Southern Standard - 04/24/2019 Page : A06

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Curtis had two young children from two differ-ent women. He worked in the construction business. Beverly fell in love with his children, as well.

After two months of dating, Curtis asked Beverly to move in with him. He wanted her to stop working and prom-ised to take care of her. Shortly afterwards, he proposed. Beverly’s friends tried to warn her about how quickly the relationship was moving, but she was young, naïve and couldn’t begin to image the horrors she would face.

In 2008, Beverly’s moth-er committed suicide fol-lowing deep depression. Beverly wanted to attend her mother’s funeral, yet Curtis told her in a very firm voice that she could not leave the state and grabbed her for the first time. Beverly was unable to attend the funeral due to Curtis’ control. Her family became extremely weary of the relationship.

As months passed, the verbal assaults became a regular part of life. Curtis began using meth and drinking heavily. The jeal-ousy, paranoia and rage would escalate as his drug use progressed. He began trying to keep Beverly indoors and away from the public.

The first time he hit her, they were in the car. He raised his hand and slapped her head so hard it ricocheted off the win-dow. Beverly hopped out of the car to escape.

“He told me if I didn’t get back into the car, he would snatch me up by my hair and drag me into it,” Beverly recalls.

Beverly left one night after the abuse became too much to bear. Curtis called and pleaded for her to come home, using his children pawns to guilt her. He promised he would never lay a hand on her again. He kept his word for several months, until Beverly realized she was pregnant with their son.

“It was the happiest, but worst, day of my life,” says Beverly.

Curtis began to accuse her of cheating and deny-ing the baby was his. He slapped her to the ground. She feared he would try kicking her in the stom-ach.

“He was always drink-ing and working on his truck in his shed,” says Skylar, the now 7-year-old son of Beverly and Curtis.

Curtis would stay in the shed through the entire night making and use meth. Using prescription pills, binge drinking and smoking meth kept him inebriated all day, every day.

At five-months preg-nant, Beverly tried to escape the home while Curtis was passed out. She called her friend beg-ging her to come get her. While carrying her bags to the car, Beverly turned around to see Curtis.

Beverly told him she was leaving. Curtis broke every baby object and piece of furniture Beverly had. After sneaking off for months to clean hous-es or do side work for friends to make her own money and provide for the child she was expect-ing, all of the items she had worked so hard for laid in a broken pile on the front lawn.

Curtis began throwing beer bottles at Beverly, with a full bottle hitting her in the back of her head. He said, “You better go before I kill you.” After that incident, Beverly called the police on Curtis for the first time.

She left and stayed away until Curtis called, begged for forgiveness, promised he would never hurt her again, would begin attending AA meet-ings and sober up. He told Beverly he wanted to cre-ate a family with her and their unborn child. She returned.

The day Skylar was born, Curtis began steal-ing pain medication from Beverly at the hospital after a complicated birth.

Beverly discovered Curtis was cheating on her and using meth again. When she confronted him with the other woman’s panties and meth pipe she had found, things began going downhill.

As the years went by, the verbal abuse and dehumanization had bro-ken Beverly’s spirit, and she had lost herself. Curtis kicked her for accidental-ly spilling his food and held her face down to the floor, forcing her to eat the spilled food.

The accusations of cheating, punching body parts and slaps in the head increased. Finally, he grabbed her by the hair, threw her face-first on the bed, jerked her pants down and began to rape her. This abuse brought back memories of being raped as a child.

Beverly wouldn’t tell anyone what was happen-ing. She was so afraid and felt helpless since Curtis and his family were well-known in town.

When Curtis broke her nose, he told her she was a good girl for keeping her mouth shut and not call-ing police. Beverly told him she was going to call them now. Curtis snatched her and began choking her until she blacked out. Beverly later realized the assault had made him sex-ually aroused.

Beverly went to bed and locked the door, trying to escape. Curtis came in, sat on top of her and said “I like the way that felt. Let’s do it again.” He began choking and raping her throughout the night until the kids woke up the next morning. Before leaving the room, he urinated all over her, making her feel like scum.

“I felt worse than dirty. I felt tainted, alone, worth-less and as though I’d never stop being in eter-nal pain,” says Beverly.

In January 2015, the choking and punching got worse as the children watched. He threw Beverly in the bathroom and told her to lay there, and if she got thirsty, she could drink from the toi-let. He locked her in there for hours at a time.

Beverly finally grabbed her phone and threatened to call 911. That’s when another physical confron-tation ensued.

“During the struggle, he put my hurt foot between his legs. He kept telling me to give him the phone, but I continued to refuse. The third time I said no, he snapped the rest of the bone breaking my ankle in two,” says Beverly.

Curtis finally took her to the hospital, where the doctors could see the bruises and marks on her body. She said a domestic

violence investigation began.

One night in February, Curtis told the children to go into the living room. He then shoved a loaded 12-gauge shotgun into her mouth. Beverly begged for her life and to let her live for her child.

At that moment, Beverly decided she had to leave. As much as it devastated her to leave Skylar in the home, she couldn’t possi-bly carry him with a bro-ken ankle. When Curtis turned his back, Beverly told Skylar, “I love you and I will be back for you. I promise.” She then made her way down the drive-way on crutches, ignoring the shooting pain in her ankle and foot. She hid in a sewer ditch as she heard Curtis yelling that he’d find her and kill her. He was banging on the neigh-bors’ doors trying to locate her.

“It was February, cold and raining. As I lay in the sewer ditch, I lifted my leg up to keep the cast from getting wet. I then began to hobble and use my crutches to make my way miles down the road. My crutches began to break from the gravel and weight I was putting on them. I couldn’t walk any-more so I got on the ground and crawled to someone’s house,” said Beverly.

Beverly ended up hid-ing for two days and went to a shelter on Feb. 8. As she was sitting at the police station and telling her story, officers went to get Skylar and bring him to be reunited with his mother. He ran to her, cry-ing.

Skylar’s eyes grew big and full of joy, as he said, “Mommy! You’re alive!”

Beverly and Skylar were taken to Families in Crisis, finding safety and com-fort. Families in Crisis helped Beverly get her GED, save up enough money to pay for the apartment they live in, find a therapist and doc-tor for Skylar, and taught Beverly important infor-mation she didn’t even know she needed to recover.

Curtis only received six years on probation for pleading guilty to aggra-vated assault and strangu-lation, which angers Beverly to this day.

When it comes to Curtis, Skylar says, “I have many feelings about him, but the words that come to mind are the cousin of mad.”

Beverly is now thriving as she works at Pacesetters, attends Motlow and con-tinues to work toward becoming an RN. Beverly is also in a new, healthy and loving relationship with her fiancé, Justin Chrestman. He is respect-ful and understanding of the trauma she has endured. They have been together almost three years and are engaged to be married Nov. 16.

Beverly tells other women who may be going through the same thing she went through to con-tinue to fight and don’t give up. She realizes it takes courage to break those chains and find freedom, but it is more than worth it.

“If you can’t say any-thing, then slip a note to someone,” said Beverly. “There is a better life after this. It will take time, but you will find happiness. I am not a vic-tim. I’m a survivor.”

6A Southern Standard, McMinnville, Tenn., Wednesday, April 24, 2019

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2Happy Birthday

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Manchester is going to be rockin’ this fall.

The organizers of Bonnaroo have announced the lineup of a new event, the Exit 111 Festival, to be held at the 700-acre Bonnaroo site Oct. 11-13.

Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard and Lynyrd Skynyrd will headline the inaugural festival that boasts a heavy-metal, hard-rock edge.

Named for the Manchester exit on Interstate 24, the new festi-val with have a much dif-ferent bent than Bonnaroo.

Other artists include Seether, Megadeth, Black Label Society, ZZ Top, Ghost, Mastodon, Deftones,

Coheed and Cambria, Lamb of God and Ministry.

Speed metal band Slayer, one of the first to introduce wild screaming into the music industry, is in the lineup in what’s said to be its last-ever concert in Tennessee.

Guns N’ Roses per-formed in Nashville in July 2016 at Nissan Stadium to swarms of fans. ZZ Top previously performed at Bonnaroo.

Weekend passes and sin-gle-day tickets for Exit 111 go on sale April 25. The festival will also include a car show, motocross demos, a sports bar, and the adult circus Paranormal Cirque.

Meanwhile Bonnaroo gets underway June 13 with Phish, Childish Gambino and Post Malone as headliners.

Bonnaroo organizers introduce new festivalby JAMES CLARKEditor for the Southern Standard(McMinnville, Tennessee)

James Clark photoAxl Rose, shown

during a concert at Nis-san Stadium in Nash-ville in July 2016, will headline the inaugural Exit 111 Festival with his band, Guns N’ Ros-es. The festival will be held in Manchester in October.

Fleeing abuseContinued from page 1A

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