Sara's Story, Chapter 2

[!-nessica-!]

On a late winter's day in 2001, James Eugene Grissom was playing cards with an 11-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl at a home on Stanton Street in Port Huron.

Their roughhousing took an ugly turn.

"Mr. Grissom positioned himself behind the little girl and began fondling her private parts," recalled Elaine Butts, a detective with the Port Huron Police Department.

The boy left the room and got his mother. "She immediately confronted him," Butts said, "and he ran."

Grissom, then 43, was a drifter who moved from place to place and from job to job. At the time, he was living with the uncle of the little girl he molested. With the heat on, he took off and managed to elude arrest for four months.

Investigators checking into his background discovered he had a history of arrests without convictions.

Three years earlier, he had been picked up in Warren on a felony weapons charge. That case had been dismissed and the charges dropped for reasons Butts never learned.

He also had beaten the rap in another case -- the 1987 rape of a child in Detroit -- and Butts made inquiries to learn why a charge of sexual assault in the first degree had not been pursued.

"The Detroit case was dismissed because the child was not qualified to testify," the detective said. "She was too young to give credible testimony. She was probably frightened to death, too. ... Mr. Grissom is a scary predator."

Investigators eventually tracked down Grissom, who was working at the Meijer superstore in Fort Gratiot. Butts went to the prosecutor's office and obtained an arrest warrant. On July 20, 2001, Grissom failed to appear for a preliminary hearing.

Instead, Butts heard from the little girl's family: Grissom had called the mother, threatening her and her children if the charges were not dropped.

"He told them he would kill them and move to Colorado before he'd go to jail," Butts said.

Four days later, she got a tip on Grissom's whereabouts and sent uniformed officers to take him to jail.

With witnesses willing and able to testify, Grissom agreed to a plea bargain. On Jan. 8, 2002, he stood before St. Clair County Circuit Judge Peter Deegan and admitted guilt to assault with the intent to commit sexual penetration. Counting time served, his punishment included 202 days in the county jail and a halfway house, the payment of $1,465 in court costs and three years of probation that began with his release in February 2002.

While Grissom sat in jail, Sara Ylen received counseling and continued her long, difficult recuperation from the injuries she suffered May 12, 2001, when she was raped inside her minivan in the Meijer parking lot.

Ylen is a well-spoken and articulate woman with hazel eyes and an easy, dimpled smile. She wore her blonde hair long, tumbling onto her shoulders, until the rape. Afterward, she cropped it short, as if to signal how the attack had altered every aspect of her life.

Physically, she endured muscle and nerve damage to her neck, left arm and shoulder as well as displaced ribs and pelvic bones. In constant pain, she dosed herself with pain medication and muscle relaxers.

"I slept away three weeks of my life and my children's lives," she said of the period immediately after the attack. The pain landed her in the emergency room on three occasions -- May 14, May 16 and again two months later.

"I've still not totally recovered the strength in my arm and shoulder," she said recently. "Maybe I never will."

If the physical pain was intense, the mental anguish was all but unbearable.

"My belief in peaceful life and humanity was maliciously destroyed that day," she said. "It took me a full year to finally be brave enough to leave my house alone."

The strain took its toll on her marriage. The rapist, she said, "attempted to make a mockery out of my vow of faithfulness to my husband. He cannot take that away from me, but it has created a distance that my husband and I continually fight to overcome."

Her sons were 2 and 4 at the time of the attack. "They lost their mother, in some ways, that day," she said. "They have always been my priority. Their happiness and security means everything to me. But they have not come out of this unscathed. I have listened to my oldest son pray every night for 'the bad man' to leave his mommy alone. He always asks someone to travel with us so that his mommy will 'feel safe.'

"It breaks my heart to hear him worry about me like that."

The financial effects were devastating, too.

Like many young couples, the Ylens had scrambled to establish themselves. After the births of their sons, Sara continued to teach piano on the side, but she gave up a full-time job as a pharmacy technician to be a stay-at-home mom. The family, living in a modest home in a manufactured housing subdivision near Croswell, depended on Jim Ylen's paycheck from his job as an accountant in Lapeer.

The rape and its aftereffects plunged them into debt.

In a victim's impact statement provided to the court, Sara Ylen estimated her medical and counseling expenses at $25,000 in the two years following the assault. "There are endless doctor bills and counseling," she told the court. "Our health insurance has covered a certain amount of the medical expenses, but more than half of these expenses have been our responsibility."

There were many other expenses, too. Fearful of returning to Port Huron except when absolutely necessary, she found a psychologist in Saginaw and for two years made weekly trips -- a round-trip drive of 84 miles -- for counseling. Her husband, especially in the early going, often took time off work to drive her to Saginaw, and they also had to arrange child care.

"All of this adds up to over half of my husband's annual income being needed to pay just these expenses," she wrote. "This has led to serious debt."

On May 30, 2001 -- 18 days after the rape -- Ylen had her first appointment with Dr. Shirley Phillips, a Saginaw psychologist.

"She's very kind, a motherly type," Ylen wrote in her personal journal. "Dr. Phillips listened, truly listened. I could talk when I wanted and stop when I wanted."

She described the rape, and she remembered, "(Dr. Phillips) looked me in the eye before I left and said, 'Sara, I'm so sorry this happened. But I believe you, and I believe in you. You will survive.'

"Will I?" Ylen wrote that night. "I don't feel like I'm going to survive. I feel insignificant and broken."

Two months later, an entry in her journal said: "I sat on my bed this morning for my usual routine when all of the sudden it hit me what my usual routine used to be. I used to be able to get ready quickly, throw an outfit together and be cheerful as my children woke up. I used to be happy to go somewhere on the spur of the moment."

It was now taking her hours to dress. "I try on outfit after outfit, layering clothes. I dress according to what I think and hope will be too much effort for someone to remove or rip off me."

Another journal entry: "I struggle so much with (her sons) because they remind me constantly of how I used to act with them: the carefree, happy-go-lucky mom who took bike rides and walks, played outside with them, cooked gourmet meals for my family, LOVED being a wife and mother. Now, the thought of returning to all that saddens me, as if I can't be that person any more."

On Sept. 8, 2001 -- nearly four months after the assault -- she wrote: "Today, (her oldest son) turned 5. He's so happy to be 5. I'm happy, too, but sad at the same time. While Jim was bathing the boys before bed tonight, I spent time by myself crying. How much of his life did I miss since May? I'll never get it back. Never. He doesn't stop growing because trauma struck my life.

"I have to work harder at healing."

Ylen felt isolated and abandoned, as if her experience had sent her to a cold and distant place where others could not follow.

Such feelings are not unusual in rape victims, said Laurie Huff, director of programs at Safe Horizons, a counseling center for victims of sexual assault. "There is a set of stages that rape survivors go through," she said. "The problem is when a person gets stalled in one of these phases. Some people become paralyzed with fear. They become agoraphobic and don't want to leave the safety of their home."

The emotion that tore at Ylen's soul, that left her feeling disconsolate and estranged from family and friends, was described in a journal entry where she recalled the rape.

"Shame," she wrote. "My shame started there and then. I'd been violated. I was naked and hurt. My body and my dignity were being thrown out there for the world. He was playing games with my soul. I was so shamed. I can never go back. Every parking lot is a potential crime scene, a reminder of shame, a reminder of who I was before -- likeable, happy, fulfilled, safe, serene, honorable -- of everything I miss. ... That was stripped away, blow by blow, thrust by thrust, smirk after sickening smirk.

"There are wounds that don't heal so quickly. The bruises faded. The cut on my face finally healed. But there are so many wounds that linger and fester."

In the months following the attack, Ylen said, "I spent a lot of time alone with my thoughts, trying to find a way out."

It was during this period that she rediscovered Albert Camus, the Algerian novelist and humanist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature.

She had been introduced to Camus as a teenager, reading The Stranger and The Plague when she was taking accelerated courses in an effort to graduate early from Clonlara School, an Ann Arbor-based academy that works with home-schooled students. In the depths of her despair, she returned to him.

"With free time on my hands and wanting desperately to be occupied with anything but pain, I truly dove into Camus' writings and kept his thoughts as a part of my life," she said.

She also took a quote from Camus as her personal motto: "In the midst of winter, I finally realized that deep within me there lay an invincible summer."

Ylen believed she was putting the horror behind her. She believed she was healing -- slowly, it was true, but surely.

In May 2002 -- a full year after the assault -- she felt strong enough to drive alone into Port Huron for an appointment with her chiropractor. On M-25 at Carrigan Road, she noticed a man in a Jeep who resembled her attacker. When she stopped for the red light in front of Meijer, the Jeep was behind her. As she watched in the rearview mirror, the man raised his left hand and ran it across his hair. He was wearing a large ring.

"That triggered a lot," she said. "That's when I realized just how terrified I really was. I panicked. I was a wreck."

As it turned out, the man was not her attacker. The resemblance and the ring were nothing more than frightening flukes. Yet the episode became a turning point in Ylen's struggle to reclaim her life.

"That's when I knew I can't live in that kind of fear," she said. "My kids were a big part of that. On the day they were born, I promised them I would protect them. Both of them."

These were literal promises, spoken out loud as she cradled her newborn babies, and now she wondered if she could honor her pledge.

"How could I protect them if I was terrified?" she asked.

By MIKE CONNELL
Times Herald

[louvitti]

I told my wife this fact and she didn't believe me. In NY, it happens sometimes that when a woman leaves the market with a cart, a group of men surround her as if they are walking and helping her. They steer to another car or van, open the door where other men are waiting. They duct tape her mouth, hands and feet and drive away. It happens so fast, no one sees. Even though we are NYC wise, a lot of these crimes occur in states we in NY consider safe. It's a mystery. Many of these woman are reported missing but actually sold into a very expensive sex slave market where they are purchased by men from all over the world. Through drugs and fear, they eventually forget about their former life. Some are used for prostitutes or used for personal S&M slaves living and being transferred to different dungeons and sold to other so called masters. When sold, they are tied and examined like cattle at a contest for a price. Sounds sick but it is happening. There are many missing woman whose bodies are never discovered. It is very similar to what happened to Patty Hearst, how she was brainwashed, if you remember this story. The thought of survival takes over. My wife thought I was crazy and felt I only thought of negative things. I was concerned for her safety. Thank God for a fellow worker at work, Vinny, that helped me plant the seed and grow. One day at work while speaking at lunch with my wife, he kind of expressed the same thoughts. He said that whenever his wife goes to the mall at night, he tells her to use the valet service. It is door to door and safe. Vinny helped me that day and made me seem not negative. My wife had heard it from someone else. It is real and today, you have to watch over your shouldr all the time. I always tell my wife, if they stand in front of your car or bump you in the back, don't get out. You have the power in a running car. Turn right, left, go backwards or go straight if you fear danger. Feeling a sense of danger is avery gray area with the police. It is how you perceive the incident in your mind at that time. Don't be afraid to nic them with the fender or run them over. These men play on this fear. You can always deal with this problem after the fact but you are safe, alive and your own person. Not to be sold or whatever. You most likely have a cell, dial 911.

Thanks Vinny,
Lou Vitti