Jennifer Asbenson, who was 19 and working as a carer in Palm Springs when a man she described as a “kind stranger” offered her a ride, has publicly recounted the details of an abduction and attack that she says nearly cost her life.
Asbenson told reporters and readers of her memoir that the man, later identified as Andrew Urdiales, forced her into the trunk of his car, sexually assaulted her and bit her neck before she managed to break free and run to safety. The attack, she said, left her bound and unconscious at times, but she escaped after the bindings on her wrists began to fail and she forced open the trunk lid.
Asbenson said the encounter began when Urdiales picked her up and later confronted her about giving him a fake phone number. She said he became violent, bashing her head against the dashboard and producing a knife and a gun. After binding her wrists behind her back, she said, he drove to a remote area of Palm Desert. She described a struggle during which he allegedly strangled, assaulted and repeatedly bit her.
“I just couldn’t fathom what was happening, that this could be real,” Asbenson recalled, saying she pleaded and promised to do anything to survive. She said she fell unconscious at one point and briefly felt “a feeling of pure love” before waking to the attack continuing. She told reporters she prayed for a miracle and that, by what she called adrenaline and “hysterical strength,” she was able to loosen the twine binding her wrists, force the trunk lid and flee.
Asbenson said she ran down the middle of the road after escaping, and flagged a passing truck driver who took her to a police station. At the time, she said, investigators lacked sufficient evidence to identify or charge her attacker.
Urdiales, a former Marine, later admitted to a series of killings and kidnappings across Southern California and in Illinois. He was convicted in separate proceedings of eight murders: three in Illinois and five in California, according to court records and public reports. Urdiales was sentenced to death in California in 2018 after a jury recommended capital punishment for the murders of five women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties. He was previously serving life sentences in Illinois for three killings. A month after his California sentencing, Urdiales was found dead in his San Quentin prison cell; authorities determined his death to be a suicide.
Asbenson has since told her story publicly and written a memoir titled The Girl in the Treehouse. She has spoken in court during sentencing proceedings and told Urdiales she forgave him while maintaining that she believed he deserved the death penalty for his crimes.
Prosecutors and court documents say Urdiales’ California victims included Robbin Brandley, 23, of Mission Viejo (January 1986); Maryann Wells, 31, of San Diego (September 1988); Julie McGhee, 29, of Cathedral City (July 1988); Tammie Erwin, 20, of Palm Springs (April 1989); and Denise Maney, 32, of Palm Springs (March 1995). In Illinois, he was convicted of killing Cassandra “Cassie” Corum, 21, and Lori Uylaki, 25, both from Hammond, and Lynn Huber, 22, of Chicago, in the mid-1990s.
Some of Urdiales’ earlier death sentences in Illinois were altered under actions by then-Gov. George Ryan in the early 2000s: two sentences were commuted to life in prison in 2002, and a third was commuted after Illinois banned the death penalty, according to public accounts of the case.
Asbenson said investigators did not connect her 1992 account to Urdiales’ series of murders until several years later, when he confessed to multiple killings. She was not the only person to survive contact with Urdiales; authorities have counted at least one other escapee who lived to report an attack.
In court, Asbenson described looking into Urdiales’ eyes and feeling she was staring at “the devil.” She has recounted how, even amid the trauma, she tried to use every skill she had to survive. After her escape she told law enforcement what she could remember, but it was not until Urdiales’ later confessions and convictions that her account could be definitively tied to him.
Asbenson’s memoir and public remarks contribute to the broader record of survivors’ accounts used in the investigation and prosecution of serial crimes. Her narrative also figures in the public memory of the Urdiales case, which spanned decades and jurisdictions and involved multiple trials.
The Urdiales cases prompted scrutiny of law enforcement responses across county lines and raised questions about how details from different investigations were shared and compared. Prosecutors in California moved forward with capital charges in the late 2010s after compiling evidence tying Urdiales to the killings there; he had been serving time in Illinois prior to the California trial.
Asbenson said she has tried to move forward with her life while sharing her story to warn others and to process the experience. Her account, she has written, is part of a larger effort to document what happened to victims and survivors and to ensure those stories are on the record.
Authorities and court records show Urdiales died in 2018 while under a death sentence in California. His death closed the criminal cases against him, but survivors and families of victims have continued to speak about the long arc of investigations, trials and the years of waiting for accountability.