https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/remembering-karlie-hall-student-s-death-at-boyfriend-s-hands/article_a260201e-59a5-11e6-9c46-93901ce5bc1d.html

Remembering Karlie Hall: Student's death at boyfriend's hands spurs family to tackle domestic violence issues

TOM KNAPP | Staff Writer | August 8, 2016

Karlie Hall's death at the hands of her boyfriend has left her family -- mother Jeanette and sisters Katelyn and Kristen -- grasping for ways to regain focus in their lives.

"It makes it harder when people say they understand," says 19-year-old Kristen, Karlie's twin. "They say, something like, 'Oh, my grandfather died when I was 10.' But this isn't like that. This is not the natural cycle of life. It isn't supposed to work this way."

Her mother reaches over and squeezes Kristen's hand.

"We've experienced a great deal of death in our family," Jeanette says.

"You know your parents, someday, you're going to lose. But you don't expect to lose your siblings. You certainly don't expect to lose a child," she says. "The way it happened -- it's nothing short of disturbing. I can't sleep at night."

Gregorio Orrostieta, 21, was sentenced on July 27 to 20 to 40 years in prison -- the maximum sentence for third-degree murder.

He was convicted May 2 of killing Karlie, a 19-year-old Millersville University student, in her dorm on Feb. 8, 2015.

The details of her daughter's last moments haunt her, Jeanette, speaking last week at her attorney's office in West Chester, says.

"I think about it every minute that I'm alone," she says. "I think about it when I'm driving. Sometimes I walk around the grocery store crying. It's all-consuming."

Also haunting, she says, are Karlie's final months, during which time Orrostieta maintained a domineering hold over the young woman -- a relationship punctuated with episodes of jealousy and violence.

That, Jeanette says, is what gives her and her daughters a new sense of purpose.

Domestic violence

"We're plunging ahead with our work with domestic violence," Jeanette, a former accountant, explains.

"We live in a society where little girls are taught it's cute when a guy gets jealous," Kristen says. "Or it's cute when he doesn't want her to talk to another guy.

"Girls are raised with a misunderstanding of the foundation of what love is."

Kristen, who was studying French at Millersville, has had trouble focusing on her studies since her sister was killed. She left college, then tried attending a community college but quit again during Orrostieta's trial.

She plans to go to West Chester University this fall with a new focus: public speaking.

She, like her mom, wants to make a difference in changing the culture that makes domestic violence so common.

"It's about trying to incorporate this into every aspect of our lives that we can," Kristen says.

"Our society tells girls that if a little boy kicks her or puts gum in her hair, that means he likes her. It's not mean," she says. "So how in a domestic abuse situation are they supposed to learn to recognize it? It's not OK."

Team Karlie

As Team Karlie, they've participated in two fundraising walks for the shelter, raising more than $10,000.

And Jeanette is looking for opportunities to talk at schools and events about Karlie and the dangers of domestic violence.

"It feels good. It feels right," she says.

Jeanette is advocating to have lessons about domestic violence and dating safety incorporated into school health programs.

And she has volunteered to work with parents who have suffered a similar loss.

"That was important for me, finding someone to talk to who has survived this," she says.

"The girls and I, we don't have our complete focus yet, but I have some ideas. Kristen has some ideas. Katelyn is a sociology major and might be able to do something with that. We have a couple of ideas brewing," Jeanette adds.

"That's what Karlie's memory has to offer -- putting a face and a name with domestic violence, what can happen if it's not stopped."

Maximum sentence

The jury on May 2 rejected the prosecution's position that Orrostieta acted with malice and premeditation when he beat and strangled Karlie to death.

The Halls aren't happy with the verdict -- they, like the prosecution, believed first-degree murder was more appropriate -- and in retrospect they think the jury was confused by the legal definition of "premeditation" and exhausted by a retired pathologist who testified as an expert witness for the defense, contradicting the county pathologist's findings on Karlie's cause and manner of death.

But they have nothing but positive things to say about Judge Donald Totaro, who imposed the maximum sentence for the verdict.

"He didn't miss a thing," Jeanette adds. "He saw everything for what it was and, at that moment, I felt some of the burden released.

"But the next day I was depressed again."

Kristen, too, has trouble coping with the notion that Orrostieta will someday be freed.

The sentence, she says, "gave me some kind of peace, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't do enough.

"It makes me sick to think that he could be walking in the same free land as me."

Who is Orrostieta?

"I thought I knew him. I didn't, at all," Jeanette says.

"Everything I thought I knew about him was lies. Everything he told us -- going to college, soccer scholarships -- was fiction. And the way he presented himself to me -- he was always polite. Overly polite. Now that's a red flag for me."

Jeanette blames herself for being fooled by his charm, she says.

"Now, I feel like I never can really know somebody," she says. "It takes away an element of trust in the world."

And she worries more when Katelyn and Kristen date, she admits. She checks the boys' IDs and watches for signs of trouble.

"You can't trust people," Kristen agrees. "How do I know the people I trust aren't manipulating me?"

Breaking ties

It's easy in hindsight to say everyone -- including Karlie -- might have done more to end her troubled relationship with Orrostieta, the Halls agree, but they say it was a difficult situation.

"She tried to break up with him," Jeanette says. "But I'm sure she thought she could handle it. Certainly she never imagined this."

Orrostieta was relentless in his harassment of Karlie whenever she tried to break free, Kristen adds.

"She kept telling herself, maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe she could stay a little longer, if he'd just stop," she says. "A lot of people feel ashamed, they don't want people to think they're weak, or that they deserved it. Karlie was embarrassed."

Jeanette has read the couple's Facebook conversations, and she says Orrostieta simply wouldn't go away.

"She wanted it to end," she says. "She didn't even want him there that weekend, the weekend he killed her."

She pauses, and eyes Kristen.

"It slays me that he'll be back on the streets someday," Jeanette says. "I certainly hope we won't have any interaction with him. But some poor girl might."

University issues

Jeanette says she was very pleased with the investigation into Karlie's death, and she had only praise for the Millersville University and Borough police departments and district attorney's office.

She's less happy with the university administration, which she feels bungled the aftermath of Karlie's death and didn't do enough beforehand to ensure students' safety.

When Kristen resumed her studies after Karlie's death, Jeanette says, the university never checked in to see how she was doing. Ultimately, she says, Kristen wasn't able to continue her education there.

Even a ceremony in Karlie's memory, at which the university dedicated a bench in her name outside the dorm where she lived and died, was more about the university's accomplishments and less about Karlie, Jeanette complains.

University officials declined to be interviewed for this article.

"I feel there were things they could have done that would have prevented this," Jeanette says.

Dorm security, for instance, was lax, she says.

"He assaulted my daughter in the dorm in October," Jeanette says. "They chose not to press any charges, chose not to notify me, and they allowed him to continue to come onto that campus, to visit and stay there."

Even after Karlie's murder, Jeanette says, she was able to walk into Kristen's dorm without being asked to sign in or show ID.

"And not just to blame Millersville," Kristen adds. "It's schools and institutions in general. ... They're more worried about the school's reputation than the people who go there."

Remembering Karlie

Jeanette and Kristen smile when asked what about Karlie they want people to remember.

"She was fun. She was funny. She really wanted a lot out of life," Jeanette says. "She was very hardworking, and always determined to go after what she wanted."

Kristen remarks on Karlie's wicked sense of humor.

"Karlie taught me how to break out of the crib," she muses. "She taught me how to pull out a loose tooth -- in church."

But her twin was much more than a prankster, Kristen says.

"My favorite thing about her is, she understood how simple life is supposed to be," she says. "She always knew how to put things in perspective for me, make me not worry about things I would stress about.

"She was always a voice of reason."

First campus murder

For Millersville University, Karlie Hall's brutal death in a Bard Hall dormitory room was the first murder on campus in its 161-year history.

University police officers, according to testimony at killer Gregorio Orrostieta's trial, worked closely with Millersville Borough police and the Lancaster County district attorney's office to prosecute the case.

MU Police Chief Pete Anders said Hall's murder "changed the culture of domestic violence" in a brief statement after Orrostieta's July 27 sentencing.

However, university officials declined to address questions about specific ways in which Hall's murder has changed things for campus police.

University spokeswoman Janet Kacskos said the campus increased educational programs about dating and domestic violence in the wake of Hall's death, but would not comment further.

A request to interview Anders was refused by the campus administration.

Domestic violence hotlines