-Likely to be triggering –
As I’ve written about before, my father is a sociopath, a person without empathy or conscience. I don’t mean this merely as an insult, but as a literal fact. This means that he has no internal limits on his behaviour.
As a result I have to wonder what else he’s done besides rape me so severely as a young child that I have scars from the tearing that stretch from one side of my vulva to the other.
Here’s what I know for sure. He ‘got fresh’ with my aunt, when she was 15, so badly that she badly scarred his leg by kicking it bloody. This was before I was born.
My abuser would say sexual and insulting things to women (including his sister in law) when drinking and told me about talking to young prostitutes. He liked to dominate people and to torture-tickle us kids until we couldn’t breath. He ‘repaired bicycles’ for young kids in our neighbourhood in our basement, a place where I was abused. He also took my brother and his friends camping and hiking a lot. One of those friends is now a recluse and probably an alcoholic. My older brother has suspicions he was abused, which probably explains why he stays away from me. It’s likely I’m a trigger for him.
He likes thrills. Drinking driving. Dangerous driving, swerving around the road to scare my mother. He likes scaring people. He scared my uncle with a shotgun once when they went hunting together. My uncle wouldn’t go hunting with him again.
The last thing is that someone is murdering young first nations women in the area around the town where I grew up. This has been going on for decades, the entire time my family has lived there, and given the racism of the area, has taken activism on behalf of the first nations communities in order to be made public and given some attention from law enforcement. The young women are picked up hitchhiking apparently, and after being sexually assaulted and murdered, they are dumped by the side of the road.
My father’s job provided for frequent road trips to local communities. Now that my mother has left him, he has no-one to see his behaviour. Even when my mother was home, he secured his silence about injuring me, so I think some suspicious behavour wouldn’t have made her report anything to the police. She refused to speak to the police when they questioned her about my assaults, so she may have more to hide than my assaults. He may have made her feel like an accomplice, which of course she was in my case, by hiding what he did.
My father is a racist, and mysogynist. I’ve heard him say bigoted things about first nations people (and gays, and women and…)
I took the timeline of the murders and tried to match it up with what I know of his whereabouts. What I have, matches. However, all I have for certain is data on his hospitalization and recovery period. If I asked around I could probably get some exact dates on when my aunts were there looking after him, when his surgeries were. Going back into the past, my mom and brothers and I often went in the summers to our grandparents place, leaving him alone to work. I could theoretically get all that data, if I was willing to talk to my mother or get my brother to talk to me.
The house where my father now lives by himself has a ‘cold room’ in the basement, intended for storing vegetables and such. It’s built of concrete block with a solid, insulated door. We used to store garden vegetables in it, but would be an ideal place to hold someone captive.
I reported my father/abuser to the RCMP about twenty years ago. I’ve written a fictionalized version of the experience here. They didn’t even take my report seriously enough to put in a child protection investigation to protect my younger brother. It was back-burnered so deep it took seven years and a political pressure for them to investigate, and even then they found enough to charge him. So they have the information about him, but I don’t know if they’d connect it. Canada has a sort of sex offender database, but although I reported him, and the crown was prepared to lay charges, it didn’t go to trial and so he wasn’t convicted, and I’ve read in the news that the police don’t have access to the database to go ‘fishing’.
I don’t know that my father is this serial killer. The police think now that it’s not a serial killer at all, but a group of unrelated murders, or at least that’s what they’re saying publicly. All I know is that he lives in the right town to have access to all the sites, he’s a sociopath, and he’s capable of it.
So here’s my quandary. I could call the anonymous police tipline and tell them what I know. However, the things I know pretty much disclose who I am, and aren’t terribly concrete. I really don’t want to be invalidated or seen as the girl who cries wolf. You folks know how seriously sexual abuse survivors are taken by the police. Even if he dies of the cancer or drinking driving or whatever, his house could be a crime scene and could give the families some closure. If he dies or the house is sold, that evidence is likely gone.
On the other hand, my father is a sociopath, a rapist of children and possibly a murderer and could easily find out where I live. Sociopaths are like hornets, best to avoid disturbing them if you want to be safe. Perhaps this is why my mother won’t give me any information against him, and why she barricaded her door and slept next to it on the floor for at least a year after she left him. I’ve felt safer knowing that I’ve reported to the police, and if I am killed he’d be prime suspect #1 and he knows that, but I am still afraid of him of course.
What I could use is some advice or reassurance from someone who works in law enforcement on whether this is worth speaking to the police about, and how to go about it – tip line or just call them. I don’t live anywhere near the city where my father lives, so I don’t even know who to go to about this.
Any blog readers out there with input?
[about the image - no it's not me, but I am pissed off no one…
Are you avoidant and want to heal it? Traits of an avoidant attachment style •…
When you have a hammer, everything is a nail... Image source unknown, found in multiple…
Since shortly after my most recent relationship ended, I have been presented with opportunities to…
So I think I have a strategy to never date someone avoidantly attached for more…
View Comments
I also have to thank you for writing about vulvodynia. I had never heard of it before but after googling it, it sounds a lot like what I've suffered with since childhood. I have assumed that intercourse will always be painful (who knows how much scarring I have from my childhood abuse plus being illegally married to my husband when I was only 12 and still very tiny and physically immature) but now that I know that there might be a name for it perhaps there are treatments I can try?
Hi Dina,
Nice to meet you, Dina. That's very interesting that your experience is similar, and for similar causes. (Interesting is the wrong word, but I don't know what the right one would be.) I'm sorry you also were raped so young (or at all!). I also assumed intercourse would always be painful. It doesn't have to be, but I expect I'll always have a sensitive vagina I have to be careful of.
Here's what I can think of that might be helpful:
Is intercourse painful during or after (or both?) I find rinsing with cool water after sex to be helpful, and also a cold pack (like a small icepack in a sock) for after to prevent soreness the next day(s). I wonder if sitting on a warming pad like I've been doing would be helpful to you too? Let me know if it is. I haven't really 'tested the waters' much since I've been doing the heat treatments, but the last time I did have sex was a lot better than usual pain-wise. My understanding is that intercourse is never supposed to hurt. You can buy lubricant gel that makes things more slippery so that the friction is less on ultra-sensitive skin damaged by abuse, although some brands might be irritating to sensitive tissue. You might want to ask your doctor to examine you for scarring if you feel you can, or even take a digital photo of your vulva close up to see for yourself. I found it very helpful on a lot of levels to see what I was dealing with, which in turn helped me find some solutions. It's your own body and no-one has to see the picture but you.
Did you read my post where I was talking about how I planned my visit to the doctor to ask about scarring? It has some resources on it that may be helpful to you. It's this link: http://sworddancewarrior.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/warrior-victorious-in-pap-test/
Let me know how it's going if you like.
Wow, I am glad I found your blog and I'm so sorry for your pain and suffering. I can't imagine being brave enough to report my own father for the wrongs he did to myself and so many other adults and children. You are doing the right thing, please know that. Do not ever doubt that. I was also sexually brutalized over and over in my childhood by a sociopathic father (who happened to be the "rabbi" of the cult I was raised in) and my brothers and other men in the name of religion. I was "disciplined" for every minor and major transgression, real or perceived, in a brutal sexual way. I still struggle with how it affects my marriage and my ability to be a good, loving, obedient wife to my husband and a good mother to my children. Thank you for telling your story and for your bravery and honesty.
We all struggle with the aftereffects of being raped as children and how to live as healing adults, for the rest of our lives, I believe, so you're definitely not alone there. It hits my relationship, even now. Your situation is different than mine reporting-wise - you were in a sense abused by your entire community, for their complicity in your abuse. It makes sense it would be very challenging to report him. Often getting clear of sociopaths and leaving them alone completely is the smartest thing to do. None of us can judge. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
I'm really sorry to learn of what happened to you. I know you are going to watch this documentary film about psychopaths: http://www.fisheadmovie.com/
Xx
i believe you.
if you are willing to do so, you should tell them what you know.
if it's true that he could even remotely be the person they are looking for, they need to know that.
just be sure that you are safe, no matter what.
I don't think it's a big leap between rape and murder. It seems reasonable to assume that a sociopath who has a documented history of sexually assaulting his daughter could be raping and dumping women. And by reasonable, I mean that logic is on your side, because none of the rest of that sentence makes any sense at all.
But if you do end up wanting to associate your file with your tip, there are most likely going to be people discrediting you just because of what you've survived. Assholes that aren't willing to understand. So if you definitely have the facts straight, they won't be able to discredit you.
Also, if you check the times and collect the data about when he was in the hospital and all cancered up and check it against the times of the women's murders, you'll be able to know for yourself.
I agree with you that they probably don't even know he exists, and maybe just a tiny acknowledgement could be enough to set the police on his trail, though.
Yes, that's kind of where I was going too. I don't really have a lot of facts, since I haven't been around my abuser since I was 20, and not much between 16-20. However, I can put together what I have. I've already checked and there were no murders during the time I understand he was in hospital and in recovery, so at least I have that.
Hi SDW,
Yes of course I believe you. You are very believable.
"Perhaps what I need to do is just remind the task force that my file exists, and give whatever info I can on his whereabouts. "
As you said the information is already available to them, if they only know to look into it.
Kate
I don't much care anymore if he is prosecuted for what he did to me, strangely enough. My energy is better spent rooting out whatever needs healing that affect my life now. However, if he's raping and murdering people now, and I have a piece of the puzzle that will stop him and give the families peace, I feel a responsibility to help stop him, given what I know.
I know, holy shit is right. The mind slides away from it. My father could be that guy. Realistically, seriously, could be that guy.
Hi SDW,
I would suggest think about all the things you would say to a law enforcement official, remove all the things that only you would know, through your family association, and then look over what is left. Is it enough to disclose? Would it be taken seriously? You deserve to have your safety and peace of mind.
Was there a task force created? Did the police really see a connection? Who worked on the cases and was there one official that might know about many of the cases?
I know someone who works in law enforcement in the US. Would you like me to call and ask a hypothetical? It might take a couple of days to get a response. Let me know if you would like me to?
Good and healing thoughts to you.
Kate
Yes, there's a task force with the RCMP looking into this series of murders, so yes there would be someone who would know about all the cases. There's a tip line too. I don't think I have anything I don't know through my family connection, really. It's mostly just that he's capable of it, and lives in the right place at the right time. It's not like I've seen any hard evidence he's murdered anyone. Based on my first statement, there's not much they don't already know theoretically, I'm just not sure the task force has access to that information, you know?
I understand in the US even ordinary citizens can look up who the sex offenders are. In Canada, not even the police can do that easily (they need probable cause or something), and my abuser wasn't convicted. This means that the RCMP investigating the murders might not know my father exists.
Anyway, that's good advice, Kate. I'll write down everything I can think of, and see what I really have to tell them. I have a friend here I can ask too, now that I think of it. Maybe just making the task force aware that there's a sex offender that may not be on their radar who has lived in the area during the whole time of the murders might be enough.
In terms of my own anonymity, it's fine that the police know it's me, now that I think of it, as long as my pride can handle being dismissed or invalidated. In terms of my f/a he wouldn't know I'd done anything more than the report he's already aware of, as all the info I gave then would be what I'd be giving now.
This is good to 'talk' it through. Perhaps what I need to do is just remind the task force that my file exists, and give whatever info I can on his whereabouts. If a murder happened while he was in hospital, for example, it's not him.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate it that you two believe me. My wife and friend that I told what I was suspecting didn't really respond. The easy thing to do would be to let it lay, but I have to make sure I can live with that.
Holy shit, Warrior. Holy shit.
This is very difficult stuff. On the one hand, you have some pretty valid stuff that happened to you that he was never prosecuted for. And thus, you have reason to believe he has also done some shit to other people as well. On the other hand, I like you alive.
Seriously, holy shit.