In 2003 I was roughly 15 years old and had been arrested in my small town for the murder of my father. A murder that would go on to change my life; my conscious, and the way I would go about interacting with others and men.
For context, I, would like to give a little background. For my own personal safety and comfort, I have not published my identity in this article.
It had left everlasting problems within my life. It was July 14th 2003. I remember that day like it was yesterday, and, eventually what led to me pushing my father down the stairs. We had gotten into an argument because he had been sexually assaulting me many times before. To the point that my private-areas would bleed.
He had become an unbelievable monster after the death of my mother. I suppose when my Mom died that I had become the domino-effect for my father. He was persistent about doing more together; quality time, and often would fall asleep with me in the living room. But that day, oh boy that day, everything changed.
“We certainly have been close these past few months,” my Dad said to me on our couch. It was a conversation that I most definitely would have thought was going to go one way, but, it ended up in a very different matter. It escalated because he was pretty clear that without my Mom present, he, was now a man that was lonely and claimed that he would feel more prepared to be my father by sleeping with me.
He touched my breasts, I squandered my feet nervous what he was trying to do. I tried to back away; even went on to tell him no that this was highly inappropriate. It was the moment that I had to accept the fact that the man that was my father was attempting to sexually come on to me, and judging by his force, he intended to do such whether I liked it or not.
I remember the moment I tried to get away, only for him to chase me down th hallway of the home our family had once called home. It was a mentally appalling moment that I had unwillingly been forced to experience my fathr nude, in fact the sight made me want to puke. But it was no way to stop him. By this time he had alraedy forced himself inside of me.
Me running down the hall with my panties halfway at my knees screaming for my father to stop. I had never been touched that way before. I was all but 15 years old and didn’t understand what it meant to have a man in my underwear. It was all but the moment that I knew this wasn’t going to end well.
He caught me halfway to the stairwall where I had without much of a warning pushed him down the stairwell in hopes he would leave me alone. Within seconds and a few steps down, he cracked his skull near the bottom .
I, a 15-year-old girl and 11 time sexual assault survivor at t he hands of my father had single-handedly killed my own Dad. It was nothing and has never been nothing that I am proud of, in fact it is something that I regret every day. My father was never a good person, although he should’ve been given the help that he needed. I’ve spent the past 10 16 years in prison for a death that could’ve been prevented had adult services taken control … but most definitely could’ve been avoided if my Dad was one of those men that understood the word “No”.
After having spent the almost past quarter of my life in confinement for a murder that should’ve never happened but it happened because I had no choice and the toll my mother’s own death from cancer took on my father. People refused to get hm help, and, he eventually took that out on me as his daughter. I forgave my father long ago for what he did but have livied with the regret of my actions while in prison.
Editors note: “Jane” as we’ll call her is currently serving a 25-year sentence for manslaughter. She was convicted when she was 15 years old after having been sexually assaulted for more than 8 months in 2003. Her mother died Christmas the year before. The U.S has largely failed its young people by serving them life-sentences long before they have ever been socially programmed to understand the rest of the world.
According to the Domestic Violence Project, 1 in 10 women in their lives will experience sexual assault and or rape by their father or a male family member. In fact, more often than not childhood sexual-assault survivors don’t speak up. This is why #PrisonReform is so important. Victims like “Jane”; Cyntoia Brown, and more are all innocent women who at some point in their lives have been forced to fend off attackers (family or not). But instead of society and the law being in favor of their protection, they are often thrown behind bars with no real chance of moving on.
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