The 33 scars that cover Cecili O’Sullivan’s body are a reminder of her past life and how lucky she is to be alive.

She’s not afraid to talk about each scar. She considers herself an open book. Ask a question and she responds easily. She has nothing to hide. However, it wasn’t always like that.

Sitting at the dining room table with the afternoon sun beaming into her one-bedroom apartment in Kodiak, the 59-year-old unveiled her life, one chapter at a time.

It’s a life that has taken her from Kodiak to New York and back to Kodiak. She has lived at enough places to fill an entire address book.

She was so pretty she worked as a model on Seventh Avenue — Fashion Avenue — in Manhattan. But, those days are long gone. She only has pictures to remind her now just how pretty she once was.

O’Sullivan has had three different last names, has changed her Social Security card number and now pronounces her first name like the Italian city Sicily.

She’s lived her life always looking back, cautious of what lurked behind the next corner, block, city, county and even state.

Cecili O’Sullivan’s life turned for the worse Dec. 27, 1986, when she was stabbed 33 times by her husband.

This is her story.

‘I had the look everybody was looking for’

It all started Sept. 5, 1949, when her mother, Rosabel Arabelo, gave birth to O’Sullivan at the Navy hospital in Kodiak.

Fewar than 1,700 people called the Emerald Isle home and only 483 students were enrolled in Kodiak’s school system.

Instead of shopping at Wal-Mart and Mack’s, residents shopped at Kraft’s and Knudsen’s and ate at Joe the Hamburger King.

The U.S Coast Guard wasn’t even a thought. Instead, the Navy was four years removed from the first year they prepared the island community for possible Japanese attacks during World War II.

O’Sullivan’s father, Rudalfo Arebalo, was a Marine and stationed in Kodiak. He met his wife in Kodiak, Rosabel Morrison (maiden name) an Alaskan Native.

From an early age, it was apparent O’Sullivan was a survivor. She was born feet first with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Several months later, she came down with pneumonia and doctors told her parents they would have to send their newborn off the island if they wanted her heart to keep beating.

O’Sullivan was sent to Arizona to live with her father, who was just transferred from Kodiak.

The desert air was exactly what she needed as her body fought off the pneumonia.

Rosabel joined the family shortly after and they lived there for several years, before the family split up for good. O’Sullivan went with her mother to California. She stayed in California until her senior year of high school came to an end.

Five credits shy of earning a diploma, she hitchhiked across the country to New York City.

“I went to New York because I had the look everybody was looking for — the long hair, the bangs, the ’70s look,” O’Sullivan said.

It took O’Sullivan two weeks to get to New York. She found food and shelter along the way. The trip was made easier when two young men picked her up, drove her to Chicago and bought a plane ticket so she could complete the trip.

The decision to travel 3,000 miles away from home eventually changed her life dramatically.

Reminiscing about her cross country trip, O’Sullivan got up from the small table in her Kodiak apartment and took a couple of steps into her bedroom. She returned with an 8-by-10-inch framed black and white photo from her modeling days.

In the photo her long brown hair flows over her shoulders, her eyes are a smooth brown and her smile glows with innocence.

She sat the photo on the table and looked at it. Now she has a scar on the right side of her face, from the corner of her eye to the bottom of her ear. The scar is a stark reminder of her past.

Her eyes beginning to tear up, she continued her story.

‘He had that look’

After arriving in New York City, O’Sullivan quickly found work as a dress model on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

“I was a perfect size 7,” O’Sullivan said. “So they would pin the dresses to my body and then they would produce the dress.”

She liked the job, but didn’t like being in the spotlight. Guys frequently made advances and soon O’Sullivan grew tired of the glamorous industry. After three months, she left the business.

Then she met her soon-to-be second husband, Thomas Eagleston. Her first marriage had lasted less than six months, because he was abusive toward her.

“I was intent on making this marriage last,” O’Sullivan said.

There was a physical connection between the two from the first time they met.

O’Sullivan was walking to her favorite pub and Eagleston pulled up next to her in his car and asked if she wanted a ride. At first she said no, but then changed her mind.

“He had that look,” O’Sullivan said. “He was handsome, tall, blonde, blue-eyed — a cross between German and Italian.”

He also was quiet.

“He didn’t speak much. In fact, his quietness drove me crazy,” O’Sullivan said. “I couldn’t get him to talk, but I talked at work so I took it out there.”

The lack of communication didn’t turn her away. On Feb. 3, 1978, she became Mrs. Eagleston. She was 28 and he was 38.

“I wouldn’t say we were in love, but we were having great sex,” O’Sullivan said. “He wasn’t over-demanding or abusive, because I told him, if he hit me, I would leave. He never touched me.”

They had a son, Steven Eagleston, seven months later.

Growing up, Steven doesn’t remember much about his father being there for him.

“From what I could remember, he pretty much didn’t want anything to do with me,” said Steven, now 30 and living in Las Vegas.

During that time, O’Sullivan’s relationship with her second husband was beginning to get rocky.

A year after their wedding, Eagleston became diabetic. O’Sullivan became his nurse and gave him insulin shots day and night.

“He got progressively worse and refused to follow the diet,” she said. “I fed him good food and then behind my back he would eat all the junk he wanted.”

Things started to go bad in 1984, when Eagleston asked his wife to attend a swingers party.

“He was reading up on it and getting material in the mail about it,” O’Sullivan said.

O’Sullivan was taken aback and wasn’t sure what to think. Eventually she sought the help of a psychologist.

“I was so upset I was crying,” O’Sullivan said. “Finally, I gave into his wishes thinking if I just gave him what he wants, because that was what the psychologist said: ‘Give your husband what he wants.”’

She went and didn’t like what transpired.

“He (the person throwing the party) wanted to have sex with me, but my husband wouldn’t let him touch me,” she said. “My husband was all over him and my eyes bugged.”

That was the turning point and O’Sullivan knew she had to do something.

She gave her husband 30 days to change, get a job, and to start helping out around the house. If he didn’t, she told him she would file for divorce.

“I really needed his income, because I was carrying the whole load,” she said.

O’Sullivan was working as a secretary at Northrop Grumman and Eagleston was unemployed. Most days, he stayed home and fixed the house the two bought together with a $500 down payment from O’Sullivan’s father.

“He had a habit of keeping a job for six months to a year and then get laid off and collect unemployment,” O’Sullivan said.

After O’Sullivan’s 30-day ultimatum, Eagleston started encouraging his son to be abusive toward his mother.

“He told my son to slap me, spit on me, curse at me and my son never cursed,” she said. “My son did it, because he was promised a toy.”

Steven liked Transformers and his father would buy them for him.

“He used to buy me toys and that is the only thing that I liked about him,” Steven said.

Thirty days passed, six months passed, a year passed, and still no change was evident. Finally, after 24 months, O’Sullivan had had enough.

“I waited two years for him, not 30 days,” she said. “I waited two years before I realized there was not going to be any change.

“And I told him, ‘I don’t need you. I am doing this all by myself. I’m raising my son. I am taking care of the bills.”’

On Oct. 20, 1986, O’Sullivan served her second husband with divorce papers.

From that point on, she fought for her life.

‘They should have arrested him and they didn’t’

“I said, ‘you touch me and I am going to leave you,’” O’Sullivan said. “Well, I am leaving him, so he thinks he is going to beat the s--- out of me.”

The same day he was served for divorce he turned violent, a side O’Sullivan had never seen. It was then she was sure her husband was out to kill her.

A month later, O’Sullivan obtained a protective order following an incident in the family kitchen where Eagleston repeatedly pounded her head.

Eagleston eventually got his own protective order from O’Sullivan, while he was living in the basement apartment of the three-floor house. He was staying with his sister. O’Sullivan lived on the ground level and the top floor was rented out to an ex-police officer.

After filing for divorce, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals documents said she called the Suffolk County Police Department nine times to report harassment and threats against her by her husband.

Eight times police were dispatched to the home. One time they met her at a restaurant. Yet another time O’Sullivan went to the station.

Each time the police decided an arrest was not warranted according to court of appeals documents.

“They should have arrested him and they didn’t,” O’Sullivan said.

Eagleston also was stalking O’Sullivan.

“He was just following me everywhere,” O’Sullivan said.

O’Sullivan remembers an incident when her husband followed her to a company Christmas party just weeks before Eagleston’s final attack.

“I bolted into the kitchen and ran out the backdoor and took off,” O’Sullivan said. “Everybody knew my story, so they stopped him.”

Before leaving for the Christmas holiday, O’Sullivan told coworkers she would see them after the vacation — if she still was still alive.

“I never forget saying that, because it almost came true,” she said.

O’Sullivan’s final call to the police was placed Dec. 24, three days before Eagleston’s most brutal attempt to kill his wife and the mother of his son.

Mirror writer Derek Clarkston can be reached via e-mail at sports@kodiakdailymirror.com.