JUPITER, Fla. — Flaming shots of liquor at a beach house party lured Kat Duesterhaus and her friends to the men who would later rape her.
“I was 14 years old when I was sexually assaulted by a group of men,” Duesterhaus, now 33-years-old, told Contact 5’s crime investigator Merris Badcock.
“At the party, there was lots of liquor, so they encouraged me and my friends to drink.” She remembers laughing with the men around her, but then one made a crude remark. “They started joking amongst each other about who was going to get to go first.”
Duesterhaus told Contact 5 her friends tried to help, but by the time everyone figured out what was happening, it was too late.
“I disassociated after the first rapist once I realized that, even if I did manage to fight him off, there were still four other guys waiting outside to have their turn at me.”
It took Duesterhaus four years to work up the courage to tell the cops. But she says police told her there was nothing they could do: the statute of limitations was up.
“I wanted to die. I did not care about my life, and it killed a part of my soul for many years,” she said, standing on the shores of Jupiter.
To this day, Duesterhaus says no one has been held accountable for the attack.
“It took me a long time to move from victim to survivor, but it is possible.”
Keep scrolling to find out what you can do to safely help someone if you think they may have been drugged or assaulted.
Two local investigations in just two months have landed two men in jail. Both are accused of sexual assault.
In one case, Boca Raton police say a woman’s drink was drugged by a local doctor. Reports show a bar patron watched the doctor pour a powder like substance into the woman’s drink. The witness told the bartender, who saved the drink and called police.
In the other case, the victim told West Palm Beach police she couldn’t remember who she got from a bar to her hotel room and she was afraid she had been sexually assaulted. Police say surveillance video from the hotel showed two men dragging the woman, unconscious, into the room. Investigators say DNA results identified a suspect: the manager of a local car dealership.
In both cases, the victims cooperated with police. Both men pleaded not guilty to their charges and their cases are still pending through court.
With a spotlight on drug-facilitated sexual assault, Contact 5 wanted to know just how of crimes like these were being reported in our area.
See graph below to compare sexual assault reports. If the graph does not load, click here.
We asked seven Palm Beach County law enforcement agencies for all reports that referenced the words ‘date rape’ and ‘poured into drink’.
Contact 5 got back 140 cases. Some were so heavily redacted the reports were impossible to read. However, we found at least 13 cases with substantial evidence. Of those case, eight victims chose to prosecute.
Inspired by the recent headlines and professional experiences, Wellington restaurant Beauty and the Beeeef, decided to take action.
“We watch people all the time,” said bar manager Michael Malone. “We can see when two random strangers start talking.”
To help fight back against sexual assault, the restaurant turned to Treasure Coast mom Mindi Fetterman. “It is something that a lot of people think happens, you know, in Miami, in Chicago, in New York, but it happens here,” Fetterman said, during a recent training with employees. “You guys are actually on the front lines.”
Fetterman herself is also a survivor of drug-facilitated sexual assault. ”I was molested when I was a child. I was drugged and I was gang raped when I was 16. I was raped again when I was 23,” Fetterman told Contact 5.
“I was hearing stories over and over again about people who would say, ‘I went out and I had two drinks and I don’t even know how I ended up on the floor with my pants around my ankles.’ And I realized this is big.”
So Fetterman founded a program: What’s on TAP. The free training session teaches bar and restaurant staff to train, acknowledge and protect.
”The number one thing you can do as a bar or a restaurant is talk to your staff and come up with a plan, that if something happens, what is going to be your protocol?”
An example? Don’t throw away drinks you think may have been drugged. Instead, bartenders should save them and call the police. “That is brilliant,” said Fetterman, “and that is only something the bartender would know [to do] if they had talked about it as a staff.”
After she finished training, Fetterman hands out a sticker to each bar and restaurant she trains, so they can display it at the front of their business. It is something people can look for, knowing the staff at a restaurant with an Inner Truth Project sticker has been trained to handle any situation, should something come up.
She also wants victims to know they are not alone. “Even if you were to get completely naked and completely drunk, nobody has the right to take advantage of you.”
Duesterhaus believes everyone is responsible when it comes to ending sexual assault.
“I think it’s everybody’s responsibility, if they see something, to help if somebody’s in trouble.”
She encourages people to get involved at a level they feel comfortable with, and offered four, safe ways to do it, using the acronym C.A.R.E.
- C – Create a distraction. Duesterhaus says you can try and distract someone from hurting a potential victim by creating a distraction. “Grab their car keys and turn on their car alarm,” she said, as an example. “Anything to distract them.”
- A – Ask directly. If you feel comfortable, Duesterhaus says you can always ask someone directly if you witness something. For example, “Did you put something in that person’s drink?” or, “Can you leave that person alone?”
- R – Refer to an authority. Don’t be afraid to get an authority figure, like a bouncer, the bartender or the cops involved, if you see someone in trouble.
- E – Enlist others. You can also ask friends for help. For example, “Your friend over there? I think he/she is about to make a really bad decision.”