Battered: The Monster Among Us - Paperback

by Juanita Ray (Author)

Battered is a true crime story memoir about a brave girl, a cowardly father, and an evil stepmother.
After eight years of torture, I survive and escape the monster.
Monsters do not lie under your bed. Monsters do not live in closets. They go to church. They go to school. Some teach in schools. Some are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. My monster was the married mother who lived two doors down. She moved in as the housekeeper and later became my stepmonster. I was starved, beaten, held captive on our property, and left outside to freeze in the snow.

When a story, like mine, hits the news, most of us are shocked.
Why would a child, attending school, endure eight years of child abuse, yet not run for help?
Why didn't any of my siblings call the police?
Why didn't the six of us gang up on her?

To understand the answer to these and many other questions, you have to live the abusive lives we lived as tortured children. We catapulted from normal, to one of the most dysfunctional families imaginable, in one year flat. The monster showed no mercy. You may wonder what fuels a monster. I personally think it's insanity or demons. The government disagrees. Greed, jealousy and control are three big factors and according to recent NCANDS data the majority of the perpetrators, half a century later, are still women.

So how could my father, not mutually engaged in the systematic sadistic torture of his children, allow it to happen on a regular basis? That answer is simple. Somewhere back in time, my father lost his spine.

At age thirteen, after a failed escape, I was put on lockdown. At the end of the school year, I took a bus to nowhere, and slept in a graveyard. Later, a court hearing unveiled and ended the eight year reign of a child abuse monster. I was made a crown ward, and my father stripped of all parental rights. All parties, except one sibling, are still alive.

The Stolen Underwear Chapter 13 Partial Excerpt
I weave in and out of aisles until I hit the underwear section. Blocking the aisle is an old woman leaning on a shopping cart. "Excuse me do you know if they charge tax on the underwear?"
"Honey the government taxes everything. They even taxed the teeth in my mouth." She glances around, picks up a package and slides it down the front of her pants. "They're nothing but a bunch of thieves," she complains, and rolls her cart further down the aisle.
I pick up a package of panties, slip them down inside the front of my slacks, and follow her out the door.

The Aftermath Chapter 27 Partial Excerpt
"In social studies I learned that running away is related to shame and weakness, so what are you ashamed of?"
Gordon's question unnerves me. "Your social studies teacher?"
He laughs and says, "Seriously. She said that."
"She's repeating some crap someone made up, or published after they interviewed runaways-who returned home, because they ran away in the heat of the moment. The real runaways-like me-won't get interviewed, so nobody knows why we really run."
"Why not?"
"Because real runners, the ones who run to survive, work hard not to be found. And we never go back home or get interviewed, and nobody gets to know our side of the story. Bad parents never tell the truth-never the whole truth-they never take any blame."
"Never? Then how do their stories get told?"
"The real ones don't. If the real ones get caught, and get interviewed, they're like prisoners of war. They get told what to say."

Summary: "When Ned Rose, widowed father of six children, falls in love with the neighbor's wife, she moves into the Rose residence, destroys the family and tortures Ned's youngest daughter for eight years, until Juanita who finds the courage to run away is made a ward of the court-her father stripped of parental rights." - - Provided by pub