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February 17, 2005
Wife testifies to life under abusive husband's control
SALISBURY, MA. — He called her names. He insulted her. His beatings often left her with black eyes.
At least three times, he had affairs with other women, one of whom gave birth while he was still married.
But Christine McMullen would eventually discover that her husband, Patrick S. McMullen, had done even worse things to his family during their 17-year marriage. Their oldest daughter, at 12 years old, confided that McMullen was sexually molesting her, Christine McMullen testified yesterday.
Christine McMullen took the witness stand to testify about her ex-husband's treatment of his family and her suspicions of ongoing sexual abuse. McMullen is on trial in Salem Superior Court for charges he molested and raped his three daughters, now ages 11, 17 and 21.
The case has taken almost four years to go to trial due to delays that have been difficult for the alleged victims, prosecutor Kathe Tuttman has said. As she stepped off the witness stand, Christine McMullen smiled with relief at relatives sitting in the front row of the courtroom. She whispered as she walked by, "Finally."
She testified that it took her more than four years to find the courage to leave her husband after her oldest daughter first spoke of the alleged sexual abuse.
Christine McMullen witnessed some of the abuse, she testified. One time, she walked into a bedroom and found her middle daughter, now age 17, on her husband's lap, with a blanket over her. The child did not have any pants on, Christine McMullen said.
During his cross-examination, McMullen's attorney, Michael Phelan, asked why she did not do more to end the abuse.
"I suspected," she said.
"But you didn't jump up and put a stop to it," Phelan responded. "Why didn't you sit up and confront him?"
Christine McMullen said she was also being abused and lived in fear of her husband. She was so afraid of him, all he had to do was look at her a certain way and she would do as he ordered. Otherwise, she said, she could expect to be severely beaten.
"All it took was a look," she said.
In addition to hitting her, leaving her with black eyes and fat lips on several occasions, her husband often called her names, she said. She declined to repeat some of the things he had called her over the years.
"He loved to tell me I was an ignorant woman," she said.
Christine McMullen could expect to receive the "silent treatment" from her husband if she displeased him. During the last year of their marriage, he refused to talk to her. The couple resorted to using their children to deliver messages back and forth to each other, she testified.
"He didn't want to talk to me, and he didn't want me to talk to him," she said.
During that last year they lived together, the couple stopped sleeping in the same bed. Sometimes, McMullen wouldn't come home at night and once in a while would disappear for a couple of days. When she questioned him about where he had been, McMullen once told his wife that he had "been with a gnome sleeping under a bridge," she said.
McMullen had a habit of sleeping with other women, his wife testified. She knew of three women who had affairs with her husband, including one who is now raising a son by McMullen who is 11, the same age as his youngest child with Christine McMullen.
When Christine McMullen began attending church about a year before she left him, her husband encouraged her, saying that going to church would help her "get her head screwed on straight."
So Christine McMullen started going to church in Exeter, N.H., every Sunday. For a while, she took her children with her, but her husband eventually decided he did not like the idea of his children attending different Sunday school classes, which varied according to a child's age, Christine McMullen testified.
"He insisted that we all stay together," she said.
McMullen wanted the children to stay home and help him with his business of buying and selling various items. Every Sunday, one of the six children would stay home to help their father, taking turns.
One of the alleged incidents of sexual abuse took place when the middle daughter took a turn staying home with her father, according to the girl's testimony, given last week.
Those outings to church brought the family into contact with "outsiders" after years of being socially isolated. The oldest daughter made a friend — one of only a few she had ever made — at the church when she was 17.
Christine McMullen made friends at the church who encouraged her to flee from her husband.
A week before she left McMullen, she told the children about her plans.
"They were glad," she said.
On May 1, 2001, she got up at 5 a.m. and found her husband was gone from the house. She woke each of the children and told them they all had to leave.
Christine McMullen said she called her husband's sister, who lived down the street from the family. Her sister-in-law called the bishop of her church, and both quickly arrived to help the family flee from the home.
Each child gathered a few items of clothing into plastic bags and left. They were taken to the church, then to another's family home in Plaistow, N.H., where they lived for about five weeks before finding shelter with relatives.
After contacting the state Department of Social Services and the Women's Crisis Center in Newburyport and being encouraged to obtain a restraining order, Christine McMullen met with police in Salisbury on May 8 that year. McMullen was arrested, and the first sexual abuse charges were filed against him.
More charges were filed a little over a year later, as the younger two daughters started to talk more about the alleged abuse.
Christine McMullen was granted the restraining order, though her husband did violate it once five months after his arrest. From his jail cell in Middleton, McMullen had another person send religious materials to his wife.
She told police about the materials, which had been signed, "Love, Patrick."
"I was very angry," she said. "Even from a distance, he was doing everything he could to control me."
Posted by Nealus at February 17, 2005 12:55 PM
