DETROIT – The Local 4 Defenders spoke with a woman who said she was 13 years old when convicted killer Arthur Ream sexually attacked her.
The 49-year-old mother of two hasn't shared her story publicly until now. She wants to conceal her identity to protect her family, but she wants the story to be told.
She has since moved out of Metro Detroit and kept quiet for decades. Her allegations are part of court paperwork, evidence of prior acts by Ream of sexual assault and rape that prosecutors attempted to get admitted in the Cindy Zarzycki murder case.
"I had talked to detectives years ago," the woman, who we will call Kristin, said.
That was when detectives were trying to piece together the puzzle of Ream. Even before he had shown police where he buried Zarzycki in Macomb Township, detectives found Kristin.
"Police really think there are more victims, alive," Local 4 Defender Karen Drew said. "More girls that were attacked sexually. Do you think there could be more?"
"I wouldn't put it past him," Kristin said.
She said she knew Ream for most of her childhood.
"I mean, I loved him," Kristin said. "He was like my second dad. I never though he would hurt me."
But she said that changed in the early 1980s. She said Ream asked her to make a stop at his work with him. He had an upstairs office in a warehouse on Herbert Avenue in Warren.
"I just remember that when he had stopped at the store, I had a feeling, a gut feeling, and I got scared and I thought to myself, 'Should I go hide behind those bushes?'" Kristin said.
She said she didn't follow her gut feeling, which she still regrets.
"When he took me into the elevator and we went upstairs, and that's where a mattress was," Kristin said.
That's when Ream attacked her, Kristin said.
"When he was trying to rape me and he was telling me things, like, 'I've always wanted you since you were a baby,'" Kristin said. "I don't know how long that took, but I just know that on the way back to the house, he said, 'If you tell anybody, I'm just going to tell them you came to me.'"
Kristin said she told her mother about the incident, but they didn't file a police report. She said they immediately packed up and moved out of Metro Detroit.
"He's convicted of killing Cindy Zarzycki, and now the theory is out that he may have killed other young girls," Karen said. "Taking a look at this, do you think he's a serial killer?"
"I think that if he has already killed one young girl, then I wouldn't put it past him," Kristin said. "If you're going to kill one person, you could have killed many more."
Kristin said she was afraid to speak out as a child, but now she can, and she wants other victims to do the same.
"I think that they should come forward, and if they were scared back then like I was, you're an adult now and it's the right thing to do," Kristin said.
Kristin said she's tried to move on from the incident.
"You have to move on, and that's why I don't think about it anymore," Kristin said. "But it's sad."
She said she has gone through bouts of depression and sadness but has never really dealt with what happened to her because it's been a secret she has been keeping.