Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED A SERIAL KILLER: The Freeway Killer

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

In September of 1975, 14-year-old David McVicker is abducted while hitchhiking home from a friend’s house in Garden Grove, CA. His assailant, William Bonin, has an appetite for assaulting young men and boys, and just four short years after attacking David, Bonin embarks on an all out killing spree. David recounts in his own words his persistence and unfailing bravery in the mission to lock up the Freeway Killer, one of the most notoriously vicious serial killers to ever terrorize Southern California.Progressive - Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. William Bonin has been convicted of killing 14 boys in Southern California from 1979 to 1980. There was a killer on the loose, and young men were in danger. The bodies were piling up. The public was frantic. The guy offered me a ride, so I jumped inside. He said, close the door.

and shut up. I was scared to death. I was to death, just to death. We enjoyed it. We loved to hear the screams. All I could imagine was him pulling the trigger and me just falling out of the car. With my last breath, I said, God help.

I drove down on a ball beach and I was looking for somebody here trying to, and I picked a lot. Hey, I got there before that's got to know who this guy is, a three-way chair. Oh, you do? Real people who faced death and lived to tell how. This is I survived, a serial killer.

I am David McVicker, and I survived a serial killer. September the 8th, 1975, I was 14 years old. I lived in Huntington Beach, California, but all my friends lived a 30-minute drive away in Garden Grove. It was the last day of summer. I spent the day hanging out with my friends. And about 5 o'clock in the evening, it came time for me to go home. I left my friend's house, crossed the street, and a blue car pulled up next to me.

The guy offered me a ride, so I jumped inside. It was totally normal for me to do that. Dave Lopez is a TV journalist. Back in the 70s, you always saw somebody hitchhiking. And it was never a problem. I mean, so many people did it, and they didn't have any fear in it. He looked about 29 years old, had a big smile on his face, long brown hair, blue jeans, kind of grunge, looking just like everyone else back then. He started driving along, everything was cool.

Our conversation was pretty normal until he asked me if I had tried anything with a guy before. I didn't know really what he meant by that. I immediately got really scared. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. We were really close to where it was time for me to get out. So I said, I gotta get out. Here's my stop.

And he didn't pull over. He just kept going faster. I knew I was in trouble. So I opened up the door to jump out. And when I turned back to look at him, he had a gun in my face. All I could imagine was him pulling the trigger and me just falling out of the car.

He said, close the door. door and shut up. So I did. I didn't know what was about to happen. I just knew that I was in a lot of trouble with a really evil person. Von DePelto is a psychologist, specializing in serial killers. Four years after David McVicker was abducted, the body of 17-year-old Marcus Grabs was discovered. he was here from Germany, hitchhiking across the U.S. We just knew that he had been sexually assaulted and his body dumped off the highway. They discovered at autopsy

that he had been stabbed 77 times. One of the detectives said it was like a rabid dog had attacked him. This is the voice of William Bonnan. Only three weeks. weeks elapsed before the police discovered, 15-year-old Donald Hayden. Donald Hayden was discovered relatively close to Marcus Grabs. He was pretty battered.

He was also raped, but he was strangled to death. He was cold and flitted yet, I'm squeezing of a mess, and that's it. I strangled them, believe him yet. Detectives didn't have any evidence that was obvious at the time so they couldn't tie it together just yet. After he pulled the gun on me everything in his demeanor changed. His eyes, his voice, just this evil person was sitting next to me.

He drove around for probably about an hour and then he pulled into a field. There was no way anybody could have seen us back there. He parked the car and turned off everything. turned off everything, and he said, OK, take off your clothes. I thought, no way. And I turned really quick, opened up the door, and tried to climb out. He grabbed me, pulled me back in, and just

started beating me up. I was petrified. I knew that it could be life or death. David was smart enough that he didn't really challenge him, or he may have been shot at that point. He did a lot of really, really bad things. Finally, I ended up in a position where he was raping me. And at the same time, he had my t-shirt around my neck with a crowbar through the sleeves,

and he was twisting it. Trying to strangle me, I couldn't breathe in. I didn't think I was going to live. With my last breath, I said, God help. Soon as I said that, something inside him, he just stopped, just like that. I was just relieved that I could breathe. He told me to put my clothes back on him. Then he asked me where I lived to take me home.

I was in shock. I didn't want him to know where I lived, so I told him to drop me off about a block away from my house. It was a 30-minute drive. Not a lot was said. It wasn't easy, but I didn't have a choice. You know, there was no getting out. Eventually, he drove me near my house.

I said, just drop me off in this corner right here. And he pulled over to let me out. As soon as I started to open up the door, he said, I'll see you again. And I said, no, you won't. And I ran off. I started running down the street and back of houses, trying to lose him.

And when I finally thought that I had ditched him, I went to my house. And I hear, I turn around, he's right behind me. He drove off, but I was scared to death, because I knew that this. This guy knew where I lived, and I knew that now he can come back and get me. September of 79, there was a young boy named Marillo. David Marilla was only 17.

He was also killed by ligature strangulation. And it started looking like there was a pattern. The police realized the bodies continued to be dropped along the freeways, And so the detectives began to think we may have a serial killer. When I got home, I knew I had to tell somebody. He knew where I lived and he said he was going to come back and I believed him. So I called my mom. She came home immediately.

And we figured out I had to go to Fountain Valley Police Station. We went inside. The detective took me in the back and I told him everything. And they said that they would look into it and that was it. And that was it. After I got kidnapped, I did my best to forget it. But I thought about it a lot. It was just something a deep, dark secret in my head

that I didn't want anybody to know about. A few weeks later, I was at school, and I got called to the office, and there was a sheriff there, and he told me that they wanted me to go do a lineup. Apparently, a few weeks after I had been picked up, a guy, tried to get this other kid, kid, but the kid got away and reported the car and the license number.

So the police picked him up, and because of the simulary to my story, they told them for me to come and do a lineup. They took me into a dark room, and all of a sudden the six guys come walking out. Before they even stopped, I was pointing at him saying that's him right there. His eyes said it all. I just remember the evil eyes, and that's what I saw. saw. The person that I identified was William Bonin. Bonin was a truck driver and often drove to different parts of Orange County, LA County.

His neighbors really liked him and I don't think anybody would have ever suspected how dangerous Bonin was. Bonin pleaded guilty for what he did to me in court. And on December 31st, 1975, he was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, I was relieved and I didn't think that we had to worry about him. After William Bonin was arrested for raping David McVicker, he told a police officer, quote, next time there won't be any witnesses. I survived is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home in auto policies. The process only takes minutes. And it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, potential savings will vary not available in all states. When Bonin was convicted of raping me,

it was a little bit of relief, but I was still always afraid he was getting out. I never got to go back to school. I dropped out. So a few years later, I'd been trying to teach myself how to read better. So I started reading the newspaper every day from cover to cover. When I was doing that, I kept reading these stories about kids coming up dead.

Bad things were happening to them that sounded a lot like what happened to me. Every time I would read them, I would feel it in my stomach. But I knew that Bonin was locked up. Beginning in 1979, numerous boys have been picked up near freeways, raped and then strangled or stabbed to death. Their bodies dumped near freeways. From December of 79, until May of 19. It was almost like every day. Somewhere, someplace in Southern California,

there was a body that was being dumped. The media dubbed him the freeway killer because they found the bodies strewn along the freeways. It was a big story. There was a killer on the loose, and young men were in danger. The bodies were piling up. The total of 10 bodies were found, but victims were aged 12 to 19.

There was definitely a fear factor, and there was definitely someone out there lurking, looking to kill. The Freeway Killer was on every single news broadcast. Finally one day I called the Orange County Sheriff's Department. And I said, you guys need to go find Bonnan and make sure that he's still locked up. But they didn't get back to me. David at that point had absolutely no idea that Bonnan was released. Bonin got out in late 1978. That was before there was something called Megan's Law,

where they have to inform you when your perpetrator is going to be getting out of jail. So I wasn't warned that he was getting out at all. I would have made the call to the sheriff that second. if I would have known he was out of jail. And for sure, there would be a lot more kids alive today. A couple of months later, after David McVicker had contacted the police, there was William Pew. Billy Pew was incarcerated for stealing a car.

He went to his supervisor in the hopes that he could make some kind of a deal. And he told them, I think I know who the freeway killer is. I think it's this guy I met through a friend, William Bonnan. He said that Bonnan would tell him stories about killing. At the time, the Los Angeles police didn't know about Bonin's background. The police ran the history on Bonin and found he had an extensive record of raping boys.

He had picked up many young kids before David. and had raped them. And so police were pretty certain that the freeway killer was William Bonnan. But they didn't have any evidence, so they put the tail out on him right away. June 11, 1980. Nine days after the surveillance had been going around the clock,

Bonnan was driving his van, trying to pick up men on the boulevard. And they watched him as he tried unsuccessfully to lure five boys into the van. Finally, on the sixth boy, he was successful. They followed Bonin into a vacant lot, and they surrounded the van and very quietly crept up. And they heard the boy screaming.

Obviously, there was something going on in the van. That's when they moved in. And so they broke into the van, and they found that Bonnan was in the process of very, raping this boy. He had a shirt around his neck, and he was being choked. It's one of these cases where five more minutes and the kid might have been dead. Bonin was immediately arrested, and he was charged with rape of a minor.

His van, it was the death van. All of the ingredients of what was happening to these young men were right there in the van. They found nylon rope and the tire iron that Bonin had used for strangling. most all of the victims like he had David. And they were able to tie the fibers of the van to the fibers they had collected off many of the victims. And so all of this added up. The so-called freeway killer is under arrest today.

Police allege he's responsible for the deaths of more than a dozen boys and young men. I was really happy to hear that the freeway killer got arrested, but I was absolutely afraid that he was going to get out again. The detective spent hours questioning Bonnan, and Bonin finally did confess and describe 21 murders. I had killed him, ran, and then I dropped his body off. that Bonin killed more than the 21.

When I interviewed Bonin, and he said, if I was on the street today, I'd still be killing. He says, once I started, I couldn't stop. He enjoyed it. We love to hear the screams. He never expressed remorse. He never said he was sorry.

It was sickening. I don't know why he let me live. He hadn't murdered anyone yet. So I think I was the one that triggered Bonin. I was just the last person. that was going to lock him up. After that, that's when he said, I'll never let anybody tell him again.

So I've always kind of lived with that guilt of if I didn't tell maybe these kids would be alive. Bonin had two trials. The trial in LA was first, 1982, and followed shortly thereafter with the trial in in Orange County, in 1983. I went to court. Every time in the courtroom with him,

I did my very best to stare at his eyes, even though I was scared to death to death to be in the same room with him. I didn't want him to know that. I testified against him. Who wants to say that kind of stuff in public? Nobody wants to do that, but it's something you have to do to make sure that he doesn't come back out and hurt somebody again.

But it was really, really hard. The moms were rocked by this. It's tragic. I walked out of the courtroom. courtroom. One of the moms grabbed my shirt and she was just pleading with me, you have to speak from my son. Don't let them forget my son. So that's why I still talk about it with the media today. William Bonin has been convicted of killing 14 boys in Southern California from 1979 to 1980. Even though Bonin confessed to more killings than the 14 he was convicted of,

They did not have enough proof to get him on the other killings because they had no concrete evidence. In Los Angeles and then in Orange County, the jury didn't take very long to come back with a death penalty. On February the 23rd, 1996, Bonham was executed by lethal injection in San Quentin State Prison. He was the poster child for the death penalty and he deserved it. It's the end of a very long journey.

Today is the last day of my life that I would stand for being a victim. I used to have nightmares almost nightly because of this. So when it was over, I felt relief. For me, it was closure. He was gone and I knew it. So I could sleep again, and I did. I got my power back. Thousands of free movies and TV shows.

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