Lynn's Story
It was my sixteenth birthday, April 9 1990, and I had a lot to celebrate. I had already lived through years of abuse and neglect at the hands of my mother. I had survived being bounced between foster homes and some pretty heavy drug abuse. I had cleaned up my act and was doing well in school and for the first time in my life, I had some hope that I would actually have a future worth looking forward to. Thirty minutes was all it would take to change my life forever.
I had gone out to shoot some pool with some friends on the evening of my sixteenth birthday. Around 10:30 pm I managed to snag a ride halfway home with a friend’s parents. They dropped me off and I had about a 30-minute walk to my home. I was less than five minutes from home when I saw him. A tall, skinny, older man, walking towards me in the dark. He walked past me and then turned around and started walking back towards me. I crossed the street, but eventually had to cross back because I lived on that side of the road.
He approached me and asked me for directions to some fictional place. It all happened in a matter of seconds, he grabbed me and threw me down the embankment. I screamed and tried to fight him off and he told me that he had a knife and would cut my heart out if I continued to scream. He walked me through the darkness into a grove of trees, nearby. He told me to take off my clothes. He ransacked my purse and then told me he knew my address and if I told anyone, he would come back and kill me. He raped me. I have never felt fear like that in my life. As I lay there, I tried to memorize his face, his features. I couldn’t imagine surviving this and having him walking the streets. Never knowing if I might see him again.
When it was over I ran home and my foster mother took me to the hospital. I wrote an uncomfortably detailed statement for the cops, and my own doctor showed up to do the rape exam. I don’t remember feeling much of anything at that time. I was numb…in shock, I guess. A few days later, the cops showed up at my house with a photo line up and I picked him out. He was arrested a few days after that and sat in jail waiting for court.
Meanwhile, I still had to go back to school and try to finish the 10th grade and pretend that I was ok and nothing had happened. The administrators at my school knew what had happened to me and they cut me a lot of slack. I failed every one of my final exams that year because I just couldn’t get my shit together to study. The school passed me in every course, anyway.
The preliminary hearing was held in May and the trial was in June, (just before final exams). Somewhere in the middle of that, he escaped from jail. The jail that was a 15-minute drive from where I lived. I read about it in the paper before the cops called to tell me. Aside from going to school, I didn’t leave the house at all until he was caught two weeks later.
At the trial, I was on the stand for three hours. Two of those three was for cross-examination. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to sit in that courtroom and look at the man who raped me, in the light of day, while his attorney tried to discredit every single thing I said. To speak every detail of what he did to me, because he didn’t just rape me. He made me choose what kind of oral sex he would have with me. He beat me and burned me with cigarettes and forced me to act like I enjoyed it all. And I had to tell the world every sick detail. I remember the Crown attorney telling me that I should be as detailed as possible because the judge we had hated rapists and details would improve the likelihood of a conviction.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 6 years that October. But that wasn’t the end of it. I found out after trial that he was a serial rapist and had raped many young women including his own family members. He had been tried before but had never been convicted. His victims were usually younger than me and had a difficult time identifying him.
I went back to court a few more times in the years that followed. The first time was to testify at another victims trial. To establish M.O. and for identification purposes. The next two times were for his dangerous offender hearing. Every time I went to court, it dredged up the old memories. I would have to re-read my statement and the court transcripts and re-live it all again. I told myself that any hell I went through was worth it as long as he didn’t hurt anyone else again.
He died in prison a few months before his release date. But I’m still here. Still trying to figure out how to live with the after effects. 16 years later and I’m only just beginning to understand what he took from me. I’ve been alone with this pain for a long time and I don’t know if I will ever be ok, but I do know how important it is to know that others have survived. To know that I’m really not alone. To know that it wasn’t my fault and I’m not tainted goods. To know that I have a voice and that the most important thing I’ve ever done was pushing past my fear and my shame so that I could walk into the courthouse and do everything in my power to not let anyone else be hurt like I was.
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I had gone out to shoot some pool with some friends on the evening of my sixteenth birthday. Around 10:30 pm I managed to snag a ride halfway home with a friend’s parents. They dropped me off and I had about a 30-minute walk to my home. I was less than five minutes from home when I saw him. A tall, skinny, older man, walking towards me in the dark. He walked past me and then turned around and started walking back towards me. I crossed the street, but eventually had to cross back because I lived on that side of the road.
He approached me and asked me for directions to some fictional place. It all happened in a matter of seconds, he grabbed me and threw me down the embankment. I screamed and tried to fight him off and he told me that he had a knife and would cut my heart out if I continued to scream. He walked me through the darkness into a grove of trees, nearby. He told me to take off my clothes. He ransacked my purse and then told me he knew my address and if I told anyone, he would come back and kill me. He raped me. I have never felt fear like that in my life. As I lay there, I tried to memorize his face, his features. I couldn’t imagine surviving this and having him walking the streets. Never knowing if I might see him again.
When it was over I ran home and my foster mother took me to the hospital. I wrote an uncomfortably detailed statement for the cops, and my own doctor showed up to do the rape exam. I don’t remember feeling much of anything at that time. I was numb…in shock, I guess. A few days later, the cops showed up at my house with a photo line up and I picked him out. He was arrested a few days after that and sat in jail waiting for court.
Meanwhile, I still had to go back to school and try to finish the 10th grade and pretend that I was ok and nothing had happened. The administrators at my school knew what had happened to me and they cut me a lot of slack. I failed every one of my final exams that year because I just couldn’t get my shit together to study. The school passed me in every course, anyway.
The preliminary hearing was held in May and the trial was in June, (just before final exams). Somewhere in the middle of that, he escaped from jail. The jail that was a 15-minute drive from where I lived. I read about it in the paper before the cops called to tell me. Aside from going to school, I didn’t leave the house at all until he was caught two weeks later.
At the trial, I was on the stand for three hours. Two of those three was for cross-examination. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to sit in that courtroom and look at the man who raped me, in the light of day, while his attorney tried to discredit every single thing I said. To speak every detail of what he did to me, because he didn’t just rape me. He made me choose what kind of oral sex he would have with me. He beat me and burned me with cigarettes and forced me to act like I enjoyed it all. And I had to tell the world every sick detail. I remember the Crown attorney telling me that I should be as detailed as possible because the judge we had hated rapists and details would improve the likelihood of a conviction.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 6 years that October. But that wasn’t the end of it. I found out after trial that he was a serial rapist and had raped many young women including his own family members. He had been tried before but had never been convicted. His victims were usually younger than me and had a difficult time identifying him.
I went back to court a few more times in the years that followed. The first time was to testify at another victims trial. To establish M.O. and for identification purposes. The next two times were for his dangerous offender hearing. Every time I went to court, it dredged up the old memories. I would have to re-read my statement and the court transcripts and re-live it all again. I told myself that any hell I went through was worth it as long as he didn’t hurt anyone else again.
He died in prison a few months before his release date. But I’m still here. Still trying to figure out how to live with the after effects. 16 years later and I’m only just beginning to understand what he took from me. I’ve been alone with this pain for a long time and I don’t know if I will ever be ok, but I do know how important it is to know that others have survived. To know that I’m really not alone. To know that it wasn’t my fault and I’m not tainted goods. To know that I have a voice and that the most important thing I’ve ever done was pushing past my fear and my shame so that I could walk into the courthouse and do everything in my power to not let anyone else be hurt like I was.
Lynn's Blog
Send Lynn an Email
posted by Joan Crawford at 4/27/2005 06:35:00 PM
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