Elizabeth Houston regrets missing the signs.
To hear Houston tell the story, her older sister, Tomitka Stewart, had become frustratingly good at concealing the turbulence in her marriage.
That includes the bruises that came along with it.
Her grieving family members describe Stewart as a self-sacrificing 41-year-old mother of 10 children in a blended family struggling to hold it all together. She picked up shifts at a Milwaukee Jersey Mike’s sandwich shop whenever she could to make ends meet.
Court records paint a picture of Stewart as a woman enduring mental and physical abuse during a troubled marriage to Jerrod Stewart, 43, who faces multiple charges in her gruesome slaying.
“We had no idea any of this was going on. None of us,” Houston, choking back tears, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview. “She was quiet about it. He was quiet about it. They didn’t say much to give you any clue that anything was wrong.”
Police found Tomitka Stewart’s lifeless body in her car on Milwaukee’s northside April 17, 2024, just three days after she was reported missing. She had been stabbed 49 times and sustained blunt-force trauma to her head.
Houston said she and her family have navigated an ocean of sorrow the last 26 months, while wrestling with uncertainty as Jerrod Stewart’s trial inches closer.
This week, they were told they’d need to wait even longer.
A judge said at a June 4 hearing he would move Jerrod Stewart’s trial from July 13 to Jan. 4, 2027.
The reason: There was an unresolved motion to suppress evidence that emerged late in the case that needed to be resolved before it could go before a jury, Assistant District Attorney Pat Anderson said.
Houston said the seven-month delay prolongs and amplifies the anguish her family has felt since the day they received the news from authorities Tomika Stewart was gone.
“There are 10 children waiting for justice. To push this to nearly three years is absurd,” Houston said. “Tomitka didn’t deserve to die the way that she did. Three years for everybody else left behind, it’s not fair.
“It is not justice, and it doesn’t feel like justice for our family.”
Domestic violence fatalities climb in the state
Tomitka Stewart’s family has said they believe she had grown weary of the abuse and was working on getting out of her relationship with Jerrod Stewart on her own. Quietly.
That sometimes can add to the tension that may already exist in homes where there is a propensity for domestic violence to occur.
Domestic violence continues to be a problem in Wisconsin, particularly instances in which a person loses their life.
Wisconsin saw a record number of domestic violence deaths in 2024, the year Tomitka Stewart was killed, according to the most recent End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin annual homicide report.
The report, published Oct. 1, marking the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, found that domestic violence deaths had risen from 85 victims in 2023 to 99 in 2024.
It’s the highest toll since the statewide advocacy organization began tracking data in 2000.
The deaths in 2024 occurred in 28 counties, about 60% in urban areas and 40% rural. The domestic violence analysis includes the deaths of perpetrators who died by suicide or law enforcement action.
Police say Jerrod Stewart tried to strangle his wife four months before she was killed
From the outside, things appeared swell; the Stewarts lived quietly on Milwaukee’s north side.
No one worried.
Cracks in Tomitka Stewart’s hidden life emerged on Jan. 27, 2024. That’s the day her 11-year-old daughter made a call to 911.
The child reported that her stepfather had repeatedly hit her mother. The man wouldn’t let the woman leave a home on the 2700 block of North 10th Street.
Officers responded and, as they arrived, they spotted Jerrod Stewart attempting to flee through a bedroom window.
Five children, including the girl who called police, were in the home at the time. A police report noted Tomitka Stewart had dried blood on her lower lip, bruising on her neck and a black eye that was just developing.
Jerrod Stewart was arrested.
He posted his $5,000 bail and was released from jail about a month later and was ordered not to contact his wife. Jerrod Stewart also was required to wear an electronic monitoring device, allowing police to track his movements.
Tomitka Stewart’s final moments were spent in terror
Things ratcheted up on the night of April 14, 2024.
Friends of Tomitka Stewart couldn’t find her. Calls and texts went unanswered. They then filed a missing person’s report with police.
A criminal complaint says Tomitka Stewart’s red Dodge Avenger was seen that evening on surveillance video from North Division High School, near North 11th and East Clarke streets. The school is around the corner from where she was last seen.
The footage showed the Dodge parked on Clarke Street. A gray Mitsubishi pulled up behind it around 7:15 p.m. The driver of the Mitsubishi is seen getting out and into the front passenger seat of the red Dodge.
According to the complaint, what “appeared to be movement” in the Dodge was captured on the video around 8 p.m. The passenger who arrived in the Mitsubishi then got out, entered the driver’s seat of the Dodge and drove off.
The original driver of the Dodge, later identified as Tomitka Stewart, never emerged from the vehicle.
The next day, the camera recorded footage of a white Ford. According to the complaint, the Ford parked, and a passenger stepped out and got into the gray Mitsubishi across the street.
Tomitka Stewart’s Dodge had a GPS device. Its data showed her car was in the 4400 block of Hopkins at 9:52 p.m. It was driven at 6 a.m. April 15, 2024, to North 29th Street and West Glendale Avenue and was parked there.
On April 17, 2024, Tomitka Stewart’s body was found in the trunk of her car in the 4500 block of North 29th Street.
A bench warrant was issued for Jerrod Stewart on April 18, 2024, when he failed to show up for a hearing in the strangulation case.
Jerrod Stewart was arrested in the Minneapolis area 12 days later. At that point, the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office filed new charges, accusing him of bail jumping and first-degree reckless homicide in his wife’s death.
Houston said she hoped her sister’s death can be a cautionary tale for other people who are trapped in a violent relationship.
“We’re fighting for justice, not just for Tomitka but for every person living in fear and trying to find a way out. And we know there’s a lot of them out there,” Houston said. “We have to do better. We have to listen, believe victims, and act before it’s too late.
“No one deserves this, and no family should have to carry this pain.”
Where to find help
This story was updated to add a video.
Chris Ramirez covers courts for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at caramirez@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Trial for Milwaukee man accused of killing mother of 10 pushed to next year
Reporting by Chris Ramirez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Chris Ramirez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
