Karen Stefano - What A Body Remembers: A Memoir of Sexual Assault and Its Aftermath

What A Body Remembers is a gut-wrenching walk back into a terrifying past in order to find peace with tomorrow. This is a harrowing but ultimately transformative story about reclaiming the events that have shaped our liveseven the traumatic ones. Karen Stefano writes with verve and delicacy, as well as astonishing honesty. Read this book!

Rene Denfeld , internationally bestselling author of The Child Finder

After her superb debut book, The Secret Games of Words , Karen Stefano returns with What a Body Remembers her autobiographic account of sexual assault, frustratingly unsatisfactory legal maneuvering, and a lifetime of reverberations from bothall leading to a decades later heart stopping discovery. Stefanos writing style accessibly conveys the complex challenges in coping with trauma in her lifes journey: from victim to survivor to successful lawyer and author. Highly recommended.

Charles M. Sevilla , author of Wilkes on Trial and Wilkes, His Life and Crimes

This is a Genuine Vireo Book

A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013
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Copyright 2019 by Karen Stefano

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to
print, audio, and electronic.

For more information, address:
A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department
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Set in Minion

epub isbn : 9781644280720

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stefano, Karen, author.
Title: What a Body Remembers: A Memoir of Sexual Assault
and its Aftermath / Karen Stefano.
Description: First Trade Paperback Original Edition |
A Genuine Vireo Book | New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA:
Rare Bird Books, 2019.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781947856950
Subjects: LCSH Stefano, Karen. | Rape VictimsBiography. |
Post-traumatic Stress DisorderPatients. | RapeInvestigation. |
BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Classification: LCC HV6561 .S73 2019 | DDC 364.1/532/092dc23

For my assailant.

How she might have done things differently. But didnt.
How it is too late to change things now. How it isnt.

Larry Levis, Elegy with a Darkening Trapeze Inside It

Say there-is-nothing-I-wont-do-to-live.

Alan Shapiro, Sunflower

Contents

Everything in this memoir is one hundred percent true as I remember it. Some names have been altered for privacy,
and certain communications with clients have been
modified to protect attorney-client confidences.

Chapter 1

July 27, 1995, Superior Court Department 12,
San Diego, California

T he courtroom holds a palpable edge, even before the judge takes the bench and trial begins. Nerves. Expectancy. Fear of losing control. I always dreaded trial, fretted about it, wore myself out trying to anticipate all that might go wrong, where the prosecutor might trip me up, destroy me. But the moment Judge Hirsch opens the door from his chambers and the bailiffs voice booms, Please remain seated and come to order! the angst evaporates. Battle has begun.

Weve already impaneled the jury and they sit in the box, twelve of them and two alternates, dutifully gripping notepads and pens. They look at me, steal glances at my client. They are curious, ready for the show to begin.

The deputy district attorney goes first with his opening statement: A brutal assault in broad daylight in a bank parking lot. Female victim pistol whipped with a .45 automatic. Facial injuries. Purse wrenched from shoulder and attacker fled. Victim called 911, described her assailant. Black male, late twenties, muscular, six foot two, or three. Fled in a white Buick. My client, Dwayne Sayers, is stopped two hours later in a car meeting this description. On the passenger seat sits this womans purse minus her wallet and a few other items. Dwayne is arrested.

My opening statement is more vague. As a criminal defense attorney, I cannot tell the jury that the evidence will show and then fail to deliver. As a criminal defense attorney, I can never quite be certain what the judge will let me get away with. In this trial, I know my client cant testify. This is for two reasons. One, he is likely guilty and ethical rules prohibit an attorney from putting on perjured testimony. I dont know for a fact that Dwayne is guilty. I havent asked. I dont ask that question. I dont care. All I care about is convincing a jury to see reasonable doubt. The other reason Dwayne cant testify is that he has prior convictions for similar crimes. If he testifies the DA is allowed to impeach his credibility as a witness by bringing up those prior assaults. Once the jury hears about them, they will assume he is guilty. No question.

Dwayne has served time in the toughest prisons in CaliforniaFolsom, San Quentin, Pelican Bay. Hes been in custody five months, held on $250,000 bail, which he has no chance of posting. Because it would be prejudicial for the jury to see Dwayne in his county jail uniform, I have obtained a Dress Out Order, requiring the San Diego County Sheriffs Department to dress Dwayne in the clothes I have provided: tan khakis; long-sleeved, pastel yellow button-down; sweater-vest; loafers. Mr. Rogers clothes. Whenever I have the opportunity, I touch Dwaynes forearm. I lean in close and whisper in his ear. I do this for the benefit of the jury. I want to transmit the message that I am not afraid of this man. I want them to sense my client is harmless.

I expected Dwayne to be a difficult client, but he isnt. He understands that of all the people in this world Im the only one on his side, the only one fighting for him. He likes me and knows Im a good lawyer, a lawyer working like hell for him in a difficult case. The night before this womans assault, a man was robbed in the same neighborhood, at an ATM. The ATM had a camera. Seven photos show Dwayne holding a gun to the mans head, grabbing cash as the ATM spit it out, and the gun in these photographs is identical to the one described by the woman assaulted in the bank parking lot. I have managed to keep this out of evidence. This jury will never hear about that ATM robbery, will never see those photos, and this has impressed Dwayne immensely. On the charges of the assault of this woman, I might actually have a shot of winning. And winning matters deeply. Winning is everything because in some place inside me, a place I cant name, a voice screams, a ceaseless screeching, I dare you to knock this chip off my shoulder, motherfucker!

On the second day of trial, the victim testifies. She is blonde and petite like me, in her early thirties like me. She is pretty, earnest, likable, and I imagine her as someone with whom I might sit down on a summer evening, sipping wine, sharing stories of our lives. She describes what happened in the bank parking lot. When asked if the man who assaulted her is in the courtroom today she points to Dwayne and shudders. The DA says, I have no further questions for this witness, Your Honor.

Now its my turn.

Adrenaline shoots through my body as I stand for cross-examination. The sensation is pure, primal, and I feel how similar the coursing sense of power is to panic. I smooth the fabric of my skirt, pausing a few seconds for effect, for drama. I dont usually wear pink in a jury trial, but for this one I wear a soft rose suit and white blouse. I have colored my hair a lighter shade of blonde. I want to juxtapose my innocence with Dwaynes Mr. T-sized physique. If this little blonde lady in pink isnt afraid of him, he must be innocent.