My Fox Detroit
February 26, 2015
Spring break is around the corner, many college students see it as a rite of passage.
But many are attacked and victimized each year and a former Michigan State University student wanted to come forward – to warn others who may be heading on spring break.
“Instead of these girls being unaware I think it’s smarter to know this does happen,” said Lucy Gradolph.
Gradolph knows because it happened to her. Spring break 2014 – beaches, bars and booze.
“I had been to Cabo many, many times,” she said. “The entire Michigan State crew was there. Literally I think there was 200 of us.”
But on March 7, the last day of her vacation and her last college spring break, Lucy’s life would change forever.
The friend she came wit, left with a guy. Lucy decided to catch a cab by herself, which she now calls the biggest mistake of her life.
A man she thought worked security at the club hailed her a cab.
“Right as I got into the cab, and it was a legitimate cab – they had the meter, they had everything – he got into the cab behind me,” she said. “And right at that moment I was kind of like, ‘This is not right.'”
Lucy had been set up. Right away she says the man in the back started groping her.
She pleaded with the corrupt cab driver to take her to her hotel – but instead Lucy said the driver and the man who kidnapped her, spoke in Spanish about whether to kill her, drove her to a desolate area.
They dragged her into a field and began raping her.
“I was scared but I think I was more in shock,” she said.