just two weeks after kaye robinson s vicious attack, she identified doug de silva as her assailant. from the photo lineup, i was very certain. i wanted to hear him say something to be sure that that was him. when i heard him speak, i thought that that was the person that was in my home. de silva had no alibi for the night of the crime. i ve never been so sure in my life as a detective that doug de silva was the right person. de silva was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of kaye robinson. he said to tell her i m sorry. i didn t mean to do it. i remember going there, but i don t remember stabbing her. to me, that s a confession. but then came the bad news. de silva s fingerprints did not match the prints taken from the blue plastic glass in kaye s home.
even though the dna report said this wasn t the person that broke into my home, i was still convinced that it was. i couldn t believe they were going to let him walk to possibly do this to somebody else. so kaye decided to take matters into her own hands. i bought a gun. i found out where he lived. i went to his house. i sat outside of his home. i wanted to go to the door and knock on the door and just ask him if he remembered me. and, i mean, i just wanted to take care of it myself. but kaye thought better of it. the primary reason was my son. i wanted to raise my son. i didn t want to be in jail. but if de silva wasn t the perpetrator, a violent sexual sadist was walking the streets, and police had no new suspects. i will never be able to understand why a man who is innocent of a crime allowed himself to get so close to the
fortunately, investigators had the dna of kaye robinson s attacker. and when they compared eskridge s dna to the biological sample from kay robinson s rape test kit, investigators finally got the answer they d been waiting for. when i received the call that the dna was a match, i couldn t believe it. i was overjoyed. i couldn t wait to call kaye robinson. i went through a lot of emotions. i thought, oh, my god, i m glad i didn t kill de silva, because it would have been the wrong guy. but, i mean, he could have been his twin. they were identical. investigators believe mark eskridge targeted kaye robinson since they lived in the same mobile home park. and he probably knew she was a single mother living alone with her son. prosecutors think that eskridge knocked on kaye s door claiming he had car trouble because he wanted to make sure no men were
in her home. later that night, he broke in and attacked. he told kaye that he lived nearby because he had no intention of letting her live. he attacked her repeatedly with a knife. but kaye robinson s will to survive was too great. i still had a life to live. and i wanted my life back. and i was going to take it back a piece at a time. eskridge left valuable dna evidence behind. more reliable than any eyewitness. a decade after the crime, mark eskridge went on trial for the sexual assault and attempted murder of kaye robinson.
awakened again by a noise in her kitchen. that s when she saw the same man she had seen on her porch in her kitchen holding a butcher knife. he chased kaye through the house, grabbed her by the arm, put a knife to her throat, and told her to follow his orders. if not, he said he d kill her son, who was in the adjoining bedroom. from that point, there was little she could do. it was just completely three hours of torture. just horrific torture that she endured. after sexually assaulting her, the man told kaye that he lived in the same mobile home park and had two children. then he stabbed her almost 30 times and left her for dead. before leaving, the perpetrator checked on kaye s son, who pretended to be asleep. when the man left the house, kaye s son rushed to their neighbor s house for help.