The beatings escalated after Rachael and Mo split. He would break in after midnight, the girls sleeping through his punching Rachael, choking her, telling her she was going to die. One night, he put a gun to her head. She was still shaking when the Portland, Oregon, police got there and told her she could request a no-contact order. “When I told him I was leaving him, he told me that he would kill me,” she wrote on the request, which stipulated Mo stay at least 150 feet away from her and the children.

Mo ignored the no-contact order, showing up at dinnertime on June 23. His and Rachael’s 4-year-old let him in. He was very high, whether on cocaine or meth Rachael did not know. He broke her phone and blocked her way as she tried to escape. He spent hours hitting her that night, choking her five times and saying, as he knelt on her windpipe, “I am going to put you to sleep now.” Mo went upstairs to the children’s room. He’d left his phone on the floor. Rachael grabbed it and made for the front door. She was not wearing her abaya when the police arrived. It was 6 a.m., and Rachael had a new black eye as she told officers she believed she was going to die.