Today Jennifer Schuett stands tall and strong as she addresses a crowd of more than one hundred people at the 8th annual Rio Grande Valley Seminar in Forensic Sciences.
You would never know by her big smile and the way she carries a room that more than 19 years ago Schuett was brutally raped and left to die when she was only 8 years old in southeast Texas.
"Not long afterward when I went in my room and fell asleep, an unknown male kidnapped me through my bedroom window,” recalled Jennifer Schuett.
Jennifer remembers everything.
The man who raped her slit her throat from ear to ear.
She lay helpless in a field for more than 12 hours covered with fire ants and blood and barely alive, until she was found by a group of children who was playing nearby.
Her motivation to survive was simple.
"My driving force throughout the whole process was that he could be out there hurting other women and children and I did not want that to happen,” said Schuett.
Her determination finally paid off in 2009 when new DNA technology allowed samples to be taken from evidence collected at the scene 20 years ago.
The suspect turned out to be 40-year old Dennis Earl Bradford.
He committed suicide before his trial.
Detective Tim Cromie from the Dickinson Police Department was assigned Schuett's case three years ago.
“Her involvement was definitely a big help,” said Cromie. “Because we new certain things that we wouldn’t have known, like routes traveled, things that were said to her.
All because she was able to talk to us as a survivor which was a big plus for the case.”
The little girl who was told by doctors she would never speak again now uses her voice to help other victims of crime.
She travels the country addressing ways to prevent child abuse and techniques used in child death investigations.
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