I Escaped an Ex-Navy Serial Killer: The Mysterious California Highway Hitchhiker Murders | The Case of Jennifer Asbenson | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Guillen and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday I'm cutting the lights and telling you a bedtime story. Except these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heists, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillen every Monday. She was waiting for the bus and I pulled over and asked if we could meet or write. I got her phone number and during the night I tried to call her but it was a bad number and I was a little kind of upset about that. This man is the ex-Marine who became a serial killer. What you're about to hear is extremely disturbing as he calmly describes kidnapping 19-year-old Jennifer Asbenson. I remember she said she was getting up like around 6, so I got in my car and I drove over. I pulled back toward that area. Hey, how you doing? Actually, I got a ring from last night. I was trying to get it back with me. I just reached over and I grabbed her by the hair and then she got scared and then I produced a gun. I told her to turn around and I tied her hands behind her back, back toward the trunk, and then I just started driving off. Jennifer Asbenson, 19 years old. Attacked, kidnapped, taken to the middle of a desert. But she escaped. Twice. Before finally making it out alive. When she told the police, no one believed her story was true. It took five more years for Andrew Erdiales to be brought to justice, where he confessed to having murdered eight women. During the trial, Jennifer finally got her chance to face him and put an end to his 10-year-long rampage. He's pure evil. And he's gonna pay for what he did. It's September 27, 1992. In the city of Palm Springs, California, two men stop in the middle of the desert, intercepted by a woman, half naked, with bite marks on her neck. She tells them that a man has been trying to kill her. The two men escort her to the closest gas station, where they contact the Palm Springs Police Department. When police arrive, the woman named Jennifer Asbenson tells them how the man who calls himself Andrew kidnapped her, threatened her with a gun, before trapping her inside the trunk of his car. The police tell Jennifer they have reason to believe she might be lying, but it's more likely she just had a fight with her husband. But it's more likely she just had a fight with her boyfriend, dismissing her story completely. They take pictures of the marks on her neck and send her home. Jennifer is destroyed. She goes back to her life in constant fear that one day Andrew will turn up at her house. After years of dealing with her own trauma, someone knocks at Jennifer's door. It's the California State Police. They ask Jennifer to follow them to the police department. As she's sitting across from an investigator, he shows her pictures of potential suspects, asking Jennifer to identify the man who she claims abducted her five years prior. Without looking at the others, she pushes his picture forward with absolute certainty. That's when the officer tells her the shocking truth about the man called Andrew. And he said, "This guy is a serial killer. He killed eight women, and you're the only one that got away." The day before her abduction, Jennifer is on her way to work a night shift, where she attends to children with special needs. I would work from 10 at night till 6 in the morning, but I was young. I was 19. I had a wonderful job. She misses the late bus, worried that if she's late, she might lose her job. A car drives by and slows down next to her. The man inside looks kind and asks Jennifer if she needs a ride. She refuses out of instinct, even though she doesn't feel threatened by the stranger. As the man drives away, Jennifer changes her mind. I did think he's a stranger, but he looked small, glasses on, just harmless. She gets in and they drive off. During the car ride, they talk about random things, and she starts to get comfortable with him, feeling silly for even worrying about taking the ride. As he drops her off, he asks her if she wants to go to breakfast when she gets off work. She declines, saying she has a boyfriend. The man insists. He asks for her phone number. And I thought, I'm just going to make up a number and get away from him. During her night shift, Jennifer forgets all about the man she probably won't see again. September 27, 1992, around 6 a.m. As Jennifer is leaving work and heading toward the bus stop, she notices a car similar to the one she got in the night before. It's Andrew again. He rolls down his window and offers her to go get breakfast. I was already laughing, like, you just don't give up. And I just thought, okay. He's obviously nice. He didn't do anything to hurt me the night before. And so I got in the car. Once she's inside, something switches in the man's face. He brings up the phone number that I gave him and just screamed. I called that number and some old answered. Before she can make sense of what's happening, her head is smashed against the glove box. The man takes out a gun and robe, orders Jennifer to turn around and binds her hands together. Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross. He was screaming at me, calling me names. I didn't know if he was going to slip my throat. I didn't know what he was going to do. He pulls her seat down to keep her out of sight and drives off. After only a few minutes, the car turns onto a road leading far into the desert. Jennifer can only imagine what's going to happen to her. I could see the telephone poles. And we passed one telephone pole. And then the next. And the more that passed, the more hope that I lost. The man pulls over and he pulls out a large knife and starts cutting Jennifer's clothes off. She can see he's done this before. She tries to fight him off, but the man is too strong and aggressive. Every time she fights back, she only gets hurt. Then he forces himself on her. But something happens. Andrew sees that he can't perform. This only makes him angrier. The violence level started to escalate. I felt my face get really, really hot. And my vision started to get really weird. For a brief moment, she loses consciousness, only to wake up as he's biting at her neck, screaming like a madman. That's when he got out of the car and he went to the trunk and he pulled out a brown shopping bag. Full of knives. I finally realized he's gonna murder me. She gets out of the car and starts running through the desert. I just ran and I imagined he was gonna shoot me. Suddenly, she feels a sharp pain on the back of her head. Jennifer falls to the ground as the man is dragging her back to the car. He puts her in the trunk of the car, slamming it shut, telling her he's going to kill her. Jennifer is terrified. She can't see anything. Her hands tied behind her back, locked inside a moving car. Her hope of escape is gone. My first thought was panic. And I just started praying out loud. At that moment, she feels a surge of strength overwhelm her. She pulls her hands apart, breaking the twine that binds them together. She can't believe her hands are free, but there's no time to wait. Andrew is driving her to her grave. In the dark, she can't see anything, but uses her hands to feel her surroundings. She tears the interior of the trunk apart, searching for some way to open it. She pulls on a handle, releasing the cover. But Andrew notices and pulls the car over. Then he came around to the back of the trunk and he bounced on it. With the trunk barely open, he doesn't see Jennifer's hands are untied. So he slams it shut and gets back in the car. Jennifer can hear the tires are spinning in the sand. She knows he got stuck. And this might be her only chance to escape. She pulls the trunk open and starts to run. And run. I turned around and he was chasing me with a machete. But she doesn't stop. On the road, a car passes by. She begs for their help. The driver locks the door. Seeing Andrew approach with the weapon, the car drives off. So she continues to run. And run. She sees a truck getting close. This time, she doesn't take any chances. She stands up, half naked, in the middle of the road, forcing the driver to stop. The two men in the truck get out and take Jennifer in. When she looks back, Andrew is nowhere to be found. And the passenger came and put me in the back seat. They brought me to the local gas station. The police were called. Ambulance came. My mom was called. But Jennifer never had the best of relationships with her mother. And so instead of having the support she needs, Jennifer hears her mother yell out that her daughter likes to make up stories. That she does it for attention. So no one believes Jennifer. Not even the cops. When you get out of a situation like that, it doesn't always go uphill from there. Year after year, she lives in fear. But she doesn't. fear, terrified because the man has her ID cards with her address on it. Some nights, she even sleeps on the roof of her house, afraid that Andrew will turn up to finish the job. She feels unprepared, unable to defend herself. But everything changes when she meets a woman named Mika Moulton. Mika understands what Jennifer went through better than anyone. She lost her son in the worst possible way. It is a very shallow grave, and that it appears to be the outline of a very small torso. Losing a child is something you can never imagine. There's just this incredible need to wake up, and you can't. Then she hears the news no parent is ever prepared to hear. There's evidence of exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior, negative of wanton cruelty. Christopher suffered. He tried to shield him, he tried to fight, but he didn't know how. And that hurt really bad for me. Mika never knew she needed to teach her son defensive measures. But after what happened to him, she wanted to make sure that no other children would go through what Christopher did. She then creates a workshop that teaches kids how to defend themselves against potential attackers. She calls it Christopher's Clubhouse, Mika also finds ways to help survivors, like Jennifer, who goes to Mika hoping to lose her fear. With each day, Jennifer's fear grows smaller and smaller, and her power soon takes over. Right, closed. Don't open them unless you're grabbed, okay? Damn, looking fine. Yeah, you're gonna party hard tonight. She learns new ways to defend herself, and builds a confidence no one can break. In her mind, she's preparing for the day she'll come face to face with her attacker. The year is 1997. Five years after she was kidnapped, Jennifer is sitting at the police office, and has just identified him out of a lineup. The investigator tells Jennifer that Andrew Erdiales has been arrested, and that he confessed to everything. To all eight murders, but also to Jennifer's kidnapping. Jennifer, I have an honor to what year it was, maybe 1990. June. Nineteen years old. Very pretty girl. Very pretty. I told her to turn around, and I tied her hands behind her back. I just had my hand on her throat, and I just kept choking, and she kept kicking, and her saliva was coming out of her mouth, and her face was turning blue, and then red. I caught her in the trunk, and I just started dragging her out, and her pants were so soft, and her shoulder got stuck, and her hood was popped open. And she ran screaming. There were several cars behind me. Somebody else picked up and finished my son. I don't know. But that was the last time I saw her. Jennifer can't believe it. After all these years, her monster is finally behind bars. She learns that there will be a trial, and that her testimony will be crucial to the case. For all the other women who didn't make it out alive, and for the world to know what they went through. Jennifer didn't expect her face-off would be like this. For years, she's been building her strength, her barrier. But now, she's back in the same situation as before: unprepared. I knew I had to go back there, and I had to be so vulnerable. I did not want to do that in front of him. I asked if they could get him out of the room. They couldn't. The very first time seeing him, my whole body kind of froze when I looked at him, because I hadn't seen him in so long. And he was there, in front of me now. And I kind of just wanted to tell myself. He's gonna pay for what he did. Through her own bravery, Jennifer S. Benson spoke for all these women that didn't get away. She was a hero. Despite pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, Andrew Urdialis is found guilty of all eight murders in three separate trials. The penalty to be imposed upon defendant Andrew Urdialis to be death. I just felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Jennifer came face to face with the monster and won. She was thrown back into a dangerous world and found strength. And just like Mika Moulton, she became a force to be reckoned with. I ride on shopping carts. I don't want to miss a moment of fun, because I know my life is almost taken away. I will find joy. I will skip. I will… Even after everything she went through, Jennifer was able to turn her life around. Demanding for something better. I still can live an amazing life and find beauty and joy and happiness in everything. Especially letting other people know that they are not victims. They're survivors. Jennifer S. Benson is living proof that no matter what the world throws at you, there is a power inside you. Waiting to be unleashed. To be a part of the world. To be a part of the world.