A woman who was held at knifepoint by a Washington state man later convicted of murdering a 16-year-old girl escaped the maniac by jumping into a river because she couldn’t swim, according to a new documentary.
Patrick Nicholas was convicted this year in the cold case murder of teenager Sarah Yarborough in 1991, but eight years before that murder, Anne Croney encountered Nicholas in a parking lot near the Columbia River, which she recently recounted in “48 Hours.”
“He seemed normal, kind of friendly actually, just friendly,” Croney said. “I asked him if she had water skied before because he said he had just moved to the city and said he didn’t know how to swim.”
As the two continued chatting one day in June 1983, the 21-year-old noticed that her voice was becoming shaky, which made her feel uncomfortable, so she told Nicholas that she had to leave.
Croney said that as he went to close his car door, Nicholas held a knife to his throat.
“Everything stopped at that moment,” Croney told CBS reporter Natalie Morales in her first television interview.
Patrick Leon Nicholas was convicted in the unsolved murder case in 2023.
They forced her to remove her clothes and took her to the riverbank when Croney fled.
“We got halfway down the bank and he told me to stop,” she said. “I ran and jumped into the river because I thought he didn’t know how to swim. “I swam as hard as I could.”
Nicholas was convicted in May of first-degree murder in the Yarborough case and sentenced to just over 45 years in prison, the Seattle Times reported.
Anne Croney, a surviving victim, recounted how Patrick Nichols’ voice began to shake just before he put a knife to her throat. 48 hours
He was charged in 2019 thanks to advanced DNA testing nearly 30 years after Yarborough’s body was found near his Washington state high school in a group of children.
One of the children, Drew Miller, told “48 Hours” in another clip that he was breaking up frozen mud puddles when he saw Nicholas from a distance.
“He was just staring at us from the bushes, that was pretty jarring,” Miller, who was just 13 at the time, said before walking away.
Anne Croney said she jumped into a river to escape Patrick Nicholas, remembering that he did not know how to swim. 48 Hours Anne Croney said that when she freed herself she swam as hard as she could in the river. 48 hours
While the children didn’t think much of it at the time, they later found Yarborough’s body where Nicholas was standing. He was terrified when he saw the man a short distance in front of them staring at the children.
“It’s frozen in my mind,” Miller said of the look.
The full documentary, “The Hunt for Sarah Yarborough’s Killer,” will air November 18 at 10 pm on CBS and will stream on Paramount+.
Additional reporting by Alyssa Guzman
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Source: vtt.edu.vn