Stalking the Innocence Thief

CW: Contains themes of child sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, stalking, and violence.

He didn’t get the job, because of me. Good. The anonymous letter I left the manager did the trick. I drive home satisfied, yet something nibbles at my core; I need to keep at it until he feels isolated and alone with no one to extend a helping hand, similar to how his victims felt. 

I felt vindicated when I put posters around his latest neighborhood with his mugshot and arrest information, nudging the neighborhood to get involved and forcing him to move but it still wasn’t enough punishment. Thanks to me, he’s had to move multiple times in the past six months of his parole for child molestation, multiple counts, one of those my daughter.

My beautiful daughter, now fourteen, was sexually abused by this piece of trash, a friend of the family at age eight and she hasn’t healed. I’m not sure when she will be, she didn’t tell her father and I about the abuse; for four years she hid the hurt and tried to live and forget it but, it seeped like oil into her personality. Her life’s path was hijacked and skewed by that twisted lowlife and she will never return to that path again. After I learned about the abuse, I asked her why she didn’t tell us. She looked at me and said, “He told me not to.”

Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get in a car with a stranger. Look before crossing the street. Eat more fruit and vegetables.The list of rules we give our children to guard them from harm is never ending. Wear your seatbelt. Don’t drink and drive.I wish I had told my daughter if anyone tells you to keep a secret from mommy or daddy, you must tell us right away. It might not have saved her from the initial harm, but she wouldn’t have suffered in silence for years.

She sees a therapist twice a month, has multiple piercings and changes her hair color monthly. Her insides are bruised, like a peach after it’s been dropped. She believes if she damages herself enough, no one will want her and she’ll be safe. She had no control over what happened to her. Now she controls her appearance, how much she eats and sleeps, this sense of control helps her and I allow it. I’ve seen her spiral into darkness, thinking she’s worthless, used, dirty, unwanted, so I allow the behaviors I don’t understand to prevent another spiral. I can’t lose her to the darkness.

Why should he be allowed to live a normal life when she can’t? He didn’t pay his full debt to society, released early due to over-crowding and back on the street claiming he has changed, I don’t believe it and even if I did, again, it’s not fair to allow him to live free with few restrictions when there are days she can’t get out of bed.

I didn’t start stalking him immediately when he was released. It happened after I witnessed my daughter’s self-harm, a razor to her thigh, blood staining down her leg like Kool-Aid on a child’s chin. Forty-two stitches closed her wounds but mine opened like a fault line in California. I sought him out.

I bashed his brake lights with a baseball bat the first time I saw him out. Aggression and anger went like shockwaves through my arm to his car, liberating but fleeting. I panicked and ran when lights in his apartment clicked on. He didn’t know it was me, but it made me rethink how I would handle his release. 

I leave notes on his car every week, sometimes filled with hateful spewing. Notes describing the parole requirements he has to follow, I warn I’m watching if he steps out of line, the police will be notified, his freedom can be snatched away. When I see him, I think about punching him in the face, his nose cracking under my knuckles and the rush of sweet relief it would bring, but I think of my family. They need me at home not in jail. 

Obsessed? Yes. Justified? Yes. I am not forcing employers to fire him or not hire him. I don’t picket in his neighborhood. I simply inform others who he is and let them decide. Can I move on? Not until my daughter is happy, healthy, living her best life, trauma healed; it may take years and puts my own life on the back burner, but it is a sacrifice I gladly give. I couldn’t protect her from this monster, I failed her, she thinks it when she looks at me, I see it in her eyes. Why wouldn’t she? It happened next to the family room where the adults, minus one, were playing cards. The door should have been open, no reason for it to be shut. I don’t remember when it closed or even when he went in the room. I picture my little girl wondering what was happening to her and why mommy, only a few feet away didn’t stop it. I will make this right, somehow with therapy, medication, and ensuring the bastard suffers. Then maybe the images will fade.

Shame. When something is happening to us which is wrong, we feel shame, as a warning sign, but many females associate this shame that they did something wrong. I felt it when I was a child and answered the telephone one evening. A male stranger began talking to me, normal questions. I felt important someone wanted to talk to me on the phone. The questions turned weird, he asked me what I was wearing. “Green silky pajamas.” He asked what my underwear looked like. I dropped the phone and ran to my mom. The police were called and my statement taken. My mother asked me why I kept talking to the stranger. I shrugged my shoulders. I felt important at first then shame because I didn’t end the conversation. Shame and I did nothing wrong.

Out in the world when I see women covered in tattoos and piercings, overweight or super thin, the first thought I have is, “Who hurt you?” My friend was molested by her granddad, a coworker sexual assaulted by a stalker, my sister’s friend, raped by her stepdad. How many women and girls are victims? How many in America, Mexico, the Middle east? I looked it up. In the United States the number of forcible rapes a year-over 127,000 cases. Over 440,000 sexual assaults or rapes on females age 12 and over. This statistic wouldn’t include my daughter and to make it more daunting, there is an estimated 63% which go unreported. (Statista.com)

My husband says our daughter needs me more than I need my obsession, time to move on and live life again. I’m in too deep; my thoughts are filled with justice and revenge, a mama bear vigilant for danger to her cub and ready to strike down a threat. 

I attend a support group for parents whose children have suffered various trauma. I meet a man with a similar story. We talk over coffee. His daughter killed herself because she couldn’t live with the memories and accompanying demons. The pedophile completed his time and disappeared. I overshare, because he showed so much vulnerability sharing with me. I talk about my daughter and then give him the bastard’s name and even where he lives. I won’t go back to the group. I feel wrung out like a dish rag my wounds raw and fresh.

The next day I go to the bastard’s house, no plan in mind. Can I give up on my calling to make his life miserable? How do I return to my daughter, face her knowing he’s out there living his life? I bang my steering wheel and scream, not caring what other drivers think, when I see flashing police lights and a coroner van. I watch an officer put a bloody wooden baseball bat in an evidence bag. I can’t be sure who is dead, but I see the man I met last night. He is in handcuffs being led to the backseat of a cop car. His shirt is bloody, his face shows no anger or sadness, it looks like he is feeling the sunshine on his face, for the first time in ages.

I rush home and kiss my daughter’s head. I tell her everything will be better from now on.

Resources

(https://www.statista.com/statistics/191137/reported-forcible-rape-cases-in-the-usa-since-1990)