What Were You Wearing?: Rewriting the sexual assault narrative through a survivor-centric exhibit

“What were you wearing?” sounds like a question, but it often functions like a verdict. From the the 2026 Conference on Crimes Against Women in Dallas, we sit down with Dr. Mary Simmerling and Dr. Denise Huskins Quinn to unpack the What Were You Wearing exhibit, a traveling art installation that recreates the everyday outfits survivors wore during sexual assault and pairs them with stories, audio, and case artifacts. The result is confronting and deeply human, designed to put the work of bearing witness back on the community and to dismantle victim blaming in real time.

Mary traces the exhibit back to a poem she wrote after her own assault at 18 and explains why art can reach places training manuals cannot. Denise shares the harrowing facts of her 2015 kidnapping and rape, and the second trauma that followed when police and media pushed a false narrative that the crime was fabricated. We talk about confirmation bias, interrogation tactics like the Reid technique, and the impossible “credibility tests” survivors get trapped in, from being judged as too emotional to not emotional enough.

We also dig into what it means to make a problem “visible” when shame and silence keep so many stories hidden, and how the team thoughtfully includes well-known cases, including their work with the family of Gabby Petito. Finally, we preview a new companion installation built around another loaded question: “Why didn’t she just leave?” and the life-or-death realities of domestic violence, resources, and lethality risk during separation.

Transcript

Welcome And Content Advisory

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the podcast on Crimes Against Women. I'm Maria McMullen. At the 2026 Conference on Crimes Against Women, we featured the exhibit What Were You Wearing, an installation developed through the voluntary contributions of survivors that recreates outfits of personal clothing worn at the time of their sexual assault. The exhibit creators, Dr. Mary Wyatt Hybert and Ms. Jen Brockman, describe the exhibit's intention as a project that would place the work of bearing witness to this question's answer back on the shoulders of the community and humanize the survivor in the answer. Today I meet with two of the many collaborators who contributed to this work to discuss the personal stories behind it and their campaign to make visible both survivors and their experiences. My guests include Dr. Mary Simmerling and Denise Huskins Quinn. This episode was recorded on location at the 2026 Conference on Crimes Against Women in Dallas, Texas, and includes a discussion about rape. You can read the guest bios and more about the exhibit on our website, conferencecaw.org. Mary and Denise, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Thanks for having us. Thank you, Maria.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I'm very excited to be with you at the 2026 Conference on Crimes Against Women. I know you are both very busy hosting the What Were You Wearing exhibit as well as presenting here at the conference. So I'm delighted that you could spend a little bit of time with me talking about the What Were You Wearing exhibit because it is profound. I've seen it myself. I I haven't even had the time yet to dive into all of the content and the audio content of the exhibit, but just the visual and some of the boards are very profound. And I understand you travel that across the country, correct?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yes, not only across the country, but across North America.

unknown 1:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

So what is the exhibit for our listeners?

How The Exhibit Began

SPEAKER_01 1:55

How is it conceptualized and what is the overall purpose?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yes, thank you for asking. So the What Were You Wearing exhibit started out based on a poem I wrote in 2005 about the sexual assault I experienced when I was 18 years old in 1987. And the poem takes up the question that I was asked so many times well, what were you wearing? And so I wrote this poem for myself. It's about something that is deeply personal, the clothing I was wearing the night that I was assaulted. And I didn't expect it to really go anywhere. But I shared it with my friend Ann Reim, who's the founder of the Voices and Faces Project in Chicago. And we shared it with our friend Patsy Evans. We had a whole group of women working together. Patsy's also a survivor. She's a photographer in Chicago and an activist. And it started to move and travel. And Patsy and I conceived of the exhibit, What Were You Wearing, based on the poem. We're both artists. She's very visual as a photographer. And so we wanted to create the exhibit to pair survivors' stories with representations of the clothing that they were wearing when they were assaulted. And interestingly, I did not have the chance to make the exhibit happen because I was in graduate school and I had to write my dissertation and I was focusing on other things. And so some women who are advocates got a hold of my poem, Dr. Mary and John Brockman, and they reached out to me and said, We'd really like to create this exhibit with your poem if that's okay with you. And I said, Absolutely, you're going to bring my dream into reality with the first physical installation. And so they did that, and it was deeply resonant with other survivors. Because it really, as you experienced when you went to the exhibit, it really upends the victim blaming. Because the question, what were you wearing? It's not a question, it's not a curiosity question. It is a thinly veiled accusation that somehow it was our fault. And so this exhibit has taken on a life of its own. And I have been able to take cut step into the role of curator last year. And we did the exhibit in Sloy Conference in Anaheim in April, and then we exhibited it in Toronto. I'm living in Canada now, so we exhibit it in Toronto. And every time we do it, it just becomes more and more a part of my life, and I see how important it is. And then Denise and I met at Ivaui and we started talking and we share a lot in common. And I said to Denise, would you be willing to become a co-curator with me and help me to lead these exhibits? And she agreed to do it. And so the exhibit that we're premiering this year is an expanded version that incorporates the audio and the visuals and the artifacts from the crime scenes. And so it's really looking at facilitating and enabling violence by not paying attention and by focusing on the victim blaming.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So so the the exhibit then is fluid. Yes. Is that what you're saying? So it can change over time.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yes, it changed. It changed since we did it in South Carolina three weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Oh that is fast.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yes, it changes over time. Another thing that we've been working on, and I'll let Denise talk about this too, is that we have been, as we bring it into each setting, each venue, each environment, each community, we are also bringing data of what's happening locally. Because we are not importing stories into communities. We're not bringing things that don't already exist here. I like to talk about it this way: if you hold up a piece of paper with writing on it too close to your face, you can no longer read what's on that piece of paper. The writing hasn't changed, the words haven't gone away, but your perspective gets distorted. And so when we bring these exhibits into communities, we are bringing in an opportunity to take a step back from what maybe you don't sometimes see right in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, I think that's brilliant. And it certainly works. I can just speak for myself at this moment that I've you know been in the exhibit. It's very, very powerful. I want

Mary’s Assault And Aftermath

SPEAKER_01 6:09

to back up just a little bit, Mary, because you have a personal connection to sexual violence, as you mentioned. Can you share with us what happened to you, how your story is portrayed in the exhibit?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Sure. So I went away to college when I was 18. My sister was living in Southern California and she said, Oh, you should come to school here. It's really beautiful. And so I I went early so I could get adjusted to the area. I at the time I was living with a family that was friends with my sister. She swam together at the YMCA with this woman, and they had a spare room. Their son was off to something for the summer, I can't remember what. And so I was living with them and I didn't have a car with me in California. And at the time in 1987, there was no Uber or Lyft or anything. And so the daughter, who was a little bit older than me, she took me to a party one night in Malibu, and I was really tired. I wanted to go home. I was 18 years old. People were feeling it was like a big party, and I couldn't get home. So she wanted to stay. I couldn't leave. I had no ride. I had no way to get home. I didn't have a cell phone, anything. And the man who whose home it was, he said, You can go to my sister's room in the basement and sleep down there, and no one will bother you. And I did, and I was woken up to him assaulting me. And somehow he got away and got home. But even when I got in the car, she said to me, this was her twin brother's best friend, she said to me, That couldn't possibly have happened. He wouldn't do that. And then he called me the next day. He gave him my number, and he called me the next day, and he invited me to dinner because he wanted to clear things up. And I said no again. And so he could stay with me. You're looking at a college dropout. I was not able to. This happened before I even went to my first class, but I was not able to stay in school. I went into a deep depression. I'm sure I had PTSD. And I ended up going back home and living with my parents in their house. And I stayed there for quite a while. And then I finally went back to school. I went to art school and then I went back to college. And then I went on to get a master's and a PhD and a postdoc and really focused on ethics and justice. I believe that we are inseparable from each other. I know Denise and I certainly feel this way. We we're very connected in this work. And so I feel like my story, my story is the story of so many other survivors. And what was really remarkable for me is that in all the years that the exhibit's been going on now, since 2014, during that entire time, no survivor has ever reached out to me and said, I'm just reaching out because I went to the exhibit or I read your poem. And I love this because it means that my poem became their poem. This exhibit became their exhibit. And because this is not about me, this is about all of us. And so I love that I think one of the things that art can do uniquely is it can transform our experiences and it can invite people into their own experience. And we don't have to tell them how to interpret it or anything else. They just get to be there, they get to have that. And I really love that.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah, for sure. First of all, that is just a very powerful experience. And you've you've done so much since all of that happened to you. And I'm so glad to know you and thank you for uh telling us your story today and also for the amazing work that you do. And I'm also uh really thrilled that you kind of teamed up with Denise and so many others to co-curate this exhibit because you've explained it to me as like a interdisciplinary sensory, multi-sensory experience. And I would definitely say that is true, having spent a little bit of time with the exhibit just today. I want to shift over to just a little bit to Denise to talk about your story and your also your husband, Aaron's story, because it has been publicly shared and at times was a source of controversy. It is featured in the exhibit. I did take a look at that today. It's really powerful, but also really challenging to read about your story. Can you share with us what happened to you and Aaron?

Denise’s Kidnapping And Disbelief

SPEAKER_04 10:38

Yeah, so back in 2015, Aaron and I had been dating for a little over half a year, hosting the night at his house, and we were awoken to a strange man saying, This is a robbery. We are not here to hurt you, stay calm, just repeating that over and over again. And I mean, ultimately, I was kidnapped. I was held captive for two days, raped twice. And Aaron had called the police for help. And almost immediately it was accusatory, and he was interrogated for 18 hours. The police's sole focus was on him and trying to get a confession from him. And that led them to not look at evidence that could have rescued me that first day. But thankfully, I was still released. And within hours, the police went on national news to say that it was all made up, and headlines across the world wrongfully called me the real life gone girl after the book that was just made into a movie, I think the year before. And again, the police had their sights on us and threatened us with prosecution. And sadly, the man who held me captive was free and emboldened to attack more families, and he did. And it took a different police agency, a different detective, Misty Kurusu, to follow the evidence. And she could see that that wasn't the only crime that he committed. And she worked tirelessly to try to find answers. And she did. She was able to link him to our case. And thankfully, then the truth came out.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

And all of this took some time, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:21

It took not as much time as we were expecting. I mean, we were like, okay, they're only looking at us. These people will attack again. And it's just a matter of time. And maybe 10, 20 years down the line, eventually it'll be linked to our case. But we we were preparing to live in this perpetual state of limbo indefinitely. And it was a relatively short amount of time, it was about three or four months that that it was finally linked and discovered and that the truth came out. But even then, that lasting view from people, I mean, when people have a belief so strongly, it's really hard to change those beliefs, even when the truth is out there. So although most people have accepted it, there's always going to be people who doubt us.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Of course. And that's very unfortunate. And I'm sorry for that. Thank you for sharing all of that with us. I would think that even just those few months of time had to be really terrifying for you, with pe you know, law enforcement not believing you, but you knowing that something actually did happen. And we don't know where this perpetrator is. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

Yeah. I mean, we couldn't return to Aaron's home. We didn't have a place to live. So we were just kind of floating around California, going from his parents to mine to friends. They, the our work would not let us back because they believed what the police had said. I mean, we that up until that point, I was 29 at the time. My entire adult life was built around becoming a physical therapist and being the best PT that I could be. I was in Vallejo for residency to specialize in neurological rehab. It's very passionate. I had a lot of momentum. And then it just, it just stopped. And so it was really everything about my life and that I valued. And it just, it, it was just blown up.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

I'm curious if was there any experience before the kidnapping with this individual? Was there any like break-in or anything that happened in advance? To our home? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:33

Well, he had said when I was in captivity that he'd enter home the home at least five times before. So he was collecting what he called intel, but he had also, there was also reports of peeping Tom in the neighborhood that the local, because there's a college in that neighborhood, the local students reported to police saying there's this guy who's walking around with the ladder, going up, taking pictures of women. There were break-ins that were reported to police, you know, within blocks of Aaron's home. So there was enough information to go how I mean that you would think police would have been like, well, there's all this other stuff happening. Could that be related? And they just didn't. And even the students followed him back to where he lived and knew that he was an attorney and used to be in the Marines, and they reported this to police. And this was months before the kidnapping. And somehow none of that was a thought, I guess. And even Misty, the detective who did follow the evidence and crack the case, she just put a bolo, a be on the lookout out just to see if any there was any similar crimes in the Bay Area. And she got two hits in 2009 of similar break-ins with similar details that are a little unusual, making the victims take a sedative with NyQuil mixed with the one of them he used blacked-out swim goggles for, and he used blacked-out swim goggles for us, similar types of threats. So it matched. And in fact, Matthew Muller, the man who held me captive, he was named as the prime suspect in those 2009 cases. And they didn't have enough evidence to connect him back in. So back then, so there was a lot, if you think of law enforcement following evidence and doing due diligence that would have led them to even after I was released, even if they, if they couldn't rescue me, which they could have, they could have at least stopped this from happening to other people. And so all of that, you know, as you live through it and you experience it, it's it just it shatters your world worldview. It's hard not to just feel just disheartened about humanity. But at the same time, there was so many good things that happened. I mean, the our support from our loved ones, and then having a detective, Misty, who, you know, there's we our case is kind of uh an example of the two extremes of the good and the bad, of um what can go wrong and what can go right. And so in the end, it's it's a positive story, even though it's uh it's uh quite tragic as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah, I'm I'm glad you can think of it that way. And I'm really glad that there was a resolution. This guy's behind bars for a lot of decades, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:24

He's now is now that the Netflix series came out, we were able to connect with the new law enforcement who had the jurisdiction to reopen the case. And working closely with us, they were able to communicate with Mueller in prison, go and interview him, and he confessed to several other crimes. His first was in 1993 when he was just 16 years old. He attacked a couple camping, he targeted them, left, came back with a gun. And so, I mean, and it's sad, the 2009 cases that were reported on the police didn't believe one of the victims, the police asked accusatory questions of that 1993 couple, doubting the boyfriend at the time, too. And so there's sadly a lot of themes throughout of the survivors not being believed. And with that, then this serial perpetrator. I mean, he was 16 and then his first attack, he was 38 when he got to us. And we know of, I mean, now he has four consecutive life sentences, so that is huge, but at the same time, you don't know what else is out there that he's done.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

So yeah, that would be hard to say. So 20 plus years of criminal activity is now over. He is in prison for the rest of his life and beyond, and you are safe, and that is, you know, wonderful because you were not rescued, correct? He released you and you just went out the back door or something.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Well, he drove me to my hometown and pulled me out of the car, told me to count to 10, drove off. And he the whole time is this pseudo remorse of, you know, I'm sorry that this is happening to you. You don't deserve this. I wish I knew you under different circumstances. I mean, what there's you know, but it's he and he's justified his behavior in a number of different ways and probably a longer conversation than we have time for for this.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Sure.

Evidence In The Exhibit Experience

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So then how is your story portrayed in the exhibit?

SPEAKER_04 19:38

Yeah, so uh we've got three boards up. One, the first one is a representation of what happened to Aaron because he was the original person, not believed. And gender bias goes both ways. You know, one of the things they kept telling him is like, you're a fit guy. Come on now, you want us to believe that this these things happen and you didn't fight back and you didn't do anything. Um, and so with that, they just they didn't believe him. And they put him, they literally stripped him down naked, photographing him piece by piece until he was nude, and then put him in prison clothes. And so it was systematically, I mean, I always say this when I was when Aaron and I finally were able to reconnect and I heard about what he went through with law enforcement. There's so many parallels to what I went through in captivity as far as the threats, the manipulation, distorting your perception. I mean, he was in a windowless room with no clock. He has, they have his keys, his phone, they have everything. His house is a crime scene, the door locks behind him. And he is there to help me. He to try to convince them, no, you need to go find her, you need to go find her. I didn't kill her. Like, you need to go find her. And um, the law enforcement is saying, like, we're not looking for a live Denise, we're looking for a dead Denise, accept it. She's dead. And so when I first started talking with Mary and we're talking about an exhibit and we were talking about expanding it, one of the things that we discussed was like, can we make this full sensory immersive where we move beyond the clothing, um, including the pieces of evidence, and then also potentially the interrogation tapes or body cam footage or the press coverage, or, you know, and so with Aaron's board, you you can see that you can literally be in the room with him watching as he's just being attacked by first the local police and then the FBI, and then my board. There's zip ties and the blacked out swim goggles, and then you see me being questioned by law enforcement and the the accusatory questions of oh, why didn't you fight back? Or why didn't you did you did you try to escape? Did you think about it? I'm like, I've no, I didn't think about it. I mean

SPEAKER_02 22:00

You know, question that really always just stays with me that you were asked is, had you ever been in that trunk before? I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

What? Yeah. Have you been in the trunk of that car before? And I I mean, you see me pause going back, what? No, like trying to process that this is a question that's going to help him solve the case. You know, it's just so yeah, being traumatized and then met with that, I'm just, it was confusing and terrifying.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Cause I mean, this is clearly a group of investigators, if you can call them that, that didn't believe you or you know, and from the get-go.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Yeah. And one thing we include in the board too, talking about like real live life statistics and things is talking about the read technique. So, I mean, when this was happening, at first you think, okay, this is this is just a rogue group of officers and they're just, you know, doing whatever they want. And they're, but we found out that that's how they're trained. And it's a guilt-presumptive technique where they determine in their mind if someone's not telling the truth based off pseudoscience of like body language and eye rolls or crossed arms or whatever it is. And then the sole focus becomes on extracting a confession. And there's a nine-step process to do that. And you can see, like step by step, both the local detective who's interrogating him and the FBI agent were following it. And yes, they might have been a little more extreme in it, but we've seen these tactics used on survivors of sexual assault going into report a crime. And there's a Netflix docuseries called Victim Suspect that that highlights that. It was probably the most popular training technique for law enforcement and also beyond. They have HR goes through it. And so you think it's school boards. And so it's a technique that people are fooled to think that they can tell if somebody is lying. And you can't. You can tell if someone's stressed, you can tell if they're uncomfortable, you can tell maybe if something's a little off, or you might, you know. But as far as the same thing with polygraphs, to fool yourself into believing that you can tell if someone's lying, especially in stressful situations. Anyone going into law enforcement, especially to report someone missing, a loved one missing, or even being a family member and like having that deep feeling of guilt or whatever that even though you're not responsible for the crime, but you care deeply and it's the most traumatizing moment of your life.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I think this group of officers needs to have free registration to the conference on crimes against women.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

They're retired with their pensions now, so at least this group. Well, we may be better off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Now, victim blaming is clearly a tactic that was used in not just by law enforcement, but everybody in this case, from media to social media.

Victim Blaming And Media Narratives

SPEAKER_01 24:57

How did victim blaming hinder your case and how did you confront that?

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Well, I mean, first off, right, again, it started with Aaron blaming him for not fighting back, blaming him for having too bizarre of a story. I mean, it's it's not our fault or our responsibility as victims to make things make sense for people. It's is violent crime where you're stalked and preyed upon, and then someone kidnaps you. I mean, it's so extreme. I can't make sense of it as I'm living it. But then to go and have to report it and then somehow make you believe me, all I can do is tell the truth. And so it's it played a role in what what they viewed as evidence or not. And that led to confirmation bias. And then that led to, you know, I mean, really, I should have been killed. I really should have been killed based on how they handled the case. And then I'm released and it all became, it turned into the sensationalism of showing gone girl where she's bloody and she's collapsing. They were trying to say that I was emulating her, except I when I finally watched that movie nine months later for the first time. So I'm like being told I'm replicating something I've never seen or read before. But then I see at first I was told that I wasn't emotional enough. So it didn't seem like anything really bad happened to me. But that was my defense strategy. And I had been drugged for two, two days straight. But to keep myself sane, I was numb. But then in the movie, she's like dramatic and bloody and she inflicted injuries to herself. And I and reports said I came back unscathed or unharmed, that I didn't have visible signs of anything quote unquote bad happening to me. So therefore they couldn't believe me. And so it's there's a no-win situation. Either you're too emotional and you're being traumatic and wanting attention, or you're not emotional enough, so therefore you're a sociopath. Either you have too many details, so therefore you made it up, or not enough details, so then you know you're unreliable. It's, I mean, what's sad about it is our belief systems and our biases are strong. And it's something that's just a human thing. And it's really important for all of us to recognize that we're never going to be 100% objective and as much as we try to, but that's why we need to kind of self-reflect. And instead of that rush to judgment and that knee-jerk reaction of like, say, people on social media, they read a headline, it catches them, it pulls an emotion from them, and then boom, they just start typing away. And what has been nice is hearing from some people to say, now that I've seen what happened to you, I know to pause before I really start reacting. Because those reactions, that secondary victimization was way more damaging to us than the event itself. Because when you go through something as horrific as that, you hope to lean to your community and fellow human beings for support. And we were abandoned and attacked. And um, and that's ultimately like our journey of sharing. I mean, one to to share the truth, right? So we wrote a book to make sure, like, hey, here it is. If you're interested in what happened, it's all there. And then, you know, every element has a different, a different thing to take from it, right? So the docuseries, you know, that can be emotionally compelling and and really draw people in. And there's, of course, a sense of entertainment uh about it to keep people engaged. But in the end, thankfully, the production company we work with was really able to highlight the systemic issues. And then meeting Mary, like, I don't view myself as an artistic person. I like more science-based, and I try to tap into my artist, my inner artist, but to be with people who that's like that's just comes naturally and it's a skill that they've crafted over a long period of time. And I really respect and admire that. And so for her to ask me to be a part of this, it's like, well, great. I get to do something that wouldn't be something that I think that I would be able to do. But it again, it's it allows a different type of connection for people to be present in the room and you're walking and you're seeing like a child's bathing suit or a Boy Scout's uniform or a baseball uniform. Um, you know, you a gymnast, so you know, a medical gown. And I think, I mean, it's hard. It's it's a heavy, it's a heavy experience, but it's really, really powerful to be like in it and really feel what these survivors have gone through and some sadly who have not survived. And just to, yeah, to be in a room together and and share that.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Yeah, I would completely agree. Thank you for for giving us all of that context

Patterns Of Violence Made Visible

SPEAKER_01 30:07

and information. I know it's a lot, I know it's hard still. But Mary, I've also heard you say to these points that the exhibit makes visible a problem that already exists. I guess help us understand that.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

So we don't often get to see this in one place, right? We can hear snippets here and there. Many we know that many survivor most survivors don't ever report, they don't share. There's a huge amount of shame and blame. So the exhibits help to make visible a number of things. One, the clothing is not to blame. Two, there are patterns that exist across the names, are different, the places are different, the dates are different, but these are systemic patterns of violence. And when Denise and I started working together, one of the reasons we decided to name this new expansion, the role of victim blaming and indifference and facilitating and perpetuating gender-based crimes, is because exactly what Denise shared with us the victim blaming, the indifference, the indifference about the college students, like what what evidence would be enough for us to be believed? And so it makes these patterns visible and it makes the people and the stories real. And it also allows us to bring our stories together so that we're not alone. I was telling Denise about how when I move the exhibit and go back to my room afterwards, I feel the absence of the stories I carry because we carry these stories with us. Um, this is something that it's really sacred to me. I actually build the black storyboards on the ground and I kneel in front of them when I'm building them because it's really an act of reverence and something that we hold great care. So we're making visible things that people don't see. For example, on Gabby's board, we have the photograph of her face that she took showing it bloody and bruised when the police were called by someone on the street who saw Brian Laundrie hitting her in the face. And the police came, and the dash cam footage shows them blaming Gabby and as the perpetrator and not the victim, and trying to protect Brian and failing to do the lethality assessment. And of course, we know that she was found murdered by Brian two weeks later. And so we see differently, we can pay attention differently. And when we bring our stories together, we aren't so alone and we don't parse what has happened to us. We're all there together and we treat the storyboards and stories and lives of the people who did not survive the same way we treat the survivors who are with us. And I think I told you that my own mother-in-law was a victim of violence. She was sexually assaulted and murdered in 1974 in front of her children. My husband was five years old at the time. And one of the things that this particular installation is doing is showing a 50-year through line in the state of Utah, where my mother-in-law, Cynthia, in Ann Hannigan's case, her family tried to sue because the person who murdered her was a very violent offender. He was an arsonist, he was in jail, very violent man. And he was sent released out into the community to do a work release program, which he walked off of and went to her and murdered her. And and the state invoked immunity, saying that it was their discretion, they had no responsibility, they had their discretion to let him work in the community. And the same thing happened in the Petito case. Petito's family tried to sue the police department for failing to do their job in the state in the state of Utah and Loyal Police, and they invoked immunity. And so we're very hopeful that this might change because right now the Supreme Court of Utah is set to hear the appeal in Petito and that 50 years later the decision might change. And we might be able to, it's not that they're just, it's not that they're not held accountable. They don't even review the cases. They're not reviewable, they don't even assess them, they don't look at them. So I remain really hopeful that we can make change through laws, through people coming to the exhibits. Denise and I recently curated the exhibit in Charleston, South Carolina with Susie Boylan and Jen Murphy. Jen runs the MMIW project in Montana where she does the Billboards, and Susie Boylan's a prosecutor from Missoula. And they did a, the team there did a pre- and post survey from our, we did an educational session, similar to the talk Denise and Erin are going to give tomorrow, and talking about the exhibit and just bringing different aspects of it to the community. And this was a group of almost a hundred professionals, people who are social workers, psychologists, first responders, police officers, detectives, people who do this every day for a living, prosecutors. And they did a pre- and post-survey with the after the exhibit in the educational session. And what they saw was that before the session, there was a really uh a belief that the number of false reports was very high and that the number of successfully prosecuted cases was very high. And of course, we know that that quite the opposite is true. And so the post-survey, the numbers flipped in the opposite direction. And so that gives me hope that through this exhibit, I believe in the power of art to change lives. I really do. And I think through this exhibit, we're having we're getting an opportunity to do that.

The Curatorial Team And Partners

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Let's talk about the team who helped to curate the exhibit. Who are they and how do their unique experiences contribute to what you call is sacred work?

SPEAKER_02 36:20

So I initially brought Denise in, and Susie Boylan came to the Avaui show of the exhibit last year also, and I asked her if she wanted to be involved, and um she agreed. So we have Denise and Aaron, who are both doctors of physical therapy and survivors. We have Susie, who's a 20-year career prosecutor of cases like this, and who's done incredible transformative work in this area. We have Jen Murphy, who is missing and murdered indigenous women in person advocate and resilience trainer in Montana. And she started the MMIW Billboard Project in Montana, which is fabulous. She also has a book that is really important titled More Like Her. It's a children's book, and it's focused on asking the question from an indigenous perspective: if I looked more like her, would you look for me? And it's the other person actually looks a lot like Denise and me, other person pictured in the book. And Jen is a very close friend of us both now and a collaborator, and so she's a really important part of the team. Also, we have Chris McGee, who is a father and advocate who is fighting to get the laws changed in Pennsylvania to hold police officers, teachers, any mandated reporters accountable if they engage in sexual violence with children. And so he's a really important part of the team, also. Denise introduced me to Nikki Schmidt, Nikki and Jim, Gabby's mom and stepdad. They have joined our curatorial team. And some of the people who have boards in the exhibit are now part of the curatorial team for this exhibit. And so we have Ichiya Chu from Taiwan, who got a grant from the government of Taiwan to come and curate this with us. And so she's here with us. We also have Donna Zucker, who has pieces in the book Making Space for the Light, documenting the violence that shapes the lives of women and girls, that Denise and I put together and published this year. Denise wrote the introduction, Susie wrote the foreword, Jen was heavily involved. So we all have pieces in this book. And also Penny Nichols, who is coming from Louisiana to be part of the group. And then we added a new co-curator yesterday, and I'll tell you a little bit about her when we get to talk about the pivot we're doing on the exhibit.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

So for both of you, I know that you mentioned to me and we talked a little bit about it here, but the family of Gabby Petito is now part of your team. What was the impetus for that partnership and the work that they're contributing?

SPEAKER_04 39:00

Well, I was fortunate to meet Nikki Schmidt at CrimeCon a few months after the Netflix docuseries came out. She came up and gave us a hug and she introduced herself, and she was like, I'm Nicole Schmidt, Gabby of Tito's mom. And I instantly got teary-eyed because I was following that case. But she and I we remained in contact and kind of following, you know, our our own survivor advocate paths that aren't necessarily parallel, but they do intersect, which has been really nice to have, you know, someone who is living in the advocacy space and trying to turn such a horrible tragedy into something that can hopefully create positive change. Cause this this isn't easy, you know. I mean, we we relive our trauma and we uh, you know, physically, emotionally, our bodies, it's it takes it's a takes a toll. Um, however, I mean, having two young girls, myself now with Erin, it's just it's the work is so important and so valuable to us. And so when I met Mary and we were talking about expanding the exhibit and incorporating, you know, audiovisual pieces, and we were even talking about, you know, the the stories that get lost, the that are never captured. And, you know, our case was big, and we have a Netflix show, and so did the Petito family. And so we were talking about how, you know, maybe we can use some of these more well-known stories as a way to allow people to kind of connect with what they've already seen and heard before, but then also be able to really see the people who are unseen.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

I think that is a really brilliant idea because I I I've been in the exhibit now, just you know, I'd need to spend more time in it, but I have seen it. And I do think that it makes a little bit of a difference because people have a just a memory of the story that they've seen, even if it was very brief, whether it was on social media or something in the media. And I will tell you what I one of the things I found really profound was actually a couple things about Gabby's board. The outfit she was wearing after the 911 response is something I remember very clearly from the video footage that I had seen of that call. And when I saw the recreation of that, that really made it very real for me. And then also the photos, because the it's one thing to see the video of that response call. It's another thing to look at the still images and be faced with them of the, you know, the injuries to her face. And so I I think that was very smart to give people that association. It may it does kind of start putting the puzzle together. Mary, did you want to talk any more about how you're working with the Petitos or any of the other curators?

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Sure. And I also want to just say that we take great care in picking, selecting every single piece of the exhibits. Um, it's like I said, it's sacred work for me. So Denise and I were really excited that Nikki and Jim wanted to be part of the exhibits. And for me personally, of course, there's a through line from Gabby's case dating back to my mother-in-law's case. And so I was very delighted that they were willing to contribute Gabby's story and the photos are amazing. And Nikki and Jim have been so generous with sharing even her diary entries on the board now, and these photos of her. And I think one of the things the exhibit allows you to do is just pause long enough to notice that photo of her face bruised and battered. And so it reorients you in a way that's really important. And having Nikki and Jim involved has been remarkable, and I can't really describe the experience of working alongside each other in this way. It's very hard to describe, but the bond we have through this work is really, really deep. And Chanel Miller, who wrote Know My Name about her own experience of being assaulted, she says in her book that there's something about being a survivor where we recognize each other, we have a shared language and a common understanding where we don't have to ask each other questions. Like there's a just this there's this way that we know each other that is very deep. And I think it allows us to enter this work in a different way. And to be present in a different way. Do would you agree with that, Denise? Absolutely, yes.

Why Didn’t She Leave Exhibit

SPEAKER_01 44:06

You previously shared with me that you are working on a new version of the exhibit in response to another question that survivors are often faced with, which is why didn't she just leave? Tell us about that work.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Yes. So I have been focused on the domestic violence side for a long time, also. And I think it's come to a point, and certainly working with the Petitos has helped with this too, that we need to focus on the domestic violence and the victim-blaming question: why didn't you just leave? And so we have decided as a curatorial team that we are going to create that exhibit. And we're going to highlight the fact that there are really important and good reasons that women don't leave. And that staying is not a choice, it's not a deliberate decision to stay. It is an attempt to stay alive. And that's really important. So we're going to be looking at some of the different issues that prevent women from leaving the men who abuse them, including traumatic brain injuries, including lacking the means to be able to leave, including, let's not forget the lethality assessment that happens. The most dangerous time for a woman is when she's leaving an abusive partner or ex-partner. And so we really want to bring that question into focus and give people that time to pause and think about it differently. That it's not a decision to stay, it's an attempt to stay alive. And so we'll be doing that exhibit in September. We're going to premier it in September of this year at the Kakaw Summit. And we are going to, we have a board in this current exhibit, a preview board for the new exhibit, and it features Megan's story. And Megan was the victim of domestic violence. She was the victim of a gang assault when she was a teenager, and then domestic violence and trafficking. And she threw her former partner out, told him he had to leave. And he stabbed her 54 times in the back, ending her life. So we're delighted that Megan's mom is with us. She's joined our team. And I had the privilege yesterday to build that board with her. So that we could share her story and change the perception around domestic violence. Because no woman wants to stay in a violent relationship. No one. And we met and started talking. And I told her about the exhibit that we're going to be doing. Why didn't she why didn't you just leave? And I invited her to contribute her daughter's board, and that's when we made the decision to do that. So she was murdered seven weeks after Gabby was murdered.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Wow. Yeah, you've said it. I mean, that is the truth. And the work that you're doing is really important to hopefully changing what the future looks like for women in abusive

Closing And Conference Details

SPEAKER_01 48:07

relationships. Mary and Denise, I could not be more grateful for your time and for the work you're doing. Thank you both for talking with me today. Thank you for having us. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. The 22nd Annual Conference on Crimes Against Women will be held May 24th through the 27th, 2027, in Dallas, Texas. Learn more at conferencecaw.org and be the first to know about all conference details, as well as the latest on the Institute for Coordinated Community Response, Annual Conference Summit Beyond the Bounds, and the National Training Center on Crimes Against Women. When you follow us on social media at National C C AW.