The Debbie Case

[mikewho]

Saw this on the farina version yesterday and wondered something about it. Its the woman in NC that was abducted raped and shot with the shotgun. I forgot but they showed the man making her drive to a liquor store and he went inside and took the keys. I don't know how busy the area was but would she have had a chance to escape if she had ran off while he was in the store? Would there be enough traffic to where someone could have helped? I'm curious how isolated the area was where the store is.

Also its sad that the trooper saw her car parked on the side of the road but got another call before he could investigate. Wonder if that could have prevented the shooting and maybe the rape.

[wiseguy182]

Perhaps she felt she couldn't out run him. Or perhaps she was wearing high heels or something. Additionally, he had taken her keys, so that prevented her from driving away.

[justins5256]

Didn't it say in the segment that the guy threatened to kill people in the store if she tried anything?

[mikewho]

Yeah so she didn't have many choices at that point. To me that's one of the hardest cases to watch.

[James T]

If the guy wants to shoot people he would of anyway & doing that in public was the last thing he wanted. He didn't rape & shoot her in public, he went to a remote location to do it.

He wanted her to keep quiet & comply, if there were other people & shops around she should have made a run for it.

[justins5256]

It's easy to look back and discuss what someone "should" have done under certain circumstances. However, I fail to see the point in it, unless we're looking at things from a safety or crime prevention type of standpoint. Otherwise, what's done is done. The past can't be changed. At worst, this kind of thinking comes off as victim blaming - and I'm not saying anyone here is doing it, but it's a fine line and we should all be careful. You never know who is reading these comments.

[James T]

Certainly don't want to blame the victim-but those kind of people don't tend to let people live, she was incredibly fortunate to survive & if there is a chance to escape you have to take it.

[mikewho]

Yeah definitely not the victims fault. It's one of the saddest cases though.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by James T

Certainly don't want to blame the victim-but those kind of people don't tend to let people live, she was incredibly fortunate to survive & if there is a chance to escape you have to take it.

I think if she had known what he had planned, she probably would have made a run for it. But in most cases, it's best to just do what the perp says, and the victims that defy orders are usually the ones that end up getting murdered.

It's also important to note that she was probably paralyzed with fear.

I don't blame her at all. She fully complied and he ended up being pure evil anyways.

I don't really wanna go here, but in regards to the OP's original point about bolting at the liquor store, I think a much better option for her would have been to start driving erratically and/or speeding on the freeway. That could have eventually attracted the attention of a police officer, who would have pulled the car over and then she could have said what happened. And he almost certainly wouldn't have killed her while she was driving since it likely would have resulted in an accident that could have gotten himself killed.