F lick, flick, flick.

Jackie O’Brien spent months obsessively digging thumbnails underneath her fingernails. She said she wanted to be certain skin was gone from the filthy bastard who smashed her head again and again on a concrete slab.

During the horrific beating 27 years ago, O’Brien fought for her life, including scratching Mitchell Gaff, 48, who has recently been in the news. For 22 years, Gaff’s been in prison or a prisonlike treatment facility after violent attacks on a pair of Everett teens.

He moved to a halfway house in late September that will cost about $550,000 a year for his care.

That’s $1,500 a day.

O’Brien said it’s money that could be spent on computers for kids or books for college students.

She is entitled to her opinion.

Gaff nearly killed her.

The day before Thanksgiving 1979, before noon, the single woman, 29, put her lawnmower away in a detached garage behind her house. A man’s voice admonished her to get on her knees and not turn around.

But O’Brien turned to find a gun in her face. She worked as a dispatcher for the state patrol and it flashed through her brain that a buddy might be playing a joke. That idea vanished when the barrel of the gun cracked her skull.

She was knocked to the concrete floor. Gaff put the gun aside, picked up her head and knocked it over and over onto the rock-hard foundation. When Gaff lost his grip, he threaded his fingers through her hair to efficiently pummel her scalp.

O’Brien screamed as he wound duct tape around one wrist, but no one heard the cries.

Seeing he didn’t have the weapon, she fought to her feet, blood gushing down her old sweatshirt and worn jeans. Gaff snarled the ugly B word and said she was going to die. He kneed her – hard – in the back.

O’Brien clawed his neck.

Years before, O’Brien worked for the Bothell police. She interviewed women who had been raped and assaulted and wondered why females seldom fought back.

In her mind, O’Brien knew she would never be easily overcome, and she would memorize a description of an assailant.

Back on her feet, Gaff pulled a hunting knife from his boots and slashed her hand shielding her body.

Retelling the horrific story, O’Brien broke down as she held up a scarred palm. She continued, gagging through tears.

It was not her time to die.

She fought dirty, she said, threw herself past him and fled into the street to the arms of a neighbor. Gaff was sniffed out blocks away by a police dog. Before she went to the hospital, O’Brien identified her attacker and verified his voice. A police officer demanded that Gaff speak a few words for O’Brien.

“What the (expletive) do you want me to say?” he sneered.

It was him, all right. Police later found his duffel bag, stuffed with a sexual device and pig mask, O’Brien said. The sexual predator was tried, did a month in jail and was put on five years probation. Before Gaff’s probation was up, he spent more than two hours raping and sodomizing two teenage sisters.

He did his time, and worked a program at a Special Commitment Center. Gaff’s case is the latest in the state’s bid to deal with people who have been found to be sexually violent predators likely to commit more crimes.

In 1995 and 2000, juries found Gaff to be a sexually violent predator who legally could be confined to receive treatment under a civil commitment proceeding. The commitment center therapists and other experts agreed Gaff was ready for the Seattle halfway house.

Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Paul Stern said the purpose of this agreement is to have control over him for eight years, but he disagrees with the diagnosis of therapists.

“The ideal situation is that the experts are right and I am wrong,” Stern said. “This office is overly cautious. If the experts are right and I am wrong, everybody is safe.”

Among numerous conditions, Gaff must undergo sex offender treatment and psychotherapy, and he can’t come into Snohomish County except to attend court. Throughout the entire Gaff saga, Stern kept Jackie O’Brien informed, step by step.

“I owe such a debt of gratitude to this man,” O’Brien said. “He is such an angel. He’s spent thousands of hours on this case.”

Her husband, Mike O’Brien, said everyone’s lives have changed. They were dating at the time of the beating.

“The fear factor never goes away,” Mike O’Brien said. “Your comfort zone changes.”

His wife slept with her hand on a .38-caliber Smith &Wesson handgun until their son turned 4. Then she knew she had to put it away, Jackie O’Brien said.

When she’s home alone, she keeps the house quiet, always on alert, ears sharp. It was a long time before O’Brien went back into the garage.

After the attack victim left the hospital, she said she remembers soaking in a hot bath, trying to purge the predator’s stink.

“He’s a bad seed … ,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to have these people in society.”

Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.