Testimony of Faith - Cassandra Richardson

Cassandra Richardson

(Editor’s Note: This testimony is not for the squeamish. The evil one person can inflict on another can be horrifying and almost hopeless in the final outcome. But there is a God who sees all. Cassie was prayed for salvation by a loving grandmother and uncle. It was those prayers that protected her from a brutally abusive relationship that could have ended in a fatal tragedy.)

as told to Associate Editor Virginia Aguilera

AT FIRST IT’S LOVECassie first met Johnny at James Marshall Elementary School in Modesto, California. There was something about him that just clicked with her. But what started out as a schoolgirl crush almost ended in her death and that of her unborn son.

After years of attending elementary school together and weekly Awana youth church programs, she was saddened when Johnny moved with his family to the Los Angeles area when they were in junior high. Heartbroken, she thought she would never see him again. But she was wrong...almost dead wrong!

On a hot, summer evening while at a gathering of friends at Mellis Park in Modesto, Cassie, now in her early twenties, saw a familiar, handsome face. It was Johnny walking toward her, smiling broadly. Seeing his face, brought back her romantic feelings and stirred up a new hope that perhaps she could finally have a relationship with the boy who had stolen her heart in elementary school. Her friends at the park gathering warned her that he was crazy, but she told them she knew him and he was not that way. Convinced that Johnny had not changed, Cassie was now ready to move beyond her school girl crush to serious dating.

Although Cassie had believed in God her entire life, she had been struggling spiritually. Her uncle was an United Pentecostal Church preacher, Brother Gregory Pearson, and her grandmother, Sister Dorothy Nash, was a faithful church member of Revival Center. Even though both encouraged her to live for God, Cassie’s addiction to crack and alcohol had her bound. Instead she would visit numerous different churches, trying to connect with God, but still not ready to give up her vices. She had started taking drugs to assuage her emotional pain and depression, but

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they only ended up deepening her troubles and blinding her to the real answer to her problems--Jesus Christ!

Johnny, on the other hand was not religious at all. In fact, when he was living in the Los Angeles with his family, he had become heavily involved in the Crips, a mostly African-American gang. Alcohol and drugs also had become part of his existence. He was struggling with mental illness, having been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Sadly, Cassie would find out later he had also been in trouble with the law. Hardened and angry, he was not the same boy Cassie had fallen as a young girl. Instead, he had become an unpredictable, violent threat. But Cassie had no idea how dangerous he was.

They started dating and ended up moving in together, which she admits was a terrible mistake!

ALWAYS SORRY

The first time Johnny attacked her was a complete surprise. They had been arguing as they often did, especially when Johnny had been drinking. When Cassie slapped a cigarette out of his hands, he leaped up, grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter, and plunged it into her back. He then slugged her in the jaw. Cassie screamed, “I’m going to call the police!” She never made that phone call. Suddenly, Johnny became extremely apologetic and kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She believed his sincerity and excused his violence as her fault, after all she did knock the cigarette out of his hand first. Cassie, herself, had grown up in an abusive household, so in her eyes this was “normal.” She did not want to live in an abusive relationship like her mom, but she just fell into it. Not only did she not call the police, she also did not seek medical care for her deep stab wound. She was in a great deal of pain for many weeks, but was relieved the knife had not hit a vital organ. “I didn’t want to tell them at the hospital what had happened,” she said, “because I didn’t want him to go to jail.”

Cassie convinced herself that Johnny would never assault her again. After all, he was very apologetic, and she would be more careful in the future not to push him too far when they argued.

She was wrong!

The second time Cassie was attacked was a fight over her going to church. Cassie and Johnny had moved to Prescott Estates in Modesto, along with her two children from a previous relationship. She had finally allowed her uncle to convince her to go to church at Revival Center. This was the same church where her children regularly were attending Sunday School, She was getting dressed for service when the trouble began. Johnny was very upset that she was going to church. He jealously thought she was going there to meet someone. Drunk and swearing, he locked her in the house and took the key. Without the key, Cassie could not escape. She was locked in with a very intoxicated and venomously angry man. Johnny began to verbally abuse her, then he grabbed a Louisiana Hot Sauce bottle and slammed it into Cassie’s head. The blunt force of the bottle caused an injury that would later require 13 staples in the ER. “There was blood everywhere,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.” Convinced he planned on killing her, she desperately broke a window and crawled to safety. A neighbor who had seen what happened called for help. Cassie didn’t wait for the ambulance. Somehow she managed to get herself to the hospital. In the meantime, Johnny, afraid he would get arrested, left and hid out at his brother’s exwife’s house. When the ambulance and police arrived, Cassie’s two children had to crawl out the broken window to escape. Fortunately,they had been upstairs during the attack, and had not witnessed anything other than the yelling. Johnny was arrested and sent to prison for two years. The prosecutor wanted to ask for a tougher sentence, but Cassie begged for leniency. After all, she thought, she had provoked him again and...she loved him.

Helplessly in love, she began writing letters to her abuser, thinking he would change. Johnny responded back that he was truly sorry.

In prison, Johnny received the medication he needed to help control his schizophrenia. His letters sounded like the boy she first had met in elementary school. Cassie was filled with hope that they could make a fresh start. When Johnny got out of jail, Cassie, blinded by her love, went back to Johnny, even though there was a restraining order banning any contact with her.

NOT THIS TIME

Their troubles began again when he decided to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol and stopped taking his prescribed medication. The jealous demon soon reared his ferocious head again.

They had moved to Oakland to live with family. Cassie had quit drugs cold turkey when she found out she was pregnant. She got a job and was working security patrol at a hospital. She and Johnny had gotten married by the hospital chaplain where she worked. Her job made her exhausted, but her paycheck and Johnny’s permanent disability check made ends meet.

At first Johnny was sweet and nice. However, his jealous side soon appeared. At times he would follow Cassie to work and stay to watch her during her shift. However, since he had gotten out of jail, he had never hit her again. But they sure were beginning to argue a lot.

As her pregnancy advanced, they decided that she needed to quit her security patrol job and move back to Modesto where living expenses were more affordable.

Soon after they settled in their apartment, Cassie and Johnny went to visit Cassie’s aunt who was bedridden due to cancer. Cassie had been out on the front porch drinking when she stepped inside the house and caught her husband in an inappropriate situation with a minor. They began venting and swearing at each other, continuing the heated argument at home. She was so angry, she did not realize how mad Johnny had become. She finally told him if he did not quiet down, she would call his parole officer since there was still a restraining order against him. She thought the threat with this phone call would calm down. Instead it infuriated him even more.

As she held the phone receiver and started dialing, he yanked the phone cord out of the wall. Frightened, she raced to the bedroom to use the phone there, slamming and locking the door to protect herself. Enraged, he kicked the door open and punched her, knocking her to the floor. He then got on top of her, straddling her, even though she was seven months pregnant. He swore then bellowed fiercely, “I will kill you.” He got up and went into the kitchen. Thinking he would not follow through on his threat, Cassie followed him. She realized she might have to run for her life. Cassie at first didn’t realize Johnny had grabbed a sharp serrated steak knife. As she passed him, he violently pushed Cassie down onto her stomach. “I thought I was going to die now,” she said. “I couldn’t move because he was on top of me. He put the knife to my neck and used the serrated blade to slice my neck from the front to the back.” Blood spurted everywhere. Terrified, Cassie cried out, “I’m sorry!” Her desperate words cut through his rage, triggering him to stop. He brusquely told her to get a towel, oblivious to the amount of damage he had done. Cassie’s children, ages nine and seven, had witnessed the attack and were scared and crying. This time Johnny was apologizing to no one!

THE DAMAGE IS DONE

“Go call a ambulance,” Cassie urged her husband, but he just sat there and did nothing. Unfortunately, no one at the apartment complex at which they lived had a phone, so Cassie asked her oldest son to run to the school next door to find the custodian who could radio for help. “I was praying, ‘God, please spare me’,” she said, realizing that she was about to faint. Cassie’s son could not find the custodian, so weakened with blood loss and fear, Cassie somehow managed to walk to her aunt’s house down the street. Shocked by Cassie’s condition, her aunt hysterically called 911 for an ambulance. Cassie became more and more pale as she sat and listened anxiously for the siren’s scream.

The ambulance delivered her to Doctor’s Hospital in Modesto, As the emergency room doctor cleaned and stitched the gaping wound, he shook his head and said that if her wound had been made just a little further toward the front of her neck, he would have sliced her jugular vein and “a thousand doctors could not have saved you!”

Cassie was released from the hospital and spent the first night back at her house alone. Johnny had disappeared. Her children were with her aunt. The next day, she went to stay with her aunt. She had a visit from an officer from the Modesto Police Department. He told her, “He will not get away with this. I will findhim.”

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The Newsvine

REVIVAL CENTER United Pentecostal Church of Modesto

825 7th Street Modesto, CA

When the police did arrest him south of Modesto in Turlock, they found him shaking. He thought they were there to arrest him for murder. He was convicted of attempted murder and went to prison for 17 years.

After all those years of abuse, Cassie had finally had enough. “The love was gone,” she said. “He attacked me when I was pregnant with his own son.” After the child was born, she presented him to her husband at the jail, but she has never seen her abuser again. She decided she was now more than ready to make major changes in her life, including coming to church.

About two weeks later, she came to Modesto Revival Center. Traumatized by her near death experience; however, it took several years before she could completely surrender herself to God. She was on and off drugs during those dark years. She also had severe bouts of depression.

“The attack mentally disturbed me,” she said. “I lost everything. I even lost my kids.”

IT’S GOD CALLING!

Cassie finally took note of Revival Center reaching out to her. With the persistence of family and church members like Sister Angel Padilla who visited her when she was staying at the women’s shelter, she at last found the strength to break free. She was baptized in Jesus’ name and filled with the Holy

Ghost, and with God’s grace, she has been living a victorious life.

Today, Sister Cassie is a faithful member of Revival Center. She completed our Starting Point New Christian Bible study series, and faithfully attends Bible study fellowship meetings, including this editor’s home Bible study. This fall she will be starting Purpose Institute to become more grounded in God’s word. She was inspired by the speech given by Sister Susan Ybarra in our recent P.I. graduation ceremony. Cassie is now single. “I am married to Jesus,” she says.

Sister Cassie has a word for women who are living in a home that is filled with fear and violence. “If you are in an abusive situation,” she says, “GET OUT RIGHT NOW! If you don’t, but then you finally can get away, it might still mess you up for years. You could die, or it could take you years to get back to God, and your kids will be affected by the trauma.”

Cassie may have fallen into the pattern of being an abused woman, but thanks to Jesus Christ, she has been snatched out of it by God’s saving power and grace. You can find the strength and help you need to make a change in your life. Let Christ make you a new creature, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT).