Kelly St. John, reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, will screen and discuss her 2002 Emmy-award winning documentary short, Forever Fourteen, on Tuesday, March 25, in the Hampton Room of the Malott Commons. St. John, a Scripps alumna, will be honored at a reception and dinner preceding the screening of her film; St. John will then remain for a discussion of her work. Reservations are required for the dinner and cocktail reception, which will begin at 5:30 p.m.; admission is $15.00 per person, and must be purchased in advance by calling (909) 607-7534. The film screening and discussion will begin at 7:00 p.m. and are free and open to the public; seating is limited and will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
Forever Fourteen is Kelly St. John’s chronicle of both her own abduction and rape at age 14 and the abduction, rape, and murder of 14-year-old Wendy Osborn the previous year. Like St. John, Osborn had been taken at knifepoint as she walked to school in a Southern California neighborhood. But unlike St. John, who was released by her captor, Osborn’s body was found 10 days after her abduction, sexually assaulted and strangled.
St. John’s rapist, Raymond Barthlett, was eventually captured, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Osborn’s case remained unsolved for seven years until DNA testing provided investigators with the conclusive proof they needed: semen found in Wendy’s body matched that of Barthlett. With this new evidence and a quick trial, Barthlett’s 20-year sentence was increased to a life sentence.
Kelly St. John made the 23-minute film while she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism. In addition to the 2002 Emmy, the film, which St. John completed in June 2000, earned a student Emmy award and was featured at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.