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Stating Her Case: 2004 lawsuit against Jonesville police goes to court today
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Vernetta Cockerham says police did little to protect her and her children from her estranged husband.
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Published: June 29, 2009
Vernetta Cockerham sometimes feels a jolt of fear when she goes to hug her oldest son, Rashieq.
He is the spitting image of her late husband, Richard Ellerbee. And when she looks at Rashieq, she sometimes feels as if she's looking at Ellerbee, the man who killed her 17-year-old daughter and then stabbed Cockerham seven years ago.
Ellerbee died later after dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself on fire.
Cockerham was left with a scar along the left side of her neck -- along with plenty of emotional scars. In addition to flashbacks and nightmares -- her son, she says, has "seen the terror in my face'' when he gets close -- she also has a lot of anger.
Much of it is directed toward the police, whom she says did little to protect her and her children -- even though she had taken out a restraining order against Ellerbee just days before the attack.
In 2004, Cockerham filed a lawsuit against the Jonesville Police Department and two of its officers, Scott Vestal and Tim Gwyn, saying they failed to enforce the restraining order, and that they didn't arrest Ellerbee after she told them he had violated that order numerous times.
"Nobody should have to be ignored that way," Cockerham said.
Her case will get under way today in Yadkin Superior Court. The lawsuit is being closely watched by advocates for victims of domestic violence across the state.
"It is our position that violations of protective orders should be taken seriously and there should be immediate consequences to enhance the protection of the victim who has the protective order," said Beth Froehling, the deputy director of the N.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
"I will kill you. You will die."
Cockerham married Ellerbee, whom she met years ago in New Jersey, on Dec. 1, 2001, shortly before their second son was born. Candice was her daughter from a previous marriage. On Independence Day a year later, Cockerham and Ellerbee separated.
She said he had abused her, and the breaking point was when he hit her with a baseball bat in July 2002. They began living apart, but the abuse didn't end with their separation, she said.
On Nov. 13, 2002, she filed a domestic-violence protective order against Ellerbee. That order required that he not threaten her and her children, and that he had to stay 250 feet away.
Ellerbee ignored the order. The next day he broke into her house and left a note, Cockerham said in an affidavit filed with her lawsuit.
"I will kill you," the handwritten note said. "You will die."
He didn't stop there. Ellerbee dug graves across the street from Cockerham's driveway and later told Cockerham that those graves were for her and her three children.
He drove to the day-care center where Cockerham's infant son, Dominiq, was enrolled, and threatened Candice, who was sitting in a car. Cockerham was inside the day-care center.
Then on Nov. 18, the day before the killing, Ellerbee stalked Cockerham in his car, even passing by her father's house late that afternoon while Cockerham and her daughter talked to officers Vestal and Gwyn.
According to the lawsuit, Cockerham went to the Jonesville Police Department each time Ellerbee violated the protective order. The police department was across the street from her house.
She went to the Yadkin County Magistrate's Office to get an arrest warrant issued, and she talked to the police chief, Robbie Coe, who she said assured her that officers would be put on high alert and have him arrested.
Vestal and Gwyn also promised to arrest him, running to their cars and putting on flashing blue lights when Ellerbee drove by on Nov. 18 while they were standing in front of Cockerham's father's home.
Ellerbee was never arrested, and on Nov. 19, he fatally stabbed Candice, an honor student at Starmount High School. Then, he stabbed Cockerham in the foyer of their house when she got home after running an errand.
Three days later, police found Ellerbee dead in New Jersey.
Cockerham left Jonesville after her house was foreclosed on, and she now lives in Winston-Salem with the sons she had with Ellerbee: Rashieq, 13, and Dominiq, 7.
"When I go back to the town and see the struggles of the people, it angers me because this happened at your front door," she said.
A public duty
Seven years later, Scott Vestal still works at the Jonesville Police Department. He is a sergeant.
Tim Gwyn became police chief after Robbie Coe resigned suddenly in 2004. Two years later, Gwyn resigned, saying he was burned out from politics.
Neither Coe nor Gwyn could be reached. Vestal referred questions to the current chief, Roger Reece, who wouldn't comment.
William Hill, the defendants' attorney, did not return several calls asking for comment.
The case hinges on what is known as the public-duty doctrine. Public-safety agencies such as police departments have an obligation to protect the public at large, said Doriane Coleman, a professor at Duke Law School.
But they don't necessarily have an obligation to protect individuals, she said.
"They don't have a duty to any one of us individually," she said. "That means the police and fire departments are not our personal security forces."
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal law does not provide a guarantee of a specific police response to domestic-violence complaints, even when a restraining order has been issued. The ruling came after Jessica Gonzales sued the town of Castle Rock, Colo., arguing that police violated the due-process clause of the Constitution's 14th Amendment. She had repeatedly phoned for help with her estranged husband, who killed her three daughters before police shot him to death.
In many cases, a restraining order won't stop someone who doesn't care about the consequences of violating that order, Coleman said.
"This guy was ready to die," Coleman said. "They're so upset and deranged. The question is ‘How do you deal with those men?'"
Finding purpose
In the years since the attack, Cockerham has poured her energy into being an advocate for victims of domestic violence.
She works with the N.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and is pushing for a change in state law that would make it mandatory to arrest violators of protective orders.
Cockerham says that there are few resources for victims of domestic violence in Yadkin County and she wants to change that. She hopes her case will help.
Dominiq recently asked her how his sister died. He always knew she had gone to heaven, Cockerham said, but she had never told him how. He asked why his father killed Candice and why he tried to kill her.
She had no answers, except that he was sick. And she tells him that she is seeking justice, not just for her but also for others so they don't have to go through what she went through.
When the trial is over and the verdict rendered, she said, she hopes to let go of all the grief she's been holding in, to lean on the friends she has made over the years.
"I'll be able to lay back into their arms and let them hold me," she said.
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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