A woman I will assign the fake name of “Karen,” for obvious reasons here, was in her downtown Minneapolis Target office when she learned about the gruesome slaying of a colleague in another department.
Manya Johnson, 32, a marketing operations manager, was fatally shot in the head Jan. 6 by her husband during an argument in which she threatened to leave him and take the couple’s then-17-month-old son.
Steven Roger Johnson, 35, dismembered his wife’s body as the little boy slept in another room and disposed of the remains in garbage bags left at a friend’s garage in White Bear Lake. Johnson pleaded guilty of the murder this month and was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole.
The details of the case sent a chill down Karen’s spine. Less than two years ago, in a disturbing victim-impact statement she filed in court, Karen alleged that her then-husband threatened to “cut up my body and bury it in the ground where no one can find it” if she left him.
He also allegedly choked her and ripped the phone off a wall when she tried to call 911 during a domestic dispute. As in the Johnson case, alcohol abuse and the birth of a child seemed to trigger violent and threatening behavior. In one alleged incident, the man in Karen’s case simulated shooting a gun at his baby son’s forehead.
That’s why Karen obtained an order for protection and relocated with her child before her divorce last summer. It’s also why she remains enrolled in what could be loosely described as a state version of the federal witness-protection program.
33 STATES HAVE PROGRAMS
Since 2007, the state’s voluntary Safe at Home program has provided address-confidentiality protection for more than 2,000 participants, most of them victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or chronic stalking. As of the end of 2012, roughly 1,215 — a good number of them children — are enrolled in 518 households across the state. Although most adult participants are women, male victims of stalking and family violence also are taking part in the confidentiality effort. More than 200 trained advocates from county attorney offices and victim-service groups assist the state in interviewing potential participants. Credible fear of harm to oneself or a loved one is the primary criterion for applying.
In the program, run by the secretary of state’s office, participants are assigned a post office box address in St. Paul. Mail delivered there is then sent out to the participants through a designated lot number assigned to them and known only to program administrators.
Washington was the first state to establish an address-confidentiality program in 1991. Minnesota is now among 33 states that operate such an effort, and reportedly the only one that requires both public and private entities — from law enforcement and schools to banks, credit card and utility companies — not to disclose the participant’s actual address.
In a survey conducted by the agency, 77 percent of the 105 respondents reported never feeling safe or feeling safe very little of the time before joining the Safe at Home program. In contrast, 92 percent reported feeling safe “all or most of the time” after enrolling in the program.
“I would be in hiding or dead without it,” wrote one survey respondent.
‘I NEED TO PROTECT MYSELF’
But it’s not foolproof. In today’s world, personal and private data in paper and digital databases abound like air, and mistakes can be made. There have been unintentional breaches, and there’s some lack of awareness among third parties.
Karen, 41, was shockingly made aware of this recently after her former husband moved in court to ask for unsupervised visitations with his now-3-year-old son. A guardian ad litem for the child was appointed. When Karen informed the woman during a phone interview of her participation in the state program, she reportedly was told that data-privacy laws did not apply to the guardian.
“I freaked out,” said Karen, who continues to fear the man and installed a home security system at her new residence. “I’m afraid he’s going to find out where I live, and I need to protect myself and my son.”
She contacted Ed Wunsch, a private investigator and former cop working on her case.
“We have abused clients and get them into the program based on its level of privacy and security,” he said. “But if there is no ramification for releasing such information, or there’s a loophole, it creates a hole that blows the whole program out of the water.”
Proposed legislation would make it clearer that not only are such disclosures against the law, but also that a willful violator could be charged with a misdemeanor.
Beth Fraser, the agency’s director of governmental affairs, said it’s a continuing challenge to educate both private and public concerns about the need for confidentiality. She added that it’s not easy for participants “to tell the world they live in a P.O. box and have to explain again and again the reasons for it.”
Karen called the Safe at Home program and was told to let the guardian know of the law and the proposed changes to it. The woman assured Karen she would not disclose her whereabouts in her report or conversations with others.
“The program so far has been working for me,” said Karen, who plans to oppose the request for unsupervised visitation.
Still, the Manya Johnson case; the ongoing search for Kira Trevino, a St. Paul woman who prosecutors say was killed by her now-jailed husband; and the apparent double homicide-suicide that took place last week in the Saintly City serve as unnerving reminders to Karen to maintain her guard.
“They are like flashbacks to me,” she said. “You can hardly work sometimes when you hear these things. You look around. You watch over your shoulder.”
Ruben Rosario can be reached at rrosario@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5454. Follow him on Twitter at @nycrican.
TO LEARN MORE
For more information on the Safe at Home program, go to www.sos.state.mn.us/index.aspx?page=1680, or call 866-723-3035.