My Statement
Today Corey Smith also known as Chi G will be sentenced to a
jail sentence that is not much longer than the time I’ve spent waiting for
justice. Time spent waiting for closure, waiting with my life on hold, living
in fear, living with an intense feeling of dread I can’t shake. From the moment
I made the 911 call I feared retribution. Corey threatened my life multiple
times the night of the attack and there was no doubt in my mind these threats
would be followed through on if the opportunity was given. Even with a
conviction I still fear retribution from his family. I have spent just over 20
months waiting to die. The night I was raped I never expected to make it out
alive and after I did I truly thought it was only a matter of time before I
would be hunted down and found.
This fear has changed my life. For the first twelve months I
had nightmares about Corey and that night. I woke up screaming, kicking, crying
or worst of all sometimes I didn’t wake up. The nightmare is my life now. I
armed myself carrying mace, stun guns and later opting for my concealed carry
license.
I think about how to
mace someone. If I could hit someone. If I could fire a shot. What I'd do if a
gun was to my head. I wanna hit things now. I'm angry. I never had that before.
Every day I replay those three
and a half hours of being locked in my house. Every painful second of feeling
like he'd kill me. Every blow to my head. Every second of him touching me,
taking from me. There's parts I don't have to remind myself of...like the look
in his eyes. The one that I've never seen before. Hate, anger, a desire to
punish, beat, kill, rape. That's a look that doesn't go away. I'm afraid of dying every day, but now that I assume
one day he'll find me and kill me it doesn't faze me as much. It became a fact
to me, not a fear. Every time I meet a man I wonder if he knows Corey. I wonder
if he's just talking to me to find out where I live and how to get to me so
Corey can kill me. I'm paranoid now. I have a million fantastical situations
built up in my head about all the ways he could find me and mess with me
through other people. I jump at every knock, every bump in the night, every tap
on my shoulder. The paranoia, the anger, the fear has effected everyone in my
life. They are stuck dealing with the
aftermath of Corey’s choices that night.
I lost more than I can put
into words that night. I lost myself. I feel like I lost a huge innocence and
even if it’s just a perception I think my parents look at me differently. Corey
didn’t just do this to me, he hurt them
because they had to deal with the changes their little girl was going through
and they couldn’t fix it for me. I worry that all they see is a girl who has
been raped. My mother had to read the details of the rape. They had to think of
me in a new way. I lost my part time job because I missed work the next day and they were
worried about bad press. I lost all my friends including my best friend of
17 years. She was worried this danger would follow her if she took me in and
she couldn’t handle supporting me through the trauma. We never spoke again. I
had to move so he wouldn’t find me. So
much was taken from me. They took my sheets,
my clothes, my body fluids, his DNA and my dignity when they asked if I was
making it all up because I was mad that he had a girlfriend.
I spent a year feeling
lost and scared while Corey was a free man. I thought about him every day and
replayed that night in my head over and over again so that I would be ready if
and when the case was prosecuted. I doubt Corey thought about me at all. The
original prosecutor assigned to the case let the file sit unread on her desk. I
called daily for awhile, then weekly and later monthly. I begged and pleaded
and no one would give me answers or let me talk to the prosecutor to find out
anything else. Everything was on pause for me for the first year of the 20
months it has taken for justice to be served and the since then I have had
to deal with the stress of waiting for a trial, false hopes of a severe
sentence, constantly rescheduled court dates, learning that evidence was lost
and ultimately having to settle with a plea deal I don’t find just at all.
Social drinking progressed
into full blown alcoholism. I drank almost every night to forget. I made myself
physically and mentally ill. I tried to take my own life more than once. I
can’t hold a normal relationship and my views on sex have changed. A million
little things remind me of that night. I
don’t know when I will feel safe again.
This incident has been a huge financial burden on me as
well. After the rape I felt forced to move so that Mr. Smith would not know my
location or be able to find me. This was costly and came at a time where I was
collecting a small amount of unemployment. I had to borrow roughly a grand from
my family in order to move which I still owe today. I have been sent to
collections for the cat scan that was taken as part of rape kit and still owe
that. Personal items from my home such as sheets and the clothing I was wearing
that night were taken as evidence. Driving to Olympia and seeking
accommodations in order to meet with prosecution has been costly as well.
Luckily my current counseling is covered by the state as it is part of alcohol
treatment classes however further counseling will not be covered. I have an
unpaid chiropractic bill from seeking treatment to not only enter my physical
condition as further evidence of assault, but to help alleviate the pain in my
neck caused from the blows to my head. Due to lack of funds or medical
insurance I still have not had full treatment for the pain and the impact to my
neck has had lasting effects causing me a great deal of physical discomfort on
a daily basis.
Corey is a dangerous
individual who no longer deserves freedom. His record alone should attest to
that if this incident isn’t enough. He has slipped through the cracks of our
legal system more than once. He should be doing life for the sum of his
actions. I feel that if Corey was allowed to be a free man this would happen to
many more women and it is my belief that it has happened before. That night
Corey told me that he was fighting with his family about how he had become
physically abusive towards women. He told me that he was pimping various women.
He also told me that he was going to move in with me and start paying my bills
with the money gained from these women. In hindsight it is my opinion that
Corey would have tried to pimp me. His calls were monitored in jail for my
safety and he continued to run his illegal businesses from jail. He clearly has
no respect for the law and that has been shown countless times. He told me he
would rape me, making his crime premeditated. He told me he had shot a woman
and that he would do the same to me. A few short hours after raping me he threw
up gang signs when officers took his picture. This sentence is NOT enough.
In the last seven months I
have started to move on. I’m seven and a half months sober. I am in therapy and
most importantly I have forgiven Corey for what he did to me because it is only
through forgiveness that I can try to find happiness and regain some of the
girl that I used to be. I want Corey to know that I forgive him for telling
people I just want attention. I forgive him for telling people there was no rape
kit or a positive DNA match. I forgive him, but I won’t ever forget and at the
end of each day he will have to live with what he did and no amount of lying
can make that go away. I want Corey to know that he didn’t break me completely.
He gave me one thing and that’s the desire to fight for life and cherish each
second of it.
