Jenefer Miller-Crim thinks often about the dozens of women who have accused Bill Cosby of molestation and rape.
She knows what it's like to carry a heartbreaking secret, summon the courage to share it, and then discover that no one believes you.
As a child and teenager, Miller-Crim lived in foster care with her uncle, David Miller, in the rural coal-mining town of Premier, West Virginia. For years, he physically and sexually assaulted Miller-Crim and other foster children. When her foster siblings told the authorities about the abuse, Miller-Crim says they were returned to the home and punished by Miller.
No one would save them.
When he impregnated Miller-Crim at 16, she kept the identity of her child's father a secret so that they might escape the household together. She swore to never tell her son, and stopped trying to convince others to believe her.
Miller-Crim, 49, might have stayed silent were it not for the tragic death of her son, Timmy, in 2010. She wanted to protect him as a child, but now felt compelled to share her story.
"It was almost like a conviction came over me. I couldn’t eat, sleep or function. I thought you have got to make this phone call and try to tell someone what happened to you," she tells Mashable. "I looked up the prosecutor’s number in the county where this all happened and made the phone call. Only this person who answered the phone didn’t I think was crazy."
That call started Miller-Crim on a remarkable journey that brought Miller to justice in November 2014.
His trial also happened to coincide with the flood of accusations against Cosby, and the debate over whether or not the public should believe the victims. Cosby has repeatedly denied the allegations and his lawyer has called his accusers dishonest.
"People were saying the same things about the [survivors] that I had heard my entire life...'You’re lying, you’re trying to get attention, you're exaggerating the depth or magnitude of what happened, or that you willingly participated,'" Miller-Crim says. "It really hit home for me to see these women going through the same thing, when I’m going through the process of someone finally believing me."
The women who accused Cosby of using sedating drugs to molest and rape them received some measure of vindication this week when courtroom testimony from a 2005 proceeding revealed that Cosby used quaaludes for sex, a charge he has long denied.
Just met #Cosby survivor who cheered, "We're vindicated!" Yes, but it shouldn't have taken THIS for America to believe you! I'm on @cnn soon— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) July 7, 2015
When Dolores M. Troiani, a lawyer representing Andrea Constand, a woman who said that Cosby assaulted her in 2005, pressed the actor on whether or not he gave quaaludes to women without their knowledge, his lawyer objected.
"This evidence shows a pattern in which defendant 'mentored' naive young women and introduced drugs into the relationship, with and without the woman's knowledge, in order for him to achieve sexual satisfaction," Troiani wrote in a court document.
The revelation triggered an outpouring of support for the victims, even from those who previously stood by Cosby.
About Bill Cosby. Sadly his own testimony offers PROOF of terrible deeds, which is ALL I have ever required to believe the accusations.— ⭐Jill Scott⭐ (@missjillscott) July 6, 2015
Singer Jill Scott, who defended Cosby in the past, said on Twitter that his testimony proved the accusations were true.
Many were angered that, despite the accusations of more than 40 women, some skeptics believed the charges only when Cosby implicated himself. A poll conducted in January of more than 600 Americans found that 39% of respondents believed the allegations, 20% did not, and 41% were unsure.
"It is unfortunate the amount of proof required to make a woman's voice valid," Beverly Johnson, a model who accused Cosby of drugging her in the mid-1980s, told People this week.
Attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing several women accusing Cosby of molestation, said in a statement that the 2005 disclosure vindicates the victims.
"This confirms the allegations of numerous victims who have said that he has used drugs in order to sexually assault them," Allred said. "This admission is one that Mr. Cosby has attempted to hide from the public for many years and we are very gratified that it is now being made public."
Hey @WhoopiGoldberg to 'presume' Bill #Cosby is innocent, means you would also have to 'presume' almost 50 woman are lying.— Roz Weston (@rozweston) July 8, 2015
Miller-Crim has spent three decades trying to understand why people don't believe assault and rape victims.
She knows that bystanders may be resistant to accepting the truth when it seems far-fetched or involves someone they like and trust.
"I can tell you from my own first-hand experience, that just because it defies logic, because it seems unreasonable, doesn’t make it untrue," she says. "People who abuse people in these sorts of ways, they have to find a means to control the victim."
Sixty-eight percent of sexual assaults are unreported, according to the Justice Department, and only an estimated 2% of rapists are imprisoned. These trends may convince some that sexual violence doesn't occur frequently, or that it's a matter of competing versions of the truth.
Katherine Hull Fliflet, vice president of communications for the anti-sexual violence organization RAINN, says that the response of the first person a survivor confides in has a "tremendous impact" on his or her decision to report an assault.
"A supportive reaction can make all the difference," she adds. "Statements like 'I'm sorry this happened,' 'I believe you,' 'It's not your fault,' can be incredibly validating."
Miller-Crim waited a lifetime to hear those words, and spent those years plagued by feelings of guilt, shame and embarrassment. "I think we need to take that stigma from the victims," she says, "and it needs to be placed on the abuser where it should have been all along."
It's a very sad situation. Now can we all stand up and support the victims? Will silence continue? https://t.co/0tfYB5rb7p— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) July 6, 2015
The legal case against Miller began in 2012, and concluded last November. He was found guilty of second-degree sexual assault and incest, after Miller-Crim and other foster children testified against him.
The jury returned its decision following just 13 minutes of deliberation. It wasn't until the jury came back and Miller-Crim noticed tears in the jurors' eyes, that she truly felt others believed what had happened to her.
"It’s like that big black cloud, that weight that felt like it was chained to my soul for all of those years, it was just gone," she says. "For the first time, I felt like I could take a full breath."
If you have experienced sexual abuse, call the free, confidential National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), or access the 24-7 help online by visiting online.rainn.org.