-Everly native survives spring break trauma in Cancun-

Allison Klett is among the thousands of American college students who traveled to a Mexican resort area over spring break this year. While it marked her first trip anywhere outside the United States, and her expectations of having fun were high, the 21-year-old became a statistic highlighting danger abroad.

The daughter of Gary and Marcia Klett of rural Everly, an accomplished, strong young woman, prepared for the trip by researching everything she might encounter. The responsible traveler-to-be also agreed with the friends who planned to travel with her that they'd take all the extra precautions they could: They wouldn't drink excessive amounts of alcohol; they'd stick together in a group at all times; she'd bring an international phone card; and Klett would take one credit card to be used "only for emergencies."

The Central College senior found beauty during her mid-March trip to the tropical Caribbean setting. She also found evil, arriving back in Iowa bloody, scraped and with a severe concussion.

"I was doing everything I thought was right -- and this still happened to me. Every day I ask, 'Why me,'" Klett said just before heading back to college after a two-week recovery. "There's obviously a reason why this happened to me and not somebody else. Maybe it was the fact that I made it out alive and fairly untouched. There are a lot of girls who probably wouldn't have made it out."

"It feels like a bad dream that I'm going to wake up from," she added as tears flowed from her left eye, which days before had been swollen shut. "But every day, I wake up, look at myself and think, 'I haven't woken up from it yet.'"

The trip of a lifetime

At the beginning of the year, Klett booked a spring break travel package to Cancun through a company she saw advertised in the New York Times. She, along with Alyssa Wilhelm and Brittany Zern, college friends and former basketball teammates, reserved an "all-inclusive" package from March 15 - 20.

The collegiate coeds' troubles began when their flight to Mexico was delayed. When the three women arrived at the hotel they were supposed to spend the next five days at, they were informed that their reservations had been made for the week prior.

Finding themselves on the street and without a room, Klett, Wilhelm and Zern walked four miles to the hotel where Nate Nees, another college friend, was staying with family and friends.

"When we got there, the hotel staff tried to tell us it was going to cost us $200 a person to sleep on the couch or floor in their room from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m., (the soonest we could switch a flight back)," Klett recalled. "Nate's mom finally talked them down to $50 a person -- which we were all willing to pay, considering we hadn't slept in 24 hours.

"We were just excited to be down there. We didn't even care if we had to sleep three people to one bed, because we were in Cancun and it was 95 degrees out."

Nancy Johnson, Nees' mother, hooked the three young women up with all-inclusive wristbands associated with the hotel later that day and allowed them to stay in her family's conjoining rooms for the remainder of the week.

With a glowing smile, the 2004 Clay Central-Everly graduate reminisced about being pampered while laying out on the beach with her friends March 16 - 17.

Precautions don't shield from harm

Klett's facial expression tightened as she began to recall their St. Patrick's Day visit to the local Pat O'Brien's restaurant and bar, where she, Wilhelm and Zern purchased all-inclusive wristbands covering the cost of their drinks. She remembered "having a blast" and "staying together as a group all night."

"Even if we went to the bathroom, we'd go with another person -- just because it was Cancun and I'd heard stories," Klett said.

As the night progressed, she and Wilhelm danced on one of the stages. Klett recalled seeing an entertainer from the club standing to the side of the stage with his four bodyguards.

"He kind of looked at me," she said. "When my friend told me she was going to get a drink and to stay right there so she'd know where I was, I stayed dancing on that stage because I could see the bar that she went to. We were really safe about that."

When the man approached Klett and asked if he could buy her a beer, she told him that she was waiting for a friend.

"We'll go to that bar right there and you won't have to wait in line," the 21-year-old recalled him replying.

"I thought he had to be somewhat (OK). He had bodyguards. I felt like maybe I could trust him. He wasn't just some random guy there on spring break too; he was an entertainer -- and he probably bought a lot of people drinks. He was famous," Klett said, as she followed him to the nearby bar.

"He gave me the Corona. I remember taking a drink, and after that I don't remember anything."

Klett insists she was not intoxicated, calculating she'd drank four or five glasses of Corona over an eight-hour period of time, which also included a full dinner that night.

"I do like to go out and have fun, but I would say that I'm a responsible drinker," she said. "...The reason I wanted to go to the bar with him is because I didn't want him to slip anything into my drink. That's something you see and hear about all the time, but I never thought it would happen to me."

The woman slated to graduate next month with a bachelor's degree in communications and English also acknowledged she had not been "acting wild" or "flashing people" like other young women were. In addition, Klett was completely clothed that night with a white halter top adorned with wooden beads around the neck, a jean skirt and flip flops.

"And he picked me out of the crowd," she said with a questioning look.

The attack

Since Klett can't remember anything about what occurred over the next several hours, she's attempted to piece together what did happen from tales her friends have told her about the early-morning hours of March 18. For example, they've reported 2 a.m. was the last time they saw her with the club entertainer, a black man over twice her size who they witnessed holding her tightly by the wrist and dragging her through the crowd back to the stage. They've also told her they knew something was wrong simply because she wouldn't say anything back to them. A number of her friends also recounted attempting to follow them behind the stage, but were blocked by the entertainer's bodyguards and told they hadn't seen her.

"From then until I came back to the hotel, they said, was probably about three hours. I think I remember somebody saying it was 5 a.m. when I got back to the hotel," Klett said.

But before the spring break student visitor recalls entering the front doors to the hotel, she remembers waking up in the back seat of a taxi.

"This man was trying to rape me," Klett said. "I remember screaming at the taxi driver to pull over. This man was swearing at me, telling me to shut up and throwing me against the back of the seat. He was holding my throat and yelling at the taxi driver to keep driving. The taxi driver then locked the doors."

As she fought to throw him off, Klett said she was able to unlock her door and roll out of the moving taxi. She ran, trying to hide in a building and then jumped in front of another taxi and asked that driver to take her to the hotel.

"I remember telling him, 'When we get to the hotel, I will give you money.' And he said, 'No, I need it now -- or you can go to a hotel with me for an hour and one-half and I'll waive your taxi fee,'" Klett said. "This was when my left eye was completely swollen shut. I had burns on both my shoulders from the pavement that were blistering and bleeding. Both my knees and elbows were bleeding. I had bruises and scrapes all over my back. I had a severe concussion and the (left side of) my face was swollen.

"I'd also lost my flip flops, my purse and this man (the entertainer) had ripped all the earrings out of my ears. All the wood beads on my shirt had been ripped off, so it was just a white tube top that was all ripped."

When she finally arrived at the hotel, Klett said workers at the front desk wouldn't allow her in because her all-inclusive wristband had been ripped off. After reaching Nees via the telephone in his room, Klett said she blacked out again. Piecing together information garnered from others, the young woman has come to understand that she did talk with her father on a pay phone and then fell asleep on a couch in the hotel lobby.

"They apparently kept trying to give me medical help at the hotel. But because everything's really shady down there, they said not to take me to the hospital unless it was a life-or-death situation because organ harvesting is a big thing in Cancun," she said. "They also were told not to go to the police -- because they'd probably never see me again and police down there can be paid off. (A woman from the U.S. Embassy who talked with Johnson) said, 'It's really sad, but we see this all the time -- and we can't do anything about it.'"

Heading home

Meanwhile, Johnson, Klett's parents and a U.S. Embassy representative worked to switch their airline tickets around. When the three college students arrived back in Iowa at 4 a.m. the following morning, Klett was taken directly to the Pella Regional Health Center's emergency room, where she had X-rays taken, a rape test conducted, a CAT scan completed, tests for two main date rape drugs taken, in addition to other tests conducted.

"They took X-rays of my jaw and a CAT scan of my head because they thought my jaw was broken. Everything came back negative and nothing was broken," Klett reported. "...The doctor told me that God was definitely with me."

"God was with me," she added in retrospect. "Because I woke up at the exact time he was trying to rape me. I can remember him trying to take my clothes off. I can remember his body parts being out and I can remember seeing it (his penis). That's the only thing I can remember from the whole night after taking that Corona and waking up the exact moment that I needed to be awake."

The young woman, who stayed at her parents' home from March 19 until she returned to college on March 30, has experienced a wave of emotions, including fear, and suffered from nightmares. Her thoughts have also raced as she's mulled a host of "what-if" questions.

"I never in a million years would have thought that something like this would have happened to me, especially since we were being smart and taking all the precautions. But I want people to know that it can happen to you. That could have been my first drink of the whole night and it still would have happened to me," Klett warned. "No matter how many precautions you take, no matter how careful you're being, this stuff happens."

"I would never wish this to happen to anybody," she continued. "But in looking back on all the things that occurred with me, there's so much that just went right or was a miracle. The fact that I woke up at the exact time I needed to in the taxi. The fact that I could run. The fact that I could convince the second pesky taxi driver to take me back to my hotel. ... There was definitely somebody watching over me."

 

This story in its entirety was written by Kris Todd of the Spencer Daily Reporter. 

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