She Survived: Jane

By M. William Phelps and Jane Carson-Sandler

New York Times-Bestselling Author: A woman’s terrifying story of surviving the Golden State Killer, written with “one of America’s finest true crime writers” (Vincent Bugliosi).

Jane Sandler had just kissed her husband goodbye as he left for work that morning. When he pulled out of the garage, another man walked in unnoticed. Seconds later, as her three-year-old nestled by her side, Jane heard footsteps—and then saw an intruder wearing a black ski mask. He had a rope and a knife in his hands…
 
This is the harrowing account of Jane’s all-too real nightmare, told in her own words as part of a compelling narrative by award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and host of Dark Minds M. William Phelps. It is also the true story of Jane’s battle and will to survive, of how she fought back and learned to share her unspeakable ordeal to empower others—even as the remorseless murderer and rapist, who came to be known as the Golden State Killer, went on to attack dozens more.
 
“Anything by Phelps is always an eye-opening experience.” —Suspense Magazine  

“Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers.” —Allison Brennan
 
“An exceptional true crime writer.” —Kathryn Casey

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Release date: Feb 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780786034574

M. William Phelps

Crime writer and investigative journalist M. William Phelps is the author of twenty-four nonfiction books and the novel The Dead Soul. He consulted on the first season of the Showtime series Dexter, has been profiled in Writer’s Digest, Connecticut Magazine, NY Daily News, NY Post, Newsday, Suspense Magazine, and the Hartford Courant, and has written for Connecticut Magazine. Winner of the New England Book Festival Award for I’ll Be Watching You and the Editor’s Choice Award from True Crime Book Reviews for Death Trap, Phelps has appeared on nearly 100 television shows, including CBS’s Early Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show, The View, TLC, BIO Channel, and History Channel. Phelps created, produces and stars in the hit Investigation Discovery series Dark Minds, now in its third season; and is one of the stars of ID’s Deadly Women. Radio America called him “the nation’s leading authority on the mind of the female murderer.” Touched by tragedy himself, due to the unsolved murder of his pregnant sister-in-law, Phelps is able to enter the hearts and minds of his subjects like no one else. He lives in a small Connecticut farming community and can be reached at his website, www.mwilliamphelps.com.

Book preview

Phelps

CHAPTER 1

TERROR

Jane Carson-Sandler was half-asleep. It was approximately six-thirty in the morning. She’d just heard her husband, Bill, leave for work—that familiar sound of the garage door opening and closing. Paul, their son, was three years old. Just as the garage door was closing and Bill backed out of the driveway, Paul came running down the hallway, with his little pit-pat footsteps, and jumped into his mother’s bed to cuddle.

My early-morning time with Paul was very special to me, Jane said of this daily routine, as I wouldn’t see him all day.

Opening her eyes, feeling the warmth and love of Paul next to her, Jane saw a slight flash of light down the hallway that led to her bedroom. She wondered what it was.

It was just after this when Jane heard an additional set of footsteps. It sounded as though someone was running down that same hallway toward her bedroom.

What did Bill forget now? Jane thought. Why turn on the light? Why in the heck is Bill running?

With Paul by her side, Jane jumped up and looked down the hallway, still wondering why her husband had come back into the house.

It wasn’t Bill, however. Within a moment Jane realized why the light was on and why she had heard those footsteps. Bill was long gone, driving out of the neighborhood, on his way to work. Jane now stared at a man in front of her. He was fairly average in size and stature, wearing a ski mask, holding a butcher knife, which he pointed directly at her.

Jane’s first reaction was to scream.

The masked man walked closer to Jane as she pleaded for help, which was never going to come.

Then the masked man placed the blade of the knife to her chest, just hard enough to break the skin and drawn a modicum of blood.

This was not a dream. A hallucination. Right now, inside her bedroom, a masked man held a knife to Jane’s chest. She could hear the home invader breathing heavily through the ski mask.

Shut up or I will kill you . . . , he finally said through clenched teeth.

Jane was paralyzed by fear, to say the least. She believed what he said.

But Jane’s terror was not for herself, of course. It was for Paul, who was by her side, looking on, wondering what was happening.

CHAPTER 2

PARADISE

That August 1976, Jane Carson-Sandler had been enjoying her life with Paul and Bill. Things were simple and fulfilling. Jane never had an inclination that within the scope of two months her life would be devastated and changed—literally—forever. Nor did she know there was a good chance while she and Bill went through their days that summer and early fall—eating out, spending time at home, the park, movies, enjoying the routines of life—that a budding serial killer was watching them, stalking the neighborhood in which they lived, searching for his next victim.

I was performing the usual household duties and attending classes at California State University in Sacramento, Jane told me. I was pursuing a bachelor of nursing degree (BSN) in a new, one-year, intense program.

Because of the enormously difficult demands of class, Jane was not employed at the time. Whenever she wasn’t busy studying, she was at home with Paul, who had just turned three. At thirty years old, this was a special moment in Jane’s life: this time with her son and husband.

Jane’s son, Paul, was just a boy when the East Area Rapist broke into their home, attacked Jane, and tied Paul up.

(Photo courtesy of Jane Sandler)

I did spend one weekend per month at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, at the Sixty-fifth Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. Being part of the Air Force Reserve Nurse Corps, I was required to attend inactive duty training one weekend per month and two weeks of active duty each year.

Jane Sandler was a thirty-year-old married nurse and mother with a career in the military when the East Area Rapist disrupted her life.

(Photo courtesy of Roger Sandler)

Jane and Bill had a happy, content life together at this time. California was not a bad place to raise a family.

I had been married five years to an air force captain who was stationed at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento. Except for an occasional Friday-night trip to the officers’ club for happy hour, our social life was pretty bland.

The thing is, you drive around some neighborhoods in Northern California, in and out of the suburban sprawls (one of which where Jane and Bill lived), staring at those carefully and meticulously manicured lawns and parks, the state-sponsored gardens and reflecting pools, rivers and streams and bike paths, and you can’t help but think: This is the life. Year-round weather that is nearly perfect. The palms. The good-looking people. The produce. The Mexican food. The wine. The graceful, luxurious, salty goodness of that Pacific Ocean water, to the west, lapping casually up against the soft sand, constantly pushing, constantly keeping a rhythm to your life.

You look at all this and think: What could go wrong?

Not that the Sacramento area, during the 1970s, when this horror began, was exclusive or just for the rich. Or there wasn’t occasional crime here and there. It wasn’t like that.

Fairly nice, I would say, Jane later noted. Nothing necessarily fancy. It wasn’t a gated community, and it was definitely not a city, either.

Right. It was home. A place to raise a family and not worry about much.

Jane and her husband were military people. This area was bustling with military subculture and substations and bases. Camouflage dark green and tan had a huge presence. They lived in a nice, cute little one-level ranch-style home. The future seemed boundless and carefree; anything was possible for Jane and Bill.

But that one morning, October 5, 1976, when Bill drove away from the home, the fairy tale ended. An intruder—who must have been waiting for Bill to leave—entered either through that closing garage door or a bedroom window, and Jane and Bill’s picture-perfect, white-picket-fence lives detonated.

CHAPTER 3

DEFENSELESS

Jane sat and stared at the masked man holding the knife to her chest while standing by her bedside. He was angry and determined. He had gotten into the house without Jane’s husband seeing him, not to mention within seconds of the garage door closing. Had he actually snuck in as the garage door went up and Bill pulled out?

If so, what timing, what nerve.

How he got in didn’t really matter now. What mattered more than anything was that Jane had a knife to her chest, blood present, her son by her side watching this chilling scene unfold, and a man on some sort of a mission getting ready to make his next move.

What does he want?

. . . I just want your money, he said, holding that knife tighter to Jane’s chest.

It was somewhat of a relief for Jane to hear those words. Maybe he would take what he wanted and leave.

Okay, I thought, maybe he just wants to rob me and be out of there, Jane recalled.

Yet, that thought quickly dissolved and Jane knew he was lying when, without warning, he tightly bound Jane’s and her son’s hands and feet with shoelaces, gagged them both with clothing, and blindfolded each. In fact, the masked man hog-tied Jane’s three-year-old son and, unbeknownst to Jane because she could no longer see, perhaps placed him on the carpet in front of her bed or back in his bedroom down the hall—she just didn’t know.

Jane’s heart raced. She was blind. She could only hear the sounds of an intruder with a knife tying up her child and placing him on the carpet or moving him to another room, she didn’t know which.

Dead . . . we’re both dead. . . .

Before tying them up, he had torn the sheets off the bed and ripped them into strips in a meticulous manner, as Jane later described it. What he did was ritualistic, Jane later felt. He had a plan and was carrying it out. He’d certainly done this before and was banking on the success of those previous incidents.

What was he going to do to us? Kill us? Rape me? Rob us? Or maybe all three? I didn’t have the strength or opportunity to overcome him. He had the power and he had the control. We were at his mercy, totally his victims, with no way to defend ourselves.

Jane was not a large woman. She was not at all equipped to lodge a counterattack of any kind against a maniac brandishing a knife in her house.

Every detail would become important in the coming days. What would become a major part of this investigation later, it turned out, was where Jane and Bill lived, the type of house they lived in, and the layout of the neighborhood.

We lived in a middle-class neighborhood in Citrus Heights, California. Our small 1200-square-foot ranch-style home had three bedrooms, two baths, and a two-car garage. To get