Original subtitles

I had no idea where I was.

It was a dumping ground.

It's an area waiting for criminals to come

and do what they wanted to do there.

There was nobody that I knew, I could think, that would do this.

I was alone against this very violent monster

to did what you did to that girl,

it's unconscionable.

Glen burnie is south of the Baltimore city line.

It's a blue-collar neighborhood.

Most of them have been there for many, many years

and everybody seems to know everybody.

I was born in Missouri, and my sister Debbie

was born in Kentucky. My dad was in the military,

and he settled US in Glen burnie,

where he was close to fort Meade.

It was a great place to live.

We liked growing up there,

like, if somebody needed something,

someone was always there to help.

Growing up, I always thought it was safe.

When you're younger, you just don't really think

that there's so many bad people out there.

People say, "this will never happen to me,"

or "this will never happen to anyone in my family."

But it did.

Debbie is my younger sister,

her and I were very good friends and still are,

at the time, we both finished high school

and Debbie and I decided to move in together

and it was really nice to make a transition

out of my parents' home to moving in with Debbie.

I felt like I was becoming an adult.

We became adults together.

We lived on ferndale Avenue, and it was the main drag.

So we sit on our porch,

we see everybody go up to the store and come back.

Hey, it's Billy. Hey, Billy.

Billy who? Billy dobson.

Ladies.

Hey, you boys making trouble?

You know, same as always.

Maybe you'll join US this time.

You wish.

Bye, Debbie. -Bye.

Bye, Donna.

Billy was always moving.

He would just walk by, acknowledge US,

and then keep moving. But no one ever really knew him.

You don't remember those guys from school?

No, I was too busy studying to remember anyone from school.

I have always been a very ambitious person.

College was definitely my goal, but I knew that

I wasn't prepared financially to put myself through school.

So I started saving for my college

and so I took a job at the box factory.

Hi.

You make a lot of money working in a factory.

There were probably 15 of US girls back there

and a lot of the women

that were there had been there for a long time.

So I was kind of like the youngest.

And, you know, we really got along well, exceptionally well.

But then I started having a little difficulty with my boss.

He thought he was a movie star coming to work,

his hair was perfect.

He dressed well, wore Cologne, was clean-shaven,

and the rest of US look like a bunch of slobs

because we've been working.

He was very flirtatious,

and he liked to touchy-and-feely people.

And I didn't like it. As a matter of fact, I hated it.

Nice box.

Excuse me?

Your box. It's nice.

What's this about, Chet?

You see, Donna, lots of girls --

I mean, lots of girls, they want your job.

But they can't have it.

Do you know why they can't have it?

Because you're here.

You're just...

My god, you're tight as a knot.

Does not touch me, Chet.

I was very young, hard-working.

He felt that he could take advantage of me.

And I would tell him,

"don't touch me. Please don't touch me."

And I knew that I was kind of probably in trouble with him.

He took revenge on me, and I got transferred to hardcore.

I'm not talking about regular-size, easy boxes.

We had huge boxes.

That was a very, very difficult job.

So, what do you think?

You like it over here?

Pretty great?

Pallets.

Do you see how easy it is for me

to make this harder for you, Donna?

That's why appreciation is important,

knowing when we have it good.

You know?

And, most importantly, knowing who our friends are.

I'm your friend, Donna.

Or, you know, I could be if you would just let me.

I did the job.

I did it with a smile on my face and I got --

you know, I got through it.

Until one day I couldn't do it anymore

and said, "I quit. I quit."

And he said... you don't quit. I do.

I quit. You're not quitting.

Donna, get back here.

And I never went back.

So I drove up and down, looking for "help wanted" signs

and saw a sign

from the convenience store.

When I got there, I walked in,

and I spoke with someone, and he said,

"do you have any experience working in a convenience store?"

I said, "no," I said, "but I'm a quick learner."

And he told me, "you're hired," and I was ecstatic.

I said, "okay."

So, Kendra tells me that I need to meet this guy.

Kendra who?

Dude, Kendra from school.

I don't remember anyone.

My god. Such a dork.

Okay, so she tells me I need to meet this guy,

and I was like, "sure thing." Yeah.

So I show up, and I was super excited

'cause he was really cute. Yeah?

He was drunk. Drunk?

He was drunk. Really?

Yes, drunk. Guys are such idiots.

There you are. Hey. -Calvin.

Thanks for coming.

Hi. -How are you doing?

Calvin was a firefighter.

He's a super, super great guy.

Can you believe this girl?

She quits one job and finds another on the exact same day.

I believe it. I mean, anybody going to do that, it's Donna.

She was a 24-year-old that wasn't afraid to work.

She was talking about going to school,

and she had a goal set out for herself.

And she was working towards that goal.

Just a genuine, great person.

To the hardest-working girl in all of Glen burnie.

That's not saying much.

Cheers.

Ladies.

Hi, Billy. Hi.

You know what? I think one of them is the peeping Tom,

we were having numerous calls

coming in for peeping Toms there,

and these people usually waited till sometime after midnight,

and they would go and they would look in your windows

and see what they could see. Mainly, most of them

are looking for any female that they can see.

Debbie thinks everyone is the peeping Tom.

Ooh, maybe it's you.

Are you the peeping Tom? You're a peeper, aren't you?

It makes perfect sense. -Tall enough to be a peeper.

It is, it is. You're a firefighter.

You're an upright citizen. You pay your taxes.

I mean, no one would suspect him.

It's perfect. -It's definitely you.

It's perfect. -Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Seriously, girls, no.

We've got more than a few calls about this guy.

Alright? It's no joke.

Peeping Toms are very serious offenses.

A lot of people will say, "well, they're not doing anything.

They're just looking in a window."

Well, to US,

it's more than they're just looking in the window.

It's just an escalation starting.

If you go back and you take a look at some of the histories

of some of the Ted bundys and other people,

you'll see that they all began as peepers.

You know what? Let's just go.

No.

No, let's go to Joe's across the street.

No. We're overruling you.

No, I want to play pool anyway. Come on.

Let's go.

I don't think Donna really put it together

who he was until towards the end,

but he knew what he was going to do.

He knew the whole thing.

To do what you did to that girl,

it's unconscionable.

After I quit that job, I needed money.

When I got the position at the convenience store,

I was just trying to make some good money

and get out of there and go to college.

Once I started working the night shift,

I knew I could finally take some college courses during the day.

Bye. Bye.

She worked from 11:00 to 7:00 at night, all night,

and then went directly to college.

She had some long days.

I was learning so much.

God, I was happy. I really was happy.

Donna's convenience store

was exactly three miles south of Glen burnie.

That is rural. Not a lot there.

In situations like that, you really wish

that there had been two people working in that store,

not just one on a midnight shift.

Working in a convenience store on the 11:00-to-7:00 shift,

you see quite a few different people.

You see night people.

Basically, I wasn't that busy from 12:00 to 2:00,

because at 2:00, the bars closed,

and believe me, I knew that the bars had closed

because they would come in staggering.

And then at 3:00,

all the newspapers would be delivered.

Hey, Bobby.

Hi, Donna. Bye, Donna.

And then I would get a group of people

that wanted to come in for the racing form,

and then they would spend about 5 or 10 minutes

explaining to me how to bet on a horse,

which I had no interest in knowing.

But, you know, I listened.

And then it would get quiet again until my coffee rush,

I would get off work at 7:00,

get changed, and head to the college, do my courses,

and then I would come home, sleep for a while

and do it all over again.

Donna ferres knew that,

in her neighborhood, there was a peeping Tom.

She had heard some rumors, but just like everybody else,

a peeping Tom was not important to them.

You know, "they're outside. I'm inside."

But as law enforcement, we take that very serious

because we're worried about the progression.

Usually in most cases, we see the progression

from the looking in the windows...

...and then it's usually breaking in

and trying to touch an individual there

and then it escalates into sexual assaults

and some of them very brutal.

Escalation's coming. Just a matter of time.

My store was new, brand new.

All around the store, it was wooded, wooded area.

When you start working at the convenience store,

they put you through training,

and it's what to do if you're robbed.

So I felt very comfortable.

You know, I really challenged people

that came into my store looking unusual.

"Go ahead, Rob me, because I know what to do."

You know, "I know how to handle this."

Hello?

Donna having to work the midnight shift all the time,

I mean, to me, that was a vulnerable situation,

a young lady by herself

knowing that anybody can walk in that store at any time.

Aah!

I'm sorry. Geez, Calvin.

Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.

Donna was an employee at the convenience store

across the street from the fire station that I worked at.

It was pretty desolated area.

There was nothing else around except for one

other building and a little antique shop.

Other than that, there was nothing, no construction.

There was no commercial activity there at all.

We would basically keep an eye on things over there for them

and stop in just to make sure to see how they were doing.

You made me nervous.

The lights were on. Nobody was here.

Thought maybe the peeping Tom had gotten to you.

Sorry.

Are you here for your lollipop?

Is it that obvious?

Good guess. Thanks.

Calvin would always come over with the guys

and they would, you know,

buy a lot of sweets and drinks or whatever

and keep me company when they knew I was alone.

Well, stay safe.

And if you need US, we're right across the street.

Sounds good.

If I ever do go missing, check the cooler.

That's where I'll be.

Donna. I'm kidding.

That's not funny. It is funny. It's funny.

It's not funny.

See ya.

The particular night that this happened, I was off,

but I received a call from my manager asking me

if I wanted to switch with another employee,

and I was happy to take that shift.

2:00 -- bars closed.

3:00 -- newspapers delivered.

Hey, Bobby. Hi, Donna.

Bye, Donna.

Donna was really having a good night.

Everything was going normal for her, and she was happy

she was making some extra money.

I didn't see him pull his car around,

so I don't know how long he was out there.

I just figured, you know, he probably drank too much

and was sitting in his car,

you know, sleeping it off, and that was fine.

So I went back to work

and started washing the floor at the time.

And then I heard the bell on the door go off...

...which is unusual.

I generally don't get people this time of the night,

but I didn't feel alarmed.

I didn't ever think that he would...

Do what he did.

This particular night, August 3, 1979...

...a man came into the store through the front door,

and he didn't acknowledge me and walked immediately

to the back of the store where the cooler is.

He had just a small drink,

probably the cheapest thing that you could have picked out,

and he walked toward the counter.

Five cents.

When I first saw him,

I thought I recognized his face in some way,

somehow, some time in my life,

but I didn't -- I didn't know him.

He had a Jean jacket and blue jeans.

He just looked like someone down on their luck,

but nothing alarming.

Thanks. Have a good night.

As he's walking away, he turns around and says...

Hey, aren't you Debbie's sister?

Yeah, Debbie's my sister.

And he says, "well, how's she doing?

You know, how's she getting along?"

Great, actually. She's doing really well.

I'll tell her you said hey.

What's your name again?

This person wouldn't answer, but he kept standing there

and standing there.

I'm having some trouble with my car,

you think you can help me for a minute?

I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to leave the store. It's policy,

but there's a guy right down the road that fixes up cars.

You could give him a call.

I told him, "here. Here's his card.

Why don't you give him a call? You can use the store phone."

And he just said, "no, no, I don't think I can afford that,"

or, "I don't need his help.

I think I can do this on my own."

And he left.

Good luck.

I get back to what I was doing,

and I hear the doorbell go again.

So he walks back in the store again.

Hey, I could really use your help out here.

I just need someone to start it,

you know, while I'm under the hood.

And, again, I offered him the card

of the mechanic down the street.

And, again, he refused.

It's not turning over?

No.

So I thought to myself just for an instant, "okay,

well, this guy is going to continue to come in

and out of the store

until I go out there and help him."

So I said, "okay, okay, just for a second.

I'm just going to do this for a second,

so let's hurry up and get it done."

I go out. I sit in his car.

Got one foot on the ground, one foot in the car.

The driver's-side door is open. He's got the hood up.

He's looking inside of the car. And I'm waiting.

I remember tapping my foot. "Come on, come on, come on."

So I'm like, "aw, man, what the...Is the problem here?"

And so I kind of look in between the crack in the door

to see what he's doing.

And when I looked at him, he wasn't looking in the car.

He was looking all over the place, like,

just looking around to make sure no one was around.

And then I knew something bad was going to happen here.

So I jumped out of the car

and he grabbed me and he put a knife to my throat, hard,

and I didn't want him to cut my throat,

so I put my hand over the knife

as best I could, and I kicked him.

That didn't do a thing. All it did was make him more angry.

And I knew then that this guy was serious.

And when he put me in the car, I knew it.

I knew I was in trouble.

Once the subject had Donna,

he went maybe about a mile down the road to this isolated area.

It's what was known as a dumping ground.

It has woods all around it.

And then in the clearing, you'll see the gravel pit there.

But it's totally engulfed in trees.

It's an area waiting for criminals to come

and do what they wanted to do there.

I knew it was gravel.

I could tell by the sound of it when we were driving down it.

And then all of a sudden the car stopped.

I am like, "okay, this is it. Okay, this is it.

Either it's my final destination or he's going to let me go."

He took me out of the car by force.

No! Help!

Let go!

Please, no!

Help! Help! Help! Help!

And I mean, I was screaming.

I mean, I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

Help me!

But I was alone against this very violent monster.

He used a knife to tear my shirt and my convenience store smock

off of me and took my pants off of me

and...

...started sexually assaulting me.

No!

He continued to violently assault me over and over

for a long period of time.

And then, at that point, he stopped, everything stopped,

and he released his body off of my small figure

and started searching for something to the --

to the right of him.

As he was pulling away from me,

looking for this, whatever it was,

I was able to slip out from under him,

and I took off running.

No! No! Aah! Aah!

And that's when he grabbed me and he just was so angry,

he started punching me and punching me, and I'm like,

"my god," you know.

Help me! Help me!

No! No! No!

Then he went directly to his car and opened his trunk.

And at that moment I said, "okay,

well, let's see, I'm going to be put in this trunk and murdered."

How am I going to get out of that?

I was really trying not to get back in that car.

You want me in that car,

you're going to have to do it on your own.

But he didn't.

Instead, he grabbed a very military blanket,

gray, very mildewy, you could just smell it.

And he laid that blanket on the ground...

...and then the sexual assault started over again

for a long time,

and it was painful and it hurt and...

And I thought it was never going to end.

And I just became a different person,

I wasn't Donna ferres laying there anymore.

I was I don't know who. I got away from it

and was viewing it from a distance,

but in fact, it was me.

And I was hurt very badly.

And at one point he said to me, "get up."

Please. Please, no. Please.

And as we're walking, he turned around

and punched me in my stomach.

That's what it felt like. Felt like a punch.

I didn't feel the knife go in and out,

but then I saw -- I started seeing all this blood.

And he plunged the knife twice into my back,

and I just curled up like a fetus.

I knew there was a lot of blood coming out of me,

and I could feel it rolling down my skin.

And I said, "well, Donna, you have nothing to lose.

I want you to just play dead.

Play dead."

He was face to face with me, and I had my eyes open.

He did not know I was staring right at him.

I didn't move, I didn't flinch.

I thought to myself,

"I know this guy's face."

I knew he used to walk up and down our street.

I just looked right into his eyes,

and he didn't know anything,

he really thought that I was deceased.

So I laid there and I could see him.

I could see him, I could see him,

I could see him.

And then I couldn't.

And then he went out of range.

And that's when I listened.

Listening for him to start his car.

I never heard him start the car.

All of a sudden, a dog started barking.

I'm like, "a dog? Must be a house nearby.

Got to be a house."

And then because of that dog kept barking,

I mean, like, like it was barking at somebody...

I said, "okay, well, that must be some kind of sign.

I got to get up, and I got to take my chances."

And I had to say goodbye to my family

and I had to ask god for forgiveness.

If he's still here,

well, you know, I've already said my goodbyes

and --

and, you know, I've done my prayers, my hail Marys,

and I'll take the chance.

And I did. And I got up.

I couldn't believe the blood that was coming out of me.

I didn't have my glasses,

so I couldn't see beyond the trees.

When the dog barked, I could follow that sound.

I was so tired.

I knew I was dying, and I had to get to that dog.

As I'm going through the woods,

I don't know how far I needed to go

to get to that sound of the dog.

I was trying to do everything very quietly

'cause I still didn't know if he left.

I got through the woods.

There was a road in front of me,

and I could see the houses.

But I didn't hear the dog anymore.

So I always wondered, was that fate?

Did god help me through that?

Was that dog really there?

I'll never know.

But I got through and I run to this house

and I start banging on the door.

A man came down, and he pulled away one of the curtains

and looked out at me.

And I said, "I'm really sorry to bother you.

I've been stabbed.

I need you to call me an ambulance.

Please call me an ambulance."

And then that's when I said,

"I'm probably not going to make it.

Would you call my mother?

Tell her that I love her."

When the police officers arrive,

as they were holding her hand,

she said, "I was raped. I was stabbed.

The guy's about 5'8". He weighs about 150 pounds."

And that she was pretty sure he was

from the ferndale Avenue area.

She did not -- she could not remember his name.

And she gave him the description of the car,

also, that he was driving.

She did all this before she was put in a helicopter.

There was a very loud knock on my door.

There was two policemen,

and they come in to tell me that,

"there has been an accident

where your sister Donna was working.

Your sister has been flown to shock trauma."

They didn't tell me at this point what exactly happened.

It was absolutely horrible. I didn't know what to do.

All I knew what I could do was drive to the hospital.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed,

and I was in a lot of pain

and my sister came into the room.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey, you're going to be okay, okay?

She said, "the detectives asked me to come in and talk to you."

She said, "they got to find out who did this

so they can catch him."

They gave me a list of questions to ask her,

well, Donna couldn't talk.

The nurse suggested Donna blink once for "yes," twice for "no."

So we tried doing it.

Do you know the person that did this to you?

Did Chet do this to you?

Did he live in our neighborhood?

She went like this.

She raised this hand and went like this.

And I said, "that crazy guy, Kenny?"

Crazy Kenny?

It was crazy Kenny? It was crazy Kenny?

Kenny was always at the convenience store

where we grew up at.

We'd go to the store to get anything

or to meet anybody at this store.

He was there.

He just just -- just always -- he looked crazy.

I'm going to -- I'm going to tell the detectives.

I'm going to be right back, okay?

I'm going to be right back.

I contacted the detectives right away,

and I said, "his name is Kenny.

He is the one that tried to kill her."

And they said, "Kenneth Morgan."

The night of the incident with Donna, Kenny Morgan

had peeked in a couple windows

down the road from there.

The description that we got from the complainants was identical

to what Donna gave US of Kenny Morgan.

We contacted some of our informants

trying to find Kenny Morgan.

He was in Baltimore city.

Two detectives went and they walked up on the house

and he was sitting right there watching television.

And he said, "I've been waiting for you."

Kenneth Morgan told US everything that happened.

That night, he went to another convenience store

that was two miles north of Donna's store,

he pulled in the parking lot.

He sat there for a few minutes. There was people in the store.

He saw a really nice-looking girl working behind the counter.

He decided that that's who he was going to take.

But the store was too busy.

And he just said, "you know, I can't do this.

I'll go up to the next one."

He goes up to the next one, and here's Donna all by herself.

Nobody around.

He knew what he was going to do.

I don't see any ifs, ands, or buts that he had

anything else in his mind

other than raping her and killing her.

The prosecutor said,

"we're going to do a plea bargain."

I said, "no, no, no, no. None of this is fair."

And Donna demanded to see the attorney

that was handling the case, and she told him,

"no. No plea bargain. Do you know what he did to me?

Do you know how many scars I have on my body?

Do you know what my life is like?"

And the state's attorney said, "you're absolutely right.

We'll go to trial."

He is still living in a Maryland correctional facility,

and he will be there for the rest of his life,

and this has given me strength and power to be who I am today.

I took a stand against the system.

I took a stand where I didn't even realize

that I had the strength to do it,

but I did it because I knew

and only I know what I went through that night.

Donna ferres today

is one of the greatest people I know because

what she's going through -- and she's fighting a fight.

She's campaigned for new laws.

She's appeared at prosecutors' offices with victims.

She goes, and she'll assist victims

that had, you know, been raped,

kidnapped, assaulted.

She'll assist them, you know, in courts.

She's dedicated her life to healing other innocent women.

She's never stopped, and she never will.

People say to me, "what keeps you going, Donna?"

And I say one thing -- never be afraid to stand up for yourself.

You regain all your strength and power that way.

And I do feel powerful today.