the first degree podcast

Roy Dean Ratliff

On August 1, 2002, two 16-year-old and 17-year-old young women, total strangers, are each parked with male companions up near a popular lovers’ lane in Quartz Hill, California. Suddenly, their night is interrupted when the girls are kidnapped by a felon on the run in need of a getaway vehicle. For the next 12 hours, the girls endure a terrifying ordeal, as finding them safe and well becomes a race against time. But with law enforcement on the trail of the highly publicised kidnapping, it’s only a matter of time before the net closes in on the perpetrator. However, the sensational coverage of the case doesn’t end there. In episode 272, Jac and Alexis detail the shocking kidnap and assault of two young women at the hands of Roy Ratliff, and the incredible story of what happens when victims fight back to reclaim their voices in the aftermath of violent crime.

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