174 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
have a hard time seriously believing that they themselves ever
actually have to follow orders—even court orders.) We contacted
Mark’s superior officers, who placed him on probationary status
within his army unit. He even wound up spending time in the
army brig for the repeated incidents of threats and violence that
had occurred on base.
Nothing was easy in this case. Mark waged a no-holds-barred
custody battle for his young son (although, by all accounts, he
had never been the primary parent involved in actually raising
the boy during the marriage). He seemed to enjoy this absurd
custody fight, as representing one last effort to assert control or
domination over Beverly. Not surprisingly, Mark retained the
most combative attorney he could find—and a spiraling amount
of astronomical attorneys’ fees began circling the drain.
Finally, after a year of hotly contested litigation, we succeeded
in getting Beverly full custody of her son, and a second divorce
from Mark. We even obtained ongoing post-divorce restraining
orders. We thought we had done our job as good little divorce
lawyers, and we moved on to our next case.
Six months later came the call from the Alabama sheriff. Mark
had apparently written Beverly a series of letters promising he
had changed and desperately begging for a reconciliation. Bev-
erly relented and went to visit Mark for the weekend at his new
post in Alabama. According to the sheriff, the couple was last seen
having an argument at a shopping mall near the post.
When Beverly failed to return to her job in Virginia the follow-
ing week, she was reported missing. The investigating officers
speculated that Mark had killed Beverly on the way back to the
base from the mall and had disposed of her body somewhere
along a country road. The sheriff’s report was later amended to
“missing and presumed dead,” and the purpose of the Alabama
homicide detective’s call was to gather background information
to assist in preparing murder charges against Mark.
Lessons learned:
The cycle of violence in spouse abuse is shocking and alarming. Per-
haps most frightening are the statistics indicating that once this cycle
of abuse has started, it will in all likelihood continue indefinitely until