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FROM BATTERED TO VICTORIOUS STORY: JAMES COMBS PHOTO: FRED LOPEZ
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or Lori Bajares, domestic violence hits close to home. She remembers her personal nightmare all too well. The bruises, black eyes, cuts, and scrapes all over her body. The desperate cries and screams for help. The emotional trauma of thinking there was no escaping hell’s gate. As a resident of Texas in the early 1980s, Lori was verbally and physically abused by her then-husband. She endured this tortuous lifestyle for five years. “When I was seven months pregnant with our baby, he would punch me in the stomach,” says Lori, who today re-
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sides in Lake County. “I’d turn around and say, ‘Punch me, but don’t hit the baby.’ I remember always hiding in the closet because I never knew what kind of mood he would be in.” Her pleas for help routinely fell on deaf ears. “Back in the early 1980s, there were really no laws or repercussions for domestic violence,” she says. “There were times when I’d call the police, but they acted like it was no big deal.” Meanwhile, her husband controlled every aspect of her life. “He would not let me talk to family or friends. He would not let me work, and he would not let me have money. There were certain clothing items that he forbade
