A strange story of spousal abuse

[trillium13 84]

MASON - Don't call her the Crazy Cat Lady.

Tonya Parrish is a victim of domestic abuse. She has the cats - lots of them - to prove it.

The animals were unwanted gifts from her husband, Ed Mitcheff. He took in strays and never let them go.

Parrish met Mitcheff online. The self-proclaimed preacher from Chicago is a poster child for avoiding Internet romance.

"Ed put me through four years of hell," Parrish said. He kicked her. He threatened to kill her. He spied on her phone calls. He alienated her from family and friends. He brought hoards of cats into her home and her life.

Now, he's gone. Mitcheff died from a drug overdose July 4. Seven months after his death, however, Parrish must clean up the mess caused by a house-full of cats.

How many cats? Dozens and dozens. There were so many, in fact, public health officials lost track when they tried to count them.

"I'm so embarrassed by this," said the 43-year-old graphic artist whose favorite subjects to paint - in a style where cubism meets cave painting - are horses, not cats. "I'm so ashamed."

Parrish stood on her front porch. Behind her, six cats perched on her living room's windowsill. Their eyes peered through the picture window as their tails slowly waved like fury, headless cobras.

"Do I want all of these cats? No. Do I want the house to smell like cat pee? No," Parrish said.

"Do I want them to find a good home? Yes. I've already gotten eight adults adopted since the first of the year."

Does she want her story told? Yes. "I want other women to know," Parrish said, "that even though they are in an extreme situation like this they should not give up hope."

Life with Mitcheff was "horrible," she said as she walked to her car to drive to a nearby restaurant to take a break from caring for cats. "It was a nightmare. It was surreal."

It was feline-based psychological abuse.

"He used those cats as a weapon," said Kendall Fisher, executive director of Women Helping Women, an oasis for abuse victims. "He used them to control, to isolate her. Isolation is one form of abuse."

The overabundance of cats at Parrish's red brick house came to the attention of public health officials after Mason police arrived in the early morning hours of the Fourth of July. The police were responding to a 911 call.

Earlier that morning, Mitcheff went to a corner gas station and bought a patriotic breakfast of beer, cigarettes and a blueberry Danish. He even brought back a Danish for Parrish.

"That surprised me," she said. "He was being nice."

After breakfast, Mitcheff went to his room, cranked up the air-conditioner to frigid and closed the door.

When Parrish did not hear a peep from him, she became at once concerned and frightened. She wanted to check on him. But she was afraid to open the door.

"He had trouble sleeping," she said. "So, if I woke him up, he would get really angry and start screaming. And, he kept a knife under his bed."

Summoning her courage, she opened his door.

"He looked funny," she recalled. She touched him. He didn't move. He was dead.

The Warren County Coroner's office ruled his death a suicide. An overdose of morphine, and the tranquilizer, diazepam, killed him.

After Mitcheff's death, Warren County Health Department Inspector Carrie Yeager visited Parrish. She brought the county dog warden with her. "The dog warden tried counting the cats," Yeager said. "There were so many and so many looked alike, he gave up."

Yeager estimated, there were at least 65. They roamed upstairs and downstairs. They lounged on the furniture and stained the carpeting. They were out of control.

Yeager wants to help Parrish get things under control. Warren County has no ordinance limiting the number of cats in a home. So, Yeager's goal is to make Parrish's house "safe and sanitary."

Parrish said her cat population "may be down to 30. That's still too many."

She wants to put 23 more up for adoption. "I've always had seven cats," she said. "That's enough."

She has received numerous offers of help to dispose of the cats. Parrish wants to handle it herself.

"I got myself into this," she said. "I've got to get out of it."

Parrish told her story over a cheese coney at a local chili parlor. Her mood brightened with every bite.

Away from her house, her posture became straighter. Away from the cats who have permeated her home with the fragrance of eu de feline, a lilt appeared in her voice. She even laughed at herself.

"I don't like hauling out cat poop. The smell of cat urine doesn't turn me on," she said with a laugh. "If I want an aphrodisiac, I'll eat oysters."

The cat problem began in October 2006. Mitcheff let a pregnant stray cat into the house. After the stray's kittens were born, he kept them. More kittens came. They stayed, too, even though he griped that there were too many cats in the house.

The cat population at the house Parrish bought in 2000 soon got out of hand.

"All I did day and night was feed the cats, empty the litter boxes, take out the garbage," Parrish said. "I had no time for me. I was the cats' waitress."

She tried setting up adoptions. But when adopters came to the door, her jobless, stay-at-home husband would say: "You're not worthy."

Foiling cat adoptions was one form of control Mitcheff exerted over his wife.

"Ed would change our phone number to keep my family from calling," Parrish said. "He'd threaten me all the time about how he was going to take away my house, how he could make me disappear."

Mitcheff was physically imposing. He stood about six-four and weighed 220 pounds, Parrish said. He was a foot taller and 110 pounds heavier than his wife.

Mitcheff went to great lengths to keep her from having any friends. "The first time we went out, she told me she had a curfew. She had to be home before dark," said Parrish's friend, Debbie Dewsnap of Milford.

Dewsnap, a retired veteran of the Strategic Air Command, found "the idea of a grown woman having a curfew" to be laughable. She stopped laughing when Mitcheff called the police on her. He filed a missing person report on his wife. She had not come home after lunch.

"That guy sent the police to my house," Dewsnap said. "He was as crazy as a loon."

Mitcheff called Dewsnap's house and left threatening messages. He monitored his wife's phone calls when she talked to Dewsnap and tried to browbeat her friend.

"I'd laugh at him," Dewsnap said. "That stuff didn't work with me."

That approach worked on his wife. "He was always telling me I was nothing. I was stupid. I couldn't accomplish anything. I was fat. I was ugly," Parrish said. "I was so scared. So manipulated. I was trapped. Where was I going to go? It was my house."

Kendall Fisher has heard all this before from women seeking help. "This is a textbook case of controlling abusive behavior," she said.

"She was busy all day with the cats. She had no time to think about what she was doing, how she was going to get out. She was trapped."

The cats, Fisher noted, "were one piece of the puzzle. His size, his isolating her from others, his verbal and physical abuse were forms of his controlling behavior."

Parrish and Mitcheff met via an on-line dating service called: "Love Access." She got access. But no love.

"I was looking for a man with God in his life," she explained. "Ed read the Bible. He said he was a preacher."

After a two-month courtship, they married on Friday, May 13, 2005. "Friday the 13th, should have been a warning," Parrish said.

Another warning came 16 days later. The newlyweds got into an fight. Parrish called the police. The paperwork on the incident became part of 72 pages of police reports that would be filled out by officers responding to her address.

The volume of police reports ceased with Mitcheff's death. But, Parrish's troubles continue. She must find homes for the cats while repairing her self-esteem.

"It might appear that, with all of the cats around me, I am the Crazy Cat Lady," she said after lunch.

"But, I'm not crazy," she insisted. "I went through four years of being held prisoner in my own home. I lost myself.

"I need," she said with a faint smile, "to find me again."

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2010021...ouse-behind-her

[TBoneTX 45,469]

What a WONDERFUL story, si man -- I wonder how many climbed onto her lap every time she sat down, si man, or slept on the people-bed at night?

[Darnell 8,478]

I love Cheese Coneys.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Such a catastrophic situation.

[dakay ♥ 10]

The volume of police reports ceased with Mitcheff's death. But, Parrish's troubles continue. She must find homes for the cats while repairing her self-esteem.

good luck to all

[Pooky 3,805]

Such a catastrophic situation.

And you think you're sooooooo funny. Are you sure you're feline all right?

[Nagishkaw 510]

And you think you're sooooooo funny. Are you sure you're feline all right?

Purrrfectly alright.

[Ban Hammer 13,396]

someone call mags, she'll take a few of the cats.

[Nagishkaw 510]

someone call mags, she'll take a few of the cats.

I don't think Platy would approve of the house being all littered up with more cats. He may just have to pause and think about that one.

Edited February 13, 2010 by Nagishkaw

[luckytxn 2,264]

Pussycats are good eating.

[Pooky 3,805]

Pussycats are good eating chipmunks, squirrels, birdies, mice and other fun things.

You missed a bit

[sleepy in Seattle 3]

Wow, what a story. Just glad that now she can move on with her life!

[Pooky 3,805]

I don't think Platy would approve of the house being all littered up with more cats. He may just have to pause and think about that one.

Ah, but what a tail it would make.

[mRx 16]

It was feline-based psychological abuse.

That's just dumb.

[scandal 951]

I love Cheese Coneys.

Me too. As soon as I read that, I realized this was a Cincinnati story.