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

could arrest a guy in Massachusetts and, after putting his prints through the system, find out he’s wanted in Texas. Because this system wasn’t yet refined during the period of Melissa’s attack, a major break in her case was lost. The technology just wasn’t in play yet.
    â€œWe find out later that he had done similar crimes up north,” Detective Buttram said of Melissa’s attacker. North of Indianapolis, that is. “Basically breaking into apartments. . .” It had occurred sometime before Melissa’s attack.
    This attacker was evolving, obviously. Back when he’d started, he’d break into a woman’s home, stand and stare at her as she slept. He might rub her arm or thigh, but that was it. He never took it to the next level.
    Later, when the detective looked at what the same guy did up north and then compared it to Melissa’s attack, Buttram believed he was leading up to killing a future victim. Banking on what he had done to Melissa, Buttram affirmed that the guy’s behavior was “escalating.” He was taking more and more chances.
    Melissa was on the mend when Buttram first spoke to her. Even still, Melissa looked terrible. The law officer could only imagine how much pain the poor woman had endured. She had seen the photos of Melissa right after her attack. It was one of those moments in this cop’s career, she later said, she would never forget.
    â€œMelissa was the tiniest, sweetest little thing you ever met,” Buttram recalled. “I thought what in the world would prompt someone to do what was done to her? She had never bothered anybody. She just wasn’t that type. She was kind of a hockey groupie,” the detective added with a chuckle. “She was just . . . a very nice person.”
    Melissa did not have much to add to what she had already told Detective Godan back in the hospital within those immediate hours after her attack. Becky Buttram had gone through that interview and read it closely. She had gone out to the scene. She had thought about the crime while staying up late at night, trying to figure out if they had missed anything.
    For the cop, nothing added up. A random attack that had been so brutal? That was scary in and of itself. Melissa couldn’t have known her attacker or she probably would have recognized him or figured out who he was by his voice, even though he tried disguising it.
    All Becky Buttram could do at this point was wait. See what happened next.
    Would he attack again?

CHAPTER 18
    OUT FROM THE SHADOWS
    On August 10, 1992 , a sixteen-year-old girl was sleeping comfortably in her bed in the middle of the night, probably dreaming innocently of some boy she’d met at school. Her room inside the apartment where she lived (close to Melissa’s residence) was set up so that her bed was near a window on the first floor. As she slept, the youngster was awakened by a man reaching in—he cut the window screen with a knife—and stroking her leg.
    The girl, startled awake, screamed as she woke up and realized what was going on; her father came rushing into the room. By then, the guy had taken off. The girl’s father called police, and his daughter gave officers a detailed description of the entire incident, including identifying marks of the suspect, as best as she could recall.
    â€œI interviewed the young adult,” Becky Buttram later said. “She really couldn’t tell me much of anything besides what we had—that he had cut the screen, actually, and reached in and grabbed her because her bed was right there by the window.”
    Buttram knew the man who had attacked Melissa was out and about, ready to commit more crimes. That this latest attempt—it was the same guy.
    Later that same night, a thirty-eight-year-old female army sergeant from nearby Fort Harrison was awoken by a man jumping up onto her bed and slashing her arm wide open with a knife. He had entered her apartment