Rose Lampkin will never forget the horror of a late January night in 2012. She awoke in her Goose Creek home after hearing a mysterious noise downstairs. She investigated the noise to find her ex-boyfriend, Steven Lee Morgan, with a knife in his hand.
“He started beating me. He started choking me for hours on end,” said Lampkin. The 54-year-old Lampkin was beaten around her face and sustained significant injuries, including broken bones. She was forced back into her bedroom, where she was raped multiple times. Once Morgan finally stopped the torture, he hogtied Lampkin to her bed and fled.
“By the grace of God,” she was able to wiggle her way out of the ropes around her arms and legs and go down the stairs to the front door where one of her neighbors saw her and called for help.
Morgan was arrested the next day, near Augusta, Ga. The knife he used for the attack and some of Lampkin’s belongings were found in his trunk. In April 2013, a Berkeley County jury convicted Morgan of attempted murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, first-degree burglary and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and sentenced to 45 years in prison. He is currently residing at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville.
Research from the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault found that one in three women and one in four men have reported rape, physical abuse, and stalking by their partner and 20 people per minute are physically abused in the United States. South Carolina ranks 5th in the country in domestic violence cases.
The impact of abuse on victims is staggering. Sara Barber, executive director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, said that impact on a victim is. “sort of an all-around assault on a person as a human being and it just creeps into every facet of their life for many, many years after.”
This impact is felt by Lampkin but she said that the support from her loved ones was incredible. She was able to get out of her situation because it’s, “all about faith.”
“Because if you think about the situation that I was in, if you didn’t have faith then you would just lay there and say I’m tied up, I can’t get out of this thing I’m just going to die right here.”
Lampkin believes that she was given a second chance so that she could empower others who may be recovering froma similar situations. She is currently writing a book that will allow her to share her story.
