‘He can’t do this anymore.’ Journals show slain teen’s struggle with dating abuse
Editor’s note: This article describes abusive dating relationships and the violent murder of a high school student. It also includes profanity used by the teen describing her abuse. Call the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline at 866-331-9474, text “LOVEIS” to 22522 or visit loveisrespect.org for immediate, confidential assistance.
Jennifer Crecente spent Thanksgiving 2004 with her dad in Georgia, getting a few days away from all the drama at home. Yet she seemed as torn as ever.
After boarding her flight back to Austin and settling into her seat, Jennifer, then 17, pulled out her journal and started working through her thoughts in neat black script.
I feel confused about Justin. I think of him all the time + think of what our life would be like if we made a life together. But all of this comes to me as a very weird feeling …
I guess the question at hand would be: Do I love him like I think I do?
I've been very distraught about the whole thing.
***
Elizabeth Crecente came across her daughter’s journals after Jennifer was killed in February 2006 by her ex-boyfriend, Justin Crabbe. It was a motley assortment of three dozen notebooks containing the raw humor, frustration and messiness of a teenage girl’s mind from middle school into high school. They were private thoughts never meant for the world.
Crecente wasn’t sure what to do with them.
“Throwing them away didn't feel right,” she recently told me. “Packing them away didn't feel right, either.”
She decided she should take a look, in case they held information that could help the prosecutors who had charged Crabbe, then 18, with murder.
“But mainly,” she acknowledged, “I wanted to read them because anything that was attached to Jennifer I wanted to read or touch or save.”
Crecente remains protective of her daughter’s private world in these notebooks. But she agreed to share selected passages, hoping that Jennifer’s story might help others recognize when someone is experiencing teen dating violence.
“Dating abuse usually starts small, and then it just grows and grows,” Crecente said. “And I think she got really down the road with him and was so immersed in it, she just couldn't see.”
***
Mom always has said that the way I keep my diaries is "really cool" + that some day I'll enjoy going back through them … how much am I going to enjoy them if all I write about is senseless crap?
I miss Justin. I shouldn't, should I? Everyone always tells me how amazed they are that I still talk to him after all the stuff he's done. He is insulting … There's just a slight lack of common respect/or care for common respect.
***
Jennifer met Crabbe at Bowie High School, and they dated on and off for a couple of years. They were opposite in many ways. Jennifer was outgoing and witty. Crabbe was troubled and withdrawn. But Jennifer always stuck up for anyone who seemed vulnerable.
It was her defining trait.
“Someone was making comments about me sitting down in the chair” in science class, recalled her friend Karli Wills, who was overweight in high school, “and (Jennifer) went after them. It was amazing.”
For Danielle McFarlan, their sisterlike bond began in middle school, when Jennifer started walking her home so the petite McFarlan wouldn’t be easy prey for the boy who kept shoving her around.
“When he started up, she would be the one that would scream and push him until he left me alone,” McFarlan recalled warmly. “She was very, very protective of me."
Jennifer boldly stood up for herself, too. One day, when Jennifer walked into class at Bowie wearing a black outfit, a cheerleader scoffed that “Halloween’s over.” Jennifer showed up the next day dressed like a cheerleader, with a message written on duct tape across her midsection: “This is my Halloween costume.”
It’s no surprise Jennifer wanted to help Crabbe, too. But he was using drugs and cycling in and out of the juvenile justice system. In papers that Crecente gave police after the murder, Jennifer had written that "Justin calls me a whore a lot" and "thinks that using fists is an effective way of getting (his) point across."
“Her heart was so big. I don't know why she took that type of abuse,” McFarlan said. “I would ask her, ‘Why are you letting him do this? Why are you fighting? Why are you together?’
“All of her responses were, ‘Well, you don’t know, his home life is really bad.’ ”
***
MY BABY IS BACK
I had no idea I would be this happy.
***
I can’t believe someone I wanted to be with so bad could hurt me this much.
Crap. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry at school ever again. especially over a guy.
He went to smoke after school. He lied to me about his mom picking up so he could smoke (great so now he can blame on me) …
I wish I could write down all the feelings + thoughts I have right now. He can’t even handle his own feelings. How is he supposed to handle mine?
***
It was difficult for Crecente to read those entries, just pages apart.
“One day she’s ecstatic. The next day she’s just gutted,” Crecente said. "I think that she suffered so much.”
In other passages, Jennifer writes bitterly about the neurological condition she inherited from her mother, in which the lower part of the brain presses into the spinal canal, causing a whole constellation of symptoms. In Jennifer, that included behaviors that resembled bipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Jennifer watched as her mother slowly recovered from major brain surgery in 2004 that upended their lives and drained their finances. Jennifer was angry and anxious. She felt defective.
“She thought that nobody was going to want her as she was, which was not true,” Crecente said. “But because she had these physical and mental health conditions, she accepted somebody who didn't treat her well. She didn't think she deserved better.”
Among her daughter's papers, Crecente also found notes from Crabbe: "I love you and that's not going to change. and I am really sorry I scared you like that," he wrote to Jennifer in September 2004, a year and a half before the murder. "I'm done hurting you."
***
I’m not one to let people know my crap, dealing w/ that crap. I’ve been starting to question if I really love him or not. I'm in an abusive relationship (emotionally). I just realized (that). He can't do this anymore …
It's Definitely Time for an ULTIMATUM:
Stop lying
Stop screwing (up)
Stop making fun of me OR the things I do
Stop smoking
Be true to emotions
No violations of probation (even if it's for me)
No physical abuse to ANYONE …
Don't fall into peer pressure (it's crap)
Don't take crap from others
Don't make excuse
AGAIN, DO NOT lie …
I will leave this relationship if ANY of this bullshit keeps up any longer
I am so tired of hiding my pain. Emotional + physical. I'm just so tired + everything hurts.
***
Wills didn’t think anything of it when Jennifer complained one day in class about her back hurting. She showed Wills some scratches and then laughed it off like it was no big deal.
After the murder, that haunted Wills. Was that moment an opening? Was Jennifer trying to see how a friend would react to her injuries?
Wills wished she had asked more questions. But as a teenager herself, she said, "I didn't know any better."
***
By the start of her senior year, Jennifer had gotten an extended break from Crabbe, who was sent to a court-ordered 90-day boot camp.
“She was just a happier person when Justin wasn’t around,” McFarlan said. “She smiled more. She was more outgoing. She was just like her regular, bubbly self.”
Jennifer wrote a poem at that time for school, describing herself as a “beautiful butterfly” until she met “the little boy who tore off my wings.”
You complicated my life, you kept me busy,
I was your entertainment, your muse.
You took away my brilliance, my happiness, my ability to soar.
I wasn’t happy then.
But now,
Now I have escaped. I have left you behind.
I am the beautiful butterfly in all the pictures,
Grew new and even more brilliant wings.
I can soar higher and more elegantly than ever before.
I am free and I feel better than better …
***
Around this time Jennifer sat down with a long sheet of paper and plotted the timeline for a full life.
In brightly colored crayons she logged the major events so far: Her birth in 1987. The start of her community theater acting career in 1997. The boy she dated in 2003 and broke up with in 2004.
Then she wrote out her vision for the years to come:
2006: Graduate (from high school)
2007: Go to college
2011: Graduate college w/ with honors
2015: Have brain surgery
2021: Adopt a kid with my husband
2047: Celebrate menopause
2050: Quit (chewing) gum
2052: Get dentures
2060: Retire
2072: Become a widow
2099: Die Sept. 10, oldest person alive
She didn't anticipate what Crabbe had in store for her:
2006: Murdered at 18.
***
Tucked among the papers that Crecente found was a letter that Jennifer had written to herself, around age 15 or 16, when she was practicing some penmanship and self-love.
Dear Jennifer,
You are smart, well spoken and dedicated when you put your mind to something. You have amazing capabilities when you are at your best. You do well at sorting things out and solving inner-conflicts when your at your worst. You are almost always capable of putting on a happy face when needed. You did an amazing job and still are with handling Justin being gone. Your a strong person on your own and you should never feel any form of dependency. You are getting increasingly better at your cursive. You will be fine in life if you don't take your sickness to heart. Please hold your head high. If not for you, then do it for me. Nothing is the end of the world. Ever.
Take care of yourself please, just like I am doing now.
- Jennifer Ann Crecente
***
Grumet is the Statesman’s Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or via Twitter at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/news/columns.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Journals show murdered Austin teen's struggle with dating abuse
