Spirited Woman Blogger Team

Guest Blogger - Liz Seccuro - The Gift of the Fight - Part Three

At the age of 17, Liz Seccuro was drugged and gang raped at a fraternity party just five weeks after arriving at the University of Virginia. Over 20 years later, one of the perpetrators wrote a letter to her, apologizing for his crime. It led to his arrest, subsequent plea deal and brief prison term. The other rapists remain at large and the case remains open. Liz's case captured international media attention. She went on to write her recently released memoir, Crash Into Me: A Survivor's Search for Justice.

In her exclusive three-part series, "The Gift of the Fight," for Spirited Woman, Liz writes about her experience. In part one she reflected upon her childhood. In part two the rape. In part three the trial and getting on with her life.

On that day in September, as I prepared for a three-week working holiday in East Hampton, New York, my husband and then 2-year-old daughter Ava piled into the car with me, brimming with excitement. Mike and I are not vacationers, but we really needed a break, and, because Ava was just in preschool, we didn’t think missing a few days would be of serious consequence to her post-graduate work, ha!

I recall sitting in the passenger seat as we wended our way down our circular driveway, when I suddenly touched Mike on the arm and told him to stop and get the mail. He hit the brakes, looked at me with impatience, but walked the few hundred feet back to get the mail from our big, vintage white metal mail box. There was, indeed, a huge pile of mail.

Out of the stacks of invitations and catalogues, Mike lifted a stiff, creamy envelope and slid it to me. “You got a letter,” he said. My eyes scanned the postmark. It said “Las Vegas.” Hmm…I didn’t know anyone in Las Vegas. I saw lovely handwriting. This all happened in the space of about two seconds. My eyes scanned to the left upper corner and I saw it. The return address sticker. It was HIS name. That of my rapist. William Beebe.

The drive out to the Hamptons was filled with shock, tears, silence, medication, memories, panic, resignation and relief. The letter was, ostensibly, an apology by William Beebe for raping me in 1984 and inviting me to open a dialogue about it. It was the most strange and surreal moment of my life.

My book, Crash Into Me, chronicles what I did with that letter, how I proceeded with a criminal trial and how the case then received international attention due to the sheer oddity of the whole thing. I cannot do it justice here or explain what needs hundreds of pages of twist, turns, surprises and legal transcripts. What I DO know is on the day I received that letter, I became a victim again, then a survivor again, and now a warrior. For me, for my daughter, for all survivors, for all women.

The biggest change in my life, since the brief jail term and release of William Beebe has been the way I approach the world, other human beings, and myself. Gone are the days (for the most part – it’s a daily struggle) of self-esteem issues and self-destructive behavior. In 2008, Mike, Ava and I welcomed a new member of our family, baby Leo and now, as a mother of two, I recognized that being whole and healthy for them was paramount.

Guest Blogger - Liz Seccuro - The Gift of the Fight - Part Two

At the age of 17, Liz Seccuro was drugged and gang raped at a fraternity party just five weeks after arriving at the University of Virginia. Over 20 years later, one of the perpetrators wrote a letter to her, apologizing for his crime. It led to his arrest, subsequent plea deal and brief prison term. The other rapists remain at large and the case remains open. Liz's case captured international media attention. She went on to write her recently released memoir, Crash Into Me: A Survivor's Search for Justice.

In her exclusive three-part series, "The Gift of the Fight," for Spirited Woman, Liz writes about her experience. In part one she reflected upon her childhood. In part two the rape.

My life was to change again five weeks into the beginning of my college career when a good friend,  begged me to attend a fraternity rush party at the Phi Kappa Psi house in the center of Rugby Road, or “fraternity row." I had been studying in my sweatpants at about 10:30 PM with no desire to head out into the night. My friend was charming and gay and needed a girl to pass as straight, to even be considered at a fraternity.

We left with a small group from the dorm; I was dressed in a casual denim miniskirt, long-sleeved cotton sweater, flats and simple jewelry. It was barely a 10-minute walk in the crisp night October 4 air. Once there, a typical scene unfolded. Hundreds of revelers cavorted, playing foosball, drinking from kegs of beer and listening to a band. It’s the same scene reenacted nightly at any college or university in America today, or in 1984.

Somehow, we became separated during which I had consumed about a cup and a half of beer. I found myself on the second floor, with the house brothers reassuring me that my friend would return in minutes; that he had taken a house tour, which was normal during the rush process. I moped around the living room on that floor, seeking out friends, sometimes sitting on chairs or a sofa. I wanted desperately to go home, as I was tired and had class the next day. Thursday night parties were legendarily epic at UVa, as many students avoided Friday classes at all costs, choosing instead to double up earlier in the week with more brutal schedules so they could enjoy a three-day weekend.

As I sat on a loveseat minding my own business, I was offered a drink from two fraternity brothers. It was, they said, their “house special.” Not wanting to seem different or uncool, I accepted the drink in the clear tumbler. It was green with a tiny straw. I thanked them and sat back down, sipping on the elixir. It was tart and sweet and did not taste of alcohol, although I assumed there must be something like vodka in it.  Minutes clicked by and still no sign of my friend. I decided to look for him, but noticed immediately that I was impaired and uneasy on my feet. I couldn’t move normally, and, if memory serves, had to steady myself on the arm of the sofa or a chair. I would NOT walk home alone. That would be foolish and unsafe and every other thing my sheltered upbringing had taught me.

In short, I was approached by a very tall, large brother. He began to speak with me. I demurred. He dragged me down the hall, my feet not working, into a room, where he began to kiss me. I screamed and tried to escape. I pounded on doors, yelling at the top of my lungs and smashing my feet, kicking. One of the “bar” brothers approached and lifted me up and threw me back into the room, where I was brutally raped by the large stranger. I passed out. The details are graphic.

Guest Blogger - Liz Seccuro - The Gift of the Fight - Part One

At the age of 17, Liz Seccuro was drugged and gang raped at a fraternity party just five weeks after arriving at the University of Virginia. Over 20 years later, one of the perpetrators wrote a letter to her, apologizing for his crime. It led to his arrest, subsequent plea deal and brief prison term. The other rapists remain at large and the case remains open. Liz's case captured international media attention. She went on to write her recently released memoir, Crash Into Me: A Survivor's Search for Justice.

In her exclusive three-part series, "The Gift of the Fight," for Spirited Woman, Liz writes about her experience. In part one she reflects upon her childhood.

Was I born into a life of less promise? I think the opposite. My biological mother, a freshman at NYU in the freewheeling 1960s, was too young to care for me and wanted to continue her education. It didn’t help that my biological father was a married musician she had met in one of the West Villages famed nightclubs. So, after four days in the hospital with me, she made the decision to give me up for adoption. I lived my first year at The Foundling Hospital of the now –shuttered St. Vincent’s, where the nuns cared for me until my parents adopted me four days short of my first birthday. I wonder what living there was like, sometimes. Did they hold me, hug me, play with me? Or was it the archetypical “orphanage” implied by the harsh, almost Dickensian use of the word? All of that said, I was the luckiest baby in the world to end up with my parents just before Christmas of 1967. They were, and are, the most terrific parents in the world.

I grew up in Westchester County, New York, in a town called Mount Vernon, a heavily Italian-American, middle-class, Catholic suburb of New York City. We were by no means wealthy, living in a spacious apartment, but not a house with a yard like most of my friends. We were, however, rich in life experience and happiness. Life revolved around playgrounds, friends, summers at the Jersey Shore and, for me, a very rigid schedule of academics and dance, both of which I excelled at from a very young age. It’s worth noting that my parents, both working blue collar jobs, did not push me to excel to such extremes, although they were immensely proud of my drive, ambition and results. I wanted it for myself and I displayed natural aptitudes in both my schoolwork and in the rigors of ballet. As an only child, I would spend hours poring over my extensive book collection, preferring them to dolls or television. I think that my love of reading, instilled by my mother, made me the student that I was. Self-control and obsessive perfectionism, I think, took some of the joy out of my studies. But that was all me. Perhaps that desire to be perfect came from being abandoned as a baby. Perhaps I thought I had something to prove; that I could be “good enough." I only question this now, as an adult, because, looking back, I remember nothing but happiness as I pursued my dreams of excellence. To be honest, it was to be a veritable anvil over the head of foreshadowing.