Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Knew I Was Going to Get Shot and Probably Die

Episode Date: September 7, 2024

A gunman holds members of a Florida school board hostage as he airs his grievances over the termination of his wife. As the head of security attempts to intervene, a gun battle ensues. After an evening out with her husband, a woman is abducted and brought to a rural home where she is sexually assaulted by an undetermined number of assailants. June’s Journey: Discover your inner detective when you download June’s Journey for free today on IOS and Android! Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Rosetta Stone: Don’t put off learning that language - there’s no better time than RIGHT NOW to get started! For a very limited time, I Survived listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s Lifetime Membership for 50% off! Visit rosettastone.com/survived  

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 onto the show. This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. It was at that point that I realized I was going to get shot. I mean, I just, I knew I was going to get shot and probably die.

Real people. My worst fears happened immediately. Those men started coming into that room, one right after another. Who faced death. There was no cavalry coming right away. It was basically, okay, I'm it. And lived to tell how. I see the gunman pointing the gun at the superintendent,

and I said to myself, oh God, here we go. This is I Survived. It's December 2010 in Panama City, Florida. The meetings of the Bay County School Board are open to the public and are filmed. Bill, the superintendent of schools, chairs the meeting. The room was full. In fact, we opened up the extra part of the room so we would have enough room for everyone. Everybody was happy and taking a lot of pictures and it was just a fun day.

It was just a regular flowing meeting. There wasn't anything controversial that I could think of that was gonna be on the agenda. There was something about technology, but something came up that I really didn't think would be a hot topic about the lice. And that was one of the hot topics we dealt with. One of the board members had talked about

concern for head lice, and that led us very quickly into some of the really bad jokes about picking nits, which led us into, well, that was a nitpicking comment. And this fellow comes walking down the left side of the room as if he wants to address the board. And I'm thinking, well, that's odd. We didn't ask for anyone to address the board.

And at that point, he comes to the podium and begins to say some things to the board that indicated very quickly that he was not there to sing kumbaya. And he turned his back to us and started spray painting on the wall. And my thought right away was, Mike Jones has put this guy up to this, and it's got something to do with school security or safety or something and vandalism, because he was painting on the wall. And I thought, first of all, I was mad because Mike didn't tell me he was doing this. And I just knew Mike was the one behind it. Mike, the chief of security, knew nothing of the intruder or his actions.

He was a really large, broad-shouldered guy. Appeared just looking into his face and his eyes that he was very, very angry. He turned around and he painted the circle on the wall and then the V. V symbolizes vengeance in a popular movie. I'm thinking he is in so much trouble because we have budget cuts and we're going to have to repaint that wall. And at that split second, then he turned around and he pulled out the gun. He tells the people in the audience to leave. Then he turns around and he's now using his gun as a pointer.

There are the board members male, there is me the female board member, and then there is the female secretary for the superintendent. He points the gun at her and says, get out of here. Leave. You may leave. You may leave. Women can leave. Six men stay. Everyone else leaves. Oddly enough, my first thought was, well, at least he's got manners. I mean, I really did.

I thought, well, at least he's got enough manners to let women leave. And they don't hesitate. They get up and leave. and they don't hesitate. They get up and leave, and they start rushing out the door. As he got closer, you could see his eyes, and I'd never seen that kind of look before. I mean, it was pure evil. He was a cocky, confident look.

I remember him saying something about, I'm not scared to die, and you're all going to die with me. The man accuses Bill of firing his wife. All terminations and all hiring and everything requires my signature on them. We have over 3,000 employees in the district, and my signature is either, it's either original signature or it's stamped. So that's, that's why he said I should know about it. But I mean, there's obviously paperwork that's got my name on it that I couldn't recall any one individual losing their job or being hired, really. Bill tried to persuade the gunman to deal only with him and to let the others go. I took the lead in talking to him because it was obvious he was mad at me. He blamed me for whatever he was mad about.

And I didn't understand why he was blaming everybody else in the room and so that's why I kind of took on the lead role in talking to him because well I just talk I talk too much sometimes there was absolutely no protection for them whatsoever where this person was located he had them completely at his mercy birds on a wire you, shooting fish in a tank. Whatever cliché you want to use, they were absolutely so vulnerable, and it was absolutely terrifying. We start trying to talk to him and try to get him to engage in a conversation with us about what is it you want, tell us what you want. I remember that he made it very clear to us that he was not going back to prison

and that he wasn't scared to die and that he was not going back to prison and that he wasn't scared to die and that he was going to take some of us with him. It was at that point that I realized I was going to get shot. I mean, I just, I knew I was going to get shot and probably die. There was no cavalry coming right away to save anybody's skin. There were no white horses on the lawn that were going to gallop up and help us out here. So it was basically, okay, I'm it.

The only weapons I had at that point were my trusty purse and the element of surprise. I knew that whatever attempt I made in whatever fashion, it would be a one-time event. Whether it turned out well or not so well, it was a one-time event. Whether it turned out well or not so well, it was a one-time opportunity. So at that moment, it was, OK, rip, ravel, or tear, here I go. And so the only thing I could do was figure out, I'm going to try to hit him with my purse. As we're talking back and forth and trying to figure out

what he's talking about, Ginger, one of our board members, comes back in. I don't hear a lot. I didn't have a spoon for it. No, no, Ginger. My first thought was, you know, oh, Ginger, don't do that. I didn't lunge. I didn't yell.

I didn't, you know, cowabunga or anything like that. It was a matter of as soon as I was in place, because the clock was still ticking, then what I had to do was get myself ready and then, you know, cock my arm and do the best I could to get that gun out of his hand. Well, he just kind of squats her away like a fly, just knocks her down the ground, and he's over her, and I'm thinking, oh, he's going to shoot her. What I recall then is I am sitting on the floor looking at this guy's knee and thinking, wow, plan A didn't work so well, and I don't have a plan B. That may not be the best thing I ever did.

I've known this lady for 20 or 30 years, and she's getting ready to get shot right in front of me, and what do we need to do? What can we do? He was amazingly quiet, speaking only to me, and said, basically, get out of here, you stupid. I probably at that moment agreed with his assessment of me, and I did get out of there, and I took all of my stupidity with me.

When he doesn't shoot Ginger, then we think, wait a minute, maybe this guy's not as bad as he wants us to think he is. And so it gives us a little bit glimmer of hope. But again, I'm thinking maybe he just likes women and is being a southern gentleman or something. So, you know, it gives us some hope that maybe he's not going to shoot us. Three minutes into the drama, Mike, the chief of security, arrived at the meeting room.

I drew my weapon and I had it above my head, behind the door, as I opened the door and stuck my head in the door and probably the left half of my body. At that time, I just wanted to get an idea of what was going on. Were there secondary weapons or secondary devices? Was there more than one gunman? What kind of a weapon did he have? Who all was in the room? Who all was actually a hostage?

Kind of a reconnaissance-type mission at that time. Mike comes in, looks in. Just opens the door, doesn't come in, but Mike looks in, he's got a smile on his face. But that only comes when you're carrying a gun. I asked him, is that a real gun you've got there? And he turned around and looked and said, come on in. Come on in. You got a real gun? Come on in. And I just kind of smiled and I said, won't you come on out?

And he started walking towards me, which is what I wanted him to do. I wanted to lure him out of the room so that they could escape out of the back door. And as he started walking towards me, I slowly closed the door and backed up into a shooting stance so when he'd come through the door, we could engage.

And several seconds went by. He didn't come out the door, and so I knew he wasn't coming out. I had to go to plan B. At that time, I said, if I go back in that room, I don't have my vest on, I have a five-shot revolver, he has a semiautomatic handgun,

I'm not gonna survive that battle. I have to survive, or they're not going to survive. I ran out the door, which is, I mean, 20 feet from the board meeting room. I ran to my vehicle, and I have an array of weapons in there. I have a fully automatic machine gun. I had a shotgun, and I had a Glock firearm, semi-automatic, that holds 16 rounds. As I got back to that door, again, I was greeted by people running up and down the hallway. And I knew when the shooting erupted, they were going to get hit. Those bullets were going to come through the walls.

I was trying to get everybody out of harm's way. Our board meetings are streamed live throughout the building. So everyone in our educational building was watching in real time what was happening in that boardroom. The gunman was agitated because his wife had been fired from a school job. Both of these administrators did a great job of trying to engage him in conversation, buy some more time, but also try to maybe reason with him at some point. Just explain to us. I'm not sure where she worked. We'll talk to you.

I said, look, I don't want you to kill me. I don't even know what you're talking about. Tell me what you're talking about. I don't want to get killed over something that I didn't know if he was making a mistake. I didn't know if he was mentally ill or what was going on with all this. If you're going to kill yourself or kill us or whatever, at least let us know what's going on because I'll be very honest with you. I swear I don't know who your wife is or what she did. He didn't want to discuss it. He basically said, we knew, or I knew, what was going on,

and it was wrong, and that we were going to pay for it. And that's where his mind was. There was a certain point when he pulled that gun up. And again, I knew he was getting ready to shoot me. I knew it. I could see it. And because he raised it up to a certain point, it was like, time's up.

It was so surreal. I mean, we knew that he was going to start shooting at any time. I mean, there was never a doubt that he was going to start shooting. It was just a matter of when and whether or not he was going to kill one, two, three, four, wound us or whatever. I said, look, I think you just want to be killed. You want to come in here and be killed by the cops. Here's what I don't want to happen. I don't want anybody to listen. Just listen to me for a minute. I don't want anybody to get hurt. And I've got a feeling that what you

want is the cops come in and kill you because you're you're mad because you said you're going to die today. When he cut off the conversation and did not want to talk any more about the specifics of what he was mad about, that's when I realized that he had a death wish, basically. I mean, it just seemed to me, and I will believe till I die, that his whole goal in there was to kill us and for him to be killed. There's no doubt in my mind that that's what his goal was. Outside the room, Ginger and others watched the drama unfold on TV monitors. Everyone in the room and in the building was riveted to the television. It was deathly quiet.

People holding hands, people squeezing shoulders, but nobody talking at all. Just a sense of dread and disbelief at what was actually unfolding. All of them understanding that they were watching what was taking place as it was taking place. The chief of security, Mike, rushed back to the boardroom after rearming himself. I approached the door to the board meeting room again. I cracked it open just to take a peek inside and see what was going on. He raised his arm up and he pointed that gun at me and as he's raising it up I say, this isn't worth it. This is a problem. Please don't. Please don't. I see the gunman pointing the gun at the superintendent and I said to myself, oh God, here we go. I slung the door open, I had my Glock in my right hand,

I slung the door open and I entered the room and just as I was going in the room, the first shot rang out. Please don't, please. I saw the superintendent grab his chest and fall backwards out of the chair and it was at that time that I thought he was dead. When he shot, I felt something and I went right down to the ground.

And I'm laying on the ground and I'm thinking, I've been shot, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to hurt more than this. And at that minute right then, I thought he was dead. In my mind, he was dead. There's no way that that man could have missed him that close to him. They were within 10 feet of each other, point blank range. Please don't. Please.

Ow! I'm... As I entered the room, he started to move to the left, the gunman, and I moved to the left and fired my first shots. And I remember the shot hitting him, and he yelled out, he said, uh! And he flinched like that and I said, all right, I got him. But he didn't go down. He shot at the board members at the left, to my left, and I shot him again. And I dove down behind the chairs and as I dove behind the chairs,

he started firing rounds at me. I threw my arm up over the chair, knowing about where he was at, and laid down a few rounds of cover fire, hollering out to the board members to stay down. He fired another shot at the board members. I fired again, and I seen him flinch. He spun around, and I hit him again, and and at that time he went down to the floor.

I thought the battle was over. I said, he's dead. I've got him. And about that time I saw his right arm and the handgun come up in the air. When I saw his arm come up and he began firing at me, I dove down behind the back row of chairs there and I was crawling with my arm above those chairs, resting my hand on the chairs, and I was firing rounds in his general direction to keep him pinned down in case he tried to get back up. When I got to the highway, he was laying on his left side, and as I come up over the chair to shoot, he brought his right hand

with the gun in and around to his head and put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The superintendent come up from behind the counter and I said, oh my God, either I'm dead and in heaven or he's alive. when he spoke to me he says Mike it's alright and that's when that's when I realized that it was over and he was alive and he had not died it all came back to me when I heard the superintendent's voice Mike it, it's OK. It was his reassurance letting me know, we're OK. We're alive.

It's over. Mike said to me as I'm hugging him and telling him, it's all right. I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. And so I was just very grateful that he was in the building that day, because he wasn't even supposed to be in the building that day. In just a few seconds, someone came out and said, everyone's okay. At that point, again, you feel

this collective sigh of relief that that inhale that you heard and felt when the gunman told everyone to leave now became an exhale of relief. 18 shots aimed at people, and only one person hit and killed. It's a miracle. I mean, it is a miracle. I tell people that I knew God was in the room. I just didn't know he was standing in front of us. And I'll believe that till I die.

The gunman, Clay Duke, who took his own life, was the only casualty. The easy question of why I survived, again, is one of those big question marks. We really don't know. And I like to think that maybe out there somewhere there's a guardian angel or whatever, and maybe that is Mike Jones. I survived by the grace of God. He provided me training. He gave me courage, and I give him all the glory.

Well, I survived because Ginger had enough courage to come in there and change the situation, put her own life at risk. And I survived because Mike had the courage to do what he does best, and that's law enforcement. And that's why I'm here today, because the good Lord blessed us with peace and calmness in a time when most people wouldn't be. And we were able to survive a very tough situation

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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. It's August 1983 in Birmingham, Alabama. Wanda, 23, is newly married

and working for a real estate company. My husband and I had been out of town on vacation. We'd been to the beach for several days and decided actually to come home a couple of days early. It was a friend's birthday and we wanted to go to the birthday party that night. We had dinner, we danced, everybody was having a really good time. At about midnight, because we had been traveling, we'd had the whole week on vacation, I was tired. My husband and I both decided we were ready to go home.

We kind of separated at that point because he went to pay the bill and I was saying goodnight to everybody. Wanda's husband went to collect their car. As I was walking towards the parking lot, immediately there was a car that pulled into my line of sight, traveling very fast, stopped very fast. Man jumped out of the backseat of the car and started running towards me. And before I could even think or react, he ran past me and then made like a U-turn and grabbed me from behind. My initial reaction was that he was playing a joke or that he had the wrong person. As he lifted me up, he moved me towards the car. There were two other men in the car,

two men in the front seat, and they were lifting the seat up so that he could push me into the car. And I started fighting, you know, with my feet to try to keep from being pushed into the car. He eventually got me in, pushed me into the floorboard, and the door slammed and the car drove off. Wanda's husband did not see his wife's abduction. I'm screaming at this point and saying, let me go, stop, don't, you know, and really fighting with my feet because he had my arms pretty much down beside, pinned to my side.

I just at that point was thinking, this is just not real. It's not happening. Until I got into the floorboard and the car started moving, that's probably the first time I really thought, this is bad. This is really, really bad. The driver and the passenger in the front seat seemed to be a little concerned about getting out of there, getting away from somebody seeing them. It became apparent to me very quickly that the man in the back seat was in charge, was issuing the orders, was telling the driver which way to go and

and to hurry and he seemed to be a little older than the two in the front and even really pretty much at ease with what he was doing. The men drove Wanda out of town. After we got on the interstate and traveled a little ways, there was, again, some conversation back and forth with the driver and the passenger, and then the man in the back seat grabbed me by the arm, pulled me up on the seat. So I actually got to see him

face to face. He told me to take my clothes off and started pulling on my clothes. I backed away from him as far as I could into the corner and was crouching and said no. That didn't last very long.

He didn't give me just a few minutes before he started pulling on my clothes. At that moment, it dawned on me that this man was going to rape me. He grabbed me and just started, you know, unbuttoning my clothes and pulling at my clothes. And I finally just did what he said. He raped me in the car on the way as we were driving. I could see the man in the front seat looking back at what was happening back there and watching this whole rape going on. And just, I can remember feeling so humiliated and so scared

and so still disbelieving what was happening to me. And how could I have gone from one existence to another existence within what felt like seconds. And all I could think of was, you know, I was not going to make it out of this. The car left the main highway and Wanda lost all sense of direction. We pulled off of a road onto like a gravel road, which appeared to be like a rural area. There were no lights. There were no city lights. We went up a hill and I saw lights from houses, a couple of houses in an area. The car stopped. They got my purse and started going through my purse, which was real

personal to me at that point. I think I had like $30 in my purse. I said, take that and let me go call somebody and we'll get you some more and just let me go. And they just left. You know, it was just kind of a funny thing. And they took my jewelry. They took my wedding rings. They took my watch and another ring that I had on and a necklace. And so they were like little by little taking everything from me. After being robbed, Wanda became aware of a

rundown farmhouse. We sat there for a few minutes and then the passenger in the front seat came around and got me out of the back seat and walked me into the house. And I remember thinking, how ridiculous. This, I must look. I have on a pair of sandals and nothing else. As we walked in the door, I noticed living room. And I started in my mind drawing a floor plan of the house. All the while, I'm seeing all these other people and realizing that it's a party.

I could smell marijuana. I could hear music playing. And as I was walked in the door, I could hear people talking about me. You know, it was almost like they were excited that these men had gone out to get somebody. That was their intention. And these people were waiting on that person to be brought back, and that person was me. There were two twin beds. There were paneling on the walls.

The clothes were on nails hanging on the wall, and there was no closet. So I think that probably mentally saved me because I was so focused on that. I was so focused on those details and not on what was going to happen. My worst fears happened immediately. Those men started coming into that room one right after another. Wanda was raped repeatedly. There was never but one man in the room with me at a time. It was like one person would come in.

When he got finished, he would go out, and then someone else would come back in. So there was always someone in the hallway right outside the door or someone in the room with me all the time. Wanda tried to memorize each of the men so she could identify them later. The best that I could count and recollect and try to not keep the faces running together was seven.

I thought the youngest was about 15, and the oldest was probably in their 30s. A couple of the men would say something to me when they came in, mostly not. And I didn't carry on conversations with any of the men except for the three men that were initially in the car, who were the three that I saw the most that night. The ringleader was the most vocal. He was very verbal about what he wanted me to do. He was very verbal when I didn't do it correctly,

almost toning me all night long with things like, I bet your husband wonders where you are. Do you think you might be getting pregnant? Things just to almost hurt me because he was in control, and he liked that. One of the men, and it was the man that was the passenger in the car, came in and asked

me to follow him, so he took me into the bathroom. He had run a bath for me, a bubble bath, which again was a very odd thing to be thrown into this nightmare that I was living. Now all of a sudden there was a bubble bath in the middle of it. I didn't understand, and still don't, whether he did it for me because he thought that would be better for me, would sootheothe me or whether it was for him he got in the bubble bath with me and it was my opportunity because we were away from everybody else to talk to him and ask him you know what are you gonna do with me are you do you know what the plan is and almost kind of tried to be be his friend be part of it.

What do you think they're going to do with me? Do you think they're going to kill me? And he just kind of looked down at the ground and said, I don't know. Wanda was gang-raped throughout the night until dawn broke. I realized the time was pretty near when they were going to have to make some sort of decision what to do with me. Again, the man who had grabbed me off the sidewalk came into the bedroom.

There was a telephone that was sitting on a table in the bedroom, and he picked up the phone and dialed a number. I knew that he was talking about me. And I just prayed that whoever was on the other end of that phone would say no. Wanda was certain the men planned to kill her. I just didn't think at that point that I could take much more of it. I was physically and mentally exhausted, hurt. And I'd pretty much almost given up. I had given up to the point where I was hoping that however they were going to end it, they would do it and get it over with.

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Throughout the night, she's sexually assaulted by different men. In the morning, one of the rapists makes a telephone call. When he made the phone call and asked the person on the phone if he could bring someone over. He needed a place to keep someone. I could tell from the conversation that he got a negative response, and he pretty quickly hung the phone up. And I just let out this sigh of relief that, well, that wasn't going to happen. I didn't know what else was going to happen, but I didn't think that he was going to keep me somewhere and continue with the same thing happening to me over and over and over.

But at some point after the phone call was made, the man who had run the bath for me brought my clothes and told me to get dressed. I did that thinking, okay, now they're going to take me somewhere else. I asked him at that point, what is going to happen now? Where are they going to take me? And his answer was, I don't know. He just shrugged his shoulders, I don't know. The leader of the group decided to remove Wanda from the house. I felt like when he led me out of the house back to the car that I was pretty much walking towards my end. I didn't know what was going to happen once I got in that car and once he drove away. Once this man put me back in the car, because I was most fearful of him. I was most fearful of what he might do to me.

So walking down that sidewalk was like walking towards my death, walking towards the end, so it was a pretty low moment for me. As we drove away, he again started talking to me, almost as if we had been on a date. It was very hard to deal with and understand that this man who had done all these things to me that night was telling me about his basketball career and offering to call my husband and say, tell him where I'd been. And just really, again, toning me with some information, but talking to me. Again, making me feel that he had done this many, many times before. I can remember asking him, you know, where are we going? What are you going to do with me?

He didn't know. And his answer was just pretty much, I don't know what I'm going to do with me? He didn't know. And his answer was just pretty much, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. Wanda's abductor stopped the car. He got out and walked around the car, opened the door, got back in the car, raped me again.

Eventually, he got finished with what he wanted to do, put me back in the floorboard again, and we continued to drive. As we were driving, and then he pulls into the parking lot, and I feel the car stop. I don't know where we're at at that point. So when the car stopped, I thought just for a moment that this could be it. Could be a lot of things. Could be him taking me somewhere else.

It could be the end. He looked down at me and said, get out. Don't look back. Don't tell anybody. And he reached over, opened the door, and pushed it. And all I could feel at that point was the cool air coming in the car, and I jumped. I scrambled out of the car and ran as hard as I could run.

He sat there for a few minutes, and then I could hear the car pulling off, pulling away, and I just sank onto the pavement. And then it was all silence. I looked up and thought, at some point, maybe he's going to come back. Maybe I need to get out of here. I need to hide. So when I looked up, I saw these women across the parking lot. I can't imagine what they thought when they saw me.

This person who must have looked like they had been through a war. They looked up and came to me, and all I could say was just, please take me to the hospital. And I think it was right then that I cried because I think it was relief that it was this just overwhelming feeling that I really can't believe I survived this. I really cannot believe. Wanda was able to identify the three men who abducted her.

The other rapists have never been caught. After the arrests were made, I went public with my story. It was very important to me at that point that people realize that things like this happen to normal people. Normal people who look like me, who might be your next-door neighbor or your sister or your mother. During the trial, a young woman told me that the same thing had happened to her by the same people, but that she was too scared to prosecute. And I think it was at that moment that I decided that I would not stop, that I would make sure that this never happened to anyone else. The three men were convicted of kidnapping, rape, and sodomy. Stanley Wilson was sentenced to life,

and Kenneth and Michael Thornton each received 40 years in prison. I think I survived for a lot of reasons. I think keeping my head, staying calm, and I knew very well that there was nobody there to help me but myself. So I had to depend on and work with what I had. And for me it worked. I survived for all of those reasons and so many more.