‘This is the Homicide Prevention Business’

ST. CLOUD — It was 10 years ago in the middle of the night when Heather Niehaus moved out of the Central Minnesota apartment she shared with her ex-boyfriend. After weeks of planning and house-hunting in secret, with her two sons from a former husband in tow, she packed her life in boxes and friends’ trailers while he was at work. Some of her kids’ stuffed animals and toys wouldn’t be unpacked again until she had a place of her own.

“We didn’t take everything because it was not worth the fight, even though virtually everything (was what) I had paid for,” said Niehaus, now 39. “It was hard doing everything in secret. I still had to pretend like everything was fine at home … It was very, very overwhelming.”

Niehaus had entered the relationship in 2010, and she remembered the first year together as “pure bliss.” However, soon in their five-year, on-and-off interaction the environment quickly escalated into emotional and physical abuse, and there are days when she says she still can’t remember her child’s birthday from the head trauma she suffered.

Her boyfriend eventually stopped trying to hide the violence from her kids. There was a time he tried to kill her in front of their then-infant daughter, Ava. 

“I remember saying goodbye to her because I was really certain that was going to happen,” Niehaus told St. Cloud LIVE in a recent interview.

She finally left him in March 2016 after a Stearns County Sheriff deputy was notified by one of her son’s teachers that there might be violence in the home. The deputy warned her that child protective services could become involved if she stayed. This hit Niehaus hard because she’d always done her best to protect the children from what was happening.

After Niehaus moved home with her parents, she allowed visitation to her boyfriend, the father of her then five-year-old daughter, Ava. But when she went to her bartending job, he kept harassing her. He later stormed into the bar screaming, warning that if she took their daughter from him, he would “take her” by killing himself and their child so Niehaus would “never see her again.”

Startled, after she and her parents couldn’t immediately locate Ava, Niehaus called police. They responded and found the ex-boyfriend via pinging his cell phone. They found Ava unharmed, and the ex was arrested for terroristic threats and his previously documented history of domestic abuse. He was given a two-year no-contact order and a prison sentence for the same period of time.

“When he was getting out, I was looking for legal help to see if there was any way to have him not end up with custody of her, if or when he killed me, because I was pretty sure that that was going to happen,” Niehaus said.

Reaching out to Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid changed her life in more ways than one. Her legal team helped her find voice and stand up to her ex and, for the first time, she was able to set boundaries.

Niehaus’s lawyer also introduced her with the Stearns County

Domestic Violence Court,

a

specialized system

designed to better handle the nuances of cases like hers while mobilizing community collaboration to support survivors.

Lauren Breunig / St. Cloud LIVE

In 2008, a troubling trend caught the attention of Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall. There were high rates of domestic violence-related arrests, and a lot of the same names — or “frequent flyers” as Kendall calls them — kept cropping up.

Approximately 40 men a year in 2006-07 each averaged three felony cases during that time frame — each with the same victim, and all while they were under no‑contact and other court orders. This showed that the courts were failing and more needed to be done, Kendall said.

Fortified by an army of dedicated community collaborators, Kendall set to work envisioning a solution.

(BOLDED BECAUSE THIS WOULD MAKE A GOOD PULL QUOTE) “This is the homicide prevention business,” Kendall said. “That’s what this is. It has been from the beginning, because when we started this, 10 of the last 11 homicides in Stearns County had been domestic violence-related.”

The Stearns County Domestic Violence Court opened in 2009. The county’s

Domestic Violence Partnership

— which includes judges, prosecutors, law enforcement, the defense bar, corrections (probation and jail), the Stearns County Attorney’s Office, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid and Anna Marie’s Alliance — was formed that same year.

It focuses on offenders who have committed at least three felony-level domestic violence crimes. A team that includes a judge, prosecutor, probation officers and a victim advocate closely monitors compliance with court orders such as no contact, sobriety and treatment. The court can respond quickly if those rules are violated.

The program also connects survivors with advocacy, legal resources and support services for their children. While offenders who fail to comply can face jail or prison, they are also offered treatment and other services aimed at preventing future violence.

Hallie Marie Tobler, the 22-year-old daughter of former city council member and gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson and his wife, Dr. Julie Johnson, was found dead with multiple stab wounds on Feb. 7 in an apartment in St. Cloud.

Hallie’s husband, 23-year-old Dylan Michael Tobler, has been charged with second-degree murder. Police found him inside the residence with stab wounds that were apparently self-inflicted in an attempt to kill himself, according to Stearns County court documents. Officers said Tobler told them that it was “his fault” his wife was dead and admitted to causing his own injuries. Tragically, he had pleaded guilty less than two weeks prior, on Jan. 27 in Stearns County Court, to disorderly conduct for an incident in which he choked his wife on June 19, 2025.

Anna Marie’s Alliance, a St. Cloud domestic violence shelter,

released a statement on Feb. 12 in support of Hallie’s family and others potential in harm’s way from domestic violence and pointing out that she is the first fatal victim from those circumstances in the area this year. Unfortunately, there are likely to be more. Since 2005, when 16 women statewide were confirmed to have died from partner violence, only once (in 2018 wh en there were 15 deaths) have there been fewer domestic violence homicides in Minnesota, according to

Violence Free Minnesota,

a non-profit that advocates for domestic violence prevention. In 2023, there were 40 deaths — the highest total of any year since the organization began keeping statistics in 1989.

About one in five homicide victims is killed by an intimate partner, according to the

Centers for Disease Control.

As appears with Hallie Tobler, more than half of female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male intimate partner.

The Stearns County Domestic Violence Court was designed to identify repeat offenders so authorities could step in before the cycle of abuse escalates to homicide.

“It focuses on those offenders who have really committed those serious crimes, already repetitive crimes, which we know don’t lead to anything good,” St. Cloud Police Chief Jeffrey Oxton said. “And it provides intervention that helps people get out of those cycles and lead a much safer, better life.”

Contributed / St. Cloud Police Department

The violence, whether directly or indirectly, can affect everyone inside the home, especially children, Oxton said.

The domestic violence court and the county partnership’s efforts to prevent domestic violence have shaped the way St. Cloud Police respond to domestic violence calls. The department works with Kendall’s office to train officers how to document incidents and talk to survivors to help build stronger cases in court. Officers responding to any domestic incident also conduct a

danger assessment, a 20-question list that evaluates the risk of homicide.

Results from the assessments are shared with Samantha Hemmesch, a victim-witness coordinator at the county attorney’s office. She works with survivors by educating them about the court process, connecting them with resources and providing information.

“We share the results with the women who want to hear them,” Hemmesch said. “There are others who don’t want to hear that truthful information.”

Lauren Breunig / St. Cloud LIVE

St. Cloud Police also work with advocates from Anna Marie’s to understand the dynamics of power and control of abuse and better support survivors, who may not want to speak with law enforcement. Advocates can respond to the scene, the hospital or make a phone call to talk with the victim.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on after the violence has happened,” said Charles Hempeck, executive director for Anna Marie’s. “The sooner that we have contact with them, the more likely they’re able and willing to access the services that we provide, and also more likely to be involved in what’s going on within the criminal justice system.”

Stephanie Dickrell / St. Cloud LIVE

The key to helping survivors and breaking the cycle of violence is community collaboration, which is facilitated through the Stearns County Domestic Partnership and domestic violence court, Oxton said.

“I guarantee that this program, over the years, has saved lives,” Oxton said. “I would 100% say, and you can hardly say 100% on anything … but I would be willing to say that, and at the end of the day, I think I would be right on that.”

Power and control are at the core of domestic violence and abuse. It creates complex relationship dynamics that might not always make sense to outside observers, such as a survivor wanting to stay with the offender or refusing to speak to law enforcement and prosecutors, Kendall said.

“These crimes happen between people who love each other,” Kendall said. “You have to understand the power and control inside that relationship.”

That’s why creating a specialized court with judges, prosecutors and victim-witness coordinators specifically trained to handle the cases is essential, she added.

Stearns County Judge Andrew Pearson served on the domestic violence court from 2014-20 and again from 2022-24. He also trains other judges from across the country on how to handle domestic violence cases.

Contributed / Minnesota Seventh Judicial Branch

“What I try to teach them is to gather as much information from as many sources as you can and try to contextualize each case, because they’re not all the same,” said Pearson, adding that the goal is to decipher if there is a pattern of behavior. “The more information we can get, the more likely we are to make the right decision.”

In addition to people with specialized training, a domestic violence court allows jurisdiction to better coordinate its response, according to Danielle Pugh, director of judicial education and leadership at the New York-based

Center for Justice Innovation (CJI),

which educates jurisdictions throughout the country.

“If you don’t have a domestic violence court, you’re not coordinated,” Pugh said. “You’ll see a lot of communication gaps and in what a survivor needs.”

.Stearns County developed its domestic violence court with assistance from Pugh’s organization. Rebecca Thomforde Hauser, a domestic violence programs associate director with CJI, remembers speaking with Kendall more than 15 years ago.

“Janelle is going to be a prosecutor for the rest of her life, and that’s what she’s good at … but she realized that victims don’t care about the process,” Thomforde Hauser said. “I mean, they cared about it, maybe the first time around, but what they wanted was family court.”

Survivors often have questions about custody, visitation, long-term protection orders and housing issues.

Stearns County targets three‑peat felony domestic violence offenders after caseload analysis showed they caused the most serious harm and jail churn, and had victims hardest to reach. Other courts may choose to address domestic violence differently, Pugh said, but the core principles remain the same:

• Survivor safety
• Offender accountability
• Coordination with victim services 

Stearns County was one of CJI’s first “mentor” domestic violence courts, and it has been formally acknowledged by the federal

Office on Violence Against Women.

As a mentor court, Stearns County officials travel to other counties in the state to train or advise on setting up a domestic violence court.

Accountability is a key word. By changing behavior patterns, court officials aim to reduce recidivism, or the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend.

“We want to see people successful, but we hold them accountable to the rules the judge puts in place,” Stearns County Community Corrections Director Becky Bales Cramlet said.

Offenders in domestic violence court are expected to:

• Have 25 hours a week of productive time (work or verifiable job applications)
• Have weekly court check‑ins where probation and treatment providers report on progress
• Abide by curfew, sobriety and random checks by probation officers

Community corrections closely supervises high‑risk domestic violence offenders and enforces court orders, Bales Cramlet said. Probation officers use technology — ankle bracelets, remote alcohol monitoring and police radios — to conduct surveillance and relay accurate information to the judge at regular hearings.

The department has three officers who focus on domestic violence offenders.

“It’s a unique, specialty-intensive caseload,” Bales Cramlet said. “It’s high-risk and intense.”

In addition to holding offenders accountable, community corrections officers also help connect them with programs that would allow them to improve themselves, Bales Cramlet added.

Judges are another major player in enforcing accountability. Pearson said by having a specialized docket a judge can get to know offenders well and build relationships that allow more impact.

“As long as they see me treating everybody fairly, then the odds are much greater that they will buy in and that it’ll reduce recidivism,” Pearson said.

The offenders all have their weekly check-in at the same time, so they see how others are treated, Pearson said. When someone does what they’re supposed to, everyone sees how that behavior is positively reinforced as well as observing the consequences of rules being broken.

It’s all about using “if … then …” statements, Pearson said. If they do this, then they can get visitation time with their child or an adjustment to another restriction, the judge explained.

Survivors can feel sidelined by a system that is built around their experience but rarely gives them real control, said Sarah McGuire, supervising attorney and legal director at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid.

Niehaus, who went to Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid for help in 2016, remembered the court process as overwhelming. She continues to thank McGuire for showing her the way.

Prosecutors — not survivors — decide whether to file charges, and what those charges are based on police reports. Victims have statutory rights to be informed about hearings, plea offers, and the status of the case, and they can submit a victim impact statement at sentencing.

“There’s a lot of sense of frustration with victims when they don’t agree with the criminal charges, because the only time that the court will listen to them speak is at the sentencing, when they do a victim impact statement,” McGuire said. “That is their only opportunity to tell the court how they feel, where they’re at … until then, the judge doesn’t really know whether or not the victim supports it or not.”

Not all survivors decide to leave their relationships after violence occurs, McGuire said. On average, it takes seven attempts for someone to leave an abusive relationship, according to

the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Sometimes, it is not safe to leave. Jordan Fenty, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s staff attorney for domestic violence cases, remembers when he had to advise a client to either never go back or go back but prepare a “go bag.”

“The most dangerous part of the relationship is the leaving,” Fenty said. “If he finds out you are leaving and you do that in a sloppy way, that’s typically when the homicide happens.”

While the county pursues criminal charges, manages plea deals and enforces no-contact orders, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid focuses on the fallout those actions create in a victim’s day-to-day life. This includes everything from orders for protection, divorce, custody, housing and eviction cases, public benefits, and access to health insurance and other community resources.

Lauren Breunig / St. Cloud LIVE

If survivors want to change or remove a domestic abuse no contact order (DANCO), Fenty and McGuire can help them sign up for safety planning classes with Anna Marie’s, which the court requires before they can be removed. Conversely, as in Niehaus’s case, they can work to extend DANCOs.

“For these domestic violence victims, their coping strategies, logistical issues, financial issues have all been manipulated by their abuser more likely, and there’s a lot of dysfunction,” Fenty said.

DANCOs can disrupt living situations, child care, income and more. One client may need help with multiple issues.

McGuire said domestic violence and abusive relationships can happen to anyone.

“It’s not because there’s something wrong with any of these people,” she said. “They just got played.”

The home Heather Niehaus wakes up in today is a place where no one has hit her or yelled at her or hurt her. Walls are no longer have fist-shaped holes, a relief after years of losing renter’s safety deposits. Household appliances are just that — no longer weapons. She doesn’t tense at the sound of the garage door, knowing “everything is about to be awful.” Her DANCO on her ex-boyfriend, which requires him to be 500 feet away at all times, expires when she is 99 years old.

“I own my own home, and I remember, not terribly long after he was sentenced to prison, I just sat on my grass in the yard and felt free,” Niehaus said. “It was crazy to think that the whole rest of my life I wouldn’t be scared … and just simple things of that feeling of wanting to go home … I wasn’t scared to go home.”

Niehaus lives in Farming with her long-time boyfriend, as well as Ava, now 15, and a 17-year-old son she shares with her ex-husband, with whom she has a good relationship and is now her neighbor. With help from Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, Ava legally changed her surname to Budde, the name of Niehaus’ partner, whom Niehaus is planning to marry.

Stearns County Domestic Violence Court does a lot of good, said Niehaus, now living a “pretty normal life,” something she couldn’t imagine a decade ago.

“I want that (safety and freedom) for everyone,” Niehaus said. “I want them to know … there’s definitely another side where it is your life that you get to take back.”

Domestic violence cases in Stearns in 2024, according to the Stearns County Attorney’s Office:

• 18% (354) of the 1,919 criminal cases involved domestic violence
• At least 76% (271) of those domestic violence cases were charged as crimes
• 70% of the domestic violence cases were felonies 
• 24% of those felony charges involved repeat felony offenders admitted into the Domestic Violence Court
• 7 of the last 7 intentional homicides of that year in Stearns County involved domestic violence

Anna Marie’s Alliance

• Website:

  annamaries.org

   

• 24/7 Crisis line: 320-253-6900 or 800-950-2203
• Administration line: 320-251-7203 
• For information on:
• 505 10th Avenue North, St. Cloud, or PO Box 367, St. Cloud, MN 56302

Holding Hope

National Domestic Violence Hotline

National Center for Victims of Crime

StrongHearts Native Helpline

Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid St. Cloud Office

Love is respect