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[Music] The attack was always in the back of my [Music] head. The scars that I have on my
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body represent a time in my life when I was scared and left helpless. But they also
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represent survival. [Music] You may be left with scars, but you can blossom into something powerful. You're
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a goofy girl. It's really been a lifelong journey of finding who did this to me.
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[Music] [Applause] The summer of 1990, I just finished the second grade. I just love life. I loved
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school. I loved learning. But as far as I can remember back in my childhood, I just didn't like the dark or sleeping
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alone. So, I found comfort in going to bed with my mom. We were all that we had was each other.
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That night I was very restless and my mom turned to me and said, "You know, you're kicking me in your sleep and I
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have to work in the morning. Would you mind going into your own room tonight?" And I turned and I said, "Just because I
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love you, Mom, I'm going to sleep in my own room tonight." So, I left my mother's room, went into mine, and I had
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a big lamp that was shaped like a light bulb. And I remember clicking it on and it lit the whole room up. That was the
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brightest lamp ever. And I got some books and just read until I fell asleep. The next thing I remember was
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waking up in the arms of a man that I didn't know. He was running with me, carrying me down the sidewalk, and I
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immediately tried to scream, but he covered my nose and mouth. He had me sitting on his lap as he was
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driving and held me there. He's trying to calm me down, telling me everything is going to be okay. I'm an undercover
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police officer. As a child, I wanted to believe him. But the part of me that had just
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learned about strangers in school, the part of me that was scared of the dark, knew
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that there was something really wrong [Music] here. As we were driving, we passed my
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grandparents' home. I started to realize that I had actually been kidnapped. I was very afraid of what
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would happen next. He pulled into the parking lot of my elementary school. He told me to watch the moon.
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And when the moon changed colors, my mother would be pulling in the parking lot to pick me up. I remember anxiously
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waiting for those headlights, but they never came. I think that at that point he was trying
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to psych himself up for what he really intended to [Music] do. I remember him saying, "Well, your
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mom's not coming." And starting up the car. And we went just a few blocks away. It was a dead end gravel road. and
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he pulled off in an overgrown field. What went through my mind was sheer [Music]
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panic and then he held a knife to my throat and said, "Am I scaring you, little girl? Am I scaring you?" And then
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he choked me as hard as he could. And then he tried to break my neck. I blacked out for a while.
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I woke up to him dragging me by my ankles through this field and he dropped my legs. I heard him walk off and I heard
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his car door slam and him drive away. I realized I couldn't scream and I couldn't figure out why. I had just
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enough strength to throw my right hand on top of my neck and that's when I felt this gaping wound and I looked at my
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hand and it was full of blood. I was 8 years old. I was just left to die in a field.
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[Music]