Category Archives: Uncategorized

by | November 12, 2014 · 11:29 pm

Reader Response: I know what abuse tastes like

Note from Amy: The following comment was sent to this Diary of a Predator website after the writer finished the book Diary of a Predator: A Memoir, last month:

Comment: It’s really annoying to see that some people aren’t getting the point of all this research. But then I think, not everyone can understand each other in the real world anyways. For example; when artists feel things, no matter how extreme, they know & have an “outlet.” They express emotion through personal passion in creativity. People who don’t possess such talents either don’t understand or choose not to understand.

I’m not saying that Brents is an artist, but I am saying that with every action in crime that he took, I can see him looking at his own reflection. I’m sad for what happens to everyone in their own personal experience with any type of abuse. And before anyone passes judgement on me, let me just say I’m still to this day sad & angry & hurt & pissed off because I know what abuse tastes like. I say taste because it hits closer to home. If I say feel, it seems too sentimental & sad, but if I say taste, people generally get the idea; once you put something in your mouth you know within SECONDS of whether you like it or not. You never go undecided. There’s no maybes once something hits your tongue. It’s either good, bad, happy or mad.

I was molested several times by several people throughout my life. And it was a range between family friends, friends & family. I was also abused by family members. Isn’t that crazy. Luckily I was born a “natural” (or whatever society considers me as a “natural”) artist so I knew & still know how to get my horrifyingly gross & ugly entities out in a more appropriate manner (or at least what society considers to be appropriate).

Anyways, my point is that it is amazing to see people’s comments & see how they don’t understand this kind of research, but it amazes me even more to see that the people who have had similar experiences as Brents & who, like me, actually “get it,” aren’t going crazy in their own skin (sometimes) or at least expressing or saying that they do go crazy. I understand the level of severity fluctuates upon each individuals own experience with abuse, but I’m just asking. I’ve gone through my own definition of hell & therapists too, but I think I turned out ok. If I was any less expressive in my artwork history, I think I probably would have gone a little off the charts. Maybe at least once. But I’ve kept my composure. I’m just wondering how you guys keep yours.

-Ilona

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by | September 28, 2014 · 6:00 am

Feedback: We must make an effort to discover how predators become predators

Note from Amy: I recently received an email from a visitor to this Diary of a Predator website who saw the Brent Brents story done by Paula Zahn’s Investigation Discovery show. I’m including an excerpt of the letter here, and it can be found in its entirety on the Reader Feedback page of this website.

Amy – Welcome to the ugly, vicious underbelly of conservatism… I saw the episode with Paula Zahn and fervently SUPPORT you . I’m a (retired/disabled) attorney and SURVIVOR of LT sexual abuse. IMO, we have no alternative. We must make an effort to discover how predators become predators. There is a lot of phony sympathy toward victims of child abuse. I say phony since there is a complete disconnect when they become adults who had horrible childhoods. (Consider Aileen Wuornos).  How does the attempt to understand the evolution of a predator become the effort to excuse what they do? The same dysfunctional, black and white thinking was at work when people were excoriated for asking about the “why” of 9/11.

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by | June 9, 2014 · 7:07 am

Reaction from a father of daughters

Note from Amy: The following message was recently sent to this Diary of a Predator website (coincidentally, it’s nearly Father’s Day):

I saw the story of you and your association with Brent Brents. I realize the controversial nature of your friendship with him, but I applaud your decision to befriend him.

As a father of daughters I know I would have no problem killing a man like him with my bare hands if he touched my daughters or wife.

As a man who was deeply hurt by my father, nothing close to what he experienced, I realize that what he needs most is some one to care about him. Some one who tells him he matters to them. God bless you for your kindness.

I was very lucky to be loved by the most wonderful woman who ever walked the face of the earth…my mother. Without her….there’s no doubt in my mind I’d be inside with Brent.

Keep up the good work…and tell Brent there is “some guy” in Colorado who bets he’s an ok guy absent the hell he suffered as a child.

John Wright

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by | November 20, 2013 · 9:00 am

many sexual offenders abuse animals

Oh before i forget…Animalabusers.org. Animal legal defense fund. Ok I encluded this one because many sexual offenders Abuse animals in their youth and on into adulthood. I didn’t know for sure if you would see this as relavent. I can tell you in most of the sexual offender groups i have been about half the men and kids admitted to violently abusing animals. Myself encluded.

There has also been a great deal of research into Animal Violence and criminal behavior. I had a rage even back then, that cruel and saddistic. It scared the hell out of me. Poor cat paid one hell of a price for my rage.

-Brent Brents 10-11-13

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by | November 8, 2013 · 9:43 am

Help Stop Military Sexual Assault: Call Your Senator Right Now

Want to help stop rape? Then pick up your phone after you read this and call your senator.

I’m on the email list for director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering, the creators of the outstanding documentary, “The Invisible War,” a film about the crisis of sexual assaults within the U.S. military. I’m interviewed in the film because of my work covering the issue, primarily the series I coauthored at the Denver Post called “Betrayal in the Ranks.”

Right now, the Invisible War team need your help. Please read the message below and then make the call. Help end hell.

From Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering:

This is it. Game time. The moment we’ve all been working towards.

Forty-nine people are raped each day with zero prosecutions; it is not conscionable. We can no longer stand idly by.

As soon as next week, #NotInvisible champion Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will be reintroducing the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA) as an amendment to next year’s military budget. This single piece of legislation could be a categorical game changer — as it places the reporting and prosecution of assault crimes into the hands of impartial adjudicators.

With this system in place, our service members will finally feel safe reporting these crimes — and perpetrators will stand a better chance of getting caught and punished. Our service members sacrifice so much to defend our rights. Isn’t it time we defended theirs?

Please call your senators today and urge them to support the Military Justice Improvement Act: 1.888.907.6886

A bipartisan coalition of 47 Senators has come together in support of the MJIA, but because of a threatened filibuster, the measure needs 60 votes to pass — not just 51.

Will you help us get to 60 votes? Call your senators TODAY and urge them to support the Military Justice Improvement Act. Call 1.888.907.6886 to contact your senators now and let them know it’s time to create an unbiased system for military justice.

It’s time to pass the MJIA. We’re so close. Please call today and forward this to others!

Together, we can do this! Together, we are #NotInvisible.

Amy and Kirby
http://www.notinvisible.org/

PS: We want to hear from you too! Let us know how your call went and what your senators said by sending an email to info@notinvisible.org.

You can click here to see if your senators have already signed on to the MJIA.

If they have, thank them. Remind them why it’s so important to you that they support the MJIA. If they haven’t, call 1.888.907.6886 as soon as possible to urge them to add their name.

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by | October 20, 2013 · 5:46 pm

“Unbreakable” Describes These Survivors of Sexual Assault

From Amy: There is a powerful website called “Project Unbreakable–The Art of Healing.” Created in 2011 by then 19-year-old photography student Grace Brown, the project features photographs of sexual assault survivors who are holding a poster with a quote from their attacker.

Many of the survivors were sexually abused as children, and the quotes are both manipulative and heartbreaking. The project as a whole is empowering and noble in its intent to help these survivors regain their voice and their power.

As an aside, this website was suggested to me in a letter from Brent Brents. So per his request, here’s the link to “Project Unbreakable.”

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by | September 17, 2013 · 6:00 am

how the healing happened

Note from Amy:

The following comment was sent to this Diary of a Predator website in June, and inadvertently missed until recently. So here it is, better late than never:

Diary of a Predator Contact
Hello Amy, and anyone else listening. I just finished this book and am writing to thank you. Accepting that there is always more to who we are than what has happened TO us, and what we have DONE … is an essential piece of true connection – and you have lived this process and then shared the story, you and Brent both. Thank you Amy and Brent.

While it is true that many who live through horrendous trauma from very early life end up repeating destructive patterns, living as though it would be easier to die, or “becoming” the perpetrator, these are not the only possible answers. There is always more possibility, coupled with the original innocent child, hurt, but able to heal. I commend any effort to paint the reality of those truths, rather than only explore or sensationalize the more obvious destruction and pain.

Your process and work are about connection, and what true connection is all about. THAT — is the inherent drive of the innocent child, to know we are connected. there are many survivors of horrific childhoods who know this — how hard it can be to heal from early childhood trauma and ongoing violence, secrecy and varying levels of “dissociation” (it wasn’t me, it didn’t happen to me)… rampant in such households. But survive we do, and heal we do. I like the emphasis on how the healing happened, and purposeful focus on seeing beyond what was broken. Too many books and articles dwell only on that side…. and while offering suggestions about healing, do not paint that capacity as a real story, as a long and hard process — and based in reality.

As a person who lived through the worst kinds of very very early and ongoing abuse and neglect, with 20 plus years of healing work now, I was again – on finishing this book — nudged into the position of knowing that many of my “perpetrators” if not all, were victims in their own childhood as well. It is easier to let them go, and let go the binding energy that keeps us all down. Today I let more go. thank you amy and brent (feel free to share with brent). AR

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by | September 13, 2013 · 2:01 pm

a rape upon her soul

So did you hear about the Judge who Sentenced a school teacher to 30 days in Jail for raping his 14 year old student. That is only the half of it. The prick blamed the girl; saying she was responsible because she was physicaly and emotionaly older than She appeared and that she was manipulating and calculative. She killed herself because she couldn’t deal with the whole situation. 30 days and the blame layed on her. This judge needs to be off the bench. And forced to be put on the sexual offender Registry. He may not have physicaly Raped the girl. His actions were themselves a rape upon her soul. These types of people and things that happen in the victims side of the Legal system, Make that silent victim feel justified in that Silence. Which sucks really bad.

-Brent Brents 8-25-13

 

 

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by | August 24, 2013 · 5:13 pm

Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others

Note from Amy:

If you’ve spent much time on this Diary of a Predator website, you’ll know I am a big fan of James Gilligan‘s work, especially his book Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, where he presents case studies from his 25 years of working in prisons in an attempt to understand the causes and motivation of violent behavior.

We share that same goal, which is the entire reason I wrote the book Diary of a Predator: A Memoir, and why I have this website. If we don’t understand the complex causes of violence, how can we prevent it? We need to focus on prevention at its source–the perpetrator–instead of simply telling young women they need to walk in pairs after dark.

Now Gilligan has released a new edition of his latest book, Why Some Politicians are More Dangerous Than Others, and if you truly care about the prevention of violence in the U.S., it’s worth reading with an open mind.

From the Back Cover:

Politicians and the political process, even in ostensibly democratic countries, can be deadly. James Gilligan has discovered a devastating truth that has been “hiding in plain sight” for the past century – namely, that when America’s conservative party, the Republicans, have gained the presidency, the country has repeatedly suffered from epidemics of violent death. Rates of both suicide and homicide have sky-rocketed. The reasons are all too obvious: rates of every form of social and economic distress, inequality and loss – unemployment, recessions, poverty, bankruptcy, homelessness also ballooned to epidemic proportions. When that has happened, those in the population who were most vulnerable have “snapped”, with tragic consequences for everyone.

These epidemics of lethal violence have then remained at epidemic levels until the more liberal party, the Democrats, regained the White House and dramatically reduced the amount of deadly violence by diminishing the magnitude of the economic distress that had been causing it.

This pattern has been documented since 1900, when the US government first began compiling vital statistics on a yearly basis, and yet it has not been noticed by anyone until now except with regard to suicide in the UK and Australia, where a similar pattern has been described.

This book is a path-breaking account of a phenomenon that has implications for every country that presumes to call itself democratic, civilized and humane, and for all those citizens, voters and political thinkers who would like to help their country move in that direction.

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by | August 18, 2013 · 8:03 pm

Monster, yes. Damaged child, yes.

Note from Amy: This very kind comment was sent to this Diary of a Predator website from a woman who read my book, Diary of a Predator: A Memoir, which is about my covering the case of serial rapist Brent Brents, and how that changed me.

It was a tough book to write, and I’m sure parts of it are very tough to read. So when someone takes the time to tell me they appreciate the book and that they understand what I was trying to accomplish, it fills me with both hope and gratitude that somehow, we’ll all make a difference.

Thank you, Tracy.

Here’s what she wrote:

Amy, I just finished your book. You are a brilliant writer and a very brave woman. Your story hit on the complex issue of abused becoming perpetrator. How can we not feel pity for Brents? Monster, yes. Damaged child, yes. His life would have been very different had he not endured horrific abuse as a child.

In 1983, I did an internship for the Wyoming Board of Charities and Reform. I researched the history of the Wyoming Children’s Home and the need to transition it into a Residential Treatment Facility for Emotionally Disturbed Children. I wrote a report to present to the WY Legislature in which I strongly recommended the transition. I researched the physical and sexual abuse that Brents, and other children, experienced while in the Home, and reading this portion of your book broke my heart. The cover photo on your book jacket looks very much like a boy I worked with from the Laramie Crisis Center in 1982. I remember this boy above all others because I took him to my home and introduced him to my husband and 2-year-old son. He had dinner with us, played games, and did not want to go back to the Center. I was severely reprimanded for doing this!

Thank you for writing your story, Amy.

Tracy Hauff

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