Federal court documents say Wendell Callahan grew up without a father figure and has spent most of his adult life behind bars.
Callahan remained hospitalized Wednesday under police guard. He was charged with three counts of murder Tuesday.
Columbus police investigators believe Callahan somehow got inside the apartment of his former girlfriend, Erveena Hammonds, and stabbed Hammonds and her two daughters to death. Investigators say Callahan was then confronted by Hammonds’s current boyfriend, Curtis C. Miller. The two men fought and both sustained stab wounds. Callahan was critically injured. Miller was treated and released.
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In 2006, Erveena Hammonds told Columbus police that Callahan assaulted her. The police report says Callahan grabbed Hammonds by the throat, “picked her up off the ground with her feet dangling in the air”…. “began kicking, stomping and punching her.” Hammonds told police she believed Callahan would have killed her if a Good Samaritan had not come by.
Not long after that Callahan went to federal prison on cocaine charges, sentenced initially to 150 months. His sentence was reduced – first to 110 months and then down to 100 months because of retroactive changes in federal sentencing guidelines.
Callahan successfully completed a number of prison programs including training in “rational thinking.”
It’s not clear yet what prompted the stabbing rampage early Tuesday or whether there had been any warning signs.
Hammonds’s sister in law, Natasha Hubbard-Taylor, says Hammonds had not mentioned any concerns.
“If she was afraid of him, she never expressed that to me and maybe because of our close relationship she didn’t want me to feel like it was something to worry about,” Hubbard-Taylor said.
Sue Villilo, executive director of CHOICES for domestic violence victims, says it’s not uncommon for victims to keep things to themselves.
“They don’t want to share with people that ‘this is happening to me’ because they feel like they’re to blame,” Villilo said. “Part of the victimization is convincing the victim that they deserve what’s happening to them so that this becomes very hard to share with someone else.”
Villilo urged victims to speak up before it’s too late.
“If they’re already physically harming you or emotionally harming you or threatening to kill you or a family member, that’s not something to write off,”Villilo said. “You should take that seriously and you should get help.”
