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[Music] [Music] [Music] 16-year-old Sarah Sarah Yarborough is being remembered as talented, creative,
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and kind. >> Sarah was an A student at the high school. >> Whenever you saw Sarah, she always had a
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smile. >> This case is about a 16-year-old girl who had the right to grow up. This case is about Sarah and everything
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that she should have been allowed to become. It was Friday the 13th in December of
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1991. Her parents were out of town for her brother's soccer game. She stayed home.
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>> I was reluctant to leave Sarah. She didn't want to come, of course, cuz she had her whole weekend planned out. So,
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she had a friend come over and stay with her that weekend. We went to a basketball game, went and
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got junk food at the grocery store, a little bit of fast food. You know, we're 16. We were carefree. There was
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absolutely nothing that would make any of us think that the next morning everything would change.
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>> So, Saturday morning, Sarah woke up kind of in a panic. >> She woke up and said, "I'm late for
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practice." She put on her drill team uniform and ran out the door. >> She went to the school and discovered
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that she was early, so she parked in her car and waited for the rest of her team
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to show up. >> Shortly after the phone call started, where's Sarah? Do you know where she is?
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Sarah was found within an hour. >> Where was her body discovered? >> So, her car was still in the parking
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lot. Her body was approximately 100 yards away, still on the school property. Part of her clothing was
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removed. She had nylon stockings tied in a ligature around her her neck. [Music]
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I just remember just saying, "Not Sarah, not Sarah, not Sarah." over and over again.
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>> The suspect is a white male, 6 feet tall, with a medium build. >> They had DNA evidence. They had
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everything. They had witnesses. >> In that first week or so, it sounded like they had so much evidence for at
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least a short while. It felt like he said, "Of course they're going to catch him."
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And then when they didn't and they didn't, your expectations change. >> You don't know if it's your next door
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neighbor. You don't know if it's some random stranger. There was that constant fear
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of is this going to happen again? >> We literally had a monster in the community and we just we didn't know who
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it was. [Music] [Music] How often do you think about December 14th, 1991 and what happened on that
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day? quite a bit. It's a very traumatic thing to go through. [Music] >> It's been over 30 years, but the details
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of that day have never faded for Drew Miller. >> I had my friend spent the night at my
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house. We woke up that morning, watched cartoons, ate cereal, left to go skateboarding.
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>> Drew, who was just 13 at the time, lived down the street from Federal Way High
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School near Seattle, Washington. The school grounds have changed quite a bit, right?
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>> Drastically, yes. The tennis court's the only thing that's still here. >> Drew often took shortcuts through the
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school to go skateboarding, as he and his friend did that day. >> We used to hop the fence right here and
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cut through here. It was freezing cold that day. I mean, there was ice in all of the mug bubbles.
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We just, you know, started smashing them cuz it's fun. You know, it sounds like breaking glass.
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That's when Drew says they noticed a man in the bushes. >> Right where you see the edge of this
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dugout right here. That was all bushes that were probably this tall. So, we couldn't see him until he stood up.
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He's just staring at us from the bushes. That was pretty jarring. But then he just walked out of the bushes. So, then
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we just assumed he's just smoking weed or something. The mysterious man kept to himself and walked ahead of the boys.
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Drew says they didn't think much of it until they came across a horrendous scene.
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There in the bushes where the man had just been was the body of a young woman. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible.
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The way that he left her body, she clearly fought for her life. Drew says his shock turned to fear when
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he realized the man who was still just feet in front of them was now staring directly back at him.
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>> Does that look still haunt you? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. It's frozen in my mind. >> The boogeyman then.
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>> Legitimate boogeyman. >> The boys raced to Drew's house and police were called to the scene.
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[Music] When we approached the victim on one of the pieces of clothing, we saw the name
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Sarah. >> Detective Scott Strathy with the King County Sheriff's Office was one of the
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first officers on the scene. >> And of course, later we found out that that was Sarah Yarborough.
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[Music] Even for experienced investigators, [Music] this scene was really hard to deal with.
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Just the innocent nature of this young woman in her school drill team uniform with her hot curlers still in her hair.
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This was just pure unadulterated evil. [Music] Investigators believed this was a
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sexually motivated murder. >> She was partially clothed. Her jacket, her undergarments, her bra had been
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removed and placed next to her body. >> Police discovered that the car Sarah had
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driven that morning was parked in the school parking lot about 300 ft from where her body was found. There didn't
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really appear to be any sort of a struggle in the car itself. >> Detective John Free with the King County
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Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Unit would later join the investigation. >> She had a container of orange juice that
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she had made that morning. It was just sitting in the front seat. Nothing was tipped over. So, the question was, how
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did she get from her car to this hill? What led her there? Sarah was one of these people that would
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help anyone with anything at any time. And part of our working theory was, was she coaxed into following, you know, the
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suspect? Did he say something like, "I'm looking for my lost dog," or, "I can't find my
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car keys." Perhaps Sarah in an attempt to assist this person may have followed him to
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that area. >> Tell me about this one. >> That was less than a week, I think, before she died. I said, "Could I take
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your picture cuz your great grandma really wants a picture of you and your drill team?" And she goes, "Okay."
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>> It was just too incredible to believe that it could even happen. Sarah's parents, Laura and Tom
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Yarborough. >> I mean, who thinks that your daughter's going to be murdered? >> Tom and Laura had the excruciating task
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of having to tell their two sons the tragic news. Sarah's youngest brother, Andrew, was just 11 years old at the
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time. >> At that age, you probably never seen or heard your parents cry much, but that
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that pain in the voice is very, very vivid. Sarah, who had just started her junior year in high school, had big
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plans for her future, starting with college. >> She didn't want to go to a state school.
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She wanted to go to a school far away. She loved to travel. >> I actually would hear her say, "I can't
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decide if I want to be a museum curator or an engineer like my father." Yep. >> And I was always rooting for the museum
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curator. Liberty Barnes, Christy Gutierrez, Amy Pero, and Mary Beth Tommy were some of
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Sarah's closest friends. >> So, this was after the last day of 10th grade. And we're just kind of goofing
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around afterwards. And that totally I mean, you can see there's Sarah right in the middle of it being goofy.
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[Music] The fiery red hair. Was that her personality a lot? >> Yeah. >> She was artistic. She was creative. She
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was smart. She was feisty. imaginative, >> all of those things. >> She would be the last one to wait for
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someone, >> always be there with a smile. >> She would help with homework. It was her ultimate kindness.
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After Sarah was ripped from their lives, they say their sense of safety was gone
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forever. You grow up getting all the safety conversations with your parents and bad
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things can happen and it's all this sort of like vague possibility out there and
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then all of a sudden it was like no no no no it can really happen. It really did just happen.
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>> It was all hands on deck. The sheriff's office put everything they had into solving this case as as soon as they
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could. >> And the killer left behind important evidence. Sarah had not been raped, but
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the killer's DNA was found on pieces of her clothing. >> There was semen found on her underwear
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and on her jacket. We had a full male DNA profile. DNA technology was new back in 1991, but
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investigators hoped that DNA would someday lead them to Sarah's killer. In the meantime, they had eyewitnesses.
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>> I thought for sure somebody would know him. >> Drew and his friend who was with him the
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morning they found Sarah's body worked with police and a sketch of the man they saw in the bushes was released to the
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public. Police would later release a more elaborate sketch. I very vividly remember going through yearbooks going,
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"Okay, who looked like this sketch?" Everyone, it felt like at one point was was a suspect.
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>> But as days went by and as leads dried up, police kept coming back to Drew and
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his friend. >> They just made me feel like I was the only person that could help them solve
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this. I know that wasn't the intent, like, you know, the officers are just doing their
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best. How much pressure were you feeling? >> It's unimaginable pressure. >> And despite everyone's best efforts, it
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would take years to find Sarah's killer. >> This case was never forgotten. [Music]
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[Music] In early June of 1993, one and a half years after Sarah Yarro's murder, local media were there as
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students gathered in the courtyard of Federal Way High School to honor her. >> Bill Fuller, a family friend who helped
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spearhead the move for a memorial to remember Sarah, unveiled it with help from Sarah's younger brother, Andrew. It
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was quite a day. A lot of tears as they looked at it and could could see Sarah in that bench.
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>> Bill Fuller has known the Yar Bros for years and his daughter was in Sarah's class.
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>> Sarah was fun to be around. That was probably what we missed the most is she was fun to be around.
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>> The bench reads Carpedium sees the day. A mantra Sarah lived by. Encased in bronze are some of her favorite
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possessions. Ballet shoes, a replica of Sarah's beloved dog, Gibby, and books. >> Nice that people cared about her so
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much. >> Andrew Yarro, now an adult, admits that he struggled as a young teenager. It was
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especially difficult to see those sketches around town of the man police believed murdered his sister. You know,
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there was drawings of the person's face all over in businesses in town. You know, I do recall that quite a bit. Just
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having that kind of a constant reminder. >> Looking back, I feel like we didn't do a
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very good job with the boys. I think that we were so consumed by our own grief that we didn't take time to help
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them. >> I think we didn't really know how to help them. I mean, it wasn't something
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we had experience with. We didn't know anything about grieving ourselves or how to help them through it.
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>> And they weren't alone in their grief. Shannon Grant, the last friend to see Sarah alive, says she lived with
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constant regret. >> I wish we could go back and do it all over again. That I would have asked the
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other drill team members what time practice was, you know, maybe dropped her off. I mean,
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there's a lot of the whatifs. >> The milestones were especially painful. >> There was survivor guilt.
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>> Like, why am I filling out my college applications when Sarah wanted to go to
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college? >> This isn't fair. >> Every joyful occasion had this >> Yes. >> sorrow that went with it. That was
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There's one missing from the crowd here. Graduation Day, June 12th, 1993, was an
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emotional day, but even more so since it fell on what would have been Sarah's 18th birthday. Laura Yarro came to
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support her daughter's friends. >> I do not know where she found the strength to do that. She loved that
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green dress, right? >> Yeah, she wore green quite a bit with her hair. Lori Yarro says Sarah's friends helped
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ease her grief somewhat and she thinks she filled the void for them as well. >> Sometimes they would say, "Well, I'm
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going to date this person and I just wanted to let you know cuz I wasn't sure if Sarah would approve of this person."
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>> So, they would seek approval through you. You became sort of their surrogate.
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>> Yes. >> As life slowly moved forward, investigators kept working the case. I describe it as like a relay race where
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the baton was handed off from one detective to the next over the years and decades. I kind of refer to myself as
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the fifth beetle in this investigation. >> By the early 2000s, investigators had
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received over 3,000 leads, and advances in technology made them hopeful. They entered the DNA from the crime scene
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into the recently established KOTUS system, a national DNA database that includes profiles of convicted
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offenders. >> The strategy was to continually try to see if there would ever be a match while
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also investigating leads. >> But over time, there appeared to be no match. >> For us to have DNA evidence from the
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suspect, but not have that linked to anybody, it just didn't make sense. It it seemed hard to believe that the
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suspect hadn't committed any other prior crimes where his DNA wouldn't be in the
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system. >> That's when he says detectives realized they had to go in a different direction.
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>> My name is Colleen Fitzpatrick and I'm one of the pioneers of forensic genetic
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genealogy. In 2011, investigators reached out to Fitzpatrick to inquire about using
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forensic genetic genealogy, the practice of using software to compare unknown DNA
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profiles to information from public DNA databases and searching family trees to identify suspects. Genetic genealogy is
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well known now and has been used to solve numerous cold cases, but at that time it was in its infancy. When I
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started in this field, it didn't exist. >> Fitzpatrick says most police agencies
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had been skeptical of this new investigative tool. >> The police thought I was crazy. You
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know, this little old lady with a crazy idea, and I was actually almost laughed out the room,
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>> but the King County Sheriff's Office took a chance on Fitzpatrick. >> It was for free. I just wanted to see if
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it worked. What are you going to lose if you try something? >> The Yar Bros were encouraged. I think it
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wasn't until we met Colleen Fitzpatrick that I really began to think, oh, you know, that they're going to find this
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person. >> And it didn't take long before Fitzpatrick came up with the name of a
00:19:03
possible suspect that surprised just about everyone. Everyone went, "No way. From the beginning, it was very
00:19:30
promising and the story took some really bizarre twists. In 2011, 20 years after Sarah's murder,
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when forensic genetic genealogologist Colleen Fitzpatrick started working the Yarborough case, she traced Sarah's
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killer's family tree back to a man named Robert Fuller, whose family had come to
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America on the Mayflower. I found numerous matches to the name Fuller. When Fitzpatrick gave the name Fuller to
00:20:02
the King County Sheriff's Office, they immediately knew of one person with that last name. Bill Fuller, the Yarro's
00:20:11
close family friend who helped get that memorial bench built for Sarah. >> Naturally, that piqu our interest.
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>> From the beginning, Sarah's family and friends believed Bill Fuller had nothing
00:20:24
to do with Sarah's murder. He didn't look at all like the suspect. The wrong hair color. He's short. He's not tall.
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He just didn't fit the profile at all. Fuller's age didn't match the profile either. He's 79 years old now, but was
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48 years old at the time of Sarah's murder, at least two decades older than the man Drew Miller described.
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>> There was no way that I could be even remotely connected to the case. He fully cooperated with police and
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voluntarily gave them a DNA sample. It didn't match the DNA found at Sarah's crime scene. Yet, Fitzpatrick remained
00:21:06
optimistic. >> The good news is that we came up with a possible last name to investigate, and
00:21:12
this was the first break in the case in 20 years. Fitzpatrick knew that Sarah's killer was
00:21:19
in the Fuller family tree somewhere. So, she and her team went back to work. And
00:21:24
as the years went by, she knew she was only getting closer, especially after 2018 when forensic genetic genealogy was
00:21:32
used to identify the Golden State Killer. Golden State Killer really started the big revolution. Things had
00:21:40
evolved that we had the data to work with. The technology was in place that we could go for it. Then in September of
00:21:47
2019, Fitzpatrick's team made a breakthrough. They came up with two new possible suspects. Brothers Edward and
00:21:55
Patrick Nicholas, who as the DNA showed, were distant cousins of Bill Fuller. You
00:22:02
know, this is 8 years of on and off and looking at it, never giving up. This is it. This is exciting.
00:22:11
>> Edward Nicholas was a registered sex offender. His DNA was in the system. It was in COD.
00:22:18
But Edward's DNA wasn't a match. So they zeroed in on his brother Patrick, who in
00:22:24
2019 was a divorced loner who lived a couple of towns away from Federal Way. >> We learned that he was working at a at a
00:22:31
auto parts store. Lived alone, uh, no children, no friends or acquaintances that would even visit him. Everything
00:22:39
that he did was mostly by bus. He wasn't driving. Detective Re says he discovered that
00:22:47
when Sarah was murdered, the bus route Nicholas often took happened to go past Federal Way High School. Back then,
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Nicholas was just 27 years old and around that time looked very much like the description of the sketch.
00:23:03
>> It looked promising at that point, but we still needed to get a DNA sample from
00:23:07
him to match up to the DNA evidence that we had. So, in late September 2019, investigators came up with a plan.
00:23:19
>> We assigned a team of undercover detectives to start doing surveillance on Patrick Nicholas in the hopes of
00:23:27
obtaining a surreptitious DNA sample. >> Eventually, undercover detectives followed Nicholas to a laundromat.
00:23:34
>> They saw him go outside and smoke a cigarette. And Patrick Nicholas was seen throwing the cigarette butt on the
00:23:41
ground that was collected by your detectives. >> That's what you needed right there. That
00:23:45
cigarette butt. >> Yes. Actually, he dropped two cigarette butts and a napkin that fell out of his
00:23:50
pocket and all three items were collected. >> The DNA samples were rushed to the crime
00:23:57
lab and within days, detectives received the call they had been waiting for. >> The DNA matched. This was our suspect.
00:24:05
>> Perfect match. Yes, >> Patrick Nicholas was arrested. >> There were so many suspects over the
00:24:12
years. Was Patrick Leon Nicholas ever named as a suspect? >> Out of 4,000 tips, he was never named.
00:24:23
>> I was I was pretty in shock. >> The news was a relief for Sarah's family and friends who had never given up hope
00:24:32
that they would get answers. One thing the detectives kept telling us was eventually technology is going to solve
00:24:39
this case. I trusted that and they turned out that they were right. And I remember going out to my car and
00:24:48
balling, >> just balling. Finally, finally they got him. When Drew Miller, who had seen Sarah's
00:24:58
killer back in 1991, saw Patrick Nicholas's face, he says he knew they had the right person. What did
00:25:07
he look like? >> The same guy, just older. Just the same evil eyes. Those evil eyes stayed the
00:25:14
same >> all these years later. >> Yeah. >> But it was not over yet. >> Why do you think you're here?
00:25:23
>> I have no clue. During his interrogation, what am I being charged for? >> When detectives specifically asked him
00:25:31
about Sarah's murder, he gave an alarming response. >> What we're investigating is is the death
00:25:37
of a young girl named Sarah. >> Interestingly, he asked what year this was, >> and that really sent up a flag.
00:25:47
>> Why? >> Why would you ask that? He's being told this is a murder case. We're wondering
00:25:52
at this point, are there other victims? >> This is it. I'm not going to say anything.
00:25:56
>> After one and a half hours, Nicholas asked for an attorney and stopped talking. But his criminal record would
00:26:03
speak volumes. >> I am the one that got away. On a quiet morning in June 1983, 8 years before Sarah's murder,
00:26:32
21-year-old Anne Crony was sitting by her car along the Columbia River in Richland, Washington, when a man
00:26:39
approached her. >> He seemed normal, kind of friendly, actually. Just friendly. I had asked him if he'd done
00:26:47
any water skiing yet because he said he had just moved to town and he said he couldn't swim. And he said, "My name is
00:26:53
Pat Nicholas." >> After a few minutes of small talk, she became uncomfortable. >> I noticed his voice was getting shaky
00:27:01
and I told him I had to go. I went to close the door and he put a knife to my throat.
00:27:13
Everything kind of stopped at that moment. He told me to take my clothes off. >> Nicholas stuffed Anne's underwear into
00:27:23
her mouth to prevent her from screaming, forced her out of the car, and led her to the riverbank.
00:27:30
>> We got about halfway down the bank, and he told me to stop. I ran and dove in
00:27:35
the river cuz I was thinking he couldn't swim. Swam as hard as I could. >> Swam for your life. I swam for my life.
00:27:43
>> Passers by found Ann at a dock nearby and called police. As it turns out, 19-year-old Patrick Nicholas was no
00:27:51
stranger to law enforcement and had a record. He had raped two women and attempted to rape a third. He'd been
00:27:59
convicted of rape as a juvenile >> and had actually only just been out for a few months when he attacked me.
00:28:09
Days after Anne's attack, he was tracked down, arrested, and plead guilty to attempted rape. He told authorities, "I
00:28:18
realized that I have a problem concerning raping girls." At his sentencing hearing, Anne spoke
00:28:24
out. I was actually very angry and asked the judge for the maximum sentence and the judge did agree and sentenced him to
00:28:34
10 years. So I thought it was over. I thought that justice had been served. >> But Patrick Nicholas did not serve the
00:28:45
full 10 years in prison. He was released after just 3 and 1/2 years and was never
00:28:51
notified. She barely thought of him again until October 2019. >> The police knocked on my door and said
00:29:00
that there were detectives in Seattle that wanted to talk to me about a cold case.
00:29:04
>> They informed Anne that Patrick Nicholas had been arrested again, this time for
00:29:09
the murder of Sarah Yarro. >> They told me that there were similarities in the cases and
00:29:17
I was crushed. It had never occurred to me that what I escaped from was a murder.
00:29:28
>> What's more, if Nicholas had served his full prison sentence, he would have still been behind bars that December
00:29:35
morning in 1991, unable to murder Sarah Yarro. >> How angry are you to hear that he was
00:29:42
released that early? And very, it brought up a lot of the old anger and even more anger because the system
00:29:49
failed. King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys Celia Lee and Mary Barbosa describe him
00:29:56
as a serial predator with a clear pattern. All of the women were approached at or near their car. He
00:30:04
would strike up conversation and then pull a knife and tell them that they needed to walk where he would order them
00:30:10
to take off their clothes and then rape them. >> Nicholas had also been convicted of
00:30:16
sexually assaulting a minor in 1994. 3 years after Sarah's murder, five sexual assaults that investigators knew
00:30:26
of, none of which had required him to submit his DNA. So, there was no record of him in the Cotus database. But in
00:30:34
pre-trial hearings, the judge ruled that Nicholas's criminal history could not be
00:30:40
entered in as evidence. >> She found that it would be unfairly prejuditial to the defendant. But the
00:30:47
prosecutors were hopeful their case was strong enough. >> All right for the jury.
00:30:52
>> In early 2023, more than 30 years after Sarah Yarro's murder, her accused killer, now 59 years old, went on trial.
00:31:03
Sarah's childhood friends were there. >> I so clearly remember the morning before
00:31:07
the trial started just going, I don't know if I can do this. It's like, you know, I had so many different emotions
00:31:13
flowing through and it was like, no, we need to be there. >> There was this absolute love for Sarah
00:31:19
and the Yar Bros that was so strong. >> Did you feel like they were a lifeline for you?
00:31:25
>> Yeah. Be seated. >> You weren't in it alone. You were all in it together. As the trial got underway,
00:31:32
the focus was on the DNA. >> What was your strategy then in trying this case? Well, we needed them to trust
00:31:39
the science. >> There was a field that was emerging called forensic genetic genealogy.
00:31:45
>> Patrick Nicholas's public defender, David Montes, challenged how forensic genetic genealogy was used to first
00:31:52
identify Nicholas. >> I want to dig into the science because >> the first time that kind of defense had
00:31:57
been used in Washington state. They used technology that is not only unproven, but just whack. really he's not the
00:32:05
person that killed Sarah. The police needed an answer more than they needed the right answer. And so they turned to
00:32:14
new novel, untested technology. >> Genetic genealogy is a new field. It really hasn't been tested out. Should we
00:32:23
be making important decisions based on something that is not well or deeply understood? But the prosecutors said
00:32:30
that argument was moot because Patrick Nicholas's DNA matched the DNA found at the Yarro crime scene. And Detective
00:32:38
Free says the numbers were astronomical. >> The odds were one in 120 quadrillion
00:32:44
that >> quadrillion. Yeah, >> right. That it was somebody else. If the numbers pointed to Nicholas's
00:32:53
guilt, law enforcement says so did evidence found at his house near the time of his arrest in 2019.
00:33:01
>> It was almost like a layer. There was no working electricity at this house. Stacks of pornography all throughout the
00:33:07
the place. We also found a newspaper from 1994 that had on his front page an article about the Serbo case. And going
00:33:17
through one of the kitchen drawers, we found a torn photograph taken from a magazine. A woman in a cheerleading
00:33:23
outfit. >> When the prosecutors showed that photo in the courtroom, the oxygen left the room.
00:33:34
>> Yeah. >> Montes downplayed their significance. >> I think both of those pieces of evidence
00:33:40
were not especially strange given the general state of his house. There were stacks and stacks of newspapers all over
00:33:47
his house. >> This is evidence tape. >> Patrick Nicholas didn't flinch as the evidence was shown, showing no emotion
00:33:55
throughout the trial. But Sarah Yarro's presence was felt, especially when now retired Captain Scott Strathy carefully
00:34:04
unpackaged and displayed Sarah's clothing that had been in storage for over 30 years. her drill team jacket,
00:34:13
shoes, sweater, even her nylon stockings. >> This was like opening a a time capsule.
00:34:20
>> All of a sudden, they were real things. They weren't even photographs. They were
00:34:25
the things she had on her body when she died. You just you sort of felt yourself
00:34:32
crumble. >> After nine long days of testimony, the case went to the jury. >> All eyes for the jury. It took them just
00:34:42
over a day to reach a verdict. >> I was shaking and like just that like there was so much adrenaline and so much
00:34:48
anticipation. >> We the jury find the defendant Patrick Leon >> everything just dropped and it's like
00:34:54
what? [Music] >> Why do you think it took law enforcement so long to identify Patrick Nicholas as
00:35:02
a suspect? Take a look at a timeline of the case at 48 hours.com. This is the state of Washington versus
00:35:15
Patrick Leon Nicholas. Sarah Yarro's loved ones had waited over 30 years for this moment.
00:35:21
>> We the jury find the defendant shock not guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree premeditated.
00:35:31
>> Patrick Nicholas was found not guilty of the first charge premeditated firstdegree murder. I remember dropping
00:35:38
my head to my hands. I was angry. I was in disbelief >> when that first one came in not guilty.
00:35:45
I closed my eyes. >> But there were other charges and there was still hope of a conviction.
00:35:51
>> Guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree. Guilty in the second degree.
00:35:56
>> Patrick Nicholas was found guilty of firstdegree murder and seconddegree murder. The jury ruled both had been
00:36:03
committed with a sexual motivation. I remember hearing the family behind me cryur
00:36:10
>> and I made eye contact with the jurors and nodded at them. You know, they got
00:36:14
it. They got it right. >> I feel so grateful for those detectives, >> for the boys, for the previous victims,
00:36:23
for every witness who took the stand. So grateful that all these people came together.
00:36:30
Two weeks after Nicholas's conviction, dozens of people who had been involved in every part of Sarah's case gathered
00:36:37
back at the courthouse for his sentencing hearing. Prosecutors asked the judge to impose extra time to take
00:36:43
into account all of Nicholas's crimes. >> The sentencing hearing was exhilarating
00:36:50
in a way that I never expected. M >> it was probably the most raw human courage I
00:37:00
have ever seen in my life. [Music] >> Sarah's death left our family broken and we've never been the same.
00:37:10
>> The pain in my father's voice over the phone telling me Sarah was dead. Person after person took to the
00:37:18
podium to say all that Patrick Nicholas had taken from them. >> Coming face to face with pure evil that
00:37:26
day has deeply impacted my entire life. >> He took her life and what was sure to be
00:37:31
a brilliant future from her. In taking Sarah, he took the innocence of every one of us
00:37:38
>> to face Patrick Nicholas and to say what they had been wanting to say to his face
00:37:43
for 30 years. Patrick Nicholas is pure evil. >> There was so much power in the room. It
00:37:51
was electric. >> And then Anne Crony, who wasn't allowed to testify at Sarah's trial, started
00:37:58
speaking. >> He just did like a double take and shuddered when Anne stood up >> like he saw a ghost.
00:38:04
>> Yes. >> I'm sure he didn't expect to ever see my face or hear my name ever again. We rely
00:38:10
on a system of justice that is designed to protect us from predators like Nicholas. And this system failed me. It
00:38:18
failed Sarah, her family, friends, and countless others. I asked the court to please not make the same mistake.
00:38:25
>> After everyone spoke, Judge Josephine Wigs addressed the court. And when I think about this poor child,
00:38:34
this poor child and what she experienced fighting for her life. >> Judge Wigs put her fist on the thing and
00:38:46
said, "This was a child." She kept saying that and all I could think was, >> "Oh my gosh,
00:38:52
>> that's right. >> We were children." >> Yep. Nicholas received a sentence of almost
00:38:59
46 years. For Sarah's family and friends, the sentence brought mixed emotions. I don't know that this is
00:39:07
justice. It is a verdict and it is putting someone away for something that they did. But he got 30 years that she
00:39:16
didn't get. >> It makes me mad that he was free for so many years. And who knows however many
00:39:23
other people were hurt during that time. I I don't know that we'll ever know and
00:39:27
that could have been avoided. >> Forensic genetic genealogy helped solve Sarah's case, but prosecutors say
00:39:34
similar technology could have identified Patrick Nicholas years earlier if only familial DNA searches were allowed in
00:39:43
Washington state. In a familial DNA search, an unknown DNA sample is compared against profiles already in
00:39:51
Kotus to search for possible family members. Remember, Patrick Nicholas's brother's DNA had been in Cotus for
00:40:00
years. >> The legislation just doesn't exist in this state to allow that search.
00:40:05
>> California uses it. the UK, as I understand, >> York, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
00:40:12
Colorado, Florida. >> Do you think it's time to get that law changed? >> We do. We do.
00:40:18
>> The Yarboroughs agree and hope that Sarah's case can make a difference. >> I would like to know that other parents
00:40:25
don't have to wait 30 years. >> What do you hope her legacy is? I think her legacy is she was always someone who
00:40:36
brought people together. She's brought all the people together that attended the trial. That's the kind of person she
00:40:43
was. >> For Drew Miller, who at 13 found Sarah's body, the connections made at trial
00:40:50
finally brought him some peace. Knowing he's in prison is fantastic, but knowing
00:40:56
her family and friends is way more important to me cuz that's what's given me the actual healing that I needed.
00:41:05
>> This is probably the beginning of our junior year. >> Sarah's friends will always remain
00:41:10
bonded by the past and Sarah's stolen future. Not only was she beautiful, her soul was
00:41:17
beautiful. And the grace and the beauty that she carried and left with all of us, we won't forget her. We will never
00:41:25
forget her. [Music] >> New CBS Next. >> He's not breathing. A surgeon's girlfriend found dead.
00:41:45
>> Provided those drugs. >> Was this a case of a controlling doctor's depravity?
00:41:50
>> This was not just some simple accident. This was much more. >> A new 48 hours next on CBS and streaming
00:41:57
on Paramount Plus. [Music] And can you start by telling me your name and and who you are?
00:42:13
>> Sure. I'm Anne Crony and I'm the one that got away from Patrick Nicholas. Um got away alive and safe.
00:42:25
>> That's Anne Crony, a remarkable woman who survived an attempted attack by Patrick Nicholas back in 1983 when she
00:42:33
was just 21 years old. I met Anne while reporting on the story of Sarah Yarro, another young woman attacked by Nicholas
00:42:41
8 years later. Tragically, Sarah died. I'm Natalie Morales of 48 Hours. Now, so much of our work at 48 Hours focuses on
00:42:50
the stories of victims who didn't survive. But what about those like an who lived to tell from 48 hours? This is
00:42:59
It Could Have Been Me. [Music] And today I'm joined by 48 hours field producer Lauren Clark. And Lauren, we're
00:43:08
here to talk about Anne Cron's story. But before we do, I think it's important that people understand the case of Sarah
00:43:14
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
00:43:21
1991 when she was found strangled on her high school campus. It was a horrible case
00:43:27
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
00:43:35
practice. She had thought she had to get there early, but the rest of the team wasn't arriving for another hour or so.
00:43:40
So, she had pulled into the parking lot in her car. Not many people, like no one
00:43:44
was around. And she was found just about 300 ft from her car, strangled. Uh she was still partially clothed in her drill
00:43:51
team uniform, and there was a pile of clothes found nearby her body in the grass. Investigators at the time
00:43:58
believed her murder had been sexually motivated. Uh but they didn't have really a ton to go on. They did like
00:44:04
rounded up the usual suspects and you know really work the case but for almost 30 years Sarah's case went unsolved.
00:44:11
Yes. And it's important to note the clothing that Sarah was wearing and the clothing on the side there was DNA
00:44:17
evidence but again this was 1991 and DNA technology had not evolved yet to the point where we are today. So
00:44:26
investigators did their part. They preserved very carefully that evidence, but they knew, Lauren, that at some
00:44:34
point in time that they would hopefully be able to get clues and to be able to verify and use that DNA to hopefully
00:44:41
find a match down the road. As you said, for a long time, the case went cold for
00:44:45
nearly 30 years until a forensic genetic genealogologist was able to crack the case. She was hired to track some new
00:44:52
leads. Yeah. In 2019, this forensic genetic genealogologist went through and basically reverse engineered finding a
00:45:00
match to the genetic profile that they had at the scene. And she narrowed it down to these two brothers, one of whom
00:45:06
had been incarcerated, so he was in the federal database. He was in Cotus, so it
00:45:10
wasn't him. And that's when they focused on Patrick Leon Nicholas. Uh, and what investigators did with the King County
00:45:16
Sheriff's Department, he still lived in the Seattle area. So, they followed him.
00:45:20
They they found him. They trailed him. They actually went to a laundromat where he was doing laundry and watched as he
00:45:26
smoked a cigarette >> and then watched him discard the cigarette outside the laundromat right
00:45:31
on the sidewalk there. And when he went back inside, they ran, they grabbed that
00:45:34
cigarette, packaged it up securely, and sent it to a lab. And the DNA from that cigarette was a match to the DNA that
00:45:42
had been found on Sarah's clothes all those years ago. So then, Lauren, how did you come to find out and hear about
00:45:49
Anne Cron's story? So, in uh early 2023, Patrick Nicholas went on trial for the murder of Sarah
00:45:56
Yarborough. And right before trial, we had learned through some pre-trial motions that Patrick Nicholas actually
00:46:03
had a prior criminal record. The judge had ruled that that evidence wouldn't be allowed at trial, but we were able to
00:46:09
read through and we knew that there had been some previous attacks. And I heard as we were at trial talking to people,
00:46:16
some there were kind of whispers like, you know, one of the victims is here. And it was kind of this remarkable like,
00:46:22
oh my gosh, how could someone be here to take that on? I didn't know who it was at the time. Uh, but we did learn that
00:46:29
back in the early 1980s, Patrick Nicholas had served time as a juvenile for raping two women and attempting to
00:46:37
rape a third. Reading through the case files, we learned that he had approached multiple women at their cars. He would
00:46:43
kind of casually strike up a conversation with them and then pull a knife and order them to undress. So,
00:46:49
this brings us now to Anne Cron's remarkable story. And let's go back in time to 1983
00:46:56
in Richland, Washington. That's about 200 miles uh from where Sarah Yarborough was found dead. Now, Anne was just 21
00:47:05
years old at the time. She was a server at a restaurant. She was also a lifeguard. She loved the water and
00:47:13
specifically the Colombia River. So, that's an important part of the story because on June 13th, 1983, the day all
00:47:21
of this happened, Ann said she had just tragically lost one of her really good friends and she just wanted to sit
00:47:28
alongside the river to think. Here's her story. So, I pulled into the parking lot and
00:47:36
got out of the car and sat on the bumper of my car. And you're sitting there thinking, having some time to yourself,
00:47:42
how quickly before a man approached you? >> It wasn't long. It was uh maybe a few
00:47:48
minutes. And uh he walked up to me and started a conversation. I don't remember exactly how the conversation started,
00:47:59
but he introduced himself, said his name was Pat, and he was new in town, and he
00:48:07
was working on an old building in town called the Griggs building that was um empty, and
00:48:16
he was working on a remodel. I knew the space well. I knew the story he was talking about. I knew everything about
00:48:22
it. And he didn't he didn't seem to know anything. He seemed to be kind of making
00:48:28
things up >> as you listen to that. I mean, Lauren would struck us. I mean, already her
00:48:33
instinct sort of her Spidey senses are going off. Something is off here with this guy. She knows that space well that
00:48:41
she's talking about the Griggs building. She's like, "Nothing seems to be adding
00:48:45
up. He's acting strange, but you know, he's he's a good-looking guy." She described him as youngish. He's got
00:48:53
blondish hair, glasses, uh a mustache, but she's getting a really uh bad vibe from him, right? Her alarms were going
00:49:03
off in her head at that point. >> So, another fact, as they continued to talk, Nicholas told her he couldn't
00:49:10
swim. And again, that really struck an as being odd because that area along the Columbia River there, like it gets hot
00:49:17
in the summer. It is dry. and swimming and water skiing and just all sorts of activities along the water. It's what
00:49:23
everyone does there in the summer. So, for him to say that, it just it really stuck out to her. And overall, it's just
00:49:29
as he keeps talking, she's kind of placating him, but she's just getting a very weird vibe from him all along. I
00:49:36
noticed his voice was getting shaky. And I told him I had to go. So, I went around and got into my car and my door
00:49:45
was open and I had a a two-seater sports car and he knelt next in between the door and me and like got in your way.
00:49:55
>> I was in the car. So, I got in the car >> and the door was open and he knelt down
00:49:59
between the door and me >> and uh told me his name. Uh, he wanted he gave me his name and phone number and he
00:50:11
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.
00:50:20
>> And And what was he saying as he put the knife to your throat? >> He told me not to scream. He told me to
00:50:27
take my clothes off. Um, so I did take my clothes off. And as I was doing that, I noticed a couple of
00:50:36
people walking to a car that was parked sort of nearby. And I did scream. Um, but he put the knife to my throat a
00:50:45
little harder and pushed me down and laid on top of me so they couldn't see me. It's really hard to hear Ann describing
00:50:54
those moments just to think about the terror that must have been going through her mind. Um, she told us, you know, in
00:51:00
after he put the knife to her throat, he actually took her underwear and put them
00:51:06
in her mouth almost as a sort of gag so that she wouldn't keep screaming, so that she wouldn't be heard. Right. And
00:51:12
and there were people nearby pulling up into the parking lot. So, she was trying
00:51:17
to get people to notice and to to come help her. Um, but talk about that terrifying few minutes for her. Well, we
00:51:25
learned from an then what happens next? >> Um, he told me to get out of the car and
00:51:31
he had a shirt that he put over my head. He actually told me to put it on and I refused. So, he put it over my head and
00:51:38
put my left arm through it and grabbed the back of it and shoved me towards the bank of the river. Um,
00:51:46
and we started walking and we got about halfway down the bank and he told me to stop and I didn't. Instead of stopping,
00:51:55
I pulled the shirt off over my head and ran down the bank and dove into the river and swam
00:52:02
>> because at that time I was thinking he told me he couldn't swim. So I swam out
00:52:08
and swam as hard as I could. >> Swam for your life. >> I swam for my life. All I had on was my
00:52:12
tennis shoes >> and uh I swam to a dock and started screaming for help. >> Wow. I mean to have the presence of mind
00:52:21
to to be thinking in that moment he told me he can't swim >> and to see that that is your
00:52:27
opportunity. >> You know every time I hear that I just get goosebumps because even as she was
00:52:33
reliving that moment you could just see the terror the the terror in her eyes and just feel the emotion of that. Um
00:52:40
truly remarkable. Yeah. And just talk about all the moments of luck here. all the things that happened for her to be
00:52:46
able to put that together that he couldn't swim that he was leading her towards that riverbank. You know, we
00:52:52
went down there to film it and it is it's very steep. It's very hard to just jump right down there. So, once she swam
00:52:59
for her life and made it to the dock, thankfully there were people there and she was able to get help and the police
00:53:05
came to her help as soon as she arrived there. And so, she was able to tell police, "This happened to me and his
00:53:12
name is Pat." and gave them a good description of what who they were looking for. And based off of his name
00:53:19
and his description, the local police pretty soon realized that Pat was likely this man Patrick Nicholas, who had just
00:53:27
recently been released from a halfway house nearby for those previous attacks that he had committed on a juvenile. So,
00:53:34
police went to track him down. Uh they visited his apartment. He wasn't there. They suspected he must have fled, gotten
00:53:40
out of town really quickly, but they did find some key evidence there. They found
00:53:44
the notebook that Anne had remembered writing her number down in. And I think they actually found a piece of the page
00:53:48
torn out where he had tried to give her his number. So after they searched his apartment, we're like, "Okay, this is
00:53:55
probably our guy." They went to the airport and found out that Patrick Nicholas had hopped a flight soon
00:54:00
afterwards and gotten out of town. Uh they tracked him down to the Midwest and within a few weeks they arrested him and
00:54:07
he actually pleaded guilty to firstdegree attempted rape. He was sentenced back then to what was the
00:54:12
maximum sentence that he could receive and that was 10 years in prison. So an assumed rightfully so that he's safely
00:54:21
locked away for those 10 years all of those 10 years in Washington state prison. But it turns out in 1987
00:54:29
Nicholas is let out early on parole. So an was never notified. Police never told her, never sent her a letter or
00:54:44
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
00:54:52
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
00:54:58
her life. All of that changed though in 2019. Here's Ann again. The police knocked on my door in Portland and said
00:55:10
that there were detectives in Seattle that wanted to talk to me about a cold case and I had no idea what they were
00:55:16
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
00:55:23
feel hearing about what happened to Sarah? What did they tell you about her story?
00:55:31
They told me that there were similarities in the cases and uh I was crushed. It's this part in the interview I
00:55:44
remember this is where an just kind of paused and broke down. Um she'd been really kind of strong through that
00:55:51
interview and was just recounting things. But I think, you know, this is describing the realization that Sarah
00:55:57
Yarro's murder was in any way connected to what had happened to her so many years ago. And she, I think, was dealing
00:56:03
with, as she described to us, her own version of survivor's guilt, you know, once she realized how her story and
00:56:11
Sarah's were connected tragically. >> Yeah. Um, it had never occurred to me that what I
00:56:24
escaped from was a murder. I just had always figured I'd escaped from a rapist, >> which you can survive a rapist. You can
00:56:39
get past it. You can't get past murder. Um, and the fact that she was only 16, um,
00:56:50
was really hard to hear. And then when I found out that he had been released early, and this happened when he was
00:56:56
supposed to be in prison >> for what he did to you, >> for what he did to me, um, really
00:57:03
affected me a lot. >> I bet you were angry. A lot of it. I was very angry >> when he um was arrested for for what he
00:57:15
did to you. He confessed and he wrote in his confession, "I realize I have a problem concerning raping girls."
00:57:26
>> You had never heard that? >> No. No. So he says that and he ended up serving.
00:57:35
>> So why was he let out after three and a half years? What a little [ __ ] No, I didn't know that.
00:57:46
You little I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So, that's the part you didn't hear on our 48 hours episode, obviously, because
00:57:56
of the language. Now, you know, we all kind of laughed a little bit at that, but usually humor is a a coping
00:58:03
mechanism, and that was the case here. Um this was truly a very traumatic experience and memory for an and
00:58:12
especially you know learning that he did not complete his full sentence and then
00:58:16
hearing that detail that she only heard now for the very first time that he had told police at the time that he had a
00:58:25
problem raping girls, trying to rape girls and yet he was able to get out early um on parole which she just was
00:58:35
clearly very angry, but at the same time, she had to laugh at the the insanity of it all.
00:58:42
>> I remember in that interview, she had been so strong and then it just kind of
00:58:45
broke through and yeah, you hear us laughing in the background cuz we're all crying and then hearing
00:58:50
>> it just gave us a moment of levity. I think just having her real life reaction. I think it just made us all so
00:58:56
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
00:59:03
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
00:59:07
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
00:59:13
this really incredible space because we wanted her to feel very comfortable. Um it was like a horse ranch. It was my
00:59:20
version of paradise and there was horse therapy right outside the door. So after this
00:59:26
interview, we all went out and we were petting the horses because we needed it. I mean, it was just really such a
00:59:31
powerful interview and she just gave us so much. >> Absolutely. I mean, her her strength
00:59:38
just stuck out to us all along and even going back to the trial. I mean, so I was there. We were hearing these
00:59:44
whispers that there was a victim there and it was almost inconceivable. I mean, like, wait, what? How could someone have
00:59:50
the strength to come and do this? uh and learning that it almost brought this back full circle for her that she had
00:59:59
thought she had done her duty back in 1983 that she had put away this bad guy that the justice system had worked for
01:00:06
her and then so learning that it had failed Sarah Yarbor by him being let out early so that he was able to attack
01:00:13
Sarah Yarborough she felt like she had to be there she had to see justice truly be done this time around I mean she was
01:00:20
there for as much of the trial as she could be. You were there, Lauren. I mean, there was so much emotion. It was
01:00:26
a packed courtroom. Her friends, her family, they were all there. They were there to witness this moment nearly 30
01:00:34
years later. That speaks to the kind of woman that Sarah Yarro was. She was a connector. I've actually never seen
01:00:41
anything like this. Um, and it was almost overflowing. Everybody, usually in a in a trial, there's like the
01:00:47
victim's side, the victim's family side, and then the defendant side. And in this
01:00:52
there were just so many people there. So this brings us to how Anne Crony came into the courtroom and where she sat.
01:00:59
You know the courtroom's full. So she goes and chooses to sit right behind Patrick Nicholas because that was the
01:01:06
open spot. >> I was sitting there thinking I could easily jump up and put my hands around
01:01:12
his neck or I could slam his face into the table. That would be great. And I thought no I don't think anybody else
01:01:18
would really appreciate that. So >> order in the court, you know. >> Mhm. >> And so it it's interesting because it
01:01:26
made me think the two of Sarah's friends said they first saw you get behind him.
01:01:31
They're like, "Is she with him?" No. And then they cornered you. They said they got out into the hallway and they were
01:01:36
like, >> "Who are you?" Like wanting to know what you were there for. Yes. >> So they hadn't heard your story yet
01:01:43
about you guys. The judge wouldn't allow that. Yeah. I think they they must have
01:01:47
heard something because uh they did ask my connection and I said >> I believe I told them I was the one that
01:01:55
got away and it took him a second and then >> Yeah. Yeah. >> full embrace. >> Yes. Wonderful people. Oh my gosh.
01:02:03
Wonderful people. >> Sarah's been gone a long time but they could hug an remained friends with Anne Crony which
01:02:11
is remarkable. The thing that I heard in court was that one of his survivors is here and she's a badass. And then I
01:02:18
remember I just gave her my card very tactfully. I don't know if you want to talk. Um but then I remember at your
01:02:24
interview with her, Natalie, we were sitting there and we're just like she's a badass. Like totally I get it. Yep.
01:02:30
And Natalie, in your interview, you asked her what Nicholas looked like when she saw him in court. And here was her
01:02:36
response. >> Can I say him? Yes. Go ahead. He looked like a piece of >> I mean he just looked like an old piece
01:02:43
of >> um you know he was young when I saw him he was young vital comes to mind um
01:02:51
fairly attractive and he's just an old piece of now sorry >> you heard the anger there she was still
01:02:58
you know living in that moment but she even though she was struck by the fact that his appearance had changed um but
01:03:05
she said looking at him and staring at him in the eyes. She saw those same evil eyes staring back at her. They were the
01:03:14
same. So, after the jury found Patrick Nicholas guilty of the murder of Sarah Yarro, Anne was able to finally speak
01:03:23
her truth by giving a victim impact statement during the sentencing hearing. Let's listen to some of that.
01:03:29
>> We rely on a system of justice that is designed to protect us from predators like Nicholas. And this system failed
01:03:36
me. It failed Sarah, her family, friends, and countless others. I asked the court to please not make the same m
01:03:44
mistake. >> And I don't know if Nicholas knew that she was there until this moment. And she
01:03:51
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
01:03:58
feeling that she had inside of her to do that. It must have been so scary and so
01:04:02
intimidating at first, but she told you like it was really that community and that love from Sarah's friends and
01:04:08
family that really helped her get up there and put it all out there. >> Yeah. >> And he was, you know, and the judge did
01:04:15
sentence him to 46 years in prison. Um, so he's not going to get out anytime soon. And and I think an important
01:04:23
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
01:04:32
much that probably impacted her as she was saying those words. Yeah. And she talked with you in her interview about
01:04:40
how like they have had talks about how when something happens, what to do when you're attacked that you fight. And if
01:04:47
you're lucky, really like the luck here is so essential. If you can put those pieces together, you can get away. Uh
01:04:53
she was able to really follow her instincts there and again the luck of being near the water and knowing that he
01:04:58
couldn't swim, her gut telling her that something was off. Uh she was able to have the presence of mind to recall all
01:05:05
of this to get away. So I mean just her thinking that all right, I've got to protect my kid here,
01:05:11
>> give her the tools she could use. I it's really really impactful. >> Yeah. I mean truly everything sort of
01:05:19
lined up in order for her to be able to survive. Um there was also a moment what
01:05:25
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
01:05:35
summer after Nicholas's murder trial, diving right back into those very waters of the Columbia River that saved her
01:05:42
life. and she started by parking in the exact same spot that she did in that parking lot in the park where the attack
01:05:50
occurred. Take a listen. The parking lot's the same. The trees have grown up, so it looks different, but the the bank
01:05:59
is a lot steeper than I thought it was. And further up from the river, it's about 10 ft. So, I was surprised. um
01:06:09
pretty proud of myself for what I'd done because it was it was pretty amazing that I was able to do that. There was a
01:06:15
reason that I was meant to do that and I was able to do that. But doing the triathlon was interesting. I didn't have
01:06:23
any I didn't have any odd or bad feelings. Swimming in the river was great. Uh >> do you feel like you reclaimed that
01:06:32
>> though? I I do because the swim took off at the same dock that I was rescued on.
01:06:37
So, um I do I felt like I reclaimed all of that and there's no fear to stop me from doing
01:06:46
what I love to do. >> I just we just loved that moment so much. Even after going through hearing
01:06:53
about Sarah Yarro's death, going through the trial, stepping forward, she was like, you know what? I want to get back
01:06:58
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
01:07:03
lot of survivors who say that. They say, "I wanted to, you know, get myself back,
01:07:07
take my power back." And in doing that triathlon, she did. I think it's so important that we tell these survivors
01:07:14
stories because I think we can all learn so much from them as well. What it takes
01:07:21
to do something when something feels off or doesn't feel right. What it takes to
01:07:26
speak up. What it takes to fight back. to scream as loud as you can possibly scream. She did all of that and then
01:07:34
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
01:07:41
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
01:07:48
sure to stay tuned for more stories from courageous individuals like an by following and listening to 48 hours it
01:07:55
could have been me on Tuesdays on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like this episode,
01:08:02
please rate and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. I'm Natalie Morales for 48 hours.
01:08:09
[Music] This wasn't just a crime scene, was it? >> No, it was not. This one was bad.
01:08:34
Two innocent people that were on their first date had their lives destroyed. For what reason?
01:08:45
>> How well did Leslie Reeves know Chris Smith? >> First date. [Music] Chris was in a band and a singer
01:08:56
and they had connected and he asked her out. The night before Thanksgiving, they
01:09:02
decided just to meet up and go to the bar. >> He lived 65 miles away in a really small
01:09:08
farming community. >> The bar that night was very busy. The place was packed wall to-all.
01:09:18
Chris and Leslie were talking a lot, laughing, getting along with everyone around them.
01:09:24
>> She texted me around 10:00 and she said, "Everything's going okay." She did then
01:09:30
text a second text that said, "I feel like something's a little bit off or something. I'm not sure what she meant."
01:09:38
>> Was that text the last time you heard from Leslie Reeves? >> Mhm. Yes, it was.
01:09:45
[Music] >> Did you try texting her in the morning? >> Mhm. >> And did she respond?
01:09:50
>> No. I just started driving towards Farmersville because I had the address and called the police department in that
01:10:01
area. >> Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. This is Jeff. >> Hi. I'm greatly concerned about my
01:10:07
friend. Can someone do a welfare check? >> What are you feeling at this point, Nana?
01:10:12
>> A lot of anxiety because I don't know what I'm going to walk into uh going up
01:10:17
there to this house. that I pulled up in front of the address. >> And then who came while you're sitting
01:10:24
there? >> While I'm sitting there, uh, who's this uh, woman parked? >> I said, "Well, maybe I'll roll my window
01:10:33
down and talk to her." >> I asked her if she was checking on Chris, and she said she was checking on
01:10:38
her friend. And that's when I went up to the door. I saw the back door was broken, and then
01:10:46
I saw Chris laying there. And then I ran back to my car and called 911. >> Nobody's answering the door and and the
01:10:54
back window shattered and there's a body and there's a foot I saw on the floor. I'm only 16. I can't deal with this.
01:11:04
>> I was in shock. I think >> Sheriff's Office. Jeff. >> Jeff, some help. I got one alive and one
01:11:11
dead. >> I just remember them bringing Chris out on the stretcher to the ambulance. I
01:11:17
remember there being a sheet over him, so it made me panic a little bit. >> I got a call from our command center in
01:11:24
Springfield. >> So, you are the lead crime scene investigator? >> Yes. >> Were you really prepared for what you
01:11:33
faced when you walked into that house? >> I was not. >> Why would somebody do this to him? Why
01:11:40
would they try to hurt my baby? That's all I kept thinking. He's my baby. Someone hurt him. Going on a first date
01:11:47
and they both end up getting shot is insane. [Music] [Music] on the afternoon of Thanksgiving. Day
01:12:40
2021. Nanette Styber sat in her car and watched anxiously as EMTs and Montgomery
01:12:47
County Sheriff's deputies descended on a house in the tiny village of Farmersville, Illinois.
01:12:56
>> I was quite upset and kind of going crazy in the car. >> Nette had been unable to reach her good
01:13:04
friend Leslie Reeves. Nanette knew Leslie had gone to that house the night before to go on a first
01:13:12
date with Chris Smith, a man she had met online. She was very excited. She thought, "Oh, this will this might be um
01:13:21
a really good connection." >> But now Nanette was worried. She'd seen Chris get taken away in an ambulance,
01:13:30
but there was no sign of Leslie. I kept hoping, you know, okay, bring Leslie out, please.
01:13:38
>> Finally, a detective approached and asked Nette for a photo of Leslie. She showed him her phone and he gave her the
01:13:46
horrible news. >> I'm so sorry to have to tell you this. Your friend has um been murdered, you know, shot, he
01:13:58
said. He didn't tell me where, but he did say, "I want you to know that she went very
01:14:05
quickly." EMTs had found Chris barely conscious and unable to say anything about the
01:14:16
shooting. They rushed him to the hospital and deputies searched the house. Later that day, crime scene
01:14:23
investigator Josh Eastston of the Illinois State Police was called to the scene and he began cataloging the mayhem
01:14:31
inside. What do you see when you first approached the door? >> I noticed the side door of the house.
01:14:37
The glass in the door has been broken out. The refrigerator was pulled away from the wall. The kitchen table was
01:14:44
pushed. The the chairs were knocked over. No weapon was found, leading investigators to suspect that a third
01:14:51
person was involved. Een took note of every detail, including the burnt pizza in the oven.
01:15:00
>> I assume that maybe they were cooking a pizza for the night and the suspect shows up at the door. They both
01:15:07
tried to fight him off and when Chris was shot, Leslie went to the living room to try to hide.
01:15:14
>> How many times was she shot? She was only shot one time >> in the head. >> In the head.
01:15:18
>> Leslie's body was in the living room while Chris had been found in the kitchen. Een said of the 1,800
01:15:27
crime scenes he had been to, this was one of the most horrific. >> There was blood everywhere. The
01:15:35
cabinets, the refrigerator, the countertop. There was blood from corner to corner in the kitchen.
01:15:43
Eastston spotted two silver colored bullet casings from a 9 mm gun. One in the kitchen and the other near Leslie's
01:15:52
body. As Easton processed the scene, detectives began learning about the victims.
01:16:01
Chris Smith was a 48-year-old divorced father who worked for a pool contractor. >> Chris was a nice guy. He would hang out
01:16:11
here frequently, was friends with most people in town. Everybody knew him. >> Bartender Dena Lrand says Chris was well
01:16:20
known in town as the guy who grew banana trees and giant pumpkins. >> I remember one Halloween he donated
01:16:28
hundreds of pumpkins for decorations for any of the kids to paint. He gave back to his community.
01:16:37
Did either one of you ever worry about Chris? >> No. >> No. >> Sharon Castanza is Chris's mother,
01:16:44
Ashley Hulcom, his sister. >> Chris is a stayhome person that literally would just work in his
01:16:52
backyard. >> Chris lived with a dog named Tiki. And an EMT told the family that Tikki may
01:17:00
have helped Chris make it through the night by huddling with him for the roughly 12 hours that Chris was bleeding
01:17:07
before being rescued. >> I think Tikki protected Chris. I think she probably laid right next to him.
01:17:17
>> Chris's close-knit family could not imagine anyone wanting to kill him. >> It was like no way. How? Why? Like who?
01:17:25
Yeah. Who would have done that? >> Investigators had the same questions about Leslie and learned that she was a
01:17:34
divorced mother of two children who lived in Troy about an hour south of Farmersville.
01:17:41
Although Leslie had a master's degree in engineering, she chose instead to teach
01:17:47
Pilates and to promote self-defense classes for women. Hi, I'm Leslie from All You Studio and I
01:17:53
>> Leslie posted this video to her YouTube channel to advertise one of her classes.
01:18:00
Empower yourself against aggression and assault as we teach you easy to learn self-defense techniques. Power up.
01:18:07
>> Leslie tried to help women in abusive relationships, but friends say she had her own troubles. Nanette told deputies
01:18:15
she was worried about a former boyfriend, a contractor by the name of Robert Tar known as Bobby.
01:18:23
>> She said, "I am going to completely block Bobby from email, texts, phone calls. I I have to go no contact."
01:18:32
>> Later that evening, news of Leslie's murder began circulating and reached another close friend, Amy Steinhower.
01:18:40
She had met Tar, a divorced father of three, and did not have a good impression of him. But
01:18:47
>> you never see someone and think that they can kill my friend. >> Amy called the sheriff's office that
01:18:55
night to give them Tar's name. By then, detectives had already set out to find Bobby Tar. While 85 mi to the
01:19:07
north, surgeons were fighting to try to save the life of Chris Smith. A bullet still lodged in his brain.
01:19:26
[Music] I just wanted to get there. I just wanted to get there as fast as I could.
01:19:39
After learning that Chris had been shot in the head, his family rushed to the hospital in Springfield, Illinois, 2
01:19:46
hours from their home. >> I was on the phone to everyone I could think of cuz I just needed prayers from
01:19:52
everybody. Doctors removed part of Chris's skull and some bullet fragments in his brain
01:19:59
before putting him in a medically induced coma. His family, struggling to piece together what had happened,
01:20:06
learned that he had been out with a woman named Leslie Reeves. Had you ever heard the name Leslie Reeves before?
01:20:13
>> No. I looked her up and then I tried to reach out to her friends and then I found my best friend, Nanette. Nanette
01:20:20
told them the same thing she had told investigators. She suspected Leslie's ex-boyfriend,
01:20:26
Bobby Tar. That night, sheriff's deputies went to Tar's home in Collinsville, an hour
01:20:34
south of the crime scene. Authorities say he never asked why they wanted to talk to him, and he agreed to go to the
01:20:41
police station without a lawyer. >> TR Margaret. >> Mhm. Although her friend said the couple
01:20:48
had broken up, Tar told investigators that he and Leslie were still together. >> You and Leslie have a lot of problems. I
01:20:57
would say no worse than any average couple. >> It was Leslie that detectives wanted to
01:21:05
talk about. >> I want you to to dig down deep here and be as honest with me as you can. Okay.
01:21:11
Um Leslie is dead. What? Can you help me shed some light on this? How did she die?
01:21:23
She was murdered. What happened? >> That's why we're here with you. You help me believe that you're not involved in
01:21:30
this. I'm not involved in anything. >> Investigators asked Tar about Farmersville, the scene of the crime.
01:21:38
>> You know where Farmersville is? Farmersville. No, I can't say that I do. I've never
01:21:44
been there. I've never heard of it. >> And they asked Tar where he had been the night before Thanksgiving.
01:21:51
>> I went to a buddy of mine's house. He left and left me some money out of his shop and I had to go pick it up.
01:21:59
>> The friend lived a short distance from Tar's home. >> Remember what time you came back?
01:22:06
>> Yeah, it wasn't that long. um maybe 6:30ish, something like that. >> Investigators believe the shooting took
01:22:16
place sometime early on Thanksgiving morning after 1:00 a.m. Tar said after he got back, he was home all night.
01:22:25
>> You can talk to my daughter about me being home. >> That's exactly what they did. Detectives
01:22:31
brought Tar's 17-year-old daughter, Shelby, to a different room at the police station, and she told them that
01:22:38
her father actually left home twice that night. >> So, first time he left was roughly 6:30,
01:22:46
right? >> And then he he came home about a half hour later and they said he had to go
01:22:50
back, right? >> And then it was 9:15ish when he got back home. Shelby said he had been gone for more
01:22:57
than 2 hours and when he got home he was upset. >> He gets home, he was crying. He was
01:23:03
sobbing. He said he missed Leslie. >> Shelby said she went to sleep around 9:30 and was awakened by her father
01:23:10
around 2:45 a.m. >> He started laundry. He was pacing, walking around and he was like, "I can't
01:23:17
sleep." Detectives went back to Tar and told him Shelby's story did not match his. Tar
01:23:24
then changed his story and said he had gone to his friend's house twice, but still insisted he was home by 8. As Tar
01:23:34
sat at the police station, detectives searched his house and found his phone and a Glock pistol. Shelby had told them
01:23:42
her father had a different gun, but they didn't find it. >> It's little. It's like this big. Like a
01:23:50
light green like the army green. >> Shelby told investigators she had seen it the day before Thanksgiving in her
01:23:58
father's sock drawer >> yesterday morning. Actually, I went to his socks and it was there and now it's
01:24:03
not there. >> Was there yesterday and gone today? Okay. Bobby Tar sat at the police
01:24:09
station overnight while authorities continued to investigate. They had already learned that his car had been
01:24:16
captured by license plate reader cameras just after midnight the night of the shooting. The cameras were near a gas
01:24:24
station and investigators discovered that Tar had bought gas there just after midnight. Back at the police station,
01:24:32
they confronted him with a gas station receipt. to your life. >> Cuz I don't remember doing that.
01:24:39
>> You don't remember being out after midnight when you have told us? You are 100% positive.
01:24:48
>> The gas station is here in Troy. >> Yes. >> And the murder occurred here in Farmersville.
01:24:54
>> Correct. >> The gas station was near Tar's home, an hour from the crime scene. Andrew
01:25:01
Affronty is the Montgomery County States attorney. He has donia, a condition that
01:25:07
causes muscle ticks and tremors. So why is it significant? Cuz it So he went out
01:25:13
and got some gas. >> It was significant to us cuz why would he lie about it? >> Just wanted to get fuel. What does that
01:25:19
prove? >> Investigators believed it was proof Tar was lying about his whereabouts that
01:25:25
night. They placed him under arrest. >> You're under arrest for murder. A fronty says they arrested Tar im
01:25:37
immediately because they feared Chris's life was in danger and they hadn't found the murder weapon.
01:25:46
>> If he was out of custody, could he take further steps to dispose of the evidence?
01:25:52
Just one day after Leslie Reeves was killed and Chris Smith was left fighting for his life, investigators believe they
01:26:01
had the man responsible in custody. I'm Aaron Morardi. >> Bobby T. >> But in his only media interview, Bobby
01:26:09
[ __ ] tells 48 hours they got the wrong guy. >> There is so many things untold that will
01:26:16
prove my innocence. Bobby Tar charged with the murder of Leslie Reeves and the attempted murder
01:26:37
of Chris Smith is nothing if not unflapable. >> Did you kill Leslie Reeves? >> No.
01:26:44
>> Did you shoot Chris Smith? >> No. He kept his cool even when confronted with a litany of lies he told
01:26:51
investigators. You told the police you only left the house once. >> That wasn't true.
01:26:58
>> Correct. >> You told the police you had no idea where Farmersville is. >> Mhm.
01:27:03
>> That was a lie. >> Mhm. >> You lied about getting gas in your car that night.
01:27:09
>> Mhm. When he spoke with us, Tar admitted he was at Christmas house the night before Thanksgiving, placing himself at
01:27:18
the scene of the crime. He says the night began when he met Leslie at her part-time job at this loft store.
01:27:26
>> She had said she was going to go meet some friends because one of their friends was playing in a band. and she
01:27:33
asked me if I wanted to go and I said, "Well, you know, I would go, but I have my youngest daughter staying with me for
01:27:38
a week." >> Tar says that when he declined the invitation, Leslie asked if he would
01:27:44
follow her to Farmersville because her van was unreliable. And so he did. That makes no sense to Leslie's friend Amy
01:27:53
Steinhower. >> She was terrified of him, rightfully so. Just a few weeks earlier, Amy says
01:28:02
Leslie told her that Tar had shown up while she was on a first date with a different guy. After that incident,
01:28:09
Leslie told Amy she was frightened by Tar and texted Amy. I could be killed by him someday if I don't cut all contact.
01:28:18
So, you're telling me now that this woman who was scared of you, who had actually texted a friend that she
01:28:25
thought you might kill her, asked you to follow her to another man's house? >> Mhm.
01:28:32
>> Does that make any sense? >> No, I understand. Um, so I don't understand that text in general.
01:28:38
>> Why did she think you might kill her? >> I don't know. I've got no clue. Tar says Leslie lied to her friends
01:28:47
about their relationship. He insists she asked him to follow her north to Farmersville.
01:28:53
>> So I went with her up there. I think we arrived there around 7:30. I parked in front of her van in front of
01:29:01
his house. That's as far as I went. I left. I never went back to Farmersville again.
01:29:07
If he had an innocent explanation for why he was in Farmersville, why did he lie to detectives?
01:29:15
>> My daughter, her and Leslie, there was a little bit of tension between both them.
01:29:19
I did not want her to know that I was going to meet Leslie that night. >> Tar claims that after he lied to his
01:29:26
daughter Shelby about seeing Leslie, he stuck to that lie at the police station because he was afraid they would tell
01:29:33
her. And he never corrected those lies, even when detectives arrested him. Why not just say, "Look, between you and me,
01:29:44
I lied to my daughter, so let me tell you the truth, but let's just not share that with her." Why wouldn't you do
01:29:50
that? >> I should have done that. >> He's quick to point out the lack of physical evidence connecting him to the
01:29:57
bloody crime scene. Investigators searched his white Jetta, but did not find any shards of glass or blood
01:30:04
stains. >> Two tests by the state police were done on my car. Zero blood found in my car.
01:30:12
There's zero DNA of mine at the crime scene. Anything from the crime scene in my car or on me or any of my clothing or
01:30:23
my shoes. Zero. Prosecutor affronty has to concede that point. >> Was any of Ty's DNA found inside the
01:30:34
house? >> No. >> Were any of his fingerprints found inside the house? >> No. >> And authorities still had not found the
01:30:43
murder weapon. But a week after the shooting, they got a phone call from Tar's friend, Billy Adams. Adams said
01:30:51
Tar called him from jail. That call was recorded. What's your day look like today? Cuz I need 10 minutes of your
01:30:57
time. >> Tar asked Adams to go to his house and look for some deck brackets. >> I got some special aluminum brackets and
01:31:07
that I need you to get because they're for another job that I didn't tell dad about yet. So, don't say
01:31:14
nothing to him. >> Instead, Adams contacted the sheriff's office. Deputies suspected Tar knew the
01:31:22
phone call was being recorded and was speaking to his friend in code about something other than deck brackets.
01:31:32
>> Yeah, get them and get rid of them. >> They thought that was suspicious, which
01:31:35
was why they went over and searched. >> Investigators were on their hands and knees in Tar's yard looking for a gun.
01:31:43
Dan Folultz is Tar's defense attorney. >> They searched that area thoroughly. No
01:31:50
gun. You know what? They did find deck brackets. >> A few days later, they got another phone
01:31:57
call, this time from Tar's brother, asking them to come back to the house. Tar's family gave deputies a Ziploc bag
01:32:08
they said they had found in the same yard that had been searched just days earlier. Inside a Springfield Hellcat 9
01:32:17
mm pistol and silvercoled ammunition. The Illinois State Police determined the gun was the murder weapon and the
01:32:26
ammunition matched the casings found at the crime scene. >> We still to this day don't know how that
01:32:34
ended up there specifically in the spot that they searched. >> Are you saying you were set up? Someone
01:32:40
was framing you? Yes. >> But if someone was framing Tar, he or she would have to be pretty
01:32:48
detailoriented, the state police say Tar's fingerprint was on the Ziploc bag. >> He is adamant that he would not have
01:32:57
been dumb enough that he would have carried it all the way back to his home and said, "Hm, where would I put this
01:33:05
gun on my 1 acre lot? I think I'll put it next to the front door." And Tar points out neither his prints nor DNA
01:33:14
were found on the gun itself. >> Nothing on the firearm. No DNA, no prints of mine on the firearm.
01:33:21
>> What I think what happened is is that the gun was clicked and then Mr. Tar just missed a spot.
01:33:26
>> That spot was Leslie's DNA, say police found on the guide rod of the gun. Tar's
01:33:33
explanation, the gun wasn't his. It belonged to Leslie. I purchased the Hellcat and Leslie purchased it from me.
01:33:44
>> As investigators continued to build a case against Bobby Tar, they say he was
01:33:49
hatching a plan to silence the only eyewitness. >> Did you ask a inmate to shoot Chris
01:33:58
Smith? [Music] Leslie accompanied me here on several occasions. >> If there's anyone who knew what guns
01:34:22
Leslie Reeves owned, it's Howard Bolton, her close friend and firearm instructor.
01:34:28
>> When I would hold classes, she would actually shoot with us. Leslie was becoming a very good shot.
01:34:35
>> Bolton says Leslie had organized a class called Girls with Guns not long before
01:34:41
she was murdered. >> We put the girls through their paces. They would move and fire. They would go
01:34:47
forward and fire. They would come back and fire. And Leslie did very, very well at that. Bobby Tar insisted to us that
01:34:55
Leslie owned the Hellcat that was used to kill her, but Howard says he never saw her use it.
01:35:02
>> Leslie never brought a Springfield, let alone a Hellcat, to class. >> So then, how did Leslie's DNA get on the
01:35:10
guide rod of the murder weapon? Howard believes that Leslie's DNA could only be on that guide rod if the gun was fired
01:35:18
at her at close range. So when he shot her, wherever it was he shot her would have contaminated that part of the gun.
01:35:29
>> In fact, Howard says Leslie owned a different gun. Her friends say they wish she had taken it with her the night she
01:35:36
was killed. >> Had Leslie taken the gun with her, I assure you the outcome would have been
01:35:41
different. Tar declared his innocence, but the case against him could hinge on what Chris
01:35:49
Smith, the only survivor, remembers. Would he be able to identify him? That was the question. As Chris remained in a
01:35:59
coma, >> we were talking to him, singing to him, and I was always holding this hand.
01:36:05
Hallelu. >> While Chris Smith lay helpless, authorities say Tar was plotting to silence him forever.
01:36:15
A grand jury indicted Tar on two counts of solicitation of murder. Those charges
01:36:22
are based on allegations by an inmate who says Tar paid him $10,000 to shoot and kill the lead detective.
01:36:31
And Chris, >> did you ask a inmate to shoot Chris Smith? >> No, ma'am. >> And to kill Detective Roach?
01:36:42
>> No, ma'am. >> Tar says the alleged plot was a lie concocted by a former cellmate. Tar says
01:36:50
he loaned that cellmate $10,000 for his bond and that it had nothing to do with Chris Smith. Were you worried he was
01:36:59
going to testify and point to you as a shooter? >> No, I was not worried one iota.
01:37:05
>> The truth was that no one knew what Chris Smith remembered. The first time he regained consciousness was in early
01:37:13
January 2022, about 2 months after the shooting. >> Like eggs. >> Chris's voice was so weak in those early
01:37:24
days. It's already done over there. >> That is old friend Mark Rearen, a talk show host in St. Louis.
01:37:32
>> 522 971 FM talk >> barely recognized Chris on the phone. >> I could not believe that I was hearing
01:37:39
from this guy and I cried. He cried. Just talking about that moment really brings me chills because I just thought
01:37:47
he was never going to be someone that was in my life ever again. >> What did Chris tell you? Well, when
01:37:53
Chris came on of this, I was pretty sensitive to ask him about what had happened that night because I think I
01:37:59
was a little afraid of even having those conversations. So, most of the conversations that we had were really
01:38:03
focused on, hey, how are you? Are you going to be okay? >> After intense physical therapy, he's
01:38:09
made incredible strides. He's much stronger than when he awoke from a coma, but he discovered there are gaps in his
01:38:18
memory. What does he remember from that terrible night? >> I wish to God I could remember
01:38:25
something. I mean, even just a a smidgen of something, but I remember nothing. >> He remembers nothing of the shooting or
01:38:34
Leslie Reeves. >> I said, "Who the heck's Leslie? I don't know Leslie." >> You had no idea.
01:38:41
>> No, nothing. >> Nothing. >> Nothing. >> Is Chris the same person who used to come on your show before he was shot?
01:38:47
>> Yeah. I think at the core, he's still the same guy that I knew. He's still the
01:38:53
smartass. He's still the guy that's going to talk about how good he is and how good he was and how much he could
01:38:58
lift weights. >> Chris works out at the gym most mornings trying to regain muscle so that someday
01:39:05
he'll be able to walk without assistance. >> Straight curve. >> He's even back to being the lead singer
01:39:14
in his rock and roll band. I don't know how he did make it. I don't understand how he did. He's a miracle.
01:39:23
>> But Chris is aware his life is very different from what it once was. So I'm half the man I used to be, but I'm
01:39:31
trying to get it back as hard as I can. And then my left leg is uh partially paralyzed from my hip to my knee, then
01:39:37
from my knee to my toes completely paralyzed. So if there's any neuros out there, any researchers out there, please
01:39:44
get a hold of me. I'll be your guinea pig. Just make me normal and give me my life back, please.
01:39:49
>> It's tough, isn't it, Chris? >> It tough. Doesn't even describe it. Doesn't even describe it.
01:39:56
>> Chris is resigned to living with part of that hollow point bullet in his brain.
01:40:01
Doctors say it's in a spot that makes it too dangerous to remove. >> So, that's where you got shot?
01:40:08
>> Yep. Right here. There's a Yep. You still feel it in my skull? Right there. After decades on his own, Chris had to
01:40:16
move back into his mother's house. >> I thank my blessings daily that he's here with us. I just wish that this guy
01:40:25
didn't take everything away from him. >> Chris visits with his loyal dog, Tikki,
01:40:29
but no longer lives with her. And he'd love to see his 12-year-old daughter more often, but he can't drive, and he's
01:40:37
living in St. Louis, almost 2 hours away from his daughter and ex-wife. I miss her. She was my little pee in the pot. I
01:40:45
mean, we did everything together. >> The trial of Robert Tar was set for April 2024, but Chris would not be
01:40:53
there. He told the prosecutor he was too angry to attend. >> You didn't think you'd be able to just
01:40:59
sit there. >> Oh, no. No way. I I know myself. I There's no way. No. >> But Chris's alleged shooter, Bobby Tar,
01:41:06
will be there. and he said he was eager to tell the jury that he's not a violent
01:41:12
man. But on this one night early morning, did you snap? >> No, that's not my nature. I don't lose it.
01:41:22
Snap. [Music] When Bobby Tar went on trial in April 2024, prosecutors told the jury that he killed
01:41:42
Leslie Reeves rather than allow her to live the life she wanted, a life without him.
01:41:49
>> Mr. Tar couldn't deal with the fact that Leslie was seeing somebody else and he
01:41:56
had to go and take care of it. >> Andrew Ephronty says Tar secretly followed Leslie to Farmersville early
01:42:03
that evening and shortly afterwards his phone began showing some interesting activity.
01:42:10
>> He had actually searched Chris Smith on his phone and tried to find his Facebook
01:42:15
profile. Tar headed home and texted his friend Billy Adams. I don't feel like she would
01:42:22
drive that far for a party or go out with a girlfriend. I think it's for a dude. He also searched whether police
01:42:30
could track his phone if he was using a VPN, a virtual private network. >> He was researching to determine whether
01:42:39
or not that would mask where his location was while he was using the phone. Authorities say around midnight tar left
01:42:48
home stopping at that gas station and then according to a fronti surveillance videos and cell tower records show that
01:42:56
tar drove back to farmersville. You believe he intended to kill both Chris and Leslie?
01:43:05
>> I 100% believe that he went up there with the intent to do serious harm to both of them. With one victim dead and
01:43:15
the other with no memory, it's difficult to say with certainty what happened, but
01:43:21
the prosecution argued that sometime after 1:00 a.m., Bobby Tar tried to enter through the back door of Christmas
01:43:29
house. Leslie and Chris tried to keep him out. >> There was some kind of altercation or
01:43:36
struggle, and that's when the glass was broken. Crime scene investigator Josh Eastston
01:43:44
told the jury what he had observed inside the kitchen. >> The refrigerator was pulled away from
01:43:50
the wall where it appeared it normally was. >> Prosecutors believe Leslie was trying to
01:43:55
use the refrigerator to block the door. And based on where Chris was shot in his
01:44:01
head, they think he was crouching down to help Leslie. I think that while Chris was crouched
01:44:10
down trying to hold the door shut, Bobby shot through the door and struck Chris.
01:44:14
>> With Chris incapacitated, Aphrante says Leslie hid in the living room. Tar tracked her down, shot, and killed her.
01:44:25
>> I strongly believe that he walked in and executed her. >> Defense attorney Dan Folultz disputes
01:44:31
all of that. There is simply no evidence that that's what happened. There's no evidence that Leslie pushed the
01:44:37
refrigerator. There's no fingerprints and blood on the refrigerator of Leslie's.
01:44:42
>> Folult says evidence of a fight in the kitchen tells a different story. >> The amount of blood in that kitchen was
01:44:50
astonishing. >> From looking at that crime scene, do you believe that Christopher Smith had to
01:44:57
fight his his asalent in the kitchen? It would appear to me that there was some significant struggle in that
01:45:04
kitchen between him and someone else. >> And he says the asalent could not have been Bobby Tar because he would have
01:45:11
been covered in blood. >> They did not identify a single piece of DNA in his car. They didn't identify a
01:45:21
bloody fingerprint. They did not identify anything tying him to that crime scene. But prosecutors argued the
01:45:28
house wasn't bloody when Tar left. They said Chris bled heavily in the 12 hours it took for help to arrive. And while
01:45:37
the prosecution did not have a lot of forensic evidence linking Tar to the crime scene, a fronti says his phone
01:45:45
activity, his lies to investigators and the evidence found on the Hellcat all prove his guilt. When you put all of
01:45:54
that together, that's when you get the clear picture of what happened. >> When it was the defense's turn, Tar says
01:46:00
he wanted to tell his story to the jury, but he chose not to testify. Why didn't you just decide you were
01:46:09
going to talk to the jury and tell this story if in fact you have a story to tell?
01:46:14
>> I should have. I very well should have. We made a strategic decision because it
01:46:20
may have opened the door for a whole lot of other more damaging evidence to be used uh to cross-examine him.
01:46:27
>> The defense didn't put on any witnesses and counted on the jury to find reasonable doubt in the lack of physical
01:46:35
evidence. After 3 hours, the jury found Bobby Tar guilty of first-degree murder and
01:46:44
attempted murder. Everyone clapped and Bobby just sat there shaking his head. >> Two months later, Tar was back in court
01:46:54
for sentencing and this time so was Chris to tell the judge how the shooting impacted him and his family. Cameras
01:47:04
were not allowed in the courtroom. >> Lost my house, lost my truck. I've literally lost my life without being
01:47:11
killed. Tar also spoke and denied shooting Leslie and Chris. The judge sentenced
01:47:18
him to 85 years. >> I hope the rest of his time on this earth is hell. [Music] >> Leslie Reeves friends are focused on
01:47:30
keeping her memory alive. >> She was a light of a lot of people's lives. She was always smiling. She was a
01:47:40
very good mother. lived for her kids and was an advocate and champion of women, women's rights, and especially women
01:47:50
that were abused. >> If it can happen to her, it could happen to anyone. So, we all need to be
01:47:58
careful. >> Chris Smith says he never expected he'd be a victim of domestic violence and
01:48:04
cautions other men to take a hard look at their behavior. If guys, you feel like that you want you want to hurt a
01:48:11
woman, get help. >> While Chris mourns his old life, he's writing a book about his experiences and
01:48:22
says he's working to make what he calls poor man's margaritas out of the lemons and limes he's been handed.
01:48:30
>> I've got a doover. Good Lord, give me a doover. Not many people get a second chance in life.
01:48:36
Chris has found love with Michelle Alrech. >> She's an angel. Loving me and accepting
01:48:42
me the way that I am. >> He proposed to her on stage. >> I just asked her if she buried me. Guys,
01:48:50
>> what's the most important lesson out of all of this? >> Don't ever give up on anything. Ever. No
01:48:56
matter how bad things are, don't ever give up. [Music] The search for her killer went cold.
01:49:14
>> Investigators took DNA evidence. They could not find who it belonged to. >> Can a clue from the past
01:49:19
>> I can see a footprint in blood >> solve the crime? >> These belong to the killer. The
01:49:23
footprints defined the path of this case. >> 48 hours is all new. CBS next in streaming on Paramount Plus.
01:49:40
If I can come back from a deathbed and survive this and defy medical odds and create medical
01:49:49
history or rewrite medical history, [Music] anybody can come back and achieve anything in life. No matter how bleak
01:49:56
things look in life, there's always a sun rising on the other side. [Music] If you are seeking inspiration, look no
01:50:07
further than Chris Smith. His is a story of resilience and recovery. Back in November of 2021, Chris was on a first
01:50:16
date with a woman named Leslie Reeves. Now, they had gone back to his house when Leslie's ex-boyfriend, Bobby Tar,
01:50:25
forced his way inside and shot them both. Leslie died, but Chris miraculously survived a bullet wound to
01:50:33
his head. He lay comeomaosse in the hospital for several weeks before waking up. And when he did, he had no memory of
01:50:42
what happened that night. So, how did Chris defy the medical odds and survive the unthinkable? I'm Natalie Morales of
01:50:50
48 Hours and this is It Could Have Been Me. [Music] You're going to be hearing from Chris in
01:50:57
just a few minutes, but first I would like to introduce producer Paul Rosa. He knows this case well. He worked on this
01:51:04
story uh for an episode of 48 hours with correspondent Aaron Morardi. Paul, so good to have you join us today on what
01:51:11
is such an incredible story of survival and real grit. >> Great to be here because Chris is one of
01:51:17
the most um interesting and resilient people I've ever met. I know he really touched you and had an impact on our
01:51:24
entire 48 hours team. Walk me through Paul what happened on that night, November 24th, 2021.
01:51:33
>> Right. So, um it was the day before Thanksgiving, the evening before Thanksgiving, and Chris and Lesie had
01:51:40
met on Facebook as people do these days. Um they never met in person before this
01:51:46
night, but they had texted with each other. They had spoken on the phone to each other and there was sympotico in a
01:51:53
number of ways mostly because they were really into physical fitness and um Leslie ran a Pilates studio, yoga
01:52:00
studio. She taught women self-defense and Chris was in the best shape of his life when this shooting happened. But
01:52:07
anyway, the night before Thanksgiving is traditionally a night when people go out
01:52:11
drinking and that's exactly what they did. Um Chris said, "Why don't you come up to Farmersville, which was about an
01:52:17
hour from where Leslie lived and um she was in Troy, Illinois. They both had kids and uh Leslie's kids were with her
01:52:26
ex that evening. And the same with Chris. So they were without their children. And Chris had a big house and
01:52:33
he told Leslie, "You can sleep in one of the bedrooms if we got drinking too much, whatever." And that was the plan.
01:52:38
She told her girlfriends where she was going to be. She gave them the address because after all she never met this
01:52:44
guy. But they went out drinking to a place called the Uptown Saloon. And then they went to a second bar. Everything
01:52:50
was hunky dory. Then they went to Chris's nearby house. >> Yeah, Paul. Because I understand at some
01:52:55
point Leslie's ex-boyfriend, Bobby Tar. He started to follow them and and showed
01:53:02
up at Chris's house. Right. >> Right. No one knows what really happened except Bobby Tar who was convicted of
01:53:10
the crime because Leslie is dead and Chris remembers nothing from that night. So, it's
01:53:16
difficult for investigators to know exactly what happened. But what they what the evidence reveals happened is
01:53:23
Bobby Tar tried to push his way in. He Leslie spotted him through the glass side door. She moved her refrigerator,
01:53:32
police believe, in front of the door to try to block him. He was able to maneuver the door part of the way open.
01:53:40
Chris was crouched down trying to push the door with his shoulder and his weight and um Bobby Tar shot him in the
01:53:46
head. According to police, Chris went down. Tar walked in. Leslie ran into the living room, hid behind a Christmas
01:53:54
tree, and according to the prosecutors, Bobby Tar walked in, shot Leslie one time right in the top of the head.
01:54:01
>> I mean, it's so horrific. Um, the timeline, I understand, is a little unclear as well, but we know it was
01:54:07
sometime in the very early morning hours, though. >> It was around 1:00 a.m. when this all
01:54:13
this mayhem occurred, according to investigators. And uh Leslie and Chris's friends and family were concerned when
01:54:21
they didn't hear from them the next morning. Now it's Thanksgiving morning. Both of them had plans to go to
01:54:26
Thanksgiving dinner at, you know, separate locations. And when the friends didn't hear from Leslie in particular,
01:54:33
um you know, she had a bunch of girlfriends who she who knew she was dating, knew Bobby Tar, knew that Bobby
01:54:39
Tar had stalked her before. Just a month before Tar had shown up at another first
01:54:45
date that Leslie was having. They were concerned. They knew the address. In particular, a friend named Nanet Styber
01:54:53
decided, "I can't raise her on the phone. I'm driving there." So, she drove an hour up to Farmersville. On the way,
01:55:00
she called the local sheriff's office. At the same time, a 16-year-old girl who knew Chris
01:55:08
showed up at the scene. So this young girl named Bjon Smith, she walked over to the side door. She saw blood
01:55:16
everywhere. She saw Chris on the floor. She immediately called 911. And we have a recording of that phone call.
01:55:23
>> Nobody's answering the door and and the back window shattered and there's a body
01:55:27
and there's blood on the stove and there's a foot I saw on the floor. Chris, however, was still alive, which I
01:55:36
mean, barely alive, which is truly miraculous. >> Yes. And um Farmersville being the small
01:55:42
town it is, the first two medics who appeared were friends of Chris and he knew them well. And you know, of course,
01:55:49
they were, you know, horrified themselves. Here's their buddy. And uh with Chris was his faithful dog, Tikki.
01:55:56
Tikki is a female dog. um very loyal to Chris and Tikki huddled with Chris according to people at the scene and
01:56:07
probably saved his life because the glass door was broken so a lot of cold air was coming in and um this medic
01:56:16
decided um that he didn't want to wait for a helicopter to get there. He put Chris in the ambulance with another
01:56:24
medic and he drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital. Again, timing is everything. Probably helped to save
01:56:31
Chris's life. >> Mhm. And let's take a listen now to what investigator Josh Eastston said when he
01:56:38
described the scene to you and to correspondent Aaron Morardi. >> I was overwhelmed when I saw the
01:56:44
kitchen. >> What do you mean? >> There was just so much blood and it was it was everywhere. There was not a spot
01:56:51
on the kitchen floor that didn't have blood on it. >> And what does that say to you?
01:56:55
>> That I don't know what went on on there, but it was it was horrible. For Chris,
01:57:01
it was unescribable. Without you being there, I I can't even make you understand how bad it was. Josh
01:57:09
Eastston, who is with the Illinois State Police, it's his job to catalog all the
01:57:14
evidence. um go in and sure enough, I mean, we talked about the blood, but in the middle of that, there were also two
01:57:22
shell casings, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. There was no murder weapon. So, that of course told them
01:57:29
that someone else had to have been involved, a third person. And we know um you know investigators were quickly able
01:57:37
to identify an a person of interest, Bobby Tar, because the friends had already told them that Leslie had a
01:57:47
stalker and it was her ex-boyfriend Bobby Tar. How soon after then was he arrested, Paul?
01:57:53
>> Well, this investigation unfolded rapidly. They find his license, a registration where he lives, and they
01:58:00
put that license into the license plate readers up and down the highway. Um, one
01:58:06
of the hits was near a gas station. They went there, they found a receipt where he had paid for gas at a certain time
01:58:13
that night. So, they began sort of creating a timeline of his movements before they even spoke to him. um they
01:58:22
were able to um later on get his cell phone records as well. Remember this happened, the shooting at 1:00 a.m. By
01:58:31
8:00 p.m. that evening, just hours later, um they were going to Bobby Tar's house and asking him if he would agree
01:58:39
to be questioned and he submitted to the uh interrogation. They put him under arrest at about it was the it was the
01:58:47
next day. It was the morning after Thanksgiving >> and he was arraigned on those murder
01:58:51
charges and attempted murder charges. Um to this day though he maintains his innocence.
01:58:58
>> That's right. He um Bobby Ar likes to pretend to be the like what what h me me. He likes to pretend that you know he
01:59:07
never did anything wrong. Well, this episode of course is not about Bobby Tar, but it is about the survivor
01:59:14
himself, Chris Smith, and his remarkable recovery. You'll hear from Chris when we
01:59:19
come back. [Music] >> So, let's hear from Chris Smith himself. Chris, welcome. It is such an honor to
01:59:35
meet you. >> Thank you. And likewise. Now, Chris and Paul, I understand you guys text each
01:59:40
other weekly, right? >> Yeah, I kind of know him. Yeah, I uh I ask a lot of advice from him, actually.
01:59:46
>> Yeah. And he's he you know, Chris is a terrific guy, as you'll see. >> And and Chris, I know that you actually
01:59:53
wrote a book about your survival and the incredible odds in your recovery. Yes. Um it's called My Fatal First Date is
02:00:01
now available for purchase. and you explained to the readers that your story really is a journey of blood, sweat, and
02:00:09
tears. You've had to work really hard to get where you are today. Tell us about the injuries you sustained and where
02:00:16
exactly the injury was. If you can point to it. >> Well, actually, it's kind of hard with
02:00:20
the earphones on, but the bolt went in about 5 in above my ear, straight the top of my head. And as you know, Paul
02:00:28
said, I'm sure you all have talked about I don't remember anything of that night.
02:00:31
I don't remember Lesie. I was told that we met on Facebook, >> which I find really interesting because
02:00:36
they spoke on the phone and texted 2 weeks before the incident. But it's interesting how the brain works. It just
02:00:44
excised Leslie out of his brain. Now, see, I do remember some stuff, you know, like I remember past my neighbor's house
02:00:50
on the drive home that afternoon. I remember some stuff from October and then like basically I want to say from
02:00:56
like the beginning beginning of November on to the shooting I don't remember much
02:01:01
if that makes any sense. So it's like my brain cut out the whole month. Go figure. I don't know. It's very odd.
02:01:06
>> I mean when you talk about where you were shot and and how long you were in your kitchen and on the kitchen floor
02:01:11
and were able to survive with blood and everything all around you. Um, I know they had to remove part of your skull,
02:01:18
but they weren't able to get the entire bullet out, right? >> No, it's still 9 mm hollow point is
02:01:25
actually still right behind my right eye. And they say it's a fragment, but it's actually the whole thing. What what
02:01:30
what they say fragment, what fragmented was my actual skull fragmented. That's what they're picking out of my brain was
02:01:36
my skull, not the actual bolt. The bolt never moved and it's lodged right here in my frontal lobe. And I mean, I should
02:01:42
still be in a coma, still be b I should be bedridden on a ventilator with severe
02:01:47
cognitive deficits. And the doctors are perplexed by that. I want to play some of the sound from your doctor, Dr.
02:01:53
Victor Williams. Aaron Moriardi asked him about your chances of survival after the shooting.
02:01:59
>> So, all the odds kind of were against him when he arrived at the hospital. >> It would appear so.
02:02:04
>> But he managed to survive. >> It's a blessing and a miracle that he did. They don't have an explanation,
02:02:11
right, Chris? >> No, they don't. No, they don't. >> What's your explanation? >> Well, um I call it divine intervention.
02:02:18
And two of my worst traits before I was shot, stubbornness and impatience are not my best attributes
02:02:24
>> cuz and then I'll never forget the day I woke up from the coma, I met Dr. Williams. He came in and he said,
02:02:29
"Chris, I know your family. I know your sister. My sister's a neuro telemetry nurse and she actually worked for him on
02:02:36
the floor that I was at." And he said, "But I hate to tell you, I'm not going to BS you. You're never going to walk
02:02:42
again." And I sat there, started tearing up and I mean, just had a lump in my throat and felt like someone punched me
02:02:48
in my gut. And I sat there and I thought about it for a second and I looked at him and I said, "Victor, you just told
02:02:52
the wrong person he can't do something because I'm going to do it out of spite to prove you wrong."
02:02:56
>> And now you're walking again. >> Yes, I'll be with a cane. I can walk without one now. But I kind of look like
02:03:03
a zombie. But um I will get back there. I am. I'm determined to. I have to, as I
02:03:08
told Paul before, hey, life gives us lemon and limes. You've got to dig down deep with that tequila and that sugar
02:03:12
water, make poor man's margaritas, and just suck it up, pull your bootstraps up, work your tail off, and you can
02:03:19
accomplish anything, overcome anything, exceeded anything, and be unstoppable, too.
02:03:23
>> Yeah. And I know we were talking uh about what you do and don't remember uh about that that night and what happened
02:03:32
when you were asked then about Leslie. Do you remember what you said? Well, when I woke up from my coma, I
02:03:39
mean, I look up. I'm like, I have tubes on me, oxygen. I look on the wall and it
02:03:45
says to Paul Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri. And I'm like, wait, what the? And I started yelling and screaming. The
02:03:52
nurses came rushing in. Chris, calm down. Calm down. I'm like, what am I doing here? What happened? And the one
02:03:57
nurse says, Leslie's ex-boyfriend shot you. And I said, who the f is a Lesie? I don't know Lesie. Because I didn't know
02:04:03
I didn't know her. I really didn't. Um, I want to go back to, you know, what what perhaps allowed you to get through
02:04:10
this in the best possible way. Not just, of course, the incredible acts of your friends, the medics who transported you
02:04:18
to the hospital. They knew they didn't have the time to spare, but then also, you know, the fact that your family,
02:04:25
your sister, as you said, worked with the doctor, was there along your side. I know your family had to help pull you
02:04:31
through as well. Can you talk about them? My sister saw some fight in me and I started in the ICU when they started
02:04:37
coming out of the coma. They tried to medically put me in a coma, medically induced coma, which they did succeed to
02:04:43
do that, but there she saw life in me. I mean, I was saying this craziest things.
02:04:50
I wanted my truck keys in my jacket and I thought I was going to walk out of there. Now you if it's on my YouTube,
02:04:55
but you can barely understand what I'm saying, but I mean it's like a comedian was born. I wanted vitamin D, red cap,
02:05:01
whole milk. I swear it was under my bed in rumchada. I've never drank rum chada in my entire life. Why? The only thing I
02:05:07
could think of was maybe that night it was on a bar or something like that. I mean, our brains are so mysterious. They
02:05:14
don't know enough about them. They really need to do more brain research. >> I know you call it your ICU comedy
02:05:19
special because the way you were reacting when you came out of that coma. >> Yes, it was crazy. But I mean, I didn't
02:05:25
like to fully become conscious until they transferred me to St. Louis, you know, January 12th. I I've seen and I
02:05:32
know I mean I've seen glimpses of that sense of humor and I know that uh you actually have a funny nickname that you
02:05:39
went by with Paul on a on a text, right? What did you call yourself? >> Bullet boy.
02:05:44
>> Hey, it's me Bullet Boy. At that point, I had talked to him like once on the phone and you know I'm conditioned to
02:05:50
treat victims very seriously and like you know I know he was shot in the head and you know I want to give him due
02:05:55
respect and all that and I wasn't going to joke around with him but he was joking around on his own. Yeah, I mean
02:06:01
my sense of humor has been one of the best healing mechanisms I've had and I've never lost that.
02:06:06
>> That's a good thing because I think it's a survival and a coping mechanism that
02:06:10
everybody needs when they go through such horrific trauma and tragedy. Um, going back to when you were able to get
02:06:18
out of the hospital though, Chris, that was February of 2022. M. So, I know you had to move in uh with
02:06:25
your mom and and your stepdad because you really couldn't take care of yourself the way you wanted to and that
02:06:31
you lost your home at the time. >> Yeah. I mean, it it sucked, but it is what it is. You know, I had to do what I
02:06:38
had to do. And, you know, luckily enough that my parents are my mom's cool still.
02:06:42
She'll be 70 in July, you know, so we're like only 17 years apart, but uh 17 and
02:06:48
a half. >> Got to add that half on there. So, you know, I'm I'm very fortunate and I love
02:06:53
my stepdad to death, you know. So, I mean, I'm very lucky. >> Paul, I know you've met them as well.
02:06:58
>> Yeah, he has a great family. I've met his uh mother, his stepfather, and his sister. And, you know, his sister is
02:07:04
very intelligent and she's a nurse and um beautiful person. And the stepfather's very friendly and has two
02:07:12
big dogs that run around the house. And that's one reason, by the way, that Tikki uh was no long is no longer living
02:07:21
with Chris. Tikki the dog that helped Yes. >> protect his life. Tikki is with a neighbor.
02:07:27
>> Yeah, I was wondering about that, Chris. I mean, do you feel that Tiki might have
02:07:31
helped save your life that night? >> Definitely. They don't understand how I live. There's so much blood I lost, but
02:07:36
she was laying right there cuddled up next to me the whole time. So, she's a great dog.
02:07:42
>> And I think there was some evidence as well. Was it on your chest that she had
02:07:46
tried to get on you? >> Yes. Her little little pile marks are right there. Yeah.
02:07:51
>> Just >> We didn't I guess no one knew what that was at the beginning and then he figured
02:07:56
it out or his family figured out. >> She was just trying to wake her daddy up. >> By the way, I don't know if we ever
02:08:01
mentioned it, but he was there for about 12 hours laying on the kitchen floor before anyone found him.
02:08:06
>> Yes. In April of 2024 though, um we know that that's when Bobby Tar's trial happened.
02:08:16
>> You were you there? >> No, I did not go. >> His family was there. Um and they told
02:08:21
him every day what was happening and he another reason Chris didn't go, he could
02:08:27
tell you himself, is that he said his anger would not let him go. He was afraid of what he might do if he was in
02:08:34
the courtroom. You could tell them yourself, Chris. >> Yeah. What I I mean I said I'd take him
02:08:39
out one, you know, one hand, one arm. I mean it's like what he did is the most cowardly act anybody can do.
02:08:45
>> But we should say that you were there for the sentencing and you got a chance
02:08:49
to give an impact statement. >> Yes, I did. >> And um how did it feel to be in the same
02:08:53
courtroom with Bobby Tar? >> It I mean the guy's a piece of dirt, you know? I mean he's a a sorry excuse for a
02:09:01
human being. >> You talked about the fact that Tar killed you without killing you. What did
02:09:06
you mean by that? >> He took he took my life from me. He affected so many other people. My
02:09:10
family, my little girl, my son. I mean, my friends, I mean, they've had to suffer with me through my recovery.
02:09:18
>> We cannot forget the victim here as well, Leslie Reeves, and what her family has had to go through and endure as
02:09:24
well. Just horrific the tragedy. >> I mean, it makes you grateful for what everything you have, you know.
02:09:30
>> Absolutely. Absolutely. You are the living testament of that. Now, um Chris though, we when when Bobby Tar was found
02:09:37
guilty on four counts, including first-degree murder and attempted murder, what was your reaction to the
02:09:43
verdict? >> I was happy, but I wish they had a death penalty and only, but I mean, he he
02:09:47
won't be he won't get out till he's 104 years old, and he's not going to live that long,
02:09:52
>> right? Sentenced to 85 years in prison. Um what was truly shocking though is even after Bobby Tar is convicted, he's
02:10:00
in prison. Then you come to find out that he there was a solicitation of murder on you.
02:10:09
>> The story goes, according to prosecutors and his defense attorney, that Bobby Tar
02:10:13
had solicited an inmate to go to the hospital room where Chris was recovering and shoot him. We are told by
02:10:20
prosecutors that some money did change hands. So he tar was indicted, but the charges were ultimately dropped for
02:10:27
various reasons. The biggest reason being that Tar is in jail or prison for 85 years and it seems to be no point in
02:10:37
having another trial and maybe another sentence. 85 years is a lifetime sentence for Tar.
02:10:42
>> Correct. Yes. >> You still have um some recovery ahead of you, right? >> Yes, I do. Yes. Um I have been doing
02:10:49
it's called menusal stem cell transplants, MSC's. They harvest stem cells from either my pelvic bone right
02:10:59
and left side now. But um and then they shoot them up your into your your nose up to the vessel supplying your brain.
02:11:07
So I mean it's not FDA approved yet, but it should be here shortly because it has
02:11:12
restored a lot of my function to my left hand side. I'm not running yet, but Paul
02:11:17
knows it will be someday. Hopefully sooner than later. >> Physically, I've seen changes. when he
02:11:21
first started. By the way, Chris is still the lead singer in his rock and roll band. That's true. He used to play
02:11:27
guitar. He can't play guitar anymore, but when I s first saw him performing, he has he always had a great voice. He's
02:11:34
a good singer, but he his left arm would shake like crazy like this. And we would
02:11:40
joke that he would joke that he should put a tambourine in it and try to keep beat so it wouldn't look so odd when he
02:11:47
was singing because it would just never stop moving. Now, of course, it's pretty
02:11:51
steady, and I've seen recent video of him performing, and he looks better than ever. His arm doesn't shake. He's
02:11:59
standing more. He occasionally he would sit in his wheelchair and sing, but the last clip I saw, he was standing the
02:12:06
whole time and arm was steady. >> Well, it's great to see you singing again and still performing with your
02:12:11
band. I hear though there is another woman in your life who has >> really become your angel. You have
02:12:20
fallen in love again. Tell me about her. >> We uh Michelle and I met. It'll be two
02:12:24
years this June and we've got a house together and Yeah, I'm starting over again. You know, starting over.
02:12:30
>> You're engaged to be married now? Yes, we are. >> When are you going to get married?
02:12:33
>> We're looking at this fall. >> Mhm. >> Oh, amazing. What led you to write the
02:12:38
book? >> Well, I told Paul I had no intention of writing a book. Everybody from day one's
02:12:43
like, "You've got to write a book. You got to write a book. You got to write a book." Well, throughout my recovery,
02:12:47
people have been reaching out to me, you know, from all over the world through Facebook, I mean, through other social
02:12:54
media outlets and whatnot. And I was like, you know what? I can do it. I can do it. I'll I basically wrote it like I
02:13:01
was sitting down having a conversation with somebody like I'm talking to you right now, you know, just telling my
02:13:07
story, all the intimate details that 48 hours couldn't cover, you know, in the first run. And that's what I've done. I
02:13:14
was like, I put my thumb to my iPhone because I can't I can't type. I hate saying the word can't. I'm unable to
02:13:20
type. So, I literally wrote my whole book on my iPhone 14. All typing with my thumb. And just my message is to inspire
02:13:31
people, motivate people, and show everybody no matter how bleak things look in life, there's always silver
02:13:37
lining. And you can always dig yourself out of the hole. you can accomplish and achieve anything that you want as long
02:13:42
as you put your mind to it and work your tail off. >> For those who are struggling in their
02:13:46
lives, do you have some advice you'll share? What's your perspective that you tell them?
02:13:52
>> Life is too precious to ever give up on anything. We don't know how many grains
02:13:56
we have left in our hourglass. Don't ever give up on anything. Love your family. Love your kids. Love your
02:14:02
friends because you don't know when your last you know the last grain will fall.
02:14:07
But just live life to the fullest. Have fun, laugh, don't take things too serious.
02:14:14
I mean, I'm not the wisest person in the world, but I have learned a lot of wisdom throughout this whole situation.
02:14:19
>> Chris, you are truly one of the most remarkable people I've spoken with. So, you know, well done on on all that
02:14:27
you've done to not only thrive and survive, but you are out there spreading your message and giving inspiration to
02:14:35
so many. So, we thank you so much for that. Thank you so much. >> And Paul, thank you also for joining us,
02:14:42
>> of course. >> And thanks to you all for listening and watching. And you can find and follow It
02:14:47
Could Have Been Me in the 48 hours podcast feed. It is on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
02:14:55
And if you liked this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
02:15:01
[Music] It is farm country, horse country, [Music] bucolic, upwardly global wealthy type of community. We uh flew
02:15:39
in. It's a quiet place. >> Tiny unassuming house. Just a a simple farmhouse. >> Colts Neck has a lot of these.
02:15:56
>> Yes. this beautiful little farmhouse with this beautiful farm star, you know, in
02:16:03
the middle of it. In July of 2013, I was an assistant prosecutor in Mammoth County, New
02:16:14
Jersey. Donna and Shako was alone. She had just gone to bed for the evening. An intruder came into her house and
02:16:27
attacked her, stabbing her repeatedly. >> 911. Where's emergency? >> Oh, my name is Don Chuck. I just got
02:16:35
stabbed. >> Where are you? >> Really bad. >> Kid just came in and stabbed me. >> My heart.
02:16:46
>> I'm pouring gushing blood. >> Okay, I'm losing consciousness. Keep your eyes open.
02:16:56
>> Donna, Donna, >> I was driving home. It was maybe like 3:00 in the morning, 3:30.
02:17:11
As I pulled up closer, I saw big SUVs, cop cars, lights flashing everywhere. I was like, "Where is my mom?"
02:17:27
And they were like, "Well, she has been attacked and she's on her way to the hospital."
02:17:35
They couldn't tell me whether she was alive or she wasn't. I was new into major crimes. I didn't
02:17:47
have the experience at some of the older detectives. So, I had never seen that much blood in before.
02:17:54
>> Why would somebody do this? Who did this? What did she ever do to anybody? You
02:18:00
know, >> on that night in the early morning hours, we got a 911 call from a worker
02:18:08
from this restaurant. >> About how far from Donna's house are we standing right here? This is about an
02:18:16
8minute drive. They called because they saw a subject walking through their drive-thru.
02:18:22
>> I have any detention, please. >> One of my customers were in drive-thru were approached by a man with no shirt
02:18:28
but had a knife in his hand >> knocking on windows carrying a knife. One of the witnesses who saw the young
02:18:36
man, she agreed to come in and give us a sketch. >> Everybody was asking about the police
02:18:42
sketch. It was in every store. People were frightened. >> Can you tell me about the tip?
02:18:51
>> I get a call. The woman on the other end says that she's calling about the stabbing in Colts neck. She said, "I
02:18:58
think my cousin may have something to do with that. [Music] [Music] Tiny Colts Neck, New Jersey sits just 50
02:19:52
miles from New York City, but it might as well be a world away. So, in July 2013, this quiet community
02:20:02
was rocked by news of a violent home invasion where the victim was stabbed repeatedly.
02:20:10
The only thing more shocking, >> my name is Donna Angaco. >> The victim survived.
02:20:17
>> I lost in in total close to 3/4 of the blood in my body. [Music] There's no earthly reason why I'm alive.
02:20:28
None. If I had asked you at the time to give me a list of a hundred things you're worried about, where would a home
02:20:34
invasion been? >> Oh, no. Never. >> Donna worked for a company that brokered fuel for ships on the nearby Jersey
02:20:45
Shore. She and her daughter Kirsten lived in this farmhouse on the edge of flower
02:20:51
fields. >> She was 20 when she had me, so we're only 20 years and one day apart. friend
02:20:58
Sharon Sharp hired Donna decades ago. >> Kirsten had just been born. >> Yeah, Kirsten was a baby. I thought she
02:21:06
was really brave being a single mom, very young. [Music] >> I was by her side all the time.
02:21:18
>> Kirsten, who now works as a welder, recalls what life was like just prior to her mother's attack. We were going to
02:21:27
the gym multiple times a week. Not only was she like mentally strong, but she was physically strong.
02:21:33
>> She was so fit. She did tough mutters with uh Kirsten. >> I like that competition. I like to show
02:21:39
strength, uh physical strength. Things couldn't have been any better at that time.
02:21:49
>> That's when Saturday of July 4th weekend rolled around. Mammoth County Detective
02:21:54
Andrea Tazzy says they were having a heat wave. >> It was humid, but we had no rain or
02:21:59
anything like that. I mean, it was a dry night. >> So, Donna >> had her windows open. Yes, she had her
02:22:06
windows open just to cir obviously to circulate air. >> Kirsten was out at a party.
02:22:16
So, I was home doing laundry. I'd say about 11, 11:30. Um, I decide I'm going to get
02:22:24
ready for bed. Um, I let the cat out. I went brushed my teeth. >> But just as she was drifting off to
02:22:34
sleep, >> I heard what I thought was the cat. I heard something. And I remembered, oh, I
02:22:39
forgot to let the cat in. >> Without turning on any lights, Donna headed downstairs to open the front door
02:22:47
for her cat. But instead, when I opened the door, I saw someone standing there. In the split second after seeing this
02:22:58
person on my porch, I saw the knife. He was trying to cut into the screen of the window that was right next to the
02:23:07
front door. >> She says she didn't recognize the young white male standing right in front of
02:23:12
her holding a large knife. >> I tried to slam and shut the door. my fingers were protruding out. He stuck
02:23:21
the knife through the opening and cut my finger. Um, so that I immediately let go
02:23:27
of the door and then he pushed his way in. I'm backing into my kitchen. We're face
02:23:33
to face. It didn't register to me that he was actually going to stab me. >> But without a word, that's exactly what
02:23:43
the stranger did. He slashed my cheek and you can see that here and actually it starts back here.
02:23:53
There was no way to process that that happened. Donna's attacker came at her with the
02:24:00
knife again. >> He then slashed three times on the side of my neck. >> She tried grabbing the knife but only
02:24:09
cut her own hand in the process. Did you feel like you were dealing with somebody
02:24:13
who was really strong? No, but I felt like he was very sure, like he was very in control of himself.
02:24:23
>> Donna was starting to weaken from the injuries. >> I felt like my legs were going to give
02:24:29
out, so I braced myself against the corner of um my bathroom right next to the front door.
02:24:37
>> Sure enough, she slid down to the floor. I was in fetal position and I'm bleeding
02:24:43
and he came over and it was kind of like he was playing, you know, with the knife
02:24:46
and just started jabbing at me. So that's when he caught me here. Um, and he got me in the back of my neck here.
02:24:56
>> Finally, Donna's attacker spoke to her. >> This was when he decided to ask me for
02:25:02
my car keys and if I had a lighter. >> A lighter? >> Mhm. I just answered him. Um, there's a
02:25:08
lighter in my purse and my purse was on the table back in the kitchen. So, he went
02:25:13
over and was rumaging through my purse and got the keys, got the lighter. >> Donna's asalent ended up taking her
02:25:21
entire purse with him, but not before returning one last time to Donna, still bleeding on the floor.
02:25:28
>> He said, "You dead bitch." and plunged the knife into my chest. Once he plunges the knife in and then
02:25:37
removes it, what does he do then? >> He just walked out the door. >> With no neighbors in earshot, Donna knew
02:25:45
she must get help somehow. >> Your phone isn't in reach. >> No, my phone was upstairs in my bedroom
02:25:53
charging. >> Donna had no landline in the house. But even as the blood was draining rapidly
02:26:00
from her body, she had one pressing concern. above her own survival. >> Kirstston could come home and find me. I
02:26:09
just didn't want her to have to experience any level of the horror that I had just gone through or any other
02:26:15
levels in finding me there dead. >> So, this is a mother's instinct as pure as it gets.
02:26:24
>> Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. >> You know, you have to get upstairs if you're going to be able to make a call
02:26:31
for help, >> right? How do you get up those stairs? >> That I don't know. There was divine intervention that
02:26:42
helped me up those stairs. No doubt. No doubt in my mind. A mother disappears. Evidence points to
02:26:58
homicide. The suspect is gone, too. Leading US marshals on a relentless manhunt. The chase is on.
02:27:03
>> Justice is coming. >> 48 hours tonight on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.
02:27:09
>> Being an FBI agent is not just a job. >> The city's under attack. >> It's a life. We're hunting a serial
02:27:15
killer. The life we chose. People are in danger. >> That only works if we're doing it
02:27:19
together. >> Team work. >> Cover me. Let's rock and roll. >> Yeah, you're my whole team. Every member
02:27:26
clutch. Watch the whole team. Yeah, you're my whole team with it. Ain't no way to stop us when we be out on a
02:27:32
mission. The FBI's new episodes Tuesday on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. >> We know how his story ended. Now see how
02:27:43
it all began. NCIS Origins coming CBS fall. [Music] She's a tiny little woman. You have to imagine that many stab
02:28:02
wounds and she just willed it. She was not going to die there. >> Former Mammoth County Assistant
02:28:09
prosecutor Lorie Ghart says Donna Anakaco was determined her daughter Kristen would not come home to find her
02:28:17
dead. She knew she had to get to her cell phone upstairs. >> I don't remember my feet or my hands
02:28:25
actually touching the stairs. The energy that it took for me to get up off the ground and up those stairs. I
02:28:34
was definitely guided. The amount of strength that goes into that is just unimaginable.
02:28:41
>> But the motivation was you. >> Yeah. Yep. Maybe I was there guiding her in spirit.
02:28:52
>> Once Donna made it upstairs, she faced a new challenge after peering out her bedroom window.
02:28:58
>> She had a car sitting right here, >> right? She had a car sitting right in this area.
02:29:02
>> I could still see the car was there and I could see he the car was on and he was
02:29:06
in it. If I take my phone off the charger, it's going to light up. He's going to see the light. Afraid her
02:29:12
attacker would come back for her, Donna did her best to hide the light of the phone. Then just getting it to work
02:29:20
became the next hurdle. >> My hands are covered in blood, my touchcreen. I was trying to swipe and
02:29:25
swipe. So I ended up having to wipe my hands off, wipe the phone off, wipe it down on the bed, and then I was able to
02:29:32
do the touchcreen and get through to 911. >> My name is Dang Chuck. I just got stabbed really bad. Kid just came in and
02:29:39
stabbed me. He stole my car. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Just stand up on me. Okay. Where did you get stabbed?
02:29:44
>> In the neck. Glenn is clutching out and in the chest. >> Detective Andrea Tazzy says Donna's
02:29:50
ability to place that call despite her injuries was amazing. But then Donna did something even more extraordinary. She
02:29:58
gave a detailed description of her attacker. >> Okay. Do you know what he looked like?
02:30:04
>> Yeah. He was probably about 17. white, real skinny, curly hair, blonde, dirty blonde hair, backpack.
02:30:14
>> It was pretty chilling to listen to Donna and be able to hear her accurately talk about this is what happened. This
02:30:20
is what he looks like. >> I'm losing consciousness. >> And then hear her fade out.
02:30:26
>> Donna. >> Donna. >> Hello, Donna. >> Donna. Yes, ma'am. >> I think I just sat down for a minute.
02:30:40
>> Police and paramedics arrived less than eight minutes after Donna dialed 911,
02:30:45
but her attacker had already fled. Donna was rushed to Jersey Shore University Medical Center and into trauma surgery.
02:30:54
It would be a few more hours before Kirstston arrived home from her party to a house surrounded by flashing lights. I
02:31:02
saw the caution tape and that her car was gone. >> Police told Kirsten what happened to her
02:31:07
mother. You were deeply shaken. >> Oh yeah. I remember at one point my knees buckled. They had the SUV, the
02:31:16
undercover cop car. The trunk was open. So I was like, can I sit here because I feel like I'm going to pass out.
02:31:22
>> As Kristen was processing the news, an allout manhunt had already begun for Donna's asalent. Detective Tazzy says
02:31:31
another 911 call had come in shortly before Donna's attack. >> I was going to pick up my daughter and
02:31:38
there was a kid hitchhiking >> from a driver who saw someone walking along the road near Donna's house.
02:31:45
>> They saw a young man with a backpack and khaki pants. He was walking close to the
02:31:51
fog line and kind of stepping into traffic and she felt that he was kind of a hitchhiker. He was on the northbound
02:31:58
side walking southbound and I'm afraid he's going to get hit by a car. >> How old about?
02:32:05
>> I'm going to say like 18, 19, 20, some something like that. >> She was concerned because she just
02:32:12
thought that maybe he needed help in some way. >> And was a car dispatched? >> Yes. Yes. They didn't find him, though.
02:32:19
>> Still, the good Samaritan driver had inadvertently given the investigation its first lead. I felt that the the
02:32:27
hitchhiker was my person. It was too coincidental for that time of the night in that area for somebody to be walking.
02:32:34
And then 15 minutes later, Donna is calling say that she was stabbed. >> And there was about to be another tip.
02:32:42
Not long after Donna's 911 call from a fast food restaurant 5 miles from her house. They saw a subject walking
02:32:51
through their drive-thru, knocking on windows, carrying a knife, and it looked like it had blood on it.
02:32:57
>> Employees from the Taco Bell quickly called police. >> You have any description of him?
02:33:02
>> Yeah, he was wearing um you know, like those army pants and he had no shirt. He
02:33:06
was white with like really like bushy hair, but it was like long like the skater type hair.
02:33:12
>> How old was he? >> I don't know. He looked like he was like 18. Police rushed to the Taco Bell and
02:33:18
started canvasing the nearby shopping center. They didn't find their suspect, but they did find something else.
02:33:27
>> So, there had been a bolo put out on on Donna's vehicle. >> Be on the lookout,
02:33:31
>> right? And in the process of looking for this person here, they found the car.
02:33:37
>> Donna's stolen car. This BMW had been ditched behind a movie theater. It was lights on and and it was running. So, it
02:33:46
clearly was an abandoned vehicle. >> Tazzy says the car would become crucial. >> There was blood all over it and so we
02:33:56
were hoping that we would get some kind of DNA evidence of our suspect. >> Did you?
02:34:03
>> We did. Sharon Sharp will never forget the dread she felt when she arrived at the
02:34:27
hospital to see her friend Donna Anako, only to be told she wasn't there. I'm picturing the color draining from your
02:34:35
face and the air leaving your lungs like >> totally no. This cannot be. There's no
02:34:40
way she has to be here. >> Did you think maybe she had died? >> Yes. Yes. >> It turned out with her attacker still on
02:34:46
the loose, the hospital had admitted Donna under an alias to protect her. Sharon was allowed to see Donna the next
02:34:54
day. >> An intensive care room I've never seen before. It looked like an enlarged, massively
02:35:01
enlarged cockpit wall because there were tons of machines behind her and she looked almost like a puppet.
02:35:09
>> Surgery was 7 hours, I believe. >> Despite losing 3/4 of the blood in her body, trauma surgeons had saved Donna's
02:35:18
life, but at a tremendous cost. You may find the pictures you're about to see disturbing. I pretty much looked like a
02:35:28
living cadaavver. >> I had 37 stitches on my face and neck, 38 staples in my chest, seven stitches
02:35:37
in my hand, and now internally my sternum is wired shut. >> And as for that final stab to Donna's
02:35:45
chest, just before her asalent left, >> it missed my heart by the edge of a dime
02:35:51
is what I remember them telling me. the edge of a dime. >> When she talks about the margin that the knife missed her
02:36:04
heart by. >> Yeah. If she was any slouched over anymore, that would have been it.
02:36:12
>> Kirsten says as soon as her mother was able to talk, she had one simple request.
02:36:19
>> I remember her saying, "All I smell is this blood in my hair. Can somebody please wash my hair?
02:36:28
>> Sharon says they got permission and then she and two of Donna's family members
02:36:33
did their best to wash Donna's hair as she lay in her hospital bed. >> We were determined to see if we can make
02:36:41
her smile. So, we turned it into a ridiculous idiot session with three of us like a factory line. We laughed
02:36:49
through our tears and anytime anybody would get too serious, we'd make it funny.
02:36:54
>> But her hair was far from Donna's biggest concern. She was sure her attacker would find her and finish the
02:37:02
job. >> She was convinced that he was in the hospital. And we kept telling her, "No,
02:37:06
you're here under an alias." I survived. I stood face to face with him. I could 100% positively identify him. He's
02:37:16
coming back for me. Detective Tazzy says they were pretty sure the young man knocking on windows at the Taco Bell
02:37:23
drive-thru shortly after Donna's attack was their suspect. Within two days, a customer who saw him met with a police
02:37:32
sketch artist >> and was able to provide pretty great details on the person she saw that
02:37:39
night. >> Investigators then took the sketch to the hospital. >> What did Donna say when she saw that
02:37:45
sketch? She said, "Yeah, that's was incredibly accurate." She tweaked it a little bit. She said that yes, that
02:37:52
looks like the person who stabbed me. >> His curly blonde hair, he was like a surfer kid or a skateboarder or
02:38:01
something like that. >> Former assistant prosecutor Lorie Ghart says the sketch of the suspect was soon
02:38:08
plastered all over Mammoth County and on law enforcement social media. So, people
02:38:14
are obviously talking and trying to figure out, do we know him? Where is he from? Who is this kid? And it's scary
02:38:21
because you like to have a sense of security in your community. >> Investigators reviewed the cameras of
02:38:29
stores in the shopping center near the Taco Bell to see if they'd get lucky and spot their suspect, hoping the more
02:38:37
images they had, the more likely the chance of identifying him. We were trying to go back and look at video from
02:38:44
various businesses to see the description and really to put out the bolo like this is who we're looking for.
02:38:51
>> Security cameras had captured the suspect once again. >> The surveillance we got from the store
02:38:56
over there was from the inside the store but it was pointing outwards. >> I see. And it definitely caught him.
02:39:02
>> Oh yeah, you could see him walking. >> Wow. As police kept looking for the suspect,
02:39:08
Donna was turning a corner, at least physically. Amazingly, after just 4 days, Donna Angakaco was released from
02:39:18
the hospital. Sharon says that was all due to the training Donna had done prior to the attack.
02:39:24
>> Clearly, she's very physically fit. She couldn't have survived this if she wasn't.
02:39:29
>> It's an amazing thing. You were out in four days. But as you leave the hospital, you are also
02:39:39
walking back into a world where whoever did this to you is still out there. >> Right. But also, I wasn't going back to
02:39:47
the farm. I wasn't going back to my house. No, there was no way. >> In fact, Donna would never step foot in
02:39:55
her house again. She and Kirsten moved in with family living in New Jersey. Then just eight days after the attack,
02:40:04
not long after the police sketch began circulating, Detective Tazzy's phone rang.
02:40:10
>> I take the call and the woman on the other end says that she's calling about the stabbing in Colts neck.
02:40:16
>> I said, "Okay." I said, "How can I help you?" And she said, "I I think my cousin
02:40:22
Brennan Doyle may have something to do with that." It was the first time Tazzy had heard
02:40:28
the name Brennan Doyle. He was just 16 years old. His cousin told Tazzy word was going around her family that Brennan
02:40:38
was involved in the Colts neck stabbing. The cousin had seen Brennan just days prior to Donna's attack
02:40:46
>> between July 3rd and 6th because he was up in Connecticut for her wedding with
02:40:51
his family. >> He had attended her wedding. He attended her wedding and she was able to provide
02:40:57
us a picture of what he looked like during the time he was up there for the wedding.
02:41:02
>> The photo she sends is Brennan with long curly hair wearing camouflage shorts
02:41:08
looking very much like the kid in the sketch and more importantly on the videotapes.
02:41:14
Brennan's resemblance to this sketch all around town was about to become even more important because of what the
02:41:20
cousin told Detective Tazy happened a few days later. >> She was staying at Brennan's family's
02:41:28
lakehouse in New Hampshire as a wedding gift. And Brennan, his brother, and the mother showed up there unexpected.
02:41:36
>> Hang on. This woman is in Lake Winnipegasi. She's on her honeymoon. >> Yes. And all of a sudden, there's Brennan,
02:41:44
Brennan's mother, Brennan's brother, crashing her honeymoon. >> Yes. And the dog.
02:41:50
>> But what was even more surprising was Brennan's appearance. >> Brennan's hair was cut.
02:41:56
>> The next time she sees him, he's cut his hair. >> Yes. >> So, that's a big red flag.
02:42:02
>> Yes. Brennan Doyle's cousin told investigators that Brennan showed up just days after Donna's attack, hundreds
02:42:22
of miles from home with his hair suddenly cut short, similar to this. Like Donna, the Doyle family resided in
02:42:31
Colt's neck. Former assistant prosecutor Lorie Ghart. We lived in a very nice house. Two sons, a mom and a dad. The
02:42:39
life of a typical Colts next teenager. It's a life of wealth. It's a life of privilege.
02:42:45
>> Doyle was a student athlete on wrestling and hockey teams. Detective Tazzy started digging into his background.
02:42:52
>> He had never been arrested. There was never any charges filed against him prior to our investigation. According to
02:43:00
the prosecutor's records, police had been called to the Doyle House for what they refer to as family conflicts. The
02:43:08
location of the home would turn out to be very important. >> Where did Brennan live?
02:43:13
>> So, if you make a right up here and you go up maybe a quarter of a mile on the
02:43:18
left. >> So, that's close. >> Yeah. >> The teen and his family lived within walking distance of Donna's house up the
02:43:26
very road that driver had reported seeing someone. she described as a young hitchhiker just prior to Donna's attack.
02:43:33
>> I'm afraid he's going to get hit by a car. >> When does the Doyle family return to
02:43:39
Colt's neck >> later in July? >> With Brennan and his family back in town, Tazzy reached out to the family
02:43:48
saying investigators were canvasing the neighborhood. >> What happened when you went to the
02:43:52
house? >> We spoke with Mrs. Joy. She was nervous. Her voice was cracking. And >> did this raise an eyebrow for you?
02:43:59
>> It did. We asked if Brennan and his brother could come and look at the composite sketch and if they had any
02:44:05
idea who that person might be on the sketch. >> Did Brennan come out? >> He did.
02:44:11
>> Tazzy says she wanted to see Brennan's hair to confirm what his cousin had told
02:44:15
her, that it had been cut much shorter. It seemed the teen tried to stay a step ahead when he came out to greet the
02:44:24
detective. >> He was wearing a hat. He was wearing a baseball hat. I think wearing a baseball
02:44:30
cap was a calculated move. >> It might have been, but it didn't work. >> You could tell his hair was cut short.
02:44:38
>> Next, Tazy showed Brennan the police sketch of the suspect, the same one Donna helped tweak to look just like her
02:44:45
attacker. How did he react? >> He looked away. He looked at it, looked away, and said, "I don't know. I don't
02:44:52
know." He was nervous and he was scared and he got very quiet. >> There is a reaction. Eyes are down. No
02:44:59
eye contact. People are nervous. Mom starts redirecting the conversation. >> Doyle's family and his attorney denied
02:45:07
our request for an interview. We asked CBS News consultant, defense attorney Matt Troyano, to study the case file.
02:45:14
>> And I think that that probably confirms what they believe going in. Brennan's
02:45:19
odd behavior and resemblance to the sketch and video evidence may have been striking, but with nothing else to go on
02:45:26
yet, Tazzy thanked the Doyles for their time and left. >> Did you know that was your guy?
02:45:33
>> I was pretty confident that we were on the right track with him, but we also have a duty. We had other leads that
02:45:39
were coming in, so we were doing a lot of follow-ups. >> As investigators worked the case, Donna
02:45:46
was struggling. Weeks after the attack, the reality of what had happened to her had taken hold.
02:45:53
>> I lost everything that night. I lost my home. Had nowhere to go. I lost my car.
02:45:59
They took it into evidence. >> Donna, you lost more than half your blood. >> I Exactly. I lost I lost a lot.
02:46:08
>> Donna says that's when in addition to her physical recovery, she faced a new challenge. symptoms um of PTSD started
02:46:16
to show up. I'm not eating. I'm not sleeping. I don't care about anything. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm happy. I'm you
02:46:23
know, every emotion under the sun at any minute. I felt like I was going crazy. I
02:46:29
was always thinking, I don't know who this kid is, but he climbed through the window in that second that I fell asleep
02:46:35
and now he's hiding in the closet. You know, kind of crazy thoughts. Sharon Sharp says Donna's fear meant even
02:46:44
friendly visits required a new protocol, including announcing her arrival every step of the way so as not to trigger
02:46:52
Donna. >> I'm going to come around the hedges now and I'm going to enter the backyard. I'm
02:46:57
going to be touching the gate in 3 2 1. I would shake my keys first, which had bells on them. Say, "It's me, Sharon.
02:47:05
I'm coming." >> The investigation lasted through the summer of 2013. Brennan Doyle remained
02:47:11
the only likely suspect. Detective Tazzy says investigators took the next step in
02:47:18
September. We got a warrant to obtain his DNA, his fingerprints, photographs of him, just things that are personal to
02:47:26
him. >> When the results came back, >> there's a fingerprint match. Then ultimately there's a DNA match. Brennan
02:47:34
Doyle's DNA was a spot-on match to unknown DNA found in Donna's car in a number of places.
02:47:43
11 different DNA samples and pieces of evidence found in that vehicle. And really, there's no reason why Brennan
02:47:50
Doyle's DNA should be in this woman's vehicle. He's a stranger to her. One more crucial piece of evidence was
02:47:59
found in early October in the most unexpected spot. >> Repairmen were servicing an air
02:48:06
conditioning unit that was on the top of the strip mall. They found the knife on
02:48:11
the the roof right near the air conditioning unit. A knife looking weathered as though it had been there
02:48:16
for months, found on a bowling alley roof in the very same shopping center where the Taco Bell was located and
02:48:24
where Donna's car had been abandoned. How important was the knife? >> It ended up being very important because
02:48:31
the knife was from a set. We determined that that knife matched another knife that we knew came from the Doyle
02:48:39
household that had been taken months earlier. >> Through a twist of timing and fate, the
02:48:45
Colts Neck police already had another knife from the Doyle home taken after police were called to the house a few
02:48:52
weeks prior to Donna's attack following an altercation between Brennan and his brother. There's a knife that's
02:48:59
apparently used by the younger brother in in a threatening manner. Police are called. Police take the knife and the
02:49:06
situation ends. >> There was no charges or anything that came of it, but they secured the knife
02:49:10
in their evidence vault. It was the same brand name, the same look. It was a silver knife.
02:49:16
>> It was from the same collection. >> Correct. That was kind of the icing on the cake to get a search warrant. They
02:49:23
had moved during the course of this investigation. So, we got a search warrant for their new home.
02:49:28
The search of the new Doyle residence, also in Colts Neck, turned up the rest of the knife set matching the one found
02:49:35
at top the shopping center. In late October 2013, Brennan Doyle was arrested. >> What kinds of charges was he facing?
02:49:47
>> Serious ones. Attempted murder, carjacking, weapons possession. These are the most serious of crimes that we
02:49:54
have. [Music] What do you make of the evidence against Brennan Doyle? Take a look at the
02:50:02
complete investigation at 48 hours.com. Months after Donna's brush with death, her alleged attacker, Brennan Doyle, was
02:50:20
in custody, facing six counts, including attempted murder and carjacking. He pleaded not guilty.
02:50:28
>> You have to look at the seriousness of the offense. >> The prosecution felt the crime warranted
02:50:34
trying Doyle as an adult, even though he was 16 at the time. And in juvenile court, Brennan is looking at four years
02:50:42
maximum in a youth detention facility. In adult court, he's looking at up to 30 years.
02:50:48
A judge would rule in assistant prosecutor Ghart's favor. But there was a catch. Doyle would now be entitled to
02:50:56
post bail set at $760,000, which he did. When you heard he was out, did all of the fear come rushing back?
02:51:06
It wasn't so much fear as it was anger that he was even allowed to be bailed out.
02:51:13
>> The thought of running into Doyle terrified Kirsten. She says he even haunted her dreams.
02:51:20
>> I didn't realize how much it was affecting me. I had no idea until I was like falling asleep and all I see is his
02:51:27
face. >> As prosecutors developed their case, the details of what happened that horrific
02:51:33
night began to emerge. What does Brennan Doyle say happened the night of July 6th
02:51:40
heading into the morning of July 7th, 2013? >> Mushrooms. He says he was under the influence of a
02:51:49
hallucinogenic mushrooms. >> According to investigative reports he examined, Matt Troano says that on the
02:51:56
night of Donna's attack, Doyo claimed he was losing touch with reality and had gotten into a fight with his father. He
02:52:04
has a knife in his hand. Dad kicks him out and he kind of loses his mind, makes bad decisions.
02:52:11
>> Police thought it was likely that Doyle, who lived a short distance away, approached Donna's home looking to steal
02:52:18
her car. >> I don't know if his intent was to kill Donna. Certainly, when he started
02:52:23
stabbing her, that became his intent. >> To me, what he's doing is he's getting rid of the witness.
02:52:29
Ghart believes Doyle did not act like someone incapacitated by drugs. Doyle drove 5 miles to that shopping center
02:52:37
after leaving Donna's house. >> This kid manages to ditch a knife. He abandons the car. And that's not a kid
02:52:44
who's so high on mushrooms he doesn't know what he's doing. Triano says while a lot of the evidence
02:52:51
against Brennan Doyle was strong, the knife, the security camera videos, one thing put this case over the top.
02:52:59
>> What is going to seal the fate of of this boy, this kid, is that there's DNA in her vehicle that links to him. It's
02:53:08
indefensible. >> But as it turned out, there would be no need for a defense. In August of 2015,
02:53:17
Brennan Doyle agreed to a plea deal. In return, the prosecution dropped all but the two most serious charges: carjacking
02:53:26
and attempted murder. >> It was very important for me that he admit his guilt. If he took the plea, he
02:53:33
would have to confess his guilt to the court. In October 2015, Brennan Doyle, now 18 years old, appeared in Mammoth
02:53:43
County Superior Court for sentencing. Donna, who'd attended every court appearance, was there to face him one
02:53:52
last time. >> Even though I felt overpowered by fear, I wanted him to see me as strong
02:54:01
and as a survivor. It was an emotional day for Kirstston there to support her mother.
02:54:10
>> When you would look at him in court, what do you remember feeling? >> Uh anger.
02:54:17
Just very angry. Sorry. >> The drugs turned me into the monster that night. >> Doyle was permitted to address the
02:54:30
court. I pray and hope her wounds will lessen and she will recover eventually. I am asking you to forgive me. Going to
02:54:40
prison will be the hardest thing I will ever have to face in my life. I'm afraid.
02:54:47
>> Brennan Doyle was sentenced to 15 years in state prison. The law requires him to
02:54:52
serve at least 85% of that time. Justice has to be done on both sides and we we have to be sensitive to that. We have a
02:55:01
16-year-old kid who for the most part had absolutely no prior history. The court has a balancing act to do.
02:55:08
>> Did it feel like justice? >> It did not. >> What would have felt like justice to
02:55:13
you? >> More like 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, if not longer. Even with Doyle off the streets, Donna
02:55:25
was still struggling. She had found PTSD and domestic violence support groups, but says there were none for victims of
02:55:34
random attacks. So, in 2015, she decided to create her own survivors of violent crimes.
02:55:44
>> Reason we took to the support group was to help each other cope. Donna connected
02:55:49
with fellow survivors Tiffany and Dana Richards. Together, they held meetings and felt gratified they could help when
02:55:58
more survivors joined. >> They're finding relief and knowing that they're not alone.
02:56:04
>> But Donna says her work isn't done. Her future plans include helping victims connect with trauma therapists and
02:56:12
offering self-defense classes. As she grows her support group, she's also educating others. She travels to
02:56:20
prisons, meeting with inmates, and addresses police cadets so they can understand the victim's point of view.
02:56:28
>> I got up. I made it up the stairs to my bedroom where my cell phone was, but I
02:56:32
got through to 911. >> She survives and she's building a life. How could anyone not applaud that?
02:56:48
>> Donna says the physical scars that remain are a reminder of the surgeons who saved her life.
02:56:57
>> This is artwork. They're beautiful artwork. You could either get sucked into the
02:57:03
darkness or you just keep going. I did what I had to do to to be here today and go another day.
02:57:15
[Music] A mother disappears. Evidence points to homicide. >> And she's nowhere to be found.
02:57:42
>> The suspect is gone, too. Leading US marshals on a relentless manhunt. >> He was using the railways to move
02:57:48
around, hopping trains. >> The chase is on. >> Justice is coming. >> 48 hours next on CBS and streaming on
02:57:54
Paramount Plus. [Music] Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode does include
02:58:07
mentions of graphic physical violence. >> I survived a violent home invasion after
02:58:13
everything was said and done. Um, it was I lost in in total close to 3/4 of the blood in my body. There's no earthly
02:58:23
reason why I'm alive. None. There is none. As you heard, that is Donna Anakaco, who
02:58:31
miraculously survived a random attack in her Coltsneck, New Jersey home back in the early morning hours of July 7th,
02:58:39
2013. Donna lived with her 21-year-old daughter, but she was home alone that night. And after opening her front door
02:58:46
to let her cat back in the house, Donna then encountered an intruder attempting to cut through the screen of the window
02:58:54
by her front door. He proceeded to stab her multiple times on her face and in her chest before leaving with her purse
02:59:01
and her car keys. As Donna lay on the floor bleeding, she somehow found the strength to crawl upstairs where her
02:59:09
cell phone was and she called 911 while her attacker then escaped in her car. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Just stand up on me.
02:59:17
Okay. Where did you get stabbed? >> In the neck. Blood is gushing out and in the chest.
02:59:22
>> Okay. my heart. I'm pouring gushing blood. >> Then before briefly losing consciousness, she was able to describe
02:59:29
her attacker in great detail. >> He was probably about 17, white, real skinny, curly hair,
02:59:38
blonde, dirty blonde hair, a little bit long in the backpack. I'm losing consciousness. Okay, so stay with
02:59:46
me. Okay. >> Yeah, I could feel the water's just the blood is just w it's like water. After
02:59:51
paramedics arrived, Donna then was rushed to the hospital. And as you heard her say, she lost close to three
02:59:58
quarters of the blood in her body. But thanks to Donna's detailed description of her attacker and additional tips and
03:00:05
DNA evidence, police identified 16-year-old Brennan Doyle as a suspect. He was arrested nearly 4 months after
03:00:14
stabbing Donna. And Doyle claimed he was under the influence at the time of magic
03:00:18
mushrooms. In 2015, Doyle pleaded guilty to attempted murder and carjacking, and
03:00:24
he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. And while Doyle is in prison, Donna is still struggling to recover from the
03:00:31
trauma of her attack. I'm Natalie Morales of 48 hours, and this is It Could Have Been Me.
03:00:41
[Music] Welcome, Donna. It is so good to have you here with us and thank you so much
03:00:47
for being willing to share your story with us. Thank you for having me. I know what you went through was so traumatic
03:00:56
physically, emotionally. How are you doing today? >> Um, physically all of my injuries have
03:01:02
healed. I have some, you know, nerve damage, uh, pins and needles in my left arm. Um, but other than that, physically
03:01:10
I'm okay. you know, psychologically, um, it's I'm still working on that. Um, I can go places by myself now,
03:01:19
>> but do I like being in the dark, in the night, by myself? No. Still, it um is it
03:01:26
it is difficult for me. Your your physical scars have healed so beautifully as well. You don't see them
03:01:31
as much anymore, but um, as you said, the emotional trauma is still something that you live with. And um I know that
03:01:40
has to be so difficult to go through as you said the nighttime and the darkness because that's when the attack happened.
03:01:47
Um you've moved out of that house though and um I know that area of New Jersey. I
03:01:52
lived in New Jersey for many many years. It's a beautiful peaceful area, horse country. Something like this though, you
03:01:59
never expect something like this to happen in Coltsneck, New Jersey, right? >> No, never. I felt very safe there. Never
03:02:06
in my wildest nightmares would I would think this would happen there. >> Take me back to that night. Your
03:02:12
daughter Kirstston, she was out at a party. You nodded off, but then you went to open the door to let your cat back
03:02:19
in. What happened then? Right. So, when I opened the door, I saw a kid standing on the porch. That's what I zoned in on.
03:02:29
Um, and then like a millisecond later, I saw the knife that he had and he was cutting into the screen and the window
03:02:37
and my response kicked into, "Oh, I got to shut this door, you know." So, as I was shutting the door, he charged out
03:02:45
the door and the knife, it stuck through just a a tiny little opening um before I
03:02:53
could actually shut the door and it cut my finger, the tip of my finger, and I pulled my hand off the door. You know,
03:02:59
that was like that was the most painful moment u was that knife cutting the tip of my finger
03:03:06
>> because my body hadn't shut down yet at that point. It was just sliced into my
03:03:11
hand. Um so when I pulled my hand off the door, he pushed the door in and was face to face with me in my kitchen. I
03:03:19
could not think far enough ahead to say he's going to cut me with that knife. Um but sure
03:03:27
enough, he was standing just straight in front of me and he just started slashing
03:03:31
me. Uh my face, you could see this part um here, but it actually goes all the way back here. So, he just took the
03:03:39
knife and, you know, slash that way. And I could not process again that he would actually cut
03:03:48
me. So, I'm holding my my face like this and he's slashing my neck. um you know and then so now I'm like oh
03:03:56
you know like what's h you know what's happening and he stabbed me straight into my chest
03:04:02
um and still even with the sl you know the slashes and the stabs I couldn't process that he was actually like
03:04:09
another stab was going to come another slash was going to come like I couldn't process that um gosh it is unreal
03:04:18
hearing you describe all of this and it's still so clear as day to you in your memory I can see that. I'm sure
03:04:25
that's so hard to relive >> that moment, the pain you were feeling in that moment.
03:04:32
>> And as I understand, this is this is a young man that you'd never seen him before. It's not somebody you
03:04:37
recognized, right? >> Right. Totally random. >> You saw though, he seemed to be young.
03:04:44
You got a good feel for what he looked like. I mean, you were staring at him as he was doing this to you. You wouldn't
03:04:50
take your eyes off him. >> Absolutely correct. Yep. Without a doubt. >> So, he's attacking you multiple times.
03:04:57
He stabbed you at this point. >> In that time, what's going through your head? Are your survival instincts
03:05:03
kicking in? >> Yes. I s well I started to think um you know, I have to get that knife like I
03:05:09
have to get it out of his hands. Um so, as I was backing away from him, um I tried to grab the knife from him. You
03:05:16
don't think I you know, in my head, I'm going to grab that knife and I'm going to get it away from him. But um it
03:05:22
literally just cut my hand open. I ended up on the floor um you know when he came
03:05:27
over to me on the floor. He asked me um for my car keys and for a lighter. So I directed him to that to my purse and uh
03:05:37
he went through my purse and got what he needed. And and I know that you were wanting to figure out get get to your
03:05:45
cell phone, right? That was part of the whole thinking at that moment. Yeah, my cell phone was upstairs once he left
03:05:51
with the car keys, the lighter. That was your opportunity. You had to get upstairs.
03:05:57
How'd you do that? I mean, in the condition you were in. I have no idea. I have no idea. I always say that there
03:06:04
was definitely divine intervention that helped me get up and get up the stairs. And I feel like I floated up those
03:06:11
stairs um and to my phone. >> Almost like an out-of- body experience really. >> Yes. Yes, absolutely.
03:06:19
>> And I know part of your motivation was your daughter. She was out, but you knew
03:06:24
she would come back. You knew she would find you. >> I could just imagine Kirsten coming in,
03:06:30
you know, walking in through that door and finding me laying there. Um, >> and that couldn't happen. That just um
03:06:39
wasn't something I was prepared to let happen. You got to your phone yet incredibly you were still with it enough
03:06:45
to look outside and notice that your attacker was still there in the car. So you had to be really careful once you
03:06:53
got your phone, right? What did you do? >> Yes. I I picked up my phone and it was
03:06:57
still on the um attached to the cord and I you know I knew that if I unplugged the cord from it, you know, it was going
03:07:05
to light up and he would see like that light um in the dark. And I was so terrified that he was going to see that
03:07:12
and he was going to come back in. And so I kind of just, you know, slunk down to
03:07:17
the floor with it and tried to be as careful as I could. Um, and it was hard just trying to swipe on
03:07:24
the phone just to unlock it. Um, cuz I had so much blood on my hands. Finally, I just wiped it off, wiped it off on the
03:07:30
side of the bed and, uh, was able to dial 911. >> Do you remember that call at all now?
03:07:37
>> I remember feeling so panicked, just just desperate, and trying to get all of the right information out, all
03:07:45
the right words out. After the criminal trial was done, I went back to uh the prosecutor's office and I asked them if
03:07:53
I could hear my 911 call um because I wanted to make sure like did I actually speak clearly? Did I actually give them
03:08:02
all this information like they said I did? And um that was really empowering for me to go back years later and and
03:08:08
hear that recording. >> You you give me goosebumps, you know, just imagining you hearing that for the
03:08:15
first time after having gone through what she went through. Um you made it out of that house. Incredible. And then
03:08:22
you had to undergo 7 hours of surgery um when you're in the hospital. Is it true
03:08:29
that you were worried that your attacker might come back for you? >> Oh yeah, without a doubt. Um, you know,
03:08:36
in every scary movie that you see or every, you know, type of slasher movie like that you see, the killer comes back
03:08:41
dressed as a doctor, dressed as a nurse, or they slip in and um, you know, as an
03:08:46
orderly or something like that. >> But they I kept telling them, you know, like like, is there a guard out, you
03:08:51
know, asking them, is there a guard outside my door? Um, you know, and they kept trying to assure me that it was a
03:08:57
secure floor. Um, I was under an alias. Nobody was getting on on this floor into
03:09:03
my room unless uh they knew my alias. Yeah, absolutely terrified. >> Your alias was Sarah Reese. Yeah, it was
03:09:11
shocking actually to see that on my wristband. I I know you describe feeling like you almost lost your identity
03:09:18
because the attack it's like it took so much away from you. I completely do not identify with who I was pre-attack
03:09:28
there. I feel like there is not a stitch of me left from, you know, before the attack. You're a different person now.
03:09:36
>> Totally different person. And I'm uh still trying to figure out uh who that is.
03:09:42
>> It's obviously a work in progress, but you're so strong and and you see you're
03:09:47
such a survivor. Um I know your friend Sharon Sharp was was really important to helping you go through your recovery.
03:09:55
She described seeing you in the hospital. those those very first few days and the stab wounds and you know
03:10:02
how much blood even was in your hair at that moment and and she talked about that. Let's take a listen here. Her
03:10:10
beautiful long hair was just caked. I mean caked. It was almost like it was almost like a thing you could pick up in
03:10:18
blood and all she'd say was, "I want my hair washed. I want my hair washed." Everybody could smell it. You couldn't
03:10:26
not smell it. It was horrible. It was horrible. >> And I love that in that moment, your
03:10:33
friends saw what you needed and they took action. They washed your hair. They tried to be strong for you when you
03:10:40
needed that. Um the washing of the blood out of my hair. Uh that for me was so it
03:10:46
was almost ceremonial. Um that was a lingering ick factor for me was that smell, that
03:10:54
smell of blood. I just couldn't shake it. >> Well, it it was it was just 4 days later
03:10:59
that you were able to leave the hospital and I mean I think you had something like 37 stitches, am I right? And 38
03:11:07
staples throughout your body. >> Yeah. I think they would have kept me there longer, but every day I was like,
03:11:14
I'm ready to go. I have to leave. I did not feel safe there at all. >> And of course, you didn't feel safe
03:11:20
going back to the house, so you didn't go back there. Where did you end up going?
03:11:24
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I ended up going back to my parents house. So, it was my mother
03:11:27
and my father um and a brother that lived there and my sister lived there at the time with her three children. So,
03:11:34
there was no room at at the end for me. >> Um so, they ended up just uh kind of putting me in my niece's room. It was
03:11:43
chaos. Well, and and I know you were concerned because your attacker was still out there and it would take four
03:11:50
months before 16-year-old Brennan Doyle was then arrested and you know your attacker, we said he was young. What was
03:11:58
your reaction though when you heard I mean he was just 16 years old. I mean I stood face to face with him so I saw him
03:12:04
and I knew he was young. I didn't realize he was that young. Um, and kind of shocked because I was in
03:12:12
really good shape physically. And if you said a 16-year-old was going to, you know, force away into your house and
03:12:17
attack you, I would have said absolutely not. That is not going to happen. I was
03:12:21
in the best shape of my life. Um, there was no way >> that that was going to happen. But, uh,
03:12:28
fight, flight, or freeze. And I froze. >> Yeah. And he was then charged as an adult. Mhm.
03:12:36
>> When you heard what Brennan Doyle was alleging, he said it was magic mushrooms
03:12:43
that possessed him to do what he did to you. What did you make of that? >> Yeah, I thought that was just um a cop
03:12:51
out. He seemed very present and very sure of what he was doing. So, I don't buy the whole um hallucinogenic
03:13:02
story. Did you see him in court? >> Yes, I went to every single court appearance there were throughout the um
03:13:11
the two years between the time the attack and then the actual trial in 2015. I went to every single appearance
03:13:19
even if it was just like a 10-minute like this is what's happening thing because I wanted him to see me. I wanted
03:13:25
him to know that I was alive and um and and I was showing up, you know. >> And he pleaded guilty to attempted
03:13:33
murder and carjacking. That was in 2015, then sentenced to 15 years in prison. What was your reaction when you heard
03:13:40
that sentence? >> If we were to go to trial, I was told that he can maintain his innocence and
03:13:48
there would be no guarantee of him of the amount of time that he would get. um if we went to trial, he could get
03:13:55
four years, he could get, you know, 7 years, what have you. But if he takes a plea deal, they told me he has to admit
03:14:04
his guilt to the court. So when they said he's going to take a plea deal for uh 15 years,
03:14:12
I I wanted that as opposed to taking a chance that he could get four years and maintain his innocence.
03:14:19
>> Mhm. So, the there was a a civil award after the criminal trial uh where I was
03:14:25
awarded $5 million. I have not seen any money from that. >> He could be coming out soon, you know,
03:14:33
in a couple of years. Have you come to the terms with the fact that he might be released?
03:14:37
>> I have not come to terms with that. I am I have to work on that. I feel like he's
03:14:44
not going to come out and come after me, but you know, you never know. There's there's that little part of me
03:14:51
that you're not going to convince that he he doesn't want to hurt or harm me. [Music]
03:15:04
You know, I it's it's hard to even ask the question, but what does closure look like for you? I mean, especially when
03:15:12
you talk about this was such a random act of violence. >> Yeah. you know, um, hindsight is 2020, so looking back on
03:15:24
how I came out of the hospital and everything was so chaotic and everybody was so traumatized, nobody knew what to
03:15:31
do. Looking back now, um, had I been received into an environment that had created a safe environment for
03:15:41
me, that is what I needed. Like I needed that foundation. I still need it. the foundation of safety. I have to figure
03:15:48
out, can I live in a standalone house by myself >> or do I have to always live in a an
03:15:54
apartment with other people around or a condo or, you know, something with other
03:15:58
people around, >> you know? And I think what what you're doing now is so remarkable because
03:16:03
you're trying to help people understand >> what it means to be a victim of a random
03:16:09
attack and and the emotions, you know, the the post-traumatic stress that goes along with all of that when it comes to
03:16:17
healing. Yeah. Uh well when well first of all I didn't think maybe the first couple days when I was
03:16:25
out of the hospital I didn't think that I had post-traumatic stress like I didn't I was just like you know this was
03:16:32
a hor you know a violent horrible thing and um I'm going to calm down and things
03:16:38
will be okay. I followed the steps of like what I was supposed to do followed doctor's orders and things like that. It
03:16:44
wasn't until things started happening to me that um it really set in like the nightmares and the not sleeping and um I
03:16:55
couldn't be around people and the isolating and the >> um the emotions up and down like I could
03:17:01
be sitting here um just like this and all of a sudden I wouldn't be crying but tears would be pouring out of me.
03:17:08
>> I had all this tra trauma inside me and it had to be released somehow. Right.
03:17:13
And Donna, what what are you doing now to help you know get through this? I mean, it's still it seems like it's very
03:17:20
emotionally traumatic still to this day. >> Yes. So, I still am in therapy. Um, I
03:17:28
was on anti-anxiety medications. I was on medication. Whatever the the doctors thought that I
03:17:35
should be on, I I followed their protocol. Um I also uh started to do yoga and meditation and aroma therapy.
03:17:45
Anything calming, mind, body, soul type calming things >> to help you heal though. I know that you
03:17:51
created a support group specifically focused on victims of random attacks. Why was that important to you?
03:17:59
>> You know, nobody could put together the the that random act. nobody could put
03:18:03
together that I was alone in the night, in the dark and barely escaped death. I knew I needed to talk to somebody else
03:18:14
and um hear their experience, I guess, more for hope, right? Let me I want to hear from somebody who who got to the
03:18:21
other side of this, who survived it and is doing well and is thriving and, you know, has all these ways of coping. So,
03:18:29
I just wanted with the support group, I wanted to be able to be a safe place for
03:18:33
somebody else to tell their story. >> Um, you know, hold space for somebody else.
03:18:37
>> I I heard you saying that you have the same job and that you had before the attack that they've been very supportive
03:18:44
and helpful. >> Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much for pointing that out because um having my
03:18:51
job to go back to and having a purpose to get up and get out of bed and um go to work every day that was so important.
03:19:00
It's the one thing that has not changed since the attack. It's the one constant.
03:19:06
And what do you want people to know about victims of random attacks? How do we talk to people who've gone through
03:19:12
what you've gone through in a way that doesn't also, you know, become triggering? I think you really have to
03:19:19
meet people where they are and in hearing somebody talk about whatever they're experiencing or whatever they're
03:19:27
going through. You don't have to fix it. You you don't have to offer advice. Just
03:19:34
listen, you know, just just let let them release that. um without judgment. >> Um I know before the attack you competed
03:19:45
in tough mutters and you know you as you said you were in the best shape of your
03:19:50
life back then. Um I think though what got you through this is you're the toughest mother.
03:19:58
I'm amazed again how you got up those stairs. You called 911. You gave that description. And it really all came from
03:20:04
a place of love knowing that you needed to protect your daughter. Um, how are you and and Kirsten doing today?
03:20:12
>> Yeah, she's doing well. Um, she's building a life um of her own with her husband. There's still that uh there's
03:20:21
like a wedge there from the attack. I feel like I'm there's always something in my everyday life that relates to the
03:20:29
attack or something from the attack and I feel like I I don't want to put that on her because that then causes her to
03:20:37
>> think about it and then you know so there's a wedge there where I kind of try to protect her from my stuff and she
03:20:46
kind of tries to protect me from any of her stuff and it's not the healthiest thing but um we're going to get through
03:20:52
it. I know you will and and I know it has to be so hard. I mean, you both have been through so much. So, it's it's
03:20:59
understandable how, you know, in trying to protect one another, you end up sometimes putting, you know, blocks in
03:21:06
the way in the path of allowing you to have, you know, a really open and honest conversation.
03:21:12
>> But you'll get there. You'll get there because the work you're doing is amazing
03:21:16
and >> sharing your story, helping others is helping you. And I can see that. So,
03:21:22
Donna, you're you're incredible and it's such a privilege to get to know you and
03:21:27
I know it wasn't easy having a conversation again about what happened to you, but we so appreciate you sharing
03:21:33
it because perhaps in in helping us understand how best to talk to victims of random attacks, you're creating an
03:21:41
opportunity as well to let us just understand people going through traumatic experiences as a whole. Thank
03:21:47
you so much. We want to thank you for listening to It Could Have Been Me. I'm Natalie Morales
03:21:55
and you can always find your latest podcast in the 48 hours podcast feed. It's free on the Odyssey app or wherever
03:22:02
you get your podcasts. [Music]