Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Didn't Know If I Was Going To Go Home Or Be With Him Forever

Episode Date: January 17, 2026

8-year-old MIdsi is abducted on her way home from school and held in a car for days where she is sexually assaulted. Tammy is viciously attacked by a man with a knife and must scramble up a 100-foot hill to escape. Leona and her husband are shot by a stranger while hiking on a trail.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Mint - To get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to Mintmobile.com/survivedProgressive: 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. It just has to be something so wrong with this person for him to be able to do something like that to a child. Real people. I managed to get the knife away from him, and he went absolutely back crazy. Who faced death. I closed his eyes and told him I loved him. and then I walked down the trail.

And lived to tell how. I didn't know if he was going to kill me. I just, I didn't know. This is I survived. It's August 2000 in Vallejo, California. It is the morning of Midsie's eighth birthday. It was the day of my birthday party. I wanted to help my mom get all this stuff together,

go get the cake, set up balloons. And, you know, I just wanted to, you know, I wanted to help out. I was excited for this day. It was my birthday. I was gonna have a bunch of friends over. So I didn't wanna go to school. I asked my mom if I could just stay home. But she said no, she wanted me to, you know,

she didn't want me to miss school. She wanted to surprise me, you know, and do her own thing. So I went to school that day. I lived about six blocks away from my elementary school, so my mom would let us walk home sometimes. if she was working, but I always had to be with my brother. She never let us walk alone. So the whole day I was anxious to get home.

I was just excited. So at the end of the school day, the bell rang, and I got up and left. I didn't even look for my brother. I just got up and left. I was about a block away from home, and I remember seeing this car, and it looked kind of suspicious. I had a gut feeling, you know, that told me to cross the street, but I didn't.

You know, I was on the same side that my home was on, so I just continued on walking, and I saw this man in his car looking at me through his rear view mirror. I had a nasty feeling in my stomach, and this guy got out of his car, and, you know, he's walking, he's got his cane, and he's looking like he, you know, needs some help. He asked me if I could help grabbed something from his car. He said his leg was messed up and he couldn't bend over. I just wanted to help the guy, because he looked like he needed some help.

He looked like he couldn't do it on his own. So I said, OK, you know, I'm going to help this guy and then get on. I opened up the car door, and he leaned over me, leaned over me from behind and put his hands around my mouth. He threw me into the car, and he threw me into the car, And, you know, he said, if you try to get out or run, I'm gonna shoot you, I have a gun in my trunk.

I was freaked out, I was scared, I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know if it was real, I didn't know, I just, you know, I was in shock. We took off down the street, and as we took off towards the freeway entrance, I was looking back at my house, just wanting to be, you know, be there so bad. Not with this weirdo, you know, I'm just like this scared little girl not knowing or understanding why this old man has me in his car, what he wants to do with me.

I did, you know, everything he said. I didn't want to make him mad or I didn't want, you know, I didn't want him to hurt me. So I just, I just went along. The man drove Midsey to a quiet rest area. He asked me to change into some clothes. And the clothes that he had were another young girl's clothes, but they weren't. They weren't new, they were used. He grabbed a chain from his trunk, and he wrapped it around my ankle, and he went and got a lock,

and he locked my ankle up, and, you know, he tied it up to the gear shift. You know, I said, well, maybe if he lets me go to the bathroom, I can get away now, or, you know, I can, you know, just leave, or maybe somebody will see me or help me. So I asked him. I asked him if I could go to the restroom. And he said, no, you can't. You can't get out of the car. So he hands me a cup.

The man forced Midsie to drink alcohol and then showed her pornographic photos. He had a picture of a girl's breast. It was an older woman. And then he pulled out his camera. He took my shorts off. And he proceeded to take pictures of me. I was just hurt. I just didn't understand why he was doing it.

I felt nasty. I didn't want to do it. I didn't, I just, you know, I had to do what he said. I didn't know what he was going to do to me, you know, if I didn't. So I just went along. I was scared, and when he told me he had a gun, I believed him. So I just, you know, I don't know this guy. I don't know, you know how crazy he is.

or what he can do or what he's capable of. Midsey has been chained up in the car for over five hours. I was starving. I always ate lunch at school, but now it's nighttime, and I'm hungry again. But I was starving. And he didn't feed me. He didn't give me water or anything to drink. As it got darker, I remember getting tired.

And, you know, I wanted to rest, but I couldn't sleep. and I looked over at him and he was knocked out, snoring. I kept fighting to stay awake. I didn't want to go to sleep. I didn't trust him. I didn't know if he was going to wake up or what he was going to do to me. I just, I didn't get any sleep the first night.

Police had started to search for Midsie. I remember seeing cops drive by us. I saw about two cop cars, just driving. Right bias, going through the rest area, searching, I guess. You know, I just wanted one of them to help me so bad, but nobody stopped. None of them stopped. The next morning, the sun comes up, and I'm so exhausted,

didn't get any sleep. And we left the rest area, and he, you know, kicked me down to the floor again, covered me up with blankets, and we stopped at a house. I was trying to peek, but he said, you know, not to move. Midsey's kidnapper then did something extraordinary. He had actually walked into our home asking for flyers so he could help pass him out around the city. Midsy's parents had no idea that they had just talked to her kidnapper.

It took a while for us to get to our next destination. I remember we got it, we drove into this city and we were at a stoplight and, you know, we're at a stoplight and, you know, I see people, I see them in their cars driving by, and I'm looking at them, hoping that they'll notice me, but nobody noticed. The man parked near his place of work. He put blankets over the windows so no one could see in, and the whole time he had me chained to the gear shift.

He would go in and watch the news. He'd go and watch my family pleading for whoever had their daughter to bring her back. When he got out of the car, I did try to take the lock and, you know, and, you know, wiggle it around. I tried to slide it off my foot. It wasn't going anywhere. It was on there pretty good.

Midsy spent the rest of the second day chained up in the car. Second night, we stayed in the parking lot of the industrial area. Nobody was around. And I remember him getting out of the car. and he asked me to move over into the driver's seat. And he pulled his pants down. And I remember him taking my clothes off, and then he proceeded to rape me.

Like I have the image in my head, you know, like the stars in the sky. And, you know, that was like the, that was all I was trying to focus on was the stars. I wasn't, I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to talk to him. Like, I didn't want to look around the car. There was so much junk in the car.

It was dirty. So I just try to focus on the only thing that was looking beautiful to me at that time. I wasn't angry. I was just sad. I was just so sad. It just has to be something so wrong with this person for him to be able to do something like that

to a child. It didn't work out the way he wanted to, so he kind of got pissed off, and, you know, he just stopped. I got back into the passenger seat, and I just, I think I just remember just sitting there looking up at this guy, you know, just like, I'm gonna be with him another night. I didn't know if I was gonna go home or, you know,

be with him forever. I didn't know if he was gonna kill me. I just, I didn't. No. And I started praying. And I was just praying for God to, you know, to forgive me for being a bad little girl and always, you know, bugging my sister and, you know, not listening to my mom and dad. And, you know, I just, you know, wanted him to let my family know that I loved him.

Mitzi spent another night in the car chained to the gear shift. In the morning, the man left the car again to watch the news on television. He came back to the car, and he didn't get in this time. He just, he opened the passenger's door, leaned over me and dropped something. And so as soon as he left, I peeked to see if he was close by, and I looked over, and I pulled out a big old ring of keys, and I just picked out the smallest one that looked like it would fit into the lock, and I tried it and it fit. And I opened the lock, took the chain off of my leg,

I rolled the window down, and hopped out of the window. And then I see him, and he's yelling for me to come back. And he's like, come back, hey, you know, you come back here, and I look back at him, and I'm like, no, I'm not coming back. I walk towards the street. I'm looking at all the cars go by. I'm trying to wave them down, trying to get someone's attention, and, you know, nobody was stopping.

stopping and then I see this big old truck coming by and I like ran in front of his truck on the middle of the street so he he had to stop for me and at that time I see the guy coming out yelling at me come back here hey you come back here and I'm like no I'm not coming back I'm free I'm you know I'm not I wasn't in his hands anymore the truck driver had his window open, so I just jumped, I jumped through his window, jumped over his lap and got into, and got into his passenger seat. And that's when he got on his CB radio and took the license plate number down. Curtis Dean Anderson was arrested later the same day. He was brought to trial on multiple charges, including kidnapping and rape. The courtroom was packed. And I remember seeing

him sitting over in his wheelchair. And, you know, I didn't, you know, I was just kind of looking at him like, oh, whatever, you know, I'm not in his hands anymore. There's nothing to be scared or afraid of. You know, I knew I was already safe and I just had to get up on that stand and do what I had to do to be able to put him away. Curtis Dean Anderson was convicted and sentenced to 251 years in prison. He later confessed to the murder of two young girls. Anderson died in prison in 2007 from natural causes. I was in two. too happy when I found out he died. I wanted him to live and suffer in prison.

I feel like he kind of got off too easy. I survived because I wanted to go home and I wanted to see my family again. I had the desire to live. I've never gone over my story like this ever other than at court. So this is like it's just like it's It's kind of hard for me, but it kind of feels good to let it out.

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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. It's March 1987 in Clayton County, Georgia. Tammy is going to a friend's house for dinner and offers to bring dessert. Somewhere in the late afternoon, I went, got in the car, went on to the grocery store, and when I pulled into the parking lot, there were cars everywhere. It was a Saturday afternoon.

It's 4 o'clock. People are out doing what they do on Saturday going grocery shopping. Had just turned off the ignition when a man approached me. Look like a normal guy, about 5'10, maybe 100. 160 pounds. Did not look the least bit threatening at all. Just your regular average guy. He needed help jumping off his car, his battery was dead.

You analyzed the safety of the situation. Had it been dark and we were the only ones there, never in a million years. Never. I would have driven away. But because of the situation and the circumstances and he looked perfectly normal. The man directed Tammy over to a small guy. car. He said, you know, he didn't have any jumper cables, his were messed up and asked if I had any. I said, sure, I've got some in the back, and I popped the trunk for him,

and he went around and got the cables. And I opened the hood, and he went around, opened the hood on the other car, and he got the cables and went around to, I presumed to attach them while I waited in the car. I left the door open so I could hear him say, go ahead and crank it up, and just kind of sat there waiting. The next thing I know, he's on top of me with a knife at my throat. I never saw him coming. I don't know where he went. I don't know if he went behind me, and I just was not aware of it.

He sounded panicked. He said, you could get the floorboard, or I'm going to cut you. He said, there are some men after me. I owe them money. They're going to kill me. So I need to borrow your car. And I'm at this point still very much in shock, but I'm starting to shake, starting to panic, thinking, just do what he says.

And I said, you know, I'll do whatever you tell me to do. Just don't hurt me. The thought crossed my mind to try to get out and run when he jumped out to shut the hood. Did I have time to get out of the space, open the door, fall out, if necessary, and run? By the time I thought it through, he was already back in the car. He said, do you have any money? And I said, I have about $12 in my purse. And he said, do you have any credit cards?

I said, no, I'm in college. I don't have any of that stuff. I just have some money in my purse. And he said, if you're lying to me, I'll kill you. He cranks up the car, backs out, and I can tell that we're leaving the parking lot. I can see wires going by, telephone poles, can't tell what direction we're going. I kept telling myself, just do what he says to do. He'll take the car.

He can have the car. I don't want the car. Take the car. I'm hoping that if I do what he says, that he'll just open the door, put me out and take off. In a little while, it's maybe 10 minutes. He turns off of the road. I can see lots of trees, but I have no clue where we are.

And he stopped telling me to get down now, so there's not as much traffic. It's much quieter. And then I feel let's go down a hill, and I can hear gravel under the tire. and lots of trees all around in the windows, and he stops. He got out of the car and walked around and opened the door and pulled me out of the floorboard. And we're in a gravel pit.

I could only think of one reason to be there, and that was not a good reason. We're in the gravel area, and there's an embankment that goes down into the woods, and I can see lots of trees. And he said, we're going into the woods. I looked at him and said, you don't have to do this. If you just let me go, I won't tell anybody. He said no. And so he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the embankment into the woods. We got down to the bottom of the hill, and he kind of pushed me over to a little open sandy

spot and said, you need to take off all your clothes. And that was when I sort of broke down and started crying pretty hard and saying, please, you don't have to do this. Please don't do this to me. You don't even, just let me go. And he said, shut up, take off your clothes. And I kept begging and crying. And he said, if you don't take them off, I will cut them off.

He reached out and grabbed hold of my shirt and started sawing at the bra strap. And of course, I'm shaking so bad I can barely stand. And so I'm trying to cover myself. And he takes his pants. He doesn't actually take them off. He just pushes them down and forces me to turn around and bend over a tree.

He does what he's doing. He's raping me. And I looked at him and said, why would you do this to me? I don't even know you. He looked at me for a minute, and he just grin this big old grin, and he said, because I'm sick, lady. He sits down on the tree, and he sticks the knife into the trunk of a tree.

I realize that his pants. around his ankles. The knife is in a tree. So I shoved him. My idea was to push him all the way off the tree and take off running. I got, I don't know, eight or ten steps away. Within a second or two, he was on me. I'm on my belly, and he landed on my back, and he was, to put it mildly pissed. And he flipped me over and proceeded to beat the hell out of me. The man dragged Tammy back to the tree and continue to rape her. I was thinking, just get it over with. Just finish what you've got to do and get it over with.

He never finished, though. He got very frustrated and finally pushed me away. And I just stood there waiting for whatever was coming next. I was still clinging to the hope that I was going to live. It hadn't crossed my mind yet that he was going to kill me. I couldn't think that way. Then he looked at me and he reached out and grabbed me by the hair back of the head like this and said, got the knife and said, I have to find some place to hide you.

That was when it hit me that he was going to kill me. And I thought, okay, I'm done being compliant. That's it. If you're going to kill me, the hell with doing what you tell me to do, I'm going to fight you now. He dragged me through the woods and forced me down on my knees. and reached down with a knife, he hit me by the hair, and he slashed across my throat with the knife.

The way my head was turned, it went across more my trachea than the veins, the arteries, I guess. It just cut the skin. And I'm struggling, and he did it again, and it didn't work, only now I'm fighting hard enough that he actually fell on top of me.

I'm fighting pretty much for all I'm worth at this point. I managed to get the knife away from him, and he went absolutely back crazy. He grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand, and he bit me on the first knuckle of the hand that had the knife and bit so hard it went down through the skin into the muscles and caused my hand to open up, and he grabbed the knife. And he flipped me over on my back and was straddling my waist

and turned the knife and just started stabbing downward. Every time he did that, blood would spurt. I remember seeing it. It didn't really register at the time. I'm just seeing a knife going up and down. It occurred to me, I don't know why, to stop fighting and play dead. So I just kind of went limp,

and maybe once or twice more, and then he stopped. I heard him walk behind me and circle around, and then he masturbated. Then he left for a little while. I could hear him walking away, didn't know where he went. So I got up, sat up, and blood is just pouring. I'm just covered. And I tried to walk, and I fell, and he came back, and he saw that I'd moved.

I guess he panicked, that I wasn't dead, and took his belt off and looped it around my neck, through his buckle, and started strangling me. When I came to, I was afraid to move, because I was. I was afraid he was still there. And I just laid there and watched blood just core out of these holes. And finally I thought, I am not going to lay here in the woods. And it will kill my parents if they never find me. So I have to get up.

Every time I would breathe, the air would bubble out of the holes. You're going to drown in your own blood. So I reached down and picked up handfuls of sand and started packing it in the holes, thinking, and it'll clagulate and it'll block them enough that I can just get there. My clothes were gone, and I thought, okay, well, start walking. To reach the road, Tammy had to climb back up a steep hill. I looked up at this hill.

It must have been 100 feet high and about a 45-degree angle. And I remember thinking, I have to get up this hill. I have to get out of these woods. I refused to rot in the woods like an animal. So I got up and started up the hill and I was using my hands to pull myself up vines, bushes, branches, whatever I could. And I had to keep stopping and resting because I couldn't breathe. Every time I breath I could hear it bubbling in there.

Finally managed to get up the hill, which is as big a surprise to me as it was anybody, and it came out in the gravel pit. The car was gone. So that was really when I, the first time I felt like, okay, he's gone. I kept expecting him to pop over the top of that hill. I started across the gravel pit, and two guys on motorcycles turned into the gravel pit came riding down, and they stopped abruptly. I'm sure it was like something out of a nightmare, this naked, blood-covered woman with blood all in her hair.

And I said, somebody tried to kill me. Please call police. The man called 911 and a life-flight helicopter. rushed Tammy to the hospital. She had been stabbed 15 times and had a punctured lung. The surgeon came over and said, your lungs are full of blood. We have to get the blood out.

And I kept saying, please not me out. Please not me out because I was hurting so much. Please knock me out. And he said, I cannot knock you out. He said, if I knock you out, you will not wake up

because your lungs are full of blood. We had to put tubes in your lungs. We're going to have to break four ribs to do it. He said, I don't want to lie to you. going to hurt, so scream as much as you want. A handprint left on Tammy's car led to the arrest of David James Etherly. Etherly pled guilty to armed robbery, kidnapping, and rape.

He was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences plus 20 years. I survived because I refused to die. I refused to lay there and be a victim. It was over in two and a half hours. I will be damned if I will let him run the rest of my life. I will move forward. He will rot in prison for that two and a half hours. Every day that I live in normal life and I sleep with the lights off

is another day that I beat him and I will continue to beat him for the rest of my life. He will not run me. Finding the one can feel impossible. And in today's world, it's even harder. false profiles, inaccurate pictures, incompatibilities, ghosting on dates. Is this sounding familiar? But if you're ready to make your move to a new place, it doesn't have to feel like dating. All it takes is a simple search on Apartments.com to find your perfect match.

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And the next morning got up, and we decided that instead of spending another night, maybe we should come out that next, or that day, Friday the 13th. So we started out from the lakes fairly early in the morning and we were taking our time because there's a lot of beautiful places along the trail to see and stop. And then we came along to a place in the trail where there was a man sitting on the side of the trail. And the first thing I noticed is he had a very large rifle attached to his backpack. Normally if you're a backpacker, you know everybody is friendly on the trail.

So we said hello and he absolutely said nothing. In fact, he turned around and turned his back to us. I just kept down the trail, and then once I was out of earshot of the man, I asked Robin, I said, did you see that gun? And he hadn't seen it at all. He wasn't paying attention to that. But he did notice the fact that the man hadn't said anything to us. Leona and Robin stopped for a rest two miles down the trail.

We were just talking and drinking water, and we were newlyweds, so, you know, we were cooing. And he said, I love you, we should get going, and I said, okay, and I kissed him. And then all of a sudden, I heard a shot. I looked up the trail, and I saw a man with a gun pointed at us about, I don't know, maybe 100 feet up the trail. And I yelled, stop, and put my hands out, and boom, boom, two more shots. And I looked at Robin, and he said, my God, what happened? and I saw the wound and I knew he had been shot.

Then I felt Robin fall to the trail, to the side of the trail, more than I saw him. My focus was on the shooter. And then I ran for cover for myself because I knew that I needed to get behind something otherwise I was going to be shot as well. So when I got to the other side of the trail, I kept looking up at this man and finally

he put his gun down and I thought, okay, now he's gonna come down to the trail and he's gonna kill me. I realized this was the guy that was sitting beside the trail with the gun. He was 100 feet from where we were, and when he started walking towards me, it's as if everything went into slow motion.

So I started scrambling to find a rock or something to charge him because there is nothing I have. There is nothing I have. I have no gun. I have no knife. I have nothing to protect myself. I thought I can run, but the trail cuts along an embankment and going down towards the river was impossible. It was way too steep. Going up was impossible because it was steep and there was a lot of small trees there and shrubs and I wouldn't have been able to get through it. And going down the trail, he would have a clear shot. I had no protection. So I was stuck.

I knew I would do something, if I would run and attack him, if I would hit him with a rock, if I would tackle him, but death was not going to be an option. And finally he came up to me, straight up to me, and he stood over me, and he said, have you been shot? And I said, no, yes. And I saw that look in his eye, and I knew from that moment he was crazy. And it was like a vacuous look.

There's nothing, nothing, no emotion behind it. He said, do you know what happened? And I flashed that if he has no idea what's going on, then he thinks I have no idea what's going on, that I might be safe. So I said no. And he mumbled something and just kept walking down the trail, towards the trailhead.

I ran over to Robin and was checking him, assessing him, checking his pulse. I checked it, I checked his wrist. I checked his neck. It was very, very light, very thready. I could barely, barely get it. And I listened to his breathing, and you could hear the gurgling in his lungs,

which I wanted to believe was him trying to breathe. Then I started checking for wounds. I wanted to see where all his wounds were. I found this large amount of tissue and blood on his leg, and I started scraping that away. And there was no wound. And then it dawned me. I'd been shot.

So I lifted my shirt and I saw, I was bleeding a lot. I had some choices to make. I could either stay here and stay with Robin and potentially die, or I could follow the guy down the trail to my truck. It just seemed like if I could keep out of his way, I could get to my truck and that was a known entity. So I realized it's time, it's time. And I yelled at Robin, that,

Robin that I had to leave, but I was going to come back. I was going to come back. I was going to, I'd be there. But I had to leave because I had to go get help. I closed his eyes and told him I loved him. And then I walked down the trail. I was losing blood. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears

and I was sweating like crazy because it was probably 90 some odd degrees. From where the shooting took place to the trip trailhead, I estimated at the time to be about three miles. And so I knew I had to follow the shooter for that distance, and I had to make sure that he wasn't going to come back around. So very carefully, I was kind of half running, half walking, half ducking behind trees down this trail, following his footprints. Sometimes I'd go up above the trail and look down farther along the trail to see if he

was there. But I was constantly just watching his prints as much as I could. And then finally I got to the point where I could see the parking area, and that's where the truck was. I thought, okay, I've made it. I made it this far. We're not going to screw it up now. And his footprints went off onto a side trail to a different area, so I ran as fast as I could down to my truck.

Bleeding badly from the wound to her abdomen, Leona set off to get help. I wasn't sure how far I had to drive. but the road into the trailhead was 13 miles. I made the conscientious decision not to look at my wound. I decided that I was either going to make this or I was not. And if I looked at it, then I would start analyzing and get scared. So I just kept driving. It seemed like I was in my truck for seven hours,

but in reality, probably only about 40 minutes until I found the first house that had power and phone lines going into. This is a very rural area in Trinity County. The homeowners called 911, and Leona was rushed to the hospital. We get to the hospital, and then they rushed me in for surgery. And they had left the radio on kind of by accident. And so I was listening to what was going on, and they confirmed that Robin was dead, which I probably knew.

The first shot apparently severed Robin's aorta. So even if he had been lying on a surgical table at the time, I don't think anything could have saved his life. Three days later, Leona received a call saying the shooter had been arrested. The shooter had been born and raised in Weaverville. That was the city that was in Trinity County closest to the shooting. And people knew him. People knew who he was right away.

In fact, a lot of people had said, oh, I think it's him, because that's what he looks like and he is kind of crazy. I said, well, how in the world did you guys catch him? Did you track him down? And the deputy said, no, actually, we got a phone call from somebody in town saying he's here right now buying water in a grocery store. Glenn Walter Spooler was charged with murder and attempted murder. Apparently the reason for the shooting is that the shooter has a desire or a strong desire for distilled water. In fact, he was carrying several containers of distilled water.

and he felt that as we passed him on the trail, that we had somehow, or Robin had somehow contaminated his distilled water, and that's why he shot us. Spooler was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Spooleur has spent the last 28 years in secure state hospitals. Every year, sometimes every couple of years, he is re-evaluated as to whether or not he would be able to survive in society. So there's always the chance that he's going to be released.

I survived because Robin would have wanted me to. For the days that were tougher than the other days, he was there with me. He was telling me, get going, go for a run, go for a hike. Don't lie down and die yourself. That's just wrong, and that means the shooters won. And I didn't want that to happen. Thousands of free movies and TV shows.

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