This article first appeared in Block Club Chicago on May 20, 2025.
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Content warning: This story contains descriptions of domestic violence and abuse. If you or someone you know needs help, contact the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline at 877-863-6338.
CHICAGO — Born exactly a year apart, sisters DeMya and DeMarie’ Williams were inseparable. Even though they had their own bedrooms as teenagers, they chose to stay in a room together, binge watching TV shows, listening to music and sharing their innermost thoughts.
“I think we were soulmates,” DeMya Williams said. “I felt like we were one person. I was always doing what she was doing. I idolized her because that’s my big sister.”
In August, DeMya Williams was dismayed when she noticed a “big black bruise” on her sister’s face, just under her eye, while they were shopping at Ross Dress for Less on the South Side.
It was the first time DeMya Williams realized her sister was in a dangerous relationship — and that she had been suffering alone.
“I said, ‘What happened to your face?’ She was like, ‘Oh, Lemark did this, but he doesn’t do that all the time,’” DeMya Williams said. “She was always trying to make it seem like it’s OK when it’s not OK.”
About a month after the shopping trip, 19-year-old DeMarie’ was killed. Prosecutors say her boyfriend of a year, Lemark Martin, beat her to death after a family party.
In the final months of her life, DeMarie’ was abused repeatedly at the hands of her boyfriend, and she didn’t ask for help from the people closest to her or the authorities, family and friends said.
DeMarie’s case didn’t receive media coverage at the time, but it’s a tragic example of a crisis in Chicago, where an uptick in domestic violence has left countless people injured or killed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, domestic homicides are up 33 percent over last year, according to police data. As of May 13, 24 people have been killed in domestic attacks, including 16 shootings and eight stabbings, beatings and other violent incidents.
Local officials say they’re making concerted efforts to reduce domestic violence and raise awareness. Yet a complicated mix of factors can lead to these tragic cases, and no one agency at any level of government has been equipped to take on the issue, Block Club found through dozens of interviews with advocates and survivors.
While failures involving law enforcement and orders of protection have made headlines, experts say many victims avoid the legal system entirely — suffering silently until it’s too late.
A Block Club analysis of police and court records show most people killed in domestic violence incidents in Chicago last year had never taken out protective orders against their accused attackers.
“The public health response has always been focused very much on: How do we help people once they get to a shelter, once they get to a police station or court house? But the reality is that the large majority of people are never going to get to those places,” said Sheerine Alemzadeh, co-founder of community organization Healing to Action.
Advocates say DeMarie’s case is “a clear example” that victim outreach is increasingly difficult.
The city is facing a severe shortage of shelter beds, counselors, legal support and other services essential to helping people escape abusive relationships — and the shortfalls are likely to get worse with the Trump administration’s sweeping federal cuts — at the same time pandemic-era funding is set to expire at the end of the year.
“This is exactly the opposite direction we would want funding to be going in,” nonprofit leader Sarah Layden said at a city meeting earlier this year.
“I can’t stress enough how incongruent this picture looks to what the actual needs are of gender-based violence victims in the city and providers that form the safety net.”
Family-Oriented And ‘Carefree’
Growing up, DeMarie’ was surrounded by family. She lived with her mother and eight younger siblings in South Shore along the southern lakefront. Her aunts, cousins and family friends were frequent visitors. Her full name was pronounced “De-MAR-ee-ay,” but nearly everyone knew her as “Marie” or “China.”
“She was very family-oriented. She loved being around her siblings,” DeMya Williams said.
The sisters were especially close. When they were 14 and 15 years old, DeMarie’ and her sister got matching tattoos. DeMarie’s tattoo read, “My sister keeper.” DeMya Willams’ says, “My sister protector.”
DeMarie’ first attended high school at EPIC Academy, not far from where she grew up. She moved to Indiana for a couple years to be closer to her father before landing back in South Shore at Excel Academy, a small school for kids and young adults behind in their studies.
DeMarie’ flourished at Excel, according to her sister and her best friend, Delilah Burrell, who also attended the school.
DeMarie’ learned how to express her emotions and explored her creative side, writing poetry and raps. She was on the dance team and the volleyball team, and she joined student government, art club and the Black history bowl — all with her sister and Burrell by her side.
The trio spent so much time together their classmates called them “The Three Ds.”
When DeMarie’ wasn’t in class, she showed off her bright personality and makeup skills on TikTok.
The people closest to the teenager believed she would grow up to be a successful model because she had a perfect complexion. She didn’t leave the house without her hair done and lip gloss applied, earning her the nickname “Black Barbie.”
Burrell recalled one night when her best friend fell in the pond while they were having a bonfire outside the South Shore Cultural Center. She just laughed it off, Burrell said.
That was classic Marie — “carefree” and fun-loving, DeMya Williams said.
“She was always cracking jokes, and we’d always have a good time together,” Burrell said.\
A Growing Crisis
While DeMarie’ was coming of age, Chicago was suffering through a growing domestic violence epidemic.
In 2020, COVID-related lockdown policies left many people trapped at home with their abusive partners, isolated from help and burdened by economic hardships, leading to what experts have called a “shadow pandemic.”
Domestic violence homicides went up 75 percent in Chicago, from 36 in 2019 to 63 in 2020, according to police data.
Since then, domestic homicides have averaged significantly higher than in the five years pre-pandemic, data shows. Calls to the Illinois domestic violence hotline have also ballooned. In Chicago, the hotline went from receiving 10,581 contacts in 2019 to 16,123 in 2023 — a 52 percent increase, according to the most recent figures from The Network Advocating Against Domestic Violence, a coalition of local organizations.
Many survivors and victims have struggled to get the resources needed to escape abusive relationships.
The city relies heavily on community service providers to connect victims and survivors with shelter, counseling, financial assistance and other programs meant to lift them out of abusive relationships. But those organizations can’t meet the skyrocketing demand for services because of funding constraints, group leaders said.
For instance, the vast majority of survivors seeking protective orders in civil court in Chicago can’t get an attorney or a court advocate because legal organizations simply don’t have enough staff to take on all the cases, said Benna Crawford with Legal Aid Chicago, which represents domestic violence survivors.
Survivors “will say, ‘The judge asked me one question, and I didn’t get to say anything else,’ or, ‘I had all of these videos and the judge didn’t want to see them,’ and when they don’t have all of the information, [the judges] get it wrong,” Crawford said.
Experts say resources are especially scarce on the South Side, where most of the domestic attacks were reported last year, according to a Block Club analysis of police data.
Family Rescue is the largest community service provider on the South Side dedicated to serving survivors and victims of domestic violence. The organization runs a 36-bed shelter and offers programs for survivors and victims. Some staff work out of local police stations through the Domestic Violence Reduction Unit, a program the organization launched in partnership with the Police Department in the early ’90s.
As instances of domestic violence continue to climb, Family Rescue’s 70 employees and $7.1 million annual budget aren’t enough to keep up with the overwhelming demand for services, said organization Executive Director Joyce Coffee.
Family Rescue has connected survivors with safe housing and counseling while receiving more money from the state in recent years. But the nonprofit can’t serve the needs of a large swath of the city on its own, Coffee said, noting that its shelter is almost always at capacity and clients sometimes have to wait six months for therapy.
“It’s troubling, the way resources are allocated,” Coffee said. “There needs to be a better way holistically, that those responsible for funding services take a look at the landscape to see where the need is, where the funding is going.”
Years ago, Family Rescue had a robust educational program that focused on promoting healthy relationships in local schools. But that prevention program was cut after funding was yanked. Leaders of other organizations say it’s challenging to get funding for similar programs.
DeMarie’ and Martin should’ve been connected with resources through a school prevention program, but funding struggles mean people are left in the dark, advocates said.
“The landscape is so terrible right now,” Coffee said, referring to the high levels of domestic violence. Funders “want to help people who are hurting [and] bleeding, so prevention isn’t something where people put their money first.”
‘She Kept A Lot Of It Quiet’
DeMarie’ met Martin, who is two years older, at Excel, and the two began dating around graduation in spring 2023.
The couple and their friends would spend late nights driving to their favorite hangout spot, the South Shore Cultural Center.
At first, Martin was quiet and respectful of his new girlfriend’s family, her family and friends said.
“I treated him like he was my nephew,” said her aunt, Danielle Williams.
But the couple soon began arguing regularly over perceived injustices typical of teenage relationships: Martin didn’t want DeMarie’ talking to her ex-boyfriends, and he didn’t like the way she acted when her best friend was around, family and friends said.
DeMya Williams said she had to step back and stopped going on double dates with her sister and Martin for a while. Martin became withdrawn.
“It seemed like when we’d go out somewhere, to Chili’s, to the lakefront, they were always arguing,” DeMya Williams said. “He don’t want her to do this, he don’t want her to wear this.”
Family and friends don’t know exactly when the arguments turned physical, but Jovante Pendleton, who dated DeMya Williams and spent a lot of time with the couple, said the two hit each other at the start of the relationship, but Martin quickly became the instigator.
For example, one night Martin punched DeMarie’s stomach after she unplugged his PlayStation 5, Pendleton said.
“I kept on telling her, ‘You gotta leave him. It’s just not right,’” Pendleton said.
Another night, when the friends were hanging out at the beach, DeMarie’ told Burrell that Martin had been “putting his hands on her.”
“I was like, ‘Marie, you seriously need to leave this dude. Seriously,’” Burrell said.
Family and friends said they weren’t aware Martin was hurting DeMarie’, but as arguments between the couple grew more intense last year, they hoped the relationship would end.
By that time, DeMarie’ was taking classes at Kennedy-King College in Englewood. She was close to earning her nursing certification when she decided to take law classes, with the goal of eventually becoming a lawyer.
“No one really knew the seriousness of the situation except Marie because she kept a lot of it quiet, even from Mya,” Burrell said. “If we all would’ve known how serious it was, we definitely would’ve pushed more to keep her away from him.”
‘She Could Have Left A Paper Trail’
At the time DeMarie’s situation was growing more dire, Chicago’s domestic violence epidemic reached a “crisis” level.
“Before the pandemic, it was very uncommon for us to interact with a client or a story of someone who was killed, and I think that’s no longer the case,” Crawford said.
And orders of protection are not a guaranteed safeguard for many victims.
A CBS News investigation found the Cook County Sheriff’s Office only served about 19,000 of the 77,000 protective orders it received between 2021 and 2023 — just 25 percent — which has left survivors at risk of further abuse.
At the same time, advocates and experts say thousands of victims and survivors don’t turn to the criminal justice system for help. In these cases, the abuse stays behind closed doors.
That includes dozens of cases that turned fatal. Of the 44 adults killed in domestic incidents in Chicago last year, just six had taken out orders of protection against the people charged in their deaths, according to Block Club’s analysis of available police and court records.
The list includes all homicides police labeled as domestic: intimate partners, family members and acquaintances, and some in relationships that were “not established.”
DeMarie’ was among those who didn’t seek an order of protection before she was killed in a domestic attack last year.
“She would feel like, ‘That’s not love,’ or she could handle stuff on her own,” her aunt, Danielle Williams said, referring to calling the police and taking legal action against Martin. “She’s the type of person who’s independent. She don’t like involving people in her business.”
At 19 years old, DeMarie’ was figuring out who she was. Advocates stressed that it can take years for a person in an abusive relationship to seek help or open up about what they’ve experienced.
“A lot of women do not know what they’re experiencing — they don’t have the language for it,” said Eva Maria Lewis, founder of Free Root Operation, an organization that provides counseling and wellness retreats to Black women impacted by gun violence, most of them domestic violence survivors.
“Black women — we’ve been taught to have a high capacity for pain and suffering, and as a result, we don’t always recognize when we’re engaging or enduring something to our deficit.”
DeMya Williams said she now understands why her sister didn’t speak up, but she wishes she had.
“She could have told more people, she could have called the police, she could have left a paper trail. There could’ve been interventions,” she said.
‘How Could He Do This?’
The night of Aug. 31, 2024, DeMarie’s mother, Dominique Williams, had all of her friends and family over to celebrate her 38th birthday.
Decorations from Dominique Williams’ favorite TV show, “The Vampire Diaries,” filled the apartment. DeMya and DeMarie’ Williams passed out hoagies and pasta salad to their mother’s costumed friends as they danced and took pictures.
“It was really joyful. It was like the perfect day,” DeMya Williams said.
DeMarie’ and DeMya Williams and their boyfriends left the party about 3 a.m. and went their separate ways. Not long after splitting up, DeMarie’ called Pendleton crying and asked to talk to her sister, according to Pendleton and court documents.
“She was like, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with Lemark. I came home and brought him and his brothers some food, but he’s upset with me, he keeps hitting me in the head, and I feel like I’m going to have a knot in the morning. I feel like I have to throw up,’” DeMya Williams said.
Prosecutors say DeMarie’ threw water at Martin, and then Martin punched DeMarie’ multiple times and headbutted her.
After 4 a.m., DeMarie’ recorded videos of herself saying she threw up after Martin hit her in her jaw, according to court records.
Around this time, Pendleton ordered DeMarie’ an Uber; he didn’t feel he should drive after drinking at the party. But she declined the Uber, texting that she didn’t want to leave without her belongings.
At some point afterward, DeMarie’ died from her injuries, sprawled out on Martin’s bedroom floor, according to court records.