Caitlin Van Mol 0:00
This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Now

Keith Smith 0:07
I have no idea what's going on. And it's just turned violent. And I can't get out of his car.

Caitlin Van Mol 0:16
Normally, this is where I tell you where someone grew up and about their early life. But Keith Smith can tell you himself.

Keith Smith 0:24
So Caitlin, I grew up in Lincoln, Rhode Island, which is just north of Providence, and six miles from the Massachusetts border. I have two older brothers, two younger sisters,

Caitlin Van Mol 0:35
and a younger brother, big family.

Keith Smith 0:39
Yeah, there was six of us, but we would literally walk down the street to pick up our friends, you know, so that we each of us could walk to school at the same time. But you come home from school, you would do your homework. You go out for a couple of hours and everybody go home for five o'clock dinner, everybody. And it's 630 We're back on the street until the streetlights came on.

Caitlin Van Mol 0:58
Of course, being from the northeast, Keith played hockey. I

Keith Smith 1:03
was in a league 14 to 18 year old kids. I was 14 as a defense. Not because I was big. In fact, I was tiny was probably 510 I know for a fact that weighed 110. That's the only reason I was a defenseman. I could skate better back, skate backwards better than most of the other guys. But I loved it. It was spectacular. And I was coached by some fantastic men. It's the asta guy and Mr. Richards and Mr. Richards on the barbershop and it was March 1 1974. I went to Mr. Richards barbershop with all my other skating buddies hockey players. For team meeting, I hitchhiked home. I'm pretty sure my parents probably thought another parent gave me a ride home. I'm 14 years old. I don't want to bother anybody. I never asked anybody else for a ride home. Just didn't do it. And a car pulls over to purple. AMC Gremlin with a white stripe, a big white stripe down the side of it. It was by far the second ugliest car ever manufactured by AMC American Motors company. The first ugliest car was the AMC Pacer. Google them take a look. And as a as the guy the guy pulls over, the passenger door opens. I didn't have to open it. He opened. I get in. I close the door. And I tell them to I'm going to Hartley's pork pies. Hartley's

Caitlin Van Mol 2:27
pork pies was and still is a locally famous restaurant. I

Keith Smith 2:33
tell this knucklehead and I'm gonna get off at Hartley's pork pies. He drives right past. That's okay. I'm not panicking, because maybe he doesn't know where it is. There's a fire station, maybe 100 yards, a football field length away. And I said I'll get out of the fire station. And he goes right past it.

Caitlin Van Mol 2:51
And is he saying anything at this time?

Keith Smith 2:53
He didn't say anything after I got in the car told the public Popeyes fires me at the fire station. He says nothing. And at that point, I know something's not right.

Caitlin Van Mol 3:05
This is live to tell the podcast where I talk to some of the bravest people who have been through the most horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin van mol the man was still driving silently away from where Keith wanted to be dropped off.

Keith Smith 3:28
I tell him if I don't get home soon, people will be looking for me. He says nothing. At that time. My oldest brother was a civilian employee of the FBI in Washington DC. So the thought in his 14 year old boy's head is I've been picked up for a reason. You know, take me somewhere maybe slap me around a little bit. Make me walk home with a message from my brother.

Caitlin Van Mol 3:54
While Keith was trying to figure out what this man was up to. He was also doing everything he could to remember details he could give to the police later he

Keith Smith 4:04
had white seats and fake leather white seats and AMC to the best of my ability with my right hand I started scratching the right side of his of the passenger seat just leave marks there. I'm looking at the inspection sticker on the lower right hand side of the windshield on the passenger side of the car. So the license plate number is written in a match art you know shopping. P y 879. If I told you I say that 100 times I'm not exaggerating, and I'm under estimating it by a factor of probably three or four there's no conversation in the car other than me in my head going pee whites have a nine P Why 879 while repeating

Caitlin Van Mol 4:43
P Why 879 over and over to himself. He was also trying to figure out a way out of this car.

Keith Smith 4:52
As he passes the fire station. He goes to take a right and a corner where there's a bar there called car units, the current ends were friends, my dad. So I figured out roll out of this guy's car when it's a 90 degree intersection. He's got to slow down. As soon as he slows down, open the door, I'll roll into the parking lot. I'll run into cartons. And this is going to be over. So as he makes that 90 degree turn off of Smithfield and you want to craft in the street, I already had my hand on the door handle, a Yank on the door handle, put my shoulder into it like a hockey check, put my shoulder into the door and the door doesn't open. And the site the left side of my face explodes. Because he, with his right hand on the steering wheel, he reached out over his left hand and punched me in the side of the face. And told me Don't do that again.

Caitlin Van Mol 5:45
When the man picked Keith up, he had opened the door for him. Keith hadn't seen the man lock the door from the inside.

Keith Smith 5:52
I don't think he could do this anymore. But back in the 70s, the lock on a car door with a window goes down into the frame, the locks, they're right. Back then, there was a screw that came from through the door up to that frame where the window goes down, there's a screw. And the lock was just a cap that you screwed on. So what this guy did was he unscrewed that cap. And when he opened the door, he pushed it down. So when I closed the door, the door was locked. And there's no way to pull anything up. So he had rigged the car so that once somebody was in it, they weren't getting out. But

Caitlin Van Mol 6:34
Keith was totally unaware of this at the time. He was just a 14 year old boy trapped in a car with a stranger. But he knew his town very well and didn't stop looking for opportunities for escape. We take

Keith Smith 6:49
a right we're gonna head down past Lincoln downs, which at the time was a thoroughbred racetrack. I know where I am. The road that the racetrack is on is also a Rhode Island State Police barracks design. I'm like, this is fantastic. And I'm waiting for a cop to pull up behind us because of the cop pulls up behind us. In my mind, I'm going to grab the steering wheel of this guy's car, pull as hard as I can create a commotion to cops.

Caitlin Van Mol 7:17
But there were no cop cars in sight. And now they were heading towards Lincoln woods.

Keith Smith 7:23
I'm looking at the passenger side door rearview mirror, not a headlight. Like it would just close at dusk. You don't want anybody in there. So the next spot on this road is one of the entrances to Lincoln woods. And I said to myself in my head, if he pulls into the woods, he'll kill me. Why else would you pull into the woods. He takes the left he takes another left into the woods. I'm like on a gravel road. And it's pitch black, I can see nothing. And he got out of the driver's side. And this is good. I'm in the car. He's out of the car. So I lean forward over to the driver's seat, because I'm gonna get out his door. Because he just opened the door from the inside my door doesn't. But as quick as I could think about that I needed him to be far enough away from the driver's side. So if I get out, he couldn't get me. So he's like now in front of the passenger side where the headlights would be. I start going for the driver's door, the passenger door opens. He grabs me by my legs and pulls me through and puts a belt around my neck and drags me out of the car and raped me. Next question.

Caitlin Van Mol 8:41
After the assault, does he just get back in the car?

Keith Smith 8:47
He's still saying that. Whenever I told you said nothing, he was saying nothing. Then he went back to the car. Oh, still out standing outside of the car. I'm in the woods. And I have no explanation for this. But he didn't kill me. Although I thought multiple I thought a couple of times. No one wants to acknowledge that they might be killed. What I did I say to myself was if I live through this, he will pay it's amazing how the brain works. I knew there was a possibility I might be killed and left in the woods. But something inside you says it's not going to happen and you're going to live so he gets back in the car. I'm Alize I have no explanation for this. I get back in the car. What more can you do to me?

Caitlin Van Mol 9:42
The man started to drive making left's and rights that Keith could track the entire way. And

Keith Smith 9:48
he drops me off historical Cody's meat market. It's eight o'clock nine o'clock at night now. I got out of the car. He got out of the car just like he did in the woods. He opens up My door and I'm not getting out because he's out. You can unlock the door, but I'm staying in the car. And when he is standing in front of like the headlight on the driver's side of the car, he's as far away from me. So he's gonna get, I opened the door and I get out. And I look at him, he gets in his car, not seeing a word. And I realized that it's time for me to go. When you pull it to a parking lot, sometimes you see those cement things are about four inches high. I looked at one of those cement things was broken into pieces piece at the end broken. It was bigger than a softball. So I picked it up, went to the back to his car. And I threw it against the window, rear window of his car with no intent other than a scan, I'm afraid or violent.

Caitlin Van Mol 10:45
Then he ran the most direct path home was to cross the street and cut through a bowling alleys parking lot.

Keith Smith 10:54
I don't know why I didn't run into the bowling alley for help. I didn't. I ran up the hill behind the bowling alley. It's March 1 grounds frozen I fall into a pretty hot tumble, right? So I'm running I'm scared I couldn't before cut my face, banged up my hands. He

Caitlin Van Mol 11:09
ran past all the houses of his friends, Greg Randall, Ricky Flaxington, Mark Katelyn, even though he would be safe in any of these homes. He didn't want to stop at anyone's house, but his own. All

Keith Smith 11:22
they wanted to do was get on. A car comes when we're when we're back streets off of Main Street. And I'm convinced it's the guy. And he's going to come back to kill me. So I hid under a car. I dove underneath the car and stayed. And I can see the headlights coming. And it dawns on me if it is him. I'm stuck because I can't get out from underneath this car. And the headlights roll right past me. We keep going. And when I think he's far enough, I think whoever is in that car is far enough away. I get up. I make it a couple more blocks. I'm running. I'm terrified. Then I make it home. And I collapse on the stairs. Because I'm home. I'm safe. And my brother Brian, the civilian employee, the FBI is on the phone. He was visiting that very weekend. And my brother Brian sees me and he instinctively I'm crying. I'm dirty, but physically dirty. And he comes to me and picks me up like in a fireman's carry and yells, Dad, come here. My father comes out of the den. I didn't know it was near tears of my mother and my two sisters were in. Caitlin. I wasn't in the house for 60 seconds to get me into the car. And we go to the Lincoln police department to help. See you

Caitlin Van Mol 12:37
you didn't even have time to tell your dad and brother what happened.

Keith Smith 12:44
We talked about when I was willing to say I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. I'm guilty, right? I'm embarrassed. I'm a 14 year old boy. I was raped by a guy. I'm ashamed of that. And I'm guilty because I was hitchhiking. That's not why I'm guilty. I was hitchhiking. And when I got in trouble, the 14 year old 110 pound guy didn't fight hard enough. That's why I was guilty. I want to say that the distance between my parents house the house I grew up in and the police station was probably five minutes. And I'll tell you it for the first four minutes. I was nothing but crying in the backseat. So there wasn't a conversation. You get into the police station. My father says something a cop takes us into the station takes us downstairs in the wake of police department at the lowest level. And they put me in a room. A detective comes in. I'm sure my dad and my brother. Were there for a couple of minutes. But then a detective came in. And they were told to leave. And I you know, in hindsight, I think it's because they want that victim to feel free to say things to a stranger in law enforcement that you wouldn't want to say in front of people, you know, a lot. I didn't know that at the time. All I know is I'm in a room with somebody I don't know, in the basement of a police station. Am I only saving as my brother and my dad are on the other side of that door? My dad's helping me my brothers helping me. We go to the police department of cost. My dad knows the cops. Of course they're going to help me He's a detective. He's going to help me. I pour out my soul. Everything that happened. He's quietly listening, not seeing a thing. And when I'm done telling my story, he starts with Do you know this guy? No. You've never seen this guy before? No. Are you sure you've never seen this guy before? And now I'm like I thought this cop was going to help me. Now he's aggressively questioning whether or not stranger How do you know so much about his car? How do you know so much about what he looks like? I could tell this cop the clothes he was wearing the length of the sideburns on the side of his head. Yeah, people had sideburns and they can 74 the color of his car his license plate number you know If I told the cop he was left handed cops How would you know? Because he punched me in the face with his left hand. Like literally reached right. He didn't give me a backhand. Keith

Caitlin Van Mol 15:09
told the detective the license plate number of the ugly purple Gremlin

Keith Smith 15:14
there's a on the door cop comes in hands Mike the text of a piece of paper. And the license plate says Py 879 It's got the guy's name. So not only was my guy arrested for, quote, unnatural sex acts and booked in January 1967. He was arrested for molesting a child in 1973 into time for it. And he was arrested for the interstate distribution of pornography. This son of a bitch got released in November, December, January, February. Three months later, he's cruising lincoln rhode island in his car looking for boys. But the cops demeanor and his attitude switched 180 degrees. And he leans into me. He leaned across toward me. And he said you did a good job. Keith, you did a good job.

Caitlin Van Mol 16:05
After that night at the police station, Keith didn't tell anyone what happened. Not even his other siblings,

Keith Smith 16:12
other than my brother and my dad, no one knew that night. When we get to the police station and a couple of cops knew. I kept my mouth shut. Again. I was embarrassed, ashamed and guilty. So I went to school a couple of days later, I'm not telling my friends, I'm embarrassed, I'm shooting. I'm guilty. They're gonna tell my teachers. You think next Saturday, next Friday, when I go to my hockey coaches, barber shop for my coaching session. I'm going to mention it to my friends. Hell no.

Caitlin Van Mol 16:38
So Keith tried to live his life as regularly as possible with a few irregular disturbances.

Keith Smith 16:47
I'm in school. Somebody comes in talks to the teacher and a teacher says Keith. I go up and she goes, You need to go to Mr. Brown's office. Mr. Broad was the principal. And as I walk into the principal's office, there's two uniformed cops there. It's an you need to come with us. Like I'm not going anywhere to my dad shows up. My dad shows up, go to the police station, they go into a room. And they lay out 15 photographs. They didn't lay him out, Caitlin they gave them to me in a stack. I laid them out. So they said to me, can you identify the guy, and I'm going through this thing just like a deck of cards, just give me seven or whatever I said some of the vitamins were going through and I take his picture and I drop it over there and go through the rest of them. And that's him. I never felt more proud. The

Caitlin Van Mol 17:32
man's name was Ron Coleman. While waiting for the case to go to trial, and without any outlet to talk about what happened. All the internalized feelings were eating at Keith,

Keith Smith 17:46
when I became an angry kid. angry, really angry. I didn't act out Zoli ternal but I was angry. And my head was on a swivel doctor told me I was hyper vigilant. And I would walk in and scan the room. I could immediately assess who might be a threatened, terrible way to live. But it was gonna keep me alive. So I did everything I normally would do right I went fishing in the pond across the street. I continued to play hockey, hanging out with my friends. But I was always aware. My world changed because my innocent life as a 14 year old boy pre March 1 in his bucolic little town became a place of random sexual violence, spontaneous danger. And I don't I didn't like wake up and want to do that. I woke up and it was just part of me now. Right? So that's how I lived. Three

Caitlin Van Mol 18:45
months after the attack. Keith was called to testify in front of a grand jury.

Keith Smith 18:50
We go to the grand jury. My dad's with me. A detective is with me, the Detective Chief of Detectives going in? Can I get a crew? Like a gun carrying cops? I got my dad, I got another guy. So I'm like, I'm surrounded. I got entourage. I'm going in. And I'm terrified. I don't know what all I know is I gotta go to court tell me story. But I'm okay because I got my back. And they opened those big wooden, beautiful mahogany doors are open doors, they opened up the doors, and there's a room and there's a guy at a podium and a bunch of people sitting down and I walk right in because I'm gonna do it. I'm sending the son of a bitch to jail. He's got to pay if I lived in Michigan to pay. And I go in and I hear the doors closed behind me. I turn around the detective and the other guy out there. myself. I've just been abandoned. So but I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And the prosecutor has got me at a podium. And he he's telling me what the process is right? He says Keith, you just we just are going to ask you a couple of questions. We want you to tell your stories and be truthful. Remember But I'm saying Be truthful, because I'm sitting here going, they didn't believe me originally. Like, that's okay. Because they believe me at the end, right? So this guy, I'm gonna, I've got nothing. My story is so vivid and so engrained in my head. I've got, I can do this. And I get up there, and I start telling my story. The whole grand jury in the mind of a 14 year old, they were blue haired old ladies, and maybe two or three minutes into my story, they're crying. It's all mine. I finish a couple of minutes into it. I don't remember the questions. I'm sure they asked me. The prosecutor asked couple of questions. I answered them. He thanked me, I walked out. I'm shaking. It was one of the worst moments ever. Because I had to read. And I had to, and I knew, I knew, I knew I knew I knew that based on what I said he was either going to be held accountable or not. It's all on me to put this guy away. He was indicted.

Caitlin Van Mol 21:05
Ron Coleman's trial was moved back, then back again. This part of the story obviously wasn't in any news articles. It's what Keith has pieced together over the years from people in his town. Well, it turns out I told you it was

Keith Smith 21:19
distributed for pornography. And President Nixon's commission on pornography, Google, it was crack trying to crack down the distribution of pornography. So the cops kept the guy on the street, to press him the information up the chain. And it turns out, Caitlin was down between the cops, some people who were earning that this guy was earning four, and men in my town, guys who love me and knew myself. And as long as this guy stayed out a lincoln rhode island did wait for his truck. In the meantime, the cops are pressing him to see who he's working for, because they had a much bigger case. And these aren't Lincoln cops. They don't even probably State Police in 1974 I keep going back to it, but Nixon's commission on pornography was on the news. I mean, it was, it was big. So I'm sure I don't know for a fact but in my heart, I believe the Feds were involved with this. So

Caitlin Van Mol 22:19
the cops wanted Coleman to stay out of jail so he could maybe lead them to higher ups in this porn distribution ring. The porn distributors wanted Coleman to stay out of jail to keep making money for them. The men in lincoln rhode island just wanted him to stay out of city limits. All Coleman had to do was stay out of town. He could be near town, he could be just outside of town. But coming into town wasn't going to be tolerated.

Keith Smith 22:51
I'm driving my bike riding my bike, my little orange 10 speed down Smithfield Avenue, and he drives by me one day, going in the same direction is unmistakable car, but more so than the car. It's purple with a white stripe. But what I saw was the license plate p y Eight, seven, I stopped my bike. Do I go home? Or that? Or do I go to see this other guy. And this other guy was much closer to me physically. And he was a friend of the family, right? I go to his shop, and I'm shaking. He takes me to a curtain. He pushes the curtain back. And there are two guys sitting at a table with three handguns on the table. And that didn't shock me. And I sat down. And I never felt safer. And I don't know what to do buying guns or selling guns. They were just there's no having a conversation. Everybody's gun was out. Bottom line was the guy who just raped me a while ago just drove right past me on a street in my town.

Caitlin Van Mol 23:51
Kids family friend took him for a ride around the neighborhood. I

Keith Smith 23:56
think he's looking for the going. He probably was but he was also making sure I knew the guy wasn't in the neighborhood. And he pulls up to my parents house with a white picket fence. I get out of his car. He calls me over the windows down in his car. He reaches over he puts his hand on top of my head. And he says it's going to be okay. bambino. It's going to be okay.

Caitlin Van Mol 24:18
So to recap, so he

Keith Smith 24:20
was arrested. I picked him out in the photo lineup. I go to a grand jury. He's indicted. Trial dates are set trial needs to postpone trial dates postponed. I see him on the street. Three weeks later, he was murdered.

Caitlin Van Mol 24:35
On August 18 1975, Keith woke up like any other morning

Keith Smith 24:40
was just a regular day. I'm sitting at the kitchen table. So the phone rings My mommy says buddy, it's the police. No big deal. My dad goes to the phone. I hear him. This is it. He says one word. He says hello. And he hangs up the phone. My dad hands me a $10 bill and tells me that Cumberland Farms was like the original 711 in New England. So he says go to Cumberland Farms. Get me Dutch masters cigars. That's what he smoked. And the Providence Journal is tuned Caitlin's only two newspapers in Rhode Island, the Providence Journal, the Republican paper, and the pocket times the Democrat paper. The dump truck at times is the only newspaper allowed my house. I actually said to him, do you mean to protect at times, get me the journal. So jump on that same orange 10 speed bike, I ride over to Cumberland Farms. I walk in, I get the Providence Journal. There's gotta be something in that. I thumbed through. And here's the story. Here's the headline. I can't get out of my head like his license plate. This guy lives in the next town Central Falls. It's called CF for Central Florida. It says CF man 29. Beaten to death in Providence. You could warm you're just one of those. Because I was a melting piece of nothing. I was because I'm reading his name. He's dead. Like, beating man. What's in the newsroom? Ronald Thomas Coleman of 66. Washington Street and Central Falls. And I'm reading that's him. That's okay. I'm overwhelmed. I can't even explain the emotion. Happy, sad, anxious, angry. And right across the street from the Cumberland Farms is luxury carwash. And out of the carwash is a guy I know. So I immediately just huddled my bike across the street. He puts his window down. I'm crying, I'm shaking. And I said to him, he's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He said to be 15 words I'll never ever forget. Don't say anything to anybody. There were a lot of people looking for that. I didn't say was

Caitlin Van Mol 27:02
the Providence Journal wrote at the time that Ronald T Coleman was found outside a liquor store, lying unconscious in the street shortly before 3am. He had been beaten and had severe head injuries and a broken leg. Police were called to the scene when the liquor store alarm was set off, apparently by a rock being thrown through a window. Nothing had been taken from the store. Do you think how the story played out for your attacker was justice?

Keith Smith 27:35
I do? I do. So, you know, I had to figure out why me. And I used 20 years ago, probably 25 years ago, I came to the answer. And I need to believe this because it helps me deal with why me. This guy had been arrested, as I mentioned in 60s 67 and 73. And then again 74 with me. When you advance to the point where you're arrested, arrested, and you've done time, you've done it multiple multiple times, you never got caught. So I'm guessing he might have had dozens of victims. Okay. I'm not trying to be a martyr. It's not my role. But I believe that what happened to me, had to happen to me, because he died at the hands of people who knew me because of what he did to me. They never did it again to anybody else. It's justice. I talked about the sit down, which I know occurred between people he was earning for some cops, and some people who had my best interests at heart. So this isn't vigilante justice. There was an agreement reached. But then he came into my town. And he broke all the rules. So the agreement in the sit down was violated. And he had to die.

Caitlin Van Mol 29:00
And is that also how you know but don't know how or who killed him?

Keith Smith 29:10
So in my heart, I know who killed in my heart. I've never been told who did it. I think there were a couple of guys involved at the scene. When this guy's life came to an end. One of the newspapers wrote the at the scene, they recovered three pieces of evidence. A broken wrist watch the heel of a man shoe, and the leather belt. I was dragged out of a car with a belt around my neck. Nobody knew that. Except the cops. I told my dad. Now my dad told other people leaves a belt at a mercy. The only way a man's leather belt is left at the mercy. It had to be by somebody who knew I was dragged out of a car with a belt around my neck. I don't know who did it. I'm never going to ask. But that belt tells me it was somebody close to me. And I'm glad they left the belt.

Caitlin Van Mol 30:14
After that, it was just over. There was no court, no real investigation into Coleman's death. According to Keith, it was unofficially considered a public service homicide. And that was that. Unfortunately, Keith had a whole other set of problems to focus on. One thing that always strikes me from a lot of these stories is once a bad thing happens to you, you are not exempt from other bad things happening to you. Yeah,

Keith Smith 30:43
Caitlin, I I'm so glad that we have the whole opportunity to talk about what but I'm really, really glad you brought up the house. Yeah. I told you I played hockey. played hockey in the summer, 14 years old. 110 pounds defenseman against guys, will you 20 pounds a six foot two. I'm black and blue. September comes, it's time to go to school. So go to see Dr. Hannah, the family doctor. And he draws blood. I go about my business the next couple of days. Just like when the cops came to the school. I'm playing hockey. They stopped. Practice with a game. Mr. Richards the coach. Smitty come in. I skate over. Guess what? Two cops that same time. They're like, You need to get off the ice. There's an ambulance coming for you. I'm not going anywhere. Until my dad.

Caitlin Van Mol 31:41
Yeah. But of course, you must have thought it was something to do. I

Keith Smith 31:45
had no idea. It was like a year later. Right? My dad shows up, put me in an ambulance to take me to a hospital. They put me in a tent pediatric intensive care. They literally strapped me to a bed strapped me to a bed, we stick a needle in my hips and they start extracting bone marrow. It was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt because you can't and that's the size in the interior of a bone. It's all pressure. So he stuck a bone marrow to both backs my hips that keep me in intensive care. They move me out of intensive care. A day or two later, my mom shows up to the intensive care room where I was supposed to be staying the beds made, she breaks down she thinks I'm dead. Obviously I'm not dead. So I have a disease called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, it is an autoimmune disease. Because red cells, white cells and platelets, platelets make your blood clot. My immune system recognizes my platelets as foreign as bad and my immune system destroys them. So ITP I don't want to say it's common, but it's out there. And typically it's in young women. It's in women having a child. It's rare that if the boy gets it, it's rare that it sticks around. If it sticks around for a while, they pull out your spleen because typically your spleen is distressed flings a filter. It's tough as your blood runs through it, you spleens typically defective it's destroying and platelets pull my spleen out. That's not it. In the meantime, they're running tests for leukemia, all kinds of cancers. And I had my 50th birthday in the hospital October 7, my friends came was a blast. For years I have been through literally a dozen 12 surgeries. You're not looking at me, right. But I've been I've worked like 12 times, missing a spleen or gallbladder. Living

Caitlin Van Mol 33:29
with ITP means Keith gets blood tests every month if his platelet counts are good. And every week if they start to decline, and if they get really low, I literally have

Keith Smith 33:40
permission to call the Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island and tell them I'm coming. I call my doctor's office neither day and they admit me over the phone. So when I walk in, they're ready for me. Because your platelet count is that low, single digits, you run the risk of a spontaneous brain hemorrhage. You can bleed in a number of places really a brain drain, you're gonna bleed your lungs, you're bleeding your kidneys. You don't have platelets to stop. So you just gotta beat to death.

Caitlin Van Mol 34:15
years past, he has had a successful career in finance, managed his ITP raise two daughters and didn't talk to anyone about what happened to him that day. He hitchhiked home, went

Keith Smith 34:29
to Providence College in Providence. And I remember in my sleep reliving, not the night, not the hitchhiking, not the not the actual rape, the run home, I'm reliving and my sleep and I get a job in New York, Dallas, Chicago, what's in London and worked in Zurich. Back to me, as the years was a dream of mine to be my perception of the run home. Kept becoming more and more frequent. So now I'm back in Jersey working in the city. I went to bed. And I woke up in my closet with the closet doors busted on top. I don't remember how I ended up in the closet, there's doors busted on top. I do. I was having that flashback that was running home. I leapt out of bed and I ran to the closet. Those are the first time I left out a bed in my sleep and ran. I said that's it, I need help. I talked to a couple of people a couple of therapists before deciding on this one doctor, and he was fantastic for me. And I know that people go to sometimes people go to therapy because they really need help. And they want help. And they're open to help they come across a therapist. It's not necessarily right for them. And they go through it a couple of times and they feel that therapy's not the right thing. It's not working. I just I would encourage folks, if you feel that you need therapy you do, you're gonna work your hardest to find a therapist that's really going to help. And then after about a year I stopped because I'm under control I can control. During COVID I was back in therapy. in lower Manhattan, one block was downtown one block off a wall street with a female therapist, and she was fantastic for me to.

Caitlin Van Mol 36:14
Keith also gotten involved with organizations that help survivors of sexual assault without telling them why this cause was so close to him. The

Keith Smith 36:25
beautiful, beautiful woman Evelyn Gill, Evelyn created an agency called Prevention Education, Inc, Evelyn, and eliminate Martina Davidson, a couple of other women put a program together in a Trenton YMCA to counsel female victims of rape was incredible. And then they grew it to a crisis intervention counseling program. For everybody over the age of three. I told Evelyn, I told her I wanted to support her agency. And I asked if I could come talk to her about the work she does because she was willing to throw bucks away. So we had a nice conversation. And I never told her and I was put on the board for a total of 16 years. If the six of those years, I was president of the Board of Trustees. And we had a wonderful, beautiful woman named Dr. Juanita Brooks, who was responsible for crisis intervention. Counseling. Evelyn was the executive director, Dr. Brooks was the clinician,

Caitlin Van Mol 37:28
then one day, something just changed. And Keith didn't want his assault to be a secret anymore.

Keith Smith 37:35
I left one of my therapy sessions and I went straight to them. This is like a year into therapy. I went straight to them and I need to disclose them. I go in to see everyone unannounced. I want to talk to you. I go wait, I should close the door. And I told them I said I was abducted, beaten and raped by a guy when I was 14 in Lincoln, Rhode Island. She looked at me and she said, We know. We both cried. Bottom line was because of my involvement. She knew, like you know, you don't you don't do this. And I said to her, but maybe it was somebody I know she's Oh no, we knew. So I said to her who's we should meet and Juanita quickly ran out of office, we could pack the books and told her the same story. I mean, he's talking to hugging her offices, almost crying, because they knew they know. So, but that was 35 years after this. And I kept going. And when I went public, I went public in a big way.

Caitlin Van Mol 38:47
After being silent for decades, Keith decided to write it all out in a book.

Keith Smith 38:53
I wanted to get my story out to tell people if you've been through some kind of sexual trauma. And if you can speak about it, you don't have to. I waited 35 years. But if you can speak about it, do it. Because I know you're all afraid of what the outcome is going to be once you speak out. I only hope it was as understanding and loving and supportive as it was when I spoke. And I find that people and I've documented that I've spoken to more than 100 survivors of sexual abuse, assault and rape. And I tell you that 80 80% of them told me that when they did speak out later in life, that the people closest to them, understood him and loved him and supported them. And the other people forgive me they can go to hell.

Caitlin Van Mol 39:50
Keith's book Men in my town was published in March of 2009. About a year later, journalist John Baker heard about Keith's story and wanting to do an article about him for the potluck at times. Keith agreed. But before the article came out, he needed to talk to his family. After that night, when his dad and brother took him to the police station, they never spoke about it again. And even though the book had been out for months, some of his siblings were still completely unaware of what happened to him. Even though his sisters were home when Keith collapsed on his stairs after the attack,

Keith Smith 40:31
my mom and my sisters were in the den with my dad. So when they came out, my dad came out, my mom and my sister were still in debt. They didn't see me. When we when we came home, my mother said, what's going on? And my father said to her 1974, my father said to her, something happened to keep the war going to take care of this. And that was it. And I'd never had a conversation with my mother. As unbelievable as it sounds. We had never discussed it between 1974 and 2009. never discussed it. To my sisters, were totally unaware. I go into my parents house, and I told my mom, you know, I wrote a book. She said, Yeah, Caitlyn, she's actually said to me. We don't talk about it. And I said to my mom, we don't have to talk about it. I'm just going to tell you. It's on the front page of the packet times tomorrow. So all your friends,

Caitlin Van Mol 41:32
what did your siblings the other siblings? What was their reaction when they found out? And was that from the paper?

Keith Smith 41:38
Yeah. Oh, wow. I don't know if I get on the phone and talk to them. Or they called me like, my friends would call me. But much like I said this before, and I wish everybody who discloses what goes to the same experience. And I'm so sorry to say, I know it's not the case. But my two sisters, and my younger my younger brother's a complex time, right? The three of them were incredibly supportive, loving and standing, welcoming, and warm, because I'm somebody they love. And the reaction was spectacular. For me. I just wish it was for everybody.

Caitlin Van Mol 42:13
Keith knows that the circumstances of his assault, made it easier for him to be believed.

Keith Smith 42:19
And a lot of people aren't believe because when they disclose, it's years after the assault, and I understand why people don't disclose immediately. I had no choice that night, I was beaten. And I was raped. And it wasn't by an uncle and my hockey coach, or the guy down the street or a school teacher, by total stranger. And I said to myself, If I lived through this, you will pay. And I knew when I was out of his car, hiding under the car, hiding in the bushes, if I got home, I would walk to the police station myself, if nobody was going to take me.

Caitlin Van Mol 42:57
Do you think maybe because it was a stranger and not someone you knew and was someone in your community that made it easier to disclose? It

Keith Smith 43:09
was absolute. That's absolutely true. I had no idea who this guy was he was going to pay. And over the last 10 years, I speak publicly about my story. And I've met, I've literally had conversations with more than 100 victims of abuse. Almost all the time. 98 of them were abused by someone known to them or someone known to their family, and only one other guy was abused by a stranger. I wasn't good. It was a strange, it was a rare I tell folks my rape. It was a random act of spontaneous sexual violence. Almost everybody I've spoken with, was groomed. And they didn't see that violence. And I'll tell you why. If you're six or seven or eight years old boy or girl, and somebody is grooming you, and they're doing things to you, and they're telling you that this is how people show love. When you're six or seven or eight, that's what you believe. And then you're 910 or 11. And you go that's not right. And the number one reason they didn't tell anybody is because they felt complicit. I let it happen over and over and over again. It's my fault. And they've been told by the coroner, if you tell anybody, they're not going to believe you. So now what happens to the child feels complicit in their abuse. And they should never, anybody who's hearing this. I'm telling you don't. You're not complicit, you will manipulate it. But then they get the courage to disclose because they want to come into the heart that they live with. And they disclose to someone they trust. And most here, why are you lying? Why did you let it happen? Why would you say such a thing that didn't happen? Don't ever say that again. So you didn't disclose because you felt you're complicit. You get the strength to disclose and you're called a liar.

Caitlin Van Mol 45:09
But once Keith had disclosed his story, he was willing to tell it to anyone who would listen.

Keith Smith 45:15
I'm gonna speak of something called rain. Our ai n three.org stands for the rape, abuse, Incest National Network. And I speak for them when they have an event when they have a need to have someone go talk in the New York City area. So Oprah did a show called 200 men. I was on it. I was invited to participate in and I did. Anderson Cooper did a story after the Penn State sex abuse scandal in Cooper story is called Penn State state of shame. I was on that show, right been interviewed by the New York Times the Providence attack at times in Rhode Island. During

Caitlin Van Mol 45:49
all this time, Keith was in and out of the hospital dealing with ITP. After his platelets had dropped several times, Keith and his doctors finally found a correlation.

Keith Smith 46:03
We did a timeline of when I was in the hospital, and events in my life, raped in March, obviously very, very sick in the summer, hospitalized in September, I should have been hospitalized earlier. And then we started doing it when I was in hospital in Chicago. What was I doing? I mentioned that Oprah had 200 Guys in film two shows. Six weeks later, I was in the hospital. I never made a connection. I spoken publicly in a couple of events. And typically within a month or two, after a major event where I expose myself by doing these things. I'm hospitalized in the need of IVIG intravenous immunoglobulin to keep me alive. Wow. Now one of my doctors today, highly trained, brilliant woman has been studying to research is Md research PhD. And she's studying the effects of trauma and stress on autoimmune disease. I'm 99% sure that the trauma on March 1 did something to my body on a cellular level. You know what I got? I didn't catch a disease from this guy, right? It's not genetic. It's not hereditary. I can't pass it to anybody. I can't share it with anybody. It's just mine. And now 50 years later, I truly truly believe that my autoimmune disease is directly related to the stress from the trauma, which triggered something in my body that's wrong. And revisiting that stress, that stressor, or revisiting that trauma can sometimes reactivate my immune system to do something.

Caitlin Van Mol 47:53
After all he's been through. Keith has an incredible piece about his life, and what it would look like for it to end.

Keith Smith 48:02
It's my own personal moral belief. Your time's up, it's up. And I bleed out. I bleed out. If they try to keep me alive, the DNR states, these three things. Your brain, your heart, your lungs. Katie, my daughter knows any two of those three have gone. Let me go. If only one of them's gone, keep me around. There might be a chance. Yeah, right. So when I said I signed a DNR those are the rules. If my brains not functioning, and neither is my heart, but I can breathe, I'm gone. Let me go. If my brain is functioning, and I can't breathe, and my heart is not beating, let me get the idea. Right, any two of the three? Let me go.

Caitlin Van Mol 48:44
Now I know that sounds incredibly morbid. But Keith is fine with how things turned out for him.

Keith Smith 48:51
Earlier I said I truly believe that what happened to me had to happen. So that people who love me or know me could do it. They do what they did to put an end to this guy's Reign of Terror. So it never happened to anybody else. Right. Now, yesterday a question was my life like today? I wouldn't change a thing. Switching changed any one thing? I wouldn't be exactly why I am today. healthfully getting raped, getting dragged out of my neck. Having my two beautiful houses. I worked all over the world. I I got great people in my life. I wouldn't change anything. I'm not a monster. But I'm pretty happy with my list. Actually. Isn't that true? I'm very happy. I have people who love me or people I love. And I wouldn't change a thing in the past because it changed one thing. Today changes and I'm not I wake up. I wake up every day. I know people say this an awful ship. But I wake up every day. happy that I made it something Do you truly truly live that way? Yeah. Like every day is a gift. Every day I was on the subway yesterday I closed my eyes because I could hear this it's the subway. In ready for this kitten. I enjoyed it. The sound of the wheels on the subway on the track it was the one train coming out as fully secondary, you know, go down south vary, but there are things like that right? There's their sights I see their sounds I hear their smells are people in me that just tell me life is beautiful. Now, it's had some bumps. Those bumps made me who I am

Caitlin Van Mol 51:00
to speak to someone at the Rape Abuse Incest National Network, call one 800 656 hope or 1-800-656-4673 You can also live chat with someone@rainn.org That's our A I N N dot o RG This is live to tell. I'm Caitlin van mol. You can follow the show on Instagram and Tiktok at lift to tell podcast. If you enjoy today's episode, please rate review and subscribe. It really helps the show. I'll see you in two weeks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai