Editor's Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of domestic violence. Reader discretion is advised.
For three days, Reginald Groce brutally beat his girlfriend as she slipped in and out of consciousness.
By the time she escaped, Groce had battered her nearly head to foot. Her eyes were swollen shut from repeated punches to the face. Her body was covered in bruises. A rib on her right side had been fractured. She’d been stabbed twice in the back – one wound barely missed her spine.
When the woman – who we are referring to as “Amy” to protect her identity – finally made it to her grandmother’s house, her clothing was soaked in her own blood.
She was so terrified of what Groce had done to her that she nearly refused to go to the hospital or tell police what had happened. It took her mother Rachel (also a pseudonym) rushing home from work to convince her.
“I thought she was just going to lay there and die,” Rachel said.
Now six months later, Groce is beginning a six-year sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction, and Rachel wants to make sure her daughter’s story is told.
ERUPTION
Amy told police her nightmare started over an argument about going to a friend’s house.
She said she and her boyfriend of three years, 31-year-old Reginald Groce, had been arguing over “frivolous things” all evening. But it was when she refused to go to a friend’s house with him that he became angry.
According to the probable cause affidavit filed in the case, Groce punched Amy in the mouth, then forced her to the car, bringing a game of wall darts along with them.
On the way to his friend’s home, Groce punched Amy at least two more times. They stayed for an hour before heading back to the hotel where they’d been living for the past several months.
As they were getting out of the car, Groce noticed one of the darts from the game was missing. He accused Amy of purposefully losing it.
Still in the parking lot, Groce punched Amy in face, head and stomach. He then dragged her into their hotel room where he continued to yell at her and beat her for hours.
According to the affidavit, it was at this point Amy began to lose consciousness. But she remembers the intense pain in her side as one of her ribs fractured under Groce’s continuing assault.
At some point during the beating, Amy woke up on the floor to see Groce standing over her. She would later tell detectives he was reveling in the violence.
“She explained that he had told her before at other times when he had assaulted her that he enjoyed how it felt to beat her up,” IMPD Detective Michael Kermon wrote in his affidavit. “[She said] he looked and sounded as though he were in a state of excitement over assaulting her at the moment.”
Sometime later Amy regained consciousness again to hear Groce yelling at her to “get your shoes, let’s go!” He was worried he’d made too much noise while he beat her and that someone might call the police.
Groce took Amy to the car, where he sat smoking a cigarette while he berated her.
“While he was smoking he began flicking his ashes on her lap and body and telling her she was his ashtray,” Kermon wrote.
Groce again yelled at Amy about the lost dart and accused her of losing two room keys to the hotel. Working himself into a rage, he put his cigarette out on her right eyelid and then another one out on the top of her hand.
Then he decided to debase her further.
“He took off one of his shoes and made her lick the sole of his shoe from the heel to the toe,” Kermon wrote.
Amy would later tell detectives this finally appeared to satisfy Groce momentarily, and he put his shoe back on and drove off.
Groce drove aimlessly for a while, yelling at Amy intermittently and then telling her they were in “the hood” and threatening to kill her.
At one point he stopped the car and dragged her out of it by her feet. He then ordered her into the street and told her he was going to run her over.
Amy told police Groce jumped back into the car and sped toward her as though he was going to hit her. She said he repeated it several more times before he finally yelled at her to get back inside.
In pain and afraid for her life, Amy got back into the car. She didn’t know what else to do.
AT THE HOSPITAL, NOT OUT OF HARM
Amy eventually convinced Groce she needed to go to the hospital.
He took her to Community North, but before letting her go inside, Groce wanted to have a talk with Amy about “how do we get [her] to start listening to him?” He told her it was her fault he'd hit her.
When Amy went int othe ER, Groce stayed outside. He told her to call him to let him know what was going on, and also that he would be back to pick her up.
Amy may have been out of Groce’s reach – but he still had a grip on her.
When the physician asked her how she’d been injured, she lied. She told him she was mugged and beaten by two men outside of a gas station. She never mentioned Groce’s name.
“She said she did not tell the staff what really happened because she did not want Groce to get in trouble, and that she doesn’t know why, but she still cares about him,” Kermon noted in the affidavit. “She is also afraid because he has threatened to kill her, her mother and her grandmother and 4-year-old niece in the past. She believes he is capable of doing that.”
Catana Philipps says reactions like Amy’s are very common for patients who come in with injuries related to suspected domestic violence.
Philipps is the trauma educator and outreach coordinator for IU Health Methodist’s Beth’s Legacy of Hope anti-domestic violence program.
READ MORE | Beth’s Legacy of Hope works to save domestic violence victims
“It’s very common for patients to be hesitant to come forward about how their injuries occurred if it was the result of a domestic relationship or domestic incident,” Philipps said. “There’s a lot of different reasons that patients may be hesitant, and the most common among those is fear – fear for their own safety, fear that their family and friends will find out they’ve been in a violent relationship and fear of the unknown for their future, because it changes a lot of things in their lives. The fear is very real for these patients.”
Beth's Legacy of Hope was created in 2012 following the death of IU Health employee Beth Stayer, who was beaten to death by her ex-husband. Since its creation, more than 3,500 IU Health employees have been trained on how to ask questions of victims of suspected domestic violence.
“We ask the patient if they’re currently safe in their home," Philips siad. "We also ask if they’re safe regarding their current relationship and previous relationships, and we assess to see if there’s any immediate threat to their safety."
They're also trained to engage with patients who are reluctant to come forward.
"We train the healthcare providers to really demonstrate that they are concerned for this patient’s safety," Philips said. "Not to repeatedly question this patient again and again and again and hound them over it, but to ask the question in an appropriate and compassionate manner and let them know that we truly do care about their safety and we do have resources in place available to help this patient.”
If you or someone you know is in a domestic violence situation, help is available. Click any of the following links to find resources and assistance online:
National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-SAFE)
Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (Hotline: 1-800-332-7385)
For those who have trouble imagining themselves in such a situation – that’s common too – Phillips says she asks them this: “Take a quick inventory of everything on you right now. Your keys, your phone, your wallet. What if you could never go home again?”
Hospital staff members like Philipps are there to offer resources for domestic violence victims – everything from filing protective orders to finding housing and transportation. But, ultimately, they can’t compel victims to come forward with the truth about their abuse.
And on her first trip to the ER, Amy didn’t.
BACK IN THE LION'S DEN
Amy called Groce to come pick her up and then fell asleep in the hospital lobby.
Sometime later she woke up. She didn’t know what time it was – only that it was daylight. Groce wasn’t there, so she called him again. Eventually, he showed up.
By the time Amy got into Groce’s car, her eyes were blackening and beginning to swell shut. She immediately began crying.
Groce didn’t care.
According to the affidavit, he immediately began insisting that he “didn’t do that to her.” Groce told Amy she had beaten herself up after he dropped her off at the hospital. At one point he pulled out his cell phone and video recorded himself telling her he didn’t hit her and wanting her to say on camera he didn’t do it.
To pacify him, Amy said he didn’t hit her where the actual bruising was.
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Appeased, Groce drove off. Amy stopped trying to fight the urge to sleep and passed out in the back of his car.
She would later tell police she felt as though she lost that entire day.
The next thing Amy remembered was waking up in the back of the car parked at the hotel. It was dark outside. Groce snuck her to their room the back way so no one would see her. As soon as they got into the room, Amy changed and went back to sleep.
When she woke up again, Groce was looking for the keys to the car and accusing her of hiding them from him. In a panic, Amy got out of bed and began trying to help him look for the keys.
While walking to the bathroom to look for them, Amy says Groce approached her from behind and grabbed her around the neck. He turned her around and kept choking her while he punched her repeatedly in her swollen-shut eye.
Blood running from her eyes, Amy feigned passing out so he would let her go. The pain in her right side from her fractured rib was nearly unbearable.
When she regained her breath, she ran for the elevator.
Before she got there, Groce caught her. He told her to go back to the room. She said OK and he turned and began walking back to the room, believing she was following him. She jumped into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.
The elevator door opened and Amy headed for the main entrance. There were two women walking in with their children at the same time. Seeing her battered face, they asked if they could help her.
Groce then appeared at the bottom of the stairwell and ran toward her.
Amy told the women it was OK, even as they said they were afraid to leave her.
Groce tried repeatedly to get Amy to leave with him – even trying several times to pick her up and take her to the car by force – but she refused to go with him.
Eventually one of Groce’s friends pulled up and agreed to take Amy wherever she wanted to go. She asked to go to her grandmother’s house.
Once there, she walked to her grandmother’s back door and knocked.
“Grandma, don’t freak out,” she said as the door opened. She was covered in blood, her eyes swollen shut and still bleeding from Groce’s most recent assault. She didn’t even realize she’d been stabbed twice in the back until her grandmother brought her in to clean up her wounds.
Finally free of her abuser after three days of torture, Amy collapsed in her grandmother’s reclining chair.
That’s where Rachel found her daughter after rushing home from work.
A MOTHER DEMANDS JUSTICE
“I can’t even describe the feeling,” Rachel says.
Groce had beaten her daughter before. He’d even choked Rachel during an argument. Rachel obtained a restraining order against him – but Amy didn’t.
But whatever violence Groce had shown in the past paled in comparison to what he had done to Amy over the past three days.
“He had bitten a chunk out of her face, so there was a chunk of the side of her neck just kind of hanging there,” Rachel said. “Her eyes were all black. He had put cigarettes out on her face. You can’t describe it.”
Even after all that, Rachel says Amy refused to go to the hospital or call police. She had to give her an ultimatum.
“My exact words were, ‘You take a good look at my face because it’ll be the last time you ever see it, because I’m going to go kill him,’” Rachel said. “’Either you do the right thing, or you say goodbye to mom.’”
Amy relented. She returned to the ER for the second time in three days. Doctors catalogued her injuries – the fractured rib, the cigarette burns, the swollen eyes and the stab wound where a knife narrowly missed her spine. This time, she told them it was Groce who had done it to her.
Police picked him up a few days later. A judge slapped him with a $200,000 bond – effectively keeping him behind bars. But Groce didn’t relent.
“He would call her … from January of this year until March of this year, there were 614 calls made from him to her, and she was scared to death to do anything,” Rachel said.
She eventually went to court to bar Groce from contacting Amy at all.
READ MORE | In Indiana, no law to stop jailed abusers from calling victims without going to court
At home, the assault had rattled Rachel and Amy’s family. The women and Rachel’s younger daughter moved in with her mother. Rachel bought guns for all of them and made them go to a shooting range to practice.
“No man will ever put his hands on my daughter again like that,” she said.
The guns may have provided some peace of mind, but they couldn’t undo Amy’s trauma. She was listless and irritable. She was withdrawn. Her physical wounds were healing, but the emotional damage was done.
“Everything about her was different. She wasn’t even my daughter … you could see a whole change in her,” Rachel said. “She was on edge all the time. She had an attitude. She just wasn’t herself.”
Groce, who has a lengthy and violent criminal history dating back to 2004, initially faced eight felony counts of battery, strangulation and criminal confinement. Because of previous convictions for violent crimes, Groce was eligible for a habitual offender enhancement that could have added anywhere from six-to-20 years to his sentence if found guilty.
He sat in jail for four months before finally agreeing to a plea deal with prosecutors for a six-year sentence on just two felony counts: strangulation and battery resulting in serious bodily injury. Prosecutors in exchange agreed to drop the remaining counts and would not file the habitual offender enhancement.
The Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence says that’s not uncommon – the overwhelming majority of domestic violence cases filed in Indiana end in plea deals.
“It’s for a lot of reasons,” said Caryn Burton, ICAD’s training coordinator. “[Victims] may start out feeling optimistic, feeling they are ready to cut those ties, feeling they are ready to get past the violence and move on, and the process itself is a barrier. It can take eight to nine months. The survivors have to take off work, they have to find childcare. They’re taking part in a process that is consistently retraumatizing them. They’re being questioned and asked to justify actions and thoughts and feelings that no one can possibly understand, because you haven’t been there. It’s a consistent storm of, ‘Why should I put myself through this?’”
Amy wanted to avoid a trial for those very reasons. But when she heard the sentence, Rachel says she was shocked.
“She didn’t want to testify. She didn’t want to see him,” Rachel said. “But she wanted him to get more time instead of a slap on the wrist. It’s just enough time to make him madder at her.”
Groce was assigned to serve his sentence at the medium-security Putnamville Correctional Facility in Greencastle, Indiana. With good time credit, he could be released as early as Sept. 11, 2020.
For Rachel, even the full six-year sentence wouldn’t be enough time.
“The things he did to her, and kept her for days … he is screwed up in the head,” she said. “He needs to get some help, because a normal person doesn’t do those things.”
Amy declined to talk about the attack for this story. She is working on moving on with her life. Rachel says, so far, it looks like she’s succeeding.
“She’s got her self-confidence back. We talk a lot. She tells me a lot. I think when she’s awake, she’s fine,” Rachel said. “But when she sleeps, she cannot sleep peacefully. She thrashes in bed. She yells. She still to this day does not sleep. I mean, she thinks she sleeps and gets rest, but she’s all over the place kicking and screaming. She has nightmares constantly about it.”
When Amy needs extra strength, Rachel says she and her younger daughter are there for her.
“There’s three strong women in this house,” Rachel said. “We’ll make it.”
Jordan Fischer is the Senior Digital Reporter for RTV6. He writes about crime & the underlying issues that cause it. Follow his reporting on Twitter at @Jordan_RTV6 or on Facebook.
