Three trains went by while Holly Dunn laid next to a dim General Electric plant in Lexington, Kentucky. The nearest house sat hundreds of yards away and the man who killed her boyfriend and raped her left her for dead. Gagged with a tee-shirt and bleeding so badly her dad thought she dyed her hair, Dunn got up and began a years-long mission to bring the man to justice.

“When you encounter someone, you don’t imagine the evil they’re capable of,” Dunn said.

She told her story to a crowd of 100 in Penn State’s Chambers Building Tuesday night. Where students earlier in the day learned about childhood education, they now sat listening to a story of finding retribution in the darkest circumstances. Dunn had no idea lying there on the ground, but her story would be woven together with others as the FBI tried to find the man nicknamed The Railroad Killer.

Angel Reséndiz, a Mexican national eventually linked to at least 15 murders, surprised Holly and her boyfriend, Chris Maier, by the railroad tracks. Dunn was a 20-year-old college junior, studying finance at the University of Kentucky, and one night went out to a party with her new boyfriend. She recalls the day well: August 28, second day of classes, Thursday night.

“I was a student just like you. I sat in class just like you. I was your age,” she said.

Dunn and Maier walked down to the tracks with two of Maier’s friends to escape a boring party, drink a beer, and flatten some pennies, Dunn said.

The two friends left and soon after Dunn and Maier started walking back. When Reséndiz popped out from behind an electrical box, he asked the two for money. Dunn believed Reséndiz was searching Maier’s backpack for money, but saw he had instead tied Maier’s hands and then tied Dunn’s hands with her belt. She then noticed that Reséndiz carried a weapon.

“He picked up a 52-pound rock and dropped it on Chris’ head. Then he raped me.”

Dunn remembers ripping her nails off so if Reséndiz took her somewhere else the police would know someone else had been there. She tried fighting, but Reséndiz stabbed her in the neck and told her, “See how easily I can kill you.”

She admitted she’s not sure how she remembered to leave a trail or why she decided to memorize everything about Reséndiz, but she remembers thinking how thankful she was to be alive. Not sure how long she laid there, Dunn eventually got up and got help. After receiving treatment at the hospital, Dunn met the detective assigned to her case and immediately threw up on him.

“It kind of helped and gave us a brother-sister relationship,” Dunn joked.

Dunn returned to school a month after the attack for what she called “something I could control.” She graduated and two years later the same detective she threw up on knocked on her door. A pattern of railroads revealed itself and a finger print match appeared with Dunn’s attacker and a suspect in Texas, the detective told her.

Reséndiz surrendered in the United States after his sister negotiated with law enforcement. His trial took place in 2000. As the only known survivor of the Railroad Killer, Dunn was asked to testify in court against him. The state of Texas executed Reséndiz in 2006. Dunn said the last words she heard him say were, “You didn’t deserve this. I let the Devil rule my life.”

“One of the hardest days of my life was sitting in the courtroom and seeing him again. I was crying profusely,” Dunn said.

Some would shy away from the tragedy, but Dunn sees it as the reason her life is what it is today. Her relationship to Maier’s family is better than it once was and they’ve helped each other heal.

“I’m still healing from this. I’ll always be healing. You guys are a part of my healing process now and you can’t get out of it,” she said. “When you talk about something, it loses its power over you.”

Dunn’s book, The Sole Survivor, recounts her experience and healing process in greater detail.