by Chessy Prout
“He wasn’t giving me much information,” Andrew said. “I kept asking, and he eventually told me that, in his words, that he had boned her.”
“And in that context, what did that mean?” Joe asked.
“I took it to mean that they had had sex,” Andrew said.
How could Owen’s defense be that we’d never had sex when that was what he told so many of his friends? I didn’t think he was that stupid.
Next, Tucker Marchese waltzed into the courtroom as if this was the social event of the year, grinning at Owen and waving hello to people like a pageant queen. Tucker was now a student at Holy Cross in Massachusetts—the college both Mom and Carney had attended. It was a connection that made Mom sick.
Before Tucker took the stand, he turned around and smiled smugly at me and my family. I almost lunged at him, my hand in a fist.
“Chessy, you can’t do that. They can call a mistrial,” Laura whispered sternly, holding me back. “If you feel like you’re going to attack someone, maybe consider not sitting in the courtroom.”
“Okay, fine. I can handle it,” I said, settling back in my seat.
More messages from Owen appeared on the big screen. Owen had sent them to Tucker from his St. Paul’s email address in March, on the cusp of the Senior Salute season—apparently known as “Slaypril” and “Slay” for April and May.
Owen: welcome to an eight-week exercise in debauchery, a probing exploration of the innermost meaning of the word sleaze-bag, we’ll be exploring the several essential questions. is life on earth heaven? are there any gazelles left in this desolate savannah? can sisters be slain in the same evening??
Sexual conquest was just a simple game to these guys. Girls had zero value, no human dignity. The messages eviscerated all hope that one of these boys would come to his senses and apologize.
Tucker said that he and Owen had gathered at the library one night and assembled a list of girls for the “eight-week exercise in debauchery.” The list was presented to the jury, and my name was the only one in all capital letters. Lucy was also on the list. Sisters slain.
I almost passed out. I tapped my feet on the floor like Buzz taught me and found my bearings. I scowled at Tucker. He stared right back, shamelessly. I didn’t want to do anything stupid, so I looked down and wrote in my notebook:
Wasn’t afraid of meeting my stare. Ballsy for a boy with no balls . . . They really are a bunch of losers.
Tucker said Owen was upset after I rejected his Senior Salute invite, and Tucker was surprised later when Owen told him that we’d met up and had sex. He wanted details and messaged Owen later that night.
Tucker: How did it go from no to bone.
Owen: just pulled every trick in the book
Tucker: Be straight with me
Which one worked
Owen: had to munch
Tucker: It was crystal clean so whatever
How’d you even get to that point bro
Owen: she replied to my first email
Tucker: ight man the story has too many holes, i appreciate the end result and your resolve
and congrats i hope it was everything you imagined
Congrats? Congrats on raping a fifteen-year-old virgin?
The next night, after Lucy punched Owen on the chapel lawn in front of their friends, Owen messaged Tucker.
Owen: the chessy thing will blow over
denied until i died tonight
her friends forgave me
KIND OF
Each new bit of evidence was a punch to the gut. I didn’t know how to react to the vulgar messages anymore because I had seen too many of them. Learning for the first time how these boys plotted against me for months made me feel like I was being assaulted again, but this time in a roomful of strangers. “Deny until you die” was the motto of these Slayers. And I was just an object to them—something to be traded, degraded, and manipulated.
When court let out for the afternoon, I felt so defeated and worthless. As I skulked down the stairs to the first floor, I spotted a group of St. Paul’s students who had been sitting with Owen’s family all day: Ian, a friend who was in Lucy’s class and also took Japanese with me; Jennifer, my volleyball teammate; and Mac, who I met for the first time during St. Paul’s Revisit Weekend.
I looked down at them in the high-ceilinged lobby and wondered how they could still stand by him after everything that had been revealed.
I moved swiftly in their direction, and when I was just a few feet away, my eyes blazed right through them.
“Are you proud of yourselves? Are you proud of who you’re supporting?” I barked. “Are you happy that he did this to me?”
They fell silent and their mouths hung open. Dad quickly moved me away from the group and into the room reserved for our family, where I collapsed in a chair. Would this ever be over? I didn’t know yet that the pain that made me want to disappear forever would eventually be replaced by a slow-burning anger that simmers within me to this day.
Grandma Prout pulled me aside later that evening while we were sitting on the porch. Grandma was elegant, with her perfectly coiffed white hair and red lipstick. She always chose her words carefully.
“Don’t stay angry at these boys. They’re not worth it,” she said in her Japanese accent. “And don’t hold resentment.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. “But I don’t think I’m ever gonna be ready for forgiveness, Grandma.”
“Someday. But for now, just pity them. Pity that they don’t have morals. Pity that they aren’t worth anything,” Grandma Prout said as she tapped ashes from her cigarette. “Imagine how they feel inside because of how horrible they are.”
I could not care less how they felt. I was raw from seeing and hearing them all day. Later I talked to Dad—my usual anger outlet—and told him what Grandma had said. He chuckled.
“You know, Chess, that’s the kiss of death from Grandma,” he said. “If you ever hear she pities you, that means you’re dead to her.”
Fine, I could handle that. Those guys were dead to me, too.
DAY 5
Detective Curtin looked exhausted on the witness stand, bags under her eyes. She and her team, including Detective Chris DeAngelis, had worked relentlessly on the case for more than a year. They had interviewed close to thirty people and combed through tens of thousands of messages, including 119 exchanges that Owen had deleted after meeting with police. I thought there couldn’t possibly be any more surprises, but there it was. Owen’s mother had advised him to delete incriminating Facebook messages. I didn’t understand why they both weren’t charged with obstruction of justice.
During his police interview, Owen explained how the school kept painting over a sexual scoreboard that students put up in Sharpie on the wall behind the laundry machines—something Chad Green, St. Paul’s dean of students, euphemistically described in court as a “map of relationships.” Owen also told Detective Curtin that he’d had a moment of “divine inspiration” and stopped us from having sex. I laughed at that one.
Carney tried to depict Detective Curtin as an overzealous woman who was empowering a liar on a witch hunt for Harry Potter. His strategy backfired. Detective Curtin came across as careful, methodical, and persistent—the kind of employee any police department would be lucky to have.
I knew Detective Curtin had interviewed other girls that Owen had violated, but New Hampshire’s rules of evidence prevented his prior bad acts from being introduced during the trial. It seemed so unfair. And Judge Smukler refused to let our expert witness testify and explain that people who are sexually assaulted often freeze like I did. It’s not simply a matter of punching back or running away. It’s fight, flight, or freeze. Now I knew why so many girls were reluctant to report their attackers and pursue charges. The court system seemed designed to trample us into lifelong silence.
I worried that Judge Smukler was biased toward Carney and captivated by the superstar and the media attention that followed. Each day Carney held press co
nferences outside, the reporters salivating at every word to feed the public’s appetite for boarding-school scandals.
DAY 6
On the stand, Owen spewed lie after lie—saying that we’d danced together, that we’d hugged, that he’d never had sex with me. It would almost be laughable if it weren’t so sickening. When he read the messages we’d exchanged before we met up on May 30, bile shot up from my stomach and scorched my throat.
I looked down at the floor and knew I was going to be sick. I pushed my way out of the courtroom and into a side room to throw myself over a garbage can. Steve and Barbara, the victim advocate, followed me. Reporters who were live-tweeting said I ran out of the room in tears. I want to make it clear that I was about to hurl chunks.
Eventually, Steve and I headed to the overflow room where there were televisions and workstations for the media.
“Don’t say anything to the journalists,” Steve advised before entering. “They will use it.”
One of the female reporters watched Carney question Owen as if he were the victim and then turned to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s a sociopath.”
I just nodded. Finally, someone else sees it.
I returned to the courtroom for Owen’s cross-examination after the lunch break. I was strong enough to handle this. For the first time, I looked Owen in the eyes, through his stupid glasses. I stared him down and watched him wriggle uncomfortably in his seat.
That’s right, you fucking loser. You can’t even look me in the face Weak coward.
It was showtime.
There was an instant change in Owen’s demeanor when Joe stepped forward. Joe was tall, a dairy farmer’s son, and relatively new to sexual assault cases. He usually had a gentle disposition, but when Joe got up to the podium, he was a fire-breathing dragon.
“You wanted to have sex with Chessy Prout, correct?” Joe asked Owen.
“When?” Owen said.
“During your senior year.”
“Not necessarily, no,” Owen responded.
“You wanted to slay Chessy Prout, correct?” Joe asked.
“I mentioned that to my friends, but sure, okay,” Owen said.
“You wanted to score Chessy Prout, correct?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” Owen stuttered. “Not during the year.”
“You wanted to pork Chessy Prout, correct?”
“I don’t know what that—what do you mean by that?” Owen asked with a faux look of innocence.
“You don’t know what the word ‘pork’ means?” Joe said skeptically.
Joe’s gonna bring him down. He’s finally gonna get what he deserves. This is what justice looks like.
Joe focused on the January 2014 messages with Malcolm Salovaara.
“We can be sure that on January 29, 2014, you wanted to slay Chessy Prout, correct?”
“Once again, these are joking messages and my affection for her. I don’t think that’s accurate to say that I was thinking about slaying her on January 29.”
“Forgot it was funny,” Joe retorted. “We can agree that on January 29, 2014, you wanted to score Chessy Prout, correct?”
“I mean all these words are used synonymously, so, you know, had I thought about it? Yeah,” Owen said. “But, you know, was this a serious conversation? No, it wasn’t.”
“All of these words are used synonymously and they all can mean sex, correct?” Joe pressed.
“They all can, yes.”
“So on January 29th, 2014, you wanted to have sex with Chessy Prout, correct?”
“No. That’s not what that means here.”
“You just wanted to pork her?”
This dodging and weaving made my head spin. I couldn’t keep track.
Joe moved on to Owen’s messages in late March.
“In your words, Slaypril was ‘a probing exploration of the innermost meanings of the word sleazebag,’ correct?”
“Those are my words, yes,” Owen said.
“You would agree with me that it would take a sleazebag to take advantage of a fifteen-year-old girl, correct?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” Owen said.
“It would take a sleazebag to have sex with a fifteen-year-old girl, correct?”
“Yes.”
“It would take a sleazebag to slay a fifteen-year-old girl, correct?”
“That word is different,” Owen said.
“That’s right,” Joe said sarcastically. “That word means going for walks in the park, right?”
“Not exclusively,” Owen responded.
“Because it could mean sex?”
“It could, yes,” Owen admitted.
“And only a sleazebag would sleep with sisters in the same night, correct?”
“Yes,” Owen said.
“Only a sleazebag would slay sisters in the same night, correct?”
“Yes.”
I was speechless, frozen in my seat. I didn’t understand how he could agree to all of this and insist that he was innocent. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as everyone thought.
Joe presented Owen with a new email from May 8, 2014, with the words “still at large” at the top. Once again my name was the only one in all capital letters. Owen continued to deny ever wanting to have sex with me—until he put on a condom. Then, he claimed, he had a moment of “divine inspiration” and stopped himself. Did anyone else realize how absurd this sounded?
He tried to sidestep the damning DNA evidence by saying he pre-ejaculated—a revelation he never told police. And that he deceived his best friends by saying we had sex because that was easier than telling the truth.
I was crushed by the lies, from my body being one big joke to these boys. And I wasn’t the only name on those lists, wasn’t the only girl who’d been violated. How many others had to sit in my place to get the point across? Would it take thirty-five—the number of women who had recently appeared on the cover of New York magazine and said Bill Cosby assaulted them?
We had the right to say no. Our consent mattered. I took out my pen one last time and dug into my journal.
He’s gonna rot in hell.
DAY 7
Closing arguments started late. Everyone was present but something—or someone—was holding things up. Joe told us we were waiting for Carney’s wife to arrive so she could watch him. I hoped Carney choked on his own hubris.
I scowled at the back of his shiny bald head and seethed at his every word, the victim-blaming, victim-shaming tale he wove using my pain and misery to try and free his guilty client.
He twisted my words and likened me to an armed robber at a bank. Carney downplayed the red abrasion on my vagina that was present three days after the attack as simply “a quarter-centimeter superficial red mark.”
I wrote furiously in my journal:
If I cut 1/4 of a centimeter off your DICK would that be a sustainable injury?
I looked over at Lucy, who was finally sitting next to me. Carney never called her as a witness, so she sat sequestered in that room for the entire trial. But now Carney was yammering about what an important role Lucy played in this case. He rambled on about how younger brothers and sisters often look up to their older siblings—and then mentioned his own family: “I have three younger brothers and a younger sister.”
Carney then suggested my admiration for Lucy was what caused me to falsely accuse Owen of rape.
I saw Steve Kelly tense up.
“That’s so unprofessional,” Steve hissed.
I blocked out the rest of Carney’s closing argument, imaginary cotton balls in my ears. My brain capacity for bullshit was full for the day.
After court ended, Steve approached Carney in the parking lot. Laura Dunn watched at a distance. We were back at the rental house at the time, but Steve had accidentally pocket-dialed Dad so we listened in on the confrontation.
Steve was a stocky Irish Catholic from Baltimore, the youngest of nine children. Mary, his sister who had been raped and murdered, was like a surroga
te parent to him. After her death, Steve and his family were treated terribly by law enforcement and he had fought tirelessly for victims’ rights ever since—in the courtroom, in the classroom, in the legislature, and now, apparently, in parking lots.
“This is not going to be a pleasant conversation,” Steve said to Carney. “What you did during this trial violated professional ethics by physically intimidating a child and mentioning your family in closing arguments while your wife was there and sitting in the courtroom. You crossed a line.”
Carney growled, “You self-righteous prick.”
Those were fighting words. We were huddled around the kitchen table, listening to Dad’s phone on speaker, wondering what would happen next.
“You’re a fucking sleazeball,” Steve shot back. “Why don’t you slither your way back to Boston?”
I loved Steve for being my foulmouthed defender. The case was in the jury’s hands now. But at least we seemed to win the parking lot skirmish.
When my cross-examination was over, I wrote some questions for the defense attorney in my journal. Q. Mr. Carney, are YOUR balls shaved right now?
Lucy tried to comfort me before the first day of the trial with hugs and positive messages written on a sticky note.
Later that afternoon, I collapsed at the rental house, exhausted after three days on the stand.
Dad tried to keep me calm before Owen’s friends testified in court.
Grandma Prout dispensed wise advice: “Pity them.”
We had a birthday dinner for Laura Dunn, a lawyer and survivor who helped me during the trial (bottom row, left). Our civil lawyer, Steve Kelly (top row, left), and Uncle Tom (top row, second from left) came to the celebration.
SIXTEEN
Verdict
DAY 8
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Carney said during yesterday’s closing arguments—that I had taken the “easier choice.”
