Powerful exhibition highlights domestic violence victim who killed husband

Warning: This article contains references to domestic violence and homicide 

A powerful exhibition at Middlesex University has highlighted the story of an American woman who murdered her husband after suffering 17 years of domestic abuse.
Behind Closed Doors: Gender Based Violence Exhibition, features the case of Wendy Maldonado who killed her husband Aaron after he had repeatedly abused her and their four children. After committing the murder in 2005 with her eldest son Randy, she was sentenced to ten years in prison. When sentencing Wendy, the judge described it as “the worst case of domestic violence that any of us has seen.” 

With various trigger warnings throughout, the exhibition comprises of one room representing Wendy’s home with the outside showing happy family pictures, while the inside includes a timeline of Wendy’s and her family’s experiences, highlighting the stages where authorities or others could have intervened.  People attending are not informed that someone has died until the end of the exhibition. One image of a forest relates to a place where the husband would take Wendy and tell her to “run for your life”.

Dr Mia Scally, a Senior Lecturer in Forensic Psychology-Criminology who designed the exhibition with MSc Criminology students, said: “We wanted to highlight everything that Wendy and the kids experienced in a way that people could see and feel.

“We’re not telling people who visit that her husband was killed from the offset because people will presume that she is the one to have died. And seeing those 17 years play out and then getting to that conclusion, will bring a different viewpoint than if you were looking at media.
“This is timelining the seventeen years of abuse which was horrendous. The police, neighbours, members of the community and the preschool all knew what was happening but at no point was there any real and meaningful intervention.”

Wendy, from Oregon, has been reunited with her family and the story is featured in a documentary One Minute to Nine and often studied by criminology students.

“The documentary is brutal from about two minutes in and focuses on her last four days of freedom before she goes to prison. I found that premise powerful. Wendy knows that she is responsible and must go to prison for what happened but would rather go to prison than continue living with the situation. When you view prison as a safe place, it’s clearly a massive problem and those key messages stuck with me.”

Dr Mia Scally

QR codes linked to academic literature and interventions for domestic violence abuse victims at the exhibition, and there was an AI chatbot which provided background on the case. A screen in the University’s main hall displayed student messages to survivors of domestic abuse and visitors are being to take a poll at the end of the exhibition and for their reflections.  These messages were collated and shared with the Violence Against Women forum and Solace Womens Aid. One message is from Professor Shân Wareing, Vice Chancellor of Middlesex University, who said: “I am very proud of the work staff and students are doing to raise awareness and understanding of gender-based violence and domestic violence.
“If you are somebody who has experienced domestic violence I hope you can find the signposting to the support you need to feel safe and secure.”

Dr Scally has also written a new academic book ‘Sanctioned by the Legal System’, due to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in April and launched on Tuesday on the Hendon campus, which details the experiences of domestic abuse survivors in the family court system and the title is a direct quote from one woman in the study on how she was treated.
 “The family court system can further perpetuate or dismiss the abuse which women have suffered or grant increased custody to the father because the women are being difficult," added Dr Scally. "There are not a lot of avenues for women to have a better life when they are in that situation. You can have all the system structures in the world but if you don’t change the culture, you’re not going to implement those systems in a way that is effective for women.”

Local organisations offering help to domestic violence victims include Solace Womens Aid on 0203 8745003 or the Barnet One Stop Shop Drop In on 0208 3597947. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline can be contacted on 0208 2000247.

Find out more about Dr Scally's book: A Systems Approach to Women, Child Contact, and Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse. The picture of Wendy and her four children has been taken from the documentary One Minute to Nine available on Apple TV.

Learn more about studying for an MSc in Criminology at Middlesex University.