Recalling in terrifying detail how the hands of the man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint squeezed her neck, the only woman to escape from an eight-time killer testified Tuesday that she was certain she wouldn’t survive the ordeal in the remote Riverside County desert.

Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, sits in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, during opening statements in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Urdiales should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, sits in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, during opening statements in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Urdiales should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Orange County Deputy District Attorney Eric Scarbrough, left, speaks to the jury during his opening statement in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Andrew Urdiales, right, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, sits in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, with his attorneys Denise Gragg, left, and Ken Morrison, center, during opening statements in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Urdiales should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg L. Prickett, speaks to the attorneys just prior to their opening statements in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. The second phase of the capital murder trial began Tuesday and will focus on whether Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)



Defense attorney Denise Gragg speaks to the jury during her opening statement in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, sits in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, during opening statements in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Urdiales should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Orange County Deputy District Attorney Eric Scarbrough, left, speaks to the jury during his opening statement in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Andrew Urdiales, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Andrew Urdiales, right, a triple murderer who was found guilty of five additional killings of women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, arrives in superior court in Santa Ana on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, for opening statements in the second phase of the capital murder trial that will focus on whether Urdiales should get the death penalty, or life in prison. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

As the penalty phase in Andrew Urdiales’ capital murder trial began Tuesday in Santa Ana, dramatic testimony from the serial killer’s only surviving victim dominated the proceedings.

Jurors — who last week found Urdiales guilty of five murders in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties on top of the three killings in Chicago for which he has already been convicted — now face the question of whether the 53-year-old serial killer should receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

During the course of the trial, jurors already have heard Urdiales’ confession to the eight murders. But the testimony from Jennifer Asbenson was the first time they heard a first-hand account of his violent attacks.

While the Southern California News Group does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, Asbenson has spoken extensively about her experience in public forums.

In September 1992, Asbenson, then 19, had just moved to a new apartment in Palm Springs while working as an overnight caregiver for disabled children in Desert Hot Springs. One night, unfamiliar with the routes, she missed her bus to work and, fearing she would be late, reluctantly accepted a ride from Urdiales, a stranger who happened to be parked nearby.

Urdiales seemed kind, Asbenson testified, and in order to make conversation, she mentioned what she did and what hours she worked. Urdiales offered to buy her breakfast the next morning, but Asbenson wasn’t interested in him and gave him a fake phone number.

Shortly before 6 a.m. the next morning, as Asbenson left work, she testified that Urdiales pulled up next to her.

Urdiales initially seemed friendly, Asbenson testified, but quickly grew angry as he confronted her about the phone number, which he had tried to call and knew was fake.

Urdiales “snapped,” she testified, hitting her, grabbing her by the hair, slamming her face into the dashboard of his car and pulling a knife.

Asbenson said Urdiales tied her hands behind her back and drove them to a remote part of the nearby desert, where he cut her underwear off and shoved the clothes into her mouth. He twice forced her to perform oral sex on him and attempted to rape her, but he was unable to physically perform the acts and only appeared to grow angrier, she testified.

“He started strangling me. He started strangling me so hard,” she said. “I thought, this is the devil, I am going to die right now, while my family and my friends are asleep.”

Urdiales pulled her out of the car, Asbenson testified, and put the gun against her head and in her mouth.

“I told him ‘kill me, just kill me’,” she said. “I looked around and I saw cars going by so far away they looked like ants. I saw birds. I felt so alone.”

At one point in the desert, Asbenson attempted to run, but Urdiales grabbed her and pulled her back, she said.

“I remember wanting to die,” Asbenson testified through tears. “I wanted to die. I’m sorry. Not because I was a coward or anything, but because I knew I was going to die and I didn’t want to be tortured anymore.”

Urdiales then forced her into the trunk of his car, Asbenson said. When they got back to a main road, she was able to get her hands free, then open the trunk from the inside. Urdiales pulled over and forced the trunk closed, Asbenson said, but she was able to once again open it and escape with the help of a passing motorist when the vehicle got stuck in soft sand.

Years later, in a recorded interview with detectives that was played in court Tuesday, Urdiales acknowledged kidnapping Asbenson and trying to sexually assault her. He told the detectives that he was angry at being given the false number and frustrated at not being physically able to have sex with her. He described driving away as she ran to passing motorists for help.

“I don’t know if someone else picked her up and finished what I started,” Urdiales told the detectives.

Urdiales has confessed to killing one woman in Orange County while stationed as a U.S. Marine at Camp Pendleton, four women in Riverside and San Diego counties while stationed at Twentynine Palms, and three women in Chicago while working as a security guard after leaving the military.

The killings began with the murder of Robbin Brandley in a Saddleback College parking lot in 1986. In the years that followed, Urdiales shot and killed Mary Ann Wells, who was found in an industrial area in San Diego, while the bodies of Julie McGhee, Tammie Erwin and Denise Maney were found in various desolate, desert parts of Riverside County.

By 1996, Urdiales had moved to Illinois, where he killed three women, Laura Uylaki, Cassandra Corum and Lynn Huberand, dumping their bodies in rivers and lakes. Chicago detectives found a gun tying Urdiales to the Illinois killings, at which point he admitted to both those slayings and the five in Southern California.

During the first phase of the trial, Urdiales’ attorneys told jurors that he was born with brain damage from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder – from his mother’s drinking during her pregnancy – and Tourette’s syndrome. They also described his traumatic childhood, which was marked by emotional, physical and psychological abuse, and his teen years, in which, they said, he was targeted for regular harassment by his peers.

The penalty phase of the trial, which is expected to include testimony from the families of the victims, will resume next week.