Rape victim talks about forgiving the "Dead Man Walking"

A young couple on a date is abducted. The young man is shot. The girl is repeatedly raped.

The case may sound familiar, but in this Louisiana crime, the couple survived the brutal attack.

One of the survivors has turned her nightmare into a message of healing and forgiveness.

Sixteen-year-old Debbie Cuevas is now adult Debbie Morris. She is an educator with Knox County schools and travels all over the country talking about the crimes that changed her life and how she overcame it all.

The beginning

"It started out as a very typical date," Morris said. "I was 16 years old. Mark picked me up. We had gone to a movie."

Debbie Morris and Mark Brewster typically ended their dates with a milkshake on the riverfront in Madisonville, Louisiana.

But one night in May 1980, two men ambushed their car and violently changed their lives.

"When the two men got out of the truck and started walking towards, I didn't realize that they were people that I didn't know, probably wouldn't want to know," Morris remembered.

The windows were down, and the couple was unable to protect themselves from the unexpected attack.

"Before we had time to react, he reached in, put his arm around my neck, and jerked my head back and put a gun to my head," Morris said.

Morris also said the strangers were quick to let the victims know about the danger they faced.

"They told us to not do anything stupid--that they had killed before, and they would kill again."

Then the ride began, across several southern states and into life-changing tragedy.

"We obviously thought they were going to take our money and leave us and take the car, but instead they hit Mark in the back of the head with the barrel of a sawed off shotgun and forced him into the trunk of the car. And it was at that point that I was raped for the first time," Morris said during an interview with 10 News.

She was determined to survive but prepared for death as she was sexually assaulted.

"I can remember thinking several things to myself," Morris said. "I thought, these things just flooded my mind, I thought of my family, I wondered what was the last thing I ever said to them."

Crimes beyond rape

The torture didn't end with rape.  In Mobile, Alabama, Debbie Morris was placed in the trunk of the car, while Brewster was marched into the woods by their captors.

"I took my hands off of my ears, and it seems like almost as the exact time I took my hands off my ears, I heard a gunshot, and then I heard a second gunshot," Morris said.

She remembers hearing the men celebrate.

The returned and claimed they had let her boyfriend go. Meanwhile, Morris was able to put a name with the faces of her attackers. "I referred to them in my mind as the mean one and the crazy one, the mean one being Robert Lee Willie, and the crazy one being Joseph Jesse Vaccaro."

While still in captivity the 16-year-old found out more about the men and their crime spree. Morris believed Willie was calling the shots, while Vaccaro talked about a girl they abducted, raped and killed, 3 days earlier.

"He was the one who started talking about the other girl, who I would later find out was Faith Hathaway," Morris said.

Hathaway was 18 years old and was preparing to leave for the military when she disappeared.

Both Willie and Vaccaro referred to their victims as "girlfriends".

"I asked 'What happened to your last girlfriend?' not realizing he was talking about another kidnap victim, and he went on to describe the murder to me," Morris remembered.

Back to Louisiana

Looking for drugs and money, the men headed back to Louisiana, where Morris was tortured some more.

"They had already driven me to this other location where I would be raped again, not knowing that's the location where they had brought Faith Hathaway and murdered her," Morris said. "Her body was lying about 100 yards away."

After more attacks, Morris said Willie and Vaccaro hooked up with a drug dealer named Tommy Holden.

The young victim fought Holden off by pleading for death.

"I just remember getting up to my knees with my eyes closed and begging, just 'Please take me out in the woods and kill me. I can't do this again,'" Morris said. "'I'm not going to let you touch my body again. I'm done. You're going to kill me anyway. Just take me now I'm ready.'"

That's when the group of men began to panic, looking for a way to escape another crime.

"They talked about how they were going to kill me and destroy the evidence in front of me," Morris said. "They were going to lock me in the trunk of the car and set the car on fire and burn me up with the car."

But after two days of violence and fear, the men decided to release her. She went for help for herself and her boyfriend.

"They say that I'm alive because I was able to stay calm, and in their terms, I was able to humanize myself to them and make them see me as more than their victim," Morris said.

Life after the crimes

Brewster survived after being shot, stabbed, slashed in the throat, and left for dead.

"He was paralyzed on his entire right side from the gunshot wound to his head," Morris said.

After a few years of treatment and therapy, Brewster made a full recovery. But Morris was deteriorating inside from survivor's guilt.

"It was a long time before I was able to accept any of the credit for my own survival, I think out of guilt because of what happened to the others," Morris said. "Why did I survive and Faith Hathaway did not?"

Morris served as a witness in trials that ended with Vaccaro spending life in prison and Willie on death row.

Attempts to spare Willie's life

Soon, however, a nun was fighting for Willie's life and re-opening the wounds of his victims.

"I had been brought up as a child in the Catholic church, and here was a Catholic nun who was taking the side of my enemy," Morris said.

Sister Helen Prejean appealed to the public and to lawmakers for sympathy and compassion, for a man with a legacy of crime in his family.

"The closer it came to Robert Lee Willie's execution and the more in turmoil I felt about the whole idea about execution, the more grateful I was that he did have someone there that was going to be with him and would, what I hoped, be the face of God for him," Morris said.

After getting justice in court, Morris was disappointed to learn that justice didn't provide healing or closure.

"All along, I kept thinking there were these milestones that I kept thinking, 'When this happens I'll be healed.' 'When the trials were over, I'll be better.' That didn't happen."

Willie's life ends

Willie's execution in December of 1984, provided relief from fear for the victim, but did not give her the healing she desired.

"On the night of the execution, I think that I really resolved a lot of issues. Did it completely take my pain away? Absolutely not," Morris said.

Trying to numb her suffering with alcohol and failing at relationships in her life, Debbie Morris had to face and accept the crimes that took her innocence and changed her life forever.

"My life was different. I had a new reality, and I needed to learn to live with that and be comfortable with that," Morris said.

While Morris was still on the path to healing, Sister Prejean wrote a book in 1994 about her friendship with Willie and another death row inmate, creating a character named Matthew Poncelet. The book became a Hollywood movie called "Dead Man Walking" in 1995, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

"This time though, I wasn't angry at Robert Lee Willie and Joseph Jesse Vaccaro," Morris said. "I was angry with Sister Helen Prejean. I was angry with Tim Robbins. I was angry with Susan Sarandon. I was angry with Sean Penn."

This time, the quiet victim broke her silence to confront Willie's spiritual adviser.

"When she answered the phone, I said 'Sister Helen, I don't know if you will recognize my name, but you will know me as the 16-year-old-girl from Madisonville,' and there was this silence," Morris said. "She said 'I've prayed for you so many times' and I knew then instantly, this is going to be ok."

Healing

The two formed a friendship, and Morris started her final phase of healing.

"The past was holding on to me. There came a time when I realized by my unwillingness to forgive, I was allowing these two men who had caused me so much pain to still maintain this power, this control over me. This time came when I realized that Joe Vaccaro and Robert Willie had been behind bars, but I felt like I was in my own prison."

At 26 years old, Willie died in the electric chair. One of the last things he did was motion for the hood to be lifted off his head so he could wink at Sister Prejean. He showed no remorse, but the film did immortalize some of his final words.  "I just want to say, I think killing is wrong no matter who does it whether it's me, or you all, or your government," Willie said according to Sister Prejean.

Vaccarro learned to read and write in prison. He wrote two letters to Morris apologizing for the crimes before he also died in prison.

"In this process of forgiving them, I in no way absolved them from their responsibility for the crimes," Morris said. "They did evil, horrific things to several people. I have not forgotten that. I'll never forget that, but there came a time when I just needed to decide that the life that I needed to live in the future was more important than the things that had happened to me in the past."

In 1998, Morris wrote a book called Forgiving the Dead Man Walking, which mapped out her journey from victim to survivor.

"Their punishment was just. Under the law, their punishment was just, but I no longer had to live in it everyday."

Debbie Cueva is now Mrs. Brad Morris and has two children, named Conner and Courtney. The Louisiana native is an educator with Knox County schools, focusing on special education.

"I was free now to be able to go on and be the servant I needed to be," Morris said. "The wife I needed to be and the mother I needed to be and I would not be that person today if I were still holding on to all of that anger and shame and pain and resentment. I just wouldn't be."

Morris is also a public speaker who shares her story with girls and women nationwide.

"I'm able to speak around the country about what happened to me, but not just about the crime, about the transformation in my life, his healing, miraculous transformation and I give all that glory and credit to God."

"Rape is a horrible, horrible thing, but I often say these days it's not the worst thing and I'm living proof you can recover and heal completely from rape."