Lesa Thamby?s domestic violence case against her husband was thrown out of Anne Arundel District Court about a month before emergency workers found her dying of multiple stab wounds in her Brooklyn home.
Thamby failed to appear in court in April, effectively forfeiting her case. And, now, her husband, Soman Thamby, 50, is charged with second-degree murder in her May 5 death, according to court records.
So, why didn?t she show? While court documents offer no explanation of her absence, the question highlights a problem affecting hundreds of domestic-violence victims in Anne Arundel alone, advocates say.
“It happens a lot,” said Andrea Padley, managing attorney at the YWCA in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, which provided legal services to about 800 victims of domestic violence in 2006.
“Sometimes it?s fear. If they?ve filed for a protective order against their abuser and their abuser gets to them and says, ?If you show up, I?m going to kill you? or ?If you show up, I?ll take the kids? ? it makes it very hard.”
Other times, Padley said, it?s ignorance.
“Often, they just don?t know the system. A lot of people think that they have to have an attorney to go through with it and they don?t,” she said.
But if a victim needs one, Padley and her staff make their services available at no cost. The numbers suggest her staff attorneys, which are planted in each of the county?s district courts and the circuit court, are kept busy.
YWCA last year assisted 1,228 victims of domestic violence, provided 3,152 nights of safe shelter for 98 women and 73 children, and received 2,671 calls on the domestic-violence hotline.
Anne Arundel police responded to 1,048 calls about disputes between “intimate couples” last year and 251 in 2007, as of March, police spokesman Cpl. Mark Shawkey said.
The majority of these calls were handled at the scene and did not result in assault charges, Shawkey said.
In 2006, two of the county?s 18 homicides stemmed from disputes between couples, he said. But Thamby?s is thought to be the only homicide in Anne Arundel this year, of the seven to have occurred as of Monday, to arise from a domestic dispute this year, he said.
