Authors: Irene Pence
No, Daddy, Don't! (9 page)
T
HIRTEEN
HIRTEEN
Awash in sixty inches of rainfall each year, Baton Rouge is a lush subtropical city of a quarter million people. Magnolia trees blossom with white flowers as big as dinner plates. Baton Rouge, the state’s capital, hugs the shores of the Mississippi River, where commerce crawls from St. Louis to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico.
“Baton Rouge” is French for “red stick,” and it was a red stick, or maypole, that the soldiers saw in 1699, laden with fish and bear heads and dripping with blood that gave the city its name.
Michelle LaBorde happily reclaimed her birthplace when she moved back to Baton Rouge on September 14, 1987, and even welcomed its humid, eighty-five-degree days.
Michelle had left Dallas under cover of darkness, taking the 9:17
P.M.
flight. She and her children took only the clothes they could wear and what they could pack in suitcases.
P.M.
flight. She and her children took only the clothes they could wear and what they could pack in suitcases.
The following week, Michelle and her mother returned to Dallas to pack up the rest of the house, again at night.
Now in Baton Rouge, Michelle was happy to be back in the arms of her large, outspoken, southern Louisiana family, who raised their voices when they were excited, happy, sad, mad, or just wanted to be heard. Her parents and a brother and sister lived in Baton Rouge, and another sister in Lafayette. The antithesis of Battaglia’s distant, noncommunicative family, Michelle’s family gathered at least once a month to share dinner and catch up on each other’s lives.
Michelle moved back with no job, no car, no place to live, and no school for her children, but she thanked God for the way her life began to heal itself. She may have missed the glamour of working for the large Dallas legal conglomerate, but she relished the calm of the small law firm, Anderson, Holliday and Jones, that immediately hired her. Then the insurance company paid her claim, allowing her to replace the car she had wrecked in the Dallas rainstorm. To her surprise, a nun at the best Catholic school in Baton Rouge made an exception and let Billy enroll in midyear. Then two weeks later, she found a lovely home to rent. Around the same time, the court had granted her bankruptcy discharge, so she now had a fresh financial start.
Knowing that John Battaglia would not suddenly appear on her doorstep made life more tolerable. Her children loved the hugs of their doting maternal grandparents. Life had finally become peaceful, or so she thought.
Once she had found a new home, she hired a moving company to take everything from her Dallas house. She provided the movers with the divorce decree declaring that everything in the house belonged to her, and warned that although John Battaglia would probably show up, under no circumstances were they to let him in.
Within hours of the moving van’s arrival, John appeared at the front door of the Bellewood house.
The first mover found him in the front entry and asked for his ID.
Battaglia ignored the man and tried to walk into the living room. Gesturing, he said, “Everything here belongs to me. I don’t want you people to touch a thing.”
A fellow worker joined the mover, and both men stood their ground, telling John he couldn’t enter. One man unfolded the court documents that had been stuffed in with their moving instructions. He showed them to John. “Guess you’ll have to leave, buddy,” the mover said.
John smiled. “I can’t believe she’s doing this to me. You guys know how divorce works. You buy these things for the woman and she takes them all with her.”
The men smiled and nodded like they knew what he meant.
“Tell you what, fellas, just for old times’ sake, let me take one last look at the home I shared with my wife and kids. Just for sentimental reasons. It’ll mean a lot to me.”
He was capable of looking sympathetic, and apparently did at that moment. “Oh okay, we understand,” they told him, and stepped aside so he could enter.
He waited until the men were loading a large chest of drawers into the van, then sneaked into the master bedroom. He knew that one of Michelle’s most prized possessions was the antique four-poster bed that she had inherited from her grandmother. Rushing to the bed, he knelt down on the area rug under the footboard and took out his car keys. Working quickly, he carved “CUNT” into the wood in two-inch high letters, then hurried out before the men returned.
Michelle LaBorde had been strong throughout her recovery from the attack, through her move, and through all the adjustments of getting settled in Baton Rouge. However, once she heard what Battaglia had done to her grandmother’s bed, she fell apart.
The following month, John Battaglia was still angry about Michelle’s sudden departure. Feeling revengeful, he decided to take her to court. He recruited his father to write Judge Carolyn Wright to tell her of the family’s concern about the welfare and well-being of Laura Julia.
In his letter, the senior Battaglia lamented that when he was in Dallas, Michelle had thwarted his efforts to see his granddaughter. Now that Laura was no longer in Dallas, he felt forced to turn to the Wards, Michelle’s parents, to learn of Laurie’s whereabouts. He moaned to the judge that when he had phoned the other grandparents, he received a frosty reception, describing Mrs. Ward as “barely coherent.”
The Wards were equally shocked that he had called. Didn’t the man know that his son had beaten their daughter to a pulp only two months before?
Michelle received a distinguished honor in November 1987 when she was inducted into the Louisiana State University Law School’s Hall of Fame for her performance in law school and her legal service to the community. She was presented with an impressive plaque that still hangs on her office wall today.
In the kitchen of her new home, Michelle sat at her desk, sorting mail. She stopped when she came to an envelope with the return address of the 256th Family District Court in Dallas.
Michelle ripped it open and read a subpoena demanding that she return to Dallas for a custody hearing. It contained John Battaglia’s accusation that she took his child out of state, thus limiting his access to her—and he even wanted increased visitation rights.
She typed a note to Judge Carolyn Wright, reminding her of the original custody ruling and outlining John Battaglia’s history of abuse. If court records were any consideration, a blind man could see that John didn’t need increased time with his daughter.
However, the judge replied there was nothing she could do, for regardless of what Battaglia had done in the past, Michelle had taken their daughter to another state. The fact that Michelle left Texas to save her life and keep her children from harm was not an adequate excuse.
Michelle flew back to Dallas for a tension-filled visit.
During the proceedings, Judge Wright asked Michelle’s new lawyer, Leota Alexander, to meet with her in chambers to review the documents. During their discussion, the judge exclaimed to Leota, “That John Battaglia is the best-looking man I’ve ever seen in my life!”
Michelle’s attorney was startled that the judge would make such a complimentary statement about someone with John Battaglia’s shameful assault record.
In court, the judge decided that Battaglia would be allowed to see his daughter as per his original custody agreement, but because Michelle had moved, the amount of time per visit had to be increased in order to get the child back to Texas. Therefore, Michelle would be forced to turn over two-year-old Laurie to John for three days a month, every month—in Dallas. That horrified Michelle.
John Battaglia turned around and gave Michelle a smug “You deserve this” glance.
Michelle’s lawyer brought the court’s attention to records that showed Battaglia still had a felony assault tagged to his rap sheet. This was the man who had knocked Michelle down as she held Laurie, injuring both of them. What would he do to Laurie if he had her for three days all to himself? Michelle knew in her heart that he was dangerous and capable of anything. She’d tried to tell so many people, but to no avail. Would she see Laurie again? Would he abduct her, or for God’s sake, would he do something even worse? Was the legal world insane?
F
OURTEEN
OURTEEN
The Court’s decision was much to John Battaglia’s liking. But there was no denying that he still had two dark legal clouds hanging over his head, which meant visitation was out of the question until those issues were resolved.
Those protective order violations of pushing and beating Michelle both occurred in August 1987. With postponements and rescheduling, the hearing was pushed forward to July 1, 1988, almost a year after the attacks. In the court documents, the hearing had been postponed twenty-six times. That meant that Michelle had been notified twenty-six times to appear in a Dallas court. Sometimes she found herself flying to Texas twice a month.
Michelle had endured a year of subpoenas ordering her to attend hearings, only to see each hearing canceled and rescheduled. The entire process left her exhausted and upset. Battaglia had managed to weasel his way out of all of his other offenses, and now his lawyer contacted Michelle, urging her to drop the beating charge from a third degree felony, aggravated assault to a Class A misdemeanor. If she would do that, Battaglia agreed to waive a jury trial and plead guilty to the lesser offense. The lawyer said that Battaglia’s punishment would be set at 364 days of confinement in the Dallas County jail.
That was hard for Michelle to believe, so she asked for a copy of the judgment. When it arrived, she studied it thoroughly. True, the judgment mentioned 364 days of confinement, but reading further, Michelle saw that the court, “In the best interests of society and of the defendant,” would withhold execution of the sentence and grant probation instead of jail time. Also, an additional provision of the agreement would dismiss Battaglia of the charge of shoving Michelle down the steps at her home.
How many times had Michelle been faced with these dilemmas? She didn’t want to cave in to her ex-husband yet again, but it would mean no more flying back to Dallas for court appearances, no more testifying in front of the man she had grown to hate. Battaglia would have to attend monthly probation meetings at forty dollars a session. That meant that the county would be keeping track of his attendance. He’d be restrained from further contact, either in person or by phone or mail with Michelle without the approval of the court. Michelle shook her head. She had heard that one before. But now she lived in Louisiana, so the next item in the judgment caught her eye. “John Battaglia cannot leave Dallas without the written consent of the Court.” That phrase would make it much more difficult for John Battaglia to visit his daughter.
Michelle agreed to Battaglia’s plea bargain, but his next harassing phone call made her realize that she would never be rid of the man. He called to carp about not having seen Laurie for almost a year. Michelle then realized that he would always be there, that figure slinking in the shadows, ready to pounce when he didn’t get his way.
Only months after Michelle had moved back to Baton Rouge, she was devastated to learn that her father, whom she adored and had modeled her career after, had been diagnosed with cancer and given only six months to live.
Many pictures of little blond Laurie crowded John Battaglia’s accounting office, and numerous others lined his North Dallas apartment. Some were of John holding Laurie as a brand-new baby. Others were of Laurie grinning while she took her first steps. Those taken in the last year were rare, for he had not seen Laurie in that amount of time and he was dependent on Michelle to send him photos. He found that irritating. Everyone at his accounting office was well aware of his daughter, for he talked about her constantly and told everyone how much he loved her.
Now that his sentence for the assault had been reduced to mere probation, he began pressuring the Dallas County family courts to help him arrange visits with his daughter. The court ordered an evaluation to decide if it was safe for Battaglia to have visitation rights. A well-known Dallas psychologist, Linda M. Ingraham, Ph.D., was assigned to interview and test both warring parties.
Battaglia and LaBorde were evaluated separately by Dr. Ingraham at her Oak Lawn office. Battaglia, dressed in a freshly pressed double-breasted suit, sat down on the counselor’s cushioned sofa. He was at his schmoozing best. Dr. Ingraham characterized John as “outgoing and talkative during the interviews.” He described his attack on Michelle as merely an “incident where he blackened her eyes,” because he had been “frustrated.” The doctor saw John as a nonaggressive, nonassertive person whose “overt hostility measured well below average.” The doctor described his attacks as “generally directed at the person provoking them rather than expressed as random outbursts.”
Michelle flew back to Dallas for her interview. Dr. Ingraham reported that she had a sincere concern for her daughter’s safety, but determined that Michelle had “passive-aggressive tendencies” in addition to being “impulsive.” She also found that Michelle tended to minimize her role in the problem relationship for she “provoked others to rage and then complained about the resulting mistreatment.” In other words, the doctor blamed Michelle for being assaulted.
The psychologist had given John and Michelle the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MPPI). She may not have known that John had already taken the test on four different occasions. The test scans for personality disorders, and includes 567 questions that are answered in two hours. The built-in validity of the test rests on the same question being asked in four different ways to help guarantee consistency of answers. Anyone as bright as John Battaglia could figure out how to manipulate the test by the fifth time he took it. How else could he have gotten his “overt hostility” to register well below average?
Based on her personal interview and John’s test results, the psychologist decided that he was basically an “insecure person who needed assertiveness training.” She found that “the danger to Laura appears minimal because John’s outbursts are not likely to be directed at her.” Then, arriving at a solution that could have prevented future problems, the psychologist suggested that the initial visits be supervised, as John’s outbursts “can be unpredictable.”
Finally, she concluded, “There does not seem to be a compelling reason why John should be denied access to his daughter.”
Michelle knew that John was capable of being two different people. He could be fun and caring, and at other times hateful and violent. There was no question which person showed up for the interview with Dr. Ingraham.
Michelle’s father died only five months after his cancer had been detected. It was a double blow for Michelle. Not only had she lost her father, but she lost his legal advice and emotional support, as well.
For once, the slow turn of the judicial wheels worked in Michelle’s favor. After Dr. Ingraham’s psychological test tilted in John’s favor, it wasn’t until August 11, 1989, that the family court finally completed the visitation agreement.
The courts forced Michelle to relinquish her daughter for three days every month, plus additional holiday visits. On top of that, she had to fly Laurie to Dallas each month, and then John would fly her back. All this for the man who had beaten her so savagely.
How she wished she were in a position to write abuse laws. The courts just didn’t understand what a woman had to go through. She would love to tell them.
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