Robert Davidson - The Beast I Loved: A Battered Woman’s Desperate Struggle To Survive

THE BEAST I LOVED

A Battered Womans Desperate Struggle to Survive

Robert Davidson

WildBluePress.com

THE BEAST I LOVED published by:

WILDBLUE PRESS

P.O. Box 102440

Denver, Colorado 80250

Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Davidson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.

ISBN 978-1-947290-59-4 Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-947290-58-7 eBook

Originally published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto, in 2000, under the title, Fighting Back . This revised edition published in the United States by WildBlue Press, 2018.

Table of Contents

PRAISE

A superbly written, rivetingoften horrifyingstory urgently needed for our time. Davidsonwith a reporters eye for detaildelivers a powerhouse page-turner about the limits of what a human being can endureand still come out victorious. With mesmerizing suspense and the heart-stopping twists and turns of a fast-paced crime novel, here is an important book that ensnares the reader from the first page, and should be read, then read again.

Susan Page, bestselling author of If Im So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single and Executive Director of the acclaimed San Miguel Writers Conference

*****

As gripping as The Burning Bed

John Saul, New York Times bestselling author of Suffer the Children

*****

Horrific and inspiring all wrapped into one book as relevant today as it was when it was first published.

Steve Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of No Stone Unturned

*****

The book is gripping; it reads like the best of mystery novels and the reader cannot wait to find out what happens in the next section or chapter. It is an excellent supplemental reading source for the upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses I teach on Family Violence. The author does a superior job of getting the reader into the mindset of a woman experiencing both the battered woman syndrome and learned helplessness...The outcome is totally unpredictable and a reader would be well-advised to avoid the temptation to turn to the end in order to learn the final outcome.

Raymond Teske, Jr., Ph.D., Professor, Criminal Justice Center, Sam Houston State University

*****

As a counselor, I have provided counseling to hundreds of victims, both women and men, in the area of domestic violence. The case of June Briand is one of the most devastating accounts of spousal abuse ever documented, and hits the reader with the same gripping force as one other true life story, Life With Billy . Even with all my years of training and experience behind me, a story such as this one still touches me to the core

Sandra D. Peters, Counselor (Prince Edward Island, Canada)

*****

PREFACE

On New Years Eve, December 31, 2017, a huge electronic billboard in New York Citys Time Square lit up with the faces of five women who, along with countless others, had endured sexual harassment and other disturbing sexual behavior from men, and were being called by TIME magazine The Silence Breakers. The rallying cry became Times Up! and indeed it is. With the torrent of womens stories emerging night after night, day after day, on radio and television shows and social media, the abuse of women is finally getting the attention it deserves attention that has been woefully lacking given the dominance and control of men in powerful positions that has stymied the growth, freedom, and dignity of women for way too long.

There is, however, another more insidious scourge affecting even more women that has not received anywhere near the attention that the Times Square billboard did, though its victims suffer far deeper, more painful and often tragic consequences. While the current stories making news are certainly past due, the one told in this book is that of another silence breaker who also had the courage to step forward and speak out, to tell her harrowing story in the hopes that it would help other women break the cycle of violence from which most see no escape, and no way to vocalize their plight lest they endure even more severe punishment by their tormentors.

This is a true story of an abused wife who took her husbands life and was subsequently sentenced to fifteen years to life for her crime. Many of the names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect privacy. The events, however, are factual and if anything, understated, because no matter how it is written, much of what happened to June Briand cannot be described in words.

Ordinary cases of domestic violence dont make national news. This one did, but then, it was anything but ordinary it was extraordinary . Extraordinary that after finally putting an end to seven torturous years of horrendous physical and emotional atrocities, administered by the cruelest of men, June Briand was punished still further this time by a confused and compassionless legal system that was incapable of distinguishing self-defense from criminal intent, child of circumstances from cold-blooded killer, and indeed, right from wrong.

After ABCs Peter Jennings reported the story on the evening news on December 4, 1996, New Hampshires channel 9 WMUR anchorman Tom Griffith followed, saying, The Briand case is one of the most controversial murder cases the state has ever seen. A Concord Monitor editorial read: The June Briand murder case has attracted attention because of the sensational nature of her crime ... Talk shows and dinner tables have been abuzz with talk of the case.

That buzz continued the next morning on NBCs Today Show when Maria Shriver interviewed Pat Moss, the tenacious lawyer who took Junes case pro bono and turned it into a cause clbre unlike anything New England had ever seen.

This is not another grimly, amusing true crime story about sadistic sex and homicide, though it includes both. Nor is it a study on Battered Woman Syndrome or domestic violence. This is a story about fear and control and the insanity that stems from them. It chronicles unthinkable acts of cruelty June suffered at the hands of her brutal husband, a man described by his young daughter in a psychologists report as a big, black, hairy monster, too ugly to look at, with scabs and bruises, that pops your eyes out. And it describes, as it must, the abject sexual depravity June endured for seven long years.

Perhaps most important, this book offers readers a clear understanding of the debilitating, heartbreaking state of learned helplessness that results from chronic abuse, and definitively answers once and for all the question of why women cannot simply pack up and leave their abusers. It makes the case that it is way past time to stop blaming the woman, to stop victimizing the victim. If anything is to change, the public must first understand the issue. If ever there were a purpose for this book, this is it. If ever there were a time to shine a spotlight on this growing cancer that our society has failed to curtail, this is it.

The Justice Department says there are nearly a million acts of domestic violence reported every year a gross underestimate of the actual number, which, according to the FBI, is closer to four million or an assault on a woman every fifteen seconds. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports the incredible statistic that one in three women have been the victims of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime. So pervasive is such violence that Congress recently passed funding to study what the Surgeon General called a public health crisis.