Murder points out flaws in system.

Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

Paula Ruth Benitez did everything right - and still ended up dead.

Killed Monday by her ex-husband, Benitez was Lane County's third murder victim this year - all of them women, all of them with a boyfriend or ex-partner accused of killing them. Benitez, 46, had taken legal precautions, filed charges, obtained restraining and stalking orders.

Her fate speaks to the stark and limited realities facing women caught in the nightmare of domestic violence: Do you stay or flee? Go to court? Buy a gun?

Benitez died in a community with a reputation for taking domestic violence seriously, according to government and private agency officials who wrestle with the problem. But in the face of stubborn cultural attitudes about women and an era of reduced budgets and staffing cuts, it wasn't enough to save her, they said.

"There are no guarantees," said Cindy Jessup, who supervises a restraining order clinic in the Lane County Victim Services office.

Jessup and other professionals said that while they provide plenty of information and support, it ultimately falls to a woman caught up in domestic violence to decide what's best for her. It's often important that women work out a "safety plan" before leaving an abusive relationship, they said.

That can be crucial because a majority of domestic violence victims are killed either when they are in the process of leaving or already have left an abusive relationship. Benitez, for example, already had divorced her husband.

Like her, many women will obtain a restraining order or stalking order against a batterer - nearly 2,000 such orders were granted by Lane County Circuit Court judges last year. A big factor to weigh in deciding whether to seek a restraining order is assessing a batterer's fear of incarceration.

"It's our experience that most defendants do not retaliate because they do not want to go to jail," said Sharon Gorham, who directs the Victim Services office. "In the great majority of cases, restraining orders work."

Some women have concluded that their best defense is to buy a handgun - a choice generally frowned upon by professional advocates who say such weapons are statistically more likely to be used against the woman than against her batterer.

At Baron's Den, a gun supply and target shooting business in Eugene, owner Walt Umenhofer said he took three phone calls Tuesday from women who asked about buying a handgun. Umenhofer said he believes the inquiries were in response to Monday's killing.

Media reports on such killings can add to the problem, making women more scared to leave or providing batterers with another way of threatening and controlling their victim, said Teri Guiterrez, director of a domestic violence intervention program in Springfield.

The bigger task is to shift the focus to batterers and what they need to do to stop their behavior, said Margo Schaefer, community outreach director at Womenspace, which assists domestic violence survivors.

"They are the ones driving the bus," Schaefer said. "The rest of us are all responding."

In Lane County, four agencies offer intervention programs for batterers. One of them, Options Counseling Services, has seen the number of participants drop by nearly half in the past two years, said agency director Steve Allanketner.

Allanketner blames the reduction in referrals on budget and staff cuts at the county's Parole and Probation Office and elsewhere.

"I don't think the community has the tools to get a handle on this right now," he said. "Like a lot of things when tax measures go down, this is what you'd expect. You have limited jail space and not enough funding for police and probation departments. It's really a failure of the system."

One piece of good news, however, is a new $500,000 federal grant won by the county's Parole and Probation Office. The Pre-Trial Monitoring grant will allow parole officers to make sure residents accused - but not yet convicted - of domestic violence comply with custody referee requirements for release from jail, such as no contact with their alleged victims.

Staff cuts have made it impossible for officers to do such monitoring in recent years, said Joan Copperwheat, parole and probation office supervisor. The grant will allow for greater supervision of some batterers, but not all, such as those released because of overcrowded jail conditions, Copperwheat said.

In the long run, things are going to change only when enough people shift their attitudes about what's permissible in society, said Cheryl O'Neill, coordinator of the Lane County Domestic Violence Council.

"Is violence the way to solve our problems? Do we really own our partners? Is jealousy really a sign of love?" she asked. "The best way to eliminate this is to prevent it, and that's going to take a change of heart in our culture."

WOMENSPACE

Agency counsels women who are victims or potential victims of domestic violence

Hot line number: 485-6513

Advocacy center: 484-6103