"Why, as a victim, was I never told," asked the woman quietly, her eyes wet with tears.
She cannot be named because as a victim of a sex crime, her identity is ruled to be secret by the courts.
She was listed on the National Victims Notification Register and had received a cursory phone call from Corrections saying Hotene had died - nothing more.
As far as she knew, Hotene was still serving his time in maximum security at Paremoremo Prison.
"Whanganui Prison is just too close for comfort. If I'd known he was in there, I would have kicked up a stink, asked a lot of questions and insisted they move him."
The woman has a new job and business and is positive and cheerful, but she wasn't once.
After the attack by Hotene in 1992, she was so tortured with fear she couldn't work any longer.
She couldn't function for more than two years never leaving her house.
She can see Hotene as he was in 1992, as a 21-year-old standing in the doorway of the shop where she worked.
It was about 10am on a Saturday, and she went out of her way to help him choose gifts for his niece and nephew, she said.
He remembered he'd left his wallet at home, she said. While he was gone, she carefully wrapped the gifts for him.
"When he came back, 10 minutes later, he stood quietly for a while, looking around."
Then he struck ... clamping his ski-gloved hand over her mouth and, with the other, holding a knife against her face.
The struggle, which moved from the counter through to the back room of the shop, is etched forever in her head, she said.
"He said he was going to strangle me, and I kept kicking ... then he reckoned it was too much and he left ... He cut the phone cord first."
Crippled with fear, the woman managed after a few minutes to leave the shop and go for help.
She shudders when she says she had to have blood tests for aids.
In 1992, in Wanganui, Hotene had targeted three women, all minding shops on their own.
The woman said when she heard about the other two she knew it was the same man.
Then when she heard of the rape and murder of young Auckland journalist Kylie Jones in 2001 she said: "I knew it was him. They had let him out of prison, and I just knew it would be him ... he was always going to get worse."