I was 14 years old and a very naïve and conservative 14 year old. I had just moved from my hometown to about 20 minutes up the road but it had meant switching school systems. I had been living in the new town for a year and a half and I was miserable. I was being bullied incessantly by the kids in this school and the teachers had written me off as learning disabled and they either ridiculed me or ignored me. I wanted to go home to my real friends to my school, to my church.When we had moved though my parents had made my brothers and Me give up our old life including our friends. There was 1 girl in this new town who lived 5 minutes up the road from me and she and bonded from day 1 she became my best friend, my Allie, she helped me navigate my new school, she hung out constantly at my house, we were inseparable. She asked a lot of questions about my life back in the town that I had just moved from. I told her all about my friends, my school, where my friends and I used to hang out etc…

I had met her parents once before in March 1999 at my then best friends birthday party. Her Dad seemed kind of creepy. He had tried to pin me to the couch in their living room, put his hands under my shirt and tickle me. It freaked me out but he said it was just a joke, I believed him. I didn’t think much of it.

6 months later on Friday September 17th 1999 my then best friend invited me over to her house. I told her I would come over under one condition, that her Dad wouldn’t be home. She swore up and down that he wouldn’t be home. So after school that day, it was a half day, so just after 1:00 p.m.my Mom drove me over to my best friend’s house. She told me “Whatever you do,if her Dad is home do not go ANYWHERE with him in that van and do not be in any rooms alone with him”. I agreed thinking that it wouldn’t be an issue since my best friend had said that her Dad wouldn’t be home. Mom left and I headed for the door,her Dad opened the door. Intuition told me something was off but I ignored it and went into the house. My best friend was standing behind her father smirking. I was uneasy but again brushed off that feeling. We were hanging out in her room when her Dad came into her room and asked if we wanted to go to the pizza place in my old town to get something to eat. I knew my Mom had said not to go with him. I told myself though that it was a ten minute drive. He had to drive the van and once we were there it was a public place so nothing could happen. So despite that little voice in the back of my head telling me not to go with him I agreed to go. I told him that I had to be home in 1 hour, he said that I would be. I know now that by offering to take me somewhere that I was familiar with, where I would feel safe that he lured me and by legal definition he kidnapped me.

Once we were in his van the questions started. “How old are you?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “Have you ever done anything with a guy?” “Has a guy ever done anything to you?” “What would you want to do with a guy? What would you want a guy to do with you?” “Have you ever been around the bases?” My “best friend” spoke up and told him, “Dad she’s The Little Virgin Mary Prude! She’s never even kissed a guy yet!” I felt so ashamed of that fact and so sick to my stomach, I knew in that moment something bad was going to happen. He told me to look down and notice the handle on the inside of the sliding door. When I looked down to where the handle should have been it wasn’t there. He told me that he had installed child safety locks on the other doors. He pointed out that the regular windows had been replaced with dark tinted windows so that no one could see in. He told me that I was trapped. He told me that from that point on that “I was his captive that I would never escape, he was never going to release me and that I was never going home.” He said that he was “going to have a lot of fun with me” we drove into the parking lot of the pizza place. He parked and turned off the van. He came into the van, he started asking me if I was ticklish. I said no he asked again and I said no, he asked a 3rd time and that’s when his daughter said “Dad she’s ticklish everywhere……and I mean everywhere” he asked me if that was true, I said No and to leave me alone. He said “Well then I’ll just have to find out for myself” that’s when it started he forced his hands under my shirt and he pulled up my bra. He started tickling my breasts I don’t know how long it lasted.

I tried to fight him off but his daughter grabbed my wrists and held them above my head. I tried to talk to him to humanize myself to him. I told him about my family, my friends, my school, my church. None of it seemed to register with him. His eyes were just dead black. I promised him that if he just let me go that I wouldn’t tell anyone what he had done that he could end it right then and there all he had to do was let me go. All he said was, ”No.” She laughed in my face and the two of them called me “The Little Virgin Mary Prude” and “Little Goody Two Shoes” “Little Goody Goody ”He asked me if I liked the way he was tickling me? I said No! He asked again and I said No! He told me “If you tell me that you like me tickling you I’ll stop and I’ll let you go” I didn’t want to tell him I liked it because I didn’t…..but I wanted to go home. So I told him that I liked it, he made me tell him specifically what I liked. He made me tell him twice more that I liked it, always with a promise attached of being let go, of him taking me home of him stopping and never touching me again. Each time that I told him that I liked it and then reminded him of his promise he shrugged his shoulders and would tell me that he lied and that he was going to keep going. ”After awhile he said “You really don’t like this do you?” After already having made me tell him that I did like it. I said No, I begged him to stop and to let me go. He said “You’re saying no but your body isn’t” then he smirked and said “Then Maybe you’ll like this better and he forced his hand down my pants and underwear. In that moment my soul died. I asked his daughter who I thought was my best friend , crying, why they were doing this that I thought we were friends.” She glared at me and told me, ”We were *never* friends!! This whole thing was my idea!! I HATE you. I hate that you are such a Little Virgin Mary Prude!! I hate that you are such a Little Goody Two Shoes. I hate you for the fact that you are so holy and so pure!! I wanted to teach you a lesson as to what happens to girls like you who are too nice and who trust too many people….they get hurt…badly!!”He asked me “Does it tickle?. I started to dissociate at that point but he made me look at him while he was “tickling” me down there. He asked me how it felt to know that he was taking away my purity? How it felt to know that that first intimate moment that I should share with my future husband was now gone? He made me again tell him that I liked it. He brought me to the edge of…and then stopped. He told me that “If I wanted him to finish me I had to tell him that that’s what I wanted. I told him “No” He asked his daughter if he should go further with me? She said yes. I HATED that my body was responding to what he was doing. I wanted to die. I finally begged him “Just Rape me and let me go” figuring if I let him attain his primary goal that maybe he would let me go after because he would have gotten what he wanted. He told me, ”I can’t rape you.” I had a glimmer of hope that I would get out of this nightmare without being raped. Then that sadistic smile came over his face. He told me,”Because I need to save some fun for my house for later.” I realized in that moment that my nightmare was far from over. His hand again slithered down my underwear. I don’t know how long it my attack lasted in that van. From what I can figure of the timeline it was about an hour and a half to two hours.

When it was over he made me go into the restaurant with him and Andrea to eat. In the restaurant he tried to use the grinder that he had forced me to order so that things looked “normal” to choke me.  I managed to fight him until he stopped and let go. I kicked him and when he stumbled back a few steps I jumped up and ran. He caught up to me pretty quickly. I tried to get free but wasn’t able to. He told me to walk back to the van with him or he would drag me. I willingly walked back to where we were parked. He forced me back into the van while telling me not to look around. He drove his daughter and I back to our neighborhood but he drove on the wrong side of the road at a high rate of speed. He asked if, ”I was ready to die, if I was ready to go to Heaven…because all he would have to do was lose control of the van and go off the side of the road into a tree and that I would be killed.” He then took his hands off the wheel and we began to veer toward the side of the road. I started to cry. His daughter laughed. He regained control of the van and laughed at my terror. I begged him to take me home that I just wanted to go home. He told me he would. I again had a glimmer of hope that my nightmare was coming to an end. He drove into their road. I asked him where he was going that I lived just around the bend. He told me, ”I told you I was taking you home I didn’t say I was taking you to *your* home. He drove me back to his home where He let us out of the van. I tried to run but he again caught up to me. He came up behind me and grabbed me with an arm around my stomach and a hand tightly over my mouth. He told me, ”don’t Yell Don’t Scream. You are going to be a good girl and cooperate with me and go back inside the house and you are not going to fight me. He physically dragged me to the door. He took his hand off of my mouth to open the door and told me “stay quiet” and then told me “Take One Last Good look Around Because You’ will never see the outside again.” I asked him “Are you going to kill me?” he said “I’m not going to kill you. I can’t kill you , I am going to keep you as a captive in my home though for when I need you for…..things” He got me back inside and he forced me down on the couch. He began pulling my pants and underwear down. I was fighting him as hard as I could. He stopped. I thought I had won, until he went to the entry way of the living room and started yelling for his daughter to “Get the rope and bring him the rope so that he could deal with me and be done.” I realized that he might have changed his mind and decided to kill me because I wouldn’t stop fighting. I told him that I would stop fighting and that I would be good. That seemed to satisfy him. He came back over to the couch and told me not to move. He again began pulling my pants and underwear down, stopping every minute to touch me down there. He was still pulling them down when mercifully his wife came home three hours earlier than expected and that scared him off and she got me out of the home. As I was getting into her van he came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around he stuck out his hand and told me, ”no Hard Feelings it was all just a game. We were ALL just playing a game.” It was not a question but a statement telling me that I had better agree with him. I just stood there staring at him not able to move. I at that point had gone into shock. He walked away whistling. His wife brought me home.

The following Monday he followed me home from school. Every school day after that he would either drop his kids at the bottom of my road to catch the bus or would drive by and if I was alone he would stop and roll down his window. He would tell me,”Just remember” which I took to mean to remember that he knew where I lived. He would also tell me that “I wouldn’t know where or when but that he was going to grab me again, that he *was* going to finish what he had started and that the next time I would not be so lucky.” A little more than a year later he found me alone at the bus stop and he did attempt a second time to abduct me. The only thing that stopped him was the school bus coming around the corner. I was lucky. I didn’t say a word. I lived in fear for another year until he and his family moved out of state. I didn’t disclose my abduction and sexual assault until I was at Anna Maria College as a freshman at 20 years old in 2005. I disclosed to the Director of The Molly Bish Child Advocacy Center, Patty O’Leary after God put me in the Center on October 10th 2005. Through the Molly Bish Center I worked with Patty under going a daily regimen of counseling, I traveled with John, Magi and Patty conducting Child ID Kit Programs and speaking on abduction prevention. The Molly Bish Center has given me my voice and my life back.

if you or someone you know is a victim of assault and would like help they can contact :

VictimConnect
National Hotline for Crime Victims
1-855-4-VICTIM (1-855-484-2846) 

Office for Victims of Crime, Directory of Crime Victim Services
[links to programs and services available to crime victims]

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-TALK (8255)  [24/7 hotline]
1-888-628-9454 (Spanish)
1-800-799-4889 (TTY)