Early Victim Of Stockton Murderer Larry Dun Breaks Her Silence After Four Decades

STOCKTON (CBS13) — A California man who killed, raped and tortured a woman believes he no longer belongs behind bars—something the parole board agreed with, once.

Now Larry Dun's victims say they live in constant fear the man who is serving time for murdering a Stockton woman in the 1970s may one day get out.

Dun has another victim who survived, who has kept her silence until talking to CBS13.

"It's like it happened yesterday," Tracy Hart said. "I can remember his touch. I can remember his smell. I can remember his voice. I can remember that knife."

It was just a few minutes in Hart's life, but it's played over and over again in her mind for the last 40 years.

"I relive the nightmare," she said. "It does not go away."

For the first time, Hart is opening up about the day in 1973 that she says she's never spoken about in full detail to her family or friends, or even police.

Hart was 15 and home alone with her sister when she opened the bathroom door and the nightmare began.

"And there he stood. I thought it was something out of a movie," she said. "I took off running, and he was chasing me jumping over my bed."

"He was chasing me around with a knife," she said. "And then he made us take our clothes off."

Hart says the intruder sexually assaulted her and her sister.

"What saved us was that my stepfather called and when he called Cathy and I told him you better leave," Hart said.

Before he ran out, Hart got a good look at his face. She says it was Larry Dun, a teen she went to high school with.

"We knew he was still out there stalking us, and they kind of just swept it aside," she said.

For reasons the four-decade old court documents don't explain, investigators never arrested Dun. In the next three years, he would attack two other teens, police say, including a girl he raped as she walked home from school.

That was before he chose Maryann Jacobs, a mother of three, as his final victim.

Vicki Jernigan and her sister remember coming home to officers standing outside their door.

"She was my best friend," she said. "I went next door and the neighbor said I have something really hard to tell you—your mom's been—your mom's been killed."

According to court transcripts, Dun confessed to murdering, mutilating and raping Maryann. He told investigators that he went to the 37-year-old's Stockton home

"There was two people inside of me. The good and the bad," he said. "I brought that knife. I guess that knife came out. She was tied up. I think a gag around her mouth. Later there was a phone call and I think it was her daughter."

"And she answered the phone and she said you stay there and I'll come pick you up," Jernigan said.

It was snowing that day in Stockton. She planned to meet her mother after school, but Maryann never showed.

"I'd like to say what really happened? tell me what really happened," she said. "And why did you keep torturing her even after she was dead? You just kept stabbing her and hurting her."

Police arrested Dun the next day. They didn't need to look very far—he was their neighbor.

"He was just a nice guy who lived down the street," Jernigan said.

A nice guy who also appears to be a nice guy in prison. In the last few decades, Dun's earned a degree, held jobs, and attended therapy programs, including sex-offender treatment. Described as a model prisoner, Dun was granted Parole in 2010.

"How do you trust a justice system you know if they're going to let someone like him out," Jernigan said.

Gov. Jerry Brown reversed that decision, but Dun has asked every year to be released. Vicki and her sister Terri fear their mother's killer will be set free.

"He shouldn't have a chance to be keep on asking to be paroled," Jernigan said. "He should be there for the rest of his life."

When Hart heard about Dun's near-chance at freedom, she couldn't keep the secret she'd held for decades and reached out to Vicki.

Two strangers, brought together by the same nightmare, who hope their presence is enough to keep a convicted killer behind bars for the rest of his life.

Dun went before the parole board on Thursday to once again ask to be set free. The sisters were there to testify once again, and he was denied parole.

CBS13 reached out to Dun to see if he would say his part, but he has yet to respond.