CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A woman who was raped and left for dead on a rainy night 25 years ago at a west Charlotte cemetery shared her story of survival Wednesday with veteran reporter Glenn Counts.
Vondra Lockett has been in a wheelchair since Donald Boyd Jr. picked her up and drove her to Oaklawn Cemetery.
"He pulls out a .357 (gun) about this big, long barrel, long barrel," Lockett told Counts.
Boyd forced her to take her clothes off and raped her.
"I was telling him, ‘You don't have to do this. Please don't do this,’" she said.
Her assailant shot her and left her in the cemetery.
"It was 2 o'clock in the morning,” Lockett said. “It was raining so hard, you had to wipe your face to see. That's how hard it was raining and when I looked down, I noticed I had a big hole right here and blood was flowing, just flowing."
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She said she prayed.
"I felt, ‘You are out in this graveyard. Nobody knows you are here. You got to do something,’" Lockett said.
She said she was paralyzed and couldn’t move her legs when she crawled 200 feet to the road for help.
"I laid out there 12 ½ hours before God sent an angel," Lockett said.
Boyd was convicted of rape at a trial and given a life sentence, but Lockett also got a life sentence.
"For 25 years, I've been in pain every day, all day long,” she said. “Nothing takes my pain away."
Despite the pain, she is thankful she lived to see her children grow up.
“Me being alive outweighed what I was going through," Lockett said.
Boyd also pleaded guilty to murdering a young woman 12 days after the attack on Lockett.
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