Long before Brenda Tatlock-Burke was killed by her husband in October, there were signs of his controlling and coercive behaviour.
“As my mom’s kids, if we said something he disapproved of, we were literally not allowed to go and see her,” Tatlock-Burke’s daughter, Tara Graham, said of her stepfather, retired RCMP officer Mike Burke. “He did that with friendships and relatives of hers over the years. He was controlling the money, the finances.”
Graham, 41, does not think her mother was physically abused during her marriage, but Burke’s coercive behaviour escalated over time. And now she is urging people to recognize it as a warning sign. “These are serious control issues and abusive traits that can go unseen for so long,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
On Oct. 18, RCMP responded to a request for a well-being check at a home in Enfield, N.S., and found the bodies of …