By Julie Manganis , Staff writer
Daily News of Newburyport (Mass., USA)
SALEM - A former North Shore man was sentenced to 22 years in prison yesterday for what a Salem Superior Court judge called "the most horrible rape" he's seen in 10 years on the bench - a random, violent attack in Rowley on a stranded teenage girl nearly 20 years ago.
John Ackerman, 49, was serving a prison term in Plymouth County for raping another teen when investigators linked him through DNA evidence to the long-unsolved 1988 rape.
His victim was a 17-year-old Lawrence girl who had escaped the killing fields of Cambodia just a few years earlier. Yesterday, she recalled how she was born "into a living hell" under the Khmer Rouge, survived imprisonment in a concentration camp and torture with hot coals, and somehow made it to the United States, where she believed Americans were the "kindest and gentlest people."
On the night of Nov. 8, 1988, she was driving from Lawrence to Newburyport to pick up her mother, who worked the second shift in a local factory. It was just before midnight when her family's Pontiac sedan broke down near the Whittier Bridge on Interstate 95 in Amesbury, prosecutor Gerald Shea said.
Ackerman, then 31, was driving along Interstate 95 from Maine to Salem, where he lived at the time, his young daughter in the back seat.
As the teen looked under the hood, Ackerman pulled over and stopped in front of her, Shea said.
He got out and walked over, then grabbed the petite girl - she was 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 95 pounds - by the hair and dragged her to his car.
They stopped briefly in Newburyport because his young daughter had to use the bathroom. But the victim could not escape - Ackerman had wrapped the strap from the girl's purse around her neck, telling her he would kill her, Shea said. Then he drove to Rowley, where, on a secluded dirt road, he dragged her from the car and beat her, punching her repeatedly and slamming her head into the ground.
"She believed she would die," Shea said.
Running for help
The next thing she remembers is hearing Ackerman's car starting and seeing it drive toward her, about to crush her head. She rolled out of the way and ran, bleeding and barefoot, to a nearby home for help.
Though she did not remember being raped, a medical test confirmed she had been. She spent three days in the hospital with a concussion, a perforated eardrum and other injuries.
Although she was able to give police a detailed description of her attacker - even recalling that he had white powder on his lip as though he had just used cocaine - the case went unsolved for years.
Then, in 2003, police in Florida were investigating a similar crime and had identified a possible suspect. They asked Rowley police whether there was still any biological evidence from the 1988 rape.
There was, and it was retested for DNA, Shea said. It did not match the DNA in the Florida case, but investigators discovered it did match the DNA of a man serving a prison term for a similar 1997 rape - Ackerman.
The victim, now in her 30s and living in Kansas, was shown a photo array that included a picture of Ackerman. Even 15 years later, she was able to identify him as her attacker.
Just one day before the statute of limitations was to expire, Ackerman was charged.
In court yesterday, the victim told Judge David Lowy how she spent her childhood under constant threat of death. All she had was her family and what they could carry on their backs. "Our entire existence was to escape," she recalled.
She was separated from her family and placed in a concentration camp but managed to escape. Eventually, her family crossed the border into Thailand.
American dreams
"The thought of living in America and beginning a new life was the ultimate dream for me," said the victim, who hoped to become a teacher. Finally, when she was 12, an American family sponsored her family to come to the United States.
With the love of two families, she straddled two cultures, entering an arranged marriage at 15 while still attending Lawrence High School.
Then, "John Ackerman destroyed my dignity, my future, and he also destroyed many of my dreams," she said in a victim-impact statement.
Her husband rejected her, "because I was no longer honorable and respectable in our Asian culture," she said.
She later remarried and was accompanied to court yesterday by her second husband but said she still lives daily with fear. "I feel like I am in prison," she told the judge.
Ackerman tearfully admitted yesterday that he simply wanted to reciprocate on other people the abuse he had suffered as a child.
"I was in pain. I wanted to inflict pain on other people," Ackerman said. "I seen her on the side of the road. I put her in my car. I beat her severely. I can't never change that."
But he said he wanted to accept responsibility.
"It's wrong," he said yesterday. "You ain't supposed to do that."
When he completes his prison term or is paroled, Ackerman could be subject to civil commitment as a sexually dangerous person and may face lifetime parole supervision.
John Ackerman, 49, was serving a prison term in Plymouth County for raping another teen when investigators linked him through DNA evidence to the long-unsolved 1988 rape.
His victim was a 17-year-old Lawrence girl who had escaped the killing fields of Cambodia just a few years earlier. Yesterday, she recalled how she was born "into a living hell" under the Khmer Rouge, survived imprisonment in a concentration camp and torture with hot coals, and somehow made it to the United States, where she believed Americans were the "kindest and gentlest people."
On the night of Nov. 8, 1988, she was driving from Lawrence to Newburyport to pick up her mother, who worked the second shift in a local factory. It was just before midnight when her family's Pontiac sedan broke down near the Whittier Bridge on Interstate 95 in Amesbury, prosecutor Gerald Shea said.
Ackerman, then 31, was driving along Interstate 95 from Maine to Salem, where he lived at the time, his young daughter in the back seat.
As the teen looked under the hood, Ackerman pulled over and stopped in front of her, Shea said.
He got out and walked over, then grabbed the petite girl - she was 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 95 pounds - by the hair and dragged her to his car.
They stopped briefly in Newburyport because his young daughter had to use the bathroom. But the victim could not escape - Ackerman had wrapped the strap from the girl's purse around her neck, telling her he would kill her, Shea said. Then he drove to Rowley, where, on a secluded dirt road, he dragged her from the car and beat her, punching her repeatedly and slamming her head into the ground.
"She believed she would die," Shea said.
Running for help
The next thing she remembers is hearing Ackerman's car starting and seeing it drive toward her, about to crush her head. She rolled out of the way and ran, bleeding and barefoot, to a nearby home for help.
Though she did not remember being raped, a medical test confirmed she had been. She spent three days in the hospital with a concussion, a perforated eardrum and other injuries.
Although she was able to give police a detailed description of her attacker - even recalling that he had white powder on his lip as though he had just used cocaine - the case went unsolved for years.
Then, in 2003, police in Florida were investigating a similar crime and had identified a possible suspect. They asked Rowley police whether there was still any biological evidence from the 1988 rape.
There was, and it was retested for DNA, Shea said. It did not match the DNA in the Florida case, but investigators discovered it did match the DNA of a man serving a prison term for a similar 1997 rape - Ackerman.
The victim, now in her 30s and living in Kansas, was shown a photo array that included a picture of Ackerman. Even 15 years later, she was able to identify him as her attacker.
Just one day before the statute of limitations was to expire, Ackerman was charged.
In court yesterday, the victim told Judge David Lowy how she spent her childhood under constant threat of death. All she had was her family and what they could carry on their backs. "Our entire existence was to escape," she recalled.
She was separated from her family and placed in a concentration camp but managed to escape. Eventually, her family crossed the border into Thailand.
American dreams
"The thought of living in America and beginning a new life was the ultimate dream for me," said the victim, who hoped to become a teacher. Finally, when she was 12, an American family sponsored her family to come to the United States.
With the love of two families, she straddled two cultures, entering an arranged marriage at 15 while still attending Lawrence High School.
Then, "John Ackerman destroyed my dignity, my future, and he also destroyed many of my dreams," she said in a victim-impact statement.
Her husband rejected her, "because I was no longer honorable and respectable in our Asian culture," she said.
She later remarried and was accompanied to court yesterday by her second husband but said she still lives daily with fear. "I feel like I am in prison," she told the judge.
Ackerman tearfully admitted yesterday that he simply wanted to reciprocate on other people the abuse he had suffered as a child.
"I was in pain. I wanted to inflict pain on other people," Ackerman said. "I seen her on the side of the road. I put her in my car. I beat her severely. I can't never change that."
But he said he wanted to accept responsibility.
"It's wrong," he said yesterday. "You ain't supposed to do that."
When he completes his prison term or is paroled, Ackerman could be subject to civil commitment as a sexually dangerous person and may face lifetime parole supervision.
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