Episode 9 - Held Hostage in Iran: Sarah Shourd's First Television Interview & The Craigslist Rape Survivor Reveals Her Identity

American Hiker Sarah Shourd

Recap
On July 31, 2009, three young American friends were on vacation in Iraq and went on a hike; they were near the Iraqi-Iranian border in the mountains and strayed off course. They were surrounded by Iranian soldiers who arrested them for illegally crossing the Iranian border. They were thrown into prison and accused of being spies. Sarah, who has since been set free, had to spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. In August, 14 months later, Sarah called home to say she had found a lump in her breast. The Iranians would allow her to come home and get treatment if she could post the $500,000 bail.

How, on Oprah, she describes how things feel unreal. She never expected to come home without her fiancé, Shane, and their friend Josh, and her mission now is to help her friends come home. The judge tells her that because she was in solitary confinement and because she's a woman that is why Iran let her go, that they are proud of their humanitarian treatment of women.

Sarah describes the reason why they were hiking in northern Iraq--apparently, it is a very safe part of Iraq, filled with great food, tourist attractions, and Kurdish culture. While at their hotel, she and her friends asked for a good place to go hiking, and while on a trail pointed out to them by Iraqis, that was when they were surrounded by Iranian soldiers. She says there was no indication of the border--no signs, no fence, nothing. She still has no idea where the border is, or if they did cross it.

After the break, Sarah tells us that there is absolutely no evidence that they were spies. After the two month investigation, Sarah was told that it didn't matter if she was innocent or not, that this was now political and she was caught up in the midst of something much bigger than herself. Can you imagine the horror? You know you're innocent, they know you're innocent, and now you're facing a lifetime of solitary confinement in a cell of "eight steps by about five steps".

One bright time was the hour a day that Sarah, Shane, and Josh were allowed to see one another. She says they would just sit and hold hands for that hour, and nine months ago Shane proposed to her. Sarah says that prison made what's important to her clear--her family, Shane's family, and her relationship with God. Staying alive for her mom and for God is what kept her going.

Ahmadinejad & the Mothers
After the break, we see a clip of CNN's Christiane Amanpour interviewing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He says that if the eight Iranians being illegally detained by the US government were freed, he could give a recommendation that Shane and Josh be freed. Sarah, who hopes to meet with him when he visits New York soon, wants to reach out to him so that he can know that she holds nothing against him nor the Iranian people; she just wants her fiancé and friend to be set free.

The mothers of all three are there, and we learn that though the prisoners were/are very rarely allowed to have any contact with family. They are not allowed to write letters and have had contact with family only twice. Sarah says something haunting: that she still does not feel free because the primary way she was punished was solitary confinement, and she's still being punished by being continually separated from Shane and Josh. The prisoners are allowed to receive letters, and so the mothers write as much as they are able as well as utilize the website www.freethehikers.org to raise money, support, and awareness. Oprah ends by saying we are praying for the safe release of the boys to come home.

Gospel Filter Review
The thing that stands out to me most from Sarah's interview is her determination to see Shane and Josh set free. The imagery of Sarah, Josh, and Shane in their tiny cells, not even able to use the bathroom without being blindfolded, is heart wrenching. Yet in so many ways it's an accurate picture of sin; enslaved and in bondage with absolutely no chance of freedom save for a miracle. The difference between the three friends and most of us is that they were fully aware of their imprisonment while slavery to sin blinds us. Sarah is experiencing freedom from prison; I pray she knows freedom from sin through Jesus Christ as well (Galatians 5:1). I love that her crusade to see her friends set free, as well, is such a beautiful Biblical concept. We are set free in order to use that freedom not to return to slavery but to serve others and see them set free, too (Galatians 5:13)

Another parallel is the fact that the three hikers were innocent, not having committed the crime for which they are accused, yet they paid the price thanks to political unrest between the United States and Iran. Jesus Christ was innocent, like a lamb led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7, Acts 8:32). The difference is that the three friends are sinners, while Jesus was perfectly innocent. I pray that Shane and Josh are set free and allowed to come home and that, ultimately, all three friends and their families would know and worship Jesus Christ and the miracle-making God the Father who sets them free literally and ultimately.

The Craigslist Rape Victim

Recap
In December, a woman named Sarah signed onto Craigslist and saw pictures of herself,some in her bathing suit and taken from her MySpace, in a classified ad. The caption read, "Need an Aggressive Man with No Concern or Regard for Women...if Interested Contact Sarah." Unbeknownst to her, it was her ex-boyfriend, Jebediah Stipe, who posted the ad. The police told her they could do nothing, but that she should contact Craigslist and ask them to remove the ad. They did, but one man had already responded.

Warning: Horrifyingly Graphic Details of Rape in the Following Paragraph
On the morning of December 11th she walked up to her home; a man grabbed her from behind and pushed her into her home. He said, "You wanted an aggressive man, bitch--here I am." He tied her up and blindfolded her, ripped off her clothes, and raped her, both vaginally and anally, despite her begging him to stop. She is only 4' 11" tall and her fighting was in vain; he told her that if she didn't stop fighting against her he would kill her. She stopped screaming when he held a knife from her kitchen against her throat. After an agonizing 30 minutes of rape, he turned her on her side (she was still blindfolded) and she felt a liquid, his ejaculation, run down her breasts and stomach. When he was done, he said, "Now try to get out of that, you dumb bitch."

The man who raped her is a man named Ty McDowell, a married 26-year-old father of two. He worked as a radiology technician at the local hospital. Ty told detectives that he thought he was fulfilling Sarah's "rape fantasy." They play Sarah's 911 call and show pictures of Sarah after the rape and it makes me cry so hard that I have to stop typing. The hospital nurse says that Sarah's injuries were the worst of any assault victim she had ever seen, and the diagram in which she recorded those injuries is so full that she ran out of room to write them all down.

Both men plead guilty to sexual assault and each received a sentence of at least 60 years in prison. I just have to say, praise God that Oprah said 60 (and that I have a TiVo and can rewind) because at first I thought Oprah said 6 and I became so angry that I had to rewind and make sure I heard correctly. Again, praise God that it was 60 and not 6.

Sarah's Interview with Oprah
Upon being asked how she's doing, Sarah tearfully tells Oprah that she has her good days and her bad days. She's realized this is something she can't change and it's not a bad dream and she's trying to move on. Sarah explains that Jebediah was very angry that she had become engaged to her fiancé Ian (a very sweet looking man in the audience), and her theory is that when Jebediah wasn't able to convince her to break up with her fiancé he felt that if she were severely hurt then Ian would leave her and he could be her, "knight in shining armor."

This theory is based on several text messages from Jeb (as she calls him) after the attack pronouncing that he would always be there for her. The attacker, Ty, had informed Jeb that the attack had been carried out which allowed Jeb to send texts that said things like, "How are you doing after all of this has happened?", and, "If you need somebody to talk about this let me know." Other than the attack, there was no this, so it was clear that Jeb knew.

Sarah says that since Craigslist removed the ad the next day, she wasn't aware that anyone had already responded (my understanding is that people responded to Jeb, not her, which makes sense of why she was so surprised and why Ty was able to tell Jeb the deed had been done), so she felt safe. Even more scary is that when she was still in the ER, Ian had gone back to get her glasses and a second man was standing in her living room with a camera set. He said he was there because he had received an e-mail from a J. Stipe telling him where Sarah could be found; presumably Jebediah was ok with allowing Sarah to be raped again.

We cut to break, but I have to say here that I am so disgusted and angry and... just ugh... that I want to throw up. How anyone could ever say humans are inherently good is honestly a farce to me in the face of such abject evil and horror. This is backed up by Oprah telling us after the break that 161--ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE--people responded to the Craigslist ad.

After the break, Sarah shows us where Ty raped her. She had to get new carpet because the bloodstains wouldn't come out. I missed this earlier, but she shows us how her knife block is a constant reminder of what happened because he used a knife sharpener (similar to this) to penetrate her with, as well as the knife he held against her throat. Neither are there any longer but their absence reminds her why they've been removed. She says that she no longer sees her home, but a crime scene.

This is when Oprah tells us that 161 people had responded, and Sarah tells us that she found out Jeb had set up several dates with people to attack her. Oprah asks her about the fact that several people in her town had actually sided with the attacker, despite him admitting he did it. The fact that he thought he was fulfilling her rape fantasy has caused many people to feel sorry for him, including her co-workers, because he didn't know that what he was doing was wrong. Many people don't even believe this really happened to her.

After another break, Oprah asks why, after nearly a year, Sarah has come forward. She says that she not only wants the power back, but also that the media has never released all of the details and she wants it in the open. Additionally, she wants people to recognize how easily this can happen to them--the pictures in the ad were taken from her MySpace account and used without her permission and it could happen to anyone. Finally, she wants to be a voice for women, so that they know that they can have the power and strength to overcome something like this. Oprah reiterates what she said she told Sarah during the break, that this is a horrible thing that happened to her but it isn't who she is. Sarah agrees, saying that she will never forget this, but that because this happened she can be a better person and it doesn't define the person that she is.

Last week, praise God, Craigslist permanently removed their "adult services" section from their US website. Oprah reiterates the FBI's recommendation that you don't post any pictures of personal information online, and reminds viewers that once you post a picture online you no longer have any control over what is done with the image. I'll touch on this in the review below.

Gospel Filter Review
My heart is just wrecked for Sarah. I know that God hates what happened to her. He detests sexual immorality and He abhors the strong taking advantage of the weak. In Sarah's situation she simply had no chance against her much larger, much stronger attacker. As a survivor of incest, I am certain that God knew exactly what was happening in that room, that His presence was with her, and though we cannot understand why He did not stop it, He is no less good and no less loving of her as His precious creation.

I praise God that not only will He one day wipe every single tear from Sarah's eyes if she knows salvation through Jesus (Revelation 7:17, Revelation 21:4), but that He is just and there will be justice far beyond 60 years in prison for Jebediah and Ty. If they receive salvation and forgiveness through Christ then their punishment was raged against Jesus on the cross; if not, then they will suffer eternal punishment for their sin in hell. I pray that Sarah will know this truth and be able to forgive because she knows the sweet freedom of her own forgiveness through Jesus for her sins. I do pray that those two men, also image-bearers of God, would know forgiveness. I also pray for Ty's wife and children; what a horrible tragedy for them, as well. I cannot imagine the horror of finding out your husband and the father of your two young children, a guy who spends his days helping people at the hospital, perpetrated this horribly despicable evil. I pray they know that God is a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless.

Finally, I urge you women (and any men who have women they love in their lives): please, please, please, do not post pictures of yourself in a bikini or your bathing suit online. It probably has never occurred to you that this could be dangerous, and maybe you think, "Well, but I don't have any crazy ex-boyfriend so I'm fine." But all it takes is one person with a vengeance, even a stranger, to use your pictures against you. Be careful about any pictures you post. In no way is it Sarah's fault for having pictures in her bathing suit on her MySpace; please do not infer that because it's absolutely not her fault. I'm only heeding that we take caution and err toward being overly careful.

I do post pictures on Facebook, but I am very careful to make them accessible only to people who I know in real life who are actual friends, and my account is private in every other way. I even frequently clean out my friends list of anyone that is too far removed from recent contact. It's not just pictures of you--there have been accounts of people finding ads with pictures of their children from their Facebook account, saying they are up for adoption and the like. Horrifying stuff. Be so, so careful.

EDIT

I forgot to mention this, but Ty was not acting out Sarah's rape fantasy. Even if Jeb told him that Sarah wanted to be raped and was having Jeb set it up, and that's why he (Ty) was contacting Jeb and not Sarah herself, Ty knew it was wrong and was absolutely not "innocently" acting out Sarah's rape fantasy. Ty was acting out his own rape fantasy. I'm almost certain that if we dug, we'd find out that Ty watched pornographic videos of rape that fueled his fantasy. It's just sick and wrong and horrifying, and anyone who thinks that Ty should get pity and a lesser sentence because he thought a woman wanted to be raped and threatened with murder and have a long metal rod shoved up her vagina and anus repeatedly is absolutely in the wrong. He knew what he did was wrong. If you listen to the 911 tape the whimpering-type sounds that are in Sarah makes are almost not human, they're so terrifying. There's no way that Ty could think she wanted him to do what he did. I pray that anyone who thinks differently will repent and seek Sarah's forgiveness, especially if they know her personally. 

9/11 Survivor Lauren Manning


Recap
The last blurb of Oprah includes a short recap of a woman, Lauren Manning, a wife and mother who had barely survived the 9/11 terrorist attack with burns on over 80% of her body. Oprah had her on the show in 2002, 9 months after the attack. Lauren shared then, in tears, that she wanted more children and was heartbroken to have that taken away. Through a surrogate, after many tries, she and her husband were able to have another son. She looks beautiful and it takes close inspection to realize that she has scars on her face from her burns. I just praise God that He saved this woman and that she is alive and thriving. I pray that she and her family know that this grace is from Jesus and that they get to experience receiving it from Him, living for His glory.

Up Tomorrow
A live show! Reaction to Monday's Waiting for Superman, John Legend performs, and the promised big announcement that Oprah says will change America's schools.