Ending a Toxic and Abusive Marriage

This fundraiser is for my sister, who still lives in Mississippi, and who last week filed for a restraining order and to press charges against her husband for assault and battery.  For years, he has played the games typical of that sort of person--forcing her to quit her job and become dependent on him while trying to control all her movement, money, etc. As a result of all this, the cops told him to leave last week, after he choked her and beat her (an altercation that ended only when the police arrived), without her having any source of income.  Yesterday, she returned to the police station to follow the advice of an attorney she hopes to hire ($1500 retainer), and pressed charges for that abuse. After he violated police orders by texting her, and was told not to make contact again, he arrived this morning, barged into her house, and ordered her to "get the hell out." The police were called, and he was ultimately arrested by six officers, one of whom described the husband as "a real piece of work."  She has currently applied for various jobs, but after years of not being in the workforce, that isn't easy. She and the husband also have two kids, both of whom she currently has custody of--one of them admits to being afraid of the father, and the other is severely autistic, which further limits her ability to find work to basically only graveyard shift positions, when the autistic child will be asleep.  She is currently without an attorney, and without a way to buy gasoline, food, and the like--and none of this is likely to change in the immediate future. Without help from people, I do not see how she can successfully extricate herself and her children from this unacceptable situation.