‘So I raped you.’ Facebook message renews combat for justice

Shannon Keeler was having fun with a weekend getaway along with her boyfriend final 12 months when she checked her Facebook messages for the primary time in ages. A reputation popped up that stopped her chilly.
“So I raped you,” the individual stated in a burst of unread messages despatched six months earlier.
“I’ll never do it to anyone ever again.”
“I need to hear your voice.”
“I’ll pray for you.”
The messages rocketed Keeler again to the life-shattering evening in December 2013 when an upperclassman at Gettysburg College stalked her at a celebration, snuck into her dorm and barged into her room whereas she pleaded with him and texted pals for assist. It was the ultimate evening of her first semester of school.
Eight years later, she nonetheless hopes to steer authorities in Pennsylvania to make an arrest, armed now with maybe her strongest piece of proof: his alleged confession, despatched through social media.
But is it sufficient?
Before and after the assault, Keeler adopted the protocols designed to stop campus intercourse assaults or deal with them once they occur. She had a male good friend stroll her residence from the occasion. She reported the rape that day, met with police and endured a painful and intrusive rape examination. And she pushed for costs. Yet, at each flip, the justice system failed her, identical to it fails most faculty rape victims.
For all of the concentrate on sexual violence within the #MeToo period, and on scholar protections underneath Title IX, only a few campus rapes are ever prosecuted, in accordance with sufferer advocates and the restricted crime information out there. Only one in 5 faculty intercourse assault victims report back to police. And once they do, prosecutors typically hesitate to take circumstances the place victims had been consuming or knew the accused.
“It has bothered me over the years that I was never able to do anything,” stated Keeler, now 26. “If you’re not going to help me, who are you going to help? Because I do have evidence.”
At Gettysburg, a small faculty with about 2,500 college students, 95 rapes had been reported to campus safety from 2013 to 2019 — however solely 10 non-child rape circumstances had been prosecuted in your entire county throughout that interval, in accordance with faculty information and county courtroom information.
And that daunts college students like Katayoun Amir-Aslani, who quietly left Gettysburg after her personal sexual assault within the spring of 2014, from coming ahead.
She met Keeler the evening she was assaulted. Then few months later, she was raped at Gettysburg by an acquaintance, she stated.
She didn’t file a report. She didn’t get a rape equipment. Instead, she quietly left faculty after that spring.
“I didn’t have any witnesses, and after the experience I had … with Shannon, and nothing happened with her, I just (thought), ‘Well, what’s the point of me going through all of this for nothing?’” stated the 26-year-old New Yorker. “So I just didn’t really tell anyone.’”
For Keeler, the suspect’s withdrawal from faculty ended the campus Title IX investigation. Two years later, simply after the window to file a civil swimsuit closed, then-District Attorney Scott Wagner stated he wouldn’t be submitting costs.
Keeler recollects him saying it was tough to deliver circumstances when alcohol is concerned.
Wagner, now a county choose, declined to talk with The Associated Press. His successor, District Attorney Brian Sinnett, wouldn’t focus on the specifics of Keeler’s case, however stated he can’t file costs except a case meets the excessive bar wanted for conviction.
“You have to look at what evidence do you have: can it be corroborated, whether it fits in with the statute of limitations, what is the likelihood of success at trial? All of those types of things,” he stated
Authorities in Adams County are wanting anew at Keeler’s case since she retained a lawyer and confirmed them the Facebook messages final June. The 12-year statute of limitations has not run.
The suspect, recognized by others on the occasion, left Gettysburg however denied any wrongdoing in an electronic mail to high school officers, in accordance with information that Keeler obtained. His withdrawal ended the varsity’s Title IX investigation, she stated.
The Associated Press — which tried to succeed in the 28-year-old man by way of telephone numbers and emails linked to him and his dad and mom, and thru social media — is just not figuring out him as a result of he has not been charged. None of the AP’s messages had been returned. He appeared to complete faculty at one other faculty, primarily based on his on-line profile.
Keeler discovered final 12 months from a brand new detective that her rape equipment had been destroyed after the case was initially closed. Her lawyer, Washington-based Laura Dunn, stated that always occurs even earlier than the statute of limitations runs, “which makes no sense.” Pennsylvania legislation now bars the observe.
Keeler stayed at Gettysburg, capping her time there with a Division III nationwide championship her senior 12 months. She considered it as “the ultimate victory” over her attacker.

Still, there have been breakdowns, and remedy, and an excessive amount of consuming for a time, and setbacks.

“I wasn’t the best version of myself for a few years,” stated Keeler, who now has a job she enjoys in software program gross sales and a cheerful relationship along with her long-time boyfriend. “My anger was more at the criminal justice system than what actually happened.”