Woman shot at by her ‘abuser’ spoke about trauma to heal

CEDAR RAPIDS — Before July 18, 2022, she didn’t think her ex-boyfriend was capable of harming his own 5-year-old son, but she now understands his need for control has no limits.

Isaiah Martin watched her walk their son to her car, put him in a car seat and then waited for her to drive out of the Northwest Recreation Center parking lot before he stepped in front of the SUV, aimed his gun and pulled the trigger, Rachel Richardson said in a victim impact statement at Martin’s sentencing on Tuesday.

“Those bullets narrowly missed us both,” Richardson noted.

Richardson, in her statement, said Martin controlled her for years and she was “drowning” in the abusive relationship. He spent years “isolating, brainwashing, and manipulating” her into believing he was the only person who cared for her.

His obsession to control her “heightened” in May 2021, when she made the decision to leave him and went to her mother for help.

Richardson said after the shooting her son would wake up at night, crying and screaming saying ‘Mommy, I had a dream that daddy was trying to hurt us again.’ Her son is in therapy every week, so he can learn how to deal with the “lifelong trauma that his father caused.”

Giving her statement and facing “my abuser” was difficult but she chose to do it because “mine and Dexter’s lives matter.”

“Isaiah controlled me for years, but today, my voice finally gets to be heard,” Richardson said. “This sentencing date may mark the end of this case in the eyes of the law, but the pain and trauma Isaiah inflicted does not end for us, and we will spend our entire lives working to heal from Isaiah and his actions.”

Sixth Judicial District Judge Valerie Clay sentenced Martin, 30, of Hiawatha, to 20 years in prison, running some of the charges concurrently to each other.

“This was a very sad and unfortunate situation,” Assistant Linn County Attorney Jordan Schier said after sentencing. “No parent should have to experience the danger that Ms. Richardson faced with her son that is caused by the other parent. Violence, especially gun violence, is never acceptable.”

Jordan said he hopes the sentencing provided some closure for Richardson and her child and helps them move forward from this “horrible experience.”

In June, a Linn County jury found Martin, originally charged with attempted murder, guilty of a lesser charge of intimidation with a dangerous weapon with intent, as well as abandonment of a dependent person, both felonies; assault with intent to inflict serious injury, domestic abuse assault while using or displaying a dangerous weapon, child endangerment — substantial risk, and use of a dangerous weapon in the commission of a crime, all aggravated misdemeanors; and fifth-degree criminal mischief, a simple misdemeanor.

Martin was acquitted of one charge — going armed with intent.

During trial, Richardson testified that he threatened and attempted to intimidate her before and after her son’s basketball practice on July 18, 2022. She said Martin was already angry when he came to the practice because he had been calling her and she’d blocked his calls. He continued to call 40 to 50 times, she said.

Richardson had broken up with Martin in May 2022, but he kept trying to reconcile.

During her testimony, Schier played a surveillance video of what happened next in the parking lot.

Martin first walked out in front of Richardson’s car, as if to block her, and she let her mother, driving in another car, go before her. When she pulled out, Martin was sitting on a bench near the front door of the Northwest Recreation Center, but he started walking toward her SUV, and that’s when she saw his gun. She had to swerve around her mother’s car in an attempt to escape.

But Martin, staring directly at her, raised up his arm and fired the gun. She recalled hearing glass breaking and her son screaming. She feared for their lives.

The vehicle’s front and back windshield were hit by a bullet, and the back seat passenger side window, next to where her son was sitting, also was shot. The child didn’t have any injuries, but he was crying and shaking. Richardson had a small cut on her arm from the broken glass.

Martin, during the trial, testified he wasn’t trying to kill her. He just wanted to scare her.

Martin also was found in contempt of a no contact order in July that had been issued last year to protect the victims in this case. He violated the order a few weeks after being on pretrial release. He was sentenced to 10 days in the Linn County Jail.

Judge Clay extended the no contact order for five years on Tuesday.

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