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Tuesday September 30 2014
The
Leader
▲ Senior sparks up stroke survivors 13
FENCED IN ▶ ROBIN BROWN FELT TRAPPED IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP THAT WENT WRONG IN A HEARTBEAT
Robin Brown stands in an Annacis Island parking lot where she was kept locked in a car for 16 nights while her boyfriend worked. Brown is sharing her story with the hope it will help other women recognize the signs of abuse and seek assistance. EVAN SEAL KEVIN DIAKIW
Both eyes badly blackened and lacerated from his punches, she lay crouched in the car in the fenced-in parking lot on Annacis Island. As darkness fell, the temperature in the car dropped, and her body and mind became numb. The only sound she could hear was the incessant thrum of nearby refrigerator trucks. She once again wondered how she was
going to escape, or whether she would even live to try. More than once, suicide seemed like the only solution. “I thought that was my only way out,” says Robin Brown, now 48, who often felt death would be better than what she was going through. Brown, a weightlifter and amateur boxer, had met Matthew Recknagel in 2011 at the gym where she worked out.
Nineteen years younger than Brown, he was good looking, charming, smart and made her laugh. He was a body builder and mixed martial artist and Brown began training with him. In September 2013, they went out for coffee on a date and started seeing each other. However, Brown soon sensed something was amiss. “I could tell he was starting to be con-
trolling already,” she says softly. At the start, Recknagel insisted she text him all day, and accused her of lying – particularly about any dealings she had with other men, including her clients. On Oct. 17, 2013 she told him she was going on a business trip with her boss at the vitamin company where she worked. He forbade it, but she insisted. continued on page 8