Anatomy of Murder - Southwest Terror: 1982 (Liz Lowe)

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

After moving to Houston, TX for fun and freedom, a teenager survives the darkest night of her life. But after telling the police, she discovers she’s not alone.For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/. Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

Before we begin, we want to give you a warning about today's episode. It contains graphic depiction of sexual violence. Something was not right with Rory. What they were doing was hunting women. There was no human guidance in him whatsoever. He was just evil. I would be sleeping and get here and breathing and knew that they were like standing right there watching me.

I always knew in my heart it wasn't over. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. As you will soon hear, today's story is a very different type of story in different ways. There are certain cases that you are face-to-face with the violence more than others. And you're going to see this is a deep journey for all those involved.

And it may even be for some of you. A story you won't soon forget. But I can tell you now that there is a bright light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. When Adesiga and I first created this podcast, we felt it was important to always include the voice of the people directly involved in the case, from investigators to prosecutors and, of course, family members of homicide victims. But it's also the survivor interviews that always feel so incredibly raw, a personal perspective that no one else could tell. And today's interview is just that.

For today's case, I spoke with Liz Lowe. My father was a Air Force fighter pilot. We would travel around every two to three years. We'd be moving to a new location just depending on his tour assignment. She talked about being in the new bases and new homes. And for many, that would be tough. You know, the constant having to start over again, be it with friends, schools. But for Liz, she really looked at it and took it as this life of adventure. You know, her dad flew supersonic jets, which I find so incredibly cool. And as a child and into her teen years, Liz described herself as both an introvert and an extrovert at the very same time. By the time she was a teen, she had landed in Arkansas. But as she became an older teen about to enter young adulthood, it was Houston, Texas that

captured her eye. Growing up the way I did, I was starting to have some wanderlust. You know, a lot of people were talking about, oh, Texas and Houston and the oil boom, and it was just supposed to be just this wonderful place. As soon as I was old enough and able, I sold my horse and saddle and got on a Greyhound bus and moved to Houston, Texas. We are talking about the era of urban cowboy that, for those of you that don't remember it, it was John Travolta and that mechanical bull. The bar that was frequented was Gillies, which lo and behold was in Houston. It was the 80s and line dancing was the next big craze. Liz thought it was a perfect way to meet people. She was determined to stay in Houston as long as she could, she would either make it or break it in Houston. So I was going to come home with my tail between my legs if I didn't make it.

I went there on a Greyhound bus and I got a taxi. The taxi driver was really nice and I just told him my story. I said, you know, I'm just here for as long as it gets me through. And, you know, the only skill I really have is waiting tables and what's like the best place in town. And can you take me to a safe neighborhood, but that would be an affordable hotel. So he did. And we made arrangements for him to come pick me up the next day and take me to this nice place. I think that's a really gutsy move. I actually even call it pretty risky. I mean, you step off a bus into a cab and you trust a complete stranger. You know, I'm sure it wasn't something her military dad would have been comfortable with, but Atasiga, you never know who you run into. I hear it, and while I am inspired in a way because it is exciting and it goes against my risk adverse personality.

You know, how fortunate that the person that she decided to trust with taking her not only to her first night of safety to where she was going to sleep, but then guide her to what became her first job in the city she didn't even know. That person could have been anybody, but how lucky for Liz, he was someone that she put her trust in and he earned it quickly. Even when I was just telling you that story, I thought, oh my gosh, how dumb was I? Like, that was so dumb. Like, hey, all I've got is cash in my pocket, you know, and take me to this hotel room. Now, you know, I was a different person then. I was much more trusting and, you know, I really hadn't been exposed to any of the bad things that happened to good people. Just think about all the ways this story could have gone south. But this was a time when finding a local job required really just knocking on doors. And it wasn't sending emails like it may be today. He took me to a restaurant, which was

a high dollar membership restaurant dash club. I got hired right away. And then within just a few days, made friends with a waitress there and end up moving into her apartment. I mean, you have to have a tremendous amount of respect for someone at 17 years old to get on that bus and land in a strange place, but really have the goal and set it in advance that you're going to be doing several things to make your move. And when I think about her personality, I kind of just keep visualizing this firecracker, this bright, sparkly thing that is shooting up in the air, and you hope it goes straight up. But at the end of the day, you never know exactly where it's going to land. While Liz was working multiple jobs, she still wanted to advance her education.

But that path really wasn't clear. So she dabbled in several things just to find her educational footing. And while she was doing that, she was having a blast in Houston. She was waitressing and she was meeting people. I met some celebrities, Phyllis Diller. So that was exciting. She was living in a nice apartment complex with two young people who were a married couple that she enjoyed living with them. And she was working two jobs at a restaurant and a club. It was a very glitzy discotheque. So in the day,

that's what was super popular. You know, just the dancing and the lights and going to these clubs, but it's not like clubs now. You know, it was just a whole different feel and it was super fun and everybody would get dressed up in your best Farrah Fawcett hair and Cyndi Lauper gloves and have fun. I'm laughing before I even start to ask the question, Scott, because I have to ask you, can you please tell me about your own time at the discotheque time in your life? Oh, boy. Was there a discotheque time in your life? Oh, boy. Yes. In my high school days included some weekends in the Saturday night fever mode,

so to speak, the music, the clothing, it all seemed kind of in sync, but I was fortunate enough, Anastasia, to be at a family function where I got to see you dance a bit. Was that the hustle? That really talks more about my lack of dancing skills than anything else, but I probably danced the same way back then as I do today. You know, I think back to myself and I definitely went through those club years. It was just this place that everything almost felt unreal, yet in a really exciting way. And I have to think that that was what she felt, except that she was really living it every day. And now our story is going to take us to Halloween night in 1982.

The nursing outfit I had on was like a leotard, and then it had like a little skirt that tied around it, which sounds floozy-ish right now, but at a discotheque at night, it was appropriate. While on any given weekend, the club was always packed, but on special occasions like Halloween were even wilder. And for Liz, she wasn't just having fun because of Halloween, she was working it. So I really think about how hectic that must have been for her too. Around 2 a.m., Liz got off work and was heading home. At her apartment complex, there are two ways to get back to her apartment from the

parking lot. One option is to park further away, and it's a much longer walk to your door, but it's better lit. The second option is to cut through a darker area, which was so much quicker. It was like a little footpath that was dark. And so you could just like walk right there and go around the corner and there was my apartment. It was just so easy. So being young and naive and everything, that's the way that I would go and had always gone. You know, she chose that shorter path,

the darker one, day after day. I mean, it must have been maybe a hundred or more times. And it was fortunately safe every single time. But we all know that no matter what you do and how many times you do it and where you do it, it just takes once. So when I walked, there were bushes on the left, which were on the building.

And then there was some grass and some trees to my right. And then another, you know, like 30 feet was the street. And, you know, there was some ambient light from the street, but not much. As Liz was walking to her apartment, she was met by a person lying in wait. A person comes out of the bushes. So they were like tucked down in between the bushes to my left and just popped up and put a gun in my face and said, turn around, go back to your car. And so I turned around and went back to my car. So they got my keys and put me in the passenger seat and then pushed my head down between my legs. I was completely folded over and with my head down in the floorboard. I knew this wasn't good, but I don't really think that at that point I was like,

you know, thinking how bad it could be. Now, we said at the top of this podcast that this episode contains graphic depiction of sexual violence. Anastasia handled the interview with Liz, and I believe her vast experience handling survivors is key in recalling and talking through these painful memories. We thought it was important to play you portions of both Anastasia's questions and Liz's answers as it relates to this vicious attack in their own words. When you first see him outside, what does he say to you?

Really and truly, of the whole event, like I have these like little blips of complete amnesia. Like I remember him saying, I remember him popping out, I remember the gun, I remember him saying, turn around and go back to your car. And he got the keys and he got in the driver's seat,

put my head down and he said, don't raise your head. And so are you in the front seat or in the back seat? I'm in the front seat at this point. And he's driving your car now. And he's driving my car now. And I had a sweater on. So my sweater was a, like a sweater coat that went down long, like to, you know, my calves. And so he took my sweater and flipped it over my head. So now imagine you're sitting in a passenger seat and so your legs are spread. So you're laying flat with your head down in the floorboard. Like say you dropped something and you were really,

really searching for something in the floorboard. It would kind of be like that. So he backs out of the parking lot and then drives just a short distance. Remember, Liz is in the passenger seat, ordered by her armed abductor to bend forward with her head between her knees. All she could see was her attacker was wearing a ski mask, and he was holding a handgun. I knew it was a man by his voice, stocky built, and I could see the gun. And I'm like, oh, this is not good. Then I knew I was in trouble because he said, do you have any money?

I still have my cocktail tray. So I would just keep my money in there frequently and just leave and take my tray home. And then I would have that with me the next night or whatever. So I said, yes, I do. I have so many that's in my tray. So he took my money. And her first thought was a kidnapping and a robbery, or could it be much worse than that? And then he said, I'm going to pick up my friend. And if my friend asks, don't you tell him that you had any money or that you gave me any money. So then I thought, OK, so not only is he a bad person, but he's not even loyal to his other bad person, you know. So anyway, his friend got in the car and immediately reaches around.

I don't know if they had any kind of exchange, I don't recall, but he reaches down and around and grabs my left breast and squeezes it, like, really, really hard to let you know there was a sexual interest or grabbed it in a way to cause you pain. I interpreted it like he got a prize and he just was excited to, like, you know, just get a little taste of that prize. It was like a sexual, I mean, this is all a power thing, but a sexual grab as opposed to sexual painful power grab.

Yeah. I didn't think, oh, he's just trying to hurt me, you know, like they're going to beat me up. That was not the impression that I got. So Anastika, why did you think it was important to ask that specific question about the second attacker? All of this is going to be about power. We know that. But there is the power plays that have a sexual gratification component, and there are the power plays that are more about the violence and the humiliation of women. And based on what she thought, I think it would help me understand which way this guy was going. And her answer really did just that. The impression that I got was, this is a prelude to something much, much worse. People often ask me, you know, do I have this certain method when I'm talking people through these, you know, violent, horrendous ordeals?

And I think I approach this always to a degree as a prosecutor, which is to get as much detail because if we are to get an understanding and hopefully to learn and to maybe help someone out there because of Liz sharing her story and her pain, then you never know what that thing is that is going to be the moment that really sheds light for somebody else. They start rifling through my car. For some reason, the overhead light was like really dim. The driver, he's going through my car and he lifts up my console and he takes a lighter and he lights it.

Now, my butt cheek is essentially right there and so I instinctually like flung my head up and when I flung my head up literally we're face to face and just inches apart. First of all the guy in the back when you lifted your head is he also wearing a mask or he doesn't have a mask? I didn't see him. The driver knocks my head back down and roughly says, don't do that again. Keep your head down. I thought he was going to burn me. It was just instinct, you know. For any one of you that this may be triggering, please fast forward about three minutes and 15 seconds. By now, the other guy, he's out of the car and he's like going all through my trunk. Like when I say they pilfered through my car like with a fervor,

I mean, I don't know what in the world they were looking for. So they're going through your car and you are still now back in the position of head down in the front seat. Right. And then they moved me to the back seat. Because it was a leotard, he just ripped it off of me, at least around my neck and around my arms and stuff. And so I was able to just then pull it down. They both sexually assaulted me. So he was, his face was like on top of my face, but it was covered or it was like the barrier of my sweater. And so it was like not having anything really in between us. So it was just like breathing and his breath was just so

putrid. It was just so foul. So then one of them said, and this may be one of the things that made me say, you know, I'll hold your breath, is because I was praying, praying, praying so hard. And so he's like, she's breathing heavy. She likes it. She likes it. So then I just like stopped breathing. You know, I'm like, oh, you know, I'm sorry. Like, I almost have to think about not getting sick hearing that. And so then I'm like, I'm going to not breathe. And that's God's way of like telling me, you know, that's a message. That's a message. Don't breathe. The situation just went from bad to worse, to worse, to even worse. i think i'm gonna die so now my whole mindset is i'm not even that much paying attention you know to the fact that i'm being sexually assaulted as i am

developing a plan of how i'm going to live so i'm like praying and praying and praying and like okay well if I get shot I'm just going to breathe very shallow all these like things are just racing through my head of how I'm going to survive however it is that they try to kill me because I feel certain at this point that they are going to kill me but I'm not going to die

that's my plan then the next thing I know but I'm not going to die. That's my plan. Then the next thing I know, they snatched my necklace off of my neck, took my watch, and then they said, you keep your head down for 72 seconds or whatever it was. It was a random number.

And then one of them asked Liz a question. I wanted to know if I lived alone. And then one of them asked Liz a question. deviate from what they were doing to go to my apartment because my roommate was a teeny, tiny, petite little girl and her husband would have been no match for them with a gun. The assailants parked Liz's car. They both got out and they fled the area. And during this time, I can hear people, like I can hear cars driving by, car doors and things like that. Not a lot, but enough times to make me think, where am I? I'm in some kind of public place. Lifting my head up and I'm like, oh my gosh, they're gone. We were parked in the back of a parking lot of another apartment complex down the street. Survival mode kicks in, and it's a matter of getting to a safe space,

whether it's their home or a loved one, in some cases even a police station. I came home, got in the door, and just falling to my knees and starting to cry. I just started sobbing, which woke my roommates up. So I remember my roommate coming out and, you know, consoling me and trying to also figure out what in the world has happened. Obviously, my sweater didn't have like buttons or anything. It was just open. And I remember her pulling it together and covering my breast to just give me that little bit of dignity. I'm going to tear up. You know, it's just crazy after all these years, you know, just some little thing like that can like, just bring back the whole thing. But I remember thinking,

you know, how nice that was of her. She just, you know, felt, she just took compassion and, you know, on me and, and that small, kind act for me. And I remember it to this day. I don't remember some things. I don't remember how I got my car keys, but I remember that. So anyway, we called the police, and then the police came, and the patrolman told me that they were getting, you know, multiple calls. Once Liz met with police, she learned, unfortunately, that she wasn't alone in what happened to her.

They told me that they were systematically kidnapping and raping women, and they had a name for them. He felt certain that I was a victim of the Southwest Rapist. Liz also learned from police more about her two attackers. That's when I found out that there was a gang of serial rapists called the Southwest Rapist in my community. And they weren't just targeting random victims. It was coordinated, stalking, surveilling, attacking multiple victims over months. What they were doing was hunting women. So they would find a woman at a convenience store, at a restaurant, at a bar, whatever, and then they would follow her and develop a pattern of her movements and

behavior. And, you know, it's so crazy because people say now you hear, I didn't ever heard this when I was younger, but not to have a pattern, you know, not to park in the same parking place, not to do this and that, because, you know, there are evil people out there that do hunt other human beings. So you do need to deviate what you're doing and when you do it. And I know that now, but I didn't know it then. The idea that Liz was actually hunted makes this so much more complex and painful and psychologically torturous. She didn't know that they were watching her at work or when she came home. And it makes you, I would have to think,

second guess every move that you make from then on out. Hey, let's go hunting tonight. Want to go hunting? You know, like how many times did they watch me? It's a whole other dimension in the complexity and depravity of this armed kidnapping and sexual assault. 90% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by one offender. Only 10% are perpetrated by two or more offenders.

There really is something to those numbers. Offenders usually work alone. And it is very rare to have two like-minded individuals commit these crimes together. You know, I think about one case I had where there was not only homicide, but a sexual assault component to it. And it was unbelievable amongst us that knew about the case to think that there were people so deviant, too, that were so similar that they found one another and committed that crime together. Where here you had a group, you know, how does that come up in conversation? How do you find out that these other people think about the same things and want to do and are willing to do these same sort of acts as this group committed?

And it really is mind-boggling and incredibly, incredibly rare. As an officer or a deputy responding to a report of a sexual assault, it is so important that you recognize the emotional state of a victim. In certain situations, I've even called a female deputy to assist just because the situation would be that much more comfortable for a victim. While the attack may be over, the aftermath, the physical and emotional toll, needs to be treated with great care. Often, victims of sexual assault go through a range of emotions, from anger to, in some cases, an unjustified feeling of shame. In Liz's case, the first officers on scene gave her great care. I remember the police officers being very, very nice, but also very, very upset. They took it very personally, you know, like it was on their watch.

And I think the fact that it was happening in a parking lot right down the road, you know, if you have monsters like these, you know, that are attacking people on your streets, and you miss it, you miss that. Why wasn't I in that parking lot? Why didn't I go on patrol through that parking lot? It was kind of a swirl of activity. And then I remember, I felt like I had to call. This was way before cell phones or anything. I had to call, you know, and tell my family. And I remember calling my dad and telling my dad, which was strange that I didn't call my mom first, but I called my dad. And, you know, my dad was a pretty stoic military man.

And he just cried and I cried. And, you know, his daughter had been through something like that. Now, all of you out there know that this podcast focuses on homicides. And so while you might be saying to yourself, well, wait a second, there isn't a murder here. Well, there is, at least in a way. Because somebody did die that night. And that was the Liz before she was attacked. That person was killed that night.

That person died. And so, you know, when I drove back to my apartment, I was a different human being. So all of the dreams and hopes and everything that I had then that I might've wanted to do when I quote unquote grew up, they were gone. Not only do you have to reassess everything in your life, but also like, who are you? Like, what are you going to do? Like, you don't even know what gives you pleasure anymore. It's just pretty terrible. Liz was able to learn more about other sexual assault survivors. One of the victims, a woman who was married, she was kidnapped from a convenience store. Liz spoke with her husband. Liz is so sad.

She had multiple attackers, like four or five attackers, and they kept her for five or six hours. They had a young son, and that she was deeply psychologically affected and never productive again, and ended up, he said, you know, after her, she's just homeless, living on the streets. My son's in prison. And it just completely ruined our life. Another survivor was unplanned, truly wrong place, wrong time. And that wasn't just one. She was at the club the night that my kidnapping and rape was planned. She was with her friend and her friend wasn't feeling well. And so they left early. So now that the Southwest rapists were at the club checking to make sure that I'm working.

Well, what do they do in the meantime? I'm just telling you this to really drive home what evil we're looking at here. They kidnap her and her friend. They go, look, man, we got plenty of time here. We got plenty of time. Let's grab those two girls and we'll kidnap and rob and rape them too. So they did the same night, the same night, stole her car. And so presumably that stolen car was down the road. And that's what that guy had been walking from. And that's probably how they got away, was in her car. So hours before Liz's attack would even take place,

these two suspects were already freestyling, so to speak, and attack. Meaning they chose their victim based on just opportunity. Liz's case is really something, you know, we talk about like one for the books. Well, this isn't made for any book because there's so many things that are different about it, that they were part of this roving band of sexual assaulters. And I have seen more than one. I have seen two and I've handled that myself, but I've never seen a group or heard about a group like this. An investigation like this with multiple victims

over a span of time, you try to find commonality with what victims were able to recall about the attackers, way beyond things like clothing description or type of vehicles, because those things change. But it's the type of things that Liz was able to recall that's huge. So at one time, they were trying to take the speakers out of my rear dashboard. So they were having a real difficult time with that. And finally, the guy says, come on, Jones.

He's like, we already have some just like this anyway. Liz heard one of the assailants refer to the other as Jones. Like Smith, Jones is obviously a common name, but having it could narrow down your database of known sexual offenders. A great jumping off point for an investigation. And then there's the robbery angle. My necklace that they took from me was really unique at the time, and it was Christ in a crucifix position, but there was no cross.

They stole from their victims. I often talk about how pawn shops can be crucial in several types of investigations, especially when property is stolen. It could be bingo if an item stolen from Liz was to be identified. And here's another detail that Liz got during her attack. And it was the crucial clue that was going to help bring this group to justice. Liz saw one of their faces. So the front seat driver, he's the one who actually abducted me and put me in the car and everything. So when he got in the car and I was securely down where I couldn't see his face, he took his mask off.

So when he started pilfering through my console, he lit that lighter. I thought he's going to burn me. And I just instinctively flung my head up. And when I did, it was inches from his face. Like his face was just ingrained in my memory forever. It was just like this snapshot in my mind. Like, I whole gang. They did a lineup. I picked Rory Keith-Jones out of the lineup, like, right away. Rory Jones was the man lying in wait as Liz walked towards her apartment that night.

He was the initial kidnapper. Now, there's also another type of lineup. We're used to talking about these visual lineups, but you can also have an audio lineup. That is when someone can potentially recognize or identify someone by their voice, and that's exactly what happened here. Then the one man that I never saw his face, but I had his words like ingrained in my memory. They kept saying, if you cooperate, we won't kill you. If you cooperate, we won't kill you. Each one of the people, the subjects of that lineup, stood together and one after the other

repeated the same line that Liz had heard that same night. I just closed my eyes and they had them come up to a speaker and say, if you cooperate, I won't kill you. I was able to identify him by his voice. And his name was Robert Nickerson. So now police are able to arrest and charge both these individuals for their crimes. And while there's still going to be a trial

and hopefully a conviction pending, both those men are behind bars for now. I always knew in my heart, like, it wasn't over. I just knew it. I built the house I have on two stories with a, you know, like a carport underneath so nobody could get to me. I even wanted to make, like, my stairs

where that I could have, like, a garage door opener and the front stairs would lift up so nobody could get to me. I even wanted to make like my stairs where that I could have like a garage door opener and the front stairs would lift up so nobody could get to me and have terrible nightmares. Like I would be sleeping and wouldn't open my eyes, but I could hear him breathing. I could smell their breath and knew that they were like standing right there watching me. And I just knew it. I knew it wasn't over. It was that story of her nightmare that stayed with me for hours.

She could smell that bad breath. She could hear those words. And that is horrible for anyone to live through. It's unimaginable to relive it in such vivid nightmares. Fear, numbness, being closed off, nightmares, the effects on relationships, distrust of people, guilt, sometimes self-destruction. I mean, that is what we just came up with in not even 10 seconds. And yet it is various combinations of those things and many more that many survivors live with for years. I would say it had a very negative impact on me just as a person,

as a functioning person, as a woman with relationships. I had a lot of problems just with intimacy and trust. And I would say not consciously obsessing about what had happened, but subconsciously, it was always on my mind. It was like inescapable. Honestly, I was a mess for maybe a decade. To learn a little bit more about Rory Jones, we're going to share an interview that we did with Forrest Beadle. He is currently a judge in Denton County, Texas, which is not where Liz's case was prosecuted. In fact, he had nothing to do with Liz's case from 1982. But for reasons that we'll get to much later, he is someone who knows Rory Jones very well. Something was not right with Rory Jones.

He was just evil. That's what he was. And the only thing I can think to call him is he was a pure sociopath. There was no thought or human kindness in him whatsoever, it seemed like. For the purpose of telling this story on the podcast, we're going to focus primarily on Rory Jones, and you'll understand why soon. Jones was

indicted for several cases. The four cases, he had four different indictments. Three of them were two-count indictments, and so three of the cases on three of the victims, including Liz, were ag robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated rape with a deadly weapon. For the prosecution, they were going into court armed with strong cases and they had visual identifications. They had these audio

identifications. They had this group that when you place them together, that it could only be the ones that the women were saying had attacked them on the various days. And so when armed with this information, they went to court and it didn't take long before there were plea bargains. They were able to get four 45-year sentences on those four cases they had indicted him on, and they were to run concurrent, meaning at the same time. And I will tell you as a former prosecutor, under those circumstances, that's a good plea. For many victims of sexual assaults, the whole process almost feels like

being re-victimized again. The event, as horrific as it was, is put into a category of what the law determines is a sufficient enough punishment. I've always felt that on its face, the approach can appear very insensitive, but I guess that's the judicial system. There needs to be some type of way to push these cases through, but I'm sure for victims, that's not a good enough reason. I guess I look at it somewhat differently. I mean, there is no way to ever make these survivors whole. There is no punishment that is fitting of what was done to the various survivors in these cases. But there is this piece of it that always feels additionally painful, and it's exactly what happened to Liz. It got me a little bit angry because it was never discussed

with me, which I kind of understand. Like, they're just doing their job and they're saying, here's the plea agreement. So one of those case numbers had to be the one that gets taken off the table as the sexual assault, as the aggravated rape. We're going to take that one off the table. If you agree to this, this and this. Okay. There has to be a labeling or a title of each count that they plead guilty to, to get to those numbers of years. And I know it from homicide cases. You would plead often to a different count if there was a plea bargain to come out to the agreed upon punishment. In this case, it was 45 years. It had to be one of us whose case number was going to be the bargaining chip. And so it just, you know, the draw was mine. It wasn't

anything to do with, you know, the strength of my case or, you know, how solid I was as a witness or anything like that. It was just a lottery. They left off the thing that really is the thing that changed her forever. And that was a sexual assault component. And I think that goes to Scott, what you're talking about, this additional victimization of the survivors. Selfishly, I was pissed. I thought to myself, you know, well, that's not what happened. Yes, he committed aggravated robbery against me and he committed aggravated kidnapping against me. But he also, most importantly, committed aggravated rape. And for Liz, that lineup wasn't going to be the last time she ever heard the name Rory Jones. And it also wouldn't be the last time they would be face to face.

A number of things were going on with the Jones conviction behind the scenes. Even though, you know, he had the nickname of the Southwest Rapist, there were all these other rapes that implicated him. That was a good plea. Unfortunately, it did not stick. But they were trying to civilly commit him. And there's a process you have to go through with some psychologists and psychiatrists where they interview him and try to determine, is he reformed or is there still something wrong upstairs that's going to make him a threat? Like, of course, clearly he was, if he gets out in society.

Explaining a civil commitment is no quick conversation, but it's basically this. It is a mental health commitment. So it's a medical assessment by psychiatrists or psychologists that assess someone's threat to themselves or to others. In this case, in Texas, someone can be civilly committed if they are assessed based on their prior sexual offenses, and there has to be more than one. And that's exactly what Forrest Beadle is talking about here. You have to have two criminally sexual offenses for that to occur. And in this case, even though the prosecutor intended to put him down on two rape cases, somebody caught this typo and realized, wait a second, he's only went down on one of these. If you remember Liz talking about how upset she was that it was the kidnapping and the robbery that was listed for hers rather than the sexual assault.

Well, that was one of the two that was used in assessing him for this mental health or civil commitment. So when they looked at it, and when I say they, it was he, because Rory Jones actually wrote his own appeal from this, from what we're told, was that he caught the error and he said, hey, on paper, I'm not a sexual offender times two on these counts. It is just times the one, because the other one is the kidnapping and robbery. So you can't look at me for this civil commitment. And under the law, Texas decided he was right. So after 27 years, Rory Jones was released. The word immediately went out, Rory's coming to town. So Rory Jones walked out of prison in 2011.

Understandably, Liz was devastated. She was furious about that. She made a lot of phone calls. And she knew that he was going to do this again because she knew who she was dealing with like we were soon to learn who we were dealing with. I was very upset by that. Strongly, strongly believed

that he was going to reoffend. And so I called the attorney general of the state of Texas. I said, you know, who I was and why I was calling and that I just wanted to plea to him to please reconsider his decision. It was so surprising because pretty much what he said to me was, you know, ma'am, this happened in 1982. And essentially, you just need to get over it. And I said, you know, I just want you to know that I'm not, I am not being punitive here. I am absolutely telling you from my knowledge and experience, he had so many victims and the glee, the enjoyment, entertainment that it brought him. He's going to reoffend. And he did. On the next episode of Anatomy of Murder. The word immediately went out that Rory Jones is

being released and Rory Jones is coming to Denton County. In less than three months, he was hunting another woman. Someone was messing with one of his housekeepers. The lady that he was attacking, he was trying to kidnap her. You could hear a lot of excited voices in the background. And he was bludgeoning her with a screwdriver. There was a child involved in this who was there at the scene. She was screaming bloody murder.

Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original. Produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers and Sumit David are executive producers. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?