Empty Promises: And Other True Cases Read online

  After that, David avoided Steve, still unsure if he was serious about his offer to exchange girlfriends. "But I never introduced Steve to my current wife," he said later.

  Steve seldom worked, but he always had a new car and plenty of spending money. Sherri had tried desperately to help Steve grow up, alternately indulging him and banishing him. He was moody and unpredictable, and she worried about him. Still, his main activities were partying and breaking the law. Sherri was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Steve's police contacts were initially limited to his own fairly circumscribed neighborhood. In November 1981, shortly after his twentieth birthday, he and a girlfriend were at a Lynnwood pizza parlor. Steve, who was drunk, stared at two attractive women; one was with her husband, and the other was with a boyfriend. Emboldened by alcohol, Steve pinched one woman's buttocks. When she whirled in disbelief and dismay, Steve threatened her male friends. Lynnwood police responded and found Steve argumentative and uncooperative. When they moved to handcuff him and take him into custody, he ran. He was charged with simple assault and resisting arrest.

  Steve Sherer's troubles with the law seemed always to be sparked by alcohol or women— or both. His attraction to Jami Hagel wasn't surprising when one looked at the women he dated before— and after— his relationship with her. He had a preferred type and he often found women who fit it. He was never without a fabulous-looking petite woman at his side.

  Steve was unfailingly attracted to women who were tiny, large-breasted, and blond. He would send roses and romantic cards to them during his courting phase. He could be charming and exciting— at first. But almost every girl who dated Steve for any length of time eventually came to regret she ever met him. Beyond emotional and verbal abuse, they were subjected to threats, choking, and beatings. Steve seemed to have an almost Svengali-like power over certain women that kept them captive long after common sense would have dictated that they leave.

  Two months after his father's suicide— in January 1984, long before he met Jami Hagel— Steve began to date Bettina Rauschberg.* Bettina was a prototype for Steve's ideal woman, and she found him fun and loving when she first met him. Entranced, Bettina moved with Steve to Balboa Beach, California, in early 1984. They lived in an apartment there, but Bettina soon learned that Steve could erupt into violence whenever he imagined that she was unfaithful. She never considered being with another man and was upset when Steve wouldn't trust her.

  Even so, when one of his friends dropped by their apartment, she didn't think twice before telling the man he could wait for Steve. The friend was lying on the living room carpet watching TV and Bettina was in the kitchen making pizza when Steve came home half an hour later. He was agitated to begin with— she didn't know why— and the sight of another man in the apartment threw him into a maniacal rage. Steve grabbed a bottle and smashed it over his friend's head. The man ran, and Bettina raced for the bathroom, slamming it and locking it against Steve. She was scared to death of him when he was angry.

  "He broke down the door, broke through glass," she said. "He hit me in the face and put his hands around my throat until I passed out."

  Someone in a neighboring apartment called for an ambulance, and when Bettina came to, she was in the hospital. "Steve was sitting beside my bed, saying he didn't know why he'd done that to me. He said he was sorry. He begged me not to leave him… I called his mother and she said she didn't want to hear about it. So I stayed with him."

  It was always like that; after he hurt her, Steve was contrite and seemingly horrified at his own violence. Nobody is as pitiful as a batterer when he swears he will never, ever, hit a woman again. For a while, during their second honeymoon period, Steve kept his word, but inevitably something set him off again.

  Bettina wasn't encouraged to have friends of her own, but she met a couple at work who sensed that something was wrong in her life. When she confided in them about Steve's abuse and how frightened she was sometimes, they told her that no one had to live in fear. The next time Steve blew up at her, she accepted the couple's offer to move in with them.

  When they knew Steve was away, they took Bettina back to the apartment she'd shared with Steve so she could pack some of her clothing and belongings. Her key still worked in the front door, but when they walked in, they gasped in horror. All of Bettina's stuffed animals and dolls lay on the carpet, and they had been neatly decapitated.

  There was a note that read "That's what I'm going to do to you."

  Bettina moved out, but only for a short time. She soon moved back in with Steve, convinced that he really would kill her if she stayed away too long.

  Bettina stayed with Steve through a number of other brutal incidents, relenting each time when he sobbed that he couldn't get along without her. His promises meant nothing at all. By May 1985 they were back in Lynnwood when police were called to a fitness club where they worked out. They found Bettina bruised and scratched. Tearfully, she told them that Steve had hit her in the face several times and kicked her car. She had made the mistake of trying to break up with him. He was arrested on May 29 for simple assault and malicious mischief.

  Bettina continued down the predictable path of a victim of domestic violence: She got a temporary order of protection against Steve on June 2 and a permanent order two weeks later. As far as the police knew, the couple went their separate ways. But orders of protection are about as strong as the paper they're written on.

  Bettina tried to stay away from him, but breaking up with a man like Steve Sherer was not easy. Even though he began to date Jami Hagel, he continued to harass and threaten Bettina. He was far from out of her life. On March 4, 1986, Steve hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious. Bettina didn't call the police, deciding to bide her time in the hope that she could get away from Steve without angering him further. She'd called the police before, but they couldn't be there every time Steve beat her. She was running scared.

  Steve had Jami now, Bettina figured, and perhaps he would let her go. Oddly, both women lived in the same apartment building; Steve had arranged that. Sometimes he was with Jami; sometimes he wanted to come back to Bettina. He hit them both when they got out of line. He was short, but he prided himself on his muscles and he honed them at health clubs so that his biceps bulged. He often appeared in police reports because he got into fights at parties with other men. He seemed unable to go more than five or six months without exploding in one way or another.

  Bettina went back to Steve; she couldn't resist him when he was sweet. It appeared to the Lynnwood police who responded to a call for help on March 6, 1986, that Sherer intended to own both Bettina and Jami. Bettina told them she wondered why Jami stayed with Steve, and yet she couldn't see that her own situation was a mirror image of Jami's.

  "Jami was always crying that spring," Bettina remembered, adding that Jami was fiercely loyal to Steve even though she knew he was really with Bettina. Apparently he had told Jami that it was Bettina who caused all the problems. Maybe Jami thought that she could make Steve happy. Let her try, Bettina thought wearily.

  On that rainy night of March 6, Steve showed up at the apartment he shared with Bettina in Alderwood in the wee hours of the morning, only to find her packing her bags to leave him again. She couldn't share him any longer, she said, and she was sick of having him gone all night, even when she knew he wasn't with Jami. Despite his growing interest in Jami, Steve wouldn't allow Bettina to walk away from him— not until he said it was over.

  It was a terrible time for both young women. "There were a lot of bad memories," Bettina said, trying to sort out one single incident from a string of abuse.

  But this was the night when she finally decided to leave. Steve didn't come home. Bettina was worried about how she would get to work by seven the next morning. "I had no ride and Steve had the car," she recalled. "He'd been out all night long. He kept calling and saying he was on his way home, but he never got there. When he finally walked in, I picked up my bags to leave."

&
nbsp; She told the officers who responded to her 911 call that she was almost at the door when something slammed into the back of her head. Blood streamed down her neck from a deep gash in her scalp. Steve had thrown a heavy shot glass at her, and it had shattered on impact. She was lucky to have only a concussion.

  Bettina was taken to the ER to have her wound stitched up, and then police accompanied her back to her apartment to ensure her safety. That was a prudent decision; when they searched the premises, they found Steve Sherer hiding under a blanket in the bedroom closet. When he was arrested and led past Bettina, he turned to her, shouting, "Fuck off! I'm going to kill that bitch!"

  The officers noted his remark in the police report; it would come back to haunt him.

  This time, Steve was convicted— but only of second-degree assault. He filed his own complaint, accusing the arresting officers of using excessive force. His charges were judged to be unfounded.

  Within two days, Steve transferred his affections to Jami Hagel. Although there were a few more legal skirmishes, Bettina had finally succeeded in extricating herself from a punishing alliance. She would, however, never completely get over her fear of Steve Sherer. More than a decade later, she was still afraid of him.

  2

  Bettina Rauschberg was only one woman among more than a million in 1986 who had suffered injuries in what the U.S. Justice Department calls intimate partner abuse. Most of the physical attacks were, like hers, deemed simple assaults. Ten years earlier, 1,600 women and slightly fewer men had died in domestic disputes; ten years later, 1,320 women and 510 men were killed by "intimate partners." Through sheer luck or a final desperate decision to run, Bettina got away. Experts on domestic violence have a rule of thumb; it takes seven beatings before a woman or a man will find the strength and the courage to leave.

  Some don't make it that far.

  The man Bettina escaped from was the same man that Jami Hagel took home to meet her family. Steve had a way with women, a power that only those who fell in love with him could explain— if even they could put it into words. He wasn't that good-looking, he wasn't that affluent unless his mother helped him out, and he had demonstrated an explosive temper. Still, he never lacked for female company.

  From the beginning, Jami Hagel was mesmerized by Steve, and her parents and brothers carefully held their breath, reminding each other that they mustn't criticize him or she would be even more attracted to him. But they didn't want to give him a stamp of approval either. Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered; Jami was in love with Steve and determined to marry him. The Hagels watched in horror as they saw their feisty, bubbly, self-assured daughter and sister become more and more submissive to a stranger in their midst. They had no idea how to stop her frightening metamorphosis.

  As he did with every woman in his life, Steve set out to "customize" Jami to meet his specifications. She was the right size and had a lovely face, but that wasn't good enough. Although Jami's thick brown hair was one of her best features, Steve told her he much preferred blondes. Jami lightened her hair, but it reacted oddly to the bleaching process, which left it orange-yellow.

  True to the profile of the abusive male, Steve systematically distanced Jami from her family. He complained about how close she was to them and was annoyed by family get-togethers. When he did go to holiday dinners or ball games with her, Jami constantly darted glances at Steve to see what his reaction was. His mood was more important to her than anything else. She was no longer the confident young woman she had been; her whole life seemed dedicated to making Steve happy, even when his demands were excessive and selfish. She was very tentative, looking to Steve to determine what he wanted her to do and say.

  Steve didn't want Jami to see her women friends, her family, or anyone else who took her attention away from him. His was the classic posturing of the possessive male. To make the situation worse, as he had done with Bettina, Steve convinced Jami that they should move to California.

  "They came to our house," Judy Hagel recalled, "and said they were going to California, supposedly for a vacation for a week. I think that was in May 1986. But I just sort of had a feeling it wasn't going to be just a week, and so I waited all week long, just waited for Sunday so she could come home. She didn't come home. The next thing I know I get a phone call from her saying they've decided to stay in California… I kept in close touch with her. She called me often, and I called while she was there."

  Judy and Jerry Hagel had watched their precious daughter drive away from everyone she had always counted on as she and Steve headed off to Palm Desert, California. She was an adult; there was nothing they could do. She had yet to marry Steve and they hoped she never would. Judy Hagel had seen purple bruises and the marks of fingers on Jami's arms and legs. Jami always had an explanation about falling, banging her elbow on a doorway, or hurting herself in some other way.

  Steve had good reason to want to leave the state of Washington. He had been bombarding Bettina with phone calls and letters, and she was frightened enough of him to call the police to record each violation of her order of protection.

  More dangerous to him was a recent burglary in Bellevue. In the late afternoon of April 7, 1986, someone had broken into a residence and taken stereo equipment, jewelry, and a small-caliber handgun. Without a job, with his mother cutting down on loans and hand-outs, and with his prodigious appetite for drugs and gambling, Steve was hungry for money.

  Bellevue detectives were able to lift latent finger prints but AFIS (Automatic Fingerprint Identification System) was not yet in wide use. (In October 1988, AFIS matched the burglary prints to Steven Frank Sherer, but that was two years after the fact.)

  In California, Steve continued his spotty work history; he had worked occasionally for his father's construction firm, but he didn't have any particular skill as a builder. Sometimes he got sales jobs, but they never lasted long. He still liked to gamble and he still liked drugs; he was more than dabbling in cocaine by this time. And he always drove like a bat out of hell.

  Steve spent some time in jail on traffic warrants in San Bernadino in September 1986. While he was there, he flooded Jami with romantic cards:

  I miss you, baby! When I get out, will you spend the rest of your life with me? I hope so, because your [sic] what I want in life. Your what I'm living for! Please wait for me. Wait and spend the rest of your life in my arms. I love you so much and it just gets stronger every day. Please have faith in our love.… Things will never be bad. Just better each and every day.… Life is only worth the love that one can share with another and I'd like to make mine worth billions with you!

  Love forever,

  Steven

  Steve always called Jami his little rose. "To the flower of my life," he wrote. "Soon to be future wife with all the love in my heart. I care for you with my life, giving it up for you at any moment. I can't stand not having you within my sight. Forever I will love you, no matter what the future holds, you'll never leave my heart and I'll always see you as my ROSE!"

  Jami was working, trying to keep up with their bills. She missed Steve too, and no woman could ask for more romantic mail.

  But it was easy for a man in jail to feel romantic. The bruises and scratches that were always with Jami when she lived with Steve began to heal. Her faith began to blossom. Of course, when Steve came home, he lost much of his romantic veneer. His mother was trying tough love, so they had money problems. Steve couldn't live the way he wanted to.

  Judy Hagel didn't know about most of Jami's problems, but Jami called her one night and she was crying. "They were down around a swimming pool somewhere and he was not being nice to her," Judy said. "I told her to leave, and she said that he had threatened to kill himself with a knife if she left him, and I told her she had to come home. I said, 'I will catch a flight to Los Angeles and I will get you and we'll pick up your car and we'll come home. 'And she says okay.… The next morning I call her and of course everything was okay and she wasn't coming home."

  Worried, Judy
and Jerry Hagel arranged to meet Jami and Steve in Las Vegas in October 1986. It was the first time they had seen Jami's shocking metamorphosis. "I walked into this casino," Judy recalled in a hushed voice. "Jami was just a very small person. She weighed probably all of ninety pounds dripping wet.… All I saw was cheekbones and big brown eyes and blond hair. She had dyed her hair blond.… She was so thin it was awful. I could not believe this was Jami, but it was. And we tried to go have a talk, but we just couldn't be left alone [by Steve] and so we left and she went back to California with Steve, and Jerry and I went home."

  Judy and Jerry Hagel had no idea the kind of life Jami was living or the terror that she felt more and more often. They didn't care for Steve, but if he made Jami happy, they respected her right to choose a mate.

  By November 1986, Jami and Steve were living in a double-wide mobile home on Portola Avenue in Palm Desert, California. They were secretly engaged, and Steve gave Jami an heirloom ring. It was a size four, yellow gold with three round full-cut diamonds. The center stone was perfect and over a carat in weight; the side stones were .24 carats each, and it was appraised at $13,500. Steve suggested they take out insurance on it and their other expensive possessions. The policy, which went into effect in October, was written by Farmers' Insurance for a year.