I SURVIVED: If I Play Dead He Wouldn't Shoot Me Again

0:00This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. I'll play dead. If I play dead, he wouldn't shoot me again. Real people. You don't have the right care on. You don't have a cell phone that'll work. You don't have any of these things that you need to survive. What are you gonna do? Who faced death? My life no longer belonged to me. Now someone else owned it. Someone else could choose whether to keep it or throw it away. And lived to tell how. I was gonna live. I did not want them planning a funeral. This is I Survived. It's 2001 in Portland, Oregon. Lonnie reunites with an old friend, Michael. I met Michael 20 years ago. We were both in the same business.

1:01I owned a stained glass business. And he sold me glass. And I got a phone call. And it was him. And we reacquainted ourselves with each other. We had been friends. It was good to hear from him. I was feeling lonely. And it comforted me to know that I had this friend. And that it might be possible that we could see each other. I think his interests were romantic. He was clearly wooing me. We decided that it would be okay if he came to Portland. And that he could park his motorhome in my driveway. He seemed successful. And he had that air about him too, that confidence. So I believed it. Michael was wanted for fraud in Texas. On my way home from work, I had stopped to see my loan officer.

2:03And we talked and had a great conversation about how we could get a little extra money and take care of a few things. And he pulled up my credit report. And he looked at my credit report and he says, oh my, what is this? And there were a list of 14 credit cards that I knew nothing about and $30,000 on these credit cards. My head is whirling. I'm shocked. I'm thinking this wow. But for some reason, I immediately thought Michael. Lonnie returned home to confront Michael. And he said, oh no, no, no, we talked about it. These are credit cards that you applied for. And so he was talking about these as if we had an arrangement about them.

3:04And he got up and he went out the front door. And he was in his motorhome for probably 10 minutes or so, 10, 15 minutes. He paused at the steps and then came in the front door. And I thought we were going to resume the conversation. He walked over to me. And I was expecting him to sit down. But he actually reached over to my neck. He put pressure on my neck. And I was noticing that I was starting to pass out. Michael restricted blood flow to Lonnie's carotid artery. His demeanor was cold. I think at that point, I thought, oh, this is a monster. I'm looking at. The next thing I knew was I was waking up

4:05and I was on the floor. And he was standing there. He said to me, you must not be feeling well. And I'm thinking, not feeling well. You just, you know, you pinched my neck. You caused me to block out. And so I remember rising up and kind of steadying myself on the couch and moving myself towards the back of the house. But he wouldn't let me go. And I see the gun raise up to my head. And I hear a shot being fired. And it was just, it's enormously loud noise. And I heard a second shot go off. Didn't feel it, but had heard it. Lonnie was shocked twice in the head.

5:06At this point, my head is just, it's ringing. I can't feel anything. I have no sensation. But it seems that my brain is still working, functioning. The first thing that I had to figure out was I alive. And I wasn't sure that I was alive. Because I knew that the gun was aimed at my head. I knew that I had been injured. And my thought was that, you know, somebody gets shot in the head and you're dead. There's no way around it. You die. I was looking out into the space of my living room was the white light there. I also thought that maybe I would see my father who had died the year earlier. And that he would be there with me. But I didn't see him. So I'm beginning to conclude that I am alive.

6:06So I remember that must have very quickly gone through my mind and had decided that I'll play dead. If I play dead, he wouldn't shoot me again. I do have a chance. I could survive this. He's going to make a mistake. I'll be able to jump in in whatever manner. You know, I was putting scenarios together where I could, you know, some way that I could get out of this. So I was ready. I couldn't tell how wounded I was. I was afraid to test that. I knew that I couldn't fight him. I knew he would just kill me. I was laying sideways on the couch. So when I opened my eyes, I could see a sideways slit. I could see him walking through the living room. He actually picked up a pillow off of the couch

7:08and put it over my head and fired two more times. And my head was just this tremendous amount of noise ringing in my ears. Or it felt like something just was enveloping my head. I didn't notice any pain. There wasn't any pain. Every once in a while, he would come over to the couch and lift up the pillow and look at me. And I could sense that enough. I think that I was able to, you know, my eyes were shot. I knew he was doing it. I especially held my breath. I am about 15 feet from the front door. I would have to go through the living room and the hallway to get to the front door. But I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do that. And I knew he always carried a pocket knife. I was afraid he was going to use that on me next.

8:11He sat down at the desk. He had the computer on. He was playing a game at the computer. He, the TV was on. And it seemed pretty loud to me. I had to concentrate so carefully on what was going on. Lonnie did not move or speak for four hours. I could tell that it was getting a little later. If it got dark, my chances were diminishing. I really thought I could die. You know, I could die here. This was a long time that I was laying there. So there were a lot of things going through my head. Not only how was I going to get out of this, but my family and my friends. And they actually visited me. I had very vivid images of them. As one by one, they came to me. And I could talk with them. And somehow I knew my father was with me, too.

9:12I felt comforted by that. That I didn't see him, but he was there with me. My mom came to me. I promised her that there would not be a funeral. That she would have to go to. You know, it was just a year before that we had a funeral for my father. And I didn't want her to do that. I was going to live. I did not want them planning a funeral. A neighbor knocked on the door. I think I noticed that he gets up from the desk and walks over to the front door. At this point, I'm thinking about the phone, whereas the phone. And I'm praying that it's there because it's a cordless phone. It could be anywhere in the house. It's very often anywhere in the house. But I reach for it, and it's there, miraculously. I dial 911, reach the dispatch.

10:15And I said, I remember saying just very quickly, I've been shot. I'm up my address. You know, I gave my address to her. And I hung up. I disconnected. With a hang up call, 911 has to call back. So the phone is ringing. And he is walking in the front door. He was talking to the dispatch operator. I couldn't tell what he was saying or what they were saying. Maybe I was disconnecting from that. That had nothing to do with me. I had to really concentrate on staying alive. I could see him passing in front of me with the gun in his hand. I was getting tired. I was worried that I would lose consciousness. I was worried that I would die.

11:16And it seemed like the conversation on the phone was going on and on and on and on. And what is this? Like, well, wait a minute. Where are the police? They should be coming in right now. They should be breaking the windows. They should be doing something. They should be shooting this guy, wrestling into the ground. I was really, and I just wasn't sure how long I could hang on. Michael tried to convince dispatchers that they had a minor argument. There were a few moments I do remember when he would kind of hold out the phone and say, Lonnie, they want to talk to you. And I wasn't going to fall for that. I did not want to give him any indication that I was alive or alert or anything. It was that just seemed so important to me that I stay as silent and calm and unmoving as possible.

12:16Douding Michael's story, police negotiators intercepted the call, declaring it a hostage situation. I had been there for four hours bleeding, and I wanted to stay alive. And I had to keep talking to myself in order for me to believe that that was going to happen. I'm fighting for my life at this point. I'm trying to stay conscious. Michael's on the phone, and he's calm enough. It doesn't seem that he's very upset. And it's like he's trying to charm them, too. Michael had been talking to negotiators for over three hours. I knew that the police were outside because through the front window, there was a bright light that was coming through. I was getting frustrated. It was just taking too long. And I was debating.

13:17I had a little conversation in my head going. Another conversation, should I say something? Can I say something to him? Would he attack me if I said something to him? Lonnie decided to act. I do remember halfway sitting up and saying to him, I'm not going to make it. You need to let them come in and get me. I must have noticed a pause. And then he continued his conversation. It was like I had never even said it. That it didn't even matter. But he must have been making a decision about giving himself up. He was saying something like, I'm going to take my shirt off. I'm putting my gun down. I'm going to walk out the front door. And I'm not sure that I actually saw him walk out the door, but I sensed that he did go out the front door. Michael was taken into custody by the police SWAT team. An officer entered the house. It's this person totally dressed in black, goggles.

14:22Big machine gun kind of looking thing. And I knew it was the police. And it was just thank God. And I locked eyes with this man. And this was, I'm saved. I'm saved. I think back and he was my angel in black. It was the first person that I could see. And know that I was safe at that point. So it was the most amazing thing. I thought I was going to die. And him walking in was just, you know, just this thing from heaven. You know, there's all these little miracles that happened through this whole thing. Any one of those shots could have killed me. Three bullets had entered Lonnie's jaw, the back of her neck,

15:25and grazed the top of her skull. The fourth bullet missed me. It ended up in the wall of my living room. Michael was jailed for 15 years in Oregon and will serve 20 years in Texas. Lonnie made a full recovery. I think that it was a miracle that I survived. I could have died, or that just would have been it. And I knew that was a possibility, but my will to live was so strong. And my friends, my family, were so important to me that I didn't want to let that go. One of the most stressful questions at the end of a packed day is, what are we having for dinner? I'll spend 20 minutes scrolling through takeout options, then wait another 45 for food to arrive, and by then I'm already wishing I'd planned ahead. That's why I've been loving tempo.

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17:25save over $900 on average. They make it super simple. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with cover options tailored to your choices. Plus you'll see which discounts you may qualify for, like the online quote discount or savings for paying in full. In fact, 99% of progressive auto customers earn at least one discount. See if you could save a new switch to progressive. You'll feel good about making a savvy choice. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little extra cashback. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, National Average 12 Month Savings of $946 by new customer surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. It's 2002 in Star Valley, Wyoming. Rulon is an Olympic wrestling gold medalist. Rulon and friends, Danny and Trent, went snowmobiling. Well, as I was sitting at the truck actually getting ready to go up on our sleds, I thought to myself, you know what, it's warm. I've already sweating before I even put my coat on.

18:29And I'm going to be up to sweating all day with this coat and then probably what I'll do is eventually leave it somewhere and I may misplace it, you know, something may happen to it. See, you know what, I'm not going to, you know, get stuck or anything. So I'll just leave everything here. We actually went up cottonwood canyon and then there's a lake bed and most of the time it's frozen over and we actually crossed the lake bed and got to play a little bit on the snow and a little bit on the ice before we went up the shoot. At 2 p.m., Rulon climbed Mount Wagner on a snowmobile. And I looked around and in the process of climbing the mountain, you put stress on your belts and on the snowmobile and actually what I did was called burning a belt. My belt had actually been destroyed and so what I did is actually pulled the belt off and I actually placed it. And in this process, it was about 10 to 15 minutes and I didn't see Trent anywhere to be seen. So at that point, I'm kind of where his trend at. Thinking Rulon had left, Danny and Trent returned to Star Valley. Instead of preparing myself for what could happen, I thought about what was going to happen in my mind

19:30and that was a mistake on my part because it's not a matter if you get stuck, it's a matter of when you get stuck. Not seeing Trent there, I started thinking, well maybe he's stuck somewhere, maybe I need to go help him. But the snow is so nice that when I went out to look for him, I was just enjoying it. I went back over to Wagner Mountain, couldn't see him there, so I went back over and I couldn't find him. And in the process, I started a little bit nervous. Rulon dropped into a steep gully to look for Trent. I realized that down in these gullies and kind of in the crevices, you can't get a cell phone signal. The only place I could get a signal was back up on top of the mountain. And so at this time, knowing that I couldn't see him, that I didn't have any knowledge where he was at, I had to go out and start my snow, but I'll start back up the hill. But as I actually stood off my snow bill, I sunk up past my hips in the snow. And as I kind of struggled to get back on top of my snow bill, I'm like, wow, this is some deep snow. You know, it's cool, but it's dangerous because I'm down now probably about a thousand feet

20:31from top of the mountain in its all powder. And at this point, I'm like, I don't know if I have enough power in my snow bill to get me out. Rulon was forced further into the gully to find a way out. And it got slower and slower and steeper and steeper. And as I got down in there, I realized that it was kind of the start of the salt river that runs through the valley that I'm front. And so I knew that there was going to be some water at some point. As I got to the flat area, I realized that there was open water. And at this point, I decided to try to gun it, go across the water before the snow bill actually sunk in the water. As I gunned it, I hit the throttle, and I hit the accelerator, and the snow bill started going across and it sunk into the water. As it sunk in the water, I jumped off my snow bill, and I watched it sit there and kind of sink in about three to four feet of water, and I was standing on the side. And I'm like, OK, I'm dry. Snow bill's wet now what? Well, as I was standing there waiting to be rescued

21:33and waiting to figure out what I should do, either get into water or wait, I thought, you know what, I just won the World Championships. I can do anything. I don't need to be rescued. I can do it myself. And I chose to get into water. Rulon was submerged to mid-thigh in freezing water. Hypothermia and frostbite were imminent. And the snowmobile was more than twice Rulon's body weight. As I picked it up, I got it here now what? And you physically cannot push the 600 pound snow bill with this type of strength. You have to make the track go. You have to slide the skis and the undercarriage or the belly of the snow bill through the snow till it actually moves. And then I had to keep it up, and then actually push the 600 pound snow bill out of the water as I was submerged up to my mid-thigh and up to my shoulders in ice cold water. I knew I had to get out of there, and I had to do it now.

22:34At this point, I have to push and also accelerate the snow to hopefully get the track, to get some traction, and actually get it back moving and get it on top of the ice or the snow, whatever was there. And as soon as I started moving the snow bill forward, it went out pretty effortless after I'd done all the work to pick it up and get it on that straight level path. Well, as I crawled out of the water, I got up to the edge and we're like, OK, well, now what? There was a second ice hole to cross. If Rulan was unsuccessful, he risked freezing to death. And now I knew I was in a time crunch that I had to save myself, and I got on my snow bill and I accelerated it and did almost the exact same thing, but right in the middle, my snow bill kind of bogged and it went right back in the water. I was so frustrated that I actually jumped off right into the water. I was upset and I let emotion actually drive me. And now I actually picked up the snow bill again

23:34and I pulled it, I accelerated it, and I got it out of there, probably within a minute or two minutes, because I was now angry that this had happened twice and my snow bill wasn't able to perform, and then I let this happen. Being wet in freezing conditions speeds up the effects of hypothermia 25 times. Rulan was losing muscle function, rational thought, and the use of his extremities. You know, some people say, oh, I would have died out there. I wouldn't have been able to pick that up. Death is a great motivator. Death will motivate you to do things that you never thought you could possibly do. But that day, I didn't have a choice. Rulan followed a river bank, hoping it would lead back to Star Valley. I was following the river back to Star Valley. You know, I would actually have a chance to sit back and, okay, no lights, I can't see anybody. You know, I don't know where my friends are at. I don't know where Trent ever went. And I hope they know I'm lost. And so I hope they actually have started looking for me. I hope their car actually started to come up here and track me down, because by the time they got to me,

24:36I was giving me severe hypothermia and possibly have severe frostbite. Rulan was traveling dangerously close to the water. And as I came through, I got to a point after about a hundred yards where my snow well got stuck between two big boulders. As I got stuck, I crawled over the boulders and I got in front of my snow well. It was very close to getting it through. And as I got on the front of my starter pool, my snow well backwards, and as I started pulling it, my hands slipped. As my hands slipped, I fell into the river on my back. I was in panic mode, and I'm like, I gotta get over, I gotta turn over. And I turned over and I stood up. So when I did, I was actually turned my body and completely made everything wet now. And this was about 7.30 at night when I actually got wet. And I stood up and I said, okay, what are you gonna do? And that's when I realized you don't want, you don't have the right gear on, you don't have a fire starter, you don't have a cell phone that'll work, you don't have any of these things that you need to survive.

25:40What are you gonna do? I knew I had to walk to find some trees, and I knew I needed to head westbound and follow the river. And as I started walking, I made it at probably about 20 to 30 yards, and I found in an area, there wasn't snow, and not having snow, I thought, you know what? Just lay down, you know, just, you need to conserve some meat. You need to try to create some heat because you've been pushing yourself. As I laid down there, I went to the fecal position. I remember sitting there shivering my body and just thinking, you're so cold, you're in some, you know, so bad of trouble, and you don't have any plan here. What are you doing? What I thought about was the Olympic finals, was winning the World Championship, that I was the best. It was such a positive uplifting moment, such a good thought. And I want to come back, and I want to go back and wrestle in 2002. I want to wrestle in 2003, 2004, and I want to make the team, and I want to win another Olympic gold medal. I want to be the best again. If I could see the sun come up, I would make it,

26:41because I knew that they would find me before sunrise, because I knew they were looking for me. I knew that they would be close. Rulon had been missing for 17 hours. It was 35 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. End stage hypothermia had affected his breathing and ability to think rationally. I remember sitting back and kind of watching all the stars disappear. One by one, they were leaving. And I thought to myself, you know what? You're probably gonna die. This is probably the last few minutes of your lifetime. It did your best. You accomplished your goal, and that was to make it till morning. And about, you know, when I was thinking that process within a few minutes, I heard an airplane. And as he came up there, he saw me in the first time. You know, as I saw him, I kind of waved down, I'm like, hey, it's the airplane. He's signaled by, you know, kind of tilt in his wings, to say he saw me, and he turned around and he went out and he called search and rescue. Three hours later, Rulon was airlifted to the hospital.

27:42But when I got to the hospital, and when we went in there, I started laughing. And my friend said, why are you laughing? I said, because I made it. I did it. And another person who hasn't been through something like that, they can't understand. You know, it's a whole new world. The doctor when I arrived there, said, really, your feet are frozen solid. You'll probably never walk. You'll probably lose them at the ankle within the week. You need to think about the rest of your life, your wrestling future, your wrestling career is over. And you need to think about it. Rulon lost only one toe and planned his comeback. But with an eight months of training hard every day, and working hard every day, I came back to beat the Rainy World Champion to make the 2003 and the 2004 Olympic team, where I eventually won a 2004 Olympic bronze medal. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard me mention BetterHelp before,

28:44but something we don't always stop and look at is how much people genuinely appreciate it once they try it. If you're curious, you can actually see that for yourself at betterhelp.com slash reviews. They updated every day with a real feedback from users. Hundreds of people sharing what their experience has been like. BetterHelp has an average session rating of 4.9 out of five, based on over 1.7 million reviews. And more than six million people have used the service globally, which says a lot about the consistency of those experiences. Their therapists are licensed professionals with at least three years and a thousand hours of hands-on experience across a wide range of specialties. And getting started is simple. Answer a few questions, get matched with someone who fits your needs, and you can switch anytime if it's not quite right. If you've been thinking about therapy, it's worth taking a look. Head to BetterHelp.com slash reviews and see what people are saying. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com slash survived. That's better, help.com slash survived.

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30:47That's Q-U-O.com slash I survived. It's January 1998 in Manhattan, New York. Stanley is on his way home after a night out. Well, I was out having a regular night in Manhattan and on my way home on this subway, I actually started talking to this girl and she was lovely. And we both got off at the same stop. And after we left, I said, do you mind? Just wait a moment while I go on this deli to try to get my favorite chocolate chip cookies. And she didn't mind. But they didn't have them. So she says, well, come walk over towards where I live. Maybe they have them there. So we walked further towards very close to where she lives and found an open supermarket where we bought, I bought the cookies for myself. She preferred a different brand. So she got her own bag of cookies. And then I walked her to her building, said good night. She went up the stairs. I was feeling great.

31:48I was going to perfectly nice night out in Manhattan. And then I walked down the street towards Fifth Avenue. And as I approached the corner, I felt the tug on my elbow from behind and a automatic machine gun was sticking in my gut. Two guys were behind me. Move, move, they screamed. They shoved me into the street where there was a brand new black Lexus waiting. And they pushed me there and put me into the back seat of the car where there was a third man sitting in the front passenger seat. And he put a pistol in my face when I got in the car. Absolutely absurd feeling. The thought that I was just walking home. And suddenly I'm a prisoner in a car. I can see outside to what are the normal streets that I'm used to and feel comfortable in. With three men who have guns and apparently have no,

32:50you know, have no hesitation in using them. And suddenly I'm trapped. Sitting directly in front of me was what immediately emerged as the leader of the gang. And he began to announce their plan. First of all, he told his main henchman sitting to his right to get my wallet. And then he demanded my pin number from my ATM card. Stanley had $110,000 in a savings account. And when they heard that that amount of money was sitting in my savings, they practically bugged out. I mean, their first reaction was, what do you do for a living, Stanley? And sheepishly I said, well, you really kind of picked up the wrong guy because I'm an assistant US attorney. They asked me, how old I am, 38. You got a wife? No. You got kids? No. You got a girlfriend? No. And one of them said,

33:54Stanley, what have you been doing, man? You're 38 years old. You got no wife. You got no kids. What the heck's going on? To which I just naturally responded. You should ask my parents, they've been wondering the same thing. And right in the middle of the kidnapping, my kidnappers actually laughed. When I first arrived, a couple of times, they called me Stephen. I had the feeling that if I wanted to survive, one thing that ought to be kept straight was my name, because my name is my identity, and that was important. So I kept saying, my name is in Stephen, it's Stanley. And they laughed, I thought that was funny. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Stephen's the guy we did this to the other night. The kidnappers withdrew Stanley's money from an ATM. It was a thousand dollar limit on cash machine with draws every 24 hours.

34:54So they were a bit stymied, and they explained to me that their plan was now to keep me, that they were gonna take me to an apartment, and hold me overnight. In the morning, they would take me to the bank, and I would withdraw $50,000. If I failed to cooperate, they would kill me. They also said that they would kill my father if I didn't cooperate. Unfortunately, his business card, which had his home address on it, was in my wallet. They said they would break every bone in his body. This was perhaps the worst moment of the entire thing, because you can kill me, you can hurt me, you can do whatever you want to me, but don't do something to someone that I love. So the leader of the gang instructed the guy sitting next to me to use my scarf as a blindfold. They shoved me down in the seat next to him, so that I was lying sort of in a fetal position sideways,

35:57and with my head pressing up against his leg, I mean, it was bizarrely intimate, and obviously just frightening this could be. Although to some extent, your body goes into survival mode, and sort of your adrenaline and your instinct to try to survive takeover, but the entire experience was absolutely petrifying. My life, which had belonged to me just a few minutes earlier, no longer belonged to me. Now someone else owned it, someone else could choose, whether to keep it or throw it away. That was an absolutely unbearable feeling. You could hear him cocking and uncocking the guns, in order to intimidate me. One of the guys says, yeah, have you ever seen one of these things, Stanley? All you got to do is squeeze this trigger, or give off 10 shots, and bam, bam, bam, and your brains will be all over that wall.

36:57And there were mattresses on the floor, and they shoved me down on one of the mattresses. Three prostitutes arrived at the apartment. So the girls show up, and they walk into the apartment, and they're shocked. What, what are you guys doing here? What have you dragged home? And the boys like, oh, don't worry, we're just using this to get some money. You don't have to worry yourselves about it. So they also smoked marijuana, and then they had sex with the girls. It was a, God send at that point that I was blindfolded, but I could hear sexual acts going on around me in the room. And they started asking me questions. Stanley, what would you be doing right now if we hadn't grabbed you on the street? And I said, actually, later on today, my friends would be meeting me because it's my birthday.

37:59And they thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. Oh, my God, we kidnapped the guy in his birthday. They thought that was hysteric. And then they said, oh, well, it's your birthday. You deserve something nice for your birthday. Stanley was offered the services of a prostitute. You know, that may sound funny, but at the time, it wasn't funny in the least. I could not afford, under those circumstances, to be held at gunpoint, where my life was right on the line. I could not afford to be violated in that fashion. So what I did was I just sort of tried to smoothly sidestep it and say, well, you know, I'm sure the girls were lovely, but given my circumstances, I'd really rather not. Even though I'm being terrorized at gunpoint, there was the feeling that I was remaining calm and polite. And my thought was that if I took it, I would be just another John.

39:01And that it's a lot easier psychologically to kill a guy who's just another John than somebody who says no. There was also a discussion between the thugs that had grabbed me on the street about this plan of theirs. They were going to take me to the bank in the morning and withdraw $50,000 at gunpoint and kill me and kill my father if I didn't do it. And they were getting cold feet. They said, look, this isn't really going to work. It's not going to look right. You can't just pull up to a bank like that and take out a huge sum of cash. It's not going to work. The midst of that conversation, he pops the leader pops his head back in to the room and he says, what did you say you do for a living against family? And I said, I'm an assistant US attorney. And he said, oh, no, US, the FBI is going to be after us. So then they finished their conversation and they come back in and the leader tells me,

40:03Stanley, we've changed the plan. I'm going to come back again later on this morning and I'm going to, I'm going to take you back. And then he left. At 6 p.m., the leader had still not returned to release Stanley. Stanley remained blindfolded, faced down on the mattress. So now we're going to round two of smoking marijuana and sexual acts with the girls. And this was really the point at which they really started playing with me in a humorous way. They said, well, Stanley, it's a shame we had to meet on these circumstances. We could have been friends. And I just smiled. And then they said, actually, you should join our gang. They said I could make more money being part of their criminal gang than I was making as a lawyer. But no matter how much joking, bonding went on,

41:07I knew that people who were like this, people who are willing to grab a guy off the street for them to pull the trigger. It's not a big leap. There's a perversity, I think, to the spirit that would allow someone who's joking with you. One minute to pull the trigger in your face the next minute. So I never really felt relieved. The lead kidnapper returned with a new plan to steal more of Stanley's money. The new plan is to hold me until midnight so that they can get one last hit on my Chicago Cash Machine car. He says he's going to take the girls back out on the street and then he'll come back and let me go. And he starts to leave. But as he's on his way out, you can hear his feet stop. And he turns around. And he says, Stanley, let me ask you a question. If you had the chance to put me away for life, would you do it?

42:10So I said, look, you've already told me you know where I live. You've told me you know where my father lives. I don't know who you are. I don't know where we are. You haven't hurt me so far. And you say you're going to release me on harm. I don't think this has to go any further. And he said, well, OK. And he stormed out with the girls. The kidnapper did not withdraw any more of Stanley's money. Stanley was put into a car and driven 10 minutes away from the apartment. The car stopped and the leader got out. I hear the sound of duct tape being pulled off of the roll. And that was the most frightening moment of my entire life and of this incident. Because I was positive that they were going to tape my mouth shut, take me outside, and murder me.

43:11But I was mistaken. Someone had broken into the car overnight and smashed the glass. Well, the glass hadn't been fixed yet. It was covered with plastic. And it was flapping and making noise in the wind. So all he was doing was using the duct tape to fix the plastic. Then he opens the door. He tells me to get out beside him. They say, put your hands up in the air and walk. I thought I could hear the gentle sound of the Lexus pulling away. But I had never heard the door shut. So I thought it was very possible that the guy was still behind me with the gun. So finally, with my hands raised, I said, are you there? And I didn't hear any answer.

44:13So I ripped the blind fold off. I spun around. And they were gone. And that was the happiest moment of my entire life. People who've been beaten down their whole lives, they understand anger, but they can't deal with kindness. When given the chance, I humanized myself. And I showed them great respect. When a system US attorney is trained to gather evidence and link the evidence together. So the whole time I sat there, I was gathering clues and skilled investigators can use those clues to find people. And that's exactly what happened. Stanley overheard conversations that identified the location of the apartment. His evidence enabled police to make arrests within 48 hours. His abductors were charged with kidnapping, robbery, and possession of firearms and will spend 17 years till life in prison.

45:16At the end of the day, they didn't feel like killing me. Thank you for listening to I Survived. Hello, and welcome to Pluto, foe. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. We're all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch anchor man, the legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. The Matrix trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Mean Girls. Side up. Tite and ink. From the key in the world. And so much more. For showtime, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so fast. On Pluto TV, stream now. Pay never.