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Speaker 5: Whatever you doing, you are now listening to True Murder
Speaker 5: the most shocking killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 5: authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The
Speaker 5: Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the
Speaker 5: most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True
Speaker 5: Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good Evening,
Speaker 5: This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder,
Speaker 5: The most shocking killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 5: authors that have written about them. Mary Jean Pearl and
Speaker 5: John Battagulia's marriage seem picture perfect from the outside. With
Speaker 5: her two young daughters, Faith and Liberty, they made their
Speaker 5: home in a wealthy Dallas suburb. John was handsome, charming
Speaker 5: and successful, but behind the mask of normality lay a vicious,
Speaker 5: violent abuser who had brutally beaten his first wife and
Speaker 5: who made Mary Jean the new target of his irrational rages.
Speaker 5: After nine hellish years, she divorced Bataglia, but on Christmas
Speaker 5: Day nineteen ninety nine, during a court ordered family visit,
Speaker 5: he attacked her in front of their daughters. For the
Speaker 5: next two years, he threatened, harassed, and stalked her. Mary
Speaker 5: Jean feared for her life, but not for the lives
Speaker 5: of the children, which whom Batagulia was never anything less
Speaker 5: than caring, loving and gentle. But in spring two thousand
Speaker 5: and one, when Faith and Liberty were visiting their father,
Speaker 5: Mary Jean received the message to call her daughters helpless Horrified,
Speaker 5: she heard her older daughter's pleading cries. Then came the
Speaker 5: sound of gunshots, followed by silence. What evil impulses had
Speaker 5: driven a seemingly devoted father to the ultimate act of
Speaker 5: violence and betrayal? And how could justice ever be served? No, Daddy,
Speaker 5: don't a father's murderous rage a mother's worst nightmare. With
Speaker 5: my very special guest, Irene Pence, thank you very much
Speaker 5: for agreeing to this program, and thank you for coming
Speaker 5: to this program. Irene Pence, thank.
Speaker 3: You for asking me, Dan, I'm good at being here.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I think we're gonna have a
Speaker 4: great program. This is a fantastic, incredibly disturbing, but fascinating tale,
Speaker 4: very important story, I think really in the end result,
Speaker 4: it's a fascinating story. Now let's start off right now
Speaker 4: with let me let me get you to set the
Speaker 4: stage of where this story occurs. There is a couple cities,
Speaker 4: but maybe let's start with maybe Dallas. Set this in
Speaker 4: this wealthy Dallas suburb that that you spoke about in
Speaker 4: the introduction, or I spoke about in the introduction, set
Speaker 4: the stage a little bit for us for at least
Speaker 4: the first city in this incredible tale.
Speaker 3: Well, the actual crime occurred in Dallas, Texas, and John
Speaker 3: Battaglia was a CPA and he met Mary Jean Pearl
Speaker 3: one night at a restaurant. And he's very handsome. He's
Speaker 3: a model per Kim Dawson that's here in Dallas, and
Speaker 3: that was just a side job because he's actually a CPA.
Speaker 3: And she is the daughter of a very wealthy family
Speaker 3: and she was just really taken by him, and he's charming,
Speaker 3: there's no question.
Speaker 4: Now you start your story with another woman. The first
Speaker 4: woman of our story is a woman named Michelle Ward
Speaker 4: and then she later is married to Dale Laborde and
Speaker 4: she becomes Michelle Laborde and they have a son named Billy.
Speaker 4: So take us back to Michelle Leboard who is she
Speaker 4: and tell us about her life because this is a
Speaker 4: very important part of this story.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Michelle is just a fabulous, brilliant and beautiful person. She
Speaker 3: lives in bat Rouge, Louisiana, and she's very bright and
Speaker 3: she was always, you know, graduating in the top one
Speaker 3: percent of her class. And she married quickly out of
Speaker 3: college and they had a baby about three years later,
Speaker 3: and it didn't work out, and so she divorced that man,
Speaker 3: but she did have this little boy. Then she decided
Speaker 3: to go to law school and so she again graduated
Speaker 3: in the top one percent of her class. And she
Speaker 3: really wanted to teach, but her instructors suggested that she
Speaker 3: practiced law for a while and that would give her
Speaker 3: good experience for teaching. So she moved to Dallas and
Speaker 3: joined a large law firm, aich, Strashauer and Feld, and
Speaker 3: she was very well paid. And then a fellow lawyer
Speaker 3: had introduced her to John Battaglia, and that's how they
Speaker 3: got together. And it was kind of a whirlwind romance.
Speaker 3: But then again, the handsomeess, the polish, he could talk
Speaker 3: on any subject. He's very bright and charming.
Speaker 4: And he had done some modeling too, so he had
Speaker 4: model good looks, about six foot tall, you described this guy,
Speaker 4: and obviously very charismatic and intelligent guy. So she was
Speaker 4: a little bit younger than him, if I correct correct
Speaker 4: on that and tell us how they met, and you
Speaker 4: say it was a whirlwind sort of relationship.
Speaker 3: Was one of the attorneys she was working with at
Speaker 3: AIChE and Gump introduced them, and so that's how she
Speaker 3: got to know John Bataglia.
Speaker 4: Now, what happened you say it's a whirlwind. What happened
Speaker 4: quickly in the relationship? How did it develop and how
Speaker 4: serious did that relationship become?
Speaker 3: Well, they were dating and she started noticing troubling signs
Speaker 3: about him. He carried a gun, and he seemed to
Speaker 3: get nervous and irritated easily, and she was thinking about
Speaker 3: breaking up with him. And then she found out she
Speaker 3: was pregnant, and she didn't want to marry him, but
Speaker 3: her mother kind of shamed her into it, you know,
Speaker 3: don't have an illegitimate child, so forth, and that's why
Speaker 3: she married him.
Speaker 4: Now what was her belief though, Was she really confident
Speaker 4: that this man may change? Because you really do express
Speaker 4: this sort of duality that he was, especially in the beginning,
Speaker 4: such a loving and doting person. And part of the
Speaker 4: reason why she trusted him is because of how he
Speaker 4: dealt with her son, Billy.
Speaker 3: Right, he always professes to have love children and he
Speaker 3: would go over to her house and play with Billy
Speaker 3: before they would go out, and she wondered if was
Speaker 3: he really more interested in Billy because he showed such
Speaker 3: love for him.
Speaker 4: Right, it's very interesting now, so did they so obviously
Speaker 4: they were married, and then how did the relationship proceed?
Speaker 4: How did it? How did his behavior change or escalate?
Speaker 3: His behavior changed rapidly Actually when the daughter that they had,
Speaker 3: the second child that Michelle had, when she after she
Speaker 3: was born, probably only two or three months old, he
Speaker 3: got mad at Michelle because he didn't think she was
Speaker 3: paying enough attention to him, and he hit her and
Speaker 3: knocked her down with the baby in her arms. So
Speaker 3: that was the first first ringing of the bell to
Speaker 3: make her realize that something terribly wrong was in her marriage.
Speaker 4: Now was the result of this assault? How did she proceed?
Speaker 4: And and her reaction to this assault obviously led to
Speaker 4: his further behavior. So what did she do and what
Speaker 4: did she not do? Result?
Speaker 3: Well, her problem was that she didn't do anything. She
Speaker 3: was embarrassed that she was beaten by her husband, so
Speaker 3: she didn't tell her family. When she went to work
Speaker 3: one day, her secretary noticed bruises, so she took her
Speaker 3: to the lady's room and showed her her back how
Speaker 3: purple it was from John Sis. And so then another
Speaker 3: lawyer came by after they got out, and he said,
Speaker 3: is anything wrong and Michelle said, oh, no, everything's just fine.
Speaker 3: It's sort of the typical abused wife syndrome. And we're
Speaker 3: talking about a very very bright woman.
Speaker 4: Right, So what at what point does she contact? Well,
Speaker 4: obviously she confided in somebody at work, but how does
Speaker 4: it who does she further contact, if anyone, what's her
Speaker 4: next step and how does his behaviors still further escalate?
Speaker 3: Well, when he beat her again, she called the police
Speaker 3: and so tried to get them to do something to
Speaker 3: keep him away from her, but he would come back
Speaker 3: with flowers and apologies and promises that he was going
Speaker 3: to change, and she believed, which is a typical pattern.
Speaker 4: And there would be some change for a certain period
Speaker 4: of time, but he was on.
Speaker 3: A three month cycle. He would be able to clean
Speaker 3: up his act for about three months and then well,
Speaker 3: he essentially was bipolar, and so that's kind of what
Speaker 3: triggered everything. He didn't like the meds that he made
Speaker 3: him more calm, and so he didn't want to take those.
Speaker 3: He was real controller and the fact that he didn't
Speaker 3: have his meds just he spun out of control about
Speaker 3: every three months.
Speaker 4: So this this assault, How serious was this assault? And
Speaker 4: what was the what was the police's but the police
Speaker 4: and their reaction and tell us a little bit more
Speaker 4: about that court case and the result.
Speaker 3: Well, the police unfortunately, as with Mary Jean, they didn't
Speaker 3: They just didn't take domestic abuse seriously enough, and she
Speaker 3: would file papers on him and he would manage to
Speaker 3: wiggle out of it. The most serious assault that John
Speaker 3: Bettaglia did was after they were divorced, when he beat
Speaker 3: her so terribly and broke her nose and dislocated her jaw.
Speaker 3: And but before that though, she she made up her
Speaker 3: mind she was going to get divorced.
Speaker 4: Now she moves out or has him move out of
Speaker 4: the home. There is other some other features as well,
Speaker 4: including stocking. Tell us about the stocking, because it's particularly
Speaker 4: it's one thing to be peeping or following. He went
Speaker 4: to much more extreme levels.
Speaker 3: He was really clever, and that dan because she was
Speaker 3: under such peril with him, she hired a lawyer and
Speaker 3: he told her to keep a log of all the
Speaker 3: things that he had done. So they could present this
Speaker 3: to the judge and perhaps that would get someone's attention,
Speaker 3: the judge's attention. So I had the benefit of Michelle's log.
Speaker 3: You know, like on Thursday at two o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 3: he came over and you know, he would she would
Speaker 3: get the locks changed on her house, and he would
Speaker 3: call the locksmith and say, oh, I've locked myself out,
Speaker 3: would you please make me a new key? I just
Speaker 3: feel so silly about this. And you know, smart, charming,
Speaker 3: good looking goes a long ways, And so the locksmith
Speaker 3: would make him a new key, and then if that
Speaker 3: happened again, then he took call a different locksmith. But
Speaker 3: she would wake up some mornings, you know, at one
Speaker 3: two in the morning, and he'd be hovering over her
Speaker 3: bed and threatening to you know, hit her. I could
Speaker 3: really take care of you now, and you're I've got
Speaker 3: control of you. And she was scared to death.
Speaker 4: Now what did the police do as these beatings and
Speaker 4: stockings and threatening phone calls and uh, could she not
Speaker 4: get a restraining order against them? But what was It
Speaker 4: seems incredible that she couldn't get anything done. You say, well,
Speaker 4: they didn't really treat domestic violence. So seriously, but how
Speaker 4: could they how could they go how could she not
Speaker 4: get protection from this man?
Speaker 3: Well, she suits for divorce and that she was going
Speaker 3: to go that route, and she actually went through her father,
Speaker 3: who was also a lawyer, and she finally had to
Speaker 3: tell her parents that John is beating me. I've got
Speaker 3: to leave. And so her father, who lives in Louisiana,
Speaker 3: had called friends in Dallas and said, I want the
Speaker 3: name of an attorney that can help my daughter with
Speaker 3: domestic abuse. So someone gave her a name and she
Speaker 3: went to him and was all laid out for a
Speaker 3: protective order where John wouldn't be able to come within
Speaker 3: five hundred feet of her. And one night he came
Speaker 3: in and just came into the house and stole some
Speaker 3: things out, and she was furious with them, and he said, well,
Speaker 3: you can't do anything about this, and she said, I
Speaker 3: have a protective order, and she called the police and
Speaker 3: they came and checked on it, and she didn't have
Speaker 3: a protective order. The lawyer that her father had suggested
Speaker 3: through a friend had not filed the protective order, so
Speaker 3: it wasn't on record. Therefore, the police couldn't do anything
Speaker 3: about John coming into her house. Because it was also
Speaker 3: his house too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it must have been. I could you could really
Speaker 4: get the sense of horror that this woman was having.
Speaker 4: There was no there was no solution to when she
Speaker 4: was dealing with whatsoever. No, she was sitting duck well,
Speaker 4: and her parents were very active after they had been
Speaker 4: notified of this violence. And it's not like they weren't
Speaker 4: important people, and they had certainly had some means as well.
Speaker 4: So what eventually happened? What did she have to eventually
Speaker 4: do to be able to well?
Speaker 3: She had to move back to Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
Speaker 3: because she was just too much for sitting duck in Dallas.
Speaker 3: She had to quit her fabulous job at the law firm,
Speaker 3: very prestigious law firm, and she went back to Louisiana
Speaker 3: and she was able to roll her children in the
Speaker 3: private school back there and eventually got a job teaching
Speaker 3: law at the University of Washington in Baton Rouge.
Speaker 4: Now did the harassment and immediately when she moved to
Speaker 4: Baton Rouge. Was that the end of the story.
Speaker 3: No, he tried legally. Then he tried to get her,
Speaker 3: to find her, to get her to come back to
Speaker 3: Dallas because he was interfering with his parental custodian chip
Speaker 3: and so she had to fly back to Dallas.
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Speaker 3: At least once a month to answer all these charges
Speaker 3: in court. Somehow he managed to get the attention of
Speaker 3: judges when she couldn't, and she was really a victim.
Speaker 4: He was trying everything from trying to get her to
Speaker 4: pay spousal support and to get custody more than you know,
Speaker 4: to call her an unfit mother. He did everything in
Speaker 4: his power to harass her through the courts.
Speaker 3: Right, he's got a lawyer for the divorce. Initially and
Speaker 3: the lawyer said quit your job so that your ex
Speaker 3: wife will have to pay youth support. So he did incredible.
Speaker 4: Now, John Battaglia is he's a certified he's an accountant,
Speaker 4: but also another sort of aspect of his personalities, he's
Speaker 4: also a whistleblower and he's also a person that thinks
Speaker 4: he's very very efficient and knows how to run things
Speaker 4: if he can. So part of his personality a little
Speaker 4: bit about what's happening in John Battaglia's life as well.
Speaker 3: At that time, you mean with the RTC.
Speaker 4: Right, he was.
Speaker 3: Working still as an accountant, and so he had access
Speaker 3: to the files back then, and he was upset with
Speaker 3: a company that was supplying the RTC with the information
Speaker 3: on the files because the banks had gone bankrupt and
Speaker 3: this was back in the eighties when they had to
Speaker 3: close a lot of properties and sell them off and
Speaker 3: get them out of their books. And so he actually
Speaker 3: joined and they with the government, US government, and they
Speaker 3: sued this company for overcharging the US for their services,
Speaker 3: and it really flipped upside down. And the company had
Speaker 3: good lawyers and they were able to show that they
Speaker 3: were doing a good job. And John but Taggi blew
Speaker 3: a whistle that shouldn't have been blown, and it all
Speaker 3: flew up in his face and that really made him
Speaker 3: further further angry. This is when he was married to
Speaker 3: Mary Jane Pearl.
Speaker 4: Now, how did he meet Mary Jane Pearl? And uh, yeah,
Speaker 4: tell us how he met Mary Jane Pearl.
Speaker 3: And that was when they were at a restaurant and
Speaker 3: she was with friends and she saw this handsome man
Speaker 3: looking at her from across the room, and her friends
Speaker 3: were kidding her about it, and you know, he really
Speaker 3: looks like he's interested in you. And so pretty soon
Speaker 3: the man was over there, and all of her friends
Speaker 3: thought he was cute and had a great sense of humor,
Speaker 3: and they just urged her on that this is the
Speaker 3: guy for you, Mary Jane, and she agreed. She knows
Speaker 3: how to behave.
Speaker 4: She was still in high school at that time.
Speaker 3: No, she was out at high school, then at high
Speaker 3: working for her mother's antiques company.
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, Sorry, I stand corrected, Okay, But she
Speaker 4: was much younger than him. It was it was quite
Speaker 4: a few years in different so that's she was.
Speaker 3: She was a few years younger he was, and she
Speaker 3: was very.
Speaker 4: Impressed with his worldliness and what the image he could
Speaker 4: convey to these young younger girls.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, like I said, he could talk on any
Speaker 3: and he subject. He's very well read. He knows art
Speaker 3: and literature. I mean this without being bipolar in such
Speaker 3: a control freak. He could have been just a really
Speaker 3: fine person because he was, you know, intelligent and good looking. Right,
Speaker 3: but he didn't use it.
Speaker 4: Right now, how did Mary Jane Pearl and John Battagulia's
Speaker 4: relationship develop? Who did it develop any differently? Obviously it
Speaker 4: must have been somewhat different than his original relationship with
Speaker 4: Michelle Aboard. But tell us how their relationship progressed and
Speaker 4: how quickly did she see some of the signs that
Speaker 4: eventually would lead to disaster.
Speaker 3: Well, they when they got married, her parents, who were wealthy,
Speaker 3: gave them the house. It was the family home, and
Speaker 3: they just gave it to them, and so they moved
Speaker 3: into this nice, big, four bedroom house and John kind
Speaker 3: of felt kept. He wants to be in control, but
Speaker 3: the fact that his wife owned the house bothered him somewhat.
Speaker 3: But he he ride off. I guess he snored and
Speaker 3: Mary Jean couldn't sleep with him because she couldn't she
Speaker 3: was pregnant. Soon after they got married, and she wasn't
Speaker 3: getting her rest, and so she'd go to another bedroom
Speaker 3: and that angered him. And so first of all it
Speaker 3: was mainly verbal abuse with Mary Jean. And then the
Speaker 3: baby started coming, the first little girl, and again John
Speaker 3: preparedly did love children, but he he hated Mary Jean
Speaker 3: more than he loved the children. So that's why the
Speaker 3: ultimate ending of this. But while these children were being born,
Speaker 3: he played with them, he loved them, and so he
Speaker 3: enjoyed these two little girls.
Speaker 4: Now, how was his relationship with his own child with
Speaker 4: Michelle the board, how was that relationship?
Speaker 3: Well, they would come over and when the girl got
Speaker 3: a little older, she would sometimes they'd meet halfway. Sometimes
Speaker 3: Michelle would put her on the plane and send her
Speaker 3: to Dallas spend a week in her so with John,
Speaker 3: and that was pretty good. And then she loved her
Speaker 3: little stepsisters, her half sisters that were you know, of
Speaker 3: the second marriage, and so that that was fun for
Speaker 3: Michelle's daughter to do. And then one turning point was
Speaker 3: when she came over for Christmas and John, who wasn't
Speaker 3: supposed to be in Mary Jean's home. They were divorced
Speaker 3: at this time, and he came in, I guess in
Speaker 3: his mind going back in seeing well at this point,
Speaker 3: now it's the second home that her parents had given her,
Speaker 3: and it's a four or five million dollar home in
Speaker 3: Highland Park, Dallas, and it's beautiful. And he goes in
Speaker 3: and he sees all the presents she was able to
Speaker 3: give her the daughters, and he can't do that, and
Speaker 3: it comes upstep. So he followed her up the stairs
Speaker 3: and beat her to such a point he even pulled
Speaker 3: her hair out in spots, and so it's on the floor.
Speaker 3: And Michelle's daughter sees all this, and that will forever
Speaker 3: mark the relationship that she has with her father, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so everything, the relationship instantly changes at that point.
Speaker 4: She has no more tolerance for her father, right right,
Speaker 4: She's on guard. Okay, now what else? What else goes on?
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously we're going to get to the point
Speaker 4: where this you know, the eventual day. But how does
Speaker 4: it further progress after this beating, after he now his
Speaker 4: daughter from the original marriage is thinks he's a monster,
Speaker 4: How does what happens next?
Speaker 3: Well, Mary Jean is not timid about calling the police
Speaker 3: and going to court and trying to do something about John,
Speaker 3: but the cooperation she got was just her lack of
Speaker 3: cooperation was just incredible. John was able to talk judges
Speaker 3: out of being held accountable. That if he tricked Mary
Speaker 3: Jane one day and said, let's meet before we have
Speaker 3: our court date for a protective order, Let's meet and
Speaker 3: I'll sign those papers for a divorce. Now, he did
Speaker 3: not want a divorce because this was plush living where
Speaker 3: he was with her, and so Mary Jean fell for it,
Speaker 3: and she thought she was going to meet first for
Speaker 3: the divorce, and course she gets to back court and
Speaker 3: they have no record of it, and so she realizes
Speaker 3: what the situation was. So she called the second courtroom
Speaker 3: she's supposed to be in and she said, I'm coming.
Speaker 3: There's been a problem, and the judge wouldn't hold the time.
Speaker 3: And so when it was time for the court proceedings
Speaker 3: to take hold, the judge says, well, he must not
Speaker 3: be very important to her, so he was going to
Speaker 3: cancel the protective order request and Mary Jean's, well, the
Speaker 3: journey would be. District attorney knew what the situation was,
Speaker 3: and she said that they would have to say they
Speaker 3: weren't ready and give us, you know, the minimum they
Speaker 3: could wait for six weeks, and so the judge agreed
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 4: Right now, I guess.
Speaker 3: I was just going to say the judge hurt himself
Speaker 3: politically over this case, because there's the the court advocates
Speaker 3: that just happened to be in the courtroom that day
Speaker 3: were seeing what was going on and they were horrified
Speaker 3: by it.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: The judge in this case was going to run for
Speaker 3: the to be the district attorney, run against the current one,
Speaker 3: and Mary Jean and these court advocates got on television
Speaker 3: and told them what this judge had done, and he
Speaker 3: lost the election.
Speaker 4: Right well, in terms of the result, that's that's no wonder,
Speaker 4: you know, And that's these people run on a law
Speaker 4: and order sort of platform. Right so, right now, now
Speaker 4: this person has had these violent rages, but we talked
Speaker 4: about his work is undercover work, and this blowing up
Speaker 4: in his face, and it really blew up in his
Speaker 4: face because it looked like something that's going to make
Speaker 4: him a lot of money. We're talking millions of dollars
Speaker 4: which would set him straight, and he thought he would
Speaker 4: get his he'd have his own money instead of being
Speaker 4: feeling like he was kept or feeling like he'd been
Speaker 4: just kicked out of a couple of wealthy homes and
Speaker 4: good situations. So he thought he was going to make
Speaker 4: a lot of money from his undercover whistle blowing work.
Speaker 4: And in fact, because of something he didn't do, it
Speaker 4: specifically blew up in his face and was especially bad,
Speaker 4: so his legacy, the money that he thought he would make,
Speaker 4: his reputation was damaged. So this seems to be the
Speaker 4: final trigger. Not that he needed too many triggers to
Speaker 4: do anything over the top, but tell us about what
Speaker 4: happens after this, and tell.
Speaker 5: Us about it.
Speaker 3: Well, he thought he would get four or five million
Speaker 3: dollars because he figured there were one hundred million that
Speaker 3: the company had overbuilt the government, and he just knew
Speaker 3: that he was going to get her a percent of that.
Speaker 3: And when it didn't come to fruition, he was furious
Speaker 3: with himself. All the time he had wasted his own
Speaker 3: clients in his CPA business that he was doing work for.
Speaker 3: He didn't give them the attention they needed, and so
Speaker 3: that business wasn't doing well and this and he turned
Speaker 3: it all on Marriaging. This was just something that she
Speaker 3: was responsible for, and she was like, you say, he
Speaker 3: was jealous that she had the money, and he thought
Speaker 3: for once that he would be independent financially, but he
Speaker 3: was really in the hole.
Speaker 4: Win, So tell us what he did do, and tell
Speaker 4: us about the faithful day in question, and what happened.
Speaker 4: Take us through that entire day, and as much information
Speaker 4: as you had and put in your book. Tell us
Speaker 4: a little bit, as much as you can about that
Speaker 4: day in question.
Speaker 3: Everything I wrote in the book, well, no, when I
Speaker 3: write it, I read it. He started out. He knew
Speaker 3: because of he was on parole at this point, and
Speaker 3: he had to report to his pro officer, and at
Speaker 3: one point the pro officer said, the courts have asked
Speaker 3: for your file, John, so there's a chance you're going
Speaker 3: to be arrested. And that was the ultimate control. He
Speaker 3: wanted to be the controller. The fact that Mary Jean
Speaker 3: had any control over him was absolutely the last thing
Speaker 3: he wanted. He spent the day calling friends trying to
Speaker 3: get them to talk Mary Jean out of doing this
Speaker 3: and drop the charges Mary Jean, so I don't have
Speaker 3: to go to jail. And so that that didn't go
Speaker 3: anywhere because the friends we had called Michelle Getty in
Speaker 3: Louisiana and she was busy at school and so she
Speaker 3: didn't get the call still later, but he went through
Speaker 3: all that, and then he was supposed to pick up
Speaker 3: the girls in a shopping center at six six o'clock,
Speaker 3: I believe, and he had his current girlfriend called because
Speaker 3: he wasn't allowed to call Mary Jean. And she said, yes,
Speaker 3: that's okay. We're playing on John being here or having
Speaker 3: the girls, and the girls at this point did not
Speaker 3: want to be there. And I think there's some of
Speaker 3: these things that went on that night that haunt Mary
Speaker 3: Jane to this day. Because the youngest one, six year old,
Speaker 3: she was hiding. She did not want her mom to
Speaker 3: find her and take her to meet her father, and
Speaker 3: the nine year old didn't want to go either, but
Speaker 3: she was sort of resigned to it. And they looked
Speaker 3: all over and they found this little girl underneath her bed,
Speaker 3: shaking and scared and so upset that she was going
Speaker 3: to have to be with her father that night. And
Speaker 3: that's something that Mary Jane has always felt badly about,
Speaker 3: like she delivered her baby to her killer. But anyway,
Speaker 3: they did did go ahead and they met at the
Speaker 3: shopping center. And also what haunts her seeing the girls
Speaker 3: for the last time, and how sad they looked, and
Speaker 3: their sad little waves to her mother, their mother. It
Speaker 3: was just very heart ranching for everybody. And then well
Speaker 3: I was just going to say yeah. After that, Marria
Speaker 3: Jane was going to go to a meeting, and she
Speaker 3: got a call from her mother. In the meantime, John
Speaker 3: had taken the girls back to his loss that he
Speaker 3: lived in at the time and told the older one
Speaker 3: to call the mother. He had a question.
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Speaker 3: Plus why your mother trying to put me in jail,
Speaker 3: and so Mary Jane wasn't home, so he called her mother,
Speaker 3: and the mother used her called marriaging cell phone, and
Speaker 3: she was able to get hold of her and said,
Speaker 3: call you know, your girls are down at the lost
Speaker 3: and they have a question for you. So that's the
Speaker 3: tragedy of it all. Uh, she called, and so the
Speaker 3: little the old nine year old answered and said, she's crying, mommy,
Speaker 3: why are you trying to put daddy in jail? And
Speaker 3: she said, oh, John, don't do this to them. That's
Speaker 3: when the gunfire started, and he was killing those little
Speaker 3: girls point blank and they were screaming at him, no, Daddy, No.
Speaker 3: And that's why the title of the book, because that
Speaker 3: was just so heart wrenching.
Speaker 4: And the one daughter was running away from her father
Speaker 4: and married Jean and told her to run.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, run, babies run. The nine year old was
Speaker 3: on the phone, and so John killed her right then
Speaker 3: while she was on the phone, and so John was
Speaker 3: on speakerphone. So Mary Jean screamed and run, babies, run
Speaker 3: as fast as you can, and that little six year
Speaker 3: old took off and she was about ten feet from
Speaker 3: the door when he finally shot her and killed her.
Speaker 3: He went through an execution style. They were probably dead,
Speaker 3: but he wanted to make sure that Mary Jean would
Speaker 3: never have them again, so he shot them both close
Speaker 3: up close, blank in the head, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Destroying them, yes, completely, And he also then followed that
Speaker 4: up with something to the tune of Merry Christmas, Mary Jean.
Speaker 3: Uhhh. He left a message after the girls had died,
Speaker 3: He called their phone at home and marry expletive Christmas,
Speaker 3: Mary Jean. And then he left another call that telling
Speaker 3: the daughters you were so brave tonight. I was really
Speaker 3: proud of you. You're in a much better place now,
Speaker 3: And that just fractured Mary Jean.
Speaker 4: Now Mary Jean doesn't really know what's going on. She
Speaker 4: thinks that this could be the worst nightmare she could
Speaker 4: ever you know, and ever have. She still has got
Speaker 4: the wits about her incredibly to do to call the
Speaker 4: police or to get the police involved with this. So
Speaker 4: what's her next step and what incredibly happens in this
Speaker 4: next turn of events with Mary Jean and John and
Speaker 4: her children.
Speaker 3: A continuing scenario. She she's at a friend's house, she
Speaker 3: stopped by from the meeting, and the she said, my
Speaker 3: mom has called and wants me to call the girls.
Speaker 3: And so she's there when she hears this phone call,
Speaker 3: this horrible phone call, and so she tells her friend
Speaker 3: to call nine one one. Well she does, her friend
Speaker 3: does call them, but the operator just doesn't get it.
Speaker 3: She writes it down as a domestic disturbance call, and
Speaker 3: so the police put it on the back burner, and
Speaker 3: so Mary Jean gets in her car, races down to
Speaker 3: the loft, which is near downtown Dallas, and she beats
Speaker 3: the police there. They hadn't even there wasn't one squad car,
Speaker 3: one ammas, nothing, And she said to the operator she
Speaker 3: got on the phone after a friend called him, that
Speaker 3: she had talked to her husband and the children at
Speaker 3: the laft and she heard gunshops five or six. And
Speaker 3: the woman said, oh huh, a disturbance, domestic disturbance. It's
Speaker 3: like she hadn't heard. So she didn't turn this call
Speaker 3: in in the extreme that it should have been. So
Speaker 3: the police put it on back burner and we're going
Speaker 3: to take care of it when they had time. So
Speaker 3: she got down there to the loft before anybody, and
Speaker 3: she was out there screaming and waving when a police
Speaker 3: car would go by. And so this one officer was
Speaker 3: just coming back from a traffic report, so he stops
Speaker 3: and listens to her, you know, and he's he's amazed
Speaker 3: too that there's not just a storm of squad cars
Speaker 3: and ambulances and everything. But they finally got the personnel
Speaker 3: that they needed. Of course, it was too late.
Speaker 4: So a couple other cops arrived, and there's a tenant
Speaker 4: that's able to let them in, but they're not even
Speaker 4: quite sure. Mary Jane and her confus isn't quite sure,
Speaker 4: gives them the wrong address in her statement, and actually
Speaker 4: John had been moving from one apartment to another apartment
Speaker 4: in the building, so it was some confusion between at
Speaker 4: least two of them.
Speaker 3: Mary Jean right in the police right, but she was
Speaker 3: able to get you know, get them the correct loft
Speaker 3: number by the time she was down there. But the
Speaker 3: problem was that the operator just didn't treat it as serious.
Speaker 4: Right now, when the police go in there, tell us
Speaker 4: about the just briefly if you can, about the what
Speaker 4: they did find there and what they didn't find. Where's
Speaker 4: John Battaglia.
Speaker 3: And right, Well, they had to kick the door in
Speaker 3: and they the first officers now there with two others,
Speaker 3: so there's three three policemen in the loft, and it's
Speaker 3: hazy and smoky from all the fire, the fired guns,
Speaker 3: and the little six year old is lying on our
Speaker 3: tummy just about ten feet inside the door, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's just a horrible, horrible scene. And so they assume
Speaker 3: the John's in there hiding, ready to jump out, although
Speaker 3: they've kicked the door in and no way even to
Speaker 3: walk it after them, so it's open. One of the
Speaker 3: guns is sitting there by a table. He could have
Speaker 3: come back in and taken care of them. So they
Speaker 3: had to be very cautious about how they did this.
Speaker 3: And they start searching, and they searched the entire loft,
Speaker 3: and it was difficult because you know, he was just
Speaker 3: moving in. Everything was packing boxes, a lot of things
Speaker 3: stacked up. There were lots of places for him to hide.
Speaker 3: But they ended up finding fifteen firearms, pistols and long guns,
Speaker 3: and he had a real arsenal there right now.
Speaker 4: They searched the other apartment it's as well, the roof,
Speaker 4: all kinds of things in and around that building. They
Speaker 4: did where's John BUTTIGERA.
Speaker 3: John had several girlfriends and he went to a couple
Speaker 3: of their homes and they weren't home, and so he
Speaker 3: more or less crashed at one of one of the friends,
Speaker 3: who a girlfriend who never locked her door. She could
Speaker 3: he could just go in there. And he had taken
Speaker 3: a lot of tranquilizers after he had killed his daughters,
Speaker 3: and so he was kind of dizzy and frustrated, and
Speaker 3: at this point he's sticked to his stomach and he
Speaker 3: passes out at this girl's house. And so about ten o'clock.
Speaker 3: They just happened around seven, So it's about ten o'clock.
Speaker 3: The girl comes home with her date and they see
Speaker 3: John passed out and they wake him up, bring him
Speaker 3: into the living room, and he he he wants some drugs,
Speaker 3: and her boyfriend isn't into that. Well, I'm out of here,
Speaker 3: so he leaves, and then John gets back with this
Speaker 3: girl and he said what he really wants after some drugs,
Speaker 3: is are some tattoos. He wants a big yellow rose
Speaker 3: and a big red rose with his daughter's names on
Speaker 3: them on his arm so that they'll always be with him.
Speaker 3: And he offered to give get a tattoo for this girlfriend.
Speaker 3: So they went on down up to a place not
Speaker 3: too far from the loss, where they did tattooing, and
Speaker 3: so this is around midnight that they're down there getting tattooed.
Speaker 4: Now the police have a description of his vehicle, and
Speaker 4: a observant police officer finally, after again I missed all
Speaker 4: this confusion in many hours later, spots this vehicle and
Speaker 4: then is either he decides or he's instructed to wait
Speaker 4: till someone comes out to the vehicle.
Speaker 3: Right, they knew that it was John's vehicle, and.
Speaker 1: This was.
Speaker 3: After midnight, and the police tried to to hide. And
Speaker 3: there's part the vehicle of John's is in a parking lot,
Speaker 3: so they're in an adjoining, you know, across the street.
Speaker 3: And so the people that had unmarked police guards and
Speaker 3: all this they're waiting for John and they have no
Speaker 3: idea what he's wearing. And it's you know, midnight is dark.
Speaker 3: And finally they see him come out and open that
Speaker 3: truck by remote. So they knew they had their man.
Speaker 3: So four of them immediately went over there and grabbed
Speaker 3: John and he wasn't going to give up. In fact,
Speaker 3: police I talked, he said they were pretty sure that
Speaker 3: he wanted suicide by cop and because they he was
Speaker 3: fighting them just and they black and an eye they did,
Speaker 3: you know, they had to do a lot of things.
Speaker 3: He was strong and it was a very fit person,
Speaker 3: and so he wouldn't show his hands to the police.
Speaker 3: And he tried to make this difficult, and I think
Speaker 3: he really did want them to shoot him. Put him
Speaker 3: out of his misery.
Speaker 4: Now he's taken into custody, and how do police proceed?
Speaker 4: What is his demeanor? What does he do? Does he
Speaker 4: does he talk to police or does he lawyer up? Immediately?
Speaker 3: Well, he's quiet going on in but he had a
Speaker 3: court appointed attorney, the defense attorney, and the judge order
Speaker 3: who officiated over the case called Paul Johnson an excellent
Speaker 3: attorney that morning, so that he was just a few
Speaker 3: hours without a lawyer, and Paul made it went to
Speaker 3: the judge quarters and he agreed to take the case.
Speaker 3: So john had appointed attorney right away.
Speaker 4: What was John's demeanor when the police initially arrested him,
Speaker 4: had him in the car after they had subdued him.
Speaker 4: You make some interesting comments. What was his demeanor?
Speaker 3: Well, he didn't say any Oh, I know what you're
Speaker 3: talking about, Hayes, acting like nothing had happened in the
Speaker 3: last previously, he has questions about the computer that all
Speaker 3: the police cars have, and he asked about things like that.
Speaker 3: He then when they got him down to the court,
Speaker 3: he asked, well, isn't this the same place they brought
Speaker 3: Jack Ruby after he shot Oswald? And his mind was going,
Speaker 3: you know, he's two different people. He can absorb a
Speaker 3: situation and be someone different. No, it was you know,
Speaker 3: he was shocking the police by his demeanor right.
Speaker 4: Now at the same time, just for those that this
Speaker 4: is one of the incredible parts of the book as well,
Speaker 4: is that Michelle Leboard is almost at the same time, simultaneously,
Speaker 4: around the same time, fighting for legislation that would protect
Speaker 4: women like herself as being married to a man like
Speaker 4: John Batagula, and also for Mary Jean and for those
Speaker 4: women to get the kind of protection that they've both
Speaker 4: gone through and had no safeguards from a guy like this.
Speaker 4: It could easily, quite easily look like they could, he
Speaker 4: could manipulate the system, but they were she was creating,
Speaker 4: So tell us about that situation. Almost at the same time,
Speaker 4: right Michelle was.
Speaker 3: You know, she's this brilliant law professor and because of
Speaker 3: her many accomplish accomplishments and speaking out on spousal abuse,
Speaker 3: you know, domestic violence. She is named Woman of the
Speaker 3: Year in Baton Rouge, and she thought, I'm going to
Speaker 3: do something with that. I think that if I you know,
Speaker 3: she got some publicity out of this, and she decided
Speaker 3: that she was going to try to write some laws herself,
Speaker 3: and she got on the Governor's committee to write legislation.
Speaker 3: And she had taught some students of lords of the
Speaker 3: legislature in her class in her law classes at Washington,
Speaker 3: and so she called them. She said, you know, she
Speaker 3: had no shame. She just wanted to make this work
Speaker 3: and if she had to use her contacts, she would whatever.
Speaker 3: And she did. She got pointed to this committee and
Speaker 3: she actually ended up writing these laws where if you
Speaker 3: violated your protective order then you had to serve some
Speaker 3: jail time and not this probation and you know, just
Speaker 3: a pat on the hand, right. Uh.
Speaker 4: Well. Another interesting aspect, and fat well beyond interesting incredible,
Speaker 4: is that Mary Jane had the wits about her and
Speaker 4: just her capacity to to feel for someone else. And
Speaker 4: again she felt for Michelle the board for her safety.
Speaker 4: In despite of this certain and almost seemingly disastrous, faithful event.
Speaker 4: It just happened with her children. She has the wits
Speaker 4: about her to call Michelle to warn her that John
Speaker 4: Battaggulam might be coming her way.
Speaker 3: And that's what she was thinking of. He's killed these
Speaker 3: two daughters. He only has one daughter left. Could he
Speaker 3: possibly be on a plane because to take care of
Speaker 3: that daughter. And uh so that's why she called Michelle
Speaker 3: to warn her. And h Michelle had just come in
Speaker 3: after that call came to do her from Mary Jane,
Speaker 3: and so she knew. She knew the horror of John
Speaker 3: Bactaglia and how awful he could be. That she she
Speaker 3: didn't take it lightly. She called her sister, and her
Speaker 3: sister picked her up with her daughter and took her
Speaker 3: to their house so she wouldn't be home in case
Speaker 3: John was going to come and kill her daughter.
Speaker 4: Incredible, Now this person has again that you talked about.
Speaker 4: Paul Johnson is assigned his case his murder trial. This
Speaker 4: becomes a capital case and that means the death penalty
Speaker 4: is on the table. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: what how they proceeded in terms of trying to defend
Speaker 4: John Battagula to this obviously monstrous crime.
Speaker 3: Well, the most difficult saying that Paul Johnson did was
Speaker 3: to try to find a jury. He couldn't get anybody
Speaker 3: to serve you. He couldn't get anybody. He eventually got
Speaker 3: twelve people, but not of his choosing. But he wanted
Speaker 3: people to say, I'm against the death penalty. No, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't give the death penalty, and that sort of thing. Well,
Speaker 3: he wasn't finding that. And so I sat for three
Speaker 3: months at the Coursehouse with John Battagla and his attorneys
Speaker 3: and the DA trying to find twelve people. Well it's
Speaker 3: twelve plus one alternate that that Paul Johnson thought would
Speaker 3: give John a fair trial.
Speaker 4: But to be fair, there's one of the criteria is
Speaker 4: that you haven't heard anything about this crime. And because
Speaker 4: of the heinous, an extreme and incredible story that it was,
Speaker 4: it was pretty hard to find people who hadn't heard
Speaker 4: anything about this. Wasn't that true?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, they had eight or nine hundred people in the
Speaker 3: jury pool, and that's why it took so long to
Speaker 3: go through. And first of all, they filled out a
Speaker 3: seven or eight page quiz on their thoughts and their
Speaker 3: experience with law and so forth. So they had a
Speaker 3: lot of people to talk to, and it was it
Speaker 3: was very difficult to get that jury together, because, as
Speaker 3: Paul Johnson told me afterwards, I guess I couldn't have
Speaker 3: found twelve people in the city of Dallas that would
Speaker 3: not have given him the death sentence. But you say
Speaker 3: about the notoriety of it. It was splashed all across
Speaker 3: the Dallas Morning News. When I opened up the paper
Speaker 3: that morning, I just knew instantly I'm going to write
Speaker 3: this book. This story has got to be told.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that was the question I did, actually didn't
Speaker 4: ask you. You came to this story based on your
Speaker 4: own initiative. A publisher didn't say, hey, why don't you
Speaker 4: write a story about this? You came to this story
Speaker 4: yourself and said, hey, I got to write this story
Speaker 4: right right.
Speaker 3: This was this is my fourth book, and so I'd
Speaker 3: already written three. And the publisher just, you know, assuming
Speaker 3: very open, wonderful publisher Kencon that you know, if you
Speaker 3: come up with another idea, let us know. And this
Speaker 3: was so horrific that I didn't ask. I just said,
Speaker 3: here's my next book, this is what's going to be about,
Speaker 3: and they just said, go for it.
Speaker 4: Well, of course, it's just it's an incredible story. There's
Speaker 4: no way that it wouldn't appeal to people to read.
Speaker 4: It's just you know, I mean, obviously this thing was
Speaker 4: a major, high profile case and trial, so and it
Speaker 4: had all the elements as soon as you have handsome
Speaker 4: people and innocent victims. You can't get more innocent than
Speaker 4: a person's children. I mean, it's, yeah, one of the
Speaker 4: most horrible cases I've ever heard of, So I understand
Speaker 4: that very that's.
Speaker 3: The thing about true crime.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 3: In fact, I'm a court volunteer, you know, like the
Speaker 3: court advocates. I'm down at the Crowley Court House once
Speaker 3: a month and in overseeing domestic abuse cases and protective orders.
Speaker 3: And every now and then I run into Paul Johnson
Speaker 3: and I'll say, well, do you have another another story
Speaker 3: for me, Paul, And he'll say, not like that one,
Speaker 3: not not one that's bookworthy. But you know, he said,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot. But it's you know, it's the
Speaker 3: someone who doesn't have much, who has few options, that's
Speaker 3: what you normally run into. Like you say, I mean
Speaker 3: a Kim Dawson model and a CPA that the past
Speaker 3: of the CPA board the very first time he took it.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's you know, it's just an incredible, uh mix.
Speaker 4: Of characters and even Michelle Laborde a beautiful and you know, intelligent,
Speaker 4: highly motivated. You know, getting the attention to governor's is
Speaker 4: no easy feat and getting that legislation together having no
Speaker 4: real political background, I means, certainly her parents had means,
Speaker 4: but she went over and beyond you know, what her
Speaker 4: potential was because she was so personally involved and it
Speaker 4: is so you know, so it's such an ironic situation
Speaker 4: for her to have this legislation passing into in the
Speaker 4: state legislation while her ex husband would have who would
Speaker 4: have certainly if she would have not escaped this man,
Speaker 4: she would have been this victim is setting up legislation
Speaker 4: so that I know, it's cliche that this will never
Speaker 4: happen again. There has there has to have been, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: these kinds of cases to have the impetus to be
Speaker 4: able to create this legislation. Unfortunately, but at least there
Speaker 4: is some happy ending that this person's convicted. I'll tell
Speaker 4: us what the outcome of this case was in the end.
Speaker 4: Did he get his just deserts? Did he get the
Speaker 4: death penalty?
Speaker 3: He got the death penalty. And I'm not necessarily real
Speaker 3: pro death penalty, right, But if anyone deserves it, it's
Speaker 3: John Patagulia. Because here's what's happening. Dan. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of people that are anti and that's fine, that's
Speaker 3: their position and I respect it. However, this is what's
Speaker 3: happening in Texas. John Pataglia has his own website. The
Speaker 3: people who are anti death penalty want to help out
Speaker 3: these poor guys that are sitting on death row. They
Speaker 3: provide him with a cell phone, they allow him to
Speaker 3: on a computer to write out these stories. He is
Speaker 3: still abusing his two wives. He is saying they're lesbians,
Speaker 3: their cocaine heads. I mean, he just can't say enough
Speaker 3: about them in his view to make them seem unappealing,
Speaker 3: to seem like losers and they're in anything. But and
Speaker 3: so that is what's going on as we speak. And
Speaker 3: it's frustrating in Texas. It's automatic appeal if you're given
Speaker 3: the death penalty and so, and we're paying two hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars a year to defend John's appeal. Sure and so,
Speaker 3: and it's seven ten years ago and it's still going on.
Speaker 3: But Mary Jane continued on the problem, of course, was
Speaker 3: not having supervised meetings with an abusive parent, and she
Speaker 3: has gotten twenty five thousand dollars as a grant and
Speaker 3: has opened the Faith and Pats the Name for Children
Speaker 3: House at the Family Place where abusive parents can still
Speaker 3: meet with their children in a supervised setting. Right, so
Speaker 3: that's been brought around.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, another a little bit of a bright A
Speaker 4: little bit, yeah, A little bit yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 4: it's incredible that throughout this book. It was just amazing
Speaker 4: to me. I know we've I've heard countless stories of missteps,
Speaker 4: but this was a confluence of inaction apathy.
Speaker 3: It went on.
Speaker 4: The judge said he was very good luck. You know
Speaker 4: you're in trouble when when a psychopath goes to court
Speaker 4: and the judge is commenting on their good looks, like
Speaker 4: who cares? But it shows you that that's all it takes. Sometimes,
Speaker 4: you know, that's he's charming, he's intelligent, he has money, yeah,
Speaker 4: and but what what about his actions? And so you know,
Speaker 4: too little, way too late. He never received any jail time,
Speaker 4: and his ultimate trigger was that he might go to jail,
Speaker 4: and that's when he shot his own kids. These are
Speaker 4: the people he was supposed to love. I think if
Speaker 4: he would have had an opportunity, he would have killed
Speaker 4: both women. And obviously he didn't care about children either,
Speaker 4: So this who knows what he would have done as
Speaker 4: time would have went on. He was capable of, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously anything.
Speaker 3: So well, like I said, he had an arsenal. He
Speaker 3: had fifteen guns. Sure, and of course when you were
Speaker 3: on probation from being a protective order violator, you're not
Speaker 3: allowed to have one gun. But it just didn't nothing
Speaker 3: bothered him, no law. He just thought he was bigger
Speaker 3: than all that.
Speaker 4: And like you say, there was some political heads ruled
Speaker 4: that judge that allowed that maid that grave error. You know,
Speaker 4: his political railer was finished.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, It definitely was. And so and
Speaker 3: that's a good thing because that's he just wasn't, you know,
Speaker 3: caring about this topic. So that's what happened. But there's
Speaker 3: been a little There's there's uh Michelle Gay's laws enacted
Speaker 3: in the by the state legislature. And then there's this
Speaker 3: visiting place and it's it's really well used in Dallas.
Speaker 3: That's a good thing, but not enough it's been done.
Speaker 3: What is Mary Jean's life like now, Well, she remarried
Speaker 3: after this. She badly wanted children, She just wanted to
Speaker 3: have more children, and she just severely loved those girls.
Speaker 3: But she was forty when this took place, and she remarried,
Speaker 3: but she never had any more children. And as far
Speaker 3: as I know, she's still involved in her mother's antique
Speaker 3: business and lives in her beautiful house in Dallas.
Speaker 4: So this must have devastated but it didn't completely destroy her.
Speaker 4: She's still functioning woman, living, trying to live.
Speaker 3: A life better than I could have done. She you know,
Speaker 3: it just I never felt so sorry for anybody in
Speaker 3: my life, but she was poised. At the trial, she
Speaker 3: gave her victims impact statement to John and she did
Speaker 3: a really good job.
Speaker 4: Really great jobhead, Sorry you spoke his testimony. Did Michelle
Speaker 4: look Board also testify his first wife? Did she testify?
Speaker 3: Michelle testified in the punishment phase. I see when she
Speaker 3: got up and told the jury how he had broken
Speaker 3: her nose and dislocated her jaw and all that, complete
Speaker 3: with pictures. I think that was the final stob that
Speaker 3: this man was just thoroughly evil through and through, and
Speaker 3: I I think it took eighteen minutes for the jury
Speaker 3: to decide to give him the death penalty.
Speaker 4: Now you spoke of the bipolar and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: we won't go into a discussion about that. We don't
Speaker 4: have too much time at all. But obviously the courts
Speaker 4: didn't take that too seriously in consideration. Obviously if you're
Speaker 4: going to give him the death penalty with this bipolar
Speaker 4: and you know, for everybody that is bipolar that doesn't
Speaker 4: resort to killing their children or committing it as.
Speaker 3: A murder, but there are degrees.
Speaker 4: So but you did say if this wouldn't happen, then
Speaker 4: that would have happened. You really believed that bipolar was
Speaker 4: that much of a reason for as eventual we ran.
Speaker 3: And the Sami and his mother committed suicide when he
Speaker 3: was seventeen. She suffered severe abouts of depression and so
Speaker 3: in fact she was institutionalized now and man, and in
Speaker 3: fact it was not the night before she was to
Speaker 3: go back. Her husband was going to put her into
Speaker 3: an institution, and that's when she killed herself. But John had,
Speaker 3: in fact that his defense attorneys brought this up at trial,
Speaker 3: that he was bipolar, that all he needed was his
Speaker 3: meds and he'd be just fine. But the jury didn't
Speaker 3: buy it. And what do you think, oh, just knowing
Speaker 3: what he did, I'm you know I had I was
Speaker 3: privy to so much information that it's typical of somebody
Speaker 3: like John who likes control. He wouldn't have taken his meds.
Speaker 3: He wanted that high euphoric feeling, the manic part of bipolar,
Speaker 3: so he wouldn't have gone that route. Well he's still
Speaker 3: hasn't He has his website and he's still bashing his wives. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: incredible change.
Speaker 4: Well, lucky people have to really find websites, so you know,
Speaker 4: how many people are really listening to this person will
Speaker 4: be negligible. Let's say, of course there's the damage, but
Speaker 4: it's not the same as the public harassment that he
Speaker 4: could have. He doesn't have a newspaper, we'll say, or
Speaker 4: hopefully he doesn't. He's not able to call them.
Speaker 2: So but.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, for uh, several years, well,
Speaker 3: you know, still in death row. Uh, there was a
Speaker 3: fascination with him with television news shows and they would
Speaker 3: go and interview him, and so he would you'd see
Speaker 3: him on TV laughing and say, oh, this just had
Speaker 3: to be this just was meant to happen, which made
Speaker 3: him a look stranger is he.
Speaker 4: Is he he didn't get remarried in prison as many
Speaker 4: of these nice doctor.
Speaker 3: And some of these guys I don't know. John's written
Speaker 3: me a couple of times that I find him so
Speaker 3: thoroughly horrible that I never answered his That's I did
Speaker 3: the other others I've written about if they want to
Speaker 3: write and ask A questions or I might even ask
Speaker 3: them questions about thank you and so. But John, It's
Speaker 3: is so thoroughly disgusting.
Speaker 4: You had enough of John BATTAGOA. Yeah, that's us. It's
Speaker 4: an incredible book, Irene. I want to thank you very
Speaker 4: much for sharing your incredible book with us. I want
Speaker 4: to tell the audience they've been listening to Irene Pence
Speaker 4: with her book, No Daddy Don't incredible book. And I
Speaker 4: want to thank you very much for coming on the program, Irene,
Speaker 4: and I want you to have a good evening and
Speaker 4: the best of luck with any more projects. And of
Speaker 4: course I'd love to get you back on the program
Speaker 4: talk about another one of your books sometime in the
Speaker 4: near future.
Speaker 3: So thank you, Dan, I've enjoyed it well, I have
Speaker 3: to and thank you very much.
Speaker 4: And you have yourself a good evening, you too, Good
Speaker 4: night by bye, bye bye. You've been listening to True Murder,
Speaker 4: the most shocking killers in true crime history, and the
Speaker 4: authors that are written about them. Have a good evening.