![]() She was my older sister, as well as my best friend.”īobbie Lou was five years older than Tia. “She was the most honest, loving and caring person,” Tia said. There’s Bobbie Lou with her sons - in a sunflower field, in a pool and in a selfie. There’s Bobbie Lou posing with a diploma and roses. There’s Tia and Bobbie Lou on horseback a few years later. There’s Tia and her sister, Bobbie Lou, sitting in a car wearing pink tank tops and sunglasses, both still in elementary school. Tia Schoeffling set the photos down one by one. “Because if you fail to put him away, he's going to come back and she could be dead.Īn undated photo of Bobbie Lou Schoeffling (right) with her younger sister, Tia “This woman, she's terrified,” she continued. “They blamed her,” she said of the police response. The Milwaukee Police Department opened an internal review after the Journal Sentinel raised questions about how the officer in the video treated Schoeffling.Īntonia Drew Norton, founder of The Asha Project in Milwaukee and a national expert in domestic violence, watched the video and called it “disturbing.” He did not respond to a letter from the Journal Sentinel, and his public defender did not return a reporter's calls.Īmong the evidence cited in the homicide charging document is video uncovered by the Journal Sentinel. That video - showing Schoeffling walking into a police station and reporting abuse - vividly illustrates the uphill battle domestic abuse victims face when seeking help and accountability for those who hurt them, experts said. Prior to this case, he had not been charged in any earlier instances of domestic violence reported by Schoeffling. He did not enter a plea at his first court appearance. He also faces charges of stalking and felony victim intimidation, as well as misdemeanor disorderly conduct and battery. Schoeffling’s ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Howell, 29, was charged recently with first-degree reckless homicide in her death. Just last month, Milwaukee's police chief called domestic abuse "a root cause of a significant amount of violence in our city." Forty-one lives were lost in domestic violence-related homicides in Milwaukee County last year - six of them occurring the same month Schoeffling died. The implications could not be more urgent. The results show how a system that is supposed to protect people like Schoeffling and the wider community failed to arrest or even question the person she repeatedly accused of violence. The news organization interviewed those closest to Schoeffling, reviewed hundreds of pages of public records, uncovered video of Schoeffling reporting the abuse to police, pushed public officials for answers and asked several experts who work with domestic violence victims to review materials. Police officers, prosecutors and probation agents who had contact with Schoeffling over the final 10 months of her life missed the full picture of an escalating series of domestic violence allegations and calls for help, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation has found. The state Department of Corrections, which had at least three earlier warnings about allegations against him, decided to revoke the man’s extended supervision in an unrelated gun case. ![]() He went back to prison but not for a homicide. Her ex-boyfriend was finally arrested July 27 - one day after Schoeffling was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds. “I’m really scared,” she said in an exchange captured by security cameras. He pulls guns out, you guys don’t catch him.” “He goes on high speeds, you guys don’t catch him. “I’ve been here a million times, nothing ever happens,” she told the cop. Still, Schoeffling walked into a Milwaukee police district station last summer and told an officer her ex-boyfriend had attacked her 30 minutes earlier, while they were in her car with her two young sons. She said he had made it clear he would never go back to prison. She was afraid he would kill her if she talked to police and shoot any officers who tried to arrest him. He could be put in jail without her cooperating or testifying or picking him out of a lineup. They'd had the authority to do so for months: He had an open felony warrant for fleeing police in a high-speed chase. She pleaded with dispatchers, officers, his probation agent - anyone - to arrest him. She told Milwaukee police her ex-boyfriend beat her, ripped her hair out, held her hostage, threw rocks at her house and pulled a gun on her. Readers experiencing domestic violence can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 80 and reach out to local resource groups for help. Editor's note: This story describes domestic violence and includes descriptions of violent acts.
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