AUTHOR’S NOTE

You are about to read a true story of intense, unfathomable violence, detailing how the victim in this story survived, and how she went on to overcome the obstacles and challenges left behind after the attack, both physical and emotional. This short e-book will be, at times, written in the first-person voice of the survivor, but also built around the framework of a third-person narrative I have constructed to give context and foundation to the overall story.

If you are familiar with my work on television or in print, you’ll know I am an investigative journalist by trade and will often dig deep into the stories I cover, interviewing hundreds of sources and sifting through thousands of pages of documents in search of exclusive, new information connected to cases. This “true survivor” series I have developed for Kensington Publishing Corp., with my longtime editor Michaela Hamilton (who had the original idea for the series), is in no way meant to be perceived as one of those detailed, investigative pieces of journalism I am known for.

In this new series of exclusive e-books, I aim to showcase survivors’ stories from their point of view. Even the perpetrator will play a smaller-than-usual role in these inspiring and empowering stories of emotional and physical endurance. Law enforcement, too, will have a much smaller role than is typical in my books. My goal is to allow surviving victims of brutal assaults and attempted murders the space and the opportunity to tell their stories in an unencumbered fashion, without judgment and/or hindrance. This space is for victims of heinous crimes to explain how they were able to overcome adversity and horrible life-changing injuries in the face of immeasurable evil. You will hear testimony of great strength, whereas many of us might curl up into a fetal ball and yield to the clutches of the demons plaguing many post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) survivors.

I am humbled by the survivors’ stories—and especially by the strong women who have entrusted me to tell their stories. I have great respect and admiration for crime survivors and consider myself to be a staunch victims’ advocate. This series is one more way for me to explore that role and bring readers and viewers of my televisions series more in-depth stories of survival. The She Survived series proves there can be sunshine on the other side of a dark mountain; people can come back from a harrowing, violent experience and not allow it to consume their lives, thus taking the power back from the perpetrators.

 

—M. William Phelps