Five years ago on June 13, Erin Weed answered a call that changed her life.

Before this phone call, Weed was an Eastern graduate living in New Jersey.

Before this phone call, she was working her way up at a production company, producing documentaries.

Before this phone call, she still had all her sorority sisters from Alpha Phi and pleasant memories of her Alma Mater.

After the phone call, Weed knew that a close friend, sorority sister and jogging mate had been killed.

After that call, Weed has become a speaker, author and founder.

Weed found out about the murder of 21-year-old Shannon McNamara.

McNamara was killed on June 12, 2001.

She was an Alpha Phi sorority member, a physical education major and member of the Physical Education Honors Club.

The man convicted of McNamara’s murder, fellow Eastern student Anthony Mertz, lived across the street.

According to police reports, McNamara’s roommate found her shortly before 9 a.m. Evidence presented in court illustrated that Mertz broke into McNamara’s apartment using a credit card, which was found in McNamara’s apartment by police. Evidence shows that he then attacked her, strangled her with a washcloth and slashed her body several times. Police also identified Mertz’s blood under McNamara’s fingernails.

Mertz allegedly tried to break into the front door with a bent credit card.

The bolted door denied access.

Mertz allegedly entered by cutting a hole in the screen of McNamara’s first-floor apartment.

Weed said, according to police evidence, McNamara fought back.

Mertz has since been sentenced to death, and is currently on death row.

Because of McNamara’s efforts in assuring the capture of her killer, Weed thought the title “Girls Fight Back” was appropriate.

The idea for the program, Girls Fight Back, came to Weed right about the same time she was fired from her production job.

After McNamara’s funeral, Weed said her head just wasn’t in the game.

Weed started feeling afraid having just lost her friend, then losing her job.

“I overall kind of just lost my mojo,” Weed said.

That’s the only reason Weed decided to take her first self-defense program.

“It was a matter of learning how to fight, go get the old Weed back,” she said, referring to what friends called her in college.

Instead of self-defense, Weed learned that women can’t always learn how to fight from a man.

The program wasn’t empowering at all, and didn’t coordinate with a woman’s lifestyle, she said.

That’s where her journey to empower women began.

In January 2002, Weed founded Girls Fight Back. Since then, she’s spoken to more than 100,000 women across the country about safety and self-defense.

Girls Fight Back. in print

Weed recently released a book, “Girls Fight Back: The college girl’s guide to protecting herself.” It began early in 2002 and was just released in September.

While Weed was touring, people kept asking her where they could find out more about practical physical safety and self-defense.

But she couldn’t find a single resource that taught her ideas.

“I couldn’t find a direction to point people,” she said.

So she created one.

Weed said she interviewed the best experts in the world and wrote the book as a massive advice column.

Weed wrote about the most frequently asked questions and included them in her book.

In the prologue of her book, Weed tells about McNamara’s fight with her killer.

“Several neighbors went on police record the next day saying they thought the sounds were ‘two people having rough sex’ in actuality, the murderer strangled Shannon and choked her to death by stuffing a washcloth down her throat. After he killed her, he slashed her body with a kitchen knife,” Weed wrote.

Weed said that McNamara fought through her murder. McNamara knocked the credit card away from her attacker. It was found the next morning, next to McNamara’s body.

Weed wrote that the credit card helped police find McNamara’s attacker.

“When they found him, he had extensive lacerations and injuries covering his body. The investigators asked him how he received all his injuries and he explained that he had broken a shot glass the night before. (That’s a pretty vicious shot glass),” Weed wrote.

Coming back

Today, returning back to Eastern is bittersweet, Weed said.

Weed graduated in 1999 with a degree in communication studies.

She said she loved her four and a half years in Charleston, but because of the two weeks she spent at the 2003 murder trial, her memories are tainted.

But everyone from Eastern has been supportive, Weed said.

Plenty of people have done what Weed has done – created something good out of a tragedy. But some people respond with anger. Eastern hasn’t been that way, Weed said.

Bob Dudolski, Eastern’s director of Greek Life, has been through it all with Weed.

McNamara’s death left a major impact on Dudolski’s life.

As director of Greek Life, he received a phone call while away at a leadership conference. He came back to campus to help manage the situation.

The first person he called was the Alpha Phi chapter president. She then called the women on the summer phone list to explain what had happened first, before students heard it on the news.

Over the summer, the Alpha Phi chapter house was opened, allowing the group of women to be together.

Meetings were also held for people affected by McNamara and her death.

Many people in Greek Life came back to Charleston in the summer to be together, Dudolski said.

University President Lou Hencken was as supportive as possible, Dudolski said.

Hencken took leadership in addressing the campus, particularly before a suspect was arrested, Dudolski said.

Dudolski said McNamara was very much involved with her sorority and the campus, and worked at the Student Recreation Center.

In Fall 2001, Eastern held a service and candlelight vigil for McNamara.

The line of candles is one moment that Dudolski said he’ll never forget.

“It was just a chain of light from the union to Greek Court,” Dudolski said.

In the spring, Charleston hosts the “Run for Shannon,” a memorial race and fundraiser for an annual scholarship in McNamara’s name.

The event has now turned into an alumni event, Dudolski said.

“It’s a big part of the history of Eastern,” he said.

The trial

Weed didn’t miss any court hearings from the trial, Feb. 3 through the 26, 2003.

Although it was nothing anyone wanted to do, Weed said she felt like she had to be there and was representing McNamara, along with McNamara’s family.

“We felt like we owed it to her to be there,” she said.

The thought of skipping the trial was never an option.

“It was something I had to do for some level of closure,” Weed said.

“She definitely supported Shannon’s family,” Dudolski said.

Dudolski said he’s impressed and proud of Weed for taking such a terrible time and turning it into a lasting memorial for her friend.

Moving on

Weed is coming back to Eastern today for her third time to give her presentation at her Alma Mater.

Dudolski and Danny Scheck, Greek Life graduate assistant, agree that now, five years later, is the perfect time for Weed to come back. Eastern has a new generation of students who may not know McNamara’s story.

“It makes me really nervous every year when you get new freshmen,” Dudolski said.

Scheck came to Eastern in the fall of 2001, after McNamara’s death.

“A lot of freshmen started the year scared,” he said. “A lot of safety aspects were stressed.”

Men on campus were aware that women felt scared, Scheck said. The men, in turn, would cater to that and make sure no one walked alone anywhere.

When something happens on-campus, people react. Scheck calls it “heightened security awareness.”

Scheck compares it to a tragedy on a more local level.

After 9/11, American flags were everywhere and everyone was patriotic, Scheck said.

“That’s the same type of mentality as the Eastern community.”

Scheck wants to be the volunteer who Weed uses in demonstrations and beats up during her presentation, he said.

And the presentation may mean more coming from Weed.

“She’s been here,” Scheck said. “She’s been to Marty’s. She’s been in our shoes.”

Weed has the unique perspective of walking where students have walked, and understands what Eastern is like.

Weed is one of those leaders who is extremely involved and has friends in all circles, Dudolski said.

“A lot of the girls looked up to her,” he said. “It’s been so cool to see this program from the start.”

Weed’s training includes: car-jacking situations, multiple assailant attacks, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, firearms training, knives/street weapons, criminal psychology and the laws concerning judicious use of force.

Weed is also certified by the American Women’s Self-Defense Association, a graduate of the Model Mugging program and certified Confined Area Survival Tactic instructor through the Modern Warrior Academy.

Weed is also the founder of a self-defense studio in New Jersey, Girls Fight Back.

“In five years, that is an amazing feat,” Dudolski said.

Eastern’s Sigma Pi fraternity sponsors the presentation.

Sigma Pi stands for chivalry, said Jason Zientarski, another reason why the fraternity is supportive of Weed’s presentation.

“Every once in a while something happens,” Zientarski said. The goal is to talk to and prepare everyone, he said.

For more information, go to www.erinweed.com or www.girlsfightback.com.