Joi Partain was prepared to die.
At 2 a.m. on June 14, 2009, after hours of arguing with her boyfriend of only two months, Partain was in bed and rolled over on her right side toward the wall to go to sleep. There was silence, and then a flurry of violence.
Her boyfriend, Jonathan Pearson, then 26, retrieved two golf clubs, and first used a driver to smash her face at least 10 times, possibly as many as 15, until the club snapped in half. He then continued his assault with a putter.
Partain decided to lay motionless on a blood-soaked mattress.
She remembered thinking about her newborn baby girl, Paige, now 3, who was in a nearby room. Partain was still conscious, though she wasn't sure for how long. All she could do was focus on staying alive for her baby.
"I never lost consciousness," Partain said this week. "I kept telling myself to breathe and don't panic. I knew help was on the way (thanks to a roommate who had called 911)."
In a few minutes — which seemed like an eternity to her — paramedics and emergency medical technicians arrived and placed her in an ambulance, a moment captured by an Ocala police crime scene technician.
The picture is certainly worth a thousand words, evidence of the horrors of domestic violence: Partain was sitting upright in the ambulance, an oxygen mask strapped over her bludgeoned face, blood dripping over her broken arms.
Today, more than two years after the attack, Partain, 24, says her emotional scars are healing, though she still has trouble sleeping and gets startled when people yell, even when it is not directed at her.
She is trying to move forward with her life. While she is still dealing with emotional wounds, the physical scars are fading.
Partain says she is "so over" the past and is excited about the future. After more than two years of mending, she's proud of her progress and the fact that surgeons have done a miraculous job putting her face back together.
In fact, the attractive, tattooed brunette looks just like she did in photos taken before the attack. There are a few minor exceptions, but only if you look closely at her forearms, which were shattered while attempting to fend off the attack.
"You can see the scars (in some of the pictures)," she noted.
She is happy and willing to talk about her progress, even sharing dozens of family photos, as well as those from the gruesome crime scene.
Her goals are to get back into modeling for 1950s-style photographs and provide a secure life for her daughter. Above all, she wants to work with domestic violence victims.
Officials warn that domestic violence often increases during the holidays. Of 67 counties in Florida, Marion County had the fourth highest rate of domestic violence in 2009 and the seventh highest in 2010.
Judy Wilson, founder of the Ocala Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Center, said she is seeing a significant increase in the number of domestic violence victims seeking help during this holiday season.
In fact, the domestic violence shelter is routinely full. She believes that alcohol abuse associated with the holidays and the poor economy are major factors for the rise this year.
Partain hopes women and men will read her story and get out of abusive relationships while they can. She knows she is lucky to be alive and able to spend the holidays with family.
Reminders of abuse
There are constant reminders of that morning when Pearson mangled her face, damaging her left eye.
She has undergone about a dozen surgeries in two years to piece her skull back together and repair two broken arms. One of the last surgeries, early this year, was to replace her left eye with a prosthetic one.
Partain has finally been approved for federal disability, a year after Shands doctors removed her eye. She still drives, though she must take a driving test every six months or so.
"I feel great, so much better," she noted, adding that while her damaged eye was still in her socket, she felt sick to her stomach all the time. "I really am glad that they removed it. I do feel better."
Her wisdom teeth are now coming in, another reminder of the day her life changed forever.
"It's a bad day when my wisdom teeth start pushing on the plates in my mouth," she said.
In retrospect, Partain said there were subtle signs that Pearson was potentially violent, although she had known him for only two months. Pearson had struck her and shoved her a few times before that final attack.
At the time, Partain couldn't see how "such a sweet man" possessed such anger. She said Pearson sometimes became angry when he drank, but when he was sober, he was sweet and caring.
Ocala police Maj. Dennis Yonce said back in 2009 that Pearson's past wouldn't have indicated such violent tendencies.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Pearson had no criminal record in Florida at the time of the incident, which happened in a small rental home along the 1000 block of Northeast 13th Street.
Pearson pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder with a deadly weapon two months after the attack. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison to be followed by 10 years of probation.
Partain's roommate, Alexa Connolly, said Pearson struck Partain in the face at a party two weeks before the attack and then later revealed a dark secret.
"He said he had a fantasy about killing her (Partain)," Connolly said.
Connolly said she didn't learn of the comment until after the attack, when other friends told her. At the time, the friends dismissed it as crazy talk.
Pearson addressed the courtroom on the day of his sentencing.
"It was a moment of anger. I snapped," said Pearson, now 29. He is serving his time at Gulf Correctional Institution in Wewahitchka and is scheduled to be released in September 2023.
Pearson said at the court hearing that because he continued "to be attacked verbally" by Partain, he reached a point where, "I couldn't take it anymore."
Connolly also spoke at that sentencing hearing.
"You have forever changed my outlook on humanity," she noted. "That night, I couldn't see anything in your eyes. You were a monster."
Look for the signs
Not long ago, Partain wrote a heartfelt letter that she eventually emailed to the Star-Banner. She described her ordeal as hell and was thankful so many people were there to see her through her darkest days.
"I fought so hard to survive but toward the end I was giving up," she wrote. "But what kept me going was my little girl and my family. They would not give up on me. They took care of me every step of the way ..."
In her email, as well as in a subsequent interview, she warned of the horrors of domestic violence. She begs women and men alike "to get out of abusive relationships."
"Feeling like you're the bad person every day puts you in a very dark place," she wrote. "It's so clear now just how blind I was then. Domestic violence results in physical injury, psychological trauma and even death. A bone will heal but the psychological damage is forever. Help stop the violence."
Her main advice to those who are in abusive relationships: "Never, ever break up with an abusive person in person. Don't even text. Just call on the phone and be done with it. If you fear for your safety, don't do it in person."
Signs to look for: drug, alcohol and animal abuse.
"Whether you are in a relationship for two weeks or 15 years, if you see signs of abuse it will only get worse ... it will not get better," she said.
Moving forward
When she was asked about her vision for the future, she said: "I have 20-0 vision in my bad eye (prosthetic) ..." Then, she quickly realized the question was about her future plans.
"I am so used to people asking about actual vision," she said with a laugh.
She hopes to help domestic abuse victims understand the signs of abuse, the importance of getting out, and speaking at high schools.
For more than two years since the attack, she has leaned heavily on close friends, not comfortable with people she does not know very well. And for the first time since the attack, she is now in a relationship.
"I have known him for seven years," she said. "He's a very patient person. It's time to move forward and I know that. I can not live in fear. I am so over living in the past."
Contact Joe Callahan at 867-4113 or at joe.callahan@starbanner.com. Follow him on Twitter at JoeOcalaNews.
