Buried alive in my wheelie bin!
Tuesday 6th January 2009
I pulled my coat tightly round me as I waited, shivering, on the doorstep of my ex-husband David Larsen's house. It was so cold, the drive was thick with snow. Then the door swung open.
'The girls aren't ready yet,' he snapped, slamming the door shut. But I didn't want to go inside.
It was 31 January 2004, three years to the day since we'd got divorced. And if I'd had my way, I'd never see David, then 39, again. But he was still the father of our two girls, Amanda, 6, and Holly, 4, and the courts had ordered that he got to see them twice a week.
And he'd never hurt them, even if he had been cruel and nasty to me. I had the scars to prove it.
When we'd married, back in April 1998, I knew that David could be domineering. But he worked as an air-traffic controller, so he was used to wanting things just so. But on our honeymoon, when I'd refused to wear the green dress he'd suggested, I learned what happened when he didn't get his own way. His open palm cracked against my cheek, and I crashed to the floor.
I vowed that night I'd leave him the second we got back from Hawaii. But by the time we pulled up at our home, I'd already talked myself out of it. How could I leave my husband just days after our honeymoon? Before I'd met David, I'd been an independent, 30-year-old woman, living alone and working in a bank. Not the type to be a battered wife. So I'd vowed to make a go of it. David made me quit my job, saying he earned enough to keep us both.
Soon, I'd stopped seeing friends and hardly spoke to my family. I was isolated in my own home. And if I stacked the washing-up wrong, or missed a bit with the vacuum, I'd be in for it.
Even when the girls came along, Amanda in August 1997, and Holly in June 1999, nothing cooled David's temper.
'I own you,' he'd say, as the blows rained down on me. 'You're mine.'
It felt like I'd never escape. But the independent woman deep inside of me kept telling me I had to. And after three brutal years, I did. While David was out at work one day, in November 1999, I took the girls to a women's refuge. I filed for divorce on the grounds of domestic violence, and battled to get my life back. I managed it, too. I even met a new bloke, David Nicolai, known as Nick, and two years later, in October 2003, we married. And now, we'd just discovered we were expecting a baby. Everything was perfect.
Or it would have been, if I didn't have to make these twice-weekly visits to pick up Amanda and Holly. David opened the door again.
'They're playing hide and seek,' he said. 'They want you to find them.'
He swung the door wide open. I hesitated. I hadn't been in the house since I'd left three years ago. But I wanted to show him I wasn't scared any more.
'Come out, wherever you are,' I shouted to the girls, trying to mask my fear.
My instincts screamed: Get the girls and get out. If only I'd listened.
Crack! The pain I felt at the back of my head was like nothing on earth. I fell to the floor, too stunned to scream, before David hit me again. This time I saw the baseball bat he was swinging, and I closed my eyes just moments before I felt the agonising impact on my skull.
'You're not taking me to court,' he screamed, still hitting me. 'You're not taking away my kids.'
'I won't,' I gasped. 'Please…'
After what seemed like forever, he finally threw the bat on the floor and stormed off.
Shaking, I slid my mobile out of my pocket and phoned the police.
'I can't breathe…' was all I could say into the receiver, before David came back and I quickly hung up. Without a word, he ripped off my socks and trainers, and bound my feet together with tape.
'David, no…' I begged.
Rolling my socks into balls, he crammed them into my mouth, then taped my hands together, too. Bound and gagged, I could only watch in horror as he pulled a 5ft-tall, green wheelie bin into the hall. Was he going to stick me in it, like he would a piece of rubbish? Or was it a makeshift coffin?
In one swift move, he lifted me up off the floor and carried me, upside-down, towards the wheelie bin. I can't go in headfirst, I thought, as the blood rushed to my head. I knew I'd stand a better chance of survival upright. So using the last of my strength, I thrashed around wildly, keeping my head out of the way of the opening, until David gave up and dumped me in feet first.
'Stay still,' he barked.
My body bumped against the sides as he dragged the bin outside. Then, he scooped armfuls of snow over me. Confused, bleeding and in agony, I couldn't make out what was going on, as he slammed the lid shut.I felt the bin being lifted. Then I realised I must be on the back of David's truck. I heard the girls get in, and the engine start. The girls chatted to each other, safe and happy. They had no idea their mum was battered and trapped in a bin just feet away.
As we rumbled along the road, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Hunched over in the bin, my knees throbbed and my bare feet were numb from the icy snow. I don't know how long we drove for, but after we'd stopped, David silently wheeled me somewhere. I heard banging and scraping, a door slammed, and he was gone.
Somehow, I managed to spit my gag out, and the smell of new plastic wafted up my nostrils.
I waited to be sure he'd gone, then screamed for all I was worth. Frantically, I tried to open the lid. It wouldn't budge. I didn't dare let myself think of the unborn baby inside me… it would break my heart. And I needed to be strong for Amanda and Holly. But trapped in the dark, shivering and scared out of my mind, the minutes blurred into hours. I screamed until my voice was barely a croak. I felt my body getting weaker, my breathing slowing down, my eyes getting heavy.
I don't know how many hours had passed, before finally I heard voices. Was David back to finish me off? I heard clunking on the top of the lid, then it opened. Squinting as the light streamed in, I saw it was two paramedics. It was over. I was saved. Next thing I remember, I was in Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Illinois. As the horrific reality came flooding back, a real fear hit me.
'Where is he?' I croaked to the nurse. 'Where are the girls?'
'David's in jail,' she said. 'Your sister, Patti, has the kids.'
I listened as the doctor explained how, after taping me up and dumping me in the bin, David had driven over 50 miles to a storage unit he'd rented, in Wheeling, Illinois. There, he'd sealed the bin lid and locked it, before driving off and leaving me to die. And I probably would have done, if it hadn't been for the desperate call to the police I'd made when he'd been attacking me. Thankfully, they'd traced my mobile phone to his house. When they'd turned up, neighbours reported seeing him towing my car with his truck. They managed to find out he'd rented the lock-up, where they'd then discovered the wheelie bin.
The temperature had dropped to minus 11°C that night.
'You have severe frostbite in your toes,' the doctor said. 'We may have to amputate them.'
But the worst was yet to come.
'I'm afraid you miscarried your baby,' he said gently.
'I never thought it would survive,' I whispered, too shell-shocked to cry.
And I was still in a state of shock when Nick arrived, along with my mum, Joanne, 62, and dad, Tom, 65.
It was another 10 days before I felt ready to see the kids. I wanted to wait for the bruises to fade, and to feel strong enough to put on a brave face. But when I saw them, I held them so tight. I never wanted to let them go.
'Did Dad do that?' Amanda asked, looking at my badly bruised face and bandaged feet.
I nodded, holding back the tears.
A week on, I learned I would have to have all my toes amputated. For the next two months, I focused on learning to balance again, before I was eventually allowed home. Then, in August 2005, came David's court case. I stood in Racine County Circuit Court, Wisconsin, and stared at him in his prison uniform and handcuffs, flanked by a police escort. I wasn't scared of him any more. He was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and jailed for 35 years, with a further 20 years of extended supervision. I closed my eyes and let out a long sigh of relief. Now, I had the power. Since David tried to kill me, Nick and I have had a son, Benjamin, now 18 months old, and the girls are growing into happy young women.
Nick and I have created the family I'd always wanted, and David is in jail. He tried to take
it all away from me. But now he has nothing. While I have everything.