Friends seek to aid injured woman

Friends of a woman who was severely beaten July 8 have started a fund to aid her and her six children.

Her husband, Richard Allen Kirk, 36, is being held in the Snohomish County Jail in lieu of $2 million bail pending prosecution for rape, kidnapping and assault.

People can contribute to the Kirk Family Fund at any branch of Washington Mutual Bank, said friend Mica Garbarino.

She said the injured woman has been in and out of hospitals and doctors’ offices since the attack, but appears to be improving physically.

“But the healing process will take quite some time, with needed prayers for their getting through every day,” Garbarino said.

The woman’s children range in age from 2 to 11. Garbarino said the woman had been home-schooling the children, was a stay-at-home mother and doesn’t have a lot of work experience.

A daughter called 911 for help, saying her mother was being driven away from her Snohomish home in a van, pounding on a window and trying to get out, according to court papers.

She was driven to a boat launch at Storm Lake, where most of the assault took place, prosecutors said.

The husband, a Bothell firefighter, was arrested not long after the woman, 34, ran into the woods naked after escaping from the van. Bleeding and suffering from a broken nose and fractured skull, she wound up on the doorstep of a neighboring house seeking aid.

Kirk was arrested on a domestic violence complaint in 2004 and at the time was given a two-year deferred sentence.

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