Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Thought That Was The Last Day Of My Life

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

Paul is woken when two assailants enter his home in the middle of the night. After the intruders stab him multiple times, they set his house on fire and leave Paul for dead. Tressell is on a fishing trip with two of his friends when their boat capsizes 80 miles off shore. The men are forced to cling to the boat for over 8 days awaiting rescue. Melissa is on her way home when she is robbed and imprisoned in the trunk of her car. After withdrawing funds from an ATM, the assailant pushes the car into a lake with Melissa still locked inside. Huggies - Head to Huggies.com to learn more! Murder: True Crime Stories - New episodes of Murder: True Crime Stories release every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. 

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. This program may contain subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners.

Listener discretion is advised. And he's talking to me in just this calm voice. He said, here's what we're going to do. You're going to pick A or B, and if you pick the right one, you'll live, and if you pick the wrong one, you'll die. Real people. And they circled around the boat that whole day.

And we're like, what are we going to do about tonight? And these sharks are around here. What's going to happen? You know, are we going to be alive the next day, or are we going to be fish food? Who faced death? And I realized I was in a lake. As I was pulling and trying to find something that would open

the trunk, the water level in the car was getting higher and higher. And lived to tell how. Someone came over and knelt on the side of me and said, I hope you know that you're going to die because I just stabbed you in the head. This is I Survived. It's May 2008 in Burnsville, Minnesota. Paul, who is divorced and has recently lost his job, lives alone.

It is early evening when Paul arrives home after a church meeting. I was going to go to the store. After I got home, I decided that instead of going to the store, I was just going to stay in and do some things around the house. I had forgotten that when I pulled back into the house that I hadn't shut the garage door. In the early hours of the morning, Paul was woken by a noise. I kind of glanced at the clock, actually, and it was a little after 4. I just assumed it was the refrigerator kicking on and kicking off.

But I saw some lights in the living room moving around. And at that point, I realized, oh, God, I forgot the garage door open. So someone must have come into my house. I got out of the bedroom into the hallway, and I saw a kid duck into the bathroom. It was dark in the house, but he appeared at the time to be a teenager, 16, 17 years old maybe, 5'7", maybe. I wasn't concerned about him at all. He was not a very big kid. I just saw him and I said,

okay, you have to leave my house now. Pretty much told him just like that. He looked at me and he said, OK, Mr. I'll get out of your house. And so he started calling out, Mom, we've got to leave now. He started yelling some more, where's my mom, where's my mom? And I looked back at him, and he's going, you did something to my mom. At this point, I'm thinking, okay, so there's some problem with this kid.

I need to go back to my bedroom, get to my phone, try to call somebody and get some help. As I walked back to my bedroom. He followed me back there. Out of nowhere, I got hit on the side of the head with such a force that it knocked me all the way across the bed and onto the floor. The kid that I was talking with was still standing at the doorway when this was happening. I'm thinking, okay, so someone else is in here with me. Someone just punched me on the side of the head.

But I realized that I was bleeding a whole lot. Someone that I hadn't seen before came over and knelt on the side of me and said, I hope you know that you're gonna die because I just stabbed you in the head. The person that stabbed me came over and stood next to me. He leans over me, and after he tells me that I was gonna die, then he asked me for what's

the most expensive thing I have in my house. I told him, there's nothing in here, I'm unemployed. He said, if you lie to him, I'm going to kill you. And I said, well, all I could think of is my TV, take that, you're welcome to have that. Then he said, well, who else is in the house with you? I know there's someone else in here. So I told him, I'm by myself, there's no one else in the house here with me. And he tells me, you ever see the movie Saw? He said, this is going to be like Saw. And I'm trying to remember, I'd never really seen the movie. I'd seen parts of the movie. I knew that it was a fairly bloody movie.

And he's talking to me in just this calm voice. He said, here's what we're going to do. You're going to pick A or B. And he says, why haven't you answered? Is it A or B? And I told him, well, you haven't asked me a question yet, so I don't know what to answer you. And he says, there is no question. And I told him, well, you haven't asked me a question yet, so I don't know what to answer you.

And he says, there is no question. You just have to pick which one, A or B. And if you pick the right one, you'll live, and if you pick the wrong one, you'll die. So I said, I'll pick A. He says, hey, is that a good answer? Is that the right answer? Do you think that you're going to live or do you think that that was the wrong answer

or you're going to die? And at that point I was thinking, I don't know where this guy is going with this. I know that he's already stabbed me in the head. He's told me that and I know I'm bleeding like crazy. He said, you know you're dying. And I said, I don't want to die. I've got too much that I have that I want to live for. And he said, that doesn't matter now. He says, you're dying and there's nothing you can do about it. And then he asked me, he said, do you think you're going to go to heaven when you die? I said, I believe that Jesus loves me and he's going to take me to heaven.

He immediately then got agitated. He had been calm up until this point. He immediately got agitated and he said, no, I'm Jesus and I didn't die for any white people. I only died for black people. And I'm thinking, this kid is crazy. God, if this is the end of my life, I'm ready. But I don't want it to be the end of my life. I heard the first kid back in the room.

And the kid that initially stabbed me told him, I did what I had to do. You've got to kill him now. You've got to be a man and you've got to finish this. When the kid told the other kid that he had to finish me off, he had to be a man and kill me, the first kid then jumped on my back and started pounding and pounding.

It seemed like he was never going to stop. It was over and over and over again that he was hitting me in the back. And initially, I thought it was just him pounding with his fist until I started realizing that my shirt was now soaked with blood. The pounding wasn't with his fist, but he had been stabbing me over and over many, many, many times.

It was almost like if someone was poking holes in a piece of leather is how it felt as he was stabbing. It was about a 3 and 1�2-inch long knife blade with a wooden handle attached to it. It was a relatively sturdy knife, but they used such force in stabbing me that it broke. This is the end. I'm not going to live much longer. I thought that that was the last day of my life

and that I would, I'd never see my kids again. Paul lost consciousness due to blood loss. The next thing I remember is hearing noise in the bedroom and I opened my eyes again and saw my bed just fully engulfed in flames. I had probably two or three foot high flames on my entire bed. I managed to get to my feet. And as I finally got to my feet, I looked over to the doorway. And one of the kids was standing in the doorway. I could see him in the firelight in the doorway.

And he just looked at me. He said, you're not going anywhere. You're getting back down on the floor, and you're staying in here. I heard my car start up. They took my car. And then I realized, now's my time. I've got to get out of this place.

The pathway to get between the bed and the dresser was now a wall of flame. Start thinking, how do I get out of here? They had ripped the phone out of the wall, so that wasn't an option to call for help. I thought the other option was to try to lower myself down out of the wall so that wasn't an option to call for help. I thought the other option was to try to lower myself down out of the window but that would have been about a 12 foot drop. My only choice was to try to get through the flames. I was hoping that I could get through

that wall of fire quick enough to not get hurt too bad. So I gathered myself, jumped through the wall of fire. I realized as I got through the other side that I didn't think I was burned and thought, okay, now I have to get out of here. I see flames like crazy in the bathroom. I'm trying to get out, get into the living room. There's flames in the kitchen, in the living room floor, probably five, six feet high. My whole house is on fire.

Everywhere I looked, there was flames. It wasn't just a matter of time before the whole place was going to be inflamed, along with the neighbors' homes that are around me. So I managed to get down the stairs, get out of the house as quick as I could to go get help. Went to my next door neighbor and started pounding on her door. And she opened the door and looked at me and said, Who are you?

I was so full of blood that you couldn't recognize who I was. I said, Wanda, it's me, it's Paul. And she said, oh God, Paul, what happened? And I told her, I said, Wanda, you've got to call 911. Emergency services were on the scene within minutes. One of the policemen went to my house. He came back. He couldn't get in. The smoke was so bad in the house. Another couple of minutes, and the place would have been so engulfed in smoke that I wouldn't have been able to really make my way out.

Paul was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. I had a gash in my cheek that was probably about three inches, kind of semicircular gash in my cheek. I had two stab wounds in the head. It went through my ear. One, I assume the second wound was hit with such force that it broke off the tip of the knife. So the tip of the knife is still in my head. The wounds on my back, there were 17 stab wounds in my back. It took a couple of months to catch the guys. One of them was caught pawning some of my stuff at a local pawn shop.

18-year-old Irvin Cook and 19-year-old Shaquen Whitfield were charged with attempted first-degree murder. Irvin Cook was sentenced to 29 years and six months. Shaquen Whitfield testified against Cook and was sentenced to 17 years. I survived because simply it wasn't my time to die yet. And in addition, I believe that it was a whole series of things that happened in that really bad situation that were really good. Did an interview with a local newspaper. and in the interview I mentioned to them that I was unemployed. Someone that I used to work with called me after seeing the article and asked me how

I was and if I was doing okay and said, are you still looking for work? She said, I saw that in the article you were unemployed and you would like to work for us doing the same thing you were doing before. So basically some good came out of some very bad stuff. If you're on the lookout for true crime stories told from a fresh perspective with nuance, depth and detail, I have a new show for you. Check out Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original podcast. From the shocking Chandra Levy case and infamous Tylenol murders to the tragic deaths of the Clutter family, each episode focuses on a famous solved or unsolved murder case. Listen in every Tuesday as the show dives into the darkest corners

of true crime, unraveling chilling narratives, examining compelling clues, and most importantly, seeking the truth. What sets Murder True Crime Stories apart is the focus on humanizing the victims and the effect their deaths had on their families, friends, and community. We'll always leave with the knowledge of why their stories need to be heard. There's a story behind every murder, but is there an ending? New episodes of Murder True Crime Stories release every Tuesday. Just search for Murder True Crime Stories on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cults are everywhere. They don't just live in the walls of NXIVM and Scientology.

There are sex cults. Self-help cults. Workout cults. Political cults. Self-help cults. Workout cults. Political cults. Even legging cults. And on the podcast, Was I in a Cult? We focus on the brave individuals who have lived through them. I'm Liz Iacuzzi.

And I'm Tyler Miesem. Your hosts of Was I in a Cult? Join us each week as we take you through a heroic roller coaster of someone's journey in and out of a cult. With a little levity thrown in because humor is healing and cults are funny. Listen to and follow Was I in a Cult at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Which for Tyler is at Rite Aid. On tape.

It's August 2009 in Port Aransas, Texas. Trestle, James, and Kurt are night fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Their 23-foot boat is 80 miles offshore at a fishing spot near an oil rig. On the oil rig, they have a lot of lights out there. And we decided since it was a calm night that we would just stay by the oil rig and probably drift. Kind of, you know, played around there for a little bit, you know, celebrating. Glad that we made it, you know, giving each other high fives and things like that. And had the music going, dancing on the boat, you know, laugh and joke, cut up a little bit, you know, do the guys thing.

And it was all safe. It was probably about 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock that night and got everything set up and officially went to bed. As they slept, their boat drifted five miles from the oil rig. We had bought some beanbag chairs, and we were sleeping on that. All of a sudden, probably about, I don't know, about an hour after I had went to sleep, my baggage just started moving around. When it got to the point that they banged me up against the railing, I'd actually put my foot down to reset my bean bag, and water came clear up to my knee, and it just kind of woke me up,

and I was like, oh, my God, there's water on the boat. I woke James up. I said, James, there's water on the boat. He said, that's because we're on the ocean, fool. And it was funny at the moment, but when he stood up, he was like, oh my God, there's water on the boat. I was like, yeah, there's water on the boat. What are we going to do now? A bilge pump failure was causing seawater to flood into the boat. We had twin motors on the back. One of the motors, you couldn't even see it. It was already underwater. That's how far the boat had already tilted. Curt had made a distress call out on the radio, and we didn't have time to get a response

from it. That's how quick it was. The boat did not carry an emergency beacon. It probably took about 30 seconds for this to all happen. And it just started tilting more and more and more until it just completely capsized. It was pitch black. We couldn't see anything. And James and Kurt had made it back to the boat. And after a while, I started thinking, well, if I'm out here in the water, maybe a shark will come get me. So I jumped up on the boat.

And when the boat actually capsized, there were probably maybe about six feet of the boat that protruded from the water. And we had sat up on the pontoon. The men set off the flare they had grabbed as the boat capsized. We figured, you know, somebody would see it, you know, and we'll get their attention and be rescued. It was complete silence. And it probably lasted for about maybe three or four hours before anybody spoke a word.

We waited until daylight actually hit. You know, the conversation was, you know, what do we have left on the boat? Everything was gone that was on top of the boat or just around the boat. All of our telephones, fishing gear, beanbag chairs, things of that nature. As soon as the boat went over, it went over with it.

We had six ice chests, and all six of the ice chests had sank. We just figured out, what can we go up under the boat and salvage? We had three gallons of water, two bags of chips, a package of six individual crackers, three cases of beer, and a pack of bubble gum.

We thought that somebody was going to find us because we saw barges, you know, boats, helicopters. And so we had life jackets. Our life jackets, we would wave those around. And we ripped off one of the railings from on the boat and actually tied our t-shirts to that and was using that as a flagpole to try to flag them down that way. I mean, so we were trying everything that we knew to try to, you know, get their attention, but it was to no avail. The men knew when they failed to return, their families would raise the alarm. We were

joking about helicopters and what we're going to eat as soon as we got back home, and whose wife or girlfriend is going to blow up at them first, and things of that nature. And so that made the day go by a little bit better. So the first day, we were very hopeful that we were going to be executed. The next morning, it was a little scary. It was a little scary because we just couldn't see anything.

There was no boats, no barges. We stopped seeing helicopters. Only thing we saw was water and sky. And so panic had started to set in then because we didn't see anything, nothing. Each day we decided that on the food we were going to have either a handful of chips or maybe a couple of crackers.

And we would drink one beer in the daytime and one beer at night. The pack of bubble gum that we had, we'd actually chew that during the day. And that would keep your mind off of food. That and the heat would definitely keep your mind off of food. On the fourth day, daytime temperatures soared to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It is hot. I mean, it is just terrible hot. It's like being in an oven. And we had started getting sunburned.

Everybody was starting to blister. The sun was just tearing us up bad. So we would stay in the water most of the day, stay cool. I actually slept in the water with a life jacket around my head so my head wouldn't go in the water and I would drown. And so I slept in the water and I just started seeing or feeling stuff around my legs. And then when I woke up the next day, I had tentacles, jellyfish tentacles stuck to my legs. I didn't feel it until I actually ripped the tentacles off my legs. And when I did that, it felt like it was just fire just in my bones,

and I just couldn't get it to stop. Despite an exhaustive search, the Coast Guard had failed to find any trace of the men. The fifth day, we probably used up every source of food that we had. We had maybe some crumbs left in the back, in the bottom of a bag of chips. And we divided up those crumbs and said, this is it. You know, this is all the food we have. And the first thing we thought was, well, we'll try to catch some fish out here, maybe have some sushi. Well, you could see actually about 60 feet down

in the clear water, and you saw maybe about the size of a shoebox or something like that. You could just see something moving around, and you didn't think anything of it. But once they started getting a little closer to the boat, closer to the boat, we figured out that those were sharks. And then once they got right up to the boat, closer to the boat, we figured out that those were sharks.

And then once they got right up to the water, they was like seven feet long, six to seven feet long. And there were six of them out there. And they circled around the boat that whole day. And we're like, what are we gonna do about tonight? And these sharks are around here. What's gonna happen? Are we gonna be alive the next day?

Are we going to be fish food? It was like seven feet long, six to seven feet long, and there were six of them out there. And they circled around the boat that whole day. And all of a sudden, just before that evening, or just before the sun went down, it was a pack of dolphins came in and ran everything out, sharks, tuna, bait, everything.

And they hung around the boat for maybe about an hour. Then the dolphin would go and went back to calm water, just slapping up against the mud. And it was amazing. It was God sent. The starving and exhausted men started hallucinating. It was rough. It was real rough on everybody. And it was starting to take its toll. We got tired of talking to each other. We wanted to talk to other people.

And hallucinations just started setting in. One day, Curtis had ordered a pizza, so-called ordered a pizza. And he got mad at us the next day because he said that we ate up all of his pizza. And so when those hallucinations started coming in like that, it was almost normal then. And it also kept us going through the day because we would laugh about it. And so it becomes funny, but 15, 20 minutes later,

you're doing the same thing again. After a week, the Coast Guard announced they were calling off the search. I thought that I was going to die out there in the water. And I was telling James that if I died out here before you guys, he said, don't even talk like that. We're not going to even talk like that. So I wouldn't say that out loud, but in my mind I was thinking, you know, we are in trouble.

We're going to have to get rescued. We've got to get out of here. Something's got to make a change, or we're not going to make it. I mean, this is starting to get real serious now. They decide to abandon the boat and try to swim to a distant oil rig. We made a plan that, you know, just before it gets dark, we're going to swim to the oil rig. And at this point, we're all fatigued.

I mean, in my mind, I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it. And James had looked at me, Kurt looked at me, said, you're going to make it. You're going to be able to swim it, because it's a one-time deal. Once we get in the water, the boat's going to be gone. We're not going to be able to make it back to the boat. And I was like, well, if this is going to be our only possibility of getting rescued, I said, well, we're just going to have to do it.

So I went to lay back, and I had my life jacket over my head. And I was laying back. And I would say maybe about an hour or so later, and James said, I think that boat's coming this way. So I kind of looked up again. I said, no, it's not even a boat out there. You guys are seeing stuff. You're hallucinating.

I said, when we get ready to swim, just me know and I'll get up and we'll go swim and James said that boat is coming right for they're coming to get us I jumped up and I said there's a boat that's what I've been trying to tell you the whole time we get ready to go home buddy and so we're out there all hugging up on the boat they're trying to ask us our name so they can tell the Coast Guard they had the Coast Guard's on the phone at the same time and we're out there all hugging up on the boat. They're trying to ask us our names so they can tell the Coast Guard. They had the Coast Guard on the phone at the same time. And we're out there hugging each other on the capsized boat and saying, we rescued, we made it, we made it, we made it.

After an eight-day ordeal, a passing boat rescued the men 180 miles from shore. We had actually dove in the water, swam to his boat, and got on it before he could even get the boat maneuvered over there to get us. It was, it was, it was, it was God sent. It was a blessing. Despite their ordeal, Trestle, James, and Kurt were able to walk to the waiting ambulance. I had received 22 jellyfish stings on my right leg and 18 on my left. My legs had swelled up so bad, and the bacteria got so infected into my legs, into my bone marrow, that they gave me 48 hours to live. And if I didn't get any medical attention

within those 48 hours, I would've died. So once they started taking the antibiotics and things like that, I started healing up. After his release from the hospital, Trestle was reunited with his family. It was just a second chance at life. You're just thankful. First of all, you're just thankful about everything. And then you go through emotions of crying, wanting to talk to your family now,

wanting to be just around people. It was just amazing. It was truly amazing. I survived because of willpower, determination, friends, and God. And I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for those guys being with me, that's what kept us alive. This episode of I Survived is brought to you by Huggy's Skin Essentials. Having a baby comes with so many unexpected challenges, but diaper rash shouldn't be one of them. For me, there was nothing worse than seeing my little one with an uncomfortable diaper rash. It makes everything harder from bath time to diaper changes and left me feeling totally helpless. But now baby butts can rejoice because new Huggies Skin Essentials are here. A brand new dermatologist approved line

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Stream now, pay never. It's May 2001 in Memphis, Tennessee. 21-year-old Melissa is driving home after spending the evening with friends. It is after midnight, and Melissa is alone in the car. My fiancé was out at his best friend's bachelor party, and I was going to meet up with him back at the apartment. It was pretty late when I decided that it was time to call it quits, and I had called him to let him know I was on my way home,

and my friends had offered to follow just to make sure I got home okay. I've got night blindness. I don't see well at night. The lights from other cars and the street, the street lights, tend to drown out things around me. So they wanted to make sure that I got home okay. And told them I didn't need any help and went ahead and left their place. It was about 2 o'clock in the morning when I got to the apartment and nothing was out of the ordinary. I pulled into a parking space under one of the street lamps and got out of the car, walked up towards the apartment, and a guy was coming from a line of cars.

He was a very tall and large black guy. Didn't look out of the ordinary. He had on a green baggy shirt and a pair of jeans. I looked up and I smiled at him and I said hi, thinking he was just a regular guy leaving, you know, to go somewhere late at night. And he pulled a gun and demanded all my belongings. It was a small pistol. It was a 9mm. So, I mean, I'd been around guns before, so I knew my way around them,

and I knew which end I didn't want to be on. Your mind kind of goes numb when you see a weapon. It's all you can see. I didn't see him. I just saw, you know, the barrel. And I dropped everything at his feet and kind of took a step backwards and just froze. And he bent down and picked up my belongings and had the gun on me the entire time, and picked up my keys and said, come on, we're going to your car. He motioned me forward and kept the gun on me

the entire time and walked behind me. He asked me which key opened up the trunk, and when we got over there, he opened up the trunk and told me to get in. He stopped me before I got in and asked me for my ATM number. He threatened to kill me if I lied and when I finally gave it to him he told me, all right get in and then he slammed the trunk down. It was immediately dark. I was in shock. It's hard to describe.

You don't know that feeling until you're feeling it. The only thing that went through my head was, please let someone know I'm missing. Please let someone know that I'm gone. Melissa's abductor drove her to an ATM machine. He got back into my car and took off again. We drove maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes or so, more speeding. And then he pulled off on the side of the road and popped the trunk. He pulled out one of my

credit cards and he asked me how to use it. And I told him I didn't know. I'd never used credit cards to pull out cash before. I offered to go to the ATMs for him and pull out all the cash I had, you know, that I didn't get paid yet, but that I'd given what I could. And he said, no, he'd already got that. And he looked at me and he said, you know, I'm going to kill you, right? And then he slammed the trunk lid down again. I mean, he was very matter-of-fact and almost every day about it. When he said it I didn't say anything I just kind of stared at

him. It was just starting to sink in that I might not make it out and I wasn't real sure what to do. I thought he'd probably take me somewhere and just shoot me. And I started feeling around the lock mechanism of the trunk where the cables are, but knew that I had to figure something out to get out. He slowed down, and he started backing up and going forward, and got out of the car. But he didn't pop the trunk.

And I could hear him on the gravel walking around to the back of the car. I heard him put his hands on the trunk of the car, and he started pushing. And the car rolled forward, and the wheels dipped down, and I heard water. Then the back wheels dipped down, and I heard water. Then the back wheels dipped down, and the car started to float.

It was like being in a canoe. The way the water laps around the sides, I could hear it on the outside of the car hitting up against the metal. I pulled down the sidelining where you can get to the brake lights and peered out and saw up here. And I realized I was in a lake. The car had already started to sink and I could feel the front was dipping down and the water started to come in.

When the water first came in and touched my boots, it was cold, icy cold. I totally, totally lost it. I started screaming. Somebody help me. Anybody help me. And turned around and tried to kick out the back seat of my car.

When that didn't work, I forced myself to calm down. I knew that no one was going to hear me, that there's no way anyone could hear me. I've got to get out of this trunk, and I've got to get out now. And I became more calm and focused on what I needed to pull on and what I needed to look for to get the trunk open.

As I was pulling and trying to find something that would open the trunk, the water level in the car was getting higher and higher. The car had already started to sink, and I could feel the front was dipping down, and the water was starting to come in, and at a creasingly rate, it had gotten up to my waist, and I was starting to shiver. I reached up to the top of the trunk lid and pulled down the lining, and the water got a little bit higher.

I pushed on the top of the trunk, and it popped open. There was a sense of, yes, you know, it's open. I immediately climbed onto the bumper. The water was pretty high, and I needed to get out. But once I got to the bumper, I looked around. I was terrified that he was still there, and I just knew that he was going to shoot me. The car was close enough to shore that I could swim to shore,

but the entire time I was swimming, I was terrified that he was at the shore waiting to shoot me or that he was going to shoot me in the back while I was in the water. I crouched on the shore, just on the edge, and I looked around. I didn't see anybody. There were two tennis courts and this building that had a light on. So I ran for the building, and it turned out to be a bathroom, and it was pretty gross.

There were bugs everywhere. And I stood by the door, just waiting to hear to see if he was still there. And so every little noise, all the bugs that kept hitting the lights made noise. And I kept thinking every time that it was someone outside the bathroom getting ready to come in. I had a little pocket knife that I pulled out and opened and kind of held ready just in case. And I just stood there and didn't move. When the sun came up, I realized that no one was going to come looking for me. And I decided it was safe enough to venture out and try to find help. A passerby called 911 and waited with Melissa until the police arrived.

A police dive team retrieved Melissa's car from the bottom of the lake. It was pretty deep. The police told me later that if I hadn't gotten out of the trunk, they might not have found me for 10 to 15 years. Melissa's attacker, Montarius Cox, was arrested 72 hours later. He pled guilty to attempted first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and robbery. Cox was sentenced to 140 years. This has made me less trusting of other people. It's made me a lot more thankful for life. Now that I've got three kids and happily married, it's kind of a little unreal that I'm here.

I survived partly from luck and partly because I knew how to keep my head on straight. There's a point where your mind kind of takes over and you find out you're a lot stronger than you are.