Central Park jogger breaks silence in book

Before she became known to the world as the Central Park jogger, she was simply Trisha Meili, an Upper St. Clair High School graduate who went on to achieve success on Wall Street.

Now 42, Meili has broken her 14-year silence and revealed her identity in a new book about her ordeal, "I am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility," the New York Daily News reported Friday.

In the book, which will be released April 8, Meili writes about the brutal attack that left her near death and what doctors have called her miraculous recovery.

She also writes about her life in Upper St. Clair, where her family moved from New Jersey in 1973. Her father, John J. Meili, still lived in their Salem Drive home until about six months ago.

John J. Meili worked at Westinghouse. Her mother, Jean Meili, who died in 2001, was active in the Upper St. Clair Republican committee and became a school board member in 1985. Trisha Meili has two brothers, William and Stephen.

Joyce Enscoe, a retired teacher from Upper St. Clair, described Trisha Meili as the student every teacher dreams of having.

"She was a very responsible person, a very 'up' person, very congenial," Enscoe recalled. "She was a really, really nice girl."

Enscoe was the adviser of the Leaders' Club, of which Meili was president her senior year. Leaders' Club members would spend their free period in physical education classes helping teach other students some of the skills needed for the class.

In addition to Leaders' Club, Meili was editor in chief of the Clairvoyant, Upper St. Clair's yearbook; treasurer of the student council; and a member of the National Honor Society and the Quill and Scroll Honorary Journalism Society.

"She's the type of person who did more than 100 percent of what she was asked to do," Enscoe said.

In the book, Meili writes that she constantly pushed herself, both in school and later in her career.

She graduated from Upper St. Clair in 1978 and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in economics from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and master's degrees in business administration and international relations from Yale.

She went on to work for Salomon Brothers in New York City as an investment banker in 1986.

Three years later, a late-night jog through Central Park changed her life. Meili was brutally attacked and raped April 19, 1989. She was found in a pool of mud. She had lost three-fourths of her blood and spent almost two weeks in a coma.

Upper St. Clair school board member Dina Fulmer was on the board with Meili's mother when the attack occurred.

"She talked about it very little," Fulmer said. "On the school board, we all knew what happened, but we kept quiet about it just to guard her privacy."

Fulmer said Jean Meili, who died in 2001, was an extremely private person, but full of humor.

"She was extremely intelligent, very strong," she said. "She had a very dry wit. She could come up with some great zingers. She was every inch a lady.

"She's obviously her mother's daughter," Fulmer said of Trisha. "They are very strong people."

Meili wrote that she has no memory of the attack but still feels its effects, including trouble with her balance. Still, she says she is all right.

Today, Meili is married and living in a Connecticut suburb. She left investment banking in 1998 and now hopes to devote herself to helping others overcome trauma.

Upper St. Clair High School inducted her into the Alumni Hall of Fame in 2000, citing her business and academic accomplishments and noting that she "co-authored a book and several articles on the subject of the mind, body and spirit connection to healing."

Meili's father remarried and is living in Bethel Park. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Trisha Meili and her brothers, a lawyer and a professor of law, attended the wedding at St. John Capistran Catholic Church in Upper St. Clair, said the Rev. Robert J. Reardon.

"She seemed like a wonderful person," Reardon said of Trisha Meili. He added that both John Meili and his new wife are still active at the church.

It doesn't surprise Enscoe that Meili wanted to use her story to inspire and help other people.

"She's been like that all her life."