by Holly Dunn
“Oh, Holly. I’m so sorry this happened,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m hanging in there.”
None of the usual greetings or sympathy seemed appropriate in such a situation. Nancy sensed this.
“Tell me where you’re hurt,” she said. “Tell me what feels different?”
I showed her my scars, where my head had been stapled closed, the place where my neck had been pierced.
“I can’t really turn my head very well. And I can’t eat. I have to drink everything but I can’t even get a straw between my teeth. It’s so frustrating.”
“How long will that last?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a few weeks? I still have to go back to the doctor.”
“Well, I brought you something to pass the time.”
Nancy had brought me what she called a “sunshine box” or a “happy box”—a big present filled with smaller presents all individually wrapped in multicolored checkerboard paper. Each item was marked to be opened on a certain day and time, like “Tuesday at 2:46 p.m.” There were probably fifteen or twenty items in the box that would last me several days—fun little things like gum or mints, a mini Etch-A-Sketch and other toys, a book of prayers, a brush, a tiny bottle of lotion—even a packet of straws for all my liquid meals.
Nancy left about a half hour later. She had offered exactly what I needed—the support and love of someone who was willing to hear what hurt.
We didn’t talk about God during that visit. I don’t know what I would have said if she’d asked me about my faith. I was still in shock. Even though I had felt a sense of peace and protection in the midst of the assault, I was furious at God for what had happened. I didn’t feel close to him at all. Countless people told me they were praying for me, but I wanted to laugh at the idea. How could a good God allow such things to happen? Where was he while Chris was being bludgeoned to death? Where was he while I was being raped by a vicious stranger? How could he have created such an evil person? The trauma made it all too hard in that moment to fathom that God loved me and cared for me in the midst of any circumstance.
Though my faith was at an all-time low, Nancy’s presence had been a balm, and her influence in my life was far from over.
• • •
Among my most regular visitors were, of course, Kappa sisters. Every weekend a carload of girls made the three-hour drive from Lexington to have a slumber party at my house in Evansville. In addition to my queen bed, my room had a bay window that could sleep two. Anywhere from two to five girls showed up each weekend. I slept a lot, but the girls watched movies, played cards, hung out with me, and kept my spirits up.
I loved having them around. My sorority sisters were my lifeline right from the beginning. I never lacked a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to when things got too tough. “Cry as much as you need to, I’m here,” they’d say, or “You have a right to be angry. Here, punch this pillow.” These girls probably don’t know just how much they saved my life through their strength and love and continuous support.
Mom cooked meals for the girls, but I stayed in my room whenever they went to the kitchen. I had eaten my last meal of solid food in the hospital the night before my jaw surgery. Knowing I would be on a liquid diet for the next four to six weeks, some friends brought me my favorite dinner from the Olive Garden: spaghetti and tomato sauce, salad, and bread sticks. After the surgery, my jaw was closed so tightly I couldn’t even get a straw inside my mouth—I had to suck food straight through my teeth. My mom got creative in keeping me nourished. She tried all kinds of things, usually focused on meat and mashed potatoes ground up in a blender. It was absolutely disgusting. We finally settled into a particular regimen that featured Boost nutritional drinks for breakfast, an Oreo milkshake by mid-morning, chicken broth from a powder mix for lunch, another Oreo shake in the afternoon, and then a dinner of Mom’s homemade ground chili, extra blended. I couldn’t tolerate much else.
During the first few days after my jaw was wired shut, my family ate soup alongside me as I consumed my liquid meals. Their solidarity only lasted so long, however, and they soon resumed eating normal food. Within a few weeks, I couldn’t take it anymore. I resented the fact that I couldn’t eat anything, and one night I burst into tears at the dinner table. From that point on, no one was allowed to eat real food in front of me, not even my beloved sorority sisters.
Over time, I started to regain some strength, and cabin fever set in. I wanted to be out and about and not always holed up in my room. My mom encouraged me to get out and enjoy a normal life again. But at the same time, I was afraid of having to explain to people why my mouth was wired shut. I decided I would tell them a story, perhaps that I had TMJ or that I had been in a car wreck.
One of the first times my mom took me shopping, I was confronted with the very question I dreaded. We were in deJong’s at Eastland Mall, my mother’s favorite department store, talking to a sales associate at a cosmetics counter who happened to be a friend of my mother’s. Her makeup was flawless and her hair perfectly coiffed.
“Oh, my dear, what happened to you?” she asked, leaning over the counter, her dark smock pressed against the glass.
To my surprise, I blurted out the truth.
“I was brutally attacked and sexually assaulted,” I said, straight-faced and matter of fact.
Her face blanched. She was aghast. I can’t blame her for not knowing what to say.
“My daughter is going to college next year. What can I tell her so she can stay safe?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said.
The encounter left me tired. I was ready to go back home and crawl back in bed. What did I know about safety? I had nothing to offer her.
Over time, it became common knowledge I was the survivor of the attack on the tracks in Lexington. Despite thousands of calls hounding me for an interview, none of the papers released my name—but Evansville is a small town, and people knew who I was. As much as I appreciated the support I received from my community, I felt incredibly exposed and on display. Any time I encountered people at church or in a store, they walked on eggshells around me. I just wanted to be treated like a normal person. I decided I wanted to go back to school. Back on campus in Lexington I could be more anonymous than I could at home.
Having my Kappa sisters around so much reinforced my desire to return to campus. After a month at home in bed, I had too much time to think about what happened, too much time to dwell on the pain and loss. Granted, my body needed to heal and I needed to grieve the murder of my boyfriend. I would eventually have to face being raped. But I also needed to rejoin the land of the living.
When I told my family I wanted to go back to school, they were shocked and tried to talk me out of it. Heather wanted me as far away from Lexington as possible. It wasn’t just the scene of the crime—we still had no idea who the attacker was or where he was. But in the end, they knew I wanted and needed to be back among my friends and involved in campus life.
Though I felt ready, going back to school took a lot of strength. Deep down, I wanted to crawl into a deep, safe, protective hole and never come out again, never put myself at risk, never face the trauma. But that would mean the monster had had the last word. He took Chris. He violated me in the most profoundly intimate ways. I couldn’t let him rob me of my very sense of self.
I had always been the loud, fun, gregarious life of the party, and I vowed to myself I wouldn’t let the attack change that. I would go back to being the same funny, energetic person I was known to be. I wouldn’t lose myself in what he had done to me. I wasn’t sure yet how, but I would find a way to transform this experience into something good, something that would bring meaning to the pain.
CHAPTER 9.
Land of the Living
For most of my life, I took trains for granted—the sight of a locomotive leading its charge along thin ribbons of steel was as natural and quotidian as the sunset. But after the attack along the tracks, all that changed. The prover
bial “iron horse” had brought on its back a violent predator who tore apart my world, stole my sense of well-being, and snuffed out the life of someone I cared about.
Back in Lexington, the sound of a train whistle or the sight of metal rails triggered instant anxiety. I had a panic attack every time I drove over those tracks near campus. I didn’t necessarily lose control of my car, but every muscle in my body tensed up. I broke out in goose bumps and a cold sweat. My hands shook, and I couldn’t speak a word. If I visited a friend in a house near a railroad and heard a train go by, I had the same reaction. Proximity to trains was proximity to the greatest threat against my life I would ever know.
In those early years following the assault, I vigilantly avoided the railroad tracks around Lexington. I knew where they intersected streets, and I figured out alternate routes. I went out of my way to take bridges that would escort me above and beyond the tracks themselves. It was the only way to avoid the sheer panic I felt at the sight of the railroad or the sound of a train. And I made sure I always lived as far away from the rails as I could.
Back at school, I was living in the sorority house again and doing my best to reintegrate into daily life with my Kappa sisters and classmates. It had been only a month since the attack, and my friends were astounded I wasn’t falling apart. From the outside, I appeared to be holding up fairly well. What gave me strength in those initial months back on campus were all the people who kept telling me how strong I was. I didn’t feel particularly strong, but because people called me that, I lived up to it. I certainly had bad days, but on the whole, I wanted to be happy and enjoy school and have fun with my peers. I was keeping my emotions in check, but I wasn’t really dealing with the trauma either. Rather, I chose to avoid it as best I could for as long as I could.
Looking back, I realize that healing happens in somewhat unpredictable stages. I had to focus on whatever was the most immediate issue. Given how badly I had been beaten, I had a long road of physical healing to deal with first. For several weeks after I returned to school, I remained restricted to a liquid diet. The cook at the Kappa house was gracious to continue the regimen we had established at home, including straining noodles from the chicken soup mix and making my mother’s homemade chili, blending it sufficiently for me to consume through my teeth. A month following my jaw surgery, the wires were exchanged for rubber bands, and I could open my mouth about two centimeters—just enough room to use a straw.
Six weeks after the surgery, a nurse at the UK hospital cut the wires and removed the equipment from my mouth. By that point, I had lost twenty-two pounds. I was five foot eight with a medium frame, but I weighed only 135 pounds. I looked so frail that my collar bones poked through my clothes. My first solid meal was a McDonald’s cheeseburger. I have never enjoyed fast food more than I did the day I could finally chew solid food again! I still had to see a physical therapist a few times to help me regain strength and flexibility in my jaw, but with the wires finally removed, I felt like a free woman.
One of the most unnerving aspects of my medical treatment was getting screened for HIV. I was tested right after the attack while I was still in the hospital. Then I had a follow-up test six months later. Those tests caused untold anxiety. The rape, the trauma, the loss of Chris—these things were more than I could handle—but on top of it all, I had to worry about contracting a fatal disease. No! I thought. Not one more bad thing can happen to me! Each time, the test results were mailed to my parents’ home in Evansville, and thankfully, each time my parents called me, they told me the tests had come back negative. I had to do it all over again after a year had passed. It was an inexplicable relief once I was cleared of that scare.
While the physical damage this man had inflicted upon me was measurable and apparent, the deep emotional and psychological damage was much harder to quantify. My sister, Heather, had been urging me to start counseling as soon as possible. Our family had been in therapy after our brother Michael died, which taught me that I needed to ask for help. Given my family’s earlier experiences, I assumed that after a major trauma you go straight to therapy, so I booked an appointment with a therapist through the University of Kentucky Counseling Center.
Heather had been coming regularly to Lexington from Nashville to support my transition back to school. She picked me up from the Kappa house and accompanied me to my first counseling appointment. I met the counselor, a woman in her thirties who was primarily a research professor, in her office in Frazee Hall. Her office had a desk and a couple of chairs, and the usual stacks of textbooks and academic literature. We sat facing each other in the chairs in front of her desk. She let me do most of the talking, but the pain was still acute, and I got very emotional whenever I tried to discuss what happened.
The professor was very caring and kind—she did her best—but her responses felt like textbook answers with little empathy for what I had experienced. Once our hour was up, she scheduled a second appointment for the next week. I walked back outside where Heather was waiting. My eyes were red and puffy from crying. In telling the counselor the story, I had relived it all over again, but without the support I had been expecting. I only felt more alone in the pain and trauma.
“I’m not going back,” I said. “She doesn’t understand. She can’t possibly know what it’s like to watch someone die in front of you or to have to beg a man not to kill you.”
Heather put her arms around me, and I buried my face in her shoulder.
“She’s no use to me,” I repeated, my voice muffled.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to go back.”
The following week, my second counseling appointment coincided with Lambda Chi’s Watermelon Bust, a popular fraternity event held by Lambda Chi chapters on college campuses all over the country. I had a choice: therapy or a fun event.
I chose the Watermelon Bust. And I never went back to see that counselor again.
Alcohol wasn’t allowed at these campus events, but the Lambda Chi event was still carefree—just messy, sticky fun. Watermelon eating contests, greased-up melon carrying contests, melon smashing, and more. I had a blast.
Being with friends was the therapy I needed most. It’s also how I grieved losing Chris—by spending time with people who had known and loved him, including his favorite fraternity brothers and female friends: Brian, Ryan, Mike W., Mike M., Donovan, Andrew, Kevin, Andy, Josh, Tom, Jenny, Adrienne, and Becky. This group became a family. We sought each other out, congregated at each other’s apartments, shared potluck dinners featuring homemade manicotti or Greek pizza, listened to Chris’s favorite music, told stories, and reminisced about the ways he had brought us so much light and laughter. The way I grieved Chris wasn’t perhaps the way people thought I should. But Chris’s friends needed me, and I needed them. As it would turn out, our gathering together in love and support would not stop, even over many, many years.
While time with Chris’s friends continued to help me find closure in our loss, there remained no closure in the criminal investigation. The man who murdered Chris and raped me still remained at large. Immediately after the attack, dozens of investigators had spread out across the city and canvased neighborhoods with high-density immigrant populations in search of someone who matched the description I’d given. The first press release, which went out two days after the attack, offered my description of the perpetrator and a hotline for residents to call with any applicable information. Less than a week after the sketch artist visited me at home in Evansville, the Lexington Police Department released the hand-drawn image to the media in hopes that it would generate even more leads. The problem was that too many people matched the description and most of the leads were too vague to be helpful.
“We’ve received lots of tips, but most of them are just people reporting they saw a man who appeared to be Mexican,” said Detective Sorrell. “These are good people just trying to help out. But the truth is, your attacker is a very generic-looking guy.”
Like many cities, Lexington hosted a l
arge Hispanic community that included countless migrant workers who came and went as the seasons provided opportunities to work on tobacco or horse farms. I became increasingly aware of just how pervasive the Hispanic community was. Prior to the attack I really didn’t pay much attention, but afterward I did a double take every time I saw a Hispanic-looking man who remotely resembled the one who raped me. I was on constant alert. Every Hispanic-looking man on the street was suspect. I scanned the lines of men waiting outside Walmart or the Hope Center, the local homeless shelter. I stared at their faces. What if I saw him? What would I do?
DNA from my rape kit was tested against a national database, but police found no match. Detectives followed up on countless tips from the public to eliminate suspects, and took DNA samples from men who were arrested for various crimes or who willingly offered a sample during questioning, but nothing materialized from those samples, either. I was disappointed that traces of my attacker weren’t already on file—and I felt a growing sense of dread that we might not get a good lead until he hurt someone else.
Detective Sorrell and another officer paid me a visit at the sorority house not long after I’d returned to school. He asked me if I would be willing to cooperate with America’s Most Wanted if he could get the case featured on the show. I agreed, and in October of 1997, he sent the first of several letters to the show in hopes they would feature the crime against Chris and me. I didn’t hear much about it after that first letter went out. The show specialized in profiling crimes along with their perpetrators so the audience could assist in tracking down the responsible parties. As it turned out, the producers were reluctant to feature a crime without a suspect.
