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Modern Women Living Alone
Toronto police officer fights Texan rapist
RAPE - At the centre of this story is "Ann Doe", age 33, a mother of two from the GTA... She was brutally raped while visiting Houston, Texas on a business trip in July 2008. It changed her life irreversibly.
But what really stings is how when she tried to get justice they all ignored her.
She went to the Houston police.
She went to the Durham police here in Canada.
She went to her local MP.
None of them helped her.
In steps Toronto Constable Shari MacKay.
MacKay and the Toronto police have nothing to do with the case, but MacKay believes strongly in truth and justice. (You go girl!)
MacKay wrote dozens of letters to officials in Houston, everyone from the chief of police to the mayor, and she pushed investigators to reopen the case. MacKay even made approx. 7 trips to Houston.
In October 2010, the rapist John Frangias was convicted of rape and sentenced to 8 years at the Texas State Penitentiary.
MacKay has since won the International Association of Women Police’s Mary Jo Blahowski Leadership Award for 2011.
“Shari saved me,” says Ann Doe simply, without any fanfare. “She took the case under her wings, she went way above and beyond.”
“She [Ann Doe] had no other advocate, there was no one else to look after her,” says MacKay. “What happened was horrific … I wanted to see him convicted for what he did.”
What the rapist John Frangias did is etched in Ann Doe’s memory.
Doe, who ran a consulting business with offices in Toronto and other cities, was in Houston for a conference in July 2008. The Lancaster Hotel was overbooked despite her reservations so she went to the Athens Hotel Suites.
After four days there and on the last night, a Thursday, she was walking down the hall to her room. It was approx. 11 PM when she opened the door to her room and someone shoved her in from behind.
She recognized the man who had been at the front desk, John Frangias, as her assailant. (John Frangias was the manager of the hotel.)
John Frangias grabbed her by the hair, pulled it hard and started groping her breasts.
Then he raped her. The rape lasted approx. 15 minutes, the worst 15 minutes of Ann Doe's life.
Reliving the memory is still hellish. “It takes you right back to those moments. I can feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it … when I talk about it,” says Ann Doe, her voice cracking. “When he left, I was numb,” says Doe. “Like a zombie, I got into the shower and scrubbed every inch of my body to get the stench off.”
Ann Doe's flight back to Toronto was early next morning and initially she tried to forget anything had ever happened. But when Doe landed back in Toronto she confided in a best friend what had happened and they persuaded her to go to the police.
She did, the same day.
Durham police sent her to the hospital where it was established that she had been violently raped. Confirmed evidence of it. Within days, she gave video testimony and everything was passed on to investigators in Houston.
Then the investigation stopped. Houston police were apparently doing nothing.
Meanwhile Doe stopped travelling and she rarely left the house. She was a mental wreck.
Eventually Doe bumped into Shari MacKay. Their kids went to the same daycare together. Their kids wanted a play date and sometime in February 2009, MacKay brought her kids to Doe’s home.
Their children became friends, so did the two women. But it still took another couple of months for Ann Doe to confide in MacKay. “I just wanted an insight into how investigations work,” says Doe. She was concerned why the case was going so slow and there was no response from the Houston police.
When MacKay heard her story, she instantly knew what had happened. Houston police weren't taking the rape incident seriously. A hotel manager rapist was raping tourists (possibly more than 1) and getting away with it. The local police weren't even given the case the time of day.
The next day, MacKay called up the investigators in Houston and was shocked to hear that they hadn’t even gone to the scene and had classified the complaint as “he said, she said. It blew my mind,” says MacKay.
“I was also politely told it wasn’t my jurisdiction.”
So yeah. Houston police are apparently patriarchal bastards who don't take rape seriously.
But MacKay wasn’t about to give up. She wrote dozens of letters to the chief of police, the mayor, the District Attorney’s office. The investigation started again and Doe was asked to come down to Houston. MacKay accompanied her.
“Shari was like a pit bull,” says Doe. “She wouldn’t let go.”
(Again, you go girl!!!)
“Houston cops resisted her … she didn’t let it deter her. I wish we had more police officers like Shari here,” says Alexis Bruegger, assistant DA in Houston.
“He [Frangias] was horrible,” says MacKay. “He had an elaborate story … that [Doe] was impaired and had fallen outside the hotel. The jury didn’t believe him.”
Eventually justice was served to John Frangias, 8 years at the Texas State Penitentiary.
That is simply proof that truth, justice and karma always win in the end.
We KNOW there are rapists out there who have yet to be caught, but they're living in rotting shells of a life. Karma catches up to everyone eventually.
But what really stings is how when she tried to get justice they all ignored her.
She went to the Houston police.
She went to the Durham police here in Canada.
She went to her local MP.
None of them helped her.
In steps Toronto Constable Shari MacKay.
MacKay and the Toronto police have nothing to do with the case, but MacKay believes strongly in truth and justice. (You go girl!)MacKay wrote dozens of letters to officials in Houston, everyone from the chief of police to the mayor, and she pushed investigators to reopen the case. MacKay even made approx. 7 trips to Houston.
In October 2010, the rapist John Frangias was convicted of rape and sentenced to 8 years at the Texas State Penitentiary.
MacKay has since won the International Association of Women Police’s Mary Jo Blahowski Leadership Award for 2011.
“Shari saved me,” says Ann Doe simply, without any fanfare. “She took the case under her wings, she went way above and beyond.”
“She [Ann Doe] had no other advocate, there was no one else to look after her,” says MacKay. “What happened was horrific … I wanted to see him convicted for what he did.”
What the rapist John Frangias did is etched in Ann Doe’s memory.
Doe, who ran a consulting business with offices in Toronto and other cities, was in Houston for a conference in July 2008. The Lancaster Hotel was overbooked despite her reservations so she went to the Athens Hotel Suites.
After four days there and on the last night, a Thursday, she was walking down the hall to her room. It was approx. 11 PM when she opened the door to her room and someone shoved her in from behind.
She recognized the man who had been at the front desk, John Frangias, as her assailant. (John Frangias was the manager of the hotel.)
John Frangias grabbed her by the hair, pulled it hard and started groping her breasts.
Then he raped her. The rape lasted approx. 15 minutes, the worst 15 minutes of Ann Doe's life.
Reliving the memory is still hellish. “It takes you right back to those moments. I can feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it … when I talk about it,” says Ann Doe, her voice cracking. “When he left, I was numb,” says Doe. “Like a zombie, I got into the shower and scrubbed every inch of my body to get the stench off.”
Ann Doe's flight back to Toronto was early next morning and initially she tried to forget anything had ever happened. But when Doe landed back in Toronto she confided in a best friend what had happened and they persuaded her to go to the police.
She did, the same day.
Durham police sent her to the hospital where it was established that she had been violently raped. Confirmed evidence of it. Within days, she gave video testimony and everything was passed on to investigators in Houston.
Then the investigation stopped. Houston police were apparently doing nothing.
Meanwhile Doe stopped travelling and she rarely left the house. She was a mental wreck.
Eventually Doe bumped into Shari MacKay. Their kids went to the same daycare together. Their kids wanted a play date and sometime in February 2009, MacKay brought her kids to Doe’s home.Their children became friends, so did the two women. But it still took another couple of months for Ann Doe to confide in MacKay. “I just wanted an insight into how investigations work,” says Doe. She was concerned why the case was going so slow and there was no response from the Houston police.
When MacKay heard her story, she instantly knew what had happened. Houston police weren't taking the rape incident seriously. A hotel manager rapist was raping tourists (possibly more than 1) and getting away with it. The local police weren't even given the case the time of day.
The next day, MacKay called up the investigators in Houston and was shocked to hear that they hadn’t even gone to the scene and had classified the complaint as “he said, she said. It blew my mind,” says MacKay.
“I was also politely told it wasn’t my jurisdiction.”
So yeah. Houston police are apparently patriarchal bastards who don't take rape seriously.
But MacKay wasn’t about to give up. She wrote dozens of letters to the chief of police, the mayor, the District Attorney’s office. The investigation started again and Doe was asked to come down to Houston. MacKay accompanied her.
“Shari was like a pit bull,” says Doe. “She wouldn’t let go.”
(Again, you go girl!!!)
“Houston cops resisted her … she didn’t let it deter her. I wish we had more police officers like Shari here,” says Alexis Bruegger, assistant DA in Houston.
“He [Frangias] was horrible,” says MacKay. “He had an elaborate story … that [Doe] was impaired and had fallen outside the hotel. The jury didn’t believe him.”
Eventually justice was served to John Frangias, 8 years at the Texas State Penitentiary.
That is simply proof that truth, justice and karma always win in the end.
We KNOW there are rapists out there who have yet to be caught, but they're living in rotting shells of a life. Karma catches up to everyone eventually.
The Truth about Father's Day
The third Sunday of June is Father's Day, a day on which we children celebrate our father's, give thanks to them and remind them how much we care about them.
The first observance of Father's Day actually took place in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. It was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier in Monongah, West Virginia.
Since then the idea has caught on globally and it is now a tribute to quality dad's around the world.
And a burning admonishment of those father's who were never there, are now sitting at home lonely and wondering what they did wrong. Or maybe they know what they did wrong and now feel guilty, but either haven't apologized or their apology wasn't considered sincere enough.
Regardless...
What I really to talk about is MY FATHER. Donald or Don MacNevin.
My father was always sort of quiet and reserved, although he did like to talk sometimes and would not stop talking when he really got going. I take after him in that way.
He was traditional in many ways, but he was always supportive of everything I did.
He didn't treat me like a girl. Or a boy either. He treated me like a person. He valued my opinion, especially when it came to clothing. He just didn't seem to have a knack for matching ties to the clothing he was wearing.
Today, even though I am in England and he is over in Canada, I will be phoning him via Skype and it will be the first time he has ever used the device. To him these new fangled technologies are nothing more than a modern miracle and the idea that he can phone his daughter over the internet, across the Atlantic Ocean and see her via a webcam is like Moses parting the Red Sea.
I love my father. I think he is one of the best dad's in the world. Oh sure, he makes mistakes but they're honest mistakes. He's a meat and potatoes, salt of the earth, honest to a fault sort of guy. And he's my dad and I will always be proud of him.
So if you get a chance say so. Lift up your wine glass, beer can, coca-cola or whatever you have handy and give thanks to a parent who was always there, always supportive, always loved you and you loved them back through thick and thin.
Yours Truthfully,
Suzanne MacNevin
Father's Day 2011
The first observance of Father's Day actually took place in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. It was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier in Monongah, West Virginia.
Since then the idea has caught on globally and it is now a tribute to quality dad's around the world.
And a burning admonishment of those father's who were never there, are now sitting at home lonely and wondering what they did wrong. Or maybe they know what they did wrong and now feel guilty, but either haven't apologized or their apology wasn't considered sincere enough.
Regardless...
What I really to talk about is MY FATHER. Donald or Don MacNevin.
My father was always sort of quiet and reserved, although he did like to talk sometimes and would not stop talking when he really got going. I take after him in that way.
He was traditional in many ways, but he was always supportive of everything I did.
He didn't treat me like a girl. Or a boy either. He treated me like a person. He valued my opinion, especially when it came to clothing. He just didn't seem to have a knack for matching ties to the clothing he was wearing.
Today, even though I am in England and he is over in Canada, I will be phoning him via Skype and it will be the first time he has ever used the device. To him these new fangled technologies are nothing more than a modern miracle and the idea that he can phone his daughter over the internet, across the Atlantic Ocean and see her via a webcam is like Moses parting the Red Sea.
I love my father. I think he is one of the best dad's in the world. Oh sure, he makes mistakes but they're honest mistakes. He's a meat and potatoes, salt of the earth, honest to a fault sort of guy. And he's my dad and I will always be proud of him.
So if you get a chance say so. Lift up your wine glass, beer can, coca-cola or whatever you have handy and give thanks to a parent who was always there, always supportive, always loved you and you loved them back through thick and thin.
Yours Truthfully,
Suzanne MacNevin
Father's Day 2011
150 years until equal representation
POLITICS - After the May elections for local governments in England the representation of women in local government remains stagnant and shockingly low. At the current rate of change we face another 150 years before women have an equal say in government, according to a new report.
The Centre for Women and Democracy report says political parties are key to getting more women into town halls.
‘Representative Democracy? Women in the 2011 Local Government Elections in England’ examines the elections held in May 2011 and found:
1. There was a net increase across over 3,500 seats of just 20 women councillors.
2. At the present rate, it will be more than 150 years before there are equal numbers of men and women elected to English local councils.
3. There were 318 wards where all the main three party candidates were male, 14 times as many as the 22 wards where all candidates were female.
Nan Sloane, report author and Director of the Centre for Women and Democracy, says:
Anna Bird, Acting Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society says:
The Centre for Women and Democracy report says political parties are key to getting more women into town halls.
‘Representative Democracy? Women in the 2011 Local Government Elections in England’ examines the elections held in May 2011 and found:
1. There was a net increase across over 3,500 seats of just 20 women councillors.
2. At the present rate, it will be more than 150 years before there are equal numbers of men and women elected to English local councils.
3. There were 318 wards where all the main three party candidates were male, 14 times as many as the 22 wards where all candidates were female.
Nan Sloane, report author and Director of the Centre for Women and Democracy, says:
“Only 31 per cent of councillors are women, and this isn’t improving. If the annual increase in women councillors stays as it is – just 20 across the sample of 3,500 seats we looked at – it will be many generations before women have an equal voice in local decision-making. This is shocking, and goes against all the rhetoric that we hear so often about the need for more women in public life."
“Since over 90 per cent of councillors belong to one of the big three parties, their candidate recruitment processes are key. But we also think that it’s astonishing that nobody has responsibility for the diversity of democracy nationally, and we shall be taking steps to ask government, the Electoral Commission and elections officers to do this, both in terms of providing support for the identification and training of candidates through a Democracy Diversity Fund, and by monitoring who is standing for election in the first place."
“In a genuinely representative democracy women would not be regarded as an added extra. They’re 51 per cent of the population, they’re more likely to be both the users and the providers - as employees - of local services, and they pay equal taxes. It’s high time they were equally represented."
Anna Bird, Acting Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society says:
“Nearly a century on from winning the vote, women remain outsiders in the corridors of power. We are underrepresented in town halls across the country and in Westminster – where men outnumber women 4 to 1."
“This report should act as a wake-up call for those who think business as usual will deliver the step change in women’s representation we so urgently need. Wishing and hoping isn’t working, it’s time we took a new approach."
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