by Monika Korra
I didn’t want to stand there watching them drive away, but I did, thinking that a very large part of me was on that bus with them. The rest of me ran home and took a quick shower. I had another competition to get ready for.
I felt a familiar mix of nerves and determination as I took the stand shortly after the lunch recess. I looked around the courtroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the judge glancing at some papers in front of her. I looked over at a few members of my team—Kelly and Wenche, my stalwart mother figures, and my own mother sitting between them. In a way this whole experience of testifying again was like running a familiar trail. Those first two women were comforting landmarks along the way, places for which I had comforting associations. My mom hadn’t been down this particular road with me, but we’d talked our way through all the events of the rape. I was confident that nothing that I would say would surprise, shock, or hurt her. My mom is the most optimistic person I’ve ever met, the one that I can always rely on to find some good in the worst of circumstances. I knew that losing her parents had been tough on her, and I admired her for not ever expressing any kind of bitterness over it.
When I was feeling my worst after the attack, it was my mother who told me that I’d been diverted from my path. It was up to me to choose which road I would go down after that. I could be like those men and choose bad over good, or I could find a way to come back stronger than before. She knew that I never would do the first of those, but there was always that middle path—indifference. In her mind that was no option at all, either. I knew that my mother was proud of me, but she also expected me to have the strength to face Zuniga and speak the truth about what had happened.
Brandon led me carefully through the events of the night of December 4 and the early-morning hours of December 5. He had told me it was important that we make it clear to the jury that I understood the role that each of the three men had played, that Alfonso Zuniga was the driver, the man they referred to as the Boss. I explained what the Boss had done to sexually assault me and that he’d also handled the gun. I told how I’d seen that man’s face because he was the one leaning out of the car getting my attention in the first place—his were the eyes I met the moment I realized I was being kidnapped at gunpoint.
We also had to make it clear that despite my inability to identify the man who was on trial from a series of photographs, I knew and recognized that man in the courtroom. Brandon asked me how sure I was, and I told him that I was 100 percent sure. In answer to a follow-up question about whether I had any doubt, I blurted out, “I’ve been trying to delete that face from my memory for a year and a half. It won’t go away.”
I surprised myself a little when I uttered those words. I continued to answer Brandon’s questions, but a part of my mind was working over this puzzle. If these men were going to be receiving a life sentence, was I going to be sentenced to living a life with those images dominating me? Would I always walk around with the feeling that, like the gun pressed against my head, those images could explode into my mind at any time?
The defense attorney’s cross-examination was a much less familiar route. Instead of going through the events in sequence, he seemed to jump from one point to the next. I wasn’t thrown off by anything he asked, but I couldn’t see any pattern to the questions. What was he trying to do? What was he disputing about what I had said? Eventually, I figured out that he was stressing a couple of things: First, he was making the point that his client didn’t speak English and therefore couldn’t have ordered me around, and second, he appeared to be trying to confuse me about the issue of the gun. We seemed to keep going around and around on who exactly did what and where. I realized that he was trying to make a case that I was confused about who was really there and what they each had said and done. I made it clear that there could be no doubt in the jury’s mind that Alfonso Zuniga had participated fully in the crime, that he wasn’t just an unwilling participant who drove his friends around while they raped me. I made it clear that maybe those men would not have been able to pick me out of a lineup, and had treated me as an inanimate object, but I was real, and I knew exactly what each of them had done.
I looked at Alfonso Zuniga at several points during my questioning. Unlike Arturo Arevalo, Zuniga at least looked at me, and paid attention to what I was saying. He acknowledged that I was another person and not some doll that he could use and toss away. That was how I’d felt that night, that I wasn’t even a human being to those men. But that day in court, I think he saw that I was a person. That was a victory, a small but important one. I wasn’t just someone he could stick his fingers and his penis into, slap on the butt, laugh with his buddies about, wrap up in tape, and shove out of his car like I was a discarded wrapper from a fast-food hamburger.
When the judge announced that I could be dismissed, I noticed that the light in the room had changed, that it was now full-on afternoon. Despite how long I’d been on the witness stand, I didn’t feel tired at all. I was Brandon’s last witness; the prosecution rested its case. It was now up to the defense. I took my seat next to my mother. Because I was done with my testimony, I was allowed to attend the rest of the trial. While I was walking to my seat, I heard the defense attorney, Mr. Jamison, say, “May we approach real quick?”
By the time I sat down next to my mom, the lawyers for both sides and the judge stood at her bench huddling and discussing something.
My mother gave me a questioning look, but all I could do was shrug. I wondered what was up, but I didn’t have long to consider the possibilities. The lawyers went back to their places. I tried to read Brandon’s expression, but his face was neutral. All he did was scratch the top of his head before taking his seat and scribbling a few notes on his pad.
The jury came back in, and the defense attorney, Mr. Jamison, stood. I leaned forward in my seat and rested my elbows on my thighs and balanced my chin on my fingertips, anticipating.
Mr. Jamison asked that something about the date of the indictment be read into the record and then he said, “And with that, ladies and gentlemen, the defense rests.”
I rocked back in my seat. What was going on?
The defense wasn’t going to call a single witness. I knew that the burden of proof fell on the prosecution, but what was the purpose of not putting up any kind of fight at all? Before the trial, Brandon had told me that Zuniga’s lawyers were going to make the case that he only did what he did because he was afraid of what Arturo Arevalo might do to him or his family. Brandon had told me about the concept of “duress” and that an accused criminal could be found not guilty if the jury believed that the man legitimately felt that his life or his loved one’s lives were in jeopardy unless he participated in the crime. In a way, Arturo Arevalo was back on trial, but Alfonso Zuniga’s lawyers weren’t going to have anyone there who would testify to how bad a man he was. How was he going to prove duress if he didn’t call any witnesses? Was he saying that the prosecution hadn’t done their job of proving, so he didn’t have to do anything to defend his client?
The judge called for a ten-minute recess. I had a bunch of questions running through my mind, but I knew that Brandon would be busy going over his closing remarks. I tried to calm myself by saying that we’d done the same things at the first trial and we’d won. How could this one be different? I knew I wouldn’t be doing myself any good if I stood around with everyone else and fixated on those questions. Instead, my mother and I stepped outside.
“Wonderful,” my mother said as she tilted her head up to the sun. “Papa said there’s still plenty of snow around at home.”
“I know. He told me.”
“No matter what, there’s always the sun. Funny to think the same one is on him, too.”
I nodded and smiled, picturing my dad driving home, squinting into the lowering sunlight.
During the closing arguments, Brandon asked me to stand at one point, to remind the jury of who I was. The woman who stood was, of course, known in the court as Jessica Watkins. I was eager
to get on with what I’d done in Norway—coming forward as Monika Kørra and letting the world know who I was and what had been done to me. I was looking forward to walking out of that courtroom and leaving that other name behind.
Both attorneys’ remarks in the closing arguments were relatively brief. The judge gave her final instructions to the jury and they left the room. We all stood in the hallway, wondering if we were going to have to wait overnight. We weren’t. Less than a half hour later, we were back in the courtroom, and for the second time I felt a thrill of pleasure and relief as the jury foreman read the verdict: guilty.
Unlike after Arevalo’s trial, when we had all gathered together and shared a meal, my mother and I went alone to Café Express and ordered yogurt parfaits with granola and fresh berries. We took our food and our coffees and sat in the sun.
I was glad to be alone with Mom, to share this moment of relief and the start of a new period in my life.
“This summer,” my mother said thoughtfully, “I think we should do a Texas type of barbecue at the cabin.”
“That would be fun.”
We went on and on about our summer plans. I still had final exams and other meets before then, but home, after all we’d been through, seemed like a better place to be.
I went back to campus that night and ran, feeling good about how I’d handled myself, thinking more and more about next steps and the strides I’d taken, how I wanted to remember how all of this felt, not take for granted the ground I was covering, the distance that was increasing between then and now.
My thoughts turned down a familiar path. If I had no choice but to live in a world where evil like these men existed and did nothing to offset it, then what was the point of being here at all? If I didn’t stand up and tell my story, then what was the point of having suffered? What could I do in the present to help others stop suffering?
At the end of the second trial, I had purchased candles as gifts for all the members of my team. Since that Take Back the Night event, I’d been thinking of ways to relight candles, to bring something positive into the world. I’d attached a note to those gifts explaining how much I appreciated them all reigniting my spirit. Now it was time for me to do that for others.
The next day, I sat in the courtroom as the penalty phase of the trial began. During this, Zuniga’s lawyer did present witnesses who tried to show how much of a bad influence Arturo Arevalo was. I was so tired of thinking about Arturo Arevalo. It had been clear to me from that night that he was a terrible and twisted person. I took no satisfaction from being able to say that my assessment of him that night as the Worst One was accurate. As I listened to different people talk about him, I felt uncomfortable. I thought of the conversation that I’d had with my father that first Christmas after the attack. How could I live in a world where people like that existed, where someone like Zuniga failed to stand up to him?
A dull headache gripped me, and I was unable to fully concentrate. The fluorescent lights in the courtroom seemed to hum more loudly. Several witnesses spoke, but I couldn’t tell you what they all said. At one point, though, a woman took the stand. She was small and round, and she nervously brushed her hair from her face as she faced the questions asked of her. She looked familiar to me, and as I listened to her testimony, I realized that she was Arturo Arevalo’s wife.
She spoke softly, hesitantly. I felt like a sharp knife was being pushed into my heart. She took the stand to tell us about what a horrible man Arturo was. The same man she, in the first trial, supported. Then in fear, now in honesty. She looked so scared, terrified really. But how brave this was of her.
I knew that she now worked against our case, that she wanted to blame it all on Arturo. That was wrong, but at the same time, it felt so good knowing that she now was strong enough to stand up against the man who had been treating her badly for a long time. She told us how she had lived a life in fear of this man, of what he could do to her, to her children.
I cried out loud at that point. There was no way I could hold it back anymore. Her eyes, her children—the knife inside my chest was twisted around and around. How awful this was for so many people. I told myself that I had to get control of myself. I tried to tell myself to hang in there, to keep calm, but the thought of those little kids facing anything at all like what I had faced was too much for me. I had to leave the courtroom to compose myself; I had to go through one night in the presence of this man; that poor woman and those kids had been under his control for a long time. What was going to become of them? I was fortunate to have a large circle of people who supported me, and as I heard the sounds of my footsteps clicking across the tile floor, I could already hear more footsteps shuffling as a few of them followed me out, hoping to offer me comfort, to make certain that I was going to be fine.
As I stood outside the courtroom trying to pull myself together, a number of the reporters who had been covering the case noticed me. Kelly took me aside, and after making sure that I was okay, she said to me, nodding in the direction of all the reporters, “I want you to be sure. I want you to be comfortable with whatever you decide. You don’t owe them anything.” I’d shared with Kelly my desire to get my story out more widely, and she’d been a great advisor. Seeing how emotional I was, she felt protective of me, and as much as she supported me doing what I felt I needed and wanted to do, she didn’t want to see me get hurt again.
The trials had been big news in Dallas, and I had spoken to some of the reporters. They continued to honor the agreement that my real name not be used and that no photographs of me appear that would reveal my identity.
I wasn’t happy about how some of the stories had been written. Questions about what I was wearing that night, what was going on at the party and how much I had had to drink, why I was out so late, all seemed to be pointing a finger of blame at me. I didn’t like that. One reporter was different—Scott Goldstein of the Dallas Morning News. He’d kept the focus of his reporting on what I thought was important: how horrible these men were and how awful were the things they did. Kelly also liked Goldstein’s articles, and she’d contacted him, hoping that she’d be able to introduce him to me. Later on, she helped him out by putting Scott and me together. Reporters from other news outlets had also been in touch, and it seemed to me like they were fighting over who would be the one to tell the full story first. I put the rest of them off, telling them that I’d only talk when the trial was over. They were determined to make me honor my word.
Seeing all those TV news crews had me on edge. I didn’t want them to get the story in advance of Scott. I had no way of knowing who was who and how they’d reported on the attack before.
As soon as the reporters saw me, they rushed over. I saw Scott shoulder his way past a few of them. I nodded at him, and he stepped forward and ushered me a short distance away.
“You know how hard I’ve worked on this story. You know that I can help you get the message out that you want. You can make a lot of difference in women’s lives. I can help you.”
I knew that he was sincere, but at that moment, I was still unsure—not about speaking out, but about the best way to do it.
A reporter from the local Fox News station approached me next. She looked over her shoulder at Scott and said, “He’s a great guy, but you know that newspapers are struggling, right? If y’all want to get the word out, then you can get to more people through TV than any other way. Way more. Just think about that.”
“I will. It’s just—”
I didn’t know how to express myself. The scene in the courtroom, now these people seemingly fighting over who should be able to tell my story first—it was all too much. I knew that they had jobs to do and all of that, and they couldn’t have known what had just taken place in the courtroom and how I’d reacted. They were using me, but I was using them as well. I wanted to get my message out, and they were offering me a way to do that, but still…
“Like I told you before, I sure would appreciate this. You have no idea how much my boss
has been pushing me on this. I sure don’t want to disappoint him.”
She smiled and blinked at me, looking as if her life hung in the balance. I also knew that I was partly responsible for all the reporters coming to me. Saying that I would speak to the media at the conclusion of this trial had fed their desire. But telling me how disappointed their bosses would be if they didn’t get the story first seemed unfair. I didn’t need to feel more guilty.
Before I could think any more about it, I felt a hand on each of my elbows guiding me away. Kelly and my mother stood on either side of me.
“Monika,” my mother said, “we should get you some food right now.”
—
I WAS GLAD that everyone understood me well enough and could read my mood well enough that we didn’t talk much about the media while we ate. I pushed a salad around my plate, lost in thought. I was anxious about the sentence the jury would hand down, but even more nervous about what I would say when it was all over, whom I would talk to and whether I would be able to articulate myself in a way that could make an impact on someone else’s life.
The jury helped me feel a bit better. They handed down a life sentence. I felt relieved, but unlike after Arevalo’s trial, I also felt some twinges of remorse. I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind of his wife and his children. What was going to happen to them?
Texas law allows for a victim of a crime to make something called a victim impact statement. That meant that I could stand up in court at the conclusion of the penalty phase and address the convicted criminal directly. I had decided not to do that after the first trial; Arevalo had shown no indication that he would even listen to anything that I had to say. What was the point, then?
With Alfonso Zuniga, who had at least made eye contact with me, I felt like there was an actual human being behind those eyes, someone who had a conscience. I didn’t like that he had tried to pass along the blame, but at least he acknowledged my existence. I hoped that by addressing him, I could provide his family with some bit of relief as well.
