Rhonda Williams waited 40 years to tell her story publicly.
For a moment, she thinks it’s her dad. Then she opens her eyes and sees it’s Dean Corll, the electrician who’s renting this house in Pasadena. She looks over and sees her friend Wayne Henley handcuffed, his feet bound, his mouth duct-taped. She looks to the other side, and there’s the boy Tim she hadn’t met until the night before, when she escaped from her father’s home in the Heights. He’s tied and taped, too.
Dean’s still berating her when she looks down at her own body and realizes she’s also been tied. Dean never liked her — never liked any girls — but this is unexpected. Dean had disappeared before she passed out; retreated to his bedroom, saying something about having to work in the morning. The three plopped down on the living-room carpet and got to feeling good. Wayne and Tim were huffing acrylic paint from a bag; all three shared shots of Wayne’s dad’s moonshine. She had taken a puff of a joint that one of them passed her way, and then it was lights out.