Pray that the child receives the love and support he will need to grow up strong and live in peace.

My name is Keith Smith. I was abducted, beaten and raped by a stranger. It wasn’t a neighbor, a coach, a relative, a family friend or teacher. It was a recidivist pedophile predator who spent time in prison for previous sex crimes; an animal hunting for victims in the quiet suburbs of Lincoln, Rhode Island.

I was able to identify the guy and the car he was driving. He was arrested and indicted but never went to trial. His trial never took place because he was brutally beaten to death in Providence before his court date. 34 years later, no one has ever been charged with the crime.

In the time between the night of my assault and the night he was murdered, I lived in fear. I was afraid he was still around town. Afraid he was looking for me. Afraid he would track me down and kill me. The fear didn’t go away when he was murdered. Although he was no longer a threat, the simple life and innocence of a 14-year-old boy was gone forever. Carefree childhood thoughts replaced with the unrelenting realization that my world wasn’t a safe place. My peace shattered by a horrific criminal act of sexual violence.

Over the past 34 years, I’ve been haunted by horrible, recurring memories of what he did to me. He visits me in my sleep. There have been dreams–nightmares actually–dozens of them, sweat inducing, yelling-in-my-sleep nightmares filled with images and emotions as real as they were when it actually happened. It doesn’t get easier over time. Long dead, he still visits me, silently sneaking up from out of nowhere when I least expect it. From the grave, he sits by my side on the couch every time the evening news reports a child abduction or sex crime. I don’t watch America’s Most Wanted or Law and Order SVU, because the stories are a catalyst, triggering long suppressed emotions, feelings, memories, fear and horror. Real life horror stories rip painful suppressed memories out from where they hide, from that recessed place in my brain that stores dark, dangerous, horrible memories. It happened when William Bonin confessed to abducting, raping and murdering 14 boys in California; when Jesse Timmendequas raped and murdered Megan Kanka in New Jersey; when Ben Ownby, missing for four days, and Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years, were recovered in Missouri.

Despite what happened that night and the constant reminders that continue to haunt me years later, I wouldn’t change what happened. The animal that attacked me was a serial predator, a violent pedophile trolling my neighborhood in Lincoln, Rhode Island looking for young boys. He beat me, raped me, and I stayed alive. I lived to see him arrested, indicted and murdered. It might not have turned out this way if he had grabbed one of my friends or another kid from my neighborhood. Perhaps he’d still be alive. Perhaps there would be dozens of more victims and perhaps he would have progressed to the point of silencing his victims by murdering them.

Out of fear, shame and guilt, I’ve been silent for over three decades, not sharing with anyone the story of what happened to me. No more. The silence has to end. What happened to me wasn’t my fault. The fear, the shame, the guilt have to go. It’s time to stop keeping this secret from the people closest to me, people I care about, people I love, my long-time friends and my family. It’s time to speak out to raise public awareness of male sexual assault, to let other survivors know that they’re not alone and to help survivors of rape and violent crime understand that the emotion, fear and memories that may still haunt them are not uncommon to those of us who have shared a similar experience.

My novel, Men in My Town, was inspired by these actual events. Men in My Town is available now at http://www.Amazon.com

For those who suffer in silence, I hope my story brings some comfort, strength, peace and hope.

For additional information, please visit the Men in My Town blog at http://www.meninmytown.wordpress.com

The Criminal Mind Never Sleeps!
America Should Focus On More Rights for the Victims and Fewer Rights for Criminals,
Is What Our Judicial System Should Be Based On!

Treating criminals like they were in a Sunday school for orphans and keep letting them turn prisons and courtroom into their personal playgrounds are not going to keep Correctional Facilities and society safe…

Nor Can We Keep Avoiding Sex-Offenders and Pedophiles prancing around this country hiding behind their rights, when Ninety-Percent of Them Return To Prisons in One/ Three Years Committing the Same Crimes
We now have over 600-thousand of these sex offenders in the United States and sadly, the police data bases cannot locate nor do they know where approximately 100,000 of them are located.
I do believe we keep better track of library books then we do these
Sex-offenders and Pedophiles in this county-

Author John J. Pecchio
Has A Website http://www.johnpecchio.com Filled With Personal Thoughts On Our Judicial System,
Which Will Inform The Mind And Startle The Soul…

His Books “Hell Behind Prison Walls” And
“The Devil’s Den Of Prison And Justice”
Are Regional Bestsellers,
Filled With True, Compelling and Gripping Stories-
Of What Really Goes On Behind Those Prison Walls.

John worked in a maximum-security prison for almost three-decades as a Vocational Instructor. His experiences and thoughts are in his books, along with personally suffering the negative effects of this volatile environment when he was brutally attacked by a prisoner who was serving two life sentences for multiple murders. This attack, which he describes in devastating detail, was induced by the ongoing failing prison systems, lacking administrative and prisoner discipline.
Too many Americans naively believe that criminals go to prisons to be reform and will return back into society to live productive lives. But how can you reform criminals in today’s prisons that have become contaminated with flaws, imbedded with unthinking, unknowing or corrupted officials and political bureaucrats that hide behind words, like, prison reform and rehabilitation just to keep the tax-dollars flowing into all these institutions.
John invites the public to view his commercial-video on his Website- http://www.johnpecchio.com and see for yourself, how cold-blooded murders, rapist, pedophiles, drug-pushers, mentally unstable and extreme militants gangs, acting like psychopathic monsters and prehistoric man existing all over again, and that will show you who is really controlling all our federal and state correctional faculties.
As you can see, John gives his readers a unique insight into the inner-workings of “America’s prisons”. In addition, he gives readers a definitive look into the causes behind their major problems, which were shockingly created by lawmakers and prison officials.
You can now read how federal and state prisons have deteriorated to their worst condition in the history of these institutions. They have changed from being run with dignity and strong security into a hellish nightmare where corruption is the norm.
With the loss of positive leadership in our prisons came the increase of prisoner’s power, primarily caused by their ability to hide behind highly-defended “Civil Rights”, which has now taken precedence above all else. These rights allowed them to live without fear of strong retribution for their actions, thereby leading to a breakdown in inmate behavior and resulting in riots, fights, and physical and verbal abuse of prison workers.
When you visit John’s Website – http://www.johnpecchio.com be sure to review his miscellaneous and book-review section and sigh his guestbook…
You can contact John by e-mail jpecchio@npacc.net and/or by phone 570-549-2999, to schedule “interviews”, “book signing” and “presentations”

God Bless America …

John J. Pecchio Author