259: What if you survived a serial killer?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services.

Today will be the last episode before our annual three-week holiday break, until we return with new episodes on January 10th. During the break, we will be rebroadcasting three episodes from the back catalog, one of which had been removed and will be restored for the first time in over a year. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday break, and I look forward to coming back with brand new episodes on January 10th.

And now for today's episode, the story of Jane Borowski, the only known survivor of the Connecticut River Valley serial killer. I consumed myself so much with, why did this happen to me? Why did he do this to me? And when you ask that question over and over again, and you have no answers, it eats at you. And it ate at me for a long time.

From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 259. What if you survived a serial killer?

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. I grew up in Massachusetts mostly. I did move around a lot. My parents divorced when I was really young. My mom was a single mom. You know, we never owned a home. We just moved a lot from different apartments.

I can remember my mom struggling sometimes, but we always had food on the table, decent clothes on our backs. I was a pretty happy child. I was pretty carefree, I'd say. My teenage years, I wasn't really home that much. I was hanging out with my friends and experimenting with the drinking. And school was kind of difficult for me academically.

And I ended up dropping out of school when I was probably 17. My mom kind of gave me, you know, the choice. You either go to school or you find a part-time job. You're not going to sit home on your butt and do nothing. So, you know, I chose to work. At first, I worked some tobacco fields in the summer. You know, it was $4 an hour, maybe, if that. But I actually kind of liked it. I didn't see my dad a lot.

It was kind of difficult not having him that much in my life. I wish he was in my life more, but my dad was a good man. He was a hard worker. He served in the service. He was a veteran of foreign war. He was very proud of that. He was very involved with the VFW. He was a very good man. I'd see him maybe two weeks out of the year. We'd go to his house and spend two weeks with him in the summer.

When I turned 18, we were living in Mass, and I decided I wanted to go to New Hampshire and visit some friends that I had up there in the same town that my dad lived in. So I went up there, planning on maybe a week, and my friend took me to a party. And I knew nobody at this party except for her. But I ended up meeting Dennis Hickman.

We fairly quickly formed a relationship. He would pick me up after he got out of work every day. You know, we'd either go to the bars in Brattleboro or we'd go to one of his friends' house and hang out. And then we decided, you know, I'm not going back to Mass. I was going to stay in New Hampshire. And so his parents very graciously let me move in with them. I ended up getting a job. I was a cashier over there.

Then for a little while, I ended up working with my dad at the paper mill here in town. It was probably the first time I actually got to really know who my dad was. I would like to say I was a typical 18-year-old experimenting with adulthood, hitting the bar scenes and going and dancing and listening to bands. Nothing was ever scheduled in my life when I was 18.

I had no goals and dreams. I was a teenager. I was 18. I had no responsibility but myself. Me and Dennis had been together for about three years. And that's when I found out that I was pregnant, which was a shocker. I was processing it and thinking, oh my God, this was not planned. And I was never planning on being a mom ever.

I obviously immediately told Dennis and he was about as surprised as I was. And, you know, we fairly quickly decided that I was going to have the baby. My body was changing. My hormones were roaring. And it was hot and humid that summer. And I was very uncomfortable.

going through morning sickness and being nauseous all the time. I was very, very moody. And me and Dennis started fighting a lot. You know, I was still young. I was 22. I was kind of insecure with my body and felt insecure with myself. The fights just progressed more and more and more. So we separated for a while.

So I think I was about six months pregnant. And every summer over in Swansea, New Hampshire, they had a county fair.

The fair was coming up and I wanted to go. Couldn't find anybody to go with me. So I ended up going to the fair by myself, ran into a bunch of my friends and everyone had to come up to me and do the baby belly rub and, you know, ask me how I was doing. And I ended up running into Dennis's mother. So we were walking around together for quite a while.

We found these coin push machines and we played those machines for a couple of hours. She would win a token and I would win a token. And if you got a token, you would get a stuffed animal. We'd be like, oh, there's another stuffed animal for the grandbaby.

And then it was getting late. Everything was pretty much shutting down. So I had to have been about 10 o'clock, 10.30 at night. And it was hot that night. It was so hot. I had my bag of stuffed animals. We must have won about 15 stuffed animals. And I said my goodbyes. I walked to my car. I was driving a 1985 white Firebird. I loved that car. Loved it.

I was really thirsty, so I figured I'd stop and get a soda on my way home. The store would be closed, but they had soda vending machines outside. I pulled in and I parked right in front of the soda vending machine. I was ruffling through my pocketbook and found some change and went to get a soda and the dang soda machine ate my money, never gave me a soda.

So I went back to my car, found some more change, went back to the soda machine and ended up giving me two sodas at that time. So I got back in my car and I opened one of my sodas and I was sitting there and went to take a sip and I was getting ready to pull out. And this vehicle I pulled up beside me. I really didn't think anything of it.

But I noticed in my rearview mirror that he started walking behind my car and then came up to my driver's side door and asked me if the payphone was working. And right as he did that, he opened my door and tried to grab me and pull me out of the car. So we started struggling. And I started screaming. I just started screaming as loud as I could. I screamed so loud, I broke blood vessels in my eyes.

I was kicking him and I actually got my feet up between me and him in the steering wheel. And as I was kicking him, I ended up kicking my windshield and smashing my windshield. And I was still fighting with him. I was really determined I wasn't going to go with him and I was terrified. I was terrified, but yet I was so confused because I didn't know what he wanted. I didn't know why.

He took out a knife and he said, maybe this will persuade you to get out of the car. And it did. So when he got me out of the car, I was standing up against my driver's side door and he was like holding the knife up against my neck. And I said, what do you want? And he said, you beat up my girlfriend.

By this time I'm like, "Oh my God, I have no idea what this guy is talking about now." And I was like, "No, I didn't beat up nobody's girlfriend." Then he started walking towards the back of my car and he said, "Well, isn't this a Massachusetts car?" And I said, "No, I have New Hampshire plates." I kind of put my guard down. Maybe this guy is just confusing me with somebody else.

At this point, I don't feel that threatened by this guy because he was walking away from me. He started walking towards his vehicle and then it dawned on me, I have a smashed windshield. I said these words that I will regret for the rest of my life. I said, hey, asshole, what about my windshield? And he turned around and he came back.

At that point, I did not realize what he was capable of doing. I was only 22. I hadn't experienced or even heard of that much violence. Swansea, New Hampshire, where I lived, in 1988, it was a very small town and it had virtually no major crime, no violent crime. And it was a very safe community.

So I didn't feel threatened at that time. But when he came back to me, I started feeling fear. And I didn't know how I was going to get myself out of this situation. When he came back to me, he put the knife up against my neck. And I was just terrified. And then I noticed a vehicle was coming down the road because I was on a main road too.

I thought to myself, okay, Jane, the only way you're going to get yourself out of this situation is you've got to run and scream and get their attention. I dashed for the road and I started running and screaming and waving my arms and they just drove by. The next thing I know, I could feel him. He just tackled me down like a football player. And the next thing I know, he just started stabbing me.

It was almost like an out-of-body experience. He just started stabbing me, and all I could think about doing was saving my baby. I had to do all I could to prevent him from stabbing my stomach. I could hear the knife go into my skin and hear the flesh as he was pulling the knife out. It was almost as if he just stabbed forever, forever. But then all of a sudden, he just stopped.

And just so calmly got up and started walking away. I'm thinking, where is he? Where is he? I can't see him, but I can hear him walking away. And he wasn't running away. He was just walking away. And I'm laying there on the ground and I'm thinking, I cannot believe this just happened. I couldn't believe that this guy just randomly stabbed me multiple times.

I hear his vehicle start and I'm thinking, is he going to run me over? So I got up on my hands and knees and the blood is just gushing out of me. I can hear it gushing out of me. I can feel it gushing out of me. All that was going through my mind was where was he? Where is he? And I knew the vehicle was coming because I could hear it. When he drove by me, it was like slow motion.

And I looked up at him and he looked down right at me. It wasn't as if he was just driving off and looking in front where he needed to drive. He intentionally looked down at me. You know, I did that. She's not going to survive and I'm leaving her for dead. And then he drove away. He never showed any urgency. He never showed stress.

I don't even really want to say he showed anger. He was so calm and cool. Everything that he did, holding me by my car, walking and looking at the license plate, stabbing me. It was just, he was so calm. Him being calm and so cool and relaxed about everything, it just confused me more.

I was confused with him saying that I beat up his girlfriend. I was confused when he mistakenly asked if my license plate was a Massachusetts plate. I was confused when he was stabbing me. I just couldn't, I couldn't understand why. And even till this day, I think if I had the chance, it would be the first thing I would ask is why?

So I eventually got up on my feet. At this time, I'm wobbling. I believe my body went into shock and I just needed to get help. So I walked to my car and I had a hard time opening my car door. Come to find out he had cut one of my tendons in my thumb. So every time I tried to flip the door handle up, it just wouldn't flip up because my tendon in my thumb was cut.

I have a lot of defensive wounds on my hands from his stabbing, trying to stab me in the stomach. But I finally got into my car and got my car started. A friend of mine lived about two miles down the road, right on that main road. I drove out of the parking lot and I started driving down the road. And the next thing I know, I'm behind him.

I had to get up, get in my car, start my car and go down and start driving down the road. And within two miles, I was behind him. So he wasn't even trying to get out of the area. He was just driving just as normal as normal could be. I couldn't believe I was behind him. He is going to see where I'm going. He's going to turn around and he's going to come back and finish me off.

I got up to where my friend's driveway was and he went straight and I went right into the driveway. I got out of my car. I didn't even close my car door. I didn't even shut my car off. I just went right up to the steps where my friend lived. It was hot and humid that night. So he was up and he had come to the screen door and I was just like, some asshole just stabbed the shit out of me. And I just collapsed on his steps.

I was awake, but yet I knew I was losing consciousness. And I knew I was losing a lot of blood. That was the moment that I reached the reality of, oh my God, I'm going to die. I just wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep. I can hear everybody talking around me. The door open and shut. It was almost chaotic, but yet I was almost like in a calm.

I was just so tired and just wanted to close my eyes. So my friend went and called for rescue and cops or whatever. Next thing I know, we hear a vehicle go by and just slam on their brakes. We hear the squealing of the tires. And I was just like, that's him. That's him. He's coming back. That's him.

My friend ran in and grabbed his gun. He was a hunter, so he grabbed his gun in the house, came out. And his brother-in-law lived next door, and he told him to go grab his gun. And then the vehicle just took off. I just laid there, and I know I was in and out of consciousness. The first cop that came on scene, I happened to know him.

Petey Farnham was the cop. And he looked at me and he was just like, who did this? What kind of vehicle were they driving? Where did this happen? Petey asked me if Dennis did this. And I said, no, it wasn't Dennis. It was just question after question. And I kept going in and out of consciousness. And just the way that he looked at me, I knew it was bad. And I think that's when I really got scared.

And I told them I was going to die. I'm going to die. And they're like, no, you're not. No, you're not. And then rescue came and brought me to the hospital.

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To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts. That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Check out our recently completed six-part series, The 82% Modern Stories of Love and Family, ad-free with your Prime membership. I don't think I realized how bad...

and how injured I was until I got to the hospital. I was so worried about my baby. I thought for sure that she was never going to survive. I was so scared. I remember being in the emergency room and there were these big bright lights shining right down on me.

I kept hearing a nurse or a doctor say, there's another one. Oh, I found another one. Oh, I found another one. And then I had another nurse trying to keep me awake. You know, Jane, don't close your eyes. Jane, stay with me. Jane, don't close your eyes. And then I hear them say again, oh, there's another one. There's another one. Every time they said there's another one, it was another stab wound they found.

The cops were there in the room and they wanted pictures. And then I hear someone say that Dennis was there. They let him come in. The look on his face was just horror. There was a lot of blood everywhere. And I don't know, for some reason, I thought he was going to be my hero or I wanted him to be my hero. And I was just like, you need to find the asshole that did this to me.

I think back and I wish he didn't see me like that because had I not made it, that would have been his last sight of me that he would have seen and that would not have been a good one. They wheeled me down to surgery and then of course I don't remember anything after that. And then I woke up in this room. I was hooked up to all kinds of machines. I had tubes on each side of me.

I woke up and opened my eyes, and I remember seeing Dennis in a recliner watching TV. And then I closed my eyes. Two days or three days went by. Every time I opened my eyes, he was there. I started coming to more. I started being more awake. That's when the detectives came in and wanted to get a composite.

It's kind of funny because I still had the ventilator in. So the way they did the composite, they had this box of like slides. They had different eyes, different noses, different face shapes, hair. They'd show me one and I had to blink once for yes and two for no. So the whole composite that they did was all by me blinking.

Afterwards, I thought about it. I was like, why didn't they wait till the ventilator came out? And then I could have spoke and done a much better composite. But then I realized they thought I was going to die. I think I was in ICU for five days on the ventilator. They finally took the ventilator out.

The doctor came in and I was able to talk for the first time. And that's when he pretty much described everything that happened. Two collapsed lungs, cut my jugular, stabbed a tendon in my hand and my thumb and hit a tendon in my knee. I ended up having a piece of my liver removed because he had lacerated my liver. I was ultimately stabbed 27 times.

Not one stab wound to my baby. It was amazing. I was still pregnant. I was so happy. I was relieved. But yet, I was still concerned. I still had a lot of healing to do physically. They had the monitor on my belly all the time to make sure that she was okay. Because at the time of my attack, I was seven months pregnant.

So had I had her then, she would have still been in danger. After the ventilator came out, I was still in ICU for a couple of days. I had eventually noticed that there was a cop outside my door. So I started asking some questions to Dennis. Who's that outside my door? And he said, it's police protection for you. And I said, oh, so that obviously meant that he had not been caught.

And he said, no, they don't know who did this to you. Dennis also prevented me from watching any news or reading any newspapers. He became very protective. After I was walking and I was able to start breathing on my own, they finally moved me to my regular room. And then the detectives finally came up to the hospital and

I was like, every day they came back, I was like, so did you find him? So do you know who did this to me? And every day it was like, no. And I was like, getting kind of frustrated and scared. I did have the police presence at my door at all times. Everybody had to be questioned before they came into my room. And then one day my mom was in the room.

And I finally asked her, I was like, what is up with Dennis with the newspaper and watching the news and stuff? And she's like, Jane, you're all over the news. All the newspapers, you're on CNN News, local news stations. And I was like, are you kidding me? She went out and got me one of the newspapers and I read one of the articles. And I'm like, oh my God, they put my name in the paper. This guy knows who I am.

All the news, vans and trucks, they were all outside the front of the hospital. I felt really, really bad for the nurses and everybody that had to come into the hospital because they had to walk through all of them. And of course, they were all asking questions. And I was so angry and upset that they put my name in the paper and on the news. I just couldn't understand that.

And I couldn't understand why this was big news. Then I got one of the newspapers a couple of days after. That's when I saw that there had been other women stabbed in New Hampshire. And they called the guy the Connecticut River Valley serial killer. They think I was stabbed by a serial killer. I was confused why the detectives didn't tell me this.

So when they came up that day, I questioned them. I said, you know, was I stabbed by the Connecticut River Valley serial killer? And they said, we believe so. And I said, how many died? And they said, seven. And I said, how many survived? And they said, you're the only one. I was 22 years

Still pregnant, just got done being stabbed 27 times by a serial killer. And this serial killer has not been caught yet. And I'm trying to process this. I've given them so much detail of the vehicle. I gave them a composite. I gave them details on what happened. Why would they not be able to find him?

That was just on my mind all the time. I just thought, you know, they're going to find him before I leave the hospital. I was convinced of that. And they didn't. When it came time for me to be released, obviously the first thing I said is, hey, this man over here by my door that's been standing there forever, one of them coming home with me? The detective said no. And that was probably the scariest thing for me.

going home with no protection. He knows I survived, obviously, because it was all over the news that I survived. He knows my name, so he's eventually going to find out where I'm living. Is he going to want to find me and finish me off because I can identify him? I'm seven months pregnant, and this is all I could think about. You know, he stole so much from me. He stole so much from me.

I was supposed to be excited about being a new mom. I was supposed to be getting ready to be a new mom. But at this time, I'm trying to figure out how do I protect myself and my baby when I leave this hospital? How do I do that? I had not a clue. The day that I left the hospital, I became paranoid. I became angry. I had so much fear.

was completely consumed. My whole life, my thoughts, everything was completely consumed with my attack. I felt as if there was no way I was ever gonna live a normal life ever again. I couldn't trust anybody. I never felt so unsafe in my life. I ended up moving back in with Dennis and his parents.

I felt pretty safe there, but I never went anywhere alone. And I was never home alone. And I was scared. I started having horrific nightmares. There were nights when Dennis would have to wake me up because I was having such a bad nightmare. And I'd wake up sweating. And he said I was flaring my arms and my legs like I was trying to kick something off me.

I had a lot of dreams of him chasing me in the woods or chasing me in the parking lot, physically chasing me. They were so bad that they were starting to control my everyday life. I wasn't sleeping. I didn't want to go to sleep because I knew I would have another nightmare.

paranoia set in really bad for me. I was paranoid about everybody, especially if I was in a store and somebody looked at me or really, really scared to be out in public because I was afraid I was going to see him or he was going to see me and finish me off. I look back and it's amazing to me how quick everything changed with me. The depression was so deep.

I cried so many tears in silence. Nobody knew. I hid so many feelings that I felt.

I had so many people come up to me and tell me, oh, you're so lucky to be alive. And I don't know if I could have been that strong. And I stood there and smiled and nodded to them. And, you know, yeah, thank you. But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, okay, yeah, I'm maybe lucky to be alive. But how lucky am I that this happened to me? It's going to affect me for the rest of my life.

How lucky am I that I got stabbed 27 times by a serial killer? I was so angry that this even happened to me. What choice did I have but to be strong and to survive for me and my baby? Obviously, they were concerned for me. I think people just didn't know what to say to me. Even my closest friends didn't.

In a way, I wanted to talk about what happened, but I think people just didn't know that I did want to talk about it. And I think people tried to avoid the subject. I went into a wicked depression because I couldn't understand why this happened to me. I wasn't going to live a normal life again, and I'm definitely not the person I was before.

I consumed myself so much with, why did this happen to me? Why did he do this to me? And when you ask that question over and over again, and you have no answers, it eats at you. And it ate at me for a long time.

Was I a mistake in identity? Or was he there hunting that night? Was he hunting women that night? And was I just a victim of opportunity? What happened in his life where he would turn so evil? You know, why is he so evil? And just knowing that he did this to me and almost killed my baby and he got away with it.

For some reason, I just wanted answers. I knew my due date was starting to approach. I was excited about having my daughter and I was very excited about being a mom. But it was almost like he stole some of that away from me.

I eventually was able to get my nursery together. I was given a baby shower and got some really cute clothes and stuff. So that kind of put me back into, okay, I'm having a baby and I'm excited about being a mom and

One morning I woke up and I felt as if I was in labor, but I wasn't sure because of course this was my first baby, so I wasn't sure. But I almost felt like something was wrong. So I woke him up and I said, you know, we need to go to the hospital. I believe I'm in labor. We got to the hospital and I felt as if something was wrong. So they came in and they put a monitor on me

All of a sudden, two doctors came in and a couple of nurses. They said that it looked like my baby was in danger. So they rushed me in this operating room, immediately knocked me out, and they ended up giving me emergency C-section. I woke up in this room, and they said that I had delivered an 8-pound, 8-ounce baby girl.

And I'm laying there and I'm thinking to myself, okay, I did not hear the word healthy. I'm looking around and I do not see my baby. So I instantly started asking questions. Where's my baby? Where's Dennis? They said, we're going to have a doctor come in and talk to you.

And they said my baby had to be shipped up to Lebanon where the NIC unit is for the newborns and that they didn't know if she was going to live or die. And he left. My placenta had separated and squeezed a bowel out of her and she ended up swallowing it and it turned to tar on her lungs. She was very sick.

Everybody in the room was crying. And I was just laying there and I was like, why does she have to fight for her life all over again? And I said, I want to see my baby before they take her. I may not be able to see her alive again. So they said, okay, you're only going to have a few seconds with her. I said, okay. Again, everybody's in my room and they wheel her in in this incubator and she's on a ventilator and she's got...

tubes coming in and out of her and IVs coming in and out of her. And I was terrified. But yeah, I was so sorry that she was going through this, that she had to fight for her life like this.

She was laying there and she had no blanket on her. And I was like, just put a blanket on her. I just wanted to go over and put a blanket on her. And I couldn't touch her. I could just look at her in this incubator. And they said that they had to take her. So I only got maybe a minute with her. I was just telling her, fight, fight, fight, fight. It was so hard watching her go.

I saw everybody crying and I was just like, "No, she's gonna be okay. She's gonna be okay." I kept telling everybody, you know, "She's strong. Look what she survived already." Inside, I was just a mess. Trying so hard to be positive that she was gonna make it. But yeah, I was so scared that I was gonna lose her. The next day I woke up and I was still in the hospital, obviously. I had a C-section.

So I told them I wanted to be up in Lebanon with her. So they agreed and they shipped me up to where she was up in Lebanon. I was on the same floor as she was and all that. I would stand by her incubator every day and just apologize. I think I said a million I'm sorry's to her.

I felt as if it was my fault that she was fighting for her life again because I'm the one that made the decision to stop for that soda. I'm the one that made the decision to stop. She had no way of making any decisions that night. This wasn't fair for her. So I got to see her every single day and every single day I went down there she was getting better and she was getting better and she was getting better.

And after about two weeks, they took her off the ventilator and I was able to hold her for the first time. That's when I knew how strong she was. We both were survivors. It was quite a while before I was able to take her home. I think I was about a month pregnant.

I got to take care of myself, but I've also got to take care of her. I don't know how to keep myself safe. How am I going to keep her safe? I mean, I couldn't even take her to the doctors by myself. I couldn't take her anywhere by myself. I had to have somebody still with me at all times.

After about six months after I had her, I started feeling, okay, you know, I can't live like this anymore. I'm going to start trying to live a normal life again. I just really wanted to try to separate my attack from my life.

I kind of convinced myself that I wasn't going to feel the fear that I had been feeling for the last eight months. I was not going to anymore. I was paranoid and I was scared sometimes. I never left the house at night, but I didn't allow it to control my life anymore the way it was.

I knew that if I hadn't made a change to not allow this fear to control me anymore, I wasn't going to be able to be the mom that my daughter deserved. And as time went by, you know, I kind of realized in my mind, all right, he's had opportunity to come back and, you know, finish me off. And he hasn't. So, yeah.

Over time, I started feeling a little, a bit more safer, but I still was going through a lot of anger, paranoia, and depression. My daughter turned three and the detectives contacted Unsolved Mysteries. And then they asked me if I wanted to be on Unsolved Mysteries.

I decided to do that. Obviously, my face was blacked out and my voice was distorted. That's when I really learned a lot about the others. Kathy Milligan and Elizabeth Betsy Critchley and Eva Morse and Ellen Freed and Bernice Kortomash and Linda Moore and Barbara Agnew.

It was like, I want to know more about them. I started doing a lot of reading about it and the reality of what really happened to these women. It was horrific. And then I started researching serial killers. I wanted to maybe find some answers to some of my questions. Do serial killers stay in the same area? Do they, you know, find a survivor?

Reading about a lot of these serial killers, I was able to find some answers to some of my questions.

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Most of it was recreational gambling. I went to bingo and I did some scratch tickets and that kind of gambling. But then very quickly, gambling became an addiction for me. It was almost like it was my way of escaping the reality of what really happened to me and how it was still very much a part of my life every day.

My gambling ended up progressing over the years. It was starting to affect my relationship with Dennis. You know, it was definitely putting a strain on our family. I belonged to the VFW auxiliary, where my father was a member of. I ultimately stole from them due to my gambling. I pled guilty and ended up going to jail.

But that was almost like a blessing in disguise because I was court ordered to seek counseling for my gambling addiction. That was the first time ever that I received counseling. With the counseling, it was focusing on my gambling addiction. And it was a couple of months after I had mentioned to my counselor about my attack. And she was like, why didn't you tell me before this?

She went over the computer and she printed out a paper and she said, here are most of the symptoms of PTSD. I want you to go home. I want you to read these symptoms. And then you come back and you tell me what you think. A couple of days later, I took it out of my pocketbook and I'm reading all the symptoms and I'm like, oh my God, I couldn't believe it.

I went back to her and I put the paper on the couch and I said, okay, I have PTSD. And in my mind, I'm thinking I'm going to have PTSD for the rest of my life. My life is never going to change. So now what? And she just looked at me and she said, we begin healing you. And I have never wanted to hear those words more in my life than I did at that moment.

It gave me hope. It gave me hope that, oh my God, I could have a better life because of this. So we started doing some really intense counseling. I mean, I literally had to strip myself naked of everything and rebuild myself back up. I had to address every single symptom of my PTSD and

It was a process. It was hard work. And when I look back at that 20-year gap between my attack and the day that I started receiving counseling, my life was not normal at all for those 20 years.

Even my closest friends and family didn't know how seriously gambling was controlling my life. They didn't know about my depression. They didn't know how much I was hurting inside. They didn't know the million tears I cried in silence. I hid so much. People have since said horrific things about me, me being a survivor.

It was shortly after Unsolved Mysteries was aired. I received a couple of letters. One told me that I needed to stop playing the victim card, take responsibility for my own actions. I'm the one that made the decision to stop and get that soda.

And then the other letter was pretty much telling me that I should be reported to DCYF. I should not have a child of my own. I put my child in danger again by making bad decisions, blaming me for my attack and the choices that I made.

These letters really convinced me for a long time that it was my fault. They bothered me for a long time, and I kept them for a lot of years. My counselor quickly picked up that I blamed myself for what happened to me and my daughter.

You know, she's like, why do you blame yourself? And I said, well, the letters tell me. And so I brought the letters in and she was like, oh, no. She's like, we're going to burn these. These are done. You're never going to look at these again. These people have their own issues and they don't know you. They weren't there. They don't know what you went through. They did not experience what you experienced. So they don't know what they would have done. And we burnt the letters.

It felt good. There were two things I had to do to really set myself free. I had to say, okay, Jane, this happened, but not allow it to control me anymore. It was a part of my life. I have to be okay with it. And with accepting that this happened to me, another thing I had to do was forgive. Forgiving was very hard for me.

For one, I don't have anybody to forgive because my attacker's never been caught. So how do I forgive? Two, how do I forgive somebody that tried to kill me? It was like very hard for me to comprehend forgiveness. And then I saw something on Oprah Winfrey.

A little bit of her definition of forgiveness was forgiveness is forgiving something that you had no control over. And I didn't have any control over my attack. So I was able to finally forgive. Okay, I forgive that this horrible thing happened to me and it doesn't mean it has to control me anymore.

So those are the two main things that I really, I had to do in order for me to find some peace. I'm living a happy, normal life. I have a wonderful relationship with my husband. My relationship with my kids is wonderful. I'm very much a part of their lives. They're very much part of my life. My daughter, she's 34 years old.

She's had struggles. She was diagnosed early on with mild cerebral palsy, but she is such a fighter and I'm so proud of her every day. She graduated from high school when nobody thought she would. She earned her diploma. She's an awesome mom. She blessed me with a granddaughter. She's just amazing. I have a great relationship with her. She's my best friend.

When the pandemic started and we were all in lockdown, my daughter and I started listening to podcasts. And my daughter was like, "Hey, let's punch up your name, see if there's any podcasts on your story." Sure enough, there was a few podcasts that came up. So we sat and we listened to it. Some of the information was not correct. It was very impersonal. It was more about the Connecticut River Valley Killer than it was about the victims.

So my daughter looked at me and she was like, you need to get the right story out there. This way you can say your story in your words, your way. That's when we decided to start a podcast, Invisible Tears. What I'm trying to do is more focus on the victims, the victims' families and survivors.

rather than the serial killer or the person that, you know, committed these crimes. Because I feel like we keep talking about him, the serial killer, then we're glorifying him.

You go online and you read about the seven victims that I just mentioned, and you don't see anything about who they really were or what they were like. All you see is the horrific thing that happened to them, their horrific murder. I want to try to change that and start focusing on victims, survivors, and families. I lived for so many years keeping my symptoms of PTSD to myself.

I never thought anybody would really understand how I really felt. I want people out there that suffer from PTSD but are afraid to move forward and seek help, I want them to know that they can live a happy normal life. I'm proof. I'm doing it. My attack and my PTSD controlled almost every aspect of my life.

I wasn't an attentive mother. I wasn't always there. I was always either working or gambling. Through the counseling, you know, after seven years, I realized, oh my God, I've become the person I've always wanted to be. I'm now living a happy, normal life.

I wake up every single morning and I say to myself, I am going to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I don't always work that way. I have my flaws like everybody else, but my life is so different today. I now know that I control me. I control how I feel. I control my destiny.

Today's episode featured Jane Borowski. Jane is the only survivor of the Connecticut River Valley Killer, who murdered at least seven people, whose identity still remains unknown and the case remains unsolved. Jane has started her own podcast called Invisible Tears, in which she shares more of her own story, explores other unsolved cases,

and gives a platform to expand awareness around trauma, PTSD, truth, and healing. You can find out more about Jane, her podcast, and connect on social media by visiting her link tree at linktr.ee slash invisibletearspodcast. That's linktr.ee slash invisibletearspodcast. ♪

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I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.