For 10 years, Kathy Mills, a former special education teacher and Mary Kay sales director, has been at war.
Kathy, of Pickerington, Ohio, has been fighting her husband a West Point graduate and Special Forces operative, the Ohio National Guard and the United States Army. She wants the $500,000 she should have been paid when her husband abandoned her to deploy to Iraq and later died in a parachuting accident.
The response from the military, courts and elected officials? Mostly, 10 years of runaround.
‘The worst part was not being abandoned by my husband,’ Kathy said. ‘It was being abandoned by the military and abandoned by the court system.’
‘I had been a taxpayer, a contributing member of society. I believe character counts. But I had a scarlet letter put on me by the court. I was a bad Army wife.’
There’s more lots more. Donna Andersen just wrote the entire outrageous story for the Daily Mail. Read it here:
Profiting from child custody payments
I have no idea why this post has no comments. It stinks of a P. On the Mail site there’s a lousy 2 comments, neither of them related to the underlying theme of the article. It’s as if the story is so outrageous that people can’t comprehend it.
She’s a strong woman seemingly fighting everyone.
He – pornography, the silent treatment, threatened domestic violence, can’t hold down a job. She brings up her two children and works her guts out. He fakes a reconciliation, she leaves her jobs to move to where he is, he urges her to cash in her pension to pay off their debts. Then he wipes out their bank account and goes for a divorce – but makes sure she can’t sell the house or change any their assets. Then he delays the divorce using army regulations, claims extra money to ‘support’ his family BUT keeps it all for himself. She goes to his commanding officer, says he’s not supporting her, finds out that he’s going to Iraq in a couple of months time, the commanding officer pressurises her to back off. Within 3 months he’s sent back home (why?) – but not before SHE’S warned he might kill her.
God Almighty. Textbooks psychopathic behaviour through and through.
So now she gets a court order for protection and an award for a monthly payment from him. He never pays it. She keeps contacting his commanding officers and various senators and big-wigs all of whom do NOTHING. 5 years later he’s given a desk job due to his insubordination. By this time his support is being subtracted from his pay. He arranges to go on a parachute jump which he’s not qualified for. His probable plan was to land badly, fake a back injury and get taken to hospital. If he’s disabled she gets NO money. He lands badly but no one comes looking for him because they’re used to him doing his own thing. He dies. She finds two van loads of pilfered guns, ammunition and classified files at his home.
The Big Wigs decide to honor him and not invite his wife. She expects to get some money but he makes sure it all goes to his brother, sister and mother. She’s left paying off all their debts. The army didn’t follow its own regulations and gives her a partial financial award. But the army should NOT have allowed him to give the money to his brother, sister and mother in the first place because all assets of both parties should have been frozen pending the divorce.
Absolutely classic snake-in-the-grass psychopathic behaviour. Absolutely classic turn-a-blind-eye behaviour from the authority figures. You couldn’t make it up. Textbook. Cleckley would have loved it.
She is one strong woman, way stronger than all the blind apaths and authority figures she has to fight.
Maybe many readers perceive that it’s so outrageous that there’s nothing more to say.
The first thought I had was that she is probably blessed that he did not survive. If he had decided to murder her, he likely would have gone through with it.
Despite lots of details in the article, I was left with several unanswered questions. The things in the storage unit makes me think he may have done and be doing a lot of bad things that have not been discovered. The awards other servicemen received found in the storage bin support my suspicion that he may have been lying about parts of his military career. A psychopath may be a good candidate for special forces, but he seems too unstable to have made the screening cuts and the training. He wasn’t meeting standards in the National Guard. I almost doubt he graduated West Point, but if he took his wife to a class reunion he must have.
A question I have (or maybe I missed it in the article?) is whom did he name as beneficiary of his life insurance when he took his wife off the policy?
He seems like a dangerous psychopath, as well as unstable. She seems like a capable resourceful woman. Even if she doesn’t succeed in getting the money she wants from the military, she probably has the ability to rebuild her financial security. I have a feeling she came close to being murdered.
Hi AnnettePK,
‘The $400,000 went to his brother tax-free’
He seems unstable, but they were obviously prepared to tolerate him for many years.
I think until we’ve experienced P behaviour we don’t see the patterns. To me his behaviour is outrageous because I can see patterns (or believe that I can). The fact that there are few comments here or on the Mail article is ‘triggering’ in the sense of no one reacting even when it’s spelled out for them. That’s probably why I feel outraged on her behalf. I can see her on her own fighting the whole system, and the system taking HIS side instead.
Thanks for letting me know who got the life insurance.
I agree it’s an injustice how he’s been honored by the military. I noticed a couple of comments to the Daily Mail article pointing out irregularities in the facts of his military career. There is likely more to it than has been made public; things just don’t add up.
He seems like an obvious, and harmful spath. She has been victimized in the worst way. Most folks reading here have been victimized in brutally unjust ways also. I think the lack of comments is not because readers don’t agree or don’t care or can’t relate. There just isn’t much to say. There doesn’t seem to be a need to give advice or support, which are the most common themes of posts and replies. Since he’s dead, she is safe from him now; and she seems like a strong person who will recover. She may or may not get the financial justice she is seeking from the military. Most survivors here are recovering from similar harms at the hand of a spath – financial, spiritual, psychological, physical, etc.
If there was a ‘Like Button’ as in FB that folks could click on, it might show that as many folks read the article as other posts.
I understand that you especially relate to the account; are there specific similarities to your spath experience and what you are working through?
I wrote the Kathy Mills story and believe me, there is more. Much more.
First of all, Roger Mills DID go to West Point. Then he was in the Army Reserves, and eventually became a Major. But he never took the classes to be promoted further, so he retired and immediately joined the Ohio National Guard as an enlisted man. Highly unusual, but he liked hanging around the military.
Yes, he was a complete psychopath.
But what’s really bad about this situation is the response of the military. They let him get away with it. In fact, this is a massive problem in the military.
I had more info in the story, which was cut out. Kathy Mills has been an advocate for other abandoned military spouses. She has personally counseled over 1,000 women abandoned by military husbands, plus two men abandoned by military wives. She and her colleagues have started an advocacy group:
National Military Spouse Advocacy Organization
http://www.nmsao.org/
Essentially the situation is the military protecting itself as an institution. If wives and kids get trampled, it’s not their problem.
Thanks for the additional info; it completes the picture somewhat.
Letting spaths get away with what they do is a massive problem in the world in general – churches, workplace, government, families, etc. The military operates somewhat differently than other institutions. In some ways the rules give CO’s more authority than in civilian institutions to interfere in soldier’s personal lives and make them accountable to their families. In others, the institution allows abuses. My ex psychopath could manipulate any situation to exploit others.
It’s good to know that Ms. Mills is using her experience to help others. Bringing the problem to light will hopefully lead to changes that benefit victims of bad people and will benefit the military in the long run. She seems like the kind of person who will not only survive but do her part to make things better.
I’m still curious, though, why he went from West Point to the reserves – it seems like the army didn’t want him for some reason – maybe something was hushed up? It’s interesting to me; my father is a graduate of West Point and my Uncle – his twin brother – of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
AnnettePK – Roger Mills did his 5 years in Army special forces after West Point. Then he retired and joined the reserves. Or maybe he was thrown out – the guy was always a problem. The answer is unknown.
Thanks. He’s so creepy horrible, I mistrust everything about him.
I wouldn’t have mess with a Mary Kay Sales Director.
Hi AnnettePK, ‘I understand that you especially relate to the account; are there specific similarities to your spath experience and what you are working through?’
My P targetted me in the most obvious way (to those with eyes to see – it was all very subtle to outsiders) and I spent a lot of time educating others on what was happenning to me (after I spent a huge amount of time educating myself). The outrage at everything continuing on as before and people not WANTING to know is what I feel ‘triggered’ about.
I think I’ve worked through most of the P experience now – after the ‘fog’, many months of obsessive thoughts and lots of anger. Like many, I’m turning my experience into a positive and will hopefully one day contribute to the information about Ps.
It is an outrage that spaths usually get off scott free and the victims don’t get justice. It’s right to be angry about it. Spaths have no rules and can lie cheat harm and swindle; whereas normal good folks play by the rules. Until one has experienced a spath first hand, most people can’t imagine that anyone would actually be like that. So they attribute the spath’s behavior to a bad childhood, misunderstanding, whatever.
A couple if generations ago it was more accepted that evil and bad people do exist. People were more wiling an able to discern that someone is just plain not a good person rather than giving endless benefits of the doubt.
People who know what my ex psychopath is and does will ask me why he is still allowed to do this or that, why he still has a position he has, etc. My answer is that he’s a good liar – good enough to have fooled me into agreeing to marry him.
I’m glad you’re well on your way to finding some peace. The injustice was eating at me a lot at one time.
The God of the Bible feels righteous anger at spath behavior – Proverbs 6:16-19
This guy was willing to kill himself to get his wife. My spath was involved in a terrible car “accident” on the day he married his first wife. According to my spath it was an arranged marriage but he had called it off a month prior. According to him she and her father appeared at his door unannounced and his parents agreed to the marriage and it was performed the same day. On the way back to drop her and her father at the airport, the same day, he hit a truck. I believe he hit the parked truck, on her side of the car, intentionally. Both were hurt but she much much worse. Looking back I don’t believe it was an accident at all (I wonder if she has figured that out). I believe he tried to kill her and was willing to kill himself as well. She left him shortly after she recovered. He always said that she “never got over the accident” and divorced him. Repeating my theory to others would make me look crazy. “Of course it was an accident”…. But then they don’t know these types.
It sounds like your intuition about what happened in your ex spath’s ‘accident’ is probably accurate. Many spaths are too self preserving to be willing to kill themselves. A spath may be suicidal, but it can be a separate condition from the spath disorder.
It’s been a few years since I read it, but as I recall the book, Dance With the Devil, includes the account of the spath ‘husband’ trying to kill his victim several times and several ways. The final time he tried to wreck the car by hitting her side of the car on a telephone pole or something at high speed.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FA0LGW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=utf8mb4&btkr=1
I have read of many instances of spaths creating ‘accidents’ of various kinds to eliminate people whom they find inconvenient, some incidents absolutely horrifying. Loosening the bolts holding the rotor blades on a helicopter so they came off in flight and killed several people is probably the worst account I’ve heard.
It is likely a great blessing to Ms. Mills that this guy didn’t survive the jump, rather than just causing himself injury as he likely planned to.
Thank you Annette for the insight and links. It is difficult to come to grasps with the lengths and depths these spaths will go to. I only came to the realization of the danger I was facing recently. Connecting the dots requires a clear head, which I never had the years I was with him. The fact that he is unwilling to let go of me is a hint that maybe I thwarted some plan he had for me. What that plan was/is I am not certain only that I would not be on the winning end of it. I met him, right after his first wife left, and I believe he only let her go because he had a suitable replacement-me. It didn’t hurt that she had a supportive family and they had no children that she got away. I did try to contact her when I first started dating him. I wanted to do my due diligence and find out what I was getting into. I could never find her, till this day, I cannot locate her using either her maiden name of her married name, save for their divorce decree. I also continue to get junk mail in her name though we have moved five times since we were married and this is now 18 years after she left him. According to the spath, he explained her disappearance to her wanting to remarry without any trace of a previous marriage. I believed it and probably some of his explanation was true, but not all of it. It all sounds like it’s a made for Lifetime channel movie.
With spaths, anything is possible. I try to keep in mind that whatever I know about what my ex psychopath has done, there is probably is lots that I just don’t know about.
It’s possible that your ex spath murdered his previous ex wife, and the body never discovered so there is no death certificate. It’s also possible she is hiding her identity to avoid being found by him. It seems suspicious that he explains her disappearance with reasons that would only be conjecture unless she told him, instead of just saying he doesn’t know why she can’t be found. The junk mail continuing to arrive is also suspicious. To be picked up on junk mailing lists, someone is entering her name and address on something somewhere, so maybe he is buying something, registering for something, or whatever in her name with his new addresses when you move. Was she the beneficiary of some kind of periodic payment, like retirement benefits, disability payments, or the like, that he could be receiving and cashing? Have you tried to contact her family, at least to know she’s ok?
I hope you are able to be as invisible as possible from him.
Intersting about the ex-wife’s junk mail. I always assumed it was because she just never changed her address. I will look into it. When I left him I hired a forensic accountant to look into any financial abnormalities. He found none. In fact this spath never seemed too interested in money, strangely enough. I had a phone number for her, when we first started dating, that I got off a phone bill (I told him I was going to call). After numerous calls and I got a woman. I identified myself asked for the ex-wife. The very guarded woman never said who she was or whether I had the correct number. I left my name and phone number and never got a return call. At the time, I did work at the court house and I looked up her attorney’s name. I called him, he called me back and I identified who I was and if he could pass my information on to her. He said only that he would. I never heard another word. I left it alone for years. Prompted by his behavior I would periodically look her up, try to google her, f/b check, and nothing. I could never remember the phone number I had found and could only remember the state. I couldn’t locate her using her maiden name in the state. I always figured that she regretted marrying him and tried to arrange another marriage. I am open to anything at this point. Since I now know that that “accident” was no accident.
Becoming, it sounds like the previous ex wife is probably doing her best to be invisible so she cannot be found by him. Sounds like she is probably ok; that there are people who would look for her if he harmed her.
To help assess your own safety, have you done the Mosiac questionnaire? I found it helpful to focus my thoughts and intuitions about the danger my ex psychopath is for me, even though the questions are not all applicable in every situation. https://www.mosaicmethod.com/
Annette, his ex wife was lucky she got away. I did do the Mosaic assessment and got a score of 8. Thx u
@becominstrong
My spath was involved in a terrible car “accident” on the day he married his first wife.
(The Mask comes off immediately after marriage)
According to my spath it was an arranged marriage but he had called it off a month prior.
(Sounds strange. A spath wanting a marriage – for whatever reason – isn’t likely to call off a marriage, is he?)
According to him she and her father appeared at his door unannounced and his parents agreed to the marriage and it was performed the same day.
(That begs a lot of questions. This sounds like a very traditional family. Did she think she was pregnant? A shot-gun wedding? Did she have an abortion, has she got a child that she doesn’t want the spath to know about?)
On the way back to drop her and her father at the airport, the same day, he hit a truck. I believe he hit the parked truck, on her side of the car, intentionally. Both were hurt but she much much worse. Looking back I don’t believe it was an accident at all (I wonder if she has figured that out).
(Yes, she figured it out straight away. She was there. That’s why she left him. Was he trying to kill an unborn child as well?)
I believe he tried to kill her … She left him shortly after she recovered. He always said that she “never got over the accident” and divorced him.
(Sounds as if this whole story is a ‘tell’, him warning you about what could happen to you, and getting dupers delight from it.)
According to the spath, he explained her disappearance to her wanting to remarry without any trace of a previous marriage.
(I wonder what the real reason was. And I wonder how much of the spath story was true.)
The junk mail continuing to turn up is really weird. It reminds me of another spath story I recently read on lovefraud where the spath was hiding credit card statements (for years) until he decided to quit. I wonder if in some way that’s another ‘tell’ that he’s sending you.
Since they were legally married and divorced you’d think that if any harm came to her he would be under suspicion. But if he was would he tell you? I doubt it. The whole thing’s very strange.
Nolongershocked,
Yes, I agree with you, the story is very very strange. I believe that I must have had reservations about his story and that is why I tried to contact the ex-wife before we married. When I was unable to connect with her I dismissed the strangeness of the story by telling myself I don’t understand arranged marriages, well maybe she was in a hurry to return the U.S. and that’s why they married and she was flying out the same day, maybe his parents felt pressure with her and her father in their living room… I now believe that the accident was no accident. I do believe you are right and he wanted to drop hints of his true character and see if I believed the lie. I did at the time think it was strange that she wouldn’t have stayed an extra day after the wedding. When he came to the U.S. it took her about two years and then she left him. Even though, something about the story didn’t seem right to me at the time, I would not have believed then the “accident” was intentional. I probably would have believed, at most, he was reckless. As far as an unborn child. That is an interesting theory. If there is a child she has kept him/her hidden for more than 18 years. I have never heard one word from her, or anyone she might know. I think she realized things in the marriage were awful and continued to look for another arranged marriage. At the time the internet was not a factor and she thought she was able to wipe him off her identity. I think she was pretty successful at it. However, nothing would surprise me and certainly not a hidden unidentified child. One thing is for sure, having children with these types is life sentence. If they think they have a hook in you they don’t let go.
I also knew I didn’t trust him financially. I can remember going over our mortgage applications that we applied for over the years as we purchased we relocated and purchased new homes and the required credit reports very very carefully. The first thing I did when I filed for divorce was hire a forensic accountant. To date nothing has come up. I hope that if in fact her information had been used by him, or others he knows, that I would have heard something by now. My spath is unusual in that he has had the same job for 14 years; however, since I’ve left him he is transient in that he moves from rental property to rental property. I believe his scam was to torture me to death. I could never fall asleep if I was the passenger in the car on a road trip. I always had to be hypervigilant Money, homes, trips, clothing meant nothing to him. He is a true sadist. Your insight is helpful and my eyes are open to the truth. I want to have nothing to do with him financially because he is a liability and will be sued by others that he is bound to hurt.
Your ex sounds like mine in some ways – the sadism for one thing.
I keep in mind that anything and everything my ex psychopath told me may or may not be true, even the most basic things. Unless a fact is corroborated by another reliable source, I don’t rely on it as truth. It might be helpful if you want to figure out more, to list the things that he told you, ie that he was married, that his first ex’s family showed up, that the wedding was spur of the moment in the living room, etc. etc.; and then identify which facts you know for sure because they were corroborated by a reliable source. Knowing the spath’s motivations is very helpful in understanding their behavior and their stories, but they have such well protected secret lives. It was several years before I knew about my ex spath’s porn addiction, pedophilia, etc; and I realized that anything is possible – any assumption based on normal boundaries of behavior and motivation is not necessarily accurate.
You are right Annette nothing they say can be believed on its face. Of course these types make it so their roads rarely, if ever, cross paths. When I met him we were both living in the same apartment complex. I remember asking the maintenance man about him and about his ex-wife. Now, I realize that what the maintenance man told me then was insightful. I first asked if he knew her whereabouts, he said no. I then asked what he knew about her. He said that he didn’t know much but that she would call him and ask him to go to their apartment and repeatedly check the appliances for faulty electricity. The maintenance man said, “she was concerned about electricity.” Then, I thought oh she’s sounds a bubble off center. Now I see that she had some concern that either stemmed from some real fear of something he would do to her or she had post traumatic stress. When I told my spath later about what the maintenance man said about her, he just said he never knew that. He was also cleaver, he said, “She was always nice to Jim (the maintenance man) and made him desserts, why would he do that?” He wanted to appear that Jim was disparaging her when to the tuned ear he was just letting me know what he knew, without adding any opinions.
I am sure there will be many revelations to come. Unfortunately, I don’t know a single person, after all these years of marriage, I can call to see what is on the flip side of the coin. I hope when this is all said and done I can pack up and flee here. In many ways I will be living like he is, in a rental, very difficult to locate.
The framework I use in trying to figure out what was going on with my ex psychopath is –
Anything he told me may or may not be true, based on whatever he was trying to accomplish (deceive, manipulate, etc.) when he said it.
What he does is based on his motivation at that moment, and understanding his hidden motives was helpful in predicting his behavior. When I believed his lies that he was an ethical Christian man committed to doing right who cared about my well being, his behavior made no sense. When I understood that he is a porn addict, pedophile, sadist, and pathological liar who doesn’t care about any other’s well being; who ‘married’ me for impression management in order to further his aspirations to become a minister, his behavior made sense. He was motivated to do porn without being found out, and to psychologically torture my son and me for sport while appearing a Christian to the church.
Annette,
Thank you for your insight. You are very astute. I agree, understanding their motivation/agenda is key. I know that my spath is a sadist. I know that he wants to thwart the divorce to further torture me. He is at the end with the court in stonewalling giving his financials. He turned over the financials to me this week. However, he has filed a motion with the court that his attorney hasn’t given to my attorney. On it’s face the motion look innocuous. I believe in that motion is a request for change of custody. My attorney will file a motion to vacate next week based on this dishonesty. He is trying to delay the divorce by now requesting custody. Interesting, that his previous lie, the he made a credible offer to me last October, has just been dropped (no mention of his desire to have custody then). He thinks my daughter his my achilles heel and I will go back to rather than risk losing her. I have showed no emotion over this new development towards him. You are right that torturing is a sport for them. I look back and can’t believe I survived being in the marriage. He’d get up in the morning and ask himself how could he torture me that day. Sick
Very sick, and very painful and harmful to us victims. You are probably doing the best thing for yourself and your daughter by not showing him any emotion . The greyrock method includes a suggestion that the victim let the spath think she is concerned about an issue that is really not very important to her as a decoy. Perhaps you’ll have an opportunity to let your ex spath think you don’t care so much about custody, and let him think you’re really concerned about some other issue.
sorry abt typos