Kevin's mom and step father drank excessively, and Kevin was the punching bag for the step father when he wasn't hitting Kevin's mom, the stepdad did not hit the girls as far as I know. In fact the girl got away with everything. If one of them had to do the dishes and didn't, the step dad would beat on Kevin, because he said Kevin was the oldest and it was his job to make them do their chores and if he couldn't make them do the chores, then Kevin had to do them. One day his sister refused to do the dishes and Kevin didn't do them, Kevin's step dad punch Kevin so hard in the side of the head he nearly went blind in one eye, that was at the beginning of summer right before high school, and why Kevin had to wear glasses. That ended his mother's dream of Kevin being a Navy Pilot. But, Kevin's mom never stopped the step dad from beating on Kevin and his brother, she would leave the room and go have a drink while he did.
Hartville Police arrested Kevin in the Feb of 81 and in Nov of 81, Transported him to the Stark County Jail in Canton Ohio,and he was picked up from there by shore patrol. That was how they did it because Hartville did not have a jail.
Kevin's Brother is younger, but does look very similar to Kevin but does not have tattoos, in 1982 the" other woman's father (whom I met and spent time with after Kevin went missing, but I don't want to put her name out there) had filed a bastardy charge against Kevin because she was not 18 when she got pregnant. She was with a friend when they drove by Kevin;s mom house and she saw the back of his brother standing by a truck in the driveway and thought it was Kevin, and called the Hartville Police to pick him up, which they did (the chief of police was friendly with Kevin's mom and he knew Kevin has been picked up twice before from Hartville for being AWOL. his mother was at work a the time, so he just arrested and processed Kevin's brother as Kevin), Kevin's mother bailed his brother out of jail the next day and when they went to court it was thrown out because it was not Kevin, Stark County Jail did not note any tattoos on the arrest form, or do a finger print check on his brother even though he told them he was not Kevin. They claimed their computer system was down and they could not access that information at that time.
****Background information*******
Kevin's mother remarried after Kevin's father left her. the stepfather was abusive and often beat on Kevin as he was growing up, His mother and step father both drink excessively. Kevin's relationship with his mother was that of part protector from the abusive stepfather, and one of wanting to please his mother. It was not Kevin's idea to join the Navy, it was his mother's. His mom met Kevin's dad while he was in the service (army) and she loved the Military life. She wanted Kevin to join the army like his dad (his mom wanted the commissary pass and PX privileges), but Kevin didn't think he could handle being in the Army, so to please his mom, he joined the Navy instead.
Kevin and I went to school together since middle school. We were friends long before we were a couple. Kevin was shy and he was almost always the smallest kid in class. He didn't get his growth spurt until almost high school and they he was not muscular my any means. Kevin's mom wanted Kevin to marry up, while we lived in the more affluent end of Hartville, my mother owned her own business (my father was a police officer he died when I was 6 and my mother never remarried). We were upper middle class but just barely.
Kevin's mom was always pushing Kevin to date girls whose parents were Doctors and Lawyers and Engineers, that is how he met the "other woman". Kevin's mom and my mom and the mother of the "other woman" had the same hair dresser, and Kevin's mom befriended her mom. When the "other woman's" mom too her there to get the girls hair done for a school dance, Kevin's mom met her and saw an opportunity to climb the social ladder. The "other woman, she arranged a meet and greet between her daughter and the "the other woman" who was under 18 at the time, and initially the "other woman" dated Kevin's younger brother (She was closer to his age than Kevin's). Kevin's mom was constantly inviting the girl over and pushing her off onto Kevin.
When Kevin found out I was pregnant he wanted me to run away with him to Florida, I did not want to leave, he was also on delayed entry to the Navy pending graduation from high school, which he didn't want to go. He stole his mom's car and went to Florida without me, he went to where his dad lived before he died to talk to his dad's girlfriend and find out about his real dad, because he hadn't talked to him since he left Kevin's mom (Kevin's dad had died 5 years earlier)
Kevin saw "my not leaving with him to go to Florida" as a betrayal from me because I would not run away to live in Florida with him (like his dad did). But, His dad's girlfriend in Florida had moved, so he stayed on the beach for about a week until the police told him he had to leave, he called his uncle who sent him money Western Union to come back home.
His mom had him put in the Juvenile lock up for stealing her car. When he got out, he had no access to a car, and she forbid me to come to her house. Kevin would ride his brother's bike across town to my house, and she would call my house threatening to have me and him arrested for him being there (we were both 17). But she was having "the other woman" there every day after school and on weekends,that girl was 15 (as a friend to one of Kevin's sisters).
Kevin said he and his sisters and her had gotten into his mom and step dads stash of alcohol one weekend and got drunk and Kevin and the "the other woman" got together and that it was a one time thing, but two months later she told his mom she was pregnant and it was Kevin's, even though she was dating Kevin's younger brother she said she never slept with him, only Kevin and his mom was pushing Kevin to marry the girl. I was angry when I found out of course, and I told Kevin to just go and be with the "other woman" I was done playing games of his mother trying to climb the social ladder from his back.
Kevin came to see his daughter when she was born, then he shipped out for the Navy as soon as he graduated high school in 79. He tried to go AWOL in late 79 but was caught leaving his post and was confined to the ship Then he went AWOL in late 80's he came looking for me and his daughter but we had moved away, his mother saw him in Hartville, and she knew he wasn't supposed to be there and called the police and had him arrested in Feb of 81, he went to the Brig, as soon as he got out of the Brig he went AWOL again 81 By then a mutual friend had told him where I had moved to, That is when he came back and I let him move in with me. He told me that he was discharged because of depression (Not true he was AWOL, he was going to be discharged, but he just left instead of waiting for the process, he figured he didn't need to be there to get kicked out).
***** After Kevin went AWOL and moved in with me and our daughter *******
Kevin had night terrors about being in the boiler room, and about the boiler exploding and people dying, he would wake up in the night and pace back and forth and then go stand outside in the yard in the middle of the night, Kevin said he couldn't breathe. Freezing cold and he would be standing out there in his jockeys and a beater and flip flops, just standing out there, saying he couldn't get any air, I would take a blanket out and wrap him it in but he didn't want to come inside. It would take me a good half hour to convince him to come back inside and then I had to get him to drink hot tea with lots of sugar, so he didn't get hypothermia. The next day he would be laughing and joking around like nothing ever happened. He would never talk about it, he would get mad and leave when ever I tried.
When I lost the baby, it was because Kevin and I had been arguing, He had gone to see "the other woman" and her little boy, which I was not upset about that, I was upset because I told him to see them at a public place away from where she lived because of her father and Kevin's mother. The 'other woman" was still going and spending time at his mom's house after she had her baby. Even though her father had forbid it ( because she was under the care of her parents for being a diabetic that was not controlled by medication).
Her father had threatened to kill Kevin and take her child from her if he caught Kevin around her. But, Kevin went to her house while her parents were not home (she has type 1 diabetes and cannot drive, she lived with her parents until she was in her 30's, they did take custody of her son after they found out Kevin was at their house to see her and the boy).
Kevin and I were arguing because his mother was a trouble maker, and she and "the other woman" talked on the phone all the time, I did not want his mom to know where I lived. I told him to have one of her friends take her and the boy to meet Kevin at McDonalds or Burger King or something. Instead he went to her house while her parents weren't home and he was told he was not allowed there by her father after the girl got pregnant (she was not 18 when she got pregnant and they had to care of her and the child because of her diabetes that was not controlled with medication).
***The accident***
I was on the basement steps bring up laundry and he was on the steps above me, we were arguing about him having gone to her house knowing he wasn't supposed to, that her dad could press charges. Then he told me he was AWOL again that he wasn't really discharged, that he was about to be, but he couldn't wait any longer, so he just left. I told him that I couldn't take it anymore, that I was going to leave him. I was stressed, I was pregnant again, and I was having flash backs of the whole being pregnant the first time and him spending time with her and she got pregnant, I told him that I was done, I was going to take our daughter and leaving.
Kevin grabbed me by the shirt by the shoulder and was telling me not to leave that it was a mistake, he wasn't thinking. I jerked away from him and I lost my balance and fell down the stairs. The baby died right away, but I did not miscarry. I started running a high fever a week later and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, where they gave me Pitosin and a D and C, it was a boy. But, because the baby had died and not delivered, I got a blood infection and was in the ICU for the first 3 days, then in isolation.
IT WAS NOT KEVIN'S FAULT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, but Kevin blamed himself.
Kevin went to his mom to talk to her, distraught over what had happened, he was seeking comfort and to be consoled for his loss, but she called the police and told them he was AWOL and had him arrested, he called me at the hospital to tell me he was waiting for the police to take him to jail for being AWOL, Hartville Police as at his mom's, and they were just going to just going to wait there for the Stark county Sheriff instead of taking him to Hartville Police Department so could call me first and let me know what was going on and to check on me. I told him the baby had died.
I spent three weeks in the hospital due to a blood infection after the delivery of the baby. By the time I got out of the hospital, I did not know where he was. My mother would not tell me because she was angry with him, that was the end of November 81. I did not hear from him until just before Easter of 82. When he did a ship to shore call, he said they took him my chopper to a ship out on the water so he could not go AWOL again while he waited for his hearing, he he talked with a JAG officer via ship to shore call, that his hearing would be set for when the ship came back to port at Norfolk. That he was in a Brig on a ship at sea. That the CO let him call me after he talked with JAG to check on me and let me know what was happening, he said he would do 6 months in the brig, then be home by Christmas, that he would not get to make another call until after the hearing. He said he wrote letters (but I never got any), and he said that he did not always get to eat his meals because he had to wait to be escorted to go to chow, but sometimes they didn't take him, that is when they told he had to end the phone call, I never heard from him again.
