Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED: I Would Rather Die Running Away Than Be Someone's Slave

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

Erinn is abducted at gunpoint while leaving work. After driving to a parking lot she is subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse. Amanda accompanies her boyfriend Ethan to sell some land to a neighbor, but after Ethan is knocked unconscious Amanda is held captive and repeatedly sexually assaulted. Huggies: Head to Huggies.com to learn more!  Ro - Go to Ro.co/Survived to start your weight loss journey Today! 

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

to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. He had said that he was going to sell me and that I would be tossed around a whole bunch of guys. Real people. When he pushes the gun, my head goes like this, and then he runs it down my face to my mouth. Who faced death?

I thought, my poor son is not going to be able to see my body in a casket because my head's going to be blown off. And live to tell how. If he did this to me and Ethan, is he just going to kill my whole family? This is I Survived. It's 2010 in Los Angeles, California. Erin, a single mom, has just finished work at a restaurant in a suburban mall. I was supposed to be there until about 7, but that day we were really slow, so I got sent home early.

So I just kind of zigzagged my way through the parking lot towards my car. I was texting someone on my phone, not really paying attention to my surroundings. It's broad daylight. I felt completely safe. As I open up my driver's side door, my passenger door opens as well. And at first I thought it was a joke. You know, all of the employees that work at this restaurant, we all play jokes on each other. But as I looked up, I realized that I didn't know this man.

And he had again pointed at me. He seemed huge. He's roughly twice my size. And there's no way I would have been able to fight him off. There was a second man and he asked the man with the gun what he was doing. He asked him with a little bit of a chuckle in his voice and a smirk on his face. The man with the gun looked at him and said, don't worry about it. And the man that was behind him by the passenger door kind of laughed. I thought, hey, they've got kind of a team thing going on here.

Obviously, this isn't new. If your friend pulls a gun on somebody you don't know, that's cause for alarm, not cause for laughter. I really had nowhere to go. If I would have run through the parking lot, he easily could have shot me. So I wasn't gonna take the chance. So I got in my car, and he got in my car, and we started to drive out of the parking lot. The first thing that I thought was, this isn't fair. I didn't do anything to deserve this.

And he didn't care. No, he didn't care. No, he didn't care. I'm shaking, and I'm terrified, and I couldn't believe that this was happening. He never raises the gun above the doorframe so that you could see it through a window. His hand does not shake once. He's completely calm, completely collected. It just seems like we're going for a drive, which is incredibly creepy. I didn't know what was going to happen, but all I kept thinking about

was my son and how whatever was going to happen, I had to get through it because I didn't want my son to grow up without a mother. And that definitely gave me the motivation to stay calm and, well, as calm as could be and get through it so that I could live. I asked the man that was in my car where he wanted me to go and he asked me where I lived. So I told him I live in the high desert and he said, okay, we'll start there. I'm thinking if I actually allow him to take me up there, there's no way they're gonna find my body because it's the desert.

And all I could think was I need to pull over somewhere. So I told him, you can have my car, you can have my wallet, you can have my phone, everything that's in here, just let me get out of the car and I won't call anybody, just take my stuff and go. And he looked at me straight in the eyes and he said, okay. And so I'm thinking, wow, that was easy. I'm doing a happy dance in my head thinking, great, this is incredibly scary,

but it's going to be over soon and I can just go. Because I grew up in this area. I knew that there was a coffee shop where cops frequented. And as I pull off, I start checking out the parking lot of this coffee shop. And there are no cops there. I'm just thinking, wow, that figures. He had me park in the very last spot so that there would be privacy I guess when I turned to him and asked him if I could leave he said no there's something you have to do and I think you know what it is and he looked at me right in the eyes he looked down at his crotch. He looked back at me and smirked. I was absolutely terrified. I could not stop shaking.

And he looked at me. He looked down at his crotch. He looked back at me again and unzipped his pants. And I just thought, my life is not, you know, it's worth more than my pride. And so I did as he had demanded. As soon as he was satisfied with that, he told me that we were going to take it into the backseat. I figured that he was going to rape me or beat me up, something. But thinking that it's going to happen

and having it actually happen are two very different things. Some people kind of go somewhere deep in their mind where they're not really in the moment. They just kind of blank out of it. I didn't. So I was completely there the entire time, consciously. I didn't really have any place in me for anger at that time because that's an emotion that you kind of have to indulge.

I didn't have that luxury at the time. I was just trying to get through it so that I could go home to my son. But I was very determined that he wasn't going to hurt me without some kind of a fight. As he's raping me, he's having problems performing, but he doesn't seem to be getting upset. His face is stoic, and he's concentrating on my face. And he says, are you going to cry? And I said, yeah, I'm going to cry. And he kind of smirks.

And then he asks me, why are you shaking? And I said, I'm going to cry. And he kind of smirks. And then he asks me, why are you shaking? And I said, I'm scared. His phone has been going off since we left the parking lot. And he hasn't answered it. He's just completely focused in on my expressions, my reactions. He then picks up the gun, and he ejects a bullet from the barrel. Up until this point, I didn't know whether or not the gun was loaded. Now I knew.

He then ejected the clip and ran his finger over it, shoved it back into the gun, and then pressed it against my head. When he pushes the gun, my head goes like this, and then he runs it down my face to my mouth. And the minute that the barrel touches my head, I'm thinking, oh, my God, he's going to shoot me in the head. I can't believe I'm going to die like this. And then he takes the gun and sticks it in my mouth.

And I start crying because I think, I'm done. You don't put a gun in somebody's mouth unless you're prepared to fire it. All these thoughts are going through my head, like, is it going to hurt? My poor son is not going to be able to see my body in a casket because my head's going to be blown off. And he told me that if I didn't stop crying, he was going to kill me. And he shoved the gun in further. So I tried really hard to stop crying, he was going to kill me. And he shoved the gun in further. So I tried really hard to stop crying. And I tried to lock it down.

He pulled the gun back out, put the gun back in the car seat. His phone is still going off. He looked at the phone and said, let's see who this is. And then he answered. I found out later that it was the man that was in the parking lot with him when he had first kidnapped me. And he's laughing. I'd never seen any other expression aside from the anger up to this point.

And the laughing was not comforting. When he hangs up the phone, he looks at me, and he looks at his crotch again. So I did what he wanted, and he snapped his fingers, and it startled me, and I sat up, and I looked at him, and he he smiled and he snapped his fingers again and looked down and he did this about four times snapping his fingers and having me go up and down like it was a game and then he slapped me in the face twice. And that scared me. And I jerked up and I looked at him and he had his phone out again. And he said, smile for the camera.

He took pictures of me. And I later found out that he sent them to the man that was in the parking lot with a caption reading, look what I'm doing. It's very humiliating, very degrading to have no control over what's going on and to have no say in what is being done to you. After he puts the phone down, he rapes me again. And this time, while he's looking at me, he lifts up his fist and he socks me in the stomach twice. And he socks me in the face twice, in the cheek. I didn't black out, but I kind of wish I had. I do my best to eat well and stay active in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

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Prescription only. Aaron has been kidnapped and assaulted in a secluded parking lot. The entire time he was hitting me, he was completely focused on my face. There was no change in his demeanor, no change in his expression. It was just as if he was trying to see how I would react to being hit. I immediately curl up on myself to try and make a smaller target. And that doesn't really work. He just starts choking me. He sticks his fingers in my mouth to try and gag me. And while I'm trying to yank his arm away from me, I'm telling him,

you're going to make me throw up. And he said, I don't care. And did it again. The man attacking Aaron suddenly stops. It's weird, but for some reason he starts looking around and it's very slow, very methodical. And he says, where am I? Who are you? Whose car is this? And I'm looking at him thinking, wow, another mind game. You're totally playing with me right now. And so I start answering thinking to keep him calm. And so I told him, we're in my car. You made me drive here from the mall. And he tells me to put my clothes back on. And I looked at him thinking it was a trick. And he got a little bit more forceful and he said, put your clothes back on. I'm throwing them on very quickly. I figure now's my shot. So I asked him again, you can take my car. You can take my

wallet. I'm just going to leave. I'm going to go to the liquor store behind us and you can go. And I reach for the door handle. He grabs my arm and says, no. He then unzips my sweater, unzips my pants, and I knew it wasn't over. Then he tries to choke me. I kind of knew what was coming the way that he had been looking, so I put my chin down and I tucked it up against my chest so that he couldn't get a good grip and he had to let go. I had noticed that the gun had fallen to the floor. It was underneath the passenger seat in a spot that he couldn't reach very easily and I knew that if I was going to get out, this was going to be my chance while the gun was down there. As soon as he was done choking me, his phone rang again and he went to go answer it. The minute that the phone was in his hand, I pushed the door open and I ran from the car.

I ran towards the liquor store and I was yelling at the top of my lungs he's got a gun he's got a gun the owner ushers me inside puts me behind the cash register and I just collapsed sobbing behind the register I wasn't coherent I couldn't form sentences and I'm terrified that he's gonna walk in this door any minute the owner has me sit in a chair next to the door. This scared me so badly because I was so certain that he was gonna come in and finish the job.

You have a gun. How are you gonna let your victim get away? I sat there shaking and sobbing, and I couldn't talk, and all these people were just staring at me. They didn't know what to do. Not one person asked me if I was okay. They just kept walking by just staring at me. They didn't know what to do. Not one person asked me if I was okay. They just kept walking by staring at me.

Aaron's attacker has fled by the time police arrive. They find his gun, the ejected bullet, and his sunglasses in Aaron's car. The gun had his name on the bottom of it. It was his service revolver because he was a cop. When I found out he was a police detective, I thought that he was a complete idiot. When her kidnapper realizes he has left his gun in the car, he reports it as stolen.

With Aaron's description of him and his accomplice, police arrest both men that night. He had taken my keys and his accomplice had them on him when they arrested them. But he also texts those pictures that he had taken of me to his accomplice. The accomplice was a prison guard at Chino Men's Prison. The accomplice, Jeff Jelinek, received five years and four months for assault with a deadly weapon, accessory after the fact, and false imprisonment. I waited two years to be able to go to trial and still trying to be a mother and a daughter and a sister and working. And I got PTSD.

When the time finally came for me to testify, I was so nervous. I'm going to be in the same room with him, looking at him. And it turned out to be cathartic, really, testifying and finally to be in there and just show him, hey, look, you tried to break me and I'm still here. Detective Anthony Orban was found guilty of kidnapping and rape, but hung himself in his prison cell before sentencing. I survived because I kept a level head. I stayed in the moment no matter how much I didn't want to, and I was determined to live so that I could be a mother to my son and so that I could have justice. It's September 2010 in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma.

19-year-old Amanda is living with her mother while she waits to join the Army. Her boyfriend Ethan also lives with Amanda and her mother. Ethan was a really great guy. He was really funny. He liked to play Xbox just like me. He was really into sports and being real fit and stuff. He was a really goofy guy and funny and excitable person. And then that day happened. Amanda and Ethan have arranged to sell some land to their neighbor, Glenn. The property was set in the country.

All the houses were, you know, kind of close together, but, you know, enough far apart to where, you know, you could have privacy. They arrive at Glenn's place around 9 a.m. to sign the contract. I had no idea who this guy was. He seemed like an okay guy, you know? He had a big beard and just looked like a roughneck kind of guy you'd see from the South. He waved Ethan over to this shed that he had said was his office.

And Ethan followed him. And he said, you know, Ethan said he wasn't going to be very long. And he grabbed a pen and the notarized papers, and he followed Glenn into the shed. I was just kind of napping, sitting back, and then I hear a knock on the window, and it was Glenn,

and he had said that he needed me to be a witness to a bill of sale. And that was it. I followed him into the shed. I saw two barrels there and a deep freeze and an air conditioner and just, you know, some junk. There wasn't a desk in there or anything that you would assume that was being an office. And then I saw Ethan laying on the ground.

I almost thought it was just a joke. He looked like he was just laying down and snoring. There wasn't any blood. But then I realized that it wasn't a joke, that this was real. I tried to turn around and run out the shed. And Glenn had closed the door and locked it. I was really scared.

I was shocked. I didn't understand why something like that, you know, had to happen. Glenn put his hand around my mouth and a gun to my head and said, shut up. You know, don't say anything or I'm going to kill you. Everything was just crazy. I didn't understand any of it.

He picked me up. He put me on a deep freeze and proceeded to get a knife from somewhere. And he cut off my clothes. I was trying to plead with him and say, I could give you whatever you wanted, a car, a house. We won't say any of this had it ever happened, and you could just stop.

It was really cold at that point, acting like this was just okay. It had seemed that he had planned this all along, that I was just a bonus. OK, cool, I'll also get to rape this girl and have sex with her and also get this property and everything. Then he told me that he wanted me to perform oral sex on him. I had started to do that, and he was getting frustrated and angry because he wasn't able to get an erection.

And that made him even more angrier. So he picked me up, and he put me up against a pole. He handcuffed me and tied me up. And he put duct tape over my mouth. And he threw a big duffel bag over my head. After that, Glenn had left and closed the door. I was almost being suffocated. I knew that I had to stay calm, and I had to preserve my air.

I thought, you know, my sister knows where I am. Surely she's going to come here and see her car and wonder where I am. But then if he did this to me and Ethan, what's he going to do to my sister? Is my sister going to bring my nieces? Is she going to bring my mom too? Is he just going to bring my nieces? Is she going to bring my mom too? Is he just going to kill my whole family? Ethan, the whole time all of this was going

on was snoring and then he would cry some. I've never seen anybody be knocked out before. I have seen videos, but usually the person comes to after a while, and it had already been maybe close to an hour. When he had stuck the duct tape on me, I had stuck my tongue over my lips so that, you know, there would be a little moisture there and so that I'd be able to get it off. And then eventually I did rub it off of my mouth. I whispered. I said,

Ethan, you know, are you there? Can you hear me? I didn't want a chance, you know, being heard, Glenn hearing me and coming back in and killing me. He unhandcuffed me, and he tried to have sex with me, and that just made him even angrier because he couldn't. I then looked at Ethan and he got really mad and grabbed a whole bunch of stuff and threw it on top of Ethan to cover him up. And he told me, don't look at Ethan. You don't need to worry about him. You need to worry about yourself. This episode of I Survived is brought to you by

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And Pull Up Skin Essentials have got your big kid covered too, with a training pant that is ultra soft and breathable to help protect sensitive skin throughout potty training. So if you want the best for your baby's bottom, learn more at Huggies.com. Once again, head to Huggies.com to learn more. Amanda has been assaulted by her neighbor, Glenn. Her boyfriend, Ethan, is unconscious. After that, he put me facing the pole with my feet around the pole and my hands around the pole, he handcuffed me and tied me up, and he left.

I was scared. I listened to Ethan snore. I listened to him cry. And several hours passed, and then eventually I heard Ethan stop snoring and he stopped crying. When I heard him stop, I knew that he had died. I think definitely I was in shock. I didn't want to have to fathom, you know, that he had actually died.

I thought of my nieces. And, you know, I didn't want, I didn't want my nieces to have to not know who I was. So I wasn't going to get out of there, you know, dead. I was going to leave alive. Several hours after Ethan was dead, Glenn finally came back. And he took me into the house. He took me to a bed and laid me down there. I'm pretty sure he was

just gonna, I don't know, have sex with me and then just kill me. He had rope already tied to the bed around the posts, all four posts of the bed. It made me think, how many times has he done this? I could hear small children in the house, girls, I believe, and they were probably around four years old, maybe three or four. The children had walked by the door and had said, who is that? And Glenn had said, that's nobody. Don't worry about her. And he shooed the kids away. And I heard the pitter

patter of their feet going. He put a blindfold over my face and he told me to get some sleep that I would need it. And he had said that he was going to sell me and that I would be tossed around a whole bunch of guys. Actually, it made me think that, okay, maybe he isn't going to kill me. Maybe I'm still going to have a chance because maybe he really did want to sell me. He left the room and locked the door. When I tilted my head back, I could see through the bottom of the blindfold. And there were a bunch of little gadgets on the dresser

with lube and everything. And I was just thinking, I'm not going to let that happen to me. I would rather die than be tortured like that. And so I knew that eventually I was going to try to do something about getting out. I just started rubbing my shoulder, and I rubbed that blindfold off.

I looked around the room. I saw that there were guns on the walls and knives. And I was just thinking, okay, you know, at least there's something here for my protection. Maybe an hour had passed, and then he would come check in on me and shut the door and leave. But one time he forgot to shut the door,

and the kids came in, and they saw me saw me and a lady saw and she said, I told you that if you were going to be doing this that you would keep the door shut. And she slammed the door and locked it and they walked away. Usually doors lock from the inside and this door locked from the outside. It made me think, you know, had they planned to do this all along? Have they been doing this to other people, locking them in rooms? Do they do that to their children? Glenn had stopped checking in on me and it was this woman and she would do it about every 30 minutes or so. Amanda is tied up with one arm bent, allowing for some movement.

I started to untie myself using my mouth and the bent arm. And then I untied my other hand and I tied that one back up to where it looked like it was tied. And then I did the same thing with the other hand. I could just slip right out of them

when I was ready. I heard this woman say, you can go as long as you come right back. and I could just slip right out of them when I was ready. I heard this woman say, you can go as long as you come right back. And then I heard footsteps and a door closing, and I knew that it was just this woman and her children here left with me. So I started to untie my feet, and the way

that he had my feet tied, I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it look anything like that. So I knew that this was going to be it. So I tried to grab this gun that was hanging on the wall, and I checked it for bullets. And of course, there wasn't any bullets, so I just grabbed two knives. I waited behind the door for her to come and check on me. I heard her footsteps coming, so I knew

that this was going to be it. You know, this was my chance, and I didn't know what I was going to do. She opened the door, and when she realized that I wasn't there, I came out there, and I tried to cut her hand to get her hand off of that door so that I could open it up all the way so I could go after her.

I just knew that I wanted to control the door, and I just kept cutting her. And she was hollering for Glenn's help. She's gotten out, she's getting away, and she had gotten the door shut and logged it on me. I ended up punching the window and breaking the glass. And I thought I heard her footsteps coming back. So I picked up the glass, and I threw it towards the door.

And I cut the screen, and I jumped out. And I landed on glass. And I opened the gate, and I started running, and I landed on glass, and I opened the gate, and I started running for the road. There wasn't any place to hide. It was an open field. I had no fear that he was going to come back, because if he did, I was going to die, and I would have rather died running away and trying to get free than be someone's slave. I had stopped behind a hay barrel to catch my breath.

I heard a gunshot. I just took off running again. And there was another gunshot and another gunshot. And I thought, he's probably not going to stop at anything to try to find me. I slid through a fence, and I had made it to this lady's house. I just opened the door and let myself in, and she was really freaked out. I didn't realize it, but I had still had a knife in my hand.

I was bloody. It was covered with blood. I was dirty. I was wet. It was covered with blood. I was dirty. I was wet. I could tell she was scared. I don't know if she was scared for me or if she was scared for herself,

because I still had that knife in my hand. I said I'd been kidnapped, my boyfriend had been murdered, and that I'd been raped, and that I needed her to call 911. Then I realized, you know, this lady lives right across the street from wherever everything just happened. You know, I couldn't trust her. So I grabbed the phone from her,

and then I ended up calling 911. The woman hides Amanda in a closet. As I was hiding in the closet, we heard a knock on the door, and this lady went to go answer it. And it was Glen. This lady looked out the window. She saw that it was Glen.

And she told me to stay down and be quiet. And I was just thinking, great. She's going to tell him that I'm here because he's probably going to threaten to kill her. Of course she's going to sell me out I'm here because he's probably going to threaten to kill her. Of course she's going to sell me out. She doesn't know me. And then I heard a car door shut and I heard a vehicle leave. And she came back and she said everything was fine.

The woman gives Amanda some clothes and the sheriff arrives soon after. The police find Ethan's body in one of two barrels in the shed. He was handcuffed and had zip ties over his feet. And he had just stuffed him in that barrel. And the other barrel, you know, I'm pretty sure was for me. Ethan died from blunt force trauma and internal bleeding. DNA evidence found on Amanda enabled police to charge Glenn with a previous rape and murder. Glennon Gowker received four life sentences without parole for first-degree murder and rape. His accomplice, Michelle Gowker, received 20 years for kidnapping.

They had children together and they weren't husband and wife, they were brother and sister. I helped put two monsters away, you know, two people that shouldn't be here. And that, you know, Ethan's death wasn't going to be for nothing. I got through it with drugs and alcohol. And when I finally grew up and I realized that this wasn't what I needed to do, I stopped that. And each day, it gets better. People say time heals all wounds. And I really think it does.

I survived because I had the will to live. I wanted to survive for my nieces. I didn't want them to be without me or have to live without me. And I knew that it wasn't my time. I wasn't going to let it be my time.