I write quite often on domestic abuse. Safety for women. Tips on dating safely. Normal topics for the token single woman navigating the universe as best she can. Sometimes, my work includes local true crime, or domestic abuse victims’ stories.
Deputy Abigail Bieber was the subject of one of those stories. She was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who was a detective with the same law enforcement agency, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department, located in Florida.
I remember the morning I wrote the column; how angry I was. I rattle on and on about domestic violence. It’s like I don’t have an off switch. I was once in an abusive relationship, and nearly lost my life at the hands of that person. Literally. He strangled me.
The early reports about Deputy Bieber included an officer in distress, and suicide prevention, footnote. I read the story and gasped at the words on the screen. It made me see red.
You see, there was nothing about this crime that had to do with the abuser being suicidal due to job stressors. It was blatantly a domestic violence murder, and I couldn’t believe the nerve of the writer and editor who attempted to smooth right over that fact.
In my daily column, I said as much. More than that, as well, because tangents are my thing. And then her father reached out to me.
I hadn’t heard from a victim’s family prior to that.
Bruce, her father, thanked me for setting the record straight to the best of my limited ability. And the kind words I had for his daughter.
I wasn’t simply moved. It was a conversation I never thought I would be strong enough to have.
You see, Bruce and I have something in common. We have both lost a daughter, our only daughter, and the genuine light in our lives. You can’t unload that kind of pain on just anyone.
. . .
He found, no matter the detail, I was interested.
I’m a journalist, so a story will always find an ear with me. More than that, I was a mother, and a grieving parent, and sometimes I still consider myself both, or either.
He told me about her, his daughter, Abby. She was a firecracker, that girl. I’ve spent a long time researching her, talking to people who knew her. I’ve not heard an unkind word.
I listened to her story, asked the questions that a journalist would ask. Bruce is always happy to talk about her. I imagine I would be too. She was amazing. As you can see from the photo, she was stunning. I’m told she lit up a room, in the genuine sense, not the superficial glow some people confuse with internal radiance.
She wanted to make a difference, especially with women and children. She was a mentor to other women in the law enforcement community. She had a dog. His name is Louie.
Bruce has Louie now, and I hope with everything in me, Louie lives to be a hundred. I think it’s one of my favorite things about Abby, the dog mom she was. After a while, though, I realized I was more often asking Bruce questions like, “how are you doing with it?”, rather than “have you found anything new?”
I learned about her family, her mother, Sarah, her brothers also. They’re both cops. I imagine how it must feel, for them, their kid sister taken by some piece of shit who abused women.
I hurt for them, alongside them. It’s my duty as someone who has grieved alone so long. It helps sometimes when you have someone to help you lift the weight of the pain back onto your shoulders. That’s where you carry that type of weight, so the load doesn’t shift as you walk.
. . .
Talking about the guy who murdered her seems so disrespectful once you know her story. I don’t want to talk about someone who would take the life of a woman, a special woman, and then take his own life to avoid the repercussions of his actions.
He simply isn’t worth mentioning.
But Abby? Hell, I could talk of her all day. I’ve been known to randomly show people photos of her when I tell her story, like a proud parent. I think sometimes that if my daughter were still here, she would have turned out a lot like Abby was. I would have been so damned proud.
I understand why her parents were so steadfast in their efforts to get to the bottom of the situation. There isn’t a stone they’ve left unturned. I’ve helped to turn a few myself, in the capacity of my job.
And I have listened. I’ve listened in the beginning, when the grief was so much, so large. Then, through the anger. The outright disbelief that this coward could take their baby daughter, their little sister, and nobody from his family has so much as apologized to them. That the agency who swore brotherhood to her didn’t honor her memory as they do other slain officers, most likely due to the fact that they’re afraid of culpability being assigned to them.
I used to think Andrew Warren was infallible. He stood up to DeSantis, after all, in defense of women. I then found out that someone from his office was the D.A. who came to the scene when Abby’s’ murderer was going to be arrested for domestic battery, and probably worse.
The D.A. who allowed her murderer to walk, retain his gun rights, retain his position with the Sheriff’s Department, and all but sign off on her death. Instead of being stripped of his ability to own a firearm, he was free to go, not so much as a letter in his file.
It happens often, more often than we want to believe. In 2017, when Abby’s’ murderer assaulted his ex-girlfriend, he should have been treated like any other domestic abuser. Sadly, we know that never occurred. He isn’t the first or the last to be handed no repercussions for their abuse of their partners, but he is the abuser who stole a woman from her family and her dog.
I’ve been on this ride with the Bieber family for nearly two years, looking for answers. Trying to understand how there were three off duty sheriff’s deputies in the next room, and none of them would leave the safety of a closet while armed to try to save Abby. How none of them have been reprimanded for, at minimum, cowardice.
They’ve not been issued an apology, and once the initial headlines were written, they were written into the department’s history, unceremoniously at that.
. . .
These days, I always warn Bruce if I pick up word on the wire of a domestic situation that could be triggering. Or if I write about something of the sort, because he reads my column. I try to check on his mentality, the family’s well-being and such. They’re good people, the group of them.
They never thought it would be their daughter, not like this. I get that. Way down in my soul, I get that.
As for me, I’m still doing all I can to find some answers, interviewing experts like Mark Wynn, and thinking about Abby on the nights I can’t sleep. It’s the place my mind wanders when I wonder about my domestic abuse survivors, and the plans I’ve laid to help them in the future.
I know one day I’ll write different statistics, those not reflecting the deaths of so many women. I know one day we’ll be safe in our homes, truly in my heart I believe it. And I know that it will be because of women like Abby, who gave their lives so people could understand the magnitude of the problem. I can’t wait to write that column, and I know exactly who I’m sharing it with first.
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This post was previously published on Ellemeno.
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Photo credit: iStock
Thank you for so eloquently sharing Abby’s story and shining a light on domestic violence. An amazing young woman. My heart breaks for anyone who endures such tragedy.