Angela 0:00
I'd sit down, look up, see a white man, business suit, receding hairline, large hunting knife covered in my blood.

Caitlin Van Mol 0:09
In 2012 Angela champagne Fromm was working a full time job and was taking 18 credit hours at Hamline University in Minneapolis, Minnesota,

Angela 0:20
and then I was training for my first marathon at this point. At this semester, I had, I did not have a social life, because it was just, it was work, it was school, it was training, work, school, training repeat. And I also had just started dating someone. April,

Caitlin Van Mol 0:38
19, 2012 Angela had work and then her feminist theory final that night to get to her final on time, she drove to work instead of taking the bus.

Angela 0:50
When I drove, I always parked on level D, in the same spot, so I wouldn't have to remember where I parked. Yeah, I went and got in the elevator. I went up to work. It was a normal, busy

Caitlin Van Mol 0:59
day. Angela left work at four o'clock to get to her final

Angela 1:03
I did not see anyone, which is also amazing, at four o'clock in the afternoon downtown Minneapolis. So, I mean, there's cars, and I remember looking at my phone and getting an invitation to a 5k I'm running my first marathon. I'm like, Heck, yes, I'm gonna sign up for this. So I forward it to my boyfriend, and it was like, hey, thoughts, and then up ding, I'm on Level D I walk out, I go through the doors, I'm heading to my car, and I'm putting my purse, my backpack, I'm putting all my stuff in the car. When there is an individual behind me and there is an object at my throat,

Caitlin Van Mol 1:46
this is live to tell the podcast where I talk to some of the bravest people who have been through the most horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin Van Mol

Angela 2:03
at this point, I knew it was man, because he had put the knife to my throat and he said, we're gonna go for a ride. And immediately in my head, I'm like, Oh, hell no. I have a final. I got places to go. I have to stop at the gas station before I get to the school. Like we're not going anywhere. Fortunately,

Caitlin Van Mol 2:23
Angela remembered what she was taught in her high school gym class.

Angela 2:28
My school offered a woman's self defense class, and I took the class because I thought it would be an easy gym credit, and I was horribly wrong. We learned, you know, the kicks, the stomps, the punches, the all the things. To pass the class, you had to walk through a pitch black hallway where men in padded suits would attack you. And to pass the class you had to come out the other side of the hall,

Caitlin Van Mol 3:00
but now the stakes were much higher than her GPA, so

Angela 3:06
I screamed as loud as I possibly could. I mean, I've had nightmares about this scream. And then I stomped on his foot because he was behind me. So I stomped. I screamed, the knife was to my throat, and I grabbed it with my hand, so I knew it was a knife immediately. And I'm kicking, I'm screaming. He attempted to cover my mouth with his hand, and he missed. So I bit him as hard as I possibly could have, and he wasn't wearing gloves or anything. Was wearing gloves. What kind of gloves? They were, red gardening gloves. And that's when he removed the knife from my throat and he buried it into my abdomen. I When he stabbed me, I didn't feel any pain. I mean, I was having a complete adrenaline dump, but I felt this warmth sensation in my stomach, so I don't know where it came from. I mean, I am typically a pretty feisty person, but, I mean, I am scrappy. I am grabbing his testicles, I'm kicking, I'm screaming, I'm punching, I'm elbowing backwards, and I'm fighting like hell, and I somehow managed to turn around and sit in my car seat. And I look up to see a white man in a business suit holding a large hunting knife covered in my blood. And then I asked him, I'm like, What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Do you want my purse? Do you want my phone? Do you want my car? What do you want? And he looked at me, and he had said, you're lucky. You're a fighter. And he turned around and he walked away. So I immediately get into my car, and I lock the door, and I look in the rear view mirror and I see. See a man in a business suit with a briefcase walking away from my car like nothing had happened. And that's when I grabbed my stomach and I started to experience pain. So I knew I couldn't drive because I knew I was injured. I knew I couldn't go push that emergency push button, because that was by the elevator lobby. I knew I couldn't go into the elevator lobby because that's where he went. So I call 911 and I grab my purse, and I ran four stories down the exit of the ramp. This is all caught on the 911, call

Speaker 1 5:47
me. Please tell me. What address are you wearing. Please help me. I

Angela 5:51
can. You can very I mean, you can hear panic in my voice. And she had said, I can't pick up your location. And I mean, I was able to tell her where I was,

Speaker 1 6:09
okay, I don't know where that is myself. Is there a business that you're nearby? There's a camera? It's

Angela 6:17
really hard to one call, 911, because you lose your fine motor skills. But I was able to call. I was able to tell them where I was. I get to the toll booth person, and I'm like, help. I've been injured. Help. Help. Help before I collapsed.

Caitlin Van Mol 6:33
Angela wasn't able to respond to the 911, operator after She collapsed, so the operator hung up.

Unknown Speaker 6:43
Anybody there?

Speaker 1 6:53
Hello, see how it goes. Hello, I'm gonna disconnect.

Angela 7:07
So I I collapsed, and I did see the light, and I did see my late grandfather, and he did tell me, keep fighting. Keep fighting, keep fighting. Keep fighting. Keep fighting, keep fighting. And then things got foddy, because I was in and out of consciousness. I recall waking up and coming to and there was a police officer there, and he was very gently trying to get information, because it was, I mean, they didn't know if I was gonna make it, yeah. So I get to the hospital, and again, I'm having flashes. I'm in and out of consciousness. I remember being in the or and they were cutting my new jeans off.

Caitlin Van Mol 7:55
I mean, a good pair of jeans is so hard to find. Well, yeah.

Angela 8:00
And, you know, in 2012 there were boot flares and, you know, they had the bling on the back pocket. They were the cool thing, yes. And I lost so much blood there. I mean, the crime scene photos are horrific, like there is just blood smeared on everything. And when I got to the hospital, I didn't have a blood pressure, so they cut me like from my my sternum to my belly button, and they got in there to discover that I'd had two liters of blood pooled in my abdomen, which is 40% so I probably lost over 50% of my blood volume. Gosh, the stab wound was 10 inches deep, deep, one, zero. It went through my liver, through my adrenal gland, and almost came out. I mean, I'm not a big person, so it like it was almost went through my body, yeah, horrible, horrifying, awful injuries.

Caitlin Van Mol 9:07
But when Angela first woke up from surgery, she immediately wanted to take care of business. I

Angela 9:15
got to see my family, and the first thing that I said to them was, you need to call my boss and tell him that I'm not going to be at work tomorrow. They call my boss, and the next morning, my boss came to to the hospital. And really they never left along with my coworkers. And I mean, I don't think I was alone for those six days in the hospital. Yeah, what happened with your school? The professors were so understanding, several of them came to steaming hospital. I mean, the people that came like coworkers from jobs, like the flowers I it was a literal Flower Shop. Been there, I just felt so loved. And that's what makes me so emotional, is because I still feel all that love in my heart when I think about that time,

Caitlin Van Mol 10:11
this outpouring of support included Angela's boyfriend, Adam and

Angela 10:17
before I collapsed, I mean, I called my mom. I apparently called my brother. I apparently called my boyfriend. And my boyfriend, who's the personal trainer, never had his phone on him, so he finally went to got to his phone at work. He had like, 10 missed calls from my phone, so he calls it back, and the police officer answered and had said, you know, she was hurt. She's in surgery. She's expected to survive. And he got in his car, and he came to the hospital, and he hasn't left my side, and he stayed with me every second in the hospital, my parents and brother would come and would tell him, like, you need to go home and you need to sleep and you need to shower and like you need to take care of you, yeah, so, um, but he was there. I mean, as I was healing from this horrible, awful surgery, he washed my hair, he brushed me like, I mean, I couldn't do activities of daily living because I was literally cut open. Yeah, getting up and down out of chairs, couldn't do getting in and out of bed, couldn't do and then stab wounds heal from the inside out, so it needed to be packed twice a day. So in addition, in addition to him helping me there, he received the nickname of Dr Adam because he was clean and packing my stab wound, I left the hospital, and when he was driving me home, he looked at me. He said, I can't live another day without you. And I was like, same. So he ended up running a half marathon that we were going to run together, and I could not run, of course, obviously. I mean, it was less than a month from discharge, and he he ran the half marathon with the ring around his wrist and proposed at the finish line. That's so sweet. Oh yeah, I'm lucky. I'm very lucky.

Caitlin Van Mol 12:31
While Angela was still in the hospital, as far as she was aware, her attacker was still at large, how quickly did they catch him? So

Angela 12:41
he left. He went into the elevator lobby, he went down to the Skyway level, and he left through the Skyway. And reason that they know this is because they have video footage of his movements. So he goes home, and he changes out of his business suit,

Caitlin Van Mol 12:58
which is covered in blood, right, which is covered in

Angela 13:01
blood, and then he goes back out, and he is arrested in a different parking garage after stealing a woman's purse and was walking around with her key fob. So there was an officer in that ramp, who was like, Well, this is weird. There's this guy, like, walking around, and he's creepishly, like, staring down this police officer, and he was taken into custody for stealing someone's purse, and he didn't have his ID, which is why he was, like, held. So that's Thursday night. He was arrested. Since

Caitlin Van Mol 13:41
he was in custody for the purse theft, Police hadn't yet connected the dots that this was the same man that attacked Angela. I

Angela 13:50
can't remember if it was Thursday night or Friday. The media released a still shot of

Caitlin Van Mol 13:59
him. Was it his, like, mug shot? No,

Angela 14:02
it was the him walking he it was like a still of the the security footage of him, like leading the ramp. So the this is where the story gets crazy. This is where it gets crazy. This is my this is like my reality, right? So my boyfriend sees this picture on Facebook, right? So this picture is released by the media, and my phone is in police custody. So I have I don't have my iPad, I have nothing. They have my purse. They have my car. They have everything, right? So my boyfriend turns to social media, and he shares the photo, and he's like everyone this happened, he's not caught someone. Please, please, please, please share, you know, call if you know something. And I mean this, this post Caitlin, when. I say went viral, like it went viral. And it turns out that my boyfriend's friend of a friend,

Caitlin Van Mol 15:09
dog Walker's cousin, you know, yeah,

Angela 15:13
is a chiropractor, and attacker went to her Chiropractic Clinic, so she calls and she's like, OMG, I know who this is. Here is his name. Here is his date of birth, investigator in charge of my case, type, type, type, type, type, OMG, he's in custody. It's my understanding that when you're being held, you can call this number and it tells you, like, what you're being held for, and your charges and whatever. So he apparently called in very frequently, because they're recorded, and all of a sudden, assault in the first degree was added, and it's my understanding that he gasped when he heard that on his call. And so he was like being released for the purse theft, and was arrested. So he'd been in holding, but we didn't know it was him until a couple days,

Caitlin Van Mol 16:21
wow. So since Angela didn't know her attacker was being held, she was on high alert at the hospital. And

Angela 16:31
you know, the nurse would, nurses would come in and draw blood make sure my levels are going in the direct, you know, all the things. And it was like night three or four. There was a nurse that came in who subconsciously reminded me of my attacker, and I had a full out panic attack, yeah, and I don't remember if I was the one that asked the nurse to leave, or if it was my then boyfriend who was staying there. I mean, I couldn't breathe like I felt like there was an elephant on my chest, and this person is coming at me with a needle. And I mean, it was something I've never experienced before,

Caitlin Van Mol 17:15
and this fear and anxiety didn't stop when she went home from the hospital.

Angela 17:20
I was so mentally unwell that, for I've, I've lived by myself at this point for, I don't know, five years, six years, and I've never had an issue being home. And all of a sudden, here I am thinking, oh, there's someone hiding in my dishwasher. There's someone under my bed, there's someone on my deck looking in my patio door. I can't even tell you how many times I called 911, to be like someone is trying to break into my house.

Caitlin Van Mol 17:51
So Angela tried to find some help. I was looking

Angela 17:55
for support. I was looking for a support group or someone, some people that could talk to me, encourage me, lift me up. And there was nothing. I mean, everywhere I called was domestic. So here I am about to be discharged from the hospital. I have no support, mental health support. So what do I do? I turned to good old Google, and I'm like feminist therapist near me enter first one I called, and I'm still treating with her to this day. Oh, great. So she has also been on this journey with me, and I mean, I could give her crazy credit for giving me back some independence. I mean, we I was doing therapy Caitlin twice a week because I knew that this stuff was heavy. I knew I didn't want to carry it with me, and I trusted her with my whole heart and my whole soul. And so she walked me through the EMDR journey. I mean, she helped me with the criminal process. She helps me, I mean, with my triggers throughout my pregnancies, like I mean, she's been great, and she still is great, and I love her, and I owe her a lot,

Caitlin Van Mol 19:27
yeah, we I've talked to people on this podcast before about EMDR, but can you tell me a little bit about your experience with that type of therapy? Yeah? So initially,

Angela 19:37
it was resourcing, you know, like telling my story and I before I did. EMDR, I couldn't even tell my story without getting emotional, and I, EMDR, is gentle, and it's not. I mean, they're not throwing me in a parking ramp, right? Yeah. You know, there's like one incident, and there it, like branches out to all these things. So, like, one of my traumas was having a knife to my throat. So, and that attaches to all these crazy little mini traumas, right? So, like, for me, I listened to music, and I had these buzzers that went back and forth. You just basically say everything you think of when the when they tell you go. And then you're holding these things, and you're you can feel your eyes going back and forth, and you just say whatever you're thinking. And you know, it could be, I should have died that day, but I didn't. And just try go through all the things, and then at some point I would start thinking about, Oh, I need to get a pedicure. Yeah. So now, like, Okay, well, that little string is cleared, so now we're gonna try to go to this one. And then if I started thinking of random things, I'd go back to the target and I'd do it again. And since I'm type A and I'm an overachiever, like processing for me was pretty easy. I was so emotionally exhausted every single time that I did EMDR that it would wipe me it would wipe me out. I mean, early bedtime, good dinner, just out, and I was so determined to not let the trauma affect me that I was doing EMDR twice a week. And it just, it got to be too it got to be too much for me. So we would do like one EMDR, a resourcing. Some days, I would get to the office and we'd go to process, and I'd be like, I can't do it today. Like, there's I have no emotional capacity to, like, go there. So she's my therapist has been super flexible in going with how my body, as it allows,

Caitlin Van Mol 22:02
I mean, even, like, if you think about it, like exercise, sometimes you just it, ain't it? Ain't it today?

Angela 22:10
Yeah, totally. And it's, I mean, it's the same, except I was trying to do a lot, right? Yeah. I think in my mind, I was thinking, well, if I do this twice a week, maybe it'll take me half the time it would if I only did it one time a week, which was not the case. And

Caitlin Van Mol 22:30
while therapy was helping Angela, she needed a more holistic approach to her mental health

Angela 22:36
at this point. I mean, my PTSD is out of control. I mean, we're talking, I would lay in bed and be afraid to fall asleep because I would have a nightmare about him. I mean, this went on for years, yeah. So I ended up on Lexapro, which worked very well for me, but I had hydroxyzine to help me, like, at night. Lexapro

Caitlin Van Mol 23:03
is an antidepressant and anti anxiety medication, and hydroxyzine is also anti anxiety, but can be prescribed to help with

Angela 23:12
sleep. So I didn't want to take this drug every night. So I would try to do it like every third night. So like, for years, it was I didn't sleep good for two nights, and then I slept good one night,

Caitlin Van Mol 23:22
yeah, but you need it every day, like you need good sleep every day,

Angela 23:26
right? But, I mean, I'm just stubborn, I guess, yeah. I mean, it took a while for the doctors to find the right medicine that worked for me. I mean, I remember being on medication and collapsing and ending up in the ER, because it wasn't the right medication for me, like trying, like blood pressure meds to help with the nightmare. I mean, it took a long time, and so then I finally get on this Med, and then decide, oh, we're going to try to have a family. So then it was, like, this whole thing of weaning off of the meds, because I'd be on meds while I was pregnant. So I mean, it's just been this wild, wild journey with trying to find what works best for me.

Caitlin Van Mol 24:14
Was there a point in that medication journey that you were just like, This is too frustrating. This is too hard. Like, just never, never mind. Yeah,

Angela 24:27
I mean, like I said, you know, I've worked on catastrophic cases where the wrong meds are given, and suicide ideology and like, I didn't I to me when I was weigh weighing the risks versus the rewards. I was like, I don't want to feel disconnected from my body, because my response saved my life, and I don't want to I don't want to be disconnected. I completely understand. And that that is a trauma response. Yeah, and I I also know that I am incredibly stubborn and I am incredibly strong and like, I don't know why I was still anti medication. We'll be right back

Caitlin Van Mol 25:20
while Angela was still figuring out her mental health, working and back at school, she still had to face her attacker at trial. So

Angela 25:30
I'm sitting at home, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, and the prosecutor called me or not the prosecutor but the victim's advocate. She's like, look, here's the plan. We're gonna charge him with assault in the first degree, which, in Minnesota, the requirement is great bodily harm, organ injury or at risk of death. I mean, I was just shy of attempted murder, right? Like, I mean, home run on that. And then attempted kidnapping. He tried to kidnap me, right? And then I'd said, What does that mean? Well, that's 12 and a half years. And I said, Well, that's not enough. And I guess I just had to read something so along the way, bad guy was deposed, and I just want to read you to this line of question, Okay, question you remember then walking out behind Angela and grabbing her from behind. Answer, I do. Question, she tried to fight you off. Didn't she? Answer, she did. Question, did she stomp on your feet? Answer, she stomped on my feet. She kicked me. I remember very well. Question, you had a knife to her throat? Answer, I did. Question, do you remember that she tried to grab the knife? Answer, I do. Question, she was trying to save her life, wasn't she? Answer, she was fighting for her life. Question, then you stabbed her? Answer, I stabbed her. I did stab her in the commission of it. Question, did you tell Angela when you left that she was lucky to be a fighter? Answer, I said that question, why was she lucky? Answer, because, honestly, I think I was going back with the intent to kill someone. I probably would have killed her, and then, after the investigation, they knew that his intent was to sexually assault me

Caitlin Van Mol 27:40
because he had done this before in Iowa. He

Angela 27:44
was dressed as a doctor. He went to a local restaurant and like was talking to a young woman and was talking about the medical industry, and coerced her to go have coffee, and he drove right by the coffee shop and sexually assaulted her, and she was so scared to get help, because, you know this doctor, he had a badge for the I mean, this is like his mol, right? Like he wears disguises and he lures women, so then two weeks to the gate prior to what happened to me, he was at the U of M, and he was dressed as a student. He had the backpack, you know, he looked like a student was in the parking garage, and he was trying to lure a woman out of her car, who she didn't get out of her car, and he was she said, like, his shoes just really stood out to her. So she, like, never got out of the car. She drove away. She reported it. He got away from the scene from bat. And now, you know, the dots were connected with that right around the time that it happened with me. So they called in a grand jury, and I had to testify, and that was in August, so that's four months after, you know, grand jury, they can ask questions. So I go into the top secret grand jury room, and it's the prosecutor and just the grand jury, and I tell my story, I answer the questions. And one of the grand jurors had said, I am so proud of you, and I am emotional about it. And it was, again, it was very empowering, because I didn't have the cross examination. And it was just, this is the story, this is the facts. This is what I know. This is what I remember, but the most amazing thing when I was done, obviously, my family were there supporting me outside, and the victim from Iowa came up to testify, and I approached her, we approached each other. And embraced each other with the biggest hug, because we are sisters, members of this icky club neither of us wanted to be in, and it was because of the same hands. It was an embrace that I will never, ever, ever forget, and as we were doing that, the gates of the grand and jury opened and they walked out and in witnessed two strong women who were there to share our stories for the greater good of all women in the community to keep our streets safe. They got a full show of it, and they did indict him on attempted first degree criminal sexual conduct. I mean, obviously, if he if he was going to mug me, he would have done that because I offered all my belongings, yeah, but he didn't. So attempted CSC in Minnesota carries a life sentence, so he had nothing to lose but his life, and he took it all the way to a jury. And the jury trial was the end of February, beginning of March, of 2013 and it's a female prosecutor, a female defense attorney, a female lead detective, and then the female victim, and the two victims, the U of M and the Iowa victim, testified. So a bunch of strong women, so I go and I testify, and they ask me, is the person who did this to you here? And Caitlin, when I tell you, I shot daggers, threw my finger at him, and I'm like, it's him. Like, I mean, I pictured little laser beam, you know? And he sat there like a coward, covered his eyes, tried to make himself look small, would not look at me, and I testified. I told my story, and the last question the prosecutor asks me is, how are you doing? And I had said, you know, I have good days and I have bad days, but there is not a day that I don't thank God that I'm here. And then it's cross examination again. I'm type A I'm feisty. I have a little bite to me. His defense attorney comes at me a little aggressive, like, Well, did he have an erection when you grabbed him? I don't know, because I wasn't grabbing him to see if he had an erection. I was trying to get him away from me. And I mean, just crude sexual

Caitlin Van Mol 33:03
whatever. Angela wasn't present for the rest of the trial, but her family was

Angela 33:09
my family had to sit there, and they heard the 911, call. They watched the video of me literally collapse at the bottom of the ramp. They heard the defense's story was that he he needed me in the car to pay to get out of the ramp, and then he was going to take me to an ATM, and he was going to steal all of my money, and then he was going to hold me ransom and steal all my family's money. And this is the defense saying, Yeah, this is his defense. And he didn't mean to stab me. I lunged into the knife.

Caitlin Van Mol 33:46
I mean, okay, right? It's almost,

Angela 33:49
it's, I mean, it's almost, like, really,

Caitlin Van Mol 33:52
you couldn't have just had it. There was another guy. Well, he

Angela 33:56
couldn't do that because they got a search warrant, went into his apartment, and the suit is like laying on his bed like, I mean, no effort at all to hide the evidence. They find this briefcase that he was wearing, and in the briefcase were a bunch of condoms. But at the criminal trial, the defense for that was, well, every single 48 year old guy downtown Minneapolis carries condoms on them.

Caitlin Van Mol 34:25
Going to work. You never know, right?

Angela 34:31
And so that, I mean, there was DNA evidence like he literally could not say that it wasn't him, but the jury was deliberating. Oh, gosh, Caitlin, two days so I get the call. Verdict is in call everyone. Verdicts in verdicts in rush to the courthouse. Get there, the jury comes in, not guilty on attempted criminal sexual conduct. In the first degree, guilty of assault in the first degree. Hung on attempted kidnapping. I ended up leaving the courtroom because I was sick to my stomach. Yeah. Sentencing gets scheduled for April 19, 2013 the one year traumaversary. So here I am, one year later, giving a statement to the judge in front of the man that attacked me one year prior. The judge made a very clear record about he may have fooled the jury, but the judge is no dummy. And note that meet the three victims, Iowa, U of M and myself. If you put us in a line, you would be like, Whoa. He clearly has a victim profile. We are all like the same height. We all have dark hair. It was creepy. I gave a statement to the judge, and then, before he was sentenced, he got up and he gave a statement, and he had said that, in his view, women were beneath dogs, and he had no respect for the female gender, and the judge sentenced him to 20 years, which is the max under Minnesota law, which is an upward departure from the sentencing guidelines. So Minnesota has a chart, essentially where it goes the severity of the crime and assault one is very high, and then they go based on the criminal history of the offender. So it's like 0123456, plus. Well, my attacker was a seven, which is off the chart. Angela's

Caitlin Van Mol 36:56
attacker, Robert John Myers, had a criminal record going back to the 80s.

Angela 37:02
He appealed it, and the Court of Appeals argument was on June 19. We're in front of the Court of Appeals, and I hear his attorney say he only stabbed her once. There's nothing aggravating about this assault. I'm sitting there listening to this argument, and I'm like, Are you kidding me one time, 10 inches, like, we're not talking about, like, Hey, I got a paper cut from this knife. Like, so he the Court of Appeals agree, and they say you're a danger to women, yeah. So in Minnesota, you serve two thirds and then the 1/3 you serve in the community. So he is currently serving 240 set to expire in August, and he'll get out in August.

Caitlin Van Mol 37:59
How does that make you feel

Angela 38:01
not good. I don't think he will mess with me, because I think he's had enough time to realize is that he messed with the wrong person,

Caitlin Van Mol 38:11
yeah, but Angela can't be sure of that.

Angela 38:15
I'm scared for my children. I'm scared for myself. I'm scared that I will be out for a run and he might be there. Yeah, so I'm working on that. My therapist and I are hard at work to work through that stuff. Have

Caitlin Van Mol 38:38
you had any like contact or updates about him, other than he's getting out.

Angela 38:45
Yeah, so as a as a victim of a felony, I get updates. And I will tell you that every time I get an email from Minnesota choice, I get sick to my stomach, and there's been a lot of communication in the last year, because he keeps getting new case managers, or whatever they're called. So every time he gets like, a change of case manager, I get notified. Every time he gets transferred to a different facility, I get notified. And I mean, there has been escapes from the facilities that he's been in.

Caitlin Van Mol 39:22
There have been two major escapes from MCs Leno lakes, the prison where Myers is held, one in 2017 and one in February of 2025 though Myers wasn't involved in either, and I've

Angela 39:40
been panicked when you hear on the news that three inmates were, like, broke out of this facility, and I'm like, loot that down in my stomach, yeah, call me calling whoever I can to get who was it? Was it my like,

Caitlin Van Mol 39:58
yeah, and I'm sure. Every other victim is also right, same thing. Do you have any interest in talking to him?

Angela 40:06
Oh, that's a great question. I've thought about it, but you know, it's, it's a lot like, do I give a statement to the parole board when he's up. Do I give him the satisfaction of knowing that I still am affected? I really go back and forth on that, because I feel like I need to assert my voice, yeah, but at the same time again, I'm marginalized. It doesn't really matter what I say, because, as you know, the pot, like Minnesota two thirds in 1/3 out. Like, that's just the way that the cookie crumbles. Yeah, so, like, I go back and forth on the mat, and also the same with him, like he is so mentally ill that I don't I think it would be frustrating for me to have a conversation with him. And the reality is, I mean, I knew what he was gonna do. I mean, the psychic told me that, like he was going to rape you and he was going to murder you, though, yes, she said, psychic, literally, this happened to me, and I'm trying to make sense of bigger picture. And I'm not sure if we were signed up before the assault happened, but some of my friends have went to this psychic before, and she does like community events where it's like an auditorium of people, and she just walks around and reads people. And so it was me and like, four or five friends, and I just happened to have an appendectomy. So I had this incident happen to me, and then six months later, I had an appendectomy. Oh, and she's walking around, and she stops right in front of me, and she looks at me, and she's holding her stomach, and she's like, Do you have a new scar? And I was like,

Caitlin Van Mol 42:07
I have several. Thank you. Like,

Angela 42:10
yeah. And then she stops, and she said, your grandfather stopped you from passing over. Okay? I mean, I super emotional, like my my friends are taking notes, because at this point, I'm like, what is happening right now? Yeah, and she told me that I was going to go public with my story, and I was going to speak publicly about my about what happened to me. So then I went and I had a private reading with her, and she told me that my first born was going to be, there was going to be a seven involved in his birth, and he was born on the seventh. I mean, just like, crazy, crazy, crazy things like, and I just can't stop thinking about, like, the fact that my grandfather stopped me from passing over. So like that confirmed to me that I was here for a reason.

Caitlin Van Mol 43:04
Angela and her husband have two boys together, but their birthing plan for their first had to be approached from a trauma perspective. Previously, the only time Angela had been in the hospital was after the attack,

Angela 43:20
so when I was pregnant and we toured a hospital, I just looked at my now husband and I had said, Honey, I cannot, I cannot have a baby in this environment. And he's like, I respect you, I trust you. It's your body. I'm there to encourage you and support you and do whatever I can to get baby and you safe, right? So I chose to have an out of hospital birth at a birth center which was across the street from the hospital, sure. Well, long story short, I ended up in the hospital because of complications and baby number two, since I discovered that the hospital was a trigger between one and two, what did I do? A whole lot of EMDR, so by the time baby two came, we were like, Oh, well, we need to be in hospital because we know like complications happen. And baby number two came, and it was fine. We had a great birth experience. I was able to have an unmedicated birth because I needed to have control of my body. The postpartum was my second one, and I ended up having to do EMDR all over again, because I would be nursing my baby and have visions of him be being taken from my arms by him, I would have nightmares of him going to my kid's daycare and taking both of them. And so I feel like the trauma has became like I am a i. I'm very protective of my children. And my children are both in karate. They are going to know how to defend themselves. They both know what happened to mommy. In fact, my youngest had made some comment about like, I'm gonna hurt you or something, to his big brother, to his big sibling. And I stopped him, and I took that as a learning opportunity, and I said, Look, in this house, we do not hurt anyone, because Mommy was hurt at the hands of someone else. And mommy almost died, and I showed him that picture of the stab wound, yeah. Said this is what happened to mommy at his face, yeah, and, and then he started asking questions, Daddy, why didn't you save mommy? And I looked at him and I said, Mommy did not need anyone to save her. Mommy saved herself. I want to be perfectly clear on this situation, that you understand that women are independent. They do not need a man to take care of themselves, and that they they are fully capable. They very well know. And then, you know, kids are kids, and they go to school and they're like, Well, my mom was stabbed, and it's like, in front of all of his little friends. And you never know what these kids like when you come home and say, So and so this so and so that it's like, who's telling the truth, and he was lying while

Caitlin Van Mol 46:42
she was taking care of herself and working through everything mentally. The physical marks on her body were permanent reminders of what happened to her

Angela 46:51
throughout my pregnancy, conceiving, caring baby, delivery, nursing baby, every time I would look at my belly, I would see the stab wound scar. It was a constant, remote, constant reminder. I got to the point where I said, Enough is enough. There are doctors out there that can help me. For a reason,

Caitlin Van Mol 47:19
Angela's stab wound. Scar was initially horizontal. She found a doctor that would revise the scar so that it was vertical instead, and this completely reframed the way Angela saw it.

Angela 47:32
So now I have this scar that this amazing surgeon put on my body created with love and admiration and support, and I chose to put this on my body. So I reclaimed my stomach and put something there that I can look at and think, oh my gosh, that doctor. I felt so loved, I felt so supported. I felt, heard, I felt all the things. And the day that I walked out of her clinic after having that surgery, I felt like the black cloud that was over my head was no longer there.

Caitlin Van Mol 48:22
This is live to tell. I'm Caitlin Van Mol. You can follow the show on Instagram and Tiktok at live to tell podcast. If you enjoy today's episode, please rate review and subscribe. It really helps the show. I'll see you in two weeks. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai