"I don't have a lot of good memories," Karen Sloan said quietly of the marriage she endured for 28 years.

The marriage ended June 3 of this year when her estranged husband, John Sloan Sr.,

shot himself after a gun battle with police outside their daughter's home on Taylor Ridge Road.

But the memories and the impact of the violence linger for her and for her family.

"I took my kids to the cemetery to see his grave," Karen's daughter Wendy Johnson said. "And they asked, 'does Pappaw have his gun here?' They haven't forgotten a thing about that morning."

Looking back, Karen got a whiff of trouble before she and John were even married.

"We were at a friend's house playing cards one night and I was standing behind him and he was losing. He said it was my fault because I was looking over his shoulder and turned around and punched me."

Violence cast a constant shadow over their home life.

"If things didn't go his way, look out," Karen said. She settled quickly into a pattern of doing things just to keep him happy. "He could change moods so quickly."

That meant only doing things he approved of, and talking to people he approved of, when he chose. If she talked to other men, Karen said he would often accuse her of having affairs with them. And there was verbal abuse.

The children witnessed the abuse. While they weren't their father's targets, they were powerless to change their mother's circumstances.

In February of this year, John and Karen separated, and John filed for divorce. Still, the violence escalated. There were calls to law enforcement, and Karen got a protective order to keep her estranged husband away from her.

In the weeks leading up to his death, John apparently decided that the children were siding with their mother and turned his anger toward them as well. He began telling people he was going to kill them all.

"The morning it happened," Karen said, "people all over Ohio and West Virginia had their scanners on because he told them he was going to kill us."

Sloan first went to Karen's house and pistol whipped her. Leaving her badly injured, he went to his daughter's home and began firing shots into the house.

Wendy, her husband, Roger and their three young children called police and hid in fear.

"The kids still have nightmares," Wendy said of that day in June when the bullets buzzed around their home. Unable to live at the place where her father menaced them and took his own life, the Johnsons have moved into cramped quarters elsewhere. The tiny fixer-upper they live in now is a far cry from the serene country home they lived in before June 3.

"The kids hate it here," Wendy said. "They blame everything on what happened."

In Karen's eyes, they are lucky to be alive. John was angry enough to kill and had made numerous threats.

"We ran from him for two weeks, and nobody did anything to help us," she said. "No one was with us that morning but God."

In the wake of the tragedy, Karen said she found out fast who she could count on when the chips are down.

"Some people I thought were my friends definitely weren't friends," Karen said. "People in the community seem to be feeling sorry for him because he died. There was gossip about what happened. His brother left messages on my answering machine calling me a killer."

She also laments that neighbors wanted to hear her account of the situation over and over again, even though she desperately wanted to block it out of her mind.

Three months later, Karen and her family are still trying to cope with the what happened.

"I have no interest in anything," Karen said. "When I'm home, I'm in bed. I don't mow grass, I don't clean house." Father's Day, and the one month anniversary of the incident were particularly tough for all of them.

"Not a day goes by that I don't cry," Wendy said. The tragedy has put a "big time" strain on her marriage and family life as well.

"Wendy cries every day. My wife is falling apart," Roger said. "And every day I think 'I've got to come home and work on this house.'"

"The girls, this has overshadowed their good memories of him," Wendy said of her twin daughters, Casey and Kassie. As for her son Andy, Wendy said he is old enough to be able to cherish his good memories in spite of what happened.

Karen worries about her son, John, Jr.,

who she said still has a lot of anger about what happened.

"First, the anger was toward him (John,Sr.,) Now, it's toward the state, because no one really helped us," Karen explained. Father and son often had a stormy relationship, and had a verbal blow up only days before the incident.

Still, John Jr., sometimes displays the same temper that brings back fearful memories for Karen. "He's going to have to change. God's going to have to get a hold of him."

Wendy has dreams her father is still stalking them, still watching what they do.

Karen has moments when she thinks someone will come up behind her and hit her, like John had done so many times during their marriage.

"The one thing that bothers everybody is that he didn't die at peace," Karen said.

They hope that someday in the not too distant future, they can have a normal life for themselves again.

"Just once I'd like to go somewhere and not hear people talk about what happened," Wendy said.

Karen would like to see tougher laws to deal with domestic violence. She recalled that once when she called the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office for help, the deputy advised her that even if he took John to jail, John would probably be out of jail on bail before the deputy had completed his paperwork on the incident.

Under Ohio Revised Code, his numerous threats of violence were only misdemeanors.

"The day this happened, he could have hurt other people, neighbors, the children," Karen said. "I lived with the man for 28 years, I know what he was capable of. If you're waiting on laws to protect you, forget it. How many people have died because of these stupid laws?"

And she has advice for women who find themselves in an abusive relationship.

"Run like hell, the first time you get hit or cussed, and don't look back," Karen said. The memories of 28 years of abuse have left her with one resolution. "No man will ever live under my roof again." Teresa Moore/The Ironton Tribune