This episode contains disturbing accounts of extreme violence and sexual assault.

Listener discretion is advised.

Also, just another note about this episode.

We interviewed Ellen over Skype, so in parts of her story, the quality drops a little bit.

Well, I mean, there's been a lot of bizarre cases since mine.

I mean, you know, the ninja in the attic.

You don't hear that all the time.

In 1986, Ellen lived with her husband and two teenage children in Austin, Texas.

I was in the real estate business.

It was a safe place where I lived, and I was really pretty amazed that it all happened.

And it was a long heel, but at the same time it wasn't.

Troy Wigley was wandering through her safe neighborhood and would change Ellen's life forever.

This is I Survived, the podcast where we talk to women who've lived through the worst things imaginable

and all the tragic, messy, and wonderful things that can happen after survival.

I'm Caitlin Van Maul.

Well, now, he had attacked his brother-in-law, and so he hitched hiked to Austin somehow ended over where I live.

He took his duffel bag and went over the low-water bridge,

and that just kind of leads up to where my house was in the hills.

And apparently he was across the street,

and he saw everybody leave in the morning. And he ended up getting in the

house and hiding in my attic. And he stayed there for a couple of days until he thought

everybody was gone and then surprised me. On August 29th, he came down from the attic.

...