MOUNT VERNON — The alleged murder last week in Utica of 40-year-old Lynette Ricketts by her former husband, 49-year-old Randy Ricketts, stunned her quiet community, and deeply saddened those who knew Lynette and her twin sons.
It has also brought to the surface painful memories of family members of victims killed during past acts of domestic violence in the area.
To Becky Rodeniser, who lives outside Martinsburg, domestic violence is very personal. Rodeniser’s sister, Pam Annarino of Newark, was murdered by a former boyfriend six years ago.
Two weeks before her 48th birthday, Annarino was strangled and beaten to death by Philip Elmore, with whom she had broken off a romantic relationship. Rodeniser said her sister was threatened and harassed for months before her murder.
At trial, Elmore admitted to breaking into Annarino’s home while she attended her son’s wedding. When she arrived home, he tied her up, choked her and beat her with a lead pipe. He then escaped in her car.
He was convicted of kidnapping, aggravated robbery and aggravated murder, and sentenced to death by a Licking County jury. He remains on death row.
Annarino, who was a Licking County Sheriff’s deputy, was a college-educated professional who met Elmore after her 20-plus year marriage ended in divorce.
Her sister said her family never believed such violence would touch their lives.
“We grew up in a middle-class family,” Rodeniser said. “There were four of us girls. We’ve always been close, and had a basically good childhood.”
Rodeniser described her sister as “the most kind-hearted person ever.” She said the fact that her sister, a law enforcement professional who carried a gun and had a degree in criminal justice, could fall victim to such a crime, surprises many.
She said she and her mother had met Elmore, and never believed he posed this kind of danger to Pam. Rodeniser said that although they knew Elmore had harassed her sister in the past, Annarino had never shared the worst of the threats with her family.
“If we would have known how bad it was, especially that last week, we would have never left her by herself,” Rodeniser said.
Bonnie Cline, an advocate with New Directions Domestic Violence Shelter in Knox County, said that often, victims of domestic violence hide the turmoil they are enduring from their families and friends. Keeping up an appearance of “normalcy” becomes a complicated process many who are suffering abuse struggle to maintain.
“It’s a conspiracy of silence,” said Cline.
She said many loved ones hesitate to confront their friends or family members about abuse they suspect, for fear of offending them or invading their privacy.
“Some people think family business is family business and we don’t have a right to ask about that stuff,” Cline said. “We need to be more mindful and aware of the secrets people keep. It’s not invading someone’s privacy to ask if they’re OK, to try to connect with someone.”
Rodeniser said that because stories about domestic violence hit so close to home, she has avoided the press since her sister’s murder, and has only recently begun watching the news again.
She said hearing of Lynette Ricketts’ murder last week, brought the pain of her sister’s experience back to her “instantly.”
Although the News found no records of domestic violence charges or convictions in Randy Ricketts’ past, the alleged murder is by definition an act of domestic violence, according to Cline.
“It’s like it happened yesterday,” Rodeniser said of her sister’s murder, days after the murder-suicide in Utica was publicized. “The pain and grief are right there on the surface again. You know what that family is going through and you know there’s nothing you can do to make it any better.”
Lynette Ricketts worked as a secretary in the adult felony division of the office of Licking County Prosecutor Ken Oswalt.
Cline said domestic violence touches people from all walks of life, from the most economically disadvantaged to professionals with degrees. Abusers and their victims have many faces.
Lynn, a registered nurse who moved to this area from another area of Ohio to start a new life after leaving an abusive marriage, said no one in the upper middle class neighborhood where she had lived for over six years would have suspected her husband, a respected manager who was active in their church, was hurting her emotionally and physically.
“That’s not something I ever wanted people to know,” she said of her former abusive situation. “We had the right friends and a nice house. I thought no one would ever believe me.”
A final violent attack drove Lynn from the home she shared with her husband. She has since divorced and is rebuilding her life. She said the unconditional support of her family and some friends, and her faith, have made a new life possible.
“When people finally had ‘the talk’ with me, and it was obvious they were figuring out what was going on, it was actually a kind of relief,” she said months after her divorce became final. “I had dreaded and feared people knowing what had been happening, but giving the whole thing a name, was actually a new beginning.”
The name of what Lynn and thousands more people in Ohio have lived through is domestic violence.
“It’s a good thing to name and talk about the problem,” Cline said. “Things that we name have so much less power than the things we are afraid to say.
“Hitting is just a small part of what domestic abuse and intimate partner violence really is,” Cline said.
Like with Lynn, verbal threats, intimidation and emotional abuse are sometimes precursors to physical violence. But, said Cline, those non-physical acts that threaten, intimidate and humiliate a partner are also abuse.
Cline said family members or friends who are concerned someone may be suffering any form of abuse, need to put aside any discomfort and simply ask their loved one what is going on in their life.
Lynn said family members who showed concern and offered support while she sorted out her situation, ultimately may have saved her life.
“Anyone that would even suspect that they have a loved one that’s in a situation like this, they have to — they need to get involved or they could end up like us,” Rodeniser said.
She said her sister’s murder is with her every day. She said the two teenage sons who lost their mother to violence last week in Utica are also on her heart.
Rodeniser said her sister’s death is still felt deeply by Annarino’s son, who last saw his mother at his wedding. He now has two children, and the fact Annarino will never know the little girl born since her grandmother’s murder, is one of the deepest sorrows Rodeniser now endures.
“That was one of Pam’s dreams, to have a little girl,” she said. “That’s the hardest thing for me. You can’t help watching [Annarino’s grandchildren] and thinking how proud she would be and how much fun she would have with them.
“It gets easier to the point where you can go on with your life, but it’s not like a normal death,” she said. “When someone is killed the way my sister was killed, happy memories always turn to the way she was killed. Happy memories never end happy.”
