GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Katie Hall smiles brightly whenever she talks about her son Dylan.
“He was a funny kid, stubborn. He was so loving,” Hall said with a big smile. “He was a funny, funny kid. He loved his mom. He loved his sister. Loved to sing and dance. Loved Paw Patrol. That was his favorite.”
Hall then took a long pause and said “I miss him. I miss him so much.”
In 2021, Dylan’s young life was cut short when his father, Hall’s then-husband, killed him.
Hall said she did everything in her power to prevent this from happening. She called the police when he hit her daughter, whom she had in a previous relationship. She had audio and video recordings of the abuse, left home completely and filed for divorce. However, efforts to obtain legal protection were unsuccessful.
“We were going through a divorce, and originally we had supervised visitation. We had gone through Friend of the Court and they had a policy of they didn’t accept audio or video recordings of abuse. So the reason I had stayed was for that, to show and prove and all of my proof wasn’t considered,” Hall said during an interview with FOX 17 in December 2022. “And because the PPO was dropped, he was able to purchase two firearms. And that’s what he used. There was really not a whole lot of investigation into him.”
Hall said he was granted unsupervised parenting time. Two weeks after he was granted that he killed Dylan and then himself.
These days, Hall finds comfort in her son’s sweet memories. However, she said the abuse started early in the marriage.
“It was right after we got married that I notice this, it was like a Jekyll Hyde. He just went from being a sweet charming funny guy to just belittling, demeaning,” she said. “A lot of it I wrote off. He had a difficult job. You know, I was really busy. I was in school. We had moved.”
However, in December 2019 things took a turn for the worst when he was fired from his job as a corrections officer with MDOC, Hall stated via email. She said his life and image was wrapped up in being an officer.
“It just progressively got worse. I got pregnant and after my son was born he started making threats. They were few and far between at first,” Hall said. “But they became more frequent. Then it was how he planned to do it, his means to a firearm.”
Hall felt trapped, she said.
Safe Haven Ministries, which helps women leave, survive and heal from abusive relationships, said that victims can feel trapped when a major life shift happens, and in the winter months.
“I think around the holidays, too, a lot of victims, I’ve heard a lot of victims say like ‘I want to keep our families together for the holidays.’ There’s a lot of shame that victims experience,” said Tara Aday, senior director of programs at Safe Haven. “So, I think it’s normal for victims to say I want to keep it together, especially if they have kids.”
According to multiple sources, family law offices, and the Rape Assault Incest National Network, also called RAINN, abuse can increase in the winter due to family pressure around the holidays and extreme weather.
“Whenever somebody stays in the relationship, an abusive relationship longer, again the probability of it becoming more violent goes up,” Aday said. “As a society, we often don’t talk a lot about domestic violence. So, again, in the winter months too you might not have even as much visibility around a potentially dangerous situation, coupled with that idea ‘Well, it’s not my business. I don’t want to get involved in something and make it worse,’ [that] can create again another environment where domestic violence can thrive.”
According to RAINN, during the winter and cold months calls jump 20 percent on their sexual assault hotline, and over 50 percent of sexual violence occurs at or near the home.
“The physical [abuse] that I experienced was extremely covert. So, it wasn’t something that a lot of people would’ve seen. It was walking past me and intentionally stepping on my toes. Walking past me and like bumping me into a wall,” said one woman at Safe Haven who did not want to be identified. “There was a lot of those types of things for a really long time. Then it built up to the point where I was pregnant with our second child and I experienced the official pushing, shoving, and greater threats.”
The woman also stated that she endured verbal abuse in the home.
“The physical is what made me actually take that step to leave, but the verbal and emotional had depleted me to a point where I just didn’t have any value,” the woman recalled. “I didn’t see myself as valuable. I didn’t see that there would be a reason to really exist.”
Both the woman and Hall have since undergone counseling and sought help at Safe Haven, which takes an average 2,000 hotline calls a year.
Safe Haven said in Kent County, a domestic violence court was created, which gives them hope that abusers will be held accountable.
As for the women, they said there are many factors that feed into domestic violence and it happens year-round.
Nevertheless, they said that everyone has the ability to help. So they encouraged people to check in on friends, loved ones, and co-workers and lend a listening ear.
“Believe them,” Hall advised. “What they say sounds crazy because it is. There’s nothing normal about domestic violence. And it looks different for everyone. And don’t, don’t blame them for it. It’s not their fault.”
***If you or a loved one is in an abusive relationship, click here.***
***National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1-800-799-7233***
