Heartbroken, angry, guilty and sad is how the younger sister of the woman sexually assaulted by former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner described herself in the aftermath of the January 2015 attack.
“An entire part of my brain has been permanently warped, and an entire part of my heart has been permanently broken,” the sister wrote in a newly released victim-impact statement, penned before Turner’s sentencing earlier this month.
Judge Aaron Persky ignited a firestorm of criticism by sentencing Turner, 20, to six months in jail and three years probation.
He had faced up to 14 years for sexually assaulting the unconscious young woman he met at a Stanford frat party earlier in the evening of Jan. 17, 2015.
The 23-year-old victim, whose identity has not been made public, had herself penned a powerful, 7,000-word impact statement that has been shared online millions of times.
But her sister, identified only as Jane Doe 2, also wrote about returning from college to her family’s home that weekend in order to spend time with her sibling.
The sisters went to the frat party and later became separated when the younger one left to walk a friend back to her dorm. She returned to the party and frantically looked for her sister, but couldn’t find her.
“Today, I am still sick thinking about it, sick to my stomach every time that I am reminded of the incident,” the sister wrote. “I am still sad that I was not there to protect her.”
She returned to college, but had trouble focusing and started to fall behind in her studies, she said.
“My message to Brock Turner is that the damage you inflicted is irreversible,” the woman wrote. “What has affected me most is that you did something to someone I love that I cannot take back. In this last year and a half, I have experienced some of the lowest points of my entire life; I have felt more sadness, guilt and anger than I have ever felt.”
‘What has affected me most is that you did something to someone I love that I cannot take back.’
- victim's sister in statement
The victim’s boyfriend, in his own impact statement, described warning the woman’s father not to read the police report for fear that he would be overwhelmed by the brutal details.
He said the dad became “deeply disturbed” after viewing photos, shown during the trial, of his daughter’s “unconscious body crumpled up and on the grass.”
His girlfriend, once independent and secure, is afraid to sleep alone in the dark since the rape.
“I can hear her crying through the bathroom door,” for hours on end, he said.
He also wrote about his girlfriend becoming a strong leader for women and victims, saying that “drives her to show confidence, pride and nobility over weakness or pain.”
Meanwhile, an ex-girlfriend of Turner, Lydia Pocisk, 20, had praised him as loving and “hilarious” in another letter obtained Saturday by the Daily Mail.
“I have never been so angry with God in all my life, for instilling such pain on such an undeserving soul,” she wrote.