Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Didn't Know When This Would Turn To Stabbing Me To Death

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

John, a city attorney, is embroiled in an ongoing dispute with a disgruntled contractor who was fired. When the contractor shows up to a city council meeting armed, John is forced to fight for his life. Kevin is one of three men transporting a catamaran from France to the US when a massive storm in the North Atlantic capsizes the vessel. Helena is a 17-years-old taking her first car to a self-serve car wash when a stranger approaches asking for help. After agreeing, the man pulls a knife on Helena and assaults her repeatedly. Mint - To get the new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to Mintmobile.com/survived Progressive - Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Ro - Go to Ro.co/Survived to start your weight loss journey Today! 

Hi, I Survived listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson, and if you're enjoying this show, I just want to remind you that episodes of I Survived, as well as the A&E Classic podcast, Cold Case Files, City Confidential, and American Justice, are all available ad-free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now, on onto the show. This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. It was like looking into the eyes of a shark. He pointed both guns at me, and I thought, I'm gonna die. Real people.

It looked like the ocean opened up into a hole and the boat fell into it. Who faced death? He was just crazy. So I didn't know at which point this would turn into him stabbing me to death. And lived to tell how. He had a methodical plan. And he executed that plan by executing people.

This is I Survived. It's February 2008 in Kirkwood, Missouri. John is city attorney for Kirkwood in St. Louis County. It is a classic old town where everybody is fringe. I've known all of the elected officials as well as neighbors for 20, 30 years. John had frequent dealings with Charles Cookie Thornton, a Kirkwood demolition contractor. Charles Cookie Thornton grew up in Kirkwood. He went to Kirkwood High School, and really everybody enjoyed being around him. Cookie was hired by a firm working on a multi-million dollar redevelopment project.

It was anticipated that he would make a significant amount of money. But a few years into the project, Cookie was fired and turned to City Hall for help. He was very upset. And he said, you have to tell them that they can't do that. And I said, Cookie, I'll look into it. But I'm not sure there's anything that I can do do that. And I said, Cookie, I'll look into it, but I'm not sure there's anything that I can do about that. And I talked with the company. He was parking his construction vehicles

literally in the front lawns. He was dumping trash and debris on vacant lots. He would go and do work without permits, and people were complaining about it quite frequently. And I explained to him that I couldn't stop them from firing him. And he became very upset. City official Ken Yost issued Cookie Thornton with dozens of citations. I've worked with Ken for 30 years.

He was truly one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Cookie Thornton's personality started to change. He felt like he was being picked on by the city. He started coming to council meetings and complaining about Ken Yost in particular. For years, he would shout and scream that Ken Yost is a liar. So I met with Cookie Thornton time and time again. And I would say, Cookie, we'll just forgive you of all those fines. You just move on with your life. And the only thing I want you to

do is to quit berating Ken Yost and city council. And Cookie Thornton wouldn't let it go. It became an obsession. Cookie insisted on defending every ticket in court and was found guilty of 79 violations. Cookie alleged that city official Ken Yost had committed perjury. I said, Cookie, I see no evidence at all that Ken Yost did anything improper, much less illegal. He said, you're part of the conspiracy as well. Cookie's angry tirades began to focus on John as well as Ken Yost. Twice, Cookie had to be physically removed from council meetings by Officer Tom Ballman. And Tom treated him with tremendous respect. And Thornton would scream,

I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. Cookie Thornton sued the city for breaching his First Amendment rights. He had lost all of his money. He had no income. And he had this grandiose belief that he would solve all of his economic problems by getting a huge judgment against the city of Kirkwood. Cookie started picketing outside John's law firm. I said, Cookie, why are you doing this? Don't you have anything better to do? And he'd just smile at me, and it was not a friendly smile. It was much more menacing. And then in July of 2007, he showed up to our home. He's walking up and down the sidewalk in front of our house with a sign that says, John Hessel's a liar.

He knew that I couldn't prevent him from walking on a sidewalk like anybody else who could engage in legitimate picketing activities. I said, Cookie, I've tolerated a lot from you, but you crossed the line, and I think it needs to stop. And he just smiled at me and shook his head like, it's not going to stop. And that's when I really became alarmed that he was not any longer thinking rationally. Then Cookie lost his federal suit,

accusing the city of Kirkwood of breaching his First Amendment rights. He thought that case, that lawsuit, was going to solve all of his economic problems. He thought he was going to get millions and millions of dollars from the city. Soon afterward, John went to the first city council meeting since the ruling against Cookie. I can recall that evening very vividly because my dad died 10 years to the day. And I can remember saying aloud, Dad, I can't come to the gravesite. I have to go to this stupid council meeting. Officer Tom Ballman was providing security for the meeting.

I said, Tom, Judge ruled against Cookie Thornton. I've just got this uneasy feeling that he may show up tonight. Tom kind of rolled his eyes like, okay, been there, done that. I didn't see Cookie Thornton as he entered the council chambers. I heard his voice, his familiar voice. What he was saying was, hands in the air, hands in the air. And I looked up, and I saw him with a gun in each hand. Cookie Thornton was literally within two feet

of Officer Ballman. Within an instant, he fires and shoots Tom Ballman in the head. I then saw him turn toward the director of public works, Ken Yost, who was seated in the first row. And he immediately fired and shot and killed Ken Yost, shooting him in the head. I had had enough interaction with Cookie Thornton

to know that I would be one of his targets. And I thought, what am I going to do? John was sitting at a dais with the mayor and five council members. I duck underneath the dais and he's immediately behind me and I hear the third shot and I see the mayor fall and he's within an arm's length from me and I can see the bullet wound in his head. He's bleeding and this stark realization hits you that you're trapped. You can't get off the dais other than to get up and walk toward this armed gunman. And then I heard a fourth shot and everything started to go into super slow motion. Cookie Thornton shot two more council members in the head, both at close range.

He approached people that he wanted to execute. He was not shooting at people at the audience. He was not shooting randomly at anything that moved. He had a methodical plan, and he executed that plan by executing people. His plan clearly was to eliminate our security, to wipe out the city council, execution style. I knew that he was very close to me. So I got up and I ran. And the nightmare gets worse because now Cookie Thornton is chasing me.

And he cut my path off. And he pointed both guns at me, and I thought, I'm going to die. I was trying to get out the door, and he was probably three, four feet from me, and he pointed both guns at me. And I said, Cookie, don't do it. Don't do it.

And I looked into his eyes. To me, it was like looking into the eyes of a shark. No emotion, very menacing. So I did what to me was just natural, which was to try to fight for my life. So I picked up one of the chairs. It's a little plastic chair. It barely stopped a fly, much less a bullet. Thinking, this is, I'm going to die. He's just going to shoot me while I have this chair in front of my face. And I threw the chair at him. And he had both guns pointed at me.

It knocked his arms away from me. And thought that was pretty good throw. Amazing. And then I got mad and I picked up a chair and I hit him as hard as I could with that chair and it felt good. So I picked up a third chair, pulled it up in the air over my head, and flung it down as hard as I could. And he still had the guns. I'm unarmed, and I'm just throwing chairs, and I've taken a chair to a gunfight. This is not going to work.

So I ran back the way I had come, but the door was closed, and I thought, he's going to shoot me in the back while I'm opening the door. I see him chasing me, and he falls down. I don't know if he slipped on blood, because there was blood everywhere. So I thought, OK, here's my chance to go out the front doors. And I kept thinking he's going to shoot me in the back. So I thought, all right, I'm going to jump over the railing,

and I'm going to jump down the first floor. As I get closer to the rail. So I thought, all right, I'm going to jump over the railing, and I'm going to jump down the first floor. As I get closer to the railing, I think, you fool. That's a 20-foot drop onto a marble floor. It's not the bullet that's going to kill you. You're going to break your neck and fall. So I turn, and I'm running as fast as I can. And I literally run into two Kirkwood police officers. Well, I took off down the steps, and the two officers went inside the council chambers.

After a brief exchange of fire, the police officers shot and killed Cookie. Five of my friends and colleagues were murdered in less than a minute. It was absolutely horrific to experience and witness someone murder people that you've known for 30 years. On his way inside, Cookie had killed another police officer, Sergeant Bill Biggs. Cookie took Sergeant Biggs' revolver

and used it during his shooting spree in the council chamber. I survived because I am convinced that my dad was with me on that evening. He had died ten years to the day. felt something literally touching me to get me to move, to run, to confront Cookie Thornton. I am absolutely convinced that my father was by my side and that he was protecting me. In 40 to 45 seconds, five people's lives and their family's lives were changed forever. I love a great deal as much as the next person, but I'm not going to clothesline anyone on Black Friday just to save a few bucks. It has to be easy. No hoops, no BS. So when Mint Mobile said it was easy to get wireless for $15 a month with the purchase of a three-month plan, I called them

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understand if GLP-1s are right for you and your goals. But that's just the beginning. Rowe members have support throughout the process. That means no insurance paperwork, and you'll have access to your provider on demand for any questions. Plus, you can sign up online from the comfort of your Thank you. Go to roe.co slash survived to find out if you're covered for free. That's roe.co slash survived. For boxed warning and full safety information, go to roe.co slash safety. Prescription only. It's November 2007 in the North Atlantic Ocean. Kevin is one of three men delivering a catamaran from France to the United States. We were on a 38-foot catamaran, and it's a very nice little, about a half-million-dollar boat.

I've always been in love with sailing, and I always wanted to cross the Atlantic and push myself. Ollie previously was a businessman. He wanted to do something different besides being in the rat race. Steve the captain, he grew up sailing and I think he's had his uncle's boat that he sailed a lot. He did about five deliveries across the Atlantic. It can be easy but it also could be very tough. It all has to do with the weather. We left in January and that time of the year obviously in the North Atlantic, lots of storms coming through. So my taste of the Atlantic, I got it immediately. Four weeks into the trip,

the crew ran into a massive storm near Bermuda. Steve asked me if I wanted to see some big waves. I looked over his shoulder and I could see a wave rearing up, just a 30-foot moving hillside. And when it came up behind the boat, it looked like the ocean opened up into a hole, and the boat fell into it. We heard a large bang, and the boat reared up and tilted over in about 400 gallons of water, exploded into the boat. We had pots and pans and food and gear was flying across the boat,

and it was basically a huge mess and it was extremely scary because we thought we were going to capsize at that moment in time. But Steve kept it together. He was being a captain. You know, you got to keep in control of the situation, whether you're feeling, whether you're scared or not. He looked at me and he says, it's like, you need to go downstairs. You need to get some rest.

You're going to need it. Instead of taking all of my gear off, I just took my life jacket off. And then I proceeded to just pull over my sleeping bag and try to catch some rest. I heard a very large bang, and the boat started shuddering. I was rolling around inside my cabin as the boat was flipping up and over. It completed a full 180 turn, and it completely turned upside down. Within an instant, the boat was flipping up and over. It completed a full 180 turn, and it completely turned upside down. Within an instant, the boat was already flooding with water.

I was flipped over in my bed. The cushions were on top of me. By the time I even got out of my bunk area, which was upside down now, I had jumped into waist-deep water. Everything was on the opposite side, which was very confusing and very, very, very scary at that moment. As I came up to the cabin, I saw Steve come out of his side of the boat. He told me to run and grab that ditch bag, which I did.

And then he said to go to the escape hatch and get outside and get on the outside of the hulls. The ditch bag contained emergency provisions and a satellite locator beacon. When I opened up the escape hatch, I could not believe what I was actually seeing. The full force of the storm that had knocked us over was in my face.

It was 55 plus knot winds and 45 foot breaking seas. I definitely wanted to click my heels at that moment and get out of there, but I realized that as long as I didn't come to grips with the situation, my chances of survival were not gonna be very good. I noticed that there was a D ring bolt right outside the hatch. I clipped onto it, got out of the hull,

and as soon as I did that, I was hit by a 45-foot breaking wave that broke on the back of the boat that landed on top of me. It ragdolled me to the front of the boat, and then the surge brought me back to the back of the boat and went back and forth about three or four times while I had not been able to surface. It basically felt like I was in a washing machine on a tether. After being pounded by a 45-foot wave and being ragdolled back and forth on the end of my tether, I realized that that was not the place that I needed to be.

I needed to be on the front of the boat where the impact of the waves would be less. So I unhooked myself from the D-ring. The next wave that came, I rode it and slid over the hull up until the trampoline, which is the front mesh part of the sailboat. As soon as I hit the trampoline, I stuck my fingers into the trampoline and held on like a cat with claws because that was the last place that I was going to be able to save my own life. Kevin turned on the emergency satellite beacon. Steve and Ollie emerged from the escape hatch. They swam up to where I was and all three of us sat and held on

to the trampoline at that moment and just caught our breaths. I looked at Steve. I asked him if we were going to get out of here tonight and he said, you are going to get out of here tonight. We're going to get out of here. It will be fine. you are going to get out of here tonight. We're going to get out of here. It will be fine. We'll figure this out. I could feel my body heat being washed away by the waves because we were actually lying down on top of the trampoline in water. So I decided to jump up, walk around to the edge of the hull, and stand up and lean against the hull and hold on to what's called a bow stay.

Ollie had gotten up. Steve was still lying down in the water on the trampoline. He was only wearing his base layer and a fleece outer layer and his life jacket. So he did not have that waterproof shell that protected him from the wind and the water. He was already cold and already well on his way through hypothermia.

We tried to get him to stand up and we tried to hold him between us so he would be out of the water. He was already cold and already well on his way through hypothermia. We tried to get him to stand up and we tried to hold him between us so he would be out of the water and wouldn't go into hypothermia so quick. But he was already pretty far gone. I actually at one point heard him speaking to his mother or talking to his mom like he was a little kid and I knew that we were he was in trouble and a lot of trouble. We checked on Steve again. We were trying to tell him just to hold on and it wasn't going to be much longer and as we tried to check in on him he wasn't responsive. We tried to feel for a pulse but we didn't necessarily couldn't feel for a pulse because our hands were freezing each one of us had a strobe light that was attached to our life jacket and each one went off in different timings so basically the whole evening which was pitch black

we were getting flashes pictures of what was all going on around us so every once in a while if I turned around I could see that a flash and a picture of a big wave coming and then it and then it'd be pitch black and then we would feel the impact of the wave right soon after that. The wave would collapse and crash and impact and explode basically on top of us and push us off the front of the boat. I'm still attached by this tether, and then the next wave would come, and I'm off the front of the catamaran. The bow of the boat would rise out of the water, and then the next wave would come,

and then the whole boat would basically come down on top of me. I had to hold my breath until that big wave passed through. I'd reach around, grab back onto the crossbar of the front of the catamaran, and crawl back on the boat. This happened 50, 60 times during the whole evening. We all got hit by a very huge wave, which then picked up Ollie, picked up Steve, and pushed us all off the front of the boat, and crushed me against the cable that I was holding onto and exploded my life jacket. I realized that if I had become detached from the boat, I was immediately a goner. Ollie clambered back on board, but Kevin remained in the water

with the unconscious Steve. I crawled back onto the boat and pulled on the tether to bring Steve back on. And just at that moment, a wave came where the bowels of the boat went down in the water. Steve actually, by the surge, came and fell on top of my lap. All I could see was these flashes from the strobe, and I could see that his mouth was agape and his eyes were wide open and he was under about eight inches of water.

And at that moment, I knew that he was not with us any longer. I could not believe that he was dead. I could not believe that we could not pull him out of this situation. We couldn't all get out of it altogether. At that moment, I reached down and closed his eyes. Another wave came and blew both of us back off the front of the boat. I pulled on his tether again and pulled him in. I was trying to, basically trying to bring something back for his family, for his kids.

After about 40 minutes of this happening over and over again, this one last time I got blown off off pulling him in on the tether and saw that his life jacket had slipped off of him. And I jumped and I looked over the edge of the boat with my strobe light going off. And I could see down in the water the first flash. I could see his face look up at me like this. And the next flash, he was about six feet underneath the water. The next flash, he was deeper. And then about the

fourth flash of the strobe light, he was gone. And that was the last I saw of Steve. Kevin tries to recover Steve's body from the waves, but he pulls in an empty life jacket. Only minutes later, the Coast Guard helicopter arrives. It went from being very hopeless to being one of the best moments of my entire life. I could not believe that the Coast Guard had finally showed up. As a rescue swimmer was coming down on the cable, out of the blackness, a 45-foot wave came out and basically just looked like it ate him. All of a sudden, looking right in my eyes was a rescue swimmer,

and he looked straight at me and goes, Hey, man, how you doing? He swam me over to the helicopter, put me in the basket, and hoisted me up into the helicopter, and I leaned over and passed out. Kevin and Ollie were taken to the Bermuda Hospital with hypothermia. If I hadn't gotten to the hospital, my liver would have shut down, my kidneys would have shut down just from the stress and the adrenaline for so long. Steve's body was never found. Losing him the way that we did and how young he was, being only 52 years old and having a whole life that he

wanted to do sailing in the Caribbean. It was an awful thing to lose him. Love Steve very much. I wish he was still here. I survived because I did not want to die that night. I had a lot more to live for. I wanted to have a family. I wanted to have a wife and kid. And I did not want to go out that way. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Hey, I survived listeners, whether you love true crime or comedies, celebrity interviews, news, or even motivational speakers, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue, right? And guess what? Now you can call the shots on your auto insurance too. Enter the Name Your Price tool from Progressive. The Name Your Price tool puts you in charge of

your auto insurance by working just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance. Then they'll show you a variety of coverages that fit within your budget, giving you options. Now that's something you'll want to press play on. It's easy to start a quote and you'll be able to choose the best option for you fast. It's just one of the many ways you can save with Progressive Insurance. Quote today at Progressive.com to try the Name Your Price tool for yourself and join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. For years, Tim Ballard has been championed as a modern-day superhero. The first time I saw one of the kids from the video, and it like changed

my life. He was the face of Operation Underground Railroad, a movement that inspired hope around the world by rescuing children from human traffickers. However, Ballard's crusade to save innocent lives has always hidden a darker secret. Oh, I think he's a pathological liar. Beneath the accolades and the applause, a dark storm has been brewing. I mean, I can't find a time that he's told the truth about anything. Shocking allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced, casting a shadow over his once unquestioned reputation. I am host Sarah James McLaughlin,

and in this new season of The Opportunist, we explore the rise and the fall of Tim Ballard. Join us this October for Tim Ballard, Unmasking a Hero. Subscribe to a new season of The Opportunist now, wherever you get your podcasts. It's August 1996 in Santa Monica, California. Helena has just turned 17 and her parents have given her a car for her birthday. It was like a little beep-beep, like it was just a happy little convertible. I was very, very excited about it.

I can't imagine anyone else driving it besides a teenage girl. That day I had been out on a blind date, which had gone really well. He was a cute boy. I was really excited to meet him. After the date, which had gone, you know, really well. He was a cute boy. I was really excited to meet him. After the date, Helena had some free time before her parents expected her home. She took her new car to a do-it-yourself car wash. It's so exciting when you have your first car and

it belongs to you and you just want to take care of it. There weren't other people in the car wash, but there were some guys there who worked at, there's a bakery that's open really late, and they were just taking a break. I had begun washing the car when this person approached me. His face was covered with a rag, a wadded up rag he had held to his mouth, and he said, I've been hurt, I was in a fight, I need help, I need to go to the hospital. I looked up and the men, the other men were suddenly gone, and I was in a fight. I need help. I need to go to the hospital. I looked up and the other men were suddenly gone. And I was alone with this person.

And in that moment, I realized that something was wrong. The alarms went off. I said, okay, sure, I can help you. And, you know, knowing in my mind that I was going to get in my car and drive away. So I said, let me just get my mats in the car. And then I will, you know, I'll take you to get help. And I walked back to the door to get back into the car and suddenly he was there. It was like he had materialized behind me and I didn't see how it was possible for someone to

move so quickly. The next thing I knew, he had this knife against my throat. He had his arm around my throat, and I felt the metal from the knife here. So he said, you know, just get in the car. The man forced Helena to drive to a quiet street nearby. And this was the moment where I realized that something was wrong. He looked over at me, and he said, can you take your hair down?

I'd had my hair in a bun. I just felt sick. I knew that no one would be concerned about my whereabouts until significantly later in the evening. I didn't have any hope that someone was going to realize I was gone and that that would save me. I knew that I had to do it myself. So I started telling him anything I could think of, anything that would humanize me

and make him decide not to do whatever it was he was about to do. He didn't even seem to hear me. He seemed really off. He just kept looking at me and it was very unsettling. And at this point he reached over and he started to touch me and I just completely froze. He fondled me for a while and then he took a look around and he said, you know, I don't, let's, I don't want to be here. Let's go somewhere else. With the knife against her side, the man forced Helena to drive him through the dark streets. There was no doubt in my mind that he was ready and willing to use the weapon that he had. And he also told me a lot of stories about other people that he had hurt to let me know. He told

me that he had stabbed other people. He told me that he was responsible for a murder. He told me many things that made me very certain that there was no reason he wouldn't take my life. He was either holding the knife around my throat or he would keep it against my side. The only thing that I could think to do was to create a relationship with him to the point where he wouldn't want to hurt me. He told me that he was from Texas and that he had a wife who he was really angry at. And at this point I tried to turn that into, but I don't think that you're angry with me and I don't think that you want to hurt me. I think that you're angry at your wife, but I'm not her.

Every once in a while he would realize that he was becoming, letting his guard down, and that would make him really angry. And when he would get angry, he would push the knife further into my chest or push the knife further into my throat. I took him very seriously because he was just crazy. He was high. He was completely erratic. He would go from being calm one moment to yelling and in a blind rage the next. So I didn't know at which point this would turn into him stabbing me to death.

As she drove, the man complained that his eye was bleeding. I'd never believed that he was injured. I felt confident that he was just hallucinating that it was a side effect of the drugs he was on, but I saw it as an opportunity to play on those fears. The man agreed to let Helena drive him to the hospital. I was so excited that this was going to work. I felt like I was about to get rid of him. And then he became furious. He became furious and he said, you're not going to get rid of me that easy. I'm fine, drive. When he became enraged and decided that he wasn't getting out of the car, I just felt crushed. At first I felt really confident that I could talk him out of hurting me.

But as the evening wore on, I realized that I was not dealing with a rational person. I was not dealing with someone that I could talk sense to. We pulled off into this truck yard and he made me take off all of my clothes. And that's the first place where he sexually assaulted me. The man sexually violated Helena numerous times, threatening to kill her if she did not comply. Every time that he made me perform an act, I felt completely detached and shut down. It's something so horrible and intolerable that we can't be present for it.

But I never stopped asking him to please let me go. I never stopped trying to talk my way out of it. I would try to remind him that we were friends and that he had promised me he wasn't going to hurt me, that he wasn't going to assault me anymore. He vacillated in between, saying that he was sorry he had done that and he wouldn't do it anymore, to telling me that he would do what he liked

and if he wanted to kill me, he was gonna kill me, and if he wanted to rape me, he was gonna rape kill me, and if he wanted to rape me, he was going to rape me. He never stops having the power to end my life. There were, like, little moments throughout the night where I would wonder, like, how there could be a world of people asleep in their beds or living their lives, and I was, you know, in a truck yard about to be murdered. How could that even exist?

After he assaulted me, he asked for my license. And he said, this is so that I know where you live. And if you ever tell anyone what happened, I'm going to come to your house, and I'm going to kill your family. I felt so, so terrified, but I felt hope, because it was a sign that he was going to let me go. It was a sign that he was going to give me an opportunity

to tell someone. He had intentionally kept me vulnerable by having me remain undressed. So, and he even said at one point, like, if you, if you try to run away, you're going to have to run away naked because you don't get to wear any clothes. He had me get back into the driver's seat and he allowed me to put my shirt and my skirt back on. I thought he was going to let me go, and he didn't. He said, drive out. And I just felt devastated because after this horrible thing had happened, thinking that it was going to be over, but it wasn't. It wasn't over yet. He had me drive into this truck stop. There's a freeway going over it. Pull into the underpass, and we just

sat there for the longest time. It would go from us talking as if we were two friends to him being on the verge of killing me, of like slitting my throat. So it was really just kind of a Russian roulette. I felt like I was walking a tightrope the whole time, and the consequence was my life. A woman sitting at a bus bench

across the way got up and walked over to the car. She said, do you guys want to party? I told her, you know, no. After she walked away, he he So after she walked away, he forced me to perform oral sex on him again. And I said, Steve, but you promised me that you wouldn't make me do that anymore. He said, well, that bitch made me horny. So I did what he asked. And so I did what he asked and So I did what he asked and after

Another silence. He said okay. I'm gonna. I'm gonna let you go now I'm gonna let you go now, but I want you to remember that I know where you live and that I know when you make a police report. I can hear it I have a scanner and if you do that I'm gonna come back and I'm going to kill you and your family. And he said that he had had, he'd had such a nice time with me and that maybe one day he would come back and take me on a date. And then he got out of the car, and he backed into the darkness back there. And as soon as I didn't see him anymore, I drove away.

As I drove away, I realized that there was never going to be a time in my life where I could be confident he wouldn't come back. I just completely lost it. I was screaming and crying, and then realized that there had to be a next step. Even though I was terrified of what would happen, if I made a police report, I knew I couldn't not make a police report. He was obviously going to do it again, and I couldn't be responsible for that. I just couldn't. Helena told the police immediately, but for 14 years, no one was charged. I spent most of that time thinking that he was going to come back for me any day. I would imagine waking up and finding my family had been murdered.

It was only when Helena sought rape crisis advocacy that the evidence was tested. Less than two weeks later, the offender was caught. I had lived 14 years in a state of terror and depression, and I wasn't even living. I started to live my life, you know, at the age of 32. Him being caught completely changed my life. Charles Courtney is serving a 25-year prison term for rape. In 1932, him being caught completely changed my life. Charles Courtney is serving a 25-year prison term for rape.

Helena now works in rape crisis advocacy, helping others who have survived sexual attacks. I survived because I followed my instincts, and I did what I thought I needed to do in order to leave the situation alive. Even though it wasn't heroic by some standards, it was exactly what it needed to be for me to be here today. Like me. They've got something for everyone, and it's free. I love free, and I love Jersey Shore. For me, it's the Godfather. SpongeBob SquarePants. I am Patrick. Patrick is me. Oh, Forrest Gump, come on. Criminal Minds. Solving crime after bedtime.

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