WUNRN
Violence Against Women
2015, Vol. 21(4) 535 –543
vaw.sagepub.com
Poem
Summer’s Death
Lori Ann Post1
Preamble – Background Preceding Poem
My sister and her husband were
murdered in their home in the middle of a sunny fall
day in a nice house in a nice
neighborhood. My story has raised many important questions
and facts. First, I lost two beloved
family members. The pain was excruciating.
My pain was exacerbated when I
learned how my sister and her husband were tortured
before their murders. As a violence
researcher, I know empirically that there is no way
around this pain; however, to climb
my way out of this dark posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) abyss, I focus on the
positive and am developing policies to prevent
batterers from having free reign in
communities. Second, due to the violence, I experienced
extreme feelings of shock, fear, and
helplessness because somebody wanted
my sister and her husband dead. In
fact, the killer wanted them more than dead. Each
of their bodies had multiple
injuries pre, peri, and post-mortem, and each of their bodies
was posed to torment whomever found
them. The killer pulled Michael’s pants and
underwear down and sexually
assaulted him, and Terri was posed in a grotesque manner
in the pond with an altar built on
her back. Their deaths were without the honor or
peace becoming of a state trooper or
an environmental investigator. Michael and Terri
dedicated their lives to advocacy
for the vulnerable and the environment.
It is with great hope that you, the
reader, share the story of Terri and Michael
Greene. Domestic violence affects
all of us, even those who do not live in violent
homes. We are still waiting for the
necessary social change that frames domestic violence
as a human rights violation to
prevent Terri and Michael’s fate from occurring to
others. Most importantly, Terri
and Michael Greene were victims of domestic violence.
Their murders were preventable, and
had anybody at any point over the last 25 years
upheld the laws passed by Violence
Against Women Act (VAWA) I, II, and III and held
the perpetrator accountable for the
psychological, emotional, physical, and sexual
abuse of dozens of women and
children, Terri and Mike would be alive. Deemed a
narcissistic sociopath with
substance abuse dependencies and depression based on a
court-ordered psychiatric
evaluation, the question isn’t why he killed Mike and Terri;
the question is “why
did the police, prosecutors, parole boards, and judges feel he was
a safe bet to let out of
jail?” At the time of the murders, the perpetrator was on parole,
incarcerated, and on work release
simultaneously. He did not have a job, and he was
allowed to roam the community
freely. These were passionate acts of hatred. He
enjoyed killing, and surely they
were not his first because he was comfortable playing
with dead bodies for two hours
before leaving their home only minutes before my
elderly parents arrived.
I discovered the name of the killer
on September 29, 2011, but that fact had to
remain a secret until December 22,
2011, when the prosecutor charged their killer with
two counts of homicide. I used all
my knowledge and skills to learn about the killer.
From the sheriff’s perspective, the
killer had a six-line rap sheet that ranged from driving
without a license to credit card
fraud. From a domestic violence researcher’s perspective,
the killer had 132 independent
violent events that ranged from child abuse,
attempted homicide, child neglect,
absconding from parole, dropping dirty, home
invasion, and breaking and entering.
Everything about this perpetrator predicts violence.
The lead detective said this was a
strange case because the killer had no violent
history. I immediately responded, “What
about the violence perpetrated against his
partners and children?” The
detective responded sheepishly, “Well, that is because he
had a lot of girlfriends.” It did
not occur to a law enforcement officer in the year 2012
that woman abuse is a crime,
violent, and a violation of a victim’s civil rights. When
we met with the prosecutor, I was
shocked a second time when someone queried the
prosecutor “why?” He said he did not
know because the killer only had a history of
credit card fraud. I immediately
asked, “Why do you continue to say he is not violent
when I have pages and pages of
violent events?” The prosecutor did not consider the
woman and child abuse “real violence.”
My mother said to me, “I thought
domestic violence is illegal.” She asked me,
“Why wasn’t he in prison?” “Why did
he pose their bodies?” “I thought you could get
arrested for hurting your
girlfriend.”
I can only guess that most Americans
feel the same as my parents. Their awareness
of woman abuse has increased, but
the system intended to protect fails to protect battered
women and children and remains
dysfunctional. Alas, I have no answers for my
mother because it is illegal, and
the police and prosecutors and judges were aware and
he should have been in prison. At
the perpetrator’s arraignment for the murders of
Terri and Michael Greene, his
previous victims crawled out of the woodwork. Some
emailed me, some called, some showed
up in court to hug me. These amazing women
who survived near-lethal homicide
and were not protected by the U.S. criminal justice
system were the most compassionate
persons during my grief; they comforted me.
Nobody believed their story or paid
attention to violations of laws put in place to protect
battered women and children. These
women did not know there were dozens of
other victims because the domestic
violence crimes were never publically recognized.
Each woman believed she was alone.
Independent cases in four Michigan counties
consisted of women who had been
battered, robbed, beaten, threatened, and terrorized
by my sister’s killer, and not a
single police officer, prosecutor, or judge took them
seriously. Each police report was
met with skepticism that the case was unique, or the
woman was “crazy” and if she did not
like being battered, why she had continued to
return to her abuser. The
perpetrator’s violent history was treated as a series of “singular
events,” rather than as a 25-year
pattern of violence. One crazy woman is possible,
but 12? Terri and Michael’s murders
validated battered women’s experiences. One of
his victims was battered and stalked
by the killer for years. She made multiple police
reports and filed restraining orders
and a no stalking order. The perpetrator was not
arrested when he violated the
restraining orders. Terri and Michael’s murders gave this
woman peace. Following the
arraignment, she asked the police detective, “See! Do
you believe me now?” Nobody believed
her fear and experience until Terri and
Michael were brutally tortured and
murdered.
It is within this context that I
offer Summer’s Death, plus an apology to all battered
women for referring to myself as an
expert in violence against women. I knew nothing.
These murders weighed heavily on my
family, but what hurt the most were the
people telling me not to discuss the
case before the trial, during the trial, or afterward
because it might make somebody
uncomfortable. These restrictions left me in a lonely
place and the one person, my sister,
who could have helped me through these dark
days was dead.
Summer’s Death - Poem
The Autumnal Equinox occurred on
September 22, 2011, when I learned my sister and
her husband were murdered.
I knew this girl, such a short while
ago;
Our design was divine apropos;
Our beings in discord;
She was tall, I am small;
She was bronze, I am fair;
She was structured, me laissez
faire;
My life chaos, next to orderly;
My brazen words, her timidity;
She worked to live, while I lived to
work;
And yet we lived in this common
ground;
A mother, a father, and a history
abound;
This woman, my sister, was always
around;
Despite my strange ways, she still
cared for me;
In her way, in her way, so
specially;
She is that person, I so need;
The quiet strength behind me;
The woman accepted, unrestricted
from me;
For my words, for my words,
astounded;
Contradiction, infliction,
conviction from me;
Mayhap unwonted, offended, could be;
Lacked inhibition, oft shamed her;
But she stayed, yes she stayed,
beside me;
Demented deranged erratic could be;
Explained my conduct, byproduct
crazy;
But she stayed, yes she stayed, and
she claimed me;
As her sister, with pride, that
perplexed me;
Separated by six states, distant
depart;
Yet connected, unaffected 700 miles,
apart;
Then came that call, yes a call,
that broke my heart;
At 10:29, 10:29, 22 of September;
Death of summer, The Fall Equinox;
I remember, I remember, I remember;
That call, oh that call, stole you
from me;
You departed, I started, my journey
to hell;
Disbelief traded for pain;
Confusion, effusion disoriented I
fell;
Hysteria, delirium, madness now
sadness;
God, oh my God, awaken me;
To a day, any day, besides the “one”
without you.
One life, not suffice, so he took
more;
In my head, I see dead, I see your
end;
He took one life, he took Mike,
wanted more;
He took two, yes its true, with no
remorse;
I went to the place, yes that space,
where you died;
I follow the steps, you walked as
you died;
Just to know, just to feel, just to
touch you some way;
I walked your death march, the
following day;
A hundred times, in my mind, I have
tried;
To feel what you felt, as you knelt,
in his blood;
From your dead husband, his body
destroyed;
Devoid of life, until you did know;
You were not safe, the monster came
for you.
The obscure demonic beast, which
hath no soul;
Unfettered, unhampered, out of
control;
His growing hunger, hateful vitriol;
Consuming lovers, clandestine
children, as his toll;
Secretly, the weakly, he gains
control;
Asunder the sentinel’s stand, he
grows;
Because he knows, he knows, he
knows;
;
They are invisible, inconspicuous;
nonvisuals;
In the eyes of our guardian fools;
You meant the world to me, irony;
Because your life, just a trophy,
was snuffed randomly.
I wonder and wonder, what came to
your mind;
As you lay dying, struggling for
life;
Was there worry or fear or pain to
bear;
You died alone, oh alone, I was not
there;
To tell you I love you, maybe just
hold your hand;
Or cradle your head, and tell you
some lies;
You will live, all will be well;
Stay with me, please stay, instead
of farewell;
You’re my sister, my sister, and I
was not there;
When you needed me most, I was lost,
nor did hear;
Your last words, precious words, are
lost to the wind.
You are my sister, and sisters do
know;
The minds of each other, so maybe I
know;
I am late, I came late, but I
finally did show;
You need not worry, for your son,
pray tell;
Would be safe, beloved, as he grew;
He’s a man, yes a man, and he did
survive;
You’d be proud, yes so proud, strong
and alive;
He went on, without you, with work
and school;
The son you wanted, exalted, a
beautiful soul.
It is I who is trapped between life
and death;
Unable to cope, to live, without
hope;
Pushed by others to go on and forget
To live without you, ignore my
regret;
My sister, dear sister, is no longer
here;
Your dreams and your stories, are
missing I fear;
Heart broken and lonely, I’m forced
to go on;
It’s the motions, the motions,
without feeling or soul;
I dredge forward, yes forward, and
nobody knows;
I cannot let go, let go, let go;
No rehearsal for death or a murder;
Crazy, unstable, is what I hear;
Forced into silence, where I may not
speak;
The horrors of murder, because I am
weak;
My sister, dear sister, I can’t move
on;
How cruel to cross over, you left me
alone;
Alone, alone, forsaken alone;
Death is forever, to weather alone;
Terri, my secret murder, tormentor
and torture;
Visions of your body submerged in a
pond;
The blood spattered walls, bullet
holes, abandoned;
The memory of death, I can’t go
beyond;
Some days, too many days, I try and
forget;
But the pills and booze still cannot
mask;
Broken heart, broken heart, I cannot
get past;
So for now we pretend that all is
well;
My secret murder, I will not tell;
Rather, life is wonderful, as if, as
“is” if.
Speak not of these murders, I have
been told;
Not at work, nor at home, are
secrets untold;
Time to move on, as my grief grows
old;
Yet I wonder, I wonder, why it’s so
wrong to remember;
Little sister who died, yes you died
in September;
Murder evokes a bad feeling, no
healing;
I am vexed, so perplexed, for
concealing;
Deny, it’s a lie, this girl a short
while ago;
I had a sister, perfect sister, I
know;
She had to die, no good bye, why
deny;
Why must I forget, oh forget and
yet;
I know why, must comply, needn’t
cry;
You who demand, reprimand, I let go;
Can’t fathom my pain, died not in
vain;
Because you had no sister, not my
sister, no pain;
Suffered my loss, such a cost, to
sustain;
I am normal, as normal a sister
could be;
To resent, denounce life, that was
she;
Rather I shall scream to the world;
My secret murder had a name, TERRI!
Postscript
The killer went to trial after 26
delays. The trial lasted two and a half weeks. At every
venture, the killer’s rights were
considered. He continues to terrorize one of his former
victims, stalking by proxy. He knows
where she is and when she is at work. He calls
her or has other girlfriends call
and write letters to her. He has somebody watching her.
He has been moved downstate close to
where Terri’s son lives, and his former victims
live where he can have visitors that
maintain his social network and control. During
my victim’s statement, I was
chastised and threatened for divulging the sexual assault.
I did not want the killer to go to
prison as a hero for killing a police officer, especially
one who was a champion of battered
women during his career. The only time the killer
showed emotion throughout the trial
was when my father testified that he found
Michael’s body with his pants pulled
down to his ankles and his underwear pulled
down below his buttocks. This was
the only time that the killer turned red from shame.
We are currently awaiting an appeal
the killer has filed.
1-Author Biography
Lori Ann Post is a
professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale University
School of Medicine. Her areas of
research are violence/injury prevention and health informatics
(HI). She is the principal
investigator (PI) on an R01 to test the use of HI in the emergency
department (ER) to reduce injuries,
a multi-site informatics Veteran’s Administration (VA) that
targets PTSD, a Department of
Defense (DoD) simulation study, and a United States Department
of Agriculture and the United States
Agency for International Development study that looks at
gender-based violence (GBV) in
low-income countries as it relates to food security. Specifically,
her work in Africa addresses
engendering climate change. She will present how to mobilize
political and public will to end GBV
at the United Nations in the follow-up meeting to the
Beijing Conference on Women’s
Health.
Violence Against Women
2015, Vol. 21(4) 544–547
vaw.sagepub.com
Commentary on Summer’s
Death
Evan Stark1
Summer’s Death was written
by Lori Post, an associate professor at Yale Medical
School, a domestic violence
researcher, and a close friend. On September 22, 2011,
the Winter Solstice, Lori’s sister
and brother-in-law, Terri and Michael Greene,
were brutally murdered in the
couple’s home in Delta Township, Michigan. Terri,
age 46, was an environmental
researcher, and Mike, age 62, was a retired State
Police detective. The killer
inflicted numerous injuries on Terri and Mike both
before and after he shot them in a
style designed to mirror a Mafia execution. He
sexually assaulted Mike and staged
the bodies, almost certainly to torment anyone
who found them, which happened to be
Lori’s elderly parents. He also constructed
an altar on Terri’s body, which he
left floating in the family pond. More than 2 years
later, Christopher Perrien was
convicted of the murders and received a life sentence
without parole.
Poetry is one of the many media used
internationally to relieve the effects caused
by violence-related trauma. As a
student of domestic violence and partner homicide,
Lori has a deeper understanding than
most of the inescapable traumatic effects of
such a loss. However, none of this
prepared her for the abyss she faced in the wake of
the killings, the feeling of being “alone,
forsaken,” of walking her sister’s “death
march”; lessened the shock, fear, or
helplessness she felt; or insulated her from the
inevitable attempts to self-medicate
and escape this pain. Victim-witnesses such as
family members commonly experience
survivor’s guilt, the sense that our health or
happiness is at the expense of those
who have been harmed or that something we
could or should have done would have
saved them. The hope is that making poetry or
other art can help contain the
trauma and make it more manageable, restoring a sense
of control where there is none and
providing a certain apprehension of evil that is
beyond understanding.
What does Summer’s
Death have to do with violence against women? Mr. Perrien
had no prior relationship to the
Greenes and no known motive for killing them or desecrating
their bodies. By tracking his use of
the Greenes’ cell phone and credit and
ATM cards, Lori and police
identified the killer within a week. But robbery explains
neither the fact nor the manner of
the killings. At the time of his homicides, Mr. Perrien
was simultaneously on parole, in
jail for credit card fraud, and on “work release,”
although he had no job. But he had
no known history of violence, a fact that “puzzled”
the lead detective. The court deemed
him a “narcissistic sociopath” with substance
abuse dependencies and depression.
The picture painted was of a crazed sociopath
whose pathology had lain dormant
until that fateful, sunny afternoon.
The most obvious link to violence
against women is the realization that the complex
of feelings Lori expresses is also
felt by the family and friends of the battered
women whom we study, work with, and
represent. We have yet to fully appreciate,
study, or mount an appropriate
response to the effects of femicide, partner abuse, and
coercive control on adult family
members, friends, and co-workers. The recognition
that “witness-survivors” are also
co-victims (and potential allies) is particularly important
as advocates seek to help abused
women who choose to stay with abusive partners
build safe and empowering spaces
within their families/communities.
Lori wrote Summer’s
Death during a phase in the case when she knew the killer’s
identity but was forbidden to speak
about it publicly. The poem’s dynamism reflects
the tension between her experience
of being “silenced” by this mandate; her felt
“speechlessness”; her overwhelming
need to give voice to feelings of fear, rage, loss,
and helplessness; and the fact that
her most constant confidant, her sister, was dead.
Even after the trial, Lori was urged
to confine her experiences of suffering to herself
and her therapist, a wise precept
perhaps, but impossible to practice.
Like Lori, victims of violence
against women and their families commonly report
being silenced, either explicitly by
a court order or a coercively controlling partner, or
implicitly by disbelief or the
reluctance of outsiders to accept the depth and durability
of the grief involved. In Summer’s
Death, Lori refuses to mute her suffering, “get over
it,” or to let her sister and
brother-in-law remain the nameless victims Perrien sought
to make them. Judy Butler (2009)
points out that a hierarchy of race, sex, gender identity,
and nationality shape the “grievability”
of death and suffering in particular groups.
Lori challenges us to make the
tragedies of the women and families we study or work
with “grievable.” As in the poem,
this starts by naming those in whose names we claim
to speak (a major point of recent
protests over police shootings of young Black men)
and ensuring that the
victim-survivors we work with are no less valued than anyone
else and their narratives no less
seen or heard or privileged.
In fact, Perrien was a chronic
batterer, though his abuse had remained “invisible
in plain sight.” Excluded from the
official investigation, Lori applied her considerable
technical skills to track the
killer’s history. She identified 132 independent
domestic violence events over 25
years involving partners in four Michigan counties.
His abuse included multiple physical
and sexual assaults, stalking, threats to
kill, child abuse, child neglect,
attempted homicide, home invasion, and breaking
and entering. Confronted with this
history, the detective replied facetiously, “Well,
he had a lot of girlfriends.” The
prosecutor acknowledged that this litany of abuse
was not reflected in the six-line
rap sheet. Still, like the jurors in O. J. Simpson’s
criminal trial, he wondered what
this history had to do with the “real violence”
reflected in the killings.
Twelve of Perrien’s previous victims
emailed or phoned Lori during the arraignment,
and some showed up in person to give
support. These women told similar stories
of the authorities disbelieving
their claims, minimizing Perrien’s abuse, and ignoring
his repeated violations of court
orders. Amid their show of compassion, these brave
women were shocked to learn about
Perrien’s other victims, kept secret because none
of the harms they had suffered were
sufficiently grievable to merit public notice. To
them, the connections between their
abuse and the killing of Michael and Terri were
clear, although these threads were
invisible to police, prosecutors, and the court.
Ironically, to these women,
Perrien’s trial for murdering strangers was the first validation
they had that their experiences were
real or important. One woman had been
stalked by Perrien for years, filed
numerous reports, attained both no-contact and nostalking
orders, but was ignored when he
violated these orders. Realizing she could
easily have been the one murdered,
she asked the lead detective rhetorically, “See! Do
you believe me now?”
Perrien’s motive for killing Michael
and Terri may never be known. The prosecutor
claimed that his propensity for
violence was a by-product of mental illness. As likely,
his violence and narcissism express
a “normal pathology,” whereby “doing manhood”
requires constant proofs of
dominance over women and men. Whatever his motives, it
is clear that Terri and Michael
Greene would be alive today had Perrien been held
accountable for any combination of
the violent acts he committed against women and
children prior to September 22,
2011. Had any combination of the various police,
prosecutors, or judges involved with
Mr. Perrien previously seen his victims as real
persons with full equality before
the law, the danger he posed to public safety would
have been clear. He would not have
been on parole and not allowed to roam freely on
work release. Lori’s parents would
have been saved the horror of discovering the bodies
of their daughter and son-in-law,
and Lori and her family would have been spared
the life-changing trauma from which
this poem was born.
At bottom, we owe Summer’s
Death and the killings of Terri and Mike to the same
proximate cause. This cause is the
failure of our legal, justice, and service systems to
treat violations of women’s human
rights to physical integrity, dignity, liberty, and
equality with the seriousness these
harms merit. Presented with the evidence Lori
gathered, her mother replied
plaintively, “I thought domestic violence was a crime.” It
is by no means clear how to answer
this rhetorical question.
Summer’s Death is an
agonized and agonizing cry for us to ameliorate the pain suffered
by all trauma victims and witness
survivors. But the poem also makes it clear
that, once inflicted, much of the
suffering caused by abuse cannot be ameliorated. This
leaves us with a political question:
Is ameliorating suffering caused by abuse enough,
or have we reached a stage in our
social development where it is possible to eliminate
the causes of this suffering in the
first place?
Reference
Butler, J. (2009). Frames
of war: What is death grievable? London: Verso.
Author Biography
Evan Stark is a forensic
social worker and Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University–Newark
and Rutgers Medical School.