May 24, 2010

Dear friends and neighbors.

I have a special invitation for you. It's heavy. And it's important.

Tonight I'll be making some signs and writing a letter and I want to invite a few of you to join me. (let me know)
And tomorrow morning we need some of us to hold the signs outside a courtroom as a woman goes into court to testify.

It's Michelle, the woman who was kidnapped and held in the apartment at Cullom and Western a few years ago by Alex Wyman. He held her for days and did horrible things to her. (she has given permission to use her first name)

We know he's done this to three women. (see below) and there's some belief that he's possibly killed before.

This is our job. To stop him. To support Michelle. To do our best.

We need her to be strong and testify so that he ends up in jail for a long time. Otherwise he'll be out and free to do it again. We need to support Michelle. We need to let the court know that it's not just Michelle, it's all women. It's our daughters. It's our community.

Michelle reached out to Ann and I to let us know that she's survived. She's ok as she can be, considering.
And she wanted to tell us and all of you "Thank you."
She thanked us for supporting her.
She knew that women in the neighborhood supported her.
She had the newspaper article all these years.

So I say "Thank you" to all of you for supporting her. And for being a community that is not afraid to come together to stand. We need to be brave again. Alex Wyman already knows who is standing against him. Michelle. Let's stand by her again. Michelle is our sister, our daughter, our friend. We need to support her. She is taking a stand for all woman. She is so afraid he'll get free and do this to someone else. She wants to stop him.

This man was in our homes. He took notes from Jeri's Grill about joggers and young moms in the park.. likely about you and me. We cannot distance ourselves. We need to make sure they don't say "it's her word against his" and let him go free. Like so many rapists and violent criminals before....

Please join us
Details below.

Julie Peterson

Ann Breen-Greco organized this event and has been bringing together the various women's organizations who have supported Michelle. Thanks to Ann for her work for this issue and so many others, always giving to the community.
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Please join us to support Michelle, a woman in our community who was kidnapped, tortured, and sexually assaulted four years ago. The trial will take place Tuesday, May 25, at 26th Street and California, Rm. 606. We will be outside at 8:30 a.m. to hold signs supporting Michelle. She needs to know that we will be standing with her. If you cannot make it, but want to support her, you may email us your message for her or let her know. We'll report back tomorrow. rsvp if you are coming. There are some details you should know about entering the building. contact info:

beyondtoday@ (rest of email address on line below)

beyondtoday.org
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Below are links to articles about this issue. This is very hard to read. I've been haunted by the memory for years. If you do read these, please do it when you have a moment to write a note of support to Michelle afterwords. If you give permission for us to share your letter of support publicly, let me know. -j
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This article in The Reader details how the SunTimes reported the crime like they enjoyed it in the present tense and how our neighborhood attempted to reestablish decent reporting standards for local media. This is how Michelle found us.

The Sun-Times's story on alleged rapist Alan Wyman has readers up in arms. http://tinyurl.com/37g3kl2

"On October 11 Esposito wrote a second story, this one straightforward. Wyman had been charged with a second, earlier, sexual assault, the repeated rape of a woman he'd held in his apartment for three days in August, and he was now being held without bond. "

Article: Man accused of third sex assault; Allegedly held women in a torture chamber in his apartment
http://tinyurl.com/36rrhbd