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Stories That Prove Anything Is Possible · The World Knowledge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, good evening, listeners. Thank you again, as always. I'm
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: so grateful for all you guys who have built this
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: podcast up, who listen, who watch. And I've just been,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: you know, falling across so many different stories this year,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and they're so different. But I came across Dawn Wilcox,
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  Speaker 1: who's on the screen, and then for those listening, you'll
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  Speaker 1: hear her voice.
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  Speaker 2: You know, has information about the woman, her name, the
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  Speaker 2: date she was either died or that her body was found,
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  Speaker 2: the perpetrator's name, their ages, you know, how she was killed,
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  Speaker 2: any information about that, the relationship between them, and, you know,
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  Speaker 2: just kind of more information about the circumstances. But I
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  Speaker 2: quickly came to realize that this an overwhelming issue. This
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  Speaker 2: is something that I'll be doing for the rest of
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  Speaker 2: my life. And I don't even know that I'll be
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  Speaker 2: able to complete, um, you know, the work. Uh, the
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  Speaker 2: only thing that gives me some hope is there's a
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  Speaker 2: finite number of cases in the past. You know, there's
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  Speaker 2: only so many women who were killed in 1978, uh,
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  Speaker 2: And when I can do this full-time, I think that
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  Speaker 2: will help. But it's quickly turning into big data. I
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  Speaker 2: think at this point I've documented 15,000 women, and that's
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  Speaker 2: a drop in the bucket. I mean, if I could
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  Speaker 2: snap my fingers today, I could add tens of thousands.
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  Speaker 2: I have tens of thousands of cases that I've saved
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  Speaker 2: that I have to input the data on. And then
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  Speaker 2: when you talk about women who are missing– who there's
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  Speaker 2: never been any sign of life or that have been
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  Speaker 2: found deceased and they have not identified a suspect. And
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  Speaker 2: especially in cases where it was a sexual assault murder
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  Speaker 2: or discrimination, which is highly gendered, 99.9% of the time,
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  Speaker 2: if you find a female murdered, it was a man
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  Speaker 2: who killed her. So those are all also cases that
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  Speaker 2: I would add even more. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And, you know, I was gonna ask, like, because I
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  Speaker 3: think this is relevant to and obviously you can go
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  Speaker 3: into as much detail or not as you want, but
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  Speaker 3: you did mention like you yourself have experienced violence from men.
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  Speaker 1: In your life. And so I think that also gives
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  Speaker 1: you an extra layer of just understanding what that situation
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  Speaker 1: is like and what could have happened to you, which
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  Speaker 1: gives you a whole new perspective. Can you, do you
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  Speaker 1: remember the first time you felt really afraid, like afraid
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  Speaker 1: for your safety in one of those situations?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, over my life, obviously I've met
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  Speaker 2: some wonderful men, you know, who have been safe people,
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  Speaker 2: you know, certainly safe people. And, but I have had the,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the, experience of being chased of, uh, years
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  Speaker 2: ago when I first moved to Dallas, I had to,
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  Speaker 2: you know, as I was like 18 years old, I
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  Speaker 2: had to take the bus to get to work and,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a car full of four or five men
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  Speaker 2: slowing down and, um, you know, kind of cat calling
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  Speaker 2: and how scary that is. And just, um, I was
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  Speaker 2: chased through an apartment complex, um, unfortunately I'm a survivor
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  Speaker 2: of sexual assault. And, um, when I was probably about 21,
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  Speaker 2: I dated, uh, began dating a young guy who, um,
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  Speaker 2: you know, seemed very normal, but, you know, kind of
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  Speaker 2: slowly started to show some signs of being abusive. Um,
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  Speaker 2: eventually it, you know, punched me in the face. Um,
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  Speaker 2: and I, when I ended that relationship, he, um, I
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  Speaker 2: think probably within a week he met two women at
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  Speaker 2: a bar in Dallas at a club, um, took them
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  Speaker 2: back to the apartment that we had lived at together.
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  Speaker 2: He sexually assaulted, you know, under, he took them, they,
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  Speaker 2: they went there with him under kind of false pretenses. Um,
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  Speaker 2: he sexually assaulted both of them at knife point. And, um,
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  Speaker 2: and then he, uh, took them to Collin County, which
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  Speaker 2: at that time was, it's the county north of Dallas County.
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  Speaker 2: It was very rural, kind of farmland, not very developed.
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  Speaker 2: And they ended up getting away from him. But, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it took years kind of for my mind to let
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  Speaker 2: me realize that, like, I think I was like in
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  Speaker 2: my 40s and doing the dishes. And I thought, oh,
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  Speaker 2: my God, he took them there to kill them, you know,
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  Speaker 2: kind of thing. And You know, and prior to this happening,
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  Speaker 2: and one of the things that he had done to
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  Speaker 2: me is basically kidnapped me, kept me in our apartment
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  Speaker 2: for days, threatened to kill me. You know, just, it
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  Speaker 2: was just horrific, you know, and just being in that
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  Speaker 2: room and realizing that your boyfriend who you love who
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  Speaker 2: you feel like you can trust is kind of flipped
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  Speaker 2: some sort of switch. And I, and I don't believe
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  Speaker 2: any of that just snap stuff. I think that's baloney.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a, an excuse, but I think he
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  Speaker 2: was a very, very dangerous person. He ended up going
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  Speaker 2: to prison for, you know, probably about 26 years, um, that. And, um,
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  Speaker 2: he's since been put back in prison for some sort
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  Speaker 2: of like drug violation. Thank God. But, um, I would
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  Speaker 2: not at all be surprised to learn that he had
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  Speaker 2: even killed women before this incident. I mean, just a budding, very,
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  Speaker 2: very serious, probably sexually motivated serial killer kind of person.
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  Speaker 2: And as I'm doing this work, I'll read about different circumstances.
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  Speaker 2: And I, it certainly crosses my mind that how easily
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  Speaker 2: I could have been one of these women on my
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  Speaker 2: own in my own database. I mean, yeah, I did that. I,
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  Speaker 2: you know, got into a car with a friend of
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  Speaker 2: a friend and I, you know, I'm just using different
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  Speaker 2: examples or I walked by myself home in the dark. Um, um,
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  Speaker 2: You know, and I think most women have those kind
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  Speaker 2: of stories. I remember living in Tacoma, Washington when I
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  Speaker 2: was probably like 15 or 16 years old. And I
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  Speaker 2: was walking home from a friend's house. It was dark.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't really late, but it was already dark. And
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  Speaker 2: I heard voices behind me. And, you know, kind of
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  Speaker 2: like when you're in the darkness and you can see
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  Speaker 2: people in a streetlight. And then when you're in the streetlight,
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  Speaker 2: you can't see anything because you're in the light and
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  Speaker 2: they're in the darkness. Well, when I got into the darkness,
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  Speaker 2: I turned around and I could see like three males,
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  Speaker 2: you know. And something just like told me something was wrong.
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  Speaker 2: And really not much had happened to me at that time.
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  Speaker 2: It was just a very, very deep gut feeling of
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  Speaker 2: And kind of this feeling of fear, you know, and
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  Speaker 2: they hadn't said anything or done anything. And they were
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  Speaker 2: probably a couple, two, three blocks away from me. And
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  Speaker 2: when they were in the light and I was in
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  Speaker 2: the darkness, I went, ran up to a house and
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  Speaker 2: I hid behind the bushes of this house. And I'm
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  Speaker 2: crouched down behind these bushes and I could kind of
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  Speaker 2: see through and I could hear when they walked past.