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SURVIVORS STORIES

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Hi my name is Cate and this my story. I have been a victim of many different things, childhood sexual abuse,suicide, incest, domestic violence, and rape. In that order. The rape is the story I am going to tell. It's early June and I have been at my mom's for a couple of weeks. We were getting the house ready for all the family flying into town to attend my aunts graduation. I returned home with my boys on Monday evening June 6, 1994, to clean my house because I was expecting my uncle around 10:00pm Tuesday. There was a note on my door from this man I had met three weeks prior. He was an acquaintance of my neighbor and was interested in buying a car from me. The note just said he was very interested and he would stop back. Around 10:00pm Tuesday I was doing dishes and heard a knock at my front door. I went to the door expecting my uncle, but it wasn't. It was the man interested in buying my car. I excused myself to turn off the water and when I returned he had stepped inside, which didn't seem too weird, because in June, in Ohio there are ALLOT of bugs flying around. He talked to me for a few minutes about the car, he then lunged at me and forced me to the couch. At this point I knew he was going to rape me. All I could think about was protecting my children who were sleep just feet away. Some how I managed to move off the couch and out of sight of my boys room. I thought if I let him rape me he'd just run away. He put his hand on my throat and pinned me to the floor. He proceeded to undo his pants and shove his penis into my mouth, all the while choking me. He'd had enough of that and raped me both vaginally and anally, always with his hand on my throat. He jumped up and started pacing back and forth saying "You're going to tell, you're going to tell, you're going to tell." I told him I wouldn't say anything, I guess he didn't believe me because he grabbed me and was trying to break my neck. That's when I knew he was going to try and kill me. Once again all I could think about was protecting my children. So I fought my self to the ironing board, picked up the iron and began to hit him with it. In the struggle he took the iron from me and hit me in the face and head until it shattered. After he had hit me a few times I remember thinking that if I acted like I was knocked out he would leave. Wrong again. He cut the cord off the iron and tied it around my neck and hands so every time I would try to move it would get tighter around my neck. It was then he dragged me by my hair into the kitchen, he smashed a bottle over my head and slashed my throat in two places. He grabbed the pieces of the iron and ran away. My neighbor saw the tail end of my attack. Thank goodness for big windows. He called 911. When the police arrived they found me in a puddle of blood as big as me. I kept my self together enough to give the police phone numbers of friends and family so that my children wouldn't have to go with someone that they didn't know. I also gave a detailed description of my attacker. On the way to the hospital I remember hearing one of the medics saying "we're losing her" and then it was all warm and light and my best friends mother appeared to me and said "Cate, you have to go back, there is still much you must do." So I fought my way back and made it to the hospital and then was LifeFlighted to another hospital that could better handle my injuries. I went thru trauma surgery to repair the lacerations on my throat. I was out of the hospital in four days. The doctors were amazed, they expected at least two weeks. I told the detective the first time he came to see me that I was going to be this man's worst nightmare. He turned himself in June 12, 1994. Each and every hearing I was there, seated where I could stare him down. I wanted him to know I was there and he wasn't going to win. He received 30 to 75 years. He had only been out of prison for two month and five days before my attack. I plan to be at all parole hearings in the future.By the way my boys (ages 3 and 5 at the time) slept thru it all, the attack, the police, the sirens, even when my parents picked them up and put them in the car. I'm so thankful for that.