For nearly two decades, Karin Morel has kept an unsent letter addressed to the man she said sexually assaulted her after a night at a beachside bar in 2004. She titled it “My Mistake.” For years, Morel believed her mistake had been trusting someone she considered a friend.
But the mistake, Morel eventually came to understand, were the years she spent believing his actions were her fault.
Now the letter isn’t just a reminder of what happened, but of what she’s overcome to rebuild her life, Morel said.
“I have to use this horrible night and the past 20 years to help people who are still sitting in that darkness,” she said.
It was October 2004 when Morel, at age 34, accepted a glass of wine from someone she knew. That led to a dark, disoriented night where Morel said she came in and out of consciousness as she was being assaulted.
“My mom gave me some very good advice when I was entering high school,” she wrote in the letter. “Never ever accept a drink from a stranger and never ever leave your drink unattended.”
Morel followed that advice throughout high school, college and most of her adult life — until that night.
“My mistake,” she wrote, “was seeing who I thought was a friend versus a stranger.”
Morel never reported the alleged assault to police, and no criminal charges were filed. FLORIDA TODAY is not identifying the man because Morel’s account cannot be independently corroborated. But Morel’s ex-husband, friend and therapist confirmed that she eventually disclosed the alleged assault to them. In interviews with FLORIDA TODAY they described the emotional and behavioral changes in Morel that they witnessed.
Morel said she is not seeking a criminal investigation, a lawsuit or financial compensation. She wants to share her story now because, she said, she hopes speaking openly will help other survivors.
“I want to help anyone who is sitting in pain and hopelessness and let them know they are not alone,” Morel said. “I am living proof that starting over is possible.”
Recovery required her to become sober and confront what she described as the life-altering consequences of that night.
“I often think, ‘Why did this happen to me?’” she said. “I now know and truly believe I can help people who have experienced this and are living in shame and pain.”
The night everything went dark
As the owner of Shagg’s Surf & Sport in Merritt Island, Morel remained at her shop later than usual on that warm October evening in 2004. On her way home, she stopped at a popular Cocoa Beach restaurant and bar to look for a female friend who was staying at her home.
The bar was packed. Morel knew many of the people there and stopped to chat with them as she moved through the crowd toward an outdoor tiki bar.
There, she saw a male acquaintance and asked him whether he’d seen her friend. He hadn’t. But he invited Morel to sit on the barstool beside him while they both kept watch. Before she went to the restroom, he asked what she wanted to drink. She requested a glass of chardonnay, and when she returned, the wine was waiting for her.
The two made small talk, but after two or three sips of wine, Morel said, everything went dark. She has no memory of leaving the bar.
Morel remembers regaining consciousness twice during what she described as a sexual assault by the man — first inside a car and later on a couch in what she recalled as a “dark, dingy apartment.” She also remembered seeing another man in the background — a male roommate, someone she also recognized.
“I remember trying to ask, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ but couldn’t put two words together,” she said, before everything went dark again.
The next thing Morel recalled is attempting to put on her flip-flops, stumbling down several steps and getting into her car. “I vaguely remember driving but felt like if I was pulled over it would be obvious that I was drugged,” she said. “I almost wished it would happen.”
When a drink becomes a weapon
Assistant State Attorney Julia Lynch, who leads Brevard County’s Special Victims Unit, could not speak to the circumstances surrounding Morel’s allegations. She has never spoken to Morel. However, Lynch has prosecuted numerous sexual assault cases in which victims believed a drug had been placed in their drinks.
“After having one or two drinks, they suddenly feel like passing out,” Lynch said. “They wake up and all of a sudden realize something is not right — an assault occurred. It’s not a rare occurrence.”
“Date-rape drug” is an informal term for substances used to impair a person’s judgment, memory or ability to resist or consent to sexual activity. The term is often associated with substances such as flunitrazepam, commonly known by the brand name Rohypnol, a sedative that can cause sudden drowsiness, confusion, impaired coordination and memory loss, particularly when combined with alcohol.
Lynch said most sexual assaults are committed by someone the survivor knows.
“There are very few cases of rape in which they are a total stranger,” she said. “It could be someone they met very recently, but most of the time, they know them.”
The morning after — and the silence that followed
Morel made it home and took what she described as “the hottest shower possible,” roughly scrubbing her skin with a loofah. She then crawled into bed beside her husband and prayed he would not hear her crying.
The next morning, Morel said, it was “business as usual.” She had a surf shop to open at 8 a.m., although she felt sicker than she ever remembered feeling.
“For some reason, I thought this was all my fault,” she said. “And I felt an enormous amount of guilt.”
She had barely opened her shop when the telephone rang. It was the man from the night before.
“He told me what a great time he had last night,” Morel said. “My heart sank and I truly wanted to run into traffic on A1A.” Then he told her she had worn his roommates’ sandals home – and asked if she could drop them off.
“I froze. I was overwhelmed with fear and emotion and burst into tears,” she said. “I ran to my office and curled up into the fetal position. I was shaking, crying, and screaming and felt like I was going to be sick. In fact, I was praying I would be sick to release the evil that was inside of me.”
Morel closed the shop and called her friend to pick her up. It took some time before she told her friend what happened — and it took more than a year before she could tell her husband.
“I was so humiliated and ashamed I refused to tell anyone in the hopes that it would all go away,” she said.
‘I found comfort in the numbness’: Why survivors may never report
Lynch said the most common reason survivors cite for delaying or never reporting abuse is the uncertainty of trying to process what happened and fear of retaliation.
“Obviously, there is also the trauma they’ve gone through and often the first thing they think is — how do I get back to normal?” Lynch said. “So, they put it aside and think they can process it or deal with it on their own.”
Consumed with shame and what she referred to as “unbelievable pain,” Morel said she tried to bury it, “drink it away,” and ignore it.
Karen Calvetto of Rockledge worked with Morel at Shagg’s and has known her since 1995.
About ten years ago, Morel told her about the assault, Calvetto said.
“She was crying and angry when she talked about it —and I encouraged her to share her story,” Calvetto said.
Sexual assault is among the most underreported violent crimes in the country. In 2024, only 23.6% of rape and sexual assault incidents were reported to police, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey. That means roughly three out of four were not.
In Brevard County, Florida Health Charts recorded 32 rape arrest events in 2024, a rate of 4.9 per 100,000 residents. But experts cautioned that such data reflects only cases that reach the criminal justice system.
“The biggest thing is the emotional burden they go through,” Lynch said of survivors. “And they shouldn’t go through it alone because it can lead to drug and alcohol use, confusion in other relationships, and PTSD in which simply being tapped on the back can cause a reaction.”
Morel said her problems with alcohol did not begin immediately. Her son, Henry, had just turned three, and she felt she had to keep functioning for his sake.
“My initial thought was to just take this to the grave,” she said. “I did OK for a while, but the regular nightmares and constant reminders — including repeatedly running into him — quickly took their toll. I found comfort in the numbness.”
As time passed, Morel said she increasingly relied on alcohol — sometimes combined with medication prescribed for ADHD — to numb the memories and shame.
She was arrested on DUI charges in 2009 and 2016, both of which were later reduced to reckless driving. Each arrest forced her to stop drinking temporarily, attend counseling and confront the possibility of speaking publicly about what had happened —but the desire to numb her pain came first for several more years.
Trying to outrun the pain
Morel’s ex-husband, Richard, said she revealed the assault to him while they were lying in bed.
“She said, ‘I thought I was going to take this to my grave,’” Richard recalled.
A former police officer, Richard said he initially reacted with anger and frustration that she had not told him earlier or reported it. Over the years, he said he watched her drink more heavily, face two arrests and pull further away, while feeling increasingly powerless to help.
Morel filed for divorce and ended their marriage in 2017.
“Karin wanted a divorce so we divorced,” Richard explained. ” I think she wanted to break away and start over.”
Morel agreed that leaving the marriage was part of a broader attempt to distance herself from the life she had been living — and from the pain she had never fully confronted.
“I basically was trying to create a whole new life,” Morel said. “I felt like things would never get better, so making a 180-degree change had to make things right — but it did the exact opposite.”
Morel said that after that 2004 night, she felt she “was no longer the same person.”
Her surf shop also suffered. Once a central part of her identity, the business became nearly nonexistent as Morel withdrew and became consumed by the fear that others somehow knew what had happened to her.
After her 2016 arrest, a court-ordered counselor asked Morel to write a letter to the man she says assaulted her, describing how the experience had affected her life. That exercise became “My Mistake.”
“Writing this letter was very difficult, but it truly helped me feel a little bit of hope,” Morel said. “It was my first true attempt to take my life back.”
The letter also forced her to acknowledge that the pain was not going to disappear simply because she refused to discuss it.
In 2022, with encouragement from a close friend, Morel sought treatment for alcohol misuse and began working with therapist Roz Mandler. In counseling, she returned to the letter and began speaking more openly about the alleged assault and the years of addiction, damaged relationships and isolation that followed.
Reclaiming her life though recovery
Mandler, a Merritt Island-based licensed mental health counselor, has spent more than three decades working with survivors of sexual assault and abuse. In 1990, she served as supervisor of Sexual Assault Victims Services at the Brevard County State Attorney’s Office. With an understanding of the legal system, Mandler said she helps educate her patients on the process as they decide how to move forward.
“This event crushed her soul and led to drinking, self-harming behaviors, the end of her marriage, the end of her surf business, and much self-hatred,” Mandler said.
Many people, Mandler explained, do not report sexual assault out of fear that they won’t be believed. Others lack family support or fear the possibility of re-traumatization by the legal process.
“In therapy, we address misconceptions about sexual assault and focus on being a survivor not a victim,” Mandler said. “The event may be over for the perpetrator, but it can cause lifetime consequences for the victim.”
In 2004, there was no #MeToo movement and no video evidence to document what had happened. Reporting often meant entering a painful “he said/she said” process involving police, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Last December, Florida State Attorney William Scheiner announced the launch of a Brevard County Special Victims Unit, with the goal of providing better support to vulnerable crime victims as they move through the court process. That’s the unit Lynch leads.
In counseling, Mandler said that she focused on getting Morel sober, helping her regain her self-respect and business reputation and start standing up for herself by sharing her story.
Morel credits therapy with Mandler — whom she said “truly changed my life” — with helping her remain sober for the past three years, relaunch Shagg’s Surf & Sport as an online business and reconnect with Richard in 2022.
“Karin and I are not married, we don’t need to,” Richard said. “We just started again with a new beginning. She has really made me proud.”
Now, Morel said, she wants to turn two decades of shame and regret into something that can help others.
‘My Mistake’
For nearly 20 years, the letter has remained unsent.
Morel said it may never get sent. She hasn’t yet decided.
She said she did not write it because she believed it could undo what happened in 2004. She wrote it to release some of what she had carried ever since.
“You have no idea how hard I have worked to rebuild parts of me that are still weak,” she wrote.
The letter, she explained, became part of her effort to heal — and a way to confront the man she said assaulted her.
“It’s to tell you I know what you and your friend did to me,” she wrote. “I wish I could say that I forgive you, but I am not capable. I am working on healing my heart, as you both gouged a huge hole in it that terrible night in 2004.”
But now she’s healing.
“I need to make the 19 years I wasted into something powerful and positive.,” she said. “That will be achieved by talking about “My Mistake” and what not to do; because I did it all. I literally want to save people time. It’s so precious and you can’t get it back.”
This reporting is supported by a Journalism Funding Partners grant. Mental Health Reporter Jennifer Torres can be reached at JMTorres@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Exclusive: Unsent letter, 20 years of silence and a survivor’s path forward
Reporting by Jennifer M. Torres, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jennifer M. Torres, Florida Today | USA TODAY Network
