I can't even scream. Will I ever see
my husband again? And this monster is here
and he is going to do me in. I have to do anything in my
power to keep my child safe. And if that means
sacrificing myself, that means sacrificing myself. I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. I thought, my gosh,
I've killed myself. I vowed that I
would not sleep. I was going to remain
awake until and if I died. [music playing] I have very, very
good instincts, and I just felt in my
heart that this man wanted to cause me harm. Czajkowshi's behavior towards
co-workers and patients alike was very erratic. It was very unpredictable. Staff felt very uneasy. They-- they didn't know from day
to day, from minute to minute how he would be with them. [music playing] Czajkowshi had me, in
particular, enmeshed in a conspiracy theory. I was part of the CIA. I was part of the FBI. I was out to get him. They were clearly the ramblings
of a drug impaired lunatic. I-- I had never felt
such a feeling of-- of fear, of personal fear. And this is when my position
of authority had to take over and we had to start
beginning to take action. [music playing] I really thought that
I had put him away, but I was just praying
that he had been removed from my professional existence. [music playing] The security staff are unarmed. There are gates that
at the time are open. So basically, anybody could walk
on to the grounds at any time for any reason whatsoever. [music playing] It was actually a
very easygoing day. I had just paged Carol Kepner. She was one of my
managers, a lovely woman. So she was just coming in, and
just getting ready to sit down, and I was looking up, and I
could see Czajkowshi coming in. I could see a gun, and
it was black and shiny, and it looked like a toy. It just looked like a toy gun. [music playing] The first thing
Czajkowshi said to me was, are you ready to start
telling the truth now? It's time now to start-- start talking. And I said, what are
you talking about? [music playing] That's when he began
shooting at me, and he shot me at
a very close range, and he just proceeded
to shoot my-- both of my wrists, my
breast, and my right foot. At this point, my
body just felt like it was in a state of explosion. I had no choice at that
point but then just a back, and I just fell back into my
chair, and I began screaming. And he said, shut up. Shut up or I'm going to-- I'm going to kill you. And as much as I did not imagine
that I could shut up, because I was in such excruciating
pain, I shut up. I looked over at Carol
just to get grounded, and I could see abject horror. She was looking at
me like, oh dear God. And I was just hold-- my
wrist, my right wrist, I could see bones sticking
out and I thought, jeez-- I'm not even-- I-- I just thought this was it. I was absolutely going to drop
dead and I can't even scream. Will I ever see
my husband again. And this monster is here,
and he is going to do me in. [music playing] [exhales] [music playing] I remember the
World Series was on the radio between the
Cardinals and the Tigers. And I'm a big baseball fan,
so I was just taking it easy, driving listening
to the World Series, and enjoying the scenery. I stopped. I remember buying a Coke,
and getting some chips maybe, or some crackers, thinking
that I might get a bite to eat and then head home. [music playing] Well, I knew I needed
to call my wife. The problem was my cell phone
wasn't getting a signal. Something came out
of the roadway. I mean, it just came out
the roadway in an instant. I believe it was a deer. I couldn't say for sure. I was going fast
enough where I got off of the shoulder of the
road and onto some gravel. I-- I tapped on my brakes. As I did, the car
went into a spin and went over the
side of the ravine. And as it did, it hit
the tops of the trees. And rather than
tumbling over and over, it whirled around as it hit
banging up against the trees. Windshield's busting. It's like being on the
worst roller coaster ride you could imagine. Seemed like I would never
hit the bottom of the ravine. And as-- as I was
flying down I just-- I was saying my prayers because
I believe that this was it. That I wasn't going
to survive the impact, let alone any type of
crash, or explosion, or anything like that. [music playing] We were kind of watching
a movie together, and laying on the couch, and we just
decided we'd sleep down there. It was too hot
upstairs and we were too tired to go anywhere else. So locked up the house,
and turned off the TV, and laid down with my
daughter, and went to sleep. I woke up, it was
around 2:00, 2:30. Woke up because I felt
something sharp on my neck. Felt pressure on my back. Basically, feeling--
felt like someone was laying on top of me. My first thought was my husband
had gotten out of work early and he was just messing with me. And I heard a voice
that I didn't recognize, and that's when I realized
that it was not my husband. I didn't have my glasses on. I was sleeping when he came in,
and I can see about 3 inches in front of my face
without my glasses. He was about 5 foot 10",
probably 160, 170 pounds, crooked front teeth. He had very disheveled hair. I couldn't tell you if he
was on drugs, most likely. But he was a scary,
crazy looking person. Eyes glazed over, just didn't
look like he was all there. When I started screaming,
my daughter woke up and she started screaming. He told me if I didn't shut her
up he was going to kill her. What was going
through my mind is I have to do anything in my
power to keep my child safe. And if that means
sacrificing myself, that means sacrificing myself. [music playing] So I looked at my not
even two-year-old daughter and told her if it was the only
time she ever listened to mommy in her life that she needed
to listen to mommy right now. That she needed to go up to
her bedroom and shut her door, and not come out until
mommy came to get her. And she did. He had rolled me
onto my back and he was laying on my stomach. When I tried to scream, he
put his hand over my mouth. I bit him. He slapped me. [laughs nervously] He tried-- when he tried
to wrestle me down, I tried to wiggle away, and he
took the knife and cut my arm. He cut my chest basically just
to show me that he would-- he would kill me. I couldn't let him
hurt my daughter, and I had to do anything I could
to keep him happy so that he wouldn't. I remember looking
up at the clock. I just needed to get grounded. I needed to just know that,
first of all, I hadn't died. I was trapped. Carol was sitting
in front of my desk and she looked as well
like a caged animal. I looked down and I could see-- I'm a very vain person
and I remember thinking, this was a brand new pair of
shoes and he shot my shoe. And I thought, damn, that's a
brand new pair of shoes shot. And yet I'm thinking,
I'm hurting, I'm hurting. I don't know what to do. I can't speak, but yet,
all this kind of stuff was going through my mind. And I thought, you gotta
just keep thinking. You gotta just keep thinking.
You gotta to get through it. You've gotta get through it. So I just kept thinking all
these very odd, unusual things. [music playing] At this point, Czajkowshi
wanted to scream at me and accuse me of being
involved in his conspiracy, knowing what was
in his mind, and he was trying to contact the FBI. He was trying to
contact the CIA. He wanted an investigation
into his termination, that it had been
unfair, unfounded. He wanted a meeting with
all kinds of high officials and he wanted me present. I mean, the fact that I
was there bleeding to death really didn't seem to
enter into his mind. [music playing] The building had a
lot of reverberation. It was apparent that there
were a lot of police inside and this really unnerved him. So he would be on the phone and
saying, get people out of here. Get people out of here, or these
women are going to get hurt. [music playing] I heard a woman's voice, and
I remember her name was Jill. And she was on a bullhorn, and
she was trying her best to get Czajkowshi to listen to reason. Release the women. This is no way to-- this is no way to
resolve anything. He would hear nothing of that. It seemed to, in fact,
make him angrier. [music playing] When I woke up, I was
surprised that I had opened my eyes and I was still alive. I was in the back seat of the
car, which initially threw me for a loop. You know, wow, how
did this happen. And then, I could see
that the back of the seat was just bent backwards. The car was completely covered. It had knocked some--
some met-- some-- some big limbs off of
the trees and they had-- they had covered the car up. The windows on-- on the-- the front door and the back
door were completely out. I had sharp pains
in my-- in my-- my chest. I was achy. I-- again, my head hurt. I'd hit my head on
the top of the car. And as I began to move around,
one of the first things I noticed was that I had
a-- had a limb in my throat. And I didn't really
notice it at first until I began to move about. And when you've got an
18 inch limb sticking out of your throat, anytime
you turn your head you realize this
is attached to me. And I thought, OK,
that needs to come out. I reached up to
feel where it was, and certainly it
was in my throat, and I began to tug
on it to get it out. But the more that I tugged, the
tighter the grip of my flesh was on the stick. And so, I remembered that I
had a knife in my console. It was a lock blade knife,
about 5 inches long. I was able to open it and
cut around the base of where the stick was in my throat. And as I cut, I would
pull on the stick. But, again, the
flesh wouldn't give. The stick wouldn't come out. It was very painful. I was having to actually
cut parts of my skin. And each time I did that,
it seemed like the tighter the flesh would
hold onto the stick. And the more that I pulled,
the more frustrated I got. I began to panic. I don't know what really
happened at that point. I don't know if I had a
surge of adrenaline that made me push the-- the knife in too far, or I don't
know if the knife was sharper than what I realized,
but I stuck it in. I stuck it in hard, pulled
hard, and the stick came out, and a stream of blood
shot out of my neck right in front of my eyes from
the back seat all the way to the dash. I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. I thought, my gosh,
I've killed myself. [music playing] And he was much stronger
than me, larger than me. At that point, I
realized that fighting wasn't going to do any good. It wasn't going to
get me anywhere. [music playing] He took my clothes off, and
he assaulted me in the living room, twice I believe. And then, he grabbed
me by my hair, told me to get him a pair
of socks to put on his hands because he didn't want
to leave fingerprints, and told me to go
get him a drink. He drug into the
kitchen by my hair. I walked by a cast iron
frying pan, which I seriously considered picking up on it
even with, but decided not to, because I didn't know if I'd
hit him hard enough to actually knock him out. And if I didn't, I was
just going to make him mad. So he told me to get
him a drink and I did. He drug me back into the living
room where he assaulted me again. He was in the house with me
for two hours assaulting me, forcing me to have oral sex,
smacking me around, just basically anything
he wanted to do. I offered him all the
money I had in the house. I offered him my jewelry. I offered him my car. I just wanted him to leave. And he grabbed an extension cord
that was in the living room, unplugged the lamp that
it was plugged into, and tied my hands
behind my back. [music playing] Basically, you
need to shut down. You can't think about
what he's doing to you. You have to-- it's almost
like you're not in your body and you're watching him do this
to you, but you're not there. I was begging him to let me go. My daughter, she can't
be home by herself. She's too little. And he said-- his only response
was, don't ask questions. Don't talk. Just shut up. When he took me
out of the house, I honestly thought I was dead. I figured that I was never
going to see my family again. I was going to be
found in the river. I honestly didn't
think he was going to let me live at that point. I would describe Czajkowshi
as growing increasingly strung out. He was becoming more frenetic. He was becoming more possessed
about his-- his mission, as-- as crazy as it was, and
he was getting nowhere. [music playing] I had some very heavy beautiful
statues of cats and dogs that some of my staff and
some my family had given me, and I remember
looking over thinking, boy, it would sure be good
to get a couple of those and hit him over the head. On a normal day, I know-- I knew that I could have
easily overtaken him. Certainly after being
shot four times, I knew that I was no physical
match, and feeling very responsible for Carol, being her
supervisor, being her friend, I knew that if I made one
wrong move and took a chance I could seriously hurt myself,
but more importantly, I could have hurt her. And I knew that ethically I
could not take that chance. [music playing] I remember clearly that there
were baloney sandwiches, potato chips, and these little
small cartons of iced tea. It was my decision not to eat. I decided that if that was
going to be my last meal, that was not going
to be my choice. As darkness fell, I just
became more and more frantic. I-- I was so lonely
for my family. I had spent so many long
hours there on the job, but yet I always knew
that the day would end. I always knew that I would
go home and see my husband and see my dog and my cat. I started like shaking. I started like
getting the shakes. The chills. I was dying for like a blanket. And I whispered to
Carole, I'm cold. And she knew that I had like
a little jacket over there. And she said to
Czajkowshi, can-- can she get a jacket. And he said, all right. So at least she was able
to get me a light jacket. [music playing] Throughout the night we
would be able to squeeze each other's hand,
touch each other. That meant the world to me. To me, that was the
human connection. Just to be able to look
in her compassionate eyes, I felt like I had a friend. I felt like I had
somebody that under-- that could try to understand
what I was going through. I vowed that I would not sleep. I was going to remain
awake until and if I died. [music playing] I thought, my gosh,
I've kill myself. There's no way I
can survive this. I-- I literally just
couldn't believe it. And I pulled my T-shirt
up and I covered the hole. And after a few seconds,
I just passed out. When I-- when I woke
up, I felt of my neck and I began breathing,
and after a few breaths, I realized that I was exhaling
out of the hole in my throat, and you could hear
the skin flapping. I began to smell gasoline in
the car very, very strong smell of gasoline. And knowing what I know about
gasoline, what everybody knows about gasoline, it's
not a good place to be around it if-- if it's
leaking, especially when you've just been in an accident. [music playing] So I hoisted myself up on my
legs and slid out on my back onto the rear of the car. I then just fell all
the way off the trunk in a backward position
and landed on my head. I just laid down on the ground
and went to sleep believing that I would not wake up. And I don't know
how long I slept, but eventually I woke up. I seem to understand
that while I was hurt, I wasn't going to
die immediately, and that I needed to
avail myself of my senses and do whatever it would take
to get through that evening. With all of the
blood that was on me, you know there might be a
coyote around, or raccoons. Certainly, I have-- I
have a fear of snakes. Considering where I was, I
figured the safest place for me to be was back inside the car. [music playing] Now, I was beginning to
contemplate on what my family might be doing
back at the house, and I knew that they would
have no idea where I was. But they would-- they would--
if they were searching for me, they would be searching
for me 35, 40 miles away on a different road, because
it wouldn't make sense that I would be on the
road that I was on. I needed to relieve
myself, and as I did, I noticed there was
blood in my urine. That concerned me greatly. Having some medical
knowledge, I knew that I was bleeding internally. And I knew I had a
long night ahead of me. I didn't feel like I would
probably be able to to get out of the situation that I was in. [music playing] He had the knife to my throat. He told me if I screamed,
if I made any noise, he would go back in the
house and kill my daughter. [music playing] My daughter's stroller
was in the trunk. And he basically picked me up,
and threw me in on top of it, and shut the trunk. And I just kept
thinking I had to-- I have to make it
through those for her. I had maybe 6 inches that
I could move my feet. I couldn't move my arms,
because they were still tied behind my back. So I sat there praying, crying,
and trying to figure out a way out. He drove around town. He picked people up. I could hear them talking. Through the backseat, I
could hear the radio playing, I could hear laughter. I heard him tell his friends
he had some stupid chick in the trunk. I heard him give my
wedding ring to someone. The only question she
asked was, is it real? He drove around town some more. He dropped his friends off. He stopped after a few
hours and took me out of the trunk in
an abandoned lot. He untied me there and
raped me again with a stick. I was just begging him
to please let me go. He's like, well, I
can't let you go. What-- what can I do with you? I think at that
point, he realized he was in above his head,
and that he didn't know what to do anymore. He just didn't know how to
get rid of me basically. I was begging him, you know,
just leave me somewhere. I don't care. Leave me on a street corner. I need to get home
to my daughter. She can't be home by herself. I was thinking about
her constantly. Just kept-- I'm sorry. Just kept thinking that
I had to go home to her, because there wouldn't be anyone
to take care of her I didn't. I was alive with
pain the entire time. I have never felt such
excruciating pain. The entire front
of my abdomen wa-- was bloodstained, my entire
lower arm was bloodstained, and my entire right
foot was bloodstained. Carol really used every
ounce of her nursing ability to appeal to Tchaikovsky's
sense of humanity. She would-- she
would say to him, can't you see that
Marie is hurting? Can't you see that
she's bleeding? Can't you see that
she is in agony? This was-- this was met with
cold, blank, dead stares. [music playing] He snored a lot throughout the
night and that infuriated me. I mean, I thought, you
know, I'm glad you're sleeping so soundly, that you
can sleep right through this. My foot fell asleep, and
that was a very uncomfortable feeling for me, because I was
afraid that if I moved it, then he would think that I was
trying to get up and escape. [music playing] I was wondering where help was
and I was bleeding to death. I just couldn't understand what
would be preventing the police from actually breaking in. I was wondering for 45 hours and
30 minutes where people were. [music playing] The second morning,
which was Friday morning, the bullhorn did wake us up. And that caused him to untie us. And then, shortly after that
is when all hell broke loose. [music playing] I decided that I would try
to get out of the-- of the car and get up the ravine. I got out of the car. Again, a very painful,
difficult ordeal. This is something that
took 35, 40 minutes to push the door
open and squeeze my body with the-- the door
of the car pushing on my ribs. And for some reason, someone
had placed a barbed wire fence at the bottom of this ravine. The only way I could
get around this fence or through this fence was to
go completely underneath it. That in and of itself
took what seemed to be a long time, an
hour, hour and a half. This ravine was covered
in loose rock and gravel. I was wearing a pair of loafers
and they had no traction whatsoever. I was weak. I couldn't dig my heels
into the-- or my toes into the-- into the
ground, and there was very little to grab hold of. Each time I tried,
I'd just fall back to the bottom of the ravine. And I did this for hours. And I couldn't do it anymore. I started my trek
back to the car, and I had to go under
the fence again. And it probably took me an
hour to go, literally, 60 feet. When I tried to get
back in the door, I noticed a Coke bottle that I'd
had had that I bought as I was driving that night before that
I hadn't finished drinking. So very carefully took the
lid off, and took a few sips. Was wondering whether
or not it would come out the hole in my throat. But, fortunately, it
didn't, and it gave me quite a bit of relief. And I was very careful
not to drink all of it at one time just to save it. But, again, my throat
was so parched. I would have given
anything for some water. As I leaned back and was
beginning to think how long I needed to rest, I
looked up in the air and I-- and I saw some buzzards,
and I'd thought to myself, my goodness, surely they're
not circling for me, and yet, what else
could have been around. [music playing] He took me out
of the car again. This time we were in a garage. I tried asking him, where-- where are we now? And he said-- his only response
was, don't worry about it. He put me in the front seat. Forced me to perform oral sex. At that point, I kept telling
him, you know, look it's 6:30. Now, my husband's home, he's
going to call the police. And I'm still trying to convince
them that, really, he can just let me go. I promise not to say anything. I don't care where
you drop me off. He put me back in the
trunk and drove around. Finally, the car stopped
and it was running. It was getting really
hot, really, really hot, and I could barely breathe. I couldn't really
think straight anymore. I-- I just wanted to be let go. And I basically
figured I'm either going to die of
suffocation in this trunk or he's going to kill
me, but either way, I need to do something. I can't just lay here and die. So I decided I would
try and get away. It was really hard to
tell when the sun came up, because the room was so darkened
due to the curtains being drawn. I don't know if it was
the workers or the police, but they had shut
the electricity down, they had shut the
lights down, and I think that's what had also made
the room feel so much colder I can remember hearing a very loud
crash through the window that was to the right of me. [music playing] I could then hear and see
a SWAT team coming in. At this point, everything just
started happening so quickly. I was sitting in front
of Carol, and Czajkowshi was to my left
crouched in the corner. And as he could hear
the window crashing, I could simultaneously
feel him turn and shoot me. He shot me two times,
quickly and consecutively. The first time, once
again, in my chest breast. The next time, it
was in my abdomen and it lodged in my spine. I just fell over and I
could hear myself saying, you've killed me. I looked up and I
could see members of a SWAT team above me. And they were like,
get out, get out! And I'm like, yeah. [laughs] No kidding. I will. And I remember the side
stroke from when I was a kid, and I just went like-- I just got out. I just swam out.
Crawled out. Whatever. I could then hear
another gunshot, but I never actually saw. [music playing] That ending was as quick
as the incident was long. [music playing] My dear husband,
Jeffrey, was there. And I looked up and I
said, where's Carol? Is Carol OK? And he said, I'm sorry,
honey, she didn't make it. And I almost knew the answer. [music playing] As I got out of the car
that time, I told myself that the amount of strength it
was taking that if I couldn't get up the ravine and
I came back to the car and got in the
car, I didn't know if I would have the strength
to get out of it again. I knew that eventually
it would be a death trap. [music playing] I started looking at
the lay of the land and I realized that the-- the road itself was
going down this way, and I was going down
this way, perhaps I could meet the road if I
could get over these rocks. And when I did, I
surprisingly found myself on rather flat land. Then, I found the fence again. And I didn't want to
go under the fence. So I began following it. It came to a spot where it
wasn't connected to a fence post. I could literally step over it. And when I reached
the top of the gully, I realized I was on the
shoulder of the road. As I was walking, I began to
take an evaluation of my looks. And I realized I was covered
in blood, and rocks, and dirt. My hair was matted and I
thought, my goodness, who's going to pick me up when
they see me like this. A fellow in a pickup truck
passed by and slowed down. As he pulled up, he-- he offered
me help and I couldn't talk except in a very small whisper. I believe I just said, wreck. [music playing] As we were heading into
town, I was so relieved that I would be able to
communicate with my family, to talk to my wife
and talk my mother. I said my prayers
that I was still alive and I thanked God for it. [music playing] I didn't hear the radio. I didn't hear anyone talking. I didn't hear anything. And, finally, I decided that
I don't care if he kills me. I need to try and
get out of here. I kicked, and kicked, and
kicked at the back seat until I broke the latch, because
it was one of the seats that fold down. I was terrified. I didn't know what I was going
to find on the other side. I didn't know if I was
going to be in the car. [music playing] As soon as I saw that there was
no one else in the car with me, I knew I had to move quickly. Climbed into the driver's
seat, threw the car in drive, and took off. I am almost legally
blind without my glasses, so the fact that I was
driving without them was-- was scary. I was literally just
driving on instinct. I thought about stopping at the
police station when I drove by. I thought about stopping at
the hospital when I drove by. But I wanted to see my baby. I just wanted to
get home to her. [music playing] I just remember holding
her, and telling her how much mommy loved
her, and how proud of her I was that she was
such a big girl, and that she listened
so well to mommy, and just hugged her a lot. [music playing] It was a crime that he saw he
had the opportunity to commit and he did. [music playing] I wanted to give up, but I knew
I had to get home for my child. What kept me alive
through all this is knowing I had a baby at home
that I needed to take care of. [music playing] One of the doctors said I
was somewhat of a miracle. That-- that I'd place the
knife in the exact spot where you would do that if
you were giving a tracheotomy to someone. [music playing] I survived because I knew not
to give up, to constantly assess where you are, what
your situation is, and make things different. But if you just give up,
you'll never make it. [music playing] I will never forget Carol. Carol was a wonderful person
and something so awful happened to her that I-- I-- I could just never fathom. [music playing] Trauma can either make
you a better person or it can devastate you. We have to force ourselves
to move on and grow from it. I survived because I have
way too much living to do, and this entire act was
so thoroughly unnecessary.
