Photo: Red Seat Ventures/Mollie Corbett
“[In the past], no one ever contacted me because they always [thought] the victims want to hide and turn away, but I’ve been the opposite,” Rubin tells PEOPLE. “It seems like when I tell my story, I heal.”
Kathy Kleiner Rubin at CrimeCon 2019.Red Seat Ventures/Mollie Corbett
Rubin — who was a 20-year-old Chi Omegasorority sister at Florida State Universitywhen Bundy crept into her bedroom at 3 a.m. and beat her and her roommate with a club — discussed the attack and the aftermath at this year’sCrimeCon in New Orleans.
On June 6, Rubin told her story as part of a tribute to late writer Ann Rule, who wrote the true-crime hitThe Stranger Beside Me.
“[My attacker] wasn’t just any man — it was him,” she says. “There’s a face, a person, as sick as he was.”
Although CrimeCon wasn’t the first time Rubin has told her story to a group of people, it was the first time she saw how her story impacted others.
“I had so many people come up to me and hug on me and take photos with me because I empowered them to … confront things that have bothered them,” she says.
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“I opened my eyes, I looked up and in the dark I could see a dark figure. I saw him raise his hand, [holding] a log or a club,” she says. “And he struck me in the face with such force, it broke my jaw and shattered it.”
After the attack, Rubin says her sorority sisters did not reach out to her, and she felt alone as she tried to regain her strength with the help of her family. However, today, with support both online and in person, Rubin is in a better place.
“I feel the love I needed and the hugs I wanted and the good wishes,” she says. “All of that makes the other stuff go away.”
source: people.com
