Dancing with the Octopus

by Debora Harding

  “If you need permission to go to Lincoln, give yourself permission to go to Lincoln . . . with guarded optimism,” he said, walking us back to the front door. “Letting that criminal know the consequences of what his behavior did to your life might not change him, but it may change you.”

  He paused, looked into my eyes intently, checking in, like he was reading my mind. “Seems pretty clear to me. You need to do this.” And with that, he wrapped his big bodybuilder arms around my shoulders, giving me a huge bear hug.

  In Which I Assess an Algorithm of Risk

  Shepherdstown, 2003—I notified Jill of my commitment to testify in Lincoln before the parole board and hoped my courage would follow, fear being my dominant emotion. Jill suggested that she approach members to see if they would meet with me privately the day before the hearing. It would protect my anonymity. It wasn’t within normal protocol, but the chairman of the parole board, James Morrison, and one member of the panel, Rachael Selway, agreed there was legitimacy to my request for anonymity, and the meeting date was set.

  Jill helped me prepare and forwarded dozens of documents to the parole board ahead of time. The first was a victim statement. I described the crime in detail, the impact on my family, and the long-term price I had paid with my mental health. I assembled the neurology reports, the psychiatric assessments in my hospital records for the past twenty-five years; I asked all the mental health professionals I had worked with to write statements. I couldn’t begin to estimate the financial costs.

  I managed to track down Kim Haller, my close friend from junior high school who had worked with Goodwin in prison before his first release. We reestablished our friendship immediately and her sense of humor couldn’t have arrived at a better time. When I told her the plan, she said that there was no way she was letting me do this without her. She’d be with me in Lincoln and said she would be happy to share her experience with the parole board if it would be helpful, and then offered to organize a party for me with a group of our old friends.

  Kate Shugrue, my childhood friend who worked in the attorney general’s office, was all in, too. She wanted to be of support in Lincoln as well and volunteered to witness proceedings at the actual parole hearing in my stead.

  The only important person on the list I was hoping to find, but couldn’t, was my teacher Kent Friesen. He had made such a point to stay in touch after we moved, even driving up to my high school graduation in Laurens and then in the years after. But he had disappeared in the last four years. He had been so pivotal in his support for me—even told me when I saw him in 1987 that he and his wife had gone down to the place where Goodwin left me to die near the stockyards, because they had to know what happened to me. Something my parents never deemed helpful or important.

  I wrote an email to Dad explaining that I was going out to Lincoln to testify against Goodwin’s parole, and asked if he and Mom would be willing to write letters to the parole board. And not only that, empowered from having embarked on the Victim-Offender Dialogue with Goodwin, I collected the courage to ask him if he and I could talk about not only what happened that night but of the cruelty my sisters and I had endured from Mom while under her care. I suggested we do it by email, which would give us time to consider our responses. It would give us the opportunity to pace it. He said he’d do anything to help me.

  A week later an envelope arrived with two statements enclosed, both from Mom. In her cover letter she said that she hoped they fulfilled my purpose and finished with an “I do so hope this works for you. Love you always, Mom.”

  The first witness statement was a four-page, single-spaced document that explained as “well as possible the effects of that experience on our family.” The account began at the point Mom returned home from work to find police in our house, the phone being monitored, and a neighbor in the kitchen. There were no mobile phones then and nobody had been able to reach her at her new place of employment. She was told I had been abducted for a ransom, that Dad was with the police. She described the phone call from the hospital asking permission to conduct a forensic medical exam for court purposes. “Understanding what this meant,” she collapsed on the floor. “This was one of the worst fears of my life—that one of my daughters would be raped.” She went on to say she believed the move to Iowa was bad for me. And that of all her children, before the assault, I was the only one to have a solid faith in God. She wrote that prior to my assault, I had attended church regularly, and that the loss of my faith had been a dear cost to me. I sat for a moment before moving to the second letter, wanting her regrets for me—the move, the loss of my faith—to be real.

  But her next letter was odd, the reasons for separating the information unclear. This one detailed Mom’s bewilderment at my older sister’s reaction to my kidnapping. After reading it, I wondered if she did so because she was concerned I might also have asked Genie to write an account of events that night—because they differed.

  In one of the final exchanges Genie and I had before she distanced herself from the family, she shared the nightmare of that night at home. She confirmed, albeit vaguely, that the question had been raised as to whether the ransom demand had been my idea; my revulsion to what she had said was instant, even if she was just repeating what she heard, so I insisted she not share this part of the story.

  She then said when the phone call came in from the hospital, Mom went hysterical, started to shriek, and Genie thought I had been murdered. When she pleaded with Mom to tell her what happened, Mom turned at her with flailing fists. Genie watched horrified as the police officer standing by the phone in the kitchen shut the door so he could finish the conversation with the hospital. But that’s not what Mom wrote in her letter. Mom wrote in her letter, “My oldest daughter kept yelling ‘what happened’—she looked at me and said ‘no, don’t tell me’ and ran upstairs to her room.”

  Genie also told me Mom hadn’t given her a choice about my sleeping in her room, and though it was no fault of mine, she had been further traumatized when I told her the horrendous details of what had occurred. Mom verified she had asked Genie if I could sleep with her and concluded with, “I don’t think any of us got much sleep that night.”

  A week after the arrival of Mom’s letters, a Fed Ex package arrived from Dad containing two legally notarized letters. The first verified the contents of the letter that Charles Goodwin had sent to me at our address in Iowa, and my father’s decision soon after to destroy it. He explained it wasn’t until I requested the letter that he understood I had ever seen it, that he’d never discussed it with me, in an effort to protect me. While I was deeply frustrated not to have the original letter, this was legal proof to verify it as fact.

  The second letter was an account of what Dad had gone through that night. He had been working in his basement office at home when the telephone rang. “At first I thought Debora was putting me on. It quickly became clear to me that she was in real trouble, and was scared to death.” He then described how a male voice came on the phone, gave him the demands, and that “I begged him not to harm my daughter.” He went to our neighbor, who called the police chief directly. Dad was instructed by the police to comply with Goodwin’s demands to carry a bag as ordered, but empty of the $10,000 in cash. He was told there would be a police presence at the shopping center. He could see a plainclothes policeman and sensed others. “Later I learned that the kidnapper, with Debora, were indeed at the shopping center parking lot, but at a different level.”

  Then followed a powerful account of how he felt as he stood there for that half hour, the trauma of the experience building in his mind, and the toll it took on me, as well as our family. His letter concluded, “I personally have relived the events countless times. The anger that I have felt toward the perpetrator has been consuming numerous times. How anyone could harm a precious, innocent young girl like he did is beyond imagination. The impact of it has caused my family great pain and anguish, and still today it places unwanted demands on all of us.”

&nb
sp; There it was. In his own words. After twenty-five years. While I was crestfallen to read his account, I had to read it a second time to assure myself of a factual error. He said I had been discovered by the police in the van at the Center Shopping Center parking lot. What bothered me wasn’t that he had gotten the detail wrong, it was the new understanding that he never knew—he never knew that I had been dropped off blindfolded and tied by the Omaha stockyards or that it was from there that I escaped, or even that Goodwin had left me there to die. I was a parent now. I couldn’t imagine not having checked every detail of what had happened to my child.

  The reason Dad didn’t know came from the same weakness that left him blissfully ignorant of my mother’s duplicitousness. I tried to square this with the generous, compassionate, devoted father I knew him to be. He never ducked from emotionally supporting me, but how or why was it, when it came to violence, he’d stick his head in the sand? Wasn’t this gross emotional neglect? Could there be any excuse?

  I wrote him an email. Thanked him for his statements. Decided I would no longer hold back from sparing him the facts, to stop protecting him. I told him what I’d never told him before—that I hadn’t been found by the police in Goodwin’s van, but had been left to die near the Omaha stockyards. And that it was because of his love for me that I found my courage that night, that my desire to save his life had been what saved me. He responded immediately, apologized for never having understood the danger I had been left in, or how much I had feared for his life. He encouraged me to tell him more. I asked if it was time we made this a bigger conversation, one that included Mom’s crimes as well, made him assure me he would not share my letters with her. I needed his confidence. He promised. If the openness between us had not been there in the past, it could be now. He apologized for never having made the opportunity to really listen to me and listed the emotions around his previous reluctance: “fright, awkwardness, longing to continue denial, anger, fear, regret, hurt, uneasiness, embarrassment, confusion, and a lack of understanding or the ability to understand what devastation rape imposes upon a woman.”

  I wrote back. I said everything I had always wanted to tell him about the reality of living with Mom when he wasn’t there. And I ended with this: “I have to ask, how can you say you can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for a woman to experience rape? I was so grateful you shared your personal story with me last year. You were also in a life-threatening situation and were severely violated at a young age. Perhaps one of the reasons we’ve talked so little about my trauma is because you are carrying so many emotions yourself about the sexual assault that happened to you.”

  I must have hit a raw nerve. The letter that came back was powerfully worded.

  Dad replied that only now had he understood how Goodwin’s violence compounded Mom’s “treatment.” He said he wanted to handle me delicately, yet at the same time shake me and yell at me “to get over it, stop being a victim and punishing everyone around you for what happened, flush the damn pills and cancel all future appointments with shrinks and well-intended intellects and hang out with trailer park people who have basic survival instincts that keep them going.” He was angry at the way things turned out. Angry that Mom saw fit to treat us as she did, angry for what she did. But “I do see her as she is today and believe there is a difference, a huge difference.”

  It was the first time I ever felt a political/cultural divide between us. His use of the term “trailer park people,” with this proclaimed respect for their stoic work ethic, was bizarrely out of character.

  I thanked him. Changed the tone of my email. Told him Thomas and I had a lovely weekend camping with the kids. That I didn’t have the time to respond properly, but I appreciated his honesty and the fact that he had shared his emotions.

  He wrote back—and thanked me again for writing. Said he had been uplifted at the news of the dialogue between Goodwin and me. “My prayer is that both of you find solace in the process. I salute and recognize the work—and the toughness that it has taken on your part to bring it to this point. God Bless you and keep you as you proceed. Love, Pop.”

  In other words, his head was back in the sand. He appeared to have missed the point entirely—I was going back to Nebraska to testify against Goodwin’s release. And with that round completed, and this peculiar blessing, Thomas and I flew to Nebraska for my meeting with the parole board members in Lincoln.

  In Which I Return to the Cornhusker State

  Nebraska, 2003—Two days later, I was sitting alongside Thomas, Kate, and Kim at a huge conference table in a room with laminated wood paneled walls at a municipal law office near the Lincoln courthouse, meeting with Judge Morrison and Rachael Selway.

  The conversation ran several hours, after which Judge Morrison and Rachael Selway had to explain with deep regret and a heavy sense of responsibility that their hands were tied when it came to Goodwin’s release. He had served twenty-four years of a twenty-five-year term, and it was safer to have him serve a year on parole at the end of his full sentence than to release him straight into the community without monitoring.

  I raised the issue of the sexual offender registration—noting that Goodwin should have been included on the database before he had been released in 1987, even if he had only been on the streets for ten days before being imprisoned for the next crime. Rachael said she would personally see to it that the database was updated with his details, that he would be registered for life in accordance to his sentence. I left feeling thankful my efforts might at least make it easier for law enforcement to have a reason to know his address, as the sexual offender registration has been proven to reduce recidivism rates.

  Three hours later, we were back in Omaha at the party Kim had organized with the friends from Lewis and Clark Junior High School, the group I had never wanted to say goodbye to. It was a stark reminder of what I had lost when I left Omaha. The news of Goodwin’s impending discharge, which I had received that afternoon, was troubling. Though I knew it to be morally right that he be released—he had served twenty-four years—rationally or not, I felt I had let these friends and the Omaha community down by not being able to prevent it.

  I tossed and turned all night. The next morning, Thomas and I drove back to Lincoln with Kate and stopped at Denny’s to discuss logistics over eggs Benedict and coffee. The plan was for me to remain at the restaurant while Kate and Thomas attended the parole hearing at the Lincoln Community Release Center, which was down the road. That way we wouldn’t have to rely on hearsay to know what happened at the proceedings, and Thomas at least would be able to see Charles Goodwin. But as the two of them stood to go, my confidence in our decision wavered. It didn’t feel right. The whole journey to Nebraska had been triggered because Goodwin refused to allow himself to be filmed on video. And now, when I had the opportunity to actually see him without the ski mask, I was going to read a newspaper instead? At the very least, I could look in from outside a door. After all, I wasn’t the only victim to live in the shadow of a legitimately dangerous offender. It was a terror that spouses of domestic abusers lived with, victims who were stalked, reporters and social justice activists who exposed criminal activities—they all lived with continued risk and had to get on with their lives. Charles Goodwin might be dangerous, but I was so tired of living in fear, and I had already taken the risk in provoking him when I told him he gave me no choice but to testify against him. This was my last opportunity to see him in a safe prison setting.

  I shared my thoughts with Thomas and Kate. I could always sit in the car if it turned out not to be a good idea, but they were both supportive. Thomas pointed out that Jill could provide another reality check. So with that, after the breakfast bill was paid, the three of us left together.

  In Which I Drop In for a Surprise Visit

  As we walked into the lobby of the Lincoln Community Release Center, I put my sunglasses on in an effort to hide—which was a bit ridiculous given the conspicuousness of my business attire.

  J
ill, who was already waiting, expressed a pleasant surprise at seeing me. Thomas told her the plan had changed. I was relieved when she agreed I wasn’t being rash. She warned us that the door would open in a minute and pointed out that if I walked in with her, Goodwin would know for sure who I was. I reassured her it was what I wanted to do.

  The doors opened and we filed into the cafeteria with the rest of the families and visitors. There were about fifty round tables circled by blue, red, and yellow plastic chairs. The room was as light as the lobby, more windows emitting powerful prairie sun. I spotted Goodwin immediately, sitting at the table by himself.

  “That’s him,” I said to Thomas, my heart pounding in my throat with an odd exhilaration—a mixture of fear, anger, and wonderment that Goodwin was in fact real and not a specter of my hallucinating mind.

  Thomas, sensing my reaction, brought me back to earth by nudging me with the Omaha World Herald he had been carrying under his arm. “Where?”

  I nodded my head in Goodwin’s direction.

  Jill steered us to a table about twenty yards away from him and we sat down. If he was aware of me, he gave no sign of it, as he continued to look around the room with his quiet equanimity. I was delighted with this new feeling of empowerment, high with it, as a matter of fact. And it was then I realized: no one would stop me if I approached him, which I realized was exactly what I was going to do.

  I turned to Thomas, to Kate, to Jill, and apologized for another change in plan, but I had to talk to him. Jill said she’d let the guards know, and she’d be there the second I signaled her. And with this, I turned to Mr. Goodwin. I’d never been so determined to connect to a human soul as I was at that moment. When I reached the table, I found myself asking confidently, yet in a friendly, businesslike tone—