Video: Attack victim reclaims her life

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PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. - "Oh, it was a full moon that night. It was an Idaho, warm Idaho night."

Her recollection of that fateful night in June 2000 begins like a bedtime story, but it really was just the beginning of Linda LeBrane's nightmare.

LeBrane had been driving to her family's vacation home when a car with three men and a woman inside forced her vehicle to the side of interstate 84 in Caldwell, Idaho.

"They just started screaming at me for me money. And they were all high on methamphetamine," she said.

The foursome pulled LeBrane from her car, beating her with a baseball bat and stabbing her 23 times, severing the muscles in her neck and back.

"I kept looking in their eyes and saying 'Why are you doing this? Please don't kill me,'" she said.

Her assailants stole the $40 LeBrane had with her, then they set her car on fire, and left her to die in a freshly furrowed beet field.

By a stroke of luck, two teenagers saw the flames and came to investigate.

"I think God saved my life. And the boys got me away from the fire," said LeBrane.

It took a year-and-a-half and a stint on America's Most Wanted before police arrested the suspects. They were convicted several years after that.

LeBrane has had to travel to Idaho a dozen times to testify, with a court-appointed bodyguard in tow.

"All their families were from Caldwell. There were death threats out against me," she said.

Three suspects received life sentences, the fourth got 13 years in prison.

The appeals continue.

"I would cry and say to my husband 'I can't do this again,' and he'd say, 'fine, just call the prosecutor and they'll just let them out of jail,'" she said.

But LeBrane is determined to make the years following her attack as harmonious as possible.

After two years of physical therapy she can once again play her beloved violin, she's finishing her college degree, writing poetry, and is the proud grandmother of 10.

"I'm grateful for every day. And I've held those babies in my arms. And I have a relationship with them," she said.

Even though she still has periodic nightmares and numbness on the side of her skull, she's managing to coax some joy out of every day.

"I don't want to carry that poison around in me. And I'm free," she said.

LeBrane says she hopes people can learn from her ordeal to never pull over their car if someone is trying to force them off the road.

She also suggests drivers always carry cell phones, and make sure someone knows your whereabouts when you're on a road trip.

LeBrane's story will be the subject of a show scheduled to air next week on the A&E Biography channel called "I Survived."