I remember hiding and sleeping in the closet because I didn’t want him (my stepfather) to find me. But he always did. And when he did he wanted me to ”pet his dog” as he called it. It was horrible. The smell of booze and sweat was unbearable. In the beginning, he wasn’t violent, but when I resisted he began hitting me and sometimes he also had a knife and threatened to cut off my fingers if I didn’t ”touch his dog”.
In ’93 when mother fled back to Korea with Debra, I was placed in an orphanage outside London. Basically a nice place with a huge garden and close to the forest. I must have been around 5 years old at that time. My stepfather was not supposed to know where I was but unfortunately, he was very aware of my whereabouts and he visited me quite often and at some point, he began to take me out for a ride in the forest – with his ‘dog’ of course – ‘Daddy’s Dog’!
For years I didn’t dare to tell anybody about this. I was simply too terrified and I also felt embarrassed thinking of telling someone what was happening. But I did. One day I told the superintendent what my stepfather was doing. He didn’t say a word. He just turned around and walked away. Something was wrong here. Badly wrong. I felt totally rejected and I was very confused that he did not say anything at all.
So I went outside and took hide in the woods trying to find some kind of meaning or explanation, but I couldn’t. So instead I decided to spy on him and try to find out why he acted suspiciously. I had gained some experience hiding in closets, so I thought I would do the same here. As a result, I spent a lot of evenings in his closet at his office, sitting there behind clothes, books, and briefcases listening to his phone calls and watching his meetings with strangers. Many of them were not from the UK. I heard them speak languages I did not know. Probably some kind of European language but I’m not sure.
One night he got this special call where everything suddenly fell into place. I overheard a meeting with some strangers from abroad, where he agreed to deliver a boy and a girl at a small airport south of London in return for 50.000 pounds!
Suddenly I understood why my friends disappeared from this place. They were simply sold!
I knew I had to do something, but before I could figure out what I should do, the situation somehow appeared all by itself. A few days later my stepfather picked me up for another ride. He was drunk as usual and this time he took me home to his apartment. Inside he immediately dropped his pants and I tried to escape through the front door while he stood there with his pants halfway down but he managed to block my way despite the position of his pants. I was terrified but determined that this had to stop! I could not take it anymore! I had enough!
For some time he chased me from room to room and I ended up in the kitchen – suddenly remembering that he once used a knife to threaten me, so I immediately went for the drawers and found what I needed – a big knife. A huge wonderful companion which was able to do what my parents failed to do – protect me!
Of course, he noticed that I held my hands behind my back, but my best advantage was probably that he was under heavy influence of the booze he had been drinking and before I knew it, I planted the knife in his belly. Not once. Not twice. But over and over! I later learned the coroner had counted 28 knife wounds. I did not count. I was totally captured and mesmerized by the feeling of being released from my prison as I stabbed this low life scumbag again and again and again. A feeling of freedom that was way too big to grasp.
There was blood everywhere and I only had the clothes I was wearing, so I ran out of the house as fast as I could and I ended up at the harbor where I entered one of the huge cargo ships and took hide deep down behind some of the containers.
I don’t know exactly how long time I spent in the cold dark stomach of this containership from London Container Terminal. It was more than a week but less than two. I slept on some card boxes I arranged as a mattress and used some tarps to pull over me trying to retain some kind of body temperature that was high enough to not kill me. It was hard to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw my stepfather attacking me and me stabbing him. I was still shit scared, half in panic and afraid to sleep and relax. What if someone found me and turned me over to the police? What if I didn’t make it? How was I supposed to survive?
