WGN reporter Winnie Dortch shares her survival story after domestic violence attack

CHICAGO (WGN) — It’s been more than a year since WGN reporter Winnie Dortch survived a domestic violence attack.

On Oct. 7, 2024, an incident in Cleveland almost kept Dortch from returning home to Chicago. Growing up in the city’s East Garfield Park neighborhood, she dreamed of working at WGN.

“When I look at the WGN sign, I’m in awe because I didn’t think that I would make it there,” Dortch said.

The Chicago native admits to already having an understanding of the many stories of violence she covers.

“I do feel like the irony of this all — I do connect with victims, gun violence victims, shooting victims, because you were in their shoes,” Dortch said. “There was one particular story I was covering where a woman was shot in the face, and I instantly thought about myself.

“I’m grateful to be alive, and I’m grateful to be able to work a job.”

Dortch recalled happier times previously spent with the man who would become her eventual attacker, Bryant Carter, whom she met in high school.

“He was quite popular, a funny guy,” she said. “Fast-forward years later in 2018, we met back up again. I just fell for him all over again.”

After reconnecting with her high school sweetheart, the birth of a baby girl followed.

“I remember he was so happy,” Dortch said. “I couldn’t believe we were here together.”

Then the relationship took a turn.

“After Kaelie was born, I just felt like we weren’t seeing eye to eye,” Dortch recalled.

Dortch kept moving forward, she says, working as a journalist in Flint, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before reporting in Cleveland, Ohio. Amid her rising career, Dortch admits her time with Carter worsened.

“We would argue so much over the phone. I remember one time I wanted to go to my college homecoming. ‘What do you want to go there for? Be a whore?'” Dortch recalled Carter saying.

“I was called very vulgar names. I’ve been punched before, pushed, choked, yeah. It got so bad one time he went to my mom’s house and threatened to shoot up my mom’s house. It was mental abuse, making me feel like I didn’t mean anything. It was physical, it was emotional, like taxing, because I did love him, and I wanted to be a family.”

Growing up in a two-parent home, Dortch said she felt it was paramount to work it out with her child’s father. In hindsight, she said she wishes she had let the relationship end.

In 2024, she made the difficult decision.

“I moved out of the house in Cleveland while he was away in Houston on Father’s Day weekend,” she said. “He didn’t know anything about it.”

Then came the job offer she had waited on her entire career: reporter for the Chicago news station she grew up watching.

In July 2024, Dortch filed a police report and requested an order of protection from Carter under the Illinois Domestic Violence Act. But like many in her situation, she let the restraining order lapse. 

‘He took something from me’

In a sit-down interview with WGN’s Dina Bair, Dortch recounted the day she was dropping her daughter off at school when her child’s father shot her in the face.

“Her school was on the side street, so I turned down the street and I see his vehicle, so I’m like, ‘OK. Why is he here?” she said. “I take Kaelie in her classroom. I come out, and he’s moved his vehicle up closer to the main street. I get in my car. I go down the street on my way to work. He hits the back of the car. I immediately get on the phone and call my mom, and I tell her what’s going on.”

At gunpoint, Carter pulled Dortch out of her vehicle and forced her into his.

“I remember him saying, ‘You know if you get out, I’ll shoot you,'” Dortch recalled.

“What would’ve happened if you stayed in the car?” asked Bair.

“I would’ve been dead,” Dortch answered.

After manually unlocking the car door, Dortch said she got out of the vehicle and ran away.

“I remember falling,” she said. “I’m just looking at the blood, and then I have to turn around because I’m thinking he’s coming to me after that fall. No, instead I turn around and he’s flat on his back.”

Her child’s father had taken his own life.

Dortch woke up in a hospital three days later, unable to speak.

“I was shot in the mouth, which hurts the most because that’s part of my career,” Dortch said. “I feel like he took something from me. I had to have work in my mouth done because my tongue was severed in such a way…I had stitches in my tongue…they had to sew my face back up because the bullet went through.”

Unable to speak, Dortch was able to write.

“The only thing I kept asking about on that piece of paper was, ‘Do I still have my job at WGN?’ You wait your whole life to get your dream job, and weeks after you get the job offer, you’re shot.”

WGN held Dortch’s position until she was physically able to work, but her recovery continues.

Dortch’s dentist, Dr. Michael Acierno, replaced her lost teeth with implants. Work to restore the holes in her face gave her renewed confidence, but even with her smile, Dortch said that pain remains an everyday occurrence.

“I thought I did what was best for my child in the moment, allowing her daddy to be there and grow up with her father, and again, the irony of that now is her father isn’t here,” she said. “Even though I’ll never get closure from this, this is part of my healing.

“I was always telling someone’s story. I was never the story. I never wanted to be the story. This isn’t just about me. Yes, it happened to me, but it goes beyond that. This is an inspirational story for other people who may be experiencing the same thing. I’m Winnie Dortch, and I’m a survivor.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing any domestic abuse, know that you are not alone. Reach out for help by contacting the Domestic Violence hotline at 800.799.SAFE. You can call anytime. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.