The Ex-Wives Club

As I’ve stated repeatedly, there are MANY other domestic violence and abuse victims here besides my children and me, and NONE of us has been able to obtain even a small fraction of the help we need. I’ve already posted information on some of these before: “Willa” (10/26/09), for example, whose abusive husband actually volunteered at the local women’s shelter. Now I’d like to introduce you to the stories of a few selected others.

First and foremost is the story of my friend Joanie. In “Old Emails From A Friend” (9/17/10), I talked about a play group my children and I belonged to years ago when they were very young. We also belonged to a second, much larger, play group made up of moms and tots from prominent local families. This group consisted of the wives and children of doctors, architects, dentists, professional artists, bankers, and more. It was through this group that I met Joanie and got to know her.

Joanie was a stay-at-home mom with the same number of children as me. Her husband was a pilot who worked for a large real estate company in Houston, so he was gone a lot of the time for work reasons as my husband was. Joanie seemed rather reserved at first, but as I slowly got to know her, I discovered she was intelligent, creative, and sensitive. She was also very attractive—the kind of person who “lit up the room” wherever she went. She had lots of casual friends but few close ones; she always seemed very guarded.

Joanie and her husband were also clearly very wealthy. They owned and lived in what is arguably the most beautiful historic rock home in our area, located in an extremely desirable spot in the center of town. My husband claimed Joanie was from a wealthy family, but I never knew her maiden name or anything about her background. She and her children were always impeccably dressed, and when the rest of us brought taco salads and chicken casseroles to share for lunch, Joanie brought liver pate.

Frankly, Joanie would probably have become one of my best friends here if it hadn’t been for her husband—I couldn’t stand him. He was loud, rude, and coarse, the exact opposite of Joanie. In fact, he frankly gave me the creeps, particularly in light of persistent rumors around town that he was flying loads of drugs in from South America. I was at a total loss as to why someone like Joanie had married him or why she stayed married to him. I was even more confused about why my own husband was a friend of his. When I attempted any discussion with my husband about the frankly abusive way I’d seen Joanie’s husband treat her on several occasions and why he wanted a friend who behaved that way, my husband just laughed and said I needed to get to know him better. I told him I didn’t care to.

When our older children entered school, I lost touch with Joanie. Thinking back now, I realize she must not have been getting out much, because I don’t remember seeing her at the store or around town. At one point, her husband made a failed attempt at running for public office. I was not pleased when my husband campaigned for him, but we discussed this and ended up “agreeing to disagree” on the matter.

Then in the early 1990s, I became pregnant with my youngest child and was pleasantly surprised to hear that Joanie was also expecting another baby. I finally did run into her at the store, and we had fun commiserating about pregnancy and catching up on each others’ news. She seemed happy, healthy, and excited about the new baby, and her older children were doing extremely well in school. All seemed well.

The last time I went to Joanie’s house was when my youngest and I were invited to Joanie’s baby’s first birthday party. Joanie was absolutely radiant that day, holding all the little ones (and us grown-ups too!) in thrall with a puppet show she wrote and performed for the occasion. However, I was sad to note that her husband wasn’t there. Sure enough, when he suddenly came in at the end of the party, Joanie suddenly became tense and silent. It was clear from the way he belittled her that they had serious problems.

At some point after that, I remember my mother-in-law telling me the word going around town was that Joanie was having serious problems with post-partum depression. I told her that didn’t make sense to me because Joanie’s youngest child was older than that. My mother-in-law insisted Joanie had been suffering from this for a long time. Not long after this, I heard Joanie’s marriage had ended. Her husband moved to a ranch outside town, married a woman with ties to both South America and local real estate, and opened a chocolate importing business. Joanie kept the historic home in town she’d always loved so much.

The next news I had of Joanie was very strange and frightening. Her ex-husband had taken their two youngest children hiking on a fairly high rocky peak at a local park. Somehow the older of the two children took a terrible fall off the peak and sustained a very serious head injury. News reports said the father left the younger child, who was quite young at the time, alone at the summit while he went down to the injured child. The victim was rushed to a trauma center in San Antonio and barely survived. This child eventually made a full recovery, but they had no memory of what had happened.

I heard Joanie was furious with her ex- over the accident, which was what I would have expected from her, so I was surprised when my mother-in-law started telling me again how depressed Joanie was. Not long after this, I ran into Joanie briefly, and she seemed more frightened than depressed: eyes constantly darting back and forth, talking in a very guarded manner, and clearly nervous and jumpy. Joanie was definitely not herself, and I frankly didn’t know what to make of it.

The next thing I heard about Joanie was when I opened up the newspaper one morning and read about her death. I could barely contain my shock and horror as I read that her ex-husband and a female friend (the wife of a doctor) found her hanging from the hook that held the light fixture over her dining room table.

Joanie’s death was ruled a suicide. My husband and my old play group friends all told me her ex- was furious because she’d started seeing a new doctor in San Antonio who felt she was being over-medicated and took her off all her antidepressants. He blamed this doctor for causing her death and was threatening to sue him.

I was heartbroken over the death of my friend, but it wasn’t long after this that my own husband suddenly left and our lives were turned upside down as well. Later, I heard Joanie’s oldest child was accusing their father of murdering their mother, which I’d wondered about as well.

At some point, Joanie’s ex-husband must have regained ownership of the historic rock house, because he opened a restaurant in it. I also heard his second marriage ended in divorce. Both of our youngest children graduated from high school together, and I remembered her fondly that night.

I’ve never forgotten Joanie, and recently she’s been much on my mind again. In the last few months as I’ve learned more and more about gang stalking and begun realizing how much of it applies to our situation, I’ve also realized it makes a lot of sense as far as what I remember of Joanie’s. In fact, my former mother-in-law began saying exactly the same kind of stuff about me (or even worse!—see some of my ex-husband’s similar comments that are scattered throughout this blog) to anyone who would listen after my husband left. There’s a definite pattern here: target a victim for organized stalking while at the same time spreading false rumors all over town that the victim is crazy in order to attempt to explain some serious future crime against that person (like murder, driving them to suicide, involuntary commitment long enough to steal assets, etc.).

I’ve also begun seeing this same pattern in terrible things experienced by other acquaintances of mine. For example, the wife of a local doctor was repeatedly described to me by both her husband and mine (both good friends) as “crazy”, even though I never saw any evidence of this. Her husband left her to marry a co-worker around the same time my husband left. She moved to Boerne and eventually remarried, but recently she suddenly turned up dead and I haven’t been able to find out what happened to her.

Another acquaintance of mine has a similar story, but I believe hers has a happier ending. This woman, who is incredibly intelligent and talented, was the creative force behind a well-known local business that her husband and his family managed. I was very upset when my husband came home one night and said this woman had been brought into the local emergency room close to death that morning from a suicide attempt. This woman did survive, but she and her husband eventually divorced, she moved away, and recently I heard she had remarried. Her ex-husband is now extensively developing the property they once owned jointly. Even more significantly, this property is not far from mine.

Forgotten

Here I'm posting some examples of people I believe are victims who've been forgotten or ignored by law enforcement. (Sadly, there are many more.)

These persons are NOT forgotten by those who loved them, and they are not forgotten by me.

Notice how many of these people died from head trauma.

Coincidences

A small article in the 7/13/10 edition of the San Antonio Express-News announced a guilty plea in the murder of Donald H. Althaus that occurred on 1/22/09 in San Antonio. (I discussed this case here previously in a post from 8/23/09 that is followed by a comment by my ex-husband.) Coincidentally, the middle name of the man who admitted committing the crime is a very prominent name in my ex-husband's family. Also, the mother of the accused apparently is involved in the case.

There are also some interesting coincidences concerning another old murder case. In August of 2007, a man named Kenneth Polan was said to have been murdered near I-10 and 1604 (i.e., northwest of San Antonio) at a trailer sales business owned by a couple having the same last name as close friends of my former in-laws. Polan's body was found later in a river south of San Antonio, and a man was charged with the crime. One night while watching television newscast coverage of this case, my children and I saw news footage of a very distinctive Suburban with unusual coloring and markings being towed to the crime lab for forensic examination. We instantly recognized this vehicle as looking identical to one owned by my former brother-in-law and his wife. News reports said the case was an extremely complicated one and involved multiple jurisdictions, but no additional information was ever given out and I have never seen any updates or status reports on this case. Coincidentally, a few months after this, my kids said their aunt and uncle told them they had sold this vehicle. We continued to see them and various family members and associates of theirs driving this Suburban, however, so we weren't sure they'd really sold it. A few days ago, we spotted it parked next to my former brother-in-law's wife's workplace with a "For Sale" sign in the window.

After my husband suddenly left in 1999, people around town began telling me he was a close associate of a man here who's a member of an extremely wealthy West Coast family with extensive media holdings, a fact my husband had apparently concealed from me. Coincidentally, this man also filed for divorce from his wife around the same time my husband left and filed. This man's children, who happen to be around the same age as mine, almost immediately became some of our worst and most long-time harassers, and they continue to stalk and harass us to this day.

Finally, although a recent pair of local shooting deaths made me suspect coincidences, not enough information has come out yet for me to know for sure. I first learned of these deaths when I turned on the 6 PM news just after it had started and was shocked to see the San Antonio reporter standing in front of our small-town law enforcement building with the word "Suicide" written in large letters below her. The story ended before I heard any of it, so I tried other stations, but no one else seemed to be carrying the story, which I thought was odd for what had been a lead story on the first network's newscast. Immediately afterward, I turned the t.v. to our local station to catch the story on the local news-radio channel--and was shocked to discover music playing instead and the announcer making no mention of the missing newscast and acting as if nothing was wrong!

That night at 10 PM, I watched the entire newscast on the channel where I'd caught the end of the story originally, but this time they never mentioned it. There was nothing in the newspaper the next morning, so I was mystified as to what had happened to what I knew had been a lead story the night before. I saw no mention of the story on the noon news from either San Antonio or Austin.

That night on the 10 PM news on the station originally carrying the story, I finally found out what had happened: a married couple and their pet dog had been found shot to death in their home out in the country here. I did not recognize the couple's last name and did not believe at the time that I knew them. I was very surprised to hear the reporter say the deaths had been ruled a murder-suicide by the police, both because of the "Suicide" label used by itself the previous night and also the fact that normally such a story would be front-page news.

The San Antonio newspaper finally ran one of their little "mini-articles" on the deaths the next day. Our local paper carried only a very brief article about the deaths containing little additional information.

According to the newspaper accounts, the wife was the same age as my ex-husband. I've been watching for obituaries for the couple to find out who they were related to, her maiden name, and where she went to high school. If she's the person I now believe she might be, she's very closely connected to my ex-husband and there are some very interesting coincidences indeed. I'll post an update here when I get more information.

7/25/10: Here's the promised update. I finally saw an obituary for the wife, and she's not the person I was afraid she might be. Coincidentally, however, she has ties to the equestrian world, as did Dana Edwards, a local woman who was murdered in San Antonio, who had harassed us, and whose family may have owned property near ours. (I've discussed this death previously in an earlier post here. In "My Story" at the beginning of this blog, I've also discussed the fact that my first cousin is very well-known in the equestrian world and that I have good reasons for believing my ex-husband married me in order to make certain "business connections" to my cousin and his wealthy jet-setting friends.)

Spouses

In order to begin to understand how things work around here, it's critical to look carefully at family relationships and understand who's related to who. The best and most important place to start is usually with spouses. To illustrate this, I'll give you some general examples of the kinds of things to look for.

First, look for what I call the "Fredericksburg spouse". In the last few years, the Kerrville police chief was replaced with one whose wife has family ties to Fredericksburg. Ditto for the editor of the main Kerrville newspaper. Ditto for the local state senator (same county, anyway), who ousted an incumbent who said he had absolute proof of serious election fraud, filed a lawsuit, and then suddenly and abruptly dropped it. (Now go back and read or re-read my "They Do What?" post of 3/30/10.)

Next, look closely at what spouses do for a living. For example, one of the spouses of one of the owners of a phone number that turned up as part of an illegal charge to my phone bill (see "Phone Bill Blues", posted here earlier) turned out to have been a law school professor at a school with a strong focus on anti-terrorism law and high-level national contacts, which I found interesting. Another example: many years ago, I was told by numerous people that the wife of the Fredericksburg police chief (pictured in the previous post) had a job running errands for a well-known movie producer who has a ranch nearby and that many of these errands involved trips to the Fredericksburg airport. (The Fredericksburg police chief and his wife are no longer married.) Also, assets seem to be transferred freely and frequently between spouses around here, often using their business or workplaces.

Then there are the more complicated spousal relationships; for an example of this, I will use one I know a great deal about because it affects me personally. A married couple (and various members of their families) own a tract of land near mine that is being developed, even though much of it is taken up by a deep gully and a large overhead power line. The husband is a civil engineer who works for a local construction company, the owners of which own considerable valuable property close to mine. The owners of this construction company have also been represented for many years by a law partner of my former father-in-law's and brother-in-law's (who recently suddenly left their firm). The husband was recently elected to the local school board, where my former brother-in-law has served in the past.

The wife happens to be in the same business as my ex-husband and works in an office next door to my ex-husband's. Another woman who works in her office building has direct ties to a murder victim and a victim of a suspicious death. The property on the opposite side of the couple's tract from mine was the location of another suspicious death in 2003.

Are you still with me? I know it's complicated, but at the same time, I hope you are starting to see that if you fail to consider both spouses, you end up with a two-dimensional understanding of the situation instead of a three-dimensional one. This framework becomes critically important for true understanding when you then begin adding in additional information. In this case, it turns out there is an additional tract of land located between my land and the couple's that I only became aware of about nine months ago. It's ownership doesn't seem to be available anywhere, and it is not down in the gully or under the power line and is in fact the property where some of my children say their father showed them blueprints of office buildings he was planning to build there in the summer of 2006.

Now I have a final piece of information to add to this complex example: in the last six months or so. "For Sale" signs have gone up on nearly all the properties I've just mentioned: the property owned by the couple, the property beyond it where one of the owners was found shot to death, the property owned by the construction company family, and additional property adjoining mine, including the house formerly owned by the city and more recently the location of some sort of "mystery business" that I've discussed before. Significantly, the only piece of property I've mentioned currently without a "For Sale" sign on it happens to be the tract with the unknown owner along our fence line (the one the blueprints my kids saw were for). Three other small tracts adjoining my property that are owned by my ex-husband also do not have "For Sale" signs on them at the present time.

This is only one example of how complicated interrelationships play out around here, and it tends to get even more complex when you start looking at family members other than spouses. However, these are the things you must research in order to understand the inner workings of this region and to try to obtain relief and justice for victims here.

[If you are new to my blog, I strongly suggest you take the time to go to the beginning and read "My Story".]

Phone Bill Blues

During the summer of 2005, I began noticing charges on our monthly phone bills that weren't ours. These charges were immediately noticeable on our bills because they were from AT&T, whereas our service was through Verizon. Every time they turned up, I immediately called the toll-free number provided and got the AT&T charges removed, but they when they kept appearing and actually increased in number, I began trying to get AT&T to do something about getting them stopped for good. It took me over 6 months and a great many phone calls (including long periods on hold!) to finally put a stop to these charges, so it was a major hassle to have to deal with.

Over the course of all those phone calls and discussions with numerous AT&T and Verizon representatives, I was able to learn a little bit about what was going on. I was told all of the calls in question were made with an AT&T calling card that had been issued to "Panhandle Groundwater Conservation Distribution". (The calls being fraudulently charged to our number finally stopped when AT&T cancelled this card.) Many of the calls in question had been made from a payphone at the Armstrong County Courthouse in White Deer, Texas (a place I've never been that is near Amarillo). While these calls had been made to locations all over Texas, a number of them were made to either pharmacies or local physicians. Other than the local doctors and a few general place names, I did not recognize any of the callers or callees.

I'm posting examples of some of these bills here now because I feel the need to protect myself. At the end of one of my recent posts here, my ex-husband suddenly tried to falsely tie me to Amarillo, TX for some reason. (See the comments at the bottom of my "Cinderella Gone Wrong" post. I'm positive about these comments being from my ex- because of both the writing style and the content.) I'm concerned because the phone calls that were falsely charged to our number show signs of being related to drug trafficking. I'm also concerned because one of my children received an extremely important and personal letter they weren't expecting today that happened to be from Amarillo. This letter arrived having clearly been opened and tampered with illegally by persons unknown.

My phone bill blues plus Amarillo (the Spanish word for yellow) probably equal a lot of green for someone, but it's not me. No doubt someone thought it would be amusing to illegally charge these calls to my (unlisted) number.