Hi, I Survived listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And before we get into this week's episode, I just want to remind you that episodes of I Survived as well as the A&E Classic podcast's cold case files, city confidential, and American justice are all available ad free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation Channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now onto the show.

This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

He put the gun to my head and you said, if you don't go upstairs with me, I'm going to shoot you in front of your children.

Real people. If we hit the water, we were going to cartwheel, the plane was going to come apart,

and I was going to bounce around and kill everybody inside the cockpit. Who faced death?

There's snakes, there's alligators. Everything you can think of, they will eat you smelling fresh

blood. And lived to tell how.

I remember looking back at my children and their faces were just, I mean, frightened.

Just terror.

This is I survived.

It's May 2007 in Norfolk, Virginia.

Dawn is minding a beach house for friends who are away.

She is there with her six- and nine-year-old daughters when the doorbell rings.

I looked up in the door open and I saw four individuals walk in.

They kind of reminded me of young

teenagers. They all had guns and they were pointing them at me and said, we're here to rob you.

I just said the first thing that came to my mind was you can have anything you want. Just don't

hurt my kids.

The men told Dawn and her daughters to sit on the couch. They proceeded to ask me where the safe was,

where the money was. I just told them I didn't live here and I didn't know where anything was.

They grabbed my purse, emptied my purse out on the table, grabbed the cell

phones, anything that they could literally get their hands on and put in their pockets.

...