HIGH POINT — Catherine Johnson’s calling has become a career in which she regularly witnesses the pain inflicted on adults and children by domestic violence, but the murder-suicide a week ago that killed five members of a family in north High Point reaches deeply into her consciousness.
Johnson, the director of the Guilford County Family Justice Center, said she understands the shock that the community feels after Robert J. Crayton Jr., 45, shot and killed his wife and three children — ages 18, 16 and 10 — and then himself at their house in the 2700 block of Mossy Meadow Drive off Deep River Road.
But Johnson said the unfathomable violence in a usually quiet neighborhood underscores the pervasive threat of domestic violence. Out of its despair, she said, perhaps the community can learn lessons about how to prevent another real-life nightmare from unfolding.
“It’s a very significant tragedy for our community,” she told The High Point Enterprise. “In the time I’ve worked in Guilford County since 2014 with the Family Justice Center, this is the most horrific instance of domestic violence.”
Johnson said she has been struck by neighbors of the Crayton family saying in media interviews that they had no idea of the potentially deadly situation that had been simmering in the family’s house. Johnson said that fits with an abuser’s effort to keep the mistreatment of family members secret, creating a facade in their demeanor with neighbors, friends and coworkers that their home life is tranquil and supportive.
“That’s one of the traits of a domestic violence abuser, being charismatic,” she said. “That’s part of the manipulation — outside their doors, they want everybody to think they’ve got a household where everything is all right.”
During a press briefing Monday, police said they had been called to the Crayton home six times since 2014, most recently Jan. 3, 2022, when Robert Crayton was served an order for involuntary commitment for mental health treatment. Police said there’s no record of Crayton ever being arrested.
The strongest predictor of a murder-suicide that’s family-based is a previous record of domestic violence, said Nathaniel Ivers, chairman of the Department of Counseling at Wake Forest University.
“In most cases where a murder-suicide occurs, it’s a man killing his wife, then killing children if they are involved, then killing himself,” Ivers said.
In an effort to try to prevent murder-suicides, communities should provide resources to support healthy family development and offer opportunities for family counseling, Ivers said.
Johnson said the community needs to examine ways to make people in unsafe home situations feel more comfortable seeking a way out.
“What are the conditions that keep people silent and what do we need to do to open pathways for them to share with us so we can help?” she said. “Sometimes people may feel shame, they may feel fear that they can’t share or talk to someone about what’s going on.”
Johnson said that often a community will try to find a single reason for a domestic violence tragedy, but the factors are complex.
At its essence, though, “violence and abuse is about power and control,” she said.
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