Dorothy Giunta-Cotter fled her abusive husband around the time Rocky murdered Michelle and their kids. Giunta-Cotter fled with her youngest daughter to Maine, where a judge told her he could not issue a restraining order against her husband since she was a resident of Massachusetts. Desperate, Giunta-Cotter called a domestic violence center in her hometown and spoke to Kelly Dunne, who found Giunta-Cotter and her daughter a shelter and listened to Giunta-Cotter’s story.

Giunta-Cotter knew that she would never be truly rid of her husband while her children were minors since he would be awarded visitation, so she did not call the police. She fled to Maine, however, because her husband had abused their 11-year-old daughter for the first time. After Giunta-Cotter and her daughter left, her husband began to track their whereabouts, filing a missing person’s report and preventing Giunta-Cotter from enrolling the girl in school. Dunne told Giunta-Cotter to stay in the shelter while a plan was worked out, but Giunta-Cotter said she and her daughter shouldn’t have to be the ones to leave their home.

The next day, a Massachusetts judge granted a restraining order but made an exception allowing Giunta-Cotter’s husband to pick up and return his tools from the family home’s garage each day.