Today I was shocked and overjoyed to read an update that Olivia Ambrose was found alive in Boston.
If you are near or around Massachusetts, you know that Olivia is a 23 year old woman who went missing this past Saturday night after leaving a bar in Boston. As more and more was revealed about the circumstances, through surveillance footage that showed that she was clearly abducted by two men, a happy ending seemed too far to hope for.
This girl stuck with me in particular because she is from Wenham, a small neighboring town of my hometown. Many of my friends are from Wenham, and that alone made me feel like I kind of knew her.
Thankfully, she was found alive today, and the man caught on video physically abducting her was arrested, which leaves everyone in Massachusetts demanding answers.
I was curious about the details, but a detail in the brief rundown of the suspect made my blood run cold and made my limbs feel numb.
The suspect is “well-known” to Boston Police, and the first example given was that 2 women had previously reported him for stalking them in subway stations and appearing to follow them onto a train. There were more reasons after that, but I honestly barely remember them at all because I was stuck on that detail- as well as the one I just heard right now, that many women in the apartments around him described him as “creepy”.
I don’t know if I can put into words all of the things I think I need to say right now on this subject, but I am going to try.
Women are prey. Men are the predators. Prey have heightened senses- they need to, because they need to be aware of predators at all times so that they can, you know, survive and all.
Prey animals learn to detect subtle warning signs of a predator likely to strike. Prey animals learn to detect these warning signs and do everything they can to defend themselves in order to survive.
Examples:
When a skunk feels threatened, it first raises it’s tail in warning, and then releases pungent odor strong enough to debilitate the predator, such as a fox, so the skunk can escape.
A rattle snake will raise it’s tail, shake it in warning, and then strike if the predator, such as a hawk, continues to advance.
When a bat senses danger from a predator such as an owl, it relies on it’s hearing and then sends out ultrasonic sounds that bounce back when they reach an object, signaling to the bat where the danger is so it can get away.
When a woman senses danger from her chief predator, man, she seeks and asks and screams and sometimes begs for help and support- which is all too frequently ignored, gaslighted, mocked; generally disregarded along a spectrum of being told that she is overreacting to being told that she is to blame for the predatory behavior.
MANY women alerted many people of the danger they felt from the person who abducted Olivia Ambrose.
We need to listen to the women around us when they alert us of men who seem to give them a vague but uncanny sense of danger- the men who are “creepy”– the man who, no, technically did not physically assault her, or break any visible laws, but who she KNOWS has been following her for too long to be a coincidence, because she is prey, and her heightened senses are key to her survival, and she knows when she is in danger.
I feel compelled to share in more detail my experience with one creepy man- who I have made sure to speak frequently about, as I truly consider telling my story a warning sign that I want every person to hear. Some of you reading this have heard me mention his name- Joseph Louf- and know that I obtained a restraining order to protect myself from him, and know that he is currently serving a 12 year sentence as the result of a plea deal to drop the attempted murder charge after he permanently disfigured the woman he met the same month he was served with papers from me.
For a lot of reasons I haven’t shared the details of my story with him- not the least of which being that several men in my life at that time (who are no longer in my life) who I trusted tried to convince me that I was overreacting and dramatic, and because of that, I never trusted that anyone would ever understand why I felt so threatened and unsafe by this man. I expected that no one would care even if they believed me. But I was right about Louf. And those women were right about Pena, who abducted Olivia. We knew that we were in danger and I wish more could have been done to protect the women who were later victimized by both men.
In 2010-ish, I paid for a fitness membership of sorts at the small gym owned and run by Joe Louf. He boasted that he was an accomplished MMA fighter and licensed trainer (false) and that he specialized in teaching self-defense to women and martial arts to students with autism. I had previously loved a small studio that had closed, in which I took cardio kick-boxing and women’s self-defense and had intended to regularly incorporate these particular classes in my fitness regiment.
Right away, there were a few things about Louf that seemed off. Many of the women in my class were trying to lose weight and dieting, and he would regularly describe in detail his calorie-heavy meals that he required as a fighter, and it seemed clear that he was intentionally taunting the women. I remember one time in particular when a woman was lamenting about needing to fit into her dream wedding dress- Louf interrupted to describe, with impressive sensory details, his plan to eat a 10,000 calorie meal, complete with a large chunk of salmon “dripping with butter” and a “fat baked potato stuffed with sour cream”. He described this to the woman with a strange grin on his face and I told myself that they must have a playful relationship that I didn’t understand.
In my first training, Louf had us run suicides- rapidly running back and forth with increasingly longer distances. Louf ran with us, and he was clearly sprinting and finished before us and laughed and went on for too long telling us that he was faster than us. But the thing is- shouldn’t he be faster than us? We were paying him to coach us. If I came into a coaching situation already being more skilled than the coach, I would probably want to find a new coach. It was clear that he felt a need to remind us that he was superior to us in some way, and I let it go and let him say whatever he needed to feel however he needed to feel.
That same day, Louf put on fast-paced music and used mits on his hands and instructed me to do a series of hooks and kicks. As the music increased in pace, he instructed me to do the moves faster and faster, faster than I had ever done them, despite multiple years of cardio kickboxing. When the music ended, I was gasping for breath, dripping sweat, and before I knew it, he had fully embraced me in a hug that I did not consent to and which made me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
As an athlete who spent many years with predominantly male coaches, this was a giant red flag to me. Until that moment I’m not sure I was fully aware of how fortunate I was to grow up with such truly good male coaches who I trusted and who were professional in every way. Out of all of the men who had coached me, not one had surprised me with a hug while I was training- especially on the first day. Not one had ever made me feel even remotely the way that I felt that day with Louf. Louf’s coaching behavior struck me because it was unlike any male coach I had ever had, but I was too naive not to sign the contract anyway.
I had heard these things about Louf, believe it or not. I had heard that he had a long history of being “creepy” and trying to date women he trained, and once dating, became “obsessive”. I truly didn’t think that simply being a customer would put me in danger- how could I feel threatened in a professional setting?
The day I went to the gym to sign a contract of membership was the last time I saw Joe Louf. There was a class in process while I waited in the office and then the class was dismissed and Louf sat behind the desk. He made small talk and pointed me to sign at various places in the contract, and then asked what I did for a living. I told him that I was an educator, and when he asked what kind, I said that I was in the process of becoming a Sp.Ed teacher.
That’s when Joseph Louf lost control and I realized quickly that I was the only other person in the building. He appeared to be under the misconception that “Sp.Ed” was a slur, which is incorrect. He screamed so loudly that my ears were ringing. He remained behind the desk but put his palms on top of it and postured towards me over it. I don’t remember everything he said in the chaos, but some of the things I remember hearing were that he trains children who are special needs and I should be ashamed of myself for ever “calling them that“, that I was a “bitch“, “trash”, and many shouts about who could have possibly “raised me” to be “like this“. I think it lasted 30 seconds but I honestly have no idea. It felt like an hour, but if someone told me it was 10 seconds I would believe it.
And then, just as suddenly, he sat down, flashed a smile as if nothing had happened, picked up the contract I had been completing, read my address aloud, and stated that I would need to leave a $100 deposit. He stretched his hand out to shake mine, and I assume I obliged, and then he congratulated me for joining his gym. My only thought was leaving quietly and never returning. I would take the $100 loss- knowing that he knew my address and was clearly violently irrational, decided I would never return (which is pretty much what happens every other time I join a gym) and I would carry on with my life and he would carry on with his.
Except that the next day when I didn’t show up at one of his many classes, he called me. I didn’t answer. He left a voicemail. Then he texted. Then he sent me a Facebook message. Then he sent me an email.
He did this for about 30 days. Some days he would text me every minute for 2 or 3 hours. Some days he would call and leave a voicemail that said that he was worried about me and had contacted my friends who were also worried about me. He would comment on my Facebook and ask where I was. I ignored it until I couldn’t anymore because it was interfering in my ability to send my own texts, answer calls, work without interruption, etc.
I told him to please stop contacting me.
Louf told me that he would not stop, because I had signed in his contract that he could contact me via phone and email “if necessary”. I did not have a copy of the contract. His messages were then sometimes aggressive with insults, then professional regarding my contract, then friendly and “just checking in”. I requested and then demanded multiple times that he stop harassing me and that’s when he escalated and made it clear to me that if I would not be coming to class, he had no intention of leaving me alone.
A lawyer friend wrote a cease and desist letter. He ignored it.
Finally I went to my local police station. I didn’t even know why. I was just scared. I was tired. I couldn’t sleep because he would contact me all night and if I turned my phone off, I couldn’t use it for an extended period of time when I woke, as all of his messages loaded. I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted help.
The local police listened to me, gave me a paper, directed me to the local courts and told me to tell the court what I told them, and I was granted a temporary restraining order without even knowing that that’s what I was doing.
Louf refused to accept the papers when he was served, but the day he was served was the last day he contacted me. Because he refused to accept them, the courts wouldn’t be able to make a long-term protective order and told me that I needed to come back to court every 2 weeks and as long as I did that, they would reissue the order. So for a few months, every 2 weeks, I took a half day off from work and got the order renewed. After a while I felt confident that I wouldn’t hear from him again, and I didn’t.
And for a couple of years, Joseph Louf was out of my life and out of my mind. Until I read about him in the newspaper and nearly threw up. The headline read:
“Judge: Accused abuser ‘needs to be caged'”
I was horrified as I read what Louf had been up to since I last heard from him. Another woman had signed up at his gym after me. She was now unrecognizable by her own family.
“…The woman said she began seeing dark spots on her eyes after one beating in which Louf kneed her in the face, and realized she had no peripheral vision. After returning home, she went to the doctor and learned that she had two detached retinas. “If you waited any longer, you would be totally blind,” she said the doctor told her…
…There are marks on her face and neck from where she was punched and stabbed…
As for why she never reported the abuse? MacDougall asked if Louf had said anything to her about that.
“He said he would go after me and my (expletive) mother, that he would throw me in the river, that he had ways to get rid of my body. Cruel and disgusting ways,” the woman said.”**
I did not include the most horrifying details because they are still too upsetting. These are not necessarily the worst things he did to her, if you can imagine that.
I cannot tell you how many people told me that I was probably being dramatic, overreacting, “misplacing fear” whatever that means. I cannot tell you how many times I was told that I was probably wrong about Joseph Louf.
I was right.
Women are prey and we know how to identify dangerous predators. Unfortunately, we are regularly discredited almost instantly, and that is barely acknowledged when the predator strikes worse than anyone could have- should have- anticipated.
Listen to us.
Listen to the woman who tells you that someone made her uncomfortable when they shook their hand too long.
Listen to the woman who tells you that she was scared when it seemed like a strange man was following her.
Listen to the woman who tells you that her coworker (or boss) aggressively raised their voice to yell at her (even though a male coworker had been to blame or had done something “worse” and received no such reaction).
Listen to the woman who asks you to walk her to her car. Or to the door.
Listen to the woman who calls a man “creepy” but can’t really explain why.
Listen to the woman who is afraid to be alone with any man.
Listen to us.
This is how we survive.
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