June 6, 2022 • 17 mins
Jayson knew there was a stranger in her home. But she talked herself out of her intuition... until it was proven right. And with Jayson living in one of the most remote areas of Texas... there would be no one around to help her. An incredible true crime story, hosted by Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds).
This is part one of a series - to listen to the rest of the episodes, search for Borderline anywhere you get podcasts, or go to borderlineseries.com
To learn more about Jayson's story, you can find her book, Borderline: A True Story of Courage and Justice, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Borderline-True-Story-Courage-Justice/dp/0578524228
This is part one of a series - to listen to the rest of the episodes, search for Borderline anywhere you get podcasts, or go to borderlineseries.com
To learn more about Jayson's story, you can find her book, Borderline: A True Story of Courage and Justice, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Borderline-True-Story-Courage-Justice/dp/0578524228
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Suddenly the hair on my neck juststood straight up. I got this horrible
feeling that someone was watching me.If you're someone who has never lived close
to the border between the United Statesand Mexico, when you think of it,
you may think of crossing checkpoints,a wall, some sort of physical
(00:25):
barrier separating the two sides. Youmay think of the border as a separation
even more than that, where lifeis one way on one side and another
way on the other side. Ifthere's one thing to take away from this
story, it's that that isn't true. This is the story of a terrible
crime that took place in Texas innineteen eighty five, fourteen hours of rape,
(00:49):
torture, and terror. It's alsothe story of the unexpected spiritual awakening
and fluency in Spanish that occurred duringthe crime on the part of the survivor.
The survivor of this crime went toMexico in search of justice and learned
the awful history of her assailant.Later, she received a surprising form of
(01:11):
justice when the perpetrator was mysteriously kidnappedfrom a Mexican jail by unknown armed men
and left alone in his underwear inTexas to be picked up by law enforcement.
Nothing in this story is cut anddried, not even the name of
the person at the center of it. Her name is jan Woodward. But
(01:32):
to anyone who knows her, hername is Jason. I'll let her explain.
I got the name of Jason anickname in a fairly conventional way.
But I'll start by saying that mygiven name is Janice. I met my
(01:52):
first husband, who was in lawschool. He was from New York,
and he despised the way Texans pronouncedone syllable names. He said, they
always put at least two, sometimesthree syllables, so it's Mike or it's
jan and he just hated it.And so he started calling me Jay,
(02:15):
and then it became an endearing term. That became Jason, and everybody I
knew in that era called me Jason, and I just stayed Jason. So
when I started to write, Idecided to use that for my pen name.
So even though my given name isjan, I go by Jason quite
(02:37):
a bit. You'll hear Jason referredto interchangeably as Jan or Jason during the
interviews and throughout this series. Atthe time of this event, I was
a single mother, and I hadgone through a fairly bad divorce and had
spent three years traveling through Central America. As my son neared school age,
(03:01):
I got pretty nervous and decided thatalthough I didn't want to, I really
needed to get back to the UnitedStates. And I was traveling with several
friends at the time, and oneof them saw how anxious I was about
coming back to the States, andhe said, well, you know,
(03:24):
I know this place. It's America. It's like America. It's called West
Texas. It's Brewster County, andI went to school there. I think
you'd like it. And so Iended up in Brewster County, and I
was hired by a rancher whose wifewas battling cancer and he still had five
(03:49):
children at home, and so Iwas hired to help on the ranch,
mostly in the home, and hiseldest son, Trey, and I fell
in love Trey. He's important.He's coming back later. I can't tell
you why, but trust me,you'll want to remember him. In fact,
(04:11):
all the details you're going to hearabout Jason's life before this event,
where she lived, who she knew, her job, her familiarity with the
border, will all come back intoplay in the story in crucial and often
unexpected ways. So I had beengoing through Central America, and now I
was back in Brewster County on aranch, and spent a wonderful year working
(04:38):
on that ranch. Trey handled thecattle, and I did the rock shop
duties and welcomed our guests and triedto keep up with the younger kids,
cooking and such for them. Andso this went on for about a year
and till Trey's mother did pass andhis father came back to the ranch.
(05:03):
And although his father liked me,I was not the favorite pick that he
had in mind for his eldest son, and so everything became a little strained,
and I decided that really it wastime for me to move on.
(05:24):
And I got an offer for ajob as postmaster in a little area known
as Terlingua, just eighty miles southof the ranch. And so we were
pretty young, and eighty miles didn'tseem like it would be much of a
hindrance to our relationship, but itwould just be a lot easier for us
(05:48):
to have a relationship not being rightunder the nose of his father. And
so I moved the eighty miles tothis area known as Terlingua, and I
took the job as postmaster. Treyand I tried to stay in touch and
see each other as often as wecould, but that became impossible. With
(06:11):
my job and his Jenny's on theranch, we slowly drifted apart, and
so I was just living in thearea with my son, who is now
going to the small school. Here'sJason's son, Noah. Noah is one
of the many people connected to thisstory you'll hear from throughout this series.
(06:32):
My name is Noah Davidson, andI am Jason's son and only child.
Prior to this event in my life, I was going to elementary school Terlingua,
Texas, population three hundred most ofthe year except for the chili cookoff
weekend, and it's like thirty thousand, nothing to do, absolutely nothing to
(06:57):
do. It's the desert. It'slike the desert of southern California. Most
people don't think that's here in Texas, but it is. And in those
days, unless you had a satellitedish, you didn't have television. And
in those days, a satellite dishwas like a slab had to be poured
for the thing. So I kindof grew up without television, and I
had a couple of friends that haddirt bikes and we rode in the desert
(07:20):
and played along the Turning Wood Creekin the river. And I was pretty
unhappy in the moment growing up therebecause I felt so deprived. Looking back
on it as an adult, Isee now that it was actually a very
unique upbringing, and I'm actually blessedto come to have lived there and through
(07:41):
that. It just at the time, you know, I didn't get MTV,
I didn't have this, and Ididn't get to do that, you
know, there was My school wasmaybe sixty five kids. They'd have three
grades in one room with one teacher, and it was kay through eight.
There was no high school at thetime. This Turling is such a unique
(08:03):
area of Texas, and it's beensaid you either love it or you hate
it. If you're used to lotsof foliage like you may have in the
Pacific Northwest, then you may notlike just the stark beauty. But along
with that comes to the realization thatthere are no urban centers within five hundred
(08:28):
miles of us in any direction.At the time, there were only three
phones in the whole area. Wewere completely our own island. We did
have one constable, and eventually wehad one deputy sheriff who was stationed there,
(08:50):
but there was no nine one oneto call. There were no neighbors
right next door. In fact,people those two three hundred people were spread
miles and miles apart, and soit was a very unique place to live.
But you had to be a prettyhardy soul to be able to stay
(09:11):
there. This area was a wonderfulcultural mix of people from both sides of
the United States border the Rio Grande, and people moved freely. It wasn't
until nine to eleven that people werenot able to move freely back and forth
across the river, and so wewould have big social gatherings. Maybe once
(09:37):
a month there would be a danceat a small town called Lahitas, which
is right on the border, andpeople from Mexico would come, and people
from Texas would come. Since therewere no grocery stores in the Terlingua area,
we would oftentimes travel the sixty sixtyfive miles down to Presidio and cross
(10:01):
over into Mexico into a town calledOhinaga. The restaurants were wonderful and the
people were very friendly, This isa story full of people who love Mexico
and spent time interchangeably between Texas andMexico as a fact of their lives living
(10:22):
on the border. This is thestory of a crime committed by a person
who happened to be Mexican. Thishappened on October twenty fifth, nineteen eighty
five. The day prior to thisevent, I had taken that Friday off
from my job to be able togo into Alpine and buy groceries and just
(10:46):
have the day off. So Ihad spent the night Friday night in Alpine,
bought my groceries, enjoyed my towntrip, and came home. Oh,
I guess about to day Saturday,and my son was staying with one
of his friends in Lahita's for theweekend. I was about I was eleven
(11:11):
years old. That particular weekend,I had left to go stay with a
good friend of mine and his parentshad a pretty nice house there, so
my friends parents did have a satellitedish and I would stay there quite often
with him. The top story ofthe house was basically his room, so
we could rob and you know,drink cokes and get wired out of our
(11:35):
minds on all the junk food andwatch HIMTV, you know, and make
all the noise we wanted and notbother anybody. And it was kind of
far from Turlinguell. Like I said, it was seventeen miles, which isn't
all that far, but when you'rein the middle of the desert, like
like literally the middle of the desert, where they tell you a flat tire
could be the difference between life anddeath, I thought him the news far.
(11:56):
I rode my motorcycle there and back, and he did the same when
he'd stay with me, and itwas kind of like a whole adventure,
that's basically what I was doing.So he wasn't there to help me unload
my truck, so I got busyunloading all of my groceries and whatever I
(12:18):
had bought in town, big sacksof cat food. I had three cats,
and so I was going back andforth from my driveway into my house
and noticed that my cats were gone, that they weren't anywhere, and usually
they would be clamoring at the catchild bags, and so it was odd.
(12:43):
It struck me as odd, andI thought, well, they'd just
gone out walking around, and continuedputting away my groceries, and I just
had an uneasy feeling. It becamemore stringent in my mind mind as the
evening wore on. You just needto get in your truck and maybe just
(13:05):
go drive around. Just get inyour truck and drive around. And I
thought, well, how silly isthat I've just driven a hundred miles from
Alpine. I don't need to getin my trunk and go drive around and
maybe just go talk to some peopleat the store. You just need to
leave. And I got fed upwith this because it was beginning to be
(13:31):
really in my consciousness. So Iwent in to the kitchen to get a
glass of water and remembered that itwas a full moon night, that the
Comanche moon was going to rise thatnight, and it's so beautiful in the
desert, when, of course allthe moon phases are beautiful in the desert,
(13:52):
but the Comanche moon is a harvestmoon. It's huge, it's bright
orange, it's just fall is myfavorite season anyway, And so I thought,
oh, that's right. I wantto be sure and be standing outside
where I can watch the moonrise.And so before that was going to happen,
(14:20):
I remembered that I had some Mexicancurrency that I wanted to trade when
I picked my son up in Lahitasthe next day. I wanted to trade
it for American dollars, and soI got the currency and sat down and
started counting it so I could figureout how much America and it would be.
(14:43):
And suddenly the hair on my neckjust stood straight up. I got
this horrible, tingling feeling that someonewas watching me. I thought, that
is ridiculous. How could someone bewatching There's a window right behind you,
(15:07):
but this part of the house israised up. Someone would have to be
eight feet tall to be looking inthat window. And so I started talking
myself down from this gut feeling ofbeing watched. And in case someone was
watching me, I never raised myeyes. I just kept the money in
(15:28):
my lap and had these thoughts untilI gathered enough courage and stood up and
turned and faced the window, andsure enough, no one was there.
And I thought, how silly,how silly that you're doing all this to
yourself. By now, it's twilight, and so when I looked out the
(15:54):
window, I thought, I bettergo outside so I can watch the moon
rise. And that's when I walkedout to the part of my sidewalk that
had the best view of the moon, and that's where I was standing when
(16:15):
he grabbed me. Next time onBorderline, Jason experiences a spiritual guidance that
helps her navigate an impossible situation andincredibly forgives her assailant during the crime.
(16:36):
Alone with this dangerous man, Jasonmust use her wits and knowledge of the
area to find a way to escapewith her life. That's next time.
I'm Paget Brewster and this is Borderline. Borderline is a production of Voyage Media.
The series is based on Jason's bookBorderline, a true story of courage
(16:57):
and justice, available on amaz.A link is in the show notes.
You can help support Borderline by leavinga five star review on Apple Podcasts or
anywhere you're listening. This helps spreadword about the show. And subscribe now
for future episodes.
Suddenly the hair on my neck juststood straight up. I got this horrible
feeling that someone was watching me.If you're someone who has never lived close
to the border between the United Statesand Mexico, when you think of it,
you may think of crossing checkpoints,a wall, some sort of physical
(00:25):
barrier separating the two sides. Youmay think of the border as a separation
even more than that, where lifeis one way on one side and another
way on the other side. Ifthere's one thing to take away from this
story, it's that that isn't true. This is the story of a terrible
crime that took place in Texas innineteen eighty five, fourteen hours of rape,
(00:49):
torture, and terror. It's alsothe story of the unexpected spiritual awakening
and fluency in Spanish that occurred duringthe crime on the part of the survivor.
The survivor of this crime went toMexico in search of justice and learned
the awful history of her assailant.Later, she received a surprising form of
(01:11):
justice when the perpetrator was mysteriously kidnappedfrom a Mexican jail by unknown armed men
and left alone in his underwear inTexas to be picked up by law enforcement.
Nothing in this story is cut anddried, not even the name of
the person at the center of it. Her name is jan Woodward. But
(01:32):
to anyone who knows her, hername is Jason. I'll let her explain.
I got the name of Jason anickname in a fairly conventional way.
But I'll start by saying that mygiven name is Janice. I met my
(01:52):
first husband, who was in lawschool. He was from New York,
and he despised the way Texans pronouncedone syllable names. He said, they
always put at least two, sometimesthree syllables, so it's Mike or it's
jan and he just hated it.And so he started calling me Jay,
(02:15):
and then it became an endearing term. That became Jason, and everybody I
knew in that era called me Jason, and I just stayed Jason. So
when I started to write, Idecided to use that for my pen name.
So even though my given name isjan, I go by Jason quite
(02:37):
a bit. You'll hear Jason referredto interchangeably as Jan or Jason during the
interviews and throughout this series. Atthe time of this event, I was
a single mother, and I hadgone through a fairly bad divorce and had
spent three years traveling through Central America. As my son neared school age,
(03:01):
I got pretty nervous and decided thatalthough I didn't want to, I really
needed to get back to the UnitedStates. And I was traveling with several
friends at the time, and oneof them saw how anxious I was about
coming back to the States, andhe said, well, you know,
(03:24):
I know this place. It's America. It's like America. It's called West
Texas. It's Brewster County, andI went to school there. I think
you'd like it. And so Iended up in Brewster County, and I
was hired by a rancher whose wifewas battling cancer and he still had five
(03:49):
children at home, and so Iwas hired to help on the ranch,
mostly in the home, and hiseldest son, Trey, and I fell
in love Trey. He's important.He's coming back later. I can't tell
you why, but trust me,you'll want to remember him. In fact,
(04:11):
all the details you're going to hearabout Jason's life before this event,
where she lived, who she knew, her job, her familiarity with the
border, will all come back intoplay in the story in crucial and often
unexpected ways. So I had beengoing through Central America, and now I
was back in Brewster County on aranch, and spent a wonderful year working
(04:38):
on that ranch. Trey handled thecattle, and I did the rock shop
duties and welcomed our guests and triedto keep up with the younger kids,
cooking and such for them. Andso this went on for about a year
and till Trey's mother did pass andhis father came back to the ranch.
(05:03):
And although his father liked me,I was not the favorite pick that he
had in mind for his eldest son, and so everything became a little strained,
and I decided that really it wastime for me to move on.
(05:24):
And I got an offer for ajob as postmaster in a little area known
as Terlingua, just eighty miles southof the ranch. And so we were
pretty young, and eighty miles didn'tseem like it would be much of a
hindrance to our relationship, but itwould just be a lot easier for us
(05:48):
to have a relationship not being rightunder the nose of his father. And
so I moved the eighty miles tothis area known as Terlingua, and I
took the job as postmaster. Treyand I tried to stay in touch and
see each other as often as wecould, but that became impossible. With
(06:11):
my job and his Jenny's on theranch, we slowly drifted apart, and
so I was just living in thearea with my son, who is now
going to the small school. Here'sJason's son, Noah. Noah is one
of the many people connected to thisstory you'll hear from throughout this series.
(06:32):
My name is Noah Davidson, andI am Jason's son and only child.
Prior to this event in my life, I was going to elementary school Terlingua,
Texas, population three hundred most ofthe year except for the chili cookoff
weekend, and it's like thirty thousand, nothing to do, absolutely nothing to
(06:57):
do. It's the desert. It'slike the desert of southern California. Most
people don't think that's here in Texas, but it is. And in those
days, unless you had a satellitedish, you didn't have television. And
in those days, a satellite dishwas like a slab had to be poured
for the thing. So I kindof grew up without television, and I
had a couple of friends that haddirt bikes and we rode in the desert
(07:20):
and played along the Turning Wood Creekin the river. And I was pretty
unhappy in the moment growing up therebecause I felt so deprived. Looking back
on it as an adult, Isee now that it was actually a very
unique upbringing, and I'm actually blessedto come to have lived there and through
(07:41):
that. It just at the time, you know, I didn't get MTV,
I didn't have this, and Ididn't get to do that, you
know, there was My school wasmaybe sixty five kids. They'd have three
grades in one room with one teacher, and it was kay through eight.
There was no high school at thetime. This Turling is such a unique
(08:03):
area of Texas, and it's beensaid you either love it or you hate
it. If you're used to lotsof foliage like you may have in the
Pacific Northwest, then you may notlike just the stark beauty. But along
with that comes to the realization thatthere are no urban centers within five hundred
(08:28):
miles of us in any direction.At the time, there were only three
phones in the whole area. Wewere completely our own island. We did
have one constable, and eventually wehad one deputy sheriff who was stationed there,
(08:50):
but there was no nine one oneto call. There were no neighbors
right next door. In fact,people those two three hundred people were spread
miles and miles apart, and soit was a very unique place to live.
But you had to be a prettyhardy soul to be able to stay
(09:11):
there. This area was a wonderfulcultural mix of people from both sides of
the United States border the Rio Grande, and people moved freely. It wasn't
until nine to eleven that people werenot able to move freely back and forth
across the river, and so wewould have big social gatherings. Maybe once
(09:37):
a month there would be a danceat a small town called Lahitas, which
is right on the border, andpeople from Mexico would come, and people
from Texas would come. Since therewere no grocery stores in the Terlingua area,
we would oftentimes travel the sixty sixtyfive miles down to Presidio and cross
(10:01):
over into Mexico into a town calledOhinaga. The restaurants were wonderful and the
people were very friendly, This isa story full of people who love Mexico
and spent time interchangeably between Texas andMexico as a fact of their lives living
(10:22):
on the border. This is thestory of a crime committed by a person
who happened to be Mexican. Thishappened on October twenty fifth, nineteen eighty
five. The day prior to thisevent, I had taken that Friday off
from my job to be able togo into Alpine and buy groceries and just
(10:46):
have the day off. So Ihad spent the night Friday night in Alpine,
bought my groceries, enjoyed my towntrip, and came home. Oh,
I guess about to day Saturday,and my son was staying with one
of his friends in Lahita's for theweekend. I was about I was eleven
(11:11):
years old. That particular weekend,I had left to go stay with a
good friend of mine and his parentshad a pretty nice house there, so
my friends parents did have a satellitedish and I would stay there quite often
with him. The top story ofthe house was basically his room, so
we could rob and you know,drink cokes and get wired out of our
(11:35):
minds on all the junk food andwatch HIMTV, you know, and make
all the noise we wanted and notbother anybody. And it was kind of
far from Turlinguell. Like I said, it was seventeen miles, which isn't
all that far, but when you'rein the middle of the desert, like
like literally the middle of the desert, where they tell you a flat tire
could be the difference between life anddeath, I thought him the news far.
(11:56):
I rode my motorcycle there and back, and he did the same when
he'd stay with me, and itwas kind of like a whole adventure,
that's basically what I was doing.So he wasn't there to help me unload
my truck, so I got busyunloading all of my groceries and whatever I
(12:18):
had bought in town, big sacksof cat food. I had three cats,
and so I was going back andforth from my driveway into my house
and noticed that my cats were gone, that they weren't anywhere, and usually
they would be clamoring at the catchild bags, and so it was odd.
(12:43):
It struck me as odd, andI thought, well, they'd just
gone out walking around, and continuedputting away my groceries, and I just
had an uneasy feeling. It becamemore stringent in my mind mind as the
evening wore on. You just needto get in your truck and maybe just
(13:05):
go drive around. Just get inyour truck and drive around. And I
thought, well, how silly isthat I've just driven a hundred miles from
Alpine. I don't need to getin my trunk and go drive around and
maybe just go talk to some peopleat the store. You just need to
leave. And I got fed upwith this because it was beginning to be
(13:31):
really in my consciousness. So Iwent in to the kitchen to get a
glass of water and remembered that itwas a full moon night, that the
Comanche moon was going to rise thatnight, and it's so beautiful in the
desert, when, of course allthe moon phases are beautiful in the desert,
(13:52):
but the Comanche moon is a harvestmoon. It's huge, it's bright
orange, it's just fall is myfavorite season anyway, And so I thought,
oh, that's right. I wantto be sure and be standing outside
where I can watch the moonrise.And so before that was going to happen,
(14:20):
I remembered that I had some Mexicancurrency that I wanted to trade when
I picked my son up in Lahitasthe next day. I wanted to trade
it for American dollars, and soI got the currency and sat down and
started counting it so I could figureout how much America and it would be.
(14:43):
And suddenly the hair on my neckjust stood straight up. I got
this horrible, tingling feeling that someonewas watching me. I thought, that
is ridiculous. How could someone bewatching There's a window right behind you,
(15:07):
but this part of the house israised up. Someone would have to be
eight feet tall to be looking inthat window. And so I started talking
myself down from this gut feeling ofbeing watched. And in case someone was
watching me, I never raised myeyes. I just kept the money in
(15:28):
my lap and had these thoughts untilI gathered enough courage and stood up and
turned and faced the window, andsure enough, no one was there.
And I thought, how silly,how silly that you're doing all this to
yourself. By now, it's twilight, and so when I looked out the
(15:54):
window, I thought, I bettergo outside so I can watch the moon
rise. And that's when I walkedout to the part of my sidewalk that
had the best view of the moon, and that's where I was standing when
(16:15):
he grabbed me. Next time onBorderline, Jason experiences a spiritual guidance that
helps her navigate an impossible situation andincredibly forgives her assailant during the crime.
(16:36):
Alone with this dangerous man, Jasonmust use her wits and knowledge of the
area to find a way to escapewith her life. That's next time.
I'm Paget Brewster and this is Borderline. Borderline is a production of Voyage Media.
The series is based on Jason's bookBorderline, a true story of courage
(16:57):
and justice, available on amaz.A link is in the show notes.
You can help support Borderline by leavinga five star review on Apple Podcasts or
anywhere you're listening. This helps spreadword about the show. And subscribe now
for future episodes.
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