48 Hours - Live to Tell: I Remember Everything

Episode Date: June 26, 2016

Kidnapped at knifepoint, a young woman outsmarts her attacker and shares her harrowing story of survival. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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The one thing that still really bothers me and brings me back, I can't see on TV anybody getting their throat cut. When I see that on television, it just almost paralyzes me. It was a bright, sunny evening in a suburb of Chicago. I was working at a shopping mall. I was 17 years old, and I had just graduated from high school. I was excited to go to a graduation party, so I had asked my boss if I could get off of work early.

And where we had to park was a lot that was the employee lot across the street. And I had a CD in my hand as I'm singing out loud. And as I'm walking, I almost felt like there was somebody behind me. And I stopped and I turned around and about 10 or 15 feet, there was somebody that was following me. that was following me. And I glanced around, and there was nobody else in the parking lot, and a lot of my gut instinct told me to run, to get away. But I didn't listen,

and I walked towards my car, and I put my key into the lock, and all of a sudden this shadow came up to my left and I was grabbed from behind and there was a knife press at my throat. I offered him the money that was in my purse and he said, it's not your money that I want. And those words just made my stomach drop. I was so scared. And his car was parked just a couple of steps away from mine. And with the knife still held at my throat, he threw me into his car. And he had taken my wrists and used plastic zip ties and bow my hands behind my back. And he had taken these Band-Aids and put them to conceal my eyes. And after he put the Band-Aids over my eyes, he put sunglasses on my face.

Everything happened so methodically. And I knew in my gut that this was not his first crime. He started to drive slowly out of the mall parking lot. And he didn't know this, but I was able to wriggle my hands free. And I kept them behind my back, and I surveyed the situation. He didn't know that I could see, but I could see down to either side, to the left and to the right.

I saw that my seat belt was on, the knife was put down at that point, and he's got both hands on the steering wheel. And I thought to myself, if I could just get out of the car, even if I rolled out, if I broke a leg or broke my arm, at least I'd be free. And so I can remember just taking a huge deep breath and trying to undo the seatbelt and get out of the car door. But he was too fast. And he grabbed me by my shirt with both hands and he said, you try that again and your face won't be so pretty anymore. That's when I realized that this could potentially be the last day of my life. That this guy might kill me. How does somebody survive something like this? In 25 years of being a

reporter, that's probably one of the most consistent questions. This young woman had the guts to try to jump out of a moving car to try to save herself. Would you do that? I don't know if I could do that. You don't know until you're there. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X.

In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+.

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To this day, it still haunts me to think that he had stalked me. It struck me as very odd that his car was parked so close to mine, and there was nobody else in the parking lot. After I tried to escape, he took my hands behind my back in a very forceful way and tied them really tight behind my back with these zip ties. And I remember saying to him, you need to loosen these. I can't feel my fingers. And there was no emotion. He said nothing. And I remember getting this image of my mom getting a phone call that I had been murdered. And I remember at that point I started to cry, and the tears had loosened the Band-Aids, and I was able to see even a little bit more.

And I made a vow to myself in that car. I said, if I get out of this alive, he is not going to get away with it. And it was a conscious decision to remember every detail that I could. And I noticed that there was a city sticker on the windshield of his car. And I tried to remember the year and the city. The antenna was broken and taped. There was a beaded seat cushion on his seat. Looking towards my left, I could see the profile of his face.

And he was in his, I would have guessed, late 40s, early 50s, but really thick glasses. His hair was disheveled. And his car was very messy. It was a Trans Am with bucket seats. And at this point, we were on the expressway. So we were driving, I would guess, for maybe 45 minutes to an hour. I'm not exactly sure.

On the expressway, I noticed that there was a sign for the town Wakanda trying to catalog. And then as he pulled off the expressway, I noticed all these street names were presidential names. So in my head, I'm cataloging all these presidential names. He had pulled off of the expressway and into a forest preserve.

And I glanced around, and there's no one around. And as the car stopped, my body just stiffened. He asked me what dress size I was, and I could hear him rustling in the back, and I heard a styrofoam cooler. And he pulled out this evening gown and he ordered me to disrobe in the car. And at that moment, he had untied my hands

in order for me to get my jacket off. And I thought to myself, should I run? And I didn't know where I was, but I had this image of me running through the woods and him catching me and cutting my throat. So I just decided to do whatever I could to get out of the situation alive. And I could feel my heart beating in my chest so fast. And he put this evening gown on me that he had taken from the back seat.

And when he zipped up the side zipper, it fit me like a glove. And I can remember feeling just like that you're part of someone's sick psychological fantasy. And then over this dress, he put on another blue satin dress and then another red silk jacket. And with every layer of clothes he put on, I just felt farther and farther away from myself. After he dressed me in this ridiculous satin clothing,

I was sexually assaulted in the car. And at that moment, I didn't know if this experience was over, if it's going to get worse, am I going to be killed. And through that entire experience, it was the not knowing was the most terrifying. There were some tears that had fallen down my cheeks. So he had taken this silk handkerchief, and he said, your mascara's running,

and he wiped the tears from my face, and it just gave me the chills. It made me sick to my stomach. And he wound up driving again, and I didn't know where we were going. And he was driving up this parking garage, and he pulled over up at the top floor. He opened the door to that stairwell of the parking garage. And he threw me in.

And he ordered me to count to 100. And I can remember walking down these steps. And I found myself in an auto repair shop and there was somebody this man was looking down doing his paperwork and he looked up at me and his face just fell and he said oh my god what happened to you and I couldn't even answer I was just in shock and he said I'm calling the police and I also had to speak to the 911 dispatcher. Hello.

Hello, ma'am. Yes. Can you tell me what your name is? Angela. Are you okay? Yeah. Just real brief, were you forced into your own vehicle or someone else's? No.

Okay, can you tell me anything about the car? Did you get the license plate or the color? I didn't get the license plate. It looked like it was a Trans Am. It looked like it was brown. All I can tell you, he blindfolded me. Did he sexually assault you in any way? Yes.

Okay. Is it the officer there, ma'am? Yeah. Okay, he'll take care of you, okay? Okay, bye-bye, Angela. After the 911 call, I had to make the scariest call I've ever had to make, and that was to my dad.

My dad has always tried to protect me. When I was young, I had the earliest curfew out of any of my girlfriends. I had to be home way earlier than anybody else. And I said, Dad, listen, something bad happened to me. We called the police, and we're going to need to go down to the police station. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman?

Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there. And we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America.

If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. Then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn. And it harbored a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have urged it.

It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island

to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Angela was very lucky to be alive. We were talking about why he didn't kill her. I mean, he drove her to an area where there was nobody around. He came very prepared, which made us think that this guy has probably done this before. When this incident did take place in a large mall parking lot in the daylight,

we were concerned that the offender was not afraid to do this and that he would definitely repeat again if he wasn't caught quickly. And at that point, he was still on the loose, so there was also that fear of, did he know where I lived? I sat down with the two detectives, and they said to me, Angela, we're going to do everything we can to catch this guy. We have daughters of our own. So they wanted me to recount everything that I could

remember. And I remember telling them about the car, that it was a brown Trans Am, an older model, the city sticker that was on the windshield, the broken antenna, everything that I could remember. She was able, at the age of 17, to maintain composure to try and remember every detail of this offender, what he looked like, his vehicle, the route they were taking. In my 29 years of doing this job, Angela is by far the best witness that I've ever dealt with. Then they said, is it okay if we take you for a ride? We want to go back and drive that same route that he took you and also drive to the forest preserve where you were sexually assaulted. Is that okay? It was so eerie to relive that experience just a couple days later, to see those same street signs,

to go that same route, to try and find that exact spot that he had parked in that forest preserve. And then when they got back to the police station, they wanted to sit down and do a sketch of his face. Angela said that he had brown, untidy hair. He had thick lens glasses, he had a couple days stubble or growth, and that he's about 170 to 185. Once a composite sketch was completed, we put it out to the surrounding departments and we put it out to the media.

I was scheduled to work the afternoon shift as a detective with the Wheeling Police Department. That morning I was home, I was watching the 11 a.m. news and a story came on about a kidnapping and sexual assault which occurred at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. Upon seeing the composite and hearing the description of the vehicle, it was like, holy cow, there's no doubt in my mind who did this. This was the same man that we have done surveillances on in the past.

I then grabbed my stuff and headed into work a few hours earlier I contacted the Schaumburg Police Department The name of the man they were looking for is Robert Coppa and he was a convicted and paroled killer He had decades of different crimes from sexual assault, rape, kidnap, and he had murdered a 15-year-old girl. And to hear that word, murder, it just, it felt like all the breath

had been sucked out of my chest. He was sentenced to 30 years and then served half the time for good behavior, and he was on parole for only a year and a half when he kidnapped me. Robert Copa is a convicted killer. But in all the time that he was in prison, he never got any psychological help. He refused all counseling. And because of that, his own parole officer was so concerned

that this guy was going to be back out on the street, he called the local police department to let them know. At the time, no one was very happy that a convicted killer only served 15 years out of a 30-year sentence. My feeling was that this person needs to be put away forever. We thought, now we know who you are, we got you identified, now we just need to grab you. And when we pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex, we saw the vehicle, a brown Trans Am, that matched the description of what Angela told us. This is the actual vehicle that Robert Coper used to kidnap Angela. With the broken

antenna, with the duct tape, with the beaded seats in the driver's seat, with the village sticker in the windshield. When we searched Mr. Coper's vehicle, we found a knife with a black handle. We also found flex cuffs in the vehicle that matched. We also found Band-Aids in there that matched what Angela had on her eyes. There was also a Styrofoam container in the back seat. When we arrested Mr. Coppa, he was very quiet, very cooperative,

no emotion whatsoever. He didn't even inquire as to why we were there. When I walked in to pick him out of the lineup, it was really scary to see his face again. All that was separating us was this glass, and even though there was four other men dressed in the exact same outfit, I knew exactly which one he was. All of them were holding different numbers,

and I said, number three, without question. Detectives went into his apartment, and we recovered women's clothing, evening gowns, dresses, that matched what Angela had to wear during her attack. We knew that we had a very strong case against Mr. Copa. Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. It took another four years before Copa actually went to trial. And when he finally did get to trial,

his public defenders had an interesting take on his defense. They tried to convince the court that their client was insane. Statistically speaking, I shouldn't be alive today. When someone gets into a perpetrator's car, they don't make it out. And, you know, for my mom, she would rather not talk about it. And I understand because it makes her think of the day that she potentially almost lost her daughter. Knowing what evil exists in the world and knowing what people can be capable of is something that I'm going to have to deal with forever. The list of charges against Robert Copa are so ugly and terrifying. Kidnapping,

armed violence, sexual assault. Hearing all the details of what happened to Angela that night, plus Copa's lifelong history of violence, his public defenders knew they would have a very difficult time trying to seat a jury that would have any sympathy for this guy. So they decided to gamble, and they requested a bench trial. A bench trial is when a judge decides the case instead of a jury. You do carry a burden as a prosecutor, and it becomes your personal responsibility to make sure that this guy doesn't go out and hurt somebody else. Robert Coppa pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. And the defense strategy was to show that he had had over the years a series of head injuries, including a motorcycle accident,

which had given him traumatic brain damage and affected his impulse control. And so this was not a whodunit. Everyone knew who did it. It was why he did it. It felt like a slap in the face to me. Never once did I feel like he was not in control of himself because he controlled the entire situation from the moment that he put that knife to my throat. If this was an impulse act, in my opinion, it would have happened right there in the mall. It would have been quick, over, done,

and gone. He's not going to have the dresses done, and gone. He's not going to have the dresses there in the vehicle. He's not going to have all these tools of his trade, you know, for lack of better words. He's not going to have all that. It doesn't make sense. Testifying was a really, really difficult experience. And seeing him in court, and he just stared at me, and I remember having my hands kind of clasped in front of me and just digging my nails into my hands because it was just such a... Because it's not only the experience of you testifying, but also being cross-examined by the defense attorney.

As a witness, Angela was strong. She stood right up in the witness box and pointed directly to Mr. Copa and said, that's him right over there. This incident had obviously been seared into her mind, and she remembered the details years later as if it had happened to her the day before. It took the judge only 15 minutes to find Copa guilty of all the charges. But convicting Copa of the violent crimes he'd been accused of was never really the problem. The problem was trying to keep him off the streets so he couldn't do it again. But this time around, it was life in prison with no parole.

So this time around, he went away for good. When the judge said that he was being sentenced to life with no possibility of parole, this wave of relief just washed over me, feeling this sort of peace to know that he wasn't going to hurt anybody else again. In my opinion, this wasn't the police that made this case. This was Angela. It doesn't happen often where everything aligns up this way, the stars align. So it was really nice that this one worked out the way it did. The fact that all those details that I had remembered, that they were able to use my testimony in court, as they said, to kind of seal the deal to put him away for life,

was a very powerful feeling. And I knew that I couldn't just stop after the trial. I really made a promise to myself that I was going to turn these negative feelings of anger into activism. And I chose to become public with my story and to show my face and to not be the silent victim because I knew that this issue of sexual assault was bigger than me. And it was bigger than my story. Angela Rose.

And I founded an organization called PAVE and it's Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment. I felt this calling to speak out about this experience that happened to me, but also help other people use their voice. All along this journey, people would stop me and say, Angela, thank you for your voice because this happened to me. I was raped when I was 16 years old, and that was the beginning of hell for the next three years of my life. I heard about Delaney's case, and I knew after hearing her story that I had to get in touch with her. And, you know, I started crying because it was the first time that someone actually had taken it upon themselves to go out of their way to try to help me. To be continued... She was always so open with bubbly, bouncy kid.

She played every sport, and every sport she played, she played well. Delaney had a lot of friends. Her birthday parties were always big events. But in the summer of 2011, we noticed some, started out as subtle changes that became major changes, and we couldn't figure out what it was. She was starting to have panic attacks, and she would just say, nothing's wrong, Mom, I'm just nervous about school starting. It was June 3rd, 2011. It was the last day of school, so everyone was really excited. We decided to go to the beach to celebrate the last day. Me and my two girlfriends went, hung out for a little while, and then we came back to my house because my parents weren't home.

My two friends invited boys over to my house. We smoked marijuana. I'd never done it before, so I was really nervous. But I figured, why not? My parents aren't home, so I just decided to try it for once. We were all sitting around the table, just laughing, enjoying the night.

I started to get really lightheaded, so I got up and walked to my bedroom and decided to just lay down and kind of rest. And I closed the door. And eventually I heard like whispering and footsteps. Then realized that it was the two boys. And at that point like I knew something was wrong and they came in and they raped me. I remember being like so scared and I remember tears like like, so scared,

and I remember tears, like, streaming down my face. You know, I just remember feeling the guilt of, like, you know, this is my fault, I can't tell anyone. At the end of August in the summer of 2011, I got a call from one of Delaney's friend's moms, and she told me that her daughter had come to her out of concern because Delaney had divulged to her a secret that she couldn't hold, that Delaney had been sexually assaulted by two boys in her school.

And at first I told that mom, no. You know, this is my kid. I would know if something like this happened because I'm a good mom. So we were in the car, and we pulled in the driveway, and I turned to her, and I said, you need to look me in the eye and tell me whether this happened. And she started to cry, and she just nodded her head,

and she couldn't look me in the eye. And there's no... there's no handbook that says how to handle those moments. But I knew I had a major battle on my hands. I just didn't know how big it was going to be. Her dad and I knew that it was important to report it to the police, and she just kept saying,

They're going to kill me, Mom. They're going to kill me. They're coming after me. they're going to kill me. I'm not going to report. If you make me do it, I will lie. I will say it didn't happen. One of the two boys that Delaney says raped her was only 16 years old, a minor in the eyes of the law, so we're not going to use his name. But the other was 17 years old, Shane Villapando.

This is a kid who was very well known, very well liked at her high school. He was an athlete. Every single person on campus knew who Shane Villapondo was. He was the popular kid. He was the one who everyone looked up to and respected. He basically owned the school. That entire summer, I never came out of the school. That entire summer, I never came out of the house. I never again slept in my bed.

I slept on the couch. And I can honestly tell you the first day of school, when I went back, it was probably the most terrifying day. There were rumors about what had happened over summer, what had gone down. There was definitely a lot of, you know, whispering in the hallways. And, you know, when I was at my locker, I'd look across the hall and people would be staring at me talking. There'd be a group that would form and they would all face in my direction and start talking like out loud about how I was a slut and I was a whore.

Months go by and Delaney is still refusing to go to police. She's also still being taunted daily at school and in her town and feels utterly alone until one day she realizes she's not alone. She's absolutely devastated when she discovers that Shane has allegedly raped another girl. This girl is only 14 years old. I can't even explain the amount of guilt that I felt because I hadn't reported it and because I hadn't gone through with it and stopped him and because I felt like I was too afraid to be able to stand up against him,

that he had gone and done it to another person. So I went and I found her, and I remember sitting down next to her and looking at her and putting my arm around her, and I said, we need to report this. So what happened? I did not know what was going on. I was kind of just, like, faded.

I didn't really, like, say anything. I kind of just said, like, I'm really tired. Can I just, like, go to sleep? Like, I'm really tired. I said that over and over again, and it lasted for probably 45 minutes or more. The two young men are arrested. The 16-year-old is charged as a juvenile, and his record is now sealed.

But Shane Villapando was charged as an adult, and now one of the most popular boys in high school was facing potential jail time. After the boys were arrested, the tormenting got ten times worse. the tormenting got ten times worse. She was getting threats on Facebook and in texts, things like, snitches need stitches, and a lot of, you just wanted to have sex with two guys. I remember there was one post on Facebook that it was a conversation between two people,

and one of the comments was like, I just want to beat her up, and then the next comment was another person saying, how about I attack her, knock her out, and you can spit on her. There was another one that said, you know, I can't believe you haven't disappeared. We're going to make you disappear. But these people were all hiding behind a computer screen

or behind a phone. I was terrified to the point I dropped out of school. I was home schooled the last month. I couldn't even finish my junior year of high school. It wasn't surprising that Delaney was experiencing this harassment after reporting her sexual assault. harassment after reporting her sexual assault.

A lot of young rape victims go through very similar things. The two boys that raped Delaney were students at a private Catholic high school. They were not the type of people that society sees as a rapist. that society sees as a rapist. So it was easy to pass blame onto a young girl who was high on marijuana and judge her and say, she's lying about what happened to her. If I came to you and said, my child has cancer, your first response would most likely be, oh my goodness, how can I help help what can I do

you know but if I come to you and say my child was raped what I get a lot of including by good friends of mine was she drinking what was she wearing who was she with? My daughter made one mistake that thousands of kids make. The day I hit complete rock bottom, I got probably 50 text messages from different people, all saying the same things. How could you do this? You are a liar. She locked herself in the bathroom, and I knew. I knew.

So we broke open the door. She was laying on the bathroom floor. And I scooped her up in my arms, and I said, what did you do? And I look up in the mirror, and she had written on the mirror, I'm so sorry. Friends that I had talked to every day wouldn't even look at me in the hallway. And it was their parents that wouldn't look at me. They, like, you know, it would be my old softball coaches, my old, you know, second grade teacher. People in our town that I was very, you know, familiar with

wouldn't even look me in the eye because they were so disgusted of what I did. So it was at that point that I wanted my life to end. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to live. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to live. I didn't want to go through this. I decided to take my own life. I took a bottle of pills.

I wanted my life to end. And I literally remember my parents taking me to the hospital and thinking to myself, why didn't I take more? And she turned to me and said, go ahead, Mom. Go ahead. Yell. Yell at me. And she goes, I've lost everything.

I've lost my school. I've lost my school. I've lost my friends. So these are moments that you think, God, if just one kid had stood up with her, if one kid had just said, I believe you, it would have changed so much. I think a lot of people would say, get tougher skin. You reported the crime, so you're expected to follow through with the consequences.

For people like Delaney, it ate her up alive. And Delaney didn't think that she could go through with it. She didn't think she could go through with the entire process of prosecution, because it's such a long and lengthy process, and it's so emotional, and it's a long and lengthy process and it's so emotional and it's so draining. And I shared with her how I was a sexual assault victim. And she realized that she's not alone and she doesn't have to go through it alone. The fact that she confided in me gave me more strength to be able to testify. In the case of the 14-year-old girl, Shane Villopando was convicted by a jury of

three counts of unlawful sex with a minor, also known as statutory rape. In Delaney's case, the prosecutor offered him a plea deal. He took it, pleading guilty to one more count. Shane Villopando was sentenced to one year in county jail and five years probation, during which he must register as a sex offender wherever he lives. Shane Villapanda was sentenced to one year in county jail and five years probation, during which he must register as a sex offender wherever he lives. Him registering as a sex offender was the biggest part of the plea that was important to me. He's not going to be able to move anywhere without people knowing exactly who he is. Even though the case is over and Shane was sentenced, it's not something that just goes away. Her entire identity for the rest of her life

will have this lingering. So I think that for Delaney, the healing process has just started. Even though I'm in college in another state, I do come home, you know, every so often to visit my family. But it's not the same. I still can't sleep in my old bedroom. They built another room inside the garage for me. It's not my home anymore. It's more just a place I go to visit my family.

For Delaney, the ordeal was far from over. For Delaney, the ordeal was far from over. One night, she logged on to Facebook only to discover that a friend of Shane's, a local rap artist named Anthony Murillo, had written a really nasty song about her. And he recorded it. It not only disclosed her full name, but the 14-year-old's as well. And it seemingly went on to threaten her. About two o'clock in the morning, we get a call and her dad, Chris, answers the phone. And the only words he hears out of her sobbing is, Daddy, I'm so scared, I'm so scared.

She was terrified. I knew that this had to immediately go to the police because I was scared for my life. You know, I thought I was going to be killed. Wannabe rapper Anthony Murillo is facing two felony counts for threatening to kill two rape victims in a song he posted online. for threatening to kill two rape victims in a song he posted online. Like when they started playing the song, I was, I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't. And as it kept going, the worse it got.

The worse I got. In the end, the judge dismissed the felony charges against Anthony Murillo, saying although the lyrics were offensive, they were not genuinely a threat to anyone, including Delaney. Murillo's attorney had argued that the lyrics were actually protected by the constitutional right to free speech. And essentially, the judge agreed. The prosecution, however, strongly disagreed and planned to appeal. This isn't just words. This is a message to her. They wanted to torment her, and that's what they did. It is heart-wrenching to know what Delaney and what so many other survivors of sexual assault go through, the bullying, the victim blaming. One of the reasons why I wanted to reach out to Delaney was just to give her hope. I know your heart's been broken and mine's been too.

And if you're still in pain, you know I'm here for you. Music for me has always been an escape. And I think for a lot of survivors of trauma, putting their feelings into music can be really therapeutic. I remember her talking to me and pausing and saying, Delaney, do you realize that you're not a victim, that you're a survivor? She is my guardian angel because she's watching over me. And healing is a must. We were both dealing with deceit and mistrust.

I remember one day waking up and thinking, you know what? I want to make a difference. I want to introduce to you a very good friend of mine, Delaney Henderson. I am a survivor. I can tell people my story and let them know that you're not alone, that you're not on your own like I was. And you never will be. Whatever I do in my life, I want to help people.

I was put in this situation for a reason, and I came out of it for a reason. I'm so much older now, you see, I've grown so fast. I need someone who'll love my future and my past I'm not your average girl I want to change the world With a passion in my heart It's very important to move on. I am in love with my best friend,

and it's just an incredible new chapter of my life. When you go through something like that, you do carry it for the rest of your life. I mean, it changes a part of you. And so to hear that Delaney called me her guardian angel makes me feel like I've lived my life for something. Angela Rose is married and expecting her first child. I'm dreaming. for allegedly failing to protect her. Why are so many sexual assault survivors afraid to go to the police? Chat now with correspondent Maureen Maher on Twitter. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.