SWANTON MAN ABUSED WOMAN FOR YEARS BEFORE NEIGHBOR NOTICED, CALLED POLICE
By Gregory J. Lamoureux
County Courier
ST. ALBANS: Kevin Daskalides, 31, of Swanton was arrested on Friday after turning himself into police following an incident at his Homestead Acres home.
According to court records, a neighbor called police to report that a man was fighting with a woman, and was attempting to drag her into a mobile home on the property.
Four Troopers from the Vermont State Police responded to the scene, where they located the female victim. The County Courier has opted not to identify the 23-year-old female who outlined the alleged abuse to police.
The woman told police the abuse began verbally, about a month after she and Daskalides began dating. That was about two years ago, and the abuse continued to get worse.
The woman described her injuries that were allegedly caused by Daskalides to include broken ribs, bruises, and physical violence including blows that would knock the woman unconscious.
According to court records, Daskalides would keep the door locked, the windows closed, and the shades drawn in order to contain her to their mobile home in Swanton, and not attract attention.
The woman told investigators that sometime in the beginning of April, she and Daskalides were to attend a doctor’s appointment together, but the woman was not allowed in to see the doctor with Daskalides and had to wait in the car. During that time, she thought it was her only chance to flee, so she left, seeking help.
She made her way to Laurie’s House, a shelter for battered women. Once there, they placed her at another safe location, according to the woman.
Over the next two weeks, Daskalides would make different Facebook profiles in order to contact the woman, stalk her location, and message her friends to find out where she was hiding out.
Once those efforts were unsuccessful, Daskalides contacted the woman again, telling her he would burn her possessions and kill her cat if she didn’t come back to him, she told police.
Fearing the worst would happen to her cat, she returned, where he continued to abuse her and trap her inside the mobile home. The woman told police that Daskalides even destroyed her cell phone in order to prevent her from contacting anyone.
“He stated that ‘you owe your life to me, and your life is in my hands,’ ” wrote Trooper Ashley Farmer in a sworn statement, recalling what the woman had told her during the investigation.
At one point Daskalides pulled her hair so hard, it ripped part of her scalp off, according to court records, causing the woman to cut off most of the rest of her hair to prevent it from happening again.
On Thursday the weather was nice, leading Daskalides to open the main door to the house, and leave just the screen door in place. This, according to the woman’s testimony, was when she decided it was her chance to break free again from his abuse.
Earlier that morning Daskalides allegedly threatened the woman with a pistol that he carries with him on a regular basis. She told police that he pointed it at her, threatening to kill her.
Daskalides also claimed that the woman had been cheating on him, according to court records, even though she had not left his side in weeks.
During the abuse, Daskalides began punching the woman in the face. That’s when, according to the police, she fled outside the front door of the mobile home.
Screaming for help, she was able to garner the attention of a neighbor, who made eye contact with the woman as well as Daskalides. That neighbor began calling police, who immediately responded, but Daskalides had fled the scene by the time Vermont’s green and gold arrived.
Police began scouring the area, looking for Daskalides, and his red Ford Focus. They located it a short time later parked at what many locals refer to as the “frog pond,” a Park and Ride adjacent to the intersection of Routes 207 and 78 in Highgate.
A rescue crew transported the woman to the hospital as police continued to search for Daskalides- at one point stopping at his mother’s residence in Highgate. She allegedly told police he was not there.
As the investigation continued, Vermont State Police Troopers received a telephone call from a defense attorney, later identified as Robert Kaplan.
Kaplan told police he was contacting them because one of the Troopers left a card for Daskalides, asking him to call the police.
The Trooper told Kaplan that Daskalides was being sought for multiple criminal charges and that he needed to contact the police. Kaplan told the Trooper that he would contact Daskalides, and advise him to turn himself in within an hour or two.
That time frame passed, and the Trooper called Kaplan back around 8 pm, notifying him that his client had not turned himself in, and they would be seeking an arrest warrant for him.
Almost two hours later, and five hours after police were first notified, the law enforcement notified the public they were searching for Daskalides, and what his suspected charges were.
It was almost 24 hours later when public records show Daskalides turned himself in to the police, who booked him into the Northwest Correctional Center in St. Albans at 9 pm on Friday night. Daskalides remains in prison after his Monday afternoon arraignment, where a judge ordered him to be held without bail.
