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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Geese, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 3: Good Evening. Longtime author Stephanie Dickinson straddles the lines of
Speaker 3: true crime and memoir in Razor Wire Wilderness as she
Speaker 3: examines the lives of those affected by violence. In this
Speaker 3: immaculately assembled account that takes readers directly inside incarceration and
Speaker 3: face to face with inmates. Crystal Riordan watched as her
Speaker 3: boyfriend beat a teenage Jennifer Moore to death in a
Speaker 3: vermin infested New Jersey hotel room. Could she have stopped it?
Speaker 3: Or could she be his next victim? Now, Crystal is
Speaker 3: serving a maximum thirty year sentence, while the man who
Speaker 3: beat Jennifer to death received only a fifty year sentence.
Speaker 3: So what does it take to survive in a maximum
Speaker 3: security lockdown for thirty years? Is it possible to thrive
Speaker 3: the answers only lead to more questions in Dickinson's raw
Speaker 3: and emotional look into the criminal justice system and how
Speaker 3: it failed not just one, but countless victims of violence
Speaker 3: and what unfolds is a beautiful depiction of moral ambiguity,
Speaker 3: loss and redemption within the confines of the prison walls
Speaker 3: and beyond. The book they're featuring this evening is Razor
Speaker 3: Wire Wilderness with my guest author and journalist Stephanie Dickinson.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for
Speaker 3: this interview. Stephanie Dickinson.
Speaker 4: Thank you so very much for inviting me.
Speaker 5: It's an honor.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. This is an incredible, unique true
Speaker 3: crime book. As many people know the case of Crystal
Speaker 3: Riorden and her boyfriend Draymond Coleman and this brutal murder
Speaker 3: and Crystal's role in that as well. Before we talk
Speaker 3: about this relationship that I just mentioned in the introduction,
Speaker 3: tell us about your life. You were born in Iowa.
Speaker 3: You say you're a child of the farm, your family
Speaker 3: who practiced for Square religion. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about your life in Iowa, who you were, what your
Speaker 3: early life was like.
Speaker 4: Well, I was raised as a single mother. After the
Speaker 4: death of my father, I was three years old and
Speaker 4: I had two young brothers older than myself that we
Speaker 4: were all into the age of six. And after my
Speaker 4: father's death, we moved back to my grandmother's farm in Iowa,
Speaker 4: and it's a beautiful farm. I didn't realize how beautiful
Speaker 4: Iowa was until I left it. But my mother and
Speaker 4: my grandmother are very very religious, and so the Bible
Speaker 4: was our daily bread. It was the most important thing.
Speaker 4: We went to church twice a week. And my mother.
Speaker 5: And grandmother are very sincere in their belief.
Speaker 4: And really strong women, and nothing but praise for them.
Speaker 4: But as a young girl, I rebelled against the strictures
Speaker 4: of of that world. I think we all become very
Speaker 4: much in our elesant years, in our teenagers, we very
Speaker 4: much wanted to see the world. And I when I
Speaker 4: was when I was eighteen years old, I had worked
Speaker 4: in Canada for a summer at a Christian camp and
Speaker 4: I left the camp and I hit hiked to Montreal.
Speaker 4: And when I was in Montreal, I met a man
Speaker 4: named Michael Weston and we became involved and I went
Speaker 4: back to Iowa. But then on Thanksgiving of that year,
Speaker 4: I had hied down to North Carolina to visit him,
Speaker 4: and I attended a party and as described in the book,
Speaker 4: at that party, there was a really drunk friend of
Speaker 4: Michael's and he took out his father's shotgun. And I
Speaker 4: went to use the bathroom and just to comb my hair,
Speaker 4: I couldn't find the light switch, and I sat down
Speaker 4: on the towilt, not to use the bathroom, but just
Speaker 4: to sit. And Charlie came into the bathroom and he
Speaker 4: had the twelve page shotgun balanced on his hip and
Speaker 4: he laughed and the gun went off very very close
Speaker 4: to my face. But the doctors had told me you're
Speaker 4: alive because you leaned forward. And at that point I
Speaker 4: lost consciousness and I lost the use of my left
Speaker 4: arm in that bathroom, and it's been it was quite
Speaker 4: a journey to return, but I did. And and four
Speaker 4: months flare, I was in college.
Speaker 3: And then and what did you do? You you say,
Speaker 3: with this disability here, what did you end up doing?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: I got a master degree. I'm the MFA and Creative
Speaker 4: Writing and and as as a lot of people are
Speaker 4: finding out, because m f A is just so popular,
Speaker 4: it's a hard degree to sell. There's not a lot
Speaker 4: of not a lot of ads that want for someone
Speaker 4: with their m f A. So I took temporary jobs
Speaker 4: as a word processor, believe it or not, a one
Speaker 4: armed word processor or one useful word processor. And I've
Speaker 4: supported myself with that in all the all the years since,
Speaker 4: and I worked for some some really large firms and
Speaker 4: and work my way up to fairly fairly decent salary.
Speaker 4: But I've been told by doctors that that doesn't sound
Speaker 4: as unusual as as you might say that I would be.
Speaker 4: I would do word processing.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 4: A lot of disabled people will do something that you
Speaker 4: would think would be outside their capability of performing it.
Speaker 4: And there must be something challenging in that because and
Speaker 4: I've also found that we're processing leaves me that mental space.
Speaker 5: To do my writing.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that writing. What were the first opportunities
Speaker 3: you had to write? And tell us about your writing career.
Speaker 4: Well, I've been writing since I went to school and
Speaker 4: the University of Oregon, and when I came to New
Speaker 4: York City, I always said that I'd lived and now
Speaker 4: I'm going to write about it. I attended a number
Speaker 4: of workshops in New York City.
Speaker 5: I studied with the wonderful William Packard.
Speaker 4: Who developed the New York Quarterly, and I studied at
Speaker 4: the Writer's Studio with Philip Schultz, who who won the
Speaker 4: Pulitzer a number of years ago, and just learned some
Speaker 4: really wonderful things, met wonderful writers in the city, and
Speaker 4: it's just been that part of my life has just
Speaker 4: been wonderful. And I even started my own small press,
Speaker 4: Rain Mountain Press, just just out of the love of
Speaker 4: the thing to publish books that might the mainstream pressice
Speaker 4: might not be interested in, and to do small print runs.
Speaker 4: And I started publishing with short story collections. I've done
Speaker 4: flash fiction and poetry. Poetry has always been a tremendous
Speaker 4: love of mine. I did write a novel, thinly veiled
Speaker 4: autobiographical novel called Half Girl, which is about the shooting,
Speaker 4: and it took took many a year to get to
Speaker 4: that point. I'm speaking about the disability very openly with you,
Speaker 4: but it took me a long time to be able
Speaker 4: to even admit that to myself, because I think when
Speaker 4: you're eighteen years old and you go through something so
Speaker 4: traumatic that changes your body image, and you're in that
Speaker 4: in that age where you want to be attractive you
Speaker 4: go through, you know, it takes a lot to come
Speaker 4: out into the open with that sort of thing. So
Speaker 4: I published Half Girl and it won an award, and
Speaker 4: then I've published a more short story collection, so Hm
Speaker 4: with small presses.
Speaker 5: But nicely published. And so I've just really.
Speaker 4: Found that part of my life really quite wonderful.
Speaker 3: But when I talk about sorry, go ahead, no, when.
Speaker 4: I approached Christal, which we'll talk about that that is nonfiction,
Speaker 4: and so that was that was a bit of a challenge,
Speaker 4: just to understand how well my more poetry centric world
Speaker 4: would melt with that more harsh, gritty on nonfiction world.
Speaker 3: Before we talk about the initial contact that you have
Speaker 3: with Crystal Riordan in this prison and the questions you
Speaker 3: ask her and the reason for corresponding with her in
Speaker 3: the first place. There are some regrets with this Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: other than that obviously that you're now disabled, and you
Speaker 3: go into that in quite detail in the book, but
Speaker 3: just in general, you have regrets from that Thanksgiving, but
Speaker 3: you also have regrets about your own behavior. You say
Speaker 3: that you didn't tell your father that you were hitchhiking
Speaker 3: to this in five states over for this Thanksgiving Day party,
Speaker 3: but also your background. It seems you took a lot.
Speaker 3: You felt guilty about your behavior and felt some responsibility
Speaker 3: for what had happened that Thanksgiving Day, didn't you.
Speaker 4: I certainly do, and I still do to this day.
Speaker 4: The hurt I brought my mother, who has said, who
Speaker 4: had a very hard life, and my family has been tremendous,
Speaker 4: And it took a long time to really embrace that.
Speaker 4: That that how I hurt myself had incredible ramifications in
Speaker 4: my families in the rest of their lives too. And
Speaker 4: so many people say it wasn't your fault, but I
Speaker 4: I hitchhiked a long way without telling anyone. I was.
Speaker 4: I treated treated my mother badly that way. And I
Speaker 4: was sexually promiscuous, And that was sort of after being
Speaker 4: raised in such a religious environment. It was it was
Speaker 4: sort of an embracing on that more hedonistic kind of lifestyle.
Speaker 4: But and it was the impulsiveness of that age. And
Speaker 4: so I have tremendous, a real passionate response to that age.
Speaker 4: And two and two women who find themselves making impulsive
Speaker 4: bad decisions in that in that window when when you
Speaker 4: can make a mistake that will last the rest of
Speaker 4: your life, And to this day, my brothers still still have,
Speaker 4: you know, feelings about this.
Speaker 5: And any emotion about the shooting.
Speaker 4: So you really don't realize what what what how your
Speaker 4: behavior affects other people. At that age, sometimes you just
Speaker 4: don't care because you're you're finding yourself. And I look
Speaker 4: at the way I acted then and it makes me ashamed,
Speaker 4: it does, you know. I think I've accepted that, but
Speaker 4: it's something that doesn't go away.
Speaker 3: But very much you realized that your life did turn around,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't the end of your life as you
Speaker 3: knew it. It was a new life and you thrived
Speaker 3: and persevered and succeeded when you first Obviously you're a writer,
Speaker 3: and you also have interest in true crime writing, and
Speaker 3: you write in this Razor Wild Wilderness that not since
Speaker 3: Manson were you interested in a case that it is
Speaker 3: at a point of obsession with the Crystal Reordan case,
Speaker 3: and in fact, with the tie in with your writing.
Speaker 3: You had written a fictional book loosely based on the
Speaker 3: case called Love Highway. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about Love Highway before we talk about you. First, your
Speaker 3: first correspondence with CRISP. Reordan and why.
Speaker 4: When I first saw you know, Jennifer Moore's face on
Speaker 4: the cover of the Daily News. She was then considered missing,
Speaker 4: and she had walked off into the night, eighteen years old.
Speaker 4: And I was just struck because that was that age,
Speaker 4: at eighteen, that she had made this.
Speaker 5: Had made this mistake. And I read.
Speaker 4: The particulars of what had happened, the underage drinking and
Speaker 4: leaving the club, and she and her friend's car had
Speaker 4: been taken to the pound, just of mistakes that led
Speaker 4: to her vulnerability. Then the next day we saw Draymond
Speaker 4: Coleman on the cover of the Daily News, and then
Speaker 4: we saw.
Speaker 5: Crystal, Crystal Ruder's picture, And.
Speaker 4: When I read that there was another woman, a young
Speaker 4: woman in the room who was there when Jennifer was
Speaker 4: killed and raped, I was I just couldn't. I was
Speaker 4: just you know, not or just fixated with that. How
Speaker 4: could this be? How how could someone so close in
Speaker 4: age to a girl not watch, not run away from
Speaker 4: run away from the room and and call the police.
Speaker 4: And as more more so, it was that that that threesome,
Speaker 4: that that toxic interplay between the three Coleman and Jennifer
Speaker 4: and Crystal, but that a girl watched another girl being killed.
Speaker 4: I I felt I really wanted to write about that,
Speaker 4: or to understand it, to try to to to grapple
Speaker 4: with that, because it was so foreign to any way
Speaker 4: that I say. So A short story led to the novel,
Speaker 4: which was loosely based on the case. But as I
Speaker 4: came to know Crystal, I was surprised at at how
Speaker 4: I did come close to some of her, some of
Speaker 4: her characteristics. But it was as I was finishing Love
Speaker 4: Highway one of my friends who had read the manuscript
Speaker 4: said well, why don't you get in touch with Crystal.
Speaker 4: Why don't you write to her and see if she'll
Speaker 4: write you back. And so I called and the man
Speaker 4: Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey, and they
Speaker 4: gave me her ID number in the address, and I
Speaker 4: wrote her, and a friend of mine said, just just
Speaker 4: ask her, how are you doing? I've been thinking about you,
Speaker 4: And so that was really kind of the tone in
Speaker 4: the letter, you know, how are you doing it? I've
Speaker 4: been thinking about you and introducing myself a little bit
Speaker 4: of my history. And she she wrote me immediately back
Speaker 4: and told me that she didn't usually write people back.
Speaker 5: But.
Speaker 4: That there was something she could feel, some sympathy or
Speaker 4: something you know that that in my letters that that
Speaker 4: she responded to. And one of the ground rules was
Speaker 4: from the beginning she didn't want to be judged. She'd
Speaker 4: been judged so many times already that that that was
Speaker 4: the one that rock, I don't want to be judged.
Speaker 4: And our correspondence began, and it has continued to this day.
Speaker 4: Is uh, it's moved into the more email and video
Speaker 4: chads and and the whole and jpage, just the whole
Speaker 4: whole electronic array that that visits are not allowed anymore
Speaker 4: under the COVID conditions.
Speaker 5: There were some.
Speaker 4: Prior to that, but it's been I think Crystal has
Speaker 4: said that she considers me family. And sometimes when you
Speaker 4: make a commitment to someone and not perfect, and you're
Speaker 4: not perfect, and you're not taking away the enormity of
Speaker 4: what was done, but but you've made a commitment to
Speaker 4: this person and.
Speaker 5: They're going to keep it. So so that was.
Speaker 4: The initial contact and it's it's been, you know, quite
Speaker 4: quite a journey since then. As I didn't realize that
Speaker 4: knowing Crystal was going.
Speaker 5: To take me into the prison system itself.
Speaker 3: We have to talk about this crime for those people
Speaker 3: that really don't know what was entailed here, But you
Speaker 3: didn't ask in all of this correspondence, you didn't ask
Speaker 3: why when Jennifer was screaming, and we have to get
Speaker 3: to the details of this was screaming? Did she turn
Speaker 3: up the TV set? Nor did you ask her? Why
Speaker 3: didn't you try to help Jennifer? So before you endeavored
Speaker 3: to do this, despite the misadventures and the things that
Speaker 3: you left your moral compass, you believed and it led
Speaker 3: to this event that you could never changed you forever.
Speaker 3: How could you put those things aside? What was it
Speaker 3: about your background or what was it about Crystal just
Speaker 3: looking at photos, looking at her mugshot, finding out some
Speaker 3: details of the crime. Despite the headlines, why did you
Speaker 3: write Crystal rd RD?
Speaker 4: I think I wanted to find out who she was.
Speaker 4: I did want to understand. I thought if I knew
Speaker 4: who she was, If I knew who she was, then
Speaker 4: I would understand. I wouldn't have to ask why she
Speaker 4: did what she did. And I think that if I
Speaker 4: had asked her, it would have been very difficult for
Speaker 4: her to tell the truth, if she even knows what
Speaker 4: that truth is, because we do sculpt memory, and that
Speaker 4: night was so painful, and the moral ambiguity was so
Speaker 4: great that I don't know what she would have said,
Speaker 4: and I have asked some questions and I've gotten different answers.
Speaker 4: So but I did feel that getting to know her
Speaker 4: that I would discover what it happened. I would discover
Speaker 4: why the why of this, and I was reaching. I
Speaker 4: did reach out my hands as you went buying friendship
Speaker 4: to her too, because I do believe that the redemption
Speaker 4: is possible for all of us, and and that we
Speaker 4: deserve to be looked at as a as a human being,
Speaker 4: no matter what has transpired before we met. So those
Speaker 4: were the reasons I reached out to her sometimes. I
Speaker 4: once gave an interview onto a television show called for
Speaker 4: My Man, which I described in the book. I don't
Speaker 4: believe it's on anymore, but it was an LA based
Speaker 4: show that that profile young women who committed crimes for
Speaker 4: their men, and they were called Ride or Die chicks.
Speaker 4: And the team had come to New Jersey and wanted
Speaker 4: to do a segment on Crystal and they could not
Speaker 4: find anyone who would speak in her behalf her parents
Speaker 4: or not talk, and so they they found online You
Speaker 4: had My Interesting Love Highway, And I probably had published
Speaker 4: an essay, and they contacted me and asked me if
Speaker 4: I would speak for her, and so I did on
Speaker 4: New Jersey and was interviewed for almost four hours for
Speaker 4: the for the for the segment, very very lovely and
Speaker 4: warm interviewer. But I learned things from their investigation. They
Speaker 4: were able to speak to detectives and police. They had
Speaker 4: some information very painful to Peter for me, and so
Speaker 4: so that was that was I had to There have
Speaker 4: been some bumps where I've had to think about what
Speaker 4: what what Crystal, Crystal, what what you know costs her
Speaker 4: to take some actions that it was reported in the
Speaker 4: newspaper the day after the murder that she advertised herself
Speaker 4: on Craigslist. She was going by the the name Lisa
Speaker 4: then as a prostitute to give the full full service
Speaker 4: for one hundred and fifty dollars, And that was that
Speaker 4: was really made a lot of in the newspaper. Here
Speaker 4: is this young woman who the day after a murder
Speaker 4: is is selling herself on Craiglist. Says that added to
Speaker 4: this whole shame that this.
Speaker 5: Woman is really depraved.
Speaker 4: I think in the press.
Speaker 3: When you talk about Crystal and how she got to
Speaker 3: this point again, you call it moral ambiguity. We'll talk
Speaker 3: about more about that, but let's talk about what you
Speaker 3: found about Crystal's background.
Speaker 5: Crystal Husbands. Yeah, sorry, Crystal.
Speaker 4: Crystal was born into a home.
Speaker 5: Her father's Irish and her mother was French. She had two.
Speaker 4: An older and a younger sister, and they were terribly neglected.
Speaker 4: The mother worked as a prostitute. The father dealt drugs
Speaker 4: and they were left alone a lot. They had shared
Speaker 4: one bed, and they went hungry. And I was so
Speaker 4: moved by the stories that her older sister would go
Speaker 4: hunt food in the refrigerator and there wasn't much, but
Speaker 4: she found can ravioli and pickles, and so that was
Speaker 4: their comfort food in bed, eating cold ravioli and pickles.
Speaker 4: That was their food. And and I found that story
Speaker 4: so resonated with me.
Speaker 5: It just lodged in me.
Speaker 4: And they had an uncle. Their mother's brother would come
Speaker 4: over and he molested Crystal and her younger sister. To
Speaker 4: this day, Crystal had flashbacks and will hide in the
Speaker 4: bathroom in the in the prison, because I think that
Speaker 4: that that is where as a child they tried to
Speaker 4: hide from from their uncle is in the bathroom, right
Speaker 4: They when the oldest girl went to school. It was
Speaker 4: nose that they had lice and that they were so dirty,
Speaker 4: and the Job Protected Services came in and they did
Speaker 4: take the take the girls from the home and they
Speaker 4: were put into foster care, and they moved around and
Speaker 4: thought the sisters were broken up. The older sister went
Speaker 4: in one car and Crystal and her younger sister into another.
Speaker 4: And Crystal and her sister were adopted by through the
Speaker 4: Catholic charities, by a very wealthy Connecticut family who really
Speaker 4: really hoped for the best and wanted to make a family.
Speaker 4: But Crystal's adoptive mother was very strict. Here we run
Speaker 4: into the fourth Graare religion again, and I think Crystal
Speaker 4: just needed a mother to just love her unconditionally, and
Speaker 4: this wasn't going to happen in this home, even though
Speaker 4: her god parents had the best of intentions and created
Speaker 4: tea parties for their daughters, and but it was this
Speaker 4: strictness and harsh punishment I don't think that Crystal could
Speaker 4: could handle. And she had a lot of screaming in
Speaker 4: the night, h inability to sleep through the night. And
Speaker 4: when she reached adolescence, and you will find in the
Speaker 4: book that she was a role model a certain point
Speaker 4: of her life to her friends and there and their parents.
Speaker 4: They they Crystal was the friendliest, the most beloved girl,
Speaker 4: and she also became an incredible basketball player. Because Crystal
Speaker 4: was very tall, she's she's five nine, and in what
Speaker 4: was junior high she was she was already being scouted,
Speaker 4: so that that this is where things started to go wrong,
Speaker 4: really wrong. She started staying out, she started seeing seeing guys.
Speaker 5: There's a rumors, we don't really know the.
Speaker 4: Entire story, but Crystal's mother could not handle this kind
Speaker 4: of behavior, and she went to a child psychiatrist and
Speaker 4: they suggested Crystal being taken to larm which is a
Speaker 4: school in Maine. It's closed now, but it was infamous
Speaker 4: for its attack therapy and for taking only the most
Speaker 4: troubled kids from the United States in a very very
Speaker 4: isolated Poland Springs, Maine, and they were at the Mercy
Speaker 4: of incredible rules. And Crystal's always said she'd rather be
Speaker 4: in prison at Elon and she spent four years there.
Speaker 4: You would do things like you'd be punished and not
Speaker 4: be able to go to the bathroom, so you would
Speaker 4: sit in a corner and you could not sloug your shoulders.
Speaker 4: You could not close your eyes because you had people
Speaker 4: watching you in the in the cafeteria, you couldn't look
Speaker 4: at a member of the opposite sex or you would
Speaker 4: be severely punished. And punishment was gathering the whole group
Speaker 4: of students, you know, perhaps one hundred students, and they
Speaker 4: would shouting and scream at you, and with everything and
Speaker 4: so and so reading researching Elan, the students became weaponized
Speaker 4: and the school itself, the teaching part of the school
Speaker 4: took place at night, and it took place for just
Speaker 4: a few hours and some trailers after eight o'clock. It
Speaker 4: just seemed so bizarre to me that the whole day
Speaker 4: would be spent screaming, and this is quite quite well documented.
Speaker 5: And then this.
Speaker 4: Very very small portion of the day, you know, relegated
Speaker 4: to being taught. And so I think that really hurt
Speaker 4: Crystal chances in making her a college a college future.
Speaker 4: So she was able to leave it on after four
Speaker 4: years when she was eighteen years old, and at eighteen
Speaker 4: she went. She did not want to go to adoptive parents,
Speaker 4: and they did offer to send her to college, but
Speaker 4: she said she wanted her freedom, and she went to
Speaker 4: live in New York City with another Elin graduate who
Speaker 4: was a prostitute working for her boyfriend as a prostitute,
Speaker 4: and Carrie Anne said, Crystal, you can stay here, but
Speaker 4: you have to work too as a prostitute. And that's
Speaker 4: what started Crystal's sex work and Draymond having to be
Speaker 4: a friend of Carrie Anne's pimp and he came to
Speaker 4: department and Crystal says they had an ambetiate, he had clicking,
Speaker 4: an immediate attraction to each other. I said, well, what
Speaker 4: was it about him? And she said, well, he was
Speaker 4: funny and he paid, so it's attention to me and
Speaker 4: we just had such a good time together. And I
Speaker 4: think too that he was a lot bigger than her,
Speaker 4: I mean, she's so tall. That said that there was
Speaker 4: something about his size that really appealed to her where
Speaker 4: it might have frightened other people. And Crystal has said
Speaker 4: was kind of a note of pride in her voice.
Speaker 4: He fought for me, which means he took Crystal's quote
Speaker 4: unquote ownership away from her current pen and fought for her.
Speaker 4: And she became his prostitute as sex worker. And they
Speaker 4: left the apartment where she was living and they went
Speaker 4: and started they're kind of their vagabond life living in
Speaker 4: these hotelsies written by the Week hotels which were good
Speaker 4: according to Crystal, for the work, for the sex work.
Speaker 4: So this is the trajectory that Crystal was on before.
Speaker 5: The murder.
Speaker 4: Now one thing that is in the book, But it
Speaker 4: was very difficult for me, and I think it will
Speaker 4: be difficult for readers to understand. Crystal did become pregnant
Speaker 4: by dream, and I think she used protection with with
Speaker 4: her right, you know. But I said, what happened to
Speaker 4: the to the baby? You didn't have her very long?
Speaker 4: She said, she went out to Oh and the Dream
Speaker 4: and kept her working through her whole pregnancy, and shortly
Speaker 4: after the baby was born, she came home from war
Speaker 4: and she said that Draymond had signed her away, that
Speaker 4: the baby was given.
Speaker 5: Up to the foster system.
Speaker 4: And people have asked me a question that you know, saying, well,
Speaker 4: her scenasure, we are being required to. So that's another
Speaker 4: one of those those real pockets of question and mysteriousness.
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Speaker 3: we just spoke about Crystal's trajectory into this life turning
Speaker 3: tricks in these rent a week, Rent for a week CD,
Speaker 3: very filthy, dirty CD, disgusting hotels and motels to do
Speaker 3: this sex work. You say that the biggest disappointment she
Speaker 3: had this child. And one day she came home and
Speaker 3: he had given the child to foster care. You say
Speaker 3: she stopped feeling and caring around that time. Tell us
Speaker 3: what happens just previous to this July twenty sixth, two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, and how on earth Crystal comes to
Speaker 3: be part of this incredibly horrifying murder.
Speaker 4: I think Crystal was considering leaving him, At least some
Speaker 4: part of her was considering leaving him. There were reports
Speaker 4: by escort services that that she worked for, that she
Speaker 4: was frightened of Draymond. That that they never saw a
Speaker 4: Crystal smile. That he would call constantly about the money,
Speaker 4: and so that was that was testified to buy you know,
Speaker 4: third parties, that she was just visibly afraid of of him.
Speaker 4: And she said that she once tried to hang herself
Speaker 4: and that Draymond found her and he cut her down
Speaker 4: and then he punched her. And and I think if
Speaker 4: that happened, it would be that Crystal is his moneymaker
Speaker 4: and his he she belongs to hi him and she
Speaker 4: cannot she cannot damage his inventory. So that would be
Speaker 4: that would be that impulse there to punch her after
Speaker 4: this really self destructive act. And so they were having
Speaker 4: problems right before this this July. This July evening, Dreamond
Speaker 4: was said too. He has was reported to saying he
Speaker 4: only liked women who were prostitutes. He also was obsessed
Speaker 4: by threesomes, and he people who lived in the hotel,
Speaker 4: the latest Hotel were saying that he constantly asked man
Speaker 4: if they knew anyone that would have threesomes. And Crystal
Speaker 4: was reported to said she she wanted him to get
Speaker 4: out of his system, and that was really nice on
Speaker 4: her partner way that.
Speaker 5: Things don't leave.
Speaker 4: Your system like that. They don't. That's kind of wishful thinking,
Speaker 4: and we all think wishfully at times. But it was
Speaker 4: it was at this point in their life that that
Speaker 4: the murder were leading up to that July that July night,
Speaker 4: that things were unsettled between them and he was becoming
Speaker 4: more violent, and so she would have to make some
Speaker 4: decisions there. She did tell me, she said, I loved
Speaker 4: him so much. I didn't think I could live without him.
Speaker 4: And she said, I know I was weak minded. I'm
Speaker 4: really trying to change that. But that was that was,
Speaker 4: you know what what she expressed to me on more
Speaker 4: than one occasion, how much she loves him. And so
Speaker 4: if it's now July and Draymond has been going all
Speaker 4: night Crystal, Crystal has worked all night. Draymond comes in,
Speaker 4: it's almost dawn. He doesn't even have cab fare. He
Speaker 4: has Jennifer with him, but he doesn't have cab fare,
Speaker 4: so he has to come up and get Crystal so
Speaker 4: she can pay the cab. And they had an argument
Speaker 4: on the stairs because Crystal now knows he has Jennifer
Speaker 4: with him, and she tells him, I'm going to leave you,
Speaker 4: whether she meant it or not, but but she she
Speaker 4: she could tell him that, and that also made him
Speaker 4: very visibly angry. But just to back up just a little,
Speaker 4: Jennifer and her friend had come up of a club
Speaker 4: the guesthouse and discovered the car in the toad. The
Speaker 4: girls went to the guest house and the towpound refused
Speaker 4: to release the car because the girls were visibly drunk,
Speaker 4: and Jennifer's friend passed out. She was so upset, so intoxicated,
Speaker 4: she passed out and an ambulance was called and she
Speaker 4: was taken to the hospital. And Jennifer, perhaps thinking she
Speaker 4: was going to be arrested because she was underage, walked
Speaker 4: out of the toepound a lot and walked towards the
Speaker 4: West Side Highway in Manhattan, which is a very frightening
Speaker 4: place for a young girl who doesn't even have her
Speaker 4: bag with her because that's locked in the car. She
Speaker 4: only has her cell phone with her and it's running
Speaker 4: down on it needs to be charged. And so she's walking.
Speaker 4: It's still dark, and someone has following her, and it's
Speaker 4: Draymond Coleman, and she has enough power and to fall
Speaker 4: into college boyfriend and Harrington Park and she's just a
Speaker 4: man is following me, he won't stop, and he's offering
Speaker 4: me drugs, And of course her boyfriend said, find a cab,
Speaker 4: Get into a cab, come here, go to your father's.
Speaker 5: We'll pay, you know.
Speaker 4: But that's the last phone, that's the last Jennifer's communication
Speaker 4: with anyone besides Crystal and Draymond and before her death.
Speaker 4: So we don't know how Draymon uh talked Jennifer into
Speaker 4: the cab with him. I asked, I did ask Crystal that,
Speaker 4: and she said he could be charming when he wants
Speaker 4: to be. Now, I don't know how charming he could
Speaker 4: be if she was already frightened of him following her,
Speaker 4: but she did get into the cab with him, and
Speaker 4: they went to Weehawking to the Park Avenue hotel, which
Speaker 4: was definitely not Park Avenue. It was a really CD hotel,
Speaker 4: excuse me hotel where a lot of drug dealers and
Speaker 4: sex workers worked and lived and and the bathrooms were
Speaker 4: shared bathrooms in the hallway, so you get the picture.
Speaker 4: And it was here that Draymond convinced Jennifer that he
Speaker 4: had a charger in the room and she could come
Speaker 4: and charge her phone and then she could call and
Speaker 4: she could leave, and she was so eneborated that there
Speaker 4: was footage that shows Draymond almost carrying her up the
Speaker 4: stairs and into the room. So there we are, and
Speaker 4: Crystal goes into the room joins them. I don't know
Speaker 4: if Crystal thought, Okay, here's Draymond bringing another girl. He
Speaker 4: wants a threesome. This is this is what it's.
Speaker 5: Going to be.
Speaker 4: But surely then once the door closed, you knew that
Speaker 4: Jennifer wanted nothing to do with Draymond or threesome. She
Speaker 4: wanted out of that room and she wanted to get home.
Speaker 4: And that's when the violence started. He began to hit her,
Speaker 4: and Crystal left the room and went to the hallway bathroom,
Speaker 4: the shared bathroom, and she stayed there for quite some time.
Speaker 4: When she came back into the room, she was strangling her.
Speaker 4: And I don't know in what you know to screet
Speaker 4: the bludgeoning and the screaming, and Crystal turned up to
Speaker 4: television and the reports were that that Draymond bludgeoned Jennifer
Speaker 4: so badly that her eyes swelled shot, she could no
Speaker 4: longer see, and that he broke so many bones in
Speaker 4: her face. And and that was another detail that I
Speaker 4: just have not been able to forget or stop thinking
Speaker 4: of almost every day because my face was part of
Speaker 4: being shot, and I know how delicate it is and
Speaker 4: how important a girl's face is, and for him to
Speaker 4: just bludgeon that this and this beautiful face of Jennifer's,
Speaker 4: is really a terrifying thought. She scratched Draymond and creased.
Speaker 4: She fought, she was she's a soccer player, as a
Speaker 4: captain of the soccer team, and she fought and scratched
Speaker 4: him incredibly and deeply, and that perhaps made him matter.
Speaker 4: I think Crystal left the room again. This is on
Speaker 4: the hotel video camera, and she goes downstairs and and
Speaker 4: she buys a coke and had this truly went against
Speaker 4: her in the penalty phase of the trial. But when
Speaker 4: she went back to the room, he he Jennifer was
Speaker 4: almost lifeless, and he goes, I'm doing this to Crystal
Speaker 4: because because I love you, and it twisted hideous profession
Speaker 4: of love for Crystal. So he's doing this to this
Speaker 4: eighteen year old girl. So I don't wand and at
Speaker 4: that point, and this is something that Crystal told her
Speaker 4: friend Lucy in prison, I don't want to I don't
Speaker 4: know the accuracy of it by Crystal said actor Jennifer
Speaker 4: was dead, that is when Draymond raped her, and it
Speaker 4: was the most disgusting thing that she ever ever seen.
Speaker 4: So you have this split, this is what you've seen,
Speaker 4: and you can leave, but you stay and then you
Speaker 4: help Draymond clean her and cut her fingernails off and
Speaker 4: take her pulse. And so that that was it was
Speaker 4: grim beyond belief. And she was put into a suitcase
Speaker 4: or cannabis bag, I'm not sure, and carried to a
Speaker 4: dumpster in New Jersey and put in the put in
Speaker 4: the dumpster, and then Draymond and Crystal left the left
Speaker 4: the hotel, they went to another like written by the
Speaker 4: Week motel in Harlem, and in the cabs there, Dreamond
Speaker 4: had Jennifer's cellphone. He made a call to his mother
Speaker 4: and this was how they were immediately immediately caught.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: So they're in Harlem and and Draymond goes out to
Speaker 4: buy pot or lead and crystals alone and that's when
Speaker 4: the police come and she's arrested. And shortly after Drayman
Speaker 4: is arrested, and she's she undergoes fourteen hours of entire nation.
Speaker 4: She immediately tells the police everything she.
Speaker 5: And then she takes them.
Speaker 4: To New Jersey shows them where the body is. I
Speaker 4: don't know if she's thought that that would ebsolve her
Speaker 4: from responsibility for certain actions, but it it it doesn't really,
Speaker 4: So so this is this is this is the grim
Speaker 4: and gruesome story of what happened. And of course there
Speaker 4: were so many details. You don't know you know exactly
Speaker 4: what happened, or people can change their stories, but it
Speaker 4: was the police said it was the filthiest room that
Speaker 4: they'd ever gone into. It was very, very grim. So
Speaker 4: that is what you have to understand. Then two.
Speaker 5: To no Crystal. And yet.
Speaker 4: She said, I am I am a good person, and
Speaker 4: she said to me many times, and I believe, I
Speaker 4: believe that, I believe that there is goodness in her,
Speaker 4: a lot of goodness, and she's but she could what happened.
Speaker 4: She could not could not break away from from Draymon
Speaker 4: in that moment. And I also think four years at Elawn, well,
Speaker 4: you're passive and watching all this attack therapy, which is
Speaker 4: just so incredibly violent, that that callister in some way
Speaker 4: or made her passive when something's so horrific is going on.
Speaker 3: So Jesus is an opportunity to stop for a second.
Speaker 3: Stephanie for these messages.
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Speaker 3: Now you talked about that's how Crystal Reardon came to
Speaker 3: be in prison, and you say that she stayed in
Speaker 3: the county jail for almost four years twenty ten. This
Speaker 3: trial finally came to fruition and then Draymond Coleman looked
Speaker 3: for a plea agreement, this noble guy that she loved,
Speaker 3: and he had to put it on her and said
Speaker 3: that she also had sex with Jennifer Just to add
Speaker 3: to the salaciousness and horror of this story. Already, she's
Speaker 3: already called the gen sleigh hooker, but this is this
Speaker 3: is much worse for her what he does say, doesn't he.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't think, and I have told her
Speaker 4: certain things. I don't think she could accept that he
Speaker 4: did these things that he told the police he had
Speaker 4: jex with Jennifer, and she didn't according to her, And
Speaker 4: I believe her there. She's a pretty straightforward about that,
Speaker 4: the sexual aspects of her life. But I don't think
Speaker 4: she would believe that he would testify against her that
Speaker 4: he took this plea and pled guilty and then she
Speaker 4: put guilty, and she could have you know, I do
Speaker 4: think she could have gotten much, you know, even after
Speaker 4: she turned the plea agreement, she could have gotten much
Speaker 4: reduced sentence if she fled the Stockholm syndrome or or
Speaker 4: they're extenuating circumstances where more closely looked at. But he
Speaker 4: gave her up. He's promised her throughout the years that
Speaker 4: he's going to write it all up and he's going
Speaker 4: to give his testimony that she had nothing to do
Speaker 4: with it. It was all him. And every time he
Speaker 4: says that she's hopeful, or she says he'll do it,
Speaker 4: and so that's this magical thinking that regard that, that
Speaker 4: regards dreaming in that light. I don't see her having
Speaker 4: that magical thinking about other people or other situations in prison,
Speaker 4: but she does about him. He's going to come through someday,
Speaker 4: and she says, I know, I shouldn't. She doesn't communicate
Speaker 4: with him much, but when he does write her, then
Speaker 4: she will respond to him. And she said, I know
Speaker 4: I shouldn't. I know, I shouldn't. It's very very weak
Speaker 4: of me. But he has no one else, And yeah,
Speaker 4: that's not really you know, he does, he's got a mother,
Speaker 4: and but but really she's she she is the one
Speaker 4: person that really did profoundly love him. So that is true.
Speaker 4: But her friend Lucy, who who I write about in
Speaker 4: Raising Wild Wilderness Too, has nothing but contempt for Draymond
Speaker 4: and and uh really really believes that he was totally
Speaker 4: responsible for what went on in there, and that her
Speaker 4: fear of Dreamond prevented her from taking the action that
Speaker 4: she should have. So, you know, as in regards Dreamond,
Speaker 4: that that's kind of a it's it's not ambiguous there
Speaker 4: he was real me.
Speaker 3: In monstrous things, you take us into a place called
Speaker 3: maximum compound, which is as it sounds, maximum security at
Speaker 3: the EMCF Clinton, New Jersey. So this is the ednam
Speaker 3: Mahan Correctional Facility, two hours ride from Manhattan. You talk
Speaker 3: about her life in there, and you share your thoughts
Speaker 3: and your information and your background, and she has shared
Speaker 3: hers and that's where we get this profound information about
Speaker 3: her horrific background. But you talk about life and how
Speaker 3: Crystal lives and how she survives in this maximum compound.
Speaker 3: Tell us about some of the life in this place.
Speaker 4: Well, it's very recommended as far as you have a
Speaker 4: schedule and you must get up in the morning a
Speaker 4: certain times that the lights flare on. You're not in cells,
Speaker 4: you're in wings and units, but you stare affecting to
Speaker 4: sink with five other women and one shower and one toilet,
Speaker 4: so you're messed on top of each other trying to
Speaker 4: get yourself clean before breakfast is called.
Speaker 5: And there are.
Speaker 4: Three counts a day where everyone lines up and there's
Speaker 4: no speaking during the count. Everyone has to be accounted
Speaker 4: for and so that takes that takes about twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: So you've got you've got that kind of structure, structure
Speaker 4: in your day. The meals are you won't see fresh fruit,
Speaker 4: you won't see fresh vegetables. You know, they are in
Speaker 4: industrial kind of food. If the chicken cast roll is
Speaker 4: on the menu, there won't be an eighth in because
Speaker 4: the inmates working in the kitchen will have gotten there first.
Speaker 4: But I learned so much about how the inmates take
Speaker 4: tougherware with them to the meals so they could pick
Speaker 4: out those things they can use to cook with. There's
Speaker 4: one microwave in the e MCF. It's one of the last
Speaker 4: remaining microwaves in the New Jersey prison system. But they
Speaker 4: make incredible use of it. They take milk, where they
Speaker 4: take sugar packets or just little things you know from
Speaker 4: the meal that they can mix with the commissary items
Speaker 4: and make some kind of.
Speaker 5: Better tasting food. So and there's so little.
Speaker 4: Time given for them to eat. You know, they're told
Speaker 4: to get moving almost as soon as they sit down.
Speaker 4: And then you have the medication call, and if you
Speaker 4: take medication, if you don't hear that call, you are
Speaker 4: out of luck.
Speaker 5: For that day.
Speaker 4: So because the corrections officers, some are really good people
Speaker 4: and some you know, really look down upon the inmazes
Speaker 4: as subhuman is.
Speaker 5: Not worthy of treatment. Like a human beings.
Speaker 4: So that's going on all the time. Each inmate has
Speaker 4: a job or they're going to school, one of the
Speaker 4: two things. So after breakfast and after the count, you
Speaker 4: go to your job, and you do receive state pay
Speaker 4: for that, and sometimes just minimal amounts of money, and
Speaker 4: that goes into your commissary account and everything. This is
Speaker 4: interesting for me to find out everything costs money. You
Speaker 4: have to buy all your hygiene products, you have to
Speaker 4: buy your toilet paper, you have to buy everything once
Speaker 4: through that commissary. And so the desire for people on
Speaker 4: the outside to help with money is always there, and
Speaker 4: you can understand why. Even though these commentary items are
Speaker 4: very much reduced in price for the inmates making forty
Speaker 4: dollars a month, they are very pricey and and that
Speaker 4: kind of leads to and of course everything on the
Speaker 4: commentary list. While some of it's good tasting, like candy
Speaker 4: bars and snacks and desserts, it's all really high in
Speaker 4: sodium and sugar and so so a lot of the
Speaker 4: inmates gain a lot of weight, and there's an unhealthiness
Speaker 4: to a lot of the women because of their diets
Speaker 4: so awful, and that leads you to the medical the
Speaker 4: medical portion of the prisons or is truly truly a
Speaker 4: disgrace to our country that you have to fill out
Speaker 4: these forms, and which isn't a bad things, but the
Speaker 4: inmates are off not even believe that they're ill, they're
Speaker 4: they're accused of taking it. And so, for instance, Lucy
Speaker 4: had a lump under her arm which turned out to
Speaker 4: be cancerous and she had to get outside her family
Speaker 4: to to to call administrators to get her looked at
Speaker 4: in the medical units. So you've got a real need
Speaker 4: for something better with the medical system there. And and
Speaker 4: Lucy told me that, uh, there was a veterinarian that
Speaker 4: practiced for years at e MCS as a medical doctor
Speaker 4: and when that was discovered, he was arrested. But but
Speaker 4: to think that that would.
Speaker 5: Be the kind of.
Speaker 4: Kind of operation that you would have is is really
Speaker 4: really suspect. So and yet there's a lot of life
Speaker 4: and love in the prison. And and I do go
Speaker 4: into Crystal's relationships with different girls, different women, and there's
Speaker 4: very oftentimes very passionate and friendships are very very passionate.
Speaker 4: And I often wondered, you know, on the outside, we
Speaker 4: were sort of spoiled by all the things. We get
Speaker 4: to watch Netflix constantly, and there's so much to read
Speaker 4: and just everything coming at us that we often neglect
Speaker 4: the people that are most important to us. And I
Speaker 4: noticed that in prison there's a real focus because there's
Speaker 4: not a lot else on your friendships, on other people.
Speaker 4: I mean, and I've never heard the word love so
Speaker 4: much seeing emails between inmates, I love you, I miss you,
Speaker 4: you know, just very and and so there's just a.
Speaker 5: Lot of.
Speaker 4: Affection there too, and then and there is there is
Speaker 4: also you know, fighting too. I mean, that's it's part
Speaker 4: of the prison situation, I think. And but of course
Speaker 4: in the women's prison is not quite as you know,
Speaker 4: as dangerous as in the men's prisons. But but I
Speaker 4: I think Crystal has has really gone She's navigated the
Speaker 4: prison system pretty well. She's very well liked, has a
Speaker 4: lot of friends and liked by staff and and other
Speaker 4: inmates alike. So she.
Speaker 3: You mentioned, yes, you mentioned the violence in Are you
Speaker 3: right about the violence? And I was surprised at the
Speaker 3: level of violence. I don't know why I was surprised,
Speaker 3: Maybe because I think women's prison is going to be different,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't seem to be different except Obviously there's
Speaker 3: different characteristics in this quest for love has got to
Speaker 3: be much different than a male prison. But it's interesting
Speaker 3: the camaraderie and you detail the relationship with this Lucy Wems.
Speaker 3: They are very close, they become great friends, and this
Speaker 3: is part of how she navigates this time in prison
Speaker 3: and how she heals herself and becomes a different person
Speaker 3: is through the help. Like you say, the camaraderie, the friendship,
Speaker 3: the love that she has and she finds in prison,
Speaker 3: but also that your relationship with Lucy and with Crystal
Speaker 3: and the things that you provide them, the little things
Speaker 3: that they can't get otherwise, but also the things that
Speaker 3: are intangible things that you provide for Crystal, for Lucy,
Speaker 3: but for Crystal, especially in this situation.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, people say that that when an outside
Speaker 4: person the friends uh and inmate, that they get weary,
Speaker 4: that that it's very strong for a while and then
Speaker 4: a person drops off because life moves and and there's
Speaker 4: some kind of stasis that goes on with people in prison.
Speaker 4: They're there, they're there, they're there, even though they too
Speaker 4: have life that's very active, but it doesn't seem that way.
Speaker 4: Maybe for the outsider or the inmate has needs and
Speaker 4: they'll always have these needs and and I guess some
Speaker 4: people get weary of it, but that's hung in there.
Speaker 4: And and I think that that that has been really
Speaker 4: helpful to Crystal, that she knows that she has someone
Speaker 4: that's a go to guy that is there for her.
Speaker 4: And and beautifully, I had published one of the essays
Speaker 4: that eventually found its way into the book on an
Speaker 4: online journal, and a photograph that's in the book of
Speaker 4: Crystal's basketball team was seen by one of the other
Speaker 4: girls pictures there and they showed it to one of
Speaker 4: the women's mothers, and she has written Crystal and has
Speaker 4: is really interested in Crystal, Crystal's life. She said she
Speaker 4: she loved Crystals as a as an adolescent. She she
Speaker 4: couldn't imagine the girl she knew in this situation. But
Speaker 4: she is reconnected with Crystal, and that's just in a
Speaker 4: real positive thing. So so that that that's also something
Speaker 4: that kind of came through, you know, my interest in her,
Speaker 4: in in my wanting to to share her story with
Speaker 4: with a larger group of people. And I think that's
Speaker 4: meaningful to Crystal too. I think, you know, I was
Speaker 4: very worried that you know, I don't pull a lot
Speaker 4: of punches in the book.
Speaker 5: I mean and.
Speaker 4: That that it's not victim. I'm not portraying Crystal as
Speaker 4: a victim in all cases.
Speaker 5: I'm not. Uh.
Speaker 4: She's a human being, and she has made mistakes, and
Speaker 4: she's presented both ways. She's presented that way, and I
Speaker 4: I have been worried about her response to some of that,
Speaker 4: but I think we've talked about it, and I think
Speaker 4: she understands that that it just has to be that
Speaker 4: way or or there's no reason to write a book
Speaker 4: that wants to get inside someone.
Speaker 2: MH.
Speaker 3: You right, for some Crystal can never repay the debt
Speaker 3: she incurred in that hotel room. But you're right, But
Speaker 3: your own experience with impulsiveness and bad judgment has shown you.
Speaker 3: Life sometimes does give us a second chance, and we
Speaker 3: must seize it. Cannot abandon our former selves, but we
Speaker 3: can go beyond them. Do you really do you believe
Speaker 3: that Crystal Well, she will be released one day? Do
Speaker 3: you believe that she has successfully done that, that she
Speaker 3: has taken this opportunity and go beyond this horrific crime
Speaker 3: and this horrific event and this horrific time in her life.
Speaker 4: I do. I have high hopes for her. But what
Speaker 4: frightens me, or what I have some misgivings about, is
Speaker 4: the length of how long she's been institutionalized. She was
Speaker 4: four years at ELAN and now she's going into her
Speaker 4: sixteenthear of incarceration, and so that structure that incarceration or
Speaker 4: these institutional settings give you kind of takes away some
Speaker 4: of your free will, which I think was part of
Speaker 4: the reason she froze in that room. And so that
Speaker 4: I do worry about it is she's going to be
Speaker 4: able to handle all the choices, all the the structurelessness
Speaker 4: of our lives, you know, and she will need help,
Speaker 4: you know. And her new friend is going to really
Speaker 4: help her, and I'll help her. And there are a
Speaker 4: lot of halfway house and there's a lot of programs
Speaker 4: now for paroles or people being released from prison, and
Speaker 4: if she avails herself of some kind of bridging structure,
Speaker 4: you know, I think that I think because I do
Speaker 4: think that she has kindness in her heart.
Speaker 5: I think she.
Speaker 4: Wants a relationship with someone who really loves her.
Speaker 5: And I think she's.
Speaker 4: Had some disappointments at EMCF and some really longer lasting relationships.
Speaker 4: So I do have high hopes, but I have some reservations,
Speaker 4: Like I just expressed about the structurelessness, it's going to
Speaker 4: be quite a quite a sea change when she's released.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how many years does she have before her schedule release?
Speaker 4: Well, that's the eighty five percent rule. So she's sentenced
Speaker 4: to thirty years, but to serve eighty five percent of
Speaker 4: it doesn't serve all thirty years. And so when she's released,
Speaker 4: she has I think six more years.
Speaker 5: She will be released into.
Speaker 4: A halfway house, and she will not be on parole
Speaker 4: once she's served that eighty five percent that is considered
Speaker 4: sentence served. Now Lucy is out on parole. She she's
Speaker 4: was paroled. She didn't serve that eighty five percent of
Speaker 4: her time. But but Crystal will serve that time. And
Speaker 4: but the eighty five percent rule unfortunately applies to Draymond too.
Speaker 4: I think I've calculated it, and I don't think that
Speaker 4: he could possibly get out until he's almost eighty. But
Speaker 4: Crystal will be in her forties. I think, you know,
Speaker 4: she will have a good portion of her youth will
Speaker 4: be will be gone, and you know, I think that
Speaker 4: she does understand what she did and just I know
Speaker 4: what I did was wrong, and that would be helping
Speaker 4: Draymond clean the body and cover up the crime, and
Speaker 4: and not going for Jennifer's help. So I have high,
Speaker 4: high hopes. And she has availed herself and she is
Speaker 4: working on her associate degree. She's done quite well, very
Speaker 4: well in her college classes. She loves poetry, she's she
Speaker 4: she has the kindness, she truly does. I've never heard
Speaker 4: her speak badly about other people, which I think is
Speaker 4: you know, her adoptive mother, yes, and and certain people.
Speaker 5: But I'm never really here. But she loves her adopted
Speaker 5: mother too very much.
Speaker 4: The relationship isn't real strong, but she she treasures she
Speaker 4: has of it. But I've never heard her speak badly
Speaker 4: of people.
Speaker 5: And that's kind of rare.
Speaker 4: And so I notice things like that. I think that
Speaker 4: he speaks someone whose card is pretty good. So mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's really a remarkable book. And also just regrettably,
Speaker 3: I guess the daughter that she gave away, she has
Speaker 3: been forced to not be in contact with this young
Speaker 3: woman whatsoever. Just another sad chapter in Crystal Reardan's life.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you so much, Stephanie for coming
Speaker 3: on and talking about Razor Wire Wilderness. It's a remarkable book.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming on and talking about it.
Speaker 4: Stephanie, thank you. You've just been really wonderful and I
Speaker 4: really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. You have a great night, and
Speaker 3: thanks again.
Speaker 4: Okay, bye bye