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6:45 P.M . Wade called, asking her to pick up some coffee, oil and rice on her drive over. The young mother of a seven-year-old boy then took a shower, dressing in a green and blue ski jacket, with a striped hooded T-shirt and Britannia Levi jeans.
    At 7:15 P.M ., she left her house and five minutes later was parking her blue Ford Pinto in front of Ink’s Al Tahoe Market, on the corner of Talac and Highway 50. As she was running late, she dashed inside to get the items she needed. It was then, out of the corner of her eye, that she first noticed a tall, well-dressed man with a ponytail standing in an aisle. But she paid little attention to him.
    After paying for the groceries, Katie walked out to her car and started the engine. She was about to back out of the parking space, when she heard a light tap on her window.
    “I rolled down the window,” she would later testify, “and a young man was standing there. He said, ‘Excuse me, I didn’t mean to frighten you, but which way are you going?’ ”
    Katie replied that she was going toward Stateline and the tall, slim man with a ponytail and oddly spaced teeth politely asked for a ride. He pointed at the Mercedes-Benz convertible parked down the street, joking it did not like the cold and refused to start. Could he possibly get a lift to his friends, he asked, so they could come back and help him to start it.
    Katie said he could, as long as he would hold the plastic containers containing the hot meal she had prepared, occupying the passenger’s side floor and front seat.
    “Okay,” he said, as he got into her car and sat down, loading the containers onto his lap.
    She then asked where he was going.
    “A little ways,” he replied, as he pointed down Highway 50 toward Stateline.
    They sat in silence, before the stranger asked if she lived and worked in South Lake Tahoe and skied. Katie had no interest in making small talk, so she just replied yes or no to all his questions.
    A few minutes later, she took a right into Ski Run Boulevard, informing him that her turn to Stateside was coming up soon. The man nodded, replying that that they were almost there. She asked what exact street he wanted. He said he could not remember the name but would know it by sight.
    Katie turned left on Willow Avenue until she reached Birch Street, saying this was where she turned off for her boyfriend’s house. That was fine, said the man, pointing to the Slalom Inn Motel neon sign a couple of blocks ahead.
    When they got to the motel, Katie asked where he wanted to be dropped off. The man then pointed toward the end of the street at a set of duplexes with a yellow porch light on. The house he needed was on the other side of them, he said.
    “As I pulled in,” she later remembered, “there was no house. There was an empty lot, and I looked at him to say, ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ ”
    The man then casually took the salad off his lap and placed it on the back seat. Then without warning he suddenly lunged at her, grabbing the ignition key and throwing it on the ground.
    “I thought he was going to try and kiss me,” she said. “Then he got me and just started grabbing.”
    He seized her hands, smashing her head down hard into the steering wheel.
    “All I want is a piece of ass!” he declared. “If you do everything I say, you won’t get hurt. I’m dead serious. I’ll hurt you if you make me.”
    Katie tried to raise her head, but he forced it down below the dashboard. Terrified, she asked what he wanted, saying she would do anything.
    His only reply was to produce handcuffs from his pocket, tightly cuffing her hands behind her back.
    “Okay,” he told her, “we’re going to go for a little ride. Now we’re going to change places.”
    Then he stood up, easily lifting the 105-pound woman across into the passenger’s seat. He then maneuvered himself into the driver’s side, forcing her head down hard into the seat.
    “All right,” he told her. “I am going to