She awoke in a van in South Central L.A. to find a strange man on top of her. She immediately began to struggle, hitting and kicking him with her heeled boots.
Infuriated, the man threw her out of the van, and continued to assault her, grabbing her hair and smashing her head on the pavement. She fought him off again, and finally, he left her alone, taking off in the van.
Not knowing where she was, Susan (names have been changed to protect the identity of the victim) frantically knocked on doors, seeking help. But no one answered. She finally made it to a motel, near 49th Street and Manchester Avenue, hysterical, crying out for help. The night manager of the motel came out to see what the commotion was.
“She was all messed up,” said the manager of Susan’s state.
A woman staying at the motel came down to offer assistance. The two took Susan into the office and called the police.
According to Detective Marian Holland, from the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Department, two LAPD officers from the Newton Division initially responded to the call for help and took Susan to a local hospital.
What had started out as a fun night with her boyfriend, Stan, at a local restaurant and bar where popular bands play, ended up as a nightmare for Susan.
Susan believes she may have been a victim of a “rape drug,” specifically GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid), otherwise known as “G”, Liquid Ecstasy, Georgia, Home Boy, Grievous Bodily Harm, Easy Lay and other street names.
She admits she drank a lot that night, two weeks ago, several Lemon Drops — shots of vodka mixed with sweet and sour and triple sec — but Susan says she has never drank so much that she completely blacked out, not remembering anything that happened.
GHB is a drug derived from gamma butyrolactone (GBL), which is an industrial and household solvent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. When GBL is ingested, it produces GHB in the body.
Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, said the center has treated many victims who were surreptitiously given rape drugs without their consent.
“It’s a very powerful weapon to use to incapacitate their victims,” said Abarbanel.
There are other types of drugs used against unsuspecting victims that produce the same effects, said Abarbanel, which include symptoms such as disorientation, impaired motor skills, dizziness and anterograde amnesia, a state in which a victim has no recall of what took place from when the drug took effect until it wears off.
“Some victims have complete loss of memory,” said Abarbanel. “Total black out. Some go in and out of consciousness.”
Some of these illicit drugs, including GHB, especially when mixed with alcohol, can cause dangerous respiratory problems, seizures, nausea, vomiting and, in some cases, death.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, more than 45 deaths and 5,500 emergency room overdoses have been attributed to GHB in the United States. Emergency room visits increased from 20 in 1992 to 750 in 1997, according to the U.S. Government Drug Abuse Warning Network.
Until the sale and manufacturing of it was banned in 1990 by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), GHB was used in the 1980s as a food supplement for body builders and dieters, supposedly acting as a fat burner and growth hormone promoter, according to a paper written by Dr. Scott Cameron, a staff physician at the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of New Mexico Medical Center.
The drug has since gone underground and is widely used in the dance club scene, at raves and nightclubs. It can be produced as a clear liquid, white powder, in tablet or capsule form, and is often sold in its liquid state in small plastic containers, similar to hotel shampoo containers. Some people also carry it in Gatorade bottles or water bottles.
Quickly absorbed into the body, its effect takes place within 15 to 20 minutes, and the “coma usually lasts from one to four hours and spontaneously resolves [a person awakens],” according to Cameron.
This is about the same time lapse that occurred with Susan.
The last round of drinks Susan ordered, included six Lemon Drops, three waters and a couple of orange juices, said Stan. She could not carry all the drinks back to the table at the same time, so she left two on the bar and then returned for them. The couple thinks that may have been the opportunity for someone to put something in one of the drinks.
It was around 12:30 a.m. when Stan and Susan left the bar together. When they were in the parking lot, Stan said he had to go to the bathroom. That was the last time he saw Susan.
The night manager at the bar, who served two of the six Lemon Drops to Susan, said he and security guards saw her in the parking lot with a man other than her boyfriend.
“I saw her kissing some guy in the parking lot,” said the manager.
Asked if he was sure it was Susan, he replied that he was certain. He said he and security guards at the bar were joking around saying, “We should charge them rent,” because she and the man were leaning against one of the guard’s car.
Stan, upon finding her gone, searched for Susan everywhere in the restaurant and bar and eventually ended up driving up and down PCH, looking for her. Videos from the security cameras in the bar show Stan searching for her. At around 2 a.m., he went home to see if she had gotten a ride from someone else. Since she had not, he went out to search for her again, and then called 911 to file a missing person report. There was nothing more he could do, so Stan went home and waited. The phone rang at 5:30 a.m.
Stan went to pick up Susan at the California Hospital Medical Center downtown.
“She was frantic,” said Stan. “She didn’t want me to touch her. She was scared shitless. Her makeup was a mess, her hair a mess. She had looked like she had been through a war.”
Left alone in an examination room at the hospital, Susan was scared and did not let staff treat her, insisting she be transferred to UCLA where her doctor was. Stan took her home and his sister was the person who took them to the rape center.
“She was visibly upset, crying, sobbing,” said the sister. “She said she felt like she had been hit with a Mack truck.”
Stan’s sister also said she saw visible scrapes and scratches on Susan’s legs and forearms and she had a big bruise on her buttock and thigh area.
Det. Holland, who is assigned to Susan’s case, said in her investigation she has not found any evidence of assault or whether Susan was under the influence of a drug. She also said the LAPD officers who responded to the call in L.A. and took Susan to the hospital said she was incoherent and believed she was under the influence of alcohol.
Holland said she has not received results from the crime lab for blood or urine tests.
A drug like GHB is more than likely to show up in the urine of a victim, and it metabolizes rather quickly, according to Abarbanel.
Susan was not tested until almost 11 hours after she disappeared.
Despite the fact that it may be difficult to prove it was a rape drug that caused her to black out for more than four hours, leaving her with no memory of what happened during that time until she came to, Susan felt it important to tell her story. Even in Malibu, something like this can happen, she said.
Holland said to her knowledge, reported incidents like this have not occured in the Malibu area before.