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24 Years After Encounter With Serial Killer, Woman Still Seeks Justice

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — It's almost 24 years to the month since Jennifer Asbenson said serial killer Andrew Urdiales tried to sexually assault and ultimately kill her.

She is still seeking justice.

A trial date was set for this week but was met with another delay.

"It's so frustrating because I always get told that it's gonna happen," Asbenson said.

Just 19 at the time, Asbenson escaped, Urdiales' only known victim to survive.

"It was hard to move on from it right away because nobody believed me," she said.

Asbenson crossed paths with Urdiales in 1992 near her home in Cathedral City. She hitched a ride from Urdiales to work. He waited for her to finish her shift and offered another ride, but this time he had no intention of ever dropping her off. He took her to the middle of nowhere and terrorized her, she said.

"He got his knife out, he started trying to cut my clothes off," Asbenson said. "He started trying to cut my shorts off. He got my shorts off, cut my underwear off, cut my bra off. He had taken my shoes off and started beating me with them. This whole time, my hands were twined behind my back."

Somehow Asbenson was able to escape and run to a road for help.

Urdiales would go on to kill eight women in Southern California and in Illinois, authorities said, until he was finally arrested on unrelated charges in 1996 in Illinois. A gun he was carrying would help link him to the murders. He was convicted of the murders in Illinois in 2002 and later extradited to California, where he's been awaiting trial ever since.

"It's just ridiculous how long it's taking," Asbenson said.

Asbeson wants Urdiales to receive the death penalty but is worried it will be repealed in November when voters will decide on Proposition 62, which could end it.

Urdiales was set to be on death row in Illinois but that state repealed its death penalty.

As for the delays, it's just been routine legal motions holding up the process.

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