Use your phone to put your abuser in jail!

Susan Murphy-Milano, a domestic violence expert, is working on a phone app that can put an abuser in jail.

It works in two parts. The first part is a thing called an Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit (EAA), or Evidentiary Will, or simply Abuse Affidavit. This idea emerged after the disappearance of Stacy Peterson. The way it works is this: a woman who feels she’s in danger describes the incidents of abuse, threats, sites where weapons and other evidence might be, people who might help the abuser with alibis or other assistance, photos of injuries, the danger she faces, her fears. Apparently she does all this on video and then notarizes it on paper, with witnesses, so apparently it has legal force, it wouldn’t be dismissed as hearsay, and it will work even – especially – if she’s missing or dead. Murphy-Milano has used this with a thousand women, who are all still alive.

The second part: her EAA tool is being made into a phone app you can get in Apple stores! Use your phone to put your abuser in jail.

Murphy-Milano also discusses all this on a website -- http://www.susanmurphymilano.com/ -- and in a book called “Time’s Up” (she has other DV books as well). There is also talk of putting the safety tips in “Time’s Up” on a flash drive which a woman potentially could be given right along with her protective order in court; she can take the flash drive to a library computer and use it to figure out what the next steps in her safety plan are, how to do an EAA, how to use the protective order properly, and so on. The flash drive could be hung from a key chain, stashed somewhere safe, or whatever.