Elizabeth McBride had a choice to make a few months back.

She could go to court and testify against her 27-year-old boyfriend, the 220-pound, 5-foot-8-inch man who choked her until she was nearly unconscious, then beat on her face with his fist until she had two black eyes, a large swollen bruise on her forehead and a reddened temple.

Or she could go to her first day of classes at American River College, where she hoped to begin an academic career that would lead to her becoming a registered nurse.

She went to school instead of court that day, but the decision only delayed the events that soon would make all the difference about the direction her life would take.

A short time later, an investigator from the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office told her she had no choice, that the law requires victims to testify against their abusers even if they do not want to.

Eventually, McBride did just that, explaining in graphic detail the punishment she suffered at the hands of Michael Neal Stallworth in testimony that led him to receive a one-year jail sentence for spousal abuse.

Today, the 27-year-old North Highlands woman is dead, killed by Stallworth, who was later shot to death by sheriff's deputies hours after he had escaped from jail and stalked his new bride.

And Sacramento County is now grappling with the latest deadly occurrence of family violence - the fifth case since August in which a man has murdered his wife.

"This is a public health epidemic among women 15 to 44 years old," said Carol L. Motylewski, chief of the domestic violence section for the state Department of Health Services.

On the surface, the McBride-Stallworth case might not seem to qualify as a typical instance of family violence. Jailbreaks followed by spousal slayings are hardly common anywhere, and Sheriff Glen Craig says there has never before been such a case locally.

But the McBride-Stallworth case actually may be the classic example of what experts say are the peculiar dynamics at play between a victim and abuser.

McBride, an outgoing young woman who was raised by her father at a comfortable home in Citrus Heights, followed many of the steps that countless other victims do in dealing with their abusers.

She left Stallworth, then came back to him. She never turned him in, then hedged when authorities asked her about the beatings. She never told her father about the abuse, then turned to him for bail money to get Stallworth released from custody.

And even after providing the testimony that helped send him to jail, she secretly married him. Then McBride, who kept her last name, wrote the judge an impassioned plea for his release.

"I have no fear of Michael Stallworth doing harm to me and feel him being incarcerated will not benefit me or our daughter," she wrote on March 3.

Experts say people such as Elizabeth McBride are classic victims of abuse, women torn between their need to get to safety and a desire to believe their batterers' promises never to harm them again.

McBride's letter was written 43 days before Stallworth gunned her down on a sunny morning last Tuesday on the tree-lined street in front of their home. But it gives no indication that she had a lingering fear of her husband or of future violence.

But interviews with family and friends of the couple, as well as reviews of court records, paint a portrait of a deeply troubled family life that was punctuated by violence and fear.

The couple had been together for eight years, and both appeared to come from stable, nurturing backgrounds.

McBride was one of four children raised in a close-knit Citrus Heights neighborhood by Ed McBride, a Harlem-raised veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars who chose Sacramento 22 years ago as a nice place for a single parent to bring up his family.

"I still think I made the right choice," said McBride, a retiree whose three surviving children are a computer scientist, an engineer and a son who has just left the Army and plans to go to nursing school.

Elizabeth McBride was a caring, outgoing child described by her father and friends as very bright. Ed McBride last saw her one week ago, when she stopped by the house to surprise him with the gift of a pair of black walking shoes.

For a short time last year, she was a clerical worker at the California Commission on Improving Life Through Service, which administers the Americorps program. And, ironically, she came to work for Suzanne Fisher there, who was compiling a program on the prevention of domestic violence at the same time that McBride told her she was a victim.

"She did share the fact that she was being abused and that she was afraid for her life," Fisher said, adding that when she presented her program to audiences later, she would tell them the story of a young woman who once worked for her and was an abuse victim.

"Liz was very intelligent, very capable," Fisher said. "She was a a smart young woman, the kind of person that could have been anything she wanted to be. And we all took a liking to her."

They also were taken by McBride's 6-year-old daughter, Michelle, who Fisher said was "bright, articulate and happy, not afraid of people."

Michelle considered Stallworth to be her father and called him "Daddy," but Ed McBride says now that Stallworth actually was her stepfather. Stockton police also say now that they have heard from the lawyer of a man making the claim that he is the biological father, not Stallworth.

Stallworth also was a Sacramento native, but was raised in Stockton as one of seven children of a devout couple. His father, grandfather and brother all are pastors at different churches and he had what a probation officer described as "a stable and positive family life."

He was a high school graduate who went on to earn a few college credits and served in the Army for seven months before receiving a medical discharge because of asthma.

After his military stint, he tried various ways to make a living, including owning a janitorial service and breeding bull mastiff dogs for sale. He also volunteered at a friend's after-school car-wash program to help disadvantaged youth.

Stallworth had a son from a previous relationship, but he and McBride had been together for eight years and gave every appearance of trying to make a family life for each other and Michelle.

They were short on money because of his sketchy employment history, and Ed McBride agreed to let them live in his home last year while they tried to get on their feet financially.

It was a good arrangement for all of them.

The young couple could enjoy rent-free living in her childhood home, and Ed McBride had someone in his house while he pursued his hobby of traveling the world on military planes whenever space was available.

Ed McBride said he never saw any evidence of a problem, although in hindsight he now remembers returning home and finding a dented wall or something broken from time to time.

The first real sign of abuse came last July 30, when undercover sheriff's detectives who were staking out a convenience market for drug activity spotted McBride, Stallworth and Michelle and decided to pull them over.

The detectives said later that they made the stop because they had seen Stallworth quickly hand a small packet to another man in the parking lot and that the other man quickly drove off.

Believing they had just witnessed a drug deal, the detectives turned on their dashboard red light and pursued Stallworth's car. Instead of stopping, he raced away, leading them on a chase through the neighborhood even after his left rear tire had blown out.

Finally, he slowed enough to allow McBride and Michelle to get out of the car, then roared off. But when he saw one detective stop and get out to talk to the pair, he turned back and raced toward them, stopping only when the detective leveled his pistol at the windshield of the car.

No drugs were found in the car, although Stallworth was found to be carrying $150 clenched in his right fist, money that he said was going to be used to buy dog food for his animals.

By then, however, detectives had noticed McBride's facial injuries and had begun to ask whether she was a victim of abuse.

She admitted that Stallworth had beaten her five days earlier after she had told him that Michelle was not his daughter.

After that beating, he refused to let her leave the house for medical attention, essentially holding her hostage for five days during which he even followed her as she moved throughout the home.

"She said that over the previous few years the defendant had become very possessive of her and had beaten her repeatedly until she recently decided to leave," a probation report said. "(A)nd, without telling the defendant had moved with their daughter to Mississippi.

"She said the defendant found them there and brought them back."

McBride would later change her story, telling authorities that Stallworth had never before assaulted her. And although she admitted they frequently argued, she tended to blame herself and her own quick temper.

When the court sessions finally were over, Stallworth had agreed to plead guilty to evading a police officer, spousal abuse and child endangerment. He received a year in the county jail and five years' probation, a deal the District Attorney's Office went along with because, it noted, "the victim was uncooperative."

By then, Stallworth and McBride were no longer living together. Ed McBride had reluctantly agreed to his daughter's plea to come up with much of the $10,000 she needed to make the $100,000 bail to get Stallworth out of jail while he awaited sentencing.

"I thought he was a nice person," Ed McBride said. "I'm the one who paid his bail."

He said he never knew about the previous beatings or the extent of the one that led to Stallworth's arrest.

"If I had personally known about it I would have taken him back to see some friends in Harlem," McBride said. "He wouldn't have been seen again."

Instead, he told his daughter he'd come up with the money but that Stallworth could no longer live in his home. Still, he agreed to let Stallworth visit because of Michelle and because he appeared to be remorseful.

McBride said the two never talked about what Stallworth did to his daughter, indicating that when the subject would come up "he'd just hold his head down."

Ed McBride was not thrilled with the situation, but he is an avid newspaper reader and had kept up on the sweeping changes in California's spousal abuse laws since the O.J. Simpson case broke in 1994.

"I was told that the cops had him," McBride said. "I knew what the law was. I knew he was going to jail."

McBride hoped that while he was in jail he would straighten out or his daughter would decide to end the relationship and free herself from him.

He also knew that the law could compel her to testify against Stallworth, a law Ed McBride says he supports.

It is one prosecutors in California are using more and more as they try to combat spousal abuse and the frequent efforts by victims to avoid testifying. Occasionally, a victim will be jailed because of such refusal, but it is rare in Sacramento County and was not necessary in McBride's case.

By the time March 21 approached, the date Stallworth was to turn himself into jail to begin his one-year sentence, the couple had found a North Highlands home to live in, agreeing to share it with a friend of Stallworth's.

They also had taken other steps that could give the appearance of stability to their relationship, including the secret Feb. 9 wedding that McBride's family knew nothing of until they read newspaper accounts of it after her death.

McBride also wrote to the court asking for leniency for her new husband, noting that Michelle was attached to him and looked forward to "him coming home from work so they can go walk the dogs together."

"Michael plays an important part in her life," she added.

Even after Stallworth began serving his sentence at Rio Cosumnes last month, McBride gave all outward appearances of being devoted to him. She talked to him frequently on the phone and visited him three times, including her final visit last Sunday.

"Everything looked good for him," said Sacramento sheriff's homicide Sgt. John McGinness. "He had character references. He was getting into church. She was coming to visit with him and their relationship didn't seem that bad. So there were not a lot of flags to indicate he was a threat."

But something apparently happened that Sunday, and detectives now believe McBride had garnered the courage to tell him that she was ending their relationship.

The result apparently was what happened Tuesday after Stallworth escaped and left behind a suicide note: He went to their home and, seeing his wife driving down the street toward him, stepped out toward the car and opened fire.

After killing her, he reached inside the car and dragged Michelle out, then abducted her and took her on a harrowing trip that ended at his father's church in Stockton, where he dropped her off. He then drove to his parents' home with San Joaquin sheriff's deputies in pursuit and was killed after he waved a gun and refused to obey their orders to drop it.

The toll of the litany of tragic decisions still is being tallied.

Sheriff's officials are under fire in Sacramento for not taking his escape more seriously and failing to notify McBride that her abusive husband was loose.

Last week, the Sheriff's Department defended its actions following the escape, saying its officers believed Stallworth would remain near Elk Grove.

The Stallworths have lost a son and will not talk about the case, but have expressed anger that Stallworth was gunned down in what authorities believe was a deliberate attempt on his part to commit suicide.

Ed McBride is struggling with whether he will be able to gain custody of Michelle, who was handed over to the Stallworth family temporarily last week by a San Joaquin County judge.

And he is left to wonder what might have been done to keep his daughter from falling into the relationship that ended her life.

Although he is angry at sheriff's officials for what some feel was a cavalier attitude toward Stallworth's escape and his potential danger to others, he is supportive of the system and the laws that were supposed to keep him locked up as a spousal abuser.

"The law is a good law," Ed McBride said, noting that he believed at the time that the only course he could take was to let the system jail Stallworth to protect Elizabeth McBride.

"There wasn't anything else I could do, short of shooting him," he said.

Bee staff writer Ramon Coronado contributed to this report.

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