Today’s a weird anniversary in my life, that I can’t help but acknowledge each year – but hey, PLEASE don’t feel obligated to respond. Some of you know the story better than I do! 😎

I was kidnapped on Chicago’s North side on this December evening, 53 years ago, today.

I’ll let the clippings speak for themselves, although I WILL say that HAD I BEEN handcuffed to a radiator or a chair (instead of to myself) that the story would have ended quite differently.

I saw my chance for freedom and took it. Grabbing the gun but unable to fire it, we struggled until he was able to recuff the hand I’d gotten free. It was then I kicked for all I was worth to his groin with my wooden soled platform SANDALS (in the dead of winter). He sputtered and stumbled to the floor. Dead.

I made my way over to the draft I felt on my feet. He had taken me to a workshop area above his garage. The shelves were filled with jars and jars of … things in murky liquid. He’d been threatening me the whole time to cut me up.

Being handcuffed behind my back and not fully realizing he was dead, I kicked the source of the draft ( a floor level boarded up window) out further – until there was enough space to get my head out to scream. Oh did I scream.

My waist long hair hung out from the opening. I could barely see. My tears had plastered my hair to my face. I was facing the alley and a man walking his dog stopped, but he didn’t know what to make of me. I begged him to wait until I could turn around and show him my handcuffed hands.

He waited and he got the police ( not even 2 blocks away?!!) to come and they broke down the door. That was at 10:30pm.

It all started on Devon Ave at 5:30pm where he had pulled up to my bus stop to ask for directions. When I couldn’t understand him he caught my head in (new to me) electric car window and knocked me out with his black jack.

When I came to I was sitting in the passenger seat. Handcuffed (tightly) behind my back. He ignored my screams and there were a lot of stoplights between Devon and where he took me. No one reported me screaming incessantly.

We pulled into his alley and directly into his garage. It was there he forced me by gunpoint to climb the stairs to the workshop. He unlocked the door and threw me into an overstuffed but rotting armchair.

My hands had gone numb and I asked him to loosen the cuffs. When he did that he inadvertently cuffed my watch and not my wrist. Having that freedom helped me regain some composure and I started to plot my escape.

He was clearly unwell. Sweaty, although it was cold, and breathing heavily. I noted a bottle of Southern Comfort on the desk/table behind him. He was seated on a folding chair directly in front of me.

I thought I would kick him over on that folding chair, grab that bottle, and hit him over the head with it.

When I knocked him over his coat flew open and I saw the gun and grabbed it. I grabbed it with two hands and didn’t realize my finger was preventing me from firing it. We struggled until he was able to rehandcuff me. I was more afraid of losing consciousness as he kept hitting my head.

It was after he recuffed my wrists (tightly) that he bent down to cuff my ankles, that I got in the kicks that (ultimately) killed him.

I wasn’t harmed save for my psyche and the blows to my head along with wrist burns from the cuffs.

There were many blessings in seeing to it that I survived this and 53 years later, I give MANY thanks for them! 🙏🏻🙏🏻