Vermont Keeps its Secrets

The tragedy of Brooke Bennett’s kidnapping and death in rural Vermont has made headlines recently. I’ve been following the case myself since her disappearance, with a sinking suspicion that it would end up this way. I’ve been unable to sleep, and when I do my dreams are of having the answer to a test but no one will allow me to turn it in. Being lost, knowing the way out but unable to speak to help myself. And of course the dreams of being a child again, a young girl Brooke’s age who was also deceived by those closest to me. The parallels between she and I were what drew me in at first. It’s also possible my family is lying to me. Again.

I know what it’s like to have people close to you be your undoing. I too was the victim of a sexual predator in my family when I was very young. My family chose to protect my perpetrators with silence; in fact, they still do. The one who is still living lives in impunity, never having had to face a single accusation. The other is long dead, leaving behind him a string of victims who, though related to one another, cannot or will not talk about the fact that he was a criminal. It is taboo. I am forbidden to speak to them, to offer my comfort and possibly receive some of my own. The crimes against us span two generations. These other abused women are my family; they were always a part of my life, and helped to make me who I am today, for better or worse. I want to commiserate with them, stand up stronger with them and make it known that what happened to us was wrong. Most of all, I want to be a strong role model for young women like Brooke, to force a spotlight onto this crime so that it can’t happen so easily. Her perpetrator should not have been able to get to her so easily, and yet it fell into place. She was walking around with a target painted on her forehead, and never knew it.

People are marveling, “How could something like this happen in Vermont, of all places?“ I am in a position to know all too well how crimes like this can happen. They have occurred there for centuries, and they’re still going on. Sexual predators are taking advantage of modern tools such as the Internet, but they also are using the most ancient and reliable tool available to them: silence. Puritan traditions die hard in New England, and families don’t speak up for shame. “What will people think?” was a mantra I was raised with from birth, and it applied to everything. You didn’t make a fuss in public for any reason, and you didn’t discuss things that were “unmentionable.” If something terrible happened, your family dealt with it by pretending it never happened.

Well, it did happen. All victims of sexual violence everywhere have their own scars, and hopefully some of them have come to terms with what happened to them. I haven’t yet. In the back of my mind lingers a question, and it has been ringing in my ears since they found Brooke’s body. I know that it’s the reason I keep trying to solve these crimes so obsessively, hoping they won’t turn out the way this one did. The question for me is not why did Brooke (and so many others like her) die, but why did I live? Right now, I don’t know if I will ever find the answer.