Post by CCADP on May 12, 2005 17:42:17 GMT -5
(Moosup-WTNH, May 12, 2005 6:08 PM) _ Michael Ross admits killing eight women and raping several others. A Connecticut woman who survived his brutal attack in 1983 doesn't want to see Ross executed. She'd rather see him sit in prison.
* by News Channel 8's Sara Welch
"He killed a part of me," says Vivian Dobson.
Her memories are so thick they blanket her like the darkness of that rainy May evening. Along a road she'd walked many times was a man in the shadows.
"I turned around and I seen him jump behind a telephone pole."
She didn't know it, but Dobson, then 21, was face to face with a serial killer.
"He kept telling me shut up or I will kill you know."
Ross raped her. An attack that lasted minutes, but is forever seared in Vivian's mind.
"My biggest fear was that it's not going to end. He's going to come back."
While ross has been sitting in jail Vivian has lived in her own personal prison.
22-years went by before Vivian mustered the courage to talk publicly about Ross. At the capitol last month she spoke out against the death penalty. Vivian doesn't believe ross should die. She wants him in prison.
"I want him to sit in his cell and think about what he's done, let him get haunted by what he's done.
"You see him smiling and he THUMBS UP!! Ok to go. You know, give me a break. Put him in population, let him stay there. Don't give him the limelight he wants.
"I don't believe that taking his life is going to make anything better or it's going to change anything."
In fact, Vivian had the chance to kill Ross. The night of the attack she was carrying a knife in her shirt.
"And he looked at me and he opened up his arms and said go ahead, go ahead do it.
"All I had to do was punch it in.
"He knew I couldn't do it."
Vivian managed to escape that night to her nearby home, but today she is still tortured by the horror of Michael Ross and the legal maneuvering that keeps his case in the spotlight.
"I've been watching this and every time it comes up, I come back to the beginning again. It just keeps repeating itself. I don't have an ending.
"He took away 22-years of my life."
With the help of the governor's office and the state's Victim Advocate Vivian is now getting counseling and financial services that she should have received years ago.
Whether he's executed or not Vivian says Michael Ross will one day be out of her life for good.
* by News Channel 8's Sara Welch
"He killed a part of me," says Vivian Dobson.
Her memories are so thick they blanket her like the darkness of that rainy May evening. Along a road she'd walked many times was a man in the shadows.
"I turned around and I seen him jump behind a telephone pole."
She didn't know it, but Dobson, then 21, was face to face with a serial killer.
"He kept telling me shut up or I will kill you know."
Ross raped her. An attack that lasted minutes, but is forever seared in Vivian's mind.
"My biggest fear was that it's not going to end. He's going to come back."
While ross has been sitting in jail Vivian has lived in her own personal prison.
22-years went by before Vivian mustered the courage to talk publicly about Ross. At the capitol last month she spoke out against the death penalty. Vivian doesn't believe ross should die. She wants him in prison.
"I want him to sit in his cell and think about what he's done, let him get haunted by what he's done.
"You see him smiling and he THUMBS UP!! Ok to go. You know, give me a break. Put him in population, let him stay there. Don't give him the limelight he wants.
"I don't believe that taking his life is going to make anything better or it's going to change anything."
In fact, Vivian had the chance to kill Ross. The night of the attack she was carrying a knife in her shirt.
"And he looked at me and he opened up his arms and said go ahead, go ahead do it.
"All I had to do was punch it in.
"He knew I couldn't do it."
Vivian managed to escape that night to her nearby home, but today she is still tortured by the horror of Michael Ross and the legal maneuvering that keeps his case in the spotlight.
"I've been watching this and every time it comes up, I come back to the beginning again. It just keeps repeating itself. I don't have an ending.
"He took away 22-years of my life."
With the help of the governor's office and the state's Victim Advocate Vivian is now getting counseling and financial services that she should have received years ago.
Whether he's executed or not Vivian says Michael Ross will one day be out of her life for good.