Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2958

Tonight's special guest is Marcia Fritz from Sacramento, California, the co-author of 'A Wretch Like Me', a biography which covers her friend Judy Ray Herzog's life from birth to today. She is now 80 years old. Marcia is retired from her career as a CPA. She says she ".. watched our homeless situation worsen, and became interested in the 'invisible' people .. those who were poor and alone." Three years ago Marcia and her husband met Judy for dinner, and Judy asked if she could take a to-go box. When the waiter brought her a container she proceeded to scrape every last scrap from each of our plates into it. "I was surprised because Judy was well dressed and well mannered," Marcia thought. Judy revealed she was often starved as a child. In fact, she said she was violently and sexually abused as a child, and was eventually married to six different husbands. The abuse impacted the lives of her three children. "What is interesting to me is that Judy's troubles started with her narcissistic, abusive father. Yet Judy never stopped loving him, even today." Marcia writes, "With tear-stained cheeks, Judy watched her father—a charismatic grifter from a prominent Mormon family—beat her tiny mother into a shadow of a person. Her mother's unhealthy obsession with her sex-addict husband would set a precedent for Judy's choices." The biography 'A Wretch Like Me' is a compelling survival story about a remarkable woman, the lengths she went to eat, the marriages and beatings she endured never to go hungry again. Marcia notes, "Love is, perhaps, the most misunderstood emotion, yet it is the most powerful. We really need to acknowledge that love, never deny a child his or her love for their abusive parent."