SHATTERED

The chilling true story of an ordinary wife, mother, and hospice nurse who was raped and abducted by a stranger who had already killed her husband.

Sharp begins her story in April 1998, on the Monday afternoon she decided to plant roses outside her dream house before leaving to work the night shift at the hospice. The house was in Newark, Delaware, and Sharp and husband Nino were soon to celebrate 25 years of happy and fulfilling matrimony. As Sharp ponders all the what-ifs of that day—if it had rained, or if she had gone shopping—she recalls how her husband came home at 3 p.m. and went inside for a nap. Her roses planted, Sharp headed through the garage and into the kitchen, where someone hit her hard, her glasses fell off, and she fell to the floor. The next moment her assailant took her to the basement, raped her, then held a knife to her throat, tied her up, wrapped her in a quilt, and carried her to his car. In his home, more rapes followed, and she was kept gagged, blindfolded, and hogtied. On Tuesday evening, when her attacker switched on the radio, Sharp learned that Nino was dead and she was a suspect. She managed to escape when her captor left on Friday night for work, and the remainder of the narrative details her emotional and physical recovery, public and family reactions to her plight, and the trial itself. It was a daunting and emotionally fraught experience; the defense attorney tried to find inconsistencies in her story and even suggested that the accused was kind when he gave her water to drink. Though it took time and help, Sharp put her life back together, though like most crime victims, she cannot completely forget.

Riveting and disturbing.