Oprah: When I first heard about you, I thought, why were you running alone in Central Park at night?

Central Park Jogger: You're not the first person to say that. For me, running was a release at the end of the day, and I had this feeling that, hey, I have every right to run where I want, when I want. I'd been running in the park for two years. It was not a smart thing to do. Yet that is absolutely no justification for what happened to me.

O: And believe me, I'm not sitting here trying to justify it. But the idea of running alone in Central Park is a foreign concept to me. You had to be the kind of person who either thought you were invincible or who was just nuts.

CPJ: I wouldn't say I was nuts, but maybe I thought I was invincible.

O: I've read that you suffered two skull fractures. What was your prognosis?

CPJ: Very bad. I've heard that one doctor said that because it was likely I'd be a vegetable, it might have been better if I had died. Once I started to remember things, I didn't feel that way—but I didn't feel normal either. My head hurt. I couldn't walk.

O: When did you know the rest of the country was praying for you?

CPJ: When I got a dozen roses from Frank Sinatra! I thought, "Wow—this is big!" I jokingly said to one of the doctors, "Frank is a good friend of mine."

O: Did you become more spiritually connected as a result of what happened to you?

CPJ: Yes. I saw myself transformed.

O: And when you were living in the present moment during rehab, you were about as spiritually connected as you could get.