Mother pushes for change after daughter’s death
BETHEL — One in three murdered women are killed by intimate partners, research shows. An abuser’s access to a firearm makes her death five times more likely.
Emily Todd, 25, of Bethel, was one of these women.
She was an artist, a daughter and sister.
“If you lose a parent you’re an orphan. If you lose a spouse you're a widow. If you lose a child there's not even a word and that for me it speaks volumes of how
immense it is,” said Todd’s mother, Jennifer Lawlor.
Todd had a degree in expressive arts therapy and lived at home as she worked in the memory care unit of a senior living facility.
“Emily was an artist, just the most caring, loving person,” Lawlor said. “It didn’t matter if it was a human or an animal, a plant or a tree. She was so caring.”
Todd would visit from college just to take her younger brother trick or treating. “I’m not sure what’s harder, losing Emily or raising (my son) without her,” she said.
The last text message Lawlor has from her daughter read “family over everything Mom.”
It was that night, Dec. 8, 2018, Todd was shot and killed in Bridgeport by a man she briefly dated, according to Bridgeport police. Lawlor said her daughter was trying to cut ties with her accused killer, whose charges are still pending.
Todd and Brandon Roberts met through a dating app and it wasn’t long before she felt afraid, her mother said. After seeing each other for about three weeks, Todd called off the relationship.
Cindy Carlson, of the Umbrella Center for Domestic Violence, said the possession of a firearm increases the lethality of intimate partner violence immediately.
Fifty-three women are shot and killed by an intimate partner in an average month in the U.S. and Connecticut has averaged just under 14 intimate partner homicides annually since 2000, with firearms being the most commonly used weapon, according to the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“A firearm is such an indicator for domestic violence homicide because it’s clearly one of the most dangerous and effective weapons,” said Liza Andrews, director of communications and public policy for the coalition.
Most intimate partner homicide victims are between 25 and 44 years old and most victims are Black women, according to CCADV.
Dan Carghill, the coalition’s director of law enforcement services, said last year was the first period in the past decade in which knives and strangulation were more common that firearm homicides.
Carlson said a gun is often used to threaten a partner as a means of control before it’s used to kill. It was after Todd had already broken up with Williams that he texted and called her threatening to kill himself with his gun.
Police said that night, on Nov. 30, 2018, Todd told 911 dispatchers that Roberts was driving a blue Chevrolet Impala with Ohio license plates and owned a gun. She gave police Roberts’ cellphone number.
Police said officers made phone contact with Roberts while he was driving, and a pursuit ensued. They said officers ended the chase because of Roberts’ reckless driving.
Lawlor said her daughter’s call should have been a red flag to law enforcement that Roberts wasn’t mentally stable and could commit harm.
“It’s a system failure times a million because police brutality is also neglect,” she said. “I’ve been trying to say that from the rooftops and getting nowhere until this last spring.”
Currently, Connecticut’s “red flag” law allows two police officers or a state’s attorney to ask the court to remove firearms from those who could harm themselves or others. But Lawlor and others involved with Moms Demand Action are pushing legislators to update the statute.
Under the revision being considered to risk warrants, one officer could make the request, as could a household or family member, or certain medical professionals such as physicians or psychologists.
Lawlor said that revision would have meant she could have taken action on behalf of her daughter when police didn’t.
The current legislation requires a victim to go to police for a risk warrant, which is not something victims always want to do, said Andrews.
While Andrews said she hasn’t reviewed the proposed language, CCADV supports giving victims as many options as possible.
“We know that the combo of firearms and domestic violence is very lethal, so we continue to prioritize gun safety laws,” she said.
Carghill, who is also a retired State Police officer, said while it may be ideal for police to seize firearms at the time of arrest, due process needs to remain protected.
Additionally, Carghill said whether contacting law enforcement is the best avenue for victims or not, consulting an advocate for safety planning is recommended and expanding the risk warrant statute may see victims neglecting that resource.
On Dec. 14, 2018, police arrested Roberts at his father’s home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and charged him with murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and carrying a pistol without a permit.
He was also accused of shooting another woman on June 9, 2017, near the intersection of Kossuth and Maple streets in Bridgeport.
The 43-year-old woman was taken to Bridgeport Hospital with a bullet wound in her right shoulder.
Lawlor said Robert’s access to a firearm made the difference in her daughter living or dying.
“He’s not brave, he’s a coward, so without a gun one woman wouldn’t have been shot and Emily wouldn’t be dead,” Lawlor said.
She’s fighting for Roberts to serve a life sentence instead of being offered plea deals or anything less than 65 years in prison.
“In all honesty there isn’t any justice, but we should have true accountability,” she said. “He shouldn’t have the hope of freedom when I’m in a life sentence, my son is in a life sentence.”
The national domestic violence hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233. The TTY number for the deaf and hearing impaired is 1-800-787-3224.
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