FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Nancy Olson said a neighbor in their waterfront Fort Lauderdale neighborhood began sexually abusing her some 37 years ago when she was just 10 years old.
The neighbor, Louis Bianculli, lured her into his home on the pretense that they would watch a movie, but she said that it was her who became the star attraction.
"He said he was becoming a doctor and asked me to help him with extra credit for his degree," she said, adding he put on a doctor's mask and had a stethoscope. "He said I would have to have my clothes off, but I would be covered with a towel at all times and that the video camera that he was getting into position would only see the inside of my body that was part of his medical research."
Bianculli was no doctor. He was the 30-something playboy son of a millionaire developer who would go on to become a wealthy developer himself.
Olson said Bianculli asked her to breathe into a rag. It was only later she realized it was chloroform. The abuse would become a regularly occurring event, always involving him rendering her unconscious, she said. Getting away with it was made easier for him by the fact that both of her parents were disabled, her father blinded during the Korean War and her mother relegated to a wheelchair after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she said. It didn't stop until she ran away from the home and Bianculli at the age of 17.
For years, she wasn't sure what Bianculli had done to her while she was knocked out. Bianculli was later married, and, while she stayed away from him, they continued to live in the same neighborhood. Then came a surprise visit from in the late 1980s his wife, Kim Bianculli. She had startling news.
"His ex-wife found these videotapes," she said. "He taped of all these sessions from when I was 10 years old to my last session, and she saw me on the videos."
Her first question was a simple one: What did he do?
Olson said she had vague recollections of him taking the towel off, of him "examining" her genitals, even of being jostled around, but none of it was clear. She said Kim Bianculli told her the videos indicated he enjoyed bringing her near death and reviving her.
"He had not only this desire to be a doctor and pretend to be a doctor, he has this fetish for the dead and he likes to pretend like he can bring us back to life," she said. "There was many times that the anesthesia may not have been the right dose, and I know he would be slamming me and trying to give me CPR and shaking me and trying to revive me. He would feel grand about it, that he could bring somebody back to life."
Today, Louis Bianculli awaits trial in the main Broward County jail on multiple counts of sexual battery on a child, but Olson isn't the victim listed in the case. The victim is instead Bianculli's former stepdaughter, who alleges he began chloroforming her when she was 12 years old, and continued the abuse through her teenage years. The alleged crimes included sexual molestation, using needles and knives on her body during impromptu "surgeries" and rendering her unconscious by placing plastic bags over her head.
In secretly recorded conversations that are now at the heart of the case, Louis Bianculli, now 69, admitted to abusing the alleged victim, calling his behavior an "addiction" and saying he had "so much experience" with chloroform that he "could have been an anesthesiologist." He said on the tapes that he was introduced to bizarre forms of sex from a couple of friends early in life and that used to go to "snuff clubs" in Atlanta.
"She used to pass out so fast, it was weird," he said of the victim. "I checked if her heart was still beating, that neck pressure point thing. A lot of people get off on it sexually. You get a rush from it. ... It's about power. It's about control. It's a game."
Several other witnesses have come forward, including Olson, one dating back 50 years, who told police a teenaged Louis Bianculli chloroformed her when she was just 9 years old and raped her. Now prosecutors Katie Bogenschutz and Patyl O'Flazian are trying to tie together Bianculli's dark history.
"We will investigate every single witness," O'Flazian said in a recent court hearing. "And we will determine exactly what they know."
At the heart of that effort is Kim Bianculli, but Louis Bianculli’s defense attorneys, Herb Cohen and Jayne Weintraub, argued before Judge Michael Rothschild that the ex-wife wasn't a material witness and that she had not seen any of the alleged crimes. When they asked Rothschild to downgrade her from an "A" witness to a "C" witness -- and thus diminish her possible impact on the upcoming trial -- the prosecutors balked and the judge asked that she be deposed.
The question: What will she disclose -- or not disclose -- about what she knows?
Olson said she and Kim Bianculli, who also has a son with Louis Bianculli, spoke of taking the incriminating videotapes to the police. Olson said Kim Bianculli told her that while she was viewing the videotapes she noticed her own bed and was outraged that he would use their marital bed. Then Kim Bianculli saw herself in the videos.
"To her surprise, she saw herself in those videos when she was already asleep for the night," Olson said. "He would chloroform her in the middle of the night when she was asleep. Then he would get into the panic mode and he has to revive the unconscious."
She said Kim Bianculli told her that she had woken up in terrible pain and learned she'd broken a rib and had no idea what caused it until she saw the videotapes.
Kim Bianculli met Louis Bianculli when she was just a teenager and he was in his late 30s. They were married when she was 19 and he was 39.
Olson said Kim Bianculli told her that early in the relationship she had allowed him to chloroform her but had forbid him from doing it after they were married because it made her sick.
"I helped her," Olson said. "She was packing up her car and trying to run away in fear."
The two also spoke of going to the police, but then Louis Bianculli discovered that she had the tapes, Olson said.
"He threatened by grabbing her by her throat and threatened to kill her and her family if she did not give back these tapes," Olson said. "So out of fear she gave back these tapes … to this pedophile."
Louis Bianculli was arrested on a domestic violence charge after a screaming Kim Bianculli called 911 in 1994, according to reports. Emergency personnel noted there were guns all over the house. But Kim Bianculli later waived prosecution writing that she was divorced and was living on her home from "my estranged husband." It's not known if that incident was related to the videotapes. There is no mention of them in reports.
Today, however, Kim Bianculli is supporting Louis Bianculli, who has an estimated worth of more than $25 million and is living in his waterfront Lighthouse Point mansion while he awaits trial in jail. In a sworn statement administered by Weintraub, Kim Bianculli said she didn't believe Louis Bianculli was a danger to the community at all.
"Were you ever forced to have sex doing chloroform or anything like that?" Weintraub asked her.
"No," she answered.
"Where there any knives in any sexual parts of your relationship with Lou ever?" Weintraub asked.
"No," she said.
"Were you forced to pass out and have any sex with Lou or anything like that?" Weintraub asked.
"No," she said.
Olson said she expected Kim Bianculli might be influenced by living in the mansion and other potential perks offered by the millionaire. When confronted at the courthouse by Local 10 News investigative reporter Bob Norman, Kim Bianculli shielded her face and refused to answer any questions. Her deposition is expected to take place soon, perhaps as early as this week.
"We know he did these things," Olson said. "He did it to us."