She Survived: Anne

As time passed and Anne became more aware of what was happening to her, she knew there was only one way through PTSD: realizing you suffer from it and getting treatment.

Anne thanks her loving family and friends for caring for her. (Photos courtesy of Tom Johnson)

After about six weeks home, Anne went back to work. She took a job at a private school. It was nothing too stressful and would help her stay busy while dealing with the trauma and long-term damage the hell she had gone through had brought on.

“My home life with my son and my mom, who was now living with us, was ‘dysfunctional,’” Anne said with a laugh, “but it was also great. They helped me so much.”

A major factor in her healing was Anne’s tremendous faith in God.

I don’t like to say I am part of a denomination. I am just a Christian who puts all her faith in God’s hands. My church-going was not that great at that time, but God had plans for me. I got involved in mission work with teenage girls and was the sponsor for a student religious organization for two years at a local school. I found that teens were my calling. They helped me more than I helped them.

“Prayer,” Anne added, “all the time.”

As the months passed, it bothered Anne that she had never heard from the prosecutor or anyone responsible for arresting or jailing Jimmy. She had no idea about the judicial end of her case.

“I never heard from the DA. I received a call from . . . my good friend, the chief of police in Linden, at the time. But that was about it.”

And that was in January 1999, almost ten months after the incident.

“The Feds are all done with this case,” Anne’s friend told her.

“Done?” Anne was confused. How could they be done? Jimmy had violated his parole by possessing weapons. He’d kidnapped Anne. Held her against her will at gunpoint. Shot her. One could argue the guy had even tortured Anne by placing her in the hot shower. Attempted murder, as she saw it.

Jimmy had been arrested without incident the day after the ordeal. Anne had given his name and address during those first few tenuous hours after arriving at the ER. Local law enforcement surrounded Jimmy’s house. Knowing he was armed and dangerous, they were able to bring him into custody without any problems.

Once Jimmy was arrested, he did not see the light of day until 2011. He now lives about twenty minutes from me . . . and has been told by law enforcement that he is not to be seen back in the county I live in. I do have plenty of security at my house, including an eighty-pound boxer, who is very loyal to me. I will not move and run from him, be intimidated by him, or be his victim any longer.

As he had done after the previous, similar incident, Jimmy claimed that it was all a misunderstanding. Still, the fact that he had weapons in his house was enough to hold him. Jimmy, it turned out, had been under house arrest since December 1997, months before the April incident with Anne. (Anne had noticed an ankle monitor when she first stopped by to see him.)

Anne got sick of waiting. She called the DA’s office to find out what was going on—she assumed that she would have to testify against Jimmy. No way am I going to back down, Anne decided. Jimmy might have convinced the woman before her to drop all the charges, but that was not the case this time around.

“So I contacted them and they acted like they didn’t know anything about my case,” Anne said later. “After [I held] for a while, they came back on the line and told me they would get right on it.”

By March 1999, a preliminary hearing was scheduled.

Anne showed up and had a sit-down with the assistant DA before proceedings began.

“This was the first time I met with them.”

They talked for a short time. The ADA “asked me to refine the charge to Assault One, instead of Assault Two, which is what the deputies filed at the time it happened,” Anne said. “Assault Two is a more serious crime, almost as serious as attempted murder.”

Nobody involved thought a jury would go for the Assault II charge and convict.

Anne’s case was postponed until April, a year after the incident.

Of course I was thrilled that charges were filed and Jimmy was going to face a grand jury. Not about the lesser charge of Assault One . . . I really felt Jimmy would place someone on the jury to vote against Assault Two. I know him and his (now-deceased) mother were crooked, and I just had that feeling, you know, that they were going to do something to see that Jimmy never paid a price for what he’d done to me.

Just before that April court date, Anne took a call.

“Can you meet me for lunch?” the woman asked.

It was Jimmy’s mother. She wanted to “discuss” something with Anne.

“I’ll get back to you,” Anne said. She was at work. She hung up the phone and sat and stared at the receiver. The call almost felt like an intimidation tactic.

Anne called the ADA. Told him about the call.

“I think it’ll be okay, but we’ll just make sure you record the conversation.”

Anne called Jimmy’s mother back and agreed to meet the following afternoon.

The police chief and the ADA met Anne at her work that next day to let her know that everything would be okay. They were meeting in a public place. She would wear a wire. Someone would be watching.

Anne went to the designated location; she sat and waited.

An hour passed, but Jimmy’s mother never showed up.

As Anne returned to her place of work, and was walking down the hallway toward her office, she heard a woman call out her name.

It was Jimmy’s mother.

“I had the chance, but I didn’t turn around,” Anne said. “I really didn’t want to meet her in the first place, and she had her opportunity. I really think she was going to either threaten or bribe me, anyway.”

As that April court date came closer, it was postponed. Anne was left to wonder if Jimmy Williams would ever be punished for what he’d done. Would she ever receive justice? It felt to Anne as if nobody cared. As if Jimmy, once again, was going to get away with a horribly violent crime.

“I only held one man responsible,” Anne concluded, thinking how part of her PTSD might force her into hating men in general, seeing how males were letting her down over and over again. “My feelings about men did not change after the incident. I didn’t start to hate men because of what happened to me. Still, I was very cautious.”

Then word came that Jimmy Williams was going to be indicted for Assault I—and for the first time since it had all happened, Anne felt as if someone was finally listening.

Justice, perhaps, was going to find its way.