“The fear that he will kill you, if you leave”

Sunday I told you Amy Kaufman’s domestic abuse story¹. She survived the blows of Jonah Keri in a spiral of violence that could have won. Throughout our interview, I was asking myself a question, a delicate question, and I didn’t know how to ask it.

Is there a sign she missed that would have warned Amy that Keri was a berserk, before the beatings?

I say that the question is delicate, because by asking it, one can think that the victim of conjugal violence has a share of responsibility… And that is not what I think.

I ended up asking Amy the question, telling her that I found it tricky.

Response: “It’s not a sensitive or inappropriate question,” she replied. I am also speaking for educational purposes, so that we can talk about healthy relationships… Women have to be attentive to certain signs, yes. But above all, we have to educate our boys: we cannot act like this…”

Looking in the rearview mirror of her relationship with Jonah Keri, Amy Kaufman sees the two red flags she missed, before the violence.

First, Jonah Keri interfered in his life with great rations of attention and kindness. He could call her ten times a day and sent her flowers regularly – he sounded like something out of a romantic comedy.

Second, he unilaterally decided to leave Denver (where he had two children in shared custody) to come and live with Amy in Montreal (without consulting her).

“The red flag is when he decided to leave his children in Denver to come and live in Montreal. Now that I have a child, it seems exaggerated, suspicious. And all that kindness! It was over the top, in a crazy way… He knew how to exploit my vulnerabilities. »

But even there, despite this exaggerated kindness, the constant presence of this new lover, Amy could never have thought that it announced the worst: “I never would have anticipated that it would lead to a whim that would break my nose, that he would bite me, that he would beat me…”

I know the question you are asking yourself. Amy Kaufman heard her, this question, too: why didn’t she leave, from the first act of violence?

Answer: “First, there is fear. The fear that he will kill you, if you leave. Your state of mind becomes that of a tortured person. You accept your fate. And there was the fear, too, that he would kill the baby. Let him kill my father, my brother: he had told me that he would do it, if I left…”

She points out that very few women leave their partner and file a complaint at the first slap. It’s part of the abuse and control dynamic. And when you think about it, if it was so easy, so simple, they would leave at the first act of violence…

This is not the case.

Amy Kaufman broke up with Jonah Keri and filed a lawsuit in July 2019 after she successfully stopped a strangulation attempt. A man who fails to strangle his wife explodes by 800% the risk that this woman will eventually be the victim of femicide.

Amy is proud to have made the gesture, a gesture of survival. But she still has bitter memories of the whole legal process, from the interaction with certain policewomen (“The most empathetic police officers were men”), to the obligation to have to re-explain her story a thousand times, passing through the multiple delays in the trial, depending on the postponements caused by the “therapies” of his ex…

I put therapies in quotes, because Amy doesn’t believe a man who abuses his wife can heal himself in a YMCA anger management course: “He didn’t beat up in bars, in restaurants, in parking lots. On the contrary, outside the house, he was extraordinarily gentle and kind. He was beating me when no one was watching. These therapies are a show to look good in court. »

Moreover, in sentencing submissions, Keri’s attorney, Mr.^and Jeffrey Boro presented his client as a new man: “It’s not the same as two years ago. »

Amy Kaufman’s reply: “The strategy was to show that he was sick and that he was on the way to recovery. I didn’t have time for therapy. I was building my file and I was running after the Crown prosecutors who succeeded one another, I warned the police when Mr. Keri broke his conditions… ”

She finds that the legal delays are intolerable for the victims: from Keri’s arrest (July 2019) to her conviction (March 2022), there are two years and four months, “which is longer than my relationship with him” .

Amy Kaufman would like to point out a ray of sunshine in this legal saga: Crown prosecutor Bruno Ménard.

“He’s a unicorn, that guy…

“A unicorn?”

“He’s not supposed to exist!” He was great: from the first call to the end of the trial, he didn’t give up, he didn’t let go of me, he educated himself on the dynamics of domestic violence…”

Nearly 3 months after her ex was sentenced to 21 months in prison, Amy Kaufman is coming back to life. The voice is solid, the gaze is frank. His speeches have been noticed in English Canada and the United States.

It is acting on three fronts now.

One, Amy works with victims of conjugal violence, within the Montreal organization Femmes warnedes/Women Aware²which offers support to women struggling with a violent spouse.

“We have a lot of volunteers, says Amy Kaufman, who are all survivors. The women who call us are talking to someone like them, who has experienced it, who is not going to ask, in a judgmental tone: “Why are you staying?” »

Women in the Know helps survivors navigate the maze of complaints to the police, visits to the courthouse, claims for compensation at the Center for Victims of Crime, rebuilding resumes, ” because it’s hard to go back to the job market, when you have a gap of five, six years in your CV…”

Two, she campaigns for the judicial system to adapt, to reach the XXI^and century. She evokes the “law of Keira³ “, Bill C-233 which is moving through parliament, a law that would require Canadian judges to take training on domestic violence. Keira is a 4-year-old Ontario girl who was killed by her father in February 2020. The father was estranged from Keira’s mother, Dr.^D Jennifer Kagan, whose concerns about her ex’s violence had been ignored, before the murder⁴.

Three, she gives interviews to teach about domestic violence. It gives a chronicle like this.

The interview ends, I tell Amy Kaufman that she seems solid, that I hope the nightmare is over now that Jonah Keri is in prison and that the true nature of his ex is known throughout North America. North…

Amy looks at me and says, “I’m still going to be afraid of him for the rest of my life. »