She Survived by M. William Phelps Page A

the guy—all but Melissa, that is.
    â€œI tell you what,” Buttram said, “that was the best composite sketch I have ever had.”
    At times, Saxton wore thick-framed glasses, sported a pencil-thin mustache, a receding hairline, and comb-over. His head appeared too big for his skinny, scrawny frame. He had larger than average ears. He looked like a nerd, straight from one of those ’80s “revenge” films that were so popular.
    Melissa was attacked by her ex-neighbor, Scott Saxton. ( Photo courtesy of Marion County Prosecutor’s Office )
    â€œA twerp, a dweeb,” one cop later described Saxton. “He was this little guy.”
    Disturbingly, Scott Saxton had a wife and child at home.
    As she checked out Saxton’s background, the key to Melissa’s attack, Buttram soon learned, was that Scott Saxton had lived directly across the hall from Melissa at one time. Although Melissa described a much different perp—smooth face, no facial hair that she could feel, possibly some acne, possibly not—Buttram was certain she had the same man responsible for Melissa’s attack. Standing inside Saxton’s apartment, the detective explained, you could look across the way and into the apartment of the woman he attacked with the ball-peen hammer. So this made it clear to Buttram and law enforcement that Saxton was a stalker. He watched his victims. Probably targeted a woman and followed her, watched her for days or weeks, then decided when the perfect opportunity was for him to attack. He likely became obsessed with those women he targeted, and could not control his impulses.
    When police arrested Saxton on the night of August 22, he was clean-shaven and had not worn glasses—which had thrown Melissa off so much when she laid eyes on a photo of him postarrest. She didn’t recognize this man at all—not as her neighbor or her attacker. The photo of Saxton wearing glasses and a mustache had been taken up north, in another county, after his arrests there. So it was an older image. He had moved south and changed his appearance.
    â€œAs far as seeing the picture, Detective Becky Buttram can back me up on this,” Melissa explained further, “it was a complete disconnect for me. In fact, I kept asking if they had the right person—only because, as you can see from the picture, the neighbor that I always saw had a mustache and wore glasses. The person in my apartment that night was very clean-shaven and did not have glasses on. Becky told me that fact concerned her greatly, too, [because of how adamant I was] until she verified his whereabouts on the night before that last attack. He was working as a waiter, where, in fact, he had to be shaven (no facial hair) and that he was now wearing contacts and was, in fact, wearing them on that night. Thank God he left bloody prints in my apartment!”
    One more thing also became clear: Scott Saxton was changing his appearance likely because of the descriptions police had publicly put out.

CHAPTER 21
    THE ANGUISH OF THE FIRST RESPONDER
    It was old-fashioned police work and community outreach that caught Scott Saxton in the act of potentially committing another violent crime—one that certainly could have ended in murder, as Detective Becky Buttram feared, had he not been apprehended beforehand.
    â€œThe sheriff ’s department held Crime Watch meetings,” one law enforcement official told the Indianapolis Star after Saxton’s arrest, “. . . and made residents more aware of what to do if they saw something strange. It paid off. The resident in the apartment called as soon as they saw him. . . .”
    That call Melissa Schickel received after Saxton’s arrest was more comforting than sunshine at the beach: “We’ve made an arrest.”
    Melissa had felt relieved for the first time in a very long while. They had the man who had brutalized her—finally. He had possibly committed several