Authors: M. William Phelps

She Survived (11 page)

BOOK: She Survived

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CHAPTER 33

LAUGHTER IS A GIFT

Life for Melissa Schickel
today is anything but normal. Since her attack, on top of all the complications she deals with daily, she also suffered a minor stroke, two mild heart attacks, and cervical cancer. Yes, she has moved on and moved forward beyond her ordeal. Yes, she is strong and has a good outlook on life in general. But every day of her life she lives with what happened. It will never go away.

“I still drink through a straw,” she said of what it takes to enjoy a simple glass of water.

Hockey has played such an important role in Melissa’s life and continued healing. With a hockey stick becoming such a representation of brutality for her, however, as she moved on from her attack, what would happen to her love of the sport as time went forward? Would hockey always be this reminder of what took place back inside her apartment on that night?

I have always had season tickets. Not just any season tickets. Front row, blue line, right next to the player’s bench. Only place I would sit. I could call a game better than most refs. Yes, I know the definition of icing.

So when I found out I was beaten with one of the hockey sticks I had collected, there came the question of whether I could go back to a game. I had to. I said, I couldn’t let the bastard take that away from me, too. I was so fortunate, because some of the staff in the front office of the local hockey team knew what had happened, along with some of the officials and security guards. So I was well looked after upon my return. We all gauged my reaction when the first stick went swinging, but I was okay, because since I never saw the hockey stick actually beat me, I didn’t have an emotional attachment to it. I was able to sit and watch a game and know that I still had protection around me, to walk me to my car, once the game was over....

These were my friends. Hell, I had friends on both teams . . . so I never felt unsafe. To tell you how dedicated I was to hockey, the day of my third surgery, I actually went to the game that night. I was still pretty drugged up, but there was no way I was going to miss the game!

It was a combination of hockey and comedy, for sure, that got her through, Melissa said. She remembered how Becky once told her there had been a witness the MCSD spoke to on the night of her attack. A girl was out on her balcony talking on the telephone when Saxton scaled the wall and broke into her apartment.

I was told that she didn’t end her phone call to call the police. In fact, she didn’t call the police until five seconds after I called the police. She said she didn’t think anything was wrong until he “fell off the balcony.”

I asked Becky point-blank, “What did she think, Romeo was coming up to romance me?”

It’s that strange sense of humor that pulled her through. Melissa could always go back to comedy: how the power of a simple joke or a funny bit could be within the healing process.

Law enforcement would never give Melissa the witness’s name, but the story made Melissa understand something about crime.

“There is always a witness,” Melissa quipped. “They just don’t come forward when you need them to, or, in most cases, ever at all. But like I said, I learned to laugh about it. If I hadn’t, I would have gone mad.”

CHAPTER 34

PACKING UP THE PIECES

When Melissa returned
to her apartment to pack her belongings during those days after her attack, there was a moment she found herself alone and carrying boxes to her car. As she leaned into her vehicle to place a box down on the backseat, two ladies now living in what used to be Scott Saxton’s apartment approached her.

The ladies were in complete shock. At the time of Melissa’s attack, they had been living there for only a brief period. Saxton and his family had moved out, which made Melissa’s attack so much more shocking, alarming, and premeditated. Saxton had planned and targeted Melissa because he knew she lived alone and did not have a dog or a gun or a boyfriend. That fact is clear.

Scott Saxton had come back for her.

The ladies explained how “genuinely bad” they felt, because on the night Melissa was attacked, they were actually awake and in their living room. One of the ladies told Melissa, “Our cats were going nuts. They kept running to the door.”

“We thought it was really odd and could not figure out why they were doing that,” the other lady explained. “We wished so hard that we had just opened the front door to see why, because maybe we would have heard you screaming.”

Melissa turned to look at them. Both ladies were crying. “They felt bad because they
didn’t
hear anything,” Melissa said later.

Then, as the conversation wound down, one of the ladies said something that shook Melissa to her core.

“That lady below you, she
did
hear you screaming.” But the woman, for whatever reason, did absolutely nothing to help—not even pick up the telephone and call the police anonymously.

What’s more, as Melissa was leaving that day after packing the last of her things, the security guard at the entrance gate stopped her.

“Hey,” the guard said, “did you know there was an attack a few weeks before yours?”

“No! I didn’t. But I’m leaving, so good-bye.”

CHAPTER 35

SAVING GRACE

Becky Buttram begged
Melissa to demand all of her belongings back from the property room department of the MCSD. They were Melissa’s things. She deserved to have them.

Melissa refused. To this day the MCSD still has the hockey stick.

“Although the jackass used my favorite hockey stick,” Melissa explained, “because it was neon green (and a junior stick, so it was just my height!), it was brand-new, but not a game stick. That was also the idiot’s mistake. He actually used the lightest-weight stick in the whole apartment—my saving grace. It wasn’t one I had an emotional attachment to. In fact, I had only got it a few weeks before, at the end of the season, which really blew his whole explanation of the fact that I had invited him in and shown him my hockey sticks and that was how his prints happen to be on that particular one he used to beat me.”

Indeed, Melissa had not even
owned
the stick Saxton used to beat her when Saxton lived in the same building. Producing receipts, not to mention when and where she bought the stick, would have been one of those jaw-dropping trial moments if Saxton ever took the case to a jury. They would have been able to prove he was lying about being inside her apartment.

I still have my hockey stick collection. Sadly, when I look at the collection now, the first thing that pops into my head is that night—but then I go into the good hockey memories. I even wonder if I’ll ever be able to hang them on my wall again (I don’t anymore), like I used to have them displayed.... Hockey is still my comfort zone. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that bastard take something I loved so much away from me.

CHAPTER 36

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Back in May 1993,
by sheer luck, fate played a hand in Melissa’s life. By then, Scott Saxton was well on his way to copping his plea and preparing to head off to years in prison. But for Melissa, she was looking to get back into the routine of her daily life as it was before the attack.

Every year on Carburetion Day, they have a concert downtown for the Indy 500. I was there with one of my hockey buddies, watching a band we happen to know. We were standing in this large crowd, when I hear a voice behind me. I turn around and it’s Marc Maron. I couldn’t believe it.

I then remembered that he was performing at the comedy club in town that week. So I told him who the band was. He didn’t know. I introduced myself and told him I was a fan of his work. He said I should come to the show.

Melissa went to the show. Afterward, she and Marc Maron went out for a bite to eat. Nothing too fancy—just the local Waffle House.

“I had to apologize before my food got there because I couldn’t eat very well,” Melissa said. “I had to explain, same as I do to people I meet now, that I cannot bite through food without a fork and knife, and that due to the nerve damage on the left side of my mouth/cheek, I cannot always feel if there is anything there, or if I have missed my mouth, especially when drinking. Trust me, drinking wine through a straw makes things very awkward.”

Marc Maron showed Melissa compassion. He was sincerely interested in what had happened to her and how she dealt with it.

“Can I ask you some questions about it?” he asked that night.

“Please do,” Melissa said.

“I told him that I also spent all of my sleepless nights watching his show. It was a great evening.”

I think it finally put some of his life into perspective. I later learned in reading his biography that he absolutely hated doing that show. It was one of the lowest points of his career, yet he never said a word that night. . . . I’ve brought up a couple of times to him since then how much it got me through the darkest point in my life.

When I saw him recently, I told him I was going to bring this up. He told me that he actually realized that it did help someone (me) and he has come to accept that. I am so fortunate that twenty years later I am still friends with Marc. I do feel he was instrumental in the healing process. I am also supergrateful that I am still friends with George Lopez. It is because of caring people like them that I have the life I do today.

The attack put things into perspective for Melissa. She does not take anything for granted anymore.

“From that first day on, I was, and still am, very thankful for each day I wake up,” Melissa said. “I try not to have regrets for things I have or have not done. I feel so lucky that I have the life I have. No, it has not been the most fortunate of lives, but . . . I appreciate what I have. I get so upset at people who whine over the littlest things.”

Melissa never sued anyone and, as she put it, “I never got a dime ….”

After all, she could have sued her attacker and taken everything he had. She could have sued the apartment complex management for allowing him back into the facility. Not to mention a host of others a good ambulance-chasing lawyer could dredge up. Yet lawsuits are not what she thinks about. Not at all.

“Like I said, I have my life,” Melissa concluded.

And she’s good with that.

AFTERWORD

Thank you for
purchasing the first book in this exciting new series I have embarked upon with Kensington Publishing Corp. It has been a tremendous honor for me to be able to bring these courageous, albeit terrifying and violent, stories to readers. I am a passionate victims’ advocate and this series allows me to explore that important part of my life and work in great depth. I love the idea that goodness overcomes evil every time in these stories, victims have the last word, and there is redemption after all the trauma. Violent criminals end up with their stories on the evening news, while their victims are allowed to sit back and watch. Criminals, as it is, become the stars of crime shows, books, movies, and generally receive all the headlines. Here, at least, I have given the victim of a violent crime the chance to share her story and how she managed throughout the entire ordeal. Essentially, the victim here has the final say. She has taken that power back from her perpetrator.

I want to thank Melissa Schickel in particular for being so honest and open about her story. She showed courage and respect for the process and I applaud her for that. Melissa hopes that others read her story and understand that not all victims of violent crime curl up in a ball and allow their perpetrators to determine the outcome of their lives. Melissa’s story and her life are a testament to this.

Melissa, pictured today, is content with her life. She still attends hockey games and follows her teams passionately. Yet she does like to bring along protection wherever she goes! (
Photos courtesy of Erin Moulton and Libby Bieszk
)