water.
Hockey has played such an important role in Melissa’s life and continued healing. With a hockey stick becoming such a representation of brutality for her, however, as she moved on from her attack, what would happen to her love of the sport as time went forward? Would hockey always be this reminder of what took place back inside her apartment on that night?
I have always had season tickets. Not just any season tickets. Front row, blue line, right next to the player’s bench. Only place I would sit. I could call a game better than most refs. Yes, I know the definition of icing.
So when I found out I was beaten with one of the hockey sticks I had collected, there came the question of whether I could go back to a game. I had to. I said, I couldn’t let the bastard take that away from me, too. I was so fortunate, because some of the staff in the front office of the local hockey team knew what had happened, along with some of the officials and security guards. So I was well looked after upon my return. We all gauged my reaction when the first stick went swinging, but I was okay, because since I never saw the hockey stick actually beat me, I didn’t have an emotional attachment to it. I was able to sit and watch a game and know that I still had protection around me, to walk me to my car, once the game was over....
These were my friends. Hell, I had friends on both teams . . . so I never felt unsafe. To tell you how dedicated I was to hockey, the day of my third surgery, I actually went to the game that night. I was still pretty drugged up, but there was no way I was going to miss the game!
It was a combination of hockey and comedy, for sure, that got her through, Melissa said. She remembered how Becky once told her there had been a witness the MCSD spoke to on the night of her attack. A girl was out on her balcony talking on the telephone when Saxton scaled the wall and broke into her apartment.
I was told that she didn’t end her phone call to call the police. In fact, she didn’t call the police until five seconds after I called the police. She said she didn’t think anything was wrong until he “fell off the balcony.”
I asked Becky point-blank, “What did she think, Romeo was coming up to romance me?”
It’s that strange sense of humor that pulled her through. Melissa could always go back to comedy: how the power of a simple joke or a funny bit could be within the healing process.
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
Hockey has played such an important role in Melissa’s life and continued healing. With a hockey stick becoming such a representation of brutality for her, however, as she moved on from her attack, what would happen to her love of the sport as time went forward? Would hockey always be this reminder of what took place back inside her apartment on that night?
I have always had season tickets. Not just any season tickets. Front row, blue line, right next to the player’s bench. Only place I would sit. I could call a game better than most refs. Yes, I know the definition of icing.
So when I found out I was beaten with one of the hockey sticks I had collected, there came the question of whether I could go back to a game. I had to. I said, I couldn’t let the bastard take that away from me, too. I was so fortunate, because some of the staff in the front office of the local hockey team knew what had happened, along with some of the officials and security guards. So I was well looked after upon my return. We all gauged my reaction when the first stick went swinging, but I was okay, because since I never saw the hockey stick actually beat me, I didn’t have an emotional attachment to it. I was able to sit and watch a game and know that I still had protection around me, to walk me to my car, once the game was over....
These were my friends. Hell, I had friends on both teams . . . so I never felt unsafe. To tell you how dedicated I was to hockey, the day of my third surgery, I actually went to the game that night. I was still pretty drugged up, but there was no way I was going to miss the game!
It was a combination of hockey and comedy, for sure, that got her through, Melissa said. She remembered how Becky once told her there had been a witness the MCSD spoke to on the night of her attack. A girl was out on her balcony talking on the telephone when Saxton scaled the wall and broke into her apartment.
I was told that she didn’t end her phone call to call the police. In fact, she didn’t call the police until five seconds after I called the police. She said she didn’t think anything was wrong until he “fell off the balcony.”
I asked Becky point-blank, “What did she think, Romeo was coming up to romance me?”
It’s that strange sense of humor that pulled her through. Melissa could always go back to comedy: how the power of a simple joke or a funny bit could be within the healing process.
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
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