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Crash Into Me_ A Survivor's Search for Justice - Liz Seccuro [49]

By Root 186 0

ME: I did, yes.

CHAPMAN: In what way[?]

ME: In my own limited capacity, I know that I said something like “No, I don’t want to go” and it was something like “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun, let me show you this” and I pretty much good naturedly went along. But I was trying to resist, but not—certainly didn’t think anything dangerous was happening.

CHAPMAN: And where did you go ultimately?

ME: To a room at the end of the hall.


Chapman asked for a lot of specifics about the room: position of the room in relation to the street, the bed in relation to the room, the sofa in relation to the door, and the orientation of furniture. This was simply a reiteration of my conversations with Detectives Rudman and Godfrey, where I had drawn a picture of the whole house and of the room in question.


CHAPMAN: Thank you. Now, having gone to that room, could you tell the Court what happened after going into the room?

ME: At this time, the Defendant—there was also a chair and a desk—the Defendant brought me into the room, led me by the arm. He sat down on a chair and he had me—he grabbed me around my waist and hoisted me onto his lap at which time he showed me a book which I recall was bound in the green fabric like—almost like a rare book, an antique book, when they used to actually bind books with cloth. And it was some sort of book of poetry, I don’t recall what it was and he began reading it to me and holding me onto his lap and then he began kissing me and I did not really think this was appropriate.

CHAPMAN: What did you do, if anything?

ME: I tried to get up and I did manage to free myself from his grasp and I went out into the hallway as quickly as possible and the room where my handbag was locked from the outside with a padlock.

CHAPMAN: And what did you do, if anything, having reached this point?


Here I started to falter, but there was no going back. I had to walk through the fire and I was acutely aware of Beebe sitting right there. I looked to the right a bit to see the comforting faces of people I knew. They all looked stricken. Up until this point it had been as if I was speaking of someone else during my testimony. But the image of that room being padlocked on the outside made me fight back tears. I felt all of the defeat and helplessness rushing back. Plus, I knew where we were going with this line of questioning. I felt myself sliding down the rabbit hole.


ME: I began to kick and scream because I knew that my acquaintance, Mr. Millard, was locked in that room.

CHAPMAN: Okay, had you seen that happen?

ME: I saw them usher him into the room and lock him in there.

CHAPMAN: Now, did you—did the door come open at any time?

ME: No, it did not.

CHAPMAN: Were you able to contact anyone?

ME: I just began screaming and kicking the door. I had a flat shoe on. I was pounding the door, I was calling Hud’s name. I said that I wanted to leave and could he help me, that my purse was in there, could he help me?

CHAPMAN: Was there any response from inside?

ME: No, there was not.


You could hear an audible sigh of resignation in the room. No one wanted to go any further here, least of all me.


CHAPMAN: Was there any response from anybody else in the vicinity?

ME: There was. One of the brothers, who ostensibly had been mixing drinks in the room on the second floor, came over to me as I was pounding and kicking and screaming on the door. He picked me up under my shoulders, and the Defendant grabbed me from behind and deposited me back into the Defendant’s room.

CHAPMAN: Now, and where were you taken?

ME: I was deposited back into that same room overlooking Madison Lane.

CHAPMAN: And who was in that room after that happened?

ME: The Defendant.


There, in the room, with my rapist. And here I was, in a room, facing him again.


CHAPMAN: Was there anybody else in the room?

ME: No.

CHAPMAN: Where did the other person go, if you know?

ME: He left.

CHAPMAN: Now, let me ask you, as of the time that you were deposited back into the room, would you tell the Court how you were feeling physically and, as well, how you were feeling

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