For my final project I chose to create a painting which depicts the story of Anne Yarrow. Anne was a twenty-three-year-old college student living in New York City when she was brutally raped and stabbed forty times in the apartment she was house sitting in for a friend. I chose to create a minimalist style portrait of Anne based on a photo I found of her in one of the many news articles I found of her brutal slaying. I painted the background of the portrait red to represent the blood she shed and was very visible from her brutal slaying. I then traced her portrait and its main features onto the canvas and painted that in gold. This was to represent that while she suffered violence and assault in her final moments, what is truly important is Anne’s life and she is the focus of my work. Then in the blank space of her hair, I wrote the words of her story. This includes both the details of her brutal slaying and what her friends and family thought of her. Ultimately, the focus of my work is Anne, but I am able to tell her story in a way that was artistically freeing for me.

. I knew I wanted to tell the story of a woman who was sexually assaulted. As a survivor myself, I chose my major of criminal justice to work to correct the system that has failed to protect women. When I found an article about Anne’s story, I felt an instant connection. Anne is a similar age to myself; both are college students in a big city trying to create their futures, and I am very familiar with the area of the city the crime happened in since a large part of mu family lives in the area.

While searching newspaper archives for stories of sexual assault is not a fun time, I was able to learn a lot about how these kinds of crimes were covered. Women were not only blamed for these crimes, but men were not punished. Sexual assault was very taboo to even talk about, let alone report on. As someone who faced similar problems with her own assualt, I was able to connect with our course material. It brought up old memories and allowed me to work through them. I am not alone in my experience and knowing this gave me a greater connection to Anne and other women we learned about throughout the semester. This has made me more determined to make sure my research on sexual assualt stigma for my honors thesis is well regarded and able to be used in other capacities to help sexual assualt victims everywhere.

“Boy Friend Quizzed in Probe of New York Co-ed’s Slaying.” The Evening Star (Washington D.C.) 7 February 1955. A-5.