Newport Beach woman who survived abusive relationship uses her experience to empower others

Kelly Roberts’ relationship with her ex-boyfriend, an executive in the marketing company they were both working for at the time, began with lavish gifts and a feeling of empowerment that came with being with someone she and others admired.

But over the years, jewelry became a way to reel her back in after fights or threats of violence. The apartment he rented out so that she could be closer to him meant he could always stop in to check on her, out of earshot from anyone who might protest his claims that she was garbage or that no one else could love her.

She had tried crashing with friends and relatives to get away from him, but he would always manage to find her. When he eventually bent down on one knee and presented her ring to her at work in front of cheering co-workers about 15 years ago, she felt she had no choice but to accept it.

“I remember the head of the company whispering into my ear when this was happening,” Roberts said during an interview Thursday. “He told me, ‘If you hurt him, you won’t have a career.’”

She knew she had to escape. Their engagement helped convince her ex that she should find a job at a different company. Then she moved out and tried to break contact again.

He found her, and stalked her, Roberts said. Roses showed up on her doorstep every day for about a year, and any man who came to visit her would find their tires slashed or glue poured into their door locks. She was once on a business trip in Hawaii and turned a corner at a hotel to find him waiting for her.

The stalking didn’t end until after she uprooted herself from Los Angeles County and moved to Newport Beach. And after the unwanted visits stopped, she spent years processing the trauma she went through.

Roberts turned to volunteering in hopes of giving thanks for her newfound freedom and ongoing success in her professional life. She also wanted to make a positive impact on her community, at least in part to defeat everything her ex-boyfriend had done to make her believe she was worthless.

Yet it wasn’t until she started helping out with a personal empowerment group for people who have suffered through abusive relationships, Human Options, that she realized she was a survivor of domestic violence. Now, the experience she gained after a years-long ordeal “that was meant to destroy me” has become a tool she uses to counsel others going through similar trauma.

Kelly Roberts, a domestic abuse survivor and volunteer for Human Options, poses for a photo at the nonprofit’s headquarters in Irvine Thursday.

(Eric Licas)

“What I didn’t really realize was that I needed that personal empowerment program,” Roberts said. “Although I was having therapy and healing, I needed some very specific healing with people who understood what I was going through, who understood the language I was speaking. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s me.’”

It’s often difficult for people in abusive relationships to realize the situation they are in because it is often the result of a gradually rising pattern of control and isolation of the abused, according to Maricela Rios-Faust, chief executive for the survivor’s advocacy organization Human Options.

As co-dependence builds, leaving can seem impossible to some, even after evidence of abuse spills into the community.

Janet Vu Thuy Pham and Wyatt James Rock met when they were 18, and were in their late 20s when they started living in a Fountain Valley house owned by her father around 2009, according to people who moved into the same neighborhood shortly after them. They said she worked full time while he was often unemployed.

Anyone who happened to be passing by their residence when Janet arrived home would hear shouting and the sound of dishes shattering. The situation got to the point that whenever the neighborhood fell silent, people living nearby wondered if some sort of tragedy had happened, residents said.

Sometimes she would kick him out and calm would return to the community, but she would let him back in and the fighting would start all over again. Authorities had been summoned multiple times, but no arrests were ever made in connection with domestic violence, police said.

No injuries had been reported at the home until early Saturday, April 22. Officers responding to reports of an argument and a loud noise at about 5:30 a.m. found the couple dead from gunshot wounds from a rifle. Police were investigating their deaths as a murder-suicide.

“When we found out there had been a shooting, we knew,” a man who lived nearby told the Daily Pilot, on the condition of anonymity. “We knew it was Janet and Wyatt, despite hoping and praying for years that it wouldn’t end like this.”

He implored anyone who might be aware of an abusive relationship not to turn a blind eye.

Rios-Faust said it oftentimes requires the combined effort of a community of support to rescue someone from years of systemic belittlement and isolation. It can be difficult for people who have been convinced that they are unlovable that other people care about them and a life without abuse is possible.

However, Rios-Faust noted, direct involvement from outsiders can sometimes expose people to even more torture at the hands of their abusers or otherwise complicate a situation. Because the dynamics of every relationship are unique, each case requires its own unique approach. She advised those who want to help to start by reaching out to Human Options’ hotline, (877) 854-3594, to speak with experienced volunteers and advocates like Roberts.