Crime victim re-enters home she was held hostage in

In a recent episode of “Surviving Evil,” an Investigation Discovery TV series that features the emotional stories of victims who fought back against their attackers, Debra Puglisi Sharp of Delaware recounts a dramatic story that many would hope is just a fictional tale. But according to her sister, Darlene Sillitoe of Manahawkin, the tragic inci dent was very real.

Photo via ID
Investigation Discovery reenacts Sharp's
abduction during an episode of 'Surviving Evil.' 

In April 1998 Sharp was abducted, raped and held in captivity for 101 hours. She had just entered her home after spending the afternoon planting roses in her front yard when she was knocked to the floor by a male intruder who stuffed her in the trunk of his car and drove her to his home one town over, where he kept her for five agonizing days.

“It’s every woman’s worst nightmare. I was dealing with a monster,” Sharp said in a telephone interview Monday, Oct. 14.

Sharp’s story had been shared before. She bared all in the 2003 novel Shattered: Reclaiming a Life Torn Apart by Violence, which she co-authored with former Ladies Home Journal reporter and rape victim Marjorie Preston. She even relived the story in the A&E Biography series “I Survived,” as well as in Discovery Health’s “Worst Thing That Ever Happened to Me.”

Photo via ID
Sharp walks out of her attacker's former home
after an interview with Investigation Discovery.

But the ID documentary made retelling the graphic affair a more tangible experience than the others. During the interview for the show last year, Sharp walked producers through the home, now under new ownership, where she was tortured by her captor.

“Investigation Discovery asked me what would help me as far as the taping, and I said, ‘I really want to go back to the house where I was held hostage.’ It was very empowering for me to go back to the house. It’s part of my healing,” Sharp said.

Though many people were uncomfortable with the idea, including some of Sharp’s relatives, Sharp said she did indeed find the experience to be very therapeutic. What would have once evoked a post-traumatic episode, such as the sight of a roll of duct tape, only made her question the trigger – a sure sign of recovery, she explained.

Sillitoe accompanied Sharp during the interview for moral support.

Sharp “obviously changed her life tremendously after (the crime),” Sillitoe said. “Part of her story is that after this happened she was insistent on reclaiming her life again. She lived in her house again; she worked her job again; she was out in the world again; she remarried.”

Sharp was remarried to Bill Sharp in Ship Bottom, her father’s former hometown, and the two currently live in Lewes, Del. Her brother is retired Stafford Township police Sgt. Robert Engel.

Minutes prior to her abduction, Sharp’s first husband, Nino Puglisi, was shot and killed in the couple’s home by the same attacker. Sharp, who was missing when police found her husband dead, was even considered a suspect in the murder. The couple was just a few days shy of celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

“We were telling police, ‘No, you don’t understand. My sister doesn’t have guile. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. There is no way she’s behind this; you are wasting your time,’” Sillitoe remembered.

Bound and gagged “like a piece of meat, like a slaughtered animal,” on the floor of her attacker’s home, Sharp learned of her husband’s homicide the day after she was abducted via a radio announcement. Her captor told her, “I had to kill him.”

After grieving for her husband and thinking she might never again see her twin children, Melissa and Michael, who were 19 and away at college at the time, Sharp switched into survival mode. She befriended her attacker who, before heading to work at a local car plant, left her tied up on the bed the night she was rescued. Freeing herself from the hogtie, she made her way to a phone and called 911. Her attacker was arrested at work that same night and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

Sharp now shares her story at victims’ rights conferences as an inspirational speaker. She recently spoke in her hometown at Burlington County College.

“Every time I speak, I always have people approach me who have been victimized themselves. It’s rewarding for me because I’m able to inspire them to get the help they need,” said Sharp. “The people in the audience that take care of victims will come up and thank me for sharing my story because, by giving a victim’s perspective, it helps them to take better care of victims. That’s rewarding to me, knowing that I have given them the understanding of how a victim feels,” she added.

Sharp’s novel Shattered is studied in college criminology courses across the nation. Sillitoe plans to help her sister write a sequel to the novel. The two said they will begin working on the project within the next couple of months.

Anyone interested in watching the ID episode featuring Sharp can download the segment, “Bound and Determined,” on Amazon for $1.99.

–Kelley Anne Essinger


This article was published in The SandPaper.