The Stories

Dale Wells, a 358-pound man from Columbia, S.C., was shot five times by his ex-girlfriend four years ago. One bullet went through his chest, one went through his arm, two through his back, and one through his neck. Miraculously, though, he survived.

My research on domestic violence has introduced me to incredible people, people I know I would not have met otherwise. I met three victims of domestic abuse at a domestic violence symposium Columbia College is hosting.

Sylvia J. Allen-Ouzts was in an abusive relationship for years before she decided to act. She filed for a divorce from her husband of 25 years. Saying her then-husband reacted poorly to the idea of a divorce is putting it lightly.

“He said the only divorce for him was a cemetery,“ said Allen-Ouzts, according to an article in The State.

Allen-Ouzts went to police, scared for her life, and was told to go home and lock her doors. Just three hours later, her husband showed up with a gun, shot the lock off of her bedroom door, and then shot her three times. Eleven years after the shooting, Allen-Ouzts is partially paralyzed, almost deaf in her left ear and suffers from chronic pain. Allen-Ouzts and her ex-husband are still quite close because of the family they have together.

Permeco Myers knew her attacker for more than 20 years. The abuse started when her on-again-off-again boyfriend became jealous and constantly accused her of seeing other men. One night, she woke up to him choking her, demanding that she admit to infidelity. When she refused to admit to the lie, her boyfriend began to slap her. He loaded a gun, claiming he was going to have to kill Myers, and forced Myers to open her mouth. He put the barrel of the gun in Myers’ mouth, but did not pull the trigger. He calmed down and apologized for accusing Myers of cheating on him.

Myers spoke to Sistercare, a program in Columbia, S.C. that assists victims of battering, and left the city to avoid her boyfriend. After she obtained an order of protection and her boyfriend was forced to move out of her house, she returned to her home. One day when she returned home after grocery shopping, she saw her boyfriend standing in her living room. He smashed a bottle over her head, slapped her and dragged her into the kitchen. After he taped her hands and grabbed two knives, he forced Myers into the bedroom. He started to move one of the knives across her neck. He stabbed her in the right thigh, then in the chest. When the attack was over and Myers woke up in the hospital, she had sustained two stab wounds to the chest, a stab wound in the thigh, one in the flank and a fractured bone in her left cheek. Her boyfriend was convicted.

 Dave Wells‘ story is the most interesting to me. Usually when men are abused by a female partner, it is because the female is retaliating against abuse she has suffered. However, Wells is a true victim.

Wells was dating his girlfriend for a year before she started exhibiting what Wells calls signs of domestic violence. She became controlling, always wanted to know where he was and used threats to get him to do what she wanted, including threatening to kill his pet pug so he would stay home from work one day. When he returned home from work one day to find pictures destroyed, flat-screen televisions broken and other property damaged, he said it was time for her to go. So, his girlfriend left.

Wells kept in touch with his ex-girlfriend, who moved to New York after Wells kicked her out of his house. Two months after she left, his ex-girlfriend returned to Columbia to surprise him for his birthday. When Wells pulled into the parking lot of the hotel where his ex-girlfriend was staying, she kissed him on the cheek and said she was there to kill him and then herself. She even showed Wells the pawn shop receipt for a .357 Magnum revolver. She didn’t shoot Wells that day, though, and asked him to drive her to the train station so she could go back to New York.

Wells lost touch with his estranged girlfriend after that, and the two didn’t speak again until June of 2007. The conversation was fairly typical, consisting of idle chat about Wells’ golf game and the weather. Wells’ ex-girlfriend then asked him what he was doing. When Wells told her he was taking out the trash, the call was dropped. Once outside, Wells heard a distinctive, “Dale.” He turned and found the barrel of a gun in his face. Wells’ ex-girlfriend reminded him that she was there to kill him and then herself.

Wells was shot five times: once in the chest, once in the arm, twice in the back and once in the neck, all at point-blank range. His ex-girlfriend then shot herself in the head. Today, two bullets are still embedded in Wells’ body.

 The more research I do, the more stories of domestic violence I hear, the more emotionally vested in the project I become. It is a subject that naturally tugs at my heartstrings and being able to attach faces and names to the nightmarish stories just makes the effect even more powerful.