People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer (2024)

In 1965, Rodney Alcala attacks a teenage girl - only to brutalize and rape her three years later. She feels guilty when she discovers he assaulted another girl soon after - but they are merely two of this man's countless victims.

A new romance between two college students derails when a sadist attacks them during a nighttime walk by the railroad tracks. Only one of them lives and she turns out to be the sole survivor of a serial murderer known as The Railroad Killer.

A single mom, Barbara Mabee Abel, comes home to find a man holding her disabled sister hostage. He then tries to kidnap her young son, but she begs him to take her instead. She is at his mercy for days, and to survive she must get Paul John Knowles to fall in love with her.

Gary Heidnick, who runs a church out of his house and calls himself "The Bishop," abducts a woman and holds her captive. Soon, he imprisons six women in his basement and tortures them. As captives begin to die, Josefina Rivera knows her only chance of survival is to escape.

In the suburbs of Chicago, a handsome man with searing blue eyes turns out to be a bloodthirsty monster hiding in plain sight and attacking young women at will. However, it takes decades for the survivors to discover that Bruce Lindahl is a serial killer. Now, Sherry Hopson and Annette Lazar come forward to discuss coming face-to-face with the cold-blooded killer.

1981, two men rape and shoot a young mother, forcing her fiancé to watch it all. After nearly dying, Cheryl Bartlett Fann, learns her attackers are a pair of serial killers who are also brothers. It will take two decades before justice prevails over Nathanial & Anthony Cook.