After the Anguish: Rick Garmon and his daughter Katie.

I had a plan to kill the guy—the guy who date-raped my 18-year-old daughter, Katie.

I've never been much of a talker. Maybe I communicate better with my hands. I'm a mechanic, and I thought I could fix anything. When the washing machine, air conditioner, and water heater broke, I fixed them.

But I couldn't fix my own daughter—couldn't put her together again.

"Who did it?" my voice, flat as a piece of steel.

"I only know a nickname," my wife Julie whispered in the early morning darkness. "Katie just admitted she was raped 14 months ago. It's too late to press charges." She continued quietly, "And, if we don't do something quick about her anorexia, she's going to die."

After the rape, Katie started secretly vomiting and starving herself. We didn't know why until that December morning two years ago when we finally pieced the story together. Julie couldn't sleep and thumbed through a magazine. After reading an article on date rape, her instincts revealed that this had triggered Katie's eating disorder. She woke Katie who finally admitted the truth.

Then Julie woke me. Before sunrise I knew the guy was as good as dead. I grew up hunting and had a gun cabinet full of rifles, as well as four pistols for target practice. Even if it cost my life, he'd pay. I should have been there to stop it. That's what fathers do. Protect their families. My anger felt red hot and fiery. For months it moved around in my head and jolted me awake at night. Make him pay for what he did.

We have three children. Jamie's 24, then Katie, and Thomas is 14. But there's this current running between Katie and me. She earned a softball college scholarship, and I'd coached her over the years. Scrappy, that's Katie. Then in early spring of her freshman year, she decided no more college softball. She said she wanted to change schools. It didn't make sense.

In July, Katie came home for dinner. We noticed extreme changes.

"What are you staring at?" she snapped at Julie. Something looked dead in her eyes. Julie stared at her. "You've lost weight."

"I'm your Dad and I'm telling you, you're too skinny."

"I'm fine. I've been real busy." She piled her food and divided it, like a squirrel hoarding for the winter.

For the first time in my life, I couldn't fix something broken. Instead, I'd sit on the concrete floor of my shop and stare at the old Triumph motorcycle I was restoring. Machines felt predictable.

My plan to kill him
A few weeks later, Julie curled up behind me in bed and talked to my back. "She's worse. She won't go for counseling." In my mind that amounted to, "You're her father. Be a man."

I kept still, faced the wall, and watched the red glow of the alarm clock in the dark. My jaws tight, I raked my teeth left and right. "If I knew how to fix her, don't you think I would?" I pulled back from Julie and everybody else. Get up, go to work, think about the plan, try to forget, go home, try to go to sleep, dream the plan.

I plotted to drive through the campus and use my Smith and Wesson .243 caliber bolt-action rifle. Someone would know his real name. I'd sit in the parking lot as long as necessary until he walked by. Then I could get it out of my head, and Katie could start eating again.

Katie came home for the weekend two months after the truth came out. When she entered a room, I walked out. It tore me up to see her. She and I didn't talk much anymore. I missed watching the Atlanta Braves with her. I missed laughing with her. I just plain missed her.

My son, Thomas, and I were alone in my truck that Friday night, driving home from his baseball game.

"What's wrong with Katie?" he asked, fidgeting with the door lock on my truck.

"What do you mean?"

"She's skinny."

"Son, something bad happened to your sister at college. A boy hurt her. It's making her sick."

He didn't ask any more questions.

Julie tried to tempt her with a great meal on Saturday. Sitting across from Katie, I kept my eyes on my food. It felt as though we lived in a funeral home. The only sounds were clanking of silverware and the clinking of ice. I couldn't take the phoniness.

I slammed my chair to the table and took off to my room in the basement. I'd spent a lot of time down there in my getaway room of guns and the sports channel.

Methodically, I started cleaning the rifle I'd use.

Then I heard Thomas trotting downstairs. "Whatcha doing, Dad?" I kept on cleaning and never looked at him. I rocked in my recliner with the gun across my lap.

"Can I help you clean?"

I didn't say a word.

"You going hunting?"

I looked up at him, his eyes so brown they looked almost black, just like mine. He stood inches from my knees. His hair, cut to match a G.I. Joe flattop, just like mine. I kept my gaze on my son and moved the red rag around in circles. Our eyes met. Thomas's eyes brimmed with tears. He knows. Dear, God. I think my son knows my plan.

I stopped polishing the gun and laid it on the floor by the chair. "Come here, boy. Give your daddy a hug." He wrapped his arms around me tight as a cobra. Thomas's love was somehow stronger than my hatred. His hug began to crumble my rage like a sledgehammer breaking a wall. Chip by chip.

Sweet Jesus, what have I been thinking? My job's not finished.

Forgive me.

Thomas isn't raised.

If I go to jail, he won't have a father.

God, help me.

Locking the gun in the cabinet, I made a choice to forgive. God, I gotta let go of this hate. It's killing me. The decision started in my head, not from any feeling. Swallowing back tears, Thomas and I walked upstairs together, my arm on his shoulder. I came so close.

Alive again
That night I confessed my plan to Julie and we prayed together, kneeling by our bed. Changes followed in my family too. Katie had dropped to 78 pounds. Out of practical options, Julie and I prayed for her like never before. Julie prayed out loud against the deceit and self-destruction that had taken over the past year. As she prayed, something broke loose in Katie and for the first time, she began to believe us. After the prayer, Katie drove to the mall to buy some clothes to fit her tiny frame. Staring in that dressing room mirror, she told us, was the moment she finally realized that her arms and legs were like spaghetti. She saw—really saw—her vertebrae jutting out of her skin.

Like infection draining from a wound, Katie began talking about the destructive thoughts she'd had. She shared more about that horrific night her freshman year. As she felt free to tell the truth, she began to regain her weight. Bringing the secret to light was liberating—and life-saving. Our family physician put Katie on a healthy diet and helped us monitor her progress. Our church also has walked with us through Katie's recovery. In time, I was able to share this story at a men's breakfast, Julie shared it before the whole church during a Mother's Day service, and Katie herself gave her testimony to our youth group at a Purity Weekend. The more she talked, the healthier she became.

These days, Katie is smiling again. This spring she will marry James Beirne, a fine young man who loves and respects her. By God's grace, our daughter is alive again.

More than two years have passed since Julie's powerful prayer, and I still marvel at God's response. The only way for me to live was to forgive—and that was something I couldn't do by myself. When I finally admitted my weakness, God rescued us with His unfailing strength.

The Garmon family lives in Monroe, Georgia. For more information about date rape, visit www.rainn.org/what-should-i-do, or call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE.

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