Rape in a Small Town

Laura's parents thought she would never go back to high school.

She'd finish the work, they thought. She'd go to college, they thought.

But the social challenges at Burrillville High School were just too much.

Laura just wants to be normal, but she doesn't really know what that is.

"It's hard to explain," she says. "I don't even really think. You know how people think and there's a certain level that a person feels on, thinks on? And I'm just not there. I'm kind of just empty."

She has considered transferring schools, but she scratches one local school after another off her list. Hate e-mail has streamed in from Nick's friends and supporters.

It seems they're everywhere.

Ponaganset. Smithfield. North Smithfield.

* * * * * *

Laura and her family no longer think about the rape every second. That change came gradually, her mother says. Over time, it became every single minute, then every single hour, then every single day.

Her father's thoughts center on failure.

"In a certain sense, I failed to protect my family in the way a father should," he says. "I wasn't there to protect her."

Her mother thinks about preparation, haunted that maybe she could have done more.

She thinks of the time they talked about Laura and her friends looking for streams and ponds where they could swim.

She remembers saying, Make sure you're not alone. Make sure there are other girls around.

She remembers telling Laura, Just because the boys are being nice to you doesn't mean they're your friends.

She remembers thinking that her daughter "wasn't getting it."

"It's sad, because I used to say, 'You're too trusting,' " Laura's mother says. "And it's hard because I feel like those words came back — in a bad way."

* * * * * *

By February, Laura was meeting her tutor at the school, after school hours. It was a way to get her up and dressed and out of the house, her mother explains.

Her parents were convinced Laura couldn't just stay home, but they didn't want to push her, either.

"We were talking about that for weeks, and then finally we just said, 'Something's got to be done,' " her father says. "She needs to be forced to get up and go — to do something."

Laura says she was "just unmotivated."

"So I was just like, 'Mom, you have to decide for me.' "

In early March, her mother arranged a meeting with school administrators and teachers.

Before Laura knew it, the meeting was over and those around her had decided she'd start back at school the next day — the week of her 17th birthday.

"Mom, I gotta go buy new clothes," Laura said.

That first morning back, she changed outfits over and over.

Get out the door, her mother thought as Laura fretted about what to wear. Please, go to school.

* * * * * *

In some ways, Burrillville High School is a different place than it was a year ago.

A six-week-long "healthy relationships" class was begun in direct response to the charges brought against Nick. About 70 students signed up.

Sometimes kids will be fooling around in school and one will say something about rape. Then, they'll look at Laura and apologize, she says.

But in other ways, it's the same place Laura fled after the trial.

Some students still cast nasty looks her way and walk around the corner and say, "Skank!"

Nick's friends tell her she ruined his life. They blame her for taking him away from them.

The difference is Laura's reaction. She still retreats to the sofa at home, in tears — but not as much. And she thinks she understands what motivates Nick's friends.

"They can't handle the fact that someone they knew, someone so close, could do something wrong, so I'm just the easiest person to hate," she says. "They're not going to hate themselves. They're not going to hate him. So they might as well hate me."

She knows, too, that no girl wants to think this could have happened to her — particularly not the girls who had spent time alone with Nick.

"So it's just easier to think that I'm lying," she says.

* * * * * *

Principal Trogisch didn't think twice when two girls asked him if they could paint a dragon mural on the stage in the school cafeteria. They were outstanding art students, and he's always encouraging students to do what they do well.

The girls worked four days on the mural, and when it was done, it was beautiful, Trogisch says. The greens, reds, and yellows were bright. The face jumped right out at you.

First thing the next morning, a janitor met Trogisch as he walked in.

The girls had apparently come back after school, at night, and put one finishing touch on their artwork: a dedication to Nick Plante.

Trogisch had the janitor paint over that immediately, before any students came into the building.

Later, he called the girls into his office.

"They started going into this whole thing about Nick, and I said it's not important. He was judged by a jury of his peers to be found guilty. We are not going to put any kind of a memorial in terms of a criminal in this building." He gave them two choices: Paint over the mural yourselves or I'll have someone do it for you.

They wouldn't do it. So the janitor did.

It hadn't occurred to Trogisch that dragons had been a theme in Nick's artwork.

"I didn't even think of the symbol — of what it symbolized — until they wrote that thing on it," he says. "I said, Oh you've got to be kidding me."

No one in their right mind would let that dragon stay.

"It's a no-brainer for me," he says. "It's like having a statue of Stalin in the courtyard or some other infamous character in history. He has not brought any kind of pride or positive recognition to this school."