HAMILTON, Ohio — A woman who survived what she described as a form of torture is sharing her story to try and help others.

What You Need To Know

  • Joann Tucker survived after she says she was beaten, drugged, and sexually assaulted 

  • She found refuge at the Hamilton YWCA along with several other survivors 

  • The YWCA is breaking ground on a shelter to help more survivors 

 

It’s been two years, but Joann Tucker remembers like it was yesterday. 

“It’s like you don’t have any total control over anything,” Tucker said.

With tears in her eyes, she described what happened to her.

“The more you fight, the more you get hurt,” Tucker said. “They played Russian Roulette with a gun to your head, and you’re just like, just 'let this be the bullet.'"  

She said it got to that point after her husband died. She was struggling to make ends meet on her own when she said she met someone she thought would help her. 

“When I met him he was dressed all nice and everything and he said not to worry about it that they had funds and stuff like that, that could help me,” Tucker said. 

But what she didn’t know was that loan to help would suddenly turn into a living nightmare. 

“He was like b*** it’s time for you to pay back some of the money,” Tucker said. “That’s when it started with the beatings, making me drink, and holding me down and shooting me up with heroin, and when you pass out . . . men would be in there.” 

She said the abuse went on every day for three weeks straight.

“In those three or four weeks, it felt like three or four years,” Tucker said.

She said she got away after she found a phone, called for help and made it to her safe place.

“When they opened that door and said ‘this is your room,’ I said, ‘the whole room is mine? Nobody’s gonna be in here?” Tucker said. 

In her room, she makes crafts and room decorations.

“It relaxes me,” she said.

She's also a mentor for other women at the YWCA shelter in Hamilton. 

Now, she said she’s not a victim, but a survivor. 

“They helped me get the courage that I needed to take the first step to go up the street, take the first step to believe in myself again,” Tucker said. 

And she's not alone.

It's the reason the YWCA shelter is moving forward with plans to expand. 

They just broke ground and there’s construction equipment on-site in a space nearby to build a new, bigger shelter. 

They raised $2 million in donations and now will be able to help more survivors, even in a pandemic. 

“We currently operate efficiency rooms for the survivors, and a shared kitchen, and when COVID happened it was really hard to de-congregate those areas, so the fact that we had the new shelter in the works, the timing couldn’t be better,” said YWCA COO April Hamlin.

The new shelter will have 15 one-bedroom apartments for survivors and is expected to be finished by the end of next year.