00:00:00
Ann, can you start by telling me your name and and who you are? >> Sure. I'm Anne Crony and I'm the one
00:00:08
that got away from Patrick Nicholas. Um, got away alive and safe. >> That's Anne Crony, a remarkable woman
00:00:19
who survived an attempted attack by Patrick Nicholas back in 1983 when she was just 21 years old. I met Anne while
00:00:28
reporting on the story of Sarah Yarro, another young woman attacked by Nicholas 8 years later. Tragically, Sarah died.
00:00:37
I'm Natalie Morales of 48 Hours. Now, so much of our work at 48 Hours focuses on
00:00:42
the stories of victims who didn't survive. But what about those like an who lived to tell from 48 hours? This is
00:00:51
It Could Have Been Me. [Music] And today I'm joined by 48 Hours field producer Lauren Clark. And Lauren, we're
00:01:00
here to talk about Anne Cron's story. But before we do, I think it's important that people understand the case of Sarah
00:01:06
Yarro. Yeah. So, uh, Sarah had been she was a 16-year-old girl, uh, living in kind of the suburbs of Seattle back in
00:01:14
1991 when she was found strangled on her high school campus. It was a horrible case
00:01:19
for the people of the community. Um, you know, it was a December day. It seems she had missed the time for a drill team
00:01:27
practice. She had thought she had to get there early, but the rest of the team wasn't arriving for another hour or so.
00:01:32
So, she had pulled into the parking lot in her car. Not many people, like no one
00:01:36
was around. And she was found just about 300 ft from her car, strangled. Uh she was still partially clothed in her drill
00:01:44
team uniform, and there was a pile of clothes found nearby her body in the grass. Investigators at the time
00:01:50
believed her murder had been sexually motivated. Uh but they didn't have really a ton to go on. They did like
00:01:56
rounded up the usual suspects and you know really worked the case but for almost 30 years Sarah's case went
00:02:02
unsolved. Yes. And it's important to note the clothing that Sarah was wearing and the clothing on the side there was
00:02:09
DNA evidence but again this was 1991 and DNA technology had not evolved yet to the point where we are today. So
00:02:18
investigators did their part. They preserved very carefully that evidence, but they knew, Lauren, that at some
00:02:26
point in time that they would hopefully be able to get clues and to be able to verify and use that DNA to hopefully
00:02:33
find a match down the road. As you said, for a long time, the case went cold for
00:02:37
nearly 30 years until a forensic genetic genealogologist was able to crack the case. She was hired to track some new
00:02:44
leads. Yeah. In 2019, this forensic genetic genealogologist went through and basically reverse engineered finding a
00:02:52
match to the genetic profile that they had at the scene. And she narrowed it down to these two brothers, one of whom
00:02:58
had been incarcerated, so he was in the federal database. He was in Cotus, so it
00:03:02
wasn't him. And that's when they focused on Patrick Leon Nicholas. Uh, and what investigators did with the King County
00:03:08
Sheriff's Department, he still lived in the Seattle area. So they followed him. They they found him. They trailed him.
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And they actually went to a laundromat where he was doing laundry and watched as he smoked a cigarette
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>> and then watched him discard the cigarette outside the laundromat right on the sidewalk there. And when he went
00:03:25
back inside, they ran, they grabbed that cigarette, packaged it up securely, and
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sent it to a lab. And the DNA from that cigarette was a match to the DNA that had been found on Sarah's clothes all
00:03:37
those years ago. So then, Lauren, how did you come to find out and hear about Anne Cron's story? So, in uh early 2023,
00:03:46
Patrick Nicholas went on trial for the murder of Sarah Yarborough. And right before trial, we had learned through
00:03:52
some pre-trial motions that Patrick Nicholas actually had a prior criminal record. The judge had ruled that that
00:03:59
evidence wouldn't be allowed at trial, but we were able to read through and we knew that there had been some previous
00:04:04
attacks. And I heard as we were at trial talking to people, some there were kind
00:04:09
of whispers of, you know, one of the victims is here. And it was kind of this remarkable like, oh my gosh, how could
00:04:15
someone be here to take that on? I didn't know who it was at the time. Uh, but we did learn that back in the early
00:04:22
1980s, Patrick Nicholas had served time as a juvenile for raping two women and attempting to rape a third. Reading
00:04:30
through the case files, we learned that he had approached multiple women at their cars. He would kind of casually
00:04:36
strike up a conversation with them and then pull a knife and order them to undress. So, this brings us now to Anne
00:04:42
Cron's remarkable story. And let's go back in time to 1983 in Richland, Washington. That's about
00:04:51
200 miles uh from where Sarah Yarborough was found dead. Now, Anne was just 21 years old at the time. She was a server
00:05:00
at a restaurant. She was also a lifeguard. She loved the water and specifically the Colombia River. So,
00:05:07
that's an important part of the story because on June 13th, 1983, the day all of this happened, Ann said she had just
00:05:16
tragically lost one of her really good friends and she just wanted to sit alongside the river to think. Here's her
00:05:23
story. So, I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car and sat on the bumper
00:05:29
of my car. And you're sitting there thinking, having some time to yourself, how quickly before a man approached you?
00:05:37
>> It wasn't long. It was uh maybe a few minutes. And uh he walked up to me and started a conversation. I don't remember
00:05:48
exactly how the conversation started, but he introduced himself, said his name was Pat, and he was new in town, and he
00:05:59
was working on an old building in town called the Griggs building that was um empty, and
00:06:08
he was working on a remodel. I knew the space well. I knew the story he was talking about. I knew everything
00:06:14
about it. And he didn't he didn't seem to know anything. He seemed to be kind of making things up
00:06:21
>> as you listen to that. I mean, Lauren would struck us. I mean, already her instinct sort of her Spidey senses are
00:06:28
going off. Something is off here with this guy. She knows that space well that she's talking about the Griggs building.
00:06:35
She's like, nothing seems to be adding up. He's acting strange, but you know, he's he's a good-looking guy. She
00:06:42
described him as youngish. He's got blondish hair, glasses, uh a mustache, but she's getting a really uh bad vibe
00:06:53
from him, right? Her alarms were going off in her head at that point. >> So, another fact, as they continued to
00:06:59
talk, Nicholas told her he couldn't swim. And again, that really struck an as being odd because that area along the
00:07:07
Columbia River there, like it gets hot in the summer. It is dry. and swimming and water skiing and just all sorts of
00:07:14
activities along the water. It's what everyone does there in the summer. So, for him to say that, it just it really
00:07:19
stuck out to her. And overall, it's just as he keeps talking, she's kind of placating him, but she's just getting a
00:07:25
very weird vibe from him all along. I noticed his voice was getting shaky. And I told him I had to go. So, I went
00:07:34
around and got into my car and my door was open and I had a a two-seater sports car and he knelt next in between the
00:07:43
door and me and like got in your way. >> I was in the car. So, I got in the car >> and the door was open and he knelt down
00:07:52
between the door and me >> and uh told me his name. Uh, he wanted he gave me his name and phone number and he
00:08:03
asked for my phone number and I gave it to him and I went to close the door and he put a knife to my throat
00:08:12
>> and and what was he saying as he put the knife to your throat? >> He told me not to scream. He told me to
00:08:19
take my clothes off. Um, so I did take my clothes off and as I was doing that I noticed a couple of
00:08:28
people walking to a car that was parked sort of nearby and I did scream. Um, but
00:08:35
he put the knife to my throat a little harder and pushed me down and laid on top of me so they couldn't see me.
00:08:43
It's really hard to hear Ann describing those moments just to think about the terror that must have been going through
00:08:49
her mind. Um, she told us, you know, in after he put the knife to her throat, he
00:08:55
actually took her underwear and put them in her mouth almost as a sort of gag so
00:09:00
that she wouldn't keep screaming, so that she wouldn't be heard. Right. And and there were people nearby pulling up
00:09:06
into the parking lot. So, she was trying to get people to notice and to to come help her. Um, but talk about that
00:09:14
terrifying few minutes for her. Well, we learned from an then what happens next?
00:09:20
>> Um, he told me to get out of the car and he had a shirt that he put over my head.
00:09:26
He actually told me to put it on and I refused. So, he put it over my head and put my left arm through it and grabbed
00:09:32
the back of it and shoved me towards the bank of the river. Um, and we started walking and we got about
00:09:41
halfway down the bank and he told me to stop and I didn't. Instead of stopping, I pulled the shirt off over my head and
00:09:50
ran down the bank and dove into the river and swam >> because at that time I was thinking he
00:09:56
told me he couldn't swim. So I swam out and swam as hard as I could. >> Swam for your life.
00:10:02
>> I swam for my life. All I had on was my tennis shoes >> and uh I swam to a dock and started
00:10:08
screaming for help. >> Wow. I mean to have the presence of mind to to be thinking in that moment he told
00:10:16
me he can't swim >> and to see that that is your opportunity. >> You know every time I hear that I just
00:10:22
get goosebumps because even as she was reliving that moment you could just see the ter the the terror in her eyes and
00:10:30
just feel the emotion of that. Um truly remarkable. Yeah. And just talk about all the moments of luck here. all the
00:10:37
things that happened for her to be able to put that together that he couldn't swim that he was leading her towards
00:10:43
that riverbank. You know, we went down there to film it and it is it's very steep. It's very hard to just jump right
00:10:49
down there. So, once she swam for her life and made it to the dock, thankfully there were people there and she was able
00:10:56
to get help and the police came to her help as soon as she arrived there. And so, she was able to tell police, "This
00:11:03
happened to me and his name is Pat." and gave them a good description of what who
00:11:08
they were looking for. And based off of his name and his description, the local police pretty soon realized that Pat was
00:11:16
likely this man Patrick Nicholas, who had just recently been released from a halfway house nearby for those previous
00:11:23
attacks that he had committed on a juvenile. So, police went to track him down. Uh, they visited his apartment. He
00:11:29
wasn't there. They suspected he must have fled, gotten out of town really quickly, but they did find some key
00:11:35
evidence there. They found the notebook that Anne had remembered writing her number down in and I think they actually
00:11:40
found a piece of the page torn out where he tried to give her his number. So after they searched his apartment were
00:11:46
like, "Okay, this is probably our guy." They went to the airport and found out that Patrick Nicholas had hopped a
00:11:51
flight soon afterwards and gotten out of town. Uh they tracked him down to the Midwest and within a few weeks they
00:11:57
arrested him and he actually pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted rape. He was sentenced back then to what was
00:12:04
the maximum sentence that he could receive and that was 10 years in prison. So an assumed rightfully so that he's
00:12:12
safely locked away for those 10 years, all of those 10 years in Washington state prison. But it turns out in 1987,
00:12:21
Nicholas is let out early on parole. So an was never notified. Police never told her, never sent her a letter or
00:12:36
anything to let her know that the guy who did this to you, he is now out. She told us though, Lauren, that she tried
00:12:44
really hard within those years to kind of put this out of her mind and she didn't want it to have a major impact on
00:12:50
her life. All of that changed though in 2019. Here's an again. The police knocked on my door in Portland and said
00:13:02
that there were detectives in Seattle that wanted to talk to me about a cold case and I had no idea what they were
00:13:08
talking about and they wanted to come interview me about it. So that was the first I'd heard of it. And how did you
00:13:15
feel hearing about what happened to Sarah? What did they tell you about her story?
00:13:23
They told me that there were similarities in the cases and uh I was crushed. >> It's this part in the interview I
00:13:36
remember this is where an just kind of paused and broke down. Um she'd been really kind of strong through that
00:13:43
interview and was just recounting things. But I think, you know, this is describing the realization that Sarah
00:13:49
Yarborough's murder was in any way connected to what had happened to her so many years ago. And she, I think, was
00:13:55
dealing with, as she described to us, her own version of survivor's guilt, you know, once she realized how her story
00:14:03
and Sarah's were connected tragically. >> Yeah. Um, it had never occurred to me that what I
00:14:16
escaped from was a murder. I just had always figured I'd escaped from a rapist, >> which you can survive a rapist. You can
00:14:31
get past it. You can't get past murder. Um, and the fact that she was only 16, um,
00:14:42
was really hard to hear. And then when I found out that he had been released early, and this happened when he was
00:14:48
supposed to be in prison >> for what he did to you, >> for what he did to me, um, really
00:14:55
affected me, >> a lot. >> I bet you were angry. A lot of it. was very angry >> when he um was arrested for for what he
00:15:07
did to you. He confessed and he wrote in his confession, "I realize I have a problem concerning raping girls."
00:15:18
>> You had never heard that? >> No. >> No. So he says that and he ended up serving.
00:15:27
>> So why was he let out after three and a half years? Yeah. What a little [ __ ]
00:15:35
No, I didn't know that. You little I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So, that's the part you didn't
00:15:45
hear on our 48 hours episode, obviously, because of the language. Now, you know,
00:15:50
we all kind of laughed a little bit at that, but usually humor is a a coping mechanism, and that was the case here.
00:15:57
Um, this was truly a very traumatic experience and memory for Anne and and especially, you know, learning that he
00:16:05
did not complete his full sentence and then hearing that detail that she only heard now for the very first time that
00:16:14
he had told police at the time that he had a problem raping girls, trying to rape girls, and yet he was able to get
00:16:23
out early um on parole, which she just was clearly very angry, but at the same time she had to laugh at the the
00:16:32
insanity of it all. >> I remember in that interview she had been so strong and then it just kind of
00:16:37
broke through and yeah, you hear us laughing in the background cuz we're all crying and then hearing
00:16:42
>> it just gave us a moment of levity. I think just having her real life reaction. I think it just made us all so
00:16:48
grateful that she was able to speak so freely and to just tell it like it is with us. And I remember like we we
00:16:55
weren't really sure how far she'd want to go. We we'd wanted to be very sensitive with this because we knew it
00:16:59
was a lot for her to come forward, you know, using her name to come on TV to talk about this. We actually were in
00:17:05
this really incredible space because we wanted her to feel very comfortable. Um it was like a horse ranch. It was my
00:17:12
version of paradise and there was horse therapy right outside the door. So after this
00:17:18
interview, we all went out and we were petting the horses because we needed it. I mean, it was just really such a
00:17:24
powerful interview and she just gave us so much. >> Absolutely. I mean, her her strength
00:17:30
just stuck out to us all along and even going back to the trial. I mean, so I was there, we were hearing these
00:17:36
whispers that there was a victim there and it was almost inconceivable. I mean, like, wait, what? How could someone have
00:17:42
the strength to come and do this? uh and learning that it almost brought this back full circle for her that she had
00:17:51
thought she had done her duty back in 1983, that she had put away this bad guy, that the justice system had worked
00:17:58
for her. And then so learning that it had failed Sarah Yarbor by him being let out early so that he was able to attack
00:18:05
Sarah Yarborough, she felt like she had to be there. She had to see justice truly be done this time around. I mean,
00:18:12
she was there for as much of the trial as she could be. You were there, Lauren. I mean, there was so much emotion. It
00:18:18
was a packed courtroom. Her friends, her family, they were all there. They were there to witness this moment nearly 30
00:18:26
years later. That speaks to the kind of woman that Sarah Yarborough was. She was
00:18:31
a connector. I've actually never seen anything like this. Um, and it was almost overflowing. everybody. Usually
00:18:37
in a in a trial, there's like the victim's side, the victim's family side, and then the defendant side. And in
00:18:44
this, there were just so many people there. So, this brings us to how Anne Crony came into the courtroom and where
00:18:51
she sat. You know, the courtroom's full. So, she goes and chooses to sit right behind Patrick Nicholas because that was
00:18:58
the open spot. I was sitting there thinking, I could easily jump up and put my hands around his neck or I could slam
00:19:05
his face into the table. That would be great. I thought, no, I don't think anybody else would really appreciate
00:19:11
that. So, order in the court, you know. >> And so, it it's interesting because it
00:19:19
made me think that two of Sarah's friends that they first saw you get behind him, they're like, "Is she with
00:19:24
him?" No. And then they cornered you. They said they got out into the hallway and they were like,
00:19:29
>> "Who are you?" Like wanting to know what you were there for. Yes. >> So they hadn't heard your story yet
00:19:35
about you as the judge wouldn't allow that. >> Yeah. >> I think they they must have heard
00:19:40
something because uh they did ask my connection and I said I believe I told him I was the one that got away and it
00:19:48
took him a second and then >> Yeah. >> full embrace. >> Yes. Wonderful people. Oh my gosh.
00:19:55
Wonderful people. Sarah's been gone a long time, but they could hug Anne and they have remained friends with Anne
00:20:02
Crony, which is remarkable. The thing that I heard in court was that one of his survivors is here and she's a
00:20:09
badass. Then I remember I just gave her my card very tactfully. I don't know if you want to talk. Um, but then I
00:20:15
remember at your interview with her, Natalie, we were sitting there and we're just like, she's a badass. Like totally
00:20:21
I get it. Yep. And Natalie, in your interview, you asked her what Nicholas looked like when she saw him in court,
00:20:27
and here was her response. >> Can I say him? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> He looked like a piece of
00:20:33
>> I mean, he just looked like an old piece of um you know, he was young when I saw
00:20:40
him. He was young. Vital comes to mind. Um fairly attractive and he's just an old piece of now. Sorry,
00:20:48
>> you heard the anger there. she was still, you know, living in that moment. But she, even though she was struck by
00:20:54
the fact that his appearance had changed, um, but she said looking at him and staring at him in the eyes, she saw
00:21:02
those same evil eyes staring back at her. They were the same. So, after the jury found Patrick
00:21:09
Nicholas guilty of the murder of Sarah Yarro, Anne was able to finally speak her truth by giving a victim impact
00:21:17
statement during the sentencing hearing. Let's listen to some of that. >> We rely on a system of justice that is
00:21:24
designed to protect us from predators like Nicholas. And this system failed me. It failed Sarah, her family,
00:21:31
friends, and countless others. I asked the court to please not make the same m mistake.
00:21:37
>> And I don't know if Nicholas knew that she was there until this moment. And she
00:21:43
stood up and she gave it to him and she told the judge like, "Hey, don't mess this up again." Uh, I can't imagine the
00:21:50
feeling that she had inside of her to do that. It must have been so scary and so
00:21:54
intimidating at first, but she told you like it was really that community and that love from Sarah's friends and
00:22:00
family that really helped her get up there and put it all out there. >> Yeah. >> And he was, you know, and the judge did
00:22:07
sentence him to 46 years in prison. Um, so he's not going to get out anytime soon. And and I think an important
00:22:15
detail was that an has a daughter as well at the time of the trial who was Sarah Yarro's age, 16 years old, and how
00:22:24
much that probably impacted her as she was saying those words. Yeah. And she talked with you in her interview about
00:22:32
how like they have had talks about how when something happens, what to do when you're attacked that you fight. And if
00:22:39
you're lucky, really like the luck here is so essential. if you can put those pieces together, you can get away. Uh
00:22:45
she was able to really follow her instincts there and again the luck of being near the water and knowing that he
00:22:50
couldn't swim, her gut telling her that something was off. Uh she was able to have the presence of mind to recall all
00:22:57
of this to get away. So I mean just her thinking that all right, I've got to protect my kid here,
00:23:03
>> give her the tools she could use. I it's really really impactful. >> Yeah. I mean truly everything sort of
00:23:11
lined up in order for her to be able to survive. Um there was also a moment what
00:23:17
I love about an is that she told us um she wanted to take back that part of her life. She decided to do a triathlon that
00:23:27
summer after Nicholas's murder trial, diving right back into those very waters of the Columbia River that saved her
00:23:35
life. and she started by parking in the exact same spot that she did in that parking lot in the park where the attack
00:23:42
occurred. Take a listen. >> The parking lot's the same. The trees have grown up, so it looks different,
00:23:49
but the the bank is a lot steeper than I thought it was. And further up from the
00:23:55
river, it's about 10 ft. So, I was surprised. um pretty proud of myself for what I'd done
00:24:03
because it was it was pretty amazing that I was able to do that. There was a reason that I was meant to do that and I
00:24:10
was able to do that. But doing the triathlon was interesting. I didn't have any I didn't have any odd or bad
00:24:19
feelings. Swimming in the river was great. Uh >> do you feel like you reclaimed that
00:24:25
>> though? I I do because the swim took off at the same dock that I was rescued on.
00:24:30
So, um I do I felt like I reclaimed all of that and there's no fear to stop me from doing
00:24:39
what I love to do. >> I just we just loved that moment so much. Even after going through hearing
00:24:45
about Sarah Yarro's death, going through the trial, stepping forward, she was like, you know what? I want to get back
00:24:50
there and I want to show that I can do this and I'm going to reclaim this. It's just incredible. And I think you hear a
00:24:55
lot of survivors who say that. They say, "I wanted to, you know, get myself back,
00:24:59
take my power back." And in doing that triathlon, she did. I think it's so important that we tell these survivors
00:25:06
stories because I think we can all learn so much from them as well. What it takes
00:25:13
to do something when something feels off or doesn't feel right. What it takes to
00:25:18
speak up. what it takes to fight back, to scream as loud as you can possibly scream. She did all of that and then
00:25:26
some. And then at the end of the day, she got her peace with justice. Lauren, I have to thank you so much for joining
00:25:33
me. And of course, I have to say our thanks as well to Anne Crony. And thanks to all of you who have listened. And be
00:25:40
sure to stay tuned for more stories from courageous individuals like an by following and listening to 48 hours it
00:25:47
could have been me on Tuesdays on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like this episode,
00:25:54
please rate and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. I'm Natalie Morales for 48 Hours.
00:26:01
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