Woman shot by husband finally returns home

CINCINNATI -- Through rushes of tears, bouts of laughs, worries, determination, incredible pain – but above all, hope – Alisha Waters has waited to come home.

Four months she has waited, since Aug. 6, the day she was ambushed by her estranged husband, Dennis J. "D.J." Mathis. He chased her into her Fort Thomas, Ky., workplace and shot her five times. Then, as she played dead letting an elevator door bang against her head, Mathis turned the gun around and shot himself to death.

"I'm so excited to come home," Waters said before she arrived in Florence on Thursday. She has been living at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, a private, nonprofit hospital that specializes in spinal cord injuries, since Oct. 9. Before that she was at University of Cincinnati Medical Center and Select Specialties in Good Samaritan Hospital in University Heights.

"Four months is long enough!" she said in a text message conversation. She is able to type on a keyboard using a wand held in her mouth.

The last time Waters, 31, was in her parents' home, she was living a normal life, though she was living, too, in fear that the husband she'd left would come after her.

Now Waters is quadriplegic, with limited mobility of her right arm. She needs a hospital bed, a mechanical wheelchair and a manual one (in case the power goes out), a chair lift, a respirator, a suction device, several sling-like contraptions to help with movement (she calls herself the "puppet master") and a back-up generator (again, in case electricity goes out). Insurance will cover much of these needs, but not the manual wheelchair, shower chair or a van for transportation, said her mother, Tammy Russell.

Alisha's spirit buoys the entire family's.

"I'm ready to come home and continue my 'winning streak' for everyone that's been cheering me on," Waters tapped out. "I'm doing much better! Don't get me wrong, I still have my bad days, but much better. I think the pain at this point is mainly my nerves getting back on track."

Waters was interviewed by text rather than by phone because her mother couldn't be there to hold a phone.

In preparation for Waters' homecoming, the family has transformed their garage into a bedroom.

"I'm so busy," Jim Russell said about two weeks ago as he awaited contractors. He is a plumber and built an accessible bathroom for his stepdaughter, but there was still much to be done. Some days, people who volunteered via Facebook to help would not show up. He's taken off work for about a month to complete the job.

Tammy Russell said she was "physically and emotionally exhausted" near the end of her stay with Alisha in Atlanta.

"We are both just ready to get home and begin our 'new normal,'" Russell said. "It's been a long time coming."

She has learned how to care for her daughter while at Shepherd Center. She will have to train their family and likely a visiting, part-time nurse. Most aren't trained to deal with spinal cord injury patients, she was told.

The whole family has been on a collective mission to help Waters and each other and even others who face domestic abuse – as Waters wants.

"I can't wait for her return," said her uncle, Edde Scudder of Hartwell. "But I'm also pragmatic enough to realize this is a never-ending journey, and that no matter how difficult we believe this will be for Alisha and the family, the result will be twice as hard."

On his niece's behalf, Scudder has been encouraging people to sign a petition to add cyber-stalking to Kentucky's law as a reason for a protection order. As of this week, 2,653 people had signed.

A legal expert on domestic violence has volunteered to get the Alisha Waters bill started, to provide better protection for anyone targeted by electronic stalking.

Mathis had texted Waters 186 times in two weeks before she sought an emergency protection order, the first step toward a domestic violence order. Waters received the EPO on April 16 but was denied a DVO six days later. The April 22 order from Kenton County Family Court Judge Lisa Bushelman reads, "no allegation of domestic violence." Bushelman has declined to comment on the case.

Waters believes she is meant to advocate for the increased protection.

"I'm always thinking about the Alisha Waters bill," she said. "I feel the need to protect other women – and men, for that matter – that in the future may get in the same position I found myself in."

Waters made that her goal just one week after she was shot, her spinal cord severed, bullet holes riddling her body.

The family has accepted help from Margaret B. Drew, a visiting law professor at Northeastern University School of Law and a national expert in domestic violence, who believes Waters should have received court protection.

"Alisha's injuries could have been prevented with proper implementation of the existing DVO statute," Drew said. "The misinterpretation of civil protection order statutes is a problem all over the country."

In Waters' case, a DVO could have stopped Mathis from buying a gun. He shot Waters within 24 hours of purchasing the gun.

"Judges, lawyers (and) the general public do not understand the seriousness of stalking behavior and do not connect stalking with a high risk of harm to the person being stalked," Drew said.

Waters said she will see the bill through.

"I won't stop; we won't stop – until something changes with the cyber-stalking," Waters said. "My family and I have fought for this, and will continue to fight until justice is served!

"No one deserves to go through what I went through, and if I can help protect at least one more person, then I've done my job."