[ominous music] He said, you want to be
set free, I'll set you free. And he pulled out a hatchet. He was going to
choke me to death. He means it. He's going to-- he's
going to kill me. You could just feel
your skin's blistering. Everything is red. It's just red and it's burning. Everything's on fire. And he started to chop. I started kicking and screaming,
hoping someone would hear me. [theme music] [ominous music] Back then, hitchhiking
was a really big thing. So there were people
everywhere with signs and, you know, saying I'm
going here, I'm going there. And I had a sign saying
that I was going south. And a man pulled
up in a blue van. There were two other people
behind me who had the same sign and going in the same
general direction. And when the man pulled up, I
noticed he had an empty van. There was nothing in the back. But he said he only had
room for one person. The other two people
behind me said, you shouldn't go in
there, you know, it's-- if he's not willing to take
other people and just a female, that's not the safest bet. But, at the time, I wasn't
thinking about that. I was a daredevil or anything, I
was just desperate to get home. I could not live
another day out alone. I didn't think about what
type of person he was or the situation. I was just-- I was tired. And he seemed like a
grandfather type figure. I was just so exhausted, I
dozed off for a little bit. And when I woke up I noticed
that the signs were different, and they were heading in
the opposite direction. And I picked it up
and said, look, you're going the wrong way and you
know you're going the wrong way. He pulled over in the
middle of a deserted road. I then thought,
well, I'm in trouble. And I looked down and noticed
my tennis shoe was untied. Now, if I'm going to be
able to outrun this person, because I'm young, he's
old, I'm healthy, he's not, I better tie my shoe. So I opened up the passenger
door, got out to tie my shoe. That's when the sledgehammer
hit me on the head. [ominous music] I took my daughter down to the
swimming pool about 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. And we were just having a
swim, and saw the column of smoke going up. And I started to get a bit
concerned at that time. So I picked up
Cassidy, my daughter, and we went back to
my parents' house. [ominous music] The smoke was traveling
away from the town, and it was traveling
very quickly across the back from our place. And we couldn't see any flame. We could only see smoke. My mom was getting
quite disturbed about the amount of
smoke that was around, so she took Cassidy. And I decided to stay with
dad to defend the house. So we were just wetting down
the garden and sort of keeping-- keeping everything wet and damp. [ominous music] Dad's at the back
of the house still, watching the smoke go across. And then we realized
that it did-- that it had-- the
wind had changed. That's when, all of a sudden, it
was on the town within seconds. [fire raging] The skies just went
completely black. And I couldn't see. I couldn't see anything
until the house next door to me just
exploded in flames. I just couldn't believe
what I was seeing. It was there one minute,
and then the next minute it was just, boom, and it was gone. I was being showered by major
huge embers and burning-- burning material,
burning branches were just flying across. [suspenseful music] It was just an absolute inferno. It was just deafening. You couldn't-- I was having to
shout to speak to each other. It was unbelievable, just the
wind that was behind that fire. And I just said to
Dad, we've got to go. We just can't save the
house at this time. I raced down to the front of
the house and got into my car. The two dogs were
already in my car. I realized then that my
dad wasn't behind me, and I had assumed that
he would be following me to get into my car. I then realized that he would
have gone back to the car port to get his work vehicle. But when he got into his
car to come down the line right beside the house, a
tree branch had come down. And he had to smash his
way through with his car. When we started to
head down the road, that's when I really
started to panic. Because we started to
get trees falling down-- massive trees just falling down
onto the road, hitting the road and just exploding
into embers and sparks. We were in the gutter, and
we were up on the road verge, just trying to avoid trees
and branches, which were just crashing down as we were
driving all around us. So we were going as--
going as fast as we could to try to avoid becoming
trapped in between two trees we couldn't get through. [ominous music] I was living with my
parents, and my younger sister and her two young girls. And her husband had
recently passed away. And, at that time,
my younger sister was battling brain cancer. And we were going through a
very, very hard time, a really hard time. [ominous music] He kept coming over
to my parents' house and upsetting my parents. And my sister was on
chemo and was sick. And I just-- I didn't want him
upsetting my family anymore. I didn't-- I just
wanted it to stop. The only way that I could stop
him from bothering my family was to go back with him,
even though I didn't want to. [ominous music] He said he was going to borrow
some money from a friend of his so we could go out
and have some dinner. I waited in the car. And when he got back and
was walking back towards me, I could tell that he
was high on cocaine. So when he got in the car, you
know, I was upset about it. I pleaded with him and asked
him, please, don't do this. And he just told me,
you know, just shut up. He just started the car
and we started going. And he would occasionally
stop, get out and go to the back of
the car, open the trunk and get some cocaine,
and snort some cocaine. And one of the times I got
out and I walked to the back. And I went and,
like, popped it out of his hand, which
really infuriated him. So we got back in the car, and
I knew that this was really going to be a bad situation. I just felt it in my heart. He threatened me
and said, you know, you're going to pay for
that, for what you've done. [ominous music] It was pitch dark, not
a soul in sight, just me and him in the car. He took the right and
the fork of the road, just went down a little
bit and pulled over. And I asked him, I says,
what are you doing. And he didn't say anything. Before I knew it, he got
something out of the glove box, which ended up being about
2 and 1/2 inch razor blade. And he-- when he said I'm
going to effing kill you, he grabbed my hair-- grabbed me by the
back of the hair, pulled my head back,
and slit my throat. [ominous music] A sledgehammer hit me on
the head, and I blacked out. When I came to, I was tied
up in the back of his van. He began raping me. I asked why he was doing this. There was no response. He raped me a few times,
probably about six times, and he fell asleep. But I couldn't-- I couldn't get away because
I was completely tied. I wanted to die. That was the worst
feeling I've ever felt. That's all I was thinking. Please, God, kill me now. Can't handle it. The whole time I was
just telling him, please, just set me free. Let me go. Set me free. I remember the words. Just set me free. I won't tell. And he kept raping
me till the next day. And I was awake the whole time. And I was awake till I saw
the sun starting to rise. [suspenseful music] We're still in the middle of
nowhere and he pulls me out. And I'm completely naked
and already bleeding. And he said, you want to be
set free, I'll set you free. And he pulls out a
hatchet from his toolbox. [ominous music] We've got to get to the Oval. Otherwise, we're not
going to make it. Everything is red. It's just red and it's burning. Everything's on fire. We couldn't make anything out
because everything was ablaze. But we couldn't
see where we were going because the smoke was just
so thick coming over the road. The veering was very dramatic. We'd sort of come
down, next we just have to take off over
one side of the road to try and get around a big
tree which had come down or some branches which
were on the road. And just not knowing whether
or not and Cassidy had-- had gotten through and
exactly where they were was a big concern. [ominous music] And I didn't know whether
or not they'd been able to-- to make it through or whether
they'd become trapped halfway between two trees or-- I had no idea where they were. We went over one bridge
and then a second bridge and we could see the Oval
from as we started to come across that second bridge. But then a massive tree came
down in front of my car. [fire raging] You've got a high bank on one
side and a dam on the other. And when the tree came down,
it came off the high bank and right down into the water. And it was such a big
tree that there was no way we could get around it. I started heading for the dam,
saying that we should just get in the dam because
it was right there. So that was where I was heading. And my dad said to me, no. No. We should head back to
the-- head back to the pipe underneath the bridge. Because if we had have gone with
my plan and gone into the dam, we would have had to be in
the water with two dogs, and constantly having to go
underneath the water to try to avoid the radiant heat. We decided to just
leave the cars. We got the dogs organized
and we took off and we ran. [ominous music] And he grabbed my hair-- my-- grabbed me by the
back of the hair, pulled my head back,
and slit my throat. And that's when
I went like this, and it cut this finger and
that's what basically saved my life at that point. After stabbing my throat, then
he started cutting up my body. And I caught eyes with
him for just a second, and they looked like the devil. Like, they were like-- like, a
fiery looking reddish orange, a real evil look. [ominous music] He got out and went to the
back to do some more cocaine. When he got out I took my-- my white t-shirt and
I put up to my throat here, because I could just feel
the warm blood just pumping out. And I just figured, well,
I'm going to bleed to death. And I'm going to die. I started saying
my goodbyes to my-- my dad, and my mom,
and all my loved ones. And I said, God, I'm-- I'm ready to go. I'm tired. I can't take this anymore. I'm ready to go I can't-- I can't do this anymore. And, all of a sudden,
he got in the car and he started the car up
and started driving further into the woods. And, without even
thinking about it-- I didn't even think
about it, I just did it. I jumped out of the car
going about 35 miles an hour. [ominous music] He said, you want to be
set free, I'll set you free. And he pulled out a
hatchet from his toolbox, and took my left arm
and took one swing. And I started to fall. And then he took another swing. And I grabbed his arm-- grabbed it real tight. And I couldn't figure out-- I'm holding him tight on his
arm but I'm still falling. I looked down at my arm
and there was nothing-- just blood squirting out. I felt all the pain, the
sharpness, the burning. And when my blood was
leaking out of my body, I felt the hot-- it was just flowing out of me. I felt everything. I was aware of everything, and
the pain was so excruciating. [ominous music] And he-- he then
took my right arm. And I started kicking
and screaming, hoping someone would hear me. And I'm just kicking non-stop. And he started to
chop my right arm off. But because I'm still kicking
and screaming, it took longer. So he had to keep
chopping away at my arm. When he was done chopping my
arm off, I lay there bleeding. But I could see
him at a distance and he was flicking his arm. And I couldn't
figure out why until I looked at the end of his arm. My hand was still clutched
onto him real tight, and he was trying
to flick it off. At that point he-- he started to drag
me and I think he thought I was dead because I
just lay still and didn't move. And he threw me off
a 30-foot cliff. [ominous music] I just didn't know he drove off. I didn't know he
was waiting or what. But I just laid there,
bleeding to death. [suspenseful music] We grabbed the two dogs and
the mobile phone out of my car, and we ran back over
the first bridge to the second bridge, which
had a big concrete path underneath it. And so we were able to
shelter in that concrete pipe. There were buildings going off,
just exploding all around us. We were only probably about
10 meters from the Marysville Patisserie, which went up. And it had six gas bottles
along one brick wall, and that was just exploding,
one after another. It was unbelievably hot. You could just feel your
skin almost blistering. Your lungs burnt, and your
throat burnt, and your eyes were just stinging. Everything was just on fire. There was-- there was nothing
that I could recognize. Everything was just ablaze. Not knowing where
my daughter was, was the hardest part for me. I was frantic, trying
to call everybody that I could think of that may
have had contact with my mom. We were sort of starting to
think that maybe it was getting to the end, and maybe we could
start to think about moving out of the culvert and heading--
you know, heading to Oval, where we would be safe. Then the service station
across the road went up. When the petrol tanks
underneath the ground went up, they were just exploding. And it sounded like
bombs going off. And the whole sky was just
lit with this brilliant orange light. And the whole Earth just shook. [ominous music] All of a sudden, I just
jumped out of the car. I skidded on my
hands and my legs on the gravel along
the side of the road. And I got up, and I
ran into the woods until I couldn't run anymore
because the woods were so thick. I've got a lot of stab wounds
in my hands and in my arms. And my legs were just
like hamburger meat from jumping out of the car. I then got down in
a fetal position. And that's when I heard
the car door open. I heard his footsteps coming
closer and closer to me. I tried to stay as quiet as
I could so he wouldn't-- you know, he wouldn't hear me. I was terrified. And it's like, I'm going to-- I'm going to die. You know, he means it. He's going to-- he's
going to kill me. That's when he found me. And he just-- he had a pair
of big pair of scissors and he started stabbing me. He stabbed me in my head. He stabbed me in my neck,
in my arms, in my back. I was screaming for him to stop. But he was just calling me
every filthy name in the book. You're a whore. You're a slut. You're a bitch. You're the reason
for all my problems I've ever had all my life. I knew that the only way that
I could maybe possibly survive would be to play dead. So I played dead. He dragged me back to the car
by my clothes and threw me in. He got in the car and he-- he saw that I was so alive. And that's when he went
and started choking me. He was going to
choke me to death. [ominous music] And I got tired. I got really sleepy and cold. And all I wanted to
do was go to sleep. But all I heard
was a voice saying that I can't go to sleep. He's going to do this
to somebody else, and I can't let that happen. That's what was going through
my heart, and mind, and my soul, that I couldn't have him
do that to another girl. I stuck my arms in the dirt to
pat my arms so that they won't bleed so much. And the dirt would act
like mud, and it'll stop some of the bleeding. I crawled back up the
cliff without any hands. It was dark. It was very, very dark,
and I could barely see. I mean, had it not been
for the moon or the stars, I wouldn't have been
able to see anything. But I could hear
the sound of traffic somewhere over the hill. Like, there has to be
a freeway somewhere. I'll just follow that noise. I just walked until it
started getting daylight. And the first car that
came, it was a red car with no top on it. It was one of the
sporty type cars. And there were two guys
that were driving it. I says, help me. Help me. But, I mean, think about it. I have no hands now, and
I'm covered from head to toe in blood. I look like something
from a fright night movie. And they took off. So all I could think of was
I'm going to die out here, because everyone's too
afraid to even stop. [suspenseful music] It was just unbelievable,
these massive fireballs. And the noise was just
deafening when that went up. So we were just basically moving
from one side of the culvert to the other, just trying to
avoid the radiant heat while we were-- while we
were in the culvert. And we had my mobile
phone, as well, so we were trying to locate my
mom and Cassidy at that time. Not knowing where my daughter
was for those three hours really took its toll on me. I was frantic, trying
to call everybody that I could think of. He was spending a lot
of time reassuring me, 'cause I was starting
to really panic, not knowing where they were. And he was-- he was offering
suggestions to other people that we could call. Finally, one of the firefighters
was able to get my number and give me a call. And he put me on to my mom. And then we realized
that they were only a matter of less than half
a mile from us, on the Oval. It was about that time
that the-- that the fire-- that the intensity had
started to decrease. And we were able to run
around the back of the dam and get to the Oval. So that's how close we were. Trees were still burning. There were still
buildings up on the hill that we could see
that were still-- that were still burning. We were just constantly
being bombarded by this incredible heat. When we arrived, my-- my mom was overwhelmed. She was just so thankful
that we were OK. And I was just so thankful
to find that my daughter was there, and that she was safe. There was probably
around maybe 100 people on the Oval altogether
people just in absolute shock about what had happened. When the news of the death of
the wife and oldest son from-- of the fire captain
came through, that was very
devastating time for-- for so many people. Because they were well
known in the town. And that was sort of the first
news of people where there wasn't-- there wasn't an answer,
and then all of a sudden there was an answer and
the answer was just-- it was really just too horrific
to be able to contemplate. Just also knowing that
this is just the start-- we're getting this news
now, but how many-- how many other people
will get the same news? There's a lot of people
asking just the brigades to go and search for people,
but we were all just stuck on the Oval. No one-- there was
not going anywhere. We were all just
stuck-- stuck there. The fire was just
still too intense-- trees down all over the road. That we just-- just had to
wait it out until the morning. [ominous music] All of a sudden, I saw
some car headlights come around the corner
and it startled him. And they drove by really
slow and looked over. And I guess it just
kind of, like, freaked him out or something, you know. Because he started the car up
and turned around, and started going back into town. [ominous music] I begged and I pleaded
with him to please take me to the hospital. I says, I won't say anything. Just drop me off
by the hospital. And he goes, OK. He goes, I'll take
you to the hospital. We start getting
closer to the hospital and he drives right by
the hospital and says, yeah, I'll take you
to the hospital. Yeah, right. And it's like, my heart sank. He's like a cat with a mouse. Like, they like to torture 'em
and play with 'em before they kill 'em. We ended up back at the
same apartment complex that he had went to earlier
to get some cocaine. And he says, if you
leave out of this car, he goes, I'll find
you and I'll kill you. He got out, and I
heard his footsteps going up to the second floor. So I went and opened
the car door as quietly as I could and got out. I just started
running like crazy. I mean, I felt
like I was flying. And I went in the opposite
direction of where he went. And I was going up to doors
and knocking, and begging and pleading for help. And nobody would
answer their door. So I was desperate. I can hear people talking. And I found this window
that was open and-- and I jumped in. They were horrified by what
they saw, because I was just bloody from head to toe. And I scared them. And didn't speak any English. So the guys got on
each side of me, and they escorted me outside
their sliding glass doors. That's when I'm
like, oh, my god. I'm-- I'm back outside
and vulnerable. And he's going to find me. [ominous music] So I kept walking in
the middle of the road, and that's when the
second person came. And it was a honeymoon
couple that had gotten lost. They just tried to help
me up into the truck and said, lay still. We'll get you there. And they raced really fast. I mean, it was an old truck but
I could hear the wheels peeling out. They were able to get to a
phone to call the paramedics. [hopeful music] I lost over half the
blood in my body. And the rest of the
blood in my body got to a toxic level but my
body took it because I was-- I guess I was that
desperate to live. [hopeful music] I was scared because he was
just a few feet from me when I was in the witness stand. He was only, like,
10, 15 feet from me. [ominous music] When he was done testifying and
I was leaving the courthouse, I had to pass him
just inches away. And I heard him say, "If
it's the last thing I do, I will finish the
job," quote, unquote. [ominous music] I won't ever forget that
night that we had there. The whole forest
was just ablaze. There's also houses higher up
on the hill around the Oval, as well, and they were exploding
as the night was going on. We slept on the ground
with the other people. We spent the night with a
man who had-- he owned a bed and breakfast in town. And he-- he had taken
his guests to safety, and they had been able to
be evacuated from the town. But by the time he
got back to his-- to save his wife
and two small kids, they had-- he found them
dead on the property. People were breaking down-- lots-- lots and lots of tears,
lots of just people hanging onto each other, trying
to make sense of-- of what was going on. When we woke up,
my family walked around the back of the Oval. One of the first
things that we saw was an eight month
pregnant woman who I knew. And she was-- she was
dead, underneath a tree. And she'd walked probably maybe
a mile to get to where she was, so she had to walk down a
really steep hill from her house to get down to the Oval. And she just-- she was so close
but she-- she didn't make it. I was four months
pregnant at that time, so I certainly had
an affinity with her, and because I knew her, as well. And she was, you know, not only
was one person lost with when she died, but two. So it was very, very sad
to see her there like that. Everything was gone--
the houses, the trees. It was like a bomb had gone off. There was-- everything
was just covered in ash. And the smoke was still
really thick in the air. It was just surreal. Walking up the road
towards the house-- just nothing. There was nothing left
of houses, just a bit of twisted metal. And the rest was just ash. It was-- the intensity
of the fire was just so great that, really, there
was-- there was really nothing left. Nothing left at all. [ominous music] Oh, my god. I'm back outside and vulnerable. I went and hid
underneath a stairwell. And, all of a sudden, that's
when I saw a police car. And I went and I ran up
to him, and I said, please don't let me die. The ambulance arrived, and
that's when they took me to the trauma center. The doctor lost count after
counting 50 stab wounds to my head, and my face,
and my neck, and my arms. He had never seen
anyone so cut up. Like, just looked
like a cut up rag doll that was just bloody from head
to toe, that was still alive. Another 20, 25 minutes, I
would have bled to death. [ominous music] They said that
because of his size and his weight and everything
that he could have, like, killed me,
like, very easily. I guess they didn't hear me
when I told them I got away. Had I not gotten away, it
would have been a murder trial. God wasn't ready to take me yet. One of my purposes
at the time was to be able to be there to spend
time with my sister, Carlyn, before she passed away, and
also to help raise her two young girls. I survived because God
still had a purpose for me here on this Earth. [ominous music] There are a lot of very,
very sad stories to come out of the Marysville fires. My family has lost everything. We've lost a lot of friends. My daughter suffered extreme
nightmares for about a month after the fires, and she-- I've taken her into therapy
to try to-- to resolve some of the issues. As we climb up
back onto the road, the girl-- the pregnant
girl was right there. And she had a lot
of questions about, you know, when people
burn, what happens-- what happens to them. How much does it hurt? She had a lot of questions
about death and dying, about pain, about why-- why it had happened. She was with my mom for
the whole three hours that her grandfather
and me were missing. And so her primary
carer was, of course, hysterical and not coping. So she has major
separation anxiety. If I had to leave
her at any point, she would just scream
hysterically and cling to me, and just wouldn't let me go. Going to work was a nightmare. I had to drop her at
childcare, and she would just-- they would just have
to pull her off me. And it would take hours
for them to console her. I've tried to-- I've tried
to be as gentle as I could, and let her know that
things happened very, very quickly and that there
was not a lot of suffering had by anyone who had died just
because things did happen-- happen so fast. [music playing] We were lucky. That's all it is. We stayed way too late. We should have left when my
mom left, even probably before. But we thought that we
could save the house, and that's why we stayed. If that-- if the pipe
underneath the bridge hadn't have been there,
we wouldn't have-- we wouldn't have made it. I don't have any
doubt about that. [ominous music] I never knew
that there could be people like that in the world. And I pray to God I
never know another. He was sentenced on death
row but he wasn't executed. He died of cancer. I didn't feel relief
when he had died. I needed to know what was
in that dark soul of his. I felt that I was robbed
of that opportunity. But because of my sons, they-- I saw the relief on their faces. That made me realize, OK, that's
good enough closure for me. I don't have to worry about
my sons' lives anymore. It's God and my sons
that keep me going, that keep me loving life
more than most people. I appreciate it more. And I'm just glad that I'm given
another chance at life, that I didn't die. I'm a survivor. I survived.
I was familiar with Mary's story, but had not heard this clip. thank you for sharing it. I am going to use it.