Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen · Sony Music Entertainment / Campside Media

A Masked Man. A Silent Trail. The Hunt for the Bogeyman.

November 12, 2025·9 min

The episode opens with Sacramento prosecutor Keith Hill describing the subject of the series as a boogeyman who hid in plain sight for nearly 30 years, a serial predator whose capture required a groundbreaking forensic technique and a specific detective. The host provides brief context: the series began in Rohnert Park, a small town north of San Francisco, in 1991. Nicole Ernest Pate bought her first home at age 19, living with a boyfriend six years older in a two-story townhome with a sliding glass door that faced the parking lot instead of the back of the building. After breaking up with him at 21 and being left with only basic furniture and a mortgage, she placed a newspaper ad for a roommate. A man called, identified himself as Bob Smith in a flat, monotone voice, said he worked in construction and had a family but needed a room for commuting. He asked to visit Sunday morning; Nicole told him not too early since she'd be out Saturday night. On that Saturday she worked a full day as a hairdresser, came home exhausted, took a bath, canceled her plans to go out, and fell asleep on the couch in a light robe. She woke to an arm around her neck, a masked man with a gun at her head who walked her upstairs with her hands behind her back. He sexually assaulted her for hours. In the aftermath, Nicole describes thinking about the crime every day of her life and fantasizing about how she would someday be told her attacker had been caught. She never told her husband. The host notes that approximately 80 percent of rape victims know their attacker, making Nicole's experience of a complete stranger particularly disorienting. Nicole later learned her attacker had attacked many others over decades and no one could find him. The series follows her journey to understand both who he was and why he became what he was, aided by cold case detective Paul Holes.

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