Debbie Morris | Hear this Amazing Story of Abduction, Escape and Forgiveness

Debbie Morris

Hear this Amazing Story of Abduction, Escape and Forgiveness

Fee Range
Travels From
Tyler, Texas, United States

Debbie Morris
Biography

"What an incredible story... abduction and escape is only half of this story. The rest deals with traumatic aftershock...and the long, painful road to become whole again. There's refreshing honesty in these pages as Debbie reveals her own fierce struggles and mistakes so others can gain insight and courage." Sister Helen Prejean Author of Dead Man Walking.

No one in the country can forget the controversy stirred over Sister Helen Prejean's book, Dead Man Walking. The book's chilling true story and the subsequent movie, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, focused the entire world on the horrific crimes committed by Robert Willie and Joe Vacarro in Louisiana in 1980. For most of us, Dead Man Walking awakened our own conflicted feelings and beliefs about the extremes of crime and punishment in this country.

For Debbie Morris, it reawakened the nightmare she had been living with since surviving an unspeakably brutal experience at the hands of the man who was the subject of Dead Man Walking. While the rest of us debated the ethics of executing a man clearly guilty of heinous rape, torture and murder, Debbie Morris found she had a life-changing decision to make. Keep silent about her terrifying experience as a teen-ager, or share her story with the world -- make a private pain a public revelation. In a dauntless act of faith and courage, she chose to speak.

The path Debbie has walked since the summer night in 1980 when she was kidnapped, raped and held for thirty hours is the story her audiences most want to hear. It's a story of unfathomable courage in the face of absolute terror as, after her escape, she helped police first save the life of the young man she was with the night of her abduction, and then eventually capture and convict both Willie and Vacarro. More importantly, Debbie Morris' story, is a powerful testimony of forgiveness and redemption on a road of spiritual, emotional and physical recovery littered with alcohol abuse, depression and panic attacks. Her journey back to wholeness eventually brought her to teaching special needs children and a solid, fulfilling family life with childhood friend, Brad Morris.

Debbie's story, first told publicly on PBS Frontline, proved so inspirational she was encouraged by many people, including Sister Helen Prejean, to write about it. Forgiving The Dead Man Walking was published in 1998. Since the publication of the book, Debbie Morris has appeared on the Today Show, Leeza, The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, Focus on the Family, and National Public Radio's Fresh Air, among others. She has been featured in Ladies Home Journal, Marie Claire and Today's Christian Woman and many other of the country's most popular home, women's and Christian lifestyle magazines.

Today, Debbie Morris is a highly sought speaker at conferences and retreats across the country, including Women of Faith conferences. In 2001 she appeared with Dr. James Dobson on Focus on the Family. The subject of forgiving--how to forgive, when to forgive, why to forgive, has become a topic of increasing spiritual interest across mainstream America, transcending religious affiliation. Debbie's mission is to share her transformational story of healing and grace, one she prays will help others discover the same life-altering power and freedom generated by the act of forgiveness.

Debbie Morris lives in Louisiana with her husband and their two children.

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