On Good Friday, after church, as he raped her,
she spoke of Jesus. The voice of an angel in the ear of a devil.
A tall and graceful woman, pressing middle age, the perfect neighbor,
tackled and thrown and pummeled and violated.
By Matthew Dillard, ex-con, two-time felon, on probation.
And she told him about Jesus, with blood in her mouth,
and how He can heal the evil heart and give peace
where there is rage. Then he beat her to silence and raped her.
In the daylight by a busy street.
And 40 minutes later two blocks away a younger woman,
in gleeful springtime peace, clubbed and sent sprawling,
her face shoved into the dirt and savaged while Matthew
Dillard shouted, "Spread your ass cheeks!" and humiliated
her and beat her and destroyed what she had always
thought was her life. She screamed and fought and was
stomped and stunned and as she cried for help she heard
a nearby window close. Her terror, apparently,
was an annoyance to be shut out and ignored.
Several long minutes would pass before another
neighbor, afraid to come to her aid, would call 911
and a few more minutes of hell while a city cop
sped to the scene to literally pull Matthew Dillard from his despoiling.
Then she sat there with blood rushing down her face
and the now putrid smell of the dirt and sobbing that
she couldn't find her shoe. And that's what it was about.

Friday in County Court as the cameras waited outside
and the victim's supporters sat toward the front and
Dillard's mother waited separately.
Friday in County Court as the supporters went
sober and red-eyed as Matthew Dillard was led
into the room, facing literally an evil that had so
damaged their lives.

Friday in County Court as the first victim
stood nervously, with her husband beside her,
and read what she wanted her attacker to hear.

"I am very grateful for this opportunity to address
the court and Matthew Dillard in this victim impact statement,"
she said. "The violence that was forced upon me has
changed my body, my soul and my spirit.
My face and body were beaten mercilessly,
but the physical scars should fade with medical treatment.
My soul and my family have been shaken by fear.
The Bible says that the wicked make great fear
where there was no fear, and indeed this has happened.
But God is making that fade also.
My spirit was changed most dramatically
in that I believe I came face to face with great evil
on April 2.

"The Bible says that the heart of man is desperately
sick and wicked. My assailant chose to give full
vent to that sick wickedness. He meant it for harm,
but God has used it for good in my life and the lives
of my young daughter, my son, my husband and
many family members and friends.
I pray fervently that it will be used for eternal
good and healing in Matthew Dillard's life also.
"I am so thankful that Matthew has admitted his guilt,
for this is the first step in everyone's healing.
But it is imperative that Matthew be fully repentant
before God and ask his forgiveness.
"Matthew, I forgive you for your violence against me -
because Jesus Christ has forgiven me for my
transgressions, and it's His forgiveness that flows
through me.

"The very day you attacked me was Good Friday,
the day we celebrate Jesus Christ's sacrifice
on the cross that would free men from their desperately
sick and wicked hearts.
I told you this repeatedly as you beat me,
but you would not hear that day.
"You will hear today, Matthew, and you will have
many years of confinement to respond to that
invitation for mercy.

The court could not be merciful, for it is just,
so that we would be protected from you.
I thank God for that justice.
"God is just also, but he can
be merciful, if you will humble yourself
before him and ask his forgiveness.
If you will do this, Matthew, though your physical
body is confined in jail as you pay
the consequence of your act, your heart
and mind will be free and forgiven.

"However, Matthew, if you refuse to hear, though
you may be released physically in the future,
you will remain a prisoner of your desperately sick
and wicked heart for the remainder of your life and,
what's far worse, for all of eternity.

"I trust we have all been impacted by this evil,
but I also trust God to use it for good, for as it states
in large wonderful letters on this courtroom wall:
In God We Trust. "Let each of us make it true."
Then she sat down and the lawyers said some stuff
and then Judge Egan said it was going to be 40 years.
"This substantial penalty will carry you into your elder years,
" the judge said. "You deserve every year you're
going to get, and I think you realize that."

With his papers, the judge had letters, from friends
and relatives who saw the damage and a couple of
essays from the other victim, the young woman.

"I can't reactivate the vibrancy," she wrote, the tenacity,
the passion. "My heart is swelling.
Swollen pulse beating to a time that's indefinite.
They say it's temporary. I say it's temporary.
But how can temporary feel so permanent?
What have I done to lose my sense of happiness,
contentment, peace? "Nothing.
"Nothing that feels like something. There's a dent
in my life that I can't repair.
The gouge is deepening. Incessant
would that bleeds for consolation, refinement.
"How could something like this take over a life
that was so right, so justified, so special?
Maybe it's all fake and requires a pseudo-definition.
I'm sure it wasn't me out there. I'm sure it's a flash
from a bad movie. It's a joke I'm playing on myself.
It's myself I'm playing on the joke.
"It means little. A speck on a pebble.
A tear in the trenches. A cry in the darkness.
"My worst day was my last. I am not living.
I died that day and am only tracing empty footsteps.
I don't belong among the living.
"I careened from a high place and swallowed death.
I plummeted. I know fear. I know the hollow soul.
I know the grinding teeth. I know the anxiety.
I know the false healing that's partly real.
"Twist off this malignant nodule that imposes
on me nothing but grief and dread.
Make me into who I once was.
Back when escape wasn't so foreign.
Back when simple pleasures were a new CD
or a pair of classy shoes.
"Back when summer possessed my spirit
and made me feel 12 years old.
Back when a few friends, a few beers and
a few smokes meant the world.
Back when a 4.0 was divine.
Back when I strolled my turf freely and briskly
without feeling the urge to look behind.
Back when danger seemed impossible.
"My story has ended, and yet it continues
ahead with some strange surrealness that lacks identification.
" Sentencings end without a gavel.
It's just over and people start to stand up.
And by the door Dillard's mother turned and saw
the older victim and in an instant they came to
one another, embracing around the neck, teary, sobbing,
"I am so sorry," over and over again.
And that's what it was about.

Friday in County Court.

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