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Domestic abuse survivor to speak in Madison Wednesday

Teri Jendusa-Nicolai's case received national attention in 2004

Samara Kalk Derby  —  6/23/2008 2:18 pm

Time has helped her deal with what she went through. But more than time, what has helped is being able to speak to others about her ordeal.

"Knowing that I may be saving people, knowing that I may be changing lives, that is the biggest healer right there," said Teri Jendusa-Nicolai, who was the victim in a harrowing attempted murder case in Racine County in 2004 that received national media attention.

Since recovering, Jendusa-Nicolai, 42, has given up her work as a loan officer and a preschool worker and instead focuses on giving lectures. "That's like my new calling, I guess," she said.

She estimates that she gives about 30 speeches a year, most regionally. She is particularly in demand in October during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, when she might give 10 speeches. Jendusa-Nicolai lectures to all kinds of groups: middle school classes, police recruits, churches, community groups and university students.

She will be in Madison Wednesday as the keynote speaker for Domestic Abuse Intervention Services' Celebrate Independence Luncheon at the Monona Terrace Convention Center. The luncheon runs from noon to 1:30 p.m. Call 251-1237 to ask about tickets, which are $45 each.

That Jendusa-Nicolai is speaking anywhere is amazing in light of what she endured.

On Jan. 31, 2004, she went to her ex-husband's Wind Lake home to pick up her two young daughters following a routine visit.

Her former husband, David Larsen, told her the girls were playing a hiding game. When she went into his home, he attacked her with a baseball bat and attempted to suffocate her. Larsen then stuffed her in a plastic garbage container and drove to Illinois, where he worked as an air traffic controller at a suburban airport near Chicago.

Jendusa-Nicolai feared for her safety around Larsen and carried a cell phone in her coat pocket in case of trouble. She's not sure how she had the wherewithal, but she was able to dial 911 while trapped in the trash can from the back of Larsen's truck as he drove, triggering an Amber Alert.

Larsen had the children in the cab at the time. He later dropped the girls off at a baby sitter's house so he could go to work. Jendusa-Nicolai was found the next day inside the trash can, which had been duct-taped shut and topped with boxes inside a locked, unheated storage unit Larsen rented in nearby Wheeling.

Jendusa-Nicolai, who was remarried, was five weeks pregnant. She suffered a miscarriage, hypothermia and frostbite, and had to have all of her toes amputated. Doctors told her she was only an hour away from dying when she was found.

She spent two months in the hospital, and after being released, she used a wheelchair for the first eight months. She said she still has difficulty balancing, standing for long periods of time and running.

Larsen was sentenced in Racine County Circuit Court to 37 years in prison for attempted murder. He was found guilty in federal court in October 2006 on charges of kidnapping and interstate domestic violence. The sentencing is in August. If convicted on the federal charges, Larsen faces a maximum of life in prison without parole.

The prosecutor in that case said Larsen attempted to kill Jendusa-Nicolai because he wanted to stop paying child support and he wanted full custody of the children.

Jendusa-Nicolai took the stand for four hours Tuesday during a civil trial in Racine County held last week. Jendusa-Nicolai is suing Larsen for damages. She has asked him to set aside money in a trust for their daughters and he refuses. She was hoping it could be done outside the court system.

Larsen's defense attorney tried to make her look like the bad person, she said. "Like somehow I deserved this. That was the spin he was trying to make. It didn't work," she said during a recent phone conversation. "He knows what he did. The evidence points to what he did. Nothing's going to change that."

When Jendusa-Nicolai talks to university and high school students she goes over the warning signs of abuse, what to look for. The main warning sign is a partner who is extremely controlling, she said.

"Basically, the message is self-respect. I think that a lot of people who are in these situations don't think very highly about themselves and that's why it's easy for somebody else to put them down and control them and manipulate them," Jendusa-Nicolai said.

She also makes sure to let her audience members know that they are worthy of a good relationship, she said. She identifies the qualities of a good relationship and those of an unhealthy one.

"The qualities of a good relationship are respecting one another, respecting one another's views and opinions and respecting that you can have differing opinions," she said. "In an abusive relationship, the controller never allows you to have your own opinions. You always just have to think what they want you to think, do what they want you to do."

In a healthy relationship, a partner isn't jealous of the other being with family or friends. They understand the importance of having healthy friendships outside of the relationship, Jendusa-Nicolai said.

For married couples, if accounts aren't joint, both spouses should know the financial situation, know the bills, know the assets, she said. "In an unhealthy relationship, one person tries to have control over everything and not allow the other person access to any information.

"And the obvious, in a healthy relationship people don't hit each other and hurt each other."

Jendusa-Nicolai was married to Larsen for three years. "That's all I could take," she said.

The reason she left the marriage was because he was physically and emotionally abusive, she said. When she first left, she and her kids stayed at a women's shelter for about six weeks. She divorced him from there.

Jendusa-Nicolai and her husband, David Nicolai, have a son, Benjamin, who turned 1 on Thursday. The family, which includes Amanda, 10, and Holly, 8, recently moved from Wind Lake to Waterford.

Shannon Barry, executive director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, said Jendusa-Nicolai's story has had so much impact because of how dramatic it was.

"But every day or days we are hearing stories like Teri's, where people are dealing with and living through really horrific trauma," she said.

Increasing numbers of people access the services of DAIS every year, she said.

"There is still a lack of understanding in the community about what domestic violence is and how prevalent it is here," Barry said.

One third of all arrests in Dane County are domestic-violence related, according to the Dane County district attorney's office. National figures show that one in four women will experience domestic violence.

"We are really hoping that by bringing a survivor to talk about her story that we are going to be able to broaden the community's perspective about what battered women and their children are really dealing with and how this really touches a lot of people here in Dane County," Barry said.

Barry said she thinks of the work DAIS does as being homicide prevention.

"The message of the whole event is that we're providing these quality services to Dane County and we are really doing homicide prevention. We really want to bring more attention to the voices of the people who are surviving these brutal experiences," she said.

For the organization's 30th anniversary last year, Gloria Steinem talked about the social justice portion of the group's work. The group wants to highlight the other side of its mission -- its emphasis on helping to empower victims, Barry said.

More than 200 people are expected to attend the luncheon. Barry said the group hopes

Jendusa-Nicolai's message

will give perspective to the work DAIS does.

"We really want to honor survivors because domestic violence victims are some of the strongest people that I know because they have had to endure so much and have really made a lot of choices about their survival," Barry said. "And I think that is a hard thing for a lot of folks to really wrap their head around unless you do this work on a daily basis."

Samara Kalk Derby  —  6/23/2008 2:18 pm