Jennifer Schuett was only eight years old when she was abducted by a stranger from her home in Texas. Photo / CBS
Warning: Content may disturb
A woman who was kidnapped and raped as a child has spoken of the horrific night she was snatched from her bedroom and how she tried to help police find her attacker by scribbling notes from her hospital bed.
Jennifer Schuett was only eight years old when she was abducted by a stranger from her home in Dickinson, Texas in August 1990 before being strangled and violently raped, according to the Daily Mail.
The little girl's attacker, Dennis Earl Bradford, slit her throat and left her for dead in a field where she laid naked, bleeding and unable to move until children found her some 14 hours later.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.Now 27 years later, Schuett has relived the traumatic abduction for an episode of CBS 48 Hours.
"He held a knife to my throat and said: 'Am I scaring you, little girl? Am I scaring you?' Then he choked me as hard as he could. I blacked out for a while," Schuett told the program.
"I woke up to him dragging me by my ankles. He dropped my legs. I realised I couldn't scream and I couldn't figure out why. I had just enough strength to throw my right hand on top of my neck. That's when I felt this gaping wound."
When Schuett woke up in the field her attacker was gone, but she couldn't move or even scream for help. She was rescued hours later after children playing in the field found her.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.Despite being unable to speak as she recovered in hospital from her horrific injuries, Schuett desperately tried to answer police questions about the man who attacked her.
48 Hours obtained copies of the notes she scribbled to investigators as she recalled the night of the attack.
She wrote that she had been wearing a 'pink t-shirt' and white underwear covered in blue roses on the night she was abducted.
The little girl told police her attacker's name was Dennis and helped police create a sketch of the suspect with her detailed description.
She wrote the man was white, wore glasses, had a black moustache and had one or two green tattoos.
"I remember writing down that there were beer cans, the brand of cigarettes that he had, everything that I thought would help in finding him," Schuett said.
In one of the notes, she told police Bradford said he was "an undercover cop. Big gun. He said I don't have my gun or badge right now."
Despite the details she provided detectives, two decades passed before improved DNA testing linked Bradford to the attack.
Bradford, who was a convicted kidnapper living in Arkansas, was found in September 2009 and his driver's license photo was practically identical to the attacker Schuett had described to police.
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Bradford, then 40, killed himself in prison in May 2010 before he could stand trial on rape and attempted murder charges.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.The struggles had continued for Schuett. When she was 25 she was diagnosed with hydrosalpinx, a condition where the fallopian tubes are blocked and filled with fluid.
She was told it was due to complications caused by the rape and that she may never be able to conceive her own children. Schuett was told that even after corrective surgeries chances of becoming pregnant naturally were slim to none.
Schuett and her boyfriend, Jonathan Martinez, decided to try IVF as their only hope of becoming parents and the frozen embryo miraculously took.
The couple now have two children - four-year-old Jenna and 11-month-old Jonah.
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