Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Could Smell The Fuel Was Coming Into The Train

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

Arkesha is on her way home from a school dance when she is robbed and sexually assaulted by two young men. While looking for help she explains what has happened to a passerby only for him to assault her as well. Jeremy and Jenny were strangers on a train for their daily commute when it crashes. Struggling between the desire to help and self preservation Jeremy helps pull Jenny from the burning wreckage of the first car. Yvette is on her first date with a good friend who is teaching her black and white photography when a young man opens fire on them. Aura: For a limited time visit Aura.com/Trust to sign up for a 14 day free trial and start protecting your loved ones! Huggies: Head to Huggies.com to learn more! Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. 

This episode of I Survived is brought to you by Huggies. Baby butts rejoice. New Huggies skin essentials are here. A brand new dermatologist approved line of diapers, wipes, and pull-ups training pants, all designed with baby's sensitive skin in mind. This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners.

Listener discretion is advised. I could see the bright flashes of light. that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. I could see the bright flashes of light. There was this smoke in the air, this smell of the gun. Real people. He literally raped me for over two hours. And I knew how close I was to home.

And I just figured if I can hold on until I can get home, it will be better. Who faced death? I could smell the fuel was just coming in the train. It was getting very hot and stuffy. And there was flames outside the window. And lived to tell how. He's probably six inches from my face.

And then he aimed at my head and emptied out the three or four more bullets to make sure that I died. This is I Survived. It's October 1988 in New Orleans, Louisiana. 13-year-old Arkesha is at her junior high school dance. When the dance ends, her boyfriend walks her to the bus stop. He walked me back to the main highway where the bus was. And the only reason I was going to catch the bus because it was 11 p.m. and it was dark. So I didn't want to walk back home. I told him he didn't have to stay at the bus stop with me because the bus was coming, and he left.

As Arkesha waited, two men approached and asked her when the next bus was due. It looked like they had to be teenagers, 18, 19 maybe. The first guy was, he was short, light-skinned. He had like real bad acne in his face. And the second guy was taller, very dark-skinned. When I put my hand up to point and say the bus was coming, he grabbed my hand and said, don't run.

If you run, if you scream, my friend has a gun, he'll shoot you. Snatched the necklace off of my neck. And he said, do you have money? And I said, yes. I went in my pocket and I gave him, it couldn't have been more than $3. And as he's taking the jewelry and the money,

we're walking into the park. The men forced Arkesha towards a nearby football stadium. And he's holding my arm the whole time. He never let my arm go. And as we're walking, he reminded me that the guy behind us had a gun. And that's when I really, really got scared, because I didn't really know if I was going to make it out of there. We got to the fence where there was a hole in the fence. And he told me to go into the hole.

And I said, you know, why? I gave you everything. And he said, no, it's just to make sure you're not going to run back to the highway. And then once we got through the fence, and he told me to take my clothes off, we were underneath the stadium seats in the stadium. And he told me to get under the seats. And the other guy stayed outside by the fence and this first guy raped me and then when it was over and the second guy came in I I just really kind of lost it

because I thought it was over he He didn't say anything. He just got on top of me and raped me. The first guy came back and said to count to 100. But if I came out before I got to 100, that they were going to be waiting and that they were going to shoot me. Arkesha counted to 100 before leaving the stadium. Well, when I came out of the park onto the highway, I realized I was hurting real bad

and I looked down and there was blood on my shorts. I couldn't run. Just physically walking was hard. So I walked as fast as I could, trying to get home. It was probably going to take me about five minutes to walk home, because it wasn't that far. I was praying. I was thanking God that they didn't kill me.

And I just figured if I get home, and once I see my mom, she was going to fix it. She was going to make it better. As I'm leaving the park and I'm walking, trying to get home, I see this man standing in the walkway and he's drinking a beer and as I get closer he's I realized he's not one of the guys that just raped me he was an older guy very dingy like he had on a black jacket army fatigue pants blue shorts and boots his

hair wasn't cut he was he was a frightening looking person I had blood on me and and I was crying so I didn't want anybody I didn't want this person to see me looking this way because I just wanted to get home. He said, hey, where are you going? And I wasn't going to answer him. I was going to walk past him. And then he grabbed me, and he said, stop crying. Just tell me what happened.

And I said, I just got robbed and raped. He wanted to know what happened in detail. So I told him what happened about the whole situation. And he seemed like he sympathized with me at first. And I was crying and he's like, "'So where do you live?' He just wanted to know where did I live, who did I live with.

I told him my mom and my family and that we didn't live far. So then he said that he had a gun and to come with him. And I just almost collapsed. I could see my house, literally, I could see it. I was about a block away. I just kind of could not believe that this was actually happening again. And I started crying even more. And we get behind the building, and there's a door that's open.

And he told me to go in there. He closed the door. And then he told me to take my clothes off. He started to rape me. And he smelled like alcohol, like he had been drinking all day or something. And he had a beard that was very scratchy. He literally raped me for over two hours at least.

And as I cried and pleaded with him, he told me the story about a lady that was found raped and murdered six months earlier in that same alley. And he told me that he was the person that killed her. I really just started to pray and ask God to give me the strength to do whatever he wants so I could just make it home to my mother, who I knew was going to fix it. She was going to make it better.

And that's all I kept thinking about, is if I just could get home. And I knew how close I was to home. And I just figured if I can hold on until I can get home, it will be better. When he left, I got dressed. And I just got out of there. I didn't care.

At that point, I was in so much pain that I didn't care if he was outside. And he shot me. I walked out of there and I walked that block and I went home. And my mom and sister were waiting for me because they had been driving around for like three hours looking for me.

And my mom came out and she cut the light on and she started screaming what happened. And then she just held me. And I did feel like it was going to be okay at that point. I did feel like everything that had just happened kind of went away. Because I felt like she was going to make it better. She was going to fix it. She brought me to the police station

and she kept encouraging me that none of this was my fault, that these people didn't have the right to do what they did to me and that we were going to get justice. Well, it was three days later after the rape, my mom, my sister, and I were coming home from the grocery store. And as we're riding down the street, I see this man with a black jacket, camouflage pants, and black boots. And as we're driving past, I start screaming, saying, Mom, that's the man.

That's the man. She pulled by a pay phone, and she called the police. And they came and met us. And I told them, yes, it was the same person. And then he was arrested. A week after that, we got a phone call to go down to the local hospital. And the DA met us at the hospital.

And a doctor came in and said they needed to talk to us. It was me and my mom. And they explained to us that this guy who raped me, the last guy, that he was HIV positive. And because he raped me, that means I was exposed to it. And I was tested. They did my blood work. Initially, like every two weeks, they would do it.

And then every month. It was real scary not knowing if this is the month that the test is going to be positive. And at the time, HIV was very new and scary to everybody and and it was like the plague almost. If you had it nobody wanted to associate themselves with you. So a lot of the support I had initially with the rape, it kind of turned because some, meaning classmates and younger people, started to label me as this girl with HIV. And it made high school kind of hard, but I dealt with it. The two men who raped Arkesha at the stadium were never caught. Her third attacker was initially charged with aggravated rape and kidnapping. Maybe six months, six to nine months later, the DA came back and said they decided to also charge him with attempted murder.

Because he knew he was HIV positive already. He had knowledge of it. So that was considered attempted murder. I felt like he deserved the death penalty. He deserved anything he got because he knew beforehand that I had already been assaulted twice and he knew he was HIV positive and he still raped me anyway. As he knew he was HIV positive when he attacked Arkesha, Arnold Manuel was charged with her attempted murder. My case was the first case in Louisiana to be tried and convicted. He got life in prison. He died in prison because they notified us when he died. Arkesha has now married and has three children. She never became HIV positive.

It was always scary. Whenever I went to my yearly examination and blood work, I was always fearful that this could be the year that it comes back that I'm HIV positive. But it's never happened. And I've got kids to prove it. And I'm healthy, so I'm good. I survived because I always held on to my mother's strength

and what she taught me, to just believe that you're not at fault for what happens. And I just survived because I knew she would fix it. And she did. It was a miracle that I didn't become positive. So I've always used that to do better, to want more. And I feel great that I've been blessed. I have a husband that loves me and three wonderful kids. And, you know, we have a restaurant we own in New Orleans

and my life is great. I have no complaints. I've been truly blessed. It feels like I hear news about a major leak of personal information every week. And recently, it's even happened at major phone and healthcare companies, which means your private information can be easily found online. But why? It's because of data brokers who get your data legally and sell it to banks, health insurance companies, predatory lenders, and even scammers. That's why I'm thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura is an all-in-one online safety solution that

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between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary, discounts not available in all states or situations. It's September 2008 in Chatsworth, California. It's Friday afternoon and train 111 is on its scheduled run through the San Fernando Valley. Regular commuter Jeremy is in his usual seat upstairs in the last car. I started taking the train around 2001 or so, and it was great. I would bring a book with me, bring my iPod, listen to music, read. After a while, you make some friends on the train.

You start to have conversations and make buddies. Jenny, another passenger, was seated two cars ahead of Jeremy in the first car. There was probably about six people on the lower car with us, and there were several people that chose to go upstairs, some families and some elderly people. Near me was my colleague, and across was a young college student, and then there was a woman to the right of me at the tables. Jeremy and his friend Carolyn always sat in the last car. I had a friend who was in an accident several years ago on the Metrolink who was sitting in the front of the train that day and was horribly injured. And that was kind of the life lesson for me,

that you need to sit in the back of the trains whenever you're riding on a Metrolink train. My friend Carolyn and I, who we would ride the train often with, we would sit and talk and debate about politics or sports and just start talking about all the stuff that was going on in the world, you know. So we were in the middle of this, of just this conversation when we pulled into Chatsworth Station. Train 111 made a scheduled stop at the Chatsworth Station. Typically when we would pull into the station in Chatsworth, we would stop there and wait for a freight train to go by. We were deep in conversation, having our hot debate about politics and whatnot, and neither of us even noticed that day that we didn't stop and wait for this freight train to go by. We just stopped, offloaded our passengers, unloaded some new

passengers, and went on our way. No one knew that Train 111's engineer had missed the red signal warning him to stop. So we pulled out of Chatsworth Station, and Carolyn and I are still talking. And it's not more than 30, 40 seconds. There's a big curve and two tunnels. I saw a train coming towards us from the two tunnels, but I didn't really think anything of it at first,

because I didn't know it was a single train track. I'm riding backwards. I'm mid-sentence talking to Carolyn. I could see the train coming at us after it came out of the tunnels. That's when it happened. That's when the freight train came barreling into our Metrolink train. One second you're going 40 miles an hour, the next second you're dead, stopped.

Obviously I had no idea what had happened, what had gone on, but I knew something horrible had happened because the minute, the entire train now is all in front of me because I'm running backwards, I'm in the last seat looking at the entire third car, upstairs third car. And all I see is chaos in front of me now where the normal seats with normal passengers

all sitting in seats, all reading, all doing normal things that you would do on a train. It's now none of those people are in their seats anymore. They're all laying on the ground, they're all laying about. And the seats are no longer, half the seats are no longer there.

There's debris everywhere. And you just can't believe what you're seeing. The collision had buried the freight train's engine 50 feet inside train 111's first car. The Metrolink is like an aluminum can. It's split. The other train just split right through our train into the first car, and most of the people that had been in the car weren't there anymore.

They had been thrown out of the train, and we were tipped on our left side. I was leaning against the wall, so I was fairly safe. My friend Carolyn, on the other hand, though, was sitting across from me facing that wall. And upon impact, she went flying into that wall head first. It was one of the most, it was like the movie Carrie, where they dump the bucket of blood on the girl's head.

To the left of me, I could see the woman who, an elderly woman who had the train table in her abdomen. And next to me, the young girl was gone. She was absolutely missing. But her severed arm, I believe, was there. And I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I've never seen so many injured people in my life.

I've never seen such horrible injuries in my life. And I know that if our car like this, I can only imagine what the first car and the second car are looking like. Jeremy saw a semi-conscious sheriff's deputy and used his radio to call for help. I could hear people beginning to cry and to scream. And I looked at my colleague, and she was knocked out

unconscious in her chair. And when I looked to the side of the other window, the whole outside of our train car was on fire. And I look up at the front to where the first car is, and I see it's on fire. Our engine has disappeared at this point. I can't see our engine. All I see is the first car. And I'm going, where's our engine? So I run back into our car, and I scream it's on fire. Our engine has disappeared at this point. I can't see our engine. All I see is the first car.

And I'm going, where's our engine? So I run back into our car and I scream at everybody. We've hit a freight train. We've hit a freight train. The first car's on fire. And I look at Carolyn. I say, Carolyn, don't move. Stay where you are.

I'll be back. I went over to where this little fire extinguisher was. And I break the glass and I wrestle the fire extinguisher out of there. And I get out of the third car I was in again and I go running as fast as I can. You could smell the fuel was just coming in the train it was getting very hot and stuffy and there was flames outside the window. As you're getting closer you hear it you hear the screams coming from the first car all you're hearing is help me help me get me out of here help me help me please help me oh god oh god and I'm thinking Jeremy you're going to become another you're about to become another victim now you're hearing is, help me, help me, get me out of here, help me, help me, please help me, oh God, oh God. And I'm thinking, Jeremy, you're going to become another,

you're about to become another victim now. You're about to become another injured person. Do you really want to do this? And you hear this screaming. And so that's, I think, what kept me going is like, you have to do this, you've got to try. The fire was getting very close. Big flames were going right by the left side of my window.

And I knew that we were trapped. But then I could see the man coming from the end, running towards the window with a little fire extinguisher. I pulled a pin on this fire extinguisher, and I go, pssh. He was trying to put out the flames that were getting bigger in the outside of our car. The fire goes like this.

It goes down, and then it goes right back up again. It doesn't do anything. And the fire shames was a joke because it's tiny. It doesn't do a darn thing. And at this point, I can see diesel fuel running down the side of the tracks even. So I'm really freaking out. I'm picturing this stuff just burning right down the side of

the track and catching the entire train on fire. I was very, very worried about the fire. I didn't know that I was trapped under metal chairs, but I knew for some reason that I couldn't just get up. I'm freaking out that it's going to blow up, so I start to run away from that first car. Another gentleman who was on the train was running towards the first car now,

and he's yelling at me, come back, come back. We've got to help these people. Come back. It's not going to blow up. It's diesel fuel. It won't blow up. It won't blow up, come back. So I stop at a dime and turn around, him and I go running back to the first car. Another man came and he and the first man kicked in the door window.

When you looked into the car, all you saw was metal, body part, body part, body part, metal, moving head, metal all around it. You can't see any other part of their body, just the head that's maybe backwards and lolling around, eyes open, looking at you. There were a few people who were actually moving, who weren't embedded in all that metal, who actually seemed to be all right. So we jump in, and we lift some debris off of these people. They came directly to me first and said, we have to help you. And I said, no, help the woman with the tray in her abdomen. They tried to move the woman with the table embedded,

but I don't believe that she survived. So then they turned and helped my colleague and myself. I didn't feel any pain at all. I had huge adrenaline, and I didn't realize that the entire backside of my, from my head down to my leg, was impacted with metal chairs. We said, all right, we're going to move you. We're going to get you out of here.

The train's on fire. We want to get you out of the train. We want to get you out of the train. We want to get you to a safety area. I just remember reaching into the car and grabbing her and just kind of ripping her out of the car. We get Jenny and two other women out, and we just go limping off with them. And I remember handing her off to somebody else, and I'm screaming at all of them, hurry,

hurry, come on, come on, this train's going to blow up. Come on, come on. At that point, there was nobody else loose in the car who you could get out. You hear a voice somewhere up there in the smoke where you think the fire is going, oh God, help me, help me, please help me. Just looking at this going, I'm not the brave enough person to go back in there. I'm just not that guy. To be perfectly honest, I'm just horrified and scared out of my mind that I'm about to

die. The first responders were four firemen in a truck. They were talking on the walkie-talkie, and they said, it's a huge train wreck. It's so big. Bring everything you have to help. There was no place to go because it's just the train tracks, these big cement boulders, and a large ravine.

So we just sat down on the rocks. And then at that point, I felt my duty was to go find Carolyn. You left her, dude. You've got to go back and get her. But then I realized you still can't go find Carolyn. You've got to get everybody out of these other two cars, because this thing's still on fire.

We went through the second car and the third car completely, upstairs and downstairs, and we got everybody out. We just went through like pushing, literally just pushing everybody out. If you could move, you were getting out of the car. And I still haven't found Carolyn. I don't know where she is. And I'm screaming, Carolyn, Carolyn, where are you? Carolyn, Carolyn.

And I don't see her. And I looked up because I heard the helicopter filming us at the scene. And that was very helpful because one of my nurses saw us on the news and called both of our husbands and said, they're alive. Just as I turned the corner to go on the other side of the train, at the back of the third car, I hear, Jeremy, Jeremy, I'm over here. Jeremy, Jeremy. And I look and there's Carolyn laying on the side of the tracks in those rocks. The rescue effort involved more than 1,000 emergency personnel. First responders worked

into the night rescuing the remaining passengers. By 1 a.m., the rescue had become a recovery operation. Two LAPD police officers, these angels, showed up and they stayed with Carolyn almost the whole time. Carolyn and I almost the whole time. Because you have to understand, I'm like going in and out of like shock. Oh God, I can't believe this happened. How do you hit a freight train? How does this happen? Jenny and Carolyn were among the 135 passengers injured in the train crash. I had several broken ribs and I had broken my back and I had a crush injury of my left leg that is so bad that my legs swelled up to three times its size before I even got to the hospital. The National Transportation Safety Board's report determined the probable cause of the collision

was the failure of Train 111's engineer to respond to a red signal. The report stated that he was engaged in prohibited use of a wireless device, specifically text messaging, that distracted him from his duties. It sent hundreds of text messages that day to these train enthusiasts. And because of all the texting he was doing, he didn't notice three different lights that he ran warning him that he would be stopping at Chatsworth Station to wait for a freight train.

The investigation has turned out that that morning, our conductor called his supervisor and said, look, Engineer Sanchez is using his cell phone in the car, in the engine again. What should I do? Our conductor's supervisor told him, well, my supervisor is out of the office till Monday. Let's deal with it then.

We didn't make it till Monday. 25 people died in the collision, including the engineer of train 111. I'll never ride in a train again. I commute to work now. I get in gridlock traffic just like everybody else now and wait my turn, but at least I feel like I'll get home at the end of the day in one piece. I don't know why I survived. I must have a lot more work to do in this world. I think there's a time when everyone dies and it really wasn't

my time yet. I survived because I made a conscious effort when I got on that train every day to sit in a safe spot and to be alert. I'm probably one of the luckiest people alive. To get up and walk away from someone like that is a miracle. This episode of I Survived is brought to you by Huggy's Skin Essentials. Having a baby comes with so many unexpected challenges, but diaper rash shouldn't be one of them. For me, there was nothing worse than seeing my little one with an uncomfortable diaper rash. It makes everything harder, from bath time to diaper changes, and left me feeling totally helpless.

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So if you want the best for your baby's bottom, learn more at Huggies.com. Once again, head to Huggies.com to learn more. Hello, my name is Jackie Schimmel. I'm the host of the Bitch Bible Podcast. If you never listened to the Bitch Bible Podcast, I genuinely feel terrible for you. Because up until this moment, you haven't really been living or experiencing true, untethered, unhinged, morally flexible joy infiltrating your ear canals on a weekly basis. The good news is, there's still time for you, Katie. Buckle up, buttercup, because I'm about to canals on a weekly basis. The good news is there's still time for you, Katie. Buckle up, buttercup, because I'm about to take you on a real bender

for pop culture musings, aggressive social commentary, both piping hot and barely lukewarm takes, plus charisma for days. Make sure you listen to the Bitch Bible podcast because objectively and unbiasedly, in my very humble opinion, it's the best podcast you will ever listen to. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll guffaw, you'll be appalled. And guess what, Katie? You'll just keep coming back for more. So go listen to the Bitch Bible podcast available wherever you get your podcasts. You're welcome. It's August 1996 in Salt Lake City, Utah. 18-year-old Yvette and Zach have been friends since grade school.

Zach has just asked Yvette out on their first date. I met Zach when we were in seventh grade. He was always an independent kind of kid. He had a dry sense of humor. He was absolutely his own person. I can see him walking down the hall still. He just had this strut, this confidence that I loved and attracted a lot of people to him.

We really enjoyed each other's company, and I was really looking forward to seeing kind of what our relationship might turn into. I had no idea what the plan was for our date. I didn't know where we were going or anything. Zach just told me he had it all taken care of, and he was in charge. We pulled off the highway into what looks like a typical makeout place.

It's this round parking lot overlooking a reservoir. Full moon is shining. It's a beautiful night. Zach pulled out his camera equipment and said, I want to teach you how to take black and white pictures. I want to take pictures of this full moon. And I thought that sounded so fun. We got out of the car, and it's probably around 8 o'clock the end of summer, and we sat down. While we're sitting, we notice another car pull up.

And it was a white truck. The only car, we hadn't seen any another car pull up. And it was a white truck, the only car. We hadn't seen any other car pull up since we were there. I remember Zach looked at me, and he actually asked, you think this is OK? Is that OK, this new person is here? And I said, yeah, you know, this is Utah. We're safe. A man got out of the truck and actually said, yeah, you know, this is Utah. We're safe. A man got out of the truck and actually started

walking towards us. He looked about our age, fairly slender, in a white shirt, denim shorts. He got closer to us, probably about three feet away. And he asked a question, something like, have you been here before? And I said, no, we've never been here before. He got closer to us, probably about three feet away, and he asked a question, something like, have you been here before? And I said, no, we've never been here before.

I don't know what this is. That's when the man pulled out a handgun, and he opened fire. The next thing I know, there's this loud, loud boom, and I'm being shot where he's killing us. But I'd never in my whole life ever wondered or imagined what it would be like to be shot or how that must happen. But there it was.

He was killing us. And my body just falls to the side. I didn't even have a chance to put my arm out to stop me from falling. I could feel that Zach's body fell too, but it went behind me. I didn't count the gunshots. I don't know how many there were. I could see the bright flashes of light.

There was this smoke in the air, this smell of the gun. My ears begin ringing. It's so loud and so close to me. And it just felt like these loud explosions just one right after another, as fast as his finger could pull the trigger. When the shooting stopped, it was a quiet stillness in the air, like this is done, whatever's going to happen next. I knew he was still standing right there. Nothing changed in the air. It's smoky. There's still smells.

And the man was reloading. He got three or four more bullets, took the time to load them into each spot. And then he aimed at my head and emptied out the three or four more bullets to make sure that I died. There were two or three, four more shots again and it was so close to my head. I could almost feel wind coming across my face every time he unloaded another bullet.

The gunman was using hollow point bullets, which expand on impact, causing catastrophic damage. One of them hit me on the left side and did expand and just open up this side into a pretty raw wound. Another bullet came in a little bit higher on my back and went all the way through my body to lodge itself in my inner thigh. A next bullet came across my shoulder, just taking out a chunk of my shoulder. After he stopped shooting for the second time, then he moved. He walked around to the front of us and actually flipped my body so that he could put his hands in my pockets. So after he'd gone through my front and back pockets, he leaned up over me to get to Zach.

And he's probably six inches from my face. I keep thinking he's going to look at me, he's going to see I'm alive. But his breath was so fast and so labored that I don't think even if I was breathing really fast, he would even notice. I could hear just clothing noises and muffled sounds. And he ended up taking Zach's car keys and leaving in Zach's car.

I thought, this is over. Everything's going to be OK. It's over. And that's when I yelled Zach's car. I thought, this is over. Everything's going to be okay. It's over. And that's when I yelled Zach's name. I just screamed, Zach! And he didn't answer. It was a quiet that I have yet to ever experience again, and a crushing silence. My body kicked in then, so even though I wanted to sit there, my body and adrenaline said, no, you need to get help. You've got to go get help. And I realized the shortest way was going to be straight up the mountainside. I tried to stand up, and I couldn't stand.

Couldn't put any weight on the right side of my body. So I just started crawling like a baby. But I knew if I went up this mountainside, there was a road up there, and cars would be up there for sure. It was probably 80 yards away. So I started climbing, crawling. I was sweating a lot when I was climbing up,

and I assumed I was sweating, but it was actually just blood pouring down my face and all over my body. And as I was about probably 40 yards up and still just climbing, I heard a car pull into the parking lot where our car had been parked. People got out of the car and I yelled to them, please help us, we've been shot. And it was quiet for a minute

and then they said okay and that was it. They got in their car and they left. Yvette clawed her way up the hillside to the road. It was vertical. It felt like it was vertical. And I'd pull myself up and feel myself fall back four feet and pull myself up one foot and feel myself slide down the mountain. While I'm climbing, I'm thinking about Zach. I am thinking about every single member of my family, how much I love them.

The next thing I know, I'm at the top of the road. Somehow I made it. I kneeled on the side of the road and waved my arms for the first car that passed, and it just kept on driving. I saw another car was coming, and I just watched it come closer, and I waved my arms to the second car. And it passed me and then pulled over to the side of the road.

People got out and came up to me and said, we called 911, help is coming. So the second car was the people that I had asked earlier to help us. They had actually gone to the nearest house they could find to call 911. Yvette, who had been shot four times, was life-flighted to the hospital. Zachary H. Snarr, aged 18, was pronounced dead at the scene. And I knew. I knew when he didn't answer me, I knew he had died. Looking back, I so desperately wish I just sat there with him. Zach never would have left me alone, especially

in a time like that. And that I left his body seems so disrespectful for everything that he had ever done for me. And I wish I just sat there with him. Their attacker, Jorge Benvenuto, age 19, was arrested two days later. The police said, well, why did you do it? And he told them he wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. Now he does. He ended up getting a life sentence for killing Zach and a life sentence for shooting me.

I know that without the shooting and without losing Zach, I would not be where I am now. I graduated from law school, took the bar, and now I get to represent crime victims in court, and I love it. I survived because I really am a lucky person, and I'm lucky to have Zach and to have had Zach in my life. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Titanic, or The Wolf of Wall Street. No matter your vibe, download the Pluto TV app to spend summer doing what you love. Watching endless movies.

Tell me that's not the deal of the summer. Summer of Cinema on Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.