"This time last year I was plotting to kill a man" - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

phredgreen · 05-16-2004, 09:21 AM

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This article can be found at: http://westword.com/issues/2004-05-1...tml/print.html
©2004 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
Stalking the Bogeyman
Coming to grips with the killer inside me.
BY DAVID HOLTHOUSE

This time last year I was plotting to kill a man. I was going to walk up to him, reintroduce myself and then blow his balls off. I was going to watch him writhe like a poisoned cockroach for a few seconds, then kick him onto his stomach and put three bullets in the back of his head. This time last year I had a gun, and a silencer, and a plan. I had staked out the man's tract home in Broomfield -- the gray, two-story one with the maroon trim and the American flag hanging above the doorstep. I had followed him to and from his job as an electrical engineer. I was confident I would get away with murder, because there was nothing in recent history to connect me to him. Homicide investigators look for motive, and mine was buried 25 years in the past.

The man I was going to kill was the one who raped me in 1978, when I was seven years old.

When I was seven, I had a crush on Princess Leia and wanted to be a member of the rock band Kiss when I grew up. I was in the second grade, and a cop dressed up like a bloodhound wearing a trench coat and calling himself McGruff came to my school and warned us all to watch out for strange men in cars offering candy.

But McGruff didn't say anything about watching out for the son of my mom and dad's best friends. Our families had both moved to Alaska that year. His dad and my dad worked together. He was ten years older than me, and a star athlete at Chugiak High School. He wrestled and played quarterback. The Anchorage Daily News ran a profile of him in the sports section, and my mom cut it out and stuck it on our refrigerator. I looked up to him. I thought he was super-cool.

One night his parents had my parents over for dinner, and he asked me if I wanted to go to his bedroom in the basement and play with his karate stuff. We snuck off together, and once he had me alone, inside his room, the door closed, he got out his karate stuff, throwing stars and nunchuks and a curved sword, and we started playing. He did not play nice. He spun the nunchuks inches from my face and hurled the throwing stars into the wall next to me. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew it was bad, so I started crying, and he told me to shut up and then started chasing me around the room, waving the sword. He put the blade to my throat and backed me into a corner, where I dropped into a crouch and cowered. Then he told me to take off my pants.

The term "child molestation" doesn't begin to describe what happened next. When I think "child molestation," I think inappropriate touching. I think fondling. What happened next wasn't fondling. It wasn't Michael Jackson gently introducing my hand to his magical giraffe, and it wasn't anything like a Catholic priest masturbating an altar boy. I was seven, and it was violent, sick, pedophiliac rape.

He started off by unzipping the fly of his jeans and telling me he'd cut my face with the sword if I didn't do what he wanted, but not to worry, he wouldn't pee in my mouth. He finished with me face down on the bare black-plastic mattress of his waterbed, covering my head with a pillow to muffle my squealing. I had no words for what was happening, no concept of "rape" or "sex." I just knew that I was terrified and in pain.

When he was done with me, when I was pulling up my pants, he said that if I told my parents or his parents or anyone else, that my mom and dad would be very angry with me because I'd done a bad thing. He said they would spank me. He said if I told on him he'd come to my house in the middle of the night and gut me like a salmon.

Then he opened his door. He told me not to go back upstairs right away, and sat me down in front of a TV in the downstairs family room and had me play Atari until my tears dried and I was more presentable.

When I was seven, I no longer believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, but from that night on, I had no such doubts about the Bogeyman.

He only got me that once -- or, at least, only once when I was conscious. There was one night, two or three months later, when my parents were hosting a holiday party, and they took me to his house so he could babysit me and his little sister while his parents were at the party. He put on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and we "played disco," which consisted of all of us getting drunk on straight, warm hard booze while he watched his little sister and me gyrate to "Stayin' Alive," thereby securing my lifelong hatred of the Bee Gees. I don't remember the rest of that night, just waking up the next morning with my first hangover. Six months later, I nearly died after guzzling most of a bottle of peach brandy that I found in my dad's bar.

I made sure he never got me alone again for more than a few minutes, which wasn't easy, because our parents socialized almost every weekend at either their house or ours, and he didn't move out or go to college after high school. He turned into one of those guys who still dates high school chicks and lives with his parents well into his twenties.

My memories of him in those years are scattershot. One Fourth of July he told me how much fun he'd just had sticking an M-80 up a cat's ass and lighting the fuse, how the cat had hopped around frantically trying to squeeze out the quarter-stick of dynamite before it blew in half. I remember that he was handy with tools, and when I was in Cub Scouts, my parents paid him a few bucks to help me build one of those miniature pinewood-derby cars. I made sure the door between his house and the garage workshop stayed open. He didn't help me build the car so much as just build it while I watched. He put a ball of lead in the front and painted it red and wrote "David's Delight" on the side in a handsome script. I won the whole derby, and I remember calling him right afterward, stupidly thinking for a couple of minutes that he and I were some sort of team, that we had something other than a predator-prey relationship. And I remember that for years after the rape, whenever he and I were in the same room and no one was looking, he would cup both his hands in a circle around his crotch and give me a Bogeyman smile, a smile that said, "I got some more of this for your punk little eight-, nine-, ten-year-old ass."

He stopped leering at me around the time I turned eleven, probably because I was getting to be a pretty big kid. Out of fear and shame and not wanting to make a fuss, I kept our little secret, but one night when I was almost twelve, I got my first sweet taste of payback.

It was New Year's Eve 1982. He was drinking heavily that night. His dad made a potent punch, and he guzzled one ornate crystal mug of it after another while his mom begged him to stop. The stroke of midnight found him passed out in a sleeping bag on the floor of the bathroom next to the bedroom where he'd raped me four years before. I snuck downstairs to where he lay and said his name a few times, louder and louder, to see if he'd wake up. When he didn't, I ran up and soccer-kicked him in the head, then turned and sprinted back upstairs, feeling quite satisfied with myself.

Until a few days ago, the last time I was face to face with him was twelve years ago, when I was 21. I was back home from college between my sophomore and junior years, and I needed a cheap suit for a job interview, so I went to Harry's of Hong Kong. And there he was, a 31-year-old cheap-suit salesman and rapist of children. I hadn't seen him in six or seven years, and I immediately realized two things. The first was that he was no longer bigger than me. I had six inches and at least fifty pounds on him. But in a street fight, what matters more than size is motivation, and the second thing I realized was that I wanted to kill him. I wanted to grab a coatrack and bash in his head, carve out his heart with a shoehorn, snatch that metal ballpoint pen out of his cheap-suit jacket and stab him in the eye, over and over again, and everyone in the store would hear him screaming because he wouldn't have a pillow over his head.

But I did nothing. My mother was with me, and even more than I wanted revenge, I wanted to protect her and my father from the terrible knowing that he had raped me when I was seven years old, while they were upstairs with his parents, drinking wine and playing board games. I didn't want their memories of my childhood tarnished with his scum.

The memory of being raped when I was seven was never repressed. It was not recovered under hypnosis. It has always been with me, festering. When I was a teenager, I began researching how being raped as a child might affect the development of my personality, and I recoiled in horror. Every study I read supported the "vicious cycle" theory that victims of pedophilia are more likely to become pedophiles themselves. I felt like a werewolf had bitten me and it was only a matter of time before the full moon rose. Throughout my early adolescence, I was constantly, torturously checking myself for evil impulses. I made a blood oath with myself that if I started feeling the desire to rape children, I would kill myself and make it look like a mountaineering accident. I was already in the habit of solo climbing in Alaska -- no partners, no ropes -- despite my parents' repeated warnings against such a dangerous activity. Had I thrown myself down a mountain, they would have believed it, and better a son who died climbing than one who lived and raped kids.

The next death I plotted was the Bogeyman's.

Soon after I moved to Denver three years ago, I learned from my parents that the son of their good friends now also lived in the area. I became fixated on the idea that he was raping children nearby and that it was up to me to stop him by any means necessary. According to a 1998 Colorado Bureau of Investigation polygraph study of convicted child molesters, the mean number of victims per molester, at least in this state, is 184, and that's only for the molesters who've been arrested and stopped, at least for a little while. My guy has never been caught. Eighty percent of convicted child molesters in Colorado keep a clean criminal record right up until they're caught for molesting kids, and his is spotless.

The science has gotten a lot better since I read those studies twenty years ago. Now authorities agree that most pedophiles begin molesting children when the perpetrators are in their middle teens, and most of them never stop, not even after they're caught -- if they're caught -- and my Bogeyman has never been caught. All my adult life, I'd been aware that he was, in all likelihood, still raping children, but as long as he was doing it far away, I'd felt no compulsion to do anything about it. Once I found out he was here, though, I began to agonize over my failure to stop him. I considered going to the police, but I had no evidence except my memories. I thought about placing subtle advertisements in Alaskan newspapers; I thought about sending letters to everyone he knows, his ex-wives and everyone in his new neighborhood in Colorado, warning them and begging them to please come forward if they knew anything or suspected anything. But I was afraid such measures would somehow lead to my parents' finding out, and the cold, hard truth is that I wanted to protect them more than I wanted to protect children I'd never met.

The more I obsessed on it, the more I came to the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the best way to make sure he never raped another child, to make sure I had my revenge, was to kill him, to just walk right up to him in a secluded place and scrape him from this world like a piece of dog shit off my shoe.

I bought the gun last April. I had a few firearms in my closet already, but they'd all been purchased legally, in my name, from a licensed firearms dealer. So I flew to Phoenix and went to a gang barrio, where I bought a Beretta 9mm with a homemade silencer and the serial number removed. I took this gun to the local garage gunsmith and had him put dozens of deep nicks and grooves in the Beretta's barrel to corrupt ballistics tests. The gunsmith warned me that this would ruin the gun's accuracy beyond a few feet, but I didn't care. I intended to get up-close and personal.

After testing the gun and silencer in the desert, I stored them in Phoenix and flew home to keep scheming. It seems a little insane to me now that I was actually going to kill a man instead of just bringing what he had done to me out in the open. But that's how kiddie rapers get away with it. They depend upon shame and fear and embarrassment to keep their victims quiet. And there are so many victims. The commonly accepted estimate among law enforcement and sexual-abuse treatment specialists in Colorado is that one in four women and one in six men who live in this state were either molested or raped before the age of eighteen, most of them by a man or teenage boy they knew.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, fewer than one in ten sexual assaults on children in this country are committed by a stranger. About a third of the perpetrators are family members, including stepfathers. The rest -- 60 percent -- are acquaintances of the child. They are coaches, scoutmasters, priests, family friends, sons of family friends. The Bogeyman walks among us, masked with charm, tricking us into liking him because he's so good with children.

The summer when I was eleven, Jim, my Little League coach, told my parents that the whole team was getting together at a batting cage for practice and that he would come by to pick me up. He came and got me, all right, but there was no team trip to the batting cage. He took me out for pizza and gave me money to play video games. He didn't try anything, but he was working up to it. A few days later, he called and asked if I wanted to go see the movie Annie with him -- a grown man, asking a boy out on a date. I recognized the Bogeyman, and I made sure I was never alone with Jim, either.

Two years later, Billy, my youth-league basketball coach, held a team sleepover after the last game of the season. He ordered pizzas and put a gay-porn video in his VCR, inviting us to watch it while he took the two shyest boys on our team into his bedroom and locked the door. So I took a case of soda out on his balcony and launched a pop-can artillery barrage on the cars in the parking lot of his condo complex. I shattered windshields and dented hoods until the neighbors poured outside, screaming bloody murder, and Billy had to go down to pacify them by agreeing to pay the damages. After that, he turned off the porn and stayed in his bedroom, the door open, for the rest of the slumber party. I sat up with my back against a wall all night long. He didn't tell my parents about the pop cans.

This time last year I was plotting to kill a man, and I was telling myself that like with Billy, I was doing it to protect the children. But really, more than anything else, I think I just wanted to shoot the son of a bitch. And I believe I would have, taking a second deep and dirty secret with me to the grave. I was going to kill a man rather than simply tell what he'd done -- because I was still ashamed, and because I didn't want my parents to know, even 25 years later. But then they found out, just in time to prevent me from committing first-degree murder.

If you have a secret you want to keep, never write it down. I know that now, but I didn't when I was ten, the summer between fourth and fifth grade, when I sat down with a pen and my Garfield the Cat diary. The entry is dated June 1981, and while I have no memory of writing it, the penmanship is unmistakably my own. There, between accounts of my grandfather dying and a game-winning double I hit in Little League, is an account of my being raped three years before. I concluded the entry by wondering what I would do if I ever met the man who'd raped me on the street once I myself was a grown man. "Will I smile and shake his hand and pretend nothing happened?" I wrote. "Or will I punch him in the face?"

Last September, my mom and dad decided to spend part of Labor Day weekend going through the cabinets in my old bedroom and box up all of my childhood stuff for attic storage. My mom found the diary and read it. I received a frantic message from her on my voice mail, saying I needed to call home right away. I called back immediately, my first thought that my dad was seriously ill. No, she said, it was nothing like that, but we needed to talk as a family. She got my dad on the phone and they told me about finding the diary, and my mom asked me in a shaking voice if it was true.

Had I had any warning, I would have lied, told my parents no, that the diary entry was just some twisted childhood musing I put down on paper for reasons long forgotten. My parents are both retired and in their sixties, and they didn't need this. But I was not prepared, and so I told the truth. My mom started crying, and I said I'd fly home as soon as I could.

I'd scheduled the murder by then, giving myself a 72-hour window immediately before I was to leave on a two-week trip to Mexico in late December. My plan was to shoot him, ditch the gun, then fly out of the country and keep my ear to the ground from afar, just in case. There's an ill-kept baseball field near his house where I was going to stalk him on a late-night walk. It's a good place for a killing in the suburbs, quiet, usually empty, and hundreds of yards from the closest house on its far side.

But by the time I met with my parents, I'd called off my plan. The truth was now out. It was my mother who'd pulled the trigger: She'd already sent an anonymous letter to his parents, informing them that their son was a child molester and imploring them to do everything in their power to prevent him from being alone with children.

In March my mom called his parents, who now live in Michigan. She'd written down exactly what she wanted to say on a sheet of yellow note paper, used it as a script and then mailed it to me. She started off by saying that what she was about to tell them would be difficult for them to hear, but for the sake of their grandchildren, they should listen. (He has children of his own now, as well as stepchildren.) She told them that their son had violently raped me in the fall of 1978. She told them that he had used a knife. She told them that the typical number of victims for a pedophile his age is well over a hundred. She told them that she regretted finding out what their son had done to me, but now that she had, she felt that they had to know as well. She told them she wished them to have good lives, but to never contact her or my father again -- no Christmas cards, nothing. She told them she hoped their son eventually got caught and spent the rest of his life getting raped in prison. Then she hung up.

By then, I'd begun writing about how I was sexually assaulted as a child, all the while knowing that my story would be incomplete, a failure, if I did not at least try to confront the Bogeyman. Strangely, I was a lot more comfortable with the concept of shooting him in the head than I was with talking to him on the phone, let alone in person.

On May 5, I finally sent two copies of the same letter to his house in Broomfield, one by overnight Airborne Express, one by registered mail.

Remember me? Our parents were good friends in Alaska. I was seven the first year we all moved there. I remember my childhood years in Alaska very, very well, especially a certain night that first year in Alaska, when I was seven -- seven years old, think about it -- when your parents had my family over for dinner, and you and I went down to your bedroom to play with your karate stuff.

I kept what you did to me a secret for 25 years, until my mom found a diary I kept when I was a kid, and in that diary I wrote it all down. It's time for you and I to talk this over. I suggest a meeting, in public, anywhere in the Denver metro, as soon as possible. If seeing me face to face is too uncomfortable for you, then at least call me.

Simply ignoring this letter is not going to work. If I don't hear from you by Friday late afternoon, I'll start calling your house, and then knocking on your front door.

I want to be perfectly clear here: I am not threatening you with any physical harm, and I am not hinting at blackmail. I don't want your blood or your money, just one uncomfortable conversation.

He received the letters with my contact information the next day, and without even taking a night to think it over, called my voice mail and left a message stating that he was willing to meet with me and giving his mobile phone number. I called the next day, got him on the phone, and told him that I appreciated his calling me -- and that I was surprised he had. "Well," he said, "it's a call I should have made a long time ago."

I was stunned, because from his words and tone of voice, it sounded like he was going to actually admit what he'd done, when I knew that almost all pedophiles deny, deny, deny until the day they die.

We arranged to meet at 2 p.m. the following afternoon at a Cracker Barrel near his house. "Is there anything you want to say to me now?" I asked.

"Just that I'm deeply sorry," he said. "I've thought a hundred times about contacting you in the last twenty years to tell you that, and I just never had the courage to pick up the phone. I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you and my parents and your parents."

He sounded sincere, well-rehearsed. The next day, an hour before we were supposed to meet, I changed the location from a chain restaurant in suburbia to the intersection of the 16th Street Mall and Market Street in downtown Denver. He showed up wearing jeans, a gray T-shirt and a Colorado Avalanche cap. When I saw him standing on the corner, anxiously trying to pick me out of the crowd, I realized the moment I had written about in my diary in 1981 had arrived: We were both grown men, and I was meeting him on the street.

I didn't punch him in the face. I did shake his hand. But neither of us pretended that nothing had happened. We were afraid of one another. I was so jacked up on adrenaline, I was shaking. He was sweating like he'd just run a mile.

"Nervous?" he said. I nodded. "Me too," he said.

We walked around the block, and he started by telling me that he'd been waiting for me to contact him for several weeks. Soon after my mom had called his parents in March, he said, his parents had flown to Colorado and confronted him with her accusations. He told me that he'd admitted he had raped me to both his parents and his wife.

"My mom got extremely emotional and didn't handle it well at all, and my dad just went quiet and became very stoic," he said. "They've sort of written me off since then. They used to call me every week, but they don't call me anymore, even though I told them it had only happened with you that once."

He repeated this claim over and over during our conversation, working it into his response to nearly every question I asked. He only had one victim, me. He had not sexually assaulted any other child before or since.

We sat on the mall's stone stools and kept talking, our voices low, both of us looking around to make sure no one was in earshot. I asked him how his wife had reacted. "She was concerned, obviously," he said. "She wanted to know right away if our son was safe, and I told her yes, he is."

Then I hit him with the question I'd always wanted to ask: "Why did you do it?"

He shook his head, and tears welled in his eyes.

"I've asked myself that question over and over and over again, David, and I just don't have a good answer for you. I wish I did, but I just don't know. I know that until I was in my thirties, I didn't really believe other people's feelings were real. I didn't think anyone really mattered but me. Maybe that was it. Maybe if I'd gone into therapy, I could have come up with the answer. All I can say is I'd never done it before and I never did it again, and if there was one thing I could go back in my life and change, that would be it."

I asked if his attack on me was spontaneous or planned. "It wasn't planned," he said. "I just acted on this one weird impulse. As soon as it was over, I was thinking, 'Oh, my God, that's my little sister's friend. How could I have just done that?'"

He said he'd wanted to apologize to me for many years but hadn't sought me out because he didn't want to "reopen old wounds" and because he hoped I had forgotten it ever happened.

"My biggest fear was that I'd ruined your life," he said. "I was afraid that you would turn out to be a homeless drug addict or something and it would all be my fault."

I told him that while I wasn't a street junkie, I did have a tremendous fear of becoming a father, because I didn't believe I'd be able to protect my child from people like him.

Becoming a father had changed his life, he told me. "I've found what love really means," he said. "I used to think that love meant you just really like somebody a whole lot, but when you become a father, you really understand what love is."

I asked him what he would do if he found out that someone had raped his son.

He said, "I'd probably rip their head off."

There's a scene in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly where the gunfighter played by Eli Wallach righteously blows away a guy and then drops this pearl of murderous wisdom: "If you're going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

Because if you let them talk, they may beg, and if they beg, you may not shoot. When I was still planning to kill the man I was now sitting beside on the 16th Street Mall, my plan was to walk up, say, "David Holthouse. You raped me when I was seven," and then pop, one slug to the crotch, let him writhe, kick him over, hold him down with my foot and then pop, pop, pop, three to the back of the head, lights out.

I knew that if I gave him time to talk, I might not pull the trigger -- and sure enough, as soon as I exchanged a few sentences with him, I didn't want to shoot him at all, because I saw him as a frightened, damaged man. He wasn't the Bogeyman anymore. He was real. He begged my forgiveness. He swore I was the only one.

All the experts say he was almost certainly lying. But then, all the experts say it was extremely unusual for him to admit his crime to me, let alone his wife and parents, and he did at least make the admission to his parents. I checked.

I did not grow up in a religious household. But he did. I have been to church three times in my life, and the first was with him and his mom, an evening mass just before Christmas, shortly after he raped me. I remember kneeling beside him in front of red-cushioned pews, feeling afraid. I don't remember the sermon, but talking to him on the mall, I thought of this passage from Romans: "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written 'It is mine to avenge. I will repay.'"

When I had nothing else to say to the man who'd raped me when I was seven, we parted ways. He blended into the crowd.

A rough story. I understand this is a sensitive topic, so if you don't feel comfortable replying to my question, don't feel obliged to. Have you ever been abused? How did you come to terms with it? Was there ever any sort of resolution? If nothing else, have you been able to get past it?

Sp0rAdiC · 05-16-2004, 09:56 AM

wow... thats such a horrible thing, ive never had to deal w/ that, and im glad, im not sure i could. my aunt was raped in college, and that really screwed her up for a few years. she transfered schools several times, had eating disorders, had to go into therapy... i couldnt imagine why anyone would want to do something to another person that causes that much pain and anguish. people like that have always sickened me, and it's scary how many there are that go unnoticed

Peetster · 05-16-2004, 10:39 AM

Very powerful stuff. It's a shame he didn't forgive him. I'm not sure I would be able to, either. But at least he met with a closure of sorts.

bermuDa · 05-16-2004, 12:30 PM

that was an amazing story, I was very moved by that.

I have never been the victim of sexual abuse, and I know I couldn't do such a thing to anyone, let alone a child. I knew a girl who was raped at a young age, but I only knew her for a brief amount of time. it's a sickening crime.

flamingpeach · 05-16-2004, 01:05 PM

I was abused for years and have never fully came to terms with it. The man that abused me had a heart attack and died when the police showed up at his door to question him 7 years ago. I'm dissapointed he didn't have to deal with it. Before he died, I use to think of ways to kill him or ruin his life daily, the way he has ruined mine.

la petite moi · 05-16-2004, 01:18 PM

This story invoked many memories in me. I can relate because in fourth grade the same kind of thing happened to me with another girl who was my age. I spent the night at her house and in the middle of the night, I woke up with my nightgown pulled up and her pulling my underwear off. I tried to yell out, but she told me to shut up because if I didn't she would tell her mum that it was my fault or something. I ended up learning what masturbation is from her, while my face was pressed into a pillow and I could barely breathe while she had fun with my private parts.

It took me until just a few months ago to tell the whole truth to my mother. I wish things like this could be stopped.

RelaX · 05-16-2004, 01:34 PM

Wow... deep stuff... really makes you wonder how you can protect your own (future) children from people like that.

....

I mean, how can you? It really takes someone with an understanding of sexuality and perversion and 'picking up' to actually notice it. It's not like I actually ever heard of a pedo luring a child with candy any more.

I guess the only thing you can do is make sure that your children know that if something like that every happens, they not only can but MUST tell their parents.

As far as being abused... there are.... uncomfortable feelings surrounding the shed of an old man in the neighbourhood I found out some time ago is a known pedophile.
There is the time I looked him in the eyes and he asked me if I didn't remember him.
But no actual memories, so it may all just be my imagination... I prefer to dismiss it as such anyway.
Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss...

Other than that, I don't know anybody who was abused at an early age though. Or no one willing to admit it. Wonder how many of the people I know carry such a deep dark burden....

insidious_machinae · 05-16-2004, 01:39 PM

Wow. I don't have any response for that except to say that I wouldn't have killed the man. I would have kidnapped him and tortured him endlessly until he died from infection or something. Then again, I am utterly merciless.

Crack · 05-16-2004, 02:52 PM

I wasn't Sexually abused, but I was physically abused by my step-father. I was extremely claustrophobic as a kid, and he used to hold me down until I couldn't scream anymore, that was the worst. I could take all the punches, and kicks, and name calling, but being held down on the floor by a 200 pound man when you are a 60 pound kid was the most horrible thing I could think of then. I also remember him beating the hell out of my mother, then when I would try to stop him, he would knock my 9 year old ass on the floor and beat me instead, that was the plan though; he was not hitting my mom any more.
I too, like the author of the above article have had plans of killing him for what he did to my familt, but they didn't get as far as in my mind. The only good thing I can say for the man was that he helped create my two little half-brothers and that I will never see or talk to him ever again.

phredgreen · 05-16-2004, 02:58 PM

I appreciate everyone who has repsonded with their own stores so far. The fact that you are survivors shows that you are much tougher than alot of the people out there and I commend you for that. You have our support and our admiration for breaking the cycle and not perpetuating these terrible acts.

H12 · 05-16-2004, 03:29 PM

Wow...I can't say that I've had the misfortune of any kind of abuse like that, but it really has opened my eyes to the mentality of a victim. I can't imagine killing a man over most anything...but I could understand to a degree in a situation like this.

Xiangsu · 05-16-2004, 08:24 PM

Amazing story, don't know what I would have done. I think I might have killed him, not sure...

dirtyrascal7 · 05-17-2004, 08:50 AM

what blows my mind is how common situations like this seem to be (not the plotting to kill, but the sexual abuse towards children).

i originally read this yesterday and didn't have time to post about it at the time, but when i was walking around campus today i couldn't stop thinking about it and wondering if all the faces i was passing were faces of people who had been abused in some way as a child. it seems so strange that some of them surely have a dark secret similar to david's, something they are effected by everyday, yet no one else knows about it.

quadro2000 · 05-17-2004, 11:27 AM

/utterly speechless

tritium · 05-17-2004, 01:38 PM

I'll try to start at the beginning, as best I can remember it.

In Fall of 2000, at the recommendation of a close friend, I joined a college social fraternity, by the name of Phi Delta Theta. At my private, Baptist-affiliated university, college fraternities carried a different stigma and definition, free of the binge drinking orgies stereotyped of public schools. The college fraternities at my university mean tend to be fairly sheltered and fairly innocent. Though drinking and partying does occur, it is as such a lesser level that those accustomed to the all-out throw downs of larger universities would call what I knew as a drinking party, trivial. That said, I hope you understand that environment in which I operated as a "fraternity brother."

For the four years that I was affiliated with this college fraternity, I functioned in the capacity of our Chapter's chaplain and technical-guru (not an official office!). During my term, I fostered the reputation of being an individual with a fairly strong moral compass and an excellent ear to talk to.

-------------------

In Spring of 2001, one of my closest friends in the fraternity came to be with a set of computer CDs and a story that would change my perception of fraternity and mankind. Up until this point, I had led a fairly sheltered life, innoncent of the sexual depravity of our present society. My friend, let's call him George, came to me that afternoon, clearly distraut.

I'll add more shortly

mingusfingers · 05-17-2004, 02:04 PM

Not much to say to that, can only think about it.

1337haxor · 05-17-2004, 03:07 PM

wow!
I have never had to go through that, but I'm not sure how I would have handled it. I've always been vindictive when things go over a certain point and that would have definately gone way over the top. I would have spashed acid on his crotch, then use a pressure washer on it to get rid of the acid, then poor flesh eating ants all over him, then used a fork to pull out this eyes, then stick an M-80 up his ass, then have some machine pull his arms and legs off while pouring boiling oil on him so he can be lit on fire right before he dies.

-Robert

Xell101 · 05-17-2004, 03:56 PM

Huh, from the descriptions I probably would've killed the guy, in my mind once someone does something like that and it's quite clear it part of that person's nature, he is viewed as the sort that science should have free access to.

raeanna74 · 05-17-2004, 04:55 PM

Wow. That's all I can say.

Sleepyjack · 05-17-2004, 10:06 PM

Amazing story...

Dostoevsky · 05-18-2004, 12:19 PM

Accounts like these frighten me because they could have happened to any one of us, or to our children. It sounds like the culprit in the article above has clinical anti-social disorder. Isn't that when a person has no concept or consideration about the feelings of others? I can't imagine how it would feel to have been abused like that.

analog · 05-18-2004, 03:23 PM

Better man than me, I'd have cut him for sure (easier than all the bullshit associated with "wiping" a gun). Not sure what the message here is though, as gritty a story it is.

Angel · 05-19-2004, 04:51 PM

Whew. Reading that took me through a range of emotions.
The following is a long read (sorry it is so long, pass it if you like) and yet a shortened version of my experience. It is my story.

I was molested for well over a year by my sister's first husband. The first time it happened they were still dating and he came in my room and fondled me. It was dark and I could see that he had on a white shirt with an apple on the front and a army like jacket and a baseball cap. But I didn't realize it was Richard. I was terrified and I pretended to stay asleep out of fear if he knew I was awake he might hurt me worse or kill me.

After he was satisfied with his sick behavior, he walked out of my room as if to leave our home and then suddenly he stopped and I heard him coming back down the hall. As he passed my room, my little dog let out a bark. He walked into my sisters room. All I could think about was that there was a man in our house who had just hurt me and that he was going to hurt my sister.

My parents always slept with their bedroom door locked. Their room was straight across from mine. With fear and full speed adrenaline coursing throughout my body, I got off my bed and ran with everything I had and crashed through their door, breaking the frame and screaming that someone was in my sister's room and that he had been in mine.

My Papa grabbed his gun and in his under shorts, ran into her room and there sitting on the edge of my sister's bed talking to her like nothing was amiss, was Richard. I was sick! My papa asked him what he was doing there so late and he said he was about to leave and he stood up and said goodnight. Papa turned to me and said "what the hell was that all about?" Before I could reply, my mother said I will handle this.

She took me into the kitchen and asked me what happend. I told her every little detail. Her reply...It must have been a dream and the dog just happened to bark and wake me as he walked by. I pleaded with her..."no mom, it wasn't! It was real I saw his shirt, I hurt down there, he did it!" She insisted it must have been a dream and that it was time to go back to bed. She completely invalidated me. I was devistated. It wasn't until years later I learned that she had been molested and that when this happened it all surfaced within her and she couldn't cope. She couldn't deal with my situation without dealing with hers.

Not knowing that at the time, I vowed to never make another peep about it. My sister and he married very shortly after as she was 4 months pregnant at the time. And when my parents would travel out of town, they would have me go stay with them! Not my other sister, but them!

After a few times there, I was sleeping on the couch and Richard came in and he sat at the foot of the couch (I again faked sleep) and he smoked a joint and then began rubbing my leg and working his way up my body. I laid still, did not move, I took it and I kept quiet...after all, who would believe me if my own mother didn't?

This went on until one night I snapped. By then my sister was pregnant with yet another baby and I was 15. I was on the couch, fully clothed and ready. He came in, sat at the foot of the couch and smoked his joint, then reached for me. I said "don't touch me." He said "you know you like it." He continued to reach for me and I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could and I jumped up off of the couch and started calling him every filthy name I could think of. My sister came out and said what is going on? I was so angry that she didn't realize what he had been doing that I said fuck you to her and told her I hated her and I ran from the apartment.

I walked the 2 miles at 2:00 in the morning to my boyfriends house crying all the way. I stayed there and the next morning my other sister showed up and made me go with her. She began to chastize me for my behavior toward my sister and that I should be ashamed of myself...I lost it! I freaked out and told her everything. She pulled over and she held me and I sobbed like I had never sobbed before. We got to her house, called my other sister and she came over and we told her everything. She left him then. And it was never spoken of again until years later when I decided it was time to let go and stop letting it haunt my nights. I decided it was time to take back my power and stop letting the memory of him control my destiny. It was time to live, time to love me, time to release yesterday.

And so recovery began. A difficult road traveled with a wonderful therapist. I can never thank that therapist enough for giving me the tools and the know how to move beyond the pain. I used to say that if I were to see Richard laying in the street dying and I was the only one that could save him, I would gladly stand there and watch him die, watch him look at me with pleading eyes to help him and savor the satisfaction that he was as helpless in my hands as I once was in his.

But I did the work, I let go of the rage, I wrote him a letter saying he no longer controled any part of me, I role played with my therapist and responded as an adult to the things he had done to me, I found an inner strength I didn't know existed, I found someone in me to love, I found hope, I released fear, and most importantly, I learned how to stop hating.

I have not forgiven him per say, just accepted what is. He has never asked my forgiveness as it is and I don't feel the need to hear it from him. I have moved on. I am happy. I actually have one thing to thank him for, he gave me the ability to spot a predetor, to know a victim, the strength to reach out and help others too afraid to stand up for themselves. The drive to be there for the children.

I am alive! With pride, grace and dignity. And I will, until my last breath, be there for anyone who reaches out. And always, always with my eye on the sick predetor that waits in the background like the cowards that they are. They know, when they look into my eyes, that I know. And the children, they know they are safe with me, they know I understand, without a word spoken, they know. It is the link that ties us all together and gives us strength to leave yesterday behind and embrace today with anticipation of tomorrow.

basmoq · 05-19-2004, 07:21 PM

Alive, that is what I am, I have not been abused, but my sister was, and I was the first to find out. My dad gets out of jail in two months, and I plan to be there to make sure the rest of his life is hell. That's it, Hell, I don't want to hurt him physically, although I carry a p32 in case he loses it and comes after me or my sister. I want to destroy him emotionally, I want every one he comes in contact with to know that he is a child molester, that he can't be trusted, and that statistics show that child molesters don't get better. I want to make sure everyone in his neighborhood knows what he has done, I have fliers ready to hand out door to door. I will let God judge him, but I won't let him have the opportunity to repeat what he has done, and destroy another life. It just isn't going to happen, not while I still draw breath... Am I an overprotective big brother, maybe, but what he did din't just affect my sister, it tore our entire family apart.

Sparhawk · 05-20-2004, 06:25 AM

These stories have knocked the breath out of me, like a punch to the chest. So powerful.

My heart goes out to the victims of attacks like these.

hu-man · 05-20-2004, 06:45 AM

Wow, this thread is full of power! Thank you all for sharing these 'secrets' with us, I am deeply moved by all of your stories. Nothing like this has ever happened to me, thank god, but a close friend of mine had a stepfather who had molested her. I saw vacation pictures that he had taken, and just couldn't keep out of my mind how focused they were on her, and her female friend who had come along, as they were bathing and drying in the sun. Luckily I never met the man, or I might just have punched him in the mouth, but aimed the punch a foot behind his head

Esco · 05-20-2004, 07:03 AM

I haven't experienced this first-hand, just indirectly through my girlfriend. The trauma from that experienced is with her for the rest of her life and will never go away. It was a relative, like it is in a lot of cases and we still see him and the other members of the family. I won't even go into all the feelings she goes through when she sees him ... but I've never had such a basic hate for a person in my life as I do for this bastard.

I now know I could kill a man with no problem at all, whereas before I wasn't completely certain.

Peetster · 05-20-2004, 07:40 AM

Thank you all for sharing.

Amethyst · 05-22-2004, 04:19 PM

When I first started reading this story in my mind I was thinking kill him that is what I would do. Just do it he deserves to die. Then when I got to the end of the story I had changed my mind completly. Angel as I was reading your story it took me back to a night that I was babysitting these two boys that lived down the block from my house. I often babysat for them but mostly during the day while there mom was at work.(snow days no school etc.) But she asked if I could watch the boys one Friday night while she worked as a bartender. Her boyfriend who I had never met but the boys had told me that he was always drunk and was crazy. So, this night I came to babysit and she told me that I could just crash on the couch and go home in the morning because she was not going to be home until like 2 a.m. So, I spent the night. I really couldn't get any sleep because I don't like to sleep at other people's houses so I was awake when they came home, but they didn't know it I just pretended to be asleep. Really trying to go to sleep. So, she comes in the house and she was really loud and her boyfriend came walking in behind her they were both really loud. They went to the bedroom and a little later they both come out and he walked up to the couch I was sleeping on and he pulled out his penis and was shaking it in my face. I was so scared I just kept my eyes closed and I didn't know what to do. And she was just laughing at him. I really wanted to get up and run out of the house but I was afraid he would hurt me or rape me. He kept on doing it and calling me names, not knowing I was awake. Finally the mom made him stop and they went to bed. And that was the last time I ever watched the boys again. And I have never told anyone about it until now.

ratbastid · 06-01-2004, 06:48 AM

Followup: This week the author of this article was arrested for stalking the rapist:

Quote:

Reporter is accused of stalking man

By Sean Kelly
Denver Post Staff Writer
Post / Helen H. Richardson

A Westword reporter who wrote a cover story confessing to temporarily planning the murder of a man he says raped him in 1978 was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of felony stalking.

David Holthouse, a writer at the Denver-based alternative weekly, was arrested Saturday in Broomfield and is free on bond.

Holthouse, 33, said Monday he was arrested after a friend followed the alleged rapist and staked out his home. But Holthouse said he believes he was arrested because of the story he wrote.

"Any charges against me are essentially charges of thought crimes," he said.

Broomfield police on Monday said the case remained under investigation and they could not provide details.

In the Westword cover story, published May 13, Holthouse described how he planned to kill the man - even going so far as to buy an illegal gun and stake out his house.

"I was going to watch him writhe like a poisoned cockroach for a few seconds, then kick him onto his stomach and put three bullets in the back of his head. This time last year I had a gun, and a silencer, and a plan," Holthouse wrote.

But in the story, Holthouse said he had a change of heart after his parents learned of the assault, which happened when he was a 7-year-old boy in Alaska. Instead, Holthouse wrote, he met the man on the 16th Street Mall last month.

The man, he said, admitted to the assault and apologized, claiming Holthouse was his only victim. The Denver Post is not naming the alleged rapist because he has not been charged with any crime. His phone number was disconnected.

Alaska-based lawyer Sidney Billingslea said she represents the man accused in Holthouse's article.

When asked if her client raped Holthouse, she said the story in Westword is "fairly accurate," except for the age of her client. At the time of the incident, she said, her client was 14, not 17 as the article implies.

Billingslea said she believes no criminal charges or civil filings are ever likely against her client because the statute of limitations has run out.

Holthouse said that despite the criminal charge against him, he has "absolutely no intention" of harming the man.

But, "I was seriously considering doing him harm at one time," he said.

In the story, "Stalking the Bogeyman," Holthouse recounts being savagely raped at knifepoint at age 7. It was 1978, and Holthouse was living with his parents in Anchorage.

The teenage son of his parents' best friends took him into a basement bedroom. There the teenager forcibly raped him, Holthouse said.

"I had no words for what was happening, no concept of 'rape' or 'sex.' I just knew that I was terrified and in pain," Holthouse wrote.

The Westword story was picked up by two Alaska newspapers, including the Anchorage Daily News.

And last week, Holthouse's mother sent letters to the man's neighbors in a Broomfield housing development. The letters warned of the man's past, Holthouse said.

On Friday, saying he was fearful the man would retaliate against his parents, Holthouse asked a friend to watch the man and make sure he did not travel to the airport.

His friend, identified by police as Nelson Guanipa, 29, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of stalking. Holthouse said he went to Broomfield to bail Guanipa out of jail and was arrested himself.

Westword editor Patricia Calhoun said Holthouse likely is the paper's first reporter arrested after a story was written. She said Westword stands by the article.

"The story has resulted in an unbelievable outpouring of letters and e-mails from people who also were sexually assaulted as children," Calhoun said. "That's confirmed our original decision to run the story."

Holthouse is scheduled to appear in court July 1 to be advised of charges. He said he worries he may face additional charges; stalking alone carries a penalty of up to eighteen months.

"I thought the story was more important than any legal risk to myself," Holthouse said of his decision to write the article.

Does he still feel that way?

"Absolutely."

rat · 06-01-2004, 07:25 AM

sad, but somehow seems not too far out of the norm with our society ratbastid....and he did make a written confession to something considered a crime...he even went so far as to publish it.

the_marq · 06-01-2004, 09:45 AM

Thanks for sharing the story Phred.

p0thead · 06-01-2004, 02:01 PM

wow i have chills just reading that... i guess i was lucky to never have been abused but i have had many female friends that have been abused by their father/older brother/family friend.. it is a very sad thing

05-16-2004, 12:30 PM	#4 (permalink)
bermuDa don't ignore this--> Location: CA	that was an amazing story, I was very moved by that. I have never been the victim of sexual abuse, and I know I couldn't do such a thing to anyone, let alone a child. I knew a girl who was raped at a young age, but I only knew her for a brief amount of time. it's a sickening crime. __________________ I am the very model of a moderator gentleman.

05-16-2004, 01:05 PM	#5 (permalink)
flamingpeach hip mama Location: redmond, washington	I was abused for years and have never fully came to terms with it. The man that abused me had a heart attack and died when the police showed up at his door to question him 7 years ago. I'm dissapointed he didn't have to deal with it. Before he died, I use to think of ways to kill him or ruin his life daily, the way he has ruined mine. __________________ I've eaten my veggies all my life so bring it on, I am educated and strong for the revolution.

05-16-2004, 01:18 PM	#6 (permalink)
la petite moi Filling the Void. Location: California	This story invoked many memories in me. I can relate because in fourth grade the same kind of thing happened to me with another girl who was my age. I spent the night at her house and in the middle of the night, I woke up with my nightgown pulled up and her pulling my underwear off. I tried to yell out, but she told me to shut up because if I didn't she would tell her mum that it was my fault or something. I ended up learning what masturbation is from her, while my face was pressed into a pillow and I could barely breathe while she had fun with my private parts. It took me until just a few months ago to tell the whole truth to my mother. I wish things like this could be stopped. Last edited by la petite moi; 05-16-2004 at 01:42 PM..

05-16-2004, 01:34 PM	#7 (permalink)
RelaX Follower of Ner'Zhul Location: Netherlands	Wow... deep stuff... really makes you wonder how you can protect your own (future) children from people like that. .... I mean, how can you? It really takes someone with an understanding of sexuality and perversion and 'picking up' to actually notice it. It's not like I actually ever heard of a pedo luring a child with candy any more. I guess the only thing you can do is make sure that your children know that if something like that every happens, they not only can but MUST tell their parents. As far as being abused... there are.... uncomfortable feelings surrounding the shed of an old man in the neighbourhood I found out some time ago is a known pedophile. There is the time I looked him in the eyes and he asked me if I didn't remember him. But no actual memories, so it may all just be my imagination... I prefer to dismiss it as such anyway. Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss... Other than that, I don't know anybody who was abused at an early age though. Or no one willing to admit it. Wonder how many of the people I know carry such a deep dark burden.... __________________ The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. - Nathaniel Borenstein

05-16-2004, 02:52 PM	#9 (permalink)
Crack Misanthropic Location: Ohio! yay!	I wasn't Sexually abused, but I was physically abused by my step-father. I was extremely claustrophobic as a kid, and he used to hold me down until I couldn't scream anymore, that was the worst. I could take all the punches, and kicks, and name calling, but being held down on the floor by a 200 pound man when you are a 60 pound kid was the most horrible thing I could think of then. I also remember him beating the hell out of my mother, then when I would try to stop him, he would knock my 9 year old ass on the floor and beat me instead, that was the plan though; he was not hitting my mom any more. I too, like the author of the above article have had plans of killing him for what he did to my familt, but they didn't get as far as in my mind. The only good thing I can say for the man was that he helped create my two little half-brothers and that I will never see or talk to him ever again. __________________ Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex. ~Halx

05-16-2004, 09:56 AM	#2 (permalink)
Sp0rAdiC Insane Location: VT	wow... thats such a horrible thing, ive never had to deal w/ that, and im glad, im not sure i could. my aunt was raped in college, and that really screwed her up for a few years. she transfered schools several times, had eating disorders, had to go into therapy... i couldnt imagine why anyone would want to do something to another person that causes that much pain and anguish. people like that have always sickened me, and it's scary how many there are that go unnoticed

05-16-2004, 10:39 AM	#3 (permalink)
Peetster Right Now Location: Home	Very powerful stuff. It's a shame he didn't forgive him. I'm not sure I would be able to, either. But at least he met with a closure of sorts.

05-16-2004, 01:39 PM	#8 (permalink)
insidious_machinae Psycho	Wow. I don't have any response for that except to say that I wouldn't have killed the man. I would have kidnapped him and tortured him endlessly until he died from infection or something. Then again, I am utterly merciless.

05-16-2004, 02:58 PM	#10 (permalink)
phredgreen who? Location: the phoenix metro	I appreciate everyone who has repsonded with their own stores so far. The fact that you are survivors shows that you are much tougher than alot of the people out there and I commend you for that. You have our support and our admiration for breaking the cycle and not perpetuating these terrible acts. __________________ My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. - Thomas Paine

05-16-2004, 03:29 PM	#11 (permalink)
H12 I'm not about getting creamed, I'm about winning! Location: K-Town, TN	Wow...I can't say that I've had the misfortune of any kind of abuse like that, but it really has opened my eyes to the mentality of a victim. I can't imagine killing a man over most anything...but I could understand to a degree in a situation like this. __________________ "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle

05-16-2004, 08:24 PM	#12 (permalink)
Xiangsu Addict Location: Illinois	Amazing story, don't know what I would have done. I think I might have killed him, not sure...

05-17-2004, 08:50 AM	#13 (permalink)
dirtyrascal7 That's what she said	what blows my mind is how common situations like this seem to be (not the plotting to kill, but the sexual abuse towards children). i originally read this yesterday and didn't have time to post about it at the time, but when i was walking around campus today i couldn't stop thinking about it and wondering if all the faces i was passing were faces of people who had been abused in some way as a child. it seems so strange that some of them surely have a dark secret similar to david's, something they are effected by everyday, yet no one else knows about it. __________________ "Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past." "Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him."

05-17-2004, 11:27 AM	#14 (permalink)
quadro2000 All Possibility, Made Of Custard Location: New York, NY	/utterly speechless __________________ You have to laugh at yourself...because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't. - Emily Saliers

05-17-2004, 01:38 PM	#15 (permalink)
tritium Professor of Drinkology	I'll try to start at the beginning, as best I can remember it. In Fall of 2000, at the recommendation of a close friend, I joined a college social fraternity, by the name of Phi Delta Theta. At my private, Baptist-affiliated university, college fraternities carried a different stigma and definition, free of the binge drinking orgies stereotyped of public schools. The college fraternities at my university mean tend to be fairly sheltered and fairly innocent. Though drinking and partying does occur, it is as such a lesser level that those accustomed to the all-out throw downs of larger universities would call what I knew as a drinking party, trivial. That said, I hope you understand that environment in which I operated as a "fraternity brother." For the four years that I was affiliated with this college fraternity, I functioned in the capacity of our Chapter's chaplain and technical-guru (not an official office!). During my term, I fostered the reputation of being an individual with a fairly strong moral compass and an excellent ear to talk to. ------------------- In Spring of 2001, one of my closest friends in the fraternity came to be with a set of computer CDs and a story that would change my perception of fraternity and mankind. Up until this point, I had led a fairly sheltered life, innoncent of the sexual depravity of our present society. My friend, let's call him George, came to me that afternoon, clearly distraut. I'll add more shortly __________________ Blah. Last edited by tritium; 05-20-2004 at 10:19 AM..

05-17-2004, 02:04 PM	#16 (permalink)
mingusfingers Psycho Location: uhhhh	Not much to say to that, can only think about it. __________________ Still Looking

05-17-2004, 10:06 PM	#20 (permalink)
Sleepyjack Fast'n'Bulbous Location: Australia, Perth	Amazing story...

05-17-2004, 03:07 PM	#17 (permalink)
1337haxor Insane Location: PA	wow! I have never had to go through that, but I'm not sure how I would have handled it. I've always been vindictive when things go over a certain point and that would have definately gone way over the top. I would have spashed acid on his crotch, then use a pressure washer on it to get rid of the acid, then poor flesh eating ants all over him, then used a fork to pull out this eyes, then stick an M-80 up his ass, then have some machine pull his arms and legs off while pouring boiling oil on him so he can be lit on fire right before he dies. -Robert

05-17-2004, 03:56 PM	#18 (permalink)
Xell101 Junkie	Huh, from the descriptions I probably would've killed the guy, in my mind once someone does something like that and it's quite clear it part of that person's nature, he is viewed as the sort that science should have free access to.

05-17-2004, 04:55 PM	#19 (permalink)
raeanna74 I'm not a blonde! I'm knot! I'm knot! I'm knot! Location: Upper Michigan	Wow. That's all I can say. __________________ "Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

05-18-2004, 12:19 PM	#21 (permalink)
Dostoevsky Psycho Location: Macon, GA	Accounts like these frighten me because they could have happened to any one of us, or to our children. It sounds like the culprit in the article above has clinical anti-social disorder. Isn't that when a person has no concept or consideration about the feelings of others? I can't imagine how it would feel to have been abused like that. __________________ Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned. It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

05-18-2004, 03:23 PM	#22 (permalink)
analog Banned	Better man than me, I'd have cut him for sure (easier than all the bullshit associated with "wiping" a gun). Not sure what the message here is though, as gritty a story it is.

05-19-2004, 04:51 PM	#23 (permalink)
Angel Naughty Just Right Location: Euphoria	Whew. Reading that took me through a range of emotions. The following is a long read (sorry it is so long, pass it if you like) and yet a shortened version of my experience. It is my story. I was molested for well over a year by my sister's first husband. The first time it happened they were still dating and he came in my room and fondled me. It was dark and I could see that he had on a white shirt with an apple on the front and a army like jacket and a baseball cap. But I didn't realize it was Richard. I was terrified and I pretended to stay asleep out of fear if he knew I was awake he might hurt me worse or kill me. After he was satisfied with his sick behavior, he walked out of my room as if to leave our home and then suddenly he stopped and I heard him coming back down the hall. As he passed my room, my little dog let out a bark. He walked into my sisters room. All I could think about was that there was a man in our house who had just hurt me and that he was going to hurt my sister. My parents always slept with their bedroom door locked. Their room was straight across from mine. With fear and full speed adrenaline coursing throughout my body, I got off my bed and ran with everything I had and crashed through their door, breaking the frame and screaming that someone was in my sister's room and that he had been in mine. My Papa grabbed his gun and in his under shorts, ran into her room and there sitting on the edge of my sister's bed talking to her like nothing was amiss, was Richard. I was sick! My papa asked him what he was doing there so late and he said he was about to leave and he stood up and said goodnight. Papa turned to me and said "what the hell was that all about?" Before I could reply, my mother said I will handle this. She took me into the kitchen and asked me what happend. I told her every little detail. Her reply...It must have been a dream and the dog just happened to bark and wake me as he walked by. I pleaded with her..."no mom, it wasn't! It was real I saw his shirt, I hurt down there, he did it!" She insisted it must have been a dream and that it was time to go back to bed. She completely invalidated me. I was devistated. It wasn't until years later I learned that she had been molested and that when this happened it all surfaced within her and she couldn't cope. She couldn't deal with my situation without dealing with hers. Not knowing that at the time, I vowed to never make another peep about it. My sister and he married very shortly after as she was 4 months pregnant at the time. And when my parents would travel out of town, they would have me go stay with them! Not my other sister, but them! After a few times there, I was sleeping on the couch and Richard came in and he sat at the foot of the couch (I again faked sleep) and he smoked a joint and then began rubbing my leg and working his way up my body. I laid still, did not move, I took it and I kept quiet...after all, who would believe me if my own mother didn't? This went on until one night I snapped. By then my sister was pregnant with yet another baby and I was 15. I was on the couch, fully clothed and ready. He came in, sat at the foot of the couch and smoked his joint, then reached for me. I said "don't touch me." He said "you know you like it." He continued to reach for me and I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could and I jumped up off of the couch and started calling him every filthy name I could think of. My sister came out and said what is going on? I was so angry that she didn't realize what he had been doing that I said fuck you to her and told her I hated her and I ran from the apartment. I walked the 2 miles at 2:00 in the morning to my boyfriends house crying all the way. I stayed there and the next morning my other sister showed up and made me go with her. She began to chastize me for my behavior toward my sister and that I should be ashamed of myself...I lost it! I freaked out and told her everything. She pulled over and she held me and I sobbed like I had never sobbed before. We got to her house, called my other sister and she came over and we told her everything. She left him then. And it was never spoken of again until years later when I decided it was time to let go and stop letting it haunt my nights. I decided it was time to take back my power and stop letting the memory of him control my destiny. It was time to live, time to love me, time to release yesterday. And so recovery began. A difficult road traveled with a wonderful therapist. I can never thank that therapist enough for giving me the tools and the know how to move beyond the pain. I used to say that if I were to see Richard laying in the street dying and I was the only one that could save him, I would gladly stand there and watch him die, watch him look at me with pleading eyes to help him and savor the satisfaction that he was as helpless in my hands as I once was in his. But I did the work, I let go of the rage, I wrote him a letter saying he no longer controled any part of me, I role played with my therapist and responded as an adult to the things he had done to me, I found an inner strength I didn't know existed, I found someone in me to love, I found hope, I released fear, and most importantly, I learned how to stop hating. I have not forgiven him per say, just accepted what is. He has never asked my forgiveness as it is and I don't feel the need to hear it from him. I have moved on. I am happy. I actually have one thing to thank him for, he gave me the ability to spot a predetor, to know a victim, the strength to reach out and help others too afraid to stand up for themselves. The drive to be there for the children. I am alive! With pride, grace and dignity. And I will, until my last breath, be there for anyone who reaches out. And always, always with my eye on the sick predetor that waits in the background like the cowards that they are. They know, when they look into my eyes, that I know. And the children, they know they are safe with me, they know I understand, without a word spoken, they know. It is the link that ties us all together and gives us strength to leave yesterday behind and embrace today with anticipation of tomorrow. __________________ In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus

05-19-2004, 07:21 PM	#24 (permalink)
basmoq It's a girly girl! Location: OH, USA	Alive, that is what I am, I have not been abused, but my sister was, and I was the first to find out. My dad gets out of jail in two months, and I plan to be there to make sure the rest of his life is hell. That's it, Hell, I don't want to hurt him physically, although I carry a p32 in case he loses it and comes after me or my sister. I want to destroy him emotionally, I want every one he comes in contact with to know that he is a child molester, that he can't be trusted, and that statistics show that child molesters don't get better. I want to make sure everyone in his neighborhood knows what he has done, I have fliers ready to hand out door to door. I will let God judge him, but I won't let him have the opportunity to repeat what he has done, and destroy another life. It just isn't going to happen, not while I still draw breath... Am I an overprotective big brother, maybe, but what he did din't just affect my sister, it tore our entire family apart. __________________ "There's someone out there for everyone - even if you need a pickaxe, a compass, and night goggles to find them."

05-20-2004, 06:25 AM	#25 (permalink)
Sparhawk Dubya Location: VA	These stories have knocked the breath out of me, like a punch to the chest. So powerful. My heart goes out to the victims of attacks like these. __________________ "In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

05-20-2004, 06:45 AM	#26 (permalink)
hu-man The one that got away Location: Over the hill and far away	Wow, this thread is full of power! Thank you all for sharing these 'secrets' with us, I am deeply moved by all of your stories. Nothing like this has ever happened to me, thank god, but a close friend of mine had a stepfather who had molested her. I saw vacation pictures that he had taken, and just couldn't keep out of my mind how focused they were on her, and her female friend who had come along, as they were bathing and drying in the sun. Luckily I never met the man, or I might just have punched him in the mouth, but aimed the punch a foot behind his head

05-20-2004, 07:03 AM	#27 (permalink)
Esco Insane	I haven't experienced this first-hand, just indirectly through my girlfriend. The trauma from that experienced is with her for the rest of her life and will never go away. It was a relative, like it is in a lot of cases and we still see him and the other members of the family. I won't even go into all the feelings she goes through when she sees him ... but I've never had such a basic hate for a person in my life as I do for this bastard. I now know I could kill a man with no problem at all, whereas before I wasn't completely certain. __________________ The user formerly known as BlingBling

05-20-2004, 07:40 AM	#28 (permalink)
Peetster Right Now Location: Home	Thank you all for sharing.

05-22-2004, 04:19 PM	#29 (permalink)
Amethyst Addict Location: Illinois	When I first started reading this story in my mind I was thinking kill him that is what I would do. Just do it he deserves to die. Then when I got to the end of the story I had changed my mind completly. Angel as I was reading your story it took me back to a night that I was babysitting these two boys that lived down the block from my house. I often babysat for them but mostly during the day while there mom was at work.(snow days no school etc.) But she asked if I could watch the boys one Friday night while she worked as a bartender. Her boyfriend who I had never met but the boys had told me that he was always drunk and was crazy. So, this night I came to babysit and she told me that I could just crash on the couch and go home in the morning because she was not going to be home until like 2 a.m. So, I spent the night. I really couldn't get any sleep because I don't like to sleep at other people's houses so I was awake when they came home, but they didn't know it I just pretended to be asleep. Really trying to go to sleep. So, she comes in the house and she was really loud and her boyfriend came walking in behind her they were both really loud. They went to the bedroom and a little later they both come out and he walked up to the couch I was sleeping on and he pulled out his penis and was shaking it in my face. I was so scared I just kept my eyes closed and I didn't know what to do. And she was just laughing at him. I really wanted to get up and run out of the house but I was afraid he would hurt me or rape me. He kept on doing it and calling me names, not knowing I was awake. Finally the mom made him stop and they went to bed. And that was the last time I ever watched the boys again. And I have never told anyone about it until now.

06-01-2004, 09:45 AM	#32 (permalink)
the_marq All hail the Mountain King Location: Black Mesa	Thanks for sharing the story Phred. __________________ The Truth: Johnny Cash could have kicked Bruce Lee's ass if he wanted to. #3 in a series

06-01-2004, 02:01 PM	#33 (permalink)
p0thead Insane Location: born in vietnam, lost in california	wow i have chills just reading that... i guess i was lucky to never have been abused but i have had many female friends that have been abused by their father/older brother/family friend.. it is a very sad thing