Browns' Deshaun Watson trade triggers past for sexual assault victims. I am one of them

Note: This article includes a victim's description of a sexual assault. This may be difficult for some readers.

A decision by Dee and Jimmy Haslam has revived memories from nearly 47 years ago that I thought were safely locked away.

Since the Browns co-owners met with and traded for quarterback Deshaun Watson, I am among the sexual assault victims in Northeast Ohio and around the country who have had their past trauma triggered.

I have already written about the Browns being the epitome of hypocrisy for their pursuit of Watson. Even though Watson has been accused of sexual misconduct or sexual assault during massage appointments by 22 women who filed civil lawsuits, the Browns made Watson the face of their franchise with a record-shattering $230 million guaranteed contract.

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This is not about Watson’s guilt or innocence. Two Texas grand juries have declined to indict Watson on criminal charges, the latest on Thursday. No matter the resolution, that will be forgotten when Watson wins games and perhaps takes the Browns to their first Super Bowl.

This is about victims who are reliving unspeakable acts of violence because of the way the Browns have embraced Watson.

I am one of them.

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I know what it's like not to be believed 

I cried myself to sleep on March 15, when news broke that the Browns were flying to Houston to meet with Watson.

Like so many women who are victims of sex crimes, I know what it's like not to be believed.

In 1975 – that’s as specific as I can be because the date is the only thing about this nightmare I can’t remember — I was picked up by Kentucky State Police troopers at my dormitory at Eastern Kentucky University and driven to the capitol in Frankfort for a lie detector test. I was strapped in an oak chair with arms like paddles.

It felt like the electric chair.

All because after a night at the bars in downtown Richmond, I didn’t go with my friends to the truck stop for breakfast. Walking alone through the parking lot to enter the fire escape door that was always propped open, I was abducted at knife point, driven to a house outside of town and gang raped.

At that time, there had been rumors on campus about sexual predators, but nothing substantiated.

I decided fellow students needed to know

In the wake of my horror, I decided fellow students needed to know. A staff member of the campus newspaper, the Eastern Progress, I set up an interview with the managing editor. I didn’t tell her I was the victim.

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She was shocked when I walked into the room alone and she learned it was me. She brought a cassette tape recorder, listened intently as I told what happened, but said she was incapable of writing it.

So I wrote it myself.

Before its anonymous publication, then-Progress editor T.G. Moore ran it by university President Robert R. Martin. Martin thought it was fake. Moore vouched for its veracity.

I didn’t know until days ago that after the story was published, my best friend from EKU had been approached by another woman who lived in our dorm. She wanted to know if my friend would reveal the author and told her she’d also been attacked.

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I cooperated with the police to try to apprehend my assailants, who had blindfolded me with the black scarf I’d worn around my neck. I even returned to the likely scene of the crime. I knew only that I’d had to cross a swinging bridge because I could see through a slit in the scarf as I was led across.

Driven there by troopers, it felt like the place.

But the case went cold. The police believed the men had fled after the newspaper article appeared. I eventually picked up the brown paper evidence bag with my clothes and returned the shirt and scarf I’d borrowed from my suitemate.

To this day, I still remember what I was wearing — a black and steel blue print polyester blouse, my best flared jeans, woven brown leather wedge sandals, the scarf that in my mind saved my life. I remember the purple embroidered sweater my friends brought to the emergency room for me to change into.

I remember the wide, smooth, wooden arms of that lie-detector chair.

All memories triggered by the Watson news.

I was too ashamed to tell my parents

I was too ashamed to tell my parents. They learned what had happened when they received the emergency room bill. I handed my dad the Progress story, but we never discussed it. He died two years later from lung cancer that spread to his brain, but I always felt that article had broken his heart.

My mother and I never spoke of it, either. Few of my friends know this story.

Victims suffer in silence and try to move on. I still believe pouring everything into that Progress piece was the catharsis I needed to keep my life on track.

Lingering effects of sexual assault

But there are still lingering effects. I won’t park in the below-ground section of the Gateway East Garage in between Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and Progressive Field frequented by many media. I change the radio station every time a ZZ Top song comes on. I won’t stay in a first-floor hotel room, especially one entered from outside (unless it’s an Arizona casita with a patio).

The accusations against Watson are not on the same level of what I experienced, but the lasting effects could be the same. Statements released by the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center since the Watson trade about the 24/7 availability of hotlines are strangely comforting, at least in a sense that we are not alone.

I am sharing this now because I feel like my life has come full circle. It’s almost as if that horrifying experience led me to this moment with the Browns and Watson. Several times I have thought about helping sexual assault survivors in retirement.

This feels like a meager offering, but be assured it is sincere.

Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/browns. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.

How to get help

If you are a victim of a sexual assault, help is available:

• Rape Crisis Center of Summit and Medina Counties: 330-434-7272 (24-hour hotline) or https://hopeandhealingresources.org/rape-crisis-center/.

• Victim Assistance: 330-376-0040 (24-hour hotline) or https://victimassistanceprogram.org.

• National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).