Meet Florence Holway

This is Florence Holway. Fifteen years ago, at age 75, she was brutally raped by 25-year-old John LaForest, who entered her home, raped her vaginally and anally, hog-tied her with a telephone wire, choked her, and smashed her teeth. During the attack, he said to her, “Isn’t this nice? Isn’t this great? I ought to come over every week.”

There is no doubt that LaForest raped Florence. He was caught by police still in her bed, fast asleep, his head resting on a pillow stained with her blood, after Florence managed to escape to her son’s house next door, and her son stood guard outside her home with his rifle until the police arrived.

Florence’s story might never had been known outside her small New Hampshire town on Lake Winnipesaukee had the district attorney not offered LaForest a plea bargain without her consent, which allowed him to serve just a minimum of 12 years in exchange for his confession. But Florence was outraged that she would not have her day in court, and that her attacker would still be a young man when he was let out, free once again to do to other women what he had done to her. So she raised hell.

Her hell-raising, with became national news at the time, did not change the district attorney’s mind; LaForest got his reduced sentence. It did, however, result in a change in New Hampshire state law, which raised minimum sentences for such attacks and now does not permit deals to be made with perpetrators against the victim’s wishes. A burgeoning victims’ advocate program also received the funding it so desperately needed. Her story—including her annual pilgrimages to the prison where LaForest served his sentence to testify at his parole hearings—is recounted in a brilliant HBO documentary, Rape in a Small Town. If you have the opportunity to watch it, do. (It’s sometimes available via Comcast’s HBO On Demand, and is occasionally re-run; I saw it this morning.)

I recommend it not just because it’s an important story, addressing some of the very real problems our justice system has dealing effectively with sex offenders (not to mention media issues—one local paper buried her story because it was “a family paper”), but because Florence is, quite simply, amazing. She is not only stunningly brave but an exceptionally interesting woman—a painter, a mother, a grandmother. Clever and frank as she tells her story, she minces no words about the brutally of her attack, and after having gone through this unbelievable experience that left her frightened and forever changed, she resolved to go on her crusade, about which she is equally honest (paraphrased): “These state legislators are hard to budge. They’re conservative Republicans, and they hold onto tradition with a death grip.”

In one of the most moving scenes of the film, her son—a big, strong man—lifts her from the car and helps her into her wheelchair so they can go into the prison for a parole hearing. During the hearing, as Florence—small, white-haired, and then 89 years old—gives her statement to the parole board, her son leaves. Strong enough to carry his mother, he nonetheless cannot bear to hear her petition to keep her rapist behind bars. Her courage really is something to behold.

After 12 years, LaForest was released. He was returned to prison after being accused of sexual harassment by a female coworker. He is due for release again soon.

Should LaForest rape again, his victim will be guaranteed an opportunity that Florence was denied—the chance to face him and tell her story in court, to seek the maximum sentence—all thanks to Florence and her indomitable will. Truly, if you have the chance to watch this film, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s inspiring.