The Murder of Jeffrey Dryden: The Grim Truth Surrounding Male Domestic Abuse

The Murder of Jeffrey
Dryden:

The Grim Truth Surrounding
Male Domestic Abuse

Troy Veenstra

Smashwords Edition © 2011
Troy Veenstra in association with Veenstra Publications. All
Printed and Electronic Rights Reserved.

This book is based on the
actual events surrounding the abuse & murder of Jeffrey Scott
Dryden. Information for this book was taken from personal
interviews with the victim’s family and friends, press articles,
court documents, medical reports as well as the authors own
personal eyewitness accounts.

All information pertaining
to this book has been researched with “due diligence,” thus having
a primary and secondary resource. Furthermore, the family of the
victim states that everything is true in regards to what they
observed, witness and felt during the course of these
events.

http://www.veenstrapublishing.biz

Parental Warning: This book
contains Graphic details taken from the trial court, which details
acts of violence; furthermore, this book contains some mature words
not suitable for younger children.

Edited by: Sharon Evans,
Roxanne Guild, Paula Dryden & Linda Irons

First Print

In print ISBN #

ISBN: 1466494867

ISBN-13:
978-1466494862

Ebook ISBN #

IN MEMORIAL

This book is dedicated to
the Memory of Jeffrey Scott Dryden, Beloved Son, Brother, Nephew,
Cousin, Uncle & Friend.

May you rest in peace
knowing that Justice was finally served.

May 15 1982 – July 18
2010

INTRODUCTION

At 2:45 am on the humid summer morning
of July 18, 2010, my cousin, Jeff Dryden, became a statistic.
Actually, we, as a family also became statistics; we became a part
of another group of families and friends that are related to
someone killed by an act of domestic homicide. As for Jeff, he
became a victim of the ever growing, yet, socially ignored disease
that plagues the world of the male societal philosophy.

Stabbed in the neck, murdered in cold
blood by his alleged 21-year-old girlfriend, Chiquita Rena Fizer as
he attempted to flee from her after a dispute over her cell phone,
Jeff became, and subsequently was a victim of Male Domestic
Abuse.

After a year of constant sorrow and
dread, anger, pain, and sadness felt by his family and friends, his
killer was finally placed behind bars to serve 14 to 45 years
behind bars for pleading No-contest to the charge of 2nd degree
murder. Still holding on to the ideal that it was all an accident,
she will have to live with the fact that she is an abuser, not a
victim, but a murderer.

As his cousin and as an author of other
written works I feel that the burden, or rather the privilege of
telling his story now falls upon my shoulders. Thus, it is with
this book that I will tell you what led to Jeff’s final breath, the
horror and fear he went through while being involved with his
female abuser.

It falls to me to tell the people of
this world the truth behind Male Domestic Abuse. The truth as to
what a wonderful person Jeff was, as not all men raise their hands
to their lover. Not all men are abusers, as our society would like
you to believe, but instead, to tell you of the growing number of
men that raise their arms not to abuse their female lovers but
instead to cushion the blow of their anger as they strike out to
abuse their men and in some cases, such as Jeff’s, KILL…

“
It has been said that time
heals all wounds, but those that know pain, those that know the
loss and heartache of a loved one know that wounds never fully
heal. Instead, our wounds become scars, reminders of a time before
the pain and heartache. A time---before scars...”

---Troy Veenstra (2011)

CHAPTER ONE:

SUNDAY JULY 18
2010

6AM

“
Jeff’s… Jeff’s dead,” Eric
whimpered over the phone, I could hear the panic in his voice, the
almost cracking of his tone as if forcing himself to say those two
words. “Eric, what… what was that?” I paused, hearing nothing but
the faint echo of his breath against the receiver, waiting for me
to finish my question as I tried to give my thoughts sound, “what
do you mean HE’S DEAD?” I asked. My mind not fully registering his
words as my thoughts feathered through me like a haze of faded
photographs, flashing back to the last time I saw Jeff at the
campgrounds of my aunt and uncles trailer home.

“
I… I don’t know… Jim (our
step father) just came knocking on the door and told me that Jeff,
our cousin, was dead and then… just walked away,” he sobbed with an
almost troubled sigh. “He said something about…,” Eric paused,
“Something about what Eric?” I asked, needing more information than
just hearing that my twin cousin was dead. “Something about him
being stabbed in the neck by his girlfriend,” Eric responded as my
mind fell into a great void of darkness, trying to think of what
she looked like, yet faltering in my gaze to remember. “I’m… I’m
not really sure what’s going on but mom’s not answering the phone
at home right now.” He hurriedly stated as I paused once more. My
thoughts vacant, drawing a complete blank as what to ask… what to
say next.

“
Troy,” Eric said quietly
in an almost weakened whimper, I could hear the care, the concerned
sadness brazening through his tone. “Troy, do you think… do you
think he’s really dead?” he asked like a saddened child
experiencing the despair of a tragic loss for the first time. “I…,”
I paused for a moment, remembering a time not long ago when our
father passed away. Remembering how Eric took the events back then.
Recalling the tears that glistened down the sides of his face, the
silent state of sadness he quickly fell in to.

Suddenly in those bleak memories, all I
could imagine were those same dismal tears on the face of his twin
brother; upon the faces of his family, the sorrow of it all causing
a cord of dread to splinter deep in my heart as their pain showered
through me in an awkward reflection of my own.

“
Eric…” I swallowed hard,
forcing myself to speak, “Let’s just wait until we know more… maybe
he was just injured or something,” I sighed. “I should be home from
work in about an hour and we should know more then---okay?” I
asked, hearing nothing more than a shallow grunt, a speckling sigh
in his tone that told me he already knew the truth, already allowed
himself to feel the pain, the sadness breaking through his heart at
the loss of another. “If you hear…,” I paused for a long moment,
hearing the strains of his own pain as he fought back his grief,
his own jagged memories of hurt and appalling loss, ”If you hear
from mom, have her call me on my cell okay?” I demanded. “Yeah…
just… just get home soon,” he whimpered. “I will,” I said as he
hung up the phone.

Almost immediately I called my mom but
got no response from her, I knew that she and my aunt Linda were
more than likely in the thick of the whole situation, trying as
best they could to comfort my aunt Paula, while at the same time
contacting the other sisters and finding out more about what truly
happened. Having no other way to confirm what was going on, I went
online to The Grand Rapids Press. It was here where I found a brief
article that depicted just enough information to confirm what Eric
told me, just enough information to allow my mind to acknowledge
the loss of another, the loss of a family member once more.
Reporter Jeff Engle wrote (Engle, 2010):

WYOMING -- A 28-year-old
Wyoming man died early this morning after he was stabbed, according
to police. The man was found dead near an apartment complex in the
900 block of 44th Street SW at about 2:45 a.m. Police initially
responded on reports of an injured person, and the man was later
pronounced dead at the scene. Police have a suspect in custody, but
have not released his or her name. The stabbing is under
investigation.

This brief article was just enough to
confirm Eric’s heartbroken words. Confirm yet another tragedy to
our family as a whole, and send us all down a spiraling adventure
filled with tears, hate, sadness and anger. It would open our eyes
to feelings we never wanted to feel, things we never wanted to see,
and a disease ignored by the masses. It would lead us to the
incident that foretold of my cousin’s murder by his abusive,
21-year-old girlfriend, Chiquita Rena Fizer and her rein of abuse
upon our beloved.

Hours Earlier

It was still dark when they arrived at
her home, the damp summer humidity leaving a slight eerie heaviness
in the air as if foretelling of the grief to come. Slowly they
roamed through the slight blades of damp grass like dark shadows of
despair.

Walking up the slightly lopsided wooden
steps, preparing themselves for the situation that was about to
unfold like the countless times before, they readied for the gut
wrenching cry, the weep of dread and sadness, recalling the sound
from previous families and loved ones; they prepared to hear them
yet again this day.

I would like to think that Detective
Pols of the Wyoming Police Department held Paula’s (my Aunt’s) hand
firmly in his grasp, gazing into her troubled eyes. I imagine he
could already see the dread, the horror of the unknown echoing
through her as a distant memory from her past rumbled through her
like a torrential storm.

Those same passionate words; the cry of
sympathy, spoken years earlier by other officers when she was told
of her husband committing suicide, leaving her with their twin boys
and unborn daughter. The sadness and sorrow, the tear stricken
grief of a mother lost in misery after told her 28-year-old son,
was dead, murdered in cold blood; the victim of a domestic
homicide.

To think of the pain she felt at that
moment disturbs me now even a year later, as I am sure that the
sanity of it all crashed down upon her like an unbearable wave of
hopelessness, only becoming worse with trepidation and confusion as
Detective Pols spoke those ill words of grief and sorrow to her.
His voice soft yet firm, caring yet stern, as he told her that
Jeff, her first-born, her baby, had been stabbed in the neck and
that her son had passed away. Only to follow those words of grief,
of sadness with even more distraught and horrendous news, by
telling her that they believed the monster that killed him, the
woman; the abuser that took her baby from her was his very own
girlfriend.

I can only imagine the heaviness she
felt in her heart as her mind raced with images of her fallen son.
Her legs weakening with each passing thought, buckling to the
strain, succumbing to the devastating heartache and fury as her
mind continued to race through all the recollections, all the past
happy memories, shattering through her like shards of broken glass.
Falling down to the floor, lost in an inferno of sadness mixed with
hate, confusion mixed with loss, of outright horror and shock. It
pains me to think of it now, what horrors ran through her, what
dread fixed upon her soul that moment, those seconds, those
breaths, after being told of such a loss and death.

It was my mother Roxanne, whom told me
that they came to her in this way, leaving her dreadfully in the
news of this great misfortune. Leaving her in complete shock,
leaving her to reach out to those she could count on the most;
reaching out to her family, her sisters who came, ever so
willingly, ever so lovingly, to her aid.

Jeff & Jason

“Cut of the same
cloth,”

From the time they were born Jeff was
always half of a group known as “the twins,” in my extended family,
his brother Jason being the other part of that dynamic duo. Never
did anyone ever ask where Jeff was without finishing that sentence
with an “and Jason,” nor was there a Jason without a Jeff. Even
after they became adults, moved out, and lived separate of each
other they were still referred to as “Jeff and Jason,” or “the
twins” whenever we had a family get-together or saw one without the
other in passing.

From the moment they were born; from
the moment they both took breath upon this world, they were one of
the same soul, both of the same mind and being. Both cut from the
same cloth, both brothers and friends. Never was there a closer
bond between the two for any other than their twin and never, at
least not really, would one betray the other. They were like the
day and the night, Thunder and lightning, they were brothers unlike
most others.