Brock Turner's Mom Wrote To The Judge And Didn't Even Mention Her Son's Victim

Like her husband, the mother of former Stanford University swimmer and convicted rapist Brock Turner wrote a letter asking for leniency for her son.

Like her husband, Turner's mother ignored her son's victim.

In a three-and-a-half page note to Judge Aaron Perksy, who presided over the 20-year-old's sexual assault case, Carleen Turner wrote,

Thank you for the opportunity to write a letter and introduce you to my son, Brock Turner -- the REAL Brock Allen Turner. I am abundantly proud to call him my son; he is my heart, my soul, and brings me great joy.

Mrs. Turner proceeded to write at length about what Brock means to her and made an effort to assert the positive qualities he displayed throughout life: how he dedicated himself to swimming, how he dedicated himself to overcoming troubles with learning and how he treated classmates and a girlfriend.

But, nothing in her letter discussed how Turner treated his victim or the horror the victim described in her own open letter. Instead, Mrs. Turner's letter lamented the horror her family experienced since January 2015 when Turner committed his crime.

She said,

We moved into our new home on Jan. 17, 2015. Then we got that fateful call from Brock on Sunday the 18th and our world has been spinning apart ever since. This house now reminds me of the horror of that moment. I have not decorated the house nor have I hung anything on the walls. I am a mom who loves family pictures but I haven't had the heart to put photos around of our family being happy. How can I? We will never be happy again.

While the length of Brock Turner's sentence prompted outrage, Mrs. Turner's letter labeled the verdict "awful, horrible, terrible, gut-wrenching, life-changing."

In some ways, her letter actually mirrored that of her son's victim, a woman who, while unconscious, was sexually assaulted by Brock behind a dumpster.

The 23-year-old victim wrote,

You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today.

Mrs. Turner, too, wrote of loss,

This verdict has destroyed us. Brock is a shattered and broken shell of the person he used to be. My once vibrant and happy boy is distraught, deeply depressed, terribly wounded, and filled with despair. His smile is gone forever -- that beautiful grin is no more.

Turner's mother ultimately pleaded for the judge to show even more leniency for her son, writing she fears "for his lifelong safety."

The fact she made this plea without considering the damage her own son inflicted on a helpless victim, though, only continues a trend that has been the theme of Brock and his family: a total lack of regard for a woman who was preyed upon.