HBO Every F-Day of My Life : Wendy Maldonado
Minutes after smashing her husband’s skull with a hammer, Wendy Maldonado of Grants Pass, Ore., called 911. The operator asked: Did he try to hurt you? Ms. Maldonado replied: Every day of my life.
That answer — in its full form, including a word you won’t hear on television outside of premium cable — is the title of an hourlong documentary Monday night on HBO. The channel is promoting the film as a study in domestic violence, but what’s best about it is that it treats the subject obliquely. It’s really a study in character and tragic circumstance, one that poses questions about justice and human nature but doesn’t reach for answers.
It’s telling that HBO imposed the new, more provocative title, with its emphasis on abuse, and jettisoned the director Tommy Davis’s original title: “One Minute to Nine,” a reference to Ms. Maldonado’s last minute of freedom before being sentenced in her husband’s death.
The film tells this story almost entirely from Wendy and Randy Maldonado’s point of view, but it doesn’t feel one-sided; it’s easy to be convinced, as the judge was, of Ms. Maldonado’s credibility. The bulk of the film takes place in the four days before that April 2006 hearing. (After her conviction Ms. Maldonado was allowed to remain out on bail until her three younger sons’ spring break.) The cameras are inside the house as she packs for prison, bakes cookies, watches home movies and matter-of-factly recounts her husband’s brutal behavior.
The boys describe their father routinely smashing her head into the walls, and photographs show a sickening number of holes. Ms. Maldonado, embarrassed but determined, takes out her dental bridge to show her four remaining teeth.
Both Wendy and Randy Maldonado, who is interviewed in prison, describe a reign of terror in which any attempt to seek help or escape would have led to retribution against other family members. Viewers may wonder about that explanation, and wonder even more about the role of neighbors who say they were aware of the constant beatings and relatives who say they weren’t. But there’s no denying the suffering.
At the hearing the judge says, “Maybe you have an argument to take to the legislature to expand justifiable homicide under the law.” But on this day Wendy Maldonado — having, as she and many others see it, saved her life and the lives of her sons — says goodbye to her family and disappears through a door labeled “Intake.”
EVERY F****** DAY OF MY LIFE
HBO, Monday night at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.
Valuable thoughts and advices. I read your topic with great interest.
Help Wendy and Randy Maldonado. Copy this letter, add or delete and send to Obama and your Senators and Governors. The laws of domestic violence and self defense need to be overhauled.
Mr. Obama
I have sent a letter requesting action to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon concerning the recent incarceration of Wendy and Randy Maldonado. This story was on HBO recently and documented the years of domestic violence and abuse on a family.
I am asking you to become involved because an injustice has taken place only because of the laws that are in place today.
Wendy Maldonado suffered tremendous emotional, physical and pshycological abuse in her marriage. This abuse also became familiar to each of the children in the household. Police were called and as is in domestic cases she was expected to turn the police away or receive another beating by her husband Aaron. Neighbors called the police and anticipated the tragedy that took place. The question is why the police and their visits did not.
Aaron Maldonada repeatedly told his wife he would kill her. He designed a “killing spot” for her in a field. He wrote a song for her that he would kill her and how. He knocked out her teeth, broke broom handles over her back and smashed her head into walls regularly. He then started to beat the children and conditioned them to not react when he hit them or else he would impose a more lethal beating.
It is time to review the laws concerning domestic abuse. In a country where possession of marijuana can land you 10 years in jail, or confiscate your home or judge you as a co-conspirator, with very little evidence, the laws concerning abused woman are archaic and shallow.
The judge admitted that the abuse was so severe that he could not fathom how the family got along. However, he stated that he was bound to impose sentences to both Wendy and Randy according to how the law read.
Laws can become outdated and this area of law needs overhauling. The fact is America protects its grizzly bears and cubs to a far more ethical standard than our own woman and children.
Wendy Maldonado and her son Randy do not belong in jail. Why was this tragedy not concluded as self defense of a family? How much more vivid evidence do we need to show the quotidian abuse. It is wrong to incarcerate these victims and it is wrong to abide to a law that does not consider the greater perimeters of today’s sociometry.
Please review their sentences after you review the law.
Rena Mlodecki
I sent a letter to the Oregon legislature.
I have also written a letter to Obama.
Is there any support foundation for Wendy and Randy? I would like to help as much as possible.
Here is my letter:
Dear President Obama,
As a woman who has suffered from domestic violence in the past, I am compelled to express my utmost support for Wendy and Randy Maldonado. After watching and learning about their story on HBO, they are continually in my thoughts and prayers.
It devastates me that this family, all of whom have been through an unfathomable amount of physical and emotional pain, is now divided. What possible benefit to society can come from children being separated from their loving mother and brother, who were only trying to protect their family?
I am asking you to please become involved.
Such inhumane acts necessitate supreme humanity.
The specific case of Wendy and Randy Maldonado is so extreme that even when police visited their property, prompted by Randy’s desperate attempt at a 911 phone call, no help was able to be provided.
We victims of domestic violence are to rely on things like restraining orders, and other laws to protect us from abuse. I am speaking from personal experience when I tell you that it doesn’t always work the way we would hope. Unfortunately when we are mistreated by those that are suppose to love us, very little, if anything is done about it. Laws can become obsolete, and this area of law needs substantial renovation.
Please review their sentences, and provide this family with counseling and compassion so that they may begin to heal together.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Dear Wendy and Randy,
I’m sure that no words of comfort can mend your broken life, but you have shown the world strength, tenacity and willingness to live far beyond the world that surrounded you and your boys with Aaron. I firmly believe that you have risen like a phoenix, and the ashes left behind will no longer control, manipulate or brutalize you and your boys.
I am truly sorry that you and your family endured such horrific life with that monster. And I my self cannot fathom the idea that you were able to survive and keep your children safe in such an environment.
I firmly believe that you did what needed to be done and more so, that had you not taken such an action the lives of your children, as your own, would have been terminated without question or hesitation by that man.
Randy stood in defense of his mother and younger brothers, and knew that without of doubt Aaron would ultimately harm them till their end. No one can judge you for protecting your mother and brothers, no one can stand and say otherwise. Regardless of what Aaron’s family belives, they have been blinded soley by blood to realize what kind of a monster their so called brother and or son really was. I don’t believe any outsider could ever imagine even a glimpse of what you have endured, and therefore don’t have the right to judge you as harshly as Aaron’s brother had done so. Please pay no attention to his hateful words.
I only hope that God and the Law will give you the chance you both deserve, a chance to create a real life, a good life, a wonderful life; free from fear and torment. May God and the Law grant you the freedom you both deserve; this is not a second chance to life, but your first chance to life. With admiration, respect and hope, I wish you the best.
Respectfully,
Rosa
California
I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama pardoned Wendy the moment he leaves office. you talk about a pardon that would make sense. this is it.
What I found so disgusting, beyong the obvious, was the complete disregard the neighbors, schools and Grants Pass community had for this family. How can you witness a man beating a woman AND DO NOTHING??? How could teachers not see multiple protrusions on Randy’s head??? Until our society protects women and children, they have every right to protect themselves.