by Ann Rule
“The women who don’t make it are the ones who freeze with terror—the ones who say, ‘This can’t be happening to me—it’s a bad dream.’” An expert on self-defense at a Nashville, Tennessee, conference told a roomful of detectives and postrape counselors: “The ones who survive are ready. They tap into a plan they have—just in case. They don’t lose those vital first seconds they can use to get away.”
Kari Lindholm was happy with her life. At twenty-seven, she was a pretty, healthy young woman. She had a good marriage, and a job she loved. She and her husband, Ben,* were hoping to start a family. If there was any sadness at all in her life, it was that she had failed to conceive despite several months of trying.
Because she was normally so upbeat, it was odd that on the night of September 20, 1980, Kari woke up from a terrible nightmare. “I dreamed that I’d been kidnapped,” she remembers. “But I was using some of the techniques I’d learned in my training as a counselor to help me get away.”
In a sense, it was a familiar dream. Kari worked as a counselor at the Solano County Crisis Intervention Office in Fairfield, California. It was a twenty-four-hour facility, commonly referred to as “Sancho Panza,” named for Don Quixote’s right-hand man in Cervantes’ sixteenth-century novel. The effete Quixote, a member of the lowest rank of Spanish nobility, was a little nuts—but well-intentioned— and believed his quest was to save the poor, the orphaned, and the oppressed. Sancho Panza, a stocky commoner, was his partner, his “Tonto,” the one who had the common sense in the duo. Still, he eventually came to believe in Don Quixote’s cause—even as Quixote challenged windmills and a flock of sheep, thinking them giants and invading armies.
So Sancho Panza was an apt name for a crisis center that was an island of calm and compassion in the midst of the craziness that often came to them via phone calls, drop-in visits from people on the edges of society, or lawmen who brought in disturbed patients.
Kari Lindholm was used to the chaos in the county-funded facility on Ohio Street. The staff served all manner of people with problems. “We had a telephone hotline, some group therapy sessions, and we were there to help people. Sometimes it was abused women who had run away from domestic violence; occasionally, we counseled rape victims. Basically, anybody in crisis could call or come to Sancho Panza.”
It wasn’t unusual to have sheriff’s deputies bring clients in, so the counselors had the sense that they had armed backup nearby when they needed help. Lots of people with large and small problems simply walked into Sancho Panza on their own. “Clients” who were admitted as in-patients were often emotionally disturbed, but not so much that they were considered dangerous.
The center was located in a big old house, just around the corner from a halfway house where a few residents with criminal convictions who weren’t deemed dangerous enough to go to prison were housed. Staff there were also available to the counselors at the crisis center. Security wasn’t a problem, or at least it didn’t seem to be until the night of September 20.
Sancho Panza had eight beds, a huge kitchen space, a waiting room with old but comfortable couches and chairs, and offices in the back of the house. Two counselors at a time—preferably a male and female duo—were always available. Kari Lindholm routinely worked the “graveyard shift” with a male partner. Her husband, Ben, worried about her but she assured him that she was perfectly safe.
And then on Saturday night, September 20, Kari’s regular male coworker called in sick, and Shelly Corelli* agreed to fill in. Shelly and Kari fielded the calls and the people who were brought in or dropped in. It was the first day of autumn, and the moon was full. Anyone who has ever worked in law enforcement, hospital delivery rooms, crisis centers, or other facilities that deal with emergencies knows full well that it is not just folklore that says the fullness of the moon and the surging of tides that come with it have a great deal to do with “craziness” and the unexpected in human behavior.
It was a deceptively lovely night: Eucalyptus trees filled the air with their pungent odor and the heat of the Napa Valley day cooled rapidly. Summer was over.
The two women overseeing Sancho Panza on the graveyard shift were constantly busy, running between the phones and the counter as they dealt with humans in distress. Cops came and went, the resident clients were uneasy, and Kari and Shelly had no breaks. As soon as they handled one situation, another seemed to pop up.
It was three-thirty in the morning when two men walked in. They said they had been on their way to Reno 120 miles east, but they had run out of gas. “We decided to wait here,” one of them said, “until it gets daylight and the gas stations open.”
Both men looked to be in their midthirties. One of them was very small, not more than five feet, seven inches tall, and he couldn’t have weighed more than 125 pounds. He had straight black hair that he’d slicked back. Kari noticed that his teeth needed attention from a dentist: They were dirty and crooked. He didn’t say much.
The other man also had black hair, but his had been cut professionally. He was nearly six feet tall. Kari noticed that he had numerous tattoos, but the only one she recognized at first was a teardrop beneath his left eye. He told them that his name was John and his friend’s name was Mike.
John mentioned the name of one of their counselors, and seemed familiar with Sancho Panza. Kari didn’t recognize his name or his face, but assumed that he had probably worked with someone on the day shift. He was quite talkative, seemingly at ease. Shelly thought John looked familiar, and vaguely recalled that he had been an outpatient at Sancho Panza. When she looked at him more closely, she realized that he had been in on prior occasions to talk with some of the counselors. She didn’t know what his background was, but he was an “alumnus” and she wasn’t at all uneasy about letting him wait there.
They routinely saw people from all walks of life come through Sancho Panza’s door, and the two men didn’t ring any alarm bells in their minds.
“We were so busy that neither Shelly nor I had time to talk to them very much,” Kari recalls. “They sipped coffee and smoked out in the living room part of the house where people can wait. I remember that one of them came back once and asked if he could make more coffee. It was the one named John.”
About four-fifteen that morning, one of the female residents of the crisis center became very agitated and threatened suicide. Kari and Shelly were used to such psychotic breaks among their residents, and Kari quickly called the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, while Shelly enlisted the two strangers to help her in restraining the out-of-control resident. They quickly stepped forward to help her.
Despite their skinny bodies, John and Mike proved to be strong enough to hold on to the hysterical patient. Kari and Shelly were grateful that they were there—since they had no male employees to help them. Within a few minutes, two sheriff’s cars arrived. Solano County deputies Jim Bridewell, Paul King, and Steve Begley evaluated the situation and called an ambulance. Then they helped load the patient into the rig to be transported to Napa State Hospital.
The excitement was over within minutes.
“John and Mike went back to the living room and sat down again,” Kari said. “And Shelly and I got back to filling out our paperwork.”
It was quiet for the first time that night, save for a clock ticking and the occasional wails from an ambulance or a police unit far away. Smoke rose in clouds from the living room area as the men chain-smoked. Soon it was five-thirty in the morning—not too long until daylight. The full moon would blur in the sky as the sun rose, and the long, difficult night would be over.
Kari looked forward to going home to a hot shower and several hours of sleep. Maybe her husband, Ben, would be able to join her for breakfast. They hardly saw each other when she was working nights and he was on a day shift, working for the county. Bent over the log she was working on, Kari was only peripherally aware that one of the strangers was asking Shelly a question.
And then something completely unexpected happened.
“He was holding me tight above my chest with his left arm,” she said later. “In his right hand, he held a knife, and he was pressing it against my neck.”
She could smell his acrid sweat and feel the tenseness in his body. Mostly, she was in shock. She hadn’t even realized the men were in the room until one of them grabbed her. The knife was cold against the skin of her neck.
“He told me the knife was razor sharp, and then he said, ‘I will slit your throat open unless you do exactly what I say.’”
Kari didn’t struggle; she forced herself to stay as calm as possible. She had managed to turn around just long enough to see that it was the man she knew as John—the taller one of the duo who had been waiting for sunrise.
“We have been running drugs and we are fucked up, desperate men,” he rasped. “Just take it easy, and be careful.”
Kari waited to see what they wanted. She couldn’t see what Shelly was doing, and didn’t dare look at her.
Shelly stared at the smaller man. He was carrying an electric cord he’d cut from a lamp and a tieback from the drapes. “Okay,” the taller man—John—said. “This is what we’re going to do. We don’t want to hurt you. We just want to tie you up.”
He ordered Shelly onto the floor on her stomach, and the one called Mike quickly tied her wrists together behind her back, and then looped the cords around one of her ankles, drawing her leg up so that she was hog-tied.
“It’s too tight,” she cried, struggling to get free.
Mike spoke for the first time. “Don’t’,” he said. There was something about his tone that was chilling, and, frightened, Shelly stopped protesting.
“We want all your money,” John said, “and one of those cars out front. Who owns the silver car?”
“It’s mine,” Kari said.
Gradually, John’s arm, still holding her against the chair, relaxed, but John continued to bark out orders. “Close the drapes.”
She tensed. What were the men going to do to them once no one outside could see what was going on? She and Shelly couldn’t hope for help if no one knew they were in trouble. She knew that the Sheriff’s Department were about to come to the end of their shift; chances were they were filling out paperwork, too, and probably weren’t out on the road. That meant they wouldn’t be bringing anyone into Sancho Panza soon.
Kari got up slowly and went to the front windows where she pulled the drapery cords. Shut inside now with two armed men, Kari and Shelly felt even more foreboding.
“Now,” John said to Kari, “I want you to tear the last pages out of your log—anything that mentions we were here. And don’t move too quickly or your throat will be cut.”
She did as he said, handing the pages to him. He stuffed them in his pocket. She could see that the other man— Mike—had Shelly on the floor, tied up.
She wondered if they were both about to be killed.
No. John was asking for money. “Tell me where your purses are.”
Kari told him, and he ordered her to get them from the closet. “And your car keys, too,” he added.
Despite her training, Kari began to cry. She had dealt with a lot of tense situations, but this was beyond anything she had imagined—except for her dream the night before. She wondered now if she had dreamed that because she was going to die soon—if it was some kind of warning. Why hadn’t she paid more attention?
“I’ll get the purses,” she said, “but please don’t hurt me.”
“I won’t hesitate to kill you if you cry or get hysterical,” John answered in a voice as cold as ice.
Again, Kari begged the men not to hurt her. “You can have the keys to my car, anything—just don’t hurt us.”
“I’ve never hurt anyone in my life,” John said in a steely voice, “and I don’t want to hurt you. We’re just going to take you out to a field and let you go.”
She didn’t believe him, but at that point, Kari pulled herself together. She knew he was right on the edge, and that she had to stay strong or she would set him off. She had no doubt at all that he would just as soon kill them. By sheer force of will she stopped herself from crying.
“OK,” she said. “I will do whatever you say.”
That was, apparently, the right answer—and Kari could see John breathe easier.
“Go get your purses out of the closet and your car keys,” he ordered. “I want you to take the keys out of your purse for me.” Kari moved to the closet, grabbed her purse and Shelly’s, and dropped them on the floor. John picked them up.
“You,” he said, pointing at Kari, “you are going with us.”
At least she and Shelly weren’t going to be killed right here. But they were going to be separated. Shelly couldn’t move, hog-tied as she was. And John still held the knife point against the skin of Kari’s neck.
John turned to Shelly, “What time is the next shift coming in?”
“Seven.”
“You’d better be right. If you value your friend’s life, don’t call the sheriff, police, or anyone.”
“Shelly,” Kari pleaded, “please don’t call anyone.”
“I won’t,” Shelly said. “I promise.”
“I don’t want you to call anybody, or answer the phone, or wake anyone up until after seven o’clock,” John said again, more forcefully this time. “Or Kari will be dead. I’ll kill her for sure!”
And then the two men and Kari were gone, and Shelly was alone in the silent office, tied up so tightly that it felt as if her hands and feet were going numb. Her attempts at getting free only sent her muscles into spasms.
Outside, Kari unlocked her four-year-old Ford Granada with shaking hands. John forced her into the backseat, and then crawled in beside her. Mike got behind the wheel of her car.
“You know we’re going to kill you,” John said flatly. “But first, we need three hundred dollars.”
Kari believed him. She was more frightened than she had ever been in her life. But she saw that her captors were extremely nervous, too, and suspected they were under the influence of some kind of drug. She had to go along with them while she figured out a way to survive.
Now John asked her more questions about the shift changes and residents at Sancho Panza. “How many residents live there? What time do they get up? Are your conversations in the office automatically recorded? When does the morning shift come to work?”
She told him the truth—that there were five residents and they didn’t usually wake up until after eight. The day shift counselor, Gracie,* came to work at 7:00 A.M.
“And the recorder in the office?” John pushed.
“There is no recorder in the office,” she said. “That would be illegal, don’t you think?”
Kari sensed that her best approach would be to let John think she was on his side, or at least that she was treating him with respect. If anything, Mike was more nervous than John. Or maybe he was just a lousy driver. He swerved, driving so erratically that they either were going to end up in a ditch or, blessedly, would attract the eye of a cop in a squad car.
John told her that they wanted to head for Reno, by way of Sacramento. “What’s the quickest way to get on the freeway?”
For the life of her, Kari couldn’t visualize the roads nearby. She was still so frightened. They had turned left on West Texas from Ohio Street, and then right on Beck Avenue at her suggestion. But she’d made a mistake, and they couldn’t find an eastbound freeway entrance.
“You’d better think quick,” John warned her again, “or you are dead.”
Kari was too scared to think, her mind frozen with fear, and they got on the wrong side of the freeway—onto the lanes heading west toward Vallejo and San Francisco, away from Sacramento. Finally, Mike s
aid he was going to get off the freeway and take surface roads. At least they would be heading east again toward Reno. Their trip was a comedy of errors, or would have been if it weren’t so menacing.
Kari’s job and training demanded that she be competent about assessing people in a short time. Gradually, she found herself moving into her social-worker mode, still a victim certainly, but a woman who knew that her own survival depended on reading John and Mike correctly.
“I quickly assessed John as emotionally unpredictable, emotionally unstable, and insecure about his own masculinity,” she says. She knew she had to avoid startling or frightening him, and, above all, should do nothing to undercut his tenuous grasp of his masculinity. That was easy in group therapy sessions—but infinitely more difficult when she herself was his captive.
As they hurtled, willy-nilly, along the dark, almost deserted freeway, Kari tried to think. If they got her to a field, she was pretty sure they weren’t going to just let her out there. Alive, she would be a danger to them and their freedom.
Back at Sancho Panza, Shelly Corelli worked desperately to get out of the twists and turns of the lamp cord and the drape sash that bound her. By wiggling and twisting, she managed to slip one wrist out, and then was able to use that hand to pull the cord off her foot. Kari and the men had been gone for about twenty minutes, and Shelly wasn’t sure where they were. For all she knew, they might still be out in front of Sancho Panza. She didn’t dare risk going out that way. And she didn’t want to stay around to use the phone. Instead, she crawled along the floor toward the rear of the building. She exited through a patio door and crept toward the fence. She pulled enough boards out so she could slide through. One of the counselors lived nearby, and Shelly ran to pound on Jack Owens’s* door.
Woken from a sound sleep, Owens opened his door to see Shelly standing there, disheveled from crawling through the fence, the severed electric cord still hanging from one wrist.