CINCINNATI -- Tanisha Huff told police Gary Box pointed a gun at her late last month. Court records say Huff was afraid for her life.
Days later, she was dead.
Box, 41, is now charged with a count of murder. Cincinnati police said he surrendered Monday. He's being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center, with an arraignment hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Tanisha Huff
Police said they found Huff, 37, dead inside a home on Elberon Avenue last week: They got a call for a welfare check Thursday and gained access to with the help of the Cincinnati Fire Department.
According to a criminal complaint filed Sept. 27, Box pointed a revolver at Huff after an argument. The two had a child together, the complaint said.
Box also was accused of sending threatening messages to a woman: According to an affidavit, he told the woman her life and her children's lives were in danger.
"Messages stated she can run but can't hide, and that he knows her every move," the affidavit says. It was filed Oct. 4, but it doesn't indicate if the woman was Huff or another person.
Box was arraigned Monday on two counts of domestic violence, one count of aggravated menacing and one count of telecommunications harassment.
According to the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, a nonprofit advocacy group, the state had 115 fatalities from 83 cases of domestic violence between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017.
Kristin Shrimplin, president and CEO of Women Helping Women, previously told WCPO domestic violence is nothing short of a public health epidemic.
She points to these troubling statistics to back up her case: Domestic violence has affected one in three women, one in four men and one in three teenagers. And it crosses all socio-economic lines.
"We are serving record-breaking numbers of survivors," she said. "We haven't seen this in the history of our agency, and we've been around 43 years. So it really begs the question what is going on in our community around domestic violence, sexual violence, dating violence. So we need more staff, we need more funding, and specifically, we need to do more in prevention, because we can't keep (just) putting out the fires."
