National Crime Victims' Rights Week - Part I

by Lucy Puryear, M.D

In honor of National Crime Victims' Rights Week, I would like to present a case of mine that tells the inside story of someone suffering from being the victim of crime. In Part One, I will present her story. In Part Two tomorrow, I will discuss the case and talk about the after effects of incest and rape. This is a real story, although details have been changed and identifying features altered to protect confidentiality.

Elizabeth was a young girl of three when her stepfather began molesting her. She doesn't remember much about those early years, but has vague memories of being scared at night and not wanting to be left alone with her stepfather. Her mother told her that she was frequently treated for urinary tract infections when she was little.

At the age of five, Elizabeth remembers her stepfather calling to her from the garage, "Come help me fix your brother's bike." She was both excited and uneasy. Excited that her stepfather was asking for her help and uneasy that she would be alone with him, away from the eyes of her mother. "Come on, we'll go for ice cream afterwards." It was the first time she remembers her stepfather putting his fingers inside of her and more. It wouldn't be the last.

The abuse happened until she was thirteen. It stopped when her mother and stepfather divorced and her mother and she moved out of town. She never told her mother or a teacher or her best friend. Her stepfather told her not to tell or he'd kill her mother. She believed him and kept her mouth shut.

Elizabeth got good grades in school, was in Girl Scouts, and sang in the church choir. No one ever asked her if there was anything wrong. No doctor ever questioned her urinary tract infections. Her mother never wondered why Elizabeth tried to avoid being alone in the house with her stepfather.

In high school, Elizabeth started getting in trouble. She started hanging out with the "cool" kids and would meet up with her friends to smoke pot before school started. Drinking and other drugs followed and her grades began to slip. Drinking and drugging were an everyday occurrence and sex with any boy who showed her some attention was not uncommon.

Elizabeth's mother couldn't understand why her daughter was acting so out of character. She had been a sweet child and always willing to do any chore that was asked of her. She never complained and seemed to get along with everybody. Although Elizabeth never seemed very popular or had friends over to the house, her mother thought it was just because she was shy and liked spending time with her mother. She considered them to be very close.

In college, things seemed to turn around. She was able to get a scholarship to a small college out of town. Elizabeth decided it was time to turn her life around and put the past behind her. She made great grades and some good friends. No more drugs or alcohol and no more promiscuity. She was determined to go to law school and make something of herself. She wasn't going to be a victim to what happened to her as a child.

In law school, Elizabeth was studying late one night in the law library. Constitutional law was her most difficult and most interesting class. She wanted to do well in the hopes of getting a prestigious clerkship.

"I wanted my mom to be proud of me again. I know I had let her down when I was in high school. I was a really bad kid and caused her lots of grief," she told me on her first visit to my office. "I was raped that night. I caused her grief again."

Elizabeth was referred to me three months after she was attacked and sexually assaulted by a man who accosted her as she walked across the semi-dark campus. She didn't recognize the man and was unable to recall any distinguishing features. She just remembered his voice telling her not to scream or he would kill her. She thinks he had a knife but was too frightened to check. When he finished he told Elizabeth not to move for an hour or he would come back for her. She lay there for what seemed like forever before she found the nerve to walk home. She did not report the assault to the police.

"I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "It was stupid of me to be walking alone that night. I was just asking for trouble, at least he didn't try to kill me. It could have been a lot worse."

Elizabeth had taken a leave of absence from law school and moved back home to be with her mother. She had not told the school about the assault, only saying that she was ill and would need to take some time off.

In my office I saw a woman severely depressed. She wouldn't look me in the eye, sat on my couch wringing her hands, and couldn't stop crying. She had lost twenty-five pounds in the last three months and was close to being hospitalized for the effects of malnutrition. Elizabeth kept repeating over and over again, "It's all my fault, it's always been my fault."

Please share your thoughts and feelings about Elizabeth and how you might go about helping her. In Part II tomorrow, I'll post my thoughts and relate how Elizabeth is doing.

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This Month, We Remember . . .

by Donna Weaver

This month, we observe the anniversary of a national tragedy. April 19th marked 14 years since the devastating act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by political extremist Timothy McVeigh and conspirator Terry Nichols that not only destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building (pictured left), but ended the lives of 168 innocent men. women, and children, injured over 800 people, and forever ravaged the lives of their countless loved ones . . . those who survived . . . and a nation. Who could forget the photo (below) that captured the heartbreak of senseless, sudden loss that day.

Hundreds gathered last Sunday at the site of the bombing to commemorate the day where 168 empty chairs sat on the grass in place of the building that once stood there. Loved ones of the victims and survivors read the names of each of those killed and the crowd observed 168 seconds of silence for each life lost.

Several pieces of important legislation were enacted by the U. S. government as a result of the bombing of the Murrah building and its aftermath. Among those, The Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, (AEDPA) was signed by Congress to "deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for other purposes.

Because the trials of the perpetrators and conspirators were moved out of state (from Oklahoma to Denver, Colorado), President Clinton signed the Victim Allocution Clarification Act of 1997, which allowed victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing, and those of any future acts of violence, to observe and offer victim-impact testimony at trials.

Clinton stated that "when someone is a victim, he or she should be at the center of the criminal justice process, not on the outside looking in."

Timothy McVeigh (pictured left) was arrested hours after the bombing for driving without a license plate and for carrying a concealed weapon. At his trial, the prosecution stated that McVeigh's motivation for the horrific act of domestic terrorism was his hatred of the U. S. government, which grew in part from the incidents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992, and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993. The April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing occured on the anniversay of the end of the 51-day seige in Waco in which 50 adults and 25 children died after federal law enforcement launched a fiery assault. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at a U. S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11, 2001. It was the first federal exection in 38 years.

Terry Nichols was tried twice, once by the federal government, and once by the state of Oklahoma. He was found guilty of the federal charges of conspiring to build a weapon of mass destruction and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter of federal officers. He was sentenced to life without parole. Although the State of Oklahoma sought the death penalty for 161 counts of first-degree murder, the jury became deadlocked on the issue of death and Nichols was instead sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

A third conspirator, Michael Fortier, agreed to testify against McVeigh in exchange for a reduced sentence and immunity for his wife, Lori. In 1998, Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay a $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the attack. Fortier was released from prison in January 2006, and is living under a new identity in the Witness Protection Program.

This month also marks the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School Massacre where teenagers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot and killed 13 others before taking their own lives on April 20, 1999.

As the country observes the beginning of National Crime Victims' Rights Week today, I ask you to not only remember the victims of these and other highly publicized tragic crimes, but the hundreds of thousands of others—survivors, homicide victims, missing persons, and their families and loved ones left behind. To commemorate Crime Victims' Rights Week as well as the last week of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Child Abuse Prevention Month, Women in Crime Ink will feature other observance posts over the next several days from our contributors and from you, our readers.

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