Miami Herald - May 27, 2008
Cammy Clark, cclark@MiamiHerald.com

KEY WEST -- Christina Rock was born HIV-positive. That's just the beginning of a heartbreaking childhood.

Her mother died of AIDS when she was a toddler. Her addict father squandered government funds intended for her medical treatment on alcohol and drugs. And as she valiantly worked for good grades at elementary school, despite bouts of pneumonia and a slew of health problems, her father's best friend sexually molested her for years when he lived in her family home.

Nobody knew.

"When I was around 14, I started to hang out with the wrong crowd, but I didn't want to be involved with drugs," Rock said. "I realized if I used drugs, I'd escape my life. But I didn't want to escape life. I wanted to live it."

With support, Rock bravely testified against her abuser, Arnold Bell. He is serving three life sentences. She now is 24, lives in California, gives inspirational talks to college students across the country about HIV awareness and dreams of becoming a doctor.

Her story will continue to inspire others. She was chosen as the namesake of the Keys' first advocacy center for child victims of sexual and physical abuse and adult victims of sexual assault. It's called "Christina's Courage."

The center is a friendly, supportive safe haven where victims can go for quick and sensitive rape and child-abuse examinations, less-intimidating interviews with police and prosecutors, support through the criminal justice process and free counseling.

Kathy Peters, former director of the victims assistance program at the state attorney's office in Key West, nominated Rock as the center's soul for two reasons: her own amazing strength and because she is the perfect example of a child victim who can have a bright future when given the necessary support and resources.

There was no such safe haven when Rock was growing up in Key West in the 1980s and '90s.

She was about 6 when she met Bell. She can't remember exactly when, but she hurt her back while climbing a tree. Her father told her Bell could give her a massage to make it feel better.

"Arnold began touching me," Rock said. 'He told me: 'You can't tell anybody about this.' "

Rock asked her father why Bell had to live with them. Her father told her it was for her own good. He'd lost his driver's license and said if she got sick, Bell was the only one who could drive her to the hospital. "I felt guilty about that," she said.

The molestation escalated and continued until she was 12, when she finally had the courage to tell Bell "no."

Within the next two years, Rock filed a negligence report against her father and moved to Massachusetts to live with an aunt and uncle.

Only after humiliating bed-wetting at age 14 did her aunt, a former social worker, ask the question no one had before: "Had she been molested?"

Rock confided in her aunt.

It was the start of a two-year ordeal in which Rock bravely relived the experience that led to a confession, trial and conviction of Bell.

Peters, who helped Rock understand the criminal justice process and even held her hand at depositions and a mock trial, said a particularly difficult part for Rock was facing her father, whom she still loved.

"I think everybody has the strength if they have people who believe in them," Rock said. "I couldn't have done it without everybody around me."

She recited a long list: advocates, police, prosecutors, counselors, hospital personnel and family.

Rock remembers the moment her aunt told her the news that Bell had been convicted and would never be able to hurt another little girl again. It was Nov. 17, 2000, and she was outdoors raking.

"I was so happy I collapsed in a big pile of leaves," Rock said. 'It was such a relief. I always wondered: 'What if they don't believe me?' Much shame goes along with it."

'AN INNER STRENGTH'

Peters, who has worked with hundreds of victims, said: "I get so emotional when I talk about Christina. When I first met her, her teeth were rotten and she was in poor health, but she had an inner strength and spirit. To see her now is just amazing."

Rock said her healing hasn't been easy. She suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome and went two years of her adulthood without sex because of shame about her body. She still has occasional flashback nightmares and the "illogical fear" that Bell will get out of jail.

Peters and others who work with sex-crime victims in the Keys say the center has been badly needed for years.

"Anybody who has worked in sex crimes has war stories of six- or seven-hour waits in the emergency room and insensitive doctors who had a 'blame the victim' attitude because alcohol or drugs were involved," said Detective Sgt. Trish Dally, head of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office crimes against persons' unit. "Or they didn't know what they were looking for."

Now there's a forensic examination room for faster and more sensitive exams. It features a $70,000 telemedicine system in which a doctor or nurse trained in child abuse can direct a nurse without that training, eliminating long waits or trips to Miami.

There is just one nurse practitioner based in the Keys who is qualified by the state to perform child abuse exams: Darene Cahill.

Centers also are greatly needed in Marathon and the Upper Keys, Dally said.

Christina's Courage, a converted three-bedroom unit in the Key West Police Department's Poinciana substation, has been in various degrees of operation for a year. The grand opening was held last week to get the word out that help is available, said clinical psychologist Ann Loonstra, the only full-time employee at the center.

50 HELPED SO FAR

About 50 people have been helped at the center in its short existence.

They include 32 children who have been examined there for rape and physical abuse and six adults who have had sexual assault exams, Cahill said.

Loonstra said she has a fluctuating counseling caseload that numbers about 40 and includes victims of sex crimes that occurred sometimes decades earlier.

Among them: A 43-year-old woman who was sexually molested by a relative from age 5 to 17. She is now getting therapy at Christina's Courage.

"I wish there had been something like this when it was happening to me," the woman said. "I'm thankful for the counseling and feel better about it, if you can feel better about it."

At the opening, Karen Prince, an assault victim, described the humiliation of gawkers at the nearby emergency room trying to get a look at her because they knew she'd been raped.

The center is the collaboration of seven state and local partners that includes the University of Miami's Child Protection Team.

"A few of us in the system thought we could do better for the victims who already had been traumatized," said Janine Gedmin, a former detective in Dally's unit. "The system is intimidating in and of itself. We wanted to make it as easy as possible."

Victims used to be interviewed inside sterile law enforcement facilities or at the state attorney's office building. Now they are interviewed in a cozy room with a dolphin mural.

In the adjacent room, prosecutors, detectives or protective services personnel can monitor via video equipment.

"Particularly with children, just coming into the police department is scary," Gedmin said. "When I did interviews, I took all the furniture out of the interview room and sat on the floor with coloring books and a package of crayons to try to make it as friendly as possible."

The center's logo is a drawing Christina made for Victim's Rights Week in 2000. A young girl with long hair is kneeling with her hands over her eyes. Reaching out to her is a large hand, palm up.

INSPIRING WORDS

It reads: "You give me the courage I need to go on. The strength I need to cope. The will to survive. The chance to live. And most importantly, the power to dream. Thank you for being there."

She signed it like a young girl: a heart next to her name.

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