Domestic violence survivors praise legislation boosting victim protections

On January 29, 43-year-old Rachael Renee Kerr and her estranged husband were found shot dead outside her home in Starke in North Central Florida.

The Bradford County Sheriff’x Office immediately announced it was a domestic violence situation, with Loyd Kerr killing Rachael before turning the gun on himself. Loyd Kerr was not supposed to have contact with Rachael following his recent release from the Clay County Jail on domestic violence and stalking charges.

Two of Rachael’s children were witness to those events.

“Two minor children watched the first person they ever loved being taken from them by the second person they were taught to trust. Their father. This is the ugly face of domestic violence,” said Marjorie Mortin, Rachael’s mother, her voice quavering as she spoke in the rotunda of the Capitol in Tallahassee on Tuesday morning.

“Not only did it take the life of my beautiful daughter, but it has left in its wake pure devastation and trauma for years to come.”

Mortin was one of a number of individuals viscerally affected by the horrors of domestic violence who spoke during a press conference convened by Rep. Debra Tendrich, D-Lake Worth, herself a survivor of domestic violence, to discuss passage of legislation she is sponsoring to enhance penalties for domestic violence.

Tendrich was contacted last year by two law enforcement officers advocating for legislation on the issue who were aware of her personal story about leaving a domestic violence situation more than a decade ago. But, she said, enhancing penalties alone wouldn’t suffice.

“Domestic violence is not a single incident,” she said. “It’s a spider web. Abusers don’t introduce themselves as abusers. They appear normal, often charismatic, and they love bomb you while slowly weaving a web of control, isolating victims from their friends, family, finances, and safety.

“And once someone is caught in that web, leaving becomes the most dangerous moment in their lives. That’s why, throughout the summer, I held roundtable discussions with first responders, attorneys, courts, victim advocates and nonprofits, and survivors themselves. Because if we truly want victims to become survivors, then survivor voices must lead the way. For too long, many domestic violence laws have been written with the abuser’s experience in the forefront. This legislation began shifting that focus to victim and survivors’ experiences.”

Enhance penalties

Tendrich’s bill (HB 277) won unanimous approval in both the House and Senate over the past week and now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his consideration. If signed into law, the bill will:

• Enhance penalties for repeat violent offenders, including elevating repeat injunction violations to third-degree felonies. 
• Increase victim relocation assistance from $1,500 to $2,500 per claim and from $3,000 to $5,000 lifetime.
• Require the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to enter injunctions against dating and sexual violence into a statewide database.
• Allow courts to order electronic monitoring of a defendant found guilty of, has had adjudication withheld on, or has pleaded no contest to a crime of domestic violence. That program will start as a pilot in Pinellas County starting on July 1 through June 30, 2028. 
• Adds threatening to injure or kill a family pet to the list of actions that may be noted on a petition for a domestic violence injunction.

Also speaking Tuesday was Jennie Carter. In December 2006, her ex-husband, who had just lost custody of their two children following a divorce and domestic battery charge, asked to take her 10-year-old son Nelson and 8-year-old daughter Crystal Christmas shopping.

“My babies Nelson and Crystal were murdered by the same  person who was so supposed to protect them, their father, eight days after we got divorced,” she said. “He told them he would go buy them Christmas gifts, but he deceived them. Instead he drove them to the house we once shared, he locked the house, turned on the gas stove, and set the house on fire with them inside.

“A detective told me that my eight-year old daughter Crystal tried to escape; he picked up a butcher knife, stabbed her in the back immediately paralyzing her and taking her life. My 10-year old Nelson survived one more day before he was pronounced brain dead.

“The bill gives victims something they desperately needed. I wish I had it when I was going through my — sometimes I wonder if my kids would have been here,” she said.

‘I get so frustrated’

Democratic Senate Leader Lori Berman of Boca Raton, who sponsored several domestic violence bills, said on Monday, when the Senate approved the bill, that while crime rates in many categories have dropped in recent years, “the issue of domestic violence continues to rise.”

“Every time I open a newspaper and read about something like that I get so frustrated, so I am so glad to see this bill. It has a lot of good things that will hopefully start to reverse the trend in the state of Florida and nationwide,” she said.

Florida is home to 41 certified domestic violence centers overseen by the Department of Children and Families (DCF).

DCF was led by Shevaun Harris from 2021 to 2025, before Gov. Ron DeSantis nominated to become secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration a year ago. However, during a Senate confirmation vote Tuesday, Republican Senator Tom Wright, who represents parts of Brevard and Volusia counties, blasted Harris for claiming a domestic violence women’s shelter in Volusia County was safe when it was not. He said he kicked Harris out of his office and is now sad to see her appointed to anything.

“I’m glad she’s not at DCF right now, and I hate to see that she’s going to be appointed to something else,” he said. “Because I have no trust in Shevaun Harris. She let us down, and the women in Volusia County deserve better. We are now trying to rebuild that women’s shelter.”