Victim's advocate tells of abuse leading to toddler's murder

A victim’s advocate at District 4 Human Resources Development Council opened up to her co-workers and the community Monday about an abusive marriage she had been in that led to the death of her toddler daughter.

Kathleen Whitaker made a victim statement during an all-staff meeting in HRDC’s Fireside Room as way to mark National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Whitaker said she met Jason Garrymore while a single mother, a few months after the birth of her daughter and youngest child, Tylin. Whitaker said Tylin’s biological father had been in jail when Tylin was born, serving a sentence for armed robbery.  

Months after Tylin was born, Whitaker began dating Garrymore. Whitaker said she and her children loved him.

“This is a guy who would bring you roses for no reason, the guy who would  dance with you in the middle of the living room to music only you could hear,” she said.

They eventually married, and things were good until the first time he hurt her by smothering her with a pillow, Whitaker said.

After that, small things that were said and done eventually grew into larger things, she said.

“Why didn’t I leave?” Whitaker asked. “That’s what everyone is asking without saying it out loud.”

She said that before that first time he hurt her, she had never experienced such love.

Things then got better, until once again they began getting worse she said, and, throughout the course of 18 months, he subjected her to abuse.

He would punch her in the back of the head and in the kidneys, Whitaker said. He strangled her on three separate occasions including once in front of her children. Once when she was helping him work on a van, he slammed the hood on her head as hard as he could.

Despite his treatment of her, she said that she would have not said at the time that he abused her children, who along with the neighbors would “flock to him.”

Whitaker said that, once, she tried to run away with the children. She told them they were going “camping” and secretly encouraged them to pack a bag.

Garrymore eventually found out and told her that if she ran away he would find her and kill her and the children, she said.

Whitaker said that her two sons, from a previous marriage, went to stay with their father.

Garrymore eventually quit his job and Whitaker was forced to support the family by working two jobs, including one at a casino in Missoula, she said.

He was taking anger management classes and said he would stop hitting her, though he would continue to do so when they had sex, Whitaker said.

Whitaker said she thought maybe, underneath all the rage, was the man she had fallen in love with.  

“He wanted to get help and I didn’t want to be the person that left him,” she said

Jan. 2, 2013, would be the last day of Tylin’s life.

Whitaker said that night she was working at the casino. As he often did, her husband had called her at work and brought Tylin to her.

When Garrymore and Tylin arrived, Tylin was wearing a snowsuit. Garrymore told Whitaker not to take it off because Tylin, who was being potty trained, had accidents.

She said Garrymore told her that night Tylin was fussy and he thought she had the flu.   

After visiting with her for a little while, Garrymore  took Tylin home.

“That was the last time I saw my daughter alive, fully alive,” she said.

In the morning, Whitaker came home to find Garrymore and Tylin “camped out” on a blanket in the living room.   

Whitaker said that she discussed taking Tylin to the hospital and getting her checked out, something her husband said he didn’t want her to do.

“I was just told to go to sleep,” Whitaker said.

She said  Garrymore told her that by suggesting Tylin be taken to the hospital she was making him feel like he couldn’t do anything right for her. She relented and then went to sleep on the floor.        

She was then later awoken by Garrymore kicking her as he held Tylin in his arms with fluid coming out of her mouth. He said that he thought Tylin needed to go to the hospital. They then rushed to the hospital.

Whitaker said she remembered little about what happened at the hospital.  

“I remember the color of the carpet, the way it felt on my knees when they told me there was nothing they could do,” she said.

She remembers holding the body of her daughter, the toddler who a week before who had been recorded on videotape dancing in front of the television to the children’s shows “Blue’s Clues” and the night before had been playing with makeup brushes.

Whitaker said that at the hospital, Garrymore played the role of supportive husband.

She and investigators later learned that a half-hour after she left for work, Garrymore punched Tylin in the stomach so hard that it crushed her mesentery, a small bundle that connects everything to the spinal cord.

Given the nature of Tylin’s death, Child Protective Services investigated. Whitaker was cleared, but her husband was arrested, charged and convicted of murder.

Whitaker said that as a result of the abuse she suffers migraines, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Her surviving children have similar problems.

Now, Whitaker works to help victims of abuse and said that she is passionate about her job. She said that it is never wrong for someone to protect themselves or their children.

“And, if I can protect one person, just one, by bearing my soul to you, that know me and don’t, just one, then I have done that little girl justice,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker hosts Stories of Strength

Each week, District 4 Human Resources Development Council Victim Advocate and Violence Intervention Facilitator Kathleen Whitaker hosts Stories of Strength, a forum for women who are in or have been in abusive relationships. She said that in the forum, attendees can also take part in classes in areas such as cooking and self defense  

“It’s important to educate. It’s important to empower these women to realize they are not the beat-down person that they have been led to believe,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker said that she has tried to pattern a very loose curriculum with the forum that could have benefited someone like her, who lived in an abusive marriage resulting in her husband murdering her 2-year-old daughter.

Stories of Strength is Wednesdays 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the HRDC Building at 2229 Fifth Ave. in Havre. Participation is free. People interested in taking part should check in at the front desk and say they are there to take part in Stories of Strength.