THE DRUGGING & RAPE OF SUSAN HUNTER - CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3 

 “Good new Ms. Hunter, we didn’t find any drugs in your system so you weren’t drugged and you weren’t raped. You’re just mistaken”. I’m in shock again. This can’t be happening. “That’s not true”, I argue back, “How do you explain me not having any memory for ten hours? That’s not normal, has that ever happened to you?” I ask Detective T. “I wouldn’t know Ms. Hunter; I don’t drink the way you do”. I am now in shock twice. “You drink to a blackout, and this guy is lucky enough to take you home and you want me to put him away for that?” Shock to infinity... I kick the white fence I’m standing next to. “How am I supposed to do a background check on him, I only have a first name and a photograph”. Did the photograph make the pre text phone call? You have his phone number, I think to myself. “You’re full of horse shit” I tell him. I want a new detective. He stutters his bosses’ phone number. I don’t care if he is mad. He’s not listening to me. Someone will. I’m tired of this guy. How is he a detective? Does his mother know he talks to rape victims like this? He had already upset me a lot during the pre-text phone call.

About a week after my rape, February 28th, I went into the police station to call my rapist while the police listened in. It’s called a pre text phone call. The detective led me into a small room with sound proofing. There is a tape recorder on the desk. He locked the door behind us. I didn’t like that. I had to get Naylor’s phone number for him. I didn’t have it before the rape even though I had hooked up with him once before. “Then you will have to go back to the bar and get it” Det. T told me. I had told Ed I was going to have to go back and get it. Ed had Naylor’s number from that night. The hair raised slightly on the back of my neck. He never had a phone number of any guy I dated or was in a relationship with. One time of hanging out with Naylor and he had his phone number. “I don’t know Jeezy, he seems like a really cool guy to me. I didn’t see anything that wasn’t consensual. We were all really drunk”. I didn’t think more of it. Of course Ed was on my side. He was like family to me. Like a brother. We had been friends for 8 years. I can hear the pencil scrapping across the yellow legal pad from Det. T’s heavy hand. It reverberates back into my phone that is wired to the tape recorder. I try to motion to him to write lighter. He ignores me. Whatever... I have never done anything like this before. I need all the help I can get. How little did I know how little help I really had?

Speaking to the man who raped me on the phone was probably the most surreal moment of my life. He can’t know something is up. He does. “You wait six days to call me” he says. Who counts days like that? (A fourteen year old girl maybe.) “You already had your top off when I came out of the bathroom”. I think of the scratches buried into my back. “I had to get your pants off of you”. “I only left because you started screaming at me to get out”. I’m in shock again. I have never screamed at a man to get out after sex. ; Drunk or not. He tells me about how someone ruffied him once. Nothing happened. He just woke up on the same couch he had passed out on. I see Det. T’s eyes get big at some points. That has to be a good sign. He tells me other things that involves Ed that Ed failed to mention. It’s an ongoing investigation and I can’t say what they are. Naylor wants to know when he will get to see me again. My head turns hard to the right at the thought of it. I can only picture his naked body on top off my unconscious one. It makes me ball up my fists. I hate this man so much. I finally get off the phone. “I don’t hear a rape” Says Det. T as soon as the tape recorder is off. I’m in shock. I’m starting to hate this feeling, but it’s the only one I will know for a while. 

“What do you mean? The part about the pants and me screaming?” I am fixated on the table. The tears starting again. “Well, he says all of you were drunk. In the state of California, if a man and woman are both intoxicated, it can’t be rape”. “But I was drugged” I whimper trying to defend myself. “We will see what the toxicology says, but I don’t think this case will be strong enough to present to the DA”. The tears are full stream. I want out of the room. He has to unlock the door. I am practically running out in shame. “If the DA is even interested, would you be willing to do an interview with them?” He yells out behind me. I sort of nod my head. I’m shaking as I walk briskly out of the station. The next two nights I walked in my sleep. I have a deep gouge in my right leg from running into something. I’m not sure what, but it didn’t wake me up. I was turning an overhead fan off, and messing with other lights. I hang a bell on my doorknob in case I wander out. I peed my bed one night. Every morning after that I had to pinch my arm to make sure I was awake and not peeing my bed again. I think back to the lights and how I found them when I came to. The overhead fan light wasn’t on. It’s the main light in the room. Just a bed side lamp and the bathroom light were on. It was dark in here when Naylor left. He couldn’t figure out how to turn on the overhead light. It was strange lighting to me when I woke up, not at all like I normally have it. It seemed darker than usual. I keep hanging on the thought that they will find drugs in my system at some point in time, that this rapist can’t be allowed to walk. That I won’t let them shut down my case.

Are they giving me an “out” of I’m mistaken because I’m white, or because I work in the industry, or do they do this to every woman who walks thru the door? A coworker snuck up on me at work. Not on purpose. He didn’t know about what had happened. I freaked out hard, just knowing that someone was behind me in a dark room and there he was. I almost hit him with a heavy object, and then I realized who he was. I flew out of there like a wet cat; More concerned with the fact that I almost took someone out. I had a two week follow up at the rape center. I tried to not cry but I did, the whole way out there. I was twenty minutes late. I wanted to leave before I even walked in there. They want me to give a urine sample. I just want out. I give them my blood sample and go. I can’t even sit thru the therapy session. They pegged me as a goner. The therapist tells me it’s ok. Most women don’t make it back. That stuck a cord with me. I can’t be like most women. The second visit was after the phone call from Det. T that there were no drugs in my system. Shock was a constant state I was in. I had already made up in my mind that when I was strong enough, I would call back and schedule the appointment for the one month with the rape center. They were the only ones who seemed to care and want to help. So many things in my life are a jumbled haze right now.