‘BRINGING MY ABUSER TO JUSTICE’
When there wasn’t evidence to put the man she says molested her in jail, Marianna Mazzeo found a way to expose the truth – and give it to police
Marianna Mazzeo’s brave stand
For years the pain and despair were so deep that Marianna Mazzeo thought they might actually take over her life. Sexually abused by her uncle at just 6 years old, and until she turned 11, Mazzeo says she spent most of her childhood struggling with feelings of shame and anger. She told no-one about what was happening to her, fearful her uncle would make good on his threats to kill her and her family. Instead she began cutting herself to try to cope with the pain. After a suicide attempt when she was 14 saw her admitted to a mental hospital, Mazzeo finally reported the abuse to authorities – but police ultimately closed their investigation because of a lack of evidence. “When I found out, I wrote in my journal, ‘He stole five years of my childhood that I’ll never get back,’” Mazzeo says. “‘It’s not over. I’ll get a confession.’”
Last year Mazzeo, now 20, did just that. Triggered when she saw a man at work who reminded her of her tormentor, she decided she couldn’t live in the shadows any longer and set a trap to expose the truth. After eight years of no contact with her uncle, she texted him, asking to communicate. Eventually the two scheduled a video chat on Facebook Messenger, and Mazzeo set up two mobile phones: one for the call and one to record the exchange. As soon as her uncle’s face popped up on her phone, she hit record. He began to apologise, and she began to cry. “I need to hear you say it,” she demanded. Finally he did: “I’m sorry I molested you.” Those words not only carried weight for Mazzeo –but they were also what police needed to make a case.
On April 12, 2018, Mazzeo’s uncle Richard Rose, 57, was arrested in Port Clinton, Ohio. He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of rape and remains jailed on $1.4 million bond, awaiting trial in December. (His attorney did not return calls for comment.) “It took courage for her to make that phone call, reach out to bring this to final closure,” says Danbury Township police chief Michael S. Meisler. “We’re glad she took the one step, because that’s the step we needed.”
Strength and determination have sustained Mazzeo throughout her difficult life. Born to a heroin-addicted single mum in Lorain, Ohio, in 1998, Mazzeo never knew her father. Her first vivid memory is of waking up hungry one morning when she was 4 years old and toddling into her mother’s bedroom to try to wake her – only to find her lying dead on
the bed. “She overdosed,” Mazzeo now says, matter-of-factly. The youngster, who liked school and loved drawing, writing and singing, went to live with her maternal aunt and uncle in neighbouring Marblehead. “I started calling my aunt Mum because they looked alike,” she says. “It was just like a new family for me.” Soon, though, when Mazzeo was just 6, her new life turned dark as well. Her uncle, who was a professional truck driver, began sneaking into her room and molesting her, she says. “[He’d say], ‘That’s how you express love,’” she recalls. “I knew it wasn’t normal.”
The abuse allegedly continued for five years, and Mazzeo kept it a deep, hidden secret. But after her aunt and uncle separated and Rose moved out of the house, the horror and pain began to surface. Mazzeo was 11 when she began cutting herself, mostly at home, she recalls, but there were times she’d cut herself on her way home from school. “I had all these feelings of being alone and no-one understanding me,” she says. Her thoughts grew darker, and she contemplated taking her own life. “I wanted to die,” she says. “But I didn’t think it was normal for a person in middle school to want to die.” After a suicide attempt at age 14, she was put into a residential mental-health facility that ultimately changed her life. One of the questions on the admission papers asked, “Have you ever been touched in a way that you shouldn’t have?” And for the first time in her life, she felt ready to talk about what had happened to her. “It was a split-second decision,” she says. “I said yes because I wanted to be able to talk about it, to be able to finally heal from what was making me so upset all the time.” Police immediately investigated her claims, bringing her uncle in for questioning. But he denied the allegations and refused to take a polygraph. According to a police report, Mazzeo’s aunt was interviewed and said she hadn’t known about the alleged abuse. With no evidence against Rose, police closed the investigation without bringing charges, and Mazzeo tried to get on with her life, spending a year living in different residential mental-health facilities. When kids her age were attending high school and going to parties, Mazzeo was focused on trying to conquer her demons and on putting her nightmares behind her. “I spent my 16th birthday in a mental hospital,” she says. “My ‘sweet 16’ was a frozen cake I shared with 16 other [patients] on the unit.”
The next several years Mazzeo bounced between foster care and mental hospitals, earning her high school diploma online. She continued to have contact with her aunt, who she says was out of town or in another room when the instances of abuse occurred. Their relationship, Mazzeo says, is complicated. “There was a lack of affection and bonding between us,” she says. At 19, Mazzeo married a man with two children and began working as a nursing assistant, but the relationship deteriorated, and she is in the process of getting a divorce. “I was still seeking love,” she says. “Just because somebody says they love you doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Now, as she waits for her alleged abuser’s upcoming trial, she says she feels a sense of security and peace that she has never known. For the first time, she is living on her own – in her own apartment with her emotional-support dog Bane – and last month she enrolled in university, majoring in nursing. One day, she says, she would like to be a psychiatric nurse working with abused children, but for now she just wants people to know they can use their voices instead of suffering through the pain of hiding their secrets. “I want to help others realise that they don’t have to feel alone or be alone,” she says, “and there’s always hope.”
If you or someone you know needs support, help is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.