Todd Heisler © News Michelle Martin, of Broomfield, touches a leaf Monday bearing the name of her son, David Michael Kelly II, who was killed three weeks before his 18th birthday in 1996. The memorial at Civic Center was part of a ceremony in observance of National Crime Victims' Rights Week.

By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
April 20, 2004

The mother of the alleged victim in the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case spoke up for her daughter Monday for the first time in a public setting.

"I want to thank my daughter for teaching me about courage," said the Eagle woman. "I'm proud to be her mom."

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She also voiced her support for Senate Bill 46, signed into law on April 8, which increases judges' and prosecutors' ability to protect the identity of a victim in a sexual-assault case.

Her brief remarks were delivered at a midday ceremony marking Colorado's observance of National Crime Victims' Rights Week at Civic Center Park in Denver.

She was not introduced by name, but simply as the mother of a sexual-assault victim from Eagle County. As she spoke, her husband sat in the audience's front row.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the couple pinned a pink felt "leaf" bearing their daughter's initials on one of two "victim remembrance" trees, a graphic two-dimensional tribute to hundreds of Coloradans victimized by violent crime.

Also at Monday's event, a victim in one of Colorado's most notorious rape cases of recent years shed her anonymity for the first time in adding support for Bryant's alleged victim.

Kristen Marshall, now a 29-year-old resident of a small Colorado community, was raped in June 2001 in Fort Collins by Troy Graves. It was the third in a string of six-sexual assaults that terrorized Fort Collins that summer.

Graves, now 31, is serving a life sentence in Colorado after having pleaded guilty in 2002 to all six Fort Collins cases. The former Air Force missile technician also received a life sentence that same year in Philadelphia, when he pleaded guilty in that city to four rapes, an attempted sexual assault, and the May 7, 1998, murder of University of Pennsylvania student Shannon Schieber.

Marshall spoke at Monday's event in support of rape victims everywhere. But she directed several of her remarks to the Bryant case, and the manner in which unflattering details of his alleged victim's personal life have been exhaustively examined in the media.

The Eagle woman's mother, in a March 25 court filing by the family's attorney urging a swift resolution of the case, claimed hundreds of death threats and constant hounding by the media and defense investigators have left her fearful for her life and robbed her of privacy.

"Rape should not be tolerated, and victims should be able to come forward without fear," Marshall said during Monday's ceremony.

"A few months ago, I found myself becoming increasingly angry at all the growing media attention and especially the trashing of the victim in the Kobe Bryant case," she said, "and comments that her behavior following the incident weren't considered 'normal' - as if anyone can say how they'd react if they were raped."

In an interview at the conclusion of Monday's victims' rights event, Marshall said she has offered Bryant's alleged victim a way to contact her, through a victims' advocate. But she has received no response.

"I would tell her, if she wants a support system, I have one available for her," Marshall said.

"She has a very, very difficult road ahead of her."

Bryant, who has admitted to consensual sex with his alleged victim but denies any criminal wrongdoing in their June 30 encounter, is due back in Eagle County District Court on Monday for a three-day pretrial-motions hearing.

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