Every Town - She Outsmarted Her Abductor And Managed An Unreal Escape To Freedom - The Elizabeth Shoaf Story

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Elizabeth Shoaf is an intelligent, strong and brave individual… and back in 2006 when she was 14 years old, it’s these qualities that got her out of an utterly terrifying and very strange situation. 💥 Watch On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries🎧 Our Other Podcast: https://scarymysteries.buzzsprout.com💥 Exclusive Podcasts: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579/subscribe 💀 Follow Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine, because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between. With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime.

Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a dark side. Elizabeth Schof is an intelligent, strong, and brave individual. Back in 2016, when she was 14 years old, it's these qualities that got her out of an utterly terrifying and very strange situation. Her story of abduction is more extreme than most, and she was kept hidden in a dark dungeon

for 10 days deep in the woods. I'm Andrew, and welcome to this week's episode of Everytown. We're heading down to lug off South Carolina to hear about this extraordinary case, the sadistic nature of her twisted abductor, and how Elizabeth saved herself and escaped from an underground bunker. Elizabeth grew up in a small town of Lugaf, South Carolina, with her parents, Madeline and Don, and two siblings. It's a rural community of around 8,000 people

that lies near the state's capital of Columbia. In 2006, Elizabeth, or Lizzie, as her family called her, He just started high school, which is a big step for any young teen. As the middle child, it was her responsibility to look after her younger brother, 12-year-old Donnie, and so when the school day was done and the bus dropped them off, they were under strict orders from their parents to walk the roughly 300 yards from the stop directly to their home. There was no hanging out after school with friends, and as good kids, they always did as they were told. Like most of the homes in the area, Elizabeth's house was surrounded by a dense tree line

that gave way to a large wilderness out back. Their parents both worked, so once the kids got home, they were to lock the door, get to working on their homework. And this was the routine they had set and stuck by. Madeline would always call to check in and make sure her kids were okay. She worked as a pharmacy technician at a Walmart, was a down-to-earth individual, practical and living out in the rural landscape had a bit of a no-nonsense attitude about her.

But on September 6th of 2006, Madeline and her husband Dom were rattled to their core when they realized there was a problem with their little girl that they may not be able to control. And that Wednesday, after being dropped off from school, Elizabeth never made it back home. So what happened to the girl between her stop and that four-minute walk home? Well, it starts with a man named Vincent Filia. Vincent was born to an alcoholic father. In fact, his dad died of alcohol poisoning when he was just a baby. As he grew up, he followed in dad's footsteps.

By his early teens was drinking so heavily that it would ultimately cause irreversible brain damage to his young developing brain. By 2005, Vincent was an out-of-work construction worker. That year in November, a judge would issue a search warrant. on his property after he was accused of sexually assaulting his girlfriend's 12-year-old daughter. Luckily for him, though, he was able to avoid the cops and evade arrest as he hid out in his bunkers in the woods he had built. Vincent, you see, in his free time, wanted to play the role of survivalists, so he spent time digging out these holes and fitting them with stuff he needed

in order to survive the apocalypse, although none of these would have accomplished that. They were basic, and while hiding out with just his tormented mind to keep him company, he started to plan his revenge against the Kirshaw County Sheriff's Department, as he felt they were falsely accusing him of the assault. His resentment grew against them, mad that they had forced him into hiding. When things cooled down, he was going to come back up to the surface level in exact revenge by killing as many of those police officers as he could. He figured the best way to do that would be to lure them to one of his bunkers,

which he would have booby trapped, and then he'd blow them all up in an explosion, the likes of which the world would never forget. So, the only thing you really needed was some bait, as was her routine, and like most students in lug-off, Lizzie got off the bus that afternoon without any problems. Several other students got off at the same stop, but on this day, one of the older brothers of one of those kids pulled up in his car and offered to give everyone a ride. But because Elizabeth was so close, she just decided to walk while all the other children accepted the offer. She headed along the road as the other students drove out of sight. She was alone, and after that she banished. Just as she was about to head down her driveway, she recalled hearing some rustling in the leaves to her right.

And she looked over a thin man with glasses approach, saying that he was with the Kirshaw County Sheriff's Department. But this wasn't a cop at all. it was Vincent, standing there wearing camo pants and a dark green shirt. He flashed the girl a fake badge trying to look as official as possible before telling her that she was under arrest because marijuana had been found on her family's property. He told her that Donnie was already apprehended and she needed to come with him to answer some questions. Initially, being the good sister she is, Lizzie wanted to help her brother out and didn't want him to be alone.

So she didn't fight it or ask any further. questions, plus, it can be very intimidating for a young girl to come face to face with any grown man, let alone a cop. Vincent pulled out his handcuffs and latched them on her. And then he did something that made Lizzie know she was in real danger. He tied a small box around her neck and explained that it was a bomb. She complied for the moment, knowing it was her best chance of survival. She then walked with her abductor away from the road, her driveway, and her house. They headed into the deep dark woods. With some quick thinking, Lizzie dropped her shoes as they moved into the forest, knowing that her family would come looking and hopefully point them in the right direction.

Very smart thinking because instead of wondering if she had been taken off somewhere in a car, now they could at least narrow down the search and keep it local. Lizzie knew not to let on just how scared she was. She didn't scream or try and run. She just walked in order to keep this man calm. Once the initial abduction was done and they were cleared away behind the cover of trees, you started to ask questions. Where are we going? Where's my brother? Vincent assured her that Donnie was nearby, but her gut feeling told her otherwise. He walked her around and around in those woods until she became disoriented.

There were no houses around, just the endless stretches of expansive forest in every direction. She was alone, handcuffed with a stranger, she had no idea what his intentions were or where they were going. Vincent, then after a long trek, stopped walking. Without looking her in the eyes, told her that he had kidnapped her. She was the bait for his plan to kill all those cops, but what he would do with her until then was yet to be seen. Vincent brushed aside some dirt and branches on the ground

where a door to one of his eight-by-eight-foot bunkers was revealed. Lizzie in the back of her mind was figuring they were about a mile from her house as he ordered her to crawl down in. This bunker was one of the four he had built. It was very dark inside and filled with canned food, dirty magazines, a taser gun, and more handcuffs. It was a hand-duged toilet, a makeshift bed and some rickety shelves fashioned from branches. He had propane gas for cooking and a small battery-operated TV, which Vincent planned to watch in order to stay up to date on the search for Lizzie. He padlocked the door shut. Right after that, he stripped her naked before restraining her in the chains. He assaulted her immediately. Moving forward, this

would happen anywhere from two to five times a day. She didn't know how long this would last or if she'd even get out alive, but she never stopped planning a way out. Years later, she would describe the ordeal. Day to day, my life was wake up. get assaulted. A couple hours later, it would happen again. Back at home, Madeline made her daily call where Donnie told her you'd gotten in the car with the rest of the kids and that his sister never showed up. Besides the fact that Lizzie would never just not show up, especially when she had gone off the bus. They had some big plans that day as her aunt was coming to cut her hair. They were also supposed to celebrate her cousin's birthday the following day, which Lizzie was looking

forward to. Madeline called Lizzie's friends from the bus. One of them, Amanda Lampert, said that the two talked on the bus ride. She saw her get off, even watched her walk up the road towards her house. By early evening, Elizabeth's extended family members had come to the property to help search for the girl. Her parents then called the police and followed missing persons report. The authorities initially believed that maybe she had run away, but her parents knew that wasn't the case. The next morning, a helicopter was making passes over the trees. Law enforcement, family members, and volunteers searched every inch they could, but nothing, except for the shoes were found. Underground in the bunker, as he heard footsteps passing right overhead.

We heard helicopters. We could hear footsteps or see like a shadow across the door. But she could not make a sound as he threatened her. He pretty much would put his hand around my mouth. or tell me to shut up, hold the gun to my head, and tell me if I make a sound, he was going to shoot me. Vincent eventually told Elizabeth about his plan, and he planted bombs all around the bunker and that he was going to leave her there and blow the whole place up when they came to rescue her. The show, family and police printed up and posted thousands of flyers all around Lugoff and the surrounding towns. Many people volunteered to search the woods, and local news, of course, covered the story.

which sand hundreds of tips flooding into the authorities. Madeline, instead of chasing those tips. You hear of reports from people. You know, oh, they found a body in this county, or they found a body in that county. And you're just praying, you know, that it's not her. I hated it for the person that actually passed away. But just thank God, it wasn't her.

Despite the tips and ongoing search parties, authorities really had no clue where the girl was. Police couldn't even put out an Amber alert because they had no suspect or vehicle to share. Her father spent days driving every square inch of road he could find doing his share to bring her back at all costs. Cops never said it out loud, but as the days passed, they feared she must have died because at some point, if she were a runaway at that age, they figured she would need to make contact with her family. The last thing anyone thought was that she was grabbed by a stranger and taken into a bunker. somewhere in the woods. Lizzie then made it her mission to gain Vincent's trust.

So she pretended she found him attractive and even acted as though she enjoyed the daily assault. At one point she would go on to tell him that she loved him. She did whatever she could, really, and the reverse psychology strategy started to work. He began letting her wear clothes and unchained her here and there. He felt she wasn't going to run away or try anything, and she didn't, at least as far as he knew. Sometimes she'd go to bed chained up, only to wake up and find yet unlocked her during the night. Then one day she found Vincent's gun in a holster sitting nearby, and so while he slept,

she slowly pulled the weapon out and mustered up the strength to put it to his temple before pulling the trigger. But the gun was nothing more than an unloaded pelligun. Thank God it didn't fire, because all she would have done is angered the man, and who knows what would have happened after that. Vincent eventually allowed her to play games on his phone to pass the time. At least, that's what she was doing when he was awake. But as he slept, Lizzie tried to send text messages to her mother. She had to be careful because every shuffle that he made while resting forced her to erase everything in case he was getting up.

Every time she would try to send the message, it failed due to the weak signal down on the ground. She tried holding the phone up to the door as close to the surface as she could, but it only would. always failed, till one night when a single text made it through to her mother. As expected, Madeline was in hysterics when she received a text message from the unknown number saying it was Lizzie and that she was in a hole. She knew it was her daughter because nobody else would use the name Lizzie except the girl herself. Authorities traced the phone then to the nearby neighborhood of Charm Hill, discover the number belonged to Vincent. The same man they had been searching for for over a year. The sheriff's office quickly worked up a warrant to search the man's

trailer house. As they were on the property, they found one of the other bunkers and then another. That's when they began to realize that she might be in one of these if they could find more. But finding them as an issue and the clock was ticking. Was there three, four, seven, or more? Who knew? So the authorities concocted a bold strategy to try to flush Vincent out himself. Without informing Shoe's parents, they shared on the news that Lizzie had texted a message to her mom. Upon watching the news break that evening, Madeline couldn't believe they let that information out and recalled saying at the time, They just killed my daughter. Vincent was irate when he learned about the break in the case.

Lizzie kept her cool, though, and denied doing anything. When he looked back through his phone, he couldn't find the text, so he didn't know if she had, or the police were playing tricks. Regardless, the authorities were closing in, and footsteps and helicopters overhead return, and so Lizzie told him that his only real option of escaping was to run. She said, I told him that he needed to leave,

that if he stayed there, the police were going to find him, and I could always run away later on and meet up with him. The time was running out, and so once darkness set in, Benson took off, leaving Lizzie all by herself, finally. She sat there for a few moments, taking it all in that she may finally be safe and gotten herself out of harm's way. At the crack of dawn, she then walked out on her own free will. She didn't know which way to go, which is why she had to at least wait for daybreak, so she just started to yell.

She screamed knowing there were people somewhere out there looking as she moved through the forest until someone in the distance yelled back her name. It was one of the volunteer rescuers, but she had made it. While she recovered in the hospital, Vincent was arrested one county over where he was charged with kidnapping, 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual assault, one charge for each day the girl was held. Possession of explosives and impersonating a police officer. Vincent had wrote a 120-page manuscript that the authorities found where in it, he detailed all the horrors he had subjected both a little, Elizabeth and the 12-year-old girl from the previous year to.

Just before his trial was set to begin, Vincent pleaded guilty to all charges. As a result, in September of 2007, he was sentenced to 421 years in prison, the maximum amount possible. And in jail, he sat until May 4th of 2021 when he died in his cell at the age of 51. No real cause of death was determined, and they didn't even bother to figure it out. he was gone and the world was better off.

After her experience, Elizabeth picked up her life. She went to school and now works as a dental hygienist. Life hasn't been easy getting past all the trauma she endured, but her outlook on things is good. In a later interview, she had this to say. You have to look at the whole picture itself. There are way more good times than there are bad times. You just got to move on.

You can truly make yourself happy if you keep on pushing. The dust may never settle, but I feel like I am at peace. She played it smart and got herself out of a terrifying situation because of it. And we wish you're the best moving forward. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. If you enjoyed it, remember you can watch this episode on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. Thanks for tuning in today. Remember to come back next week for another episode.

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