Silliman's Papers

Woman killed after two years of reported domestic violence
By Daniel Silliman
Clayton News Daily, Sept. 18, 2007

Police found the 36-year-old woman lying face down in the kitchen, surrounded by a pool of blood.

There was a bloody kitchen knife in the sink, and the woman, with multiple stab wounds through the back of her black T-shirt, didn’t respond to the officer’s question: “Can you hear me?”

Ani Hacardyan Rose, a German native living in Ellenwood, died on the floor of her kitchen a little before 9:30 p.m., Sunday. Ani Rose called 911 at 9:12 p.m., Clayton County Police said. She told the 911 operator she had a protective order against her husband, but he was in the 5371 Pecan Grove home and the couple was fighting.

Demetrio Patricio Rose, a 38-year-old native of Panama, called 911 a few minutes later, and told the operator he needed an ambulance, because he had stabbed his wife.

When Officer S.R. Malette knocked on the door, Demetrio Rose answered and said, “My wife needs an ambulance.”

He was wearing gray sweat pants, and the pants were wet around his ankles, Malette wrote in the police report. There was blood on the steps leading to the kitchen.

Demetrio said again, “I need an ambulance,” and Malette said, “Who is stabbed?” according to the report.

“The male stated, ‘My wife!’ I asked, ‘Who stabbed her?’ The male stated, ‘Me, I did!’” Malette reported.

The two Rose children, 14-year-old and 9-year-old girls, had locked themselves in a bedroom in the back of the house, during the fight.

Demetrio Rose was arrested on charges of murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to children. He was taken to the Clayton County Jail.

Police dispatchers couldn’t find a record of a protective order, Sunday night. Ani Rose, in the middle of divorce proceedings against her husband, filed for the order in May, but It was dismissed by Clayton County Magistrate Judge Bobby Brown in June. Brown cited a lack of sufficient evidence.

Attorney, Leon Hicks, who shares offices with Ani Rose’s lawyer, Joseph Baker, said he didn’t understand why the judge didn’t err on the side of caution, a ruling which might have saved the 36-year-old mother’s life. “This is just a horrible decision on his part,” Hicks said.

At the June hearing, Ani Rose and her lawyers gave the court photographs, showing bruised arms, Hicks said. She testified under oath that those were her bruised arms, in the photos; that Demetrio Rose had hurt her, and that the photos were true and accurate representations of the facts.

“She had evidence in this case,” Hicks said. “There was no evidence to the contrary.”

Brown could not be reached for comment, Monday.

Chief Magistrate Judge Daphne Walker said the case was dismissed because of a lack of sufficient evidence, and that the case can’t be judged in retrospect.

Walker received an award, last week, for the work she’s done in improving the county’s magistrate court response to domestic violence and protective orders.

Karen Geiger, staff attorney for the Family Violence Project at Georgia Legal Services, said Walker’s magistrate court is held up as an example around the state. “I know she’s very committed to always doing the right thing for victims and filling in some of the gaps that we see in some of the court systems around here,” Geiger said. “[Clayton County] has a more well-thought-out, and consistent, system.”

Rose was appealing the dismissal of the protective order, and Superior Court Judge Deborah Benefield was scheduled to hear the case next month.

“This was the fastest we could get any kind of hearing at all,” said Esther Hart, a paralegal for Baker. “Ani called several times, saying she was concerned because he was so verbally abusive. We knew this was going to happen.”

Police were called out to the Rose’s Ellenwood home in April, when the court served them with mediation papers as part of the divorce proceedings, according to a police report. Demetrio Rose allegedly got angry, when the papers arrived at the house, and the couple got into a verbal dispute. The Police officer advised Ani Rose to get a protective order against her husband.

Ani Rose had previously reported her husband to police in August 2006. Her husband had taken their children’s social security cards, passports and birth certificates, she said, and she was afraid he was going to take them out of the country.

“I don’t know about his plans,” Ani Rose wrote on a police statement form. “He has not been reasonable. He is screaming and cursing at me in front of the children and calling me names.”

In the statement form, Ani Rose lists three incidents of domestic violence, dating back to 2005. First, he threw a cell phone at her, she said, then another time, he threw a ring of keys at her, hitting her in the head. In the third incident, he grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground, Ani Rose wrote.

She told him she would report him to the police — next time. “His answer was, ‘I will finish what I started next time,’” Rose wrote in the handwritten report.

The report was filed more than a year before she was stabbed to death. The Clayton County Police officer receiving the report told Ani Rose to file a protective order.

There was no protective order, when police arrived at the couple’s home, on Sunday night, and saw bloody foot prints in the kitchen, dining room, hallway and up and down the stairs.