Washington teen who escaped serial killer in 1974 tells her story in new ID series
Norma and her daughter later uncovered new evidence linking her attacker to unsolved murders
On the afternoon of 17 July 1974, fifteen-year-old Norma Countryman was abducted at knifepoint in Washington state by a man who offered her a lift, tied her to trees in a forest, and left her for dead — before she managed to escape and run for help through the dark woods. Her story is the subject of a new episode of People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer, premiering on Tuesday at 9/8c on ID and streaming on Max.
PEOPLE Senior Crime Writer K.C. Baker features in the episode, titled "Surviving the Washington Woodsman," and details the investigation that followed Norma's escape.
The abduction
Norma had been walking the two-mile route from Battle Ground to her home in Ridgefield, hoping to arrive in time to see her oldest brother who was on leave from the Navy. She stopped to rest under a birch tree when a man in a light blue van pulled up and offered her a ride.
She initially declined, not knowing him. But the man appeared friendly and told her he was married with two children, and with the van's air conditioning offering relief from the heat, she reluctantly got in. They had not been driving long when the man swerved off the road, dragged her from the passenger seat, and held a knife to her throat, ordering her to stay silent.
Tied between trees
He cut off her bra and used it to gag her, then bound her wrists and ankles with rope and drove her deeper into the woods. The pair waited in the van until nightfall, when he pulled her to a clearing, hog-tied her, and secured her feet to one tree and her wrists to another. He punched her in the face before walking away, leaving her suspended between the trees, terrified and fearing for her life.
Drawing on every ounce of strength and composure she had, Norma freed herself and ran through the dark forest until she found someone who could help her.
Police doubted her account
Despite bearing bruises and deep rope indentations across her face and skin, authorities were initially sceptical. "But they still took a statement from her," Baker says in an exclusive clip from the episode.
Decades of reliving the trauma
The episode goes on to reveal that Norma had no idea at the time how many times she would be forced to revisit the attack in the years and decades that followed. She and her daughter would eventually uncover new evidence linking her attacker to a series of other unsolved murders.
People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer, episode "Surviving the Washington Woodsman," premieres Tuesday at 9/8c on ID and streams on Max.
