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Speaker 2: Retails good evening. He promised to kill me when he
Speaker 2: got out. I believed him. If I wanted justice, I
Speaker 2: had to fight both him and the courts to kill
Speaker 2: him first. If I didn't do something, I was going
Speaker 2: to die. This is not a manufactured dialogue from a thriller,
Speaker 2: but the words of Attorney Sharon Muse. They came after
Speaker 2: she survived in attempted kidnapping, rape, and murder at the
Speaker 2: hands of Hank Morrison, a former client. On April seventh,
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, Mews miraculously escaped from the sociopathic Morrison,
Speaker 2: only to find that the threat of her life was
Speaker 2: just beginning. Ineptitude and the justice system threatened to release
Speaker 2: Morris and allow him the opportunity to finish the job,
Speaker 2: which he adamantly pledged to do. Mews would have to
Speaker 2: fight at every step to insure her safety. She would
Speaker 2: act as her own advocate, investigator, legal counsel, and bodyguard
Speaker 2: in the years following the event, Kidnapped by a Client
Speaker 2: covers the brutal kidnapping, two trials, two appeals, procedural error's galore,
Speaker 2: one Supreme Court reversal, and even Muse's intricate plan to
Speaker 2: murder Morrison before he could get her. Mews would not
Speaker 2: ultimately execute that plan, and she would emerge victorious in
Speaker 2: the legal battle thanks to her faith and her own
Speaker 2: determination and legal acumen, but her safety is not insured.
Speaker 2: Morrison upp is up for parole in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: Mews regularly monitors his status. Mews recounts her stranger than
Speaker 2: fiction story and kidnap by a client. She analyzes the
Speaker 2: failures of the legal system, the mistake she made, the
Speaker 2: step she took to protect herself, and how she has
Speaker 2: coped with trauma. Listeners will find not only a compelling narrative,
Speaker 2: but also insight into how to protect oneself insure one's
Speaker 2: own safety and well being. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 2: this evening is Kidnapped by a Client, The incredible true
Speaker 2: story of an attorney's fight for justice, with my special
Speaker 2: guest Sharon Muse and Rob Johnson. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 2: and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 2: Sharon mus and Rob Johnson.
Speaker 9: Thank you for having us. Very excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for both of you for joining me.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Now, Sharon, can you just give us a brief background
Speaker 2: before we get into this incredible, incredibly personally and intimately
Speaker 2: involved story of your life and this incredible incident. Tell
Speaker 2: us just briefly what your life was like before this,
Speaker 2: your work as an attorney, and where exactly Bourbon County
Speaker 2: and Scott County, where exactly are we talking about where
Speaker 2: this occurred.
Speaker 9: Bourbon and Scott County are the two counts, two of
Speaker 9: the several counties that surround Bayette County in central Kentucky,
Speaker 9: which is Lexington. We're more rural, would not be considered
Speaker 9: a city, probably by anybody standards. Prior to this, I
Speaker 9: had your basic small town practice, did a lot of
Speaker 9: a variety of different kinds of cases. Very care free,
Speaker 9: very lighthearted, never really concerned with security or safety, never
Speaker 9: considered a client could possibly.
Speaker 4: Be a threat to me.
Speaker 9: Typically they like you because you're helping them, you're fighting
Speaker 9: for them, you're advocating for them.
Speaker 4: I guess I took a.
Speaker 9: Variety of cases, and unfortunately I got involved with this
Speaker 9: particular man because I felt sorry for him and his
Speaker 9: wife and did some free legal work, and that's how
Speaker 9: I came to even know that he existed.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the day in question, the faithful day,
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, April seventh, and you had got
Speaker 2: some bad news about your mother. So tell us where
Speaker 2: you were that day, and when you were talking about
Speaker 2: the news, you said you had a bad day. Before
Speaker 2: we talk about your faithful meeting with your former client.
Speaker 9: I'd gone into work that day dressed very casually.
Speaker 4: I had on jeans and just a cotton.
Speaker 9: Pullover shirt was like a stretchy neckline, and you'll hear
Speaker 9: more about that later. But my plan was just to
Speaker 9: work on some appellate briefs.
Speaker 4: I wasn't going to see any clients, and my.
Speaker 9: Admin, Judy, I'd instructed her, I said, don't I can't
Speaker 9: be bothered by anybody. I have to focus, like this
Speaker 9: is my deadline. So I was working on the computer,
Speaker 9: was getting close to being done, and my mom stopped
Speaker 9: by the office and came in to tell me that
Speaker 9: she had just left her doctor and they had found
Speaker 9: some strange black spots on her lungs, and they weren't
Speaker 9: clear what they were. They believed them to be a
Speaker 9: rare form of cancer and something that we couldn't get
Speaker 9: treated locally. So that just completely derailed my day, and
Speaker 9: I stopped doing my legal work and started researching, trying
Speaker 9: to figure out who would be an expert and who
Speaker 9: could I take my mom to. And called a friend
Speaker 9: of mine in Louisville who her mom had a very
Speaker 9: aggressive form of cancer and she was very active in
Speaker 9: her treatment. And so, as you could, just had done
Speaker 9: a complete shift from practicing law to how can I
Speaker 9: keep my mom healthy and keep her alive? So my
Speaker 9: mind was not in a good place.
Speaker 2: You had been dating a man named Jeff for about
Speaker 2: seven months, and yes, and so tell us what you
Speaker 2: were doing. You were speaking with him as you left
Speaker 2: the office. Tell us what the conversation was like. And
Speaker 2: what happened next is you carried a briefcase in some
Speaker 2: flows to your car.
Speaker 4: Well, it was interesting.
Speaker 9: Jeff always had Fridays, he was a preacher, and that
Speaker 9: was you know, you didn't get Sunday's off, and so
Speaker 9: he was going to be playing golf that day. And
Speaker 9: we had an understanding that when he played golf. He
Speaker 9: usually didn't have his phone with him, and if he did,
Speaker 9: he wouldn't answer. It was just his time away from
Speaker 9: the world. But we had spoken on the phone briefly
Speaker 9: and when I this was again before smartphone, so I
Speaker 9: opened up my flip phone and I could see the
Speaker 9: battery was almost dead. And as I was talking to him,
Speaker 9: I opened the door to walk out in the hallway,
Speaker 9: and I noticed someone had been waiting outside my door,
Speaker 9: and when I opened the door, they jumped back so
Speaker 9: that nobody in the office could see him. And as
Speaker 9: I rounded the corner, there was a man just walking
Speaker 9: the hallway, and so I told Jeff, I said, let
Speaker 9: me call you back. Somebody's waiting for me. And when
Speaker 9: I hung up, I thought, you know, it's going to
Speaker 9: be a minutefriend calling back because my batteries did. I'm
Speaker 9: standing in the hallway looking at a man who very
Speaker 9: clearly was waiting for me.
Speaker 4: His face looked familiar.
Speaker 9: I couldn't think of his name, and I couldn't think
Speaker 9: how I knew him, but I was fairly certain he
Speaker 9: was a previous client. And he immediately starts talking to
Speaker 9: me about his wife had just died.
Speaker 4: He was afraid.
Speaker 9: His family was scared, the assets were frozen. They needed help.
Speaker 9: This is a Friday now, right at five o'clock, and
Speaker 9: what can I do to help them? His family wanted
Speaker 9: me to come talk to me, and I was trying
Speaker 9: to politely move forward as he was talking to me,
Speaker 9: so I could not find myself stuck in a hallway
Speaker 9: for thirty minutes trying to have a client consult. So
Speaker 9: I explained to him, it's Friday at five o'clock.
Speaker 4: The courts are closed.
Speaker 9: There's literally nothing I can do for you. I'm happy
Speaker 9: to listen, but I need you to go in and
Speaker 9: talk to Judy. Set up an appointment first thing Monday morning.
Speaker 9: I'll get you in front of Judge and we will
Speaker 9: get you taken care of. And I'm so sorry for
Speaker 9: your loss, but right now my hands are tied until
Speaker 9: Monday morning. Well this didn't seem to settle him down
Speaker 9: at all. He seemed very anxious and fidgety, and he was,
Speaker 9: you know, had a lot of energy. And as I moved,
Speaker 9: he moved, and I would take a step forward and
Speaker 9: he would not move, so I'd have to take a
Speaker 9: step back to create space. If I went around the
Speaker 9: side it was. It was almost like we were dancing.
Speaker 9: Every time I moved, he moved. Every Time I asked
Speaker 9: a question, he responded, and he responded with my family ensured.
Speaker 4: We need you. We're scared, we need your help.
Speaker 9: And at some point in this exchange in the hallway,
Speaker 9: he pulled out a giant wad to cash, not like
Speaker 9: I'd ever seen any anybody carry around before, but it
Speaker 9: was about the size of my fist, was wrapped with
Speaker 9: a rubber band, and it had like some white powdery
Speaker 9: substance in the middle.
Speaker 4: I saw it just for a flash.
Speaker 9: And he tried to put it in my bag, in
Speaker 9: my briefcase, and I took my hand and waved him
Speaker 9: off and said, no, don't do that. This isn't how
Speaker 9: this works. I don't just take wads of cash. You'll
Speaker 9: talk to Judy, you'll sign it contract, he'll pay me hourly.
Speaker 9: I said, this is not how things work. And he
Speaker 9: kept trying to get that cash in my pocket or
Speaker 9: in my bag, and then he stopped for a minute,
Speaker 9: put it back in his pocket and continued to say,
Speaker 9: my wife just died.
Speaker 4: I'm scared. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 9: So in order to get past him, to get to
Speaker 9: my car, where I.
Speaker 4: Thought I could leave. I said, okay, well I'm leaving.
Speaker 4: Walk with me to my car.
Speaker 9: I'll ask you a couple of questions and then come
Speaker 9: back and make an appointment with Judy. And he said okay,
Speaker 9: and I thought, okay, I got out of this awkward situation.
Speaker 4: Good idea.
Speaker 9: So we're walking to the car and I'm asking him
Speaker 9: you did your wife have a will? Was it notarized
Speaker 9: or their witnesses where their names noted. I was just
Speaker 9: asking basic questions to determine if, according to Kentucky law,
Speaker 9: that this would be a valid will, and he.
Speaker 4: Answered them all.
Speaker 9: He was very articulate and clear, and we approached the
Speaker 9: car and I said, okay, it sounds like a valid will.
Speaker 9: We shouldn't have a hard time getting it through probate.
Speaker 9: Thank you for stopping by.
Speaker 4: Sorry about your loss.
Speaker 9: I'll see you Monday morning. I turned my back to
Speaker 9: him and put everything in my car, unlocked my car,
Speaker 9: loaded on my files in the back, and as I
Speaker 9: opened my car door to get in, I look up
Speaker 9: and he's on the other side of my car with
Speaker 9: the car door open, and he's physically standing between the
Speaker 9: car door and the well of my car, and I
Speaker 9: just I froze. I didn't know what he was doing
Speaker 9: or how I was supposed to respond, right, So at
Speaker 9: that moment I said, I said, you know what's going on?
Speaker 9: How can I help you?
Speaker 4: What do you need?
Speaker 9: And he was like, well, can you give me a
Speaker 9: ride to my grandma's house? And I we had this
Speaker 9: fairly lengthy exchange, so, well, how did you get here?
Speaker 9: While I walked, Well, can't you walk back? Well, it's
Speaker 9: only three blocks. Well, then that's a short walk. So
Speaker 9: I went back and forth with him repeatedly, without ever
Speaker 9: just saying no, get away from my car.
Speaker 4: I'm not comfortable.
Speaker 9: Like in my mind, I kept thinking this, this man's
Speaker 9: life just died. He's a clienteers he trusts you, he
Speaker 9: needs and wants your help. Why would you say no
Speaker 9: to him? Like I've almost guilted in myself or shamed
Speaker 9: myself into it. And I continued though I just didn't
Speaker 9: feel comfortable, and I was like, you know, no, if
Speaker 9: you walked here, you can walk back. And probably after
Speaker 9: our fifth or sixth exchange of this, thunder cracks in
Speaker 9: the sky and the spring weather in Kentucky is very volatile.
Speaker 9: It'll be beautiful and sunny one minute and pouring down
Speaker 9: during the next. And that was just the final straw
Speaker 9: for me. I thought, you cannot make him walk home
Speaker 9: in the rain after his wife is just dead and
Speaker 9: he just needs some help. But you know it, was
Speaker 9: concerned by his behavior, seemed very he seemed desperate to
Speaker 9: be around me, and I thought, well, that's just because
Speaker 9: he sees me as the person who can help help
Speaker 9: them get through this. Every time, every time my mind
Speaker 9: tried to tell me you need to get away from him,
Speaker 9: I had some excuse, some way to justify that what
Speaker 9: he was.
Speaker 4: Doing was was okay, and that probably wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 4: So I'm sorry you.
Speaker 2: Had the tenacity that you had the idea that you
Speaker 2: should make sure that you have your phone and you
Speaker 2: dial tell us about this. Once he's inside the car,
Speaker 2: what happens, and increasingly in terms of your your fear,
Speaker 2: and at what point do you get the idea to
Speaker 2: dial your phone and connect with your boyfriend Jeff.
Speaker 9: So, when we were standing outside the car, I felt
Speaker 9: very uncomfortable, but I couldn't really articulate why, but I
Speaker 9: just felt uncomfortable. When he sat down in the car,
Speaker 9: and I felt the weight of his body hit the
Speaker 9: seat and he shut the door. Some kind of alarm
Speaker 9: went off inside of me, and I just I knew
Speaker 9: that I wasn't safe. I didn't know to what degree,
Speaker 9: but something in me was saying, you're not safe.
Speaker 4: So there was no.
Speaker 9: I can't articulate specific thoughts, I just instinctively, instead of
Speaker 9: putting my purse where I usually do, I tucked it
Speaker 9: by my left leg in the car well, and I
Speaker 9: pulled my very surreptitiously pulled my cellphone out, opened it up,
Speaker 9: flipped it on, and I tucked it kind of under
Speaker 9: my left thigh where he couldn't see it. Now, I'll
Speaker 9: tell you I didn't think. I didn't think the battery
Speaker 9: was working, but I couldn't figure a way to get
Speaker 9: my phone plugged into the car charger where he wouldn't
Speaker 9: see it. And then I thought, well, Jeff's not going
Speaker 9: to answer his phone anyway because he's about to head
Speaker 9: out to the golf course. But I know Jeff is
Speaker 9: very detail orientedy, is very smart, and I knew if
Speaker 9: he heard me in a car with a man's voice
Speaker 9: when he knew I should be driving home alone, he
Speaker 9: would pay attention, not because he's jealous, but because he
Speaker 9: would know that something out of order. So I tucked
Speaker 9: it away and I hid it. And as we pulled
Speaker 9: out of the parking lot, you know, I said, where
Speaker 9: do you need me to go? And he directed me.
Speaker 9: So I continue to ask him legal questions, you know,
Speaker 9: are you the air anybody else a family that do
Speaker 9: you think anybody's going.
Speaker 4: To contest it? Because he said he only.
Speaker 9: Lived three blocks away, so I expected this to be
Speaker 9: a very short ride. So once we passed what anybody
Speaker 9: could imagine would be three blocks, I said, well, you know,
Speaker 9: where are we going? Where does she live? What's the
Speaker 9: street number? And once I said that and we got
Speaker 9: close to the end of that street again, everything just
Speaker 9: amped up another level. I was certain at that point
Speaker 9: that I was in trouble and I wasn't safe. I
Speaker 9: knew he wanted to do something to me. I didn't
Speaker 9: know what, but I knew I wasn't safe, and so
Speaker 9: I tried to talk to him as much as possible.
Speaker 9: I was desperately trying to remember his name. I couldn't
Speaker 9: think of his name, but I did not want him
Speaker 9: to know that. And each time I would ask, you know,
Speaker 9: where is it or it's you know, it's been more
Speaker 9: than three blocks. Very quickly it turned into him becoming
Speaker 9: violent to get escalated to where he would put his
Speaker 9: hands on the back of my neck and grab it
Speaker 9: and shake my neck and yell at me not to
Speaker 9: disrespect him. Any any type of question, any type of
Speaker 9: challenge as to where we're going he perceived is disrespecting him,
Speaker 9: and I wasn't to do that, and he'd stick his
Speaker 9: finger in my face, or he would grab my neck,
Speaker 9: or he would rub his rub his hand down my arm,
Speaker 9: and he would yell and tell me to keep driving
Speaker 9: and keep driving, and then he would stop and pause.
Speaker 4: And just look at me.
Speaker 9: And I glanced over at him, and he was looking
Speaker 9: at me as if we were on a date it was,
Speaker 9: and he said, it sure is nice being in this
Speaker 9: car with you. And that's the moment that I thought
Speaker 9: he's he wants he's going to rape me.
Speaker 4: And that's when my.
Speaker 9: Mind really started spinning, and I thought, what do what
Speaker 9: do I do? How do I stay se what can
Speaker 9: I do? And as the drive continues, keep in mind,
Speaker 9: this is my hometown.
Speaker 4: I grew up here.
Speaker 9: I drove right by the street that my parents lived on.
Speaker 9: At the time where I grew up. I grew drove
Speaker 9: by the street where my elementary school was. But I
Speaker 9: had no idea where I was.
Speaker 4: I couldn't.
Speaker 9: All I could think about were his hands. I was
Speaker 9: trying to dodge the next blow or at one point
Speaker 9: he put his hands between my More than one point
Speaker 9: he put his hands between my legs and I would
Speaker 9: move them, and I grabbed the steering wheel and tried
Speaker 9: to keep them from being able to touch my breast.
Speaker 9: And it just the further out we drove, the more
Speaker 9: fearful I became, the more desperate I became, and the
Speaker 9: angrier and more violent he became.
Speaker 4: So at some point he sees my cell phone, and.
Speaker 9: Because he'd been in prison up to just less than
Speaker 9: two weeks before, he hadn't seen a cell phone yet,
Speaker 9: he thought it was a digital recorder. So he starts
Speaker 9: yelling at me and saying, are you recording me?
Speaker 4: Or you recording me?
Speaker 9: And I grabbed the phone and I was and I said, no,
Speaker 9: this is my phone. And I put it up to
Speaker 9: my ear and Jeff was there. I couldn't believe it,
Speaker 9: but Jeff was there.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 9: And at some point during this drive his name just
Speaker 9: came out of nowhere, and so I said, do you
Speaker 9: want me to call you Hank or do you want
Speaker 9: me to call you mister Morrison? And I said it
Speaker 9: that way so that Jeff would know who had me.
Speaker 9: And during this conversation, during this conversation, I had asked
Speaker 9: him where had he been and what had been going
Speaker 9: on because I didn't remember that he had been a
Speaker 9: criminal client. I thought I had done an adoption for
Speaker 9: his family. And so this whole time, I'm trying to
Speaker 9: figure out, how could this guy you had did an
Speaker 9: adoption for be what is he angry with me about?
Speaker 9: And so he said, I just got out last week,
Speaker 9: and I was like, out of prison and he said
Speaker 9: out of prison. And again that was for Jeff to hear.
Speaker 9: But he would know that a man had me, He
Speaker 9: would know his name, and he knew that he'd just
Speaker 9: been out of prison. So he jerks the phone away
Speaker 9: from me and he's talking to Jeff. And at this point,
Speaker 9: I'm this is the only point that I can recall,
Speaker 9: like actively praying, and I was just like, please God,
Speaker 9: don't let Jeff make him mad. Whatever he says he's
Speaker 9: going to take out on me, Just don't let him,
Speaker 9: make him mad.
Speaker 1: All I was.
Speaker 4: All I was trying to do was to keep him calm, because.
Speaker 9: You're in a car, there's no room to go anywhere.
Speaker 9: Every time I did anything he didn't like, it was
Speaker 9: a threat or a strike or in my face and
Speaker 9: grabbing me or shaking me or stroking me. And all
Speaker 9: I wanted to do is keep his hands off me.
Speaker 9: And it came down just from each breath to the next,
Speaker 9: You're trying to think, how do I just get to
Speaker 9: the next breath without him touching me or without him
Speaker 9: hurting me, and it created you know, I wasn't breathing well,
Speaker 9: and so I caught myself catching my breath and then sighing,
Speaker 9: and then that set him off, and he's yelling at
Speaker 9: me that that's disrespectful and not to do that, and
Speaker 9: he's again in my face or grabbing my hair or
Speaker 9: grabbing my neck, and I remember thinking, I can't even
Speaker 9: breathe without making this man angry, and just desperately trying
Speaker 9: to think how to get away from him. And we
Speaker 9: went through the only large intersection that we went through,
Speaker 9: because again this is a rural area, and as we
Speaker 9: hit the middle, I was going to slam on the
Speaker 9: brakes and just jump jump out of my car if
Speaker 9: I got hit. I didn't care. I just I wanted
Speaker 9: to be away from him. And I started to hit
Speaker 9: the brakes and he grabbed my knee and just squeezed,
Speaker 9: and I knew, I knew I had to think of
Speaker 9: something else, so I kept driving.
Speaker 2: You right about the phone the phone call where Jeff
Speaker 2: talks to Morrison. Yeah, what does Morrison say to him
Speaker 2: before he hangs up?
Speaker 9: He says, don't worry, I'll take care of her. And
Speaker 9: when he said that and he hung up, I cannot.
Speaker 9: I don't know that I can adequately tell you now
Speaker 9: or even in the book what that did to me,
Speaker 9: because I knew.
Speaker 4: Probably not going to get out of that car.
Speaker 9: Ever, and I frantically redialed, hoping and praying that Jeff
Speaker 9: that I had battery and that I didn't lose service
Speaker 9: and that Jeff could hear, and we continue on the
Speaker 9: entire drive. Is just this me saying, are we a
Speaker 9: most there yet? Why are you doing this to me?
Speaker 9: Eventually I started saying, is that an airport? Is that
Speaker 9: an elementary school?
Speaker 4: Because I can't.
Speaker 9: Think and I don't understand where I am so I'm
Speaker 9: just trying to describe to Jeff what I'm seeing so
Speaker 9: that hopefully he'll know where I am, or he could
Speaker 9: figure out or he could call the police and tell
Speaker 9: them where I am. And Morrison grabbed the phone a
Speaker 9: second time and was trying to talk to Jeff. And
Speaker 9: when I put the phone back up to my ear,
Speaker 9: Jeff said, do you want me to call the police?
Speaker 9: And I just said I don't know, because I thought
Speaker 9: he was my lifeline. What was he going to say
Speaker 9: when he called the police. My girlfriend's in a car somewhere,
Speaker 9: maybe near an elementary school with a guy that's been
Speaker 9: out of prison. Could he what could the police do
Speaker 9: for me? So I didn't even know what county I
Speaker 9: was in, So at some point I said, are we
Speaker 9: in Bourbon County? And Jeff wrote that down. And as
Speaker 9: we continue to drive around and I'm completely disoriented, we
Speaker 9: came up to a yellow light, a caution light, and
Speaker 9: when I stopped there, I just started screaming, get out
Speaker 9: of the car, get out of the car. I don't
Speaker 9: care where you live, I don't care where she lives.
Speaker 9: Get out now. I was like, get out.
Speaker 4: I was just I was done, And he was like
Speaker 4: a role.
Speaker 9: Reversal became very calm, and he was like, we're almost there.
Speaker 9: It's right down this road. It's three houses down. I'll
Speaker 9: get out, just take me to the house. And so
Speaker 9: part of me thought, Okay, I'm wrong.
Speaker 4: He really just.
Speaker 9: Doesn't want to go to his hitco referred as his
Speaker 9: meme off house. We're driving down this country road and
Speaker 9: I said, okay. I counted as I passed your house,
Speaker 9: I said that's one, that's two, that's three. And I
Speaker 9: started to pull in the driveway and I said, this
Speaker 9: is a house. You're getting out. He's like, no, I counterground,
Speaker 9: it's over the hill. A drive over the hill, because
Speaker 9: again I don't know how to physically get him out
Speaker 9: of my car, and I didn't know what I was
Speaker 9: supposed to do if I physically got out of my car.
Speaker 9: So I pop over the next hill and there's a
Speaker 9: big black barn. It's a you could tell it's a
Speaker 9: I would call it an abandoned farm. It wasn't actively
Speaker 9: being farmed the barn. It was hay and kind of
Speaker 9: mold and really tall grass, and there was a barn
Speaker 9: near the roadway, and then past the barn was a
Speaker 9: driveway and as soon as we passed the barn, he said,
Speaker 9: here's where she lived. And as I looked up at
Speaker 9: the house, it was a house that was completely dilapolated.
Speaker 9: Vines were grown through the windows, the front porch was
Speaker 9: sunk in, the windows were boarded over, and I remember,
Speaker 9: I said, your me.
Speaker 4: Mall is there.
Speaker 9: There was some part to me it is desperate to
Speaker 9: think I was really taking him to his grandmother's house.
Speaker 4: And he said, no, not there. Drive past it.
Speaker 9: Back behind that barn. There was a second barn, even
Speaker 9: back behind the house. And I told you earlier. I
Speaker 9: knew that he wanted to hurt me when he told Jeff,
Speaker 9: don't worry, I'll take care of her. But when he
Speaker 9: told me to drive back behind that barn, at that point,
Speaker 9: there's nothing to lose.
Speaker 4: He's going to kill me.
Speaker 9: I know he's going to kill me. And at best
Speaker 9: I could hope he killed me on the roadway so
Speaker 9: somebody finds me. So I just said, I said no.
Speaker 9: I drove past the driveway. I reversed into it, which
Speaker 9: is something I've never ever done. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 9: I drove past the driveway, I reversed in it. I
Speaker 9: put my car in drive, and I'm screaming, get out
Speaker 9: of the car, get out of the car. I'm just
Speaker 9: over and over, that's all I'm saying. And he puts
Speaker 9: his left hand on my hands, shoves the gear shift
Speaker 9: into part and the next thing I know is my
Speaker 9: head is being cracked into a window, smacked into the
Speaker 9: steering wheel. It's just flashes of light. It's like if
Speaker 9: you're watching an old projector movie and the film comes
Speaker 9: off the reel and you just see little bits and
Speaker 9: pieces light and dark than images. It's just exactly like that.
Speaker 9: You know, there's a I see the steering bell coming
Speaker 9: at me. I can feel the glass in my head.
Speaker 9: I can just feel his hands digging into my scalp
Speaker 9: and it's thrashing me around. And the next thing I
Speaker 9: know is that he's my head into the consoles between
Speaker 9: the seats and he's putting his body weight into the
Speaker 9: side of my head. And I'm still with my seat
Speaker 9: belt on. The car's running. My right arm is crushed
Speaker 9: under my body, my left arm is under the seatbelt
Speaker 9: and I'm stuck. And I see him in.
Speaker 4: What looks like.
Speaker 9: Slow motion, moving his right hand because he hold me
Speaker 9: down to his left hand, He's moving his right hand
Speaker 9: down the inside of his jean leg and I start screaming.
Speaker 4: Jeff called the police, Call the police.
Speaker 9: He's got a gun. He's going to kill me. And
Speaker 9: at that moment, my phonement that was lasting.
Speaker 4: Jeff heard.
Speaker 9: And when Morrison pulls up his pantlet, he had a
Speaker 9: nice strapped around his angle just assumed it was a gun.
Speaker 9: I just saw a black handle. And he pulls it up,
Speaker 9: and as he's pulling it over to my throat, he says,
Speaker 9: this is for those years in jail. And he I
Speaker 9: can see his biceps like flexing, triced muscles are the
Speaker 9: veins are popping up an environment. I can see him
Speaker 9: pressing that mince into my throat and I can feel
Speaker 9: the pressure of it, thinking this is it, this is it.
Speaker 9: And I remember being really specific with these thoughts that
Speaker 9: I told myself, Okay, you're gonna gurgle, you're gonna taste.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: Round two. Name something that's not boring.
Speaker 1: Laundry, a book club, computer solitaire.
Speaker 5: Huh oh, sorry, we were looking for Chumbu Casino.
Speaker 1: Jump.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 8: Chumbucasino dot com as over one hundred casino style games
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Speaker 8: redeem some serious prizes.
Speaker 5: Jump Chumbucasino dot com were bage plusters.
Speaker 8: The condition of plus.
Speaker 9: Blood and then I getting be able to catch your
Speaker 9: breath and that's it. And I waited and I kept breathing,
Speaker 9: and I waited, and I felt the blood and I
Speaker 9: felt the warm blood running down my chest, and I thought,
Speaker 9: what's I'm still breathing, but I could see him. He
Speaker 9: was shoving that nice into my neck, and I kept thinking,
Speaker 9: how am I still breathing? And he said take your
Speaker 9: pants off. He was telling me what he was gonna.
Speaker 4: Do to me.
Speaker 9: I don't remember his exact words, but I do remember
Speaker 9: he told me what he was gonna do to me,
Speaker 9: and that he specifically said take your pants off. And
Speaker 9: I said, no, you're gonna If you're gonna rape me,
Speaker 9: you can rape my dead body. I was finally I
Speaker 9: had finally hit the rage phase. Up to this point,
Speaker 9: I've been confused, I've been scared. I've been trying to
Speaker 9: preserve my safety with whatever naive measures I took. But
Speaker 9: at this point I knew it was over and there
Speaker 9: was nothing that I was going to do that was
Speaker 9: going to make it easier from him, and if he
Speaker 9: wanted to rape me, he could kill me and drag my.
Speaker 4: Dead body out and do it. But I was not
Speaker 4: going to make it easier for him. And when I
Speaker 4: said no, what's the question?
Speaker 2: Sorry? And you were a physically fit person, you said,
Speaker 2: you're the best shape you were in your an adult
Speaker 2: life at this point, And yeah, pumped with adrenaline. So
Speaker 2: you guys were both. He was hitting you, punching you.
Speaker 2: You were wrestling and fighting in this car.
Speaker 4: Yeah, war'd you.
Speaker 9: Once he pinned me down with my head like that,
Speaker 9: I was trapped. But when I said no, the next
Speaker 9: thing I know, and there's no The only explanation I
Speaker 9: have for this is some form of divine intervention, because
Speaker 9: there is no other nobody else was present. The next
Speaker 9: thing that happened was he was back over in his
Speaker 9: because he had been up out of his seat on
Speaker 9: top of the console trying to cut my throat. He's
Speaker 9: back over in his seat, the knife is in his hand,
Speaker 9: the tip is broken off the knife. There's a huge
Speaker 9: gouge in my dashboard where apparently the knife had been
Speaker 9: drug through the dashboard. And I'm still my head is
Speaker 9: still down. And when I saw that he was back
Speaker 9: in the seat.
Speaker 4: I thought, this is it now. I didn't think this
Speaker 4: is it. You're gonna get away, You're gonna live. I thought,
Speaker 4: this is it.
Speaker 9: You can make sure he doesn't get away with this.
Speaker 9: You know, you hear people say that that when they
Speaker 9: really think they're gonna die, they have these flashbacks, they
Speaker 9: think about things from their past. That for me, all
Speaker 9: I saw, and this always makes me this is this
Speaker 9: is one of the toughest parts. But I saw my
Speaker 9: elderly parents grieving because they never knew what happened to
Speaker 9: their daughter, and I just thought, you cannot let that happen.
Speaker 9: You cannot let them live like that. Thinking somebody has
Speaker 9: to find my body, somebody has to find me for
Speaker 9: my parents. And so the only thing that made sense
Speaker 9: to me was I had to get the keys out
Speaker 9: of the ignition because if he couldn't drive off in
Speaker 9: my car, somebody would find my car and somebody would
Speaker 9: find my body. And that was my only goal, was
Speaker 9: just for somebody.
Speaker 4: To find me. So then we really started fighting, and
Speaker 4: I have permanent injuries to this day from that fight.
Speaker 4: And it was violent and it was.
Speaker 9: I mean, both of us were just kicking and punching
Speaker 9: and anything we could get a hold of, and I
Speaker 9: kept my eye on the knife all the time. I
Speaker 9: wanted to make sure. I was just scared I was
Speaker 9: gonna fill that plunged into my stomach. So I was
Speaker 9: watching the knife, and I kept trying to use my
Speaker 9: left hand and jerk the.
Speaker 4: Keys out of the ignition.
Speaker 9: Because my thought was, I'm gonna jernk the keys of
Speaker 9: the Ignition. I'm gonna throw them out into the field,
Speaker 9: and he's not gonna be able to drive off. He's
Speaker 9: gonna be stuck walking. And we were in the middle
Speaker 9: of nowhere, So I'm desperately trying to jerk the keys
Speaker 9: of the Ignition and I couldn't. I couldn't get my
Speaker 9: hands on them. So then I started trying to kick
Speaker 9: open the door, and I couldn't kick open the door,
Speaker 9: so I was trying with my hands to open the latch.
Speaker 9: So I'm fighting it with my right hand and use
Speaker 9: my left hand to try to open the latch, and
Speaker 9: I couldn't open it. So I you know, I'm balancing.
Speaker 9: Do I look away from the knife for a second
Speaker 9: to see where the door handle is because I didn't
Speaker 9: want to pick my eyes off that night. So just
Speaker 9: for a second, I glanced away to get my hand
Speaker 9: on the door handle to open the door. And when
Speaker 9: I did, I saw a red truck driving in the distance.
Speaker 9: And at that moment, I told myself, you can survive this.
Speaker 9: Get in front of that red truck. Just get in
Speaker 9: front of that red truck.
Speaker 4: I forgot the keys.
Speaker 9: I'm still fighting with them, but now I'm like, just
Speaker 9: get out of this car.
Speaker 4: And so we fight. I get my again.
Speaker 9: We're on a farm on a kind of a dirt
Speaker 9: gravel road. I get my left foot out the door
Speaker 9: a little bit, start to leverage myself out.
Speaker 4: He pulls me back in.
Speaker 9: We fight some more, and I just keep thinking, that
Speaker 9: truck's gonna pass me, that truck's gonna pass me. I
Speaker 9: did it the second time. I got my foot out,
Speaker 9: he jerks me back in the third time. I don't
Speaker 9: know what I did different. I don't know what happened,
Speaker 9: but I was able to leverage my leg against the
Speaker 9: base of the door and just pull myself out with
Speaker 9: my legs and my one leg was trapped with my
Speaker 9: purse wrapped around it. And I'm running with my legs
Speaker 9: tangled and my purses and the contents are flying everywhere,
Speaker 9: my breast are exposed where he'd dripped my shirt down,
Speaker 9: and blood's running down my chest, that chunks of hair
Speaker 9: hanging out of my head. And I ran straight in
Speaker 9: the middle of the road and just stopped and spread
Speaker 9: out my arms and spread out my legs and was
Speaker 9: determined that this truck was not going to go around me.
Speaker 4: And it was.
Speaker 9: Difficult to put yourself in front of oncoming truck on
Speaker 9: a country road. My body I could feel my legs
Speaker 9: wanting to dive over into the ditch, and I just
Speaker 9: kept saying to myself, you're either going to die out
Speaker 9: here with him, or you're gonna get hit by a truck.
Speaker 9: And I choose the truck. I would much rather get
Speaker 9: hit by the truck. And I understandably, this man driving
Speaker 9: the truck is just driving down a country road and
Speaker 9: here comes a partially exposed woman with blood running down
Speaker 9: her chest and chunks of hair hanging out of her head,
Speaker 9: screaming no idea what he's just stumbled on. He stopped,
Speaker 9: wasn't too far from me, and I ran to him.
Speaker 9: And I don't recall doing this. I don't remember grabbing
Speaker 9: my phone or downing none on one, but I had.
Speaker 9: It's on the recording, and I'm screaming, tell him where
Speaker 9: we are, tell him.
Speaker 4: Where we are. I don't know where I am, and
Speaker 4: he I think, kind of, you.
Speaker 9: Know, froze for a minute. But fortunately there's been a
Speaker 9: truck that I didn't see that drove past. They saw everything,
Speaker 9: and they voluntarily stopped. It was a husband and wife
Speaker 9: with their children, and they stopped and got out of
Speaker 9: the truck. And when I turned around and I saw
Speaker 9: this man and this woman standing in the middle of
Speaker 9: the road, it was like it was like I knew
Speaker 9: I was going to be okay. Like up to that point,
Speaker 9: I just kept thinking, if I run, Morrison's going to
Speaker 9: catch me. He's just going to stab me to death
Speaker 9: out here. But these people were out of their truck
Speaker 9: and they were coming towards me. Man, it was the
Speaker 9: kind of man you wanted to stop. He was big
Speaker 9: and intimidating, and his wife was immediately making a bee
Speaker 9: line for me. And I gave them the phone and
Speaker 9: he gave nine on one direction. Because as soon as
Speaker 9: the phone had disconnected with Jeff in the car, after
Speaker 9: I screened and said he's got a gun, he's going
Speaker 9: to kill me. Jeff called the police and said, I
Speaker 9: don't know what to tell you, but someone's trying to
Speaker 9: kill my girlfriend in her car somewhere in Bourbon County,
Speaker 9: and that's all he could tell. So from the point
Speaker 9: that he had called to the point that I had called,
Speaker 9: they had detectives out. I think they called Scott County.
Speaker 9: They were asking for a helicopters and understanding they had
Speaker 9: dogs out and everybody was looking for me.
Speaker 2: You you were on the phone as I Aparton made
Speaker 2: the textas were called, the police were called. There was
Speaker 2: two phone call from Jeff and from these people that
Speaker 2: helped you, VICKI and Kredel Gibsons and this other man
Speaker 2: named David Rowe that we talked about a little bit later.
Speaker 2: So what was his behavior? What was Morrison's behavior once
Speaker 2: these people arrived intervened on your behalf? How did he
Speaker 2: play these three people? How did he act and what
Speaker 2: did he say?
Speaker 4: It was so bizarre.
Speaker 9: I don't know what I would have expected. But he
Speaker 9: sat in the car for a few minutes. The witnesses
Speaker 9: all hear me telling none one one of the story.
Speaker 9: I'm yelling at the same time I'm talking to them
Speaker 9: I'm yelling to them, be careful. He's got a knife.
Speaker 9: He tried to kill me, he tried to rape me.
Speaker 9: I was afraid for their safety and I wanted dim't
Speaker 9: understand that this is a violent guy and they need
Speaker 9: to be careful.
Speaker 4: And for the first few minutes he sat in the car.
Speaker 9: Then he gets out of the car and he starts
Speaker 9: talking to them and to them referring to himself as
Speaker 9: he says, don't don't you know who I am? I'm Morrison.
Speaker 9: He just refers himself as less and.
Speaker 4: Don't you know Morrison?
Speaker 9: And they all three stop and kind of look at
Speaker 9: each other and they're like, no, they could just it
Speaker 9: took everybody. We were all shocked that he comes out
Speaker 9: and he's like, look, don't you know me? And he
Speaker 9: starts telling them that I'm just tripping, that we're out
Speaker 9: there together, that I'm mad at him, I tried to
Speaker 9: steal money from him, that I've made all this up
Speaker 9: and they can just go on about their way. This
Speaker 9: is just a little squabble. And I said, again, be careful.
Speaker 9: He's got a knife, and he said, I don't have
Speaker 9: a knife, and I said, he tried to rape me,
Speaker 9: and he said. He said something to the effect that
Speaker 9: I wish.
Speaker 4: That he would rape me. What a treat that would
Speaker 4: be for me.
Speaker 9: And he continues to talk to them, and so I
Speaker 9: believe it was Codell got out of the back of
Speaker 9: it is Codell or David got a pipe out of
Speaker 9: the back of their truck, and the two of them
Speaker 9: formed kind of like a wall between Morrison and myself,
Speaker 9: because once he got out of the car, he started
Speaker 9: walking towards him and then kind of around him like
Speaker 9: he was trying to get around them to get to me.
Speaker 9: So he continues to kind of shout stuff, and he
Speaker 9: he's showing it's a parent. He still wants to physically
Speaker 9: get a hold of me. Vicky gets in his sand
Speaker 9: beside me. She's trying to help me stay calm. She's
Speaker 9: just and I you know, here she's talking to her
Speaker 9: husband and her husband like, get the lady away, get
Speaker 9: the lady back, create some space. They're trying to keep
Speaker 9: him controlled, and they're saying, you know, you just need.
Speaker 4: To stay here. The police will sort it out.
Speaker 9: And I am. And again, I know this doesn't make
Speaker 9: sense probably to your listeners, but this whole time, I
Speaker 9: keep thinking they're gonna leave.
Speaker 4: They're gonna leave. This is dangerous. They don't know if
Speaker 4: he's got a gun, and they're just gonna leave me
Speaker 4: here with him. So I begged them and sobbing.
Speaker 9: Can hear me talking to the nine oneer an operator
Speaker 9: and then looking at them and saying, please don't leave,
Speaker 9: Please don't leave. If you leave me, he'll kill me.
Speaker 9: And I'm because I'm afraid they're gonna leave. I'm wanting
Speaker 9: to tell them, you know, the police are almost here.
Speaker 9: The police are almost here. And I keep saying, when
Speaker 9: are they coming? When are they coming?
Speaker 4: So we start to hear sirens.
Speaker 9: You can't see any lights, but it's from a it's
Speaker 9: from a distance. So we're out in the country and
Speaker 9: you can hear. You start to hear the sound of
Speaker 9: the sirens rolling over the hills and come up and
Speaker 9: meeting us on the road. And when we all hear
Speaker 9: that sound, we stop and everybody looks, and Morrison gets
Speaker 9: really nervous and he starts looking around. He goes back
Speaker 9: to the car and he pulls out a bag. I
Speaker 9: bagged it to that moment, I had not, but I
Speaker 9: saw it. All the witnesses saw it. He grabs a
Speaker 9: bag throws it over his shoulder, but before he runs
Speaker 9: off Kojel Gibson says, hey, I see the knife. Put
Speaker 9: the knife down. And Morrison's like, I don't have a knife,
Speaker 9: what knife? What are you talking about? And Gibson is like,
Speaker 9: I see the knife, and I remember said I see
Speaker 9: the dog gone knife, put it down. So Morrison walks
Speaker 9: over and tries to give it to one of the
Speaker 9: witnesses and he puts it on the truck and I'm yelling,
Speaker 9: that's evidence. Don't touch that, and Morrison walks down the
Speaker 9: road away from the sound of the sirens and hops
Speaker 9: the fence and we see him disappear into a tree line.
Speaker 2: You saw some things in that bag, you weren't certain,
Speaker 2: but there was a couple of things you saw for
Speaker 2: sure certain. What what did you see in that green bag?
Speaker 9: Well, again, first my thoughts, he pulled that and when
Speaker 9: it so, it startled me and I was focused on
Speaker 9: that bag and it appeared to have a roll of
Speaker 9: duct tape and a hammer and some rope, and I
Speaker 9: just thought, that's what he was going to do to
Speaker 9: me behind that barn.
Speaker 4: That's that's that's it.
Speaker 9: Unfortunately, that bag was never found. I begged and begged
Speaker 9: for somebody to look for it. I went out and
Speaker 9: looked for it the following Monday, but he had run
Speaker 9: off into the tree line. And law enforcement starts streaming
Speaker 9: in kind of one at a time. You know, it's
Speaker 9: it's a it's a rural area. They don't get a
Speaker 9: lot of kidnapping calls active ones. So volunteers are coming in, police,
Speaker 9: sheriff's deputies, they're trying to gather get organized. I'm freaking out.
Speaker 9: His I'm all of a sudden thinking about a trial
Speaker 9: now and evidence and crime scene and photos and what
Speaker 9: are we gathering and what's going on? And their concern
Speaker 9: is is you know, finding this guy obviously, And and
Speaker 9: so I call a friend of mine. His name's Steve Schoring.
Speaker 9: He was my actually my trial practice professor, and we've
Speaker 9: got to be good friends and he's a brilliant criminal
Speaker 9: defense attorney. And I'm just he answers the phone, and
Speaker 9: I just start screaming. They're they're ruining the crime scene.
Speaker 9: I don't know, there's nobody's doing anything, and like they're
Speaker 9: nobody's like collecting evidence, they're not taking photos, nobody's talking
Speaker 9: to me, nobody's and so he calms me town and
Speaker 9: he's like, just just talk to them, You're gonna be okay.
Speaker 9: He's trying to, you know, calm me down. So one
Speaker 9: of the officers came up to me and asked me
Speaker 9: what happened, and I just briefly explained to him, and
Speaker 9: he said, oh my god, you are abducted.
Speaker 4: And I remember I turned.
Speaker 9: Around and looked kind of almost behind me, and I
Speaker 9: was like what, and he said, you were kidnapped, and
Speaker 9: I just thought who would kidnap me? Like I still,
Speaker 9: even though I just had lived it, I was still
Speaker 9: not able to call it what it was or see
Speaker 9: what it was. I just found myself either completely terrified
Speaker 9: or in trial practice mode. How he was either terrified
Speaker 9: and sobbing or looking at the scene trying to see
Speaker 9: what we needed for a trial, and there just didn't
Speaker 9: seem to be anything in between. So they dispersed. They're
Speaker 9: out looking for him. An ambulance shows up, and a
Speaker 9: state trooper shows up, and for a while I was
Speaker 9: there by myself, and I thought, Okay, he's going to
Speaker 9: circle back around and kill me while I'm sitting here
Speaker 9: alone while everybody else is out looking for him. But thankfully,
Speaker 9: im As arrived very quickly. The state troops showed up.
Speaker 8: And he.
Speaker 9: Asked me a couple of questions, and ems kept wanting
Speaker 9: to check me out. I was bleeding and I didn't
Speaker 9: want him to touch me. I didn't want to be touched,
Speaker 9: and they kept saying. They kept trying to coax me
Speaker 9: into the ambulance. They said, please let us check you out.
Speaker 9: We just we just need to make sure that you're okay.
Speaker 4: But I couldn't.
Speaker 9: I was more interested in what's going on with the search.
Speaker 9: Are they going to find him?
Speaker 4: Where is he? Is he close to me?
Speaker 9: Because all I knew was he disappeared in some trees.
Speaker 9: I didn't know where he was.
Speaker 4: So I'm watching.
Speaker 9: The Bourbon County Sheriff's deputies and they they did an
Speaker 9: excellent job. They very quickly, so I could see their
Speaker 9: cars all kind of came into a circle. So I thought, okay,
Speaker 9: he must be they think he's in that circle. And
Speaker 9: they found him and I heard them radio the trooper
Speaker 9: and I said, we found him. He's you know, he's
Speaker 9: he's kind of hidden himself and he won't come out.
Speaker 9: So the trooper took off into the field and I
Speaker 9: was left there with the EMS, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 9: they have their eyes on him, you know I can
Speaker 9: I can let them check me out now. So they
Speaker 9: start checking me out and they put me in the ambulance,
Speaker 9: trying to make sure that I'm not, you know, too
Speaker 9: severely injured. And the next thing I know is they're saying,
Speaker 9: we need to get out of the ambulance. And I thought,
Speaker 9: you just spent twenty minutes trying to get me in here.
Speaker 9: Why do you why do you want me out now?
Speaker 9: And they said, well, the trooper wants you to identify
Speaker 9: the guy they found. And I said okay, so I'd
Speaker 9: get out the back of the ambulance and the trooper
Speaker 9: had his window down, obviously the back window was up,
Speaker 9: and he said, can you identify him as this the man?
Speaker 4: So I walked.
Speaker 9: Car and I just glanced beaucept did not want to
Speaker 9: look at him, and I just said, yeah, that's him.
Speaker 9: And as I turned to walk away, I could see
Speaker 9: how the queer of my eye. He starts wagging his
Speaker 9: head no, and he's screaming, why are you doing this
Speaker 9: to me? Why are you making this up? Why are
Speaker 9: you doing this to me? And I just snapped and
Speaker 9: I ran towards that car and was beating on the window.
Speaker 9: I called him and said things that I shouldn't say
Speaker 9: on your podcastings I've never said before. I might have
Speaker 9: made some words up, but it was foul and it
Speaker 9: was nasty, and I wanted him to understand. I just
Speaker 9: kept saying to him, you picked the wrong woman. You
Speaker 9: picked the wrong woman. You're going to die in prison,
Speaker 9: or I will kill you when you get out. And
Speaker 9: I was like, you don't have to come looking for me.
Speaker 9: I'm waiting for you, and just kept trying to get
Speaker 9: a hold of him. I just wanted to put my
Speaker 9: hands on him, because for the first time in this
Speaker 9: whole incident, I was I wanted to tear him apart,
Speaker 9: piece by piece, And if I had gotten my hands
Speaker 9: on him, I probably would have been part of me.
Speaker 9: Just wish if I could have for just a few minutes,
Speaker 9: because I just wanted him to know that he needed
Speaker 9: to be afraid of me at that moment.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk about what happens. We need to sort
Speaker 2: of move along a little bit towards and not cover
Speaker 2: every ridiculous thing that his defense attorney and he contends,
Speaker 2: needless to say, what this book really entails a lot
Speaker 2: of is your fight to be able to gather in
Speaker 2: for evidence to assist the police. You were an attorney,
Speaker 2: so obviously no, you know what credible, valuable evidence and
Speaker 2: what kind of evidence is necessary for the type of
Speaker 2: conviction that you wanted. So when he talked about you
Speaker 2: guys doing drugs together, ridiculous notion that you were having
Speaker 2: late night sex parties where you were performing sexual acts
Speaker 2: and it's all some ridiculous not that we won't go
Speaker 2: into it because it's all ridiculous nonsense, but without any
Speaker 2: evidence backing it up whatsoever. But tell us about what
Speaker 2: kind of charges with this, Gordy Shaw, What kind of
Speaker 2: charges were available for Morrison to be charged with, and
Speaker 2: your dissatisfaction with those charges and why, Well.
Speaker 9: They charged them with resisting arrest, which is a misdemeanor,
Speaker 9: and it had nothing to do with me. It was
Speaker 9: that infuriated me, which I mean, it's fine to charge
Speaker 9: him with that, But they charged him with a misdemeanor
Speaker 9: resisting arrest. They charged him with sexual assault, a lower
Speaker 9: level sex abuse type charge. When I was looking for
Speaker 9: tempted rate since he had a knife and he pushed
Speaker 9: them to my throat, and let me be clear, the
Speaker 9: only reason he didn't slice my throat open was because
Speaker 9: I had on a really chunky necklace with these semi
Speaker 9: precious stones and the knife actually so my net catebrasis
Speaker 9: and bruises. But there was a divot in the stone
Speaker 9: where he was pressing and pressing, and he had dug.
Speaker 4: So hard he dug a divot out of that stone.
Speaker 9: That was one of the pieces of evidence I had
Speaker 9: to beg somebody to collect, but I expected him to
Speaker 9: be charged rightfully. So with attempted rape, I wanted them
Speaker 9: to consider attempted murder. I wanted them, but they got kidnapping,
Speaker 9: which on its own, kidnapping in Kentucky is only and
Speaker 9: I say only because when you believe somebody's going to
Speaker 9: kill you, when they get out of prison, ten to
Speaker 9: twenty years doesn't feel that long. So it's kidnapping by
Speaker 9: itself is only attend to twenty year penalty, and he's
Speaker 9: eligible to be released after only serving twenty percent of that.
Speaker 9: So the prosecutors never explained any of that to me.
Speaker 4: I did my own research.
Speaker 9: So they charged him with one significant charge, which was
Speaker 9: the kidnapping. The sexual charge, which was I thought, very weak.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 9: A misdemeanor, and with certain crimes, if you charge them,
Speaker 9: there can be no eligible there's no eligibility to be
Speaker 9: released until you serve at least eighty five percent of
Speaker 9: the time, which again these other charges would have carried that,
Speaker 9: but what they charged him with didn't. So that night
Speaker 9: at the hospital, when the trooper told me what they
Speaker 9: charged him with, I said, don't get your blue book.
Speaker 9: I'll walk through the elements. I will show you that
Speaker 9: these backs meet more significant charges. And he wouldn't, and
Speaker 9: he happened to tell me and was being questioned at
Speaker 9: the police department. He mentioned what you said. You know,
Speaker 9: we were doing drugs together, and I was.
Speaker 4: Like great, Like that's great. So I got out of
Speaker 4: the hospital bed.
Speaker 9: And went and demanded a full drug screen, hair, blood, urine,
Speaker 9: whatever they could do to go back as far as
Speaker 9: they can go back, because I have never done drugs,
Speaker 9: and to me, that was I was thrilled that he
Speaker 9: said that, because it was easy to disprove.
Speaker 4: So from that point.
Speaker 9: Forward, I started drafting emails. The friend that I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 9: Steve Shoring, that's the defense attorney. He sent letters to
Speaker 9: the office. We're saying, you know, we think it could
Speaker 9: be more significant charges. Here's the evidence, please collect this.
Speaker 9: I paid for my I made car payments and insured
Speaker 9: my car for a year, even though I had it
Speaker 9: parked on my family farm. Because the car was the
Speaker 9: crime scene, nobody looked at it, nobody took photos.
Speaker 4: I took photos.
Speaker 9: I'm the ones who requested photos of my injuries be taken,
Speaker 9: and all the photos shown at trial were photos that
Speaker 9: I took. Nobody else took them. So I spent the
Speaker 9: first several months three months after this happened, I didn't sleep.
Speaker 9: Every night, I would push my dresser in front of
Speaker 9: my door in my house.
Speaker 4: I had all new windows, put in, new locks, exterior lights.
Speaker 9: Bought a new gun, did some training, didn't go anywhere
Speaker 9: without a gun, only went to my house and to work.
Speaker 9: I stayed home for five days after it happened. Then
Speaker 9: I went back to work, but I never went anywhere
Speaker 9: without my gun, and I almost never slept. And I
Speaker 9: was so exhausted and so tired of asking somebody to
Speaker 9: pay attention to this case. After multiple calls that I
Speaker 9: still have saying called here, this person knows this, here's
Speaker 9: a piece of evidence, I still have my shirt.
Speaker 4: I still have my necklace.
Speaker 9: Please come look at my car. You'll see how violent
Speaker 9: it was. You can see the mice damage the inside
Speaker 9: of my car. You know, anything and nothing was happening.
Speaker 9: And you know when you when you go to bed
Speaker 9: every night and you wake up every morning more tired
Speaker 9: than you were when you went to bed, and you're
Speaker 9: literally just waiting for someone to kill you. Because the
Speaker 9: last thing he said to me when I was pulling
Speaker 9: out of the car, when I was running out towards
Speaker 9: that truck, was it doesn't matter if you get away,
Speaker 9: I am going to kill you. And I believe him now.
Speaker 9: I believed him then he had just tried to kill me.
Speaker 9: Of course, I believe he's going to keep me.
Speaker 4: He's going to come back.
Speaker 9: So I'm doing everything I can, you know, without interfering
Speaker 9: in the case. I'm trying to build it and think
Speaker 9: about it. I'm talking to my friends and our lawyers,
Speaker 9: and I was like, you know, what's going on. Why
Speaker 9: can't I get anybody to pay attention to this. So
Speaker 9: at some point I was sitting in my office looking
Speaker 9: out the window, and I had noticed they were bringing
Speaker 9: some inmates in from another county to come to come
Speaker 9: to court in Scott County and it just clicked and
Speaker 9: I thought, Okay, here's my answer.
Speaker 4: My office.
Speaker 9: I went over to the courthouse. I was trying to
Speaker 9: figure out how the backstairs work where they bring the inmates.
Speaker 9: On my way back to the office, I ran into
Speaker 9: one of the sheriff steputings and asked them, when you
Speaker 9: transport prisoners, you know what steps do you bring them up?
Speaker 9: Because Morrison was being held in Bourbon County because that's
Speaker 9: where we were found, and I had filed charges against
Speaker 9: him in Scott County on my own the monday after
Speaker 9: I was kidnapped and filed additional charges in Scott County
Speaker 9: so that if he got out of jail in Bourbon,
Speaker 9: he would immediately have to go to Scott.
Speaker 4: That was my hope.
Speaker 9: I was just trying to buy myself some time that
Speaker 9: if he was able to make bail, that at least
Speaker 9: I would have warning and he would be then in
Speaker 9: the Scott County jail and I could do whatever I
Speaker 9: had to do.
Speaker 4: To keep myself safe.
Speaker 9: So after months of this, I thought, the only thing
Speaker 9: I can do to stop living with this constant fear
Speaker 9: is to just take care of things myself.
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Speaker 4: I came up with a plan.
Speaker 2: Now, luckily you talked yourself out or we're talked out
Speaker 2: of this plan, and you fought more justice the conventional way,
Speaker 2: the way you knew. But this is a great demonstration
Speaker 2: of the incredible fear, the real tangible fear that this
Speaker 2: man would kill you. As a bail hearing, you realize
Speaker 2: that he was living with his grandmother three blocks away.
Speaker 2: His grandmother was calling you to basically say, listen, you
Speaker 2: got my son all wrong or my grandson all wrong.
Speaker 2: Just back off. These charges. So yeah, intimidation and fear
Speaker 2: were just your constant companions. Now with this grand jury,
Speaker 2: thought that you had given Gordi Shaw, You tried to
Speaker 2: give Gordyshaw a bunch of evidence, but it didn't seem
Speaker 2: like anybody was cooperative whatsoever. You realized and you were
Speaker 2: told and people have said that a grand jury it's
Speaker 2: easy to indict. In fact, the grand jury could indict
Speaker 2: a ham sandwich. What happens with the grand jury, despite
Speaker 2: when you learned that Cordell and Vicky Gibson gave really
Speaker 2: strong statements that you thought supported even the attempted murder
Speaker 2: charge that wasn't laid. But what happens with this grand
Speaker 2: jury and the indictment.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm not allowed to know what happens in grand jury.
Speaker 9: It's all secret, other than I'm allowed to know what
Speaker 9: charges come out of it.
Speaker 4: I had asked that they.
Speaker 9: Present attempted rate and attempted murder and some other charges.
Speaker 9: I was told old by the prosecutor that they had
Speaker 9: presented it and the grand jury wouldn't invite. So I
Speaker 9: asked to hear the tapes because I didn't believe them,
Speaker 9: because just the statements from the Gibsons alone, without without
Speaker 9: me being without my statements being considered, their statements would
Speaker 9: have been enough for that. And once I demanded to
Speaker 9: hear the tapes, I was told there was a mistake.
Speaker 9: They actually never had presented them. I continue to politely ask,
Speaker 9: and then uh, not so politely asked, And they were
Speaker 9: never presented to grand jury as far as I know,
Speaker 9: they only presented the kidnapping and the demeanor charge and
Speaker 9: the sixth abuse charge. Now, what did what did scare
Speaker 9: me is that the one thing that the trooper did
Speaker 9: through all of this that I'm really grateful for, he
Speaker 9: didn't have to do, and I appreciate it. He called
Speaker 9: me after he presented to grand Jerry, and I.
Speaker 4: Said, well, what did they say about the rape or
Speaker 4: the you know, the murder.
Speaker 9: And he said, well, I didn't talk about that, and
Speaker 9: I'm like, well, if you're the only witness, he said, well,
Speaker 9: they didn't ask me questions about that, and so he
Speaker 9: I knew that it hadn't been presented, but he said
Speaker 9: there was only one question that was asked and it
Speaker 9: was a woman and she asked why did she let
Speaker 9: him in her car?
Speaker 4: And that question, I think is what drove me to consider.
Speaker 9: Taking justice into my hands because I just kept thinking,
Speaker 9: they'll never convict to my kidnapping. They're going to blame me,
Speaker 9: They're going to think, you know, and so I just
Speaker 9: thought that that we wouldn't prevail with that. So this
Speaker 9: all happened, like I said, with in the first couple
Speaker 9: of months after the kidnapping, and it was actually had
Speaker 9: a church retreat where I finally realized, Okay, you know,
Speaker 9: if I actually move forward with this, one I'm not
Speaker 9: trusting God to keep me safe, and two I'm no
Speaker 9: better than Morse and that I just have to regardless
Speaker 9: of what happens. I cannot walk with this kind of
Speaker 9: hatred or anger for somebody because I'll tell you, the
Speaker 9: hatred and the resentment that I had developed for him
Speaker 9: was changing who I was as a person, and it
Speaker 9: was making me bitter. And yeah, this may sound strange,
Speaker 9: but I'm forgave him and doing so was the best
Speaker 9: best gift I could give myself. That just took so
Speaker 9: much off of me. Now, when I say I forgave him,
Speaker 9: I still think he needs to die in prison. Forgiveness
Speaker 9: doesn't mean somehow he's off the hook or that we're buddies,
Speaker 9: or I'm going to make him brownies and go have
Speaker 9: a Bible study with him at the prison. It just
Speaker 9: means that to me, I no longer I'm going to
Speaker 9: them down and kill him. I don't have that drive
Speaker 9: to do that. I have accepted what he chose to do,
Speaker 9: and I think he needs to be punished to the
Speaker 9: full extent of the law. But oftentimes when I talk
Speaker 9: to Vixon, the most meaningful thing you can ever do
Speaker 9: is forgive yourself and forgive the person did it, because
Speaker 9: you do spend a lot of time beating yourself up.
Speaker 9: And why didn't I do this differently? And why didn't
Speaker 9: I do that.
Speaker 2: Let's get to the trial, because we have a lot
Speaker 2: of story to go to explain for the audience to hear.
Speaker 2: We have on the line the former judge Rob Johnson,
Speaker 2: judge presiding at this trial. Unfortunately, the line seems to
Speaker 2: be not very good, and I want to make sure
Speaker 2: that people get the story. So Sharon, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get you to continue with this trial, telling me what
Speaker 2: happens at this trial and well the plea agreement and
Speaker 2: some of the pressure that you put on. And it's
Speaker 2: interesting for the audience is not every jurisdiction in the
Speaker 2: world has this that our district attorney, a prosecutor, a
Speaker 2: commonwealth attorney would call you and ask you if a
Speaker 2: deal that we're presented were sufficient. So tell us about
Speaker 2: this trial and these are plea agreements that they presented
Speaker 2: to you. And your response.
Speaker 9: Well, the Friday before the trial was supposed to start.
Speaker 9: On the following Wednesday, I got a call to come
Speaker 9: in and meet with the prosecutor's office and I was
Speaker 9: so exc I thought, Okay, they're going to prep me,
Speaker 9: we're going to talk about questions, We're finally going to
Speaker 9: do this. And they brought me in and they told
Speaker 9: me about a.
Speaker 4: Letter that.
Speaker 9: Morrison had written in jail and he was writing it
Speaker 9: to his attorney. Basically, it's his version of the story,
Speaker 9: and he had one of the cellmates signed it as
Speaker 9: a witness, and that cellmate told the jailer. So the
Speaker 9: jailer affects a copy to the prosecutor's office because it's
Speaker 9: not privileged when a third party.
Speaker 4: Find it.
Speaker 9: So I got to read it and he basically admitted
Speaker 9: to everything. And then the prosecutor asked me, keep in mind,
Speaker 9: this is a year later so a year had already
Speaker 9: passed if I would accept a five year offer on
Speaker 9: this case, which would mean he literally would be available
Speaker 9: to be let out of jail the same day because
Speaker 9: he would only serve of that five years, which again
Speaker 9: they didn't explain that to me. I had to figure
Speaker 9: that out on my own. So I had a pretty
Speaker 9: aggressive negative response to that. Again, don't know what I
Speaker 9: should say, but it was a firm, no, unequivocal and
Speaker 9: tell them not to bring anything back up to me
Speaker 9: again that I would accept a life sentence, but.
Speaker 4: Nothing less than that. And the only reason.
Speaker 9: A life sentence was available was because this guy had
Speaker 9: a Lenky Fellon pass. So he's what in Kentucky we
Speaker 9: call it a persistent felony offender. So even though kidnapping
Speaker 9: only was ten to twenty years, being a persistent felony
Speaker 9: offender bumps it up to twenty to life, So twenty
Speaker 9: then becomes the minimum on just that one chart. So
Speaker 9: of course five years was nothing I would even consider,
Speaker 9: and I explained to them.
Speaker 4: He tried to kill me, He's going to kill me. No,
Speaker 4: I'd rather lose a trial than agree to five years.
Speaker 9: So they gave me a copy of that letter, I
Speaker 9: asked for it. I went, spent the weekend at Keiko's,
Speaker 9: made huge exhibits, stuff passed out to the jury, drove
Speaker 9: back Monday, had to borrow friends g because then it
Speaker 9: was were too big for.
Speaker 4: My car, and dropped him.
Speaker 9: All of the proces years off that I wanted to
Speaker 9: be prepped, and didn't hear much other than show up
Speaker 9: at the courthouse at noon on Wednesday. So I'm driving
Speaker 9: to the courthouse at noon on windy day. Again, haven't
Speaker 9: been prepped, don't have a clue what I'm going to
Speaker 9: be asked, don't know anything about what's about to happen.
Speaker 4: And I get a call from the.
Speaker 9: Trooper and he said, the prosecutor and the defense have
Speaker 9: agreed to twenty years, but the judge won't take it
Speaker 9: unless you agreed. And I said twenty years and he
Speaker 9: says yeah, And I said again, very aggressive no, And
Speaker 9: I hung up on him. And of course, and Steve,
Speaker 9: the same friend that I keep mentioning, he was driving
Speaker 9: me and he said, Sharon, he said, they're not prepared.
Speaker 9: They're not going to pursue the sex charge. It's a
Speaker 9: very likely you won't prevail at trial. He said, I'm
Speaker 9: not comfortable with that, he said, I think you need
Speaker 9: to take the twenty He said, I'm just we could
Speaker 9: not see any work that they had done to be
Speaker 9: successful at trial, and he said you need to take it.
Speaker 9: So I called the trooper back. Didn't want to take it,
Speaker 9: was mad about it, but I said, fine, I'll take it.
Speaker 9: And again they had told me not to be at
Speaker 9: the courthouse till a certain time because they were going
Speaker 9: to be picking a jury. And when I got there,
Speaker 9: everything had happened in the court. The judge had dismissed
Speaker 9: the jury, and I was told that they had recommended
Speaker 9: twenty years, and considering that, I was fearful that we
Speaker 9: would get a not guilty. You know, I just had
Speaker 9: a lot of mixed emotions. I wasn't sure what to think.
Speaker 4: Came back and.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 4: If you want to hear Judge Johnson's perspective.
Speaker 2: On it, I would say him, I'd like, I said,
Speaker 2: his line has been compromised, so I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to get you to tell his side.
Speaker 4: Out of this, Okay. So we show up.
Speaker 9: Several months later for what's for the sentencing saying and
Speaker 9: the judges what's interesting A lot of people don't understand
Speaker 9: is judges have no idea what goes on in the
Speaker 9: case other than what's shown to them in the courtroom.
Speaker 9: They don't know about the investigation. They don't know my story.
Speaker 9: They only hear it as it's played out in trial.
Speaker 9: And since since he entered a for agreed to twenty years,
Speaker 9: there was no trial. So judges get what's called a
Speaker 9: they get a report. A PSI is what it's called it.
Speaker 9: It's a precedencing investigation, and it gives them more details
Speaker 9: about the defendant and the crime. And then I wrote
Speaker 9: what's called the victim's Impact Statement, and I think I
Speaker 9: sent in almost fifty fifty different people wrote letters to
Speaker 9: Judge Johnson because I wanted him to understand the impact
Speaker 9: that this had on me. So we went to sentencing
Speaker 9: and I had Steve on one side of me literally
Speaker 9: physically holding me up because my hands were shaking, and
Speaker 9: I was just openly sobbing in court, which of course
Speaker 9: is humiliating. This is the court room I practice, and
Speaker 9: these are my colleagues, the bailiffs, the clerks, these are
Speaker 9: people that know me and see me work all the time.
Speaker 9: And except for Judge Johnson, I had avoided his courtroom
Speaker 9: as a lawyer because he was a judge in my case,
Speaker 9: and he had been an outstanding judge, and I didn't
Speaker 9: want him to have to accuse himself, so I avoided
Speaker 9: him at all costs. But everybody else in the room
Speaker 9: I knew quite well. So I'm sobbing and I'm crying
Speaker 9: and I'm trying to talk but no sound is coming out,
Speaker 9: and my friend Amy is on the other side of me,
Speaker 9: and she's pointing. I have like this bullet list where
Speaker 9: you know, she pointing her fingers, like tell him this,
Speaker 9: tell you know, these are my notes, These are things
Speaker 9: I want to tell the judge. And I couldn't get
Speaker 9: it out, and I just remember looking at him, and
Speaker 9: he looked so.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 9: I had his attention. He was leaning up over the
Speaker 9: bench trying trying to hear what I was saying.
Speaker 4: Steve was like, you've got to speak up. The judge
Speaker 4: can't hear you. So finally I get out.
Speaker 9: Basically, I want you to give him as much as
Speaker 9: you can give him. Twenty years isn't enough. He's going
Speaker 9: to come back and kill me. He tried to kill
Speaker 9: me once. Please do whatever you can to keep me safe.
Speaker 9: I was like, you're the only one who can keep
Speaker 9: me safe.
Speaker 4: And the judge.
Speaker 9: Commented on the sentencing report, the defense and their arguments
Speaker 9: and said something to the effect that he's one of
Speaker 9: the most dangerous men that he's seen in his courtroom.
Speaker 9: He's had a long list of victims of before me
Speaker 9: and now me, and that if he's out of prison,
Speaker 9: he's concerned there'll be other victims to follow, and that
Speaker 9: this was going to stop, and this is going to
Speaker 9: stop today, and that he has now been sentenced to
Speaker 9: life in prison.
Speaker 4: And I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: Definitely a life changing moment for me.
Speaker 9: I didn't even hear I don't even know what happened
Speaker 9: after that. Steve took my friends and I out to
Speaker 9: lunch after because I just kept saying, Steve, I don't know,
Speaker 9: I don't understand what happened. And we sat down at lunch,
Speaker 9: and you know, Steve explained, even though it's a life sentence,
Speaker 9: he's available for parole in twenty years, because in Kentucky
Speaker 9: life doesn't mean life, it means twenty years. But at least,
Speaker 9: you know, if he had been given a twenty year sentence,
Speaker 9: it would only mean four years past. Judge Johnson gave
Speaker 9: me I guaranteed twenty years and if I show up
Speaker 9: every time he's up for parroll and talks and I can,
Speaker 9: I have the option of fighting to keep him in longer.
Speaker 4: So we left that day.
Speaker 9: I thought, finally, finally I get my life back. Finally
Speaker 9: I don't have to take a gun with me into
Speaker 9: the grocery store to the church I don't have I
Speaker 9: can actually drive with my windows down or sit on
Speaker 9: my back porch, which I've done none of those things
Speaker 9: for a year. And a few weeks later I get
Speaker 9: noticed that Morrison has filed emotion to withdraw his plea
Speaker 9: and claims that he had no idea what he was
Speaker 9: doing on that day, and you know, to speed things
Speaker 9: up for the listener. We just went into a litany
Speaker 9: of all kinds of motions and excuses, and Judge Johnson
Speaker 9: did exactly what he should have done and held all
Speaker 9: these hearings, and there was competency hearings, and again in
Speaker 9: September that year made a ruling, No, you were perfectly competent,
Speaker 9: you had capable representation. The sentence stands. So they pealed
Speaker 9: it to the Kentucky Supreme Court, who essentially came back saying,
Speaker 9: you know, I think they thought it was too much
Speaker 9: time for a kidnapping because kidnapping in Kentucky is ten
Speaker 9: to twenty. So they came back and said he either
Speaker 9: gets a new trial or twenty years. And Judge Johnson
Speaker 9: said this crime was too violent and with his history,
Speaker 9: twenty years is not enough. We're going to have a trial.
Speaker 9: And so the only reason I ever got in front
Speaker 9: of the jury was because Judge Johnson made the prosecutors
Speaker 9: go there.
Speaker 4: They were not going to do it.
Speaker 9: So then we start what I call the second trial,
Speaker 9: and there's motions and motions, and they the defense tries
Speaker 9: to get the judge removed, the defense tries to change
Speaker 9: it to a different venue. They try all types of
Speaker 9: different things, and we head into the trial, which I
Speaker 9: would say to you there was a strong probability that
Speaker 9: there would have been a not guilty verdict if it
Speaker 9: weren't for the outstanding witnesses that I had. The defense
Speaker 9: did a really good job picking me apart, picking apart
Speaker 9: my story. For example, when I was on the stand,
Speaker 9: I walked through and I told my story on cross examination.
Speaker 9: Up to that point, no one had asked me any
Speaker 9: questions about the sex abuse charges, and again I knew
Speaker 9: they weren't going to I knew the prosecutor wasn't pursuing it.
Speaker 9: And Steve had told me, he said, look, when you're
Speaker 9: on the stand, if they don't ask, you don't mention it,
Speaker 9: you'll confuse the jury because if they're not going to
Speaker 9: pursue it.
Speaker 4: You cannot make them.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm just stubborn, I guess because on Cross I
Speaker 9: decide I'm going to talk about it. And I did,
Speaker 9: and I was desperately wanting that charge because I wanted
Speaker 9: as much time as possible. I just kept thinking, the
Speaker 9: minute this guy gets out of prison, he is going
Speaker 9: to come back for me. I need as much time
Speaker 9: as I can get. So on Cross, they're saying to
Speaker 9: me things like, you know you were so traumatized that
Speaker 9: how can we really trust your opinion. You're not testifying
Speaker 9: about what really happened, You're testifying about what you were
Speaker 9: afraid might have happened. And they went on to say,
Speaker 9: how did you get to the hospital that day? And
Speaker 9: I said, well, I was taken by ambulance. And the
Speaker 9: attorney said, well, why would the state trooper testify that
Speaker 9: you drove your own car. And I said, I have
Speaker 9: no way of knowing why you would say that he
Speaker 9: was there and actually got me out of the ambulance
Speaker 9: to identify Morrison, So I don't know why he would
Speaker 9: say that. And I looked at you know, the prosecutors
Speaker 9: questioning me. His name was Keith, and I looked at
Speaker 9: him and I said, I am certain that it's in
Speaker 9: my medical records that I was taken by ambulance.
Speaker 4: So this is my clue.
Speaker 9: Like, show me the medical records so that we can
Speaker 9: take care of this problem. Because if I was on
Speaker 9: the jury, I would think this poor woman, she was
Speaker 9: so scared she doesn't even remember that she drove her
Speaker 9: own car to the hospital, like it would completely discredit me. Well,
Speaker 9: nobody cleaned it up when they got up to do redirect,
Speaker 9: didn't ask me a thing about it. So when I
Speaker 9: got off the stand, I thought I just lost the case.
Speaker 9: They're going to think that I was so that they're
Speaker 9: not going to think I'm a liar. They're going to
Speaker 9: think that I was scared and emotional and traumas and
Speaker 9: because of that, I don't remember things accurately, and they're
Speaker 9: certainly not going to put somebody in prison for a
Speaker 9: life based on that, But it's right. It's at the
Speaker 9: very bottom page one of the medical records brought in
Speaker 9: by ambulance. I don't know how much easier I could
Speaker 9: have made it for them to clean that up, but
Speaker 9: it didn't happen. But thankfully Jeff Ballard, who was on
Speaker 9: the phone with me, he was the first witness. And
Speaker 9: I don't know if your listeners are aware of this.
Speaker 9: In Kentucky, at least, when you're a victim of a crime,
Speaker 9: you don't get to hear anything that happens in the trial.
Speaker 9: You go in hearing your testimony and you leave and
Speaker 9: you don't know anything else. So I had the entire
Speaker 9: trial transcribed, which those are the transcripts I use in
Speaker 9: the book. And when I read Jeff's testimony, it was amazing.
Speaker 9: The defense kept coming at him, trying to peg away
Speaker 9: at him, and they said, well, if she was so scared,
Speaker 9: why didn't she ask you to call the police. And
Speaker 9: Jeff responded with, well, what was I going to say?
Speaker 4: Say?
Speaker 9: What I did say, which was she's somewhere in Bourbon
Speaker 9: County and someone's trying to kill her. So he did
Speaker 9: an outstanding job. Codell and Vicki Gibson, they were outstanding witnesses.
Speaker 9: In fact, when Codell was on the stand, he's telling
Speaker 9: the jury how violent it was that they saw us
Speaker 9: fighting in the car, because I was still trapped in
Speaker 9: the car when they drove by, and he shows the
Speaker 9: jury how every time I tried to get out, Morrison
Speaker 9: would yank me back in, and he did it with
Speaker 9: such enthusiasm that he ripped the shirt he was wearing
Speaker 9: and you could hear it rip. And he stopped and
Speaker 9: he said, just like that. And so it was these
Speaker 9: great witnesses that led to a jury. And again from
Speaker 9: the stand, I looked at the jury and told them,
Speaker 9: I said, you're sentencing both of us today. You're either
Speaker 9: going to sentence him to life or me, because the
Speaker 9: minute he gets out of jail, my life is over.
Speaker 9: So when you go back to delivery, you have to
Speaker 9: decide who you're going to give life to. And they
Speaker 9: did not convict them the sex abuse charge because they
Speaker 9: had no reason too. They were given no evidence, wasn't
Speaker 9: even it wasn't mentioned in opening, it wasn't mentioned in
Speaker 9: the prosecution's closing. But they did convict on the kidnapping
Speaker 9: and because of his prior history they were able to
Speaker 9: give him life. And they did, and well, they recommend it,
Speaker 9: it's just a recommendation. The judge always has final sentence
Speaker 9: in so he showed up again in front of Judge
Speaker 9: Johnson's p sentacing.
Speaker 4: Did you have a quess result?
Speaker 2: And the result?
Speaker 9: Well, I knew that the jury had recommended life, and
Speaker 9: you would think I would walk in the room fairly
Speaker 9: confident because he'd given him life before and the jury
Speaker 9: recommended life. But this is just you know, when it's
Speaker 9: your when it's your life, there's no I waside once again.
Speaker 9: I stood in front of him and I shook and
Speaker 9: I cried. And when we were before the judge walked
Speaker 9: in the room, they had us all walk up right
Speaker 9: to the bench, and there were a couple of bailiffs,
Speaker 9: the prosecutors that had been the lead, and the case
Speaker 9: wasn't there, Gordie was there, not Keith, and everybody was
Speaker 9: kind of mingling and chatting, and Morrison leans over and
Speaker 9: starts getting aggressive with me. So I just yelled at
Speaker 9: the top of my voice, are you all gonna let
Speaker 9: him do this to me? Are you gonna let him
Speaker 9: threaten me, are you gonna let him talk to me
Speaker 9: like this? And honestly, I did it loud enough, hoping
Speaker 9: the judge would hear. I wanted the judge to know
Speaker 9: that even at this moment, he is still trying to
Speaker 9: intimidate me and threaten me. So when the judge came
Speaker 9: in the room, you know, Morrison gave his plea, told
Speaker 9: the judge how he'd found Jesus and was living for
Speaker 9: everybody else now, and I gave him my plea and
Speaker 9: again told him that the only reason that I was
Speaker 9: there to speak on my own behalf was because the
Speaker 9: defendant had failed at his plan. His plan was to
Speaker 9: kill me, and that that should have been my mother
Speaker 9: standing there begging for a sentence, because I would be
Speaker 9: dead if the defendant had gotten what he wanted, and
Speaker 9: it was only because he failed that I was there.
Speaker 9: And the judge listened and again was very detailed in
Speaker 9: his sentence, and I asked him the prosecutor didn't, but
Speaker 9: I asked him if he could do anything to discourage
Speaker 9: the pro board from giving him any type of relief,
Speaker 9: that that would obviously mean the world to me. And
Speaker 9: I thanked him for letting me speak and told him
Speaker 9: that he was it's up to him that he was
Speaker 9: going to give me my life back, or there would
Speaker 9: be a date in tom certain that things would be
Speaker 9: over for me.
Speaker 4: And he again.
Speaker 9: He meant, you know, at this point he'd heard the trial,
Speaker 9: so he knew the evidence, and he knew the witness' testimony,
Speaker 9: and even the expert that the defense brought in spoke
Speaker 9: that the defendant was manipulative and calculating. And so he
Speaker 9: again sendenced him to life and said that he found
Speaker 9: him to be a threat to society and there weren't
Speaker 9: going to be any more victims after me, and he
Speaker 9: send them to life. And again I've melted.
Speaker 4: Down in the webt And two years later his appeal was.
Speaker 9: Exhausted with the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, thankfully
Speaker 9: this time upheld it. And so I have till March
Speaker 9: of twenty twenty six to.
Speaker 4: Not have to look over my shoulder.
Speaker 2: What happened January thirtieth, two thousand and eight, Bourbon County.
Speaker 2: You tell us what your aspirations were, what happened in that.
Speaker 9: Regard January thirtieth of two thousand and.
Speaker 2: Eight, eighteen pardon me, oh, okay, that's.
Speaker 9: Okay, well, I drove to Frankfurt and filed papers to
Speaker 9: run for the Commonwealth Attorney's office. The office that prosecuted
Speaker 9: my case is were not called district attorneys in Kentucky.
Speaker 9: It's the Commonwealth attorney, right and these I ran against
Speaker 9: the men that prosecuted my case. So I filed to
Speaker 9: run against them. I called them and said, I appreciate
Speaker 9: the things that you did do, but as you know,
Speaker 9: I was horrified by the longest of things that weren't done,
Speaker 9: and I would I want to do better. I don't
Speaker 9: want anybody to have to feel the fear and desperation
Speaker 9: that I felt for so long. And before I ran,
Speaker 9: I was. I went to the courthouse and read my
Speaker 9: file and I get early on the case. Judge Johnson
Speaker 9: upped Morrison's bond.
Speaker 4: To a million dollars full cash. Nobody ever told me.
Speaker 9: I missed years of sleep thinking he could get out
Speaker 9: any day. And if I had known that, I would
Speaker 9: have I would have never planned to kill him.
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't think I had to, But just little things
Speaker 9: like that, they just weren't attended to. So I filed
Speaker 9: the rhyme I campaigned. The campaign was rough because of
Speaker 9: the very people that you know were supposed to have
Speaker 9: prosecuted my case attacked me and they said I was
Speaker 9: lying about this the case. So I posted the Supreme
Speaker 9: Court ruling and said, read it for yourself, you know,
Speaker 9: read it for yourself. And I won a significant margin.
Speaker 9: And since that time, I've been running the office and
Speaker 9: we do things very differently. I'm very proud of what
Speaker 9: we do. It's very different for crime victims around here now.
Speaker 9: And what's very interesting, November eighth is the day so
Speaker 9: I won my election in November twenty eighteen. A few
Speaker 9: days after November eighth, I called Judge Johnson.
Speaker 4: I keep in mind, I.
Speaker 9: Have been in all of this man because he was
Speaker 9: an excellent judge, and I avoided him, had spent ten
Speaker 9: minutes around him all these years. But he had been
Speaker 9: our circuit judge for twelve years and then he moved
Speaker 9: up to the Court of Appeals for two years, and
Speaker 9: his election and they was the same as mine. But
Speaker 9: he lost his Court of Appeals campaign. That wasn't just
Speaker 9: a completely different ballgame. That was eleven counties as opposed
Speaker 9: to three. And I hated to see him not on
Speaker 9: the bench anymore because he is truly one of the
Speaker 9: best judges we've ever had around here. So I called
Speaker 9: there's a prosecutor named Ray Larson. He's retired now that
Speaker 9: he prosecuted for I think more than forty years. He
Speaker 9: created victim's advocacy here in Kentucky. He was given an
Speaker 9: award by the White House. He and Gale Wit are
Speaker 9: just champions for victims. So he had been a mentor
Speaker 9: to me through the campaign. So I called him November
Speaker 9: eight and I said, what do you think if I
Speaker 9: called Judge Johnson and asked him to come work with me.
Speaker 9: He said, well, if you can get him, that would
Speaker 9: be amazing, like because obviously he's going to bring gravitas
Speaker 9: to the office, a wealth of knowledge and history. And
Speaker 9: I thought, I don't have anything to pay him. He's
Speaker 9: being courted by all these big firms because they all
Speaker 9: want this Court of Appeals judge on their letterhead. So
Speaker 9: I was very nervous when I called him, and I
Speaker 9: was talking fast and giving them all these reasons why
Speaker 9: be so great for community service?
Speaker 4: And no, he's not gonna get paid anything, but wouldn't
Speaker 4: that feel great to work for the community.
Speaker 9: And he said he'd consider it, and a few days
Speaker 9: later he called me back and said he'd take the job.
Speaker 9: Then we started working together in December of eighteen and
Speaker 9: the best part of the story is November eighth of
Speaker 9: twenty nineteen, exactly a year later he proposed and we
Speaker 9: are now engaged. So I get to marry.
Speaker 4: My hero.
Speaker 2: That's incredible, incredible story.
Speaker 9: Absolutely you.
Speaker 2: Before I let you go, I wanted to mention the
Speaker 2: website www own your moment dot org that may help
Speaker 2: others that you have it's important to include in your
Speaker 2: book and also real true stories. There's a film and
Speaker 2: TV development company that has a little film clip online.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about if you have a
Speaker 2: website for this book, or how people might be able
Speaker 2: to contact you, your Facebook page, do any of that?
Speaker 2: Tell us how they might contact you or find more
Speaker 2: about this book.
Speaker 9: There is you can It's on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 9: And there's a video that a professional film company made
Speaker 9: for me and they're sharing used author page on Facebook
Speaker 9: and it's got the video with a fifty second video
Speaker 9: it's my actual nine to one one calls. It's very
Speaker 9: compelling that they can find out more about me on
Speaker 9: Facebook and on your Moment is really for people crime victims.
Speaker 9: And one of the best things I ever did was
Speaker 9: read Gavin de Becker's book, The Gift of Fear. Everybody
Speaker 9: should read that book. I have given out over one
Speaker 9: hundred copies, and I mentioned his book on my website,
Speaker 9: and on the site, I go back through and I
Speaker 9: walk there. If you read it, I walk you through
Speaker 9: the story of the second I walked out my office
Speaker 9: door until I was at the hospital, all the clues
Speaker 9: that Morrison gazed me that he was going to hurt
Speaker 9: me that I didn't see. And after I read Gavin
Speaker 9: de Becker's book The Gift of Fear, he teaches you,
Speaker 9: here are these indications that you're not safe, trust your
Speaker 9: got listen to them, and here are things you can identify.
Speaker 9: So I break that down in my story with the
Speaker 9: hope that people will read that and if they're in
Speaker 9: a situation like mine, they don't end up out on
Speaker 9: an abandoned farm with a knife in their throat, but
Speaker 9: they see it faster and they're able to stay safer earlier.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so I sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 9: I just would strongly recommend that he does an outstanding
Speaker 9: job teaching you what to look for. And then I
Speaker 9: try to break it down and a more simplified version
Speaker 9: using my story as an example.
Speaker 2: Right, and it's an incredible story. Indeed, thank you very much, Sharon.
Speaker 2: Kidnapped by a client, the incredible two story of an
Speaker 2: attorney's fight for justice, Sharon Muse, and I want to
Speaker 2: thank very much former Judge Rob Johnson had technical problems
Speaker 2: with his phone line, but thank you very much for
Speaker 2: Rob Johnson being available for this interview. Thank you very much,
Speaker 2: Sharon Muse for you kidnapped by a climate. You have
Speaker 2: a great night.
Speaker 9: Good night, yes, sir, thank you, good bye,