Out from the shadows
RUBÉN ROSARIO
Pioneer Press
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/10347857.htm
'After years of physical and
mental abuse, I couldn't help at the time. I would like to help
now, for those that are still afraid to speak.' Amy Blom,
ex-wife of Donald Blom
Out from the shadows
The woman who stood by one of Minnesota's most notorious
killers is ready to talk after years of shame and depression.
The e-mail sent to two Minnesota legislators last week was
brief but spoke volumes.
"I was married to Donald Blom, a six-time sex offender who
was released from prison and killed Katie Poirier,'' the e-mail
from Amy Blom begins. "After years of physical and mental
abuse, I couldn't help at the time. I would like to help now, for
those that are still afraid to speak."
For seven years, Amy Blom, 38, says she endured black eyes,
punches, bruises and constant verbal put-downs at the hands of
her ex-husband, one of the most reviled criminals in recent
memory. The mention of her husband's name, as well as that of
Dru Sjodin's suspected killer, evoke images of cold-blooded
killers and repeat sexual predators who should have been kept
locked up.
Now, the woman who stood by and lied for a 55-year-old
convicted sex predator and killer is slowly but finally emerging
from the shadows of the "guilt, shame and depression'' she says
she feels surrounding the Poirier case.
"I have looked back so many times and know in my state of
mind and the control he had over me I would not have been
capable of doing different,'' Blom said last week as she sat in
the kitchen of her immaculately clean Richfield home.
"I have never spoken to the Poirier family or know if they
would ever want to hear from me, but I would like to ask for
forgiveness,'' added Blom, who has been treated for
post-traumatic stress disorder and battered woman's syndrome.
"I don't want to make the situation worse, as much pain as they
are in.''
On the night of May 26, 1999, a grainy surveillance video
caught a man resembling Blom, whose legal name is Donald
Michael Pince, with his hands to the back of Poirier's neck,
leading her out of the Moose Lake, Minn., convenience store
where she worked.
She was never seen alive again. Human bone fragments and a
tooth identified as Poirier's were found in a fire pit on Donald
Blom's nearby vacation property. Blom, with a string of
abductions and sexual assaults of young females in his past,
confessed to the abduction and murder of the 19-year-old
Poirier. But he later recanted and went to trial.
He was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. For
safety reasons, he was moved out of Minnesota and is serving
time in Waynesburg, Pa. He could not be reached for comment
last week.
Earlier this year, concerned her husband could win an appeal to
overturn the conviction, Amy Blom contacted authorities and
admitted that Donald Blom was not home the night of Poirier's
abduction, as she had told investigators at the time. The appeal
ultimately failed.
"I don't believe that I could have prevented it (Poirier's
murder),'' said Blom, who was not aware of her husband's
criminal history or previous marriages until his arrest in the
case. "I was so under his power, in fear of him, but at the same
time connected to him. When they accused him, it was like
they were accusing me and my children. I know now that I was
in many ways his hostage, paralyzed to speak up.''
Susan Neis, executive director of Cornerstone, a domestic
violence program in Bloomington where Blom and some of her
children have sought counseling, says Blom's experiences are
common among victims of spousal abuse.
"There is no more horrific pain I can imagine than someone
losing their daughter like that,'' Neis said of Poirier's parents.
"But I think what the public doesn't realize in Amy Blom's case
is that she and her children were also victims of this man."
Amy Blom, a former nursing home assistant, married Pince, a
maintenance worker, in 1992. Amy Blom's two sons from a
previous marriage ? then 6 and 1 ? considered their mother's
husband as their father. The marriage also produced two
daughters, now ages 10 and 11.
Blom thought it strange but flattering that her husband took her
last name, unaware he had done the same twice before with
ex-wives she did not know about. Authorities believe he did
that to conceal his criminal record from employers, cops and
others.
Donald Blom's demeanor toward his wife changed drastically
six months into the marriage, she said. Angry disputes turned
physical.
"He is bipolar and there were two sides to him,'' Amy Blom
said. "He would be happy, a jokester fixing stuff around the
house and he was a great cook. He would make these great
five- or six-course dinners. But then something would happen,
something would trigger in him, and then I knew the change
was coming.''
His two sons witnessed some of the assaults.
"He yelled at her constantly,'' recalled Chris Blom, now 19 and
a laborer working to complete his high school GED. "I saw him
hit her. She would have black eyes and stuff. He scared the hell
out of me.''
Blom's other son, now 14, also has been treated for
post-traumatic stress and oppositional defiant disorders, and
has been in and out of heath care facilities for three years, his
mother said.
Wallflower timid, Amy Blom said she felt constantly on edge,
wanting to make her husband happy and not do anything that
would provoke an episode.
The disbelief over the arrest, the taunts endured by her sons at
school and a relentless news media that camped outside the
home for weeks drove her to become more supportive and
protective of her husband and family.
"He said he didn't do it, and it felt like when they accused him,
they were accusing me also,'' she recalled.
She tried desperately to believe her husband's proclamation of
innocence. But deep down, she had doubts. She recalled a
conversation while he was being held for trial after authorities
discovered the human remains in the fire pit.
"Don, but what about those human bones they found?'' she
recalled asking him over the phone.
"You're not f - - - - - - stupid, are you?'' she said he responded.
Blom has steadfastly maintained he did not kill Poirier.
She is convinced her husband may have committed more
crimes.
She and others are curious about his connection to the unsolved
1983 murder of Wilma Jean Johnson, a 42-year-old homeless
drifter whose strangled, battered and nude body was
discovered outside the Cathedral of St. Paul's chancery.
Blom, then in jail awaiting trial in Dakota County for sexually
assaulting a teenage girl, called St. Paul police investigators
days after the 1983 murder and volunteered that he had
witnessed part of the assault on the woman, and could describe
the assailant.
"He said he knew he had done bad, but that he wanted to pay
his debt to society by coming forward,'' recalled Jim Frank, a
case investigator and now the Washington County sheriff.
A black homeless man was arrested, chiefly based on Blom's
description of the killer. But the man was let go because of a
lack of evidence.
After the Poirier case broke, Frank remembered Blom and
contacted St. Paul police, suggesting they might want to give
the cold case another eye. The case remains open.
"What struck me about it is that he said he was sitting on a park
bench when it happened, and there was supposedly a torrential
downpour that night,'' Amy Blom said. "I also remember Don
and I were watching an episode of 'Law and Order' several
years back and he casually commented that all homeless people
and prostitutes are better off dead."
State Reps. Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, and Doug Meslow,
R-White Bear Lake, who plan to reintroduce legislation that
calls for harsher penalties against repeat sex predators,
received the e-mails from Amy Blom.
"I really do appreciate what she did, and her courage for doing
so,'' Zellers said. "We welcome her gesture.''
Blom also sent an e-mail to U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.,
offering her help in ensuring that a proposed national sex
offender registry named after Dru Sjodin becomes law.
"We appreciate the offer and would love to work with her as
this issue moves forward,'' said a spokesman for Dayton.
Amy Blom, who obtained a divorce two years ago and no
longer corresponds with her ex-husband, says she's not looking
for pity or empathy or absolution.
She just wants predators like her husband put away and kept
there. She wants her children to be proud of one of their
parents, to one day be able to shed the cloak of stigma and
shame draped on them by their father's crimes.
"They are suffering also,'' she said. "I have a hard time
forgiving myself for what happened. I don't know if I ever will,
but I need to come forward because there are people right now
living in the same situation I was in.''
Rubén Rosario can be reached at [email protected]
