About Us
Besides the conviction, what came out of the trial was the fact that Angie didn't have to die. Sheila Wysocki decided that no one ever needed to go through the terror of being assaulted. The primary purpose of Without Warning: Fight Back is to educate self-defense through awareness, prevention and training.
The specific approach used by Without Warning: Fight Back is to work with the local, county, and state school systems, service organizations and corporations. Without Warning: Fight Back works with curriculum that covers self-defense tactics along with prevention techniques and awareness.
The primary purpose of Without Warning: Fight Back is to educate self-defense through awareness, prevention and training. Without Warning: Fight Back wants to educate the public to avoid becoming a statistic.
Memory
of Fallen Friend Leads Wysocki to Fight For Safety of
Others
After helping to solve the 26-year-old rape and murder
of her college roommate, this Tennessee mother is
working to prevent others from a similar fate.
It required becoming a private investigator, overcoming
dyslexia and breaking through an unhelpful Dallas police
department, but the persistence of Sheila Wysocki led to
solving the 26-year-old murder of her friend and former
college roommate, Angie Samota. The remarkable story is
soon to become a book and movie and was already an hour
long documentary special on Dateline NBC. Now, this
mother from Brentwood, TN is hoping to prevent others
from experiencing a similar fate as her friend. "If we
had the knowledge in 1984, we would have saved her
life," says Wysocki.
Wysocki first met Samota when the two were roommates as
freshmen at Southern Methodist University. The pair
could not have been more opposite: Wysocki was the
daughter of a working class mother and attending school
on scholarship; Samota was rich, beautiful and one of
the few female computer majors in the country. But the
pair eventually formed a close friendship that continued
even when Samota decided to move off-campus.
However, one night in 1984 changed the course of
Wysocki’s life forever, when a stranger knocked on
Samota’s apartment door in the early morning hours. "He
said he needed to use the phone and the restroom and
because she was kind, she let him in," says Wysocki.
Realizing that she had made a mistake, Samota called her
boyfriend, but her attacker had already cased the home.
Angie Samota was raped, murdered and stabbed 18 times.
The murder scene was so gruesome that investigators
initially believed that Samota’s heart had been ripped
out. The death of her friend proved to be a crushing
blow, leading Wysocki to ultimately drop out of college.
"It was so out of anything that I understood in my safe
little world," says Wysocki. "I just didn’t know that
evil existed. The death was traumatic enough, but the
manner in which she died was life altering."
Wysocki spent the next two years speaking with
detectives and even regularly met with suspects in the
case. Even when she tried to distance herself from the
murder, the death of Samota continued to hang over her
head. "When I'd be out at restaurants or parties, I
would look at someone there and wonder if they had
anything to do with it," says Wysocki.
The introduction of DNA evidence in O.J. Simpson’s
murder trial in 1995 began to get Wysocki thinking about
exploring the case once more. But when she eventually
gave birth to her two children, their medical conditions
left her powerless to do anything. Both of them suffered
from environmental poisoning, which led to weekly trips
to the hospital. When their conditions stabilized in
2004, she was able to consider exploring the murder once
more. "I thought the police were the ultimate authority
in my 20s," says Wysocki. "Years later, I started
questioning things and beginning to think they could
have been done differently."
However, it was a Bible study session that year which
led to Wysocki seeing a vision of her fallen friend; a
clear sign to continue moving forward in finding answers
to the murder. "I was sitting at my bed and at the end
of my bed, I saw her smiling and could see what she was
wearing" says Wysocki. "And as crazy as it sounds, I
knew then that it was time."
She contacted the homicide division at the Dallas Police
Department, who informed her that no one had called
about Samota’s murder in 20 years. For the next two
years, she called for updates on hundreds of occasions,
but was given the run-around by the department. They had
no interest in reopening the case. "I just couldn’t
understand how hard it was to pull the file and pull the
DNA, but obviously it was for them," said Wysocki.
Wysocki eventually spoke with the owner of the security
company in her gated community, who said her best bet
was to become a private investigator. Suffering from
dyslexia, Wysocki had her then 13-year-old son read her
the book with all the laws that she was required to
learn. Once she passed the exam, she contacted Skip
Hollandsworth, a writer for Texas Monthly, and he
offered to walk her through the politics of the Dallas
police.
With her P.I. badge in tow, she reached out to the
Dallas police once more, but found them to be just as
unreceptive. "The credentials did nothing," says Wysocki.
"It just let them know that I wasn’t going away and was
going to become a bigger problem unless they started
working on the case."
After four years and hundreds of phone calls, she
finally got a call from a female detective who was
assigned to "investigate" the case. Wysocki felt the
homicide department was patronizing her. At one point in
the investigation a former detective proved to be her
most upsetting moment in the search for answers. "He
told me that some cases weren’t meant to be solved, this
was one of them and that I needed to back off," she
recalled. "I can’t tell you how angry that made me." The
case was later selected to appear on an episode of Crime
Stoppers, but after getting into a heated argument with
a detective who asked whether or not Samota was "loose,"
they ended up pulling it from the program. "They still
blame the victim in situations like this and it makes me
so mad, but I learned that I have to bite my tongue to
get what I want, regardless of what my feelings are,"
says Wysocki.
Detectives eventually relented and agreed to reopen the
case in 2008. When they tested the DNA, they found a
perfect match in five-time convicted serial rapist
Donald Bess. Bess was ultimately detained and sent to
trial, where he was convicted of the murder and
sentenced to death in 2010. It was the only cold case
that received a death sentence that year. And with that,
Wysocki promptly retired her P.I. license. "I had worked
some other divorce cases and helped friends out, but
there was only one case I had gotten my license for and
truly cared about," says Wysocki.
But Wysocki continued to get signs that her calling was
perhaps not done yet. When she spoke at seminars, people
would send letters or come up to her afterwards and
confess their own experiences with rape, asking her to
help find their perpetrators. Deciding that no one
should ever go through the terror of being assaulted,
Wysocki researched a self-defense program in Dallas and
incorporated a similar model in the Nashville area.
She started Without Warning: Fight Back in July 2011, a
program which educates both male and female children and
adults on self-defense through awareness, prevention and
training. The end goal is to develop a program in school
systems where children are taught “stranger danger” and
how to protect themselves, ultimately incorporating a
curriculum in schools across the US. "I don’t need to
create the curriculum, but people get complacent, so
somebody like me has to push it," says Wysocki.
She’s finally gained closure in the death of Samota,
revisiting the SMU campus for the first time since the
murder when her oldest son chose to attend college
there. But while the mystery of Samota’s murder has
drawn to a close, Wysocki says she has now made a
lifelong commitment to solving and preventing similar
incidents. "I feel like if I’m not supposed to be doing
this, a barrier would go up," says Wysocki. "That hasn’t
happened yet."
Since renewing her P.I. license in 2012, this time with
her youngest son reading the current handbook to her,
Wysocki has solved over 10 cold cases including missing
persons, rapes, and murders. She continues to help
others by solving cases and teaching prevention and
awareness through "Without Warning: Fight Back."
For more information about Without Warning: Fight Back,
please visit their website or Facebook page.
"Sheila Wysocki leaves no stone unturned when it comes
to investigating a case. Her mission is justice, and she
doesn’t stop until it’s been served." - Josh Mankiewicz,
Correspondent for Dateline NBC.
"Sheila is one of those amazing people who uses their
boundless energy to help others. She does not take “No”
as an answer. Her determined quest for justice in all
things is inspiring. She’s the one to do it, hands
down." - Sarah Kass, Producer for I Solved A Murder
"I love the work that Sheila is doing. She did not give
up the fight. Sheila is an incredible woman with quite
an amazing story." - Judith Regan, Talk Show Host for
SiriusXM’s The Judith Regan Show
Paul Fantuzzi joined the team of Without Warning Fight
Back as Chief Operating Officer. Paul has an extensive
business operations background as well as a back ground
in self-defense and tactical training. Paul is a retired
police officer from a metropolitan Detroit area police
department, with extensive training in defensive
tactics, firearms, soft weapon tactics and officer
safety. Paul certifications include pepper-spray
instructor, range and firearms instructor, defensive
tactics instructor and soft weapon trainer. He also
performed training in the use of various weapons and
tactical procedures.
Paul is a graduate from Central Michigan University with
a Bachelor’s of Science in Community Development and
Policing as well as a Masters of Art with summa cum
laude honors in Criminal Justice from University of
Toledo.
Thanks so much to our caring sponsors! You can
help protect others too.
