cover image Stalked!: A True Story

Stalked!: A True Story

La Vonne Skalias, Lavonne Skaliasi, Barbara Davis. Summit Publishing Group, $19.95 (286pp) ISBN 978-1-56530-146-7

In 1977 Skalias, the divorced mother of a five-year-old daughter, was beaten and raped in her Watauga, Tex., home by Lanny Bevers, who was posted to Germany by the U.S. Army shortly thereafter. Extradited to Texas for trial, he was sentenced to 20 years and swore revenge on his victim for her testimony. He served only six years, broke into Skalias's house again in 1984, sodomized her, cut off her thumb, broke her leg and pistol-whipped her. The police, who had been unsympathetic after the first rape and had failed to notify Skalias when Bevers was paroled, bungled the investigation into her second rape. Her defense attorney, however, found evidence that convicted Bevers, who was sentenced to life. Skalias's tragic story, written with freelancer Davis, forcefully shows that a rape victim never fully recovers from the trauma. The photos here are as graphic and grisly as the text. (Oct.)