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Speaker 4: You are now listening to true Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 5: Good evening. Obviously I knew better than to take a life,
Speaker 5: but that was before before him. The day we met,
Speaker 5: in over of nineteen ninety seven, I was working at
Speaker 5: the District Court in Traverse City, Michigan, as a deputy clerk.
Speaker 5: It was like most other days with arraignments, sentencing, civil
Speaker 5: case hearings and the like. People shuffling in and out,
Speaker 5: everyone taking care of their important business with the court appearances,
Speaker 5: document filings, paying tickets, fines, and bonding loved ones out
Speaker 5: of jail. I loved my job. It was extremely satisfying
Speaker 5: and interesting, with constant interaction with all walks of life,
Speaker 5: including people on either side of the judicial spectrum and
Speaker 5: many in between. Suddenly there he was, tall, handsome and
Speaker 5: looking so impressive and important in his Michigan State Police
Speaker 5: uniform with his hat, gun belt and badge. A powerful
Speaker 5: man who had chosen a profession to serve and protect.
Speaker 5: He was extremely friendly and upbeat, smiling profusely. Best of all,
Speaker 5: he too was unattached. What could go wrong? He was
Speaker 5: like a dream man. We clicked immediately and began dating exclusively.
Speaker 5: But he was not a dream man. He was a nightmare.
Speaker 5: As I learned over the next twelve years. Twelve years
Speaker 5: of enduring domestic violence at its absolute worst, constant abuse, control,
Speaker 5: manipulation and threats, sadistic sexual deviance, and sexual violence. It
Speaker 5: was only going to end one way. Some one would
Speaker 5: die in our bed and some one would go to
Speaker 5: prison for murder. This is my story about domestic violence, resilience,
Speaker 5: reckoning and survival. The book they were featuring this evening
Speaker 5: is to Kill or Be Killed, a true crime memoir
Speaker 5: from prison with my special guest author Joni Ankerson. Welcome
Speaker 5: to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Ankerson,
Speaker 5: are you welcome? Thank you very much. This is an
Speaker 5: incredible it's an amazing story. Let's get right to where
Speaker 5: you grew up. Tell us talk about in Michigan, and
Speaker 5: you called it an awesome upbringing. So tell us about
Speaker 5: you and your family where you grew up in Michigan specifically,
Speaker 5: and what was so awesome about your upbringing and your
Speaker 5: parents and their marriage. Tell us all about it.
Speaker 3: Okay, I grew up in Traverse City, Michigan, which is
Speaker 3: in the northern part of Lower Michigan, and it's surrounded
Speaker 3: by Lake Michigan. Really one of the most beautiful places. Really,
Speaker 3: there is great family. My parents were married for almost
Speaker 3: sixty years. My dad was the youngest of eleven kids.
Speaker 3: So I have a huge family, lots of aunts and uncles,
Speaker 3: also cousins. In Michigan where I live, all the seasons
Speaker 3: there's winter, some or spring fall, and they're all perfection
Speaker 3: to how they're supposed to be. It was just we
Speaker 3: had a great family, a great you know, we didn't
Speaker 3: have a lot of money, but we were happy and
Speaker 3: loved and we're always shown love and taught really good things.
Speaker 5: Right, you talked about that you were always your parents
Speaker 5: were pretty open minded, and you've children were free to
Speaker 5: express yourselves. And again you see that you saw a
Speaker 5: very loving and loving marriage by your parents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really extraordinary. You know, there's not many
Speaker 3: people that have that. It was really true love until
Speaker 3: the end.
Speaker 5: What about high school for you and socially where you accepted.
Speaker 5: How did you do in school? Tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about that before we talked about your first marriage.
Speaker 3: Okay, No, high school was good. I had lots of friends.
Speaker 3: I was really in the quickly, you know, the clickie part.
Speaker 3: We went out a lot, you know, back in those
Speaker 3: days we'd go out and drinking and driving and all
Speaker 3: that stuff. But I had lots of friends and really friendly,
Speaker 3: and I think I was accepted pretty well.
Speaker 5: And the relationship with your parents was great, the relationship
Speaker 5: with your father. Even though you have the typical growing
Speaker 5: pains in terms of teen angst will say, or teenage life,
Speaker 5: you didn't really get in any trouble and you still
Speaker 5: had a good relationship with your family and friends. There
Speaker 5: was nothing out of the ordinary in your.
Speaker 3: No, nothing with no addition or drinking or Yeah, my
Speaker 3: parents were really open. I mean we could talk to
Speaker 3: them about anything. They were always really accepting. Of course
Speaker 3: we got in trouble, but it was always a lesson
Speaker 3: they did. I really grew up with values and respect
Speaker 3: and honesty and just the good things that you're supposed
Speaker 3: to have, you know as a person, really.
Speaker 5: And your self esteem as well that you were again were.
Speaker 5: You went in the most popular kids, but you were
Speaker 5: certainly not an outcast or anything. And you had the
Speaker 5: love from your parents and your close friends, so you
Speaker 5: didn't have any self esteem issues or anything. But tell
Speaker 5: us about tell us about your early relationships and then
Speaker 5: leading up to this early marriage.
Speaker 3: I always had a boyfriend. I think that was always
Speaker 3: important to me for whatever reason. Excuse me. I met
Speaker 3: my first husband just outside of high school, and you know,
Speaker 3: we fell in love right away, and we were really
Speaker 3: a whole lot alike. And I wanted to get married early.
Speaker 3: I wanted to have kids. It was just what I
Speaker 3: I grew up with such a great example, and that's
Speaker 3: what I wanted for myself.
Speaker 5: Right now you had, you say, you had a father,
Speaker 5: father of two kids. This relationship lasted five years. You
Speaker 5: were very young when you met. What was the how
Speaker 5: did you guys kind of drift apart? What really happened
Speaker 5: in this sort of wow? You know, the relationship evolved,
Speaker 5: and so did you?
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I think we both evolved because we were
Speaker 3: twenty when we got married and in love, and I
Speaker 3: think we kind of we were too young. When we
Speaker 3: got married. He became very he was more interested in
Speaker 3: what was going on outside of our family life. Who
Speaker 3: was kind of a selfish person, I always thought, and
Speaker 3: I just we weren't happy together. And when we split
Speaker 3: up and decided to get a divorce, it actually we
Speaker 3: agreed on that. I mean, I can remember being arm
Speaker 3: and arm walking down Front Street talking about getting a
Speaker 3: divorce and how we needed to do that and we're
Speaker 3: going to make it work for the kids.
Speaker 5: Right now, you say it worked out for five years,
Speaker 5: and of course he was a good father after that.
Speaker 5: You just mentioned. Now you start working for an attorney,
Speaker 5: So tell us about what happened working for this attorney
Speaker 5: and what that led to, and tell us about that
Speaker 5: relationship that ensued.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I worked for attorneys right out of high school.
Speaker 3: I worked for several different firms in Treverorse City, and
Speaker 3: I ended up at a smaller firm, two partner firm.
Speaker 3: They did criminal work, divorce work, and one of the
Speaker 3: attorneys that was a partner there, he and I began dating,
Speaker 3: which was really exciting for me. You know, I had
Speaker 3: just been divorced and he was a really nice guy,
Speaker 3: and that was a really great time in my life.
Speaker 5: What happened in that relationship that changed that though, and
Speaker 5: you talk about a car accident your aunt and uncle.
Speaker 5: Tell us what happens with the relationship, and what happens
Speaker 5: is this accident, how does it affect you?
Speaker 3: Well, the accident was my favorite aunt and uncle. We
Speaker 3: had spent all kinds of time growing up. They had
Speaker 3: five kids, our family had four. We were very very
Speaker 3: close with them. We saw them probably every weekend, always
Speaker 3: did family things together, and for whatever reason, I still
Speaker 3: don't really understand it, they were killed in a car
Speaker 3: accident and that really deeply affected me. And I became
Speaker 3: depressed and anxiety, and I was really sick with migraines
Speaker 3: and I just was in really bad shape. And that
Speaker 3: didn't go over very well with my marriage because my
Speaker 3: husband didn't you know, you don't ever want your supposed
Speaker 3: to be like that. I guess I didn't want to
Speaker 3: get a divorce, but that's what happened, and then it
Speaker 3: just kind of is how it all worked out.
Speaker 5: Now. At that time, you had some psychological problems, like
Speaker 5: you mentioned about depression and this affecting you with anxiety
Speaker 5: as well. Were there any visits officially to see anybody
Speaker 5: at that time regarding this? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was actually in the psychological ward at the
Speaker 3: hospital here in town a couple of different times. Just willingly,
Speaker 3: I knew I needed to try to get myself together.
Speaker 3: I never could really figure out why I was so
Speaker 3: depressed and was why I was turned upside down? I
Speaker 3: felt like and I think that's kind of the case
Speaker 3: with mental illness. You don't ever really know why you're
Speaker 3: feeling the way you are, and it was a really
Speaker 3: hard road for a while.
Speaker 5: You also experienced some at least the thoughts of suicide
Speaker 5: around this time as well, if not more so.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, I actually tried to take my life after
Speaker 3: my second husband and I got divorced.
Speaker 5: I was just.
Speaker 3: Really depressed. I felt miserable, I felt lost, I felt
Speaker 3: I think, defeated, and I didn't like myself because I
Speaker 3: hadn't been able to make my marriage work again. And
Speaker 3: that's a hard thing for me because I again I
Speaker 3: had such a great example with my parents, and that
Speaker 3: was I think I put so much pressure on myself.
Speaker 3: I think that now. Of course, twenty twenty hindsights, you know, easy, but.
Speaker 5: Yeah, now tell us what happens. I'm not sure of
Speaker 5: the years of its ninety six or later ninety seven,
Speaker 5: but you were employed at the County District Courthouse serving
Speaker 5: as a clerk in the civil division and after three
Speaker 5: years in the criminal department, and you were a definitely,
Speaker 5: definitely clerk. What was your family situation and your living
Speaker 5: situation at that time, and just personally, what was your
Speaker 5: situation at that time before we talk about this faithful meeting?
Speaker 3: Uh huh. I was pretty happy. I was still working
Speaker 3: at the courthouse. I was living in town. My kid,
Speaker 3: my children and I. They were back and forth to
Speaker 3: see their dad, and that was all working out really well.
Speaker 3: I was I felt like I was gaining ground. I
Speaker 3: was working two jobs just to make ends meet, and
Speaker 3: you know, I had my job and all my friends,
Speaker 3: and I really really liked that job a whole lot,
Speaker 3: and I was just kind of floating, you know, waiting
Speaker 3: to see what was going to happen next in my life.
Speaker 5: And you, like, you say you really like the job,
Speaker 5: and you liked the job because of various things, But
Speaker 5: tell us some of the things that you really did
Speaker 5: enjoy about this job itself.
Speaker 3: Oh, I loved I loved the people. I mean, I
Speaker 3: loved the people that I worked with. You know, people
Speaker 3: were coming in and out all day long, It was
Speaker 3: really exciting working in the law because I had worked
Speaker 3: for attorneys, so the law always interested me. And I
Speaker 3: actually was able to get my court recorder's license and
Speaker 3: I did that part time as well, which is, you know,
Speaker 3: really exciting sitting next to the judge and hearing all
Speaker 3: the criminal cases and the civil cases and typing transcripts.
Speaker 3: It was just a really good because I come from
Speaker 3: a really outgoing family, were very voisterous and happy and friendly,
Speaker 3: so that job suited me really well.
Speaker 5: And you said, also you liked being professional. You liked
Speaker 5: getting that kind of attention and having an important job
Speaker 5: and looking good and dressing up as well, and then
Speaker 5: meeting the people at all loss of life professionals. And
Speaker 5: so this is how one day, one faithful day, you
Speaker 5: met you say, in October nineteen ninety seven, while you're
Speaker 5: working in Diverse City as a deputy clerk, tell us
Speaker 5: about this meeting, what that day was like and why.
Speaker 3: While I was standing at at the counter helping someone
Speaker 3: in that person left, one of the corrections officers, a
Speaker 3: female corrections officer from the jail, came over to pick
Speaker 3: up documents or drop something off, and her and I
Speaker 3: were chit chatting because there was no one else at
Speaker 3: the counter, talking about how she was single, I was single,
Speaker 3: and there was no good men in the town and
Speaker 3: what we're going to do. And then suddenly a state
Speaker 3: trooper walked in. You know, we had this uniform his hat,
Speaker 3: looked very professional, very handsome, very you know, really happy looking,
Speaker 3: really friendly, and so he came up to the counter
Speaker 3: and said hi to the corrections officer. I think they
Speaker 3: had met before, and we all three of us started talking.
Speaker 3: He said, well, what are you guys talking about? And
Speaker 3: I said, well, we're talking about how we're single and
Speaker 3: there's no good men to date. And he kind of
Speaker 3: laughed and said, well, well I'm single, and I said,
Speaker 3: oh really. And it was almost as if it was
Speaker 3: like an instant attraction, because it's funny because the girls
Speaker 3: that I worked with at the courthouse back then still
Speaker 3: bring this up to me today that they'll never forget.
Speaker 3: When he walked in, how I was like immediately around
Speaker 3: to the other side of the counter, you know, talking
Speaker 3: to him and almost almost egging him onto, well, let's
Speaker 3: go out, you know kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you certainly left the door open with that
Speaker 5: last statement there right half away what are you girls doing?
Speaker 5: Right away? You meet, you have a date. What is
Speaker 5: his aspirations as a state patrol officer? You find out
Speaker 5: almost well immediately what is this his aspirations?
Speaker 3: Well, at that time he'd been a state police trooper,
Speaker 3: so he was out on the road, you know, his
Speaker 3: writing tickets to arresting people. He always wanted to be
Speaker 3: He always wanted to move up the latter and the
Speaker 3: next step was to be a sergeant, and I think
Speaker 3: he eventually really wanted to be a lieutenant. But he
Speaker 3: had applied to be a sergeant at different posts and
Speaker 3: was denied. So we started dating, and he he just
Speaker 3: really pursued that and one day he got a promotion
Speaker 3: and it was really what he wanted.
Speaker 5: Let's go back to the dating, because without that initial
Speaker 5: great date, despite the you know, you might look like
Speaker 5: a faithful meeting, and certainly you encouraged it, and you
Speaker 5: were certainly ready for somebody that could walk through the
Speaker 5: door and meet them. You were talking about how hard
Speaker 5: it was to meet someone. What was it about this
Speaker 5: dating his personality other than his good looks and his
Speaker 5: you know, his stature and the swagger you say, and
Speaker 5: what was it about him that you instantly start dating
Speaker 5: exclusively with this man.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 3: The trust that I immediately had and the respect that
Speaker 3: I immediately had for him. In his position, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a police officer.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 3: To serve and protect and to keep everyone safe. He
Speaker 3: was just very I was very attracted to who he
Speaker 3: was as a professional, who he was as a person.
Speaker 3: I just thought, oh my gosh, he's a great guy.
Speaker 3: He's chose this profession to help people, to be the
Speaker 3: you know, to be the kind of the person on
Speaker 3: top in charge, making sure things are done how they're
Speaker 3: supposed to be done, following the law. That was really
Speaker 3: attracted to me.
Speaker 5: No, I know this. I don't know how to put
Speaker 5: this any more sensitive than this. But what was it
Speaker 5: that you instantly fell for him and sexually and then
Speaker 5: what was it that was not evident whatsoever in terms
Speaker 5: of the normalcy of the dating, the normalcy of the
Speaker 5: love making at the very beginning of this relationship? Was anything?
Speaker 5: I mean, was there anything? Pardon me, what you mean?
Speaker 3: What was different about that?
Speaker 5: Well? Not different about that? Is it that you say
Speaker 5: that there was this trust and then you entered into
Speaker 5: this relationship and as we will talk about this relationship.
Speaker 5: There was a certain there was certain things that you
Speaker 5: were willing to do again, trusting this man, being attracted
Speaker 5: this man. Was there anything right from the beginning that
Speaker 5: seemed to you surrendered any kind of mistrust and you
Speaker 5: did submit to this person completely right from the beginning.
Speaker 5: What did you think? Why do you think that was?
Speaker 5: I mean, you've been in other relationships, But what was
Speaker 5: it about him specifically? Well?
Speaker 3: I think it how I looked at him. I saw
Speaker 3: him I wanted him to be and he was for
Speaker 3: a long time. He was exactly how he appeared to be.
Speaker 3: I mean, I grew up you respect police officers. They're
Speaker 3: like really good people. They're they're great men and women.
Speaker 3: They're you know, I'm not really sure. But he made
Speaker 3: me feel so at ease and so comfortable, and he
Speaker 3: he was so good at sucking me in. Basically, I
Speaker 3: think I would.
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Speaker 3: It's more attracted to just his position and how much
Speaker 3: I was going to trust him because that's what I
Speaker 3: should do, maybe if that makes sense. I mean, he
Speaker 3: would never do anything bad or anything wrong, he's a
Speaker 3: police officer. I didn't think I could go wrong dating
Speaker 3: this man.
Speaker 5: You found out early on about his family. His family
Speaker 5: and they were from Oklahoma, and he had some siblings.
Speaker 5: So tell us about that meeting in terms of what
Speaker 5: you noticed in terms of the relationship between your husband
Speaker 5: Paul or you soon to be husband Paul and his family.
Speaker 3: He was the oldest of five kids, and his parents
Speaker 3: lived in Oklahoma, as did his sister and one of
Speaker 3: his brothers, and then he had a couple of other
Speaker 3: brothers that kind of lived around. But we always got
Speaker 3: together the week of Thanksgiving, and he being the oldest,
Speaker 3: I noticed straight away, well, he never talked to his
Speaker 3: siblings on the phone hardly ever. I mean I talked
Speaker 3: to my siblings all the time and saw them, and
Speaker 3: it was not that they lived in different places. It
Speaker 3: was just that he was kind of the odd I
Speaker 3: think he was the black sheep of the family. He
Speaker 3: was very different than anyone else, than any of us
Speaker 3: other siblings. He was very kind of a loner, very
Speaker 3: low law abiding. You know, he didn't drink, he didn't
Speaker 3: smoke cigarettes or never did drugs, my gosh. Or he
Speaker 3: was just very he was strange. He was he was
Speaker 3: kind of strange in a weird way. I mean they
Speaker 3: loved him, of course, but they didn't He never had
Speaker 3: much of a relationship. I didn't think with any of
Speaker 3: his siblings. There was something about him, and I noticed
Speaker 3: it from the start, but I just kind of brushed
Speaker 3: it off.
Speaker 5: How about your children's impression of him and your famili's
Speaker 5: what did they think of him?
Speaker 3: My family really liked him at first. I think over time,
Speaker 3: and it didn't take very long, they noticed the oddities
Speaker 3: that he had. He was. He was very arrogant. He
Speaker 3: was always thought he was right. Whatever you said really
Speaker 3: didn't matter kind of thing. But they respected him also
Speaker 3: in his position, and they they thought, oh, he's going
Speaker 3: to take such good care of her. He's just being protective,
Speaker 3: you know, he's protecting her. And they knew that I
Speaker 3: really loved him and that I was, you know, happy.
Speaker 3: They thought I was really happy, and they were happy
Speaker 3: for me. My family has never been my parents especially,
Speaker 3: they were never the parents to butt in or ask
Speaker 3: too many questions. My kids liked him because he was
Speaker 3: a police officer, and they thought, oh, this is great
Speaker 3: for our mother. But in time they realized he was
Speaker 3: just not controlling.
Speaker 5: I know, I tried to tempt to ask you this question,
Speaker 5: and again I'll ask this one because you've written this
Speaker 5: in the book and this will make a little more
Speaker 5: sense to the audience. Here. The first time you have
Speaker 5: sex with this man, he has piercings. What do you
Speaker 5: deduce from that? What do you how do you accept that?
Speaker 5: What is your sexual idea in terms of in terms
Speaker 5: of in a relationship, What is your idea in terms
Speaker 5: of the sexual boundaries or the sexual rules? What do
Speaker 5: you think or what do you deduce after this first Well.
Speaker 3: When I first realized that it, of course, I was shocked.
Speaker 3: I mean I think I think I jumped off the bed,
Speaker 3: and he was, of course kind of laughing and smiling.
Speaker 3: He was amused at my reaction, and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: my gosh, your penis is pierced. What in the heck?
Speaker 3: And then of course I looked at it and he
Speaker 3: had two different piercings. And I had never even heard
Speaker 3: of anything like that, never seen it, of course, And
Speaker 3: it didn't it never it hit me as odd, but
Speaker 3: of course I asked him about it right away. I
Speaker 3: wanted to have that discussion, why do you have your
Speaker 3: pen pierced? And he had told me that he had
Speaker 3: done it actually himself in college, which was in the seventies,
Speaker 3: which that really surprised me. After I thought about it
Speaker 3: some more, but then he did it on a dare
Speaker 3: and I was a little concerned, like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I've never had sex with jewelry. I mean, it just
Speaker 3: seemed really strange to me. But he was always very
Speaker 3: good at oh, it's no big deal, you know, I've
Speaker 3: never had trouble before. It's it's so it was. I
Speaker 3: kind of I brushed that off to It was never
Speaker 3: really it never bothered me too much at first because
Speaker 3: I was so accepting, and I realized that was my own,
Speaker 3: of course, first mistake that I just continued to brush
Speaker 3: these little things off and you know, kind of sweep
Speaker 3: them under the rug.
Speaker 5: Yeah. No, you're with him and meet him in seventy nine.
Speaker 5: By November ninety nine, he is proposed marriage and you
Speaker 5: guys were you are married in November ninety nine at
Speaker 5: the courthouse where you worked. There's no wedding because it's
Speaker 5: your third marriage. But what was I going to say?
Speaker 5: In that two year period other than these piercings, you
Speaker 5: don't see anything that really is obviously there's any big
Speaker 5: alarms for you, any any flags, any red flags going off.
Speaker 5: But when you are moving the moving day, tell us
Speaker 5: about the moving day? When Paul tells.
Speaker 3: You moving what.
Speaker 5: Years into this relationship? Two years into this relationship, you
Speaker 5: think he's a wonderful guy, and now it's moving day,
Speaker 5: what does he tell you?
Speaker 3: Yep, he gets a truck for me and I'm going
Speaker 3: to move all my stuff into his house. He wants
Speaker 3: me to live with him. Sure, I'm excited. I think
Speaker 3: that's great. And you know he had bought me a car,
Speaker 3: not a new car, but he had bought me a car.
Speaker 3: So we're got all my stuff packed and the trucks
Speaker 3: at his house were actually moving it in. And suddenly,
Speaker 3: just out of nowhere, he grabs me by the arm
Speaker 3: and takes me into the bedroom and shuts the door,
Speaker 3: and I'm not even sure why I did that, because
Speaker 3: it was just he and I there, and he proceeds
Speaker 3: to tell me that he's been having an affair with
Speaker 3: a married woman, but that he has decided that he
Speaker 3: wants to marry me. He wants me, he's he's done
Speaker 3: with her. And of course I'm already halfway moved into
Speaker 3: his house, out of my house, ended the lease, and
Speaker 3: I'm I don't I'm shocked, But what do I He
Speaker 3: was so good at saying this is I needed to
Speaker 3: tell you, but it's over and this is who it is.
Speaker 3: And I was already again halfway moved in. I just
Speaker 3: kind of went, oh, oh, okay, well we'll see how
Speaker 3: this goes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, as as well, you asked questions about his
Speaker 5: first marriage, because he's recently divorced, and you know the
Speaker 5: relationship he has with his kids, and the relationship he
Speaker 5: has he doesn't have, it seems, with friends. So tell
Speaker 5: us about all these relationships and what you notice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he doesn't. He didn't have really any friends who,
Speaker 3: like I said, he was very much a loner growing up,
Speaker 3: and his whole family had told me that. You know,
Speaker 3: he never went to high school parties or college parties,
Speaker 3: or he was always more comfortable by himself or with
Speaker 3: someone that he chose to be with. You know, he
Speaker 3: didn't like the troopers at the post. He never went
Speaker 3: out with them when they went out after work, or
Speaker 3: he never nobody ever came over picked him up to
Speaker 3: go here or there. He never went on hunting trips
Speaker 3: or vacations for golf or anything like that. He didn't.
Speaker 3: He truly really didn't have any friends. His children from
Speaker 3: his first marriage were older, and they didn't have much
Speaker 3: of a relationship with him at all. And of course
Speaker 3: in the beginning he told me it was all because
Speaker 3: of their mother. It was all her fault. And of
Speaker 3: course I believe.
Speaker 5: That you had other strange circumstances to the marriage other
Speaker 5: than those things that you had to you know, brush
Speaker 5: aside as you've mentioned some of his odd peculiar behavior,
Speaker 5: but there was things like who was in charge of
Speaker 5: the finances with the joint bank account? Tell us about that,
Speaker 5: and also just about this dinner at his post, and
Speaker 5: the time spent doing this this strange demand. By this time,
Speaker 5: you're writing that this is not a request but a demand.
Speaker 5: So tell us a little bit more about this development.
Speaker 3: Well, he didn't. I mean, he worked obviously at the post,
Speaker 3: and he was a sergeant, and he was sitting at
Speaker 3: the desk, so he was not out on the road.
Speaker 3: He always needed me to be with him even when
Speaker 3: he worked. And of course I look back now and think, well,
Speaker 3: he needed me there mostly because he needed to know
Speaker 3: where I was at all times. I would leave work
Speaker 3: and have to get him something for dinner and take
Speaker 3: to the post, and I'd have to sit there and
Speaker 3: eat with him. And it was very odd because he
Speaker 3: was working, I mean, turpers would come in, calls on
Speaker 3: the radio, we'd have to run lean checks on people
Speaker 3: that were pulled over, and I just sat there the
Speaker 3: whole time. And I of course at first thought, oh,
Speaker 3: we just loves me so much. He just wants me
Speaker 3: with him, you know. But it was always very strange,
Speaker 3: and it became even stranger the longer that it went on,
Speaker 3: because some days it was lunchtime and dinner time. So
Speaker 3: he did whatever he could to make sure that I
Speaker 3: didn't have any time to myself or definitely no time
Speaker 3: to do anything with anyone else. So it was always
Speaker 3: him or I was home.
Speaker 5: Now it's even stranger than that for people, you know,
Speaker 5: Doc listening to chronicle this kind of control. He sat
Speaker 5: in a washroom with you, Yes, he did tell us
Speaker 5: about that, that's any one for me.
Speaker 3: Well, he would in our bathroom. He we always had
Speaker 3: a wherever we lived. We had a master bathroom off
Speaker 3: of our bedroom, and he had one of the barstools
Speaker 3: from the kitchen in there because if he was in
Speaker 3: the bathroom, he wanted me to be in there. But
Speaker 3: mostly when I was in the bathroom, no matter what
Speaker 3: I was doing, whether it was washing my face, taking
Speaker 3: a shower, changing my clothes, you know, going to the bathroom,
Speaker 3: he had to be in there with me. And I
Speaker 3: never saw it as, oh, he's really that needy. I
Speaker 3: saw it as he's just so attached to me. Of course,
Speaker 3: at first it was I thought it was okay, it
Speaker 3: was kind of a good thing, until he realized that
Speaker 3: it's not.
Speaker 5: He cut up your debit card. And like you say,
Speaker 5: he's rarely you're rarely out of his sight. Sex is
Speaker 5: extremely important to Paul, you say that, and it seems
Speaker 5: increasingly so talking about sex, say at lunch or dinner.
Speaker 5: He seemed to be and I would agree, sexually addicted,
Speaker 5: but he wanted to be not to control, but to
Speaker 5: be controlled in the bedroom. Tell us about some of
Speaker 5: the things that he was introducing into your relationship, and
Speaker 5: how he would explain this why these things were necessary
Speaker 5: in the relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sex was main his main thing. It was so
Speaker 3: important to him, and yes he wasn't addicted to it,
Speaker 3: but he explained it to me at first and again
Speaker 3: he was always so very good at getting me on
Speaker 3: his side, and he always made me think that whatever
Speaker 3: his ideas were were mostly for my benefit, not for his.
Speaker 3: He wanted me to control him in the bedroom. He
Speaker 3: paid all the bills, he did everything around the house
Speaker 3: pretty much, so my one job was to make him
Speaker 3: happy sexually. He slowly introduced different things into that, but
Speaker 3: he explained to me that because he was a police
Speaker 3: officer and his job was that such, he was always
Speaker 3: had to be a control. He always had to make
Speaker 3: the hard decisions, he was always the person in charge.
Speaker 3: He wanted to relinquish that in the bedroom to give
Speaker 3: him some sort of relief from kind of being you know,
Speaker 3: the man all the time. I guess that's how he
Speaker 3: presented it to me. I could do this one thing
Speaker 3: for him, to make him happy and make his life easier.
Speaker 5: So at some point there is just a going along
Speaker 5: with what he wants. There is no it's not a
Speaker 5: born to you. It might be not of your interest,
Speaker 5: and it might be distasteful some of the things that
Speaker 5: he mentions and fantasized, but all in all, this is
Speaker 5: not a coercive. This is not this is not any
Speaker 5: type of abuse so far.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I didn't believe that it was. And truly
Speaker 3: at the beginning it wasn't really. I mean, we were
Speaker 3: newly married. This you know, he needed this from me.
Speaker 3: I was so willing to give it to him, because
Speaker 3: if that's what he needs, he does you know, he he,
Speaker 3: I will do that for you. I always I always
Speaker 3: clung to the thought that, oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 3: my third marriage. I have failed so awfully in marriages.
Speaker 3: I have to make this one work. I have to well.
Speaker 3: And it was easy. It was easy for him to
Speaker 3: do it because he moved me away from my family,
Speaker 3: and I know we haven't gotten to that part yet.
Speaker 3: But for the first three years we were married, we
Speaker 3: were gone, always, away from everyone that I knew, everyone
Speaker 3: that I loved, my hometown, and it was just he
Speaker 3: and I. So he was my only focus and that
Speaker 3: that's what he wanted. But I saw that as, Oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, this is great. You know, we're always together,
Speaker 3: We're always I'm making him happy, he's It's just really
Speaker 3: how it all started.
Speaker 5: Now. At some point, though, you keep asking questions about
Speaker 5: whether he has been abused, if there's been any abuse
Speaker 5: in his life, because increasingly the things that he asks
Speaker 5: for he seems to have no, say, the no ability
Speaker 5: to be satisfied. So newer, more deviant, more I would say,
Speaker 5: outside fetishes he introduces to this relationship. And you write
Speaker 5: at this point that you're very uncomfortable in this situation
Speaker 5: now sexually, aren't you, Oh, very.
Speaker 3: Very uncomfortable because it was constant. It was always something new.
Speaker 3: I mean, we couldn't go out again. We were just
Speaker 3: the two of us. I was away from everyone. We
Speaker 3: would go out to dinner, and the conversation was always
Speaker 3: about sex, or always about something related to sex. You know.
Speaker 3: When we got home, it was always sex or something
Speaker 3: related to sex. It became I realized it was he
Speaker 3: couldn't live without it, and it was getting increasingly worse.
Speaker 3: And it got to the point where I think I
Speaker 3: even told him more than once, I don't I'm not
Speaker 3: even sure I can make you happy anymore. You know,
Speaker 3: the things that you want from me, And it wasn't
Speaker 3: anything I was never approved. I mean, sex is awesome
Speaker 3: between two people, but when it becomes a demand, and
Speaker 3: he was trying to insist that it becomes some kind
Speaker 3: of lifestyle that he wanted, and I was just blown
Speaker 3: away by that. I mean, I didn't want that at all.
Speaker 5: At the same time, he's not a physically abusive to you,
Speaker 5: but you see him acting out physically, and some of
Speaker 5: the things he says can be constituted as some kind
Speaker 5: of a threat, I would guess. So maybe he tell
Speaker 5: us what he says, but how does he express himself physically,
Speaker 5: which is still pretty threatening.
Speaker 3: Well, No, he never physically abused me. He never bloodied
Speaker 3: my nose or blackened my eye or brokeny bones. He
Speaker 3: would grab me and I would have bruises, but he
Speaker 3: always said I would never hit you or harm you
Speaker 3: or bruise you, because that would be evident. That would
Speaker 3: be evidence for you, and that would be my career.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't physical abuse. It was very mental and
Speaker 3: emotional and controlling and manipulative. Everything.
Speaker 5: Now physically, what happens to your body, What happens physically
Speaker 5: to you as a result of this pressure?
Speaker 3: Oh, I lose myself. I mean, I'm trying to keep
Speaker 3: up with all his demands at the same time that
Speaker 3: I'm realizing, Oh my gosh, this is way out of
Speaker 3: the box for me, this is way too much. And
Speaker 3: I didn't understand it. I asked him so many times,
Speaker 3: you know, why this behavior? Why do you need this stuff?
Speaker 3: Why do you have to have this? And I asked
Speaker 3: him a lot of times, what happened to you? You know,
Speaker 3: how you talk to a friend or you talked to
Speaker 3: your spouse. Why do you want this for I always
Speaker 3: thought he was sexually abused as a child or something
Speaker 3: horrible happened to him, and I still believe that, but
Speaker 3: I never got a straight answer. In fact, when I
Speaker 3: would try to discuss that with him, he would immediately
Speaker 3: get angry and back off and change the subject and
Speaker 3: deny it. And he was just breaking me down so bad.
Speaker 3: I mean, I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 3: He was my focus twenty four hours a day, you know,
Speaker 3: other than when I was at work. Couldn't I always
Speaker 3: had the column.
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Speaker 3: When I left work, I always had to call them
Speaker 3: before I left the house, calm when I got home.
Speaker 3: Of course, if I didn't see him right away, he
Speaker 3: always always knew where I was.
Speaker 5: Always you talk about some of the deviants. He's interested
Speaker 5: in ashyxiation sessions as you call it, obsessed with masturbation, handcuffs.
Speaker 5: He wants ankle cuffs as well. He sets up so
Speaker 5: that he can be cuffed to the headboard. And then
Speaker 5: he has a fixation with your ination again, just more
Speaker 5: and more sexual demands. You start resisting him, you start
Speaker 5: denying him. You have this depression that he thinks that
Speaker 5: you're faking. This is what's his response to this, Your
Speaker 5: your behavior now, your resistance, your denial.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm I'm resisting him. I'm I'm denying him, saying,
Speaker 9: you know, and and with all of the abuse and
Speaker 9: everything that's happening sexually in his manipulation and control, I'm
Speaker 9: just I'm just becoming.
Speaker 3: Less and less of a person. Really, I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: there's I'm in bed days at a time with the migraine,
Speaker 3: not not able to move it physically and mentally took
Speaker 3: so much away from me, get so angry. He would
Speaker 3: insist that I'd be up and around. He would insist
Speaker 3: that I pay attention to him. He would that, you know,
Speaker 3: he would get mad and then he would kind of
Speaker 3: break down and sit on the side of the bed
Speaker 3: and cry and try to talk to me and what's wrong?
Speaker 3: And I needs you to be well, and I need
Speaker 3: you to get up, and I need this and I
Speaker 3: need that. Well, I've never cared what I needed, of course, Yes, So.
Speaker 5: You talk about things changing as well, that sometimes his
Speaker 5: behavior is completely the other way, because he's characterized in
Speaker 5: this book is very cheap, very controlling. You like an allowance.
Speaker 5: But there's this big house, So tell us about this
Speaker 5: this house and what this house seems to promise for you.
Speaker 5: But at the while he's building this house, what do
Speaker 5: you actually experience.
Speaker 3: Well, when we were building the house, after we moved
Speaker 3: back from being gone for three years, we moved back
Speaker 3: to my hometown and built we were building a really
Speaker 3: nice house. Is that what you're.
Speaker 5: Talking about, yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: And while the house was being built, we were staying
Speaker 3: in a motel, and that was of course really I mean,
Speaker 3: I was excited to be back home. I was excited
Speaker 3: to be back with my family. I was excited to
Speaker 3: be back in town. But it wasn't anything like it
Speaker 3: should have been. I was so secluded from even seeing
Speaker 3: my family, my kids. He just controlled everything. And while
Speaker 3: we were living in that motel for I think it
Speaker 3: was six or eight months now, I can't even really remember,
Speaker 3: I tried to kill myself. I got to the point
Speaker 3: where I just was devastated, and I didn't understand it
Speaker 3: then as much as I do now, of course, with
Speaker 3: all this time to reflect. But he just had me
Speaker 3: buried and I didn't want to live anymore. I wanted
Speaker 3: so bad to get away from him, but I didn't
Speaker 3: know how I couldn't. It was impossible.
Speaker 5: I felt, yeah, let's use this to stop for a
Speaker 5: moment for the following commercials. So, Joni, this is two
Speaker 5: thousand and three. You have an attempt at suicide. You
Speaker 5: write a note, You say, Paul, you're too controlling, you
Speaker 5: don't want to be married anymore. You long to see
Speaker 5: Jesus's face, and he took all the pills you could
Speaker 5: find in the house. But unfortunately you're saved by who
Speaker 5: and what does and what is his behavior after again
Speaker 5: the employees, that smooth talking that got you right in
Speaker 5: the beginning on that move day. What does he do?
Speaker 5: What does he do to convince you that everything is
Speaker 5: going to change?
Speaker 3: Oh? He he Well, he never even really talked about
Speaker 3: the suicide. That's what was so weird. He convinces me
Speaker 3: that it's going to be a whole new beginning and
Speaker 3: he's going to he admits to this sexual abuse. Basically,
Speaker 3: not in so many words, but he admits that he's
Speaker 3: not acting properly. Promises that he it'll all stop, he
Speaker 3: will treat me much better, He'll change. He knows that
Speaker 3: I'm really having a hard time with it. Agrees to
Speaker 3: get rid of all of the little things that we
Speaker 3: had for the bedroom that he wanted, which he does
Speaker 3: for a short time, but it was promises broken. I mean,
Speaker 3: he he couldn't. He couldn't keep those promises because he
Speaker 3: wasn't able to because he was so deep into the
Speaker 3: sexual behavior. He couldn't live without it. Again, he just couldn't.
Speaker 3: For whatever reason.
Speaker 5: He was a state patrol officer. And one of the
Speaker 5: very important things that we haven't talked about is that
Speaker 5: he had always had a loaded revolver in the house.
Speaker 5: What did he say to you, looked as loaded revolver.
Speaker 3: So you know, as all cops do, they carry a
Speaker 3: loaded gun everywhere because they can. His was always always loaded.
Speaker 3: Never well, it was in the in the the the
Speaker 3: sheath or whatever it had, but it was usually just
Speaker 3: sitting on the counter or in the bedroom somewhere when
Speaker 3: he was home. But everyone knew that, of course, that
Speaker 3: he was a police officer, and that his gun was loaded,
Speaker 3: and if they saw it, they knew not to touch it.
Speaker 3: But everyone knew that it was. He would always tell
Speaker 3: us that gun. If you ever need to use that gun,
Speaker 3: that gun's loaded, it's ready to go. There's the safety's
Speaker 3: not on. All you have to do is pick it
Speaker 3: up and pull the sugar and I he I mean
Speaker 3: even as even his daughter, who lived with us on
Speaker 3: and off during our marriage, knew that, and my kids
Speaker 3: knew that. But nobody really thought it was odd because
Speaker 3: he was a cop. So it was just okay, there's
Speaker 3: Paul's gun. You know, when we had people over, he'd
Speaker 3: put it up on the fridge or whatever, but it
Speaker 3: was he always made it very clear that that gun
Speaker 3: was available if anyone ever needed to use it for
Speaker 3: any reason, you know, to protect themselves or whatever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but saying that to you seems very odd in
Speaker 5: this reading. When I read this, well, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, eventually I realized that he wanted He made sure
Speaker 3: that I know that knew that, and he continued to
Speaker 3: remind me about that because I think that he really
Speaker 3: because I had attempted suicide before, I think that he
Speaker 3: would have been happy if I would have killed myself
Speaker 3: with that gun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, now you weren't ready for divorce, you write, and
Speaker 5: we'll ask you why you needed a drastic change. However,
Speaker 5: so what did you do? What did you do with
Speaker 5: this drastic change?
Speaker 3: I did? I was just I had lost I had
Speaker 3: been fired from my first job at that point, never
Speaker 3: been fired in twenty eight years that I worked, and
Speaker 3: it was all because of him, you know. I was
Speaker 3: just so sick and broken and wrecked. I realized, because
Speaker 3: I had had mental problems before, that I needed to
Speaker 3: get away. I needed to get I really felt like
Speaker 3: the fight or flight I needed to flee. I mean
Speaker 3: I left him a couple of times, but I think
Speaker 3: you're talking about the time that I actually told him
Speaker 3: I need to get away from here. I need to
Speaker 3: get away from you. I need a break. I had
Speaker 3: called my sister who lived in Lower Michigan, and asked
Speaker 3: her if I could come and stay with her for
Speaker 3: either a week or two weeks, or maybe even a
Speaker 3: couple of days. I guess I wasn't sure how long
Speaker 3: I wanted to be gone. So I remember calling him
Speaker 3: because I had been in bed at that point for
Speaker 3: four or five days, and I told him I wanted
Speaker 3: to go to my sisters, and he said, well, if
Speaker 3: you go, don't bother coming back. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: what do you mean by that. You're telling me I
Speaker 3: can't go, And he said, no, I'm not telling you
Speaker 3: you can't go. I'm telling you if you go, don't
Speaker 3: bother coming back. And he was always very good at
Speaker 3: not being very direct with things like that, but it
Speaker 3: was easy to get the message, if you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. So of course I was disappointed, and I
Speaker 3: called my doctor and talk to him about possibly going
Speaker 3: into a mental hospital. I mean, I needed to get away,
Speaker 3: and so I made arrangements with my doctor, and I
Speaker 3: called him back and said, I can leave tomorrow morning
Speaker 3: and go stay in the hospital for a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks because I really needed to get away, and that
Speaker 3: was fine with him. He would rather that I did
Speaker 3: that than be away somewhere with any part of my
Speaker 3: family where they may, I think, talk me out of
Speaker 3: going back, or you know, whatever the reason was. So
Speaker 3: that's what I did.
Speaker 5: Even Morod, before this happens, he rediscovers why not religion,
Speaker 5: doesn't he Huh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he grew up as a Catholic apparently. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that's true. I had always gone to church
Speaker 3: with my parents, you know, on and off growing up,
Speaker 3: and always had faith, and my mom's very spiritual. And
Speaker 3: he decided and he knew that, and that was a
Speaker 3: vice that he used to keep me around. He decided
Speaker 3: that he wanted to start going to the church that
Speaker 3: my parents went to. And he played the guitar and
Speaker 3: so he played in the praise and worship team at
Speaker 3: the church. So that was very attractive to me. Oh,
Speaker 3: so this will be great. We'll go to church, we'll
Speaker 3: make friends. You know, maybe maybe he'll have a have
Speaker 3: a healing of his sexual desires or you know, we'll
Speaker 3: we'll pray and God'll make it all right. So he
Speaker 3: used that to keep me around and to it was
Speaker 3: a ruse for him.
Speaker 5: You called a psychiatrist or a psychologist and we talked
Speaker 5: about suggested the hospital to stay and and you said,
Speaker 5: Paul was okay with that. But you also got to
Speaker 5: speak to somebody and speak to a couple of people
Speaker 5: and also were diagnosed. What was the diagnosis, and what
Speaker 5: was their advice, their cryptic advice.
Speaker 3: And of course when I when I stayed at the hospital,
Speaker 3: I was there for almost two weeks and never and
Speaker 3: I told him when I left, I was not going
Speaker 3: to call him. I was gone, and he was fine
Speaker 3: with that as well. I at that point I wasn't
Speaker 3: even really able to talk much about the abuse, which
Speaker 3: is really, I think normal for victims. I mean, I
Speaker 3: knew what was happening, it was obviously happening, but to
Speaker 3: say it out loud and to bring it out, bring
Speaker 3: it forth was extremely hard. But I had said enough
Speaker 3: that they actually told me that I needed to get
Speaker 3: of this relationship, not even go back, because they thought
Speaker 3: that I would eventually he would kill me. They diagnosed
Speaker 3: me with PTSD and chronic depression.
Speaker 5: I thought it was odd too that a doctor called
Speaker 5: your husband Paul about bringing his weapon home every night,
Speaker 5: and what did he suggest Paul do and what did
Speaker 5: Paul in fact do well?
Speaker 3: And I didn't find this out of coourse till later
Speaker 3: while I was at the hospital. One of the doctors,
Speaker 3: one of the psychologists there, had called my husband at
Speaker 3: the police post when it was working and said, mister Holbrook,
Speaker 3: we're really concerned about your wife. She's we think she's suicidal.
Speaker 3: And we understand that of course you have a gun,
Speaker 3: you're a police officer, but we really think that it's
Speaker 3: best that you leave that gun at work, you don't
Speaker 3: bring it home or put it somewhere where she can't
Speaker 3: find it, because we're afraid that's just going to kill herself.
Speaker 3: And of course he didn't do that. He continued, as
Speaker 3: you know, status call bring the gun home, and I
Speaker 3: never even knew that they had called him, and suggested that.
Speaker 5: Now after the hospital stay, where do you go for
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks? And what is his behavior after that?
Speaker 5: After this very dramatic, you know event from you from
Speaker 5: your behavior being quite different and this tragic event, Well, I.
Speaker 3: Get you mean when I get home from the hospital.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just what what is his behavior? Like? What does
Speaker 5: he plage to do? How is he how does he
Speaker 5: convince you again to come back?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Again? You know, he's so sorry, and he everything
Speaker 3: will change and he becomes the person that I want
Speaker 3: him to be again, and you know, he's nice and
Speaker 3: he's forgiving and he's all all of the good things.
Speaker 3: But but again he could not. He could not, for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, keep that up. He could not get rid
Speaker 3: of the sexual demons. And of course that was always
Speaker 3: his promise, I won't do that anymore. I promise that'll stop.
Speaker 3: I'll love you like I'm supposed to do, you know
Speaker 3: when at that time we're going to church. So I
Speaker 3: know that God wants me to love you in a
Speaker 3: certain way, and I'm going to abide by that. And
Speaker 3: he was just such a master at keeping me around,
Speaker 3: at saying all the right things, and of course praying
Speaker 3: on my my continued feeling of I can't get I
Speaker 3: have to make this marriage work. I will do whatever
Speaker 3: I have to do to make this marriage work. And
Speaker 3: I believed that every time that I left and came
Speaker 3: back that he was going to do that too, because
Speaker 3: that's when it's old me.
Speaker 5: Yes, now you talk about something very, very humiliating and
Speaker 5: real good evidence of his controlling nature is this. He
Speaker 5: needed a representative of the family to go to a wedding,
Speaker 5: so he takes you out the shop because you don't
Speaker 5: have the clothes. So where does he takeing you? How
Speaker 5: much does he spend and what kind of money does
Speaker 5: he give you for your trip?
Speaker 3: So he he's got a weird work, you know, because
Speaker 3: he does shift works. Where he works weekends is a
Speaker 3: couple of days off here and there. So his niece
Speaker 3: is going to get married in Oklahoma. And I get
Speaker 3: home from work one day and he calls me into
Speaker 3: the bedroom and says, Okay, so my niece is getting married,
Speaker 3: and I've made arrangements to send you to represent our family.
Speaker 3: I'm going to fly you to Oklahoma, to say, for
Speaker 3: five days for the wedding, and you get to go
Speaker 3: all by yourself. And I can't even imagine what the
Speaker 3: look on my face was because he had never ever
Speaker 3: done anything like that before. He would never let me
Speaker 3: go anywhere with myself. So I was very, very shocked
Speaker 3: and very I didn't really believe what he was saying.
Speaker 3: And I remember him looking at me and saying, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do something nice for you. I want
Speaker 3: you to go spend time with my family, go to
Speaker 3: the wedding, be gone for five days. I've already made
Speaker 3: all the arrangements, your flight arrangements. It'll be great. So
Speaker 3: I said, okay, yeah, that, And of course I'm thinking
Speaker 3: in my brain, wow, this is all awesome. I get
Speaker 3: to be away from you for five days and it's
Speaker 3: okay with you. So it was really, really a good thing.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'm getting ready to leave in a
Speaker 3: couple of days or wherever it was, and I'm trying
Speaker 3: to pack for Oklahoma because I live in Michigan and
Speaker 3: it's cold in Michigan and I don't really have I
Speaker 3: want to make sure I have enough clothes to take,
Speaker 3: and I don't have anything that I feel is appropriate
Speaker 3: to wear to the wedding. And of course he says,
Speaker 3: takes me into our closet and says, look at all
Speaker 3: these clothes. You don't you can find something to wear.
Speaker 3: And so I remember specifically going through almost almost every
Speaker 3: piece of clothing that I had that was wedding ish,
Speaker 3: and we decided together, oh, no, I guess there isn't
Speaker 3: anything appropriate for you to wear. So he agreed to
Speaker 3: take me shopping to get a new dress. And he
Speaker 3: took me to Goodwill, which is I don't know, always
Speaker 3: are good wills all over the place. I don't even know,
Speaker 3: like a second hand store. Oh okay, So we went
Speaker 3: to good will Will and I found a dress that
Speaker 3: I thought was okay, seemed to be in pretty good shape.
Speaker 3: And it was six dollars and ninety eight cents. And
Speaker 3: that's the dress that I worked the wedding.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he gave you seventeen bucks for shoes, and
Speaker 5: he gave you forty bucks for travel and anything here, Yeah, no.
Speaker 3: Card, forty dollars in cash to fly, you know, to
Speaker 3: be gone for five days. And I had no credit card,
Speaker 3: no TechBook, no bank card, no. And I looked and
Speaker 3: he didn't even give me the money for the trip
Speaker 3: until we were at the gate. He actually went to
Speaker 3: the gate with him with me, and I said, I
Speaker 3: need some money. I don't have any money. So he
Speaker 3: took two twenty dollars bills out of his wallet and
Speaker 3: handed me forty dollars, and I think my jaw hit
Speaker 3: the floor. I mean, I was surprised, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: kind of thing. And I said, this is forty dollars. Oh,
Speaker 3: you'll be fine. You won't need it any more than that.
Speaker 3: And I said, but I don't have a credit card.
Speaker 3: What if something happened. Oh, you'll be fine, they'll be
Speaker 3: just fine. Forty dollars enough.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you said at that time, and it seemed like
Speaker 5: a pivotal time in your entire relationship and in fact
Speaker 5: of your life. You say, you missed your flight, You
Speaker 5: stayed at the parents' place. The wedding was nice, the
Speaker 5: freedom was nice, you missed your flight. You were overwhelmed,
Speaker 5: and in that being overwhelmed, you had flashbacks. You went
Speaker 5: back to the hotel and you defied your cheap skate husband,
Speaker 5: and the clerk was good enough to use your husband's
Speaker 5: information to book a room for the night. Otherwise you
Speaker 5: got stopped in the airport, and you write that you
Speaker 5: had four dollars in your wallet at that at that point,
Speaker 5: and then again it was another problem the next day
Speaker 5: with the flight.
Speaker 3: So on the way back to the Yeah, the same
Speaker 3: thing happened.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So two nights where you were gone, and then
Speaker 5: when you come back, you say, the sexual demands increased
Speaker 5: what what were now some of the interests that he
Speaker 5: had that he was introducing to your relationship.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, it was just also statistic. I mean, do
Speaker 3: you want me to get graphic?
Speaker 5: Is that? Well? I mean it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was, he was he started to rape
Speaker 3: me and I know a lot of people think, well,
Speaker 3: that's impossible. How does a husband rape his wife? Yeah,
Speaker 3: well that that's very possible. And he was, of course
Speaker 3: becoming very extremely harder to please, and he wanted to
Speaker 3: be smothered all the time, and he wanted to clean
Speaker 3: me up after sex. You know, we would have sex
Speaker 3: and he would come inside of me, but he would
Speaker 3: insist on licking me clean and sucking all of his
Speaker 3: sperm out of me. And it was just just nothing
Speaker 3: I had ever. It was so degrading, so degrading, and
Speaker 3: he wanted.
Speaker 5: To construct a dungeon, and he had wanted to act
Speaker 5: like a dog sickening requests you say. And one time,
Speaker 5: what's even more, you know, more horrifying, is that there's
Speaker 5: a man at the door. Paul answers and lets him in.
Speaker 5: What was your experience and that day and what did
Speaker 5: you again conclude from you.
Speaker 3: Know, that was the one of us. Well, I can't
Speaker 3: say the strangest thing is up there with a lot
Speaker 3: of the other strange things. But it was we were
Speaker 3: all sitting at home. It was dark outside because I
Speaker 3: think it was winter. Paul was me and my daughter
Speaker 3: and his daughter were sitting in the living room. I
Speaker 3: think we had the TV on and he was playing
Speaker 3: his guitar and the doorbell rang and all three of
Speaker 3: us kind of jumped up to get the door and
Speaker 3: he said, oh wait, wait, no, I'll get it. I'll
Speaker 3: get it, okay, Fine. He walked to the door, opened
Speaker 3: the door, and a man walked in, a man that
Speaker 3: I had never seen, my children had never seen, and
Speaker 3: we were all just looking at the sky. And Paul
Speaker 3: went back and sat back on the stool in the
Speaker 3: kitchen and continued to play his guitar while this man
Speaker 3: is standing in our living room and nobody's saying anything.
Speaker 3: Nobody said anything, and we're just all looking at each other.
Speaker 3: We're all looking at Paul, like, what are you going
Speaker 3: to do about this? And who is this guy? And
Speaker 3: why is he here? Still to this day, I don't understand,
Speaker 3: and I don't I mean, I think I think I
Speaker 3: kind of I think I think that he obviously knew
Speaker 3: who that was. And I don't know if something was
Speaker 3: supposed to happen. I don't know if it was some
Speaker 3: kind of dare truly, I don't know. I mean, the
Speaker 3: guy just turned around and walk back out. That was it.
Speaker 3: But it was the weirdest thing ever, right, and you're talking.
Speaker 3: When the man left, we all said who was that
Speaker 3: and what's happening? And it just brushed it off like
Speaker 3: you did everything else. Oh, don't worry about it. Nothing.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, it was something, but you didn't. You didn't
Speaker 3: question him. Ever, you didn't push him too far, because
Speaker 3: that was not a good thing.
Speaker 5: You talked, you write about in the book about the
Speaker 5: increasing sexual demands for this his fetishes and this humiliating
Speaker 5: sex that he wanted you to participate in with him.
Speaker 5: But when you talked about rape, a lot of people think, well,
Speaker 5: how can that happen between adults? Maybe somebody doesn't want
Speaker 5: to have sex. We're talking about forcible, we're talking about
Speaker 5: we're talking about injuries as a result of anal sex.
Speaker 5: And these are the kinds of and i'd say demands,
Speaker 5: this is rape, This is anal rape, And these are
Speaker 5: the kinds of things that are happening in your relationship.
Speaker 5: At some point, one of those attacks, one of those rapes,
Speaker 5: you said to yourself, that was enough, Yes, tell us
Speaker 5: as you write, it was just about two days after
Speaker 5: the last violent attack. Who is at home? Set the
Speaker 5: stage for us what happens that night.
Speaker 3: This was, you know, nine years into our marriage, years
Speaker 3: after we had been living back at home, and it
Speaker 3: was just constant. I don't even know how I was survived.
Speaker 3: I don't even know how I was carrying on every day.
Speaker 3: It was just and I just I was having just trouble.
Speaker 3: And my kids were older, they were kind of out
Speaker 3: of the house, and it was just he and I.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time. I was having trouble just
Speaker 3: being around him. His near presence was frightening to me.
Speaker 3: I lived in so much fear because I never knew
Speaker 3: what he was going to want, or what he was
Speaker 3: going to demand, or how he was going to act.
Speaker 3: When he came home, he raped me violently for the
Speaker 3: last time, and a couple of days later, all I
Speaker 3: could do was think, I have to get out of here.
Speaker 3: I have to get out of this relationship. He's going
Speaker 3: to kill me. He threatened to kill me. More than once,
Speaker 3: and I knew that he was capable of it. I
Speaker 3: had no doubt about that. I knew, like I know
Speaker 3: my own name, that he was going to kill me.
Speaker 3: And I just decided, I don't ever want him to
Speaker 3: touch me again. I don't ever want him to put
Speaker 3: his hands on me again. I don't ever want him
Speaker 3: to talk at me again. And you know, I knew that.
Speaker 3: I really felt the only way to get away from
Speaker 3: him was actually to kill him.
Speaker 5: How quick was this plan hatched in your mind? Your
Speaker 5: son is home, he's upstairs, is he's sleeping, he's at home.
Speaker 5: So yeah, described how this fire that became from the
Speaker 5: last attack. You see? You know the guns in the home.
Speaker 5: You know it's loaded. He's instructed you many times. All
Speaker 5: you need is to do is point and shoot. You
Speaker 5: know the safety's off. You know you can't take any more?
Speaker 5: Tell us about this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I I because after he raped me
Speaker 3: the last time, it was over those two days before
Speaker 3: the incident, I couldn't even lay in bed by him.
Speaker 3: I felt like this evil like his evilness, just his
Speaker 3: his presence and his and his aura was would like
Speaker 3: push me out of the bed, like and I can't
Speaker 3: really explain it, but something in me switched. There was
Speaker 3: a switch that went off like a fire was burning.
Speaker 3: And I got up out of that bed. And I
Speaker 3: had been thinking about it for a couple of days.
Speaker 3: You know, I've got to get away from this man.
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't do this anymore. I can't, I
Speaker 3: can't live like this anymore. And of course that's not
Speaker 3: a normal decision that you make to actually think to
Speaker 3: kill someone, but when you're a victim of domestic violence
Speaker 3: and broken down and had left him before, there is
Speaker 3: no other way out in my mind. So I got
Speaker 3: up and I sat on the couch for about twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: and I thought, I'm going to kill him, And that's
Speaker 3: exactly what I did.
Speaker 5: Do you remember taking the gun, going into the room pointing,
Speaker 5: or how much do you remember? Yeah, tell us what
Speaker 5: you remember.
Speaker 3: Oh, I remember all of it. I got up off
Speaker 3: of the couch. All of the lights were off in
Speaker 3: the house. Of course, I didn't want him to know
Speaker 3: that I was even out of the bed, if he
Speaker 3: would wonder where I was and what I was doing,
Speaker 3: so I didn't turn any lights on. I went out
Speaker 3: to the garage where his car was parked, it was August,
Speaker 3: so his windows were rolled down, and his gun, I
Speaker 3: knew at that point was in the door of his
Speaker 3: driver's side. So I went out to the garage. The
Speaker 3: windows were rolled down in the car. I reached in
Speaker 3: and grabbed the gun and took it out of the holster,
Speaker 3: and I threw the holster on the seat, And when
Speaker 3: I had come out from the house into the garage,
Speaker 3: I had left the door opened a little bit. I
Speaker 3: mean it was very, very intentional. I mean it was
Speaker 3: very I knew exactly what I was doing, and I
Speaker 3: knew why I was doing it. So I took the
Speaker 3: gun out of the holster and I walked quietly back
Speaker 3: into the house, didn't turn any lights on, like tiptoeing
Speaker 3: and holding myself against the wall. Because at the time
Speaker 3: I picked up the gun, I thought, if he sees
Speaker 3: me with this gun, he's going to kill me. For sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm dead, but something there was a fire
Speaker 3: in me. I knew that I had to save my
Speaker 3: own life. I just knew it, and it was very purposeful.
Speaker 3: It was very intentional. I went down the hallway, went
Speaker 3: into the master bedroom. There was a door that went
Speaker 3: into our room, and I never turned any life on.
Speaker 3: I went into the room with the gun leaned kind
Speaker 3: of up against the dresser, and he was laying on
Speaker 3: the bed right in front of me, and I fired
Speaker 3: three shots.
Speaker 7: Lucky Land Casino, asking people, what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 7: gotten lucky?
Speaker 3: Lucky?
Speaker 1: In line at the deli, I guess a hide my
Speaker 1: dentist's office more than once.
Speaker 3: Actually, do you?
Speaker 7: I have to say, yes, you do in the car
Speaker 7: before my kid's pta meeting.
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 7: Yes, excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 1: I never went in town?
Speaker 7: Well, there you have it. You could get like anywhere
Speaker 7: playing at Lucky landslaughs. Dot com play for free right now?
Speaker 2: Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 7: We're not necessary my long eighteen plus terms conditions plus
Speaker 7: what every togashim?
Speaker 3: Didn't you know?
Speaker 5: Why him? Yes? Did you want to ensure that he
Speaker 5: was asleep to ensure that you would be able to
Speaker 5: kill him? Were you that afraid of him? Was it necessary?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I yes, And I know that sounds awful. It
Speaker 3: is awful. It's horrible. But when you're I mean, I
Speaker 3: think about it now. I've never been in trouble in
Speaker 3: my life for me to think back to that moment
Speaker 3: in time where I was so broken down and so
Speaker 3: wrecked and needed an escape so badly that I thought
Speaker 3: killing my own husband was the only way to accomplish that.
Speaker 3: That's unbelievable to me, but that's where my mindset was.
Speaker 3: I could not get away from that man, and he
Speaker 3: would not stop hurting me, he would not stop abusing me,
Speaker 3: and I knew he was going to kill me, so
Speaker 3: I and I'm sure, I'm certain he never in a
Speaker 3: million years ever thought that I would use that gun
Speaker 3: on him. There's no way he thought that. And I
Speaker 3: don't even know how I had the strength to do that,
Speaker 3: other than God gave me the strength because I had
Speaker 3: to save my own life.
Speaker 5: Didn't think of your son upstairs, But he was asleep,
Speaker 5: and he didn't hear you write that. He didn't hear
Speaker 5: the shots fired, but he heard you shout for him
Speaker 5: right after. What did you say to him? Yeah? Because
Speaker 5: and then what did you and what did you do afterwards?
Speaker 3: Because obviously I knew that my son was upstairs sleeping.
Speaker 3: He had it was summertime, it was August, he had
Speaker 3: he was getting ready to go back to and he
Speaker 3: was staying at our house and I and when I
Speaker 3: sat on the couch and went through with all of that,
Speaker 3: I didn't I wasn't thinking about him. I was thinking
Speaker 3: about saving my own life, and of course I wish
Speaker 3: I would have thought about that more. But as soon
Speaker 3: as I fired the third shot, I left the bedroom,
Speaker 3: went out into the kitchen, turned the kitchen light on,
Speaker 3: put the gun on the counter, and I went to
Speaker 3: the bottom of the stairs. We had a two story
Speaker 3: house and the stairs were all open, and I screamed
Speaker 3: up the stairs. I screamed my son's name, and I said,
Speaker 3: come down here now. I said, I killed him. He's dead,
Speaker 3: and I was so mad, of fact, it was just
Speaker 3: it's just I wasn't crying. I was just very this
Speaker 3: is what I just did. And of course he was horrified.
Speaker 3: I will never forget him coming down the stairs in
Speaker 3: his shorts and running like what are you talking about?
Speaker 5: Mom?
Speaker 3: What's happening? And I said, I just killed him. I
Speaker 3: just shot him. He's I think I'm pretty sure he's dead.
Speaker 3: And he's just looking at me like what are you
Speaker 3: talking about? And I said, you need to call nine
Speaker 3: one one. He was speechless, he didn't know what to say,
Speaker 3: so I said no, no, no, he said, I'm not.
Speaker 3: He said, do you think he's really dead? You shot him?
Speaker 3: I said, I'm pretty sure he's dead. Well go check
Speaker 3: on him. I said, I'm not going to go check
Speaker 3: on him. I said you could go check on him
Speaker 3: and I and I think I'm I'm He went in
Speaker 3: and turned on the light and came back out and said,
Speaker 3: oh my god, mom, I think he's dead. And I said,
Speaker 3: I'll call nine one one. I mean, he was beside himself,
Speaker 3: out of a deep sleep and he's hearing this. Of course,
Speaker 3: I don't really want to talk about that anymore because
Speaker 3: it was so Horrible's what I called nine one one
Speaker 3: very calm. In fact, one of my very good friends
Speaker 3: that I've known for a long time and work with
Speaker 3: at the courthouse actually heard the nine one one tape
Speaker 3: and said that I sounded like I was ordering a pizza.
Speaker 3: I was just so, okay, this is Jony, this is
Speaker 3: what just happened. I just shot my husband. I need help.
Speaker 3: Not that I need help, but this is what I
Speaker 3: just did. Basically come and get me, which I which
Speaker 3: I knew was going to happen, but I was that
Speaker 3: was okay with me. I was I was resolute in
Speaker 3: the fact that killed him. He was dead and I
Speaker 3: was free. I was I knew I was going to prison,
Speaker 3: probably for the rest of my life, but somehow that
Speaker 3: was okay with me because I was alive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you right that the officer arriving asked why did
Speaker 5: you kill him? Or at least when you were booked,
Speaker 5: why did you kill him? And you said he was
Speaker 5: an asshole and treated me badly.
Speaker 3: You know, he's a controlling some of a bit. That's why.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean I couldn't even I couldn't.
Speaker 5: Now your your connections in the with the law in
Speaker 5: that in that city, and your your job with attorneys
Speaker 5: for over twenty eight years working in the judicial system.
Speaker 5: Tell us about the attorney that you did get and
Speaker 5: did you know this person and the other people that
Speaker 5: assisted you in your defense?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, so many blessings started happening that night,
Speaker 3: I believe. I of course I knew a lot of attorneys,
Speaker 3: but I was stated. I knew that I was going
Speaker 3: to be arranged probably the next day. That's how felonies work,
Speaker 3: didn't I just I mean, I hadn't thought too much
Speaker 3: about that process. I figured that I was going to
Speaker 3: stand before the judge at my arraignment and asked for
Speaker 3: a quarter, A pointed attorney. I didn't hadn't called anybody.
Speaker 3: I didn't know who to call. I didn't know what
Speaker 3: to do, but I knew I was going to be arraigned,
Speaker 3: and I for some reason, that was just the process
Speaker 3: that I was resolute, and I knew that that was
Speaker 3: going to happen, and I knew how it was going
Speaker 3: to happen because I was familiar with it, and I
Speaker 3: was just ready for that. And then a couple hours
Speaker 3: before my arraignment, one of the one of the Sheriff's
Speaker 3: corrections officers, came in and got me and said, come
Speaker 3: with me or attorneys here, and I said, my attorney, don't.
Speaker 3: I don't have an attorney, and he said you need
Speaker 3: to come with me. And I walked into this conference
Speaker 3: room the library, and there was this man standing there
Speaker 3: and he put his hand out to shake mine and
Speaker 3: he introduced himself as HI. I'm Jesse Williams. And I
Speaker 3: had never met Jeff, but I had talked to him
Speaker 3: on the phone when I worked for an attorney, because
Speaker 3: he had called that office to speak with someone that
Speaker 3: worked there and It was funny because when I talked
Speaker 3: to him only that one time while he was working
Speaker 3: and I was working, it was a really friendly conversation.
Speaker 3: He was a really nice guy, and you know, he
Speaker 3: was the person he needed to speak with, wasn't there.
Speaker 3: So we talked and he said, you know, I really
Speaker 3: need a secretary. I run an attorney for a few
Speaker 3: years and I can't seem to find anybody to work
Speaker 3: for me. He said, do you want to come and
Speaker 3: work for me? And I said, no, I have a job.
Speaker 3: But I knew someone that was a really good secretary
Speaker 3: and needed a job, so I gave him her name.
Speaker 3: And so when I walked into the conference room that
Speaker 3: morning and he put out his hand and told me
Speaker 3: who he was, I said, oh my gosh, Jesse, what
Speaker 3: are you doing here because my good friend worked for him.
Speaker 3: And he said, oh my gosh, Sam. He told me
Speaker 3: what happened. She's been crying all morning. He said, I'm
Speaker 3: here to represent you. I said what. I was shocked.
Speaker 3: I was in the course because I had worked in
Speaker 3: the law. I was like, do you have any idea
Speaker 3: what you're getting yourself into? I mean, this is this
Speaker 3: is a murder case. You can't be serious, And he said,
Speaker 3: I want to do this in the interest of justice.
Speaker 3: It's just just just work with me here, let's do
Speaker 3: the arrangement. I'll enter my appearance on the record and
Speaker 3: we'll go from there. I mean, it was it was
Speaker 3: just amazing. I mean, I didn't even realize then how
Speaker 3: amazing it was. Of course, so he stood with me
Speaker 3: at my arrangement, put his appearance on the record, and
Speaker 3: stuck with me the whole time.
Speaker 5: M hm. You had another person. He's eighty five years old,
Speaker 5: but his name is Dean rob renowned civil rights hero
Speaker 5: and fighter for equality. He had so he had represented
Speaker 5: others with their husbands as well. So experienced attorney also
Speaker 5: joined Jesse Williams and another person named Mike Schwager who
Speaker 5: had helped on Paul Probate case. Now at the same time,
Speaker 5: for our audience, there is no battered women's syndrome defense
Speaker 5: in Michigan allowed. So you're looking at a charge of
Speaker 5: you're looking at a charge of open murder. So the
Speaker 5: possibility of spending your significant part of your life, if
Speaker 5: not your entire life in prison as a possibility, what
Speaker 5: do these lawyers want to do? Your trial is in
Speaker 5: twenty ten. They got some psychological testing for you. And
Speaker 5: so her name is Barbara Jones Smith into aid in
Speaker 5: your defense. So tell us what they're looking to do
Speaker 5: and what they're able to do and your experience with
Speaker 5: Barbara Jones Smith and her diagnosis.
Speaker 3: Oh, Barbara Jones Smith, she's a forensic psychologist, actually the
Speaker 3: nicest woman. She also saw me for three months straight,
Speaker 3: a couple of times a week pro bono. I mean,
Speaker 3: these are these attorneys that represented me. I got sentenced
Speaker 3: a year to the day of the incident, so I
Speaker 3: killed him on August in two thousand and nine. I
Speaker 3: got sentenced on August tenth of twenty ten for a
Speaker 3: whole year. Dean Rob Jesse Williams. I mean, they spent
Speaker 3: hundreds of hours with me. Barbara Jones Smith did her
Speaker 3: forensic psychologist work and was just so nice. It's just
Speaker 3: amazing the whole thing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: They really helped me to start talking about all of
Speaker 3: my trauma, was buried so deep, getting it all out
Speaker 3: and so do you want me to talk about the
Speaker 3: plea then yeah, and just.
Speaker 5: Talk about what developed in this You were looking at
Speaker 5: this incredible sentence and then these people, these judicial angels
Speaker 5: came to your aid. You had the proper testing in
Speaker 5: terms of you know, being diagnosed for this and the
Speaker 5: proper representation of what happens with this, looking at life sentence.
Speaker 5: What were they able to do and how were they able.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, we were getting ready for trial. And of course,
Speaker 3: like you said, the battered women's defense is not they don't.
Speaker 3: You can't use it in Michigan. You can use it
Speaker 3: in other states. And Dean rob had gotten a woman
Speaker 3: who killed her husband, took her to trial and got
Speaker 3: her acquitted of murder, first degree murder. So that's why
Speaker 3: he was so interested in taking on my case because
Speaker 3: he said when he saw me on the news, he
Speaker 3: told his wife right away that woman spent a beused.
Speaker 3: So we were preparing for trial. It was really hard,
Speaker 3: you know. Jesse was questioning me like a prosecutor would, and.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 3: All starting to come out, and I just couldn't. I
Speaker 3: couldn't even handle it. And I said something to Jesse
Speaker 3: about just get me a plea, Just get me a plea.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't care what it is. I can't
Speaker 3: go through this because when you're charged with open murder
Speaker 3: like I was, and you get convicted of that. It's
Speaker 3: not just like but mandatory life. I remember vividly, and
Speaker 3: I knew it was mandatory life, but I remember so clearly.
Speaker 3: One day Jesse and I were speaking about that. He
Speaker 3: said mandatory life, and when he said that word mandatory,
Speaker 3: it stuck out to me like a blinking light, and
Speaker 3: I realized, mandatory means that's it. I mean, that's what
Speaker 3: you get, period, there's no questioning. So I mentioned something
Speaker 3: about a plea, and he came to me the next
Speaker 3: day and with a really good offer and said, we've
Speaker 3: talked to the prosecutor. We're not going to go forth
Speaker 3: with a trial if you want to take this plea.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 3: A plea to second degree murder under the agreement that
Speaker 3: I would get really no more than a manslaughter sentence,
Speaker 3: which is a high end of no more than fifteen
Speaker 3: years in prison. And of course I was.
Speaker 6: I knew I had to take that deal because I
Speaker 6: knew that if I pled guilty to second second degree murder,
Speaker 6: even if I spent fifteen years in prison, that was
Speaker 6: much better than rolling the dice and going to trial
Speaker 6: and getting convicted of open murder and going to prison
Speaker 6: for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: So I thought that was a great deal. So that's
Speaker 3: what happened actually.
Speaker 5: And you knew, you knew going in that you were
Speaker 5: likely going to do around six years.
Speaker 3: Yes, my sentence when we did the plea deal, the
Speaker 3: agreement was I would get no more than fifteen years,
Speaker 3: but it was actually up to the judge what the
Speaker 3: actual sentence would be, what the low term would be,
Speaker 3: and nobody really knew that, so I didn't know. I
Speaker 3: actually got six six to fifteen years. The judge decided
Speaker 3: on at least six years, but no more than fifteen.
Speaker 3: So I did that. At the six year mark, I
Speaker 3: went to the pro board.
Speaker 5: That's right. Still think at the parole, wasn't yeah, as
Speaker 5: a minimum before the parole. Now, in terms of your family,
Speaker 5: you do write about that. Part of the testimony or
Speaker 5: part of the trial or part of the proceedings were
Speaker 5: that they heard from Paul's first wife who was star
Speaker 5: and this woman had tried to kill Paul one night
Speaker 5: as well. So and he had multiple fairs, so some
Speaker 5: of his behavior. But the thing is, what was your
Speaker 5: health supportive was your family and obviously his family was
Speaker 5: not very supportive of you. But tell us about that
Speaker 5: support and your time in prison, and then the impetus
Speaker 5: of this book Memoir from Prison.
Speaker 3: Well, my family was so of course, it was extremely hard.
Speaker 3: Nobody could actually believe that this had happened. But at
Speaker 3: the sentencing hearing, the sentencing was almost four hours long,
Speaker 3: which is really unusual, and there was a witness testimony allowed.
Speaker 3: At the sentencing hearing, the judge allowed that one whole
Speaker 3: side of the courtroom was full of my family and friends.
Speaker 3: I mean they had to put chairs in the middle
Speaker 3: of the courtroom for more people to sit because there
Speaker 3: was only a couple people sitting on the prosecutor's side,
Speaker 3: a couple of his family members and no one else.
Speaker 3: I had support, so much support through the whole thing,
Speaker 3: monetarily through prison cards, letters, mail, phone calls, visit. I
Speaker 3: couldn't have asked for anymore. Like I said earlier, the
Speaker 3: blessings that came out of this are just astronomical and
Speaker 3: they're still happening.
Speaker 5: You didn't dwell on your time in prison, and there
Speaker 5: certainly isn't any of your hardships in there or the
Speaker 5: struggles in there. And you fast and you fast forward
Speaker 5: in this book to the idea and your a different
Speaker 5: perspective on the entire relationship and the trial, the ensuing trial,
Speaker 5: and then your time in prison. I guess adjusting obviously
Speaker 5: to something that's totally foreign and treatment in there as well.
Speaker 5: But the impetus for this book tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Is it's I want to be a voice. I want
Speaker 3: everybody to know what domestic violence is really like, what
Speaker 3: the intricacies of both sides of the abuser and the victim.
Speaker 3: I want to be a loud voice with the truth
Speaker 3: of what really happens. And I'm just so sick of
Speaker 3: it being swept under the rug and nobody wants to
Speaker 3: talk about it, and it's just the most horrific thing.
Speaker 3: And I can guarantee you that everyone who works in
Speaker 3: a bigger office or a bigger corporation that work with
Speaker 3: several coworkers, there are people, men and women that you
Speaker 3: work with that have a horrible, horrible life at home
Speaker 3: that they would they will never talk about because victims
Speaker 3: don't talk about what's happening to them. They don't want
Speaker 3: it out there, they don't want to tell on their abusers,
Speaker 3: they don't want to say it out loud. I want
Speaker 3: to get the truth out. I want everybody to know.
Speaker 3: This is no joke. This happens more than you could
Speaker 3: ever imagine. You would be shocked at the people you
Speaker 3: know that are probably abused in living a miserable life,
Speaker 3: and they go to work every day and dress up
Speaker 3: and put their makeup on and smile and act like
Speaker 3: they always act. Their life is hell. So I believe
Speaker 3: that this story is so important it just needs to
Speaker 3: be told. They need to We've talked about it, and
Speaker 3: I'm not I've become so strong through all this. I
Speaker 3: don't lie. You can ask me anything you want to
Speaker 3: ask me, but the answer you might not like because
Speaker 3: it's going to be the truth and it's not going
Speaker 3: to be very nice. But that's I don't sure. I
Speaker 3: don't sugarcoat anything anymore. And being in prison, of course,
Speaker 3: I stick up for myself all the time. Now I
Speaker 3: learned the word no. It's just two little letters, and
Speaker 3: it's easy to say now, and I can say no.
Speaker 3: I'm not even explain myself. You should understand that word.
Speaker 3: I'm very bold and very blatant and very very different.
Speaker 5: Now, yes, certainly, and you are courageous, and you've done
Speaker 5: an admirable job and really explaining the dissent. This is
Speaker 5: not a This doesn't happen overnight, so how does it happen?
Speaker 5: This book chronicles your true life, true crime operience and
Speaker 5: how it seems inconspicuous. It's that some of the things
Speaker 5: that happened seem again, Lynn, looking back, it seems pretty evident.
Speaker 5: There should have been some flags. But it happens so slow,
Speaker 5: and he is so persuasive. So it is very it's
Speaker 5: a cautionary tale and it's a very very exciting book
Speaker 5: talking about your journey and from prison you've certainly thrived
Speaker 5: and this book is testament to that. And I want
Speaker 5: to congratulate you on this book. Thank you so much
Speaker 5: for this interview. Tonight to Kill or Be Killed? A
Speaker 5: true crime memoir from prison now Joony. For those that
Speaker 5: might not know, this is a Wild Boo press release.
Speaker 5: Is there a Facebook page for this book and how
Speaker 5: could they find out more about this book?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I have a Facebook page. It's my name, Joni Ankerson,
Speaker 3: the author Facebook page. The book is available on Amazon
Speaker 3: and it's actually already a number one best seller in
Speaker 3: five or six categories on Amazon law enforcement, sexual violence,
Speaker 3: some other things. They can get it on Amazon. They
Speaker 3: can get it on the Wild Blue Press website, but
Speaker 3: my Facebook page is Johnny Ankerson author.
Speaker 5: That's great, Thank you so much. Well great, we'll have
Speaker 5: to have you on discussing that and we'll be looking
Speaker 5: forward to that. Thank you so much. To Kill or
Speaker 5: Be Killed, a true crime memoir from prison, Johnny Ankerson.
Speaker 5: It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Joony, have
Speaker 5: a great night.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, bye bye, good night.