It was a night they will never forget. Swedish students Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson are speaking out about the night they caught former Stanford student Brock Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a Dumpster in January 2015.
The PhD students were riding their bikes that night when they saw a man and a woman lying on the ground. “We saw that she was not moving, while he was moving a lot,” Arndt told Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday, June 7. “So we stopped and thought, ‘This seems very strange.'”
The pair decided to confront the man, who has since been identified as then–Stanford student Turner. Jonsson asked Turner what he was doing.
Arndt told the newspaper that as Turner got up they could see that the girl was “not moving in the slightest.”
After a brief exchange of words, Turner ran. Jonsson ran after him, quickly catching the 19-year-old a few feet away.
Meanwhile, Arndt checked that the girl was still alive.
“She was unconscious. The entire time. I checked her and she didn’t move at all,” Arndt told CBS News on Tuesday.
The pair remained with Turner and the unconscious girl until police arrived.
Turner, a swimmer with Olympic dreams, pleaded not guilty to five felony charges including attempted rape and sexual penetration of an unconscious person.
He was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault on March 30 this year and faced a maximum of 10 years in jail. On June 2 Turner was sentenced to six months in jail and three years probation, prompting outrage.
The woman who was assaulted wrote a powerful letter, which she read aloud in court to Turner, detailing how she felt after the assault, and how it “has done irreversible damage” to her. Watch the video above to hear her powerful message.
In her letter, the woman also wrote that she hopes to meet the two Swedes, who she calls “heroes.” She wrote that she was told one of the men was crying because he was so upset over what he saw and the state she was in.
“Thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet,” she wrote. “I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another. To have known all of these people, to have felt their protection and love, is something I will never forget.”
Arndt told the Swedish newspaper that he had seen her essay and “it was very strong.”
“We have not met her after the incident,” he added. “Obviously it is a great joy to be able to help her.”
Jonsson posted the woman’s essay on Facebook on Tuesday.
“Thanks to everyone, friends and strangers, for all the encouragement and support over the last days and months,” he wrote. “At this point I will not publicly comment on the process or the outcome of the trial. However, I do ask all of you to spare a few minutes and read this letter written by the Victim. To me it is unique in its form and comes as close as you can possibly get to putting words on an experience that words cannot describe.”
