Unpacking the last box, I looked around my room in the university house I’d just moved into. “Looks like we’re all set,” I said to my roommate, Barbara* as we made our beds. My mum had wanted me to live in a girls-only house rather than dorms because she thought it would be safer. “No one can just wander in from the street,” she said as we’d pulled up that morning. The room itself was small, with two beds close together, but we tried to make it feel like home, hanging plants across our large window which overlooked the carpark.
That night, as we settled into bed, I had a thought. “Should we lock our bedroom door?” I asked. But Barbara reminded me we
Kathy Kleiner Rubin, 66, was excited to start university, then one night, her life changed forever…
wouldn’t need to worry. We had no reason not to trust our housemates and they were the only ones with access to the house.
The girls were lovely and I enjoyed living in the house. Next to our room was a student called Margaret Bowman. I didn’t know her well but she was pretty and always friendly to younger housemates like me. In the evenings, we’d all get together in the main living room, snuggling on the huge comfy sofa in our pjs to watching gameshows and sitcoms.
Then one Saturday in January 1978, after my boyfriend Simon dropped me home from a friend’s wedding, I tucked myself into bed for the night. By 11.30pm, I was fast asleep. But around 3am, I was woken by a loud crash as someone tripped over a box in our room. Suddenly, the terrifying silhouette of a man loomed over me. In the darkness, I could make out the figure raising his arm above his head, clasping what looked like a log. Slamming his arm down, the log cracked hard into my head. As the attacker hit me, excruciating pain radiated through my face and jaw and my mouth filled with blood. The sinister assailant then turned on Barbara and a thud sounded as he whacked her. Spinning back to me, he raised his arm again. “He’s going to kill me,” I thought.
But then a car pulled into the carpark, its headlights filling the room with light. Startled, our attacker dashed out into the corridor and I lost consciousness. When I came to, I couldn’t speak – my head was pounding and my mouth felt funny. Paramedics had arrived and my injuries were so bad they thought I’d been shot. At hospital, doctors revealed the true extent of my injuries – my jaw was completely shattered in three places. The force of the blow from the log meant I’d bitten my tongue, shredding it. The log had also gashed my cheek, leaving a gaping hole.
My family
