*WARNING, this story contains graphic information from a survivor's story of abuse*

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The lead New York State Police investigator in the case against a Hilton elementary school principal accused of sexually abusing several students is Sayeh Rivazfar. 

Sayeh's name is not known to most people in the Rochester community because she is a trooper. Her name is remembered because of the harrowing story of what happened to her as a child.

Spectrum News 1 wanted to share her story again with those who have never heard it, or who don't remember it, as a way to explain why she knows just what to say to so many families dealing with the trauma of abuse. And why she is such an inspiration for those survivors.

Sayeh Rivazfar today sees the world through the innocent eyes of her 9-year-old son. There are games and laughter and happiness.

The world she saw as a young child living with her alcoholic and drug-addicted mother in Florida was about survival.

"I took care of my mother when she had her migraines from her hangovers," said Rivazfar.

"I cooked breakfast for my brother and my sister. That night, my sister and I actually wore our school clothes, because I was trying to avoid us from getting in trouble with our mother because we were running late and we were missing our bus for school," she said.

Sayeh's world included daily physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

"The structure was very unstable, and we felt the wrath of it unfortunately from my mother and these men that came in and out of our lives," Rivazfar said.

One of those men would forever change the course of Sayeh's life when, in 1988, her mother was out at a bar for the night, he kidnapped Sayeh and her sister out of their beds.

Sayeh was 8 years old. Her sister Sara was only 6.

"I remember being picked up out of my bunk bed, and I opened my eyes and I see that it's Ray Wike, and we knew him. He dated my mother for almost a year," Rivazfar said. "He had been molesting me this whole time."

Sayeh says Wike took the girls to a dirt road in the woods some 20 minutes away from their home. He then tied Sara up with tape in the back seat.

"That's when we started getting upset and crying and knowing that something's not right and asked him, 'What's going on?' And he said, 'If you're good, you get to see your mother, she's just down the road.'"

He brought me out of the car and pretty much the horrifying things that you don't want to think about a monster has a child do, that's what Ray did. And then he set me on the trunk of his car and he starts to rape me," said Rivazfar.

Sayeh says this all went on for hours. Finally, at daybreak, he makes both girls walk into the woods.

"He stops where there's kind of like a cleared area and a big tree and he puts my sister on the side of the tree. He stands in front of me. And he tells me to say my prayers," she said. "And I remember him taking out this large knife, and he starts to cut my throat, over and over again. I don't feel any pain. All I can do is touch my neck. I see the blood. And I dropped to the ground. I close my eyes. I think to myself, as long as he thinks that you're dead he won't come back."

"The only problem is, I hear my sister screaming and crying because she just saw this, and I feel the vibrations of her on the ground. But I continue to say, 'he's going to kill me if I try anything.'"

"And so, moments later, I don't hear her screaming," said Rivazfar. "I don't feel the vibrations of the ground and her kicking. And I feel him jump over my body, and run out of the woods. I don't get up until I actually hear his car door slam and take off. But that's when I get up and I go over to my sister and I look at her and I see her eyes wide open and I see all the blood and I know me calling her name out, she's not going to answer."

Sayeh manages to get to a road, where a passing car eventually takes her to a store and they call 911. She remembers paramedics and doctors telling police officers to get all the information they can because she will not live through this.

But Sayeh survives.  

WEB EXTRA: Below, Sayeh talks about becoming a New York State Police investigator, therapy she has gone through and how becoming a mother has affected her life.

"I was put on this earth for a reason," said Rivazfar. "I walked out of those woods knowing that I wanted to find the monster who did this to my sister. And that he was held accountable and he did not do this to anybody else."

Sayeh's monster was held accountable, in part because of her strength to tell her story in court. It's a story of her life that she continues to share to help others.

There was so much negative but I'm going to take all that I can out of it that was good and focus on that," she said. "And all that bad, I can turn that into awareness and a message that this can happen, but you can survive. And you can thrive."

WEB EXTRA: Click here for more of her interview in which she talks about testifying in court and her abuser going to prison.