Kidnapped by a Client, page 9
I headed straight to the Sheriff’s Department, spoke with Deputy Cannon, and presented him with an idea.
The incident started in Scott County and ended in Bourbon County. The United States Constitution, along with the Kentucky Constitution and case law, prohibits a defendant from being tried twice for the same crime. We all know that to be double jeopardy. They do not, however, prohibit a defendant from being charged with a variety of crimes stemming from one incident.
Both Scott County and Bourbon County had jurisdiction over the crimes committed in their respective counties, so I could swear out a complaint in Scott County with different charges while the kidnapping, sexual abuse, and resisting arrest were pending in Bourbon County. Deputy Cannon filled out a sheriff’s report for me. We charged Morrison with wanton endangerment and false imprisonment—first degree, class D felonies, with up to five years each. The point of filing these charges was to place a “holder” on him. If he was able to make bail in Bourbon County for the kidnapping, sex abuse, and resisting arrest charges, the Bourbon County Jail would hold him until Scott County Sheriff’s Deputies could pick him up on the charges I filed there. Morrison would then be transferred to Scott County, where he would be held and arraigned and have to make bail for the charges I filed there.
This would prevent him from getting out of jail and showing up at my office before I knew he was released. All of this would slow him down and buy me time to do whatever I had to do to stay safe.
When I finished filing the charges, I met with Sheriff Hammons. He gathered several deputies in his office and placed maps of Scott County and Bourbon County on a large table. We marked the location of my office and where I was found. Jeff shared the “landmarks” I had given him over the phone, and we studied the maps to determine the path I had driven. Once we realized I had doubled back and had gone in a circle, we identified the route. It also helped create a timeline for the incident. We worked backward from my 911 call to when I hung up with Jeff in the hallway at the office.
Jeff and I got into Sheriff Hammons’s SUV and slowly drove the path. Jeff sat in the back, taking notes and marking where we turned, road names, and anything to help identify the route.
I didn’t believe what I saw. The streets were full of traffic. We passed gas stations and shopping centers with cars and people. We drove through a large intersection—and then we were quickly out in the country.
How had I safely driven so far and failed to see all the activity? I’d been so focused on Morrison, his hands, and trying to anticipate and deflect his next blow that the outside world ceased to exist. That is, until Jeff told me to call out landmarks. But by that time we were so deep in the country there really wasn’t anyone or anything around.
After we left the city limits of Georgetown, my cell service kept dropping. Eventually I had no service at all. Just three days ago, my phone with a dead battery worked an additional two hours and never dropped service. Thank God!
When we came to the crime scene, Sheriff Hammons pulled in to the same place I’d parked Friday night. I started taking photos while the sheriff walked up and down the road with Jeff, looking for the duffle bag. Once I was done taking photos, I joined them in the search for the bag.
I was deflated as we continued to look but couldn’t find it. I was with a sheriff, so if we found it, he could call it in, and the chain of evidence would hold up in court. I knew I couldn’t go out on my own and “find” the bag. Defense counsel would have had a field day with that.
We didn’t hop the fence, where I believed the bag must be, but we walked the road and checked the ditch. I was hoping to find something, the roll of cash and drugs, the hammer I saw. Something. We came up empty.
Oddly, I was not afraid that day. I walked the site where I was almost murdered days earlier, and all I could think about was collecting evidence and taking photos that would help tell the jury my story.
We returned to Georgetown feeling relatively productive. It felt great to be trying, to be part of the effort to build a strong case. To be working while the evidence was fresh. Sadly, this would be the last time the case was worked for a very long time. My efforts in collecting and preserving physical evidence and encouraging law enforcement to do so became an exercise in futility and frustration.
I feared a dearth of evidence at trial, and I was right. But I’m jumping ahead of the story—again.
We got back to Georgetown and met my parents.
“What do you have for self-protection?” Dad asked.
“I have a baseball bat under my desk and one at the house, near the door,” I said, knowing how that must sound to my dad.
“If you plan on using a bat, you’ve got to be up close, and I don’t like that.” He handed me a Beretta 9mm. “I bought you this. We can practice at the range, and I’ll show you how to clean it.”
I have been around guns my entire life, but for the first time, I felt an emotional weight attached to this one. Not just a tool on the farm—it was a matter of life or death.
“Thank you, Dad. I’ll feel much safer with this.”
I didn’t know how I could use it anytime soon. My right arm was weak, and I could not grip very well. My injuries seemed to be getting worse, not better. I wasn’t going to tell Dad, though. He needed to know he was doing everything he could to help keep me safe.
When Jeff and I returned home, I called my friend Fred, a general contractor who had done the remodeling on my home. I asked him to add locks to my doors, add exterior lights, install motion detectors, hang blinds, and install storm windows. Anything to slow down someone from getting into my house. And make it harder to watch me from outside.
I had enjoyed the unobstructed view of my white flower garden in the backyard, but now the uncovered windows made me feel like I was living in a fishbowl.
Then I called the local police station. We had our own small department in my neighborhood, apart from the Louisville police, and I informed them briefly of what happened, gave them a description of Morrison, and asked them to drive by my house as often as they could. Next, I spoke to two of my neighbors and told them to call the police immediately if they saw anyone around my house that fit his description.
I went into my routine of checking around the house, including making sure my cell phone was charged, but now I added something new: I loaded my 9mm, chambered a round, clicked the safety off, and placed it on my nightstand.
Lastly, I called the jail. Morrison was down for the night. Then so was I.
TUESDAY, DAY FOUR
Flowers, cards, phone calls, and emails poured in. Friends showered me with encouragement. My extended family and friends called after hearing my story on the news. I felt grateful for the support but was too wiped out to respond.
Jeff had to return to work, yet he checked on me frequently. I didn’t want to leave the house. I didn’t have the energy—it was too much work to stay safe outside my home.
My friend Kevin came to visit me and take photos of my car—part of the crime scene. He zoomed in on the knife gouges across my leather dashboard, the broken knobs, the shattered CD player, and other marks. He planned to have prints made of the photos for me to give the prosecutor. While frustrating, it came as no surprise that these were the only photos of my car presented to a jury. No one in law enforcement ever photographed the crime scene—either the farm or my car.
Kevin and I spoke about the knife and tried to work through how I survived. We wondered how I could have pushed Morrison off me. So I called Steve. Steve Schroering was my friend and legal advisor I called from the crime scene. I first met Steve in law school where he was my trial practice professor. He was young, charismatic, and handsome. And I had a crush. Our project for the end of the semester was to participate in mock trials. At one point, I acted as a witness, while Steve sat on the bench along with a federal court judge. Together, they presided over the cases. During a particularly long argument by the attorneys at the bench, I started whispering to my classmates who were acting as jurors. I pointed out that the younger man on the bench as the professor they had heard me talk about all semester, the one I thought was so hot. Wasn’t he handsome? Look at those arms! As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the room went silent. My friends on the jury stared across the room toward the bench, their eyes growing wide and their mouths collectively dropping open. I turned to see all the student attorneys, Steve, and the federal court judge grinning at me. At that moment, I remembered that the video at the judge’s bench was voice activated. Every word I’d said was heard at the bench. Steve’s face was bright red, my face was bright red, and that was the beginning of our lifelong friendship.
I trusted Steve without reservation. I asked him to help figure out what happened in the car. He referred me to a weapons expert, Eric, who agreed to try to determine what exactly happened with the knife. Eric explained that there was no reasonable explanation for me being able to push Morrison off of me. Certainly not with enough force to break the knife tip.
“What about the stories you hear about women lifting cars off their trapped children, saving their lives? Don’t we have some extraordinary power as a result of the adrenaline pumping through us?”
He told me there was not enough adrenaline to do that kind of damage to that kind of blade. The position of my body and angle of the damage in the dashboard made it appear something jerked him off of me. The angles were all wrong for a push. It had to be a pull.
An unseen force pulled Morrison off me. I know it, and Morrison knows it. Even law enforcement and the attorneys knew something extraordinary, inexplicable intervened. Everyone avoided asking me about it at the trial. But I knew what happened. In that moment, God showed up Old Testament style, like a fierce warrior saying, “Enough is enough. This is over. You are not taking her today.” God protected me when I couldn’t protect myself, and he rescued me from certain death. He would do it again in a few months, but that would be from a different kind of death—we will get to that later.
You would think that after God miraculously intervened on my behalf, I would feel invincible, that I was safe. But my human side prevailed, and I wavered back and forth, with fear continuing to haunt me. Part of me lived with the image of being raped and stabbed to death with the last thing I see the sweaty, hate-filled face of Larry Morrison as he presses against me and slices through my throat. Another part thought I must be God’s favorite, the way He’d protected me. That Morrison better think twice about coming back for me—he had no idea who he was messing with.
I wish I could have lived in the latter of the two images, but unfortunately fear won out and drowned out the message that would allow me to live with confidence and peace. Instead, I chose to listen to the fear that led me down a destructive path.
Kevin left, and nighttime set in. I went through my routine, but once again, I added something new. That night, Jeff was not sleeping on my couch. After he left and I was done checking around the house, I pushed the dresser in front of my bedroom door. I was alone, so I barricaded myself in my room. Then I called the jail to make sure Morrison was there.
That was the first night by myself. I didn’t sleep. At all.
WEDNESDAY, DAY FIVE
I’m not living, not surviving even. Just existing.
I’d asked my assistant Judy to let people know I was out of the office. She kept an eye on the news reporters camping outside my door and told me Morrison’s grandmother called repeatedly demanding to speak with me. She wanted me to stop “all this,” claiming her grandson had not done anything. She gave multiple news interviews asserting his innocence and blaming me.
I understood, in part, the unconditional love of a grandmother. I had my own amazing grandmother who would have fought for me if she had still been alive, but this was ridiculous. Meemaw crossed a line blaming me for what happened. I would not dignify her with a response.
Jeff came over late that evening to check on me. I was a zombie. I’d had only had a couple of hours of restless sleep since the previous Thursday night.
On Monday, I had visited my general practitioner and talked about what was going on with my body, how I couldn’t control the shaking, breathing, crying, or much else. I wasn’t able to sleep and overall felt numb. This feeling—unfamiliar but completely overwhelming—was unbearable. I missed the old me and wanted this to end, now.
The doctor suggested Klonopin and explained it was for panic attacks.
Panic attacks? Unaccustomed to anxiety, it took my breath away and confused me. What had happened that I could no longer seem to control my own body and emotions? My mood, my actions, my feelings were entirely up to me, or they used to be.
I would not take medicine that changed any of that. I would not let what Morrison did change my life that much. When would the constant stream of destruction associated with that man end? I’d take the prescription but I wouldn’t take the pills.
But now Jeff was concerned about my health and asked me to try the Klonopin.
I was desperate and needed some sleep, so I agreed. I cut the pill in half. It didn’t take long for my eyes to feel heavy and my body weak. I lay back on the couch, propping my legs up. Things got strange fast. I was dizzy and couldn’t lift my limbs. My whole body went limp. Breathing was hard. I felt myself sliding off the couch, yet I couldn’t stop it. I hit the floor and rolled under the coffee table lifeless.
I lay face down, immobile. Jeff moved the table and picked me up. He asked me questions: Could I walk? Could I speak? I could do neither. He carried me to my bedroom and gently laid me down on the bed. He found my cell phone and called my doctor. She advised Jeff to monitor my breathing through the night. Jeff came in periodically, watched my breathing and talked to me. I couldn’t say much in return. Hours later, an overall grogginess and cloudy mind remained. Medicine wasn’t going to work for me.
FRIDAY, DAY SEVEN
It’s the helplessness that keeps you awake at night. Fred had showed up the day before with a truck full of treasures. With each lock, blind, or storm window added, I’d hoped to feel safer. But no matter what precautions I took, no matter how much I trained or prepared, there was a man out there willing, able, and determined to kill me. He had already tried and was planning to come back. How could I live with that?
Not sleeping didn’t help. Sleep had become a burden, a job, something I had to work for.
I spent the seventh day after the incident calling counselors, desperate for someone to tell me this new world of mine was a type of normal but it wouldn’t last forever. It was like being in the bottom of a deep well, so deep you can’t see any light. Not even a pinpoint. Your mind tells you the light is there, but you see no evidence of it, and you can’t scrape together enough faith to believe. I had never experienced such hopelessness and fear.
In an effort to gain more confidence in the office that was going to prosecute my case I called criminal defense attorneys in Central Kentucky, questioning them about their experiences with Gordie Shaw, the Commonwealth’s Attorney and his assistants.
I was immediately disheartened. “They are easy to work with, like to make deals, and don’t like to prosecute sex crimes.” Easy to work with was fine. The other two were not. They technically wouldn’t be representing me. I was considered just a witness, like any other witness, with no meaningful rights. Gordie represented the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the pursuit of protecting “the people.” As a witness/victim, I was forbidden to represent myself or hire an attorney, so that office was my only option. So far, what I was hearing was a defense attorney’s dream, which made him a victim’s nightmare.
The only thing that kept me from feeling like helpless prey was having a loaded gun with me—in my purse, my car, my bed. The great equalizer.
It seemed the world was divided into wolves and sheep. Predators and the rest of us. Never feeling safe, waiting, seeing his face attached to every creak of the boards in my house, every bark of a dog at night, every time my motion sensor went off. I had to be prepared. He’d bested me already, and it wasn’t a silly competition he beat me at. It was my life. I didn’t get away from him on my own. I was gifted the chance to get away from him. Without acts of divine intervention, I would be dead. I didn’t have the skills to get away from him the first time, but I was determined to be prepared the second time because it was coming. I knew it. I would be ready. I may be a sheep, but a sheep carrying a 9mm with a hollow point chambered.
Jeff and my friends Darin and Jay arranged to take me to the range to practice with my new gun. Darin helped me load my magazine. It was new, and my fingers weren’t strong enough to push down the tight springs to load the bullets. I chambered a round, got my sights lined up, and assumed the proper grip and placement of feet. The only thing left was to aim and pull the trigger. All my senses were heightened. I heard the muzzle blasts of other guns around me, brass casings ejecting from the barrels and clanking off the concrete floor, the stiff cordite smell burning my nostrils. These aren’t things you notice when you shoot in an open field, but at an indoor range, basically a concrete box, every sound and smell bounces around until it dissipates.
In front of me hung a paper target with a black form against a white background. But I saw only Morrison’s face. My hands were trembling, making it impossible to aim.
My eyes flooded with tears. The idea of pointing this gun at Morrison and pulling the trigger devastated me. Even with all he had done to me and planned to do to me, I couldn’t imagine having to kill a man. I pulled the trigger, laid the gun down, and ran out of the range.
As I charged into the lobby, Jeff ran after me with Darin and Jay right behind. In a trembling sob, barely understandable, I blurted out, “Everyone else is here to get better at shooting. I am here because I’m being hunted.”
Jeff pulled me in for a giant hug. I turned my head to Darin. He looked as if his heart were breaking. He kindly said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Then I saw Jay. Quiet, strong Jay. He said nothing verbally but a thousand words of comfort radiated from his gaze, which said, “Of course you feel this way. It would be unusual if you didn’t.”
