Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: But I Was Not Going To Stay On That Floor...

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

A heavily pregnant woman is viciously attacked by a woman obsessed with making the unborn child her own. A couple cling to the rafters of their home as Hurricane Ike unleashes its fury on them. A woman fends off a man who has hidden in her family home for days before brutally attacking her.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 subject matter that may be disturbing some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Even though she's yelling, it was a calm yell. It wasn't like an erratic scream. And I'm thinking to myself, my God, what is this woman doing to me? Real people. It was just total devastation. It was kind of crossed between Disneyland and Vietnam.

Who faced death. The water was coming up, and it came up so fast that we, I mean, we looked out and it was just there. The ocean was in our yard. And lived to tell how. That was the first time I knew. Absolutely I was going to make it. This man was not going to take my life. This is I survived.

It's February 2005 in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Sarah is nine months pregnant with her first child. She receives a call from a woman who claims to have a baby shower gift of Sarah's. A woman had indicated her name was Sarah Brody and that she believed she had mistakenly received a baby gift that belonged to me through an online registry. So she said that she'd done a little investigating on her own and with my name being Sarah Brady and her name being Sarah Brody, she believed that the packages belong to me. So we made arrangements to meet at her apartment for me to pick up the package. Sarah retrieved the package from the woman and promptly returned her.

home. A few hours later, the woman called Sarah back, saying another package had arrived. We had a pretty lengthy conversation that evening. She had talked to me about how she had become pregnant, how her and her husband had moved here from another state, how she didn't have any friends here because they were new. She was very descriptive about her life and how her life was and how happy she was to be pregnant. She told me she was being induced the next day. The woman insisted that Sarah pick up her second package the following morning. My husband actually came home that evening, and I was able to show him the gifts that I received earlier that day from her. He thought, well, here you might find somebody that you can be a friend that's pregnant, having babies right at the same time.

Neither one of us ever suspected anything. And the weird part of it all is that my brother involved. He had seen this package that night and said, I don't want you to go back over there. And I said, what is wrong with you? Why do you think everybody is out to do something bad? Here's a nice lady who went and tracked me down to try to give me my gifts back. The woman says she's getting induced and insists Sarah retrieve her gifts immediately. I kept urging her and like, maybe we should wait.

You're being induced today. It's not that big of a deal to me. You know, I'm fine without it, but she was very insistent that I come get it. So I went on, got dressed, and I went to her house that morning. I probably arrived at her house sometime around 10 o'clock. When I got there, the strange thing was that she was actually waiting inside the doorway of the apartment building. I was just kind of like, okay, she's waiting inside. She must be very anxious for me to come and, you know, get this out of her way.

So I walked into the apartment with her, and behind me she had locked the front door. And the first thing she had said to me was, you know, I hope that doesn't wear you out. There's an elderly lady upstairs, and she's kind of nosy, and I don't want her to be in my business, so I locked the door. The one thing that all set me right away was that her husband wasn't at home. The woman had told Sarah her husband would be home and was excited to meet her. And that's the first thing that kind of all set me. But still, I was just like, okay, well, I kept telling her, all right, well, I'm going to let you go. I'm going to take this home.

I got some errands to run. And she had kept pressing me to stay. She says, why don't you take a tour through my apartment? When we entered her bedroom, the first thing that I noticed on her dresser was a magazine cover. And it had been torn out in frames. And it was actually the women of sex in the city. And all their faces were scratched out and different names were written above them. And one of them was Sarah.

And about that same time as I'm noticing that picture, she says to me, why are you carrying around your car keys? Are they your security blanket? it. I think, who says that? By now, Sarah had her baby gift and had been trying to leave for 30 minutes. And as we were leaving the bedroom, I noticed an inhaler on our nightstand that said Katie Smith. The woman had told Sarah her name was Sarah Brody. I thought, okay. So like all these different things are going on in my mind and I'm not really sure how to piece them together.

But as we're leaving her bedroom, she drops to the floor, screaming in pain, as if she's in labor. So everything that I've seen up to this point or that has made me uncomfortable, I kind of pushed to the back of my mind because here's this woman going into labor. So I help her up and I get her to the bathroom and I tell her you need to make sure your water hasn't broken. You know, we need to cause a doctor. Here I'm frightened. I've never had a child of my own before.

I'm scared to death. She's moaning in pain leaned over on top of me. there's barely any room in this bathroom for either one of us to move. And at that point is when I became frightened because she was like literally gripping my arms and she just looked up with this almost demonic look in her face. And it was just like everything changed. Like it was like the person that I had met the day prior

and had been talking to suddenly wasn't the person that was standing before me. Every hair on my body stood up. And I just thought, my God, something's really bad, wrong. I don't know what it is, but I got to get out of here. Pregnant Sarah pulled herself free from the woman's grip and headed for the front door. I thought to myself, now what do I do? This is my opportunity to leave, or do I make sure she gets help? So, of course, I'm yelling out to her, making sure she's okay, and she comes right back into the living room, like she had not just been moaning and pain and on the ground, crying, and I said, did your water break? Nope, I don't think so. And I said to her, well, you know, I haven't had a child before.

but I'm pretty sure you will know when your water breaks. And I said, I think you need to call your doctor. The woman went into her bedroom and pretended to call her doctor. Sarah could tell she was faking, but did not yet know why. So I became kind of assertive at that point because I was angry. I was offended. I was angry and I was uneasy. And it was time for me to go.

So she goes into her dining room. She brings back these coupons for me. Keeps insisting on trying to keep me there. And at this point, I'm like, okay. I'm leaving. Thank you for the coupons. I have to go. Well, on the back of one of them, it said especially for Katie Smith. So I'm like, okay. The inhaler on the nightstand says Katie Smith. The coupons say Katie Smith. She's telling me her name is Sarah Brady, but nothing up to this point is nothing's in sequence.

Nothing is right. Something is so wrong. And who is this woman standing in front of me? And as I tried to leave, she kept insisting and give me a hug. And I'm, literally pushing her off of me as she's trying to hug me. And that's when she pulled out the knife. She pulls out the knife. It's leaning over top her head. I have no real time to have any thought process.

I mean, it may have been three seconds. And I literally just reached up and knocked it out of her hand. The first thing that she said to me was, you're not going anywhere, you effing bitch. And once the knife hit the ground and she realized, hey, it's not in my hand anymore, she literally, I was leaning back again the love seat, and she flips me over it.

Pregnant Sarah landed on her stomach. The woman then jumped onto Sarah's back. She was actually on top of me, hitting me on the head with some type of it. It was like a round glass dish, like a candy dish. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm going to die. I'm going to lay here on this ground, and I'm going to die. And I'm laying there, and I'm seeing pictures of my now husband at the time. and my stepson and my mom and my grandparents

and everybody that I loved and my friends and my family. And I'm thinking, I'm not going to lay on this ground and die. And I am not letting her take my child's life. So I pulled everything I had and threw her off, literally threw her off my back. And she hit the ground and I went running to the front door and got it unlocked. And I made it to the front of the apartment building itself.

And at that point, I was trying to get the front door open and I couldn't get the glass of the screen open and I feel her breath on the back of my neck and I'm thinking to myself oh my God I've made it this far I just have to get out this door I get out this door I'm going to be outside and somebody's going to find me she starts banging my head against the glass door and she wraps her arm around the around my neck and takes the other one and just literally pulls me back here I I'm huge. I'm nine months pregnant.

I'm a week overdue. And she's literally dragging me back in. That's how much strength she had. And she's screaming into my ear, you effing bitch. Nobody can hear you. Quit screaming. You're not going anywhere. I'm thinking to myself, my God, what is this woman doing to me?

And she pulls me back through the hallway. And I'm kicking and screaming and scratching at the walls. And she finally, I just, I lose my strength. breaks me through the door and slams it and gets me back down on the ground. But this time I really start to fight back. I start throwing punches myself, and I think my motherly instinct kicked in. And I thought, no, you're not hurting my child. You can hurt me, but you're not going to hurt her.

I was actually on top of her at one point, and I was hitting her as hard as I could, hoping to knock her literally out so that I could get out of the apartment and be free. and as I get off of her she just jumps up off the ground and I'm thinking my God I didn't knock her out and she just gets closer to me and closer to me

and she starts brushing the hair out of my face and at this point all I want to do is throw up because I am just overwhelmed with emotion and pain and I'm sorry

and And so she starts to brush the hair from my face. And she says to me, you're not going anywhere, but I won't hurt you. You just sit here. We have to clean up my apartment before my husband gets back. And I'm thinking to myself, does this woman have split personalities? I mean, I have no. And I'm just bagging her.

And I'm pleading with her. Please. Just let's go to the hospital and check on our babies. saying anything to her thinking she'll go and at that point she pulls out the knife and i said katie please by now sarah knew the woman was katie smith not sarah brodie as she claimed and when i caught her katie she snapped and she pulled out the knife and she just came charging at me with it and i grabbed the blade of the knife and I thought as long as I hang on to the knife

she can't stab me with it and I literally take my hands and just twist the blade until I'm able to get it loose from her and I just started swinging the knife towards Katie hoping not to stab her not to hurt her for her to back up

so that I can get out and she just keeps coming and coming she just goes for it And at that point is when I stabbed her. Sarah thought she had stabbed Katie in the shoulder. She fell back in her love seat and the blood became to immerse from through her sweatshirt. She looked up at me and said, you stab me, you effing bitch.

And at that point, I ran out of the apartment building screaming for help. Sarah flagged down a passing van, then blacked out on the curb. When Sarah came to the hospital, she was questioned by police. The detectives came in. And they asked me why I thought Katie was pregnant. And I told them because she was. I'm not crazy. I've seen her twice.

I just was in, you know, an altercation with her. I know she was pregnant. And they said, well, we believe she might have been wearing something or, I mean, because she had stuffed her shirt. They said, by the way, she didn't make it. Sarah unknowingly stabbed Katie in a major artery, and Katie bled to death. Police found a maternity suit, an umbilical cord clamp, and a surgical kit in Katie's home.

Authorities believe Katie had planned to kill Sarah and extract her unborn child. The police found so much overwhelming evidence. She had faked that they know of at least 11 pregnancies from the 8th grade on. She had faked stillborn deliveries. She had collected money for funerals. I mean, family members really thought she was pregnant. She had baby showers. She was a very psychotic person,

but very articulate and very well-spoken and knew exactly what she was doing. A grand jury absolved Sarah of any crime and deemed Katie's death an act of self-defense. Sarah is now the proud mother of Michaela Grace. I wholeheartedly believe that I survived because of my daughter. I believe that she gave me the strength with God. to prevail, and instead of becoming a victim, I became a survivor.

And I have to be a survivor for my daughter. That's the whole reason I survived was because of her. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price's Right Fortune Pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSeds remind you to play responsibly.

19 plus to wager, Ontario only, please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGEMM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. It's September 2008. Sherman and his wife, Deanne, live in a small beach town on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Hurricane Ike, a Category 3 storm, is expected to hit there within several hours. Ike was coming in.

When we realized it was actually going to hit the peninsula, I knew we were in trouble. I knew it was going to be a really, really bad storm. Otherwise, we wouldn't have tried so hard to leave. We were prepared to leave, and the reason we didn't get out, because about the time we were getting ready to get out, The water was coming up, and it came up so fast that we, I mean, we looked out and it was just there. The ocean was in our yard. The hurricane touched down hours earlier than expected, with winds over 100 miles per hour.

Sherman and Deanne were stuck in their house, which sat atop 16-foot pilinges near the shore. Before we could get the two 16-year-old dogs, the big birds up in the attic, a little crawl space attic, the first wave hit. The couple had two dogs, two cats, and an aviary full of birds. The water now is 20 feet deep from the ground. But the wave was like 15 to 20 feet on top of this water. The wave actually hit the eaves of our house. It was kind of like a bulldozer going through the house. It came through the living room wall, took the whole living room wall out.

The living room, all of us, we went up against the other side of the house. of the house. The water's just totally unstoppable. It moved everything. It pushed the walls in, pushed the floor completely out from under the front of the house. It was like at that point we knew we were there for the long haul. We weren't going anywhere. Just grab what you could do, get, and go up in the attic.

Because we had nowhere else to go. All roads out were completely under water. From up in the attic, we could look down and see the water and the waves actually washing through. We could see like two or three foot breakers like you would see at the beach in the hallway and coming through the bathroom in the back bedroom, just like you were sitting at the beach. This went on for hours and hours. Just, I can't even tell you how it felt to be in that dark attic with a flashlight. The ladder is down, and I'm hanging off this rafter and watching the waves wash through my house.

and you're hearing the glass is breaking, and it sounds like a war zone. And all I'm doing, I'm praying, dear Lord, please don't let this house fall. Don't let this house fall. Hurricane Ike rips through their beachfront town with 135 miles per hour winds. The couple are trapped in their attic as 20-foot swells crashed through their home below. Right before we went up, the last three people I talked to, my granddaughter, and she, She's just crying her eyes out. What are you going to do, Mama Dee?

What are you going to do? Baby, there's nothing we can do except go up in the attic. That's all we can do. When we first got into the attic, we knew we didn't have the things we needed to survive because they were already gone. But we had flashlights and we sat and looked down through the hole where the ladder goes up and down. And that's where you could actually see the waves coming through just like sitting at the beach.

You expected to see seashells and small children with umbrellas. It was the ocean right there in your house. It sounded like a war zone. It was horrible. And the ways were just going through the house, I don't know how to explain it to you, except that how I felt at that moment was, okay, fine. Lord God, I know the house is gone,

but can we please live? Just let us live. Just don't let it fall. And that was my prayer. Father God, hold this house up, don't let it fall. Deanne and Sherman clung to the attic rafters, bracing for the eye of the storm. When the eye hit, it's just a sudden drop.

It's like all of a sudden you went deaf instantly. And there's not a sound. I mean, there's no wind, there's no waves. There's not one sound. It's just total, absolute dead. And I just looked at Sherman and I said, it's over and he said, no, baby, we got the backlash. Though the couple had made it through the eye of the storm,

the back end was yet to hit. Our biggest fear was the fact that when the storm came back the other way, it would finish tearing the house down. With 140-mile-hour winds and the water, 20-something-foot deep, there was just, there's no possibility you can survive. 135 miles per hour winds picked up again and began lifting the couple's home off its foundation. When the rafter started raising up, right when the storm came back, my wife asked me what we were going to do. And I told her, well, now we're probably going to die. And I told him then, I said, it's been a good 25 years, I love you, and I'll see you in heaven. And we were pretty sure we were going to die.

At that point, we knew we were going to die. The couple clings to the rafters through the night, praying they will survive. I didn't think it was ever going to stop. And I kept praying. Just let the daylight come. I just somehow know there in my mind, I thought, if the light would just be able to just, come. Everything will be okay. The storm had finally

passed at 8 a.m. the next morning. I came down from the attic about probably 9 o'clock in the morning. It was like you were on a seashore after a storm, but it was in our house. It took several hours to clear a path, pushing stuff out of the way and

scraping stuff out of the way, to get into the living room, and there was our love seat sitting there in the living floor, but you could see the ocean all around it. We watched guitars floating and keyboards floating and cages floating, and we just watched our whirl floating out there in the ocean, and everybody else's too.

All that was left of Sherman and Deanne's home was its foundation. It was just total devastation. It was kind of cross between Disneyland and Vietnam. The block of houses across the canal from us just wasn't there. There was no debris, there was no house, piling's left standing, there was no slabs, there was nothing. It was just, it was like they were ready to start construction on a new place. There was not a living soul that I saw, not one living soul. It really, it made you feel like you were the only person left alive on earth.

It really did. Sherman and Deanne had only enough food and water to last a few days. There's no green grass, there's no green tree leaves, there's no green weeds. It's all brown dead. We had dead cows and the fill and horses and cats and dogs and they were just dead everywhere. And it was bad. And, you know, I'm thinking, well, what are we going to do?

We can't survive here. When I first tried to leave the house, the front of the house, the floor fell completely out from under me, and I had to ride it down to the ground. And I stuck a piece of wood into my hand. I didn't realize that at the time I thought it was a big raw place, and I couldn't straighten my wrist out. It was just locked in one place and it wouldn't move. Sherman fell 16 feet to the muddy ground below.

A two-inch piece of wood was wedged in his wrist. But at the time, I didn't have time to worry about it. I was on a mission. I had to find food and water. He said, DM, we've got to have some water. It's not the way we can survive. And he said, I'm going to go look for water. Sherman walked over a mile

through sludge and debris in search of clean water I came to this little local store we had up there but it had blown the back wall out of this store and here were these gallon jugs of water laying out back so I rescued 10 of them

and realized I couldn't carry 10 jugs of water he found a t-shirt up there in a tree and he pulled a t-shirt off the tree and put 10, one-gallon jugs of water and he's trying to pull it home now. He's going to pull it through this mud and his sludge. He's going to get us some water home. So I drug him a mile and a half back to the house. And just before I got to the house, I thought it was getting my second wind. I was real proud of myself. It was getting easier to drag these

things until I got to the house and found out there was only four of them had any water left in them. But we did have four gallons of water. And it was covered in mud. And of course, we had to get through that to get to the water, but we did. The couple had only a enough food and water to last a few days. They had already been stranded without any sign of help for 48 hours. They had no access to their roof from the attic. Sherman's hanging out the side of the house there, and a helicopter comes by. And this helicopter takes, and he's hanging there now, up at him, waving at him,

and they put this spotlight on him. And I'm waving to him. I can see the guy, I can see his face. And they hovered there for about five minutes. And then they just go away, just go away. We'd just about give up. I said, well, Sherman, what are we going to do? Because that's my favorite thing, Sherman, what are we going to do? They said, well, Dan, I don't think they're going to look anymore.

I think they're about through looking. And I said, don't you say that? I know God didn't save us for us to be stuck here. There's somebody's going to come. A few hours later, Sherman heard a helicopter overhead. I ran downstairs down the ladder and out into the front of the yard. took a t-shirt off and I just stood there and waved it. The arm about fell off.

He was out there with his t-shirt, just waving it, anybody, and everybody did come by. Finally, a medic copter saw him. The medical helicopter landed on a dry patch of land nearby. And this little guy jumps out with this big old pack over his back, and he's running toward him, and he's running toward him. I wish I could have had it on camera. Sherman told me then, he said that's the closest I ever come to kissing the man. And he had tears in his eyes because he was really tired.

He'd been trying so hard to keep us alive. And he's about give up. He didn't think we was going to get rescued even. The helicopter left the couple behind to rescue others, but radioed for help. Two hours later, a rescue boat arrived and took Sherman and Deanne to dry ground. They're saying there's a little over 300 that are still missing and not accounted for. There were so many people down there on that beach. I can't put a number on it

we were there for 25 years it's a lot of people over 15,000 Crystal Beach residents were displaced from their homes Sherman and Deanne relocated to Granbury, Texas the memories the memories were still there

it was home and you knew everybody and that's a little hard to get over I survived because God's not through with me yet seriously That is the reason that I survived. I survived because God's not through punishing my wife yet. Actually, we survived because we worked at it. We worked at it real hard.

It's September 1986 in Austin, Texas. Ellen lives in an affluent area in the hills outside of Austin. Ellen's husband and children were gone for the day. She was home alone. I got up, had a very busy day. I sat around, read the newspaper, drank coffee for a little while, and then I decided I better get moving. So I went upstairs to where my bedroom was and took a shower,

wash my hair, just the normal things that I would do in the morning. I stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and as I was walking from my shower to my closet to get a rope, I spotted a man hiding in the corner of my bathroom. I couldn't believe what I saw. I saw a man dressed in a ninja suit. He had black things tied around his head. He had a black outfit on and even had gloves on his hands.

The only thing that I could see was just the skin around his eyes and his eyes. He had his right hand held high up in the air and in that hand was a big knife, a very big knife. The masked attacker

was holding a meat cleaver. At first I thought it was a joke. I don't know why, but I remember kind of laughing and then I rolled into thinking well this is a nightmare and I was telling myself, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.

He began screaming at me to get on the floor, to get on the floor and we actually touch He tussled a little bit. He had that big knife in the right hand, but with the left hand he was pushing on me, and we actually tussle some. And we moved out of the bathroom,

back into my bedroom, and at that point was when he backhanded me with his left hand and knocked me to the floor. But I got up again, and he backhanded me again, and knocked me to the floor. But I was not going to stay on that floor. I got up, and I went open.

And I went over and sat on the edge, the bottom edge of my bed. Ellen was naked except for a towel wrapped around her. I began pulling my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my knees, somehow to kind of hide myself. My feet were hanging off the edge of the bed. And he took the big knife that he had on his right hand, and he dragged it across my feet. I didn't know what he meant, but he said, I just want you to know that my knives are a lot sharper than your knives. He binds Ellen's hands behind her back and tapes her ankles together. He said, I want you to put your head down.

I want you to look at your knees and don't you raise your eyes up. In fact, you close your eyes and you leave your head like that until I tell you that you can move. So I did. He took off his mask, and he tied his mask on my face so I could not see him. And he said, you know what, it's a shame you can't see me. I am half black and half white, and I am a very handsome man. After he tied his mask on my face, he just began walking, walking and pacing. He began asking me how much money I had.

How much money do you have in the bank? How much money do you have at your office? You have a beautiful house. You must have a lot of money. I offered to drive him to the bank, and I could write a check, and he could get every single penny out of the bank. I said everything that I could think of at the time to say,

to try and not have him so angry, with me. And he kept telling me, you're going to have a bad accident lady, a bad accident. He told me he was a drifter. He'd been on the road for two months. He told me he'd been in my house for two days. He told me about things that had gone on in my house while he was there because he was in the attic and he was listening to everything. He knew my husband was going to play golf and that he wouldn't be back until the middle of the afternoon. He knew my son was at school that day, and he wouldn't be home to the middle of the afternoon. Ellen had no way to persuade the attacker to leave.

It was about that time that he told me what he was going to do to me next. He was going to rape me. Those weren't the words he used. But I remember begging him. I remember crying, sobbing, and begging him. Please don't do this. I'm a Christian. please, please, please don't do this.

He told me that no one would ever catch him. It didn't matter what he did to me. He cut the tape around my ankles, and he told me to get back on the bed. I had a hard time doing that. I didn't want to get back on the bed. But he kept yelling at me, get back on the bed, get back on the bed, until my head was near the top of the bed.

I was crying. And then he raped me. When the rape was over, he told me how much he had enjoyed it. After that, he bound my ankles together again. My hands were still bound behind my back, and I had on a blindfold. He left me on the bed, and he went and took a shower.

The attacker had now been terrorizing Ellen for an hour. While he was taking that shower and I was lying on the bed, I kept wondering, is there anything I can do? I mean, I could only hop. I didn't have my hands. I was blindfolded. I just, I didn't do anything. I knew I couldn't get away, and I was afraid he would kill me instantly if I tried.

After he showered, the attacker put his ninja suit on and approached Ellen on the bed. He cut my hands apart and showed me a check that he had written for $600. And he told me he wanted me to sign it. So he had me sign it. And then he told me his name. So I could write his name in. Ellen made the checkout to Troy Eugene. Wigley. The attacker then tied Ellen's hands and made her go into the bathroom.

He told me he wanted me to lie face down on the floor. But he wanted me on my knees with my face against the floor, like a fetal position. I didn't know what was going on. I had no idea what was going to happen. The next thing I knew, I have felt a horrendous blow to the right side of my head. I didn't know what had happened. He hit me with something. He knocked me completely over. When I was lying on my side, I felt him stab me in my left breast. He straightened me up. And the next thing I knew, there was another blow to the right side of my head. The same as the one before, and he'd knocked me over again. The attacker was smashing Ellen's head with a hammer. He then pulled out his knife again.

And then he stabbed me. Two times in the back of my neck. Two quick stabs, in and out, in and out. The next thing I knew, he had taken his knife and he was trying to stab it through my skull, but he couldn't, the knife wouldn't go in. So he got his hammer, and he hammered his knife into my skull.

He may have hit me in the head with a hammer again. I don't know. But I will never forget when he wanted to get the knife out and he couldn't get it out, that he put his foot on the top of my head, and he shook my head around like a rag doll as he was trying to get that knife out of the top of my head. Ellen was going in and out of consciousness, lying in a pool of blood. There was some time that passed after that. I didn't know where he was.

And I remember that I turned my head to look, but I could see back in my bedroom, and I saw him in there. He was not in his outfit anymore. And he screamed, put your head back down again. And he came in and he hit me in the head with that hammer one more time. Well, I knew.

He wanted me dead. And I didn't move after that. He came over to me and pulled my left hand up, and he was trying to get my wedding rings off. He couldn't get him off. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, oh my God, he's going to cut my fingers off, and I remember thinking, God help me.

And God did. The attacker got Ellen's wedding rings off and left the room. I was scared to move or even try to move because I didn't know where he was, but I was so cold. I had lost so much blood, and I knew I was going to die. I knew I was going to die if I didn't get help.

I still didn't know if he was there. I didn't know if he was going to pop out any minute with his knives and hammer. I didn't know. I just knew that my instinct for survival was telling me I had to get help. Of course, I couldn't stand up. And I remember that I, I tried to pull myself along the floor.

I actually slithered out of my bathroom, through my bedroom, and I slid down a flight of stairs to the floor below. Ellen felt her way to a phone and called her parents. Ellen's parents called an ambulance and rushed to her home. I don't remember anything after I made that telephone call. until I heard my father scream when he saw me on the floor. I remember hearing the EMS personnel talking, and they said they didn't think I was going to make it. I couldn't say anything, but I remember thinking to myself,

oh, you bet I'm going to make it. That was the first time I knew absolutely I was going to make it. This man was not going to take my life. Ellen was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. She had deep stab wounds in her breast, back, and head, and required over 600 stitches. When I saw my family again, I was just so grateful that I was alive. I wasn't sure how I lived through that. 18-year-old Troy Wigley was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison.

Ellen made a full recovery. She is now the director of the Victim Witness Division of the DA's office in Austin, Texas. I survived because I wasn't ready to go. I had the strength to make it, and I pulled on that strength many, many times during this ordeal. I wasn't ready to go. 21 Jump Street, Ted, the expendables, and so much more on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.