|
|
|
Back To Blog Entries
| Mark's twin separated at birth apparently...
by hunnybunnylove at 5/27/2008 10:19:22 AM
A life of violent threats
GREG SKINNER JUNEAU EMPIRE
"I knew at some point it would happen," said Rebecca Clevenger of Brainard, Mo. She was married to Randall Clevenger for 17 years.
She and another friend of Clevenger's think the 40-year-old Juneau man committed suicide when he threatened police Sgt. Paul Hatch on Friday, Aug. 10, with a 4-foot-long sword at Thunder Mountain Mobile Park. But they wonder if police had to shoot him.
"He made a lot of threats, but didn't hurt anyone," said Beki Kruger, Clevenger's cousin who lives in Kansas City, Mo.
Clevenger spent eight years serving in the U.S. Army and came to Juneau in 2001, working most recently in the Fred Meyer delicatessen. He had a history of rocky relationships, threats to women and calls for protective orders against him.
Kruger said her cousin was a quiet man who didn't yell before serving in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. He came back a different man, though he never faced combat.
"He sat around cleaning guns and sharpening knives," she said. "That's where the obsession came from."
Randall Clevenger told her that the war had changed him.
"He came back agitated and violent," Kruger said.
Within months after returning from the war, he lost his newborn daughter. His ex-wife would not comment on the cause of the infant's death.
His ex-wife said Clevenger lost his potential after the war and years of drugs and alcohol.
Pivotal night
On Aug. 10, Clevenger's anger peaked as he and ex-girlfriend Werna Biggler fought over a lost phone number. Police and witnesses say alcohol was involved.
Clevenger wanted to call his children, then living out of state with his ex-wife. The Clevengers were locked in a custody battle and both sons' birthdays were coming. Clevenger couldn't find the phone number and thought Biggler erased it.
Biggler did not take the argument seriously at first, said Tina Doak, who was at Clevenger and Biggler's home at the time. They still lived together, though they had broken up.
Biggler made a sarcastic comment that intensified the argument. Doak and Biggler left the house to escape his growing anger.
Clevenger caught up with the pair and held Biggler by the throat, knife to her belly, Doak said.
"He told me, 'I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill myself,'" she said.
Someone in a passing car called 911 as the domestic argument unfolded on Thunder Mountain Road.
Doak said Clevenger had been upset since Biggler broke off their short, intense and rocky relationship. Doak said Clevenger's worst fear was being alone.
"His wife left him, Werna left him, and his kids are gone," she said.
The hurt and stress pushed Clevenger past his limit, Doak said. She said Clevenger was expressing himself with the folding knife.
"He was just trying to say, 'You hurt my feelings,'" she said.
Violent history
Clevenger's threats to harm or kill that day were not his first.
In 1995 Clevenger threatened to cut his wife's throat with a sword if she ever left him. He also threatened to kill himself.
In 1999 he assaulted an officer and had a knife collection confiscated while living in Missouri, Rebecca Clevenger said.
While divorcing him seven years later, she filed a restraining order for threats to take her life and take their children. She said he had hit one child with a rifle stock and smoked marijuana with both. One night while drunk he waved a gun in her face.
"He violated every protection order I every had," she said.
In November 2006, when arguing with his wife over their divorce, he threatened to take on all of the Juneau Police Department, according to court records.
In May of this year a neighbor also filed for a protection order, saying Clevenger threatened her and her children. He claimed she was spreading rumors and hurting his chances of finding work or a place to live.
The magistrate denied the order.
A judge also denied a long-term restraining order Rebecca Clevenger requested in November 2006.
"All he had to do was deny (his threats), and say he loved the kids," she said.
Obtaining a long-term protective order is complicated, said Ellen Naughter, victim advocate with the AWARE women and children's shelter.
"It takes a lot of information," Naughter said. "It's never that simple with domestic violence."
In all, six protective orders - three 20-day orders, three six-month orders - were filed for in Juneau by two women against Clevenger. The three short-term orders and one long-term one were granted....
In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a suit stemming from a similar domestic dispute in Colorado. A divorced father violated a protective order and kidnapped and killed his children. Then he killed himself in "suicide-by-cop" gun battle. Police had a chance to arrest the father previously, but did not. The ex-wife sued the police for failing to arrest her husband, which could have prevented his death.
In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that the local police force could not be sued for failing to enforce a state restraining order.
Doak and Rebecca Clevenger think Randall Clevenger was trying to take his own life.
Doak said Clevenger was never trying to hurt Hatch; he was trying to get the cop to react.
"It had nothing to do with the cop," she said. Clevenger couldn't handle being dumped again and didn't see another outcome.
Rebecca Clevenger said the more she thinks about what happened on Aug. 10, the more she thinks her ex-husband killed himself.
"I would not put it past him."
|
|
|
|
|
 |