Posted by the stories behind the accusations
Annaleece Merrill is someone I don’t want to mess with. Or should I say mess around with. Bad joke. She pops-up quite a bit on Google.
I’m not entirely sure I follow her journey. I think religion is a part of it but she does not write about that. Three jobs is descriptive and there is nothing wrong with industrious effort. And you cannot go wrong through education.
“I learned that I could use the coping skills that I had learned to help girls that are currently going through unplanned pregnancies,” she writes and that provides some direction.
And I fear that studying a little psychology doesn’t qualify you. It could be difficult given that you love your birth daughter but she is adopted by another person or family.
The Torrey Green story is an interesting/awful one. There is a lot about it on on the web. I remember Auston Robertson at Michigan State. Never have I seen such an obvious predator and the case against him.
Very sadly, he is probably going to spend most of his life in prison and that is a result of our (society’s) inability to protect ourselves from him. It is more a sickness than a crime. Hooray for the women because they have learned to stand-up for themselves and hopefully protect themselves too.
For Green it isn’t love, attraction, or even dating. It is like football in that it is aggressive if not violent. Texting someone you don’t even know for months is very strange. The whole thing was as premeditated and continuous as can be. What really was the goal or problem with Torrey Green?
A very telling sign of something really out of kilter is saying afterward “Don’t report it.” You shouldn’t have to say that. You certainly shouldn’t plan to say it or say it repeatedly as an ordinary matter after a “date.”
What it means, if you follow college sports, is if he gets in trouble he could be kicked-off the team. He would lose his scholarship and his “career” as a student-athlete. He wasn’t even a starter for the most part. He was not an NFL prospect.
Parts of this story stick out. First is the long-time predatory behavior which probably goes back to high school. Then there is the intransigence of the university and police department (see below). Something else is the unique atmosphere; this is Utah, not East Lansing. And, as mentioned previously, what really is the mental disorder that Torrey Green is dealing with?
As for Logan, Utah, what is probably going to happen–what should happen–is Utah State University will be sued for failing to provide adequate and appropriate Title IX resources. Hopefully the sheriff’s department will receive a wake-up call too.
The women? Of course they are victims. Just look at the trauma. First, report it even if you know they are not going to do anything. Next, rest easy that he is behind bars and know that your community is now aware. You are aware too. Go ahead and write on birthmom.com if it helps. You survived and eventually there was support.
Remember the coping lessons? Per Annaleece, things can and will get better.