- 6 weeks ago
Fate works in mysterious ways... Join us as we count down some of the most chilling moments when people unknowingly slipped through a killer's grasp! From accidental bullet deflections to forgotten handcuffs, these unbelievable true stories prove that sometimes, luck is the only thing standing between life and death. Have you ever had a close call you didn't realize until later? Let us know in the comments!
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00:00Number one, would you say hello to Cheryl, please?
00:02We're going to have a great time together, Cheryl.
00:05Okay.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're discussing moments when a person escaped a killer by mistake.
00:11It was just, thank God I had gotten my hair cut, that I probably wouldn't be talking to you today.
00:18Maria Hernandez.
00:19Richard Ramirez was better known as the Night Stalker when he was active.
00:23In the mid-80s, he was responsible for at least 15 murders in the California area.
00:27I believe in the evil in human nature.
00:30This is a wicked, wicked world, and in a wicked world, wicked people are born.
00:37In 1985, he broke into the home of Maria Hernandez, then shot her directly in the face when she arrived
00:43home.
00:43Thankfully for Hernandez, she held her hands up to her face, and the keys she was holding caused the bullet
00:48to bounce away.
00:49After collapsing, she then pretended to be dead until Ramirez finally left.
00:53Hernandez had no idea why he wanted her and her roommate dead.
00:57Later, she became a key witness in getting Ramirez convicted after identifying him in court.
01:02Three years after the arrest, the case finally went to trial.
01:07By this time, police suspected that he had killed 16 people and assaulted 11 others.
01:13Felicity Nightingale.
01:14Fred and Rose West were two of the most prolific serial killers in English history.
01:18They operated in Gloucestershire and killed at least 12 people, primarily during the 70s and 80s.
01:24Fifteen-year-old Carol Ann Cooper went missing from a bus stop.
01:28And in December, 21-year-old student Lucy Partington also vanished again from a bus stop.
01:35In 1980, Fred West picked up a young hitchhiker named Felicity Nightingale.
01:38She found him a deeply unsettling person to be around, with him getting unusually angry at her and insisting she
01:45was heading the wrong way.
01:46After a time, he dropped her off on the side of the highway, telling her he had to see a
01:50friend, then he would pick her up later.
01:52Thankfully for Nightingale, a truck driver came and gave her a ride instead.
01:55She only realized 14 years later that she'd met a serial killer.
01:59Gloucestershire police were now certain that West was a prolific serial killer whose true persona had been disguised for years.
02:07Margaret Palm.
02:08Between 1969 and 1981, Stephen Morin killed at least 40 people in the United States.
02:14His final victim, Margaret Palm, ended up being the one to stop his ruthless ways.
02:18He put the gun right here in my ribcage in the car, and I began to ask the Lord within
02:27myself, what am I doing here? Why am I here?
02:29He abducted her at gunpoint, then forced her to drive him to a distant bus station.
02:33They spent 10 hours driving together, and along the way, they read a variety of Bible verses together.
02:38He said, I don't know what it is about you, lady, but I've never felt this kind of love in
02:43my life.
02:44I don't know what it is. It's not sexual. I don't understand it.
02:48Are you an angel? Who are you? Why aren't you afraid of me?
02:51Palm's attitude towards her faith ended up convincing Morin to convert to Christianity.
02:55When they arrived at their destination, he was arrested by the police and claimed he was on his way to
02:59turn himself into Kenneth Copeland, a televangelist.
03:02He said your goodbyes? Yeah. He got on the bus? Yeah, and he said, if I don't see you again,
03:07I'll see you in heaven.
03:09Anna Williams.
03:10Dennis Rader became known as the BTK killer while he was active between 1971 and 1991.
03:16He would meticulously follow his victims before claiming their lives.
03:20B stands for bind, T stands for torture, and K stands for kill.
03:28Rader often became obsessed with them, which happened when he first had his sights on Anna Williams.
03:33One night in 1979, he waited at her home for hours, but after waiting, he got so mad that he
03:38left.
03:39We came to the conclusion that this was someone that lived in this community, that was someone's neighbor.
03:46We think he's one of us, and that's why we can't find him.
03:49Williams had no idea how close she'd come to losing her life.
03:52That was until he sent her a little poem titled, Oh Anna, Why Didn't You Appear?
03:56Rader went on to take many more lives and wouldn't be caught until 2005, almost 30 years after his earliest
04:03activity.
04:04A BTK's trial. Chilling details of 30 years of killing would shock the nation.
04:11Kate Moyer.
04:12In 1986, the Australian couple David and Catherine Burney took four women's lives.
04:17They tried taking a fifth too, and her name was Kate Moyer.
04:20So we picked her up from a shop in Willowgy, and she related to this, what was in, rather bizarre
04:29story.
04:30They used a knife to force her to come home with them, where she spent the night handcuffed to David.
04:35Moyer managed to get away the next day, all because Catherine went to make an illicit deal,
04:39but made the mistake of forgetting to chain Moyer up.
04:41The young girl broke out of this window here in the front, and ran down practically, I do believe, with
04:49sort of nothing on,
04:50ran right down and up the laneway.
04:53This entry is unique from the others, because the mistakes were made by the killer.
04:57Moyer managed to escape through a window and got help from a nearby vacuum cleaner shop.
05:01She said that she'd been chained up, and locks had been used, and there was numbers on the locks.
05:07We found some chains and some locks with numbers on them.
05:10Dahmer's Failed Victim
05:11Jeffrey Dahmer is one of history's most well-known murderers, who was primarily active during the 80s.
05:17A gruesome story leads off our newscast.
05:20Milwaukee police found body parts in a north side apartment, and now they wonder if they've uncovered some kind of
05:26death factory.
05:27He would terrifyingly spike his victim's drinks, then take advantage of them afterward.
05:31One of his victims in 1990 ended up getting away without a scratch, as Dahmer accidentally drank the laced beverage.
05:37The killer woke up the next day and found his home had been robbed, having lost a few hundred dollars
05:41and some clothing.
05:43Dahmer opted not to tell authorities about his burglary, likely because he didn't want to explain why he laced a
05:48drink with sedatives.
05:49What do they say?
05:50Well, what do they say? It's not good, Jeff.
05:54They're saying you're the Milwaukee cannibal.
05:57People want to kill you. They want you dead.
05:59Cheryl Bradshaw
06:00The Dating Game was a long-running American game show.
06:03One of its most notable guests was Rodney Alcala, who has since been nicknamed the Dating Game Killer.
06:08Between takes, he might find him skydiving or motorcycling.
06:12Please welcome Rodney Alcala.
06:14Rod, welcome.
06:16Alcala competed on the show in 1978, during the later years of his serial killing.
06:20Somehow, Alcala managed to win the episode, landing himself a date with contestant Cheryl Bradshaw.
06:25Say hello to Rodney Alcala.
06:28Rodney, come on and say hello.
06:32Congratulations, Rod. You did it with the one answer.
06:35She was extremely put off by him, though, as she found him to be especially creepy.
06:40Bradshaw then refused to go out on a date with him, which could have saved her life in hindsight, given
06:44his criminal tendencies.
06:45She said, Ellen, I can't, um, I can't go out with this guy. He's, there's weird vibes that are coming
06:51off of him.
06:51He's, he's very strange. I'm not comfortable. Is that going to be a problem? And of course, I said no.
06:57Satria Critsonis.
06:58Another of America's most infamous killers was Ted Bundy, who claimed a harrowing number of lives during the 70s.
07:04One of these victims could have been Satria Critsonis, but she managed to lose his attention after cutting her hair
07:10short.
07:11Everything changed. He started, you know, reaching under the seat, started yelling at me, why did you take this ride?
07:17Why did you even think about taking this ride? You're never going to make it to the school.
07:21Bundy was obsessed with his victims matching his perfect profile, women with long hair.
07:26He thought Critsonis was his ideal target, so he offered her a ride to a bus stop. While driving, he
07:32asked her to take off her hat, then noticed she had a brand new haircut.
07:35I took my hat off and he saw that something was different about me. And he goes, why did you
07:41cut your hair?
07:42This change led him to giving up on killing her completely. So he took her to college and then told
07:47her she was lucky. She wouldn't open up about the story until 2018.
07:51So, Tria says she told her family about the man, but not police.
07:55You know, I didn't talk about it because I was a little bit embarrassed about it.
07:58Peter Lorre's daughter.
07:59The Hillside Stranglers were a pair of serial killers who operated in 1977 and 1978.
08:05They were called Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr. and primarily targeted young women.
08:09They had a sick loathing of women and a desire to humiliate and brutalize them.
08:14Their cruising ground were the streets around Hollywood, a mecca for runaways, addicts, prostitutes, and the homeless.
08:21One woman whose life they nearly claimed was Catherine Laurie Baker, daughter of the established actor Peter Lorre.
08:27When Lorre showed them not only a photo idea, but an image of her with her father, they decided it
08:31would be an especially terrible idea to kill her.
08:34Ten women had died in five months. They appeared to be perfect crimes. There were no clues.
08:40They were worried it would draw too much attention to themselves, so they left her be.
08:44She didn't realize her life was at stake until they were later arrested in 1979.
08:48Los Angeles police said they have enough evidence to charge 27-year-old Kenneth Bianchi with 10 of the Hillside
08:54Stranglings.
08:55Terry Melcher.
08:56Charles Manson is most famous for his cult, the Manson family, who were responsible for at least nine murders, including
09:01that of Sharon Tate.
09:02He was also a musician, which attracted the attention of producer Terry Melcher.
09:07Let's see.
09:08Do whatever you feel like, man.
09:09Yeah.
09:11Just groove, you know? Tell us when you're going to start and we'll turn the machine on.
09:14Okay.
09:14He nearly offered Manson a deal, but refused in the end.
09:18When this happened, Melcher lived at Cielo Drive, the home where Sharon Tate was infamously murdered by the Manson family.
09:24Some people theorized the murders were carried out because Manson thought Melcher still lived there and wanted revenge for not
09:29signing him.
09:30Well, Terry and Candy don't live here anymore. This is the Polanski residence now.
09:34Really? He moved?
09:37Dang!
09:38One of his followers instead said they wanted to terrify Melcher.
09:41Neither theory is confirmed, but either way, Melcher was lucky to get away with his life.
09:46Terry Melcher came to me. I didn't come to Terry Melcher.
09:49He come to me with money in his hand. He offered me. I didn't ask him.
09:52Did you learn something new today, or were there any other instances of people narrowly escaping a killer's grasp we
09:57didn't mention?
09:58Let us know in the comments below.
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