"I just happened to notice the car because it was this orange Pinto, and it was pimped out," she said.
She was walking around the corner on 91st Street and Normandie Avenue when a man coming out of a liquor store called out to her.
She ignored him at first, but she ignored him again.
"He made this smart remark, 'That's what's wrong with you black women, you can't treat you right,' or something, and I'm like, 'Excuse me?'" she said.
She described him as black man in his 30s, kind of scrawny, and not her type.
But she said she felt sorry for him and got in the car. She had no idea she had accepted a ride from a murderer who had killed at least eight other people over the previous three years.
They drove down Western and ended up on Denker Avenue.
"We were driving around the corner, and he called me somebody else's name. I turned around to say something, and everything just went real eerie quiet, and I was like, OK, what just happened," the woman said.
"I turned around to look at him, and he said, 'B---- I'll shoot you again.'"
He shot her, and she lost consciousness.
When she regained consciousness, he was on top of her, raping her and taking pictures. He pistol-whipped her, tossed her out of the car and left her for dead.
She was nearly the Grim Sleeper's ninth victim.
LAPD Det. Dennis Kilcoyne is the lead detective on the case.
"I've got my guys traveling all over the place right now, chasing down information," said LAPD Det. Dennis Kilcoyne.
The Grim Sleeper has killed 12 women. He killed nine from 1985 to 1988, stopped for 13 years, then killed again in 2002 and 2003. He stopped again, until the most recent murder on New Year's Day of 2007.
Detectives have DNA, ballistics, a description of an Orange Ford Pinto with a white interior, and a blue and white church van that may have been used to dump one of the bodies.
"I think he's right here in Los Angeles, and I think he's got some affiliation with the Cosmopolitan Church."
There is a $500,000 reward for information that leads the Grim Sleeper's arrest and conviction. The reward is a record for the city of Los Angeles.
Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD at (877) LAPD-24-7.
