I SURVIVED: I Am So Close To Getting Help, But I Am So Far

Summary

Cold Case Files – I SURVIVED: I Am So Close To Getting Help, But I Am So Far

Podcast: Cold Case Files
Air Date: August 16, 2025
Host: Paula Barros
Summary by: Podcast Summarizer AI

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Episode Overview

This harrowing episode of Cold Case Files: I Survived features two gripping survival stories—first, the abduction and assault of Julie and her young children in Palmetto Bay, Florida, in 2002; second, John’s life-or-death encounter with a black bear in rural Washington in 2010. Both cases highlight human resilience, the randomness of terror, and the power of loved ones in fueling the will to survive.

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Story One: Julie’s Abduction and Survival

[01:56–27:35]

Key Points

• Setting & Routine
  Julie, a stay-at-home mom, recounts her routine of dropping off her daughter Emily (age 3) at church preschool and picking her up alongside her son Peter (8 months). On this day, after a normal morning, their lives are violently interrupted.

• The Attack ([03:52])
  As Julie buckles her son into the car and chats with a friend, she is suddenly struck hard on the head:

  “As I got whacked over the head with an object. I'm not sure what it was, it felt like a brick.” – Julie ([03:52])

  She is dizzy, and a man bear-hugs her from behind and screams threats. Her children are present, terrified and screaming.

• Abduction and Terror ([05:00–07:01])
  The assailant forces Julie into the car, turns on the radio to drown out screams, and mutters ominous threats:

  “Do you believe in God?... Then you're going to forgive me for what I'm about to do to you and to your two children.” – Attacker ([03:52], [07:01])

  He drives them to her house, forces her into sexual acts in front of her children, and continues a barrage of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.

• Isolation & Helplessness ([07:01–11:30])
  The attacker taunts Julie, stating he now knows where she lives. He describes a fabricated, tragic background, further unbalancing her.
  He drives the family deep into the Everglades, threatening to sink them in a canal if they resist:

  “One false move... and I will sink your van in the canal and no one will ever find you. And, Emily, the alligators will eat you.” – Attacker ([11:30])

  Julie endures repeated assaults, with her children forced to witness.

• Endless Attempts to Escape ([13:19–18:14])
  The assailant demands ATM withdrawals, heightening his threats whenever he feels thwarted. Julie tries, in vain, to be seen by others and rescued:

  “Hoping that somebody, anybody would see a woman in distress... and that's so disheartening.” – Julie ([18:14])

• Final Ordeal & Sudden Escape ([19:18–24:27])
  When attempts to access more money fail, the attacker brings Julie next to her childhood park—ironically, mere feet from her parents’ house. He assaults her again but grows frustrated as he is unable to “finish.”
  Eventually, he returns them to the church parking lot, threatens Julie’s life again in front of her daughter, and suddenly leaves:

  “He pushed the knife into the back of my neck and he started to play with my hair in a very maniacal way. And he said to my daughter, Emily, should I kill your mom?” – Julie ([19:18])

  “He just walked away. He sauntered off into the parking lot of my church like he had not a care in the world.” – Julie ([19:18])

  Julie, naked and bleeding, drives her children to her parents’ nearby home and finds refuge.

The Aftermath & Investigation ([24:27–27:35])

• Forensic Break & Investigation
  Though initial evidence is scarce, a tiny semen sample on Julie’s shirt becomes vital. However, no database match is found, and the investigation stalls—until three months later, a domestic dispute call leads to the suspect. DNA matches are made, and he is apprehended after fleeing.

  “He tried to cover his tracks so well that it was an absolute miracle that they were able to get that [tiny speck of semen].” – Julie ([24:36])

• The Truth & Justice
  The attacker’s horrific stories of abuse are revealed to be lies—he grew up in a privileged, church-going family. He confesses to abducting and raping at least three other women, all attacked while leaving church.
  He is sentenced to seven consecutive life terms.

  “I survived because of my children. I survived because I love my children so much and because that love kept me on my toes and kept me thinking and allowed me to do things I never in a million years would have done.” – Julie ([26:36])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On perpetual hope for rescue:

  “At every step along the way I'm thinking, so somebody will see me... But nobody saw.” – Julie ([18:14])

• On survival and motherhood:

  “That love gave me the strength to do what I needed.” – Julie ([26:36])

• On trauma’s legacy:

  “People think a three year old wouldn't remember something like this, you have no idea the kind of damage that it does.” – Julie ([27:35])

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Story Two: John’s Bear Attack Survival

[29:12–44:20]

Key Points

• A Normal Weekend Turned Deadly ([29:12])
  John, his wife Lynn, and their daughter Megan visit their cabin in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Multiple bear warnings are in effect, but John follows routine.

• Attack in the Darkness ([30:54–35:00])
  While walking his dogs at night, John is ambushed by a female black bear. The attack is brutal, relentless, and visceral:

  “She just leaped into me and went straight for me... We went down onto the road, and as we went down, she was clawing and biting at me.” – John ([30:54])

  “I can feel and I can hear her teeth go into my head and I can feel them scrape along my skull...I'll always remember the sound.” – John ([34:00])

  Despite catastrophic injuries, John fights back, thinking of his family.

• The Will to Live ([37:47–41:01])
  The bear eventually leaves, distracted by John’s dogs. He drags himself toward safety. Inside, his family realizes something is wrong when only the dogs return. Lynn, his wife, risks herself to come to his aid, contacting 911.

  “She put her life in danger to save mine. But I know my wife, and she was not going back in the house. Quite honestly, she was in her own mother bear mode at that point, and she was protecting me.” – John ([40:15])

• Rescue and Recovery ([42:11–44:20])
  Emergency medics arrive just in time to save John, rushing him to hospital. He undergoes 18 hours of surgery, loses an eye, and suffers severe head, neck, and facial trauma.
  The bear, later trapped and euthanized, was smaller than expected and starving.

• Reflections

  “I survived because I didn't want to die, and my wife told me not to. She didn't want me to leave her, and I didn't want to leave her and my family. I had no idea that I had that much fight in me.” – John ([43:33])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On primal survival instinct:

  “All I was doing was flailing and trying to keep her off. She was clawing at the back of my neck. She was biting. She was sending her claws around my face.” – John ([35:00])

• On the importance of loved ones:

  “She was going to stay there. She was going to fight.” – John, on Lynn ([40:15])

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Trauma’s Reach:
  Both stories highlight trauma’s enduring impact, especially on families and children who survive acts of violence or nature.

• Survival Mindset:
  Each survivor exhibits a will to live—aided by the presence (or memory) of loved ones.

• The Cruelty of Chance:
  Both Julie and John are normal people, thrust by luck into life-threatening circumstances—underscoring the randomness of violence and disaster.

• Detection and Justice:
  The first story emphasizes both the limits and the importance of forensic evidence, and the persistence law enforcement must show, even when leads seem to run dry.

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Memorable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “Do you believe in God?... Then you’re going to forgive me for what I’m about to do to you and to your two children.” – Attacker ([03:52], [07:01])
• “He pushed the knife into the back of my neck and he started to play with my hair in a very maniacal way. And he said to my daughter, Emily, should I kill your mom?” – Julie ([19:18])
• “She was clawing and biting on my head and I can feel and I can hear her teeth go into my head and I can feel them scrape along my skull.” – John ([34:00])
• “I survived because I didn't want to die, and my wife told me not to.” – John ([43:33])

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Timestamps for Key Sections

| Timecode | Segment | |-----------|--------------------------------------------| | 01:56 | Julie’s story begins | | 03:52 | Julie describes attack and abduction | | 07:01 | Threats, sexual violence, psychological terror | | 13:19 | ATM escape attempts | | 18:14 | “So close to help, but so far” | | 19:18 | Last assault, attacker leaves | | 24:27 | Investigation, forensics | | 26:32 | Attacker’s true identity revealed | | 29:12 | John’s story begins | | 30:54 | Bear attack sequence | | 37:43 | Bear ends attack; John’s self-rescue | | 39:36 | Family’s reaction & 911 call | | 42:29 | Rescue and medical aftermath | | 43:33 | Reflection on survival |

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Conclusion

This episode is a raw, unsparing look at survival against human cruelty and natural fury. Julie’s and John’s stories both feature unimaginable terror and pain, but are ultimately testaments to human resilience, self-sacrifice, and the enduring bonds of love and family.

“I survived because I love my children.”
“I survived because I didn't want to die, and my wife told me not to.”

Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Advertiser/Promoter]

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[Narrator]

Could you be more specific when it's cravenient?

[Advertiser/Promoter]

Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter available right down the street at a.m. p.m. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just.

[Julie (Survivor)]

A second at a.m. pM.

[Narrator]

I'm seeing a pattern here.

[Advertiser/Promoter]

Well yeah, we're talking about what I.

[Narrator]

Crave, which is anything from AM pm.

[Advertiser/Promoter]

What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience. AM PM Too much good stuff Searching.

[Announcer/Promoter]

For a romantic Summer Getaway Escape with Rich Girl Summer the new Audible original from Lily Chiu the exquisitely talented Philippa Hsu. Returning to narrate her fifth Lily Chu title. This time Philippa is joined by her real life husband, Stephen Pasquale. Set in Toronto's wealthy cottage country, AKA the Hamptons of Canada, Rich Girl Summer follows the story of Valerie, a down on her luck event planner posing as a socialite's long lost daughter while piecing together the secrets surrounding a mysterious family and falling deeper and deeper in love with the impossibly hard to read and infuriatingly handsome family assistant, Nico. Caught between pretending to belong and unexpectedly finding where she truly fits in, Valerie learns her summer is about to get far more complicated than she ever planned. She's in over her head and head over heels. Listen to Rich Girl Summer now on audible. Go to audible.com richgirlsommar hi, I survived listeners.

[Narrator]

I'm Marissa Pinson and before we get into this week's episode, I just want to remind you that episodes of I Survived as well as the A and E classic podcast, Cold Case Files, City Confidential and American justice, are all available ad free on the new A E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple plus for just 4.99amonth or 39.99 a year. And now onto the show. This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

[Julie (Survivor)]

He turned to me and he said, do you believe in God? And I said yes. And then he said to me, then you're going to forgive me for what I'm about to do to you and to your two children.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

Real people clawing and biting on my head and I can feel and I can hear her teeth go into my head and I can feel them scrape.

[Narrator]

Along my skull who faced death.

[Julie (Survivor)]

And he said don't do anything stupid. Don't do anything Heroic. Don't try to save your kids. It's too late for that. You're mine now.

[Narrator]

And live to tell how he pushed.

[Julie (Survivor)]

The knife into the back of my neck and he started to play with my hair in a very maniacal way. And he said to my daughter, Emily, should I kill your mom?

[Narrator]

This is. I survived. It's October 2002 in Palmetto Bay, Florida. Julie is a stay at home mom with two children. Emily is 3 years old and Peter is 8 months.

[Julie (Survivor)]

My son and my daughter and I, we would get up in the morning. My husband would go off to work and we would eat breakfast and get dressed and play a little bit in the morning. And then I would take my daughter to preschool around 9:00 in the morning. And the preschool that she attended was the church that I had gone to since I was seven years old myself. It was a very large church, about 2,000 members, and it just so happened to be around the corner from our house. We would race to the preschool at about noon to pick her up. And on Wednesday mornings they had about 400 women that attended a Bible study. And so on this day we parked back around as we usually did by the playground. The parking lot was full.

[Narrator]

After picking up Emily, Julie took the children shopping and walked back to the parking lot.

[Julie (Survivor)]

As I was getting into the car, I buckled my son into his car seat and I stopped to talk to a girlfriend of mine to make some plans for a girls night out the next night. We were going to be scrapbooking and the conversation must have gone on for at least 10 minutes because my kids started to get a little bit unruly and they were ready to go. I waved goodbye to my friend and with that I saw her car drive away. And it might have been not even five seconds because I can still see the taillights from her car. As I got whacked over the head with an object. I'm not sure what it was, it felt like a brick. It could have been the butt of a knife. I was hit very hard and I was disoriented. And somebody came up behind me and bent bear, hugged me as hard as they could and started screaming, get in the car, get in the car. If you don't get in the car, I'm going to kill your children. If you want to live, get in the car. And I was so disoriented from the blow to my head and so confused by what was going on since I was at Church at 12 on a Wednesday afternoon, I looked up at my daughter and I saw her screaming a blood curdling scream. My son was screaming, my daughter was screaming, and she was fighting to get out of the van. And when I saw that, I knew that whatever was behind me was not good. And I started screaming as well. And all three of us are screaming. And in the pit of my stomach I thought, I'm at a Preschool, there are 400 women here for a Bible study. Somebody is going to hear us. And up to the very last minute, before he threw me into the van, I was 100% sure that somebody would hear us and come out and scare this person away. And that didn't happen. He stripped the keys out of my hand, he jumped into the driver's seat, locked us into the car and turned up the radio to maximum volume. It was absolutely deafening. And as my daughter and my son and I continued to scream, hoping that some, somebody, anybody would hear us as we were driving out of the parking lot, there was nothing. The music was just too loud and it drowned out the screams. And he turned to me and he said, do you believe in God? And I said, yes. And then he said to me, then you're going to forgive me for what I'm about to do to you and to your two children. And my mind started going to horrible places. Where is he taking us? What's going to happen to us? And almost on cue, he took out a knife and he cut me on the side of my neck to prove to me that he had a knife. And he said, don't do anything stupid. Don't do anything heroic. Don't try to save your kids. It's too late for that. You're mine now. What's done is done. Now give me your rings, give me your credit cards, give me your wallet. And he looked at my ID and he said, oh, you live only two blocks from here. Let me tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna go by your house so that you know that I know where you live.

[Narrator]

The man drove Julie and her children to their house.

[Julie (Survivor)]

He pulled into my driveway and he ordered me to get down on the floorboard of the car and to begin performing oral sex on him. And it was at this point that he called my daughter up to the front of the car and asked her to please watch and everything that her mother was doing. And what a horrible, horrible woman I was. And then he turned to my daughter and he said, what has your family done that has made God hate you so much? Look at your mom. Look what she has to do to save your Life. God must hate you. And he peeled out of the driveway of my house, and he said, now I know where you live, bitch, and I'll come back for you if you ever tell anybody what happens today. And he took off, and he started driving south. And my daughter was still up now in the second row of seats, closer to her brother, watching everything he did, which was asking me to perform oral sex on him as he drove south as far as he could go, the entire time screaming at me and beating me on the top of the head and beating me on the back and telling me that I better get ready because something really horrible was about to happen. I can't stress enough how unnerving it was for as long as he had us to be so uncomfortable and to feel so helpless. That thought that even as I'm driving down the highway or I'm driving down these residential streets and we're passing cars and I'm looking at these people in cars next to us, and the radio is blaring, and I can't scream for help, and I can't mouth for help because he's watching me and there are people around me, but there's nothing I can do because he has you in the perfect situation. You're never going to run, you're never going to try to escape or to jump out at a stoplight or to do anything because you have two children in the car, and he has a butcher knife, and he knows that he has nothing to lose. I never made direct eye contact with him. One of the very first things he said to me is, if you look at me, I will kill you. My best guess at the time was that he was in his late 30s, early 40s, and seemed to be fairly articulate, very well spoken, vile and angry and mean, but at the same time, extremely religious. Not religious in the way that he liked religion, but that he hated religion and that he hated women who believed in God. And that's why he had come to the church and he had preyed on me. He launched into a long diatribe about how he had been raised himself by a prostitute, and his father was just a john, and he had lived on the streets addicted to drugs, and nobody cared about him. And so his mission in life was to take women like me and to break them down and to destroy everything they had and to make them. Them feel what he felt. And to take the childhood that my kids had and to make it as dirty and profane as the childhood he had. And that's what he wanted from my Daughter. He wanted her to have a front row seat to the most horrific things a child could ever watch. We continued to drive for a very long time towards the Florida Everglades. It was the middle of nowhere. It was nothing but sweet swamp grass, and there are no people and dirt roads. And he parked the car next to a canal, kind of slanting the car down so that the nose of the car was almost going into the canal. And he turned to my daughter and he said, one false move, one scream, one disobedient action, and I will sink your van in the canal and no one will ever find you. And, Emily, the alligators will eat you. So you sit there and you be quiet, and you do exactly what I say. And my daughter started to sob and sob because she was so afraid. And then he turned off the ignition. He ordered my daughter to sit on the floor of the van and told me to take off all my clothes. And it was so hard for me to do that, knowing that although my son is only eight months old, he's sitting there and he is screaming, he is so wet and so hungry at this point, because he hasn't been changed and he hasn't been fed, and my daughter is sitting there. And just to take off your clothes and to humiliate yourself like that in the presence of both of your children, it was so difficult for me. And then he got on top of me. And when he got on top of me, I closed my eyes so tight because he said, if you open your eyes, I will kill you. And in my mind, I just kept thinking to myself, you have to go with this. You have to not fight back. And every fiber of my being wanted to throw up. And I felt so sick. He explained to me that he had recently gotten out of prison, that he had been having sex with men for seven months, and he had been through hell in prison. And that he was ready to get out and to torture people the same way he had been tortured while he was incarcerated. After we had talked for a while, he raped me again and again. I wanted to throw up. But something deep inside, some will. To want to survive and to want to get out of it alive allows you to do things that in a million years, you would never do. He looked at my daughter and he said to her, your mom did such a great job that this isn't going to be the last you see of me. He decided that he now wanted money. And so he ordered me to put a shirt on. And we drove out of the Everglades to a bank right on the edge. He pulled over in the parking lot. He got in the back with my daughter, and he sat with her in the very back. And he told me he was holding a knife on her. And he said to me, do not try to signal for help. Don't try to do anything stupid, because I'm sitting in the backseat with your child.

[Narrator]

Julie drove up to the ATM and withdrew as much money as she could.

[Julie (Survivor)]

We drove into the parking lot. He ordered me to stop the car because now he was coming up to the front again to drive. And he ordered me to hand him the receipt from the transaction. And when he saw that there was still more money in the account, my husband's paycheck had just cleared. He was desperate to get his hands on that money. So he said that we were going to go to another bank. And I said, well, if you want to, we could try going to my bank back in my neighborhood, because that would probably be the best way for, for us to be able to withdraw all of the cash. And he thought about it for a minute and I was praying that he would buy into this plan because I thought I would love to get him on the road and get him moving back towards where he took us from. He began to get so greedy thinking about being able to get more money that he said, yeah, that's a great idea. So we drove there, and as we were driving, he was forcing me to perform oral sex on him again. And he would start beating me on the back of the head. And by the time he was done, the back of my neck and upper back and head were just black and blue. Eventually, after about half an hour, we reached the bank and as we were sitting in the parking lot, he started to panic and he said, wait, I don't want you to go in and withdraw the money because I think you're going to do something stupid. And even though I'll be sitting here with your kids, I just can't take that chance. So what I'm going to have you do is walk up to the atm. He stayed in the driver's seat with the keys and the knife. And he said, remember, your kids are in the back of this car. If I see you do anything, I will take off, I will kill your kids, I will ditch your car, and I will be gone.

[Narrator]

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[Julie (Survivor)]

And so I got out of the car, I walked to the atm. At that point I was wearing no bra, no underwear, I had thrown on a shirt and I had pulled on some khaki shorts and I was bleeding and beaten. And I hobbled myself over to this ATM hoping that somebody, anybody would see a woman in distress. But because the ATM was apart from the bank, you didn't have to go up to the actual physical building. It was kind of in an outlying drive through area. No one saw. And that's so disheartening because at every step along the way I'm thinking, so somebody will see me, somebody at the church will hear me scream, Somebody in the car on the road will see me. Now somebody will see a bleeding, bruised woman trying to take money out of a bank. Nobody saw. And as I was typing in my pin code, the machine wasn't giving me any money back because we had reached the daily limit.

[Narrator]

Julie took the ATM receipts back to her abductor in the car.

[Julie (Survivor)]

So as my punishment for not being able to get any more money out, he decides that he's going to take me to a park and get. And he's going to rape me again. So unbeknownst to him, he drove to the park across the street from my mother and father's house. And it was kind of sick and twisted because in a city like Miami that's so large, what are the odds that he would show up and pull into the side of the park? I grew up my whole life playing at this park was adjacent to my elementary school. And it was in line six almost of my parents driveway. And as we were going to this park, I looked down my parents street and I could actually see my mother's car in the driveway. And it was one of those feelings that I've now had over and over again. I am so close to getting help, but I am so far because he has complete control over me and over the situation. So once again he asks me to disrobe as he rapes and he starts to rape me. But it's not working very well because at this point I've Been sexually assaulted four times and he's not performing the way he was in the beginning. And he got so mad because he couldn't finish the job that it became my fault. I didn't know what was going to happen now because I don't think he knew what was going to happen. He was angry, he was frustrated with himself. He was absolutely in a rage. And he kept saying, I haven't decided if I'm going to kill you yet. Which made my daughter start to scream again. And he took out the knife. And my son at this point had passed out, I think just from sheer exhaustion. And for crying. It had been over three hours that he had been raping us and torturing us, screaming at us and beating us. And then, strangely enough, he left the park and he drove me back to the church. And the church was situated on a property that was covered with trees. So he took my car and he drove it into the scrub so that he was protected kind of all sides from anybody really being able to see us. And I was naked. He laid me flat on the floor of the van in between both my children. And he said that he wasn't sure what he was going to do. He wasn't sure how much we had seen. He wasn't happy with the way the day had ended. Not being able to access that money, not being able to really finish the rape one last and fourth final time. And he pushed the knife into the back of my neck and he started to play with my hair in a very maniacal way. And he said to my daughter, Emily, should I kill your mom? And my daughter started to scream, don't kill my mommy. Don't kill my mommy. And she was hysterical. And he just put enough pressure in the back of my neck to make me believe that it was really going to happen. And all of a sudden, this weird feeling of calm came over me. And I just felt like it was going to be over and that was fine. And I was just waiting to die at that point. And all of a sudden, I don't know how many minutes passed, but I hear this piercing scream, blood curdling screams. Like the way the whole day had started with my. My daughter. And I hear her screaming, I want my daddy. I want my daddy. Mommy, get up, get up, get up. And she was so afraid that I was dead and motionless. And I couldn't figure out why. She was hysterical. And she said, he's gone, he's gone. And I got up and I looked and there he was. He just walked away. He sauntered off into the parking lot of my church like he had not a care in the world. After a minute I remembered my mom. I had just been at the park. I had just been raped a block away from my parents house. And I know she's home. So I got in the car. Now both my kids are screaming. But they're screaming for different reasons. They're screaming for help because in their minds he could show up again at any moment. And in my mind he could show up again at any moment. And we pulled into my parents house and I was naked and I was bleeding. I ran inside the house. Thank God my mother was home. She was on the phone with my father. And to see the look on my mother's face when she saw me like that. My mother tore off, she went to the car, she got the kids. I got on the phone with my father who begged me to call 911. And I wasn't going to do it because he had scared me so badly into believing that if I reported this that he would come back for me. But cooler heads prevailed. I called 911. And it was when I saw the police officer walk into my parents house. That was when I think that feeling that I am safe finally hit me. And I realized I had survived.

[Narrator]

After Julie's abductor walked off and left her, police tried in vain to find him. No fingerprints or DNA were discovered.

[Julie (Survivor)]

I was so disheartened knowing they had no evidence until two days after my rape. The phone rang and it was the police. And they said that on the shirt I had been wearing, a tiny, tiny shirt, speck of semen had been left behind. He tried to cover his tracks so well that it was an absolute miracle that they were able to get that. And when they ran it through their database, they linked it to another rape with the same MO but none of it mattered because he wasn't in the system. He had no fingerprints, no DNA in the system. So it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

[Narrator]

Three months later, police received a call about a domestic dispute. They took a DNA swab from the man which matched the sample from Julie's abductor. The suspect fled, but was later arrested. Five months after the attack on Julie, he confessed to abducting and raping three other women from churches in the Miami area.

[Julie (Survivor)]

All of the information he fed to me during my rape and during my abduction, they were all lies. And it was all designed to strike a chord in me that he had been in prison. And no, he didn't want to use a condom while he was having sex with me. Although I pleaded with him to please use a condom because I knew I was ovulating. And he said to me I've been having sex with men for seven months, there's no way that I'm going to miss this opportunity. When the truth was he had never served a day in prison. He did not grow up on the streets with a drug drug addicted mother. His mother was the church secretary, his dad was a deacon at the church and furthermore an ATF agent for the federal government. He grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in Miami with the benefit of everything, every blessing you could imagine. Yet he had so much hatred and he spun these lies to make me so scared.

[Narrator]

Michael Siebert received received seven consecutive life sentences.

[Julie (Survivor)]

I survived because of my children. I survived because I love my children so much and because that love kept me on my toes and kept me thinking and allowed me to do things I never in a million years would have done and to fight a fight I never would have taken up to protect them. And I think that love gave me me the strength to do what I needed. What I want more than anything in this world is just to assure my kids this will never happen again. Whether I have to do what I did. Which was to fight the legal system for four years to make sure he was put in prison for seven life sentences, or just to sit with her at night when she's having anxiety issues and to listen to what she has to say. Because even though people think a three year old wouldn't remember something like this, you have no idea the kind of damage that it does.

[Narrator]

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[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

This particular weekend was our anniversary. We weekend. It was our 13th anniversary. We really just planned a regular weekend. We were going to have some fun. We were going to do a little work on the cabin on Sunday on our anniversary we were probably going to go for a short hike and then head back home. This particular fall, there had been a lot of bear sightings. Typically they're around and we've seen bear on the hikes before in the area. One of our neighbors had had a bear actually come up on their deck the previous year, literally stand up in the window and peer inside. It's a typical sort of mountain wilderness type of home and you deal with the wildlife that's there. As we were driving and coming down to the cabin that night, probably around 7:30, 8 o' clock at night, we were maybe a mile away and I said to my wife, you know, we really do need to be on the lookout for bear this weekend because there have been reports of a lot of bear in the area. I of course, promptly forgot my own advice once we got there because we just fell into our normal routine of getting ready, getting beds made, food put away, clothes put away. It was just kind of a normal time and we, we fell into our normal routine. Nighttime is my time for taking the dogs for a walk. I always take them and I always enjoy it. It's very dark, there are very, very few street lights, so I always take a flashlight or a headlamp along with me.

[Narrator]

John led his two dogs down the driveway to the road and we got.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

To the bottom of the driveway. I took a couple of paces out onto the road and turned to head east and immediately heard a very loud rustling of bush along the side of the road. Shortly after that, I mean, almost immediately, I heard a large whoosh and it was an exhale and I knew it was from an animal and I immediately went back to my warning to my wife, I knew it was a bear. I could then hear the bear running at me. I could hear clicking on the roadway as the bear. Bear's claws were hitting the road. And in a split second, she came into my view, into the light of the headlamp. She was running headlong at me. She was running fast. She had her head down, and in a split second, she just leaped into me and went straight for me, right into my chest. We went down onto the road, and as we went down, she was clawing and biting at me. We hit very hard down onto the roadway, and I knew I was in deep trouble. I immediately started yelling, bear, help. I'm being attacked by a bear. I wanted to get back up. I knew I had to get back up on my feet, and so I fought my way back up to my feet, squared off with her. She came at me again. She was clawing, she was biting. She knocked me down again. We probably fought for a couple of minutes down on the roadway, and there was just this momentary lapse. All of a sudden, it just seemed quiet. And I remember grabbing the dog's leads, and I began running back up the driveway to the cabin. I was so hopeful that I'd be able to get away. At that point, I really couldn't see a lot, and all I was concentrated on was getting away. It was a total surprise when the bear came around the corner and pounced on the dogs. I pulled as hard as I could on their leads to get them away. I just thought I had to save the dogs. And I pulled hard, and the dogs popped out from under her grasp. And I tried to run as fast as I could back up the driveway. We didn't get very far. We only got about 15ft, and she was back on us again. We then just went through this horrific fight in the driveway. I don't really know how to describe it. Otherwise, she was definitely winning. I felt that if I went down on the ground and I was lying on the ground, especially on my back, that she would begin to claw at the parts of my body that are soft. And if she got that, if she got my chest, if she got my abdomen, and then if she got the front of my neck, I thought I was dead. I was really in a totally defensive posture. All I was doing was flailing around. I wasn't really thinking about what I could hit or where I could hit her. I just simply was flailing and trying to keep her off. She was clawing at the back of my neck. She was biting. She was sending her Claws around my face. And I can feel and I can hear her teeth go into my head and I can feel them scrape along my skull. The only thing I can equate it to is the sound that you get if you're rubbing two soft rocks together. Or it's the sound of maybe if you're running your fingernails along porcelain. I'll always remember the sound. I will always remember that sound of her teeth going into my head. She just kept coming at me and coming at me, and every single time she was winning. She wasn't that big, but she was very powerful. I knew that I was losing the battle, but I just kept fighting and kept fighting and kept fighting. I really thought that if I gave up, she was so focused on me that I was dead. And I just kept telling myself, get up, try to keep the bear off of you. Elbow kick, do whatever you have to do, but just push the bear away and hopefully she'll go away. All of the books say, stand tall, make noise. That's what was on my mind. They say at the end, if that doesn't work, lay down on the ground and play dead. And I just wasn't going to play dead because I thought that if I went down on the dragon and laid down and she was able to get to the front to soft tissue, that she'd just rip me apart and I'd be dead. There was one point that I remember her being around in front of me and she came directly toward me. Her mouth was heading right toward my abdomen. And I did what I think any, you know, red blooded male does, they protect themselves. And I came up and I actually kneed her. That's probably the only good blow that I got in during the entire fight. But I think I might have saved myself with that knee. I just remember her biting, clawing, and she took a swing and I can remember her claw hitting the top of my head and then ripping along the right side of my face. She tore flesh off of the top of my head and just pulled it over my right eye. A little while after that, we were fighting. She was behind me. She took another swing. She hit me in the left eye and it was a direct hit. I remember a huge flash of light when she hit me and this warm feeling on my face. And I knew she'd done a lot of damage. And I was pretty much at that point blind. And I finally just went down in a heap on the driveway. My head had been torn, the back of my neck was torn off all the way down to the spine. My Left arm was completely ripped to shreds, basically. I really was not sure that I was going to make it. I thought at that point I was dying. I was essentially blind. I'd lost one eye. My face on the other side had been torn apart and torn over. The one good eye that I had. I tried to get up. I tried to crawl. Tried to roll over and kind of crab crawl on my back. And I couldn't do it. I just had nothing left in me at that point. And all of a sudden it was calm. Nothing was going on. I couldn't see at that point. I couldn't hear the bear. I really couldn't hear anything.

[Narrator]

The bear had stopped attacking John and left him alone.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

I think I was yelling. My brain was telling me that I was yelling, bear, bear, call 911. And unfortunately, no one was hearing it. I was just too far away from the cabin. And there was nobody at any of the neighboring cabins. It was a very, very helpless feeling. I think the bear left because it had pretty much subdued me at that point. I was lying in a heap in the driveway. And I think the bear turned her attention to the dogs. I don't know whether they ran at that point or. Or whether they had run earlier, But I think the bear began to track the dogs to the back of the house. And I heard my daughter in the cabin yell out to my wife, the dogs are at the back door. Should I let them in? And Lynn said, yeah, let him in, let him in. And then she asked, where's dad? Is dad with him? That really is what warned them that something was wrong. I wasn't war. And the dogs had gone somewhere where they just never go. That was the point where I thought I had a chance to make it. Lynn came out of the garage, and the motion sensor light went on. And when the light went on, she could see to her left that there was a large animal there. She thought it was a dog. She took a couple of steps, and she realized it was a bear. The bear saw her and jumped up the retaining wall and went around the back of the cabin. She came down the driveway. Lynn did. Came down and found me there lying in the driveway. She had the telephone. She had just connected with the 911 operator and was trying to tell them what was going on. Was really trying to figure out what was going on.

[Julie (Survivor)]

911, what's the location of your emergency?

[911 Dispatcher]

I'm at 900 North Shore Road, and my husband's been attacked by a bear. You said he's dying, honey. Just a Minute. Oh, sorry.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

She took off her shirt and put it over my head. That was all the protection that she had at that point.

[911 Dispatcher]

Sweetheart, are you there? John?

[Julie (Survivor)]

No.

[911 Dispatcher]

Okay, honey. You just stand in there, sweetie. Just keep breathing, honey. Keep breathing.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

I didn't know if the bear would stay away or if the bear would come back. I had the sense that maybe it would come back because it just wouldn't leave me alone. Lynn and I didn't really have a conversation during this time. I would much rather have had her go back. She put her life in danger to save mine. But I know my wife, and she was not going back in the house. She was going to stay there. She was going to fight. Quite honestly, she was in her own mother bear mode at that point, and she was protecting me. Lynn was very loud on the phone. She was very animated. She was doing exactly what she was supposed to do. But I have to say, I really wanted her to go back up the driveway and go back into the house where she would be safe.

[911 Dispatcher]

This is another dispatcher. I'm still here with you. I see the energy. He is down a block down like one house down on the road. What should I do? Does either of you have any weapons? All I have is a flashlight and my cell phone.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

The bear had circled back around the cabin and had come down on the road and was pacing back and forth, forth on the road and occasionally moving down the road toward her. She told me not to move. She told me help was on the way. I remember at one time saying, I'm dying. And she said, no, you're not. Hang in there. Don't die. Keep fighting. And I kept fighting.

[911 Dispatcher]

Sean, honey. Okay, you're still talking, honey. You just stay breathing and stay calm, my dear. Okay? You're doing a good job, sweetheart. You really are. Honey. Oh, here they come. Oh, good. I'm so scared.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

When the medics arrived, I heard one get out and he ran to the back of the medic unit, which is where I was lying. He pulled Lynn's shirt off my head, and I heard him yell to the other medics, don't bother to get anything out of the van. We're putting him in and we're leaving now.

[Narrator]

John was driven to the local hospital and medevaced to Seattle.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

She tore from up here all the way down across my right eye and that was hanging down and the left side. She made a direct hit on that side of the face and literally took my eye out the back of my neck. She actually clawed and bit all the way down to the spine. The doctor said the spine was exposed and my head was hanging at an odd angle. She just basically ripped my head and my face almost off.

[Narrator]

John was in emergency surgery for 18 hours.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

I can remember it took a week before I was really able to see out of my right eye in the hospital. And I could look in the mirror and it really looked a lot like Frankenstein. My face had been completely stitched up. But I'm getting better, and, you know, I'm here.

[Narrator]

The female black bear that attacked John was later trapped and shot.

[John (Bear Attack Survivor)]

The bear looked huge to me. It turned out she wasn't as large as a normal bear. She was about £150. The game agents who caught her and trapped her and shot her said that she didn't have much food in her stomach, did not have cubs, didn't have cubs with her, likely wouldn't have retained cubs. She was thin and she was hungry. I survived because I didn't want to die, and my wife told me not to. She didn't want me to leave her, and I didn't want to leave her and my family. I had no idea that I had that much fight in me. I just had no idea that I could fight that hard.

[Advertiser/Promoter]

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[Julie (Survivor)]

I will have my vineyards.

[Advertiser/Promoter]

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[911 Dispatcher]

This is what I do.

[Advertiser/Promoter]

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[911 Dispatcher]

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[Advertiser/Promoter]

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