Chris felt like he wasn't
worthy of someone as beautiful as he perceived me to be. I've had to digest
two serious facts. And that was, one, no
one knows where I am. And two, no one's coming for me. The blood was everywhere. I had never seen
anything like it. Blood was everywhere. AUDREY: I start praying to god. God, just let me live. Just let me live. That's all I want. Just let me live. His job was something that did
attract me to him, because he was sort of this accomplished
guy that knew what he wanted out of life. After about six
months of us dating, we decided together that
it would be best for me to move to New York City in
order to take our relationship to the next level. It was a year and a half after
we were dating that he decided to propose to me. And instantly, I said yes. I was thrilled. And we began planning our
future for our family. After our first son was born, I
was very eager to get married, but there was sort of
this lurking problem that I never really understood. And I didn't find out
until after three weeks of our first son being born that
it was because he was, in fact, married, and was still
married, had been married. I never even knew
he was married. Things start out with
one little lie about him being 35 when he's really 38. And that leads into him not
being married ever in his life. That leads to other things
such as lying about where he is because he's
actually out gambling or lying about who he's
with because he's actually out cheating. He sort of started revealing
how obsessed he was with me and how obsessed he was
with other things in life such as gambling. It was when he gambled
away for the umpteenth time all of the money for
the bills that I decided I had had enough. And I just came right
out and said, you know, I want a divorce. We stayed together and
lived in the same home but in separate rooms
for a matter of weeks before his first act
of violence struck me. Before I knew it, I
was somehow on the bed. I don't even remember him like
throwing me or pushing me. I can't remember exactly
how I even ended up there. But I'm on the bed
and he's above me now trying to remove my pants. And I had been raped
as a young girl. And I started going
into this flashback. I start crying, half
crying, screaming, confused. What are you doing? What's going on? Oh my god. Stop it. And he puts his
hand over my mouth and tells me to shut the eff up. I wanted to move out of New York
because I was basically tired of my life there. Growing up for 30 years in New
York, I'd had my run of it. I had a job opportunity waiting
for me in Sun Valley, Idaho, and I took it. I packed my dog. She's my co-pilot, you know. And so I basically had my life
stuck in this little Audi. And I set off for the West. Taking the northernmost
route in this type of drive is not the smartest decision,
simply because there's just unknown weather. And you've got to go
through desolate areas. The night before all this
happened to me, my third night driving, I drove through
Yellowstone in a blizzard where I couldn't see
the end of my car. And that was actually the most
scared I'd been probably ever. I don't know whether it was
military, or US government, or Idaho government, but
they told me I was lost. I agreed. And they told me I had to go
back and take my first left. And I just followed
that road, which I did. I turned around and
went back to the left. And it was right about that
point where I began to notice that I wasn't all there. As a type 1 diabetic,
you can have what's called a hypoglycemic episode. When that happens, you have
too much insulin in your system and therefore you have
a low blood sugar. When you have a low blood
sugar, you become disoriented. You're described as punch drunk. And you're basically
disconnected from reality. I called my
girlfriend at the time just to tell her
what was happening. I had never experienced
anything like that. And she said you
sound funny, Tom. So I tested my blood sugar. It was at 69, which
is the very beginning of a hypoglycemic episode. So I started drinking
the Juan Soto I had in the car, regular soda
because it has sugar in it. And that was the last
thing I remember. My husband and I had been
married eight months. Just moved into a new apartment. Looking forward
to the new things associated with being newlyweds. I had to be at work at 8:30,
so it took about a half hour for me to walk to work. It's about 12 blocks
away, about a mile. So I would typically leave
the house around 8:00. Walking towards the
door, and I reached out and grabbed the doorknob. And I turned. And that's as far as I got. Once I turned the doorknob,
he was in, in the house. The next thing I knew was
there were hands at my face. This man's hands were
punching me in the face, scratching at my face. He started to guide
me, with his arm and with his hand started to
guide me into the living room. And he asked where
the stereo was. And at that point,
I was very relieved, because I thought
he wanted to rob me. So he said, take
me to your stereo. When he started
whispering in my ear, he said, I'm in control here. And he said it a number
of times as we're walking. I'm in control here. Don't scream. Don't yell. I'm in control here. And while he was saying
this, he started punching me in the side. It was at that point
when he started punching me that I thought,
no, he doesn't want to rob me. There's more to it than this. That's when the idea of
the rape came into my mind. Maybe he wants to rape me. [music playing] I go into the car,
load the kids, drive to the clubhouse
in the community, and immediately call 911. I left that night and got my
own place four days later. There was a number of days that
Chris and I did not communicate at all. And finally, we got to a
point where he had convinced me to go in and drop
the charges against him, and that we were going to be
civil, he was going to give me child support without
a court order, that he was going to help
me care for the children so that I could
continue going to school and working full time. I came to his
house after school. My kids were with
their godmother. And just sort of stopped
in to get something to eat, get something to
drink, do some homework, and go for a run. And it was when I came back
that I ran into my next door neighbor. And just sort of
that chitchat, hey, how are you, how are
the kids, everything's great, and went to enter
the home a second time. As soon as I entered the
home, he was there stark naked with a butcher knife. So his goatee's
completely shaved. His chest and his stomach
is completely shaped. And his arms are shaved. Everything is shaved. And he just comes rushing at me. I instantly freeze. [music playing] My GPS was programmed for
the fastest route which, unbeknownst to me, took me
on a closed mountain road. I had no idea. And being in a hyperglycemic
state, not aware of my surroundings, I just
followed what my car said. So my car ended up taking me on
to this unbelievably dangerous mountain pass that is closed. And I had no idea. It wasn't until I
came to a couple hours later where I realized
I'm in a situation here. I'm in four feet of snow. My car is still running. And I can't move it. I was basically stuck in
a part of the mountain where there was no
cell phone reception and my navigation system did
not have the wireless connection to make a distress call. I then had to digest
two serious facts. And that was, one, no
one knows where I am. And two, no one's coming for me. My GPS told me I had 20 miles
to get to some place in Sun Valley. Probably take me about 15, 17
hours to walk the 20 miles. And you know, once I get
there, I'll just be real tired. But hey, at least I'll be there. And I thought, I'll wait
until the snow melts and come back and get
my car in the spring. So we started walking. And I let Lola run because the
snow was kind of hard packed. But I noticed she was just
running back and forth thinking this was just a rest stop and
that she'd get back in the car and go to sleep. And I kept trying to tell
her, don't waste energy. Stop wasting energy. But you know, she's a dog. She's not listening to me. So it wasn't till we
got into the woods and out of the road, basically
we are now entered from what was kind of the open
part of the valley now into the condensed and
covered part of the forest, where we started sinking. The frustration that
you feel from not being able to do something
as simple as walk plays with you, because
after about two hours, I had gone nowhere. [ominous music] We walked again
as if we were one. He kept pace with me,
always kept behind me. We walked into the living room. And he turned the stereo on. And he turned it up full volume. My mind started racing. I wasn't sure what his
plan was at that point. But I was thinking. I knew I couldn't overpower him. I knew I couldn't fight him. But I was thinking
about what I could do and just I wanted to wait to
see what he was going to do. I might have been able to gauge
what his plan was if he did yell, if he did grunt, if
he did raise his voice. But none of that. None of that. He was so calm, it
was kind of scary. I did tell him that I
had some money and I did. I had a few hundred
dollars in one of my shoes. And he didn't react. We're still walking together. He's still punching
me in the side. And we walk into the bedroom. And we walk past the bed. So we walk to the
corner of the bedroom. And there was a window there. My thought at that
point was I've got to get someone's attention. It's 8:00 in the morning. Someone has still got
to be in this building. And I need to start
getting some detention. So I lashed out, and
broke the window, and I started screaming, loud,
long, kind of shrieky screams. It did nothing to him. He didn't react. He said, get on the bed. Get on all fours. Face the wall. And don't turn around, he said. [solemn music] He's standing there stark
naked with a butcher knife and his body is shaved. And he just comes rushing at me. I turn for the door. And as I'm grabbing
the doorknob, he's scooping me up from behind. And the butcher knife
actually accidentally cuts me. So I begin to look
down at the floor and I see the blood dropping
and hitting the floor. And this is when I say to
myself, this is very real. What is going on? And how am I going
to get out of this? He takes me immediately
into the garage and there is this
blanket placed there, oddly yet strategically placed. And he puts me face
down on the blanket and begins trying to
sexually assault me from behind with a butcher
knife to my throat. So I begin saying anything
that I think will pacify him. Chris, stop, I love you. I love you. What are you doing? I've been thinking about it. I wanted to be back with you. Just stop right now. And eventually, he does stop
and then stands about three feet away from me and
starts questioning me. And he's questioning the
paternity of our oldest son. And I'm confused by
this, like how could he? This is a child
that was planned. But I started trying
to buy myself time. And I'm thinking, in
reality, about how the hell I'm going to get out of this. And I finally say to him,
you know, we planned him. What are you talking about? He's yours. We planned him. And he says to me, I'm going to
give you one chance to tell me or I'm going to gut
you like an effing pig. That's the point where
in those moments, or in a moment like that, you
start trying to buy yourself time and you're thinking of
how you're going to escape. And then he puts the knife
down and picks up a hammer. [dramatic music] The amount of energy
you waste just trying to get your foot out of
trouble so then you can put it in more trouble, it was
unbelievably taxing. I'm not on a nice walk
through the woods anymore. I'm now on a trek
that I am now going to be fighting for my life. So at about 11:00 PM on the
road, I noticed to the right and down about 150
feet was an opening. So I said, Lola, that's where
we're were sleeping tonight. That's where we'll get cover. So I went down there. I took one of my tee shirts off. And I wrapped it
around a big stick. And I used my lighter
and lit it on fire. I then collected all the pine
needles I could find to create kind of a mattress/bed. You know, it's not comfortable,
but I'm not on the cold ground. That was the whole point. My mind was racing. I was nervous. I was scared. But I probably slept
a couple hours. I'd say maybe three
to four hours. I was trying to traverse
a very narrow, steep part of the trail. An avalanche had kind of
made the road impassable at that point so I had to
go around all the debris. And all of a sudden,
I felt all the weight on my back, which was
Lola and the supplies. I just felt a release. I turn around. I tried to catch the
bag, but I couldn't. I wasn't fast enough. And Lola and her travel
bag went tumbling down I want to say almost
down to the river so I want to say it darn
near 2,000 vertical feet. She just went-- I immediately panicked. I did not know
what was happening or what had happened to her. When I got down to Lola,
I had ripped the back out of my corduroy pants and I
could feel myself bleeding. My backside, my rear end was
bleeding, almost profusely and uncontrollably. But that was the
least of my worries. I expected to open the
dog bag and see Lola with a paw on sideways or just
a broken leg, a broken neck. Unbelievably, she had survived. At this point, I was really
scared because now we were off the road. We were now down in basically
the gully of the mountains. And I had no idea how to
get back up to the road. [music playing] He pounced on the bed. He was behind me the whole time. He made sure that I really
never got a good look at him. And from behind, he was
scratching at my eyes. Because when someone's
scratching your face, your eyes were closed. And yet he was still able to
get my contact lenses out. A knock came at the door. What he did was he took
one of the pillows that was in front of me, and he
stuffed it into my face. And at that point, I wasn't
sure if he was trying to kill me or if he just wanted to quiet
me down hoping that the neighbor would go away, the
knocking would stop and the neighbor would go away. I stuck my arm up
into the pillow to provide a little air
pocket because I wasn't sure what he was doing. I don't know if it
was temporary or-- and so we waited. He stopped. He never said a word, just
pulled the pillow into my face. He was still behind me. And of course, the
neighbor went away. I'm squirming. I'm fighting. I'm trying to get
out of his grip. And we're just doing
this all around the bed. At one point, I
fell onto the floor. And we had hardwood floors. And I started pounding on the
floor with both of my hands. I can imagine I looked like
a little child throwing a tantrum, but I was hoping that
the pounding on the hardwood floors would get
someone's attention. That was still my goal. And at that point, I
tried to talk to him. I said, why are you
doing this to me? And he said, I'm doing
this to you today. And someone's going to
do this to me tomorrow. [music playing] I never noticed the knife. I never noticed the hammer. I never noticed the candle. I never noticed any of these
things that were strategically placed and ready. So he switches to a hammer. He stands above
me and strikes me in the head with a hammer,
two times on each side. And I can feel the blood
running down the side of my face as I'm still laying there. And I'm like, this is it. And I remember looking
back at the garage door. And it was unlocked. So I'm laying there. And I start saying
my final prayers. God, just forgive
me for my sins. Take care of my children. Let me go to heaven. And then something comes over
me, which is the image of both of my children as teenagers
alone without either one of us. And I, of course, as a mother
cannot stand the thought. So something changes in me. And he picks up this
container, which I can't even recall what it was in, and
just tosses gasoline on me. Out of reaction, your
body is that natural, ah, as it's coming out you. And I remember it
hitting my hands. And I remember it going into
my mouth and swallowing it. And this is how I know that
this is in fact gasoline that this man that I
once loved and swore he loved me is throwing on me. And I'm realizing that he
doesn't want to just kill me. He wants to destroy the
trophy wife that he chose. [music playing] I tried to walk
next to the river. And it just was the same thing. I was potholing again. But this time the snow was even
softer so it was even harder. I jumped in the river. The river is probably
37, 38 degrees. There was still ice and snow
on top of it at certain points that I had to break. But I knew if I was there and
my feet could touch earth, if I could touch
ground, that I would be able to make more progress
than if I were potholing in five feet of snow. I fell twice, soaked
myself thoroughly. My feet are, again, freezing. My pants were ripped open
from trying to get to Lola. So occasionally, in the
deep parts of the river, water would come into my pants
and touch just bare skin. After about five hours
of walking the creek, I realized I was shaking. And I was shaking
uncontrollably. And I didn't know if I was
having a low blood sugar again, which when you do
have a low blood sugar, your general result is, if
you don't take care of it, you pass out. I knew if I passed
out, I'm dead. At one point, he
fell in front of me and fell back onto his butt. His legs were open. And his crotch was exposed. And my first thought was let's
try to give him some pain too, you know? And so I reached for his crotch. I can't tell you what
I was going to do, but I wanted to do something. But his pants were
extremely tight and so I really couldn't
do what I wanted to do. I really wanted to
put some pain to him like he was putting to me. At that point, he was
reaching for the iron. So he hit me in the
back of the head. And he hit me again. One of them was to my forehead. One of them was to the side. One to the arm. I put my arm up. He broke my arm
with one of them. And one of them, he damaged
my left ring finger. The blood was everywhere. I never lost consciousness. Never. And I thought that had
to be driving him crazy. He's probably thinking,
what do I have to do? He hit me seven times total. And the iron broke. The plate, the face
plate, fell right off. He dropped the iron and said,
now you're going to get it. [suspenseful music] And I start praying to god. God, just let me live. Just let me live. That's all I want. Just let me live. And the look that Chris gives
me before he tosses that candle at me is one of finality. And he just tosses it at me. And I instantly go up in flames. All I remember is the
urgency to get out. So I run for the garage
door and I lift it up like just enough to
escape from underneath. And I can't even see. Like I'm engulfed completely. And I can't even
see where I'm going. And I just drop immediately. But the problem is is
that every time I roll one, way I'm hitting the tree. And then when I roll the next
way, I'm hitting the concrete. So it's not really helping. I can hear her screaming. Audrey, oh my god. Oh my god. And she's running to me
and starts hitting me with her son's jacket and
gets me out fairly quickly. And then Veronica is
overcome by shock. This woman is screaming
and trembling. And I'm screaming to
her, Veronica, 911. 911. And she finally gets
them on the phone. And they ask her if I
can walk to her house and get into the shower, to
just stand under this water. And she's like helping me peel
these clothes off of my body that are already
melting to my skin. [music playing] I tried to test my blood
sugar with my glucose meter. The glucose meter was frozen
and was unable to test. Do I run the risk of running
another low blood sugar or do I take my glucagon
shot and just pump myself full of sugar
to make sure I'm OK? So I took my glucagon shot out,
which is about a booster needle that you would see at a doctor. I just stuck it through
my pants into my leg, and gave myself all
of it, and just said, I'll just run a
high blood sugar. I don't care at this point. I pulled off, again tried to
collect as many pine needles as I could to create a bed where
I wasn't just sleeping on snow. My lighter no longer worked. There was no way for
me to start a fire. There wasn't even enough
dry branches for me to produce kindling. I could feel my
body shutting down. I could feel my heart slowing. For sure at this point,
we're both going to die. That morning, I was
so depleted of energy, I could barely even stand
but I got to my feet. And right then,
I look up and you can begin to see
the road descending from its perch on the mountain. So I said, Lola, if we
can get on that road by noon, seven hours, we'll
be sleeping in a bed tonight. I'll probably be in a hospital
bed, but we'll be in a bed tonight. That third day was the
toughest day for me, because, as a diabetic, I
had now gone about almost 70, 70 plus hours without eating. I remember at one
point, I collapsed on the side of the road. I was basically fighting
to stay conscious. I started to hear dogs barking. And at this point, I am
staving off delusion. I am staving off hallucinations. So when we started hearing
this howling and barking, I wasn't sure what
I was coming upon. Were it the wolves? Was it mountain lions? Was it basically somebody that
was going to eat me or was it, you know, a person
with their pets? He's going to the kitchen
to get something sharp, to get a weapon,
something to finish me off with since the iron was broken. I don't know if
he's coming back. I don't know if he's
rummaging through the drawers in our kitchen looking
for a specific instrument. I don't know what he's
doing, but my thinking was I have to get out of here. I pull myself up into the window
sill and I raised the window. And I see my neighbor. I'm yelling at him,
call the police. Call the police. And his response
was, don't jump. Don't jump. I said I don't know if this
man is still on the apartment. And so I popped up into the
window sill, turned around, and I hung there
from my fingertips. And I thought to
myself, if I just hung, there the distance
between my feet and the concrete
would be shorter. It wouldn't be such a bad fall. So I ended up letting go. And I dropped. I think when couples experience
something traumatic like this, from that point on,
it can go either way. But in our situation, it
brought us closer together. And we're still together today. I survived because, not long
after the attack started, the will to live kicked in. And I took advantage of
small windows of opportunity. And that's why I survived. We came around a bend and I tell
you, I've seen a lot of stuff in my day but nothing
was more attractive to me than the sight of
another human being. It was a woman. They call her the Pet
Nanny in Sun Valley. She had 12 dogs with her. She called 911. We had to walk about another
half mile to get to a place where the ambulance could
actually drive up to. And then I got in the
back of the ambulance and basically almost started
crying at that point. It was a sense of relief, a
sense of I'm not going to die, a sense of I'm alive. And not only am I
alive, my dog's alive. We did it. They ran these tests on me. And their conclusion was I
had about five to six hours to live. I thought for sure I was
going to lose toes, my feet. And unbelievably, I didn't. I went through 12 bags of fluid
to rehydrate and rejuvenate my body, but I didn't
even have a cold. I didn't even sneeze. I survived because
I refused to die. And I also survived because
a 10 pound piece of fur that I call Lola, that I
love, was a good enough dog to lay on my chest
and keep my heart warm in freezing temperatures
to make sure I was able to walk out of there. I'm just standing there with
the water running over me. The ambulance comes and
I can hear the sirens. And they put me
onto the stretcher. Mind you, I'm naked. And my skin is literally
melting off of my body. The adrenaline and the
shock of everything is completely wearing off. And I say to him, we need to go. We need to go now. We need to go now. And I'm repeating. And I don't understand
why I'm in an ambulance and I'm stationary. And I'm on my way
to death's door. [beeping] During the trial, he
actually accused me of attacking him along
with a masked man, that I had been the one
that tried to murder him. It's like the
ultimate disrespect. It's a slap-- the
final slap in the face. Something that I
knew pretty early on is that Chris felt like he
wasn't worthy of someone as beautiful as he
perceived me to be. And I think that he chose
fire because he knew that if I survived that he would
have ruined me and no one else would want me. All of it was a
facade from day one. This tough cop guy that's
out there in New York City fighting crime on the streets
was never who he really was. He was a coward the entire time. I survived because
of two reasons. Number one, I was
smart enough to pray in that moment and god
wasn't ready to take me, and because thinking about my
two children growing up alone gave me the will to fight
until I made it out.
