Crash Into Me_ A Survivor's Search for Justice - Liz Seccuro [0]
A Survivor’s Search for Justice
Liz Seccuro
For Ava
Have you come here for forgiveness? Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?
—U2, “One”
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Contents
Prologue
One The Letter
Two High Ambitions
Three Darkness on Madison Lane
Four Sweeping It Under the Rug
Five The Legacy of Rape
Six The Charges, the Arrest, and the System
Seven The Media Beast and What She Eats
Eight The Preliminary Hearing and Direct Examination
Nine Cross-Examination and Redirect
Ten Dark Days and New Revelations
Eleven The Guilty Plea
Twelve The Sentencing of William Beebe
Epilogue Hope, Joy, and the Continuing Fight
Acknowledgments
Prologue
As the freshman girl struggled on the filthy sheets, the stranger pounding into her, she looked to the left and saw a light outside the window. It was an ordinary streetlight that cast a blue-white glow on the revelers on the fraternity-lined street called Rugby Road. She screamed, but no one could hear her. Her breathing became shallow, caught in her throat. She realized now, covered in saliva, sweat, semen, and stale beer, that she might never leave this room. She wished for one thing: that her parents would find her, that they would learn what had happened to her and fight for her. She thought of her friends, her family, her life, and how happy it had been. She could let go. She could stop struggling. She stopped screaming and her arms and legs ceased their manic dance of defense. She said to herself, “It’s all right. You can sleep now. It won’t hurt anymore.” She swirled into the safe and warm cloak of unconsciousness and quiet.
I know this girl. Somewhere inside me she is alive and not broken.
This is her story.
CHAPTER 1
The Letter
The morning of September 8, 2005, began like any other. Isn’t it strange that the days that change your life immeasurably always seem to begin so ordinarily? Friends have talked about days in which they’ve experienced immense tragedy or great joy, and they remember how the day started with a decaffeinated latte, kisses, and an orange-juice normalcy that later seemed so bizarre in comparison. What is mundane and innocuous becomes alien.
My family—my husband, Mike, an investment banker, and our two-year-old daughter, Ava—was preparing for a much-needed three-week working vacation in East Hampton, where we had rented a house for the remainder of the month of September. I hadn’t wanted to deal with all of those “summer people.” We wanted peace, so we put off our getaway until after Labor Day.
We live in Greenwich, Connecticut, where life is usually easy and, frankly, filled with all of the material benefits that one could want, due to its high concentration of hedge fund operations and WASP pedigrees. The tree-lined main street, Greenwich Avenue, is home to some of the best shopping in the world; it’s often called a New England Rodeo Drive. Mere minutes from town, the Back Country boasts massive estates owned by the scions of money, both old and new, alongside the estates of members of the Hollywood elite—Ron Howard, Diana Ross, Mary Tyler Moore—who seek out the quiet enclave as a respite from the rigors of the typical Los Angeles entertainment business life. Here there are no paparazzi, no nightclubbing teen terrors. Perfectly highlighted and buffed trophy wives brush shoulders with preppy girls and young moms in the same boutiques and lunch spots. Convertible Saabs and Jeeps grace the town parking lots alongside more flashy cars such as Maseratis and Bentleys. There are no traffic lights in Greenwich; just police officers who wave the cars and pedestrians by. The old denizens of Greenwich felt traffic lights would be an aesthetic blight on the famous “Avenue.”
Mike and I moved here from New York City in 2004, when Ava was just over a year old. I had attended high school in Rye, New York, just five minutes away over the state