The Prison Podcast Episode 3: Breaking The Silence
January 1, 2025
Today, we have a remarkable guest joining us: Jane, who has an incredibly powerful story to share. As a survivor of rape, Jane has faced unimaginable trauma, yet her journey of healing and empowerment is truly inspiring.
In this episode, Jane opens up about her experience participating in a Victim-Offender Dialogue with a surrogate offender—someone who committed a similar crime but was not the individual who harmed her. This courageous step allowed Jane to confront difficult emotions, gain new insights, and take powerful strides toward recovery.
Transcription
Michael: My name is Michael and I’m the inside Communications Director for Humans of San Quentin. The contents of this episode include strong language and graphic descriptions of violent crimes that may include sexual assault. This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Diane: Hello and welcome back to The Prison Podcast. I’m Diane Kahn, your host, and we’re thrilled to have you with us. Today, we’re diving back into the powerful narratives of those who have participated in victim-offender dialogues. These stories offer a unique glimpse into the profound experiences of individuals who have engaged in this transformative process. Today, you’ll meet Jane Piper. I hope you’ll fall in love with her candor as I have. Jane has an extraordinary gift for capturing even the smallest details, making you feel as though you’re right there with her as she shares her story. In this episode, Jane opens up about her experience as a rape survivor, offering a powerful perspective on living through sexual assault and her journey of healing and resilience. Next week, you’ll hear from her surrogate offender, Chris. A surrogate pair involves two individuals connected by similar offenses, though not directly with each other. Jane’s story is a testament to the strength and courage it takes to move forward, and I’m honored to share it with you today. Before we dive into Jane’s story, I know you already heard Michael’s disclaimer for this podcast a moment ago, but I wanted to reiterate that this episode may be triggering for many listeners, especially if you are a survivor of sexual assault or sexual trauma of any kind. If you need to take a break or skip this episode altogether, we encourage you to do so. We’ll be here when you come back. One last note: due to extenuating circumstances, we conducted this interview over the phone. The audio quality may not be the best, but we hope you’ll be able to move past that—it just might require a little more focus than usual. Let’s get into our story.
Jane: My name’s Jane Piper. I live in London, Ontario, Canada, which is sort of halfway between Detroit and Toronto.
Jane: I used to live in Los Angeles. I was an actor and a stand-up comic pursuing my dreams in the Hollywood industry, and I was living in Los Angeles doing that. I also worked as a personal assistant to a TV producer. That was my day job, and that’s where my story really starts—working at that job as a personal assistant, running errands for my boss. On one particular day, August 21st, 2003—almost 20 years ago—I was running through the Ralph’s grocery store in Brentwood, California, doing some grocery shopping before I zipped over to pick up the kids from their day camp and take them to a tennis lesson.
Diane: She was putting the groceries into the back of a car, a huge Suburban with multiple rows of seats. After closing the back, she walked around the car to get into the driver’s seat. She got in and was arranging her things in the center console.
Jane: I turned around to close the door and go on my way, but there was a man standing in the doorway. He had what looked like a knife, held against my side. He immediately slammed the door shut with him inside my car and locked the doors. We were just sitting there, squashed in the driver’s seat. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do—I just started to cry. Then he said, “I need you to drive me to Santa Monica.” I was trying to process everything. Your brain just goes in every direction when something like this happens. I remember the overwhelming confusion of it all. Then he told me to get in the back seat. It didn’t make any sense, of course, because I didn’t understand how I was supposed to drive from the back seat. I went to get out of the car to move to the back seat, but he yelled at me to climb through instead. He pushed me through the seat into the back. Then he told me to move to the row of seats even further back. He started climbing in after me. I remember asking him, “I don’t understand—how am I supposed to drive you to Santa Monica when I’m in the back seat?” That’s when he told me to take my clothes off. At that moment, I realized what was happening. I felt a wave of shame and stupidity, like I could have somehow avoided this if I’d reacted differently. I kept thinking, How did I let this happen?
Diane: One of the questions survivors of sexual assault are often asked is: “Why didn’t you fight back?” But Jane did fight back. She was overpowered by her attacker. This highlights a crucial point. Even when survivors make every effort to resist, they can still be subjected to violence due to the aggressor’s strength or other factors beyond their control. Here’s Jane again.
Jane: I immediately knew what he was going to do. I jumped back into the seat where he was and started fighting with him. I managed to grab what I thought was a knife—it turned out to be a corkscrew. I got it out of his hand, but because I’m not a violent person, I didn’t know what to do with it. I was hitting him with it, but I was very aware at that moment that I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted to defend myself and escape the situation. Even though he was clearly going to hurt me, I couldn’t bring myself to intentionally harm him. I don’t understand why I felt that way, but it’s something I still struggle with to this day. I hit him with the corkscrew, and he got very angry—perhaps at the possibility that I could have hurt him. He reacted by beating me severely. He threw me over the back seat, and my back slammed against the edge of the seat as I flew over it. Then my neck hit one of those storage bins on the side of the window where kids keep their toys. My neck struck the edge of the bin, and my head kept going inside it. I heard a loud crack.
Diane: The crack was the sound of two discs in her neck rupturing and the surrounding bones fracturing. Jane didn’t realize the full extent of the damage until about four years later when she discovered pieces of bone floating around inside her neck. We’re slowly ripping apart at her spinal cord.
Jane: We were fighting, and I remember feeling extremely hot. It was a hot August afternoon in L.A. At one point, I was punched quite hard in the face. I think my lip split, and I remember my head turning with the punch. This is a bit graphic, and I apologize, but I distinctly recall seeing my blood flying through the air. That moment—seeing my own blood flying and landing on the car seat—was significant to me. It awakened the survivor in me. I realized I had to comply with what this man was trying to do in order to survive and find an opportunity to escape. I stopped defending myself, gave in, and he continued to beat me. Then he raped me. It was a truly horrible experience. When he was finished, the reality of our situation hit me. We were sitting in a public parking lot in broad daylight in Brentwood, California. He said, “I’m going to take you for a ride,” and I realized that if I didn’t get out of the car right then, if I went with him, I might not survive. At that point, he got back into the front seat. I managed to get into the middle seat again, where he couldn’t hold me anymore. I just started pressing buttons on the door. It felt very strange, almost like a child learning to use dexterity toys—just pressing buttons randomly, not fully understanding how the door worked. I knew I had to figure it out, but I remember frantically pressing buttons randomly without much thought.
Diane: Jane jumped out of the window as her attacker was backing out of the parking spot. She ran into the grocery store, bloody and bruised. Customers in the checkout line stared at her, saying nothing. She was screaming that she’d been raped in the parking lot and begged them to call the police.
Jane: It was horrifying. I was so badly beaten up, in such a bad place, and so scared. I was hysterical. I just needed help, and I got it. There were two phones in the information desk area, and I kept picking up the phone, trying to make a call while he was calling the police. Somehow the lines were connected, and he said, “Don’t use that phone.” So I started asking people, “Does someone have a phone I can borrow? Does someone have a phone I can borrow?” But people just looked at me. They wouldn’t do anything. No one helped me. They just stared at me like I was a strange person. I remember sort of collapsing to the ground, sitting on the floor in the information desk area. Then, at one point, a manager came and took me upstairs. She was very helpful.
Diane: When the police arrived, they transported her to UCLA, where there’s a specialized rape treatment center. This was, in many respects, a lucky break. Typically, rape survivors are taken to the general emergency room, where they’re asked to repeat what happened to a slew of nurses and doctors. Often in front of other patients. This situation can be extremely traumatic.
Jane: I didn’t have to deal with any of that. I was quite lucky. My boyfriend at the time was called, and he came in, but he didn’t even recognize me because I was so badly beaten. Well, I guess I wasn’t bruised yet at that point, but I was pretty unrecognizable when I looked in the mirror. It was horrifying. I’ll tell you this—it’s an interesting experience. Like I said at the beginning, I was a stand-up comic at the time, and I had a pretty weird sense of humor. I was really badly beaten, right? So, what they had me do was carry a sheet around because my hair was falling out in clumps. The whole process at the rape treatment center was about collecting evidence. I was carrying this sheet to catch my hair as it fell out in case there was DNA they could collect. They were trying to gather as much evidence as possible. At one point, I had to do a jaw X-ray. I went into the X-ray room, and the technician told me, “Okay, put the sheet on that chair over there.” So I did, and we went about doing the X-ray. My boyfriend was in the room with me, and then a nurse walked in. She made a beeline for the chair with the sheet, picked it up, and we all just stared at her. The sheet floated through the air, and we were all watching it. There was this moment of collective shock—like, what is happening? Then there was silence. And I started laughing. I said, “Well, that’s why O.J. Simpson’s still walking the streets.” I couldn’t stop laughing. But no one else laughed. It was just this really awkward moment. My boyfriend shushed me, which annoyed me because, seriously, I shouldn’t be shushed after what just happened to me. Then I started apologizing, which I always do for my humor. It was awkward. The nurse looked confused, and I guess it was eventually explained to her. A few hours later, during the rape kit process—which is incredibly invasive—they were taking photographs of every inch of my body. They were documenting every bruise and mark, even taking photos of parts of my body I didn’t want anyone to see. All of a sudden, the same nurse started laughing. She giggled and said, “That’s why O.J. Simpson’s still walking the streets,” and kept laughing. Then she explained the whole situation to the other nurses, and they started laughing too. In that moment, they got it. They understood me. And I felt so good. I don’t know if the nurse did it intentionally, but the humor broke the tension of such an awful, dehumanizing experience. In that moment, my humor saved me. I felt like I was going to be okay. It’s such a strange thing to make a joke in a situation like that, but that’s who I am. I can’t help myself. That moment gave me a glimmer of hope that I would be okay. Of course, there were many moments after that where I wasn’t okay—years of not being okay. Healing was like a rollercoaster: two steps forward, three steps back; one step forward, four steps back. But that moment of humor reminded me that I could survive it.
Diane:. Humor has been a crucial coping mechanism for Jane, helping her navigate the immediate aftermath of the attack and the long term challenges. While she found that it could serve as a defense mechanism to shield herself from emotional pain and to connect with others, it didn’t fully address every aspect of her healing journey. One significant challenge she faced was the overwhelming effort to find the person who attacked her. The process of working with law enforcement, Attending court hearings and dealing with the uncertainty of not knowing when or if the perpetrator would be found was emotionally taxing. She was also left wondering if he would find her again.
Jane: I was pretty vigilant at first about watching the news and seeing other cases. For example, there would be a story in Beverly Hills about someone who was attacked, and they would show a sketch. I’d think, Oh, and I’d call the Beverly Hills Police Department and say, “You should speak to the people in Santa Monica. He looks like the person who attacked me.” At first, I was very vigilant, but I didn’t get anywhere. I realized that police departments don’t communicate with each other. That was incredibly frustrating for me to discover. Over the years, I experienced a lot of frustration with the justice system in different ways. But honestly, I didn’t think of him much at all. I remember a friend once saying to me, “Oh, I hope they catch that monster.” I thought it was so strange because I didn’t think of him like that. I didn’t think of him, period. When he was caught—nine years later—was the first time I really started thinking about him. That’s when I suddenly realized he was a human being. I had been attacked by another human being. Of course, I had always known this on some level, but I had been so focused on my own feelings. What I came to understand was that I had viewed my experience much like someone who survives a hurricane or an earthquake. They experience trauma, but they don’t hold on to feelings toward the destructive force itself—they just deal with the aftermath. For me, this “destructive force” suddenly became a person when he was caught. I wanted to know who he was. I wanted to understand what made him do what he did to me. I wanted answers to so many questions: Why? Why me? Why did you do this? Why did you wake up that day and choose violence? Why are you that way? What happened in your life that caused this? There were just so many things I wanted to know, but I hadn’t really thought about them until he was caught. Then, over the two years it took for the justice system to process the case, these questions became even more pressing. I had a preliminary hearing, but he ended up pleading guilty, so the case didn’t go to trial. I was lucky; I didn’t really want to go through the trial process, but I was ready for it if it came to that.
Diane: Many women find the court process to be re-traumatizing. Luckily, since the man who raped her pleaded guilty, the only thing she could appear at was a Even though she didn’t need to was a sentencing hearing.
Jane: I was brought out to LA to speak at his sentencing hearing. My friend Karen, who had been a publicist for many years, was someone I spoke to. She was also a rape survivor and had gone public with her story. Meeting her actually changed my life during my healing process. When I met her, I was able to talk about the experience of being raped openly, without filters, without worrying about people judging me, being scared, or feeling like I had to protect others. It’s a whole other story, learning how to talk about the experience. But Karen was a publicist, and I wanted to be open about what had happened to me. We decided to invite the press to the sentencing hearing, and that’s exactly what she did. She created a press release that stated, “This woman was raped, and she’s willing to speak out about it.”
Diane: Jane was frustrated by the way rape was reported on and covered, or not covered, in the media.
Jane: For me, it was about saying, “This happened to me, and I’m going to be okay.” I wanted to show that I’m okay talking about rape, that I’m okay saying I was raped, and that I’m okay using my name and showing my face. I just wanted to give a voice to the experience and put a face on it because I was so frustrated over the years by hearing about rape in the news. The media covers rape constantly, with stories about celebrities, athletes, college students, and high school boys. There are so many stories about rape, but we rarely hear from rape survivors. I just wanted to change that. So, I invited the media to the courtroom and spoke for about half an hour, basically telling him about all the impact of what he had done to me.
Diane: But then, Jane did something that many people did not expect.
Jane: I chose to forgive him. I wasn’t sure if it would happen or not. I had thought about it ahead of time. I knew I wanted to forgive him because, for me, it was important to let go of the toxic feelings that connected us—feelings I had developed over the years, through the two years in the justice system and whatever was left over from the experience itself of being raped. I just didn’t want to be connected to him anymore. I wanted to let go of what I felt, and I chose to forgive him. And because of that, what they showed in the videos with the TV cameras, the radio, and all the media people there, the video went viral.
Diane: From this point, Jane sought the opportunity to confront the man who raped her, hoping to ask him questions directly and gain some sort of closure. However, his defense attorney advised him not to respond to her request, leaving Jane without the answers. Undeterred, she pursued the victim offender dialogue. Despite her efforts, this path was ultimately thwarted.
Jane: Unfortunately, it did not go too far because the man who harmed me was not ready to be accountable. He had a brain injury at some point in the years after he raped me, and he said that he didn’t remember a lot. I always thought that was untrue because he said things during the preliminary hearing, and I’ve even been told he speaks of certain things, which I don’t understand how he could remember if he doesn’t remember what he had done. So, I thought there was still a good chance to talk to him if I just went in there without any judgment and simply said, “Listen, I just want to know.” But he ended up speaking to me a little inappropriately in the letters before the victim-offender process started, when I wrote him a letter.
Diane: Then Jane was asked to consider if she’d be interested in doing a surrogate VOD.
Jane: I would share my story in a circle with a group of men who are incarcerated for violent crimes, and then someone who had done something similar to what was done to me would share their story. We would ask each other questions back and forth and chat with each other, and then we would open it up to the circle, allowing everyone else to ask questions and engage in conversation. I immediately agreed to that. I was very gung ho. I keep talking about things changing my life, but that was another game changer. That day, when I went into the prison, I realized that this was what I was meant to be doing: sharing my story in prison and talking to men who have already been violent, sharing my story of violence and the impact of the crime in order to help them heal and to help myself heal at the same time. That’s what I was meant to do, and it was an incredibly healing day.
Diane: Some might argue that a surrogate VOD could be less impactful compared to meeting directly with a person who committed the crime against Jane, as it might seem less personal or immediate. Jane believes otherwise. She feels that even though Christopher was not the man who harmed her, their shared experiences and the opportunity for dialogue provided her with valuable insights, and a form of closure.
Jane: For me, it didn’t even have to be with the man who harmed me. I was able to get healing by talking to people who did not harm me but had just done similar things. I’ve been honored to have spoken with several different men, particularly Christopher, who I met when I did the surrogate bond. He helped me incredibly because he was the very first person I ever spoke to who was able to just be accountable, tell me what he had done, tell me to the best of his ability why he did it, and what led him through his life, leading up to a life of violence. He left that violence behind and turned over a new leaf, starting over and committing to non-violence. It’s just, it’s so incredibly healing for me, anyway, to hear that because the “why” is so important to me. And humanity—it’s incredibly important to be able to see someone as a human being and, without judgment, fully understand that we all have struggles and we all do things that can harm other people. Some people just do worse, much worse. But I harmed people as well. Maybe it was just emotionally or on a very minor level, but when I was going through my worst years in Los Angeles, I hurt all of my friends, I hurt everyone in my life, and I did so many horrible things that I still feel I need to make amends for. I think it’s so incredibly helpful to be able to ask those questions. And for me, not having a connection to Christopher didn’t harm me. I was just meeting him as a person, and I was able to ask so many different questions about why he had done what he did and why he thought he had gotten to a place in his life where he was causing violence. It was just incredibly therapeutic to hear these answers and talk to someone who was so open, because people aren’t open about where they’re at, even in everyday life. People are in denial about why they do things and why they don’t do things. To go into prison and talk to people who are doing the accountability work that needs to be done, who are facing the shame of what they experienced as young people, facing the shame of what they experienced causing violence and experiencing violence themselves—it’s true, people hurt people. It really is true.
Diane: As you can probably tell at this point, Jane is an incredible woman. She gave us so much insight into her life and her experiences during our interview. I asked if she had any advice or suggestions for our listeners. Here is what she said.
Jane: I think the most important thing for me is sharing stories. I think it’s really important to talk about what your life experience is, and that if it involves trauma, it’s still okay to talk about it. Sometimes things happen, and even though we may feel shame about them, it’s still important to share. Now, for me, I didn’t feel ashamed about what happened to me. I don’t know why—I’m very lucky, I think. I share my story so that other people can learn from it without experiencing it. I don’t want other people to have to go through what I experienced. We can learn about violence and then end violence. Without everybody having to experience it, by sharing stories, we can learn and change. The violence I experienced involved just two people—there was the man who hurt me, and there was me. So, I always thought that the only other person who could answer questions for me would be him, because no one else was there. What I learned through these examples of surrogacy that I’ve encountered, if that’s even the right word—surrogacy, this reciprocal healing, this mutual healing that takes place during dialogue—is that other people who have had similar experiences can fill in the gaps of the conversation. Someone who has had a violent experience themselves can actually help me a lot by explaining why they did it, who they were, what they were doing, what they were thinking, and what led up to it. There’s so much that I just feel like there’s this wholeness that I’ve experienced because of having these conversations with other people. And it’s not even with the person who harmed me. I’m getting healing from other people’s stories because it fills in the gaps of my own.
Diane: To close out this episode, I just want to take a moment to reflect on Jane’s incredible journey. Hearing her share of such raw and profound insights into her experience was both heart wrenching and enlightening. Her story isn’t just about survival, it shows that healing involves recognizing the shared humanity in both survivors and perpetrators. Her realization that her attacker was a human being too, not just a monster, highlights the complex nature of human behavior and the importance of understanding all perspectives in the healing process. Jane’s experience teaches us so much about the nature of trauma and recovery. When she spoke about the moment she realized her attacker was just another human being. It was a powerful reminder that beneath the layers of pain and anger, there are people who grapple with their own struggles and histories. This understanding doesn’t excuse the harm done, but it opens up pathways for deeper empathy and dialogue. If you or someone you know is interested in participating in a victim offender dialogue, reach out to your local Department of Corrections. If these services are not available to you, consider advocating for them through your local representative. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Prison Podcast. In the next episode, we’re hearing from Jane’s surrogate offender, Christopher, who served 25 years in a number of California prisons. His episode tackles a difficult and sensitive topic, a crime against a child. Through years of self reflection and personal growth, Christopher’s story provides a profound exploration of human resilience and healing. We’ll see you next week. Meanwhile, be kind to yourself.
