Mom: Daughter would want others to keep trying to leave

Published 2:00 am Thursday, March 17, 2011

Martha DeFoe and her family have to say good-bye today to 26-year-old Wendy Bond, They will sit in an Athens funeral home — numb and heartbroken — while family and friends try to console them.

Meanwhile, accused killer Lamar Anderson, 45, will sit in his Limestone County Jail cell, where bail is set at $270,000. He had been charged in the past with beating Wendy and he was legally barred from seeing her. At the time of her death, Wendy was trying to take the small, slow steps to freeing herself.

Her body was found Sunday inside the abandoned Trinity school in Athens. After searching desperately for Wendy for two days, Martha had gone to the school Sunday after learning Athens Police had found the body of an unidentified woman. Capt. Floyd Johnson told Martha the woman they found had a tattoo on her hand like the one Martha had described to him.

The only way Martha can bear what stands before her today and in the coming month is to tell other abuse victims what Wendy would say if she could.

“Wendy would want people to know they are not powerless,” Martha said. “She would tell them, ‘Keep trying to leave. Don’t let a man tell you that you are worthless or that you can’t do anything else, because you are somebody.’”

Martha’s voice broke as she continued, “You are somebody’s daughter, or somebody’s mother, or somebody’s sister … you are somebody.”

She hopes one good thing comes from this tragedy.

“If anything would come out of this, I would want it to not only be retribution for him (Anderson) but for other women who are being beaten to know it could happened to them if they don’t get help. Don’t believe it is not going to happen again. Don’t believe it if he tells you he loves you. He will beat on you again.”

Martha also wants people to understand that her daughter was a victim.

“She did nothing wrong and she is the one who paid for it with her life,”she said.

In the months before the murder, Wendy had been taking the slow steps to breaking free. She was going to Hope Place— a shelter for domestic abuse victims in Decatur.

The last time Martha saw her daughter, she noticed a change — a rekindling of the loving, caring person Wendy was.

“They were so uplifting to her,” Martha said of Hope Place volunteers. “She was so happy. She said she had met with friends from school and was going to start hanging out with them and that she was going to do better things with her life. She wanted to get to where she could be able to see the children and get them back.”

Wendy has two daughters, both of which are safely living with grandparents.

Turning point

Although Wendy had tried to free herself of Anderson several times over the past several years, Martha said Anderson would either talk Wendy into coming back or he would physically force her to return.

“He threatened to kill her if she didn’t come back,” Martha said. “He would say, ‘I’ll cut your throat right now if you don’t.’ She would stay there at his house, living in fear that if she did one thing wrong or try to leave he would threaten to cut her throat or shoot her family. If she tried to leave him, he would put something in front of the door — a concrete block, anything — so that if she swung open the door he would know it.”

But, Wendy kept trying.

She was headed to Hope Place on Dec. 26, 2010, when Anderson got hold of her for the second to the last time, Martha said.

“She left our house Christmas Day and she was supposed to have gone to Hope Place the night after Christmas but the roads were icy, so she planned to go the next day, Dec. 27.

A friend was going to take Wendy to the shelter, but Anderson found out where Wendy was getting a ride and went there.

“He dragged her out in the street and beat her there and then took her to his house (at 18078 East Limestone Road, Lot D),” Martha said. “He kept her there and would not let her leave.”

After learning her daughter had not made it to Hope Place, Martha called the Limestone County Sheriff’s Department and asked them to check on Wendy’s welfare. Chief Investigator Stanley McNatt confirmed the sheriff’s office received a call for a welfare check on Dec. 26 and dispatched a deputy to the home.

Anderson told the deputy Wendy was not at his home and that the last time he had seen her was the previous Sunday. The report does not indicate whether the deputy came inside the home, and McNatt said unless there was reason to believe she was there, the deputy may not have done so.

As soon as Wendy could get away from Anderson, she told her mother what had happened and that she heard the deputy and Anderson at the door but couldn’t get out of bed and, apparently, could not call out or was afraid to.

“She called us when she finally got a chance and could get to a phone,” Martha said. “She told me, ‘I was there (at the house) and I heard everything they were saying but I couldn’t get out.’”

Wendy filed assault charges on Anderson because, her mother said, “He really beat her up bad that time.”

Wendy returned to Hope Place thereafter, but because Anderson knew where she was, they decided to move her to another facility.

“They do a great job,” Martha said of Hope Place and facilities like them. “They encourage women and let them know they do not have to be the victim of violence at home. Wendy was happy. She was so happy. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder anymore.”

Martha said the volunteers helped Wendy through the process of going to court in January to seek protection from abuse from Anderson, which was granted. They were also with her when she filed the assault charge over the December beating, she said.

“The assault charge was pending when this came about,” Martha said of her daughter’s murder. “We were waiting for a court date.”

Last days

March 9 was the last time Martha talked to Wendy.

Exactly what transpired, she is unsure. A friend had brought Wendy to Athens Wednesday morning to visit a friend. Wendy later called the person who was supposed to take her back to Hope Place that evening and told the person something on the telephone — a reason she didn’t make it back to Hope Place that evening.

“If you don’t show back up at Hope Place, there is a process they go through. If they can’t reach you, they call your family.”

Martha and her husband, Steve, continued to call and search for Wendy Thursday and Friday, and they called authorities to do a welfare check. By Friday morning, Hope Place called authorities because no one had heard from Wendy. On Saturday, Martha and Steve called everyone they knew and searched everywhere they could think of for Wendy. On Sunday, their other daughter, who was living elsewhere, learned Athens Police had found the body of a woman in the school.

“We went straight to the crime scene and stayed there,” Martha said. “I felt like it was her because I knew she would not go so long without calling. She would have responded.”

A man walking through the park found Wendy’s coat and purse and, possibly, her shoes on the ball field and had called police. Officers found evidence of a struggle, searched the buildings in the area, and found Wendy.

Even though Wendy was killed in her struggle to be free, Martha believes she would want other women to know that they must reach out for help and to keep doing so.

“She would want kids out there to know they have to depend on family or people in the community to help them,” she said. “And they have to keep trying.”

That others might be successful, where Wendy could not, eases the pain for Martha and her family.