Lino Lakes wife had often predicted husband would kill her

The day after Pam Taschuk's husband bloodied her nose, split her lip and trapped her inside their Lino Lakes house, she decided 22 years was enough.

The longtime social worker did everything by the book. She got Allen Taschuk charged with false imprisonment and domestic abuse. She filed an order for protection and filed for divorce. She told authorities her fears that she might not make it out of her marriage in one piece, writing in an affidavit: "I'm scared."

Late Thursday, her worst fears came true.

At 11 p.m., Allen Taschuk, a volunteer Centennial firefighter and sheet metal worker on disability, dropped the couple's 16-year-old son at a Lino Lakes gas station and called police, asking that he be picked up. He then reported a shooting at his home.

When police arrived at 467 Post Road they found Pam and Allen Taschuk dead of gunshot wounds. They believe he killed her, then himself.

Despite her firm resolve and all of her precautions, Pam Taschuk became the latest of more than 200 Minnesota women since 2000 to die by domestic violence.

"She did everything she could to try to protect herself," said Connie Moore, executive director of Alexandra House, a Blaine shelter where Taschuk got support in her decision to try to get away from her husband.

"She did everything she could do to take care of herself and her family; the system kind of broke down," Moore said.

She said that the courts should begin looking at the "lethality" of domestic abuse defendants before releasing them from jail.

Law enforcement authorities said Friday that they, too, are frustrated. Pam Taschuk met Thursday with a victim advocate at the Anoka County attorney's office. According to the advocate's notes, Taschuk said she felt resolved in her decision, though she had had to give up a lot; she described how she had even given her husband her keys to their lake home in Henning, Minn., in the hope he would leave her alone. She marveled at why more victims didn't leave their abusers, though she said she understood it.

Afterward, she went to the Alexandra House, staying from 7 to 9 p.m. Less than two hours later she was dead.

'A very strong woman'

"This, as I understand, was a very strong woman who was sharing her story for the benefit of others," said Paul Young, an assistant Anoka County prosecutor, who has a stack of files chronicling the years of abuse she endured. "The very irony is that very night, she was murdered by the person who was abusing her. It's significant."

In her application for a protection order, she noted that her husband, when bailing out of jail, had opted to pay a higher amount in order to avoid the condition that he not be allowed to have contact with her. She said he had threatened to kill her "at least four or five times."

Lino Lakes Police Chief Dave Pecchia had known Pam Taschuk since the 1980s. In the past 14 years, his department responded to 48 calls to the Taschuk home, 22 of which were domestics. A handful of times, they arrested Allen Taschuk. His wife wasn't always the victim; on Aug. 20, he was convicted of assaulting their son.

Murder-suicides

Moore cited a study by the Violence Policy Center that estimated that between 1,000 and 1,500 murder-suicides occur in the United States each year. Of those, the most prevalent happen between intimate partners. Three-quarters occur in the home.

The period just after an abused partner makes a decision to leave the relationship tends to be the most dangerous, Moore said.

"One reason women stay in relationships is because they're afraid if they leave they will get killed," she said. "That's when things can escalate, and that's definitely a factor in some of the decisions that are made by victims -- whether they're going to leave, when they leave, how they do it and where they might go."

Taschuk worked as a truancy officer at BlueSky Online School, a statewide online school based in St. Paul. It was her job to intervene when students failed to log in or complete their work. In that role, she made contacts in communities all over the state.

"We are just deeply saddened by her loss," said Jeffrey Schulz, interim director of BlueSky, which serves about 800 students in grades 7-12. "She was a very valued and loved member of our community."

Helping kids was Taschuk's work and passion, said Chandra Kreyer, who worked with her at the Minnesota Juvenile Officers Association.

"Her commitment was to protect kids, taking care of them, helping them, in all the positions she held," Kreyer said. "I never asked her a specific reason; that's just who she was. She had a desire to be there for them."

Served on park board

Pam Taschuk was a former juvenile probation officer in Fridley and served on the Lino Lakes Park Board. She was active and vocal in her community, Pecchia said.

"Here was a victim of probably the worst crime a woman can be a victim of," Pecchia said. "Still, she worked and lived with that while serving in that capacity in the community."

Every time officers responded to the home, an Alexandra House employee came with them, Pecchia said. It often wasn't enough.

"Based on her experiences with the criminal justice system, she was well aware of what options were available," he said.

"It was essentially trying to coax her to use them."

asimons@startribune.com • 612-673-4921 mbaca@startribune.com • 612-673-4409