HOUSTON (KTRK) — He’s accused of holding one woman against her will and abusing her for weeks. Now another woman has come forward claiming Strode Churchwell did the same to her for years.
Beverly Dauterive was 16 when she first met Churchwell. She asked us to tell her story.
“It was like soul mates and then it went, I don’t know what happened to him, ” Dauterive said.
They moved in together, she says, and she started to see what he was really like.
He hit me in my leg with a baseball bat because he thought I was talking to someone else. Choked, I was stomped on until I passed out completely. He burnt me, held me down and pinned me down and burned me with the iron,” she explained.
Dauterive was young and afraid. She says he locked her in a bedroom inside their apartment, threatening her with her life if she tried to escape.
In April of 2006 Dauterive says she was able to call police after a fight they had. Churchwell was arrested but she says, released, the next day. Houston police could find no record of that. He apparently never faced charges.
Her story is similar to the allegations for which Churchwell was indicted in Fort Bend County. We reported first in January about how he was accused of locking another woman “in a room naked, not allowing her to leave.” Court documents allege he would “… beat her and choke her daily…”
Dauterive says investigators didn’t believe her when she first cried out. It is a relief, she says, to see that Churchwell is behind bars and will face trial.
“Someone finally got out and got a chance to say what happened,” she said.
Dauterive wonders still: would there be other victims if Churchwell was stopped when she cried out?
She hopes prosecutors will call on her to testify against Churchwell.
Churchwell’s attorney has declined comment.
