The 20/20 episode “The Woman in the Suitcase” tells the remarkable survival story of Inna Budnytska. On February 21, 2005, the 21-year-old cruise line worker was found unconscious, naked, beaten and near death, abandoned in an undeveloped Miami cul-de-sac. Budnytska, a guest in a nearby airport hotel, had no memory of her attack and rape. She was last seen getting into an elevator in the hotel.
According to ABC News, Budnytska filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the hotel, citing negligent security. The hotel hired private investigator Ken Brennan to investigate her claims. The former DEA agent studied the surveillance tapes which captured Budnytska getting into the elevator, which eventually helped Brennan to break the case. At one point, Budnytska entered the elevator with hotel guest Michael Lee Jones. Less than two hours later, he left the hotel with a suitcase. Brennan believed Budnytska was in the suitcase.
Jones was charged with multiple felonies in Budnytska’s case. He pleaded guilty to one count of sexual battery with a weapon and aggravated battery and was sentenced to two years in prison. Brennan also believed this wasn’t Jones’ first attack. When Jones’ DNA was entered into the FBI’s national database, three “hits” came up for Jones’ DNA including a case in Colorado Springs. About nine months after the 2005 attack on Budnystka in Miami, a woman named Jennifer Roessler was attacked.
Roessler died from natural causes unrelated to her attack before she had a chance to testify against Jones in 2009. Prosecutors called on Budnytska to serve as a witness. Jones, who pleaded not guilty, was found guilty by a jury. He was sentenced to 24 years to life in prison for the attack on Roessler. “I feel happy,” Budnytska said of Jones’ sentence. “The criminal is where he’s supposed to be, and he is never gonna hurt nobody in the future.”
According to her lawyer, Inna Budnytska won a $300,000 settlement from the hotel and the hotel’s security company. 20/20 airs Fridays at 9 pm on ABC.
