Woman escapes from assassin who froze one of his victims

Lydia Tillman considers herself as a lucky woman, not for her multiple trips around the world or her wine knowledge, but for escaping alive from an assassin who had frozen one of his victims.

Thirty-year-old Tillman spent five weeks in a coma after being raped, strangled and left for dead in her Fort Collins apartment by her attacker, identified by police as Travis Forbes, a local businessman. Now her case will be broadcasted on national TV as a special report. The ABC network has decided to vent the details of Tillman’s brutal attack and miraculous recovery in a special report on its show 20/20.

“I can talk… and I am strong”, she says with a lot of effort, a sommelier and a globetrotter, in an interview with ABC. The woman remembers how she met her attacker during an Independence Day celebration this past July 4th. Later in her apartment, he raped her and strangled her, broke her jaw and left her for dead. Not to leave traces, he sprayed her and the apartment with bleach, and set it on fire.

Tillman, according to ABC, jumped out from a window on the second floor and ran to an ambulance. In the hospital, she was so unrecognizable due to the injuries on her face that her parents could only recognize her by a ring and a tattoo on her leg. The woman did not previously know Forbes and did not know he was already being investigated by police regarding the disappearance of Hispanic woman Kenia Monge, 19, this past April.

Surveillance cameras on a bakery where Forbes rented space to make and sell energy bars; show him dragging a portable cooler which he stored inside a big freezer. Forbes told police he hide his victim’s body in the freezer before burying it on an empty lot. He had cleaned his truck with bleach and burned everything to hide his crime. His obsession with bleach, according to police, was the clue that helped link both cases.

Before killing Monge, Forbes was on parole for a domestic violence case and had other issues with police on his record. Forbes confessed both crimes in exchange for being spared the death penalty. Despite serious damage to her throat and brain, Tillman said: “My intention was to find the strength in my heart to forgive Travis Forbes. I did it.”

“I ...