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Hi again! I received an e-mail from my friend who was a neighbor to the lady who was shot by her almost ex and then he killed himself. Shanti lives across the street. I'm also friends with Terri who is the lady that helped her and prayed with her. I thought I'd just copy and paste the local article here so you could read it. I hope it's not too big.
Shooting victim recalls night of terror
By Kathy Jefcoats
When Mike Thomas burst through his wife's bedroom door Feb. 1, armed with a shotgun, she said she could not take him seriously.
Although he had been violent toward her through the years, he didn't even own a gun much less ever used one against her.
"I never took him serious," said Carolyn Thomas. "I couldn't believe he was in the house with a gun."
The couple had separated n for the last time n and Carolyn Thomas got a 12-month temporary restraining order against him in September. But Mike Thomas, her husband of 20 years and father of their four children, persisted in coming to the family home."
"There were lots of times I woke up in the morning to find him asleep in the family room," she said. "No matter how many times I changed the locks and told him he is not supposed to be there, he'd come in."
On Feb. 1, he went to their Stockbridge home one final time. Their
6-year-old son was asleep on the bed next to Carolyn as she talked on the phone to one of her girlfriends.
"I told her if she hears anything unusual, to call the police," she said.
What happened next was unexpected and terrifying.
"He put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger," said Carolyn. "It didn't go off and he said, OOh, the gun jammed.'"
But Mike Thomas knew so little about guns that he didn't know the weapon had been fired already and needed to be reloaded to fire again. Carolyn said she still does not know where he got the gun.
Although their oldest child is a college student in Carrollton, the three younger ones were home when their dad arrived armed with a shotgun. After the gun failed to fire, Carolyn told the kids to go into the bedroom and lock the door.
"I ran outside to get him out of the house and away from my kids," she said.
He followed her.
"I was standing with my side toward him," recalled Carolyn, tears welling up in her eyes. "All I remember seeing is the flash from the gun." She'd been shot in the chest from the side. "I went down and something told me to just lay there and don't move."
He walked away.
After a minute or two n or an eternity n Carolyn got up and ran to a neighbor's house.
"I beat on the door and finally got them to open up," she said. "They brought me in and called 911. The wife prayed with me while we waited for the police and ambulance. She pressed towels to my chest to stop the bleeding. It seemed like it took forever for someone to get there."
Unbeknownst to her at the time, the children called their sister in
Carrollton, who called Carolyn's sister living five miles away in
Stockbridge. Also unknown to her, Michael turned the gun on himself.
"I never thought he would take it this far," she said. "And then kill
himself? I just don't understand that."
The night marked the culmination of 20 years of periods of violence on Michael's part and Carolyn's indecisiveness on ending the marriage and a relationship that started when the two met in ninth grade. She had just two days prior resolved to put an end to the violence by consulting her attorney to finally file for divorce.
"He followed me to the lawyer's office that Friday," said Carolyn. "So I decided to wait until Monday to file the papers. It had gotten to the point where he knew I was serious and he wasn't willing to accept it."
Her attorney, Pandora Hunt, knows the pattern all too well. A McDonough attorney, Hunt is interim president of Securus House, a battered women's shelter in Clayton County. It is no surprise that Carolyn took little comfort in her restraining order.
"It is a piece of paper that does nothing," Hunt said. "He should have been arrested when he kept coming to their house. The TPO was against him and there were lots of reports."
But when Henry County police were called out in December, Carolyn said officers faulted them both.
"They said we both violated the order because he was in the house," said Carolyn. "What was I supposed to do? He wouldn't stay away and I couldn't make him."
After a stay in the hospital, Carolyn is home, her sister providing care and support. She knows she is lucky to be alive.
"The doctor said if I had been standing even slightly toward him, he would have hit my whole chest cavity," she said. "He intended for me to die."
As she recalls that night, she wipes away tears. When she thinks about how he never paid child support or any household bills during their estrangement, she gets mad. Always, she is mindful of her children.
"I just want to make sure my kids are OK," she said. "And that they have someone to talk to. I prayed to God to protect my children and will do anything to help them. That's what is important."
With Mike gone, the bills continue to roll in, bills for credit cards she didn't know he had. Hunt learned that the days before the shooting, Mike cleaned out bank accounts, but no large stashes of money have been found.
"Where is the money?" said Hunt. "We don't know what he did with all that money. He wasn't paying any bills and didn't pay child support."
His life insurance and retirement savings go to their oldest child,
according to his beneficiary assignment, Hunt said. Carolyn doesn't know when she will be able to return to work as a pattern designer so Hunt is establishing a trust fund for the Thomas children at Bank of America. Donations can be made at any branch in the name of Carolyn Thomas.
"I am not ready to go back to work yet," she said. "I just need to get some help with my kids. That's the biggest thing."
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