Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Was Petrified Because Now He Can Come Back and Find Me Again

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

David is 14-years-old and hitchhiking home when his ride takes a dark turn. David is assaulted physically and sexually by the man known later as the freeway killer. Sandy is a nanny working for environmental researchers in the forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo when she is attacked by a 14-foot Nile crocodile. Maura has just returned home to her children when she is abducted by a knife-wielding stranger already covered in blood. Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. 

Hi, I Survived listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And before we get into this week's episode, 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. He was sadistic and I was scared to death.

Real people. I think I knew that this was going to be a choice between my am and my life. Who faced death. He said, I am going to chop you up in little pieces and sprinkle you into the hills. And live to tell how. I realized if I didn't do what he said, that I was going to end up dead. This is I Survived. It's September 1974 in Orange County, California. 14-year-old David lives in Huntington Beach with his mother. He is enjoying the last day of summer vacation. The next day was

my first day of high school. I'd been hanging out with my friends all summer in Garden Grove, and it was time to go home. I left and I was going to go hitchhike home. Back then, everybody hitchhiked. It was on every corner you would see a kid. I walked across the street from my friend's house, and this car pulled up beside me. And the guy inside, he asked me where I was going, and he said that he was basically going the same direction and asked me if I wanted to, if I wanted a ride. So I got in the car, just, I didn't think anything was wrong at all. You know, he was probably 25, 26 years old.

He had long hair, and he was a nice guy. About maybe five minutes into the ride, he asked me if I'd ever tried anything sexual with a guy and I told him that I hadn't and honestly that's everything just kind of I just got scared inside I knew something was wrong as it turned out he was or we were very close to where I was supposed to get out of the car anyway and I told him I said this is where I need to get out. He didn't stop. He just kept going. And I said, I need to get out. And he wasn't going to let me out.

So I opened the door and tried to jump out of the car. Once I opened the door, I looked back, and he had a gun in my face. At first, when I saw the gun, everything that he had just said about sexual acts actually left my head. My grandparents had money, and I thought that I was getting kidnapped for their money. You know, I didn't understand what was going on. He had set the gun on his left-hand side, but he had already locked the door on the right,

so I couldn't get out without reaching around and unlocking the door. So I knew that by the time I did that, he could very easily grab the gun and shoot me. As night fell, the man drove David around unfamiliar industrial areas. Finally, it was getting dark, and we had pulled up to this field and there were all these dirt mounds. And he pulled in behind them. I realized that nobody could see us there. And that's when I really got scared. First, he started taking off his clothes and he told me to take off my clothes.

And I didn't want to. I actually tried to jump out of the car again then, and he started hitting me. And I realized that I wasn't getting out of the car. It really got serious when we pulled into the dark field and we were alone. That was when he took control of everything. There was no escaping.

There was no way for me to get anywhere near the gun. He told me to take off my clothes. I didn't, and he started hitting me again. Every time that I tried to rebel against what he wanted me to do, he would just start hitting me. He would punch me in the face. He would punch me in the face. He would punch me in the chest.

It was just like, it just seemed like I just kept getting hit. He made me perform sexual acts on him. He performed sexual acts on me. And I just kept rebelling, and he just kept beating me up. And then finally, I realized that I didn't have a choice. If I didn't do what he said, that I was gonna end up dead. Even if I would have gotten out of the car,

I don't know what I would have done. It was very dark and kind of in the middle of nowhere. So I did everything he said, and for the next hour or so, he pretty much just raped and tortured me. He was sadistic. He was hurting me, you know. And I was scared to death. I knew that if I tried to get away, he was just going to beat me up more. I knew that I had no choice but to let him do whatever he wanted to do.

It was the hardest part of my life. I didn't know if I was going to live or die. wanted to do. It was the hardest part of my life. I didn't know if I was going to live or die. He had been raping and torturing me for quite a while. I really don't know how long, but it seemed like forever. He acted like he was getting pleasure from hurting me. He was raping me in the front seat of the car, and he had my t-shirt around my neck with a tire iron through the sleeves,

and he was twisting it, trying to strangle me. I couldn't breathe. I really honestly thought I was going to die. I was in no position to fight. You know, I was turned over in a car seat with somebody strangling me. With what I thought was my last breath, I said, God help. And he just stopped. He stopped dead in his tracks. He got off of me. He actually apologized for hurting me, which I thought was really weird.

And after that, then he wiped himself off with a rag and threw it out and threw the rag out the window. He told me to get dressed and said that he was going to drive me home. When he started the car to drive back, he was actually more apologetic, almost as if he was trying to be my friend, saying things like he wanted to see me again. All I did was just agree with him. You know, I didn't want to say anything to upset him. David directed the rapist to drop him off at a false address.

He pulled over to let me out of the car. He said, I'll see you again. And that's when I turned back into my rebellious self and said, no, you won't, and started running. I ran all through different streets and alleys and between apartment complexes. And finally, when I did think I was safe, I went home. I put the key in the door, started to open the door, and then I heard beep, beep, a car behind me. And he was right there. He knew where I lived. I was petrified because now he can come back and find me again. And I knew I had to tell somebody.

You know, at the time, I probably would have never said anything to anyone. So I called my mother, and she made a half-an-hour drive in 15 minutes. David's mother took him to the police station where he was questioned by a detective. He didn't really seem like he believed me. And we ended up getting in the car and went back out to where he actually raped me.

And the police officer went behind the mound, the dirt mounds, and came back with the rag that he had wiped himself off with. That's when he knew that it was serious and it wasn't a story. He drove us straight to the hospital, which was, for me, almost like getting raped again. When that was done, we went home. I had an hour and a half to get ready for my very first day of high school. No sleep, straight to school.

My first day of high school was an absolute nightmare. I didn't know if I would come home and find him by my house or what. I knew that this guy was out there. I also couldn't tell anybody. Two months later, another boy escaped a similar attack and gave police the rapist's license plate. In a police lineup, David identified the same man as his attacker and agreed to testify against him in court. He was like peering at me through this little window and I was as scared as I was that night. I ended up just going on the stand answering their questions and hitchhiking back home again.

William Bonin was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison. About a year and a half after that, when I started reading the newspapers about these kids that were coming up dead, every time I would read these stories, I just felt like that was the guy. There were certain things that he did that were similar. You know, picked up by a freeway, raped by a freeway, dropped off by a freeway. All these pictures of these kids that were killed, they all resembled me. I would just get this feeling in my stomach that that was him.

All of this just seems way too familiar to me. But way down deep inside, I also felt that he's still in prison. It can't be him. David was not told that the rapist, William Bonin, had been released from prison. For probably a year and a half, it was my deepest, darkest secret. I didn't want anybody to know about it. And finally, I just thought it was too much. And I called the sheriff's department. And about two weeks later later they arrested him. The media had dubbed the serial rapist the Freeway Killer. He was, in fact, William Bonnen,

the man who had raped and tortured David. I saw on TV that they had arrested the Freeway Killer and it was him on TV. I saw his face, that was him on TV. I saw his face. That was him. Once again, the teenage David had to give evidence, exposing his long-held secret. It was, to me, devastating. It went from being a dark secret to being on the front page of every newspaper and TV station.

But I knew that I had to speak for all those kids that weren't here anymore. Bonnen was convicted of 14 murders. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1996. I survived because God saved me. I yelled out for God to help with my last breath, and he stopped dead in his tracks. I believe that's why I survived.

David witnessed the execution of William Bonin. Even though I'm against the death penalty, in theory, I knew that I had to go because I wanted to change my mental videotape. I had been having nightmares for 20 years about this, and really bad stuff would happen to me at night when I go to sleep. You know, it was just something that never went away. Unfortunately, years later, I still get those nightmares. I Survived is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. It's March 1993 in the Yaturi Forest in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sandy is a nanny and tutor to the daughters of two environmental researchers. I loved Africa. I loved the people. I loved the environment. I loved the whole ambience of the place. When their parents were away, Sandy looked after the children with Ken, the project manager. It was just Sandy and I and two kids who were roughly four and eight at the time. That day, like most days, we went down to the river to bathe. This had been for 50 years a safe bathing hole,

and I felt very safe swimming there. We were playing and having a good time and splashing around and just really relaxing and enjoying ourselves. And then I said, it's going to be getting dark, so we ought to get out of the water. We were starting to get out of the river, so all the three of us, myself and the two kids, had our back to Sandy.

I went underwater one more time to rinse out my hair, and that was when it felt like a rather large, heavy, blunt object, a log of some kind, just smashed up against me. I thought, well, just my dang luck. It's a crocodile. I didn't feel it chomping down. I didn't feel intense pain at that time. I just knew when this big, heavy, blunt, rough thing smacked into me,

somehow I just knew that it was a crocodile. When it first grabbed me, I was underwater, and it just pulled me just a little bit deeper down under. It was just pulling me down, trying to just drown me. The crocodile had Sandy's left forearm clamped firmly in its jaws. Her colleague, Ken, was on the riverbank, supervising the children with his back to Sandy. My first thought at that point was that I had two small children in my CA. If there's a whole pack of these things,

these girls would be at risk. So as I was able to stand up and get Aya, the very first time I was just able to sort of gurgle out even just crocodile. I initially thought she, I hoped she was joking around. Ken looks over and says, don't even say that. That's not even funny. I thought, well, no, really, it's not. This isn't a joke. I've got a crocodile attached to me.

And then he pulled me down and dragged me back under. Crocodiles perform a death roll to tear the flesh from their prey's body. He rolled just once or twice and then stopped. I was really able to get some good air in. I was only waist deep or so. I reached my hand underneath the snout of the crocodile and I stood up and kind of grabbed the snout of the croc out and said, see it's a crocodile. He realized that this was obviously not a prank, it was a dangerous situation and a foolish man, instead of running in the opposite direction, God bless him, ran to help. I just grabbed her and figured, well, I'm just going to haul her into shore and this will all be over with. But as I reached around her, I grabbed ahold of the snout of the crocodile.

The face felt like a tank. It was just solid steel. And I was trying to figure out where the eyes were and trying to poke at him and trying to punch it under the neck and just anything I could think of to irritate this thing enough that it might let her go for a moment. But it didn't.

Crocodiles have the brain the size of a walnut and 50 million years of programming that says kill. There's not much that knocks them off their game. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there watching what was happening. And about that time, it decided to take her for another roll under the water. The croc immediately started to do, drag her under that decided to take her for another roll under the water.

The croc immediately started to drag her under and do a spin. And I quickly let go of her. I didn't want to hold on to her and have the torque of the crocodile ripping at her arm. I thought, well, if he's rolling that way, I'm going to stop and roll with him. And so I sort of tucked and rolled around with him, Because if my arm was going that way, so was I. Before each death roll, crocodiles exhale, sink, and hold their prey underwater to drown it. Each time he would, so the crocodile

would cue me and let out the air and sink. That was my prep time to tuck and roll. The first couple of times we did this was like one or two rolls. I was like, oh I can do this. Then it was three to five rolls and it was getting harder to hold on and to hold my breath. She's getting beat up underwater against the bottom and getting knocked around and she had to hold her breath for a good 30 seconds and as soon as the spinning stopped I would reach down and grab her and pull her up so that she could breathe. We were at a point where it was,

you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve rolls. And I knew that I was getting to a point where I was not going to be able to survive this if I couldn't get Aya. For 25 minutes, Sandy and Ken tried to maneuver the crocodile into shallower water, but the crocodile kept trying to take them deeper. If she got in deeper than I could stand, I was going to have a hard time picking her up and

getting her to the surface to breathe. She was getting weak and was getting tired, and we were going to have to do something. Otherwise, she was probably going to pass out. I was so roiled around by that point, and the water, which had been reasonably clear now, is full of blood, and I couldn't tell which way was up. So I followed the bubbles up, and I can see standing over me Ken, who's quite tall, and he's up to his chin in water.

I thought, wow, that's bad news for and he's up to his chin in water. I thought, wow, that's bad news for me. It's really very terrifying to just not be able to get that air in. It's an extraordinary feeling to just be trying to breathe water and know that you can't. It's a helpless feeling to stand there and want to help out a friend and not having any clue the best way to do that.

The two girls Sandy cared for watched helplessly from the riverbank. Daylight was rapidly disappearing. Ken is having trouble finding me. So I just sort of reached back with this hand and I flung up to grab his shoulder. I'm six foot two and I'm up to my neck in water, trying to grab a hold of her, trying to pull her up. He reached down and grabbed and just pulled me up, and I got literally one breath, this huge gulp.

And as soon as I got that one breath, the croc went back down again. So I'm still very short on air. One breath was highly enough to keep me going, and he starts rolling again. So I'm still very short on air. One breath was highly enough to keep me going. And he starts rolling again. I let go and it took Sandy and just smashed her against this wooden rain gauge, which shattered the rain gauge. It cracked on a diagonal. And then as I came around rolling with the croc, it went in and impaled me in the back. After 30 minutes of struggling with a crocodile, Sandy is impaled on a broken rain gauge. The crocodile still has Sandy's arm in his mouth. I didn't really feel pain.

I felt something else, but at this point, I was still just so much more concerned with breathing. Being impaled was really not my biggest problem right then. As I came back around the role, current worked with me and it sort of pulled the gauge right back out again. I can't imagine how exhausted she must have felt. She was always coherent, always determined, always struggling, But she was losing her energy. The crocodile showed no sign of giving up and continued to roll Sandy underwater. As he rolled, he landed on a sandbar.

Well, now I was in my element because as we rolled, we rolled up and we rolled out of the water and I could breathe. I thought, this is good. And what was even better is that when he was done rolling, I was on top and rolled off. And I said to Ken, this is it. We looked in each other's eyes and said, look, we got to, it's been long enough. This was going to be a choice between my arm and my life.

And it was an easy choice to make. She and I both just pulled with all our might. The arm was probably hanging just by tendons at that point, and as he pulled away and I pulled away, it all just snapped. The tension released, and she and I just went shooting out of the water like out of a cannon. And at that point, I recognized that it had torn off that part of the arm. We fell back and I saw the croc take what was remaining of my arm and swallow it. And then it sort of moved its head around and then swung back

in the water. And I said, it could come back. After a half-hour struggle, Ken hears Sandy break free from the crocodile that has attacked her. She sacrifices her arm to get away. She looked terrible. She was just covered and caked in blood all over her face and body. And then there was her hand, which was perfectly intact. But there, between the hand and the elbow, other than a very thin piece of skin, there was nothing else. Fearing Sandy would bleed to death, Ken used a shirt to make a tourniquet for her arm.

They climbed the steep hill from the river to their vehicle. I drove like a bat out of hell to a nurse who was in the village. The local nurse could do little except inject Sandy with antibiotics. Then they embarked on a grueling and dangerous road trip to the hospital. It's dangerous to travel at night. You never know if there's bandits or rebels. You never know if there's large animals that could attack. I can't even imagine, you know, the shock and pain she was in,

having to lay down in a car bumping down a very rough dirt road for three hours. I really didn't feel pain until I got into the vehicle when the adrenaline wore off, and then it was just extraordinarily painful. When they reached the hospital, what remained of Sandy's forearm was amputated with little pain relief. Soon after surgery, Sandy insisted on going to a restaurant. She ordered crocodile meat. We told the guy who was bringing the food by, look, this is, she's recently been in an attack. She wants crocodile. So he came over and he gave me one piece and I said, no, I want more. He says, how much do you want? I said, I want an Amsworth. After a year of surgeries and recuperation in the U.S., Sandy returned to the same job in Central Africa.

Her employers built a shower room, so she no longer had to bathe in the river. I survived because I kept looking for a way out and it didn't occur to me to quit. It didn't occur to me that it was against the odds and that I should give up. And I survived because of the kindness and generosity and heroism of Ken. Have you ever felt the presence of a loved one that's passed away and you wish you could talk to them and you feel like they're right there, but they're just a hair away from you?

I'm Jonathan Mark and I'm a celebrity psychic medium. Join me on my new podcast called Connect with Jonathan Mark. You know, for years and years, I've really put myself out there to help people, whether it's celebrity, law enforcement, or everyday people like myself for me each week as i bring on literally all my celebrity friends we will be talking about our lives maybe spiritual things have happened to them but the coolest part is i'll be doing readings for them where you can actually hear real intimate true moments between them and i when i connect to their loved ones each week i'll be updating you guys about some of the cases that i've worked on like the gabby potato case the long island serial killer case, and so much more.

Whether you're just listening and trying to get some closure or looking for comfort, I promise you that this is the podcast for you. Listen to my new podcast, Connect with Jonathan Marth. Follow, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts.

It's November 1986 in Pacifica, California. Maura works in an upscale restaurant while raising a teenage daughter and son. She is about to complete her studies and become a realtor. Life was really great. I was in love with a wonderful man. We were planning on being married. I had two incredible children. I mean, I really saw light at the end of the tunnel of struggling being a single mom.

Maura finished work at 1.30 a.m., then drove home to her children. That night, when I pulled into my lot, since the lights were all out in the parking lot, I looked in the mirror. I saw someone behind the car squatted with his back against the car, curly hair and shoulder. I could see his shoulders and his curly hair. And I turned and I said, who is that back there? I realized it wasn't my boyfriend. It was a stranger. and he came at me, and he had on little white cotton gloves and a butcher knife in his hand, a kitchen butcher knife,

and he was covered in blood. His gloves were soaked in it. The blade was soaked in it. And he ran at me and put the knife towards me and said, move over or I'll kill you. I thought, this can't be real. You know, this can't be real blood. This can't be a real night.

I just didn't think it was real. And I said, are you kidding me? I mean, I was literally laughing. And he got very angry. And he said, move the F over, or I will kill you. And he put the knife closer to me. He leaned down. And I could smell the blood, like fresh, wet blood.

And I thought, oh, F, this is real. He got into the car with me, shut the door, and I thought, oh, my God, what am I going to do? The man turned the key in the ignition, but Maura's car would not start. He was saying, what the F is wrong with your car? What the F is wrong with your car? And I said, nothing, nothing. You can't start the car without the seat belt being connected.

And he doesn't believe me. He thinks I'm trying to trick him. And he was getting more and more agitated. And he has a knife pointed at me. But he did it. He put his seat belt on. The car started. I gained a little bit of trust from him.

I wasn't lying to him. I wasn't trying to jerk him around. The car is filled with the scent of wet blood, stale beer, and his eyes are just bugging out of his head, and he's really pissed off, and I'm terrified. Okay, now I'm belted into my seat with a maniac with a knife, and I had to think, what am I going to do to get out of here? I have two children upstairs that I'm all they have. What would they do

without me? So I tried to find some humanity in him. You know, there had to be. He was a human being. So I told him I had two children upstairs that needed me, and I was all that they had. I asked him what his name was. I'm Maura. What is your name? And at that point, he told me his name was Michael.

He said, if you do what I tell you, I won't hurt you. And I said, do you promise? And he said, I promise. And I said, you must have a mother. And he got really angry. And he said, shut the F up. Shut your mouth. If you don't shut the F up, I your mouth. If you don't shut the F up,

I am going to chop you up in little pieces and sprinkle you into the hills. Later, when the car went over a bump, Maura noticed a pain in her leg. I realized he had stuck the butcher knife into my leg. I hadn't felt it go in. And I realized at that time that this is it. This is how I die. The knife was still stuck in my leg and it burned. It burned so bad. I was thinking,

how am I going to get out of this? The man drove Maura along a quiet residential street near a deserted campground. I thought, I'm screwed. He had this kind of smirky look on his face. I was expecting that he was going to want to rape me. He said to me, get in the backseat. Get in the backseat of the car. And I said, you promised you wouldn't hurt me. You promised.

Why do you want me in the backseat? And he said, just shut the up and get in the backseat of the car. I thought, if I get in the backseat of the car, I'm screwed. That's it. You know, I'm not getting out of this. So I said to him, I have money.

I have money from tonight. It's cash. I won't call the police. Just please don't hurt me. Just please let me go. You said you'd let me go. The man removed the knife and let Maura take off her seatbelt to get her wallet He said hand it to me and still his right hand was on his leg with the knife And he's saying, okay, get in the back seat I knew if I got in that back seat that I would never get out of it And I thought there's no effing way on this earth that I am gonna die like that

And if I am, I was gonna go down fighting. The car was still moving, and the man still had his seatbelt fastened. So he's driving with his elbow, trying to count money. I'm out of my seatbelt at this point,

and I thought, this is my chance. I was afraid, but I felt a sense of, like, control and calm. I jumped down and grabbed the knife and threw my body down and slammed him against the driver's door with my feet against the dashboard. And I'm pushing back. My hand is bleeding. And he would punch me in the face.

And he was pushing the knife down into my chest. I mean, it was so close to my face because I was pushing back at him. And I cannot tell you how this happened, but the car door popped open. I don't know how that happened. I just know one minute, I was pushed up against him, and he was trying to push that knife into my chest.

And then I was being dragged on the pavement. And he had my leg and my coat. And he was screaming at me to get back in the car. And I'm being dragged on the road. I was face down. But I had the knife. I was out of the car. And I was kicking and kicking, trying to get him off me. And I kicked free.

I kicked myself free of him and took off. Maura saw headlights approaching. I ran to the car that was coming towards me. And I put my hands on the hood of the car and I was screaming, help me. And you can imagine at 3, 34 o'clock in the morning on a dark night, there's a woman on the hood of the car, bloody, mascara running down my face with a butcher knife. They took off and they left me there. Maura ran to the nearest house and banged on the door. There was no response and she could see her attacker driving back towards her.

No one answered the door. I threw myself down into the bushes and I swear I just felt like this huge, like he could see me, like there was a beacon on me. I could see him looking really hard on each side of the road. The man drove past without finding Maura. When she was sure he had gone, she ran to the next house and pounded on the door. A little tiny woman came to the door, screamed, and started to shut the door, and I just shoved my way into the house.

And I was telling her, call the police, call the police. And, you know, I'm sure to her, I was a terrifying sight. I can only imagine. She did go call the police, and I could understand her in Spanish saying, there's a woman in our house trying to kill us. And I went and grabbed the phone and started talking to the police officer on the other end,

and I was telling her that I was taken by a man with a knife, and I just was sure he was headed back to my house and that he was going to kill my kids. He had my keys, He had my address. A police officer arrived at the house, and I heard on her radio, victim's car returned to residence. And I knew he was there.

He was killing my kids. I just knew it. I was afraid through the whole thing. I was, but never was I more terrified than I was at that moment, because then I knew he was hurting my children. A police officer took Maura home. All I wanted to do was get upstairs. You know, I just wanted to get, to see my children. The attacker had returned Maura's car and left before police arrived.

He did not enter the house, and the children were unharmed. Two weeks later, Maura was asked to attend a police lineup. As soon as he stepped out, I knew it was him. And he waved. He looked out, and he smiled. I was terrified, but I identified him. Bernard Jackman is serving three life sentences for his attack on Maura and other crimes.

Twenty years later, Maura attended a parole hearing to oppose his release. He was sitting there at the table, ashen and small, and there was a sense of empowerment that I hadn't had in so many years. I'm sitting here, out here, healthy, strong, living my life, and you're behind bars, and that's where he's going to spend the rest of his life i survived because i was not going to let my children grow up without a mother i survived because i was not going to let this maniac take my life for me i not, was not gonna just lay down and let some piece of scum take my life away.