FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ A hidden man crept out of the darkness of Catherine's bedroom in Pompano Beach, wrapped his forearm around her and pressed a sharp object against her throat. He forced her to her bed, put a pillowcase over her head and raped her. Then he left.
In the months after that summer night in 1984, Catherine learned how a man attacked many other women in the exact same way, earning him a moniker: the Pillowcase Rapist. But his identity remained a mystery for decades.
Then on Jan. 20 of this year, Catherine, now a 68-year-old part-time librarian in New Jersey, scrolled down her Facebook timeline and saw a news article about Robert Koehler _ the man suspected of being the notorious rapist who terrorized more than 40 women during the 1980s while evading Miami detectives.
Almost immediately, the trauma from Catherine's own 35-year-old encounter with the man returned.
"I started screaming," she said.
Catherine _ who asked the South Florida Sun Sentinel not to use her full name to protect her identity _ made two calls that evening. The first was to her job letting them know she wouldn't be in the following day. The second was to the Miami-Dade Police Department.
"I wanted them to know I was a victim," she said. "I wanted them to know I would do whatever they needed me to do to put him away."
In the days since that call, Catherine is one of many women hoping to see justice handed down to a brazen man whose actions nearly 40 years ago continues to torment them.
"This guy's ruined my life," she said.
