Vicki's story

I hate listening to my good friend Vicki Scheiber tell her story. It’s always a struggle not to be infuriated by the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s murder. Four similar rapes had preceded Shannon’s attack. But the police downgraded the first two so the third rape was considered the first attack in the area and, thus, not part of a pattern. When the rapist broke into Shannon’s apartment her scream alerted her neighbor and he called the police. They came quickly and were actually pounding at the door to her apartment probably as she was being killed inside. But because the first two rapes had been downgraded, the two young cops knew nothing about a pattern in the neighborhood. And when they received no reply to their knocking and they heard no noise inside they told the neighbor who’d called they couldn’t break a door down for no reason. And they left.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to be trying desperately to find your child, knowing she’s not shown up to take an important MA degree exam, that something went on at her apartment last night, that she’s not answering her phone, that the balcony sliding door has been discovered open, that she’s nowhere to be found. The doting parent must think the worst, yet thinking, perhaps unconsciously, that couldn’t possibly really be what’s happened. Maybe she’s hurt, maybe she was at a friend’s and took ill, maybe an accident. And then the worst is confirmed. She’s dead in her apartment, discovered by her brother who, along with the police-dialing neighbor, finally broke down the door the next afternoon. How can you go on?

And every time I hear her tell the story I get angry all over again at the police behavior. Trying to improve their stats they erased a pattern that might have stopped this rape from becoming a murder. Young cops who didn’t understand the real situation or believe the neighbor that he’d heard a scream took the silence in the apartment to mean all was well. But it feels almost ridiculous to say it makes me “angry.” Angry is not what hearing this does to a person. I’m incredulous and enraged, and every single time I hear the tale I still can’t believe the horrific serendipity of events that led to that moment. Her brother was going to come stay with her that night, but she told him not to because she’d be studying. If he’d been there… If the police department hadn’t tried to pad their numbers… If the police at the door had gone in… If, if, if.

And then your daughter is dead. How to bear that pain?