The Attacks

It was all pretty unreal. He showed up wearing his Army field jacket, zipped up, and black winter gloves. (He's one of those guys who won't wear gloves in -10 degree weather.) I was there alone working on the bills and didn't see any choice but to let him in. After a brief tour of the house (supposedly to see how much I'd done since he'd left), he went back out to his truck and brought in his back pack and rifle. He said he'd brought the rifle because he didn't want to leave it at his mother's with the kids there, and didn't want to leave it in the truck. Why did I feel even more apprehensive at this point? I tried to buy it. Heavy denial.

He was behaving very strangely. I went back to the computer and he walked up behind me several times, just standing a few feet behind me. I was puzzled, but didn't say anything. He never seemed interested in what I was doing before... After a while I went in to the kitchen to fix dinner, offering to fix him some, too. I turned my back to get the salt from the cabinet and he threw a cord over my head, fortunately it caught on my chin and didn't make it to my neck, as he had intended. It took a moment to realize that he was actually strangling me. I thought all my life that I'm not a screamer. Given the right circumstances, I am.

He then dragged me by the neck about 30 feet into the center of the living room where he was going to rape me for all the times I'd rejected him. He gave up when I wouldn't cooperate by taking my hands off his arm (which was around my neck still). He finally let me go. I was on all fours and he was standing right by me. He said he was going to kill me, then kill himself, that he had nothing left to live for. I begged for my life for several minutes. I said, " Please don't kill me." He'd reply, "Why not?" Talk about pressure. I mentioned the kids, he said, "they don't matter, nothing matters now." No answer I could give was going to help. I totally lost hope of surviving that night.

I was probably about eight feet from the computer table, which had a phone on it. I crouched there on the floor, knowing I was going to die any moment, debating whether it would be worth trying for the phone. He was standing over me, so I knew I wouldn't have much time to move far enough to grab the cord and hopefully pull the phone off the table. Then, if I got THAT far, I had no idea if the 911 system here was computerized to detect addresses...if there would be time to dial those three digits. I didn't have a shred of hope that I would get through. I knew if I tried he would kill me sooner, but I was totally convinced I wasn't going to survive anyway. I went for the phone, knowing in my heart that it was totally futile. I figured I had to die knowing I had at least tried SOMETHING. I didn't even get the phone off the table.

He hauled me back to the center of the rug and pulled handcuffs out of his jacket pockets, securing my right wrist to my right ankle and my left wrist to my left ankle. One-handed with a very hard squeeze. He'd obviously practiced the move quite extensively. He then rolled up a sock and taped it in my mouth. He was furious. He picked me up and hauled me over to the door, tying my ankle to the coat closet door knob with a piece of rope he had brought with him.

After that, he pulled out a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi and a bottle of rum from his backpack and declared that we were going to have a drink. He went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses, very politely asking me if I cared for ice in mine. It was so bizarre. He had suddenly switched gears from killer to hostess. I opted for the ice, partially because it was in the freezer downstairs. It gave me time to cry a little, to release some of the terror. I had to keep as cool as possible through the whole thing if I were to have any kind of chance of getting out alive. It had been going on for close to an hour by this time.

He came back up and was very concerned that I was crying. He just looked at me and said, "What's the matter?" I was furious. I just looked back at him and said as cooly as possible, "You threaten to kill me, handcuff me and tie me to the door like a dog, and you want to know what's wrong?" He just said, "Oh." and went back to mixing the drinks. He sat next to me on the floor and said it was time to talk. Then he looked me in the eye and said, "I want to know why you're doing this to me." We talked for a while. I tried to answer his questions in hopes he'd mellow out and change his mind about killing me.

After a while he walked halfway up the stairs and unzipped his pants, facing away from me. My only thought (keep in mind I still think he's going to kill us both) was, "Oh no, we'll never sell the house if he pees on the stairs". Well, he didn't. He pulled out a sports cup and tossed it near me saying, "You disappointed me. I figured you'd fight more than that and at least try to scratch my eyes out and kick me."

We went back to talking, on a second glass of rum and coke, still under a threat of death if I didn't finish mine the same time he finished his. He eventually said he wasn't going to kill me after all, but he was still going to kill himself. I begged him not to. He got restless after the clock struck midnight and finally left about twenty minutes later saying he was going back to Tennessee to kill himself.

He wasn't sure what to do with me at first. He insisted I would call the police. I kept promising not to, even suggesting he keep me restrained and lock me in the coat closet. It would take days before anyone found me, but I didn't care. Anything to have him hurry and leave before he changed his mind. After he seemed to accept that I wouldn't call the police his only other concern was that I would tell MY MOM. I promised not to tell a soul and he finally left.

I ran downstairs for cover, feeling like one of those squirrels you see running across the road, when they spot a car and appear to have a real big heart attack over it. I hid in the crawl space under the house for as long as I could stand it. I was in terror over the possibility of him coming back and couldn't think of anything but hiding.

I finally came out and called a co-worker, begging him to let me sleep on his couch. I put the meat back in the refrigerator, turned down the thermostat and grabbed my dayplanner, a pair of pajamas, a toothbrush, and a box of kleenex and got out of there. I don't know how I managed to make it to his house. It's about an eight mile drive, mostly on I-95. I could hardly see, I was crying hysterically, convinced I was going to see his truck coming up on me any moment. I made it there safely, told he and his wife everything, insisting we not call the police. I was convinced he would kill some police officers, then kill himself if they went after him. I figured Tennessee was a good place for him to kill himself, and believed that was what would happen.

He found me there the next morning. He dragged me to his truck by the wrists and shoved me in the back seat. My friend's eight year old daughter called 911 when she saw the rifle. He tried to handcuff my left wrist to my right ankle (pseudo-hog tie), but wasn't successful. As he took the safety off his rifle he told me, "this is it, say your prayers." He then hollered to Angelo, who was watching in shock still, "if anyone calls the police I'll blow her head off, then kill myself." I kept kicking the barrel of the rifle away from my chest when he finally gave up and half let me out of the truck. I ran for the door, with the handcuffs still on my wrist. He drove off vowing I'd never see him again after he took the cuffs off me at the doorway.