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They speak volumes Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Monica Patridge stands among silhouettes representing victims of domestic abuse. Patridge is a member of the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County leadership class that organized a local version of the national Silent Witness project, which will be unveiled Tuesday. Without uttering a word, the silhouettes of the Silent Witness memorial call attention to the problem of domestic violence The stories of the silent witnesses The Jackson County Silent Witness Project will memorialize eight local victims of domestic violence - all women - who died between August 1986 and September 1999. Here are their stories, as recounted from police accounts and news reports. Melodee Fuller, 37 Aug. 10, 1986 Melodee Fuller had discovered that her husband, John Robert Fuller, 37, had been sexually abusing her 14-year-old daughter. Police responding to a domestic disturbance call found Melodee Fuller dead of a gunshot wound in a back bedroom of the family home. Laureen Kent was discovered injured but alive in the garage, trying to call 911. She died hours later. Police arrested Fuller, who was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. Dolores Strehl ow, 55 Jan. 25, 1987 Dolores Strehlow had been missing for seven years when police arrested her husband, Arnold Gene Strehlow, on murder charges in 1994. Arnold Strehlow, who was 38 when his relatively wealthy wife disappeared, had long been suspected of foul play. He told police nearly a dozen different stories about her disappearance before leading them to her remains, which he had buried in his yard, then dug up and reburied on a remote logging road north of Rogue River. Forensic evidence indicated Dolores Strehlow died from a high-powered gunshot to the head. Arnold Strehlow was sentenced to life in prison. Lori Swanson, 30 Sept. 6, 1988 Lori Swanson was a Medford mother of four children when her estranged husband, Daniel Swanson, 36, chased her out of her house and onto a neighbor's back porch. He caught her and beat her head against the concrete, killing her. Daniel Swanson later fatally shot himself outside the family home. Ruth Bryant Watkins, 40 Nov. 2, 1989 Ruth Bryant Watkins was fleeing from her estranged husband, George Vernon Watkins, when he killed her with a shotgun blast to the back outside her Ashland apartment. The couple had a long history of domestic violence; family members repeatedly had urged Ruth Watkins to leave. When she finally decided to take their advice, Vern Watkins flew into a rage. He later told investigators he intended to shoot her in the legs as she fled, but the gun jumped. Vern Watkins was sentenced to life in prison. Lisa Bore n, 28 June 9, 1992 Lisa Boren and her husband, David Martin, had recently moved from San Jose, Calif., to Eagle Point, where she grew up. When Boren asked for a divorce and obtained a restraining order, her estranged husband became distraught. He began stalking her, jogging past her home, threatening to kill her. Early on the morning the divorce was final, he shot Boren as she fled through the backyard of her home in her nightgown. Afterward, he shot himself. Boren's mother, who lived nearby, heard four screams and four shots through an open window, jumped in her car and found her daughter and Martin dead in the yard. Bobbi Jo Landeros, 30 Aug. 26, 1995 Julie Morgan, 48 Sept. 27, 1999 Bobbi Jo Landeros shared an 11-year marriage and three children with Ruben Landeros, 35. She wanted him to stop his heavy drinking; he refused and moved out of the Medford apartment they shared. He returned six weeks later, drunk, with a gun and shot several times Bobbi Jo Landeros and Julie Morgan, the co-worker who had encouraged Bobbi Jo's independence. Bobbi Jo Landeros died at the scene; Morgan suffered injuries that left her paralyzed from the neck down and able to breathe only through a ventilator. Her condition imprisoned an independent spirit in an unworkable body, friends said. She died more than four years later, on her 48th birthday, after contracting an infection. Ruben Landeros fled the scene and was captured in Walla Walla, Wash. He hung himself in jail. Phyllis Goldin g, 46 Oct. 3, 1996 Phyllis Golding and her husband, Richard Golding, moved to Ashland from Laguna Niguel, Calif., early in 1996. Neighbors reported hearing the couple argue in the weeks before Phyllis Golding's body was discovered Oct. 11, 1996, in the couple's condominium. She had been bludgeoned - apparently with a hammer - stabbed and partially dismembered. Richard Golding was found dead in his car in Los Angeles two days later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A bloody footprint in a bathroom led investigators to conclude Richard Golding was the murderer. By JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune Eight women, you think to yourself, standing before the circle of life-sized figures. Eight women who held jobs, ironed clothes, cooked dinner, washed dishes. Eight women who talked and laughed and breathed and cried. Eight women who died as victims of domestic violence. And then you swallow hard, recognizing that the Silent Witness project of Jackson County has done its job. Awareness is the point of the service project sponsored by this year's leadership class of the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County. The 35-member group of business leaders overwhelmingly chose a communal task different from most others that have gone before. Instead of a renovated playground or a new book cart, the group decided to create permanent memorials to local women killed as a result of domestic violence. They opted to join the Silent Witness National Initiative, an effort to reduce the number of people murdered every year by those closest to them. "We wanted to make a lasting impression on what unfortunately is a growing problem," said Scott Kelly, a vice president at Asante Health System in Medford and a member of the leadership class. "We wanted to honor the women whose lives were taken so tragically." At the same time, the group agreed it wanted to help Dunn House, Jackson County's shelter for abused women and children, mark its 25th anniversary. The group will achieve both goals at a Tuesday evening ceremony that will include 250 community leaders, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers - and some family members of the eight women represented by the solemn figures. Marcia Boren will be there if she can manage it. Tender emotions remain acute nearly a decade after the death of her daughter, 28-year-old Lisa Boren, who was shot and killed by her estranged husband. "In another month, it's going to be 10 years, but it always takes my breath away," the Eagle Point mother said. "It takes you back there." She was surprised when a police officer contacted her, asking whether Lisa Boren's story could be included in a permanent domestic violence display. "I almost would have thought, 'No, I don't want that done, I don't want people to think of her as domestic violence,' '' Marcia Boren said. "But I talked to my husband and we said if it would help other people, then we can do it." Figures representing Lisa Boren and the seven other Jackson County women will become part of a traveling exhibit that graphically displays the human cost of domestic homicide. Each figure will be outfitted with a shield that recounts how the woman died. Along with the figures will be a plaque crediting the chamber leadership class and businesses that offered financial support for the project, said Kate Mort, a business development specialist at Rogue Federal Credit Union. "My heart just went out to this project," she said. "We wanted to leave something that would be used over and over and would be memorable, not so much for the individuals that were involved, but for the community." In addition, the leadership group wanted to raise awareness that domestic violence is a communitywide issue. "This is a true problem, it is a symptom of family systems breaking down," Mort said. "There are people in the community, people who have normal, healthy lifestyles, that don't want to believe this goes on in Medford, Oregon." In addition to creating the figures, the chamber group raised funds for Dunn House. Maggie Jordan, director of victim services for Community Works, the agency that runs the shelter, said she appreciated the effort. "We haven't had our own Silent Witnesses in the past because of the enormous amount of organization it takes to get them," she said. "We're grateful to be able to have it now." As new communities create their own Silent Witnesses, the movement that's present in every U.S. state and a dozen countries grows, said Janet Hagberg, executive director of the Minneapolis-based organization. "It has such an impact," said Hagberg, who helped create the original 27 Silent Witnesses that started the project in 1991. "I always think it's going to feel old hat, but then they just mesmerize me again." Since 1994, domestic violence homicides in the United States have fallen by 40 percent, Hagberg said. She doesn't take credit for the decline, but she believes the project is part of a matrix of forces behind it. Morgan was shot Aug. 26, 1995, by the husband of Bobbi Jo Landeros, a friend and employee. Morgan spent the next four years as a quadriplegic before dying on Sept. 27, 1999, of the lingering effects of her injuries. "It really isolated a very outgoing woman," recalled Costello, whose daughter plans to marry Morgan's son. In a small, lasting way, the local Silent Witness project avenges Morgan's death, Costello said. "That man tried to silence Julie's voice," Costello said. "This will make sure these women's voices will not be silenced forever." Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.