On last night's edition of Larry King Live, the late night host was reporting on the recent arrest of Phillip Garrido, a monstrous psychopath who abducted Jaycee Lee Dugard back in 1991. Dugard was Garrido's captive for over eighteen years, during which time she was raped and forced to bear two children. Garrido was arrested early last week.
During the show, King conducted an interview with Katie Hall, who had been abducted and raped by Garrido in 1976. Garrido connived his way into Hall's car by feigning automotive trouble and pretending to need a ride. Hall, fresh from the grocery store, obliged. Hall drove off with Garrido, who subsequently attacked and handcuffed her. Hall was later rescued, and Garrido was apprehended, charged and jailed, where he served twelve years of a fifty-year sentence.
And that's your background for one of the strangest and most awkward interview moments I have seen in many a moon! The salient part begins at the 1:10 mark.
[WATCH]
KING: Where were you, what happened?
HALL: I was on my way to my boyfriend's house with dinner in my car, he asked me to stop at a grocery store.
KING: Where was this?
HALL: In South Lake Tahoe. And he asked me to stop at a grocery store and pick up some coffee. And so I did.
KING: Your boyfriend.
HALL: Uh-huh. And I did, and as I came out of the grocery store and got in my car, Phillip knocked on my window and said, you know, I can't seem to get my car to start, it's cold, do you think you could give me a ride, you know, which way are you going? And, of course, he was going to go anyway -- any which way I was going. And so, I did.
KING: Why did you let him in the car?
HALL: I don't know. It was the worst decision I've ever made, I think. It truly was.
KING: What happened when he got in?
HALL: When he got in, I filled his hands with a lot of food that I had in the front seat anyway -- I tried to engage him.
KING: He was holding your food?
HALL: He was. I tried to engage him in small conversation on the trip. Tried to stay on the main street, and when I got ready to turn, he said, where I'm staying is right up the road here. And it was again on another main street that I turned. So I took him a little further up, and then he said, well, it's just around this corner, and I said, well, okay, and I just turned around the corner and pulled over, and he slammed my head into the steering wheel, and pulled out handcuffs. He took my keys out, threw them on the floor, and pulled out handcuffs, and handcuffed me, and said, 'I just want a piece of ass. If you be good, you won't get hurt.'
KING: What did he do with the food?
Wait. Stop. Larry King has a woman recounting a painful moment from her past, and she's just up to the part where she's about to describe her own brutal attack, on the air, thus providing some vital context to this fiend, now in custody for another incident of sociopathic cruelty. Did he REALLY just ask about what happened to the food?
Uhm...yes. That's what he did. To which Hall replied, "He put it on the floor, I guess. I don't know."
Jeez, Larry, I hope the woman's eight-hour ordeal at the hands of this hideous sex criminal doesn't overshadow the groceries spoiling!
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