Most people remember the names of infamous serial killers. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy—these names and more ring unwanted through our collective psyche, their crimes too horrendous to ignore. However, very few remember the names of the victims of these depraved individuals, perhaps because most never live to tell their tale.

In some cases, though, there are those who are fortunate enough to escape the clutches of madness. Their stories serve as lessons in survival that we can all learn from, lessons that could very well save a life.

5 Rose Steward

Although Rose Steward has every justification for hating Dean Carter, in an incredible act of forgiveness, she actively campaigns to spare him from the death penalty for her rape and the murders of five other people.

On March 29, 1984, Steward was woken up by an intruder holding a knife to her neck. Over the next five hours, she was repeatedly raped and assaulted by him, losing consciousness twice during the attack. She only managed to survive her ordeal by pretending to “like” her attacker, even going so far as to kiss him, which caused him to leave without taking her life. When her nightmare was finally over, she immediately sought help from a neighbor, who contacted the police. Carter went on to rape and strangle five other women throughout California over the next 18 days, and it was Steward’s testimony in part that helped prosecutors ensure that he received the death penalty for his crimes.

As he now sits on death row awaiting his fate, Steward herself has actively campaigned against the death penalty, supporting what in California is known as Proposition 34, a ballot to replace all death sentences with sentences of life without parole. Some of the families of his other victims are understandably shocked by her decision. This has left Steward torn between her belief that the death penalty is wrong in all cases, and her personal understanding of her fellow victims’ pain. Only time will tell if Rose Steward will be there to see Carter’s last day.

4 Bryan Hartnell

While Bryan Hartnell was attending school at Pacific Union College in San Francisco in the late 1960s, he had no idea that his bright future would forever be scarred by one truly horrifying day. After driving to a scenic lake in a remote part of the city with his girlfriend, Cecilia Shephard, the couple parked their car and planned to enjoy their day in privacy. Unbeknownst to them, the unknown man who would later be dubbed the Zodiac Killer had other plans for them.

While they remained in their car, a man wearing a black hood and a shirt with white crosshairs etched on the front approached the couple and forced them out of the car at gunpoint. After forcing them to the ground, he proceeded to stab both of them repeatedly. Then he just vanished, leaving them for dead. Cecilia was later able to provide a description of the killer before she died in the hospital. Bryan, however, never saw his face and thus was left with the frustration of not knowing who it was that took the life of the one he loved.

Thankfully, the years that passed healed his woulds not only physically, but emotionally as well, and Bryan is now a probate attorney and is married with a family of his own. The Zodiac Killer remains unidentified to this day and is still one of the most enduring crime mysteries of the 20th century.

3 Corazon Atienza

It was Corazon Atienza who opened the door to her apartment on the night of July 13, 1966, and unknowingly allowed brutal mass murderer Richard Speck into her and her roommates’ lives. She was also the only one who survived that terrifying night.

Gun in hand, Speck forced his way into the home and herded the girls into the common room. He sliced some of the bedsheets into makeshift ropes and bound them all tightly. At first, he didn’t harm the women, telling them that he just wanted some money and that he would leave them alone. After a short while, though, one by one, Speck proceeded to rape, stab, and mutilate them while Corazon, wracked with fear, hid under the beds in the room. At one point, one of her friends was being assaulted on the bed directly above her.

The attacks went on for almost six hours, with Corazon not daring to even whimper the entire time. Finally, at around five in the morning, it was over. Due to Speck being highly intoxicated at the time of the attacks, he apparently forgot about her and left the apartment after he thought his work was finished. She escaped the scene of carnage through a bedroom window after he left and screamed for help. Her cries were heard by her neighbors and her waking nightmare came to an end.

Due to the overwhelming amount of physical evidence Speck had left at the scene—and the fact he had an extensive criminal record already—he was caught shortly afterward when he checked himself into a local hospital after attempting suicide. He had slashed his wrists after learning that he’d left Corazon alive, and a doctor at the hospital recognized him from newspaper reports and contacted the police. Nine months later, a jury took only 49 minutes of deliberation to sentence him to the electric chair. His sentence was later overturned by the Supreme Court in 1972 and he was given eight consecutive terms of 50 to 150 years. He died in prison, never showing any remorse for his crimes.

2 Larry Flynt

Larry Flynt is famous as the outspoken and flamboyant publisher of Hustler magazine and the creator of a business empire. He is also famous for nearly being assassinated by one Joseph Paul Franklin in an attempt that left Mr. Flynt paralyzed from the waist down when he was hit by two bullets from Franklin’s high-powered rifle.

What is not commonly known is that Mr. Flynt’s assailant was a serial killer who was tried and convicted for eight murders across the United States between 1977 and 1980, though he claimed to have killed a dozen more in an attempt to start a “race war” in the country. Franklin, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a neo-Nazi, spoke of “being at war.” Flynt was a direct contradiction to Franklin’s highly religious beliefs and his moral stance against pornography, particularly the interracial depictions that were featured in Hustler at the time. It was on March 6, 1978, that both Mr. Flynt and his lawyer were shot by Franklin, who confessed in prison after being sentenced for another shooting in which he received the death penalty.

Though Larry Flynt, who was left in constant pain, could have understandably wished to see his assailant die, he actually lobbied for Franklin’s sentence to be commuted to life in prison due to his stance against the death penalty itself. To quote him exactly: “In all the years since the shooting, I have never come face-to-face with Franklin. I would love an hour in a room with him and a pair of wire-cutters and pliers, so I could inflict the same damage on him that he inflicted on me. But, I do not want to kill him, nor do I want to see him die . . . I just don’t think that government should be in the business of killing people. And I think punishment by putting someone in a three-by-six cell is a lot greater than if you snuff out their life in a few seconds with a lethal injection.”

Despite Flynt’s best efforts, Joseph Franklin was executed in November 2013.

1 Rebecca Garde

Rebecca Garde worked as a telemarketer in Seattle in 1982. She had just gotten off work and was tired of waiting out in the rain for her bus, so she decided to hitchhike home on a cold night in November. The man who eventually offered her a ride seemed as ordinary as the Dodge pickup he was driving, so she happily accepted his offer. Had she known that he would eventually be convicted of killing 48 women like her, she might have declined instead.

While riding in his vehicle, she offered him sex in exchange for $20, figuring she could use the money to buy weed when she got home. It was at this point that she began to get an odd feeling about the man she was with, so as a precaution, she asked to see his identification, which he agreed to. This put her a little more at ease—at least he wasn’t a cop. They parked by a trailer park and the man suggested they go into the woods for some privacy.

Once they reached a spot that was relatively secluded, Gary Ridgway attacked her and tried to strangle her to death from behind. Fighting him off by pushing him into a tree, she stunned him and ran to a nearby trailer for help. Her attacker immediately fled the scene.

Due to her lifestyle and a general fear of the police, Garde waited nearly two years after her attack before she contacted the authorities, and although her forthcoming would not lead directly to his capture, it did help law enforcement build a more solid case around the most prolific serial killer in the United States. Ridgway picked up and killed at least 15 more women in the same area along the Pacific Highway South where he attacked Garde, and her description of him at least gave them something to move on.

In 2001, Ridgway was finally apprehended and sentenced to life in prison. Rebecca Garde remains his only known surviving victim.