Last week, disgraced tennis legend Bob Hewitt's request to appeal a six-year prison sentence was rejected in South Africa, where he was convicted of raping two girls and sexually assaulting another more than 20 years ago. A panel of judges declared that he "showed no remorse for his vile deeds." In the United States, Hewitt's past gained attention five years ago, thanks to the courage of a local woman, Heather Crowe Conner, who came forward to share her story of abuse when she was a tennis prodigy decades before. The Boston Globe then launched its own investigation and found numerous other abuse allegations against Hewitt, in one case, involving a child who was just ten years old at the time.
On Thursday night, Crowe Conner joined Jim to discuss the decision and what she went through years ago. Although Hewitt's appeal was rejected, Crowe Conner does not feel any closure to her situation. Being far removed from the legal case, she finds that her abuse situation was different than the other cases in South Africa. Her abuse went on for years, and it happened multiple times. If he was brought to trial in the U.S., she believes Hewitt would have been sentenced to life in prison.
Crowe Conner decided to come forward to "bring him down a notch." Hewitt was in the Tennis Hall of Fame and regarded as one of the sport's greatest players. Crowe Conner said that she couldn't stand that anymore. Hewitt has since been removed from the Tennis Hall of Fame. "I want him to know what he did," she said. She won a civil suit against him, but is likely not going to be able to collect anything.
Crowe Conner is still working through the pain of what happened to her. She described her relationship with Hewitt as a "Stockholm syndrome" thing. She claimed that he groomed her in a way that he appeared to be kind even though, she said, he was hurting her. After the abuse, she said that she was convinced she was "special" and the only one. In recent years, she said that confronting the realization that she wasn't the only one has been "brutal."
She explained that her lifelong secret defined who she was. "It's kind of who I am," she said. However, Crowe Conner said that while, for much of her life, she felt that Hewitt had ruined her, she now feels differently. Married with children, she now knows that this didn't destroy her. It's important to her for people to know what Hewitt did, and how it affected her. She is thankful that sharing what happened to her helped others that were victims of abuse by Hewitt.
