Missing victim’s voice can’t be silenced
For years, the Christmas Eve rape tormented Carol Cooper. She never shook the depression, chronic headaches and desire to die that followed it.
Friday, more than 10 years after she was beaten and raped, her attacker finally was sentenced to life in prison.
She wasn’t there to see it.
Yet everyone in the courtroom heard her words.
...
On her forearm, there was a tattoo.
In a thick German accent, Cooper told the nurses she had survived a concentration camp during the Holocaust. She apologized for making them come in to the hospital on Christmas Eve. When she spoke about the rape, Cooper told them she wanted to die.
...
Death come and free me from the horrible headaches.
Death, why not on Christmas Eve 1999? Why such a prolonging agony?
Remember the horrible hours on Christmas Eve 1999, when I cried out to you, ‘Would you do that to your mother?’ … I don’t know how much longer I can last.
...
She's still missing. A lengthy, haunting retrospective of the case, at:
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/26...e-cant-be.html
Linear Mode
