Woman speaks up on history of abuse

It took nearly a year and the spectacle of another domestic homicide case for Sarah Peters to speak out about her own experience, and her views on how more can be done to prevent similar crimes and raise awareness about domestic violence.

Sarah is the former wife of Justin Calbick, who is charged with murdering his father and brother last Jan. 27 at a Mennonite Church Road home, and then holding Sarah, her three children, her father and a friend hostage for several hours.

Sarah and a group of women demonstrated outside the Flathead County Justice Center Thursday to bring attention to the case and the plight of domestic violence victims. Calbick was scheduled for a hearing on Thursday, but that was continued to a future date.

“Me and some other women are trying to be a presence with a purpose,” she said of the gathering that will occur despite the hearing continuance. “We need to have a voice to make a change ... It’s time our community become aware of the issues our neighbors are going through.”

Sarah said she and her children have been slowly emerging from a deeply painful experience, and she has finally found a sense of purpose and a desire to speak out.

“You know what it took? Seeing a double homicide on Christmas,” she said, referring to the murder of Jaimi Hurlbert, 34, and her 15-year-old daughter Alyssa Burkett. Hurlbert’s estranged boyfriend and the father of her infant child, Tyler Miller, is charged with two counts of deliberate homicide for the Christmas-day shooting at a home west of Kalispell.

Friends and family of Hurlbert say Miller threatened her in the days leading up to the shooting and express frustration that more was not done by law enforcement to stop him in advance. Sarah says her situation was similar.

“I’m not saying the county is at fault for what happened,” she said. “I’m saying they need to think about prevention rather than clean-up.”

Sarah and Justin Calbick had been married for 11 years when she informed him just before the Christmas of 2009 that she wanted a divorce.

She maintains it had been an abusive relationship through most of the marriage. The couple made it through the holidays and on the morning of Jan. 11, Calbick was packed to leave and Sarah was getting ready for work.

But after their children left for school, Calbick’s attitude about leaving changed.

“He just thought that that’s not how things are going to be,” Sarah said.

She alleges that he attacked and raped her, and was arrested on those charges later that day, but was admitted to the Pathways mental health facility rather than being taken to jail.

On Jan. 15, he was transferred to the Flathead County jail, and on Jan. 18, a Monday, he made his initial appearance  before Judge David Ortley. By this time, Sarah had acquired a temporary restraining order prohibiting Calbick from being within 1,500 feet of her, and she had pursued charges against him for violating that order while he was in jail.

She says Calbick had called his father from jail, urging him to convince her not to pursue the rape charges, and that amounted to a violation of a restraining order provision preventing third-party interference.

She was shocked when Ortley released Calbick on his own recognizance, and further shocked that there was about a 40-minute delay from the time he was released and the time the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office informed her of the release. She says she initially learned about his release from Calbick’s father, which gave her enough time to move herself and her children into a safe house.

In the days that followed, an arrest warrant for the restraining order violation was never signed by a judge.

“They had a key to put Justin back in jail and they didn’t use it,” she said.

Sarah recalls that domestic violence counselors advised her not to be present for Calbick’s initial court appearance because it might convey that she was not afraid of him, when she truly was. Because of that, she said, there was no one in the courtroom to be her advocate, something that she believes should change in domestic violence cases.

She also holds a measure of blame for herself, saying that if she had stepped forward to have Calbick prosecuted for previous abuses in their marriage, he would have had a record that might have prevented his release.

The bottom line was she did not feel safe once he was released.

“I knew that piece of paper wasn’t going to save me,” she said, referring to the restraining order.

Calbick moved in with his father, Donald, and brother, Stacey, at their Mennonite Church Road home, located just 2,600 feet from Sarah’s house. After a few days at the safe house and making arrangements for her father to live with her for added protection, Sarah moved back into her home with her kids.

After a good day at work, Sarah and a friend, Dana Blair, got together at Sarah’s house to exercise, as they often did. It was around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 27 when their routine was interrupted.

“Justin barged in out of the blue. It was the one time I didn’t lock my door. I saw him come in with his rifle.”

Sarah says Calbick tossed her a roll of duct tape, ordered her to tape her father and her friend before he taped Sarah himself. She said he then sat on an exercise bench with his rifle, and proceeded to rant and question her about why she wanted a divorce and why she accused him of rape.

After about three hours, Dana convinced Calbick to release her. He also surrendered his rifle to her before she left to return to her nearby home.

“When he let Dana go, everybody got untaped,” Sarah said.

At one point, Calbick wanted Dana to take the children with her, but Sarah protested.

“I knew that if my kids left that house, I wouldn’t leave,” she said.

She and Calbick went and lied on a bed with their children, and when she asked him about his father and brother, he was strangely silent.

Sarah says that Dana showed up at her home with the rifle and tape still clinging to her body, a sight that immediately prompted her husband to call 911. At about 1 a.m. on Jan. 28, several deputies showed up at Sarah’s home, and took Calbick into custody without resistance.

It was later that day when Sarah noticed a swarm of law enforcement vehicles around her father-in-law’s house, and she knew something bad had happened.

It wasn’t until around 8 p.m. that day when a relative informed her that Donald and Stacey Calbick had been shot to death. Former Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan informed her personally soon after.

“Sarah did everything she was supposed to do” to extract herself from an abusive relationship and protect herself afterwards, says her friend, Mary Pool, a longtime victim of domestic violence herself.

Sarah said there are “flags” that go up when a person is dangerous in domestic situations, and she believes the law enforcement community needs to do more to recognize it.

For that reason, she is planning to pursue an associate’s degree in criminal justice with the University of Phoenix, follow that up with law school and then pursue a career as a victims’ advocacy attorney.

“There was no one there to be my advocate” in the days after Calbick’s initial arrest, she said.

Sarah was expecting Calbick to change his plea to guilty at this week’s hearing. She says it was her understanding that Calbick had accepted a plea agreement to two counts of mitigated homicide and one count of aggravated burglary with a combined prison sentence of 50 years, but she was notified Tuesday that the defense attorney did not accept those terms.

While she feels the charges do not adequately reflect the extent of the crimes committed by Calbick, she consented to the agreement with the condition that his prison sentence be no less than 50 years.

“I told (Flathead County Attorney) Ed Corrigan that if it wasn’t 50 years, I want to go to trial,” said Sarah, whose divorce from Calbick was finalized last June.

She said she wants to put an end to the case for her children and herself, a young family that has been attending counseling three times a week, learning how to live a new life.

“You do not have to stay a victim,” she said. “I wish I learned that a long time ago.”