When someone entered the Whitman Center, MCCC’s off-campus building, from Oct. 7-30, they would have been greeted by 17 wooden silhouettes of women murdered by their boyfriend or husband.
A shield-shaped plaque with the story of their death, including the name of the man responsible, rested on each chest.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s Web site, 85 percent of all domestic violence victims are women. To discover this, and reading the stories from the exhibit, one could begin to wonder: When does a man become a monster? How does a man become a monster?
Patricia Booher was 24 years old when she was slaughtered and her body mutilated by her boyfriend; Debra Stout, 49, a mother to five and grandmother to nine, died from blood loss from a ruptured spleen from the beating she received from Elmore J. Watson; Amanda Steinbrecher was only 18 years old when her boyfriend, Caleb Loesch, shot her in the head and then turned the gun on himself.
The exhibit’s goal was to help remember those murdered in an attempt to prevent further victims of domestic violence, and the women’s stories certainly help to achieve that goal.
