FINDING STRENGTH: A STORY OF SURVIVAL
BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) – A Brunswick County woman said her husband almost beat her to death in July. Ashley Ellis said it was not the first time he had hurt her, but it would be the last.
Ashley opened up to WWAY’s Makenzi Henderson about what happened that night in his home in front of one of her children.
“I just remember the blackness going back and seeing the light again,” Ashley said.
That light gave Ashley a second chance at life. It was a second chance that started as a second, third, fourth, fifth chance for her husband, Ryan Scott Ellis.
“I had left him and I’d only been back for a week and a half,” Ashley said.
It was July 15, 2015.
“We decided that we would have a couple drinks and my eight year old had decided he wanted us to play video games with him,” Ashley said.
Ashley’s baby daughter was in bed, and her 10-year-old son was at a cousin’s house. It was a nice beginning to that second chance that Ashley said would have a terrible ending.
“We started arguing over something really, really petty,” Ashley said. “So, once my feelings kind of got hurt, I walked outside and went to the porch and he came outside. I was like, you know, I don’t want things to be this way and he said, so let’s talk about it. So, I was like, OK, and we started talking about it. One thing escalated to the next and I got shoved off of the porch.”
When Ashley tried to get up, she said he shoved her again, and then he sat on her.
“Then he was like, you’re not going to call the cops. You know, he’s screaming at me and everything,” Ashley said.
Once he let her up, Ashley said he went inside to start packing, giving up on that second chance for him.
“I say to him, like, I’m done with this, like, I cannot be with your no more. I cannot deal with you putting your hands on me,” Ashley said. “His words back to me were, like, if you want me to beat you, I will. About that time, the first hit came.”
Ashley said she had never felt that before.
“I had been choked previously. I’ve been slapped in my face, drug around by my hair, but never, never punched. He punched me right in my eye,” Ashley said.
The punches kept coming, as Ashley said she backed into the bedroom where her daughter slept.
“She woke up screaming,” Ashley said. “But, it never slowed him down. It never stopped anything. It just continued on until I blacked out.”
Ashley said she’d felt that blackness coming all along.
“I think the only reason he truly stopped is because he thought I was dead,” Ashley said. “He thought he had really did the job and he was, like, oh crap, I’ve killed her.”
She did not think she’d she the light again, at least not in that bedroom.
“Because I just knew I was going to die on that bed,” Ashley said.
But, she did not die on that bed. Instead, she woke up to him holding her in his arms.
“[I was] saying, oh my gosh, what’s wrong, what happened to my face. Then, it was a sudden realization of what happened. Then, I started screaming, like, get away from me, get away from me right now,” Ashley said. “So, he just got up, walked out of the bedroom, didn’t say a word, walked right out of the house, straight into the car and pulled out the driveway and left.”
Ashley said she helped find him by turning to Facebook. She uploaded pictures of her battered face, and wrote posts about her survival story.
“It was my way of finding him. To tell people who he was, maybe it would be a warning to some other woman out there,” Ashley said.
It was a warning, Ashley said, she wishes she would have heeded.
“Oh yes, there was warning signs all the way,” Ashley said.
“I grieve for the person I thought he was, and I also grieve for the person that I found out he was,” Ashley said.
It’s a realization many come to too late. North Carolina Department of Justice statistics show 62 women and 46 men were victims of domestic violence related homicides in 2013 in North Carolina. Twenty seven of the offenders were female and 88 were male.
“What happened to me can happen to anyone,” Ashley said.
It’s happening in the Cape Fear, too. NCDOJ statistics show from 2008 to 2013, 33 people died as a result of domestic violence.
“I’ve seen it in my friends, I’ve seen it in different family relationships, and I’ve seen it in my own life,” said Karmen Smith, an advocate with Hope Harbor.
That’s why Smith said her organization and others play a crucial role in the fight against the crime.
“To be the person and say, I know, at least to some extent, how you feel, I’m here to help you,” Smith said.
Smith said Hope Harbor has helped. The Brunswick County organization provided 1,500 nights of shelter to 150 women and children from 2013 to 2014.
“It’s not so much telling them what to do, it’s letting them know their options,” Smith said.
After Ashley ran through the options with Hope Harbor, she decided she some more. So, she coached her children through the trauma, and she told her story. Ashley said that gave her, and maybe many more in a similar situation, a second chance at life.
“I hope that by telling my story, that somebody is like, hey you know, this is kind of the way my life is going and I’m thinking about going back, maybe I shouldn’t be like her,” Ashley said.
WWAY requested an interview with Ryan Scott Ellis through the Brunswick County jail, and we made calls to his attorney of record, Alex Kintner, but have not heard back from either of them.
A Brunswick County Clerk of Courts said Ryan’s charges from the July incident are pending.
The following is a list of resources for domestic violence victims.
Hope Harbor Home (Brunswick County), click here.
Domestic Violence Shelter and Services, Inc. (Wilmington), click here.
Safe Haven of Pender County (Pender County), click here.
Families First Inc. (Columbus & Bladen counties), click here.
NC Victim Assistance Network, click here.
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