This is a true story about a 50-year woman whom I knew who was raped. She was abducted and repeatedly raped over a 3-4 days period starting on Christmas Eve.
She worked at Dillard's in the Washington Park Mall in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and we developed a friendship. The rape occurred in about 1990. She was a sales associate working in the perfume section. I'll call her Brenda.
Brenda was 50, a grandmother living alone in Bartlesville, She was working the closing shift and left the store on the southwest side, near where her car, a black Cadillac was parked. A white van was parked close to her on the driver's side. She had carried gift wrapped Christmas packages out with her to put in her car. She said that she wondered about the van parked so closely because the parking lot was nearly empty but she was tired from a hectic night. Remember that it was ChristmasEve. She set her packages atop her car, which meant that her open door, now touching the van, blocked her way of escaping towards the front. She heard the door open on the van, felt him grab her and pull her into the van. He left immediately, taking her to a house in Ochelata, Oklahoma, about 20 miles south of Bartlesville. He removed and hid, possibly discarded, her clothes. He held her prisoner over 3-4 days, horribly using her and raping her time after time. He left the house, apparently assuming that she would not try to escape because she was naked. She did escape, naked into the frigid air. She was half hiding behind a tree when a man saw her. He stopped, got something for her to put on, and got her to law enforcement. He was tried and convicted of a combination of crimes against her, and he was sentenced to prison.
I was safety director for my company, Drilling Specialties Company. I asked her if she would be willing to talk about what happened to her with the women I worked with. She said she would. I went to my boss and said that I wanted to have a special safety meeting just for the women and he agreed. As he and I talked, we decided to include the women in our lives along with our employees. His wife and several others, and his 16 year old daughter sat in the room to listen to her. No men were present. It wasn't a game. We wanted complete openness for them.
She told them everything she had told me. Shocked women and the 16-year old daughter asked her blunt questions and she answered all of them, regardless of her personal pain. The women who listened were shocked, horrified, sickened, and cried for her. It was painful and frightening.
Brenda talked about the mistakes she made, the warning signs she might have missed, and she talked about how it changed her life in every way possible. She no longer felt safe, anywhere. She saw rapists in every man she met. She could no longer trust any man. The secretary who worked for my boss revealed in stunned shock that the rapist had been her neighbor in rural Ochelata.
I wrote this because I see women walking through parking lots in Bartlesville, Owasso, and Tulsa, while concentrating on their cell phones, never looking up, never being aware of their surroundings. Please don't be that woman. Don't become a victim.
Please share it with the women in your lives.
