Laurie Kuykendall Kepner stayed still for 3 decades about life with her husband, not even revelation her small sister about how he physically abused her, threatened her, mistrusted her, denigrated her and blamed her for all that went wrong in his life.
“She was fearful of what he would do to her for talking,” pronounced that sister, Karen Kuykendall Nordsick. “She would never tell anyone anything.”
But in a months before she left Martin Kepner during 2 p.m. Dec. 21, Laurie could no longer bottle adult her emotional to trade a border of domestic abuse for a life of leisure and dignity.
In a minute to her uncle, antiquated 10 days before her murder, Laurie Kuykendall Kepner wishes she’d had a strength to leave her father years earlier. (Liz Evans scolforo — [email protected])
Diary entries, records and letters account Laurie’s flourishing annoy and fear, her solve to live a fulfilling life after relocating into her possess apartment, her pleasure during experiencing new things — and even her fatuous attempts to find a law-enforcement officer to accompany her when she went to her former home to get her belongings.
“I can’t start to tell we how many leisure we feel,” she wrote to an uncle 10 days before her murder. “Like a bird that usually got out of a cage. we am finally training who we am. A friendly, comfortable chairman who (doesn’t) have any problem joining with people. we go dancing each Saturday night and we adore it.”
Ambushed in driveway: Laurie, 53, and her Saturday-night dance partner and friend, 55-year-old Barb Schrum, were fatally shot in a conduct by Kepner on May 29 as they were retrieving some of Laurie’s skill during Kepner’s home, 1615 Lisburn Road in Warrington Township, usually outward Wellsville.
He also stabbed Schrum in a neck as she sat — seat-belted — in a car watchful to leave, according to a York County Coroner’s Office. After murdering a women, Kepner fatally shot himself in a head, Coroner Pam Gay has said.
Kepner lay down in a drive subsequent to Laurie’s physique before committing suicide, according to Nordsick.
Nordsick invited a contributor to Kepner’s home final week, where she common Laurie’s letters and diary, and grappled with her possess pain and disillusionment as she prepares a skill for open auction.
“I don’t consider she satisfied she was being abused and was in that many risk until (the months before) she left,” Nordsick said. “She pronounced he was really jealous, really determining and always blaming her. Everything that ever went wrong was always her fault.”
Blamed wife: Laurie’s Dec. 11 diary entrance recounts Kepner screaming during her: “He let me have it this morning. … His strength not operative is my fault.”
Finding help
If we are being abused or threatened by a domestic partner, there are county and state agencies to assistance you. Here s how to strech some of them:
Access-York and a Victim Assistance Center, both partial of a YWCA of York: (717) 846-5400 or (800) 262-8444
YWCA of Hanover s domestic-violence shelter: (717) 637-2235
Safe Home of Hanover, also partial of a YWCA of Hanover: (717) 632-0007
Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence s website, pcadv.org, has lists of resources and provides information about fighting domestic abuse.
Call 911 right divided if we are being assaulted or threatened..
The integrate had left to matrimony conversing about Kepner’s erectile dysfunction, according to a diary, and Laurie wrote that he told her, “I should have spent $100 a week on a harlot and kept my mouth shut.”
Things degenerated as Dec progressed, and Laurie personally done skeleton to flee, her diary revealed.
On Dec. 18 she wrote: “Martin tells me how miserable his life is. He wishes he was dead.”
Around that time, Kepner told Nordsick he would “blow his conduct off” if Laurie left him, according to Nordsick.
Even scarier were incidents Laurie recounted when she finally non-stop adult to her family in November, Nordsick said.
“She told me his favorite thing to do was throttle her,” Nordsick said. “He also threw her down a moody of stairs and suspicion he pennyless her back.”
Laurie confided her father once choked her so vigourously in their drive that she upheld out, her sister said.
On Dec. 19 Laurie wrote: “I told him we don’t adore him anymore and he’s smothering me.”
‘Very angry’: On Dec. 20, after Laurie spent a whole day with Nordsick, she wrote: “Martin was really angry.”
She left Kepner a subsequent day and hid during a internal motel, her sister said, though attempted to sojourn accessible with him and wrote him a series of letters — missives in that she attempted to reason with him and in that her arrogance grew in job him out as an abuser.
In one post-breakup letter, Laurie reminded Kepner of “all a times we was slammed opposite a wall by a throat” by him.
“I felt like we was being suffocated,” she also wrote. “You told me we was your possession. … When we pronounced we wanted to fire yourself, we would leave a room and we would demeanour around a dilemma to see if we were removing a gun.”
Nordsick pronounced Kepner was always within easy strech of a firearm when during home — a fact not mislaid on Laurie.
“She was frightened to death. This place was full of guns,” Nordsick said. “And each one of them was loaded.”
Not prepared to die: Kepner wrote to her disloyal father that she was shocked of him: “I was warned that people who wish to fire themselves customarily take someone with them and we didn’t wish to go.”
Laurie’s Feb. 17 diary entrance suggests Kepner was still perplexing to emotionally manipulate her scarcely dual months after they separated: “Martin pronounced he suspicion about sharpened a cats though couldn’t move himself to do that.”
Laurie was clinging to her 7 residence cats though was means to take usually one of them, Susie, with her to her new apartment, according to her sister.
“Her cats were her kids, and he threw them out in a center of winter (after Laurie left him),” Nordsick said.
After a double murder-suicide, Nordsick and several of Laurie’s longtime friends trapped a cats; all 7 are now vital with Laurie’s friends, Nordsick said.
In a May 19 minute to her uncle, Laurie pronounced she missed her home and her cats.
“But it got to a indicate where we had to leave,” she wrote. “I feared for my life.”
‘Always afraid’: Also in that letter, Laurie wished she’d “had a strength to leave him years ago. But we was always afraid.”
Laurie done a many of her 5 months of freedom, according to Nordsick.
She found an apartment, spent time with friends and done new ones, went to counseling, focused on her seamstress work and art projects and, accompanied by a niece, gathering to Midland, Texas, for a work trip.
The Apr cross- nation journey — minute in her diary — done Laurie comprehend she desired roving and wanted to do many some-more of it, according to her sister.
Family members contend it was her initial and usually outing outward Pennsylvania.
In a minute to her uncle, Laurie done it transparent she was relishing her new life.
“This certain sounds self-centered,” she wrote, “but after all a years of doing what we was told … a leisure of choice is amazing.”
— Reach Liz Evans Scolforo during [email protected].
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