Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started today, I just
wanted to mention that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against
animals and or humankind. Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences
due to the content nature of this podcast. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hey, Shelbs. Hi, how are you today? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm excited that you're
here today. It's always nice to catch up with you on video. I know. So hello everyone. I'm
Deb. I'm Shelby. And Beth is off doing her thing again. So when she's not available,
I always try to pull my daughter in and she did a great job last time. So we thought we'd
give her another try. Yes, I had fun. Oh, hey, before we get started, we were talking
about teachable moments and things like that. So what did you want to share about teachable
moments? That raising children is hard. And like you said earlier, there is no manual.
There is no manual. Do you find it easier between the first and second child? Yes, they're
so different. You know, with the older one, she's very, very smart. I feel like she kind
of has an old soul. And so you tell her something one time and she just soaks it in. And you
know, if you tell her, don't do something, then she's not going to do it. But with the
younger one, it's the complete opposite. Yep. You can't compare apples and oranges for sure.
Well, not at all. So we're trying to teach about love and you know, how you want to treat
people. We just, yes, just trying to teach them how to be respectful to others and you
know, the right and wrong way to kind of go about speaking to people. Speaking and treating.
Yes, speaking and treating people. That's a great segue into what we're talking about
today because this story has nothing to do with that golden rule. That's for sure. So,
okay. You ready to talk about this story? I am. It's a lot different than what we talked
about last time. It is very different from the last time. And I'm going to give a couple
disclosures. I always put that disclaimer at the beginning of the show, but I do want
to give a disclaimer that there is a lot of violence in this episode. And then also I
wanted to go over a couple of pronunciations. I know I'm going to mess up, but we're going
to be talking today about a woman named, I'm going to say Ellison Botha to start off with,
because I'm sure that's how most Americans would pronounce this, but Ellison is actually
from South Africa. With that, we know pronunciations are a little bit different. I was not able
to see how to pronounce her last name on any of the sites that I went to or any of the
references, but I did see in one or two areas that there's a couple different ways to pronounce
her last name, which is Boito or Bo-ta. And it's spelled B-O-T-H-A if anybody wants to
go look that up. And I'll certainly put some links into our show notes. So I wanted to
at least give you guys that, that we're talking about Ellison Botha today. And there is quite
a lot of disturbing content if you want to skip this episode for sure, but please come
back to us next time. So-
Yes. And if anybody does figure out the correct South African pronunciation, shoot it to us
in an email.
Absolutely. Here we go. You ready?
Ready.
So Ellison Botha was born on September 22nd, 1967 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She
was brought up in a home with her single mother and her older brother, Neil, after her parents
divorced when Ellison was 10 years old. On December 18th of 1994, Ellison's life changed,
not for the best, but it pretty much changed her life forever. And at that time she was
27 years old. And before I get into the details, I do want to start off shelves by telling
you that Ellison in my, for lack of better terms, is a complete badass in this entire
situation. She is the poster, I don't want to say poster child. She's a complete image
of survivors and strong women. So I just, I mean, I'm excited to tell you her tale just
from the fact that she's so strong. I'm not excited. Yeah. I don't want to really, I'm
not going to say I'm excited to tell you the details, but where she is today because of
everything that happened to her in her life at this point is absolutely amazing. I do
want to give a spoiler alert. Ellison did fall victim to some attackers. And so she
is very vocal about her own carelessness in the situation and what happened. I'm going
to say it's not really her fault. I don't know how you are. Do you pay attention to
your surroundings when you're out and about? Oh, all the time, all the time, whether I'm
in parking lots, grocery stores, it does not matter. I love true crime. And so just from
that, I've kind of learned to be very aware of my surroundings. You never know in this
world and I'm teaching my daughters to be the same way. Good. I hope I taught you that
when you were growing up. Good. Because really what happened is that she was just doing her
thing and basically somebody came out of nowhere, which I'll get into, but Ellison does take
ownership of some of the events that led up to her attack. And she's now a public speaker
and an advocate for victims and also considers the fact that she does go out to publicly
speak about what happened to her is a healing moment for herself, but it's a teachable moment
for others. And we were just talking about teachable moments.
Allison wrote a book called I have life. And she also has a documentary that I watched.
And this is actually one of the things that I was really interested in when I first started
thinking about doing a podcast. This was definitely at the top of my list. So anybody who has
Amazon prime, there is a movie called Allison out there and I highly recommend that you
watch it. It is from multiple people's points of view. It's from Allison's. She's actually
the narrator in that movie. And she brings in the people that from the hospital system
that helped to care for her when she was brought into the hospital. It's just an amazing video
that you need to watch. And I feel like it's only about an hour or so. So it doesn't take
up a lot of time. I'm going to have to kick the family out of the room. Yeah. Or put your
earbuds in, put your earbuds in and look at your tablet. That's what I do. You can also
find an interview out there on YouTube called Allison both as incredible survival story.
When I was researching this, I just was trying to look past just the prime video. So I was
looking out there on the internet to see if there's anything else I found. And I found
a really good YouTube video where Allison was being interviewed by news media on a storyline,
probably like, you know, first thing in the morning when people get up and watch those
new shows. Anyway, Allison is, like I said, she is a bad ass and I'm sure she is one of
the strongest people I've ever gotten to know through media and such as that because of
how she survived and how she refuses to play the victim and all of this. And during one
interview, Allison was asked how she dealt with the aftermath of this traumatic event.
Yes, I am leading up to some traumatic events. So this is my teaser for you today. I want
you to keep on listening. Allison said that although she initially suffered from depression,
as would most people in the situation, one day she just asked herself or said to herself
on the night of this attack, I had to choose between life or death and I chose life. My
attackers already had their moment, but they don't have power over me now. I mean, that
is such, yeah, I know I've got goosebumps too. So I'm going to go ahead and start into
this attack. Allison arrived home at 1am one night in December on December 18th of 1994
just after spending the night out with her friends. Earlier in the evening, Allison and
her friends spent the day at the beach and eventually ended up back at her apartment,
probably to play cards, watch some movies, just to hang out with her friends. And she
ended up having to take one of her friends home. When she drove back to her, I'm going
to call it a flat, she lives in a flat, but when Allison drove back to her flat, she was
not able to find a parking spot close to her house. Basically, if you imagine going into
a residential area like apartment buildings or houses, flats, whatever, then you always
see a bunch of cars parked at the streets, right? So that's kind of where Allison was
at. And so she couldn't find a parking spot close to her house. She ended up having to
drive a little bit further down. And of course she was able to park where she was within
walking distance of her home, but she was not as close as she usually got. As Allison
parked the car, she began collecting laundry that she had just washed at her friend's house
that she had just driven home. When a man appeared out of nowhere and put a knife to
her throat, he ordered her to move seats, which trapped her inside of the car. Just
as calm as Allison was in her documentary and interviews that I watched, she remained
calm as she was kidnapped. The guy that was in the car with her, his name was Franz Dutoy,
who Allison stated that he originally said that his name was Clinton. So, hi, I'm Clinton.
Can you move over please? And Dutoy initially told Allison that he just wanted her to use
her car for about an hour. And when she offered it up, plus any money that she might have
had on her person, he did not accept. He just wanted to take her for a joy ride. Now to
make her feel at ease, he was asking Allison just small talk questions. Hey, do you have
a boyfriend? So in her words, it actually gave her a false sense of security. I don't
discredit that at all. Me personally, there's no way that I could get a sense of security
with a stranger in the car. But if he's saying that he only wants to use a car for an hour,
then okay. I mean, what are you going to do afterwards? Are you going to just get me out
of the car and take off with it? Well, yeah, with it definitely being after one o'clock
in the morning, nothing good happens after midnight. It would not end up well for anybody.
Absolutely. I agree. I don't even remember the last, well, I'm not going to lie. I was
out till midnight the other night and I was definitely aware of my surroundings. I was
doing something for work that kept me out until 11 and 30 at night. And basically I
was with a group of people, but we all linked up like partners. So if you and I were walking
down the street, we were all linked arm and arm, at least two of us at a time. So we were
walking in single file and we were linked with arms that way. We were with a crowd of
people. So I didn't want anybody to get lost. And that aspect, I think, you know, you always
kind of have to have a plan, especially if you're by yourself at night. So as they were
driving, Alison and Franz picked up a friend later identified as Tien. Now this is one
of those last names that I've heard. His name was Tienz, but you spell it like Kruger. You
know, if you want to make that reference to Freddy Kruger, you probably want to. So again,
I'm just going to call him Tienz because some of these names are a little bit difficult.
So they ended up driving out to a dark bushy area in Port Elizabeth again, which is in
South Africa. And once they arrived, the two men asked if she planned to fight them. And
Alison thought, no, I mean, why would I fight you? You're like, I'm up against two guys
here. So she basically said no in a calm manner again. And then at that point in time, I will
say this is a trigger warning. You might want to skip forward a little bit. They proceeded
to molest and rape Alison one after another. And if you could compare both guys, Tien was
probably the more vicious of the two and was extremely hateful. Franz on the other hand,
feigned himself to be a gentleman. He's the one that jumped in the car and said that his
name was Clinton, right? And he was the one trying to make small talk with her. So he's
the one that is feigning to be a gentleman. But I'm saying that if he was out there doing
what he did to Alison, I don't think he's any better than Tien. You know what I mean?
Sure. Once they had their way with her, both guys proceeded to take terms stabbing Alison
in the abdomen and pubic area in excess of 37 times. And gentleman like right clear or
Tien noticed that Alison's leg was moving or twitching at some point in time. He did
not feel like that was enough. So he just proceeded to cut her throat 17 times on top
of those 37 stab wounds. Alison was left to die as they drove away. She did stay in one
of the articles that the two men were determined to kill her. So they attempted to suffocate
her as well. And she recalls that do toy said he wanted to mutilate her reproductive organs.
Although that is not the injuries that she ended up having. I mean, she had some pretty,
pretty severe injuries when it was all said and done. Now I will say this in some of the
interviews that I saw, I had, and I might get to this in just a little bit, but Alison
was attacked so severely because these two guys, they're not squeaky clean. They don't
have a good reputation and this is not their first attack. They had multiple attacks on
other women. So basically the, the women that they had previous encounters with did survive.
And at some point in time, one of them, or actually both of them were pretty much threatened.
Go to the police, right? Uh, guess what they did? What they went to the police. So they
did not heed the warnings and they went to the police. So they were already identified.
Both of these guys decided that the next person they were going to attack was not going to
be able to live. And that next, yeah. So the next person was Alison. What was happening
after they left, Alison suffered disembowelment of her intestines. And are you aware of what
that means? I had to Google it. Yeah. For our audience, if you don't know, that is a
big word and disembowelment is basically when your intestines spill out of your body. As
she was being attacked, Alison continued to go internet of consciousness and did hear
what the two men were saying about, you know, do you think she's still alive? She played
dead so they wouldn't notice that she was still alive. She distinctly remembers the
conversation of the men asking, do you think she's dead? And while the other just said,
matter of fact, no one can survive that. Basically both guys thought the job was done. So they
went on their merry way. Wow. No, I just, I could not imagine. No. So Franz and Tien
pretty much left her to die in the out bush and Alison did fade in and out of consciousness,
but she distinctly remembers leaving her body. So you hear all these different stories of
how people are just observing themselves from up high, right? She does remember laying there
and asking herself if she wanted to live or die. And at that moment, Oh my gosh, I have
goosebumps again. Yeah, me too. Alison chose life. She also said that she had to make sure
that Franz and Tien never did this to anyone else. First, Alison wrote the names of both
men on a stone where she was left to die. So what was she, if she was writing this on
the stone, you know, she had to been using blood. And then I also saw like in the movie,
she was, she was writing their name in the sand because she was, the out bush was a sandy
area. So she also wrote, I love mom while she's laying there. Now afterwards, Alison
willed herself to get up to try to walk. And this is what she discovered that she was disemboweled
and her intestines were spilling out from her abdomen. She quickly used her denim shirt
to hold her intestines inside. And then she started to crawl for help. Even though she
was trying to make her way back to the main road where she was coming from, she knew that
crawling was not ideal for the situation. And she willed herself to stand up and walk.
Now once she was on her feet, Alison discovered that the muscles in her neck were also severed.
So she literally had to hold her head up with one hand while holding her intestines in the
other, inside her body with the other hand. She was able to manage to get back to the
main highway. And as soon as she got there, she collapsed. So she's in the middle of the
road from what I saw. And okay, Shelbs, what would you do if you came up on a person laying
in the middle of the road? I mean, obviously stop and try and see if they're okay. Absolutely.
I would assume that I would do the same thing, even if I were by myself or at least call
911, but one car just passed by. Didn't even stop. Come on, dude. I don't get it. Maybe
it was somebody by themselves or maybe they just could not believe what they were seeing.
So they just kept going. But a second car stopped and it passed her by. His name was
also Tien, but it's spelled differently, but Tien Eilard happened to drive by and he discovered
Allison lying in the road. He ended up stopping and as luck would have it, Tien was a veterinarian.
So although I'm sure there's a big difference between treating humans and treating animals
as far as these severe injuries, at least he has some kind of medical training, right?
Right. Yeah. So he was able to help Allison regardless. And one article that I found said
that he used his veterinary training to tuck Allison's thyroid back into her body before
calling for help. Now, interestingly enough, Tien was interviewed in that movie on Amazon
prime and he was saying, yeah. And he was saying that the ambulance, he stayed with
her until the, he was on the phone with the emergency people that he had called and the
hospital was only 15 minutes away. It took the ambulance 40 minutes to get to her. Now,
Oh my gosh. Did they not just take it seriously? I don't think they did. Probably maybe not
so much like when the call came in, you know, how if, if you've ever heard 911 calls, the
operator tries to get as much information as they can, right? They probably thought
that her, her condition was too severe and then she'd probably never make it to the hospital
and somewhere in there too. I think Tien ended up in the ambulance ride on the way to the
hospital with them. The EMTs were basically saying, well, she's not going to live with,
I mean, she's just, she's going to expire before we even get to the hospital. So in
his opinion, they weren't even driving as fast as they should be when the hospital was
15 minutes away, right? Right. And two, I mean, this was what almost 30 years ago now
when, I mean, technology was probably way different back then. And well, once they got
to the hospital, the doctors themselves could not believe the condition that Alison was
in the movie that I watched did an amazing job. Like I said, of interviewing all the
people that tended to her and one doctor in particular, his name is Dr. David Cummins
while he was interviewed and this is 30 years later, he was still visibly upset when he
was talking about this incident years later. How do you, I mean, I wouldn't be able to
forget seeing something, you know, that severe. No. And I'll tell you a little story. It's
a side note. I had a little bit of a traumatic experience last year on my way to work. I'm
pretty sure I told you this one. I was coming up on an accident while I was coming up on
a light. And of course, you know, the traffic was coming to a crawl. So I called my boss
and said, Hey, I'm on my way. I should, I can, I can see the light. It looks like it's
moving pretty well. I will be there momentarily, but I just want to let you know, I'm going
to be maybe a couple of minutes late. Right. So as I'm coming up to the light, I mean,
this is nowhere near coming up onto a person like this, but I did see, I'm just going to
say a dead body in the middle of the road. Now it was covered with a sheet. And to this
day, every time I come to that intersection, I still envision, I don't envision it every
day of my life, but I will say like talking about it right now, very vivid. And I mean,
I was very shaken up by that. I actually had to have somebody let me go into another space
and just sit there until I cried my eyes out for this human being. And I don't even know
why I was crying. I guess I was thinking about all these things of this person had a life
30 minutes ago. This person has a family and they're going to be getting, they may not
even had known yet. Yeah, absolutely. So I would have cried. Well, yeah, I mean, and
I did, I was crying for the humanity of it, but I will say when Dr. Cummins was being
interviewed and he was showing all those emotions so many years later, once you see something,
you, it's going to come back to you in a rush. And another doctor ended up pulling the sheets
back to show Dr. Cummins the wounds on his app on her abdomen, because he thought the
only injuries that she had was on her neck where she was stabbed all those times. Right?
She had those 37 stabs to her abdomen, like I said earlier, and all that caused extensive
damage to her. There was another doctor who was called to surgery and it turned out that
Dr. Cummins, I want to say he was an anesthesiologist, but the other doctor was called in to do surgery,
probably just for the neck area. And he's like, Oh no, I'm cross-trained on, and I have
the skillset to actually take care of Allison from head to foot. They brought their team
in and in all, Allison survived her injuries simply because even with the wounds to her
throat, her trachea was still intact, which gave her the ability to continue to breathe.
Now, according to Dr. Cummins had the blood vessels that supplied blood to the head and
the neck been severed, Allison would have bled out and died within three to four minutes.
So gosh, I do remember reading that while all of that was going on, she said that, you
know, all she saw was a hand going back and forth across her head, but she was just in
no, no pain at all. It was just kind of going through the motions of it without the pain,
which certainly not a good situation, but makes me feel better for her, I guess.
Yeah. And, and that's, I think the body's way to naturally protect themselves, the adrenaline,
you know, I'm going to go on and start talking about the arrests here because like I said,
Allison was able to write their names by the crime scene. And so they already had the perpetrators
names and once she was strong enough to talk to the authorities, she actually was able
to identify her two attackers as Tienz Crere and Franz Duteuil. The police found that Tienz
and Franz both committed two other attacks, like I had mentioned earlier on women before
this incident with Allison, and then decided she would be the one that they would kill
the next time, you know, as far as the next person that they were going to attack because
those two women didn't listen to their threats and they did go to the police. Franz and Tienz
were quickly arrested since Allison was able to write down the names of her attackers whenever
they showed her the pictures, she was able to identify them.
Really quick, if they had two, two women previously reporting them to the police, why weren't
they arrested before that?
That's a great question. Now I don't know what the timeframe is between these attacks,
but you're right. I mean, if they already identified them, then you would think, or
I'm going to say, I mean, I don't know, I would actually have to, I didn't research
it shelves, shame on me.
I mean, I guess, I mean, possibly something was done or they were brought in for questioning
or something because they knew that the other two women went to the police. And I'm also
questioning why was Allison maybe just randomly chosen? I wouldn't want what Allison had to
go through to happen to anybody else, but why, why would they not choose to go attack
one of the women that had told?
That's a great concept. And then two, like it was one o'clock at night, obviously they
were up to no good, but how could they just be in that same spot where Allison happened
to be driving up at one o'clock in the morning, you know? But you do have a good point. And
that would be interesting if anybody out there who's listening to this knows how to answer
that question. We would love to hear from you. I will say this now, Allison did identify
her attackers. And I did mention that she pointed at pictures and identified these two
guys wrote their names down, but that wasn't good enough for the police because in South
Africa, they actually need a verbal identification. So if you're going to accuse somebody of something,
you actually verbally have to say the name. The police told Allison's doctors that the
chances of charging Franz and Tian with Allison's attack needed a verbal identification. However,
Dr. Cummins was extremely hesitant to disconnect Allison from the trachea tube that she had
inserted all the way down through her throat, right? Because it could cause serious complications.
It could cause infections. Dr. Cummins went to Allison to talk to her about this procedure
so that she was educated. She did not hesitate. I mean, again, Allison, bad ass. She motioned
to just get the tube out. And she, as soon as the tube was removed, Allison stated both
attackers names without hesitation. Wow. Franz was brought to the police station and told
that he was being arrested. And he was shocked to learn obviously at that time that Allison
survived because you know, they had a plan and no one was going to walk away from something
like that. They were wrong. They were absolutely wrong. Allison was right. They were wrong.
I love it. Okay. Now once Allison was strong enough to talk to the authorities, she identified
her attackers as Tian's Claire and Franz do toy. Okay. So I'm going to talk a little bit
about the aftermath at the hospital. Allison endured ongoing surgeries and daily scrapings
of her abdomen. And that process or procedure is they had to scrape her skin until it bled
every day force new cells to grow. And she had to do this for months. Shelves. Oh my
gosh. She had multiple plastic surgeries on her neck. And although Allison admitted that
she suffered a great deal of pain, she continues to have health issues today because of the
attack, but she thanked everyone collectively who saved her life because you know, she was
again a strong individual and just did everything that she needed to do to get these people
behind bars. Now let's move on to the trial. Allison was ordered to take a psychic evaluation
before the upcoming trial, which was scheduled about six months after her attack. And would
you like to know why she had to get a psychic evaluation? Why? Because she was not showing
any outward anger towards her attackers. Oh my gosh. I'm not going to say that she was
the one that was, you know, on trial here, but you know, I told you from the very beginning,
Allison has a very even personality. Yeah. And she, I mean, just her disposition, her
disposition is so peaceful. She's just so peaceful. She was not, I'm the complete opposite.
If I were in that position, I am strong willed. I would want to get back at them. You are
strong willed. Not going to disagree with you there Shelves. That's just me, but yeah,
they would definitely get something coming to them verbally. Right. Yes. Yes. So she
wasn't showing outward anger, but she did admit that she was extremely angry on the
inside and all the things that she was asked to do from a legal standpoint. Let's take
the trachea tube out. I need to hear the names. Right. And then she was actually told that
she had to have those daily scrapings of her abdomen. They were documenting her healing
periods. Every time she went in, she had to get the scrapings and they would document.
And then she would be asked for them to take pictures of that area. She said in the interview
that she had to drop her pants on a dime so that they could document how her healing process
was coming along that so that they would have that for the trial. The court system required
the victim to physically stand in the presence of the accused. Now listen to this. She would
be required by law to place her hand on the shoulder of the person that she was accusing
because according to the South African court system for her to be physically present in
the same room and putting her hand on their shoulder, it proved that she was accusing
somebody of a crime. Can you believe that? I hope they've changed that law. They actually
did because believe it or not. Good. And they changed that law because of Alison's case.
Really? Yes. Now the police attempted a new approach during this process and they wanted
to place the accused in front of a one way glass. Now you've seen all these crime shows
where you've got people. Yeah. You can see out, but you can't see in. Correct. So they
actually put the two accused in front of that one way glass and they had a lineup. The victim
was able to identify them that way. So I'm assuming just from the video that I watched,
they had videos of the entire thing. So Alison could be standing right there in front of
the two people that were behind her, behind that one way glass so they could not see her.
She could see them. I mean, they had a lineup and she, without hesitation, she stood there
for just, I don't know, literally 10 seconds, looked at probably about eight or 10 people
in a lineup and said, um, they look a little bit different, but it's definitely number
this and number that. So she was able to identify her, her attackers pretty quickly. Now both
of the attackers were later diagnosed as psychopaths and in their words, they were Satanists, both
Tiennes and Franz pled guilty to kidnapping, rape and attempted murder and were sentenced
to life in prison in August of 1995. And I had mentioned that they both identified themselves
as Satanists, but authorities highly doubted this to be true during their investigation
and incarceration, but authorities highly doubted this to be true during the investigation
and incarceration because Franz asked for a pastor to come in and have demons cast out
of him. And the person who performed an exorcism later testified in court and stated that Franz
mentioned two demons. One was Incubus and the other was Succubus. Incubus is known as
lying upon sleeping women to engage in sexual activity while Succubus is the spirit that
tortures males. But Franz was inconsistent on their description and was discredited from
his involvement with Satanism because he was just too contradicting on whatever it was
that he said to the person coming in to exercise him. Right. Okay. So I just wanted to make
a little notation on one of the detectives that was keeping up with both Franz and Tiennes
while they were going back and forth to court. I think he is also one of these guys like
kudos to him. His name is Melvin Humphle and he was the detective on the case during the
time, everything that went on from the beginning to the end. Now he straight up informed both
Franz and Tiennes that he was not going to handcuff them to and from the courthouse.
He had no intentions of doing that because if they ran, he'd shoot them. That's right.
Guess what? Neither of the two defendants ran. I'm going to say I, I would believe when
he had to say, but good for you Melvin for keeping that open as a food for thought. Right.
Right. All right. Let's move on to the parole because basically we do know that both guys
were convicted. And on April 7th of 1995, Franz Dutoy was sentenced to three life terms
with no chance of parole while Tiennes Clare was sentenced to one life term and 25 years
with no parole. On October, 2015, both of these defendants became eligible for parole.
Now the judge in this case, his name was judge Chris Janssen and he regarded both guys a
threat to society and he could impose the death penalty if he felt that it was just,
but at the time it would have been considered unconstitutional. So he was not able to impose
the death penalty, which is why the two defendants got the sentences that they were assigned
to. And he did put a note in each file, just basically saying that he regarded as both
Franz and Tiennes as a threat to society. Now, like I mentioned, both inmates became
eligible for parole effective October of 2004, which was extremely hard on Alison who said
that she did suffer from depression because of course she's not going to want them to
get out. Right. And she stated, she stated how hard she lived to survive and that these
guys get a chance to get out now to go amongst society again. And a woman from the United
States contacted Alison personally to ask her to help Franz get out on parole because
she was his fiance. What? Yeah. So I don't know, you know, you find these people that
are a pen, I guess they start out as pen pals. I was thinking that's probably how it started.
Isn't that amazing? I mean, contacted her directly. One, where did she get the contact
information from? Right. Right. So Alison emailed the authorities to find out how to
keep both guys behind bars. And in this email, she requested to keep this inquiry confidential,
but guess what? The email was printed and given to Franz straight up printed and given
to Franz so that he could see an email from Alison saying, I really need for you to consider
that these guys remain behind bars and who's in charge. Right. Right. Now at the making
of the documentary that I was watching, Franz also demanded a couple things from the producers
of the movie. And he wanted a letter from Alison saying that she forgave him. Franz
wanted a backdated profit share from Alison's public speaking appearances and book sales.
He said, because if it weren't for him, Alison would not have a success story to share with
the world. Now, finally, somebody had some kind of common sense because these requests
or demands, if you want to put them that way, were denied. And basically Franz got nothing.
As far as I could find, both of these guys are still behind bars, but keep in mind that
they will continue once they reach, you know, whatever the process is in the, in the parole
process, they will still have an opportunity to get out on parole even to this day. Wow.
I'm not very familiar on, I mean that process, but they should not be able to get out. Absolutely.
Now, I just wanted to kind of end things with letting you know that Alison does have a message
about this whole situation. After the attack, Alison did suffer from trauma and depression
as anybody would. She did choose to leave her job at some point and go on the road as
a public speaker and an advocate against rape and violence because she found this to be
a way of inspiring other survivors to come forward with their stories. Now, she did say
that talking about it really, really was very therapeutic. And once she talked once, she
wanted to just keep going. I had mentioned earlier that she had a choice between life
and death. And she had two reasons because before she began attempting to crawl for help,
I had mentioned that she could see herself above her body. And at the time, of course,
when your body's in shock, you know, you just don't really know how you're reacting. But
at the time, when she did see herself above her body, she did not realize she was watching
herself. And she didn't realize it was herself. Ultimately, Alison felt a sense of peace,
which I can see obviously because of her demeanor. I mean, she's just a beautiful person, beautiful
heart, beautiful spirit. So secondly, after she began to crawl, she knew she was ready
to die, but she was not willing to die at someone else's hands. From that moment, when
she chose life, she knew that she would have to do something. And that is when she got
up and she first started to crawl, but she got up and walked. And that, oh gosh, I, again,
I have goosebumps. Yeah. Now she feels in the whole scheme of things that men need to
be made aware of this type of violence as well, because it's not just a, you know, a
attacker to victim issue. It's basically a societal issue that needs to be addressed.
I mean, you know, you do have some family members or some cultures that look down towards
women a little bit more than other societies do, but she did state that there needs to
be programs out there that makes men aware that this type of violence can be prevented.
And if you do have a situation that occurs, and if you're put into something similar as
this, then you might want to talk to someone obviously, because eventually it's going to
come out on the surface one way or another, because Alison was holding everything in,
right? And she did mention that you have got to talk to someone because it will come out
one way or another. I do want to kind of end with this, but in 1995, Alison received recognition
for several awards. She received the Rotarian Paul Harris Award for courage beyond the norm
in 1995. She also won the woman of courage award from Femina magazine. She was awarded
the Port Elizabeth city citizen of the year. And then she also received the Africa magic
viewers choice award in 2017 and also got best documentary in 2016 for amazing everything
that she has put out there for survivors. Alison's book, I have a life was translated
into seven different languages and became a best seller, which sold over 90,000 copies.
Now, the cool thing is, is that Alison beat the odds and eventually went on to have two
sons. Now remember the two perpetrators were trying to injure her reproductive organs,
but she has two sons out of this and she is doing very well from everything that I've
seen any from the time that this occurred to today. She's just a phenomenal, phenomenal
human being and amazing. God had a plan. Yes, absolutely. So, um, I did want to say really
quick one really, really cool thing that I had found was the gentleman who was the one
who found her, who called nine one one, the veterinarian, yes, TN I learned, uh, he actually
after he went on to save her life, he switched career paths and went into, uh, or I'm sorry,
moved from being a veterinarian to a medical doctor and actually was the doctor to deliver
her second son. Really? Now. Oh my gosh. This story, so many goosebumps. I know this awesome.
He changed his career path because of Alison's story. He did. I love that. I could tear up.
I know me too. This is, I don't know. I mean, you know, at least you're getting something
good. Yeah, something bad. Well, there we have it. That's Alison both Alison. Oh my
gosh. You are my hero. You are a bad ass. Yes, you are. So, um, I'm so, so grateful
that I came across your story and gosh, I mean, if I were to meet you one day, I w I
just, I would be, I would just be starstruck. You're just an amazing human being. So, okay.
Well there we have it. We are done with Alison and I don't know, do we have anything else
that we want to share? Yes. Um, just really quick instead of introducing me as shelves,
I do believe I should be interested introduced as shelves and cat. This is only the second
time I've done the podcast, but I am sitting here in my bed and I have both of my beautiful,
amazing cats just sitting here and laying with me. I know the audience can't see, but
you want to see. Of course I want to see. Now I will say this the last time that Shelby
recorded with me, as soon as I turned the recording off, she's like, okay, do you want
to see what I've been looking at this whole time? I'm kind of obsessed. So they're spoiled.
She is cat obsessed. We will tell you the story about her. What is it? A thousand, a
$7,000 cat. Yeah. My thousand dollar cat or $7 million cat. Yeah. It just keeps growing
and growing. She'll be going back to the vet probably this week. And I'm, I don't know,
this might be the right channel because it's pretty gruesome, but I'll save that for next
time. Okay, great. Can't wait to hear that. All right. So thanks for listening. I hope
you enjoyed the podcast and I hope you keep listening. You can visit our website at dying
to be found.com. Just like you see on the logo, you can find us on social media, social
media at dying to be found. Sounds good. Okay. Well, thanks shelves. Anything else to add
shelves and cats? Okay. I'm going to write that down. You have a great week and thank
you. I look forward to being here next time. Great. Sounds good. And again, just visit
our website. Shelby's picture is on the website as our drop in guests. So if you have any
questions for us, let us know and we will talk to you next week.