9 years ago
Sunday, December 16, 2012
'Was I guilty for loving the wrong man?'
I was writing a thank-you card for a wedding gift when I heard the knock at my hotel room door. It was 8 November 2005. I was away from home, at a conference. When I opened the door, I expected to see my colleagues inviting me to breakfast. Instead, I saw a policeman.
‘Are you Shannon Moroney?’ he asked. ‘I’m here about your husband. Are you Jason Staples’s wife?’ His question flustered me. It was our one‑month wedding anniversary and I wasn’t used to being called a ‘wife’. But I nodded.
‘I’m here about your husband, Jason. He was arrested last night, charged with sexual assault. I understand your husband called the police himself.’ He handed me a slip of paper with the phone number of the police station and said I should call right away. Then, quietly, he said, ‘I think you’d better expect that it was full rape.’
I felt as though I was going to be sick. How was this possible? Less than two hours earlier, I had been lying in bed feeling so happy – I’d just had my 30th birthday, then our beautiful wedding and honeymoon. The night before, I had told Jason I thought I might be pregnant.
‘That would be great,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a test when you get home.’
My heart pounding, I called the number the officer had given me. ‘I’m not able to tell you very much right now except that yesterday afternoon, at about 4.30, Jason assaulted two women at the store where he works. After some time, he took them to your home.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
The sergeant continued, ‘Shannon, you need to prepare yourself. This is very serious. Your husband is facing many charges.’
‘Were the victims the two women who worked there?’ I asked.
‘No, they were customers. We don’t think he knew them.’
‘Are they all right?’
‘They are at the hospital being treated and they are expected to recover fully.’
‘But how could he take them to our house? He rides his bike to work and…’
Jason working on a community mural in Toronto, three years before he met Shannon
‘He rented a van around six or seven o’clock.
Jason drove back to the store to pick up the women and take them to your house. He called from a payphone to ask for help at 10.50 last night, and we were able to apprehend him there. You need to come to the station. You can’t go home, Shannon. Your house is going to be searched. Will you be all right to drive?’
‘I’m going to call my parents and I’m sure they will come with me.’
‘We’ll be here, waiting.’
I hung up the phone. How could this be true?
I’d just been told that the assaults had taken place around 4.30 in the afternoon, and Jason had called the police at 10.50 at night. But I had spoken to him around 10.20 when I’d told him I thought I might be pregnant. The two women must have been
there in our house while we were speaking.
As I waited for my parents to arrive, I got changed and noticed I was bleeding. A feeling
of tremendous loss welled up inside.
* * * * *
I met Jason volunteering at a local restaurant for low-income customers in February 2003. Jason was the assistant coordinator and head cook. He had an easy smile and everyone liked him.
He seemed articulate and well-educated; I was into pottery at the time and he told me he loved to draw. During my second shift, he gave me a little card. Jason had drawn a caricature of himself and next to it written his name and phone number and the words, ‘Available for pottery viewing, tea and chatting.’
I was excited and nervous before our first date.
We had made small talk for less than five minutes before Jason said, ‘There’s something I need to tell you: I was in prison for ten years. I’m on parole with a life sentence.’
Jason took her at knifepoint to a back room where he bound her then sexually assaulted her,’ the sergeant told me
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
No comments :
Post a Comment