Cold Case Files - I Survived: I Felt Like A Hockey Puck Sliding On Ice

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

Jessica endures years of abuse from her neighbor from the age of 9. After her abuser escalates to abducting the child it takes another 104 days to finally bring the traumatic ordeal to a conclusion. D...erek is taking a solo day trip up Mount Adams in Washington when he loses his footing and slides down a glacier breaking his ankle and losing his gear. Derek endures 6 days and 5 freezing nights on the trail without food or water until he can find help. Latoya was 7 months pregnant when she is brutally attacked by her neighbor. Aura: For a limited time visit Aura.com/Trust to sign up for a 14 day free trial and start protecting your loved ones! Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. 

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. He repeatedly told me that if I told anybody that he would kill me and my family members. Real people. She sat on my stomach and started stabbing me. She was like, um, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna kill your baby. I, I hate you. Who faced death. I felt like a hockey puck sliding on ice.
Starting point is 00:00:27 I knew if I hit rocks at those speeds, I have the great potential of dying. And lived to tell how. And I didn't know what to do, and I knew that I couldn't tell anybody. I was a nine then. This is I Survived. It's spring 1990 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Starting point is 00:00:55 Jessica's parents are divorced. She and her brothers live with their mom and stepdad. Jessica is eight years old. Everybody felt safe. You know, we'd ride our bikes around with my friends around the neighborhood, play soccer. We'd sell Girl Scout cookies, go door to door. 33-year-old Steven Oliver moved next door to Jessica's mom's house.
Starting point is 00:01:16 When Oliver and his son moved in, you know, he seemed really nice. You know, always wanted to buy kids ice cream, treats, take them to the movies. He took us to the arcade, so it seemed pretty cool to us and he seemed like a nice guy. It was a third grade summer and we had all the neighborhood kids and we would play two-hand touch football and Oliver would be the quarterback for both teams. And since it was a two-hand touch football and Oliver would be the quarterback for both teams. And since it
Starting point is 00:01:47 was a two-hand touch football he would basically grab my butt or grab my chest area and at the time I didn't really think you know anything of it just because it was two-hand touch but then as the summer went on and it went you know more repeatedly and it was getting more aggressive than I knew, you know, that it wasn't right. Oliver found ways to separate Jessica from the other children. Nobody knew or paid attention to the fact that Oliver would pull me aside, follow me into his house, and he would lock me up in one of the rooms. And then he would set me on his lap.
Starting point is 00:02:29 And he would start kissing me and start fondling my breasts under my shirt. He repeatedly told me that if I told anybody, that he would kill me and my family members. So basically, I did whatever he told me to do. The abuse escalated to where he'd make me take my clothes off. He would force himself on me and rubbed up against me. And I was forced to say that I like it and that I love him
Starting point is 00:03:14 and that it feels really good. I always went home feeling dirty and feeling like that I did something wrong. And I didn't know what to do. And I knew that I couldn't tell anybody. I was a nine then. He repeatedly told me that if I told anybody that he would kill me and my family members,
Starting point is 00:03:44 I didn't feel safe anywhere because of all the threats he gave me. I mean, he lived a house away from me, which meant he had access to me at all times. And so I wasn't safe there. I wasn't safe at school. He was like a student aid or a teacher's aid helper at the elementary school.
Starting point is 00:04:02 He made sure that he was in my English, my math class, no matter what class I was in, he was a student aid teacher there. When we were in recess he would corner me to the back of the playground area where he could rub up against me. No one would pay attention to it at all. Nobody suspected Oliver, and Jessica was too afraid to tell anyone of the abuse. Oliver would call my mom and ask if my brothers and I would come over, whatever, watch movies, play games or whatever.
Starting point is 00:04:44 She knew that he's a single father, so she felt bad for him. So she knew that we were over there playing, but nobody knew Oliver would take me aside and continue to abuse me. And it would last for as long as he would want it to last and make me say that I liked it. Otherwise, it would just keep going on and on until I said I liked it. This was throughout the whole school year, pretty much on a daily basis. At the end of fourth grade, Jessica's stepdad got a job in another town. My stepdad Jake had announced to us that we
Starting point is 00:05:31 were moving. I felt excited, you know, because then the abuse would stop. You know, my life would go back to normal. A couple days before we were going to move, my mom told me that the Oliver's moved. They're not here anymore. So then I was happy because I'm like, okay, now the abuse is done. Jessica, her two brothers, mom and stepdad, moved to a town 100 miles away. The children still spent alternate weekends back at their dad's home. Now that we live two hours away, we saw our dad every other weekend. So the first weekend our dad picked us up,
Starting point is 00:06:11 soon as we got to my dad's house, there was Oliver right there again. And we found out that he moved across the street from my dad. My dad allowed me, my two brothers, and then my two stepsisters, and then my stepbrother to go over to Oliver's and play. There was no rules at my dad's house. I mean, we could be out after dark, after 10 o'clock,
Starting point is 00:06:37 whatever. It didn't matter. Oliver would have all of us over or just me over, and the abuse would continue and escalate. It was in the middle of fifth grade that he had forced sexual intercourse on me. I just was too afraid to tell anybody. He repeatedly told me that if I told anybody
Starting point is 00:07:13 that he would kill my family members and then kill me. You know, and I was terrified for that because I didn't want my parents to suffer. My brothers didn't know anything about it. My parents didn't. It was just me. After that many years of abuse, I just basically did whatever he told me to do.
Starting point is 00:07:37 And I would just imagine being somewhere else just so that it would seem to myself get done faster. But in reality, it's just going to take as long as it's going to take. But that's how I got through that. In the spring, Oliver set up a children's creative writing club. He persuaded Jessica's dad and stepmom to enroll her and her brothers in the club. And they thought it was okay, you know, because that's, you know, then they don't have to watch us.
Starting point is 00:08:06 They don't have to worry about us. You know, so they thought it was legitimate. For the writing club, the 12 of us kids, we were taken to Altoona Park. He would give us out assignments and say, you know, you have to write a short story. You have to do a poem. You have to do whatever.
Starting point is 00:08:25 He would play, all right, guys, it's enough work for today. Let's go play hide and seek. He would be the seeker. We would hide. He would find me first. And I would get sexually abused physically or sexually verbally abused. It went on for, let's see, fifth, sixth, seventh grade,
Starting point is 00:08:48 so about three years. When Jessica was 13, Oliver told her a publisher wanted to print her stories. I was pretty excited about that, you know, having a book published, you know, so to me that was, you know, something cool. He volunteered to take the 7th grader on a weekend trip to meet the publisher. My dad, my stepmom, set me aside.
Starting point is 00:09:14 Oliver was there, and they said that you're going to go with him to get your book laid out and published. And I had asked, you know, did my mom say it was okay? And they said yes, and I'm like, well, I know, did my mom say it was OK? And they said yes. And I'm like, well, I don't think my mom would be OK with this. But I was a kid. I trusted what they said, so I did what they told me to do.
Starting point is 00:09:38 I got my overnight bag and my CDs, got them in his car. And then I fell asleep, dozed off probably for a couple of hours. And then I wake up and I find myself. I'm tied around my wrists. My mind's racing 1,000 miles a minute. Why is this happening to me? Where am I going?
Starting point is 00:10:03 Why am I tied up? What is he going this happening to me? Where am I going? Why am I tied up? What is he going to do to me? Is he going to kill me? I asked if I was ever going home. He said no. Um... And then I asked him about the book, and he said that there was no book.
Starting point is 00:10:27 He had a knife to my back the whole entire time throughout the airport. Once we got off of the airplane in Houston, he took the first van that was available to the closest hotel. The first night, I was introduced to pornography. And he'd make me sit there, watch it, memorize it. And I would have had to perform it. And if it was not perfect, I was beaten really hard
Starting point is 00:11:02 in the stomach by his fist that I could barely even walk. And I heard the worst when he said that my parents and my family and friends didn't love me or didn't want me anymore. And he repeated this so many times that I began to believe it, and it was really hard. When Jessica and Oliver failed to return home, her frantic parents alerted the police. Oliver was about 5'10". He had oily lips, and he had cold sores, and he had these three distinct pot marks here, and And he was bald here, so he bought a baseball cap, you know, so people wouldn't recognize him. He dyed my hair an almost black color, cut it.
Starting point is 00:11:56 After altering their appearances, Oliver moved Jessica and himself to another hotel. And he told everybody that, you know, this is my daughter, Cindy. She's been homeschooled all of her life, so she's going to remain homeschooled. So nobody questioned about me ever not leaving the hotel room. I complied with what Oliver told me to do, told me to say.
Starting point is 00:12:24 And that's what you got to do to survive. I found out the hard way that if you don't comply, you're going to get beaten, raped, hit, whatever, if you don't comply, because I did that, and it doesn't work. And I couldn't escape because the door was locked from the outside. Oliver had disabled the phone so that Jessica was unable to call for help. And he was running out of money. And he's like, well, I don't have any money to pay for this hotel room.
Starting point is 00:12:57 So then he wanted basically for me to be a prostitute. That's what I would be doing, and he would watch. Every day you're listening to, you know, your parents don't love you. They don't want you. You're worthless. You're damaged good. You begin to believe it.
Starting point is 00:13:19 I didn't know that my name was Jessica. I knew that my parents and my friends were looking for me. But the images of them just kind of faded. During the whole three and a half months that I was kidnapped, I was a prisoner to him because what he said went. There was no questions to be asked. A woman who worked at the hotel became suspicious of Oliver and called the FBI. I was in bed, sleeping, and it was like 2 or 3 in the morning.
Starting point is 00:14:03 There was banging on a door. The owner of the hotel and two FBI agents came in. They flashed their badges. I was freaking out because I was like, okay, is this fake? Is this real? Am I actually going home? I saw my mom coming out of the airport. And I started running towards her.
Starting point is 00:14:28 And I give her a big hug. And she's crying. I'm crying. And in my mind, I'm like, is this real? You know, because it's her being held and captive for so long. You know, it's like, is it a dream or is it true? The first night staying at home, it freaked me out, because I wasn't used to staying in a bedroom with pajamas
Starting point is 00:15:00 in your own bed and not having somebody yell at you, not having somebody abuse you. So that took a while to get used to. Stephen Oliver was found guilty of kidnapping and transportation of a minor. He is serving 41 years and two months in a super maximum security prison. I don't think it's harsh enough. You know, if they had a death sentence in Wisconsin, I wish he would have gotten that, but we don't have that here. The abuse from Oliver from third all the way
Starting point is 00:15:34 through seventh grade, I was hit a lot in the face. So I've had 14 jaw surgeries. Eventually, my whole jaw by itself will be replaced. Returning to school, that was a nightmare. All the friends I had, I didn't have anymore because I was getting beat up in the schools and the halls. I was getting thrown down the stairs, being accused of not getting away,
Starting point is 00:16:06 basically being blamed for not running away. And these problems went all the way up through college, so it wasn't easy. Jessica graduated from college with honors. She is now married and continues to advocate for missing children. I'm a symbol of hope to a lot of the parents out there that are still still have missing kids out there and for the kids that have returned home because there's only so many of us that have been returned home. It's not a lot. So talking to them, you know, gives them hope, makes them stronger. It's not easy, but it's just something that I do. I survive so that I could continue living
Starting point is 00:16:56 a life and being a part of the community and with my family. 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.
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Starting point is 00:18:10 financial fraud, and other online threats before they happen. Aura scans the dark web to look for your email addresses, passwords, social security numbers, and other sensitive information. If anything is found, you'll receive an alert in real time. It's a comprehensive online safety solution that provides almost every tool you'll ever need all in one place. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14-day trial plus a check of your data to see if your personal information has been leaked online, all for free when you visit aura.com slash trust. That's aura.com slash trust to sign up for a 14-day free trial and start protecting you and your loved ones. A-U-R-A dot com slash trust. Certain terms apply, so be sure to check the site for details. It's October 2008 in Mount Adams,
Starting point is 00:18:55 Washington. Experienced hiker Derek is planning a solo day trip up to Mount Adams. To get an early start, he drives to the mountain and camps overnight in the car park. I got up at about 4.30 in the morning. That's when it was really cold. And just got my stuff together, just kind of get myself all warmed up and motivated to head up the trail. It was nice and quiet, no wind, just light sleet.
Starting point is 00:19:21 And I thought, well, I'm just going to kind of play it by ear and keep on going up the mountain, through the timberline, and I thought, well, I'm just going to kind of play it by ear and keep on going up the mountain through the timberline and just see what happens. Derek knew weather conditions on the 12,000-foot mountain were notoriously changeable. I started to get high up on the glacier. Towards the top, I noticed the winds started to pick up, started just howling, gale force winds. So I thought, okay, there's no way I'm going to go any farther. I couldn't see very far in front of me because there was like a wide out conditions. To help his descent, Derek wore spiked crampons on the soles of his boots.
Starting point is 00:19:59 I was slowly inching my way down this big, down this big glacier. And I was kind of zigzagging down it because it was a really steep glacier. I made this one faithful step, and my crampons didn't bite into the ice. So I just started sliding down the mountain, and I felt like a hockey puck sliding on ice. I was spinning around in circles, 360 degree circles, and everything was a blur. I knew if I hit rocks at those speeds, I have the great potential of dying. On my way down as I was sliding, I lost my beanie.
Starting point is 00:20:25 That flew off my head. The headlamp I used to climb up in the dark, that fell off my head. And I also lost my ice axe. My crampons grabbed into the ice. And basically, my body kept sliding and my ankle twisted. And that's when it broke. And I felt an intense searing pain and I
Starting point is 00:20:46 told myself this is really bad. I was sliding fast with a broken ankle and I thought okay this could this could be it this could be your last time you could die here. I would say I slid nearly at 1000 feet and I drove my wrists into the snow as hard as I could, and by some miracle, I was able to slow myself down to a stop. When I stopped sliding and I evaluated my injuries, I looked at my ankle, and my thigh was like this, and my ankle was bent like this. I was in excruciating pain. But the best thing about pain is it tells you you ain't dead yet.
Starting point is 00:21:21 Derek knew it would be 24 hours before his family reported him missing. didn't get a signal, I tried calling 911 and I couldn't get anything. Since I didn't have an ice axe and I couldn't stand, I couldn't put any weight on that ankle whatsoever, I had to be inventive. So what I did was, with my good ankle, I kicked out these holes in the snow and what I'd do is I'd slide my bottom end into those holes and I just inched my way down the mountain that way. That was on an almost vertical slope, so one false move, and that could be it. I lost all my important gear.
Starting point is 00:22:19 So now I didn't have any protection from hypothermia because my head was exposed. And I didn't have that ice from hypothermia because my head was exposed. And I didn't have that ice axe to help get me down the rest of the mountain. And I didn't have a light so I could see what I'm doing at night. It took me until dark before I got off the dangerous part of the mountain and onto that plateau area
Starting point is 00:22:40 where there's these big lava rocks. And I snugged myself in there and got as comfortable as I could. And the clouds started to roll in, and the wind picked up, and it started sleeting. As night fell, the temperature dropped to 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
Starting point is 00:22:56 I was very cold, and that was a very mentally exhausting thing to have to deal with that. So I just took everything one step at a time. I took the cold one step at a time. Survival is something you have to take one step at a time. On the morning of the second day, Derek has run out of water and is on his last small bag of trail mix. I couldn't get any water because it was just everything was all frozen solid. So I just kept crawling, dragging myself down the mountain, and I was very thirsty, very, very thirsty.
Starting point is 00:23:29 By the afternoon, Derek's family reported him overdue, and a helicopter began searching for him. When I saw that helicopter, I thought he saw me, because it was coming right towards me. I thought, oh, yes. So I kind of braced myself on a rock,
Starting point is 00:23:43 and I took my crampons, and I waved them over my head because I thought maybe the sun shining off a metal would be seen from the helicopter. Helicopter flew over me, and it kept on going. I really realized at this point that, OK, I'm going to have to spend another night here, and I'm really on my own. I have this severely broken bone,
Starting point is 00:24:04 and I have no way of dealing with it right now. One thing I was worried about was possible frostbite with that foot because I'm not getting blood circulation there because my ankle is dislocated. I was thinking, hey, I could potentially lose my foot. On the morning of the third day, Derek is unable to walk and is crawling down the mountain in search of water. I slowly but surely crawled over boulders, big boulders, down this gully. And eventually, 11 o'clock that morning, I actually saw a waterfall coming down this gorge. I made it to that waterfall, and I took my bottle and filled it up and it was the best tasting water I had in my life.
Starting point is 00:24:47 I lifted up some logs and I found a centipede. I put that in my mouth and I just swallowed it. And I thought, if I can eat, then I can keep going. It didn't taste bad. It didn't taste like anything at all. Just like eating lunch meat or something. I just kept lifting logs. I found a spider, ate a spider.
Starting point is 00:25:10 And I just kind of did that whenever I could the rest of my time out there. My ankle was swelling. And at night when I would rest, I wouldn't call it sleep. I'd just call it rest. I found a lava rock, and I'd just call it rest. I found a lava rock and I just propped my broken ankle up on that lava rock to help alleviate the swelling. Because I didn't want to take that boot off.
Starting point is 00:25:34 I was in excruciating pain. Very painful. But if I took that boot off, when you have those cold nights, there's no way I'm going to be able to get that boot on and that boot was keeping my foot warm. I was going to do whatever I could to try and get myself to safety. So I ignored the pain because I was alive and I was excited to be alive and people, I guess, don't generally survive out in the woods without a sleeping bag or without a tent, food or water. So the odds were that I should have been dead.
Starting point is 00:26:09 On the morning of the fourth day, after enduring another sleepless night in freezing conditions, he discovers a trail. On the trail, I would actually crawl like a baby. But the problem with that is if there were rocks on the trail, my knees would get punctured up, beat up. What I thought I could do was potentially splint my leg, and then I found two sticks
Starting point is 00:26:34 that I thought I could potentially use as crutches. I tried to sort of hop on my one leg with that. The only problem was that the splint wasn't keeping my ankle in place no matter what I did. When it was wiggling around, that was making it very, very painful. So I sort of eventually gave up on that, and I just stayed on that trail that whole day. It's now the sixth day. And I just kept crawling along the trail. I haven't had a drop of water for two days. I thought I heard my name being called very faintly. And I'm like, this is too good to be
Starting point is 00:27:12 true. This can't be happening. And I yelled, and then I heard my name again. And then I yelled back as loud as I could. I all of a sudden didn't care about my injuries or anything like that. I was on cloud nine. I was that happy. I had a dislocated ankle. I had third-degree frostbite on my buttocks, and I had bad frostbite on the foot where my ankle was broken. The frostbite wasn't so bad to the point where they had to amputate my foot, so I'm gonna be able to make a 100% recovery.
Starting point is 00:27:52 I survived because if you think you're going to die, it's more likely that you will. You have to think that dying is not an option and living is the only option no matter what it takes. I just have a heck of a lot to live for. So there's no way I can, I can die out there. No way. I Survived is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Let's face it, sometimes multitasking can be overwhelming, like when your favorite podcast is playing, and the person next to you is talking, and your car fan is blasting, all while you're trying to find the perfect parking spot. But then again, sometimes multitasking is easy, like quoting with
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Starting point is 00:29:09 Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. It's April 1999 in Memphis, Tennessee. Single mom Latoya works in the office of the apartment complex where she lives. She has two children,
Starting point is 00:29:34 aged three and one, and is seven months pregnant. There was a woman living in the apartment complex. You know, I kind of ignored her in the beginning. But my mother died, and I befriended her more then. Jackie was 29 years old at the time. Early one morning, Latoya and her children were asleep when Jackie knocked on the door. When I opened the door, she was like chipper, very like upbeat and happy.
Starting point is 00:30:05 And her first question was, do you have a couple of dollars that I can borrow? I was like, I don't have a couple of dollars. She was like, well, can I use the bathroom? I was kind of mad, you know, like, why are you here? You know, it's three o'clock in the morning. My children are asleep. I'm tired. I'm pregnant.
Starting point is 00:30:23 And so I was like, OK, you can use the bathroom. And I let her in and I laid down on the couch and fell asleep. Latoya's two young children were also asleep on the couch in the living room. I was awakened by, I guess, her hitting me and she hit me in the mouth with a beer bottle. And she was stabbing me in the mouth with a beer bottle and she was
Starting point is 00:30:45 stabbing me in the face with the broken beer bottle. My kids were screaming you know I just was like kind of fighting for my life. I just became weak I guess I was losing so much blood and I didn't realize it until I fell on the floor. She grabbed my son and he was screaming and crying and she kind of pulled him into the kitchen. I could hear her going through my drawers in the kitchen. She came back into the living room with a butcher knife and had my son with her.
Starting point is 00:31:25 And she took the covers that my children were sleeping on, and she put them over my head and stabbed me through the covers. I could feel my baby and my stomach kicking because she was sitting on it. And she was telling me, do you feel your baby's kicking? And she was like, I'm going to kill your baby. I hate you. I could hear the knife going in my head.
Starting point is 00:31:55 I could hear the sound of my bone and my skull. I guess the knife was scraping against my skull when she was stabbing me through the covers. Somehow I grabbed the knife while she was stabbing me. I held on to that knife, though. I wasn't going to let her stab me in the head again. But eventually she was able to get the knife out of my hand, and she slit my throat twice.
Starting point is 00:32:25 And I felt it. It felt like a like a butter knife. I didn't really know it was that she cut me that bad until the the second time and um I could hear the like the blood in my ear like running out of you know all of my cuts in my my throat and I could taste the blood in my mouth and my nose. I was kind of suffocating, like drowning in my own blood. So from that point, she got up. And I had 100 feet foam cords in my house. And she grabbed those and hog tied me with those. Meanwhile, my kids are screaming.
Starting point is 00:33:15 They're bloody because they're trying to hold on to me while she's dragging me into the other room. And she's screaming at the kids, you know, be quiet. Get on the couch. And I just remember telling my son, take your little sister and get on the couch and just be quiet, because you don't want Jackie to do to you what she's doing to me.
Starting point is 00:33:40 My children are still in the living room crying and screaming. My baby, she was a year and a half, so she really didn't understand what was going on. And my son was trying to keep her calm. And can you imagine a three-year-old trying to comfort a year-old little girl. She went back into the kitchen and got a plastic bag. And she puts the plastic bags over my head. I'm trying to breathe through the bags. You can, like, hear the bags rattling.
Starting point is 00:34:16 And she lit a cigarette. And she's sitting there smoking, talking to me, you know, telling me I've been planning this for a long time. I've been watching you for about a year. I asked her why. What did I do to her? She just told me she envied me. She didn't think I deserved to be beautiful.
Starting point is 00:34:48 And she starts putting the cigarette out in my face through the plastic bags. I don't remember feeling the burns or anything. I just remember the fresh air that I got from the hose that she put in the plastic bags. So I was really relieved, but just kind of like tripping out that she would put cigarettes out in my face. You know, that's crazy. I'm laying there with plastic bags on my head,
Starting point is 00:35:27 and I'm hog tied. And I'm thinking, God, is this the way I'm going to die? Is this really happening? And can you believe she left? She left the house finally. It took me maybe like 15 minutes or so to get my hands untied. And I just pulled myself, like, kind of crawled on the floor to the phone, praying to God that she wouldn't come back.
Starting point is 00:35:59 And as soon as I started dialing the phone is when she walked back in the room. And she grabbed the phone and snatched the cords out of the wall so I couldn't make the phone call. And she went into the kitchen and got the meat cleaver and chopped me on the arm with the meat cleaver. You know, I could see the fatty meat and the blood. And you know, it was obvious that I was really hurt at that time.
Starting point is 00:36:37 I just remember being like, you know, thinking to myself, this is never going to end. I was seven months pregnant at the time. And I have two kids there that I have to worry about. So it was a lot going on. I didn't really know what I was going to do, but I just knew that I had to get us out of there. I was talking to her like, hey, why don't you
Starting point is 00:37:00 get on a Greyhound and just go anywhere? I'll just make something up. I'll tell the police that I don't you get on a Greyhound and just go anywhere? I'll just, like, make something up. I'll tell the police that, you know, I don't know who did it. Just, like, go. And she's like, no, you're going to tell on me. You're going to, you know, they're going to get me. I'm going to jail for this.
Starting point is 00:37:16 I was very, very tired from, you know, all the blood loss and everything. So I passed out, and I just remember waking up and hearing someone snoring. And she was laying in the bed next to me asleep. I just remember thinking, I have to get untied. I have to get out of here. So I started working on untying myself, which took forever, and trying not to shake the bed to wake this crazy lady up.
Starting point is 00:37:47 After maybe 30 minutes or so, I was able to get my feet untied from the cords. I couldn't get my arms untied, but I was able to kind of slide out of bed without her knowing. And I had those plastic bags on my head. And I couldn't see anything. So I kept thinking, you know, as I'm walking out of the room, this lady's probably going to come and, like, hit me in the head
Starting point is 00:38:15 or, you know, it's going to start all over again. So I was very, very afraid. And at the same time, I kept thinking of my children. Her two children have fallen asleep on the couch, covered in their mother's blood. And I looked at my children and there was no way I could pick them up. I was too weak. I was able to make it to the front door and unlock the door. I just knew that I wasn't going to die this way. I was going to get us some help. I had plastic bags on my head.
Starting point is 00:38:53 I was still tied up. And I walked outside, and there were cars passing me up, like people looking at me, but no one would stop to help. So I had to walk to the complex office to get help. The only thing I could say was, can you help me? Please go get my kids. Office workers raced to Latoya's apartment to rescue her children.
Starting point is 00:39:16 When they started running in the office with my children, they were bloody and everything, and they were trying to make sure they weren't cut. Police and paramedics arrived on the scene. They were concerned about my baby. I didn't know like what to think, what to do, how to feel. I just knew that I was hurt pretty bad. Lacerations to Latoya's face and body required over 2,000 stitches. I was stabbed 36 times in the head, and my throat slid twice,
Starting point is 00:39:48 and I think 10 defense wounds, and I was cut with a meat cleaver on my arm. Jackie Hurt was arrested in Latoya's apartment. She was still asleep when the police arrived. The police found drug paraphernalia belonging to Jackie in the apartment. They found the crack pipe in the house. So, yeah, she was obviously getting high
Starting point is 00:40:17 in between the times of everything happening. She had to have been doing that for her to, you know, lay next to me in the bed and fall asleep after stabbing me to death almost, you know. Jackie Hurt was convicted on two counts of attempted first-degree murder and sentenced to 75 years. I carried my baby to full term, but he came out with dislocated hips, dislocated kneecaps, and severe brain damage. When he came out, you know, damaged by what she did,
Starting point is 00:40:58 that was very, very traumatizing. I survived for my children. And also, God gave me the strength to know that I can come through that for my children. They say money can't buy love. We'll be right back. You may know me from my books or my many interviews, such as Soft White Underbelly, Lex Friedman, or one of the many other places I've shared my perspective on love, life, and the law. I know a divorce lawyer isn't the first person you think of for advice on how to keep your relationship strong. But wisdom is found in unexpected, counterintuitive places. In sickness, we see the value of health. The godfather, he can teach you more about business than an MBA.
Starting point is 00:42:02 Fight club, it's actually about religion. The most valuable practical wisdom comes from unlikely sources. And it's time we sit up and pay attention to what they can teach us. So if you're looking for compelling conversation, blunt talk about culture, religion, romance, and how to navigate life in the machine of modern society,
Starting point is 00:42:19 I'll look forward to spending some time with you. I'm Jim Sexton. Unlikely Sources will be available May 28th.

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