Not long ago, Daryl Roberts, the chief of police of Hartford, Connecticut had said that we have lost our “moral compass.” Roberts had said it for good reason as 78-year-old Angel Arce Torres was crossing the street and was hit by a car. The car did not stop as it continued driving away. None of the other cars have stopped to help the person. None of the bystanders had come to help Torres out as well.
In that regard, respect for human life and dignity had reached an all time low in the United States. Again, that same respect and regard has hit an all time low once again. This time, the victim is a 24 year old graduate student at Columbia University. The name of the victim was not given out.
But, she is a graduate student who lives an apartment located in Upper Manhattan. For nineteen hours, she had endured a physically, mentally, and spiritually painful ordeal. At the end, she had prayed for death. She had even tried to kill herself. In court, the girl pointed out at her assailant, 31 year old Robert Williams, an ex-convict. Williams did not appear on Friday. However, Williams ended up appearing on Monday.
The attacker had placed pain and torment on the girl for 19 hours straight. It was a total nightmare for the girl.
In the court, the victim said that for nineteen hours, she was subjugated to all sorts of humiliating acts such as rape, sodomy, and oral sex. But the humiliation and torment did not stop there. The victim defended herself with a pair of scissors used when the attacker forced her to cut her hair. The assailant had also started raping her once gain.
The girl had gone through hell and back. She was forced to take huge doses of painkillers during this horrid ordeal. The painkillers took a toll on her body as she suffered through liver failure. The attacker even forced her to use a butcher knife and gouge her own eyes. She refused and the attacker threw bleach in her face.
In court, the victim said in her testimony: “I said, ‘Just kill me. You know you’re going to kill me anyway. Just kill me.’”
But, the ordeal did not end there. At the end of it all, she was bound to her futon sofa as her apartment was on fire. After being raped and tortured, she was left to burn to death in the apartment.
Luckily, she’s still alive and testifying against Williams.