Law enforcement would never give Melissa the witness’s name, but the story made Melissa understand something about crime.

  “There is always a witness,” Melissa quipped. “They just don’t come forward when you need them to, or, in most cases, ever at all. But like I said, I learned to laugh about it. If I hadn’t, I would have gone mad.”

  CHAPTER 34

  PACKING UP THE PIECES

  When Melissa returned to her apartment to pack her belongings during those days after her attack, there was a moment she found herself alone and carrying boxes to her car. As she leaned into her vehicle to place a box down on the backseat, two ladies now living in what used to be Scott Saxton’s apartment approached her.

  The ladies were in complete shock. At the time of Melissa’s attack, they had been living there for only a brief period. Saxton and his family had moved out, which made Melissa’s attack so much more shocking, alarming, and premeditated. Saxton had planned and targeted Melissa because he knew she lived alone and did not have a dog or a gun or a boyfriend. That fact is clear.

  Scott Saxton had come back for her.

  The ladies explained how “genuinely bad” they felt, because on the night Melissa was attacked, they were actually awake and in their living room. One of the ladies told Melissa, “Our cats were going nuts. They kept running to the door.”

  “We thought it was really odd and could not figure out why they were doing that,” the other lady explained. “We wished so hard that we had just opened the front door to see why, because maybe we would have heard you screaming.”

  Melissa turned to look at them. Both ladies were crying. “They felt bad because they didn’t hear anything,” Melissa said later.

  Then, as the conversation wound down, one of the ladies said something that shook Melissa to her core.

  “That lady below you, she did hear you screaming.” But the woman, for whatever reason, did absolutely nothing to help—not even pick up the telephone and call the police anonymously.

  What’s more, as Melissa was leaving that day after packing the last of her things, the security guard at the entrance gate stopped her.

  “Hey,” the guard said, “did you know there was an attack a few weeks before yours?”

  “No! I didn’t. But I’m leaving, so good-bye.”

  CHAPTER 35

  SAVING GRACE

  Becky Buttram begged Melissa to demand all of her belongings back from the property room department of the MCSD. They were Melissa’s things. She deserved to have them.

  Melissa refused. To this day the MCSD still has the hockey stick.

  “Although the jackass used my favorite hockey stick,” Melissa explained, “because it was neon green (and a junior stick, so it was just my height!), it was brand-new, but not a game stick. That was also the idiot’s mistake. He actually used the lightest-weight stick in the whole apartment—my saving grace. It wasn’t one I had an emotional attachment to. In fact, I had only got it a few weeks before, at the end of the season, which really blew his whole explanation of the fact that I had invited him in and shown him my hockey sticks and that was how his prints happen to be on that particular one he used to beat me.”

  Indeed, Melissa had not even owned the stick Saxton used to beat her when Saxton lived in the same building. Producing receipts, not to mention when and where she bought the stick, would have been one of those jaw-dropping trial moments if Saxton ever took the case to a jury. They would have been able to prove he was lying about being inside her apartment.

  I still have my hockey stick collection. Sadly, when I look at the collection now, the first thing that pops into my head is that night—but then I go into the good hockey memories. I even wonder if I’ll ever be able to hang them on my wall again (I don’t anymore), like I used to have them displayed.... Hockey is still my comfort zone. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that bastard take something I loved so much away from me.

  CHAPTER 36

  BACK TO THE BEGINNING

  Back in May 1993, by sheer luck, fate played a hand in Melissa’s life. By then, Scott Saxton was well on his way to copping his plea and preparing to head off to years in prison. But for Melissa, she was looking to get back into the routine of her daily life as it was before the attack.

  Every year on Carburetion Day, they have a concert downtown for the Indy 500. I was there with one of my hockey buddies, watching a band we happen to know. We were standing in this large crowd, when I hear a voice behind me. I turn around and it’s Marc Maron. I couldn’t believe it.

  I then remembered that he was performing at the comedy club in town that week. So I told him who the band was. He didn’t know. I introduced myself and told him I was a fan of his work. He said I should come to the show.

  Melissa went to the show. Afterward, she and Marc Maron went out for a bite to eat. Nothing too fancy—just the local Waffle House.

  “I had to apologize before my food got there because I couldn’t eat very well,” Melissa said. “I had to explain, same as I do to people I meet now, that I cannot bite through food without a fork and knife, and that due to the nerve damage on the left side of my mouth/cheek, I cannot always feel if there is anything there, or if I have missed my mouth, especially when drinking. Trust me, drinking wine through a straw makes things very awkward.”

  Marc Maron showed Melissa compassion. He was sincerely interested in what had happened to her and how she dealt with it.

  “Can I ask you some questions about it?” he asked that night.

  “Please do,” Melissa said.

  “I told him that I also spent all of my sleepless nights watching his show. It was a great evening.”

  I think it finally put some of his life into perspective. I later learned in reading his biography that he absolutely hated doing that show. It was one of the lowest points of his career, yet he never said a word that night. . . . I’ve brought up a couple of times to him since then how much it got me through the darkest point in my life.

  When I saw him recently, I told him I was going to bring this up. He told me that he actually realized that it did help someone (me) and he has come to accept that. I am so fortunate that twenty years later I am still friends with Marc. I do feel he was instrumental in the healing process. I am also supergrateful that I am still friends with George Lopez. It is because of caring people like them that I have the life I do today.

  The attack put things into perspective for Melissa. She does not take anything for granted anymore.

  “From that first day on, I was, and still am, very thankful for each day I wake up,” Melissa said. “I try not to have regrets for things I have or have not done. I feel so lucky that I have the life I have. No, it has not been the most fortunate of lives, but . . . I appreciate what I have. I get so upset at people who whine over the littlest things.”

  Melissa never sued anyone and, as she put it, “I never got a dime ….”

  After all, she could have sued her attacker and taken everything he had. She could have sued the apartment complex management for allowing him back into the facility. Not to mention a host of others a good ambulance-chasing lawyer could dredge up. Yet lawsuits are not what she thinks about. Not at all.

  “Like I said, I have my life,” Melissa concluded.

  And she’s good with that.

  AFTERWORD

  Thank you for purchasing the first book in this exciting new series I have embarked upon with Kensington Publishing Corp. It has been a tremendous honor for me to be able to bring these courageous, albeit terrifying and violent, stories to readers. I am a passionate victims’ advocate and this series allows me to explore that important part of my life and work in great depth. I love the idea that goodness overcomes evil every time in these stories, victims have the last word, and there is redemption after all the trauma. Violent criminals end up with their stories on the evening news, while their victims are allowed to sit back and watch. Criminals, as it is, become the stars of crime shows, books, movies, and generally receive all the headlines. Here, at least, I have given the victim of a violent crime the chance to share her story and how she managed throughout the entire ordeal. Essentially, the victim here has the final say. She has taken that power back from her perpetrator.

  I want to thank Melissa Schickel in particular for being so honest and open about her story. She showed courage and respect for the process and I applaud her for that. Melissa hopes that others read her story and understand that not all victims of violent crime curl up in a ball and allow their perpetrators to determine the outcome of their lives. Melissa’s story and her life are a testament to this.

  Melissa, pictured today, is content with her life. She still attends hockey games and follows her teams passionately. Yet she does like to bring along protection wherever she goes! (Photos courtesy of Erin Moulton and Libby Bieszk)

  Today Melissa is doing fine. She’s happy. She likes to say that she doesn’t go anywhere without her two best friends by her side.

  Special bonus for true-crime fans . . .

  Don’t miss the next real-life thriller by New York Times best-selling author M. William Phelps

  I’D KILL FOR YOU

  Coming from Pinnacle in 2015 (print and eBook)

  Turn the page to read an exciting preview excerpt . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  To feel that sun on his back for the first time as a free man: Oh, how warm and liberating.

  He took a breath. A deep one.

  In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  Life on the outside. It had a ring to it.

  On September 4, 2001, a glorious Tuesday afternoon, exactly one week before terrorists would attack New York and the world would change forever, eighteen-year-old Kyle Hulbert found himself standing in court. Not the criminal kind, but probate. Today Kyle was set to be released.

  “He’s turned eighteen,” Kyle’s social worker explained to the judge.

  Kyle sat quietly, listening; his eyes, like his mind, darted back and forth, a million miles a second. “He’s not showing any signs of psychosis. We want to have him released. Declare him an adult.”

  Emancipation.

  Kyle said the word to himself.

  Emancipation.

  It sounded so historical and unassociated with his life. Yet here he was.

  The state spoke, claiming its position was that they didn’t think Kyle was well enough to leave the facility just yet.

  The judge heard the evidence and sat back to think about it.

  Kyle stood and thought, Come on . . . let me go.

  “Release him,” the judge uttered.

  Kyle had been a ward of the state.

  Not anymore.

  Funny, he didn’t feel that much different when the doors of the courthouse closed behind him and Kyle found himself exiting the courthouse now his own “man,” breathing that fresh Virginia air into his lungs as a free young adult for the first time. It was a day he had looked forward to over the past year, especially. With all of the problems Kyle had gotten himself into at the foster homes where he’d lived, school, and within his community, Kyle viewed this day as a new beginning. Here he was now walking out the door an independent man, dependent upon nobody but himself.

  “They gave me a bus ticket,” Kyle said of the court, “and cut me loose.”

  Stepping onto the concrete outside the courthouse, looking back one last time, Kyle considered what was in front of him. This was it. He was on his own. He’d have to fend for himself from this point forward. Think for himself. Feed and clothe himself.

  Survive.

  More important (or maybe most important), he’d have to medicate himself. It was up to Kyle now. No one would be asking if he had taken his meds. Or handing him a little paper cup with the day’s rations inside, making sure he swallowed every last bit. It would be Kyle’s decision. His alone. The state had given him a three-month supply of the psychiatric prescriptions he needed to feel right; yet it was going to be up to Kyle to go to the pharmacy, actually pick up the drugs and then ingest each pill.

  Every. Single. Day.

  “I didn’t stay on them very long,” Kyle explained. “It’s a bad cycle. A minor manic phase will set in and I’ll forget to take the medication.”

  And then the catch-22 effect would occur: Because Kyle was not on his meds, he didn’t feel he needed them.

  Kyle didn’t realize, but he was a boy in a man’s body. Truly. The state of Virginia, however, under its coveted laws, claimed he was old enough (and well enough) now to make adult decisions on his own. Tall, skinny—“lanky and scrawny” is what they’d call him. Dark black hair, silken and slick, like oil. Kyle had a gaunt look to him. Chiseled and bulimic-like weight-loss facial features: pointed cheekbones, sunken eyes, and the somewhat terribly transparent, cerebral wiriness of a hyped-up meth addict—although Kyle claimed he never dabbled in the drug. He didn’t need to. Kyle was amped-up enough already by what were voices and characters stirring in his head like a thousand whispers. This, mind you, even with a dozen years of psychiatric treatment and medications behind him.

  Kyle had what some may view as a strange look on life. His birthday, for example, was not a day like most: cake and ice cream and feeling special. Kyle never did feel special—not in the traditional sense that a kid wearing a pointed cardboard birthday hat tethered by a too-tight rubber band pinching his neckline, ready to blow out candles with his family and friends surrounding him, did. Kyle called it—the day he was born, that is—his “hatching day,” as if he had emerged from a cocoon, slimy and gooey and ready to take on the world, born out of some sort of metamorphosis. And yet, as he thought about it walking toward the bus stop on that emancipation day, on his own for this first time—no counselor over his shoulder, no psychiatrist telling him what he should do or how he should think anymore—this was Kyle’s true hatching day. His rebirth. A time for Kyle to take on life by himself and make decisions based on the tools he had been given.

  “I am constantly struggling with a question,” Kyle observed. “Psychology teaches us that a person’s personality and psychological makeup is a composite of past experiences. . . and I am suffering from a complex network of fantastical memories of things that never actually happened.”

  Despite his often volatile and strange behavior while in mental hospitals and in both group and foster homes, along with Kyle’s biological father’s request that he be continually detained and treated, the state had to cut Kyle loose. In fact, Kyle’s father, who had given up custody of Kyle when Kyle was twelve (“I was too much to handle . . .”), had always kept in contact. As Kyle said, “He kept tabs on me and my entire life, and he knew about my behavioral problems. And he knew, which is why he fought against me being emancipated, that letting me off the leash was not a good idea at the time, because it was not going to end well. In fact, he told them, ‘You let Kyle out and he is going to kill somebody.’ ”

  The judge decided, however, it was time. Kyle Hulbert was eighteen. And Kyle, as it were, was not going to argue with being given a free pass on life.

  “Kyle Hulbert,” a law enforcement source later analyzed, “has been, since he was six years old, in and out of mental institutions. Kyle’s world includes a number of darker characters. . . demons or presences . . . that live in his head.”

  And now this “man” was free to roam the world and do what he wished. Thus, on September 4, 2001, Kyle found himself on the street, walking, with literally nowhere to go.

  No home.

  No friends.

  No family.

  There was a certain “high,” Kyle recalled, about being freed from the structured, routine life inside an institution. It felt good. It felt right. It felt redemptive.

  “I was happy that I was free! No more leashes. No more having to worry about institutions. I was . . . free. Those are the only three words that I can say describe how I was feeling.”

  Kyle had been told to have a plan. And he did. Kyle said his “plan” on this day, as he walked down the street in front of the courthouse toward the bus stop, was to go and find a girl he could “fuck senseless.”

  After that, well, whatever came his way, he would roll with it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Kyle had what he called “half-baked” plans as he broke from those ward-of-the-state chains holding him down. Just out and free to do what he wanted, Kyle thought about going to college, taking up study, maybe a career of some sort. That thought came and went rather quickly, however, as Kyle realized he had to find some money to live off of first. Moreover, a lifelong dream of his to become a published writer would have to take a backseat to surviving on his own.

  “My main concern was filling out the Social Security paperwork and getting that going,” he said. “I had already been approved for it.”

  Odd, the government had approved him for mental disability and there were funds set up and headed his way, come December. Yet he was deemed “sane” enough to leave the institution and fend for himself on his own.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Kyle said he was told by the state: “Because of your mental health, you are going to have a hard time holding down a job.”

  It was the reason why they approved him for financial aid.

  “They had already seen how I handled jobs in the past,” Kyle explained. “I got fired from each job I ever had.”

  There was not a doctor or therapist who spoke to Kyle over the years who did not know that demons whispered to this young man, that he saw things “others couldn’t or wouldn’t,” and that the world spinning out of control inside Kyle Hulbert’s head was not a place where happily-ever-after resided. Kyle had talked about having “dreams or visions of the apocalypse.” Those “voices” inside his head would eventually (in totality) go by the name of “the 6.” A lot of this, Kyle realized, sounded foolish. Imaginary. Something from a person who should be locked up. Most would respond by saying he was crazy. This sort of make-believe world he lived in as a five-year-old kid became an everyday part of his life as Kyle grew into his teens. He believed it was as real as the pet dragon he saw regularly and explained was as real as “one of my cats.”