Prosecutors refused to file rape charges against her attacker.
Here’s what happened next ...
Here’s what happened next ...
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I don't need anybody else's affirmation that, yes, I was raped. I know I was.
00:11We started to have sex, which was consensual up until the point he started strangling me
00:17and slapping me. And I had tried to take his hands off of my throat, off my neck.
00:25And each time his grip got tighter. So at that point, I just did what I had to do
00:30to survive and make sure I was walking out of that room instead of being rolled out in a body bag.
00:44He had just right off the bat told me that he wasn't going to file charges because this was
00:50a case of immature sex because I didn't verbally say no while I was being strangled.
01:03It definitely felt very minimized and very unheard and unbelieved. And I was crushed.
01:10But I wasn't going to let one person, regardless of
01:14how high he stands on the legal totem pole, tell me that my rape wasn't rape.
01:20So
01:39we set up this petition drive in the parking lot of a hair salon in Lindsburg. It was really
01:47difficult having to tell my story over and over and over again to strangers. But I mean, that's
01:53that's how you're going to make a difference. A lot of people you would just kind of start to
01:57say the story just like, Hi, my name is Madison Smith. I was raped on the Bethany College campus.
02:04And by the time I'd say that our county attorney wasn't going to file charges,
02:08they would stop me and be like, I'll sign your petition. Don't worry about it. You
02:11don't have to go on any further.
02:13The end goal here is
02:38to make a change with the way that rape itself is seen and just because the whole rape culture
02:46that needs to completely dissipate. I think we've started to make a change and we're not
02:51done making that change yet. I've developed actually a lot of confidence that we can do that
02:56through all of the support and everything that everybody has reached out and just
03:01all the words of encouragement have have meant a lot.
03:08you