- Jennifer Schuett was eight years old when a stranger broke into her mum’s home through an unlocked window and abducted her
- She was violently attacked and left to die alone, but despite horrific injuries, she survived
- Her attacker remained a mystery for 18 years – until police finally cracked the case
Eight-year-old Jennifer Schuett loved life.
She lived in an apartment with her mum, Elaine, and they were each other’s closest companions.
Jennifer spent most nights sleeping in her mum’s bed.
But one night Elaine asked her to sleep in her own room.
She had an early start, Elaine explained, and needed to get a good night’s sleep.
But when Jennifer woke, it wasn’t to the sounds of her mum getting ready for work – she was in the arms of a strange man.
The intruder had broken in through an unlocked window and was now running away with her.
Jennifer tried to scream, but the man covered her mouth and nose.
He then shoved her in a car, telling her he was an undercover police officer.
He drove to Jennifer’s school, where the man pulled over and offered Jennifer lollies, but she refused.
He told Jennifer that her mum was coming to pick her up, but after a while he restarted the engine and drove to a vacant block of land.
Once there, the man abandoned the police officer charade and started to violently attack
the girl.
Jennifer later told 48 Hours, he held a knife to her throat and asked her repeatedly, ‘Am I scaring
you little girl?’
He choked her, tried to break her neck, and sexually violated her.
Jennifer blacked out, and when she came to, the man was dragging her by the ankles through a field.
He left her on a fire ant nest and fled.
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Terrified, when she felt certain he wasn’t coming back, Jennifer tried to scream, but no sound came out.
The man had slit her throat from ear to ear.
Jennifer lay on the ants nest for 12 hours until she was found by kids playing in the field.
A police officer arrived soon after, telling Jennifer that she was going to be okay, and she was
airlifted to hospital.
As well as severe injuries from the assault, she was covered in ant bites and had scratches all over her body.
‘She couldn’t make any sounds because of the injury that she had to her neck,’ Dr Chester Strunk told CBS News.
Jennifer recalled that her attacker had greasy hair, a thick moustache and a scar on his face.
The poor girl had surgery for a lacerated windpipe, which was successful, but the doctor feared she might never speak again.
Detective Ralph Garcia was put in charge of tracking down the assailant, and he asked Jennifer’s distraught mother and an ICU nurse, Sharon McBride, to find out what they could from Jennifer.
Writing her answers, Jennifer recalled that her attacker had greasy hair, a thick moustache and a scar on his face.
From this, forensic artist Lois Gibson made a sketch of the monster who’d abducted and brutally attacked the child.
Jennifer also wrote, He said his name was Dinnese.
She continued to defy the odds with her recovery, got her voice back and even returned to school.
Police were brought in to guard the school, and the entire town was rattled by the news of the girl’s violent attack.
But the case soon hit a wall, and went cold for the next 18 years.
Then one day in 2008, Jennifer got a call from Detective Tim Cromie, who was taking over the case.
‘I said, “Jennifer, I will do whatever I can do in my power… to get you the answers that you need for this case”,’ Detective Cromie told CBS.
Jennifer had moved on with life – she was a children’s librarian and in a long-term relationship with
a man named Jonathan – but she’d never given up on her attacker being brought to justice.
‘As I got older… I just thought, like, how can all these years have passed and I just still don’t know who’s done this?’ she told CBS.
Clothes found at the scene of Jennifer’s assault were sent for DNA testing.
And a year later, they’d found a match.
The clothes belonged to Dennis Earl Bradford.
He’d been convicted of kidnapping and attacking a woman in 1997, seven years after Jennifer was snatched.
For that crime, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but released after serving just four.
The police needed to prove Bradford had been in the town when Jennifer was taken.
‘When they called me that morning and told me that they really arrested this person… It meant everything to me,’ Jennifer said.
So they got hold of his old driver’s licence, issued a few months before Jennifer was taken from her home in Dickinson, Texas.
It gave his address as Dickinson, and his photo was a near-duplicate of the forensic artist’s sketch.
Police located Bradford in Arkansas and arrested him on a warrant.
‘When they called me that morning and told me that they really arrested this person… It meant everything to me,’ Jennifer said.
Bradford confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and attempting to kill Jennifer, and was put in Galveston County Jail awaiting trial.
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‘This event in my life 19 years ago was a tragic one,’ Jennifer said at a press conference, ‘but today, 19 years later, I stand here and want you all to know, that I am okay.’
But in May 2010, before the trial began, Bradford took his own life in his cell.
Jennifer was devastated.
But she was determined to let Bradford know how his sickening acts had affected her life.
So, along with her now-husband, Jonathan, she visited Bradford’s grave and read her victim impact statement to him.
‘You slit my throat and as you dragged me by my ankles through brush and thorns, I did what came as first instinct to me… I played dead.
‘I laid there, in that field, bleeding to death, helpless but not alone.
I had angels sitting next to me.
‘Dennis Bradford, I am not your victim. I am victorious.’
If you are struggling, call Lifeline 24/7 on 13 11 14
