My Story

Escape from abuse
Published: October 6, 2005

By KATIE WILLSON
Of the News-Register

Growing up, Rachel wore thick glasses, favored long skirts and attended private Christian schools. Romance was a foreign concept.
She had never even held hands with a boy, let alone kissed one, when she met Gabriel Bustamante in the summer of 1992. By then, she was 19.
She wasn't much for developing strong friendships with other girls, either. She tended to keep to herself and read a lot, particularly religious tracts.
Rachel had moved out of her mother's home on the Oregon Coast and into her father's home on the Florida Coast. She had completed a vocational program for travel agents and landed a job with a local resort.
She was riding the bus to work one day when the lithe, brown-eyed Colombian struck up a conversation. And she was smitten.
"I'd never had any attention before," she said. "I had such low self-esteem. I was so flattered that somebody wanted to talk to me."
Gabriel was from Bogota. He was in the country illegally, but told Rachel differently.
"He told me he was looking for a good girl to marry. That first week, he talked about wanting to marry someone like me."
---
They rode the bus together for six months straight. And through his persistent attention, a relationship developed.
They never went out on dates. He never bought her lunch, or even a soda.
But during the rides they shared, he talked of marriage. Eventually, he talked her into it.
"I look back now and feel so stupid," she said. "We didn't date or anything. But he kept insisting he wanted to be with me. He told me I was beautiful."
Rachel had dreamed of a big wedding, with her beaming in a white satin gown as her family looked on. And she had dreamed of living a storybook life afterward with a kind, loving and supportive partner.
But the reality turned out quite differently. It turned out ugly, mean, cheap and sordid.
Rachel's is a cautionary tale for sheltered and naive young women everywhere.
Look out, her story screams. All may not be as it appears.
What Gabriel actually saw in her was not a blushing young bride with whom he could build a meaningful life. What he saw was an easy ticket to a green card, marker of legal status in the United States for a foreign national.
Overprotected in childhood can mean underprotected in adulthood. That made Rachel an easy mark for a skilled manipulator like Gabriel.
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Now Rachel finds herself living the life of an unemployed single mother in rural Yamhill County. She keeps her address private for fear he will come after her or her three boys, who have suffered with her at Gabriel's hands.
At 32, Rachel is a whole lot wiser, but also a whole lot sadder. Life has dealt her a tough hand.
She and the boys, now 10, 5 and 3, are sharing a manufactured home with her father. Unemployed, she's getting by on food stamps.
Her dad's Social Security check is covering the mortgage payment. But that won't be the case much longer, as he is dying of advanced prostate cancer.
During 11 years of a numbingly abusive marriage, her husband repeatedly told her, "You'll never survive on your own. You can't think for yourself. You're a typical American woman."
She never bought it at the time. But now she can't help wondering sometimes if he might not have been right about that.
When she finally worked up the courage to file for divorce, take the family car and flee with the children, she dreamed of a new start. She dreamed of going to college, getting a good job, giving her boys a better life.
She even harbored thoughts of starting a resource center for abused women - women like her.
Things didn't go badly for Rachel at first. Her background in travel enabled her to get on with Evergreen International Aviation - a promising start.
But being a single parent meant taking time off sometimes - like the time her three little ones all came down with strep throat one after the other. Those times added up, and eventually, she said, Evergreen let her go.
She landed a part-time job after that. But it was a big step down, and it didn't last.
---
"You're ugly. You're fat. No one else will ever want you.
"You're stupid. You can't think for yourself. You'll never make it without me."
It was a steady drumbeat during her 11-year marriage to Gabriel Bustamante. And it left her beaten and battered.
She didn't think much of herself to start with. And he worked ceaselessly to drain even that small measure of self-esteem from her.
That's a pattern that repeats itself again and again and again in the cases they see in women's shelters, according to experts in domestic violence.
The abuser seeks a victim lacking inner confidence and a healthy support system. Then he works relentlessly to keep it that way.
In Rachel's case, the first sign of trouble actually came before their marriage - but just barely.
Gabriel called her the night of March 3, 1993. He was drunk.
They were scheduled to wed the next day, a Friday, at a courthouse in Miami Beach. Paranoid, particularly when he had been drinking hard, he wanted to make sure she was going to show up.
She did - without telling her family, which would not have approved. Trying to look the part of a bride, she wore a new cream-colored dress and dressed up her hair with a French braid.
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After the ceremony, they shared a lobster dinner at a beachfront restaurant - one lobster dinner. Gabriel said he didn't have enough money for separate orders.
Back at their motel, Rachel changed into Victoria's Secret lingerie purchased just for the occasion. Never before had she donned anything so flimsy.
He grinned when she appeared from the bathroom, but it seemed more like a smirk than a smile. There were no tender kisses, no sweet endearments, no expressions of love.
Afterward, she felt frightened and alone. She feared she had made a big mistake - which, of course, she had.
He slept through most of the following day, a Saturday. She sat beside him watching TV. It wasn't the way she had imagined her honeymoon.
On Sunday, she moved into his studio apartment in Miami to set up housekeeping. She was just stepping out of the shower when a woman began banging on a window and shrieking at Gabriel.
"Tell her about the three abortions," she screamed. "Tell her you love me."
The woman said she couldn't go through with it.
Gabriel told her it was too late. He said he couldn't talk about it at the moment anyway.
"Tell her you married her for citizenship," the woman demanded.
Rachel pulled her clothes on and rushed into the front room. She arrived just as Gabriel was forcing the woman out and closing the door.
"Is it true?" she asked.
---
It was, Gabriel admitted. He figured it was the only way he was going to get his family up from Colombia.
But he told her she needn't worry. He could learn to love her.
He identified the woman who had come pounding on their door as Diana, a longtime flame.
Yes, he said, she had gotten pregnant three times. And each time, she had aborted the pregnancy at his expense.
"I want out," Rachel said, breaking into sobs.
"If you leave," Gabriel told her, "nobody will ever want you. You already gave up the most important thing. You waited for marriage and now it's gone."
He certainly knew what button to push, a typical trait of abusers.
"That's what I had saved myself for," Rachel said. "I had been taught that God honors you for saving yourself, and that's what I believed.
"If I stayed with him, he told me, he could protect me from others like him - men who would take advantage of a naive girl like me. So I said I would stay."
Bad decision.
A week later, Diana joined them on the bus for their morning commute to work.
Shocked and horrified, Rachel tried to flee. But Gabriel grabbed her by the wrist and held tight.
Rachel said the two of them were all grins as they engaged in animated and intimate conversation. All the while, Diana kept fingering her necklace, a gift from Gabriel.
---
With so many bad signs surfacing in such short order, why not just get out?
Advocates for abused women say victimization tends to share a key trait with alcoholism and drug addiction.
Victims can endure years of horrible abuse and still remain in denial. They don't tend to break free until they hit rock bottom, until they simply can't take it anymore.
"You think, 'Why does she stay?' " said Donna Curry, who works at McMinnville's Henderson House shelter. "I hear the same story over and over again. These are things I hear a lot."
Abusers are often suave, debonair and charming, she said. And they can spot a potential victim every time.
"They're very good at choosing their victims," Curry said. "Women who have no self-esteem, you can see it in a handshake, in body language.
"He's going to get her, marry her and move in as fast as he can, because it's easier for her to walk away if they're just dating."
Curry said any man who mentions marriage the first week of a relationship, as Gabriel did with Rachel, should cause a woman to worry. "What he's really saying is, he doesn't want you to know who he is," she said.
Deborah Cameron, executive director of the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Washington County, said it's time society stop blaming the victim for continuing to stay and start blaming the abuser for continuing to abuse.
"It's too bad the first question is, 'Why didn't she leave,' not, 'Why did he abuse her,'" Cameron said. Women with no self-esteem can easily mistake intensity for love. In reality, it's just an effort to control you."
Playing the "religion-card" is a common form of control.
"Women take marriage vows very seriously," she said. "They feel it's incumbent on them to fulfill those vows. A woman hopes things will change and he'll grow to love her."
Rachel tried to fulfill her vows, but nothing seemed to please Gabriel. It's all too familiar to battered women's advocates.
---
When their first anniversary came, Gabriel bought her roses. Delighted, she took a dozen pictures to keep.
But that would be the only anniversary he recognized in 11 years.
In May 1995, Rachel gave birth to a baby boy - Gabriel Bustamante Jr.
She went into labor so quickly, doctors hadn't time to give her an epidural. And she screamed with pain.
"You're overreacting," he told her. "It's not that bad."
Afterward, Gabriel walked out without a smile, an encouraging word or even a pat on the arm.
He was angry, she learned, because the baby had scratched his face with its tiny fingernails. "He seemed to be angry at the baby about something he couldn't help," she said.
A few months later, while Rachel was breast feeding, she fell asleep and Gabriel Jr. rolled off her chest onto the floor. Angry, Gabriel called her stupid.
"He told me the baby would probably hate me for life," she said. "He told me Gabriel Jr. would probably grow up to be a psycho and it would be all my fault."
Rachel sobbed at that recollection and many more like it.
Gabriel called her dumb, dirty, ugly, stupid and stubborn. Unimportant, unlovable, uncooperative and unattractive. Fat, crazy, irrational and boring. Needy, frivolous, irresponsible and lazy.
He said she was a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad cook. A bitch, a loser, a screw-up and a schemer. Una cochina, una areputa. A child who needed discipline, a typical stupid American woman, nothing but white trash.
It took little to set him off. If she so much as heated the baby's bottle on medium instead of high - he favored high because it was quicker - he called her rebellious.
He said she couldn't care for herself, care for her children, think for herself or survive on her own. She had no class, no taste, no personality, no common sense.
No man could ever love or desire her, he said. Even God had abandoned her.
---
Gabriel bought bright red lipstick and made her wear it every day.
That was the only thing he bought her. He did it, he said, because she didn't look quite as ugly in lipstick.
When he didn't buy for her, she went without - even groceries.
He filled their closets with classic Italian suits and other finery. Only the best was good enough for him.
She made do with a handful of T-shirts, a couple of pairs of jeans and three dresses, all selected by him without any input from her.
All three dresses were red and black. Her favorite color was pink, but she couldn't wear anything in pink.
He didn't like pink. He liked red and black.
Paranoid and controlling, he kept a close watch on her every move. He called her eight to 10 times a day to make sure she was where she said she would be.
She didn't know how to drive and he wouldn't let her learn. And he maintained total control of the money - hers as well as his.
Iron control is one of the hallmarks of the abuser, experts all say. And Rachel experienced years of it at her husband's hands.
---
In the spring of 1996, Gabriel quit his job as a jeweler. He had decided to go into the business for himself.
They packed up and flew to Germany, because he had heard he could get cheap stones there. It was below freezing when they parked in front of a factory in Idar-Oberstein.
He took the keys and told her to wait in their rented car with Gabriel Jr. Three hours later, he still hadn't returned.
Rachel and the baby were freezing, so she walked up to the factory's employee entrance. "Once inside, I found my way to a waiting room," she said.
An employee said her husband was touring the factory. It took another hour, but at least they were warm.
When Gabriel entered the waiting room and found them, he seemed shocked. She was heartbroken to see the look of anger on his face.
"I couldn't let them know I had my family here," he snapped. "It doesn't look professional."
Back in the United States, Rachel got pregnant again. But this time, she miscarried.
"I told my husband I couldn't wait to see our baby in heaven," she recalled.
"He laughed at me and made fun of me," she said. "He told me never to mention it again. I suffered alone."
---
The following winter, Rachel had finally had enough. She took Gabriel Jr. and flew to Michigan, where she landed a job with Northwest Airlines.
Soon after, Gabriel loaded a U-Haul and followed. But he said he would never forgive her for forcing him to move.
They spent the next five years in Michigan, and life there continued pretty much unchanged.
He ruled out birth control. Too expensive, he said. So Rachel twice more found herself pregnant, giving birth to two more boys.
Through her work, Rachel got free air travel. But when there wasn't enough room in coach for both of them, he moved into first class and left her behind.
They started attending a Jewish synagogue, Shema Yisrael, in Southfield. But Gabriel instructed her not to talk with any fellow parishioners or make any friends.
In fact, Rachel had no friends. Gabriel had told her female friendship contacts would expose him to temptation.
He said men were "animals who can't be trusted."
---
In 2003, Gabriel became obsessed with a co-worker named Susan.
He had often spoken in vulgar sexual terms about famous women. Now he began focusing his sexual fantasies on Susan, telling Rachel all the things he imagined doing with his co-worker.
He said he loved the perfume Susan wore - Spazio Krizia.
He bought a bottle and asked Rachel to wear it. When she complied, he took to murmuring "oh Susan," imagining he was with his fantasy love rather than his wife.
Later that year, during a special event at the synagogue, Rachel dressed up in her best dress, arranged her hair just so and drew on bright red lips. "I was so sure he would notice," she said.
He did. He smiled and bent down to whisper something in Gabriel Jr.'s ear.
When they climbed into the car to go to the synagogue, Gabriel Jr. piped up, "Mommy, daddy told me to tell you that you are getting fat."
"I felt my whole world crash around me," she said. "Now he was teaching my beautiful children to put me down too."
Rachel loved Pepsi, but Gabriel refused to let her drink it - or even bring it into the house.
"Pepsi makes her fat," more than one relative recalls him saying. "She doesn't like Pepsi."
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Rachel's mother remembers visiting a few times over the years. The kitchen was devoid of even the basics - flour, sugar, seasonings, crackers.
When she and her daughter went out to shop or have lunch, her mother paid. She bought food for the family and toys for the boys.
But she said of Gabriel, "He throws away toys that are special to the boys, as a form of punishment." By her next visit, any toys she bought would be gone.
Rachel's sister, Rhoda Maciel, had the same experience.
"I stopped spending money on toys and gifts for my nephews," she said, "because I have discovered he throws them away - or sells them if they have any value. On one visit, the toy I bought for Gabriel was thrown away on the second day after my arrival."
Instead of action figures, Gabriel Jr. grew up playing with shampoo bottles. He pretended they were warriors or animals.
Even today, he keeps a collection of VO5 bottles. He has them lined up on his bedroom dresser according to color.
During the boys' early years, Gabriel insisted that Rachel spoon-feed them, make their beds and dress them.
At age 4, Gabriel Jr. didn't even know how to zip a zipper. At age 9, he still couldn't tie his own shoes.
Gabriel refused to change the babies' diapers. That irritated members of her family.
Maciel recalled a time she went to the zoo with Gabriel and Gabriel Jr. while Rachel was at work.
"He proceeded to tell me that I had forgotten to change Gabriel Jr.'s diapers," she said. "Honestly, I didn't even think about it, as I have no children of my own."
She told him he should do it. After all, it was his son.
Instead, she said, the diaper went unchanged until Rachel got home from work.
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Gabriel used to whip the boys on the back, arms and legs, with a belt as they cowered in a corner, crying.
Rachel's sister, mother and father all witnessed such incidents. Each time, Rachel promised them it wouldn't happen again.
Gabriel, who declined an interview for this story, denied that in custody proceedings associated with their divorce. But the two oldest boys said they remember such whippings all too well.
They don't remember doing anything wrong. But they remember their dad beating them with a black belt. They also remember him locking them in a dark bathroom and vowing to never let them out.
When their 10th anniversary came and went in March 2003, Rachel asked Gabriel why he stayed with her if he didn't love her.
"I've put 10 years of my life into changing you," he said. "I don't want to have to start over trying to change someone else."
Rachel tried to talk to the rabbi about problems in her marriage and home life. He said he wasn't going to get involved unless Gabriel asked him to, and she never brought it up again.
The following November, Northwest Airlines announced it was closing her office. She would have to relocate to Seattle.
She was hoping Gabriel wouldn't follow her this time, but he did. He quit his job and accompanied her west.
Rachel had to get a driver's license, because she couldn't get to and from her job in Seattle on public transit. "He drove me to the test, all the time telling me I wouldn't pass," she said.
She walked into the office, paid the fee and then broke down sobbing. The attendant told her to come back when she had collected herself.
On the way home, Gabriel told her she'd never be able to pass the test anyway. She was too stupid.
But eventually, she did.
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The following spring, Rachel got a phone call. Her aunt, Helen O'Neal, had been gunned down on March 20 in Sachse, Texas. Newspapers reported a burglar had fired the fatal shots.
"I'll bet you anything the husband did it," Gabriel told her. "You women drive men crazy."
He warned her, "Don't drive me crazy."
Rachel went to the funeral to comfort her father and her uncle William.
William didn't seem sad. He seemed bitter.
Their home had been burgled the previous year, and police had never caught the culprit. "They didn't catch him then and they won't catch him now," her uncle said.
Before flying back home, Rachel visited the O'Neal residence. As she walked through, she noticed March 20 had been starred on a wall calendar.
The notation didn't escape police attention either. They soon had a tape of William telling his mistress about shooting Helen, stealing her expensive jewelry and hiding the gun.
Two weeks later, they arrested William on a charge of first-degree murder. They said he had slipped away during a bike race, shot his wife, then returned to finish.
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At William's trial that fall, a jury deliberated less than two hours before finding him guilty. By then, fearing she would end up like Helen, Rachel had taken the children and fled to Oregon.
She eventually filed for divorce. It just became final three weeks ago.
Gabriel has since returned to Miami, but that's not far enough for her. Fearing his wrath, she has taken out a restraining order barring him from contact.
He is supposed to be making child support payments, she said. But he hasn't made any so far.
If he wants to ever see the kids again, she said, he has to take anger management, domestic violence and parenting classes. But he hasn't done any of that so far.
Gabriel did not return calls from the News-Register offering him a chance to tell his side of the story.
But in the Seattle court where the divorce and custody proceedings unfolded, he told the judge he took good care of his wife and sons. He said they never went without food or shelter, and related twice giving up good jobs to follow them.
"The Bible says that a husband is the one who has authority and occupies a position of headship in his own household," he told the judge. "What I'm asking for is respect, submission."
When women try to take control, a household becomes vulnerable to evil, he said.
---
Today, Rachel lives in a quiet cul-de-sac on a quiet hill in rural Yamhill County.
She's thrown out the red and black dresses in favor of some outfits from New To You. They feature lots of pink.
Her oldest son has learned to tie his own shoes, but still prefers shampoo bottles to toys. He rocks them back and forth in his hands, imagining they're characters out of The Chocolate Factory, the Titanic or Star Wars.
Remembering the terror he felt upon being locked in a darkened bathroom, 5-year-old Michael is afraid to go into a bathroom by himself, even with the light on. Terrified of the dark, he has recurring nightmares about a devil, a killer or his daddy visiting him at night in his bedroom.
Three-year-old Daniel doesn't remember much about his dad, and maybe that's a good thing. He harbors no phobias about toys, bathrooms or darkness.
Meanwhile, Rachel continues to search the help-wanteds, looking for work.
More than anything, she wants to prove her husband wrong. She wants to prove - to her sons and to herself - that she's capable of making it on her own.

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