48 Hours - Live to Tell: River's Edge

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

This classic episode of 48 Hours, which last aired on 3/19/2011, tells the story of college students Danielle Keener and Dan Zapp, who were on a date, walking along a river’s edge outside when they were kidnapped at gunpoint by a man in a pick-up truck. Both shot in the face, these teens outsmarted their would-be killer. Watch all-new episodes of 48 Hours on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. In January of 2000, I was a college freshman at Susquehanna University. I was 18 years old. I was on a second date with Dan Zapp, who was a college freshman at Carnegie Mellon University.

My mom had a suggestion for us to just maybe walk around my town, go down to the marina. Dan and I, we just stopped and we're talking. We started picking up some stones and trying to skip some stones. Well as we were there, there was a red pickup truck came up and stopped by us and out comes this guy and he pulls a dog out, Rottweiler. He was asking us if we needed a ride and we of course, you know, politely declined. He seemed normal.

He got back in his truck and as we continued walking, the truck, this guy must have turned his truck around behind us and he comes up next to us, off to our right and blocks our path. and he comes up next to us off to our right and blocks our path. He immediately comes out of the truck with a gun pointed at us. He pointed it right at us and said,

"'Get in the effing truck,' and he was dead serious. At that moment, I felt like I had entered a nightmare. It seemed completely unreal. I remember Dan next to me was just saying, here, take my wallet, here are my keys, my car, I can give you my car. There's a laptop in my car. Just started offering him all these things or whatever. And he's like, no, I don't want those things.

Get in the truck. It felt like we were driving forever. It felt like an eternity. At this point, this guy was just, you know, ranting and raving. He was just acting crazy, completely crazy. We just didn't want to be hurt, so of course we were just saying, you know, whatever you want us to do, you know, we'll do that. Just please, just let us go.

He eventually turned left onto this dirt road. The three of us were standing there next to his truck, the river's in front of us and he's kind of like pacing back and forth and you know, has the gun in his hand and to emphasize his points he would like shoot the gun, shoot the gun towards the river like, I don't know what to do, bang. You guys have seen my face. What am I going to do with you guys? Bang. When I first heard the gunshot go off, bang, it became more serious. Bang. This guy really has the potential to end my life. I thought we were both going to die.

Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast,

Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly. Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy

about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening,

you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. I just kept thinking about, okay, you know, what can I say to calm this guy down? He was just acting crazy. We could tell that he was really frustrated and agitated and really getting worked up. I just remember huddling next to Dan during that time. When he was shooting his gun, he was shooting it into the river. It was almost as though he was doing it to scare us, and it did. And then eventually he told me to

get back in the front of the truck, and he had Dan get in the back with the dog. And I remember sitting in the front of the truck and he comes in, and he comes into the side and there we are again, just sitting in the same spot again. Him in the driver's seat, me in the passenger seat, and I had no idea what to expect next. While we were sitting there waiting, he looks over at me and he says, so, you said you'll do anything. And right in that instant, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

And I knew right then that I was going to be raped. And I kind of just nodded my head. Because I didn't want to die. And I definitely do not want Dan to die because of me. So, um, he did. He raped me. And he took his gun and he kind of pointed it down for us to, he said, go. Go walk down there, which would be walking down towards the river. So Dan and I, you know, grabbed ahold of one another and we started walking down towards the river.

And I was praying that he had gotten what he wanted from me. You know, that he was going to let us go. And then I heard the gun go off again. And then I saw Dan fall down. And he fell down right in front of me. There was blood coming out of his mouth. And I knew that if Dan had gotten shot, I was going to get shot. I was next.

I mean, I immediately kneeled down. And Dan and I, we said, I love you, and we said goodbye to each other. Everything just went black. I don't remember feeling any pain but I just remember feeling like a lot of pressure in my head. The next thing I remember is waking up and I was in the river and my whole body was just, I guess numb. Like I really just couldn't feel anything at all and I kept I was spitting out things you know so I

figured I had been I had been shot in the head shot through the mouth in that moment I I prayed with more faith than I have ever had in my whole life. And I just said, please, dear Jesus, just take my soul. Soon after that moment is when I spotted Dan. I remember when I saw him just being, you know, just, oh my gosh, Dan's alive, and just trying to get towards him with, like, everything I could. And I eventually got to Dan, and I grabbed hold of him so tightly. And we looked back at shore where we had been, and we saw this guy just standing there staring at us.

I mean, the gun was still in his hand. And I remember Dan saying to me that, well, if we just, you know, if we just play dead, if we just, you know, don't move and just kind of float down, he'll just think we're dead and he'll leave. And eventually, we kept watching him. And we watched him get back in the truck and leave. If I did not have Dan there to guide me, I don't know what I would have done.

I mean, he was put there to save my life in that river. I was sitting in my truck and looked upstream, and I saw two objects coming. I saw that it was two people, and when they got down to me, I stepped in the water and reached out and got a hold of his hand and pulled him into shore. And then I saw that they were both shot in the head. At that point, neither one of them could talk. They were shaking violently.

I had to get help at that point. And it happened a car coming down there, and I stopped them. And I told them what happened, and I said, you got to go uptown here and get help. Dispatch, this is 27, can I help you? Yes, I'm down in where the gut road starts. There's two young teenagers down here shot. At that time, he started to bleed very bad.

And he couldn't talk. The blood was choking him, and he just couldn't talk. I thought they'd be lucky if they can make it. in him and he just couldn't talk. I thought they'd be lucky if they can make it. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us.

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As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. It was the evening of January 8th. I had a phone call that Danny's been shot in the face. I went opened the drawer on the way out the door and I picked up a photograph that I carried in my lap with a cell phone. I wanted part of her with me and the photograph was the first thing that I was able to find and I clutched that and kept that with me talking to the photograph from Harrisburg to York Hospital.

During the drive down, I could only pray that she would be okay. I had no idea if I was going to ever see Danny alive again, ever get to hold her again. The drive to the hospital with my mom was really, really scary because I didn't know what I was going to see. Once I got to the hospital, I didn't know what I was going to hear. I got to the hospital, I didn't know what I was gonna hear.

I just knew that I immediately had to get there to see how Danny was doing. It was so scary, because this was one of my best friends. I didn't know if she was gonna make it, and if she did make it, I didn't know how she was gonna be, if she was gonna be the same person.

if she was going to be the same person. I met Dani on the first day of freshman orientation at Susquehanna University. One of the first things that I noticed about her was that she was just a really kind-hearted, genuine person, and she had a great personality, and she was just as enthusiastic about college as I was so I knew that we would get along really well. A couple months into freshman year a mutual friend introduced Danny to Dan Zapp. She met up with him for dinner and they had a lot to talk about and she just really felt like she had a lot of chemistry with this person and she couldn't wait till the next time they met up I didn't know how something like this could have happened I couldn't imagine

who would want to do this to the two of them we saw Danny's mom there in the hospital she told us all of the details of the injuries. My first reaction was that the two of them were not going to make it. I thought that the shot to each of their heads would kill them. The most extensive injury on the female patient involved the right lower jaw. involved the right lower jaw. The bones were shattered in so many pieces that it looked like Rice Krispies. We noticed tremendous facial swelling. The patient's face and head were almost the size of a bowling ball. The feeling that I had when I first saw Danny in that condition was this sense of helplessness.

I, as her dad, I couldn't fix the problem for her that dads like to do. for that dad's like to do. And then knowing that my innocent sweet daughter was laying there in that condition and, you know, asking why. Of course, at the time, nobody had an answer. The brutality of this crime is beyond explanation. How do you victimize two innocent people, kidnap them, terrorize them,

sexually assault the female victim, then shoot them in the head, push them into a river, and leave them for dead? I think everyone was just shocked everyone was angry everyone was upset we need to get this guy and we need to get him now being a father of two daughters of same age I was deeply concerned about this case I told the mother that we would do everything we could humanlyly possible, to identify who this was and bring him to justice.

This was quite an undertaking, the fact that we had so much area, so much riverfront to explore and look for a crime scene. We were walking pretty much shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the ground in front of us and within minutes I came across a large pool of blood that was about three foot up from the water's edge. And as I looked down into the water I saw about three shell casings from a 9mm handgun in there. The clock was running and we needed to get as much information

as we could. I was assigned to go down to York Hospital to an attempt an interview with Daniel and or Danielle. Unfortunately, Dani was in an induced coma so we were unable to interview her. We learned that Dan was awake and that we needed to interview him as soon as possible. Dan's wounds at this point were very serious. The male's medical condition was critical. They were very concerned a blood clot could form and cut the blood supply to the brain.

He was in pain. Any kind of movement that he would make was very painful for him, but he was eager to help us. And being that Dan was unable to speak, because he was on a respirator, we got a notepad from the hospital and a pen and gave that to Dan and then we proceeded to ask him questions about the description of the suspect. Dan described the perpetrator as being a white male, 35 to 45 years of age, very drunk, blonde hair, he had a brown hat, blue jeans, and black Nike high top sneakers.

He described the weapon as a black semi-automatic pistol and the dog, of course, this black Rottweiler named Sam. Dan was able to provide us with information regarding the vehicle as being a beat-up, red pickup truck with a white or gray cap. He described items in the back to include a toolbox and an aluminum baseball bat. We were looking for a violent person, someone with knowledge of the area, and this dog. As we started talking with local investigators from surrounding agencies, Mr. Babner's name came up. His record entailed run-ins with with police involving alcohol, domestic

violence, altercations between himself and others, and he did have a robot. So it was decided that a photo lineup would be constructed to include a photograph of Mr. Badmer. I then took that photo lineup down to Dan, and I asked him, you know, can you help me? And as I had the pictures in my hand, and I'm laying them down in front of him, and Dan's watching as I'm putting the pictures down,

and as I get to Mr. Badmer's picture, there was an instant reaction in his face of pure horror. His pupil dilated, his one eye was swolled shut, but his other eye, I mean, I just, bam, I saw his pupil go, and he immediately just started hitting the picture. He's hitting it, he's hitting it, he's hitting it on the table.

And I said, Dan, is that the man? He said, yes, it's him. And I said, are you sure? He said, yes. And he's definitely, he's hitting that. And I looked at him and I said, Dan, I'm going to go get him. When I was in the hospital, I had one hallucination after the other because of the pain meds. I was flipping out. I was so scared. And the nurses had to come in and calm me down. At one point, I was seeing bloody images everywhere. scared, and the nurses had to come in and calm me down. At one point I was seeing bloody images everywhere.

I saw like a woman hanging with blood running down her face. It was like blood was everywhere. She would write down on the paper or draw what she saw, floating bodies in the air, bloody faces. It was hard to sit there and again, not be able to help, only to comfort her in the best way that I could by holding her hand. I couldn't fight all those demons that she was having inside of her at the time, but I tried.

I notified everybody that we had a positive identification on the suspect. The problem was, we didn't know where he was. We looked for him at known associates' houses, residences, anywhere we could possibly find him. We were unable to locate him. It was late. We'd been working all day. We broke. I went home. Took my gun off, took my badge off.

I remember I was climbing into bed, and my pager went off. It was to Chief County Detective. I called him, and he said, we found the truck. Get back in here. I had a phone call saying that they were activating the QRT team. The quick response team, which is another word for a SWAT team, is utilized for barricaded gunmen, hostage rescue, and high-risk warrants. This was a special type of criminal, a very, very violent one. We didn't know if he was armed for sure, but we assumed that he still had the weapons that

he used to commit this crime. He shot two people in cold blood. We weren't going to take that chance that he threw those guns away. We discovered that William Babner was staying at his girlfriend's house. By the time we arrived, it was around midnight. We deployed the team and were set up about a house away. We were in the alley, sort of in the shadows,

crouched down, hiding. Snipers were set up to cover the front of the house. Sometime early in the morning, a female left the residence, and she gave a whole bunch of information about who was left in that apartment. It was learned that at around 8 o'clock in the morning, Mr. Badmer's girlfriend's youngest child would be coming out to get on a bus. The plan was that once that child got on the bus and that bus started taking off down the road, that we were to assault. We're hearing the snipers looking down at him.

Okay, we have an open door. There's a child. There's a man. Yes, it's Babner. He's in the door. We're still waiting and we're hearing the child's going down the stairs. The child's getting on the bus. Go, go, go. I was about the third man through the door. I grabbed him and I was yelling, let me see your hands, let me see your hands, and get down to the ground, get down, get down, and physically took him and knocked him to the ground. We cuffed him, and then that was it. He was shocked.

It's not every day that you can say you put your hands on a monster, and that's what I did that night. During the execution of the search warrant, all this stuff that Dan had seen was there. We found the black Nike high-top sneakers, blue jeans, the shirt, the hat, as well as the firearm. And to no surprise to us, Sam was just as Dan had described him. Dan's recollection was just outstanding. You know, we have the who, what, when, where, and how, but not a why. And you know, I don't think we'll ever know the why.

After Babbner was captured, I had a big sigh of relief, but I knew our job was just beginning then. We had to hope for the best for the two kids, that they would be able to come to the trial and testify against him. I still wasn't sure of the conditions of either one of them. When I was in the hospital, they put me in an induced coma. conditions of either one of them. When I was in the hospital, they put me in an induced coma. While I was in the induced coma, they sewed my tongue.

My jaw had been shattered, so they added a plate in my jaw. So when I woke up, I had a tracheotomy, so I had a tube coming out of there. I had a stomach tube when I woke up. I mean, I was bandaged and swollen. Like, my jaw was like out to here. You know, my mouth was wired shut. My teeth were all dirty, like there was dirt in my teeth.

And when I looked at myself in the mirror, you know, it was only, you know, from here on up. But when I looked at myself, I started to cry. I hated what I saw. That first picture that Dan and I ever took together of me and him in my car, it was like right next to me on the bed. I knew, I remember watching Dan walk out of the river, but I didn't know what had happened to him since then. I really had this feeling that he had died, that he did not make it.

When I woke up from the hospital, I kept asking my family, you know, where's Dan? How's he doing? And my family kept saying, you know, he's alive, he's doing really well, he's right down the hall from you. And I did not believe them. I thought that he had died. And so he wrote me a note and it said, I love you, I'm okay. And after I saw that I knew, I knew that he was alive, I knew that he made it. I never had any idea how close I was to dying even after I had been back at the hospital. The bullet entered back here. There was a tiny lump behind my ear and it went straight through my windpipe and out of my jaw and it exited over here.

It wasn't until much later that I heard how the bullet had chipped one of my vertebrae, how the bullet had passed straight through my windpipe. You know, if the bullet would have been another inch or a few millimeters closer to my vertebrae, I could be dead or paralyzed. When I saw the picture the first time I was scared at first to see his face again but I was extremely excited just extremely relieved that I had found him I knew that this was him I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the guy who had shot us. And whether he admitted it or not, these are things that he had done and he was going to have to pay for them.

Nobody wanted to take this case to trial. And we certainly didn't want to have Dan and Danielle go through this experience, but he left us no choice. He just wouldn't admit his guilt. He wanted his day in court for whatever bizarre and sick reason, he got it. Danielle and Dan were both very emotional before the preliminary hearing when they entered the courtroom for the first time. We just tried to tell them they were gonna be safe. He could do nothing further to harm them. I was terrified to see him again.

I mean, he was a monster to me. I did not want to be in the same room with him. I felt just full of fear again. You know, that face had just instilled so much panic inside of me. Babbner did not testify at trial. I don't recall him calling any witnesses. He had nothing.

He had nothing but his arrogance. He just sat there, and it was almost like he either wanted to have Dan and Danielle relive this by recounting what happened in a public forum, or he just frankly didn't care. When Dan and Danielle were testifying at trial, it was completely silent in the courtroom. You could have heard a pin drop. When I was up there on the stand, I mean, there were times where I had to break down. I mean, I... They had to show me, you know, all the evidence so I could point out.

I mean, they showed me the clothes that were cut off of me. So it was the first time seeing that. And there was, like, mud splattered all over them. You know, the gun. Is this what the gun looked like? It was a really hard experience, you know, to sit there and share that with everybody. And I knew that, you know, my family was sitting there. So I knew, like, all the details I was sharing, especially about the rape, my family was hearing it too.

The amount of courage that Danielle showed during that trial was unbelievable because she had to tell total strangers some of the most intimate details that she could ever possibly have to relate to anyone. Dan saw the crime from a different perspective than Danielle, so the jury was very interested in what Dan had to say.

I was trying to come up with any plan to get us out of that situation and I started to try to plead with him and I said, you know, sir, I'll give you anything you want if you just let us go. He just told me to shut up. He said, shut up. I don't want to hear it from you. At some point, I realized that they're starting to move around up front. I realized that he's raping her. That was really hard to know that something that terrible

was happening to someone that I cared about. And I was that close, but I couldn't. There was nothing I could do about it. After he had raped Danielle, he motioned with the gun, and he said, walk down there. You know, walk down by the river. The real gravity of the situation started to hit me.

I started to realize that I'm going to die today, that no matter what I try to realize that I'm going to die today. That no matter what I try to do, this man is going to kill me. And today is going to be the last day of my life. And all of a sudden I just felt this tremendous force. This impact that just hit me and knocked me right to the ground and it

was so sudden and it was so powerful that my mind couldn't even catch up to it I didn't I wasn't even sure what had happened until I hit the ground I didn't even know that I'd been shot and I was just sort of laying there looking at the dirt and I realized that there's like blood coming out of my mouth. I started to get really cold and I started to get really tired very fast. And she kneeled down and she was obviously upset and I just said to her, I said, Damien, I'm sorry, I have to go now. And the next thing that I remember is this feeling of being rolled, of my body like sort of turning end over end.

And then all of a sudden the shock of cold, of like freezing cold as I hit the water. And so I just started to like float in the water and sort of drift downstream with the current. It was right around that point that I noticed that Danny was right there too. I don't know what I would have done if Dan was not there. Dan was my lifesaver. In that river, I remember at one point our hands separated from each other,

and I could not move on my own. And Dan, you know, he felt my hand slip from his, and he turned back around, and he swam back out, and he grabbed me, and he pulled me to shore. I do not believe I would have survived without him. Dan will never admit this, but he truly is the hero of the entire case. He was constantly thinking.

He was constantly encouraging. Without Dan, Babner has no face and is not apprehended. Without Dan, Daniel isn't able to swim in the water. Dan kept both of them alive. It's still tough. I still don't consider myself a hero in any sense, but I'm glad I was there, and I'm glad that if me,

if me being there meant that she survived, then I'd do it again, I'd do it a thousand times. again I'd do it a thousand times. When the verdict came I remember sitting next to Dan and I was holding on to Dan's hand and he was charged guilty on all accounts, you know, on everything that he was charged with. I mean I just remember afterwards like this flood of relief just going through me. William Babner was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, two counts of kidnapping, one count of robbery, three counts of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, one count of rape. His sentence was 117 and a half to 235 years in a state correctional institution.

William Babner is the face of evil. Next time Babner's gonna get out of prison, he's gonna be in a box. Daniela and I stayed in touch after the incident and we tried to talk occasionally, but our relationship wasn't anything like it was before. It was like every time that I talked to her, I had to bring up the past all over again. I had to think about all the things that I thought I had done wrong,

all the ways that I couldn't save her and I couldn't get us both out of that situation. And most of the time I couldn't stand it. And over a period of time, I started to pull further and further away. Transitioning back to being at college was really hard for me. I really struggled with being around men that were strangers to me.

At first she was a little withdrawn. She was very scared. She didn't want to walk alone at night. She did have a lot of nightmares. It was upsetting for all of us because we really wanted to help her and we really, we didn't want her to be scared or sad, but with the circumstances there really wasn't any other way. That's how she was. I knew though in the back of my mind that there was still a lot that I had to do personally

in order to again feel as though I could, you know, live again. Four months after Babner was convicted, we had Take Back the Night on the Susquehanna University campus. And what Take Back the Night is, is a rally against rape. Everybody can attend and they can get up and speak about their experience with rape or violence. And I saw all these brave women, you know, walk up to the microphone and just share, you know, I'm a rape survivor and share parts of their story. It was just so inspiring and so empowering that they had a voice that they were able to share. There was about 10 minutes of silence.

Nobody was getting up to speak and Danny got up to speak and we knew that she was going to tell the whole story and we knew that she was going to share this with everybody. And that was probably the most emotional moment for all of us because you could kind of see the bravery in Dani and the growth that she was making and how strong she was. She just got up there and she told the whole story. And it just really moved everyone and it really moved all of us. And we were so proud of her. We were really, really proud of her. And we were so proud of her. We were really, really proud of her.

I just, I felt so much power and so much strength. And a part of what I felt he had taken from me, I was able to pull back and say, you know what? He may have taken, you know, a few things, but there's so much that he didn't take, that he couldn't touch, and that is what makes me who I am. I think that it took me a lot longer than it should have to get to a more comfortable place

in dealing with the incident and talking about it and looking at it from a healthy perspective. I knew that I should be getting therapy, I should be dealing with it. I just really didn't want to. I wanted to try to ignore it and just hope that eventually it went away. In the last eight years,

I feel like I've grown up a whole lot. Regarding the incident, my perspective has almost entirely changed. Danielle and I have really reconnected over the past couple of years. We've really started our relationship over from where it kind of ended, and we're really close now, and I consider her a great friend. Dan met an amazing woman at college who has been such a great companion for him. She has definitely helped him to get to that next level in his own survival and healing.

They got married in 2007. I feel like everything's kind of going in the direction that I always wanted it to go, and I'm just really happy for everything that I have right now. In spring of junior year, I introduced Kevin McGuire to Danny. Kevin McGuire to Danny. And they connected instantly and dated, fell in love, and he proposed to her just a couple years later. The police chief and the men who rescued Dan and Dani, including the duck hunter, were all guests at the wedding as well.

Dani looks absolutely wonderful. She is just doing great and looking great and extremely proud of her. I'm so happy that I have made it to where I am today. The gratefulness that I have for my beautiful baby girl and the husband that I have. I don't have to think about what happened to me every day. It doesn't define me anymore. I have learned how to make it a part of who I am, but it has made me a better person. Danielle and I are forever entwined. That's like a connection that no one can ever take away from us.

She's always going to be a part of my life. It's as though our souls are almost connected. He will be a part of my life forever. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.