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A WOMAN has shared the harrowing details of how she managed to escape a convicted murderer who once held her at knifepoint.
Anne Croney said the chilling encounter with Patrick Nicholas, 59, happened eight years before he killed 16-year-old Sarah Yarborough.
Yarborough was raped and murdered in 1991, however, Nicholas wasn’t convicted of the crime until May 2023.
In an interview with 48 Hours, Croney said she ran into Nicholas in a parking lot near the Columbia River in Washington in the summer of 1983.
She was 21 years old at the time.
“He seemed normal, kind of friendly actually, just friendly,” Croney recalled.
“I had asked him if he had done any water skiing yet because he said he had just moved to town and he said he couldn’t swim.”
Croney told the outlet that the two continued chatting casually, however, she started to notice that Nicholas’ voice began to get shaky, which made her uncomfortable, so she told him she had to leave.
That’s when Nicholas put a knife to her throat, according to Croney.
“Everything kind of stopped in that moment,” she said.
He then allegedly forced her to take her clothes off, stuffed her underwear into her mouth to prevent her from screaming, and led her toward a river bank.
That’s when Croney made a run for it.
She immediately beelined for the river remembering the comment he made earlier.
“I ran and dove in the river cause I was thinking he couldn’t swim. Swam as hard as I could,” she recalled. “I swam for my life.”
Nicholas is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence for murdering Yarborough.
The jury deliberated for a day and a half before they convicted Nicholas of felony first-degree and second-degree murder.
A prosecutor in the case said during closing arguments that the crime was sexually motivated.
Nicholas left semen stains on the teen’s clothing, and his DNA was also found under her fingernails, according to the Seattle Times.
The teen was last seen leaving her home for a high school dance competition.
Authorities found her car in the school parking lot, and her body in a wooded area of her school’s campus.
A full documentary, The Hunt for Sarah Yarborough’s Killer, will air on November 18 at 10 pm EST on CBS and Paramount+.
