People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer

In 1965, Rodney Alcala attacks a teenage girl - only to brutalize and rape her again three years later; she feels guilty when she discovers he assaulted another girl soon after - but they are merely two of this man's countless victims.

A new romance between two college students derails when a sadist attacks them during a nighttime walk by the railroad tracks; only one of them lives, and she turns out to be the sole survivor of a serial murderer known as the Railroad Killer.

A single mother comes home to find a serial killer holding her disabled sister hostage; he tries to kidnap her young son, but she begs him to take her instead; she is at his mercy for days, and to survive, she must get him to fall in love with her.

A man who calls himself The Bishop abducts a woman and holds her captive; he imprisons six women in his basement, raping and torturing them; as captives begin to die, one woman knows her only chance of survival is to escape.

In the suburbs of Chicago, a handsome man with searing blue eyes turns out to be a bloodthirsty monster hiding in plain sight and attacking young women at will; it takes decades for the survivors to discover he is a serial killer.

In 1981, two men rape and shoot a young mother and force her fiance to watch; after nearly dying, the woman learns her attackers are a pair of serial killers, who are also brothers; it will take two decades before justice prevails over the men.