Close Encounters with Evil - Full Episode Marathon | A&E

[Music] my name is Rhonda Stapley I survived Ted Bundy a killer walked into this KY Omega sorority house at Florida State University and strangled two young co-eds to death police were baffled calling it the work of a deranged [Music] murderer Ted bendy was one of the most evil people in the world every young lady was worried about him and nervous about him no one walked the streets alone at night everyone was afraid I was a pharmacy student at the University University of Utah when this happened uh in the fourth year of a six-year program living on my own had some roommates we did things college kids do you know everybody knew everybody in the building so nobody locked their doors in the whole apartment building and you just go on the elevator to whatever floor you wanted and go to whatever party you wanted to go [Music] to everybody seemed to know everybody and everybody was friends whether you really knew them or not um had common interest because everyone was studying I lived in the medical towers and the medical Towers was housing for nursing students and Pharmacy students I had just bought a car but I was afraid to drive it in Utah traffic everybody knew that hitchhiking was dangerous but it hadn't been dangerous very long I think there were things happening in California about that time that were hitting the news and people were learning that hitchhiking especially for young girls was a dangerous thing to do so people were beginning to be more cautious and I think Ted Bundy helped to change the whole outlook of [Music] America that sheer number of Destruction is a very significant part of his evil but there's another dimension to it when comparing him to other serial killers and that is the way he killed this is a man who killed uh in in the most violent the most um terrifying way before death he would break bones he would rip parts of the body off he would keep parts of the body mutilated after he did it this is a person who ravaged his victims intending to cause pain and that that certainly qualifies him as evil beyond measure the 33-year-old Utah law student is a suspect in more than 30 murder rape cases across the country at the time of my attack we've never heard of him Salt Lake City was new to him I would have been the second victim in this city and we hadn't really heard about the Washington ones [Music] I had a dental appointment downtown so I had taken a city bus downtown because I didn't want to drive my my new car and while I was downtown I decided I would walk over to a city park called Liberty Park and break in a pair of new hiking boots that I just bought when you buy hiking boots it seems like the laces are are always way longer than they need to be and I had taken those laces and wrapped them around my ankles two or three times and tied them and double knotted them so my boots were really on my feet and that would be important later [Music] on from the dentist office I'd walked about a mile over to the city park and walked around there and kind of people watched and walked in the leaves it was Autumn time and and then my mouth started to become a numb from the from the dental surgery and I could tell that I needed to go home to some aspirins pretty soon so I went over to where the bus stop was and I waited on this park bench for the bus to come and I as I was waiting the bus didn't show up but a tan Volkswagen drove [Music] by and it drove by really slowly and then it stopped and backed up and the driver leaned over and rolled down on the passenger window and asked me where I was going he looked like a college student he was nicely dressed seemed polite and um handsome and he asked me if I wanted to ride as he he was going up to the university also and I told him sure and and I hopped in Ken casares now former Sheriff of Leon County Florida that's the state Capal Capital he was evil but you could not discern that even if you knew he was evil because he didn't come across as evil he came across as brilliant charismatic smart insightful and he was a good communicator so you put together the evil with all of those positive traits and you have a very dangerous person if they want to focus that evil smart intentions towards others which he did and he was capable of commanding the trust of those that were most vulnerable the young co-eds going to college who were perhaps away from home for maybe the first time in their life there was a period of time very close to the point at which he is captured that Bundy went on what can only be described as as a Savage Rampage during the pre-dawn hours the killer walked through an unlocked door at the KY Omega sorority house and brutally beat four FSU co-eds as they slept he broke into a sorority house in Florida within 15 minutes he' attacked four women brutally uh cracking their skulls breaking their collar bones uh biting off nipples and killing 20-year-old Lisa ly and 21-year-old Margaret Bowman died from their injuries I got the call obviously and and was in disbelief uh I I didn't process all of that I drove there and my my mind was just reeling with thoughts of what could this be uh when I got there uh I did check with the investigators who had been inside they had secured the scene we knew that we had two who were obviously dead and two that they believed may die but they were transported uh in the moments that it took me to get there uh they were carrying out the second one putting her into the ambulance at the time didn't know whether they would survive or not then as I'm standing outside of the sorority house we get a call that there's strange noises coming from a condo next door the killer struck again three blocks from the sorority house where he severely injured Cheryl Anne Thomas he had brutally beaten a dance uh major from Florida State University she was in a pool of blood when my investigator went in the apartment Bundy was leaving out the back window but she tended to the the injured first but we didn't know it was Bundy of course at the [Music] time he would go between jurisdictions to deliberately confuse the police pick up a woman in one jurisdiction murder her and another bury her in another because he thought the police can't put it together and to some degree at the time he was right we weren't coordinating like we do [Music] today this didn't feel like hitchhiking this felt like a friendly college student helping another college student I didn't feel scary and I didn't feel wrong in any way and just after a couple of blocks he turned a direction that wasn't the normal route to the university and I question him about that and and very politely he says well hope you don't mind but I have a short errand to run up by the zoo and I didn't mind he told me that he was a lost student and I told him I was a pharmacy student we were just having normal kind of conversation and I figured I would be home faster than if I had waited for the bus anyway and I was feeling pretty um lucky and enamored maybe that I was in in the company of a a lost student what college girl wouldn't want to meet a a lost [Music] student unlike other serial killers he could use his social graces his sophistication his psychological sophistication to manipulate women and gain access to women who otherwise probably would have nothing to do with the kind of person who could become a serial killer [Music] [Music] unlike other serial killers Bundy did not Target prostitutes which are easy victims he targeted young young attractive intelligent often beautiful and successful women this he could do because of his intelligence that made him a unique threat and [Music] [Music] danger then we got to the zoo and he kept on going and I said I thought you were taking me to the zoo and he said no I said near the zoo and we kept driving up that Canyon and been down another Canyon and pretty soon he he should have turned right when we got out of that canyon to go to the university and steady he turned left and soon we were going up another Canyon and that was when the ride started to feel not really scary but a bit uncomfortable all the way he'd been kind of talking to me and just easy talk like people who don't know each other very well would talk about the the weather and the road traffic and road construction and things at the University and the new bookstore and a bunch of you know just easy things like that and at this point when we started up that last Canyon he stopped talking to me just had both hands on the steering wheel and was just [Music] driving started to feel uncomfortable felt like I was pulling the conversation along and and trying to make idle conversation but it was becoming more stressed and he wasn't paying attention to me anymore seemed like he was slowing down going around corners and looking at turn offs and picnic areas in my mind I thought that he is looking for a place to pull over and park and make out and I was very religious Mormon girl um I was not a make out kind of person I didn't know him very well and so in my mind I'm trying to figure out how do I get out of this situation without embarrassing either of us and and um I just wanted to go home at that point then he drove into kind of secluded picnic area and pulled back into the trees and turned the car off and he put his hands on my throat and started squeezing I should have known better than to get in the car with a stranger everybody knows that hitchhiking is wrong and even though this didn't feel like hitchhiking at the time I should have been you know I'm a college student I'm a pharmacy student I should know better than to to do something so stupid he leaned in really close to my face I thought he was going to kiss me instead he said you know what I'm going to kill [Music] you my first thought was this can't be happening you know why would he want to kill somebody and why would he want to kill me and you can't just pick somebody at random and kill him and maybe this is some weird joke and he's got a really strange sense of humor but it wasn't a strange sense of humor he was just [Music] evil there was a battle in the car and I went unconscious and then he moved me out of the car to a picnic table where the assault um [Music] continued [Music] he felt like he was a chameleon uh in that he could disguise himself he could change his colors and he could take advantage and he could strike like a chameleon [Music] bam and take his prey and it gave him such satisfaction apparently at least that's what I [Music] saw what his ammo always consists of is taking these two facets of his personality I don't want to say that he had dual personality but two facets of his personality and he used one of them the intelligent the Charming the caring the one that would do somebody else's Nails would help wash the hair he'd use that to seduce them into his private presence and then the monster the face of Rage would come out and this would plunder this woman aunder that that was his [Music] emmo I was unconscious when he moved me out of the car and when he got me to the picnic table he slapped my face and grabbed my mouth and shook my face around trying to wake me up and and in that process he tore some of the U dental stitches loose and my mouth was bleeding he seemed to like to watch me go in and out of Consciousness so at one point he had me lying on the on the ground he was sitting on my chest um with all of his weight on my chest and stomach so that it's very hard to breathe and I told him get off I can't breathe and he says stop struggling and I'll let you breathe and I struggled some more and said get off I can't breathe and he said the same thing just you got to relax and stop struggling and I'll let you [Music] breathe and so I held still and he kind of rocked up onto his knees so they took some of the pressure off and then he put his hand over my nose and mouth and cut off my air that way and he would do that until I would just go unconscious and then he would kind of bring me back what Bundy wants is not death everything stops at death but Bundy wants is dying dying and knowing it being terrified cuz one that victim is terrified electrified Bundy is alive he's seeing his influence he's seeing his power so the victims response of intense terror is the very food makes which makes it possible for him to be a psychological terrorist the last time when I regained Consciousness I noticed that he wasn't standing by me anymore pit Kenyon was Pitch Pitch Black with Darkness but he there was a little light coming from the d light of the car because he had opened the the door to the Volkswagen was fiddling around with something in the back seat and I used that opportunity to just run the opposite direction I didn't think of where I was going or um plan a Escape or anything I just jumped up and ran um with [Music] adrenaline I've spoken to victims who have not died of attacks by serial killers and uh uh the First Response almost all of them have is not a terror response it's a a confusion what's happening response we're all trained to believe that things happen for reasons the first thought is what's going on here have I is this person uh misidentifying me are they looking for somebody else I didn't notice that my pants were in a water around my ankles and so I tripped right away after the first step and fortunately or just by pure luck or grace of God or intervention from above or something I happened to fall into the mountain river which wasn't very deep but was really really fast and it swept me away from my attacker and is probably what saved my life the water was really Swift there weren't really things like waterfalls but there was water swirling around Boulders and flowing over Boulders and I of course was smashing into those bushes along the side side of the river and tree limbs going across the river um eventually I was able to climb out and and rearrange my clothes because of those boots that I had on my feet really well he wasn't able to get my clothes completely off and I was able to pull my pants up up and I still had my good boots so I could walk home and that's what I did is I just walked home the first thing that I thought when I got out of the water was nobody can ever know I did this stupid thing I felt embarrassed and stupid and ashamed and I I felt like um I had been raped so I thought that that my mother would make me come drop out of school and go home I thought that my roommates and friends would treat me different ly and things would just be awkward and weird I thought that people that didn't know me would you know point at me and say that's that girl that was raped and I thought that the police would make me retail parts that I didn't think I could retail so I decided the best thing for me to do was just to suck it up and pretend it never happened and go on with my life and so that's pretty much what I did when other women started disappearing and more bodies were found I thought it was partly my fault because if if I had come forward maybe he would have been captured sooner or at least people would have been warned to stay away from cute guys and Volkswagens so I I blamed myself for a lot of the murders that happened after my [Music] assault [Music] I first saw that he was arrested on the on the news my roommates and I would watch Mash television show and then after that we'd watch the the local news and the local news that night said that there had been unrest um related to the kidnapping of Carol Duran and of course I'm perked up and watching it but so of my roommates everybody on the planet is watching it didn't really point out which one was him but I knew which one he was right away because I had seen him so up close and personal I think when I saw him and knowing what I knew that he really was a killer and not just a just arrested for kidnapping Carol is big relief that he had been arrested also Carol gave a good description of him in his car and so that kind of took the pressure off of me that I don't need to tell the police now because I don't know any more than they know and they've got a description when he escaped from prison I knew that he was a killer and I knew that he wasn't going to stop and I felt guilty for not trying to stop him earlier and I knew that um if he found me if he can escape from prison if he's smart enough to escape from prison he's smart enough to find me and he can find me and kill [Music] me to Colorado authorities Ted Bundy is a master escape artist a man who twice escaped from their jails despite top security precautions Bundy escaped from a Colorado jail last New Year's Eve at Kai Omega a sign on the sorority house door announces that the house is closed to all visitors women still walk alone during the day but at night it's another [Music] story when I viewed the two bodies of the young ladies at the morg on the slab just barely 20 years of age I had a one-month-old little girl at home my daughter and I had a 2-year-old daughter at home and I just kept flashing images that this could be them I made myself a promise in the morg somebody's going to pay for this I will find this person I probably didn't make friends in law enforcement as a result of this commitment because they weren't used to one person taking charge and directing other agencies but that's what the major crime Squad was all about in other words I thought I could direct it it with their cooperation at that moment he was like that shark that is just going for the prey one after the other after the other and he couldn't stop police continue to guard the kai Omega house around the clock but the girls who live there haven't slept in the house since last weekend and there's no word on when they'll [Music] return [Music] chances are if I had come forward that wouldn't have caught him either he probably would have sold the Volkswagen and moved to a different state um other women would have died maybe not the Utah women but women somewhere because that's just who who he was and what he was about part of the reason not to tell anybody was a fear that you won't be believed even way back then you know had I told my roommates just would say said yeah right cuz nobody gets kidnapped and raped and murdered in Salt Lake [Music] City it just wasn't something that would happen in my community I thought that people wouldn't believe me and then farther down the road when other women were disappearing and bodies were being found then if I had have told people still might say yeah yeah right that didn't happen to you or you would have told right away years later you know when he was arrested then it would have seemed stupid to say yeah I was with that guy people say yeah right you're just looking for attention and it just seemed better to just suck it up and move on with my [Music] life it was in early January of 1978 that police believe Bundy first arrived in Florida one month later he was arrested for driving a stolen car an officer just doing good law enforcement work in Pensacola stopped him in a Volkswagen wagon and it's because he was going slow and he just had a gut feeling that something might be wrong and of course it came out over his radio after he called it in the the vehicle had been stolen and it was stolen from nearby the kai Omega house all of that started to like could it be uh and it was and of course he was captured and kept there to FBI officials the 30 3-year-old Utah law student is a suspect in more than 30 murder rape cases across the country which coincide with Ted Bundy's movements over the past 5 years I opened the door of the vehicle escorted him out of the car took him by the arm and pulled him out and we had our first face to face I think that all the investigators involved feel very strongly that this is the best suspect that we've developed since the murders occurred what do we have here Ken let's see oh say an indict all right Bundy talked of his innocence and of defending himself in court I've got a lot of steak and the person I'm representing in my this myself and I'm working all the harder yeah I feel good about it and yes I feel that I'm right and yes I'm I feel I'm going to make it the way he looked at me the way his eyes drilled through me not at me through me I knew that he was starting his assessment who is this guy how am I going to take advantage of him what am I going to do why you read it to me for election aren't you Mr got it didn't you Mr B you told me that you told me that you were going to get me he said he was going to get me okay you've got the indictment it's all you're going to get it was from there that we began uh kind of I don't want to call it a relationship because I don't want to have a relationship with Ted Bundy but we had a a a very special and different connection that arose out of that moment I think he knew he had met a challenge cuz I was dead serious there won't be any press sure there won't be any press interviews you've given them out I'm I'm gaged you're nothing I'll be [Music] heard I'm sure there are other women Ted Bundy had so many victims that it's impossible to think that he took vacations from killing and that they he had periods of time when he wasn't uh searching for victims and it's also hard to believe that I could be the only one that escaped there has to be um other victims and maybe even victims that don't realize that they were so close to death and I would encourage them just to find somebody that they can trust and share and start healing Those Old Wounds if they have them I had a good career I graduated married had family I worked as a pharmacist for years and years and it had been about 34 years since my attack when a boss at my job happened to in an angry kind of Rage raged at me with a lot of the same language and verb tonage and things that that Ted Bundy had used against me all those years ago and it brought back all those feelings just open that place where I had hidden all those memories it wasn't that I had ever forgotten what had happened I've always remembered I just chose not to let myself think about it and when he did those things and said the same things in the same way it kind of caused an eruption inside and I found myself in a PTSD kind of nightmare I found a counselor and told my story for the first time I have been back to that Canyon a couple of times the first time with my therapist I didn't even know which Canyon it was actually and he figured out exactly where it was I guess there's only one place in the canyon that fit the descriptions when we got up there and opened the car door then I could hear the Rushing Water and I had forgotten about the water and so then I was having a panic attack right in the parking lot up there thinking I'm going to have a heart attack and die return to this spot where I almost died and I'm still going to [Music] die if a person is stabbed seriously or they have a a gunshot wound the body as a natural response will close up over the wound um and out out where Outsiders want that to mean is the wound will go away there'll be nothing of it anymore you'll just forget but in fact what happens is the way the body heals itself is any part of the body that's attacked scars develops tough hard tissue to prepare it for the next attack because it doesn't know when the next attack is coming and and psychological healing is the same people build scar tissue around the memory around the experience so the experience of being with a man trusting a man has scar tissue around it and I don't believe that anyone who's been savagely attacked and narrowly escaped death ever forgets it at least at an unconscious level they never forget it and it never stops uh in some way influencing their life they're going to be a little bit more distant from a love relationship there's going to be a little bit of distance that isn't there for other people that's a price they pay for [Music] surviving well of course we did a lot of Investigation of him uh I had him in custody for over two years in my uh Detention Center my Jail uh and I said mine it was I was the sheriff I was responsible for the jail as well as law enforcement for a 700 mile jurisdiction and as a result of having him in detention for so long we had a lot of time to investigate him we did find out things about his relationship with his grandfather and that his grandfather was abusive that as a result of some of the relationship with his grandfather he would experiment with torturing animals as a child [Music] he was found at one time at school masturbating in things that were tremendously embarrassing to him if someone found out because he always it seemed like even into adulthood had this Consciousness or awareness of his [Music] difference it's amazing to me that I think he was aware of who he was he was aware of what he was he studied himself he actually had a lot of ability to do introspection and then he compartmentalized it he would bring up the moments as I see it from all my discussions with him and I think he would Savor the moments that he had that made him feel that special feeling of whatever it was that that we as normal humans can't understand in his last interviews Ted Bundy said that it was pornography that had had molded his life and I don't believe that there are there are a lot of people who view pornography and they're not serial killers I don't think that was the only thing I think he had some genetic something wrong [Music] his trial started in 1979 just a couple months after Barry and I had gotten married so while he was working evenings I was watching the trial on tv um I watched as much of it as I could watch uh partly because I needed to make sure he wasn't escaping again that he was where he was supposed to be and I saw how arrogant he was and he wasn't in shackles he was dressed uh pretending to be his own liar dressed like a liar um smiling and flirting with the people in the audience I didn't know how you're going to be able to do all this by 1:00 you uh you just watch it I I didn't want to overburden you now well Mr Bundy when you overburden this court I'll let you know just being Mr charismatic and that was kind of sickening the verdict came at 9:35 this evening the timing surprised almost everyone as judge Edward card had indicated he did not expect a quick decision just 6 and 1 half hours after judge Edward coward handed the case to the jury the 12 member panel returned with a verdict they found Theodore Bundy guilty on all seven counts of burglary murder and attempted [Music] murder yes I was elated that there was a conviction they all of course were congratulating me um I I was conflicted yes I understood that this was congratulations but it was no congratulations these women had suffered some suffered and lived thank God others died how do you celebrate this court independent a but in agreement with the advisory sentence rendered by the jury does hereby imposed the death penalty upon the defendant theore Robert Bundy I was happy that we had a resolution that he was going to pay the price uh or at least a price it it you can't come up with the price there is no price ask any father ask any mother there is no price that you can put on their child to know that you know it's not satisfaction it's not even closure it's another step in the process that we're glad it's done it's a tragedy for this court to see it's such a total waste I think of humanity that I've experienced in this court you're a bright young man you made a good lawyer I'd love to had you practice in front of me but you went another way partner take care of yourself thank take care of yourself young man thank you I I say that to you sincerely take care of yourself Bundy wanted to survive I I'm sure right till the last minute he was hoping and and thinking about you know ways that he may may survive um but in some sense um not that I am a supporter of the death penalty for serial killers but the death penalty is the only thing that is an unambiguous cure to being a serial killer I was not really happy but kind of relieved when he was executed normally I I kind of don't very often agree with the death penalty but with him it was necessary um I think that you know things can happen there can be anger or rage or alcohol or drugs or jealousy or something goes wrong and someone ends up dead and someone goes to jail for murder and those people probably don't need the death penalty but Ted Bundy killed just because he liked it and he enjoyed it and every time he would Escape he would kill some more and um he would still be killing if he was around [Music] today it destroyed my trust in people when I finally met my husband I told him that I had been raped and he said that was all right and he didn't ask any questions and I didn't offer any information and we just went on from there he just accepted me for who I was all the years while we were raising our kids we never went camping in the mountains Canyons by Mountain Streams we went to the desert and rock hounded or we went to the beach or to Disneyland I probably was more cautious with my daughters than other parents might have been I didn't like them riding city buses fear that they might meet somebody while they're waiting and offer them a ride it is easier now there are certain things that still are kind of triggering and and cause not especially the memories the nightmares and things like that but but kind of cause a queasy upset feeling tightness in my chest and things some of those are are noises things that sound like Raging Rivers sometimes it's just a pouring rainstorm it's not a river at all but it can sound like that and sometimes that sound will make me [Music] angry you know I'm saddened that I had to be involved in this case I'm saddened that I had to see what I saw I've got two daughters that I protect VI vigorously they paid a tremendous price through life because of Ted Bundy because that experience always made me lecture them about everything they do every moment that they're out every moment they're away every moment they're somewhere the worst thing is that happened in the first place um monsters exist and it's it's sad that the world is not like it was 50 years [Music] ago those times are gone forever no one can feel really safe and everyone locks doors now even in small towns bad things happen the best is that whatever happens you can get through it you can still have a nice life and still be [Music] happy still have life and not let not let evil ruin your entire [Music] life [Music] my name is Moly that's m o l e a I just completed a foundation degree in art design from Liverpool and I ended up going to leads to do a fine art [Music] degree when I first arrived in leads there was a big music [Music] scene there was dance and drama and we would go out and celebrate and be part of that culture and as the months progressed the streets became quieter and quieter because on the horizon was this this monster called the Yorkshire Ripper can you predict when the Ripper might strike again not at all could be in 10 years could be next week could be right now repeatedly stabb them taking attacked women purely for sexual gratification a huge specially sharpened screwdriver that simply leaving their homes at night meant taking their lives in their [Music] hands the nickname that Peter Sutcliffe was given or at that time the unknown killer was given was the Yorkshire Ripper and obviously that was based very much on Jack the Ripper who was never traced but who carried out all these equally horrific murders in London nearly near 100 years [Music] earlier in leads in October 1975 luck ran out for Ripper victim number one 28-year-old divorce Willman the 12 weeks later in a derel building in leads Ripper victim number two 43 y- old Emily Jackson it was a full year before the Ripper struck again body identified as that of 28-year-old Irene Richardson 33-year-old Patricia Atkinson Jane McDonald ion Pearson who' been missing for 2 months could be identified only through her fingerprints it was very easy to persuade them to get into a car it was very easy to find them and they were used to not being protected in any way and he realized then that as long as there was nobody watching what was going on he could do what he [Music] liked his main modus operandi was to have a hammer with which he would whack them on the back of the head and and render them unconscious and he would have either a knife or a screwdriver with which he would stab them and mutilate them and that became his kind of trademark way of both killing and mutilating the bodies of his victims [Music] coming from Liverpool it didn't seem to affect us that much we we saw the news headlines and we read the the main tabloids just the front page but it didn't seem to be part of our Northwest culture it wasn't the culture of fear and as soon as he went over the penines and then the local newspapers actually started to produce the photographs of the women that he killed they were almost like cigarette cards you know and they repeatedly had them on the front page black and white images of young women and I was using all the newspapers to absorb the paint and wrap up etching plates and I started to read them and slowly realize that this was actually on my doorstep in the heart of leads in Yorkshire that these women were being killed so a vulnerability started to emerge and you started to think that you needed to be more guarded about how you went out and how you conducted your social life what was really interesting that Margaret Thatcher the prime minister at the time actually said to the women of the northern England you must not go out at night last night in lead's public dissatisfaction with the police performance so far found a voice albe it a rather extreme one hundreds of feminists marched through the city demanding that the police should put a 9:00 curfew on on men until the Ripper is caught that may seem a trifle bizarre but the fact is that thousands of women are already under their own self-imposed curfew there was a curfew almost on on women going out alone well as a Young art student really weren paying much attention to that so we tried our best but we sadly had to conform to the norm the streets were deserted so it felt really strange at night to be out on your own and most people started to go and have coffee in town and and you know drink in like just social drinks early in the evening but in the end no one started to go out all there everyone [Music] stopped by the end of 1977 Peter had attacked then about 11 women one of them which changed the whole perception The public's perception was a young 16-year-old school girl called Jane McDonald she wasn't a prostitute she was a young girl going home minding her own business mistaken for a prostitute when she took a shortcut home from a disco through the red light area of leads by this stage if it was a woman who was vulnerable he was happy to kill them as far as I could see but what did become clear was the attitude of that time because she was described in some newspapers as his first innocent victim as though in some ways the prostitutes had been guilty of making themselves vulnerable to him and I think that has changed a lot in in the years since then but it it caused a lot of anger amongst women amongst feminists and amongst any commentator with a heart to see her described as the first innocent victim but it was certainly she was a victim who prompted the police to work much harder than I think they had been working at the time and it turned it into more of a panic because I think some people had thought well if you don't work in the red light district at night in Yorkshire you're safe now the the message from the murder of Jane McDonald was no woman in Yorkshire is safe [Music] anymore so from September 1980 we all returned from our summer holidays to do our final year and we came into the studios and we met up but by about I think it must have been 4 or 5:00 everyone was going home very early no one was going out anymore and the studios became quite deserted because this murderer was on on the radar and we all felt that we could be the next person at the time that I was in leads it was very intense fear this fear that someone could kill you but we didn't think it would be necessarily one person until the newspapers started to see this pattern of behavior and his modus operandi and then it be like one one person could do all of these killings and it was it was really bizarre the fear was quite palpable during my service as both a uniform constable and a detective Constable I was deeply involved with the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry Suli was very lucky cuz he wasn't particularly careful to cover up his crimes but he knew what he was doing he attacked at random who couldn't anticipate his moves the whole of the north of England was held in a well a grip of Terror really by this man can only describe it as a Gothic type Cloud over the area if you ask any woman that was about at that time they will tell you they lived in fear of being attacked in the Redlight districts of leads Bradford Huddersfield and Manchester the man they call the Yorkshire Ripper has now struck at least eight times well I'm very frightened but it's just you got to do it and yeah you need the money so it's another way I'm going to get it so I do it that way but is it really worth risking your life yes I think so just hope I'm [Music] looking it was really strange because as students you come in to a new city and you don't really feel that their culture is your culture and you immerse yourself in a kind of subculture of student life but then every now and then you know there'd be another murder and it'd be closer to home and we began to realize that as women going out alone we were pretty vulnerable there was that solidarity amongst the women and female friends and the BLS as well that they'd make sure that they would walk you home or get on the bus early enough so we did Clan together and group together to protect each other on the evening of October the 25th 1980 I planned to go into the Town Center beds to meet a group of friends from art school and there we were going to play plan my 21st birthday party which would have been in a few days time after that so I'd left where I was living and got into town and meandered through the town center up to the little Pub and met my friends there and we nursed our beers and we had lots of conversations and made great plans and I left that Pub I think it was about quarter 10 10:00 and my friends they all lived in the headingly area and I live slightly out of town my friends were saying oh we'll walk you into town and you going to be all right for goodness sake you know I'm absolutely fine it's not far I'm going to walk through the university which will be busy and then straight into the Town Center to catch my bus so they umed andard and are you sure I like yeah yeah yeah I'm fine you know cuz I was hugely independent and I walked along Hyde Park and headed towards the university GRS I kind of realized that that probably wasn't the best decision and started to think well if I can walk really quickly I can get an even earlier bus home because they were every 15 minutes I knew the schedule pretty well so I marched through the university grounds and the campus and it was really quite quiet and I started to sense that yeah I really need to get a move on so I kind of power walked all the way through and I got to the outskirts of the campus and there's a church and you can either take the long way round or you can go and through a shortcut Street and that would have got me into town quicker I made a decision that it would be much easier for me to go through that shortcut and get into town so get home safely so I walked along Hillary place and there was a light out it was fairly dark and as I was halfway through I heard this voice calling to me me hey hi really really friendly really friendly so I thought oh maybe one of my friends had been trying to catch me up all this time and they like not managed and they were out of breath so I stopped and I turned around and I walk towards this figure and it was a young man and it was quite quite dark but I didn't recognize him and he was like hi how are you and I thought maybe I do know him I wasn't he was so friendly so friendly so I realized I didn't know this Chap and then I thought why this is not this isn't [Music] good I turn around and I started to walk quickly and then I realized I was in danger I just sensed this and as soon as I started to run really quickly his footsteps were behind me getting quicker and quicker and quicker and the fear my knees turned to jelly and all I remember was getting this massive whack on the top of my head and I saw the ground come up towards me and that that was all that I remember but it was real fear like nightmare deep fear I've never been frightened before like that ever or [Music] since as I was knocked unconscious I don't remember very much at all I remember being roused in an ambulance and people calling my name and then going back into unconsciousness again and the next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed a dimly lit Ward and trying to get out of bed and carry on going home I didn't couldn't quite figure out how I'd ended up in this Hospital Ward I I knew was a hospital Ward I wasn't completely out of it and I tried to raise my head and I couldn't and I I wanted to thinking I'll just get my shoes and walk home you know I don't need to be here what am I doing here and I started to try and speak and I couldn't I couldn't open my mouth and I couldn't hardly see and then my jaw was completely broken I didn't realize at the time and I started to groan and then a nurse briskly walked to the bed and she rolled me over gave me an injection I was out of it again and that seemed to be a continuous way of treating me at the time to keep me sedated heavily sedated so I felt like a caged animal actually cuz inside I was still running and I didn't know why I was there I didn't know the extent of my injuries and this constant sedation I was trying to wake up I was trying to talk and I must have been like that for fair fair couple of days I [Music] think I was really lucky in that as I was running for my life towards Woodhouse Lane there was a group of students walking across and unbeknownst to me I must have let out a scream I don't remember screaming but I must have and they turned around and while I was on the floor and he was kneeling over me may have been for the final blow I don't know they started to walk towards to see what was going on and they frightened him off but what they saw I mean I know the the lady who came to help me she said she was so so shocked by what she saw and and quite horrified and quite traumatized by that but she um sent her friend to phone for an ambulance and they saved my life and I'm still in touch with her she was my angel if it hadn't been for her I wouldn't be here so I was really lucky really really [Music] lucky Peter chains the type of victim he he was going for because he was worried that prostitutes were talking to each other they' set up a a Consortium a network because they were apart from Jay and McDonald the main targets of the Yorkshire Ripper because of that I think Peter then decided that he would attack any young woman who he took his fancy Sutliff had described his feelings about the killings he said the feeling which lay dormant for a while later wed up so strongly that I could have killed any woman I think Peter had a real desire to kill I don't think it was necessarily A hatred of women I think he just enjoyed killing I think he enjoyed the buzz of being able to attack people I also think he got cudos self cudos from being someone the police hadn't caught he'd been interviewed two or three times but each time they had discounted him and I think that gave him a sense of pride a sense of encouragement and I think he thought to some extent he was invincible that nobody would catch [Music] [Music] him the reason for going to see sliff was because his vehicle had been cited in three red light areas in leads in Bradford and in Manchester there were three sightings in leads there were I think it was five sightings in Manchester and over 80 in Bradford well he worked and lived in Bradford so that could explain the batford sightings but the leads of Manchester sightings uh he did not make a reasonable excuse for being seen he'd had many escapes during the investigation he was interviewed a total of nine occasions he lied his way out on every occasion and he was a very good liar if you look at his statements many years later he always had had a quite a clever excuse as to why he had been somewhere why he had particular tools on him and so on he had the perfect Alibi because he was a long-distance Lorry driver so he had a perfect excuse to be in different places at odd times of the day or night very very quiet very quiet uh I mean he wouldn't volunteer information it had to be drawn out of him he was quite an attractive man you know well- groomed but had no personality no Charisma about him whatsoever no Aura there was nothing there nothing that you could engage with if you thought to yourself I'd like to go for a pint with him no you know it's pretty boring as I suppose most serial killers are specially setup switchboards in leads Halifax and Sunderland have been flooded with calls they will all be followed up but we're having to grade them process them obviously you can't deal with everyone at the same time and we're having to give them priorities there would be periods when he wasn't carrying out attacks and people would think maybe he's killed himself maybe he's disappeared maybe he's on the run and then another attack would [Music] happen [Music] I was pretty lucky I think my bones are pretty strong so the blow to the top of the head has left quite a large dent and crack in my skull I had a fractured cheekbones a broken jaw and a scar over my left eye which was stitched up quite crudely um inside my mouth was all cut cuz I'd bitten where the jaw had cracked through my tongue I had two puncture wounds to the back of my top of my neck just below my skull and cuts and bruises on my knees and elbows where I'd Fallen to the [Music] floor while I was in hospital and recovering um I had to be sedated and put under a full anesthetic for them to reset the jaw so everything was a kind of foggy I can't remember that much detail except the frustration of not being able to leave the building one thing I do remember is that my mom and dad came and they they walk past the bottom of my bed and I'm trying to call them my face was so swollen and BR bruised and injured my hair was covered in mattered blood and they could they just didn't recognize me and then their faces when they saw me I kind of realized this was very very serious because they looked so shocked and then they were just brilliant and you know how are you are you all right and all that put on a brave face and then as um I started to recover from when they put my jaw back and stitched me up and washed me and um a policeman arrived and he had a really fancy large format camera and I wondered what why are you taking photographs of me I'm not not looking my best it honestly hadn't really dawned on me until he arrived and and uh I think he was with a another police officer they were playing clothes and they didn't say much and then I started to put two and two together but no one sat me down and said Do You Realize what's happened to you do you know who it was could you describe that person until about I think it was days before I left hospital and I gave a very brief statement to a visiting police officer where I described through my wooly foggy head what had happened but they didn't say you've been attacked they didn't say you been attacked by a weapon of any kind they just said what what do you think happened and it wasn't until I got home in Liverpool where I was recuperating that I realized someone had attacked me and it was probably the bloke that was chatting to me but then what was really interesting was I thought well that that how shameful is that I felt ashamed I felt deeply ashamed and I thought I'm just going to carry on and get back into art school and I'm I'm not even going to talk about it much it seemed to be that was a a kind of survival strategy not to pretend it didn't happen but to try and play it down because if I started to play it up and start asking questions about myself and why I was attacked people might say I was a prostitute so I thought it was better to just leave it and get physically well and get back into art school and get on with my degree that's exactly what I did and that that actually served me quite well for a short time at any [Music] [Music] rate if anybody made the connections that it was the Yorkshire Ripper no one was going to say it because they were equally as ashamed I'm sure my my folks were were proud that I'd survived but the whole Horror Story that gripped the UK then it was too big for me it was too big for them and the best way was to not really talk about it back in those days there was a kind of or you were asking for it you know what you doing out on your own and you just thought well I can't even answer that you're what 21 you're doing your fine art degree you're in your final year do you really want to be identified as a victim of the Yorkshire Ripper you want to be identified as a successful art student and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way of that you I'd really fought long and hard to be there and I wasn't going to be labeled because there was still the conversations that he was cleaning the streets of prostitutes that if you're out alone you were asking for it and I was a really confident independent young woman and I did not want that label I did not want that badge at all I wanted justice but I was happy to sacrifice Justice for having a life without that [Music] the Ripper's tally of known victims has now surpassed that of his notorious namesake who prowled the Streets of London exactly 90 years ago the Yorkshire Ripper immediately caught the Public's imagination and it caught the imagination of of everyone in leads and in in a very Grim reflection of this when 10 murders had been carried out fans at lead United football ground used to taunt the police who would Patrol the ground by chanting Ripper 10 police nil Ripper 10 please nil as a way of taunting them and and so the Ripper took on this kind of almost otherworldly characteristic in the same way that Jack the Ripper had in London so many years earlier the Yorkshire rippo trademark is the unique and vicious way in which he mutilates the bodies almost beyond recognition the media coverage press coverage was overwhelming about it so whereever you were there was always something about the case that had a million pounds worth of publicity rewards were offered it was a massive massive massively intensive uh campaign really both from a police point of view and a media point of view and it's saturated your whole [Music] life the police were conspicuous by their absence the police at the time were looking increasingly incapable because they had hadn't found the York sh Ripper and my attack was another embarrassment to them so their approach was not to make take it seriously and not to even use the words attempted murder it was an attack an assault and that seemed to be the best way that they could handle it but I honestly was so shocked that they hadn't years later I looked back and why didn't they take it seriously ly and they didn't because if they had and my name had gone to the press and it did go to the press the local press oh another another Ripper victim they were like no it wasn't a RI a victim it was it it couldn't have been and eventually they were saying that didn't have the Hallmark uh traits but they played it down the police played it down massively because their reputation was at stake the investigation into the murders that Peter sliff carried out even at the time appeared chaotic in retrospect it was disastrous more than 40,000 people were interviewed in the in the course of the inquiry but a lot of the information was kept in a haphazard fashion little notes which could have led the police to Peter Sutcliffe were lost or abandoned or hidden at the back of the filing cabinet hindsight's a wonderful thing but the real trouble with the inquiry lay in the incident room it was a paper based system uh eventually all the inquiries all the murders all the documentation was focused at milg police station which had to have the floor reinforced to take the weight of all the paper because she had these huge carousels with index C s in them for each event if we' have had computerization then it' have been considerably easier and alarm Bells would have been ringing when sutliff's name turned up another thing was that there were nine inquiry teams I believe actually went to see sule for various reasons I was the seventh inquiry team that went to see him but neither I nor know the others had knowledge of any previous visits to see sup [Music] Cliffe after I could actually walk and my head didn't hurt and I washed my hair myself and I could put up some makeup and I managed to get a new coat because all my clothes were so badly Blood Stained I couldn't wear them again went back and and carried on with my degree with with my head held as high as I possibly could given the injuries that I had I was in the etching Studios and I still had my jaw was wired up for 6 months and I had to talk like this I couldn't speak properly so it was really quite strange but I just so determined to get my degree I think people would say well that's crazy that's denial but actually it did serve me well because it gave me um well if if it didn't happen I'm all right then aren't I you know if I pretend it wasn't as bad as it was then I'm okay and I'm alive you start to think like God was so lucky to be alive I could so easily have died and you start to see things from that perspective you can get up and go and in fact it can give you more of a Lust For Life because of that you know so I kind of thrived on the fact that I had [Music] survived [Music] I can tell you that we are absolutely delighted with developments at this stage absolutely delighted and in your view it was simple straightforward good police work that enabled you to uh assist the river Squad in this particular way you're straightforward [Music] coppery one of the officers came in and says they've caught the Yorkshire Ripper I says what really who is it and she says somebody called Peter sliff well it was like somebody punching me in the chest from the inside so no more to do got into my vehicle drove up to the police station open my locker up looked through the relevant notebook and found the entry Peter William sliff with all his details interview recross area sightings not satisfied with this man suggest to be seen by a senior officer with a more intimate knowledge of the case his arrest was greeted with enormous relief for six years this man had terrorized a large portion of the country I think it was very clear to everybody covering the case at the time that the police had got the right man it wasn't like some murder cases where there's a little bit of Doubt or somebody's protesting they innocent it was clear very early on that he was going to admit to having carried out the killings but the relief that The Man Behind these horrible offenses had finally been caught and was behind bars was immense and that shadow that he cast over the country for for those number of years [Music] passed I realized it was Peter sliff when I was at home in Liverpool and his face appeared on the TV news and it wasn't the iconic photograph where he's wearing a bow tie in his wedding suit it was when he was actually taken from a prison van into uh a courts and there was really a good camera shot and I recognized his face and his eyes I actually felt fell to my knees I was alone at home 6:00 news I thought that's the man that that's the man I chatted to he was he was quite goodlooking he was very slender and I I absolutely identified and then I was then I was really horrified because it dawned on me that he had attacked me so that was my first real understanding that for sure it was it was Peter suley and he had a name and I was recovering and I was very very frightened really frightened it really had been the Yorkshire Ripper who tried to kill me very [Music] frightening Peter Sutcliffe felt that he had a chance of not going to prison but of claiming to be mad and therefore going to a secure hospital where life would be much easier for him and so he emphasized the fact that he believed God had instructed him to clear the streets and that it had been the devil that Devil's urge had had made him carry these things out um and he thought he confided to people that he thought he might get out after 10 years if he could pretend to be mad the jury didn't accept that they found him guilty of murder so he went initially to prison so Peter Sutliff the Yorkshire river is a mass murderer the jury of six men and Six Women took nearly 6 hours to reach their verdict then Court Administrator Mr Michael McKenzie began reading the lengthy indictment as each of the 13 women's names was read out the answer was the Same by a majority of 10 to two guilty of murder on all charges outside the crowds who' waited so long for a verdict were delighted they unashamedly rejoiced at the news that Sutliff was to spend at least 30 years behind bars after he'd been in prison for a while he was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and was moved to Broadmore secure hospital and there he' spent many more years I've understood that I've been badly treated by one person who tried to kill me but that wasn't personal it could have been anybody so I managed to to get over the physical act and I could almost say well you know I'm okay but I had reoccurring Nightmares of the events and I sought my own counseling I paid for counseling I spent for seven years I went to a specialist post-traumatic stress disorder counselor cognitive Counseling group counseling and and it it helped me a bit to kind of keep a lid on it and to keep in the driving seat in my life because as soon as I got fearful I would be out of control so I am hugely angry about what happened but I've had to contain [Music] that I'd like to say that there's been undue criticism of the police who made every move with the best intention with the information that they had you cannot sort of anticipate what a murderer is going to do at random so all the stops were pulled out because all the police wanted from the top to the bottom was for this man to be captured so we could get back to normal everyday police there has been criticism of the police the fact that Sutliff was seen on many occasions and so on how do do you react to that criticism well I think this is ridiculous really every police officer in the west Yori Force were Keen to arrest this man if there had been a shred of evidence to arrest sliff make no mistake about it he would have been [Music] arrested from a personal point of view I never forget the fact that if I'd have done a little bit more maybe bent the rules and dragged him in [Music] the outcome might have been different and three women could have been saved but that that's how was in my mind that three women died after I'd interviewed [Music] him uh so that does stick in my [Music] head would it make any difference if Peter Sutcliffe confessed that he had attacked me I've had to learn to live with the fact that that will never happen and I'm used to that I'm not used to having any closure on it it's a really big question is he evil I don't think it's that black and white I think he was driven for all kinds of psychotic reasons to do what he did and the outcomes and events that and the situations and the murders were evil but him as a person I don't know I don't know I really can't answer [Music] that [Music] [Music] the Cindy Brown papy Jo long is my ex-husband he's the father of my older two [Music] children their bodies were discovered one after another the murders of at least eight young women struck fear through Tampa these weren't just murders he brutely raped all these women before before he killed them and then he just discarded them on the side of the road the state has declared its intent to seek the death penalty and therefore the capital murder charges will be formally presented to the grand jury meanwhile long will remain in his oneman cell at the Hillsboro County jail for 25 plus years I would never have sat here with anybody and said anything about Bob because I still felt like he had that control you know a fear that if I open up my mouth he may have somebody from the prison one of the inmates when they get out come hurt me or my kids then one day I finally said you know what I'm tired of being his victim I'm tired of being his puppet I'm a full-grown adult woman and there is women out there or men out there that are in the same situation that I was in and they need to hear that they can get away from it so I know no longer feel like I'm a victim I'm a Survivor and till I take my last breath I will tell my [Music] story Bobby J long was described by his victims and his victims families as a monster as a horrendous guy very violent and was known to show No Remorse for his actions he had the Tampa Bay Community scared and worried that they might be the next victim of Bobby jolong he would go down on the Tampa's famous strip where nightclubs and prostitutions rampant he would pick up girls and take them to a remote spot and uh rape them in the car on the front seat often at knife point then he would drag them out in a field put a hangman's sose around their neck rape them from behind and pull the ligature very tight just horrible things each one each crime scene was was like somebody crazed not even somebody something monster type you know it was just terrible he made no effort to uh to bury them just left them there I was 13 and he was 14 when we met many years ago and we were playing football at one of the local parks and one of the kids that we were playing with brought him there for the first time because he had just moved to the area and that's where we met the first time there it was like an instant bond with each other I I loved his sense of humor I mean it was pretty witty and you know he made me feel good about myself I never really had a whole lot of self-cures there but he always made me feel that you know I was pretty and I was important and somebody loved me other than my aunt and uncle he swept me off my feet really hard I don't know I just I guess I just fell madly in love with him you know and thought that in the fairy tale world that this was going to be my husband and we were going to live together [Music] forever when I first met her she seemed like a very loving parent and you know and I have to say she did the best she could as being a sing single parent and what she knew how to do for the longest time she worked at one of the local bars in h Alia and their dress was pretty risque and he was always embarrassed about that she was very much almost like a bully type person to him if that makes sense she was always dominating him and you know telling him how he would cut his hair and what he would dress you know for school and what he would have for dinner that type of stuff for the longest time I understand that he was not very happy with his mom and he was also embarrassed because there was quite the reputation there too from working at the bar you know different men and everything I know that they lived in a one-bedroom apartment until they moved to H Alia I've heard rumors that they slept in the same bed together until he was 13 years old he would tell me that you know certain nights that she would come home with a a boyfriend that he would get woke up and put on the couch while the boyfriend spent the night with her humiliation has the effect of really disintegrating a boy's sense of control and sense of of their world that it's safe or unsafe they will develop resentment sometimes rage against either the source of humiliation or a symbolic source of humiliation so Bobby Joe long developed rage against women in general he especially blamed his mother psychiatrist have said that that's part of his problem that he was actually killing his mother again and again he hated women some of the red flags was the jealousy you know if there was another guy that would talk to me or anything in school he would just have a fit about it a few times he accused me of messing around with people which I had not controlling he would tell me what I was going to eat basically like what his mom had done to him as a child you were basically his puppet on the string and then we ended up getting married on January 25th 1974 while he was still in the military and soon thereafter he had his motorcycle accident in March 14th of 74 and after the motorcycle accident he just continued to [Music] change do I think that it was the motorcycle accident that caused the problems in my own opinion no because there was certain things that had happened you know earlier on in the relationship like the jealousies and and him trying to control me and everything but I think that if possible the motorcycle accident just kind of knocked the screw loose that was holding everything together at the time it's fairly clear that something happened to him neurologically after that motorcycle accident he seemed to change his person ality he already had a lot of resentment against women but he seemed to be become very angry uh quick to rage and very sexually demanding well after the motorcycle accident it seemed like he was running around on a short fuse and you know I mean certain noises would bother him I remember one time when my son was in the baby swing and I mean just an infant and this the clicking of the swing was bothering him and he told me to turn the swing off and I explained to him you know the child is sleeping I'm not going to wake him up again and he said that it was bothering him so much I needed to turn it off and when I didn't he took the baby out of the Swing handed him to me and took the swing and threw it out the front door he says now the noise won't be in the house anymore if I didn't do the dishes right after dinner he would get really upset about that and a couple of times he threw all the dishes in the garbage can and not that the house was a mess or anything but you know I'm raising a newborn child and I don't feel like doing the dishes as soon as I'm done eating the first time that he was ever physical with me we had gotten into an argument and um he choked me and he used to have the habit of getting on top of me on the bed or the couch and he'd put his knees like right here where I couldn't move my arms and of course I couldn't get my legs up that high and he would just sit there and like smack me in the face and so that's what he did the first time but then that became a habit of when he was you know very upset with me that and choking I know there was one time that he had come home and he was upset because he wanted to take money out of the bank and there wasn't any money for him to go use his play money he beat me really bad punched me in the nose my nose has been broken three times because him stitches in the head stitches in the face these people that abuse women or women that abuse men they have this Knack of convincing you that if I hadn't have talked back to him or argued back with him or if I had gotten up and done the dishes right away or you know if I had taken the baby out of the swing and turn the swing off that this wouldn't happened you know so of course you're thinking well of course this is my fault you know I'm agitating him or you know arguing back almost like a child that gets punished by their parent because the parent tells them to do something and they don't do it they're not going to do it they're just going to be hard-headed and of course the child gets in trouble well that's how these people make you feel that you know you're getting in trouble for something that you've done I was working for a company and a girlfriend from the company came over and it was nothing uncommon I was working that Saturday because we alternated working on Saturdays and when I got home from work her car was in the parking lot of the apartment building and then when I got upstairs she wasn't there so when I inquired about it cuz he was in the shower he said you know know she must have come by and I didn't hear her or whatever well we went to the movies that evening and when we got back home the police had come to the house and came in and they were looking you know through the house and everything because this girl said that he had raped her she so she had actually been there she said that she had been raped by him well then he told me that she hadn't been raped and yes she had been there that she came over drunk and came on to him and they ended up having sex together she left just in time for me to get home and that it was all consensual and everything unfortunately the girl had a horrible reputation you know through the town so she he was not charged with the rape they I guess chocked it up to you know he was telling the [Music] truth it was horrible I mean my husband had just cheated on me it was somebody that I worked with actually had a desk right next to you know every day of the week so I went to work the next day you know I explained to the boss what had happened you know he told me he said I can't terminate her because of this so I ended up leaving the job because of their actions I mean I wasn't going to work with somebody that had just had an affair with my husband you know you're supposed to be my friend and then as all this came out the truth hit me pretty hard in the [Music] face [Music] there was a mysterious classified rapist in the Bay Area he would go to the classified ads and someone might have a bedroom suit for sale and he' call and he say uh I'm interested in that if if I decide to take it is there anyone there that can help and she said no I'm I'm here by myself so offie would go rap her laugh leave and he did this a lot through the classified ads there would be different things for sale and he would find find a way in the house that was a that was a key he would go off at night and tell me he just needed to go take a a ride to you know ease his mind or you know get stuff off of his head or what you know whatever excuse he came up with at the time and I honestly feel that during that time when I was at work during the day you know that's when he was doing these rapes I understand that a lot of his rapes did happen during the day that he would go to people houses you know to supposedly look at furniture or whatever that was for sale he said he always got away with it because they were often too embarrassed to turn him in or if they did turn him in if they did call the police he had left no evidence behind they didn't know him he had used a fake name so it was really a clever ruse and he raped at least 50 women this way by his estimation maybe more and always got away with it he's got a very lengthy rap sheet he was arrested several times they had evidence that he had uh raped other women in this manner but it never stuck the years that he was doing this uh it was very hard to get a rape case in favor of the woman one of the things that he said is the reason he started murdering women that he was raping is because one of his rape victims had the audacity to turn him in and he was killing women as as punishment for a woman who would dare to do that out of his humiliation he had developed this kind of hardened angry dominant Macho kind of personality that led him to believe no woman would dare go against him or should dare go against him and those who did those who struggled those who threatened had to be hurt and then [Music] annihilated well we were having issues because of the domestic violence and I was really tired of being his punching bag he was leaving the house at night time telling me that he you know just needed to go out and clear his mind and get away from the kids and myself and everything and you know in my heart I felt like he was probably seeing somebody not knowing that what he was out doing and then the last time that he hit me while we were married it was was really bad he had grabbed me by my throat and Slamm my head into the corner of the TV and it knocked me out so I came too and he was sitting over me on the couch you know literally in tears telling me I'm so sorry I'll never do this again you know it just quit pushing me quit provoking me to do these kind of things if you just keep your mouth shut I needed stitches in my forehead and he told me when I went to the hospital that if I told them what really happened that you know he he would kill me when I got home he just choked me you know he he caused me to have to have stitches I believed that he you know would do something that dramatic so I went to the hospital and the doctor came in and he asked me what happened and I told him that you know I tripped over a toy and hit my head on the corner of the TV so the doctor left the room and he told me he would be right back and when he returned he had a police officer with him and the police officer asked what happened and you know I'm lying to the doctor so now I'm getting defensive because I'm thinking oh boy I'm being caught here in my lie and so I said to the police officer you know I already told him what happened I tripped over a toy and hit the corner of the TV and he pulled a mirror from behind his back and he said did that toy have hands and I had the complete bruise of where he had grabbed me and and choked from you know with fingerprints and um the police officer said you know I'm going to go arrest him cuz cuz then I started crying and told him what had you know actually happened and he said I'm going to go arrest him and I said no because if you go arrest him by the time I get out of here from getting my forehead sewed up he's going to be out of jail and he told me that he would kill me and I said I really believe that he will so in the 70s domestic violence was you know really not an issue at that point in time so the police officer told me he said I promise you I won't go arrest him tonight but I will check with you in a week and if you haven't you know filed for your divorce then at that point I'm going to arrest [Music] him so the next morning I went to work and where I worked at we had a law department and went to our head attorney and you know she saw my face of course and my neck and um she prepared my divorce papers and she said I'll take them home and if he'll sign the 20day waiver then we can go ahead and get your divorce pretty quick so he signed it still laugh and he says you're not going to divorce me you love me too much you know you're just pissed off you're not going to divorce me well he signed the waiver and they took it back to work the next day and that we filed for our divorce on the at the end of June and July 2nd we were divorced because the attorney at my office knew the judge that it was assigned to and she was able to walk the divorce through so then when I came home with the final judgment showing that you know okay our marriage is dissolved it's time for you to move out he just pretty much laughed at me and he he left he took a few things and said I'll be back this weekend to get the rest of my stuff well when he came back he beat me up and told me that you know I was a and he used to always say nobody's ever going to want you because you know you have two kids and you know that's baggage and you're fat and and at the time I think I weighed 110 lbs you know but I was fat in his mind so of course in my mind I thought I was fat putting me down constantly you know so I was scared to death because I knew that you know he was not going to react nicely and everybody kept saying well at least you're divorce now it's done it's over with no it's not it it wasn't and it continued on numerous occasions afterwards but again I was petrified that if I called the police and had him arrested that you know he would end up killing me or killing my kids or [Music] something on May 13th 1984 a couple of boys playing in the field smelled something and they saw this kind of decomposing corpse that they initially thought was an animal and then realized it was human they ran to get their parents and the police came and they found the the body of a young woman who had been there about 3 days Alana long was a pole dancer in a bar on the Strip she had relocated from California and she had a boyfriend she decided to walk to meet him somewhere on the Strip This One night she had no car so she would often ask men who watched her dance for money and for a ride Bobby Jong came along in the car and he was a very charismatic fell and he stopped the car and asked her if she'd like a ride she got into the car and that was his first known victim in that Killing Frenzy [Applause] period She was taken to a field her legs were spread apart so far that it was almost in in the direct proportion to her height she had The Hangman's sose around her neck she was raped from behind and she was cut it was out of control and he just left her in the [Music] [Music] field once the first murder happened and then within a few weeks later there was a second murder the police started piecing things together and they started to realize that this group of crimes could have been committed by the same person because they were committed in similar ways some women were killed by getting their throat slashed uh other women were killed by gunshot wounds it just depended on the situation that he was [Music] in so I turned the news on as I'm getting ready and I heard that they had found another body in the Tampa area and that they thought that they had a serial killer you know in that area so I said to him on the phone when I talked to him later that day you know Bob what's going on out in Tampa you always tell you know me and Holly that we need to be careful and look it's right in your your you know your front door and he said that's why I tell you girls you can never be too careful you never [Music] know [Music] she was living with her grandmother and she would go back and forth to her grandmother's house to her job on a bicycle one night as she was biking home she noticed a car honk at her even though she was on the sidewalk and then not far down the road somebody grabbed her offer bike and pulled her away and put her into this car it was the same car she had seen she noticed white bucket seats and there was a red car but then he quickly put a blindfold on her tied her up and forced her to sit in the car although blindfolded she was smart enough to make a mental note of everything she saw in the car when she was raped she looked under the blindfold and she saw the word Dodge Magnum on the front of the car and she noticed what the interior was colored and what it looked like and when they got to the house he insisted that they shower together first took the blindfold off of it and he was very nice she said and he said keep your eyes shut and I'll take the blindfold off and she did he washed her hair he was very gentle with her and then he shifted like [Music] lightning and dragged her out of the shower and raped her and and then he would talk to her sweet talk you know I'm sorry apologizing I'm sorry we had to meet like this you seem like a nice girl I really like you and was very kind to her but when she went in the bathroom or anywhere she could leave her fingerprints she did all all over the place and she thought if I ever get out of here alive he would let her touch his face during sex and she would be able to say oh he's got pox marks or he's got little mustache or this or that and just enough of seeing under the blindfold would would identify other things but the next morning he said it's time to go and she thought is he going to let me go is he just going to let me go and he did he drove her in his car to a place and and just let her out and she dropped to her knees and and just as you would imagine that close to death amazed that she'd been allowed to live he later said that letting her go he knew was a mistake and that he would probably get arrested but he wanted to stop I think that was face saving uh because he really did not expect to be arrested he was highly humiliated by the process so I think he let her go because he'd gotten away with it for so long and she'd seemed so nice and pleasant to him and really had probably convinced him I'm not going to tell anybody I I like you I think he really felt for it she was smart she seduced him and he went for it I think it's a possibility that he knew that he was murdering excessively just out of control and he wanted to stop and I think that that was maybe part of it part of it may be that he actually learned to like her I mean that's not without possibility but whatever it was he knew that when he let her out and she had knowledge of his car and they used the fact that she knew it was a Dodge Magnum they ran it through the vehicle department and found it the names of all the people that owned a red Dodge Magnum and his name came up on the list the night that he was arrested he called me around 11:00 we had just gotten in from going to the fair with the kids and when I answered the phone I could tell right away something was wrong in his voice I said you know what's wrong and he said you know the girls first I thought that they had maybe killed his girlfriend Barbara and I said oh my God they killed Barbara and he said no I did it and I said you killed bar you know the I mean I was like confused I said you killed Barbara and he said no I killed the girls in Tampa and I said you know you're not funny don't mess with me like that you because he did have kind of a sick sense of humor and then another voice on the phone came through and they identified themselves as sergeant ladimer from the Hillsboro County Police Department and he said you know he's not kidding with you we have him in custody and he's being charged with Mur murders and rapes and abduction in holding a woman against her will and then Bob asked me he said to call his parents and tell our children that he was killed in a car accident and I said I'm not going to lie to our [Music] kids sheriff's deputies are still stationed at Longs fer Avenue apartment in Tampa additional search warrants may be sought as the collection of evidence in connection with the murders of nine women continues when I called his mother the night that I got the phone call and told his mom and dad you know what had happened you know she instantly started saying this is your fault you divorce my son you know you you put him through living hell being married to him and I argue back with her and told her that I didn't cause him to do this and that you know had he have kept his hands to himself and not cheated on me that we would have probably still been married to that day but it's okay she needed to blame somebody you know because at the end of the day nobody is to blame but [Music] him [Music] most people would be paralyzed in a situation that Lisa McVey found herself instead she was very brave she she left fingerprints she just refused to die without people knowing that she'd been there and it was her tenacity that really gave the information to the police that they needed to close the case task force detectives say they have such a strong case against long that even if they didn't have long statements even if the 17-year-old had not escaped to tell her story fiber evidence and items taken from Long's apartment would have been enough to charge him with all nine [Music] murders after he was arrested and I finally heard all the stories and everything and started believing well this man really did this cuz in the beginning I was like there's no way he couldn't have done that you know there absolutely not but then after hearing all the stuff it's like well yeah he did he did do these things we have charged him with nine counts of first-degree murder plus other charges of sexual battery and rape as sick as it may sound on my part it was a big relief to me that he was in jail and none of these people nobody else out there is going to get hurt by this man and he can't just come to my house and and demand that you know we have sex or you know hit me because I didn't let him take the kids when he was supposed to or threatened to kill me or and I didn't have to worry about my children being gone with him anymore he knew what he was doing he couldn't help himself it was all pre-planned but he loved to torture on he loved to see them in pain before before he uh he killed [Music] them during the confessions he said I can't believe I'm telling you all this he was confessing to all these girls murders and and he uh had to go to the bathroom and when he came back he said I guess I need a lawyer we were confident we had the right suspect and we felt it was imperative for us to move as quickly as possible police acknowledge there could have been more murders if the pieces had not come so quickly together in those frantic 30 hours before Long's [Music] arrest the actual reporters I know they want that story but they need to have respect and the ones back then did not have respect for anybody you know they it was constant the microphones in your face and you know every time I see people on TV you know when they're being followed by the press it just it really brings back the feeling of th those days and it's horrible [Music] I almost felt like I was the criminal because you know I would say something and think this one state prosec cutor I would answer his question he'd come back with so is it fair for me to say that you know you thought that he was doing these things just as an example and finally one time it was horrible but he this prosecutor had me so upset that I actually had to leave the courtroom and throw up because it that he was just battering me you know and even the judge finally told him that that was enough it was like my entire life was on the stand for everybody to see you know and to hear of how many times I had sex a day you know when was the first time we had sex I it it was like good God you know here I am again you know you're causing me problems once again [Music] when he was first sentenced to death it hurt my heart because my kids at the end of the day that's their dad but I am a firm believer in the death penalty and as ironic as it is so was he I've read case notes and stuff and and I just think dear God this is the person that I was so in love with and you know just wanted to spend my entire life with and here's women that have been left in such positions you know how disgracing for them I mean my God they're deceased that's bad enough that they lost their life and and imagine what they felt just before they were dying the fear of the unknown and the things that he was doing to them how can anybody that's human do something like that to another human being I have walked around for the last 30 plus years regretting the fact that I never did have him arrested the night you know that I that caused our divorce when he was choking me and I went to the hospital and everything I came home that night and I loaded a double barreled shotgun because he was sleeping in our bed and I sat there until his alarm went off with it at his head cocked trying to get the nerve to pull the trigger I was so humiliated from being at the hospital and the police officer knowing that I was lying and the doctor KN I was lying and I was tired of being his punching bag the only reason that I never pulled the trigger that night was because of my kids I mean you know they were in the room next to us they had both of their bedroom rooms were next to us and I kept thinking you know who will raise them he's going to be dead I'm going to be in jail but I mean this is how demented he had my mind too if I would have done it that night then these girls would have been alive you know or the women that he raped wouldn't have been raped but you know I I can't beat myself up for it and I don't want you know to beat myself up for it anymore but in a hindsight if I would have known but I I don't know if I was blind or you know but I I never imagined in a million years that he was capable of doing the things that he's [Music] [Music] done the perpetrators they I mean for one they don't think of anybody but themselves and their desires at the time but you you know they don't understand that this affects so many people their actions you know the families they lost their loved ones they you know can never have those people back they didn't get that 30 plus extra years my children we had friends that you know were not allowed to come to my house anymore even though Bob never lived in this house and he was already incarcerated you know children that played with my kids every day you know went to school with them stayed the weekend at my house they were not allowed to come near my children [Music] again is he evil God yes he's evil anybody that can do something like this to another human being or to an animal or whatever is definitely evil I still have nightmares that you know these things are happening or you're running trying to get away from him and you can't go you know it's like your feet won't work or so yeah it's had an [Music] impact I was a media witness to the execution of Bobby Jill long as sitting there in that room it was chill to 69° I remember looking up at the window unit and it read 69° the room was somber you could feel those those sad feelings in there within the families and victims there was a mixed emotions because the victims families were seeing Bobby jillam for the first time the victims were seeing him for the first time since they were attacked he seemed calm the warden asked him if you had any final words for the victims or the victim's families and he just said no and that was it and the state ordered the execution as a journalist when you researching cases that you're covering you're supposed to keep a distance from it at least emotionally I think that Bobby Joe long the way that he killed his victims the way that he raped them the way that he took advantage of women in general it kind of shows his lack of compassion his lack of a moral compass and the way that these women were murdered it's unfathomable many have killed more but not as frequently that he killed one after the other many seal Killers who have killed a lot of girls they'll kill and then they'll wait you you know that's it's they've been satisfied for a while uh like an animal and then they need to do it again when they have an opportunity but he was rapid fire with everyone he killed in the same torture violent way he killed he himself called it a murdering frenzy that he had gone through this period And I think he knew that I think he was ashamed of it and I think that's why he didn't mind letting the police pick up McVey I've learned a lesson that it was a hard lesson to learn but I've learned the lesson that there's not going to be anybody that ever lays a hand on me again or any of my children or my grandchildren or talk to me or treat me the way that he did and I also have learned that I can be a voice for women or men to get this into their heads that they they don't have to put up with [Music] it [Music] h

Channel: A&E

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Keywords: a&e, aetv, a&e tv, ae, a&e television, a&e shows, a and e, a+e, a&e full episodes, the first 48, crime, true crime, crime investigation, solving crime, police, detectives, attorneys, police procedure, cold case files, cold case, murder investigation, true crime show, american justice, bill curtis, mysterious, creepy, city confidential, forensic factor, murder mystery, murder doc, true crime investigation, true crime horror, true crime marathon, marathon, true crime stories

Id: Uuj1kUvoc0s

Length: 129min 27sec (7767 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2024