Domestic Violence Headlines for the Week of March 17

The cycle continues—another week, another wave of news stories exposing the risks women endure.

The Chiefs’ Xavier Worthy Escapes Charges After Accusations of Strangling Fiancé 

A court filing made public this week revealed accusations of serious violence by Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy, who was arrested in Texas earlier this month for domestic violence. He was released from jail soon after when prosecutors declined to file charges. 

In the filing, Worthy’s fiancé, Tia Jones, says the 21-year-old NFL player had physically assaulted her at least five times over the last year. She claims that, in separate incidents, he pushed her to the ground using both hands, picked her up and slammed her on the bed and strangled her during an argument. Jones says that the incident that resulted in Worthy’s arrest involved him grabbing her by the throat and lifting her off the ground before slamming her on the floor. A few hours later, Jones says Worthy strangled her a second time. She writes, “I felt like I was going to die.”

Jones now has an order of protection against Worthy while his attorneys have publicly denied all claims of his abuse, deciding instead to blame Jones for the violence. 

“There have been no prior police calls during their relationship,” stated Worthy’s attorneys. “It is our understanding Ms. Jones did not respond to the detectives for several days after Mr. Worthy’s arrest, despite their efforts to contact her. It is Ms. Jones who has been the aggressor against Mr. Worthy in their relationship.”

It should be noted that many survivors of abuse face victim blaming for not reporting the abuse to police immediately. Many survivors are afraid to call police because the abuser has threatened to harm them further if they do. Some survivors are in denial that the abuse is as bad as it really is. Others may feel ashamed and blame themselves for somehow causing the abuse. 

DARVO is a way that abusers try to deny responsibility for abuse. The acronym stands for deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. The abuser gaslights the survivor into believing the abuse didn’t happen before attacking the victim’s credibility or actions to accuse her of being the aggressor. 

Source: The San Joaquin Valley Sun

Increase in Youth Violence Points to Perpetrators Once Being Victims

Reasons behind an increase in violence committed by young people was the focus of a recent study out of Switzerland. Researchers found that while youth violence fell from the mid 2000s to the mid 2010s, it increased between 2014 and 2021. The study found that there was an overlap between those young people who committed violence and those who were victims of violence. In other words, kids who were subjected to family violence or bullying may grow up to perpetuate violence toward others. 

"Victims become perpetrators and vice versa," says Denis Ribeaud from the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich. This fact is often overlooked due to stereotypes that presume victims and perpetrators are two completely separate identities. However, studies here in the U.S. show that the more adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, an individual experiences, the more at risk they are of becoming a perpetrator of violence or a victim of violence in a teen or adult relationship. 

Here in the states, the most at-risk group for intimate partner violence are girls and women between the ages of 16 and 24. One in 12 high school students reported being physically abused by a dating partner in the past year, and the same number reported sexual dating violence, according to the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2019. 

Ribeaud also identified personality traits and attitudes that may influence a use of violence among young people, such as a lack of self-control, standards of toxic masculinity and a lack of conflict resolution skills.

Among the traits of toxic masculinity is a strict adherence to gender roles. The American Psychological Association says men may use violence and control in relationships as a way of maintaining sexist beliefs and dominance over women.

Professor of criminology Dirk Baier out of Zurich says there’s at least one encouraging factor facing this increase in violence—less tolerance towards accepting aggressive behavior. He points to the extensive media coverage of violence committed by young people. 

"These days, society is less willing to accept violence, and that's a good thing," says Baier. 

Source: Science News Wire 

Wyoming Woman Still Missing, Boyfriend to Be Released from Prison

A man named as a person of interest in his girlfriend’s disappearance from Gillette, Wyoming, is set to be released from prison this month after serving just three years. Nathan Hightman, 41, pled guilty to three felonies related to his girlfriend, Irene Gakwa’s disappearance in 2022, including deleting her email account, draining her bank account and maxing out her credit cards. Among the purchases Hightman made using Gakwa’s credit cards after she went missing was a pair of boots and a shovel from Walmart. 

Gakwa’s brother, Kennedy Wainaina of Idaho says his family was not made aware that Gakwa had a parole hearing.

“We had no clue that he was granted parole, and we would have definitely attended to present victim statements,” he told the local newspaper. “Very disappointing to see how the system is favoring him, and the victim is not even informed.”

Gakwa was 32 when she moved to Gillette with Hightman where she studied nursing. She had moved to the U.S. two years prior from Kenya to join her brothers in pursuing a career in the medical field. She met Hightman on Craigslist. 

Police have released few details about Gillette’s case, but say that it is still active and open, and also, that they’re looking for a 55-gallon steel drum that may have gone missing at the same time as Gillette. 

Domestic violence is vastly underreported for many reasons, as previously stated—denial, shame, fear of retribution. Abuse can all too often lead to homicide without a victim ever reporting previous incidents of violence. At least half of all women and girls who are murdered are killed by a current or former intimate partner, according to the CDC. For a list of warning signs that an abusive partner may be escalating to homicide, read, “Will an Abuser Kill You?”