This classic episode of 48 Hours, which last aired on 7/21/2011, tells the story of serial killer Andrew Urdiales. Between 1986 and 1996, Urdiales attacked, tortured and killed eight women, first in California and then in Illinois. As a consequence to a tip to the police, Andrew Urdiales was identified, arrested and convicted, and one young woman became the only victim to survive. 48 Hours correspondent Susan Spencer reports.
Watch all-new episodes of 48 Hours on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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these angle
When he gets angry
side comes out on september, twenty seven. Ninety ninety two, I was nineteen years old.
And I was working at home for cripple children. I was working in the night shift, their from ten p m until six. In the morning I went to the best of catch the bus to go to work. I had run on the store to buy something, and I
saw that the bus had left without me. So I came running out in a panic. I knew that was the last best for the night. I had no way to get to work
somebody pulled up in a car,
and just said hey, you need a ride.
He was very innocent. Looking any like totally harmless does. Will merchant,
evil. Is it you don't see it?
When I got
The car he was so nice and so charming
He is smarter than your average serial killer. He learned ass. He killed. He was waiting for her when she got off worth the next morning. The next morning
I wasn't scared. My thought was this guideline.
Dangerous. If you wanted to do something to me, he had a chance. Last night
and he said. Let me give you a ride home. I opened the door and I got me
when I was in the middle east,
It is grabbed me by their end.
sub, my head into the das explosive temper, yet again
my head and the whole time I was saying is this a joke. Is this: this is a joke.
The hater of women
it was shut up, bitch, shut up bitch
and his violent and his evil lovers,
any. I deny any pulled out. Swine
rob, that's wine around my hand. I sought telephone poles.
its telephone call that went by. I just got more scared,
more scared going further
The further and deeper into that desert, and I just felt the I didn't know what was going.
Been one got away
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I was just in a state of shock, and so I tried to think how can I get out of the situation
and I had no answer
applause
stranger, who pick jennifer as benson heads
Only snapped. Now an apparent mad man held her hostage in the california desert. I really it was gonna hurt me. Rape. Definitely
Personally, I knew that and many finally parked and set up the car. He used a knife to cut my shorts.
off of me. Then he come my underwear, I he clay,
into my seat, and he just started punching me in the head:
The
and beat her then forest or to perform oral sex. He tried to raper, but couldn't
and then he just told me to tell him that I loved him of course
nl. If that would save my life, so I said I love you any small.
me across the face and said your life.
Let's say it like you mean it.
I said I love you
you're lying say it like you mean it
any grabbed my underwear any save them and made through his own when my mouth,
and he was yelling at me. Tell me you love me. Tell me, you love me and I just started crying. You felt like if you could say it right that he might stop yeah. He wasn't going to stop now. The now he's mad. He grabs me by the throat and
he starts strangling me and then suddenly I can see anything and I felt
like I heard music
and it was this why I thought I was dead.
And
moments later, she
jolted back to reality. He was trying to revive me
He would passing me around pressing my chest and I just came,
I can do it like you do when you think you fall asleep and then wake up, and I just that guy's
nightmare again. I wanted today because there was,
no other way of getting over,
Suddenly there was he
hence my door, and he tells me to get out- and I just
On the next thing I knew I was flung onto the ground by my hair,
Any pulled me by my hair all the way back to the car.
with that she lost all hope, even begged her attackers
put her out of her misery. I just wanted to end
I've said, kill me anyone with a gun and he pulled the thing back and I went. I was getting ready and ethics happen and I
this third screaming at him. Give me my girl, but it
wade whither like a cat with a mouse dragged to the back of a car and opened the trunk
he threw me in there and set it
and he started up
driving down the road, and then I was thinking he's done this before he knows exactly what he's doing,
What jennifer didn't know at the time was in fact her attacker had done this before
six years earlier on the evening of january eighteen, nineteen, eighty six, a popular
going twenty three year old named robin brand Lee was working
an usher at a jazz concert and saddle back home
in mission, Viejo, California, she loved to make people laugh she's, intelligent inquisitive,
shot a lot of friends. She was always willing to lend a hand from anybody.
Robins brother, jason and her parents, jack and genetic riley agree robin was a go, get her with big dreams. Ultimately, I think wanted.
you work in the entertainment industry. She was bound determined, she was, she was gonna, make a mark.
The
after the cancer that january night robin walks
her car, but she never got there
in the dark parking lot. Someone was waiting with a knife. She was found
I a security guard at the college and he noticed
then that he believed to be a mannequin laying by car and, of course, at closer inspection is when he found robin she had been stabbed forty one times it was later
turned forty one stab wounds to the back neck chest and hand it was.
unexplained and it was so random and it was so brutal. Marina was a supervising investigator with the orange county DA's office, and there
was no evidence at all that there was any robbery she had her purse was there
her keys were laying right there by the scene
early the next morning, a police officer knocked on the riley's door, said she's. He said he'd been murders, just a total shock and said who did it
We have no idea was the assumption just well, you know they'll catch. You did this absolutely
What was there at that crime scene? That was of any help in terms of identifying perpetrator? There was
nothing orange county, deputy district attorney, howard gandhi, so he basically came in from the darkness of the night.
Technically suddenly violently? There was no way that she could resist and then went back into the darkness of the night and
Fortunately, for investigators there were no witnesses months passed. Then years robins parents
ride. Desperate later keepers story alive. We three we'd have to solve the case ourselves.
They hired a private investigator even build.
The murderer might be a fellow student that was actively pursued. Yes and nothing now is found at all. Nothing
over the years. Robin bradley, sadistic killer would go on to kill again and again, but of course no one knew that
Jennifer as benson lay terrified in the stifling trunk of that same killers.
Car
casey shane was murdered in the middle of august nine shop.
blank or idling in his dodge pickup truck in north indianapolis, there was no physical evidence, no known motive, and no one coming forward with information except one woman who swears to this day. She saw Leon Detroit benson, pull the trigger
Leon Benson, was sentenced to sixty years in prison
I'll, because one person swore they saw something
if she was wrong and what, if we could prove it from
hungary and campsite media come season. Three of the head, podcast suspect co, hosted by me. Mad share,
alongside attorney, Laura Babylon.
Story of a botched police investigation, dangers of shaky eyewitness testimony and a community feared law enforcement with good reason
wasn't a suspect five shots in the dark,
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I was in the trunk, was pitch black you're still
found there's nothing. I can do nothing. I get to the stranger, had forced into the trunk of his car jennifer
spends and had no idea. He was
get her to his favorite killing ground he's going either. Torture me
put me in a dungeon somewhere or wherever most horrible
and I could think of her fear was
divide, in fact,
after murdering robin bradley, her attacker went on a killing spree before he was finished for other california, women would die,
These women all were prostitutes. Dumped in the wind swept desert
just outside the city. Julie Magee was the first in the summer.
of nineteen. Eighty eight she had been picked up in palm springs,
out to this area of town. It was pretty much abandoned, shot and killed
palm springs, lieutenant john booze
let left virtually no evidence behind the next year.
Tammy erwin a few years,
Do that to me many times,
we twine and tortured. In the meantime, a nearby san, diego, a fourth prostitute mary,
An wells was shot dead for victims, similar crimes, but no one who investigated any of these crimes spotted a patter. No one connected them not to one
other and certainly not to a serial killer after
just in all the leads we wish.
were nowhere
I almost can't help but wonder whether or not the women had any the you know. If you could rewind Monday morning, quarterback you'd say to yourself don't get in that car
but jennifer husbands and had gotten in that car and as its dry,
was barreling down the highway. She lay in the trunk terrified I just laid their interests thought about. How is going to do
I desperate. She did the one thing that could bring some comfort and now is prey, and I just register.
Crying saying god. If there is a god,
You know that I'm in this term gray. Now
and you know that I'm about to be cut up into many pieces. Please take my life or let me get away help me.
yeah. She thinks that what happened next was pure and simple divine intervention, and I just suddenly got hysterical strength and I just started hearing all the twine best thing: vine, my back and I just busted it off. That's amazing. It was a miracle
but then I have this twine off. Nowhere in the total dark
As with our life on the line jennifer discovered
confidence and ingenuity. That surprised even her. When I was in that trunk, all I had to do
is reach from one corner to the other corner and say this is the width of the trunk, and then I went like this. I thought that's where the lock is so. The mechanism to unlock the trunk is on the
site. It's with me, working only by feel she rift away carpet.
Don wired, compter fingers round the metal frame, and then I felt this thing. It is slow
like a little lever and it clicks- and I saw a light just coming in everywhere, and I just want my bad. I can you out
then I got so excited than I lifted it even more
suddenly her assailant was shouting swearing. He just realized the trunk was open. He pulled over and came around. I grabbed the trunk and I put it down
and he did this on it- to make sure it was shut.
and he got back in the car and he pushed the gas on all the way the floor and he got
stuck. It was her only chance I leaped up and jumped out there
and naked from the waist down. She ran for her life down the road I with
like I was in the olympics. I looked back and he
chasing me with my city guides us
ordered run faster, and then I saw a track coming gasping for breath
Jennifer ran straight toward the oncoming trot and then I've heard their wills streets. The two
startled men in the truck, both marines opened the door. I just started screaming their guide. Keith, he tried to kill me,
I said the car, the cairo there in the car was gone. Her attacker.
already had spent all she
survived, but over the coming weeks that
her little relieve jennifer's life soon
began to unravel. It was the beginning of
downhill journey for me. I just started.
So out of my mind and so scared by every
and he
my name. He knew where I lived. He knew a lot about me.
but police knew nothing about him. They had no
aspects. No witnesses no leads interest in Jenin.
His case began to fade, as did the scars on her wrists,
I only opportunity to try to tell somebody what happened to me, so I actually took a razor blade to them and I open them all back and then I just remember waking up in a mental hospital strapped to a bed in. That's where I would live for the next three and a half to four
there's an immense hospitals? It was the only place where she felt safe or attacker had disappeared in the desert. Dost
jennifer- knew that somewhere he was still out there
the
My life just spiral downhill because he was on the loose
jennifer, as bans had managed an astonishing escape from a sadistic serial killer, but she hardly felt lucky areas like I have saved my life. I felt like four way
I saw no beauty in anything everything. They seemed evil,
Confirmation of that evil would come from half way across the country. When our attacker went back to work rouge afternoon watch early august, I was paged. They said that those a body
putting in wolf on a hot day
Nineteen, ninety six chicago homicide, detective don Mcgrath responded, what's called a body job at a desolate lake
outside the city, there was in fact a nude female body floating face down about twenty feet off the shore.
It was obvious she died. Violence, death shot three times.
She also had twenty nine stab wounds. I'd never seen anything quite like that before,
I was quite a stir. This showed a lot of
a lot of rage and lot of aid
toward the police
soon identified the woman as lion huber, a local prostitute as to who killed her one piece of the puzzle fell into place quickly. When I got back to
office. The boy was already others
body and will flake
form.
earlier. It turned out the naked
of another prostitute lore. You lucky had been found floating in the same lake firemen
hold around out and she too had been shot shot in the head and in the chest, and one month,
for the body of a third prostitute, cassandra
coreham was found dumb.
In the vermilion river just an hour from wolf lake, so different body,
honor, but basically same emma, write, em all nude victim in a body of water. The case felt
cook, county assistant state's attorney, Jim Mckay. He says
esther gaiters could find no real link among the three murders.
until they checked ballistics. The bull is found in those
Women's bodies were fired from the same gone, the same thirty, eight caliber revolver, but unfortunately for police thirst.
all of them out there somewhere.
The actual gone. They were cases
Then, in april of ninety ninety seven indiana police contacted mcgrath with a tale a prostitute,
had call them from a cd motel? They said she and her
summer, a man named Andrew thirty hours we're having a fight partly overview,
unusual requests when they
What andrew ordeals wanted to do
her and where he wanted to do it, they
percent already eyeless he wanted to duck.
And hand cover the prostitute said and take her in the back of his pickup truck out too late.
She knew what had happened and wolf lady. She did
Some have any part of it.
Thirty two year old, andrew european allies worked as a security guard down town he'd been around,
did months earlier in indiana for illegal.
possession of a fire arm which police had come
facilitated the curious thing
the weapon, was thirty, eight revolver smith and wesson, one of millions strictly on a hunch, my grass,
as pardner retrieve the gone just a week before it was schedule.
be destroyed. They raised it today.
Roy crime lab it was shot in the dark, but it hit its mark.
ass proved urinalysis gun had fired the bullets that killed the three women. Were you surprised when it came up a match? I dont think prices is the correct word
It was incredible stroke of luck.
on two april twenty second, ninety. Ninety seven, the detective set up surveillance outside the working class home purity, Alice shared with his parents,
the clock in the morning or so guy comes out the back door search walking down the alley. We approached him we identified are,
he's nonchalant about this. Absolutely. He stressed in his guard uniform level
lunch. Bag hadn't work.
we shall. We have a few questions. He only s word not if we could give him a lift back to the train, so he could get to work.
So you just thinks that this is just going to be a little hitch in the day once they.
to the precinct unity. Alice was just as helpful down
chatty vote
during that he was an ex marine once stationed in California. First, he was asked if he knew royal lucky.
The centre corn organ huber. He was shown picture of all three of these ladys he denied knowing these girls. Then he was asked about the gun that he was arrested with. We asked them
if he had ever long gone out, and he said no.
In fact already Alice bragged that had always been careful to keep her gone locked up in a tackle box in whose basement no
else had a key now. What do you think
when you hear this and realise that he's just getting in deeper and deeper bingo
then the police
way. The bhamo that they had gone to exclude
If every gun in the world was the murder weapon-
these three women in Illinois he just looked out and loosened his tie- said
I guess I won't be going to work today as well. You got some splain into do
by dirty Alice had a shocker of his own. He showed well, you might wanna call california
Ok, why would we want to call california
within hours of learning about thirty Alice's confession palm springs
lieutenant john booth and all
county investigator Helen Moreno arrived in
margo wasn't until we got.
there and we were briefed? Then the magnitude starts start setting anything. While you know this, guy is
prolific cereal money. When you walk in
that room? What is
Through your mind. To be honest with you, I don't screw this one.
in a cramped room at the precinct lieutenant booth sacked
to chat with andrew you're Alice, who decline
all offers for a lawyer.
Thank you
his demeanor is what, during all this very matter of fact, he wasn't scared. He wasn't upset.
you ready, Alice, told investigators. He had grown up in a close knit family with loving parents, but he had.
that other relationships never had.
Easily. He
We did not have close friends. She was alone, after
Frustrating stand in the military, he moved back home to chicago
the job as a security guard, even
voted union.
representative is a sum
He was leading a double life, no doubt about it, because when he was
and work when you
at home with his family. He was out trying to pick a prostitutes and god forbid, if they did anything to piss him off, they were gonna die.
Two investigators, unity, alice matter of factly, described exactly how they die
how he towards
hurt and killed. Eight women, the bible or even better all the time or it just seemed like
we'd open the faucet and he was draining the tank
what's the point,
slowly when he remembered everything- clothing,
color, all the various,
pacific details about what they were wearing, where he dumped them
all of that was spot on exactly he went down to the shoes and said
They weren't leather, tennis, shoes. They were cloth. Tennis, shoes, Kenny, Irwin, that's exactly what they had.
exactly she had clock temperature for
My feeling was it's etched in his brain: I'm not an experienced police officer, obviously, but things that you're telling me
We're just absolutely greet me out: I was crept out
granted, I'm eight inches taller than him in a hundred
helms heavier than him and I was crept out.
Robin
andelys murder at saddlebag college in nineteen. Eighty six was his first geordie alice, said
Then a marine stationed at camp pendleton
I was getting dressed. He said he'd, big
and with some unexplained incident at the base, something that set him off. We got in his car and just
driving
drive around it area,
without a college. I stop
my car,
Why? Why monies
robin bradley walking to the parking lot. He hid behind
A car
entire hangar. U turn
It's the same thing
they fell on his heart.
That
Are you convinced that robin bradley was just essentially in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Let's, yes, he wanted to hurt somebody that was weaker than him. He wanted her somebody that was vulnerable but cut county process
Jim Mackay says there is no answer to that big question of why you too have again so that you
might have an early hour to figure that out. There is a great deal of hatred.
in a rage
buying every one of those taboos,
kid even know her. She-
do anything to him
rage surface again and again. Over the next few years, mackay says
Dirty alice became a smarter and more methodical killer. He planned a lot of these murders
he prepared himself not only to kill but to get away with it
so prepared that in the years after he left California, he kept equipment for his killings,
in a storage locker near palm springs, his special murder kit, a forty five caliber pistol ammunition, a machete masks
Licence plates from illinois shovels, twine, doctype all types of items you used if you needed to, he had come back here and a vacation.
Orange county deputy de howard gandhi says early Alice would fly in rent, a car.
grabbed his murder. Kid pick up a woman and kill her in the desert. You think he came back from
illinois specifically to kill somebody here. I think that he came out here. He was on vacation and he was looking to do with what he enjoy doing when he was
if it was a vacationing already Alice, who picked up jennifer as benson at the bus stop in September nineteen. Ninety two,
Nobody wouldn't ask me: neither have, I generally hesitate to get in the car as
All the women already Alice remembered every last detail.
I don't have
researchers.
story, matched jennifer's exactly
the
that is the way out
Sweden,
The
screaming he admitted he was furious at her escape
but he will see her again. His only
surviving victim will confront him in court,
the
the savage attack that nearly took her life continue
too hot jennifer
spencer, I didn't know if he was around me. I was very panics all the time.
then in ninety ninety, seven, five years after her attack a police,
officer knocked on her door and ask her to come down
the station. Any said I'm gonna put. Ten picture is on the table.
suited saw me if anybody looks familiar
in my eyes went right to him. I said he's right there and he picked up the pictures and said: do you know who this is, and I said man that attacked me that tried to kill me, and he said this is a man
that killed eight women and you are the only one that got away
Three weeks later, Jennifer came face to face with her attacker at a pre trial. Here,
in Chicago. She was brought
you're, biased, indicated tv show. What was it like that
This time you actually saw him again emphasis sickening after that hearing was out
I tried to get answers from his family. I make them understand night. Please talk to you, I'd like to know what I mean,
and I was screaming in the streets of chicago- why why,
you have no idea
the maniac like this. You had no
idea
Ok, I'm alive today and you guys won't turn around and give me one explanation. He ruined my life, please just say something to me:
and then they got across the street, and then I saw his sisters stop and then
he turned around and she just start hassling back across the street and I got kind of nervous.
really, I'm really sorry. I was so relieved when she had me. That's all she had
It was a sign that that they cared
Five years later, Andrew your d Alice finally went on trial for the murders of two of the illinois. Women Jennifer took the stand. What was it like to
testify with him sitting there. It was hard. I would look at him
He was never looking at me and he went.
Have no emotion to anything that I said
in an agonising detail. She told the jury how your european allies had sexually assaulted and torture.
her
the jury react. When you testify, they cried
Smack me across the face and said you're lying bitch say it like you mean and yelling at me. Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me. I just started crying. I wasn't just speaking for me. I was speaking for a other women that needed justice
and within about me
he did to me, was with minimal what he did to them and their families is gonna be forever
and she needs to pay. The jury agreed and rejected his claim of insanity, sentencing him to death
which has not changed. California's determination to also try your dear alice weather,
murders he's been charged with their orange county.
pda house.
gandhi,
it necessary for california to even bother with this. What happens is that
is that there are folks here that have lost a child and that's something that these people have to have to live with
you feel an obligation to that. Do not trial, can't
and soon enough for robin brand lays family
The pain is never closed. The missing her none of that never closed,
I wish he was around this scene.
My kids and I wish she was around to show me her kids that she would have had
but the fact that Europe's alice finally is paying for what he did has confirmed.
a first phase
given her a new appreciation for the joys of life, one thirteen,
joy in particular my daughter.
is my little miracle see gives me hope. You ve talked to your daughter about this yeah yeah scene,
the whole story- and you know how she escaped here. What do you think, I think, that's amazing
like when I think about it. It, like the springs, my faith stronger and, like I know
If I can do anything once to set my mind to it, and I have the confidence that I can, because you know what you do and I think it's close like what you think is impossible, isn't always impossible
does a day goes by now, when you don't think about this now, really I just
up every day, wanting to do something remarkable vidal, I gotta
at night and wake up the next stages wanting to do something remarkable again,
because you were the one who got away
is grateful to eliza.
the.
In twenty eleven illinois
We abolished the death penalty and andrew Guardiola's. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in two thousand and eighteen yearning alice was convicted in the murders of five californian women and sentenced to death less than a month later he died by suicide.
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Transcript generated on 2023-07-28.