Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 26, 1994 TAG: 9409260026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When Connie Seagle heard about the rape of Marilynn Crisp from people in their small community, she sat down and wrote her a letter.
"I just couldn't get my mind off her," Seagle said. Seagle also had been raped - by the same man, 12 years before Crisp.
"When I was attacked, I wanted to talk about it but no one would," Seagle said. "So I told her to call me, and she did - on Thanksgiving Day."
Since that first contact in 1991, the women have forged an intimate friendship out of their shared tragedy.
Now, both are vocal supporters of Gov. George Allen and Proposal X - the bill that would abolish parole for violent criminals. Seagle and Crisp have spoken in Roanoke and Bristol at town meetings initiated by Allen's parole task force. Wednesday, they repeated their message at a public hearing in Wytheville.
Before the meetings begin, the two Wythe County residents join together in prayer. Then Seagle speaks.
"I talk about my experience, then sometimes I read the letter I wrote to Marilynn," Seagle said. "Then she speaks. It's a very effective double punch."
\ Seagle spent the evening of April 12, 1979, as she did most nights - at her future mother-in-law's house while her fiance worked the second shift.
"It was 10 o'clock when I got in my car to go home. I was driving down the road when I heard a noise and saw him in the back seat with a mask and a gun," Seagle said.
Her assailant told her to drive down a dirt road, get out of the car and climb a hill. There, he raped her. Afterward, she drove the man back to the main road and dropped him off.
Seagle went to her parents' house and immediately was confronted with the stigma that accompanies sexual assault, particularly in a small town.
"My mom said we were going to keep it quiet - she even had our doctor meet us at his office instead of the hospital," Seagle said. "That weekend was Easter, and we didn't even tell our aunts and uncles who came into town. I just remember going to church that Sunday and crying through both services."
On June 28, the day of Seagle's wedding rehearsal, Clarence Friel Crigger Jr. was arrested and charged with the attack. Crigger lived across the street from her in-laws' house, and Seagle said police knew the 16-year-old had a history of being a peeping Tom.
"He told police later that he saw me through an open window with my wedding dress on. Well, that was in January - he'd been watching me in that house for three months," Seagle said.
Crigger was charged with kidnapping, use of a firearm in a felony, robbery, and - because physical evidence was lacking - attempted rape. He was tried as an adult, but given an "indeterminate" sentence. He was released eight months later and returned to Wythe County.
"The first time I saw him after he got out was at the grocery store. They didn't even tell me he was going to be released. I remember going to the counter, trying to stay calm. I didn't want him to know that he terrified me."
Crigger's subsequent criminal behavior is a perfect example of why parole should be abolished, Wythe County Sheriff Wayne Pike says.
By the time Crigger attacked his final victim, Pike said, "it was obvious who was involved - it was so typical of him."
Pike could think of several times when Crigger was caught spying in people's windows or attempting a break-in.
One of the worst crimes he committed between the attacks on Seagle and Crisp occurred in 1989. According to Wythe County Circuit Court records, Crigger was convicted of burglary and abduction of a 16-year-old girl and sentenced to five years' probation. The only time he spent behind bars was before his trial.
On Oct. 22, 1991, he was charged with abducting another woman. He was released on $2,000 bond.
One month later, Crigger attacked for the fourth time.
\ Marilynn Crisp remembers the day vividly.
"I was in my car, on my way home, and passed my husband and son. Normally they would have stopped to see if I wanted to go to lunch, but they knew I was on a diet, so they didn't."
When police combed the Crisp home later, they could tell by the trash left behind that Crigger had sat on the roof, drinking a Mountain Dew. He smoked a cigarette and extinguished it in a potted plant, took a shower in the bathroom, tried on Crisp's husband's clothes and scoured the refrigerator for food - all while waiting for Crisp to come home.
"I thank the Lord that my daughters weren't there," Crisp said.
"He got behind me when I came in, and I could feel a gun by the side of my head. He took me to the living room, which is where the attack took place."
Afterward, Crisp asked if she could pray. It was then that she got her first look at him.
"I remember making mental notes about his height, the color of his hair, so that after it was over I could identify him. He said I could pray, but not for him. `I've been to church - it didn't do any good,' he said. I told him it's a relationship you have to develop."
He took her to her bedroom, where he tied her with a pair of pantyhose. She remembers seeing a cross-stitch she had framed and hung on the wall.
"It was Second Chronicles, 7:14: `If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.' It was the passage President Reagan had open when he was sworn in as president, and it kept me calm."
Crisp is thankful that part of the trauma - waiting for her attacker to be found, convicted and sent to prison - ended only hours later, when Crigger committed suicide by carbon-monoxide poisoning. He was found in a stolen car. The gun he'd used in Crisp's attack was beside him.
For Seagle, the news that Crigger was dead was a relief. "I had been through 12 years of torment, never knowing where I'd run into him next. Just before he attacked Marilynn, my husband and I saw him in the Rose's parking lot. I could barely walk towards the store, I was so shaken."
At that point, Seagle was just beginning to make headway in a lengthy, expensive recovery process. Five years after the rape, the fears and traumas Seagle had never fully dealt with resurfaced.
"I stopped working. I was afraid to go out, even to the grocery store," she said.
Seagle drove to Lynchburg for a year to see a therapist. On two separate occasions, she admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital.
"The first time, they treated me by inducing hypnosis. That helped bring it all out again, helped me deal with it. Then, when I went back, I had 12 shock treatments. That helped me forget."
Seagle estimates, between hospital bills and lost wages, the rape cost her more than $50,000.
"This is why I can't understand it when people holler that we can't afford new jails. Well, how can we afford not to?" Seagle said.
"And that doesn't even get into the mental harm - there's a lot of damage to compensate for. There will never come a time when I will be able to get in my car at night without being frightened."
\ Seagle concedes that no judicial system in the world could have kept her from being raped.
"But we did everything we could so other women wouldn't have to go through what I did."
Neither Seagle nor Crisp believes that rehabilitation works for many criminals - particularly sex offenders.
"They just don't get better," Crisp said. "They're con artists. They tell the Parole Board what they want to hear, then get out and commit the same crimes."
That is why both decided to come forward, to reveal their names and faces and talk about how they overcame their tragedies and what needs to be changed in Virginia's judicial system.
Crisp speaks at Christian women's organizations throughout Southwest Virginia and in North Carolina. Seagle recently discussed Proposal X on the country radio station WYVE in Wytheville.
And they continue to enjoy their families and their friendship.
"Our cups are full again," Crisp said. "We were able to turn a bad situation into a positive one."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***