Linda Low shares her story of abuse, and how she bravely escaped a seemingly hopeless situation. In the following account, see how a secret phone can be lifesaving for anyone trapped in an abusive relationship.
After going through a “tumultuous divorce” Linda was out celebrating her new life with her friends. Caught off guard, she thought she had met a nice man - nice enough to convince her to let him stay at her place for 3 nights until his place was ready. He even offered her $50.00 a night to do so. “He did sleep on the couch and was a gentleman,” she said.
She carried on with her weekly routine, dropping the kids off at their dad’s house for the weekends, and even bringing her new “friend” to her mother’s house for dinner. “I was too trusting and should have been cautious,” Linda recalls.
After the fourth day of him being at her house, she asked him when he would be staying at his own place. That’s when things took a turn for the worse. “He tore the phone out of the wall. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into the house and - (I was crying and terrified) - he put bleach in a canning jar mixed with lighter fluid and put it in the microwave. He told me that he would be living with me now and was not going anywhere. If I object to that he would press start and blow us up. But before that happened, he told me not to tell anyone or he would kill my children and mother.” She believed him. After all, he knew where they lived.
He controlled her every move. He destroyed the phones in the house so that she would have no way of calling for help. He destroyed her property, followed her to work, waited for her on her lunch break, and then followed her home at the end of the day. He would follow her to pick up the kids and watch every move she made while she was with them. This lasted for one month.
After a surprise visit from her abuser’s parents, she put her escape plan into action. “Enough is enough,” she said. “Had I owned a secret cell phone, I could have called the police and had him arrested many times,” referencing the 911 Cell Phone Bank’s emergency 911 phone distribution program.
“I decided to confide in two coworkers and my boss and we initiated a plan.” She left work early with her two coworkers. They went to Linda’s house and brought a cell phone to use. “I called the police from my house and told them that the man that was abusing me would be very angry when he found out I wasn’t at work for him to follow me home. That he would try to kill me and that I needed the police to be close and patrol the neighborhood and wait for the call. I told them I wanted to file a report.” The police told her to call them when he showed up.
When the abuser realized Linda wasn’t at work, he was furious just as she had predicted. He called the house, and she answered thinking that it might be the police. Instead, it was her abuser. He told her she had “disobeyed” him and made a morbidly violent threat to her life. Her two coworkers were guarding the entrances to the house while she hid in the closet. One of them called the police as soon as he pulled up.
“I was hidden in the master closet, shaking so bad that I thought we were having an earthquake. He made his way to my bedroom and that’s when I heard the police telling him to drop his weapon. I cried and cried with relief. There is much more to the story, but he never came back. I had to leave my house and go into hiding for a year with no address at the advice of the police and women’s shelters.”
“The 911 Cell Phone Bank program is a very worthwhile cause. I completely would have benefited from this program at that time. I felt hopeless.”
Sadly, Linda’s story is only one of many. We hope all who read this will recognize the sincere help and comfort their cell phone donations bring to these victims.
Visit 911cellphonebank.org to donate your unused cell phones, tablets, laptops, and other electronic devices today. Personal devices as well as devices that have been left behind by guests in lost-and-found or property-and-evidence rooms are accepted.
100% Free. Tax-deductible. Guaranteed secure.
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