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| Warning Comes Too Late |
| By Peoria Journal Star |
| Published: 03/24/2003 |
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Charolette Gates got a letter March 10 telling her of her estranged husband's impending release from prison. It came three days after she fatally shot him when he broke into her South Peoria home and beat her. 'I feel like this all could've been avoided,' Gates said last week, quivering as she recounted the chilling events of March 7. Gates, 29, had just turned on the television for her 4-year-old daughter and a friend's 2-year-old boy that day when she heard knocking at the front door. 'I asked who it was. He said, 'I came for what was mine. Open the (expletive) door,' ' Gates said. She instantly recognized the voice of her estranged husband, Christopher Lee Winder, 27, the father of her 4-year-old. With one kick, Winder opened the door to Gates' Easton Avenue home and was at her throat. 'He punched me like I was a man,' she said. He slugged her several times amid a battle that 'seemed like hours,' she said, simultaneously fending off Gates' male friend, who just happened to be visiting. After a long struggle, Gates broke away and grabbed a handgun from beneath her bedroom pillow. Normally, she said, she keeps it in a locked safe at the house, but that week had moved it because she felt an unexplained anxiety. She fired the handgun once, and Winder ran out the front door. Unaware of his fate, Peoria police detectives told her hours later he was dead, lying in the neighbor's back yard with a single gunshot wound to the chest. The letter Gates received March 10, dated and sent a week ago from the Winnebago County State's Attorney's Office, was to inform her that Winder would be paroled March 6 from Big Muddy Correctional Center in Ina. He had served a five-month sentence for domestic battery and aggravated battery on another Peoria woman in September. Gates received notification from the northern Illinois county because she had filed an order of protection against Winder while the couple was living there. She had sought the protection order after alleged beatings and mental abuse, she told authorities at the time. 'I asked (police on [March7]) why wasn't I notified?' Gates recalled. 'They said the system failed.' But did the system fail? Sergio Molina, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, said Gates was never signed up with the state's victim notification system, which lets victims know, usually by mail or phone, when their abusers will be let out of prison. The DOC also issues mandatory 15-day notification of release to counties where the inmate committed the crime and where he is to be paroled. 'It's unfortunate, but if someone is not signed up, it's difficult for us or anybody else to notify them,' Molina said. Although letters were sent to the Peoria County Sheriff's Department, the Peoria County State's Attorney's Office and the Peoria Police Department on Feb. 14, the letters were not addressed to Gates because Winder was sent to prison for beating another woman in Peoria - not Gates. However, an additional look at Winder's case file caused Corrections' employees to make subsequent phone calls to Peoria and Winnebago counties on Feb. 20, something Molina said is 'far above and beyond' their normal requirements and duties. Still unresolved is whether Gates will be charged with any crime. She said she bought the gun 'off the street' and is not registered to own it. Police said last week the killing appeared to be justified, but State's Attorney Kevin Lyons could not be reached for comment March 10. |
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