessa had been assigned to it.

Grace and her partner Byron have children together, and Grace also has children from a previous relationship. Five days earlier, Byron came home drunk, retrieved the gun from under their bed, and chambered a round. Forcing Grace onto the bed, he put the gun to her temple and accused her of adultery; he then beat Grace, who fell to the floor and pretended to be unconscious. Byron knew she was pretending and lifted her up, threw her into the wall, and threatened to shoot her. The next day, he bought Grace flowers, which terrified her because he had never done it before, and told her that if she went to the police, he would send a local gang to hurt her. For the next week, Byron kept her with him in the house. When Byron finally went back to work, Grace took her kids and ran, calling the police as she did.

Latessa assures Grace that she will get a warrant for Byron’s arrest issued immediately. She gives Grace the number to her second cell phone, which is only for abuse victims, and tells her to call whenever she sees Byron, even if it is to say that she wants to go back to him. Another member of the High Risk team asks Grace the Danger Assessment questions, and Grace says yes to each. Grace admits that she feels disloyal. Latessa is sympathetic but reminds Grace that her children are learning from Byron how to treat women.

Snyder says that for abused men, the stigma of being a victim is even worse, which is why men rarely seek help. LGBTQ couples also rarely report abuse, despite the fact that the rate of violence among LGBTQ couples is higher than among heterosexual couples. In general, a victim tries to leave seven times before actually succeeding. Latessa offers to share a story with Grace about her own sister.

Latessa’s sister Brandi lived a few hours from Cleveland, but in the summer of 2015 Brandi’s teenage daughter Bresha appeared at Latessa’s door with harrowing tales about her father, Jonathan. Jonathan had cut Brandi and Bresha from the rest of the family, but Latessa knew that Jonathan’s beatings had caused her sister to have a stroke. After Brandi got out of the hospital, she left Jonathan for six months but eventually went back. When Bresha showed up, Latessa called social services, but Bresha eventually went home. A year later, Bresha ran away again before returning home and killing her father.

Latessa tells Grace that it is imperative that her children be taken out of the abusive environment so that they do not do what Bresha did. Latessa says that if Grace decides to go back with Byron, Latessa will call child services and have the kids removed.

Latessa raised money to cover Bresha’s attorney’s fees. Bresha’s case became a rallying point in the Black Lives Matter movement. There was evidence against Jonathan related to the beatings that sent Brandi to the hospital, as well as a protection order from that time. Ultimately, the public pressure helped ensure that Bresha was tried as a child; she was held in a juvenile facility for a year and then released. Her record will be expunged when she is 21 if she stays out of trouble, but as Latessa points out, “The first fourteen years she was abused and then the last two she was incarcerated…so she hasn’t really been free’” (264). The experience has given Latessa a unique point of view on domestic violence, including “the terrible and terrific toll of violence—the whether and the how you rebuild your life, and the whether and how you convince your children to make different choices than you made” (265).

Byron ends up facing a laundry list of charges, including financial fraud from racking up charges on Grace’s credit card, but a year after Snyder’s visit to the apartment, she finds out that Grace recanted and went back to Byron, who only ever received probation.