Save Your Own Life

The next day, Nicole says she set up a hidden camera to try and find out what was going on in her apartment. Once she came home, Nicole says she plugged the camcorder into her laptop. "And the first thing I see is this man's head peeking around the corner into my house," she says. "What I felt at that point was just complete terror. I'm sitting there watching this video—this story—unfold, and this person comes in my house, is looking around, going through my things, looking through my laundry, holding up my lingerie."

As Nicole continues to watch in horror, the intruder undresses himself and puts her lingerie on. "So this person is in my clothes, proceeds to start pleasuring himself—just very, very graphic things happening right there in my house with my belongings. And he finishes up, takes off my clothes—and puts them exactly back as I had left them—puts his clothes back on, checks to make sure nobody's outside the door and leaves."

After watching the tape, Nicole says she ran around her apartment, screaming hysterically. She says she had never seen the man in the tape before. "Initially, I took my cell phone, called my boyfriend at the time, screaming hysterically. All I could say was, 'He's in my house. He's in my house.' Even picking up the phone, dialing, was difficult."

Two weeks later, police found the man—39-year-old Shawn Rogers, a computer consultant with a young son and a wife at the time. Police were unable to charge Rogers with anything more than trespassing...until he came back to Nicole's apartment to steal her camera. Police were able to charge Rogers with burglary and he was sentenced to eight years in prison.