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Speaker 9: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 9: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 9: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK.
Speaker 9: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
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Speaker 9: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 4: Good Evening.
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Speaker 2: only ever dreamed of. A survivor's first hand account of
Speaker 2: attempted murder in Saint Francisville, Louisiana, a former warden of
Speaker 2: Angola Prison shoots his wife five times with a pistol,
Speaker 2: then sits down to watch her die on her plantation
Speaker 2: home porch. The victim, author Anne Butler, survives to tell
Speaker 2: this true crime story, detailing the unraveling of her seven
Speaker 2: year marriage and how it led to her near murder,
Speaker 2: interspersed with simple black and white snapshots. This stranger then
Speaker 2: story of murder, survival and forgiveness offers keen insights into
Speaker 2: the mind of both victim and criminal.
Speaker 4: The book that we.
Speaker 2: Are featuring this evening is Weep for the Living with
Speaker 2: my special guest author and Butler. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 2: and thank you for a green to this interview.
Speaker 10: And Butler, my pleasure, Dane, nice to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Now let's get right to as you do so masterfully
Speaker 2: in your book. Set get you, set the mood, and
Speaker 2: take us right into the Butler Greenwood Plantation in Louisiana.
Speaker 2: You talk about this being eight generations of family in
Speaker 2: this home. So tell us about the Butler Greenwood Plantation.
Speaker 10: This is in Saint Francis Belle, Louisiana, and San francis
Speaker 10: Ville is not French Louisiana or Cajun Louisiana or Creole Louisiana.
Speaker 10: It's English Louisiana. And the early settlers here came down
Speaker 10: from the East Coast right after the Revolutionary War, and
Speaker 10: they brought with them very English traditions. And culture. My
Speaker 10: family came in the seventeen seventies and got Spanish land grants,
Speaker 10: and first they grew indigo as their cash crop, and
Speaker 10: then cotton and sugar cane. This plantation has never been
Speaker 10: sold out of the family, and so it's a little unusual.
Speaker 10: We operated it as a tour house for twenty three
Speaker 10: years and then finally have closed it. But we do
Speaker 10: bet and breakfast on the plantation. So it's a family home.
Speaker 10: A lot of history here, and it is typical of
Speaker 10: the plantation the English plantation country, a lot of Bavoks,
Speaker 10: formal gardens, beautiful historic home, very beautiful furnishings, and so
Speaker 10: visitors really enjoy seeing something that has never been sold
Speaker 10: out of the family or owned by the state or
Speaker 10: anything like that. It's a real, real piece of living
Speaker 10: history here.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: You talk about in the book too, that you said
Speaker 2: in the mid eighteen hundreds, two thirds of known millionaires
Speaker 2: lived in this area before the devastation of the Civil War.
Speaker 10: Absolutely all along the Mississippi River corridor from New Orleans
Speaker 10: to Natchez. You did have most of the most of
Speaker 10: the country's millionaires living near huge sugar plantations. A lot
Speaker 10: of wealth and then after the Civil War, of course
Speaker 10: that way of life was over, but some of the families,
Speaker 10: like this one, we're still able to hold onto the land.
Speaker 10: The lifestyle would never be elegant, but it was still
Speaker 10: a wonderful life on these old places.
Speaker 2: Now you also talk about because of the Civil War,
Speaker 2: many of the men were killed, so it left an
Speaker 2: opportunity in a old boys kind of world, for women
Speaker 2: to take over these plantations.
Speaker 4: Afterwards.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, during the Civil War and after the
Speaker 10: Civil War, the men were either dead or gone during
Speaker 10: the Civil War, and the ones who came home from
Speaker 10: the war were either so disabled or so demoralized that
Speaker 10: they were not able to resume the roles that they
Speaker 10: had played during the war. The women, some very strong women,
Speaker 10: stepped up and ran the plantations, and they had to
Speaker 10: continue to do that after the Civil War. So you
Speaker 10: had some very strong women all across the South, and
Speaker 10: particularly in this house. It was usually the women who
Speaker 10: not only were the strong ones, but outlived the men
Speaker 10: by many years. So it was a real matriarchy here.
Speaker 2: Now, tell us about your writing career and the kinds
Speaker 2: of books that you have written and had written up
Speaker 2: to this date.
Speaker 10: Well, of course, as a mother. I wrote children's books
Speaker 10: when my children were small, and then I wrote travel
Speaker 10: books and very much involved in historic preservation. And as
Speaker 10: Louisiana has such a vulnerable, fragile environment here and culture,
Speaker 10: I had written a lot about preserving the culture. So
Speaker 10: I've written I guess twenty two books, some more substantial
Speaker 10: than others. But I also had written two crime books
Speaker 10: on true stories from Angola Plantations, which is now the
Speaker 10: Louisiana State Penitentiary very near here, and had been plantations,
Speaker 10: and they put them all together and started this eighteenthou
Speaker 10: an Acre Penitentiary there and behind every door there there
Speaker 10: was a very interesting story and a lesson to learn.
Speaker 10: And so the crime books that I wrote were extremely interesting.
Speaker 10: As a crime writer, I had certainly never intended to
Speaker 10: be more than an objective observer. But when I became
Speaker 10: a victim, it really was a golden opportunity for me.
Speaker 2: Now tell us about your to describe. I mean it
Speaker 2: must be hard for you, but to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: tell us about the kind of character that you have been.
Speaker 2: You'd said before that you met Murray. You had three
Speaker 2: previous marriages, So tell us about your marriages, and if
Speaker 2: you could a little bit about your character.
Speaker 10: Well, I went to college in Virginia, and then I
Speaker 10: worked in Washington, d C. For a couple of years,
Speaker 10: and I went to the West Coast and worked writing
Speaker 10: for magazines out there and went to graduate school out there.
Speaker 10: So it's not as if I have stayed here continually.
Speaker 10: And really it was very helpful to me to be away,
Speaker 10: because when you're in a small town, it's easy to
Speaker 10: succumb to the small town mentality, Whereas when you come
Speaker 10: back from other areas, you realize that you're not missing
Speaker 10: anything anywhere else. You can be satisfied with the small
Speaker 10: town life and not intimidated by the small town mentality.
Speaker 10: I started writing books when my children were small. My
Speaker 10: first husband was from Virginia, and we had a wonderful
Speaker 10: footloose life right after college and did a lot of
Speaker 10: traveling and everything. And then when it was time to
Speaker 10: settle down, it was pretty well me who who assumed
Speaker 10: they were responsibility of earning a living and taking care
Speaker 10: of children. And so that marriage ended in divorce. And
Speaker 10: then I married two more times and was here was
Speaker 10: here in Saint Francis, bill from that point on, and
Speaker 10: my last husband was someone who to whom I was
Speaker 10: attracted by his intelligengensen, his access to stories that I
Speaker 10: really wanted to write about. And so that was my
Speaker 10: fourth marriage, and he had also been married before, and
Speaker 10: so we were married for seven years. I would have
Speaker 10: to say that as a wife, I don't like to
Speaker 10: be told what to do, and as a person, I
Speaker 10: don't like to be told of to do, and so
Speaker 10: I probably am not the ideal servant wife for sure,
Speaker 10: But I am an independent, independent person. And my fourth
Speaker 10: husband was someone who had been in corrections as his
Speaker 10: lifetime career and had to exercise absolute control over the
Speaker 10: every situation, and that did not translate well into our marriage.
Speaker 10: I think that was the main issue there.
Speaker 2: Well, let's go back here because we've got to talk
Speaker 2: about your business and your family. You have a daughter
Speaker 2: named Chase and a son, so tell us about their ages,
Speaker 2: and let's go back in time in terms of before
Speaker 2: you met Murray. You alluded to what attracted you to
Speaker 2: Murray Henderson, but let's talk about what the age difference
Speaker 2: was and what your particular familiar situation was in terms
Speaker 2: of your daughter and your son, and then talk about
Speaker 2: how you met Murray Henderson.
Speaker 10: With my daughter at the time of this book, my
Speaker 10: daughter was in college and was going to Emory for
Speaker 10: her senior year. My son was twelve years old and
Speaker 10: lived in the house with me and Murray. I knew
Speaker 10: him through the Episcopal Church, and we had had been,
Speaker 10: you know, socially acquainted, but not close. And he was
Speaker 10: considerably older than I was twenty four years but he
Speaker 10: was very entertaining and very bright, as I said, and
Speaker 10: I had a great deal of respect for him as
Speaker 10: a as a progressive corrections administrator, and also very attracted
Speaker 10: to him because of the access to criminal records and
Speaker 10: story like that. And so my son lived in the
Speaker 10: house with us when we married, and my daughter had
Speaker 10: gone off to Emory in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Now this is we're talking about nineteen ninety correct when
Speaker 2: you got married.
Speaker 10: Ninety seven, Well, nineteen ninety we married. Nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 10: is when the book takes place.
Speaker 2: Right now, tell us about Murray Henderson. And again you
Speaker 2: talked about him being a real reformer in terms of corrections,
Speaker 2: and that was part of the attraction you had to
Speaker 2: him as well. So tell us about before we go
Speaker 2: into the books that you've written about Angola.
Speaker 4: Tell us about Angola.
Speaker 10: Well, his career in correction started in Tennessee. Then he
Speaker 10: went to Iowa as the warden Mayor, went back to
Speaker 10: Tennessee as the warden of the Tennessee State Attention Tree,
Speaker 10: and then came to Angola at a time when the
Speaker 10: prison was was horrible.
Speaker 1: UH.
Speaker 10: There were huge abuses. It was a very dangerous place
Speaker 10: for inmates as well as as corrections officers. UH. It's
Speaker 10: very isolated, and it's it's purposely isolated. It's surrounded on
Speaker 10: three sides by the Mississippi River and then the other
Speaker 10: side by the Tunica Hills, which are almost impassable, UH,
Speaker 10: to make it difficult for escapes to take place. It's
Speaker 10: it's so isolated that it was extremely difficult to attract
Speaker 10: competent employees there. There were certainly a number of good,
Speaker 10: dedicated employees, but there were also a number who had
Speaker 10: issues with control and violence, and it was just a terrible,
Speaker 10: terrible place the inmates innate. Guards were given guns to
Speaker 10: to because there was very little staff there and it
Speaker 10: just was rife with abuses, and inmates would sleep with
Speaker 10: sears catalogs taped to their chests to ward off the
Speaker 10: knives in the night. They brought in some progressive corrections administrators,
Speaker 10: and Murray came in at that point as the warden
Speaker 10: and was very much resented by the entrenched hierarchy at Angola,
Speaker 10: and so he had issues not only with with the
Speaker 10: inmates but with the staff and tried very hard to
Speaker 10: implement some good reforms that were very much needed. Also,
Speaker 10: the government had to step in uh and oversee a
Speaker 10: lot of the reforms there.
Speaker 4: Now in his tenure. There was also the first correctional
Speaker 4: officer to be killed was an Angola, wasn't it.
Speaker 10: That's correct, And that is a case that is still
Speaker 10: in the system today. One of the killers, just this
Speaker 10: week has been ordered released after forty years in isolation.
Speaker 10: It's a very interesting case that involved not only Murray,
Speaker 10: but actually involved me as well because it was one
Speaker 10: of the cases that I had included in my book
Speaker 10: Dying to Tell, And when they threw out the indictment
Speaker 10: and had to reindict him, I was on the grand
Speaker 10: urse call for the grand jury and kept asking that
Speaker 10: I be dismissed because I had written about it, but
Speaker 10: they kept me on the grand jury, which of course
Speaker 10: was grounds for appel although it was denied and it's
Speaker 10: still going on. Today.
Speaker 2: Now you also include a story of I think it's
Speaker 2: an author of Peter Maas in the nineteen seventy five
Speaker 2: to nineteen eighty in Tennessee the influence peddling scandals. So
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about that and the Marie
Speaker 2: a true story by Peter maz Well.
Speaker 10: Marie Riganni, who was was there at the time when
Speaker 10: Governor Blanton and a couple of other high officials were
Speaker 10: sent to prison for for influence peddling, and Murray was
Speaker 10: the warden of the penitentiary and then became commissioner of
Speaker 10: correction in Tennessee. Uh, he was never charged with anything,
Speaker 10: but at that point he left and came to Angola.
Speaker 10: That was that was what sent him out of Tennessee.
Speaker 10: I think he left a number of high positions under
Speaker 10: a little cloud, shall we say. And Marie I actually
Speaker 10: spoke with her, and she she did say that she
Speaker 10: did not think that he was guilty of any criminal activity,
Speaker 10: but just being one of the good old boys and
Speaker 10: not trying to make ways, although there were certainly some
Speaker 10: criminal activity in the in the corrections department.
Speaker 4: Now this is very important to the story that he
Speaker 4: was heading.
Speaker 2: A hospital or prison for the criminally insane with and
Speaker 2: and so he was at the head of this forensic
Speaker 2: hospital so which would have him meet and establish relationships
Speaker 2: with psychologists and psychiatrists.
Speaker 4: So tell us a little bit about this.
Speaker 10: They call it Policiana forensic. And he was the head
Speaker 10: of the facility where they would send criminals who were
Speaker 10: having their their sas asked, you know, for criminal trials.
Speaker 10: And so he knew all of the psychiatrists. He knew
Speaker 10: all the psychologists. He was very familiar year with how
Speaker 10: the insanity defense works. And this I think really gave
Speaker 10: him some good ideas on how to commit the perfect crime.
Speaker 2: Now, you talk about that in the course of the
Speaker 2: research for these two books, and the idea for these
Speaker 2: two books was basically your idea, and really you did
Speaker 2: the research and the writing. But it also brought you
Speaker 2: together on the road in motel rooms, and your romance
Speaker 2: was sparked. Despite this twenty four to twenty five year difference.
Speaker 2: Tell us just a little bit about how and because
Speaker 2: you were married and he was married as well, so
Speaker 2: tell us about how this romance developed and what you
Speaker 2: have to do as a result of this.
Speaker 4: Budding romance.
Speaker 10: Well, didn't go into it with the idea of having
Speaker 10: any involvement with him other than professional, and I called
Speaker 10: him mister Henderson, and his ideas were very different. And
Speaker 10: he had been trying to get involved with me for
Speaker 10: a number of years, which I did not even realize.
Speaker 10: He would invite me to come to his retirement program
Speaker 10: and have designs to go out for lunch and all this,
Speaker 10: and I would show up with my husband, you know,
Speaker 10: and several instances like that. After a while, you know,
Speaker 10: you get close to somebody and you have respect for
Speaker 10: their opinions and their intelligence, and the just developed, you know,
Speaker 10: just grew into what seemed to be a nice situation.
Speaker 10: He had been married for a number of years, but
Speaker 10: somewhat unhappily.
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Speaker 10: Details and I was looking for a little more than
Speaker 10: what I was having in my marriage. All I had
Speaker 10: a very good husband at the time, and so we
Speaker 10: both divorced and married in nineteen ninety and were married
Speaker 10: for seven years. We did two books together starting in
Speaker 10: nineteen ninety, and had had a had a contentious relationship
Speaker 10: from the beginning.
Speaker 2: So what might have cemented this somewhat is that he
Speaker 2: had said that he was very impressed with your writing
Speaker 2: again as well, and so very flattering for you as
Speaker 2: a writer also, and you said you were enthralled with
Speaker 2: you know, his marvelous mind when you do meet and
Speaker 2: with this twenty four year old difference in age, and
Speaker 2: just coming from a marriage where you have to divorce
Speaker 2: your husband and he has divorce his wife. What was
Speaker 2: the response from your children and your family to Murray
Speaker 2: Henderson coming into your life.
Speaker 10: Oh, I think they were all horribed. My daughter never
Speaker 10: did like him, could barely tolerate him, and got out
Speaker 10: of the house as soon as she could. My son
Speaker 10: was only twelve years old, you know, and Murray made
Speaker 10: an effort with him. They went fishing once or twice,
Speaker 10: and then of course mari age, you know, his idea
Speaker 10: of spending quality time was to watch the MacNeil Lear
Speaker 10: report on TV, you know, and a twelve year old
Speaker 10: is not going to be that impressed. But Stuart was
Speaker 10: a sweet little boy, and he you know, he tried
Speaker 10: to get along with him. My daughter never did care
Speaker 10: for him at all.
Speaker 2: What was your relationship characterized by in terms of his disposition?
Speaker 4: What was his nature like? Especially in the beginning.
Speaker 10: He was very very good to me. I never heard
Speaker 10: him raise his voice. I never saw any violence at all.
Speaker 10: He had had a drinking problem while he was at Angola,
Speaker 10: but I never saw him take a drink. He did
Speaker 10: not drink at all while we were married. We had
Speaker 10: a very cordial relationship, but underneath to serve was always
Speaker 10: a struggle for control.
Speaker 2: Always was he did he exhibit some jealousy. You talk
Speaker 2: about your longtime carpenter and partner restorer of your plantation,
Speaker 2: the Butler Plantation. His name is Burnett, and you were
Speaker 2: friends with him and his wife. So was he jealous
Speaker 2: of that relationship that you had with Burnette?
Speaker 10: He was jealous of every relationship I had, even with
Speaker 10: the cleaning staff. He was very demanding that he get
Speaker 10: all the attention and always be the center of everything.
Speaker 10: A wonderful writer. Abigail Paget from San Diego would come
Speaker 10: and stay here and we would all go out to dinner,
Speaker 10: and she's the one who wrote the introduction to the book,
Speaker 10: and she comments on him. She and I would always
Speaker 10: talk all through dinner, and he would just sit there
Speaker 10: and wait for the conversation to center around him, you know,
Speaker 10: and then he would participate.
Speaker 1: But he just.
Speaker 10: He always needed to be the center of everything. He
Speaker 10: resented any time that I spent with anyone else, and
Speaker 10: he resented any decision that I made without talking to him.
Speaker 10: And of course the business was mine and I didn't
Speaker 10: feel I needed to consult him on anything, although I
Speaker 10: would try to include him anything, but he always had
Speaker 10: to be the center of everything.
Speaker 2: This might seem like I'm prying, but I think this
Speaker 2: is I know this is important to the story. What
Speaker 2: was You just mentioned that you didn't need him for
Speaker 2: the business. Now I'll mention that you were forty six,
Speaker 2: he was seventy. He was basically not retired. But you
Speaker 2: say he wasn't involved with your business. So tell us
Speaker 2: exactly what the relationship was often in terms of him
Speaker 2: moving in, but what was his role in terms of
Speaker 2: when you talked about expenses, when you talked about your money,
Speaker 2: his money.
Speaker 4: How did that work.
Speaker 10: We had no community property at all. The business was
Speaker 10: on my inherited property, which was not community property. The
Speaker 10: money that went into it was mine, either inherited or
Speaker 10: borrowed from the bank. And he had very little role
Speaker 10: in the property here. He had a little part time
Speaker 10: job that he did with some health agency, going around
Speaker 10: visiting doctors and things. We never had a joint bank account,
Speaker 10: We never had any community anything. All of our accounts
Speaker 10: were totally separate.
Speaker 2: You also retained your name Butler, and you said in
Speaker 2: the book that he resented that somewhat, didn't he Well.
Speaker 10: The writer, you know, I never should have changed my
Speaker 10: name because I've had so many books published, and so
Speaker 10: I did keep my last name. And I relate in
Speaker 10: the book one instance where I was giving a book
Speaker 10: review and he was introduced as mister Butler, and he
Speaker 10: got up and said, well, she has very graciously allowed
Speaker 10: me to keep my own name. But he really did
Speaker 10: not appreciate that at all.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: No, Now, according to witnesses again written in your book,
Speaker 2: that your relationship was marred by separations. Will say for
Speaker 2: a few days for several days for different periods of time,
Speaker 2: for various reasons. Like you say, you didn't really have
Speaker 2: any major He wasn't a violent person by nature. But
Speaker 2: tell us how your relationship in that seven years was
Speaker 2: characterized in terms of these often separations.
Speaker 10: Well, we just would feel the need to be a part,
Speaker 10: and he would leave, and then he would come back.
Speaker 10: And finally, the last time that he left, I was
Speaker 10: just delighted that he was gone and did not allow
Speaker 10: him to come back. But it was off and on
Speaker 10: for years, hopefully just the irritation of struggle over control.
Speaker 4: And where would he go when he went?
Speaker 2: Which is interesting? Where would he go when you were
Speaker 2: involved in these separations?
Speaker 10: Well, his ex wife there graciously allowed him to have
Speaker 10: a room in their house, and so you would go
Speaker 10: over there, and then he would come back. And why
Speaker 10: she allowed him to do that, I'll never know. But
Speaker 10: then why allowed him to come back here, I'll never
Speaker 10: know either, But the last time I did not.
Speaker 2: Now what's very very interesting and again important is Murray
Speaker 2: Henderson's son and his occupation.
Speaker 4: So tell us about Mary Henderson's son.
Speaker 10: He was an assistant district attorney at a nearby parish
Speaker 10: and actually very nice person. He would come here a
Speaker 10: lot and spend weekends with his second wife, and he
Speaker 10: had a son a little bit older than my son,
Speaker 10: and so he would come and spend summers and swim
Speaker 10: and play with Stuart. So we had a good relationship.
Speaker 4: Now, what would you.
Speaker 2: In the seven years And you say that this again
Speaker 2: you mentioned the last separation, which was different. So tell
Speaker 2: us before you tell us about the last separation and
Speaker 2: how it was particularly different, markedly different. Tell us about
Speaker 2: what had led up to this. Say, we'll talk about
Speaker 2: the last six months for the last year. How had
Speaker 2: the relationship changed, and what was your reaction and what
Speaker 2: was his reaction in that say last year of the marriage.
Speaker 10: I think for one thing, it was because we did
Speaker 10: not have a writing project going. And the other thing
Speaker 10: was that we just really got very tired of trying
Speaker 10: to live together and to get along together. And it
Speaker 10: was not something that started off slowly and escalated. It
Speaker 10: was something that just was zero two one hundred overnight
Speaker 10: and started. It was something just really stupid. He would
Speaker 10: sit on air back porch and somebody would have to
Speaker 10: walk past him to get to the to the laundry
Speaker 10: room to do bed and breakfast, laundry and he had
Speaker 10: he was very tall, and he would stretch out his
Speaker 10: legs and you'd have to step over his legs to
Speaker 10: get to the laundry room. And so one of the
Speaker 10: cleaning ladies came in and he was looking at times
Speaker 10: he was very very much of a fashion plate, you know,
Speaker 10: very well dressed all the time and have a million clothes.
Speaker 10: And we had to build a whole new closet room
Speaker 10: to accommodate all of his clothes. And so the one
Speaker 10: of the cleaning staff came in and he kept trying
Speaker 10: to show her this tie and a catalog and she
Speaker 10: sort of cursory look at it and walked on bine.
Speaker 10: And I came by to get to the laundry room,
Speaker 10: and he tried to show me the tie, and I said, listen,
Speaker 10: I need some space here, you know. And that's what
Speaker 10: set it off. And the next saying you he was
Speaker 10: hauling out all of his clothes, and that was when
Speaker 10: it really started.
Speaker 4: When did he what did he?
Speaker 2: When did he utter the you'll be sorry you ever
Speaker 2: heard my name?
Speaker 4: Was that that at that time?
Speaker 10: That was when he was That was that was the
Speaker 10: day of the of the book starting.
Speaker 11: Okay, Okay, So now with this this heated argument and
Speaker 11: you said you needed some space, that spurned him to
Speaker 11: start packing up his stuff.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit more about what this conversation
Speaker 2: led to in terms of him and your living situation.
Speaker 10: Well, he was packing up his clothes. I was helping
Speaker 10: him pack his clothes. I happened to open a box
Speaker 10: that I didn't know whether it was mine or his,
Speaker 10: that was in an arm and there was a pistol
Speaker 10: in there, which I had never seen before. Now, I
Speaker 10: just put it back in the box and put it
Speaker 10: with his pile stuff to go out to the car
Speaker 10: and down Dallas. The first time I had seen a pistol,
Speaker 10: but it would not be the last time.
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Speaker 2: when we last last left off, and we were just
Speaker 2: going to be talking about the day in question, So
Speaker 2: after the heated conversation that you had, and he packed
Speaker 2: up his stuff and you saw the little pistol that
Speaker 2: you didn't think too much of at that time. Tell
Speaker 2: us about the days leading up to the actual event
Speaker 2: in question.
Speaker 10: Well, I didn't see him during the week, but some
Speaker 10: friends saw him going out to dinner and celebrating his
Speaker 10: seventy seventh birthday. And he had gone to the employment
Speaker 10: place of one of my cleaning ladies and told her
Speaker 10: that he was so happy, but they said that he
Speaker 10: was very subdued at the celebration dinner. I didn't really
Speaker 10: think anything about it. And then on a Sunday morning,
Speaker 10: as I got up and went to church and was
Speaker 10: doing a little tour early that morning, he came driving
Speaker 10: in and I didn't see, but the people that were
Speaker 10: here on the tour told me that he had driven
Speaker 10: in and when he saw there were other cars here,
Speaker 10: he left, and then after they left, he came driving
Speaker 10: in again. He had a very carefully planned because my
Speaker 10: daughter and son had left her at land of the
Speaker 10: day before. My son was driving up what was riding
Speaker 10: up with my daughter to help her unpack for her
Speaker 10: last semester at Emory, and then he was flying back
Speaker 10: the Sunday morning of all this is happening, and I
Speaker 10: was to pick him up at the airport at noon,
Speaker 10: but normally on Sunday morning we were not open. I
Speaker 10: didn't do house tours until after lunch, and the cleaning
Speaker 10: staff came in late, and so he thought that I
Speaker 10: would be completely alone in the house. What he didn't
Speaker 10: know is that because I had this tour, a couple
Speaker 10: of the cleaning staff had been dropped off, so there
Speaker 10: were no cars out there. But he didn't know that
Speaker 10: anybody was here but me, And so when he appeared
Speaker 10: at the door after I had done the tour, I
Speaker 10: invited him in rather stupidly, and we sat on the
Speaker 10: back porch and had a little chad and, you know,
Speaker 10: very civil and low key. And then the next thing
Speaker 10: I knew, he was standing over me with a gun,
Speaker 10: and so he he was holding it out. You know,
Speaker 10: he's a very accomplished shooter, had taken FBI shooting classes
Speaker 10: and was a hunter in his earlier years, and so
Speaker 10: for me eighteen inches away, he proceeded to shoot me
Speaker 10: at least five times. They're never quite sure whether it
Speaker 10: was five or six, because he had reloaded the gun
Speaker 10: and very carefully aimed at my right arm, which I'm
Speaker 10: that's my dominant arm, and all through the torso he
Speaker 10: shot and severed the intestines, then took out part of
Speaker 10: the kidney and just barely missed the He missed the
Speaker 10: spine because I sat up and I said, stop, what
Speaker 10: are you doing? You know I have children to raise,
Speaker 10: at which point he blew my right elbow to pieces
Speaker 10: and then the right shoulder. And so I was sitting
Speaker 10: there and I figured, you know, I would just do
Speaker 10: well to play, because he reloaded the gun. And so
Speaker 10: I sat there for about an hour, bleeding profusely. And
Speaker 10: this is how it gets sort of funny, because one
Speaker 10: of my cleaning staff came to the back door, and
Speaker 10: I was sitting right in front of the back door
Speaker 10: on the back porch, and she opened the door. And
Speaker 10: this is how you get punished for speaking ill of somebody.
Speaker 10: Because she's got a wonderful heart, but she doesn't quite
Speaker 10: make the connection between seeing something and doing something. And
Speaker 10: I had said a million times that if she went
Speaker 10: out to one of the cottages and there was a
Speaker 10: dead body on the floor, she would sleep around it
Speaker 10: and not even think anything about it. And so she
Speaker 10: came in the door and looked at me and went
Speaker 10: and started laundry and went back out, And later when
Speaker 10: the state police interviewed her, she said, do you know,
Speaker 10: she says, I never saw her take a nap before,
Speaker 10: and I wondered when she had changed from a yellow
Speaker 10: blouse to a red one. And so that added quite
Speaker 10: a lot of time to when I had to sit there.
Speaker 10: And then another member of the staff came in and
Speaker 10: saw what was going on, and he was sitting there
Speaker 10: with his gun, and she said, well, she needs to
Speaker 10: get to the hospital right away, and he said, oh, no,
Speaker 10: she's gone. You go back out there. I won't hurt you.
Speaker 10: So she kind of backed away and went to the
Speaker 10: phone and outside phone and called, of all things, the
Speaker 10: third member of the cleaning staff, who was older and
Speaker 10: more sensible, who lived twenty miles away and was at
Speaker 10: home getting ready to go to church. And so she,
Speaker 10: instead of calling nine one one, jumps in her truck
Speaker 10: and rushes down. And when she comes in here, she
Speaker 10: sees that his car is still here, and so she
Speaker 10: goes over next door to where I have a cousin
Speaker 10: who's an attorney. And finally, finally, you know, the nine
Speaker 10: one one gets called and and he's still sitting there
Speaker 10: watching me believe to death. And I could see out
Speaker 10: of the back back glass in porch. I could see
Speaker 10: two little deputy sheriffs come creeping up the walkway, and
Speaker 10: one of them opened the door and grabbed me by
Speaker 10: the legs to try to pull me out. They thought
Speaker 10: I was dead, and he said when he touched my
Speaker 10: legs there was just like marble. There was no blood
Speaker 10: in them at all. And when he did, I opened
Speaker 10: my eyes, and so they knew that they had to
Speaker 10: go in and get him. And he was in the
Speaker 10: room right behind me and had his pistol in his pocket,
Speaker 10: but he was trying to pull it out, and he
Speaker 10: had his finger on the trigger, and these two little
Speaker 10: deputies had no blood through vests on it all. One
Speaker 10: of them grabbed him through the grab through the pocket
Speaker 10: and held the cylinder of the epistol so that he
Speaker 10: couldn't shoot, and they took him out. So while I
Speaker 10: was sitting there, I just would say that I never struggled.
Speaker 10: I never thought. I don't think I could have moved
Speaker 10: at all. Of the pain was just excruciating, But I
Speaker 10: never saw the least bit of blood. I never looked down,
Speaker 10: I never looked at my injuries. I just sat there
Speaker 10: and they said that the doctor said that it probably
Speaker 10: is what saved my life because by being so still
Speaker 10: and trying not to let him see that I was
Speaker 10: even breathing, it slowed down my metabolism enough, you know
Speaker 10: that I didn't bleed completely out, but pretty close to it.
Speaker 10: So the deputy came back in once they had removed
Speaker 10: him from the scene, and as soon as he came in,
Speaker 10: I said, Randy, you've got to get somebody to go
Speaker 10: to the airport and pick up Stewart. And he said, oh,
Speaker 10: I can't believe you're still alive. You know also, and
Speaker 10: we've got an ambulance come in. So the ambulance came,
Speaker 10: and it was wonderful that I knew. I knew the
Speaker 10: two deputies, I knew the ambulance people. The poor emt
Speaker 10: who was in the ambulance started a couple of ivs
Speaker 10: and wrapped his belt around them so they would would
Speaker 10: would go fast. And when we got in the ambulance,
Speaker 10: he thought I was not going to make it to
Speaker 10: the hospital. And they were telling my family to start
Speaker 10: funeral arrangements and make arrangements for my children, and in
Speaker 10: the ambulance as we're going one hundred miles an hour
Speaker 10: to the hospital that's like twenty miles away. I'm telling
Speaker 10: this the EMT. This is to make such a wonderful story.
Speaker 10: And I know how I'm going to write this book,
Speaker 10: and I head it all outlined completely in my head.
Speaker 10: Of course, I forgot it all, you know, in six
Speaker 10: weeks in the hospital under morphine. But I knew at
Speaker 10: that time as a writer, I was going to make
Speaker 10: a book out of it and it was going to
Speaker 10: be good.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Now what's interesting, too is what was when when you
Speaker 2: talk about the last conversation that precipitated this incident, this
Speaker 2: attempted murder. Is that you talked about space, that you said,
Speaker 2: I need some space. What was the quote that he
Speaker 2: gave you? And you also talked about Stewart and being
Speaker 2: very very concerned about who would pick Stuart up at
Speaker 2: the airport, and so there was talk that the one
Speaker 2: thing that Murray did do was make a call for
Speaker 2: someone to pick up Stuart. So tell us about the
Speaker 2: actual quote that he does say to you, which is
Speaker 2: just fantastic about you.
Speaker 10: The only thing he said to me as he started shooting,
Speaker 10: was space? Has this for space? Space? You wanted space?
Speaker 10: Has this for space? And then after the shooting I
Speaker 10: asked him to make sure that Stuart would not come
Speaker 10: into the airport alone, and he did go out and
Speaker 10: telephone and arrange for someone to pick up Stuart at
Speaker 10: the airport. Now he was he had promised to pay
Speaker 10: them twenty five dollars, and when the deputies took him
Speaker 10: out of the house, he had twenty five dollars loose
Speaker 10: in his pocket. And my horror was, you know, if
Speaker 10: he was going to be there when Stuart arrived and
Speaker 10: he paid off this person who picked up Stuart, what
Speaker 10: was he going to do with Stuart. I'd like to
Speaker 10: think he wouldn't have harmed him, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: One of the most fascinating aspects of this is that
Speaker 2: you are so cognizant of what's going on your surroundings
Speaker 2: during this ordeal, and you talk about you're hearing something
Speaker 2: that in your mind because you got your eyes closed
Speaker 2: and you can't see, is that you think it's him
Speaker 2: pouring out gasoline to light the entire plantation on fire
Speaker 2: and you with it. But instead it's a glugging glug
Speaker 2: glug sound that you hear, What is it that you
Speaker 2: do here?
Speaker 10: Well, you know, I wasn't completely conscious all the time,
Speaker 10: but I was conscious most of the time and very
Speaker 10: much aware of what he was doing and what was
Speaker 10: going on. And behind me in the dining room, I
Speaker 10: could hear a glood glug glug, and I really thought
Speaker 10: that he was pouring gasoline on the floor and would
Speaker 10: burn down the house, because he never really sit here
Speaker 10: and never really liked it. However, what he was doing
Speaker 10: was pouring a sixth of vermouth down his throat so
Speaker 10: that when they arrested him, he would be legally jump drunk.
Speaker 10: He had not had any of it when he arrived
Speaker 10: and when he did the shooting, so it was just
Speaker 10: one more defense strategy that he was applying. He had
Speaker 10: gone and bought the vermouse that morning after he had
Speaker 10: been target shooting down at the Mississippi River with the pistol,
Speaker 10: and people saw him there, and then he went to
Speaker 10: a little inn in town that's run by some of
Speaker 10: my friends and bought the vermouse there, and he made
Speaker 10: sure that they knew that he was there and was
Speaker 10: buying it. If he'd just gone to the grocery store
Speaker 10: to buy it. Nobody would have noticed, and so he
Speaker 10: wouldn't have had the witness to his purchase of of
Speaker 10: the liquor at that point. So I was all pretty
Speaker 10: well planned. He thought that he had the perfect crime.
Speaker 2: Now he is arrested immediately, and of course he's got
Speaker 2: connections with law enforcement for all the years he's been
Speaker 2: involved in corrections. But typically with a case like this,
Speaker 2: there would be a bail and he would be held
Speaker 2: without bond usually, So tell us what happens in this case.
Speaker 10: Well, as I go to the hospital in critical condition
Speaker 10: and will be there for six weeks, he goes to
Speaker 10: jail and is out in twenty four hours. His best
Speaker 10: friend was the mayor who was best friends with the judge.
Speaker 10: The sheriff was not his friend and really did not
Speaker 10: want to let him out, but he had to, and
Speaker 10: so twenty four hours he's out with his guns, with
Speaker 10: his car. I'm in the hospital in intensive care for
Speaker 10: a couple of weeks, and then in the hospital for
Speaker 10: quite a while. Went in in augustin came out in
Speaker 10: the middle of the ball and they were terrified that
Speaker 10: he would come back to the hospital. So every nurses
Speaker 10: station had his photographs, and they had me under an
Speaker 10: assumed name. I couldn't go out anywhere in the hallway
Speaker 10: during visiting hours, and they would take me down the
Speaker 10: service elevators to go to therapy, and it was very disorienting.
Speaker 10: The nurses would come in and know, how are you,
Speaker 10: missus Jones. I'm thinking I'm not, Missus Jones. I don't think,
Speaker 10: you know. But I was taking so much pain medicine
Speaker 10: and just really sort of out of it for a while.
Speaker 10: The day that I went in they were able to
Speaker 10: do some of the stomach surgery, but they had to
Speaker 10: just pack my arm in ice for about a week
Speaker 10: before they could deal with that, And so it was
Speaker 10: you know, I had a lot of morphine over those
Speaker 10: couple of weeks and really was not that much aware
Speaker 10: of what was going on. But it was very scary
Speaker 10: to know that not only was he out there, but
Speaker 10: that since he had been ahead of a forensic and angola,
Speaker 10: that a number of the medical personnel might have worked
Speaker 10: for him or might be working with him, you know,
Speaker 10: And so I've got a little paranoid there for a while.
Speaker 2: What you do talk about, too, is that the he's
Speaker 2: charged for a second to be murder, and he has
Speaker 2: some conditions to not to go into your parish. But
Speaker 2: despite that, he is contacting big rows, and he's asking
Speaker 2: questions about who's questions that could be perceived as very
Speaker 2: much like.
Speaker 4: Somebody's monitoring you and stalking you in terms.
Speaker 2: Of who's home, who's there, who's not there, and just
Speaker 2: adding to your paranoia. So tell us about this effort
Speaker 2: and what happens as a result of his I guess cockiness.
Speaker 10: Well, when I was finally released from the hospital, I
Speaker 10: had a colosphomy. I had to have help because I
Speaker 10: had an arm and a cast and stitches and staples everywhere.
Speaker 10: I ended up having eight separate, really major surgeries. So
Speaker 10: it went on for about two years. But when I
Speaker 10: was finally released from the hospital, he had a restraining
Speaker 10: order not to contact me or my children or my staff.
Speaker 10: And so as they mounted to sense, they would stake
Speaker 10: out the place and follow the cleaning staff home and
Speaker 10: try to send people. You know, when you're open to
Speaker 10: the public for overnight accommodations, you can't interrogate people as
Speaker 10: to what their motives are, you know, So they actually
Speaker 10: would send investigators pretending to be guests who would take photographs,
Speaker 10: and he would contact some of my staff to find out,
Speaker 10: you know, ostensibly how I was, but he would be
Speaker 10: asking did anybody stay with her at night as there
Speaker 10: a guard on the grounds, you know, very worrisome questions.
Speaker 10: And finally he started calling me, and they had made
Speaker 10: me get caller ID on the phone, and so it
Speaker 10: was pretty obvious, and at one point he actually spoke
Speaker 10: and said, oh, I'm sorry, I have the wrong number,
Speaker 10: you know. And at that point the defense of the
Speaker 10: prosecutor for the state decided it was time for him
Speaker 10: to go to jail. And that that was so interesting
Speaker 10: because every every legal person in this area accused himself,
Speaker 10: you know. The district attorney said that he had had
Speaker 10: connections looking so he couldn't get involved in the case,
Speaker 10: and that kind of bumped around and finally ended up
Speaker 10: in another parish down on the on the was on
Speaker 10: the coast, and so that was like a two hour
Speaker 10: drive for the assistant district attorney to come up here
Speaker 10: and only Sawing once or twice before the trial. And
Speaker 10: my heart really sank when I saw him, because he
Speaker 10: was this tony little fellow, just he had freckles and
Speaker 10: little blonde hair, and he looked like he had on
Speaker 10: his father's suit and your very soft open and you know,
Speaker 10: I just really worried. But it turned out that he
Speaker 10: had he had trained with Harry Connick in New Orleans
Speaker 10: for ten years, and he just tore them up in court.
Speaker 10: But anyway, he decided that we really needed to get
Speaker 10: him put in jail. He had not wanted me to
Speaker 10: go to any of the hearings before that because he
Speaker 10: did not want the defense to see what kind of
Speaker 10: a witness I would make, you know, and how I
Speaker 10: probably would not be too easily intimidated on the stand.
Speaker 10: And so he decided, you know, this was it and
Speaker 10: I would just have to go and testify. And so
Speaker 10: we did go, and there was a judge who had
Speaker 10: let him out twenty four hours after after the crime,
Speaker 10: and so I really didn't think we were going to
Speaker 10: get anywhere. And they made up tom Cock and bull
Speaker 10: story about how well he was just to order books.
Speaker 10: You know, you don't order books from an offer, you
Speaker 10: order them from the publisher, and you know, just a
Speaker 10: really stupid thing. And sat up in the chair and
Speaker 10: he said, he says, you know, whatever you say when
Speaker 10: you call there, even if you say that you're sorry
Speaker 10: you have the wrong number. What you're really saying is
Speaker 10: I'm out here and I'm going to get you again.
Speaker 10: He says, you're going to jail, which was a big
Speaker 10: shock to everybody, including me, and so he did get
Speaker 10: incarcerated until the trial, which the crime happened in August
Speaker 10: of ninety seven, and the trial was in the late
Speaker 10: fall of ninety eight.
Speaker 2: In the interim, what is the strategy for he and
Speaker 2: his defense in terms of defense.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, it was just a typical domestic violence
Speaker 10: defense and you see it in the paper every day.
Speaker 10: It's really shameful how we have lost their communication skills
Speaker 10: to the extent that we have to resort to violence.
Speaker 10: But he would say, you know, when the police come
Speaker 10: in as domestic violence case, usually the perpetrator is still there,
Speaker 10: are easily found and probably proud of what he's done,
Speaker 10: and he's standing there with his gun or his knife
Speaker 10: or his baseball bat, and so he can't say he
Speaker 10: didn't do it. So the defense becomes, he did it,
Speaker 10: but it's her fault, or he did it but he's crazy,
Speaker 10: And they tried both of those. In my case, they
Speaker 10: tried to blame it on me. They tried to blame
Speaker 10: it on insanity, and neither one of them went over
Speaker 10: really well. But it was a typical, typical domestic violence defense.
Speaker 4: He had a really good lawyer. Of course you pay
Speaker 4: for that, really good lawyer. He had a good lawyer.
Speaker 2: And what it was is he pled insanity, and what
Speaker 2: the insanity was. He tried to explain through psychiatric expert
Speaker 2: witnesses that you had said something to the effect of
Speaker 2: called him a Well, we won't go into it because
Speaker 2: I know you're sensitive this, but the MF words. So
Speaker 2: the MF phrase that we all know of which you
Speaker 2: know you claimed later to never have said to him.
Speaker 2: But his lawyers claimed that your utterance of this word
Speaker 2: was the trigger that taken this normally his whole life
Speaker 2: uncharacteristically or characteristically non violent, and there was a trigger.
Speaker 2: So explain a little bit more about what he tried
Speaker 2: to explain to the jury.
Speaker 10: Well, first of all, he had three decent attorneys, extremely
Speaker 10: well paid. He had a jury consultant who has had
Speaker 10: the O. J. Simpson, you know, so his defense was
Speaker 10: was very, very costly, and part of it was that
Speaker 10: they were claiming that he was having a dissociative disorder, Uh,
Speaker 10: dissociative disorder is something that it's a legitimate psychiatric defense.
Speaker 10: You see it in child of these cases or in
Speaker 10: war atrocities, you know, where your mind just does not
Speaker 10: uh just blanks it out and you don't remember it
Speaker 10: and you you're not even sure that it's ever happened. Well,
Speaker 10: for one thing, you know, the the state, the court
Speaker 10: had hired some sanity sanity, It had a had a
Speaker 10: sanity hearing, and both the psychiatrists and the psychologist examined
Speaker 10: him for the court non biased and not for the
Speaker 10: defense or the prosecution. I found him legally saying and
Speaker 10: able to assist in his defense and knowing right from
Speaker 10: wrong at the time of the crime. The dissociative disorder,
Speaker 10: you could walk in front of a car and not
Speaker 10: know it, you'd run into a wall. His defense psychiatrists
Speaker 10: and psychologists both were saying that that's what he was having,
Speaker 10: and that it was precipitated by my calling him an MS. Well,
Speaker 10: I never used that word toward him at all. Plus
Speaker 10: the prosecutor would pretty well blow that out of the
Speaker 10: water when he would ask these professionals, now, you know,
Speaker 10: do you have a dissociative response to abuse?
Speaker 11: Yes.
Speaker 10: Do you have a dissociative response to wartime cars? Yet,
Speaker 10: do you have a dissociative response to being called a
Speaker 10: bad name? Well? Maybe not. You know, so that that
Speaker 10: didn't really go over very well. The prosecutor just really
Speaker 10: made them look like fool. The other thing they did
Speaker 10: in the defense was to make it my fault, and
Speaker 10: they said that I had spent all his money, which
Speaker 10: was a lie, and I had my bookkeeper there, the
Speaker 10: bed and breakfast bookkeeper, who was ready to testify to
Speaker 10: that fact that it was my money and I was
Speaker 10: essentially supporting him. Said that I had been running around
Speaker 10: that was not true. I had people there ready to
Speaker 10: testify to that. But the prosecutor decided that all these
Speaker 10: tangential things were not they were going to really distract
Speaker 10: a jury from from the main shoot, and so he
Speaker 10: didn't want to bring those up, and so he didn't.
Speaker 10: But what happened was, and this is this is typical
Speaker 10: of domestic violence. You get victimized once in the in
Speaker 10: the crime, and then you get victimized in court where
Speaker 10: they try to make it your fault, and then you
Speaker 10: get victimized a third time when the media picks it
Speaker 10: up and reports it, you know, so it's very aggravating
Speaker 10: to sit through.
Speaker 2: Really what it comes down despite I know it seems
Speaker 2: like revictimization, and it certainly is. And I was involved
Speaker 2: myself in a trial, so I know how harmful some
Speaker 2: of these things can be said, especially when you expect,
Speaker 2: very much like watching a Law and Order episode, where
Speaker 2: the district attorney will stand up and object to some
Speaker 2: of these things, whereas in actuality, some of these things
Speaker 2: are let go because, like you say, it can confuse
Speaker 2: the jury. Let the defense lawyer say the lies that
Speaker 2: he's going to say, the ball flies that he is
Speaker 2: going to say, because the jury has heard the essential elements,
Speaker 2: they've heard your testimony and everyone else is so so
Speaker 2: despite that, what I think he zeroed in very very
Speaker 2: masterfully was is that if it was a dissociative state,
Speaker 2: then he wouldn't have said to your cleaning person that listen, no,
Speaker 2: she doesn't need to go to the hospital.
Speaker 4: She's already gone.
Speaker 10: And he wouldn't have been able to reload the gun.
Speaker 10: He wouldn't have been able to turn his car around,
Speaker 10: he wouldn't have been able to do all you know,
Speaker 10: her plan a haad you know, to do the target
Speaker 10: shooting and the buying of the liquor. You know, it's
Speaker 10: just just really terrible. But I'm just wanting to say
Speaker 10: that I'm so fortunate that my scars are more physical
Speaker 10: than mental. And I think writing the book was what
Speaker 10: really helped me the most. Not only was it good
Speaker 10: physical therapy doing the typing and trying to get my
Speaker 10: hand functional again, but it was tremendously therapeutic mentally. I
Speaker 10: knew that I would be able to get my story
Speaker 10: out there. I hoped that it would have some social
Speaker 10: relevance and would reach people, and it does. It's still
Speaker 10: selling eighteen years later, and I get letters and phone
Speaker 10: calls all the time from people saying, you know, you
Speaker 10: have helped me to understand. You've been so honest in
Speaker 10: your writing, and you're not telling just your story, You're
Speaker 10: telling our stories. So it gives the voice to what
Speaker 10: had essentially been a silent crime before. The women who
Speaker 10: were victimized were either too afraid the scout, or they
Speaker 10: were too inarticulate to speak out, or they had no
Speaker 10: medium to give them a place to speak out. So
Speaker 10: I really feel good about giving a voice to all
Speaker 10: of those people. And then, you know, I would just
Speaker 10: have to say, if you're going to shoot somebody, don't
Speaker 10: shoot a writer, because you're going to get the last words.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: It's incredible too that we really didn't have enough time
Speaker 2: to go to really touch on some of the more
Speaker 2: heartfelt elements of this, where your friends and your family
Speaker 2: and supporters, that well wishers from people you'd never met before.
Speaker 2: All this support from the people that you knew as
Speaker 2: your friends and new friends that arose out of this tragedy.
Speaker 2: The therapist, everybody was involved, and we don't even mention
Speaker 2: how stressful this was to have, you know, the specter
Speaker 2: of maybe Murray coming and finishing the job, but also
Speaker 2: of the incredible burden of trying to run this business,
Speaker 2: sustain this business while you're injured, trying to rehab from
Speaker 2: these incredible injuries, and also the financial burden of this.
Speaker 2: So again, this is we've talked about in the introduction.
Speaker 2: This is a tale of survival, and for a true
Speaker 2: crime book, it is very you know, it's a happy ending,
Speaker 2: if there is such a thing in true crime books.
Speaker 10: Yes, it is. And it's a real tribute to a
Speaker 10: small town because there were times when I was sixteen
Speaker 10: thousand dollars overdrawn, and in a big city they'd have
Speaker 10: been hauling off the furniture. And the banker's here just said,
Speaker 10: keep writing the checks. We know you'll catch up. So
Speaker 10: the whole town pretty well turned out and supported me
Speaker 10: and helped in my recovery.
Speaker 2: We also, I want to ask what Murray Henderson received
Speaker 2: in Core at the trial in terms of the sentence,
Speaker 2: and then to talk about again, we just mentioned about survival,
Speaker 2: but the forgiveness. So unbelievably, you spoke with Murray Henderson
Speaker 2: after this whole ordeal, after the sentencing, So tell us
Speaker 2: what he did receive, and tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about how on earth you could have spoke to him,
Speaker 2: and what.
Speaker 4: Did you say.
Speaker 10: Well, he got a sentence of fifty years, which was
Speaker 10: amazing because it was the same judge, and he was
Speaker 10: sent to one of the penitentiaries in North Louigiana, which
Speaker 10: was about as far as they could get him from here.
Speaker 10: And so he spent his time playing the stock market
Speaker 10: and reading books and started writing me and calling me.
Speaker 10: And I did go to see him one time when
Speaker 10: I was trying to get divorced from him and he
Speaker 10: was trying to claim part of my business here and
Speaker 10: would not settle the community, of which there was none.
Speaker 10: And I really wanted to see what he had to
Speaker 10: say to me, which was just a bunch of bull
Speaker 10: I also wanted to see the evidence that I had
Speaker 10: not seen in court. I was sequestered at the time
Speaker 10: that they were presenting the real physical evidence, and so
Speaker 10: I wanted to see the clothes and the gun and everything.
Speaker 10: And everybody kept telling me, no, no, you don't want
Speaker 10: to see that, and I did because the way that
Speaker 10: I cope with things is to deal with them and
Speaker 10: move on. And so I went to the courthouse here
Speaker 10: and they were all in a cardboard box, and all
Speaker 10: these bloody clothes and everything. I wanted to see what
Speaker 10: he was looking at, you know, when he was shooting me.
Speaker 10: And by looking at the clothes, I got a pretty
Speaker 10: good idea, you know, of how they were all covered
Speaker 10: in blood and soaked with blood cloths and everything. And
Speaker 10: I had a conversation with the EMT who had been
Speaker 10: in the in the ambulance with me, and he said,
Speaker 10: he said, don't look at this as a crime of passion.
Speaker 10: He said, this is a crime of hate, you know.
Speaker 10: And I really came to the understanding that he was
Speaker 10: a very mean person underneath all that control. It was
Speaker 10: very tightly controlled, but he had a real mean streak
Speaker 10: and that I bore the brunt of that. But what
Speaker 10: else do I need to say here?
Speaker 4: What was this official? What was this official? Sorry?
Speaker 2: What was this official reasoning? Did he ever say, listen,
Speaker 2: this is why I did this? Tell us he.
Speaker 10: Had no reason, He could not tell He took no
Speaker 10: responsibility for it. He didn't feel sorry for anything other
Speaker 10: than the impact on his life. He felt very sorry
Speaker 10: for himself. He never felt sorry for me or anybody
Speaker 10: that was going through the trauma with me. And people
Speaker 10: would ask me, what about forgiveness? Have you forgiven him?
Speaker 10: Do you don't you see that you have to forgive him? Well,
Speaker 10: yes and no. And what I did was not necessarily
Speaker 10: loving forgiveness, but more in not allowing him to have
Speaker 10: any control over my emotions anymore and just totally erased
Speaker 10: him from my life. And you know, if I had
Speaker 10: remained bitter or angry or hating, he would have still
Speaker 10: been in control. And so I was not willing to
Speaker 10: allow that and just moved on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting that when you talk about not taking
Speaker 2: responsibility right to the end, he claims to not remember,
Speaker 2: but of course he wouldn't have done anything because he
Speaker 2: loved you so much. But again not taking responsibility whatsoever.
Speaker 10: Now, he did try to get out of prison, and
Speaker 10: he applied for a pardon and went before the pardon board,
Speaker 10: and again it was all just a big setup deal.
Speaker 10: He had so many connections in the corrections of administration.
Speaker 10: And I really was not going to even attend the
Speaker 10: pardon hearing, but the head of the pardon board called
Speaker 10: me and said, you really need to be there. You've
Speaker 10: got to go. My children wanted to go. I did
Speaker 10: not want them to. I did not want them exploited
Speaker 10: during the trial, and I did not allow them to
Speaker 10: have anything much to say other than my daughter right
Speaker 10: at the end of the trial did talk about how
Speaker 10: she had not seen any deterioration in him and know
Speaker 10: that she just didn't like him. But when we went
Speaker 10: to the pardon board hearing, I asked to be the
Speaker 10: only one who would speak, and asked to speak last.
Speaker 10: And so they presented his wanting to get out, and
Speaker 10: he had several witnesses on how wonderfull he was and
Speaker 10: what a marvelous career he had had, and what a
Speaker 10: nice old man he was, and that the sheriff did
Speaker 10: not not object to his coming back to the Saint
Speaker 10: francis Ville out and I just happened to have seen
Speaker 10: the chief deputy from from this area. Had we had
Speaker 10: gone to a pardon hearing out of the parish somewhere else,
Speaker 10: and I just happened to see the chief deputy from
Speaker 10: this parish standing there, and I asked him what he
Speaker 10: was doing here, and he said, well, the sheriff sent
Speaker 10: sent me to make sure that they understood that what
Speaker 10: he wants is what you want. And so I was
Speaker 10: able to get him to get up and say say
Speaker 10: what the sheriff actually said. Rather than supporting his release,
Speaker 10: he did not want him release, and they denied his pardon,
Speaker 10: and then he died in jail. Oh, I actually got
Speaker 10: in a nursing home or hospital, and so that was
Speaker 10: the end of that, and he served maybe five years altogether.
Speaker 4: Right, What was it like? Hearing about his passing?
Speaker 10: A radio station called me and asked if I would
Speaker 10: like to make a come in, and I said I
Speaker 10: certainly would not. You need to get a comment from
Speaker 10: his family that WO might be positive. And I have
Speaker 10: nothing to say about it. I felt sorry that he
Speaker 10: had died, but then I, you know, felt much greatly
Speaker 10: relieved and my children would finally be able to sleep
Speaker 10: through tonight. My little daughter, her bedroom was right above
Speaker 10: mine and the second floor, and I would hear her
Speaker 10: feet hit the floor every night when a car backfired
Speaker 10: or somebody shot at a mailbox or something. My little son,
Speaker 10: who was twelve years old at the time, had had
Speaker 10: real issues, anger issues. He really would have would have
Speaker 10: liked to shooting and would come down and get into
Speaker 10: bed with me at night to protect me, you know,
Speaker 10: And it just was really sad. I was in the
Speaker 10: hospital for two years, years during which time he went
Speaker 10: from a child to a teenager. And I feel like
Speaker 10: I really missed the important years of his transition there
Speaker 10: and was not there to help him. But they both
Speaker 10: are good now, and she's married and lived in Mississippi
Speaker 10: and would never live here again. Just totally ruins it
Speaker 10: for her. My son is married and his two little
Speaker 10: children and lives right here on the place with me.
Speaker 4: And how is the business presently today.
Speaker 10: Oh it's great. For a while, it was pretty hard
Speaker 10: to get it started again, because you know, who wants
Speaker 10: to go spend the night in some place where there's
Speaker 10: been a very violent attempt at murder. We had to
Speaker 10: have security on the ground at night. And so we've
Speaker 10: got some very loyal customers who have been staying with
Speaker 10: us for twenty five years now, and they love the
Speaker 10: peace and that we offer, and so the Bed and
Speaker 10: Breakfast does very well.
Speaker 4: It's an amazing.
Speaker 10: Continue to write. I continue to write and have done
Speaker 10: some wonderful books. I feel like I have been given
Speaker 10: eighteen years as a real blessing that I almost did
Speaker 10: not have, and have seen my children grow up and
Speaker 10: my son have children and make lives for themselves. And
Speaker 10: I have also written some pretty good books in that
Speaker 10: ensuing time that I wouldn't have had a chance to
Speaker 10: write at all. So I really feel very fortunate.
Speaker 2: Yes, tell us about the titles that you have, the
Speaker 2: nonfiction true crime titles will say that you have written,
Speaker 2: and also the fictional books of the other books that
Speaker 2: you have written as well, nonfiction or part of me
Speaker 2: fiction titles.
Speaker 10: Mostly I write nonfiction, and I'll tell you that Weep
Speaker 10: for the Living. The title came from a little cemetery
Speaker 10: right up the road from my house where Jefferson Davis's
Speaker 10: first wife actually buried. It's the Locust Growth Cemetery and
Speaker 10: there's a little baby book that was buried there. She
Speaker 10: was buried in the eighteen thirties at just one year old,
Speaker 10: and her epitaph says stranger there these lines be read
Speaker 10: weep for the living, not the dead, you know, And
Speaker 10: that's such an apt quotation and good for this book.
Speaker 10: Weep for the Living is a Pelican Publishing book. It
Speaker 10: has solved extremely well the whole time since I wrote it,
Speaker 10: and I have five six other Pelican books, mostly on
Speaker 10: regional preservation and history I write about. My two crime
Speaker 10: books were published by the University of Lafayette Press at
Speaker 10: louis University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, and one is
Speaker 10: called Angola, Louisiana State Penitentiary, and the other is called
Speaker 10: Dying to Tell, which is mostly death penalty cases, very
Speaker 10: very interesting stories from Angola because, as I said before,
Speaker 10: or behind every door there there's a very very interesting
Speaker 10: story as well as a lesson that if we don't learn,
Speaker 10: keeps repeating itself. So they're very interesting true crime books.
Speaker 10: And I've had some other little humor books and children's
Speaker 10: books and travel books and swamp tour books and books
Speaker 10: on Louisiana history mostly.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Tell us for those people that we might want to
Speaker 2: contact you about the Bed and Breakfast and the plantation
Speaker 2: and also to maybe find out about your books. Do
Speaker 2: you have a website or do you are you interested
Speaker 2: in Facebook?
Speaker 4: Friends?
Speaker 2: Tell us how people might contact you and where if
Speaker 2: you have a website, where.
Speaker 4: They might go more information.
Speaker 10: Okay, it's doubww dot Butler Greenwood come a very comprehensive
Speaker 10: website on the history of the place and the Bed
Speaker 10: and Breakfast. There's also a list of all my books
Speaker 10: on there. They can be ordered through the publisher of
Speaker 10: Pelican Publishing in New Orleans or ul Press in Lafayette, Louisiana,
Speaker 10: or on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or any the
Speaker 10: bookseller site. And then I also have a Facebook presence,
Speaker 10: actually I have three different sites, Anne Butler and Anne
Speaker 10: Butler Author and Butler Greenwood Plantation B and B and
Speaker 10: so welcome anybody to get in touch with me and
Speaker 10: to to get a copy of the book if they're interested.
Speaker 10: I think I think that it's a book that has
Speaker 10: some social relevance and hopefully it helps people. I have
Speaker 10: done a lot of speaking on domestic violence. I've spoken
Speaker 10: to sheriffs in training and to first responder training and
Speaker 10: victims rights organizations, as well as such opposite places as
Speaker 10: the New York State Supreme Court and then anger management
Speaker 10: in prisons, anger management graduating classes, where you've got five
Speaker 10: hundred faces looking at you have seen worse and done worse,
Speaker 10: and heard worse, and you're not going to impress them
Speaker 10: by getting up there and crying. But I can get
Speaker 10: up there and compare how many times we've been shot,
Speaker 10: and that kind of get their attention, and so maybe
Speaker 10: they listened to me a little bit more than some
Speaker 10: pathetic victim who is really a victim. I don't see
Speaker 10: myself as a victim. I see myself as a survivor,
Speaker 10: and hopefully a lot of other women do too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an incredible journey that you have to to
Speaker 2: get this man convicted. It looks like for a time
Speaker 2: that he made skate from justice based on his connections
Speaker 2: and his reputation, and certainly it didn't look good for
Speaker 2: you with your recovery and looming bills. And so it's
Speaker 2: a fascinating story about how the tables were turned and
Speaker 2: finally justice was served. And also how you survived all
Speaker 2: this with the help of family and friends and just
Speaker 2: people around the world that have been well wishers since
Speaker 2: you've gone through this ordeal and written this fine book,
Speaker 2: Weep for the Living. So I want to thank you
Speaker 2: very much and Butler for coming on and talking about
Speaker 2: Weep for the Living.
Speaker 4: I want to thank you very much, and you have
Speaker 4: a great evening.
Speaker 10: Thanks Dan, it's been nice to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Thank you, good night, good night.