16-year-old Cheryl Pierson was a popular cheerleader from Long Island with numerous friends and a loving boyfriend, Robert Cuccio
16-year-old Cheryl Pierson was a popular cheerleader from Long Island with numerous friends and a loving boyfriend, Robert Cuccio. But behind this facade of normality, she was harbouring a horrific secret. Since the tender age of 11, Cheryl’s father, James Pierson Sr., had been molesting her. The first assault happened when James was driving Cheryl to visit her mother in hospital. As they drove, he fondled her. She later recollected how he would often force her to the bed and tell her to pretend that he was her boyfriend. She was subjected to “all kinds of sex” and was often being raped at least twice a day.
Whenever James felt as though Cheryl was acting out of place, he would beat her mercilessly and would even exact punishment on her dog, Cocoa: He kicked her so hard that she bounced off the wall and then cried for hours. “He wouldn’t let me go near her to comfort her. She kept crying and it made me feel so sad I wanted to die,” Cheryl said. He was a ticking time bomb. He had such a ferocious temper that he once punched Cheryl in the face when he learnt she had sent a Valentine’s Day card to a boy that he didn’t approve of. Cheryl often showed up to school riddled with bruises.
When Cheryl’s mother passed away in 1985, she hoped the abuse would cease but her hopes couldn’t have been further from the truth. In fact, the abuse became more frequent and Cheryl would be raped up to three times a day.
16-year-old Sean Pica sat beside Cheryl in their high school homeroom. As the duo chatted one day about a recent hitman murder, Cheryl confided in Sean that she wanted somebody to kill her father. After withstanding the abuse for years, Cheryl reached her final tether when her father threatened that he would rape her 8-year-old sister.
One afternoon when Cheryl came home from school, she found James and her younger sister “roughhousing” around on the carpet. She was seething; she didn’t want her sister to go through the same trauma she had been subjected to.

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