0:03

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night

0:05

to a stranger next to your bed. It's

0:08

what happened to dozens of women in

0:10

Miami and across South Florida when an

0:12

elusive serial rapist began a terrifying crime

0:14

spree in the early 1980s. In

0:18

a new season of Flonius, Florida,

0:20

exclusively on Wondery Plus, detectives embark

0:23

on a frantic investigation to stop

0:25

the cunning and dangerous predator who

0:27

was known as the Pillowcase Rapist.

0:30

The mysterious attacker never allowed his victims

0:32

to see his face, and

0:35

he left behind virtually no clues. He

0:38

became one of Florida's most prolific

0:40

serial rapists. And despite

0:42

one of the largest crime-stopping efforts in

0:44

the state, he evaded capture for nearly

0:47

four decades. From

0:55

the journalist at the South Florida Sun

0:57

Sentinel, Flonius, Florida, In the Darkness reveals

1:00

how an extraordinary stroke of luck may

1:02

have finally cracked the case. Who

1:05

was the man beneath the Pillowcase? And

1:08

how did he escape capture for so many years?

1:11

Here's a preview from episode 1. On

1:24

the night of September 6th, Mary Beth is

1:26

home by herself. Her boyfriend,

1:28

who also works for Eastern Airlines, is back at

1:30

his home base in New York City, and

1:32

her roommate is out for the night. I

1:35

had a flight that night. I came in

1:38

around one in the morning. And

1:41

what was funny was, you know, I had

1:43

my suitcase with me, and I left it

1:45

right in the doorway. Well, if a Robert

1:47

comes in, he'll trip over it. And

1:50

the things you remember are really funny, because

1:52

I was watching three days of the Condor

1:54

before I went to bed. She

1:57

watches the Robert Redford classic for a while. Then

2:00

falls asleep. But

2:03

not long after, a noise jolts

2:05

her awake. There's

2:08

barking. It's her neighbor's dog

2:10

on the first floor. Then

2:13

she hears a potted plant fall over on her

2:15

balcony. And I felt

2:19

something, you know, I had that

2:21

sense of someday there. Mary

2:24

Beth sits up in bed and looks over

2:26

at the doorway. And for

2:28

just a brief moment sees a shadowy figure of

2:31

a man before he

2:33

leaps at her. Everything

2:39

happened in an instant from Mary Beth Wright in

2:41

the early morning hours of September 6, 1981. The

2:45

stranger at her bedroom door gave her

2:47

no time to react or even to

2:49

see what he looked like. Moments

2:52

earlier he'd climbed up under her second floor

2:54

balcony and was at her sliding glass door.

2:58

It didn't lock very securely, so Mary Beth's

3:00

dad had wedged a broom handle in it

3:02

to prevent anyone from opening it from the

3:04

outside. But the intruder had

3:06

a butcher knife and he slid

3:08

the blade through the door to push the broom handle

3:11

away. Now he was lunging

3:13

at Mary Beth. And

3:19

I sat up in bed and he

3:21

leapt over at my roommate's bed and landed

3:23

on top of me and immediately

3:25

put a pillowcase over my head. You

3:28

know, proceeded to rape me. And

3:31

he said, if you call the PSD,

3:33

I'll know and I'll get you. And

3:36

I said, what's the PSD? And

3:38

he said, the Public Safety Department. He

3:41

talked to me, kept calling me Beautiful Lady,

3:43

things like this. And I

3:46

didn't see him, but I knew he wasn't

3:48

called. He was short.

3:52

And just from, you know, your

3:55

vision of what you could see. And

3:57

he had me tied up.

3:59

He tied my hands behind my back. And

4:03

he told her something that sent chills

4:05

down Marybeth's spine. Immediately,

4:07

she recalled seeing the stranger who was

4:09

staring into her windows. He

4:13

said, I know your roommate and

4:15

your boyfriend aren't home. That's why I came. And

4:18

that's why I think he was the one that was in

4:20

the other apartment watching. The

4:24

attack went on for about 10 minutes

4:27

by Marybeth's estimate. Maybe even

4:29

less. As her

4:31

attacker left her bedroom, he stumbled over the

4:33

luggage she'd left near her front door and

4:35

fled into the night. Somehow

4:37

still tied, Marybeth was able to get

4:40

to her phone. Instead

4:42

of calling the police, I called my boyfriend, who's

4:44

found my husband, and he called

4:46

the police for me. And he

4:48

called my girlfriend, who worked the national airlines at the

4:50

time, who was in the same apartment

4:53

complex. And she came over.

4:56

Her friend untied her and the police arrived

4:58

minutes later. By 9 a.m.,

5:01

Marybeth was at the hospital and her

5:03

boyfriend was on a plane from JFK

5:05

to Miami. Later

5:07

in the day, they returned together to her

5:09

apartment. I

5:12

think the worst part was coming home to

5:14

the apartment and seeing all the

5:17

black fingerprint stuff everywhere.

5:22

That really freaked me out. You

5:25

know, just seeing that made it real.

5:29

Marybeth couldn't stay at Elysian Lakes for

5:31

long. Within two

5:33

weeks, Eastern Airlines granted an emergency

5:36

transfer to Atlanta, and

5:38

she flew out of Miami, hoping to

5:40

leave the traumatizing ordeal behind forever. Except

5:43

that's not how it would go. And

6:00

Wondery app.