48 Hours - The One Who Got Away

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

This classic episode of 48 Hours, which last aired on 7/21/2011, tells the story of serial killer Andrew Urdiales. Between 1986 and 1996, Urdiales attacked, tortured and killed eight women, first in California and then in Illinois. As a consequence to a tip to the police, Andrew Urdiales was identified, arrested and convicted, and one young woman became the only victim to survive. 48 Hours correspondent Susan Spencer reports.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. He's angry. When he gets angry, the evil side comes out. On September 27, 1992, I was 19 years old, and I was working at a home for crippled children.

I was working the night shift there from 10 p.m. until 6 in the morning. I went to the bus stop to catch the bus to go to work. I had run in the store to buy something and I saw that the bus had left without me. So I came running out in a panic. I knew that was the last bus for the night. I had no way to get to work. Somebody pulled up in a car and just said, "'Hey, do you need a ride?' and just said, hey, do you need a ride?

He was very innocent looking, and he looked totally harmless. That's what makes him evil, is that you don't see it right away. And I didn't feel any sense of fear. When I got in the car, he was so nice and so charming. He is smarter than your average serial killer. He learned as he killed. He was waiting for her when she got off of work the next morning.

Well, the next morning when I saw him, I wasn't scared. My thought was, this guy is not dangerous. If he wanted to do something to me, he had his chance. Last night, and he said, let me give you a ride home. I opened the door and I got in the car. ride home. I opened the door and I got in the car. When I was just in the middle of talking he just grabs me by the hair and he just shoved my head into the dash. An explosive temper. He had a gun to my head and the whole time I was saying is this a joke? Is this is a joke Hater of women and all he would say was shut up bitch shut up bitch

And as violent and as evil as you will ever see Any other knife any pulled out twine Wrap the twine around my hands. Then I just saw telephone poles. Each telephone pole that went by, I just got more scared and more scared. Because we were going further and further and deeper into that desert. And I just felt doomed.

I didn't know what was going to happen. The one who got away. 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've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, 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 early and ad free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet. I was just in a state of shock. And so I tried to think, how can I get out of this situation? And I had no answer. The pleasant stranger who'd picked Jennifer as Benson up had suddenly snapped. Now, an apparent madman held her hostage in the California desert.

I knew he was going to hurt me. Rape, definitely. Definitely, I knew that. And then he finally parked and shut off the car. He used the knife to cut my shorts off of me. Then he cut my underwear off. He climbed into my seat, and he just started punching me in the head. The man beat her, then forced her to perform oral sex.

He tried to rape her, but couldn't. And then he just told me to tell him that I loved him. Of course I was going to, if that would save my life. So I said, I love him. Of course, I was going to, if that would save my life. So I said, I love you. And he smacked me across the face and said, you're lying, bitch. Say it like you mean it. And I said, I love you.

And he said, you're lying. Say it like you mean it. And he grabbed my underwear and he shoved them in my throat. His whole fist went in my mouth and he keeps yelling at me, tell me you love me, tell me you love me. And I just started crying.

You felt like if you could say it right, that he might stop? Yeah. He wasn't going to stop? No. So now he's mad. He grabs me by the throat, and he starts strangling me. And then suddenly, I couldn't see anything.

And I felt like I heard music and it was just white. I thought I was dead. Moments later, she was jolted back to reality. He was trying to revive me. He was bashing me around, pushing my chest, and I just came back into it like you do when you think you fall asleep and then wake up. And I just thought, oh gosh, I'm back in this nightmare again. And I wanted to die because there was no other way of getting out of there. But then, suddenly, there was.

He opens my door and he tells me to get out. And I just thought, run. The next thing I knew, I was flung onto the ground by my hair. And he pulled me by my hair all the way back to the car. With that, she lost all hope, even begged her attacker to put her out of her misery. I just wanted it to end. I said, kill me, and he went with the gun, and he pulled the thing back, and I went, I was getting ready, and nothing happened.

And then I just started screaming at him, kill me, moron, just kill me. But he toyed with her like a cat with a mouse, dragged her to the back of the car, and opened the trunk. He threw me in there and shut it. And he started driving down the road. And then I was thinking, he's done done this before he knows exactly what he's doing what Jennifer didn't know at the time was that in fact her attacker had done this before six

years earlier on the evening of January 18th 1986 a popular, outgoing 23-year-old named Robin Brandley was working as an usher at a jazz concert at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. She loved to make people laugh. She was intelligent, inquisitive. She had a lot of friends. She just was always willing to just lend a hand for anybody. Robin's brother Jason and her parents Jack and Janelle Riley agree Robin was a go-getter with big dreams. She ultimately, I think, wanted to work in the entertainment industry. She was bound and determined. She was going to make a mark.

After the concert that January night, Robin walked toward her car, but she never got there. In the dark parking lot, someone was waiting with a knife. She was found by a security guard at the college, and he noticed something that he believed to be a mannequin laying by a car. And, of course, at closer inspection is when he found Robin. She had been stabbed 41 times, it was later determined. 41 stab wounds to the back, neck, chest, and hands. It was so unexplained, and it was so random, and it was so brutal.

Helen Moreno was a supervising investigator with the Orange County DA's office. And there was no evidence at all that there was any robbery. She had her purse was there. Her keys were laying right there by the scene. Early the next morning, a police officer knocked on the Riley's door. He said, she's gone. He said, she's been murdered. And it was just a total shock. And I said, well, who did it?

I said, we have no idea. Was the assumption just, well, you know, they'll catch who did this? Yeah, absolutely. What was there at that crime scene that was of any help? In terms of identifying a perpetrator, there was really nothing. Orange County Deputy District Attorney Howard Gundy. So he basically came in from the darkness of the night, attacked quickly, suddenly, violently.

There was no way that she could resist and then went back into the darkness of the night. And unfortunately for investigators, there were no witnesses. Months passed, then years. Robin's parents tried desperately to keep her story alive. We figured we'd have to solve the case ourselves. They hired a private investigator, even believed the murderer might be a fellow student.

That was actively pursued? Yes. And nothing was found at all? Nothing. pursued? Yes. And nothing was found at all? Nothing. Over the years, Robin Brandley's sadistic killer would go on to kill again and again. But of course, no one knew that as Jennifer S. Benson lay terrified in the stifling trunk of that same killer's car. 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 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 have heard it. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with.

In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie

I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was,

but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. When I was in the trunk, it was pitch black. You're still bound. There's nothing you can do. Bound. Nothing I could do. The stranger had forced her into the trunk of his car, but Jennifer S. Benson had no idea he was taking her to his favorite killing ground. He's going to either torture me or put me in a dungeon somewhere or whatever most horrible thing I could think of. Her fear was justified.

In fact, after murdering Robin Brandley, her attacker went on a killing spree. Before he was finished, four other California women would die. These women all were prostitutes, dumped in the windswept desert just outside the city. Julie McGee was the first in the summer of 1988. She had been picked up in Palm Springs, taken out to this area of town that's pretty much abandoned, and shot and killed. Palm Springs Lieutenant John Booth.

He left virtually no evidence behind. The next year, Tammy Irwin. A few years after that, Denise Maney, tied up with Twine and tortured. Years after that, Denise Maney, tied up with twine and tortured. In the meantime, in nearby San Diego, a fourth prostitute, Mary Ann Wells, was shot dead. Four victims, similar crimes, but no one who investigated any of these crimes spotted a pattern. No one connected them, not to one another, and certainly not to a serial killer. After exhausting all the leads, we still were nowhere.

You almost can't help but wonder whether or not those women had any inkling of what was about to happen to them. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you could rewind a Monday morning quarterback, you'd say to yourself, don't get in that car. You know, if you could rewind a Monday morning quarterback, you'd say to yourself, don't get in that car. But Jennifer S. Benson had gotten in that car. And as its driver was barreling down the highway, she lay in the trunk, terrified. I just laid there and just thought about how I was going to die. Desperate, she did the one thing that could bring some comfort. And that was pray.

And I just started crying, saying, God, if there is a God, and you know that I'm in this trunk right now, and you know that I'm about to be cut up into many pieces, please take my life or let me get away. Help me. Yeah. She thinks that what happened next was pure and simple divine intervention. And I just suddenly got hysterical strength

and I just started hearing all the twine busting behind my back and i just busted it off that's amazing it was a miracle but then i have this twine off now what in the total darkness with her life on the line, Jennifer discovered a confidence and ingenuity that surprised even her. When I was in that trunk, all I had to do was reach from one corner to the other corner and say, this is the width of the trunk. And then I went like this. I thought that's where the lock is. So the mechanism to unlock the trunk is on the inside. It's with me. Working only by feel, she ripped away carpet, yanked on wires, poked her fingers around the metal frame. And then I felt this thing. It just felt like a little lever and it clicked and I saw light just coming in everywhere.

And I just went, oh, my God, I can get out. And then I got so excited that I lifted it even more. Suddenly, her assailant was shouting, swearing. He just realized the trunk was open he pulled over and came around i grabbed the trunk and i pulled it down and he did this on it to make sure it was shut so then he got back in the car and he pushed the gas on all the way to the floor and he got stuck. It was her only chance. I just flipped it up and jumped out.

Barefoot and naked from the waist down, she ran for her life down the road. I was running like I was in the Olympics. I looked back and he was chasing me with a machete. And I just started running faster. And then I saw a truck coming. Gasping for breath, Jennifer ran straight toward the oncoming truck. And then I just heard their wheels screech. The two startled men in the truck, both Marines, opened the door.

I just started screaming. That guy, he tried to kill me. I said, the car, the car right there, and the car was gone. Her attacker already had sped off. Her attacker already had sped off. She had survived, but over the coming weeks, that brought her little relief. Jennifer's life soon began to unravel. It was the beginning of a downhill journey for me.

I just started getting so out of my mind and so scared by everything. And he knows my name. He knew where I lived. He knew a lot about me. But police knew nothing about him. They had no suspects, no witnesses, no leads. Interest in Jennifer's case began to fade, as did the scars on her wrists. That was my only opportunity to try to tell somebody what happened to me. So I actually took a razor blade to them and I opened them all back up.

And then I just remember waking up in a mental hospital strapped to a bed. And that's where I would live for the next three and a half to four years in mental hospitals. It was the only place where she felt safe. Her attacker had disappeared in the desert dust. But Jennifer knew that somewhere he was still out there. My life just spiraled downhill because he was on the loose. Jennifer Esbenson had managed an astonishing escape from a sadistic serial killer. But she hardly felt lucky.

It was like I had saved my life, and then I felt like, for what? I saw no beauty in anything. Everything just seemed evil. Confirmation of that evil would come from halfway across the country when her attacker went back to work. It was the afternoon watch in early August. I was paged. They said that there was a body floating in Wolf Lake.

On a hot day in 1996, Chicago homicide detective Don McGrath responded to what's called a body dump at a desolate lake outside the city. There was in fact a nude female body floating face down about 20 feet off the city. There was in fact a nude female body floating face down about 20 feet off the shore. It was obvious she died a violent death.

Shot three times, she also had 29 stab wounds. I'd never seen anything quite like that before and I was quite disturbed. This showed a lot of emotion, a lot of rage, and a lot of anger towards the victim. Police soon identified the woman as Lynn Huber, a local prostitute. As to who killed her, one piece of that puzzle

fell into place quickly. When I got back to the office, the buzz was already, oh, this is a second body in Wolf Lake. Four months earlier, it turned out, the naked body of another prostitute, Laura Ulaki, had been found floating in the same lake. Firemen pulled her out, and she too had been shot. She was shot in the head and in the chest.

And one month before, the body of a third prostitute, Cassandra Corum, was found dumped in the Vermillion River just an hour from Wolf Lake. So different body of water but basically same M.O. Right, same M.O., a nude victim in a body of water. Right. Same M.O., a nude victim in a body of water. The case fell to Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Jim McKay. He says investigators could find no real link among the three murders. Until they checked ballistics.

The bullets found in those women's bodies were fired from the same gun, the same.38 caliber revolver. But unfortunately for police... There's a ton of them out there. So without the actual gun... They were cold cases. Then in April of 1997, Indiana police contacted McGrath with a tip. A prostitute had called them from a seedy motel, they said. She and her customer, a man named Andrew Yerdialis, were having a fight, partly over his unusual requests.

When they learned what Andrew Yerdialis wanted to do to her and where he wanted to do it, they focused on Yrdialis wanted to do to her and where he wanted to do it. They focused on Urdialis. He wanted to duct tape and hand cover, the prostitute said, and take her in the back of his pickup truck out to Wolf Lake. She knew what had happened at Wolf Lake? Yes, she did, and she wasn't having any part of that. 32-year-old Andrew Urdialis worked as a security guard downtown. He'd been arrested months earlier in Indiana for illegal possession of a firearm, which police had confiscated.

The curious thing was the weapon was a.38 revolver, Smith & Wesson, one of millions. revolver Smith & Wesson, one of millions. Strictly on a hunch, McGrath and his partner retrieved the gun just a week before it was scheduled to be destroyed. They raced it to the Illinois crime lab. It was a shot in the dark. But it hit its mark. Tests proved Yurdy Allis' gun had fired the bullets that killed the three women. Were you surprised when it came up a match? I don't think surprise is the correct word. We were astonished. It was incredible. What a stroke of luck.

On April 22, 1997, the detectives set up surveillance outside the working class home Yurdi Alice shared with his parents. Nine o'clock in the morning or so, a guy comes out the back door, starts walking down the alley. We approached him. We identified ourselves. He's nonchalant about this? Absolutely. He's dressed in his guard uniform with his little brown lunch bag, heading to work. And we said we had a few questions. He only asked when we were done if we could give him a lift back to the train so he could get to work.

So he just thinks that this is just going to be a little hitch in the day. Yeah. Once they got to the precinct, Yurdi Alice was just as helpful, downright chatty, volunteering that he was an ex-marine, once stationed in California. First he was asked if he knew Loya Lockie, Cassandra Corm, or Lynn Huber. He was shown pictures of all three of these ladies. He denied knowing these girls. Then he was asked about the gun that he was arrested with.

We asked him if he had ever loaned the gun out, and he said no. In fact, Yurdi Alice bragged that he'd always been careful to keep the gun locked up in a tackle box in his basement, and no one else had a key. Now, what are you thinking when you hear this and realize that he's just getting in deeper and deeper? Bingo. Gotcha.

Then the police lay the bomb on him. That that gun, to the exclusion of every gun in the world, was the murder weapon that killed these three women in Illinois. He just looked down and loosened his tie. And he said, I guess I won't be going to work today. I said, well, you got some explaining to do. But Yerdy Alice had a shocker of his own. He said, well, you might want to call California. And I said, okay, why would we want to call California?

Within hours of learning about Yurdi Alice's confession, Palm Springs Lieutenant John Booth and Orange County Investigator Helen Moreno arrived in Chicago. It wasn't until we got there and we were briefed, then the magnitude starts setting in and you think, wow, you know, this guy is a prolific serial murderer. When you walk into that room, what is going through your mind? To be honest with you, I don't screw this one up.

In a cramped room at the precinct, Lieutenant Booth sat down to chat with Andrew Yerdy-Allis, who declined all offers for a lawyer. I'm tape recording it. Is that okay with you? And his demeanor is what during all this? Very matter-of-fact. He wasn't scared. He wasn't upset. Yordialis told investigators he had grown up in a close-knit family with loving parents, but he admitted that other relationships never had come easily.

He really did not have close friends. He was a loner. After a frustrating stint in the military, he moved back home to Chicago. He took a job as a security guard, even was voted union representative. Is this somebody who's leading a double life? No doubt about it, because when he wasn't at work, when he wasn't at home with his family, he was out trying to pick up prostitutes. And God forbid if they did anything to piss him off, they were going to die. To investigators, Yerdialis matter-of-factly described exactly how they died.

How he tortured and killed eight women. I took the knife out and started stabbing him for some reason. He was always stabbed in the body several times, in the chest, in the stomach. It just seemed like we'd opened the faucet, and he was draining the tank. He remembered everything, clothing, color. All the very specific details about what they were wearing, where he dumped them, all of that was spot on. Exactly.

He went down to the shoes and said they weren't leather tennis shoes, they were cloth tennis shoes. Tammy Irwin, that's exactly what they had. Exactly, she had cloth tennis shoes on. My feeling was, it's etched in his brain. I'm not an experienced police officer, obviously, but things that you're telling me now would just absolutely creep me out. I was creeped out. Granted, I am 8 inches taller than him and 100 pounds heavier than him,

and I was creeped out. Robin Brandley's murder at Saddleback College in 1986 was his first, Yerdy Alice said. He was then a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. I don't know, just getting aggravated, pissed off or something. He said it began with some unexplained incident at the base something that set him off he got in his car and just started driving i'm just driving around that area i know there's signs that sound like college so i stopped and i parked my car I parked my car.

I was walking, had my knife in the middle of the line. When he spotted Robin Brandley walking to the parking lot, he hid behind a car. I started walking towards her, behind her. And she turned around and looked at me and didn't say anything. But then she saw the knife, and she screamed briefly and put her hands over her mouth. I think I said I wanted her purse. The next thing I know, the knife went in her back. She was on the right a couple of times. She fell.

Are you convinced that Robin Brandley was just essentially in the wrong place at the wrong time? Convinced, yes. He wanted to hurt somebody that was weaker than him. He wanted to hurt somebody that was vulnerable. But Cook County Prosecutor Jim McKay says there is no answer to that big question of why. You'd have to get inside the evil mind of Andrew Erdiales to figure that one out. There's a great deal of hatred and rage,

certainly behind every one of those stab wounds. He didn't even know her. She didn't do anything to him. That rage surfaced again and again over the next few years, McKay says, as Yurdi Alice became a smarter and more methodical killer. He planned a lot of these murders. He prepared himself not only to kill, but to get away with it. So prepared that in the years

after he'd left California, he kept equipment for his killings in a storage locker near Palm Springs, his special murder kit. A 45 caliber pistol, ammunition, a machete, masks, license plates from Illinois, shovels, twine, duct tape, all types of items he used if he needed to. He had come back here on a vacation.

Orange County Deputy D.A. Howard Gundy says Erdiales would fly in, rent a car, grab his murder kit, pick up a woman, and kill her in the desert. You think he came back from Illinois specifically to kill somebody here? I think that he came out here, he was on vacation, and he was looking to do what he enjoyed doing when he was on vacation. when he was on vacation. It was a vacationing Erdy Alice who picked up Jennifer Asbenson at the bus stop in September 1992. And I looked over,

and I pulled on one of the aspects of the meter to the right, and she didn't really hesitate. She got up and she got in the car. As with all the women, Erdy Alice remembered every last detail. She was very pretty, but had her hair tied off in the back. Do you remember what she was wearing? Well, later on, I remember she was wearing a gray sweatshirt. And his story matched

Jennifer's exactly. I told her to turn around. I tied her hand behind her back. Okay, then what happened? I told her to bring my hands on her neck and I started squeezing her, choking her with my hands. I put her in the trunk. And then suddenly before I could get out there, the hood popped open and she had her hands free at the time. And she went screaming. He admitted he was furious at her escape. I just got in the car, spun off, and I just let the bus up and took a lot of dust.

So that was the last time I saw her. But he will see her again. His only surviving victim will confront him in court. The savage attack that nearly took her life continued to haunt Jennifer Asbenson. I didn't know if he was around me. I was very panicked all the time. Then in 1997, five years after her attack, a police officer knocked on her door and asked her to come down to the station. And he said, I'm going to put 10 pictures on the table,

and I want you to tell me if anybody looks familiar. And my eyes went right to him. I said, he's right there. And he picked up the picture, and he said, do you know who this is? And I said, it's the man that attacked me, that tried to kill me. And he said, this is a man that killed eight women, and you are the only one that got away. Wow.

Three weeks later, Jennifer came face-to-face with her attacker at a pretrial hearing in Chicago. She was brought there by a syndicated TV show. What was it like the first time you actually saw him again? It was just sickening. After the hearing was out, I tried to get answers from his family. Excuse me, I'm a victim of your son. Can I please talk to you? I'd like to know what made him do this to me. And I was screaming in the streets of Chicago, Why? Why did he do this? You had no idea that he was a maniac like this?

You had no idea. I'm lucky I'm alive today and you guys won't turn around and just give me one explanation. He ruined my life. Please just say something to me. And then they got across the street and then I saw his sister stop. And then she turned around and she just started hustling back across the street and I got kind of nervous. We don't even understand it ourselves, okay? That's it. I'm really sorry. That's all I can tell you. That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry.

I was so relieved when she hugged me. That's all she had to do. It was a sign that they cared. Five years later, Andrew Yerdialis finally went on trial for the murders of two of the Illinois women. Jennifer took the stand. What was it like to testify with him sitting there? It was hard. I would look at him. He was never looking at me. And he would have no emotion to anything that I said.

In agonizing detail, she told the jury how Yurdi Alice had sexually assaulted and tortured her. How did the jury react when you testified? They cried and he smacked me across the face and said you're lying bitch say it like you mean it. And he was yelling at me, tell me you love me, tell me you love me. I just started crying. I wasn't just speaking for me I was speaking for eight other women that needed justice. It wasn't about me. What he did to me was minimal. What he did to them and their families

is going to be forever. And he needs to pay. The jury agreed and rejected his claim of insanity, sentencing him to death, which has not changed California's determination to also try Yurdi Allis for the five murders he's been charged with there. Orange County Deputy DA Howard Gundy.

Why is it necessary for California to even bother with this? What happens is that there are folks here that have lost a child. And that's something that these people have to live with. You feel an obligation to them. Yeah, I do. That trial can't happen soon enough for Robin Brandley's family. The pain is never closed, the missing her. None of that's never closed.

I wish she was around to see my kids, and I wish she was around to show me her kids that she would have had. But the fact that Yurdi Alice finally is paying for what he did has confirmed Jennifer's faith and given her a new appreciation for the joys of life, one 13-year-old joy in particular. My daughter, Augusta, is my little miracle. She gives me hope. You've talked to your daughter about this?

Yeah. Yeah, she knows the whole story. And to your daughter about this? Yeah. Yeah, she knows the whole story. And you know how she escaped? Yeah. What do you think of that? I think that's amazing. Like, when I think about it, it kind of like just brings my faith stronger.

And like, I know that I can do anything once I set my mind to it. And I have the confidence that I can. Because you know what she did? Mm-hmm. And I think it's just like, what Because you know what she did? Mm-hmm. And I think it's just like, what you think is impossible isn't always impossible. Does a day go by now when you don't think about this?

No. Really, I just wake up every day wanting to do something remarkable. And if I don't, I go to sleep at night and wake up the next day just wanting to do something remarkable again. Because you were the one who got away. Yeah. I'm just grateful to be alive. In 2011, Illinois abolished the death penalty and Andrew Yerdialis' sentence was commuted to life in prison. In 2018, Yerdialis was convicted in the murders of five California women

and sentenced to death. Less than a month later, he died by suicide. 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.