The Serial Killer Who Picked The Wrong Victim

The Most Dangerous Woman in the World: How Frida Gibbs Turned Survival into History

My name is Frida Gibbs. They call me “Cheetah.” And I have been called the most dangerous woman in the world.

I am the world’s first African-American female world kickboxing champion. I have stood alongside Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme. But before any of that, I was a little girl from Chester, Pennsylvania, who couldn’t eat her dinner.

This is the story of how I learned to fight – not just with my fists, but with my mind. And how one night in a van in California taught me that everything I had ever been through was preparing me for a fight I didn’t even know was coming.

Growing Up Poor and Happy

Chester, Pennsylvania. It’s a small suburban area outside of Philadelphia. Actually, it’s nothing. It’s like five miles long, really nothing but a bunch of projects.

We were some happily poor kids. We didn’t know that we were poor, but we were always happy because we were always playing games. We were always outdoors playing double Dutch or scotch or different things like that. Simple times.

But the bullying started early. And it started at home.

The Dinner Table Wars

I was probably eight years old when the bullying began. My mother was eighteen when she had me, so at the time she was living with her mother. She had about eight brothers at the time. I was the only girl – the only niece, the first one.

Whenever it was dinner time, I was always sitting at a table with a bunch of guys. And that’s where the bullying started. They would tap me on my shoulder. I would look that way. Somebody would take my food. Tap me on my shoulder again. I would look that way. Somebody would take my food. I would turn back, and I didn’t have any food left.

I used to go to bed with my stomach growling because I hadn’t eaten anything.

One night, my mother heard my stomach growling. She said, “I thought you ate.”

I told her the truth. She looked at me and said, “Well, you know what? You got a fork and you got a knife. Use your fork whenever they put their hand on your plate.”

That’s what I eventually had to do. Once I started making contact with my uncles, I was able to eat a full-course meal and go to bed without my stomach growling.

True story.

What did that teach me? It taught me that anything is possible as long as you are coachable. I had to be coachable from my mother in order to learn that I had a fork and a knife that was able to protect me and help me have a full meal. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

The Invisible Sign on My Back

I don’t know what it was. I used to ask the kids, “Do I have this invisible sign on my back that says ‘bully me’?”

It seemed like no matter where I went, whatever school I attended, someone always bullied me. I just couldn’t figure it out. Do I look like the type to be bullied?

I’ll never forget. I was in fifth grade. I did the kids a favour by doing their homework. Don’t do kids a favour by doing their homework, because then they are going to demand it the next two, three, four, five times.

The bullying really became intense. I was able to elude them for maybe four years or so, but it got to the point where they were catching on.

The School Bus Escape

I’ll never forget this one day. We were on a school bus, and they told me they were going to get me. The bus driver stopped at our stop, and everybody on the bus got off. I was the only one on the bus with the bus driver.

I said to the bus driver, “Can you take me to the next stop?”

She said, “No.”

I said, “But they’re going to beat me up.”

She said, “No, they’re not. This is what I want you to do. I want you to walk to the back of the bus and raise the emergency door. Unlock it. Then I want you to walk back to the front of the bus where I am.”

I said, “Okay.”

She said, “When I count to three, I want you to run through the back of that door as fast as you can and bust it open and run home as fast as you can. Don’t look back.”

I walked to the back of the bus and unlocked the lock. When I walked to the back, everybody outside walked to the back. It was crazy. She said, “Now come to the front of the bus.” I came back. Everybody came back to the front. She said, “Now step down as if you’re ready to walk out.” I stepped down. Everybody came like crabs to the front.

She said, “Now run.”

I took off running out the back door. Wilma Rudolph couldn’t touch me. I was going home. I busted out the back door. I had a head start. I’ll never forget: snot was hanging from my nose, swinging around the corner. That’s how fast I was going.

Finally, I made it to my mother’s home. The door was open because she was expecting me. I busted through the screen door, slammed the door, and had my back up against it. When I burst through, all the cards flew off the table.

My mother said, “Girl, what the hell is wrong with you, busting through my door like a Black superwoman? You done lost your damn mind.”

But I didn’t care. I felt safe.

The Fight in the Yard

Then my mother heard a lot of jibber-jabber outside. I didn’t want her to go outside. But when she opened the door, she saw the whole school bus in our yard.

She went out there. “What the hell is going on out here? You come to beat Frida up? Not all of y’all. Which one of y’all here to beat her up?”

Three girls raised their hands.

My mother said, “What’s your mother’s name?” She told her. My mother said, “I know your mother.” She asked the next one, and the next one. Then she said, “Which one of y’all is the baddest one?”

Gilda raised her hand.

My mother said, “Well, if Frida going to fight her, then she not going to fight all three of y’all.”

She called me outside. I was terrified.

She said, “You going to beat her tonight, or I’m going to beat you now? You got a choice. Get one whooping or two.”

I was terrified. She gave me a broom and pushed me out there.

Dear God, I don’t even remember fighting. What I do remember is that there were bruises on both of us. I remember giving my mother back half the broom. And I recall not getting my whooping.

The fact that I didn’t get my whooping told me I did something right somewhere.

The Intervention

I didn’t feel safe at all. I didn’t want to go back to that school, and I demanded that they transfer me to another school.

This is where the intervention came in – the moment that really made a positive impact on my life. I was at my grandmother’s house. I went to give her a hug, and she contacted my uncle Billy. He couldn’t come see me that weekend, but the following Monday, he came up to the projects.

I really looked up to him. He was like the Black Bruce Lee. He was just fly, real hip. He put his hand on my shoulder as we were walking, and he said, “I want to talk to you. I heard you don’t want to go to school anymore.”

I explained to him about the bullying.

He said, “You can’t continue to run all your life, Frida. There’s going to come a time in life where you’re going to have to learn how to stand firm. You’re going to have to learn how to fight with your mind. You’re going to have to learn confidence.”

I said, “What’s confidence?”

I had never heard that word before.

He said, “Confidence is knowing that you have no doubt in the abilities and the gifts that God has blessed you with. Knowing who you are. Do you understand?”

I said, “Yeah, I understand.”

He said, “We want you to learn martial arts.”

I said, “No, I don’t want to fight.”

He said, “This is not about fighting. This is about us rebuilding your self-confidence and your self-esteem. It’s not about fighting, you dig?”

Learning to Fly

From there, I went to class. Once I was able to identify confidence and self-esteem and be amongst major martial artists like Master Barry and all those bad Black martial artists – Quiet Storm and those guys – just sparring with them took me to a whole new level.

That’s how I got into kickboxing. That’s how my confidence grew. It grew to a level that I am still blown away by.

Today, I have a six-foot bronze statue – the world’s first female kickboxing statue on the planet. I don’t even think that has fully registered yet. Not many people have a six-foot bronze statue.

The Struggles Behind the Glory

People see all the victory and glory, but no one understands the hell I went through to get there. Throughout the struggle, throughout the process, it is very important that you remain hungry. You have to starve throughout the process. You have to be raggedy throughout the process.

There’s a lot of adversity throughout the process. A lot of challenges. A lot of ups. A lot of downs. But the name of the game is about the mindset. It’s about the mind. The mind is the true fight of achieving that ultimate goal.

The Night That Changed Everything

I had just come from Germany, playing professional basketball for two years. I never really had a regular job in my life. But when it was time to leave Germany, my mother said, “It’s time for you to go and find a job.”

I thought, “I’m not like them. Why go find a job? I do sports.”

But I listened. I found a job in Santa Monica. Every Friday, they would play dominoes and get paid. They invited me to play. What was interesting was that they told me to leave my car. I thought that was odd, but I didn’t click. I left with a woman named Bonita.

We went to her place. I never forget sitting on the couch when Lonnie came through and introduced himself. I said, “Oh, Lonnie? My mom used to date a guy named Lonnie.” That was the connection. He went into the bedroom with Bonita. In my mind, he was just Bonita’s man.

Then we went to play dominoes. They kept putting drinks in front of me. I pushed them aside, but they kept putting them in front of me. Finally, I took a sip.

Suddenly, my eyelids got tired. I mean, they got so heavy I couldn’t keep them open. I got up and went to the bathroom, throwing water on my face. I was talking to myself in the bathroom: “Damn, these eyelids won’t stay open.”

I walked out. Lonnie was there.

I said, “Stop, man. I don’t roll like that.”

I thought he was trying to come on to me. I sat back down. My eyelids started going again. “Bonita, we got to go.”

She said, “I can’t take you. Why don’t you stay tonight?”

That’s when I realised. I didn’t know anyone in that room. When she said “stay tonight,” I looked around at everyone, and they looked like monsters. I thought, “Oh my God, I don’t know a single soul in here. What have I got myself into?”

Lonnie said, “I’ll take you home.”

I said, “Okay, fine.”

The Click

As we were walking outside, I knew it was a risky situation. But I felt confident enough to protect myself if something happened. I am automatically trained to size up anyone who comes my way – within a hundred yards. I am trained to see them and execute my techniques immediately before they even arrive to me. My uncle trained me that way.

When we got in the car, something clicked. I just said, “Father, please don’t let me have to tear this guy up.”

Because when we shut the door, I heard a click that didn’t sound right.

We were driving. I said, “Turn right here at Coliseum.”

He turned left.

Then I knew I was in danger.

I reached to roll the window down. There was no knob. I reached to open the door. There was no knob. I looked at him. He had a belt wrapped around his fist.

We stopped. He parked.

He said – and I will never forget these words as long as I live – “Now, let me stick it in, and I’ll take you home.”

I said, “What?”

He said, “Let me stick it in, and I’ll take you home.”

I said, “Fuck no. You ain’t sticking nothing in.”

He came to punch me. I blocked it. I hit him. I ran to the back of the van. I thought I was safe. But there was a big chain and a lock on the back – a big cow chain. He was on his way back. I ran back through, tried to bust out his side of the door because mine was locked.

He grabbed my feet by my ankles. He pulled me back, flipped me over, and he was on top of me, looking me dead in my face. He said, “Now, let me stick it in, and I’ll take you home.”

I said, “No. Get off me. You’ll never see me again. I’ll never tell Bonita. Just get off me.”

His voice got stronger. He was getting angry. I felt his intensity. He said, “Let me stick it in, or I’ll take you on.”

I said, “Okay.”

When I said that, he got off my wrist. He had been holding my wrist, looking me smack dead in my face.

When he got off my wrist – I swear that motherfucker got up. I was up against the wall. I was like, “Yeah, come on, motherfucker.”

Leg kick.

And then I saw fear in his eyes.

When I saw fear in his eyes, I knew I had him. Now it was a matter of time. I took care of the left leg. Now let me take care of the right leg. He came running at me like a football player and slammed me up against the van.

I felt something, but I told myself, “Don’t give up now.”

I grabbed the end of his shirt. I grabbed his pants. I pulled him over. I stepped on his chest. I grabbed him and said, “Where the keys at, motherfucker?”

He said, “In my pocket. In my pocket. Get off, get off.”

I said, “Oh, now you want me to get out the van? When I wanted to get out, I had to let you stick it in? Where the keys at?”

A bunch of keys. “Which one?”

“It’s the orange one.”

I took the keys, slid him over to the door, pulled the lock off, pulled the chain off, opened the door. I said, “Now, if you ever see me on the streets, what are you going to say?”

He said, “Hi.”

I said, “Bam. You’re going to go the opposite direction. Do you understand me, motherfucker? Get out the van.”

I didn’t know it could go that high. I had this motherfucker. I said one more thing: “When a woman says no, she means no.”

I jumped out the van. It was nothing but fog. I couldn’t see. I was falling, falling, falling. Finally, I saw two little lights in the distance. I focused on those lights. The closer I got, the bigger the lights got.

It was a cab driver. An old, old, old white man.

I said, “Listen. This guy tried to – please take me home.”

He said, “Tap on in. What’s the address?”

I got back to my place with one damn shoe, one earring. It was crazy. It was a fight for my life.

The Aftermath

I realised I didn’t have my keys. I went to tell the cab driver, and he was gone. I ran to my friends’ door. They opened up. “Girl, what’s wrong with you?”

I said, “This guy tried to – give me a phone. I need to call my mother.”

I called her. I said, “This guy tried me. I want to get out of California right now. I never want to come back.”

My mother said, “Okay, fine. Let me call your father’s people.”

The next flight, I was on it. Emergency flight back to Philadelphia. My whole family was there. I had no intention of ever, ever, ever, ever coming back to California.

Never.

The Healing

I kept having nightmares. I kept waking up fighting. I’ll never forget my mother saying to me, “Did he rape you?”

I said, “No.”

She said, “Well, then goddammit, it was a fight. And you won the fight. Do you understand me?”

Then she slapped the shit out of me. She slapped my spirit from one side of my face to the other. And then it all made sense. She had to slap the sense back into me.

I started going to therapy. My mother said, “I’m not going to be around all the time. I need you to start training and preparing yourself to open yourself up to other people. You dig?”

That therapy helped me. It helped me create the short story that eventually went viral – 17 million views. That’s how it all came about. Just by me going to therapy and talking about it, wanting to see it from the other side.

The Truth About Lonnie

Years later, I was coming in from the gym. I turned on the TV, and I saw him. Lonnie. Right there on the screen. When I saw him, all that energy came back. The fight. The eye contact. Everything. I was reliving it.

I freaked out. I called my mother. “The guy who tried to – fifteen years ago – he’s on TV. Turn it on right now.”

My mother told me not to bother with the case. “He didn’t rape you. Let it go. You don’t need to be a part of it.”

What I didn’t know then was that Lonnie was the Grim Sleeper. A serial killer. The magazine had been dropped on my doorstep years earlier – the LA Weekly – with him on the cover. I didn’t know it then.

But I listened to my mother. I let it go.

The Championship

The only reason I ever came back to California was for the world championship fight. It was on the other side of Southern California.

My coaches reached out. They said, “We got a championship fight for you. Everything to gain, nothing to lose.”

I said, “Who do you want me to fight?”

They said, “The most dangerous woman in the world.”

I said, “The most dangerous woman in the world? Damn. I get to fight for my life again.”

Her record was 27 and 2. My mother said, “Well, she ain’t that damn bad. She got beat twice.”

What inspired me was that she had been on Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson asked her, “How can you be the most dangerous woman in the world when you have never fought anyone from North America?”

She said, “Well, I am here to fight Frida Gibbs.”

I thought, “Oh. So it’s like that, huh? Okay.”

I forgot about the darkness and started moving toward the light.

The Fight

I trained diligently for sixty days with Saks and Janit. In Thailand, Saks is like Tom Brady. I had the opportunity to train with him at UCLA, Drake Stadium. Five in the morning, four in the afternoon. It was one of the best trainings I ever had. Working with him was healing.

The day of the fight, we drove to San Jose. I had killed three rattlesnakes before that. They came to get me in a station wagon with a mattress on the back. Told me to sleep on it. The day of the fight. I’m fighting for a world championship on pay-per-view – the first pay-per-view card ever – and they didn’t even have an ESPN award.

I went through the back door. They put me in a little room. I knew what royal treatment was – I had just come from Germany, a two-year contract getting paid $3,000 a week to play professional basketball. Division One athlete. This treatment was pissing me off.

I called my mother. “They’re trying to set me up.”

She said, “Well, you tell them that I said you’re the one her mama warned her about.”

When my mother said that, the energy permeated me. I called my grandmother. “They trying to set me up. They think I’m stupid.”

My grandmother said, “We know you’re a star. Now it’s your job to go out there and let the world know.”

I took both of those energies and said, “Let’s go.”

Press Conference

At the press conference, she was looking all fly and sexy. Heels on. Makeup. And my thought was, “Damn. You know what? I’m going to beat your ass, and you’re going to meet me in my room tonight.”

But she could fight. That girl could fight. I’m telling you. The girls know how to fight.

She said, “I looked on a map and I couldn’t find Chester.”

Everybody laughed.

I walked up to her. I said, “Tonight, not only will you find Chester on the map, but I want you to know that I’m the one your mama warned you about. Now let’s do this.”

The Moment

They called me. “Gibbs, it’s time.”

I walked to the arena. It was the first time I had seen it. I didn’t realise it was so big. My spirit literally ran back to Pennsylvania. I thought, “Whoa. This is serious.”

I looked around. Someone said, “That’s the Black girl who came here to get knocked down.” Everybody laughed. It pissed me off.

I said, “Tonight, Father, we going to shock the world.”

Got in the ring. Tapped gloves.

I have to be honest. Valerie Vonn is bad. She’s a bad white girl. She really put it on me. My legs were getting tired because I had trained Muay Thai, but they had changed the fight to kickboxing. I had to stay above the waist. My legs got tired very quickly.

Third round, I felt my legs. I saw myself falling. I see things before they happen – I manifest. I saw myself falling, and I said, “No. This is not going to happen. We’re going to have to change the script.”

I dug deep inside. “Father, help me. My legs are getting tired.”

I kicked one time. Then I swung. Boom.

I connected.

That’s when it was over. That’s when history was made.

The Legacy

I had no idea that I had made history. I was just happy because I won. I was happy because I knew I was the underdog. I was elated because they didn’t know who I was.

I believe if they had known my background – professional European basketball player, Division One athlete, Olympic track runner, three-time world champion in karate – it would have been a different ball game. But they didn’t care about my background.

I kept saying in my mind, “You don’t even know who I am. You have no idea who I really am. But you’re going to find out tonight.”

And they did.

What I Want You to Know

I have been in combat with some bad guys and some bad females. I have been bullied. I have been trapped. I have been terrified.

But I learned something. Every single child on this planet needs to learn how to protect themselves. Learning self-defense changed my life – not because it’s about fighting, but because it’s deeper than that. It’s about doing things you don’t want to do. It’s about discipline. Showing up when you don’t feel like it.

It’s not just physical. It’s everything.

To the kids who are currently being bullied – and to the kids who are doing the bullying – something is wrong in your situation. You too need to protect yourself.

I was once where you were. When they see my video, they come up to me and say, “We still don’t believe that you were ever bullied.”

I tell them: I was. You see me fighting? I was.

But I had to learn to fight back. And you are going to have to learn to fight back. It’s a good thing. Learning how to protect ourselves is a good thing – in a society that has us believing that self-defense is a bad thing.

Self-defense is a good thing. Because even in the Book of Ephesians, we are given equipment to protect ourselves spiritually. The helmet. The breastplate. The sword. The shield. The shoes. The belt of truth.

We are given these things to protect ourselves.

The universe tells us that we have to protect ourselves.

The Final Word

I am currently working with some heavy hitters in Hollywood. Mark Ambro – producer for Justin Bieber and the Beatles. Paul Tamasy – writer of The Fighter. We are working together to produce my life story.

Right now, we are in process. Definitely coming soon. We are very excited.

Because when I tell my story, it feels like a movie. A little girl from Chester, Pennsylvania, who couldn’t eat her dinner, who was bullied on a school bus, who learned to fight back at her own dinner table, who survived a serial killer in a van, who became the world’s first African-American female world kickboxing champion.

That is a story worth telling.

Confidence is knowing who you are. Knowing the gifts that God has blessed you with. I didn’t know that word when I was a little girl. But I learned it.

And now I have a six-foot bronze statue.

Not many people can say that.