In March of 2016, the case of “Emily Doe” rocked the nation when Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of raping her behind a campus dumpster.
The anonymous sexual assault victim’s impact statement stabbed at the hearts of millions who empathized with her painfully traumatic experience that opened America’s eyes to the dangers of rape culture.
Doe’s powerful 7,000-word statement addressed to Turner was read at the trial, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, and translated into five languages.
Now, “Emily Doe” has decided to come forth, putting a name and face to the woman whose life was forever changed by Turner’s “20 minutes of action,” as his father infamously referred to his assault.
In a “60 Minutes” interview with Bill Whitaker, victim Chanel Miller bravely tells her story for the first time. The episode is scheduled to air on Sunday, September 22 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 7 p.m. PT on CBS.
In an emotional clip from the upcoming segment, Miller reads an excerpt from her victim impact statement that was delivered in a California courtroom to Turner, who served only three months in jail for his heinous crime.
“You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me,” reads Miller. “In newspapers, my name was ‘unconscious, intoxicated woman.’ Ten syllables, and nothing more than that. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster while you are the All-American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty with so much at stake. You cannot give me back the life I had.”
The then-20-year-old Turner was found guilty of three felonies for sexually assaulting Miller outside of a frat party in January 2015. The swimmer was found on top of the unconscious victim by two Swedish graduate students on their bikes, who courageously chased the assailant down to detain him until authorities arrived.
“He may not look like a rapist,” said prosecutor Alaleh Kianerci in her closing argument, “but he is the face of campus sexual assault.”
Miller’s impactful voice has been called the “precursor” to the #MeToo movement, in which thousands of other women have come forward to share their silenced stories of sexual assault.
The editor-in-chief of the memoir’s publisher, Andrea Schulz, recently spoke to The New York Times about her eagerness to partner with Miller in releasing the book.
“I jumped out of my chair to acquire it,” explained Schulz, after learning of Miller’s interest in writing a memoir. “Because it was just obvious to me from the beginning what she had to say and how different it was and how extraordinarily well she was going to say it. She had the brain and the voice of a writer from the very beginning, even in that situation.”
“Know My Name” is scheduled to be released by Viking Press on September 24th. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon.