It was July 4, 1997. A BBQ was scheduled for that afternoon at my parent's house. But I was sleeping soundly. It was only 5 a.m. or so in the morning.
I lived in the house I owned with my best friend, Monica Allen, and other good friend, Shirina Edwin (now Shirina Grimaldi). Shirina had a room to herself and Monica and I shared a room with bunkbeds.
I heard some commotion in the next room but it didn't wake me until Monica shook me by my shoulders. "Wake up!!" she said, "There's a man in the house." Not that we never had friends over that were guys, but I could tell by the panic in her voice something was wrong and then I heard the male voice. I bolted out of bed. I heard his voice coming from the kitchen which was separated from our room by a short hall. He would block our exit if we tried to run down the hall. We were stuck in the room. I looked around quickly, angry with myself that I'd put a large dresser in front of the window and the other window was similarly blocked. There was no place to go so I grabbed Monica and yanked her into the closet, behind a thick rack of clothes and we waited there, knees literally shaking. I hoped that Shirina wouldn't tell him we were there and that he wouldn't find us.
But he already had a gun on Shirina. He had kicked the side door in and showed Shirina his gun, telling her not to move. He had a full face-mask on, latex gloves, dark clothing, and seemed to know what he was doing. He directed Shirina down the hall with a gun at her back, asking her if anyone else was home. She said yes. Then they were in the room, and he kept asking where we were and Shirina yelled, "You guys, you have to come out."
I remember we didn't come out at first because we were only wearing nightshirts and our underwear, with legs exposed, but he yelled at us to come out so we did, slowly, and after we were inching out from behind the door, Shirina said abruptly, "Put some pants on!" and he said we could pants on. So we did.
Then he motioned for Shirina to join us in the closet. It was tiny little walk-in. I was 5'5" and 105-110 lbs, all muscle from cross-country running; Monica was 5'3" with a similiar build and weight, and Shirina was 5'11" and over 200 lbs. Shirina had been in the Marines when she was younger, until she had an honorable discharge after she broke her back, so I thought maybe she would know how to wrestle this guy down, if needed.
He started going through drawers, keeping an eye on us, with the gun out, and putting pantyhose and socks into his pockets. He asked where the duct tape was. He also gathered together all of our drivers' licenses and ID, and car keys. He said he was going to take us for a little ride somewhere. Then he said he wanted a knife and he made us come out of the closet, and herded us down the hall into the kitchen where he took out a large chopping knife from a drawer. He herded us back into the bedroom closet.
He told us we were going to "get dressed" and asked us to put on the sexiest clothing we owned, but dictated I was to dress all in white, and Monica was to dress in only black. He didn't tell Shirina to change. We didn't have "sexy" clothing as we all adhered to a modest style and were very conservative. So he picked out a white silk nightshirt I had and paired it with a white skirt, and he had a like outfit for Monica. I said I didn't want anyone to watch while we changed and he said okay.
I thought he was going to take us out to a remote location where there might be a gang and we would be raped and killed. I felt we had to do something. I looked at my roommates in the closet, whose legs I could feel shaking and who were white. One was murmering prayers silently. After they were both looking at me, I mouthed, so he couldn't hear, "Do you think we can take him?" I made a hand motion to indicate what I meant. I thought if we were all in agreement, the 3 of us might be able to do something, and who knew what Shirina might have up her sleeve. But they just looked at me, eyes wider than before, and shook their heads, mouthing "NO." emphatically. My heart sank a little. This guy was telling us he was going to "finish the job" and take us somewhere...he was going through our underwear and asking why we didn't have anything sexier, and now he was going through our CDs, upset by our music selection. I had just survived a major car accident where the driver died and I should have been paralyzed from the waist down, if not dead. I asked God, "Did you save me from that, to die like this?" and I got this intuitive feeling that the answer was no, that we were going to be okay. I asked God if I was going to die, and while I didn't hear a voice from heaven, I had a feeling we were not going to die. And just then I had an idea from stories in the Bible: in the Bible, especially Old Testament, before the battle, the musicians went out first and played. I always wondered about that. I thought perhaps there is something to it and if I could just play my guitar and see what happened...
Right then the guy said, "All you guys have is 'God' music". I seized the chance to become his "friend" and get him to see us as real people. "Yeah..." I said, "That's all we have...what kind of music do YOU like?" and he responded with some names of artists he liked. I asked him if he played any musical instruments and he said no, and so I told him I had a guitar and could play some of the songs he liked for him. I also told him I'd written some original songs I could play and that I had a good voice and had won some awards. He was interested. I told him we'd have to get my guitar out of the livingroom. So he herded us into the livingroom. I didn't want to walk around in the outfit he'd chosen for me, or draw any attention to myself, but I felt it was more important to appear calm, cooperative, friendly, and to try to draw him in.
There were no phone jacks in the bedrooms, just the kitchen and livingroom, and we didn't dare try to call. He had already taken the phones off the hook already, and I was disappointed to see I had closed all the blinds in the room. I had closed the blinds to keep people from seeing in, and yet now, the birds were beginning to sing, it was early morning and you could feel the sun warming the house. It was going to be a beautiful day and no one outside knew what was going on in our house. I could hear some of the kids playing outside.
--to be continued--
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