Shattered: Reclaiming a Life Torn Apart by Violence

Debra Puglisi Sharp was the kind of woman who got misty at Coke jingles and Hallmark cards. Trusting and idealistic, she was, in her own words, sentimental to a fault. Until the day that changed in a brutal instant. In April 1998, this wife, nurse, and mother of teenage twins was tending the roses in her garden when a factory worker with a cocaine habit saw her and decided he had to have her. Slipping in through an open back door — a door Debra usually kept locked — he waited for her to come in. Nino, her husband of twenty-five years, got in the way and was shot. The man then attacked and raped Debra, placed her in the trunk of his car, and drove away. Debra Puglisi Sharp was kept hog-tied in her abductor's house for five excruciating days. She learned of her beloved husband's murder from a report on the radio that the man blared to muffle her screams while he was out. After five days, with hope all but gone, Debra's mounting rage at her captor — and the wrenching thought of her children burying their father alone — gave her the courage and strength she so desperately needed. She loosened her ties, groped her way to the phone...and dialed 911.