Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Hear A Shot and Something Heavy Slamming onto the Floor

Episode Date: October 26, 2024

Teenage sisters Erin and Claire are living at home in Texas when they are attacked by a masked gunman who comes through an unlocked door. Kim is abducted by four armed men who hold her captive as they sexually assault her in multiple locations for 15 hours.  Hers: Start your free online visit at forhers.com/SURVIVED for your personalized weight loss treatment options. Huggies: Head to Huggies.com to learn more!  Ro - Go to Ro.co/Survived to start your weight loss journey Today! 

This episode of I Survived is brought to you by Huggies. Baby butts rejoice. New Huggies skin essentials are here. A brand new dermatologist approved line of diapers, wipes, and pull-ups training pants. All designed with baby's sensitive skin in mind. The following program contains descriptions of sexual violence that could be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. I could see a gun. I could see hammers, ropes.

Real people. There was no way out, no solution, no escape. Who faced death. He pointed a gun at my face and he said, I bet you wish you'd locked the door, don't you? And live to tell how. I felt like they would just switch gears at any moment and decide to kill me. This is I Survived. It's February 1998, and Erin is living in Port Arthur, Texas. I was living at home with my mother and my three sisters and my son Tony.

It was a Friday. I didn't have any plans to go out. Seventeen-year-old Erin is home alone with her infant son. Mom, being a firefighter, worked shift work and usually it was a six to six shift days or nights. That evening she was on a night shift. She did what she could to make sure that we weren't alone often. One of my grandparents would come and, you know, sleep at the house, or like my uncle Billy

would come and check on us. I had taken a phone call from my boyfriend around seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and he had asked me to go for supper with him. And I told him that I'd already put Tony down for the evening, and I was just going to go sit down and watch a movie. Erin's 14-year-old sister, Claire, is due back from a date with her boyfriend, Tim. I had decided to leave the back door unlocked so that when they came home, they wouldn't knock on my bedroom window and wake Tony up. I didn't hear anything until the door opened and there was a gentleman standing there with a mask on his face and I thought for a

minute that it was a friend of mine playing a joke and then he pointed a gun at my face and he said, I bet you wish you'd lock the door don't you? He was much taller than me, made me feel feel very, very, very small. And he seemed much more powerful. He grabbed my hair. He grabbed my ponytail. And he put the gun in my back. And he said, I want everything you have, all of your jewelry,

all of your money. If you go ahead and cooperate, I won't shoot you right now. And so I told him that we didn't have very much. But what we had was in my mother's jewelry box in her room. As we were walking through the house, I remember asking him if we could be quiet. I had a baby sleeping, and strangely, he said, OK. I had my hands up to show that I wasn't a threat,

and then we walked back to my mother's room. One thing that I felt bad was she had a 15-year pin from the fire department that had rubies in it, and I gave him everything that we had. I knew that she had a small revolver under her mattress. Maybe if I could scoot over there to the nightstand, maybe pretend I was getting something that I could scoop that gun out and shoot him. Effectively end what was happening.

But that seemed too big of a risk. He asked if there was anything else, and I told him that I had a couple of trinkets in my own jewelry box, just something that only a teenager would really have. So I led him to my room and I also reiterated, please be quiet, the baby's sleeping. And he said, okay, but he still made me turn on the light. I was hoping that Tony wouldn't wake up because my biggest fear was that he would do the quickest thing to silence a crying baby and that would be to kill him. The next sound I hear is a car pull up. He jerked my head harder and said, who is that?

And I told him, well, it's probably one of my sisters coming home. When we pulled into the driveway, it was strange, because I looked at the house and all the lights were off except for one, the light in my sister's bedroom where my nephew Tony was asleep. I thought it was strange so I asked him, you know, stay in the car for a minute, I'll be right back. I'm going to go check and make sure everything's okay. She opened the door and I stood in the doorway and I looked at her and she said, come inside, it's okay. I could tell she was scared. She wasn't smiling.

She wasn't being the older sister and rolling her eyes and, you know, I'll just get in the house and come on. And she was scared. From somewhere I saw this light, something reflected off of something else that was right here. But the guy said, come inside, or I'll blow this bitch's head off. I think I spoke 8,000 words a second and was, what do you want? Who are you? What are you doing here?

She was crying. She was telling him that he could have anything that he wanted, just don't hurt her sister. And the whole time he's got the gun, he's pressing it harder and harder against the back of my head. And he's pulling my hair tighter and tighter. And I remember telling Claire,

I just need you to calm down. It's okay. Just stop crying. It's all right. I need you to calm down. It's okay. Just stop crying. It's all right. I need you to calm down. Claire's boyfriend, Tim, goes to investigate why he hasn't heard from her. About that time, I heard Tim knock on the door.

And the guy standing to my right with Aaron out of sight of Tim, he said, tell him just to go away. My voice is shaking. I'm almost in tears, just unable to convey to him the seriousness of the situation. And before I could get out anything else, the man said, get inside. The guy told me and Tim to go into the bathroom, and we walked in the bathroom, and there's one door in there's no way out we're sitting in there going you know what do we do what what can we do I was 14 he was 17 we didn't have any weapons we didn't have anything this guy's in the dining room with a gun and my sister. He made me take off all of my clothes, and then I heard the sounds of duct tape

being ripped off the roll. My face is duct taped. My eyes are duct taped closed. So I couldn't see what was going on anymore. The guy says, hey, you, come in here. I look down and I see Aaron lying naked on the floor. And my heart just sank because I knew that this wasn't over. He tells me to take my clothes off.

He wraps duct tape around my eyes, tells me to lay down next to my sister. We were laying there, and I reached my hand out and grabbed her hand. And we were saying the Lord's Prayer. It was the only thing that came to mind at that point. He kicked Claire in the side and told her to shut up. He grabbed my hand and made me stand up and step a few feet

away from Claire. And then he made me lay on the floor again, and then he raped me. It was the coldest, most horrible thing that I've ever experienced. I remember thinking that maybe he would have his way with me and leave Claire alone. And I'm also thinking at the same time,

please don't let Tony wake up. Erin's just out of reach. And I can hear him raping her. It was so surreal. Like, how do I stop this? What do I do? And I had to do something. I had to say something. And all I could think of was to say, just stop.

You're hurting her. But he didn't care. And then he moved over to me. He started to run his finger down my stomach, and I said, well, I'm on my period right now. And he said, all right, get up. And he pulled me close. He held a gun to the back of my head and said, you feel that?

He said, don't do anything stupid. And he made me perform oral sex on him. I was so cold, and my body was just quivering, and I was so scared. I'm thinking to myself, what kind of person goes after teenage girls, young girls? After he gets done with Claire, I hear quiet again, and around that time, I hear another car pull in.

The girls' Uncle Billy arrives to check in on them. Uncle Billy was a massive wall of a man. And I knew that if anybody was going to help us or was going to save us, it was going to be Uncle Billy. And at the same time, I had this sense of dread of, this guy has a gun. What if he just sees Uncle Billy and that's it? He's like, oh, I have to get rid of this guy. This guy's a threat. And so it was a very bittersweet moment. The door opens. Uncle Billy says, who are you? What's going on in here? Then I hear a gunshot and a loud thud. Just last night, I overheard a conversation between friends about weight loss drugs and how GLP-1s work. And it feels like everyone is talking about them. The next thing I hear is always how expensive and

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That's ro.co slash survived. Go to ro.co slash safety for black box warning and full safety information. Compounded medication is not required to and does not receive FDA review or approval. Prescription only. Erin and Claire have been attacked in their family home by a masked intruder. When their Uncle Billy arrived to check in on them, he was confronted by the gunman. And then I hear a shot and the sound of something very heavy slamming onto the floor. And at this time, I put my head down and rolled the duct tape up to where I could just barely see.

And I saw this very large man laying on the floor. And I knew it was my uncle. And I hear moaning and groaning, these terrible sounds. So I asked Claire what all that noise is. And she looks at me and she says, that's Uncle Billy. The guy stepped away to the door, and he was calling Uncle Billy, oh, is there somebody out in your car? Is there somebody out in your car? And I'm sitting there listening. The only thing I can hear is my uncle's truck outside running, and the guy kept yelling at him and I said, well, why don't you go check? I hear the

screen door creaking like somebody's kind of opening it and trying to look out. And then I hear it open all the way. And then I hear it slam shut. And I knew he had to go outside because that's the only reason that screen door would have slammed shut. There was no, oh, well, what do I do now? I jumped up, I slammed the kitchen door, I locked it. My brilliant little sister locked the door, which is the very best thing that could have happened in that entire situation. Fourteen years old, and she knew what to do. The guy's beating on the door.

Let me back in, let me back in, let me back in, let me back in. I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna get you. You better not, you better hope I don't get you. At this point, everything just speeds up. I remember tearing the duct tape off of my face, jumping up and running into my mother's bedroom, and I grabbed her pistol. And I grabbed Tony out of his bed and Tim was

already up in the hallway, had duct tape off and was just there making sure that you know, are y'all okay, are y'all okay? Tim had said that he had seen an outline of a person at Aaron's window so we knew he was still outside. And we're standing there going, what do we do? What do we do? We decided we needed to call the police and picked up the telephone, and there was no dial tone. And when he realized it was locked, he pointed the gun at the door to try to shoot the lock. He was trying to at the door to try to shoot the lock.

He was trying to shoot the door open. And that's whenever I got the idea of going to the attic, a place where we can at least protect ourselves if he comes back. So we all followed upstairs and sit there and you can hear Uncle Billy moaning and groaning. It was like it settled in our souls that our uncle was down there dying and we're stuck in the attic. Tony was sitting on my lap. He was awake at this point, but he never said a word, never made a noise. There was no sound from their attacker. It got very, very quiet, and I whispered to Claire,

is he gone? And she whispered back, I think so. Me and Tim decided, well, we're going to drive to the police station. It seemed absolutely logical because we didn't have cell phones. I don't know why we didn't think to go to the neighbors. We just said, hey, let's go to the police station.

So we did. Erin decides to stay in the house with her baby, Tony, to look after Uncle Billy. And Uncle Billy is laying there on the floor. And he's still making a few noises. And I sat down next to him. And I held his hand. And I told him that I was sorry. I put my hand on his chest, and I shook him a little.

I said, Uncle Billy, don't go. I heard him take a breath, and then let it out. And then there was nothing. I look back and Tony's still sitting on the floor, just quiet, just watching. And I thought that I couldn't stand to be in that house another minute. I couldn't.

I picked up Tony. I was being very quiet because I thought that whoever had heard us may still have been around, and we walked out the back door. She gave me a blanket, and I still have Tony, and I sat on her couch until the police came. The first thing I remember was my mom

walking through the door. She's still in her firefighter's uniform, obviously very upset, because what do you do when you hear your own address called out over the 911 system? And she grabbed my face, she cupped my face she said are you okay is tony okay i said yes mom we're both fine but he killed my uncle billy he killed uncle billy and i'm sorry i'm sorry i couldn't stop it aaron and her mom go to the police station to get Claire and Tim.

It was shortly after that that my mom showed up. And she came up to me and she gave me a big hug and she said Uncle Billy didn't make it. The girls give the police a detailed description of the attacker's clothing and physical appearance. With all that information, the police were able to pick him out as a suspect, and he had confessed to not only my uncle's murder and the break-in at our house, but to other shootings and rapes that he had committed. And at that point, I realized that we survived a serial killer. They, the police, the detective described him as a serial killer. And he told me that I did everything that I could

have. He said I did everything correctly, that if I had deviated from my actions in any way, that he was positive that I wouldn't have lived that none of us would have lived. Elroy Chester was sentenced to death for five murders. He was executed in June 2013. I survived because I'm much stronger than I ever thought that I really was. That even when everything seemed hopeless, I wasn't giving up. There was always a next step. There was always, what am I going to do next? I survived because my Uncle Billy sacrificed his life,

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learn more. 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 June 1990 in Kansas City, Missouri.

After working a late shift, Kim met up with a girlfriend for an early morning meal. We left the restaurant and were saying our goodbyes outside and we heard some random yelling and we called it cat calls, just, you know, men yelling and we kind of looked at each other and laughed. We said our goodbyes and we walked to our individual cars and got in and drove out of the parking lot. Drove about 10 minutes to my neighborhood and pulled into the driveway. And as I started to get out, I turned and I saw some headlights coming my direction. At that moment, I saw someone get out of the car, but the lights were shining towards me so I could only see a silhouette. I just kind of said, hey, who is it?

I remember feeling fear for a second. I was screaming and fighting. Another man that was in the car came out and began to pull on me as well. They were pulling me towards the car and then they threw me in the back seat. And the car did a quick U-turn in the road, and when it did, it flew me to the side of the door, so I reached up and opened the door and thought to jump out.

I was hanging out of the car for a minute as it was speeding down the road. Someone in the back seat grabbed ahold of my clothes and my hair and pulled me in. They handcuffed me. They were hitting me and just smashing my head down into the car seat to try to put me in a place where they wanted me.

And I was just still fighting and kind of biting. And they said, you just have to stop and let this happen. I was just crying and saying, you can't do this to me. Who are you? What are you doing? The car smelled like alcohol. I could tell they were intoxicated. And the two in the back seat were the ones that had the most interaction with me in the beginning.

The two in the front seat did not turn around. It just seemed so terrifying to me. So they weren't really speaking for most of those first few minutes. I really thought they were like brutal monsters. I was very scared. As I looked over the front seat, I could see a gun. I could see hammers, ropes. I was saying, go to my bank. You know, I could get money from my ATM for you if that's what you want.

They would laugh and just have this creepy look on their face and said, no, that's not what we're going to do. The men drive to a remote area far out of town. And they just continued to drive another hour or so. I believe I was in and out of consciousness a little bit because they had been, you know, hitting me quite a bit. And I think I was just kind of in a little bit because they had been, you know, hitting me quite a bit. And I think I was just kind of in a little bit of a daze. I was not even sure where we were. Even though that was

an area that I had grown up in, I was confused as to where we were. They just seemed so scary to me and I just was not sure what was about to happen. And I was screaming and saying, please no. They pulled my clothes off and threw most of them out the window. Once they took my clothes, they didn't waste any time just starting to attack me. That's when I said, I'm pregnant. I wasn't, but I thought that that might soften the attacks if they thought that I was pregnant. And so I was pleading with them to not hurt me. I was just going to be so vulnerable and broken and hurt there,

and I didn't even have the protection of clothing. They were saying, we're glad we have you. We're going to keep you forever. And instantly I knew that I was not going to get out of the situation alive. One of the backseat guys allowed me to put a shirt on, and I realized that I had my work shirt from my night shift as a waitress. And as I reached it off of the ground, I could feel my name tag on it. It dawned on me that I really wanted to be represented and remembered having been in that car. I did not assume that I would get out alive,

so I thought I wanted to leave some piece of myself there for my parents to find. And so as I grabbed the shirt and began to put it on, I just took my hand and slipped the name tag off the shirt and tucked it under the seat so that it would be there and put the shirt on. That was all that I had left. They had thrown the rest of my clothes out, but at least I had some sort of protection. The car stops by a bridge near a wooded area. They began to pull me to an area by the creek bank, and it was very rocky, and I had no shoes on, and I was crying out in pain just at the rocks in my feet.

The one that was sitting on the right side of me in the car took off his shoes and gave me his shoes and just said, here, wear these. It was a strange moment, but it did bring some peace. I looked at him with a pleading in my eyes and thought perhaps he was having some sort of human moment and he could see me as something other than this, you know, just this person that they wanted to kill. It didn't last for long though. They just pushed me down into that rocky area.

They just began to all rape me at the same time. They were throwing things at me and just trying to egg each other on. That was one of the things that was most difficult is that they were trying to get each other to do worse things. And so you could tell that they were enjoying just being so brutal. Finally, the younger one that had been in the car with me on the left side said he wanted a moment without the others and he was yelling at the others. It turned out that he was having a difficult time committing the the rapes and so he wanted to show his

his manly strength and began to choke me and he was strangling me where I was losing consciousness. I just thought to myself, this is just more than anyone could take and the worst moment that anyone could live through. Knowing that it was very unlikely that I would survive. I was just really crying out to God. I had been baptized a few weeks before this had happened. And I knew that I had that in my favor and that I had that relationship. I do think God protected me from some of the attacks because I wasn't engaged in feeling them as much.

I, at different points, could actually see the attacks happening, and I felt like I was looking at them from afar, and I felt as if my mind was being reserved and held to try to stay calm and to find my way of escape, but that my body was the one just being attacked. Eventually, the men handcuffed him beneath the bridge. My purse was still with me. They had, in the car, they had brought it down next to me at the creek bank,

and so I had opened my wallet, and I found some pictures of friends from high school. I was just trying to realize how much I wanted to be back into my life and how strong I needed to be and to fight for that, that it was worth it. They came back down over the creek bank under the bridge and saw me looking at the pictures and grabbed them and quickly started just asking who these people were. And I was very verbal that I wouldn't tell them. That was my life, and they didn't need to know.

They didn't care anything about me. They threw him into the water. There was a pole, and so they put the handcuff on the pole to keep me underneath there while they were up fighting and deciding what was going to happen next. That's when I tried to really stop and pray, and I could hear the water, and I was trying to just center myself in that moment and again try to find some power. The men go back to the car, leaving Kim handcuffed under the bridge. I heard the car start. At that moment, no one was underneath the bridge with me, and I had a

little cry out of excitement excitement thinking they were leaving. I didn't know how I was going to get off of the pole and out of the handcuff, but I actually started to tear up and thinking they've made a decision to leave. And I was wrong. And when I saw the three of them standing there, I knew that this fight was still going. And I said, where's the car? And they said he had to go to work. They decided to move locations,

and so they pulled me up, and I was still handcuffed, and they found a barn in the distance and wanted to walk towards that barn. It was starting to get a little light. There was no one around, no noise. It started to rain rain and I felt as if it was almost a healing rain. It was kind of a wash, washing rain that came down over me and washed some of the blood away and I could, you know, I just

felt as if I was going to have to again just keep fighting. When we walked in there was a lot of hay piled up in different areas. And the one that I was handcuffed to saw a hayloft and said, let's go up there. So they climbed up into the hayloft, all three of them, and started raping me and sodomizing me there. I had really had enough physically and mentally. My body just could not take it.

It was so painful. There was no way I could take it anymore without just passing out. And I started screaming, you know, you have to stop. You're hurting me so bad. Please just stop. And then I began to try to make a relationship with them. I started talking about my family and my work and pleading with them while they were attacking me

to just see me as human and know that if I got out, I would not tell on them. They could go, and I would never divulge what had happened. They said that they would keep me forever, that they intended to keep me, have me in their home as a sister or as a wife. And I began to cry and said, that's not possible. I have a family. I have a husband. I'm pregnant.

And they began to joke about that again and that I didn't need to go back, that I was now theirs. At some point, the youngest of the group came back up into the loft, and he handcuffed himself to me again. And I just sat quietly and didn't say anything, just hoping that he was not there to assault me again, because he was probably the most brutal. I finally just said, where is everyone? And he said they had gone to find a vehicle and to find a ride. And so to me, that meant they were continuing to keep me and it had been about 13 or 14 hours at this point.

I could tell that he was still very intoxicated on drugs. His eyes were rolling around in his head and he started to make some noises like he was snoring. I looked at the cuffs and realized that it was still loose enough that I could squeeze my hand out. As soon as I got it mostly free, he woke up and began to move. The terror that I felt in him knowing that I had escaped, that he would likely kill me in that moment or really hurt me.

And I again just held the cuff so that he wouldn't realize that it was free. And he kind of fell back asleep and was rolled over to the side. And my heart was beating. It was such an intense moment. I knew this was the only second I had, and I had to make it work. And there was a banister that I could barely

reach if I stretched my arm. Again, I made a quick decision. I pulled myself up, hanging from my left arm from that banister, and I swung myself out. I just rolled over, and I stopped, and I looked up, and he did not move. I just kept expecting him to be there, and he wasn't. And I didn't know where to go.

I didn't know where the others were. But I could see a house in the distance. I just began to run. It's like an awful Halloween movie you see where the person is standing behind you lurking with a knife. And I went towards the house and as I got closer I could see toys in the yard, outdoor toys from kids. I kind of collapsed and then an older woman came to the door and brought me inside. And I collapsed in her arms and tried to form some words, but nothing was coming out.

And I ran towards the bathroom, and I just looked into the mirror and saw a shell of a person and knew it was me, but knew also that I was not there. And I stopped and tried to just calm down and figure out the words to tell her. After being held captive for 14 hours, Kim escaped. She reached the safety of a house, and a woman answered the door. She first said, who do you want to call? And I said, my mom.

And so I dialed my mom's number, and I can picture myself standing at the phone. It was a corded phone on the wall, just trembling. And I just dropped the phone, and the woman grabbed the phone, and I'm not even sure what she said. She hung the phone up, and she just looked at me and put her arms on my shoulders and said, your mom's coming. And then she called 911.

All four of Kim's attackers were arrested and convicted of kidnapping and rape. Andrew Harper, 19, was sentenced to 155 years in prison. James Lutz Jr., 23, was sentenced to 90 years. Kenneth Thornburg, 25, was sentenced to 75 years, and Lee Ross, 21, was sentenced to 55 years imprisonment. I kind of was just thrown back into life where everyone thought I should just be living normally and that this shouldn't be affecting me. You're altered. Your chemical balance is altered.

Everything inside of you, you see things differently. The way you respond to people, to touch, to sounds. And so I had to change the way that I was living my life. It would be easy to just hunker down and let the unknown and the pain and the violation just overtake me. Because living felt really as hard as dying would have. But I believe the hope was always there, and I just had to find it. I had to work hard to find it, and it was a choice every day. I survived because I wanted to triumph over the tragedy.

I wanted to honor my family and my faith, and I wanted to not let them win, not let them take away and destroy my family and my future. 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. Whatever you love to watch, Pluto TV makes it easy with thousands of free movies and shows.

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