Read Online She Survived by M. William Phelps - Free Book Online Page B

man working on his car was Scott Saxton, in fact. But Melissa had a good inclination it had been him.
    Becky Buttram told Melissa, “Your instincts were dead-on.”
    â€œSo what are you charging him with?” Melissa asked the cop one day.
    â€œAggravated battery, confinement, and burglary.”
    This was devastating to Melissa. She “couldn’t understand it.”
    What about attempted murder? she wondered.
    â€œThe son of a bitch tried killing me!”

    Well, they told me that they could not charge him with attempted murder because he used my knife and my hockey stick. In other words, he didn’t bring his own weapon; therefore, they could not prove intent. They can only prove he came there to burgle the place and the battery happened in the commission of that burglary. It was total bullshit.
    My bedroom was in the back of the apartment and he had no reason to even come back there if he was just coming in to rob the place. Also, the only drawer in the kitchen that was open was the drawer where I kept the knives, and unlike most Americans, I did not keep my knives next to the stove. Mine were in a drawer at the farthest end of the counter. Law enforcement was also pretty sure that he had been in my apartment before when I was not home. In fact, they were quite certain he had been stalking me for some time. That explained to me why I thought I was losing my mind when I could not find a pair of scissors that I knew I had left lying on the coffee table. Or things like that. I never did find those scissors and now I realize he had probably stolen them and had probably planned to use them on me. He was smart enough to know to use what was inside the home and not bring his own in order to get a lesser charge.

    â€œSo great,” Melissa said to Becky Buttram, “you’re telling me that in Indiana, you can be put away in prison longer for possession of a controlled substance than you can for trying to kill someone? That is what a life is worth? That is how backward the laws are in this state? But, hey, that was supposed to be great news, right?”
    Buttram had no way of responding; she did not write the laws in the state. She only tried her best to uphold them.
    Melissa had four more weeks to go until the wires came off her jaw, but it was no consolation. Her jaw would never be the same. She had deep, noticeable scars on her face. Scott Saxton had disfigured her, maimed her for life. Of course, the emotional hell she had been through aside, sleep was becoming her biggest obstacle: getting enough. It was harder and harder for her to fall asleep and stay asleep.
    Buttram told Melissa about the additional attacks for which they suspected Scott Saxton. Melissa also found out through talking to the detective that the reason he had chosen that apartment where the army sergeant lived was because up until approximately two weeks prior to the attack, there had been a petite young girl living there.
    â€œShe was built much like me,” Melissa recalled. “She had moved out shortly after my attack, but he did not know that. He thought she still lived there. That apparently was his MO. He was of slender build himself, so I see why he had to pick the small ones. However, they were never able to charge him with either one of those two attacks because neither the girl nor the staff sergeant was ever able to identify him.”
    When Becky Buttram brought the sergeant in for a lineup, indeed, she could not pick Scott Saxton out.
    â€œSorry,” the sergeant said. “I just cannot say for sure.”
    â€œLucky for me,” Melissa said, “he had left enough fingerprints and handprints in my blood all over my walls, my sliding glass door, and the weapons to put him at the scene. Although later—get this!—he kept trying to argue that his prints were on my hockey stick because he had been in my apartment before and that I had shown him my hockey sticks!”

    Number one, this