Woman Wants To End Domestic Abuse After Friend Killed By Boyfriend

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI)– The woman shot and killed by her boyfriend Tuesday in south city had long been a victim of domestic violence according to a close friend.  Now four children are without their mother and that friend is trying to keep this from happening to someone else.

Nichole Haynes was 32 years old, and should have lived to see 33 and beyond.  But Tuesday, when longtime boyfriend Terrence Anderson arrived at her home, presumably to drop off his keys after their break up, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.  It wasn’t the first time he’d attacked her according to her friend, Brandy Costello.  Haynes 15-year-old daughter tried to stop the attack, because that’s what she always did when Anderson became violent.

“She usually jumped in front.  But this time when she jumped in front he kept shooting.  He shot her and shot the mom,” Costello said.

From there, police say Anderson took off, heading north.  Eventually he would be spotted and chased by police.  Officers say he got to a dead end, pulled a gun on police, and was shot to death himself.

That bloody day left a lot of kids without parents.  Haynes was mother to two children from another relationship, and had twins with Anderson, who Costello says had been an off again, on again boyfriend for nearly 20 years.  The only constant with him, she says, was the volatility.

“Stability no.  Not stable,” she said of him.  “It’s one of those things where you have to make a choice.  Is it love or is it fear to keep you there?”

And fear, she says, kept Haynes there too long.

Costello says she’s tired of this type of story.  A second friend of hers, Latasha Flowers, was in a violent relationship with her husband.  It was back in 2009 that she was shot and killed.  Harrison Flowers is serving an 18 year sentence for that crime.   Again, Costello says, a battered woman trying to get out led to the violence.

“When she decided to really leave him alone, that’s when she got killed by her husband.  This was her husband.”

Costello says she’s seen enough.  She’s trying to mobilize people on a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hidden-In-Grace/583462751681946) to do something about the issue.   She believes there are too many women in need of help.

“Can we get them to a safe house?  Can we get them to a shelter?  Can we help them?  This is women that are serious.  I know they say, we did this or we did that, but sometimes they can’t do it on their own.  They’re scared!

“We put money together for everything else.  But we have women dying.  Children dying because someone felt that, I can’t live you’re not gonna live and you’re not gonna live without me. “

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