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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good evening. Before domestic violence
Speaker 2: hotlines and safe houses were widespread, June Bryant shot four
Speaker 2: bullets into her husband's head and was sentenced to fifteen
Speaker 2: years to life. This is the shocking true story of
Speaker 2: survival and the intense bond June shared with her pathologically
Speaker 2: violent husband, a monster who physically and sexually tortured, degraded,
Speaker 2: and dominated her so relentlessly that she refused to believe
Speaker 2: he was dead even after she killed them. What kind
Speaker 2: of woman would slay her own husband? What kind of
Speaker 2: man would drive her to do it? Why didn't she
Speaker 2: just leave him? Based on hundreds of hours interviewing June Bryant,
Speaker 2: speaking with her lawyers, and poring over countless pages of
Speaker 2: court transcripts, police and hospital records and interviews with virtually
Speaker 2: every key person involved with this case. The author explores
Speaker 2: those difficult questions while exposing the twisted dynamics of a
Speaker 2: relationship that enslaves a woman and drives her to kill
Speaker 2: the beasts she loved when she was finally out of hope,
Speaker 2: out of time, and out of her mind, at once
Speaker 2: terrifying and maddening, heart rending, and ultimately exhilarating book, including
Speaker 2: an unforgettable glimpse inside a maximum security prison. The book
Speaker 2: to feature in this evening is The Beast I Loved,
Speaker 2: A Battered Woman's desperate struggle to survive with my special guest,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Robert Davidson. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 2: thank you very much for this interview. Robert Davidson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hi Dan, I'm here and ready to go ahead.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. The very very interesting book, and
Speaker 5: I applaud you for this incredible access and we're going
Speaker 5: to get right into being able to see exactly how
Speaker 5: this could ever occur. I want to ask you how
Speaker 5: you came to be in a position to write this book,
Speaker 5: and without giving too much away at all, why did
Speaker 5: you want to write this book?
Speaker 6: Well, I won't give too much way because there's a
Speaker 6: lot of twists and turned. It turned out this was
Speaker 6: of all the crime novels I've read, this this turned
Speaker 6: out to be more bizarre, more strange, more fast paced
Speaker 6: than anything I've ever read. And it's nonfiction. This is
Speaker 6: true story, but I wrote it essentially. The first reason
Speaker 6: is what I just said, is this a fascinating story
Speaker 6: that I wasn't sure we had a book here until
Speaker 6: I got into the interviewing process. So I'll tell you
Speaker 6: a little more about later. And aside from the fascinating story,
Speaker 6: the idea is to focus attention on domestic violence and
Speaker 6: raise public awareness and really to take people into the
Speaker 6: homes of these victims who are not allowed to cry
Speaker 6: out for help for fear that they'll be beaten again
Speaker 6: or maybe next time killed, as our batter is so
Speaker 6: often threatened to do. So we don't see it, you know.
Speaker 6: The domestic violence is a hidden epidemic, and whether you
Speaker 6: want to believe it or not, it's in your neighborhood.
Speaker 6: It's in every neighborhood, not just the poor and uneducated.
Speaker 6: Is white collar too, I mean doctors, lawyers, the rich,
Speaker 6: the famous batter women and they abuse and degrade them.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's been in the media daily. The timing
Speaker 6: for this book couldn't be better to it was just
Speaker 6: released last month with all this Me Too movement and
Speaker 6: the media night and day discussing this issue, everything from
Speaker 6: the entertainment industry right up to the White House. But
Speaker 6: I think the timing is very good and it really
Speaker 6: couldn't be better. And the other thing, Dan is the
Speaker 6: violence against women is not diminishing, it's getting worse. According
Speaker 6: to a twenty seventeen FBI report, a woman in this
Speaker 6: country is beaten every fifteen seconds, resulting in a staggering
Speaker 6: four million assaults per year. That's just reported by the
Speaker 6: Way who probably triple that, and the National Coalition Against
Speaker 6: Domestic Violence reports and even more incredible statistic, and that
Speaker 6: is one in three women have been the victims of
Speaker 6: physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime, one
Speaker 6: in three. Wilds is so pervasive that Congress now has
Speaker 6: passed funding to study with the Surgeon General calls a
Speaker 6: public health crisis than it is. So that's why I
Speaker 6: wrote the book, is to get focus on this and
Speaker 6: to tell this stunning story that's got more horrific the
Speaker 6: more I talk to this woman. So that's the answer
Speaker 6: question long long way around, but that's the answer a question.
Speaker 5: Because of the incredible access that you had to her.
Speaker 5: And so she was, of course amazingly candid with her
Speaker 5: life to be explained, how on earth she got to
Speaker 5: the point of killing her husband. We have to go,
Speaker 5: and you do in this book, go right back to
Speaker 5: her incredible and strange upbringing in southern New Hampshire and Merrimack,
Speaker 5: a little place called Merrimack. And you say, she's living
Speaker 5: with her grandmother, Mary Jackson, deeply religious, and her her grandfather,
Speaker 5: and tell us where what happened to her about her
Speaker 5: mother and her father, and tell her she came to
Speaker 5: be in this environment living with her grandparents, And then
Speaker 5: tell us, as you do in the book, this incredibly
Speaker 5: bizarre living arrangement and life that she was born into.
Speaker 6: Well, that's right, Ju and beyond was dropped off at
Speaker 6: her grandmother's doorstep the day she was born, dropped off
Speaker 6: by a promistuous mother who had no interest in raising her,
Speaker 6: nor did her grandmother. She'd already raised her kids. She
Speaker 6: has a grandmother, but she had no choice and things
Speaker 6: went downhill from there. So she was raised in a
Speaker 6: home as you saw in the book with it, as
Speaker 6: June described it, void of love. There was no love
Speaker 6: these kids. June at four years old, was making her
Speaker 6: own sandwiches for her daycare. It was just a very
Speaker 6: strange and bizarre lifestyle. Or the grandparents basically sat in
Speaker 6: front of the television from dawn till dusk and didn't
Speaker 6: pay attention to these kids. And so she had no love,
Speaker 6: She had no support, she had no encouragement, and that's
Speaker 6: I think every kid, or every person, but certainly a
Speaker 6: little kid more than anything, you need love and acceptance
Speaker 6: and supporting and she got none of that. So she
Speaker 6: was groomed, I think dan from the beginning to be
Speaker 6: a victim, as probably many women were, and she needed
Speaker 6: love so much that she accepted, you know, whatever came along,
Speaker 6: and it was crazy people that came along in her
Speaker 6: life besides her own family.
Speaker 5: You say, she got a taste of all kinds of
Speaker 5: negative and bizarre experiences, including a schizophrenic uncle, Charlie, and
Speaker 5: then a person that was a police officer but also
Speaker 5: a proud KKK officer that produced his own moonshine. And
Speaker 5: you say, and you also talk about that not only
Speaker 5: were these grandparents not prepared or interested in being grant
Speaker 5: being parents to June and her sisters, but they also
Speaker 5: there were incredibly and unusually quiet people, weren't.
Speaker 6: They Yeah, they were just they were. They weren't the
Speaker 6: brightest people either. I think the Jackson's were semi literate
Speaker 6: at best, and they were quiet. And as you said,
Speaker 6: Mary Jackson was a you know, a real Bible thump
Speaker 6: from nut. I mean that she she preached the Bible
Speaker 6: from day and all day long, and to the point
Speaker 6: where these kids finally you remember in the story that
Speaker 6: the kids finally said we're not We're not going to
Speaker 6: church anymore, and that completely blew the cork on their
Speaker 6: living situation. But yeah, they were quiet, they were impassive,
Speaker 6: and they didn't really care what went on. So these
Speaker 6: kids a pretty much raised themselves and and uh, you know,
Speaker 6: how good can you do when you have no support
Speaker 6: at all. So so that was the environment that June
Speaker 6: grew up in. And and as like I said, that
Speaker 6: was the beginning of of her uh really unusual and
Speaker 6: desperate need for for love and and and certainly the
Speaker 6: reason that she accepted what she did later in life
Speaker 6: with these with these abusive people she she was involved with.
Speaker 6: But let me read you. You know, there's a there's
Speaker 6: a page in the book that the editor I thought
Speaker 6: was an important excerpt. Let me read you this and this.
Speaker 6: This will tell you a little bit more about June's
Speaker 6: state of mind. And this was later on when she
Speaker 6: was married, uh to, to Jimmy. Beyond the batter or
Speaker 6: the abuser. And this is a little quote. I think
Speaker 6: it's a good thing to put in right now, I'll
Speaker 6: read to you. With my pregnancy, I hoped there would
Speaker 6: be a change in Jimmy's behavior. Two kids, two cars,
Speaker 6: the American dream would be mine. Jimmy had been calm
Speaker 6: during most of my pregnancy, but then one night, when
Speaker 6: I was six or seven months pregnant, it all crashed down.
Speaker 6: Jimmy attacked my oldest daughter, Johnna. I tried to protect her,
Speaker 6: but he shoved me out of the way and I
Speaker 6: fell to the floor. When I crawled over to her
Speaker 6: and tried to pull her away, he turned and kicked
Speaker 6: me in the stomach. I shrieked, not in pain, but
Speaker 6: in terror that he would terror that he would kill
Speaker 6: the unborn child that was still in me. He slapped
Speaker 6: me punched me and kicked me. I tried as hard
Speaker 6: as I could to protect my unborn baby. Then Jimmy
Speaker 6: stopped hitting us and started screaming. He said subjected us
Speaker 6: to hours of screaming, terror, and threats of death if
Speaker 6: I ever got in his way again. When he was
Speaker 6: disciplining Jana, he said he'd kill me if I ever
Speaker 6: ran away. That's one of the first quotes in the book.
Speaker 6: So I think it gives you a sense of the
Speaker 6: environment that you know June fell into after she was
Speaker 6: out of the grandparents' home. And that's really what the
Speaker 6: book is about. It's a preliminary to the grandparents issue
Speaker 6: is preliminary, but once she gets into this relationship with
Speaker 6: this violent batterer than it's then it gets worse and
Speaker 6: worse and worse. As you know because you read this book.
Speaker 6: I wonder if I could just mention a couple of
Speaker 6: just things I think are important, A couple of quick
Speaker 6: statistics I think your listeners might benefit from, dan And
Speaker 6: one of them is up here in New England, just
Speaker 6: an example, a little small Massachusetts, small state. But you've
Speaker 6: heard many statistics, but just just just to name a
Speaker 6: few in Massachusetts, for example, the yearly average is fifty
Speaker 6: thousand people seeking restraining orders. Fifty not five hundred or
Speaker 6: five one thousand, which would be a lot. Fifty thousand
Speaker 6: in this one little state alone. That's where I am
Speaker 6: up in New England. So the numbers are astounding. As
Speaker 6: far as it's not just June, it had gone through this,
Speaker 6: This is all over the place. I read recently a
Speaker 6: World Bank study and I got a quote here. It says, quote,
Speaker 6: rape and domestic violence deprive women worldwide of more years
Speaker 6: of healthy life than all forms of cancer combined.
Speaker 3: Unquote.
Speaker 6: That's just a stunning statement, you know. But you see
Speaker 6: much more publicity and fundraising on breast cancer or Alzheimer's
Speaker 6: multiple sclerosis in the rest, but domestic violence is much
Speaker 6: more prevalent. But the problem is that you can't see it,
Speaker 6: so it doesn't get the attention. If it doesn't mean
Speaker 6: it's not there. Well, I think we all know someone
Speaker 6: who is being emotionally or psychologically battered every day, and
Speaker 6: it's a sad thing because these people's souls, their hopes,
Speaker 6: and their dreams like June's. I just read that was
Speaker 6: the American dream for her. It dies a little more
Speaker 6: each time they're battered. So that's one reason I wrote
Speaker 6: the book. To go back to your very first question.
Speaker 6: You know, we've all been psychologically wounded, but we didn't
Speaker 6: like it, and it causes tears and fear and self doubt,
Speaker 6: and we've all been there, but you don't want to
Speaker 6: stay there. It's a terrible place to be. And if
Speaker 6: you do stay in that environment, in that situation, and
Speaker 6: it goes on, and if it goes on for an
Speaker 6: extended period of time, you become sick, you know, mentally
Speaker 6: and physically sick, as was the case with June, which
Speaker 6: you all describe a little more about that as we
Speaker 6: go on here. But so I think I just think
Speaker 6: it's important to people who realize that this is everywhere.
Speaker 6: It's a hidden epidemic. It's all over and it's just
Speaker 6: never obvious. You know, for June beyond, she was a
Speaker 6: master at hiding her injuries. For example, people don't know
Speaker 6: what domestic violence looks like because they don't see it.
Speaker 3: You see other.
Speaker 6: Murder stories on the TV and what have you, but
Speaker 6: you don't see these, You don't.
Speaker 3: See what these people go through.
Speaker 6: She was a master at hiding her injuries. All victims
Speaker 6: are because they know that the consequences for not covering
Speaker 6: for their abuser, because the perpetrators of violence are cowards
Speaker 6: and their self images critical things to them. And above all,
Speaker 6: they secret, you know, they want secrecy so they's not
Speaker 6: going to be found out. And the women comply because
Speaker 6: they don't want to go through any more hell that
Speaker 6: they've been through.
Speaker 3: So we need to expect that.
Speaker 5: We need to explain in this though, as you do
Speaker 5: brilliantly again by having access to be able to interview June,
Speaker 5: is that how she got into the situation that you
Speaker 5: was so needy is from these grandparents not caring and
Speaker 5: at crucial times when she thought maybe they would be upset,
Speaker 5: she meets a man that's thirty eight years old when
Speaker 5: she's fourteen years of age. Tell us what they agree
Speaker 5: to instead of what a normal response to with a
Speaker 5: fourteen year old and a thirty eight year old and
Speaker 5: your custodian, your parents. So what happens and this and
Speaker 5: you explain a lot of details on how her mentality
Speaker 5: shaped her being able to be prone to the advances
Speaker 5: of these men. First, this man at thirty eight years
Speaker 5: old named Ron, and what he was really interested in.
Speaker 5: You talk about her unfortunate life to the point where
Speaker 5: she gets a dog bites her face, takes a piece
Speaker 5: of her face out, and there's a lawsuit involved. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about this before she meets Jimmy Bryant.
Speaker 6: Oh that's interesting. Well, all right, Jimmy is friand is
Speaker 6: how you pronounce it, briand he he was the second husband.
Speaker 6: June was married at fourteen, which the grandparents were thrilled about.
Speaker 6: Why would they be thrilled get rid of this burden
Speaker 6: they'd been carrying around for fourteen years they had no
Speaker 6: intention of raising as this child. Remember, and June had
Speaker 6: met She was shopping one day and she met this
Speaker 6: nice looking fellow and he asked for her phone number
Speaker 6: her and before before he had finished even asking for it,
Speaker 6: she was already giving the phone number. This is someone's
Speaker 6: interested in me.
Speaker 3: Finally.
Speaker 6: I've had no interest, no one's interested in me all
Speaker 6: my life, and now someone is. So she gave her
Speaker 6: phone number. They started a relationship and it turned out
Speaker 6: this was this was a sexual deviate, This was a
Speaker 6: This was a creditor.
Speaker 3: Who talked his.
Speaker 6: Way into marrying this fourteen year old kid who the
Speaker 6: parents were again gave their blessings too, and that became
Speaker 6: another long story, but that that was basically a a
Speaker 6: just a crazy relationship that But again June, well does
Speaker 6: she know, she's fourteen years old and she finally has
Speaker 6: somebody interested in her. And the dog bite you're talking
Speaker 6: about was not the main reason that this guy married her.
Speaker 6: But it was one reason because he knew there was
Speaker 6: a lawsuit involved and there may be some money coming
Speaker 6: her way. But the main reason was for sex. That's
Speaker 6: that was the reason for her. And eventually he left her.
Speaker 6: So that was another example of someone who was primed
Speaker 6: and and and ripe for being taken advantage of because
Speaker 6: she needed love so bad. And then came to your
Speaker 6: mor beyond after that marriage failed after a couple of years,
Speaker 6: which and this continues going downhill. As I said at
Speaker 6: the beginning, after her mother dropped her off at day
Speaker 6: one at the grandmother's house, her life went downhill into
Speaker 6: this horrible ending was ended up in a murder.
Speaker 5: The thing is, though, in between this that you say,
Speaker 5: it gradually gets worse her life, but there are times
Speaker 5: when she is very optimistic. She has a child, she
Speaker 5: gets married, she does things that she wanted to do
Speaker 5: so badly in need of attention. She had some confidence
Speaker 5: from success at work, and so she was getting out
Speaker 5: social meeting people, gaining confidence. And yet this marriage here
Speaker 5: to this ron ended and then she had a child.
Speaker 5: So tell us the circumstances that she was in, the
Speaker 5: situation she was in, and how Jimmy and she met.
Speaker 6: She So, after the first marriage ended, her mother whom
Speaker 6: she rarely saw, but now June is sixteen years old
Speaker 6: and they had a little more contact, and her mother
Speaker 6: invited her to go to her favorite local dive, her
Speaker 6: bar in the Crummy Bar in New Hampshire where this
Speaker 6: is the day after and June had left her husband.
Speaker 6: And the next day they go to the bar, and
Speaker 6: who is at the bar of all the bad luck
Speaker 6: you could asked for it, Jimmy Briond is at the
Speaker 6: bar and she meets and he comes over and introduces himself.
Speaker 6: And that's the beginning of the second relationship, the day
Speaker 6: after the first one ended. So that's how that happened.
Speaker 6: Her mother Drugger to her favorite crummie bar in New
Speaker 6: Hampshire in the basement of an old storage building, and
Speaker 6: that was the beginning of that relationship. To answer your question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the thing is too you talk about the
Speaker 5: incident that Jimmy seemed to be much different than the
Speaker 5: deviant that she had married previously, and at first, again,
Speaker 5: can only compare people to other people, and so she
Speaker 5: thought he was quite tender and gentle. And then there's
Speaker 5: an incident with his ex name Cheryl and his daughter.
Speaker 5: So tell us about what happens here and how the
Speaker 5: family grows by virtue of this incident.
Speaker 6: Well, this is when they had decided to they'd only
Speaker 6: been together a few months before they got married. And
Speaker 6: one day there's a phone call there and they're living
Speaker 6: together now, and there's a phone call by uh Cheryl
Speaker 6: saying that she wanted to meet Jimmy at a restaurant.
Speaker 6: Didn't know why, June didn't know who Cheryl was. They
Speaker 6: drove to the restaurant and Cheryl UH came over to
Speaker 6: the car and handed the couple jim Jimmy and June
Speaker 6: the kid did I don't want the kid anymore? That
Speaker 6: was that was Jimmy's kid with this Cheryl girl who
Speaker 6: was not his wife.
Speaker 3: And so now she has.
Speaker 6: Two kids, or she had one kid, and then she
Speaker 6: canna have another halfter.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 6: Uh, so, do you see the kind of element we're
Speaker 6: talking about here?
Speaker 3: These people?
Speaker 6: People give away kids, People don't care if you have
Speaker 6: an education or not. You have a racist uncles. So
Speaker 6: this is the environment this woman was brought up and
Speaker 6: and you.
Speaker 3: Know, I interviewed her.
Speaker 6: Over a two year period. I just want to tell
Speaker 6: you a little bit more about this and move this along.
Speaker 6: I feel like that's the other things I want to
Speaker 6: read to you. And I read through dozens of legal
Speaker 6: file boxes containing police reports and legal documents, sociologist reports,
Speaker 6: psychologists evaluations, and so I know ugly know the facts,
Speaker 6: and I feel that I came to know the batter
Speaker 6: or Jimmy beyond intimately through all that, and so I
Speaker 6: can tell you this, I have no doubt whatsoever that
Speaker 6: had June been foolish enough to defy him and try
Speaker 6: to run away, which was the constant threat they'll ever
Speaker 6: try to leave me, that he, without question, he would
Speaker 6: have made good on his threat to kill her, because
Speaker 6: after all, he had always made a good on every
Speaker 6: other threat he had ever made, and he was exceptionally
Speaker 6: reliable when it came to that. So in domestic midlands homicides,
Speaker 6: which is what happened here. Most of them end up
Speaker 6: with the man killing the wife or the girlfriend who
Speaker 6: tries to get away or threatens to get away or
Speaker 6: attempts to leave. But this case was different than the
Speaker 6: victims stopped the abuser. So there was another reason I
Speaker 6: was interested.
Speaker 5: And to understand, to understand this and comprehend this.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 5: You talk about Jimmy having at one time again better prospects,
Speaker 5: and he had a dream. He looked at other people's
Speaker 5: success and he wanted that, but he also wanted a
Speaker 5: family life. So she thought, as you write in here,
Speaker 5: that that she just wasn't getting things right because at
Speaker 5: first it was not so bad, and then he was
Speaker 5: particular about cleaning and things like that. So she always
Speaker 5: thought that she she just got it right, and then
Speaker 5: that at some point changed. Did she realize it wasn't
Speaker 5: about getting things just right? Was it?
Speaker 3: Well? That's right?
Speaker 2: Was?
Speaker 6: That's the expression she used over and over. And this
Speaker 6: is a two year period where I interviewed her and
Speaker 6: wrote the book, and she kept bringing that up. I
Speaker 6: just couldn't get it right, you know, sort of Sarcastle.
Speaker 6: At that point that was his favorite comment or besides airhead,
Speaker 6: you're an airhead, and you're an eff and bitch and
Speaker 6: this and that, and you know, if you could just
Speaker 6: get it right, I wouldn't have to keep doing these
Speaker 6: things to you. And she was in such a state
Speaker 6: dan that of going through this childhood and this crazy
Speaker 6: first marriage that she was in need of a relationships.
Speaker 6: So she's not about to say stand up like you
Speaker 6: and I would. And what are you talking about, I'm
Speaker 6: doing a good job. You have to think differently when
Speaker 6: you're thinking about a person in this situation who's beaten
Speaker 6: down like this and in such need.
Speaker 3: Of love that they're going to comply.
Speaker 6: So you No, she didn't think she was getting it right.
Speaker 6: She believed him, and she was fell more and more
Speaker 6: into what I'll talk about in a little while here,
Speaker 6: battered woman syndrome, syndrome where you don't believe in anything
Speaker 6: you do is gonna work. I think it'd be a
Speaker 6: good place to read you an example of this issue
Speaker 6: of white women don't leave. I think it's a good
Speaker 6: time to bring this in because the reason she kept saying, uh, yeah,
Speaker 6: I guess I'm not getting it right is because she
Speaker 6: was uh falling into this this this battering woman syndrome
Speaker 6: in what's called learned helplessness. And I have no doubt
Speaker 6: in my mind that at the time of the murder,
Speaker 6: which was seven years into this marriage, June was as
Speaker 6: deranged as any raving lunatic in any insane asylum. What
Speaker 6: happened was that the night of the murder, she was
Speaker 6: arrested and she was taken to the local jail in Hudson,
Speaker 6: New Hampshire, And in the jail was a cell mat
Speaker 6: who looked over at June and saw her shaking and
Speaker 6: cowering in the corner. Jimmy Briond had driven his wife
Speaker 6: so insane. When she was first sent to jail for
Speaker 6: this murder, she told her cell mate in answer to
Speaker 6: her question, what's the matter with you? She said to her,
Speaker 6: Jimmy's not dead.
Speaker 3: You don't know. Jimmy. These bars won't stop him.
Speaker 6: He is going to come down here and kill me,
Speaker 6: just like he always said he would do.
Speaker 3: End quote.
Speaker 6: That is That's the state of mind this woman was in,
Speaker 6: and that's why she kept saying, yeah, I haven't I
Speaker 6: can't get it right. I'm going to keep trying to
Speaker 6: get it right.
Speaker 3: She was suffering.
Speaker 6: From what they call learned helples. Those are in the
Speaker 6: form of battered women syndrome. I'd like to read you
Speaker 6: a little bit about her state of mind, because I
Speaker 6: think it's important. I don't want to ride around of
Speaker 6: time here about the fact that I just said that
Speaker 6: she was clinically insane, and she was clinically and so
Speaker 6: I'm going to read you from the book. And you
Speaker 6: read this too, damn, but I'm going to bring it
Speaker 6: back to you.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 6: Here was a twenty four year old mother of two
Speaker 6: who was trying to protect herself from her children from
Speaker 6: a madman who had driven her into such a state
Speaker 6: of mental disarray that, to some experts who examined her,
Speaker 6: she was quote clinically insane unquote at the time of
Speaker 6: the shooting. Her behavior immediately after coming to prison seemed
Speaker 6: to bear this out. As another reporter or no, and
Speaker 6: here's a note from the reporter, June Brionn believed beyond
Speaker 6: a doubt that at any moment, her raging monster of
Speaker 6: a husband would burst through her prison bars and rip
Speaker 6: her to shreds. This was That's why I just read
Speaker 6: you a moment ago in my quote. This is his
Speaker 6: statement continuing, this was not a woman who should be
Speaker 6: held in prison. Until she was fifty two years of age. Indeed,
Speaker 6: many of those who studied the case closely felt June
Speaker 6: Brionn was suffering from isolated explosive disorder, a condition most
Speaker 6: commonly characterized by a single instance of failure to resist
Speaker 6: an impulse that then leads to a violent act with
Speaker 6: tragic consequences. That's the end of the reporter's quote. But
Speaker 6: now I go on in the book here. Others felt
Speaker 6: June should not spend one minute behind bars for a crime.
Speaker 6: It was clearly one of self defense, but the law
Speaker 6: on such a defense was iffy at best. Self defense
Speaker 6: quote had different interpretations in different states. In many states,
Speaker 6: including New Hampshire, a person had to be in quote
Speaker 6: imminent danger of lethal harm in order to pull a
Speaker 6: trigger in self defense. Was June in such a state?
Speaker 6: Did the knife that Jimmy so often held to June's
Speaker 6: throat have to be present at the very moment she
Speaker 6: pulled the trigger? So the two points one is she
Speaker 6: was clinically insane, and two, there was no justice for
Speaker 6: this woman. Obviously, she happened to be in this new
Speaker 6: hand for a very conservative state, and the wrong place
Speaker 6: to be when something like this happens.
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Speaker 5: Go to hymns dot com slash murder. That's f O
Speaker 5: R h i ms dot com slash murder four hymns
Speaker 5: dot com slash murder. Before we talk about and you've
Speaker 5: talked about the murder, you've talked about the conclusions in court,
Speaker 5: but we still haven't talked about probably and likely and
Speaker 5: as they would to be able to prosecute her successfully
Speaker 5: for murder. Is that they talk about a woman named
Speaker 5: Helen that became a friend, noticed the abuse, how you
Speaker 5: couldn't notice the abuse, and then had her own fantasy
Speaker 5: that again prompted June to have ideas. So tell us
Speaker 5: a little bit about more abuse from you alluded to it.
Speaker 5: You talked about the knife to the throat. You also
Speaker 5: didn't talk about the extensive gun collection. So let's talk
Speaker 5: about Helen, her friend, the gun collection, and just more
Speaker 5: bizarre violent incidents that proved to June that he was
Speaker 5: likely to kill her, that she had no way of escaping,
Speaker 5: and decreased her ability to fight, to to have any life,
Speaker 5: and to think that there was a chance in hell
Speaker 5: of escape.
Speaker 6: All right, I want to do it backward. That's a
Speaker 6: good point, Helen. That's that's that's the night of the murder.
Speaker 3: So let me let me build up to that. That's
Speaker 3: a good point.
Speaker 6: Let's let's go into a couple of incidents here that
Speaker 6: drove June further and further into the state where she
Speaker 6: became unable to think straight and she she shot somebody.
Speaker 3: Let me let me read to you.
Speaker 6: An incident that it's maybe this answer is better than anything.
Speaker 6: The first question I always get, and a June constantly
Speaker 6: got when the press was had contacted her after this
Speaker 6: whole thing happened. The first question is why why?
Speaker 3: Why didn't you just leave?
Speaker 6: Why don't they leave? I wrote a whole blog on
Speaker 6: that and that subject as a matter of fact, why
Speaker 6: don't they just leave? Well, let me give you an
Speaker 6: incident here that's a great but I want to read
Speaker 6: it to you, and then I think you might understand
Speaker 6: your audience might understand a little more of why they
Speaker 6: don't leave, besides the fact that they're falling further and
Speaker 6: further into the state of learned helplessness. I'll read you later,
Speaker 6: but let me just read you this story. And I
Speaker 6: think I'll understand better. Jimmy came home late and did
Speaker 6: not want anything to eat. June had just made a
Speaker 6: dinner for him earlier, but by eight o'clock she figured
Speaker 6: he was out drinking again and decided to put the
Speaker 6: food in the refrigerator. When he walked through the door
Speaker 6: at eight forty five, she was just finishing reading a
Speaker 6: story to Jana, who was almost asleep but not quiet.
Speaker 6: June had put her to bed at seven, but Jana
Speaker 6: couldn't sleep, so she put her on her lap in
Speaker 6: the living room to read her Jimmy went to another
Speaker 6: part of the house, and when he came back, he
Speaker 6: was furious. Here's June's quote. He started in about Jana's room.
Speaker 6: He said he was sick and tired of telling her
Speaker 6: to keep it clean. I argued that she was only
Speaker 6: a child, a three year old child, and she didn't
Speaker 6: understand about keeping a room in perfect order. Jana was
Speaker 6: so tired she didn't even notice the argument and kept
Speaker 6: nodding off to sleep. Then Jimmy started yelling directly at
Speaker 6: her wake up, he said, and she would wake up
Speaker 6: and fall back to sleep. He kept yelling at her
Speaker 6: wake up. Pay attention, listen when I'm talking to you
Speaker 6: as if she was ten or twelve.
Speaker 3: But she couldn't stay awake.
Speaker 6: She kept falling asleep and didn't pay attention like he wanted.
Speaker 6: Jimmy really started yelling then, out of control, only this
Speaker 6: time his craziness was directed towards his own daughter. I
Speaker 6: saw then something I had not realized before. He wasn't
Speaker 6: just loud and obnoxious. He was cruel and mean. For
Speaker 6: the first time since I hadn't met him, I was scared.
Speaker 6: I saw he was dangerous the way he was screaming
Speaker 6: at a little kid who hadn't done anything wrong. All
Speaker 6: of a sudden, Jimmy grabbed Jana and started smacking her
Speaker 6: in the face. I pulled her away and jumped up
Speaker 6: and ran out of the room. Jimmy kept screaming in
Speaker 6: the living room, and I just opened the back door
Speaker 6: and ran out. He didn't even know we were gone.
Speaker 6: He was raving so much. Jana had on her foot
Speaker 6: sheeep of jama and I was barefoot and wearing my
Speaker 6: baseball pajamas with his elastic band. I had been wearing
Speaker 6: them ever since I was six months pregnant. She was
Speaker 6: now nine months pregnant by the way nine months pregnant
Speaker 6: when this happened. Continue All I remember was running. I
Speaker 6: wanted to get away from Jimmy, just run away as
Speaker 6: fast as I could, but I was as big as
Speaker 6: a house and I couldn't move very fast. I got
Speaker 6: down the street about one hundred yards when Jimmy grabbed
Speaker 6: my hair from behind and he pulled me backwards. I
Speaker 6: started to fall and had Janna on my hip, but
Speaker 6: luckily I had time to tuck her in front of
Speaker 6: me before I landed on my rear end. Now I'm crying,
Speaker 6: Jana's crying. Jimmy screaming in the middle of the street
Speaker 6: and slapping us both. He didn't care who he hit,
Speaker 6: he was just hitting. Then he started dragging me by
Speaker 6: the arm back to the house. He was screaming and
Speaker 6: pulling me, and then he let go of my arm.
Speaker 6: I thought he was going to stop, but he didn't.
Speaker 6: He went around behind me. He grabbed both my legs
Speaker 6: and started dragging me like he was a plow horse.
Speaker 6: I was yelling and crying for him to stop, yell
Speaker 6: that he was hurting me.
Speaker 3: But he wouldn't.
Speaker 6: My head was bouncing on the pavement as he pulled
Speaker 6: me I could feel the hair getting sanded off the
Speaker 6: back of my head and my spine scraping along the pavement.
Speaker 6: I tried to hold onto Jana with one hand and
Speaker 6: put my other hand down to raise off the ground,
Speaker 6: but the skin on my hand was peeling off, and
Speaker 6: I couldn't do it. I was getting all scraped up
Speaker 6: no matter what I did, But Jimmy didn't care. He
Speaker 6: kept dragging us all the way back to the house.
Speaker 6: That's the end of her quote. Let me just continue
Speaker 6: a minute here. When they got back inside the house,
Speaker 6: Jimmy shoved June in the chest and she fell back
Speaker 6: onto the couch. He was silent then for a few seconds.
Speaker 6: It paced back and forth in front of the couch.
Speaker 6: Then he stopped and turned to her and said something
Speaker 6: he had never said before. Quote, if you ever leave
Speaker 6: me again, I'll kill you. I will kill you unquote.
Speaker 6: After what he had just done, June had no doubt
Speaker 6: that he meant it. So to answer this kind of
Speaker 6: insane question of why don't they just leave, that's why
Speaker 6: they don't leave. That's one reason why they don't leave,
Speaker 6: besides the fact that they're compromised and they're not thinking straight.
Speaker 6: Because a guy like Jimmy Brion would have found her
Speaker 6: and killed her and her kids. So that's why they
Speaker 6: don't leave. We got to quit victimizing the victim in
Speaker 6: these situations and further punishing people who never deserve to
Speaker 6: be punished in the first place. In June's case, she's
Speaker 6: never spent a day in prison. And these are people
Speaker 6: who need love and understanding, not criticism and ridicule and judgment.
Speaker 6: But I'll tell you it's the first question I get.
Speaker 3: Why didn't she just leave?
Speaker 6: What do you mean jump into BMW with her Gucci
Speaker 6: bag full of credit cards and just take off like
Speaker 6: you would? Buddy, No, she's not you, So you gotta
Speaker 6: think differently, you know. I find this interesting. I had
Speaker 6: a note here I wanted to mention. A National geographic writer,
Speaker 6: Andrew Cockburn, had an article called twenty first century Slaves.
Speaker 3: Let me just quote a short quote here.
Speaker 6: He says slave traffickers posing as employment agents find victims
Speaker 6: in poor Eastern European town and lure them abroad with
Speaker 6: promises of good jobs. When the women arrive from Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Japan,
Speaker 6: and the US, they're delivered to buyers who typically beat, rape,
Speaker 6: and terrorize them into compliance, just like Jimmy did to
Speaker 6: his slave June. I see a correlation. Why didn't they
Speaker 6: just leave, get on a bus or a train and
Speaker 6: just leave. The answer is because they're smart enough to
Speaker 6: know they could never get away, and they'd heard what
Speaker 6: had happened to those who tried. So I think we
Speaker 6: have to get past this really unfair question, and I
Speaker 6: find it most interesting. No one questions why a ten
Speaker 6: year old child doesn't leave when being sexually or physically
Speaker 6: abused at home. No one questions that. But women don't
Speaker 6: leave for the same reasons the kids don't run away
Speaker 6: from home. I mean they're scared, they have no resources,
Speaker 6: no place to go. More than anything, they need love
Speaker 6: and then a place to fit in. So I mean
Speaker 6: many battered women, I think, are like kids. They don't
Speaker 6: know how to leave. They don't have the resources of confidence,
Speaker 6: and they're incapacitated by fear and uncertainty, and.
Speaker 3: For good reason. I mean, they're being threatened with more
Speaker 3: bodily injury. But I got to read it.
Speaker 6: Dan, If I can't, can I read another incident? This
Speaker 6: is so stunning that I just can't sure do it.
Speaker 6: And we'll get another idea of why this woman was
Speaker 6: going insane.
Speaker 3: Basically, let me just read it. This crazy incident.
Speaker 6: In January of nineteen eighty four hour, about a year
Speaker 6: after moving to Central Street, Jimmy's violence reached a new height.
Speaker 6: He had an obsession with orderliness. It was more intense
Speaker 6: than ever, and June was becoming more and more submissive,
Speaker 6: trying harder each day to do things the way Jimmy
Speaker 6: wanted and, as you said before, Dan, to get it right.
Speaker 6: At the same time, Jimmy was becoming more moody, less
Speaker 6: satisfied with himself. He was drinking more than ever, and
Speaker 6: even in the morning, his breath reeked of beer. Quote
Speaker 6: from June. I was not infallible. I couldn't be everywhere
Speaker 6: watching everything at every moment. But that's exactly what Jimmy expected.
Speaker 6: One day, when Jimmy came home for lunch, he went
Speaker 6: through the refrigerator poured a glass of milk. But I
Speaker 6: was doing something and wasn't watching him. I heard him say,
Speaker 6: what's this.
Speaker 3: And then I held my breath.
Speaker 6: I thought he was looking at the milk lid and
Speaker 6: saw some dried milk on it. I knew I'd get
Speaker 6: hit for that. But he was just asking about some
Speaker 6: leftover That's why I was relieved, Jimmy told me. Then
Speaker 6: Jimmy told me to make him a peanut butter and
Speaker 6: jelly sandwich. I grabbed the jar and opened them on
Speaker 6: the wooden cutting board and made the sandwich. I had
Speaker 6: just screwed the lid back on the peanut butter when
Speaker 6: Jimmy grabbed the jar and held it up to the
Speaker 6: light like he was trying to look through it.
Speaker 3: Then I saw what I did wrong. The lid was
Speaker 3: on crooked.
Speaker 6: In a flash, he picked up the knife and stabbed
Speaker 6: me in the back of the hand. He caught me
Speaker 6: in the web between my first and second finger. I
Speaker 6: couldn't move my hand. It was impaled on the cutting board.
Speaker 6: I just looked at the knife sticking out of my hand.
Speaker 6: It wasn't the pain. It was so bad it was
Speaker 6: seeing my hand stuck to the board. I felt sick
Speaker 6: to my stomach. Then he said, if you can't get
Speaker 6: the lid on right, maybe you should just stand there
Speaker 6: and think about it for a while. I was beyond
Speaker 6: crying by then. I still didn't think he was mean.
Speaker 6: That's how crazy I was getting. I thought, as usual
Speaker 6: that it was my fault for not getting the lid
Speaker 6: on straight, and that if I had done like I
Speaker 6: was supposed to, if I had been a better wife,
Speaker 6: this wouldn't have happened. It was never Jimmy's fault. The
Speaker 6: closest Jimmy ever came to giving an apology for anything
Speaker 6: came later that night, when he walked in and saw
Speaker 6: June sitting quietly at the kitchen table with a bandage
Speaker 6: on her hand. She was gazing at the wall, looking
Speaker 6: at nothing. Jimmy passed by her on the way of
Speaker 6: the refrigerator. He took out a beer, closed the door,
Speaker 6: twisted off the cap, and stood there for a moment.
Speaker 6: He looked at his wife and said, I wish you
Speaker 6: would stop making me do these things to you. Then
Speaker 6: he took a swig from the bottle, up loudly and
Speaker 6: walk into the living room to watch television.
Speaker 5: Let's get to talking about how this is complicated, though
Speaker 5: you talk about it, and I don't disagree with you.
Speaker 5: I wholeheartedly believe in the battered woman's syndrome when it forced,
Speaker 5: its chronicled. Every bit of evidence is there, so I'm
Speaker 5: not disagreeing. I'm on the same page and I'm sure
Speaker 5: the audience is there as well. However, there is prosecution.
Speaker 5: She was prosecuted, and the reason for prosecution is complicated
Speaker 5: incredibly by this woman named Helen Thomas Helen Lewis pardon me,
Speaker 5: eighteen years old, who they became friends and even though
Speaker 5: Jimmy didn't like her and Jimmy taunted her, they still
Speaker 5: remain friends. And she visited the home in January. February,
Speaker 5: she was over there quite a bit. What did Helen know?
Speaker 5: What did June tell her? And what did Helen soon
Speaker 5: talked to June about?
Speaker 6: Okay, so long story short, the reason June was convicted
Speaker 6: of murder and when it was sentenced to fifteen years
Speaker 6: to life was because of Helen. Had Helen not been
Speaker 6: in the picture, Jude, I'm sure wouldn't have never happened.
Speaker 3: Helen was the.
Speaker 6: One and only friend that June had. June had no friends,
Speaker 6: no car, no no family, no parents, no money, and
Speaker 6: so the the this one woman whom she had met
Speaker 6: at this minimum wage job she had took to June
Speaker 6: and for some reason Jimmy allowed her to come and
Speaker 6: visit with June.
Speaker 3: Who knows why, but he allowed that.
Speaker 6: And by the way, this is Jimmy Bieron. This is
Speaker 6: this is a guy who did not allow his wife
Speaker 6: to have a phone book in the house. You wonder
Speaker 6: why she didn't call the police or an eight hundred number.
Speaker 6: There were no eight hundred numbers back then when this happened.
Speaker 6: There no there was two safe houses in the entire
Speaker 6: state in New Hampshire. But he took a job directly
Speaker 6: across the street from the apartment. I don't mean down
Speaker 6: the street, I mean directly across the street as a
Speaker 6: mechanic with the roge door robans. We could keep an
Speaker 6: eye on the house. That's how much control he had
Speaker 6: over her. But but why he allowed Helen to come by?
Speaker 6: Who knows, But she did. And essentially, to make a
Speaker 6: long story short, Helen wasn't accomplice in this murder.
Speaker 3: She was the one.
Speaker 6: She was the one who encouraged June to get rid
Speaker 6: of Jimmy. He's gonna kill you if you don't kill
Speaker 6: him first. He's got guns all over the place. Just
Speaker 6: get get the gun and you know, to shoot him.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 6: And she talked about this for months and then one
Speaker 6: night it actually happened. June had the gun under the
Speaker 6: couch and she had fallen under the spell of Helen said,
Speaker 6: come on, he's in there sleep and let's this is
Speaker 6: time to do it. And that's essentially what happened. June
Speaker 6: stepped into the I don't want to give too much
Speaker 6: away in this book, but I'll tell you what happens.
Speaker 6: That as he slept, June stepped into the room and
Speaker 6: she said it was pitch black. She had no idea
Speaker 6: where she was shooting, and she was about to shoot
Speaker 6: and she couldn't do it. She came back out and
Speaker 6: Helen said, get back in there and do it, Helen
Speaker 6: standing there with her. So she had accomplised that she
Speaker 6: should have gone to prison as well. And j went
Speaker 6: back in and just blankly into the doctor shot four
Speaker 6: four shots.
Speaker 3: All four shots went.
Speaker 6: Into Jimmy's head and killed them. And then they then
Speaker 6: they ran and ran out and the police came what
Speaker 6: have you? And she was never charged. As simple as
Speaker 6: that there was there was actually a small part of
Speaker 6: the story they could. All they was concerned about is
Speaker 6: that they had the actual murderer, and they prosecuted her.
Speaker 6: They did not prosecute Helen because they had.
Speaker 3: No evidence that that was the case.
Speaker 6: But that's why this happened because Helen, Helen pushed June
Speaker 6: to do it.
Speaker 5: You say there was no prosecution, but didn't they use
Speaker 5: Helen as a tool of the prosecution.
Speaker 6: No, No, Ellen was not involved. Now Helen was not involved.
Speaker 6: They had they had June beyond and they questioned her
Speaker 6: and they she finally broke down and in the interrogation
Speaker 6: and they said, where's where's the gun?
Speaker 3: Where's the gun?
Speaker 6: She would tell them she finally it's in the it's
Speaker 6: in the dirty clothes basket. And they went and found
Speaker 6: the gun and they prosecuted her. So that's how this happened.
Speaker 6: But again Helen would have Helen was the impetus for this,
Speaker 6: and and I don't believe June would have done this
Speaker 6: on her own. So June took June took the hit,
Speaker 6: and she went to prison. And why did she go
Speaker 6: to prison? Because she I, if you're poor and semi
Speaker 6: literate person with no money and no resources, you don't
Speaker 6: hire a lawyer. And she had no representation, and so
Speaker 6: she went to prison and pulls out there was no trial,
Speaker 6: no trial.
Speaker 3: So this happened.
Speaker 5: So she didn't have she didn't have representation. That was
Speaker 5: reasonable whatsoever with this case too. You talk about class
Speaker 5: and money in terms of this was not a high
Speaker 5: profile case. When this murder happened. There was not a
Speaker 5: lot of attention from anybody about this.
Speaker 3: Was there, Yes, yes, there was, Yes, there was. It
Speaker 3: was supposed to. It was the most celebrated case in
Speaker 3: New Hampshire. In New Hampshire mostly celebrated. There must abuse murder.
Speaker 3: There was.
Speaker 6: It was all over the newspapers and what happened. There
Speaker 6: was a buzz all over the place that it was.
Speaker 6: It was, it was. There was death threats against June.
Speaker 6: You know, you don't women don't kill men in New
Speaker 6: Hampshire and get away with that. You know, it doesn't happen.
Speaker 6: So there was there was a big hul up a
Speaker 6: little about that, so much so that during the trials,
Speaker 6: when she was being transported from jail to the courthouse,
Speaker 6: there was a convoy of state trooper and June was
Speaker 6: on the floor of the patrol car because they death
Speaker 6: threats that they should be shot, because no women get
Speaker 6: away with this in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there was a big hullabaloo about that.
Speaker 5: And you know, but why wasn't there Why wasn't there
Speaker 5: a Why wasn't there support for her? Given, you know,
Speaker 5: given this story. I mean, if you even get a
Speaker 5: glimpse of this story, wasn't there What I meant was
Speaker 5: there wasn't any positive favorable I mean, it seems bizarre
Speaker 5: to me. Like I said, I I'm based in Canada,
Speaker 5: so I obviously I'm I'm very interested in American crime,
Speaker 5: and obviously I'm up on both countries state of the
Speaker 5: judicial system. But Canada is long recognized as battered women syndrome.
Speaker 5: In fact, if you want to see how comic a
Speaker 5: comical has become, the other way is that serial killer
Speaker 5: Carla Hamalco was referred to as a battered woman, and
Speaker 5: I was part of her defense. So what will be
Speaker 5: what I'm saying is in Canada is the these sets
Speaker 5: of circumstances, these details would have it would have been
Speaker 5: an easy slam dunk that the entire Canadian society would
Speaker 5: have been supportive of the battered women's syndrome. She wouldn't
Speaker 5: have spent a minute in jail given the same. So
Speaker 5: I don't understand why, given those that those those those details,
Speaker 5: given the story that's there, why was there no support?
Speaker 5: Why didn't given how controversy on how high profile had
Speaker 5: ended up being. How come no one came to her
Speaker 5: aid pro bono? How come there was no lawyer in
Speaker 5: the US who would travel there and represent her. Why
Speaker 5: did that not happen?
Speaker 6: Well, because it's not Canada. You know you don't lock
Speaker 6: your doors up there either, do you? And you don't
Speaker 6: hear about shootings in Canada. This is this different country,
Speaker 6: I would say, but you know it is the statement
Speaker 6: I would say, we don't. We weren't dealing with justice
Speaker 6: here in New Yry. We were dealing with law. That's
Speaker 6: why a lot of the criminal criminal justice professors are
Speaker 6: assigning this book to their for their students to read,
Speaker 6: because it's crazy.
Speaker 3: It's a crazy case. Justice wasn't done.
Speaker 6: But the law states you shoot somebody, you're.
Speaker 3: Going to prison. Back then.
Speaker 6: Now now battered women's syndrome is more recognized, Dan, let
Speaker 6: me just read it, just a couple of sentences on
Speaker 6: what about battered women's syndrome which was not recognized then?
Speaker 6: To answer your question, that's why had this case happened.
Speaker 6: Now she was and she had any kind of representation,
Speaker 6: she would have not gone to prison. Back then when
Speaker 6: this was this occurred. You're talking in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 6: It was just the very beginning.
Speaker 3: Of well, let me just read it to you. Indeed,
Speaker 3: June was falling into what would.
Speaker 6: Later later be widely known as battered women's syndrome, a
Speaker 6: condition that includes total submission to a dominant, threatening spouse,
Speaker 6: complicated by quote learned helplessness, a psychological state resulting from
Speaker 6: the domination and mind control of the perpetrator. And again,
Speaker 6: as I mentioned before, Junior was ripe for this. She
Speaker 6: was ripe for such conditioning complete dependence on her husband,
Speaker 6: two children to care for, minimum wage job, no friends,
Speaker 6: isolation from the world around her, no transportation, no parents,
Speaker 6: no money, poor self esteem, learned submissiveness from the earlier
Speaker 6: marriage we mentioned at the beginning of the show, and
Speaker 6: above all, the belief that everything that was happening to
Speaker 6: her was her own fault. If she could just get
Speaker 6: it right like other wives did, everything would be fine.
Speaker 6: So she was in that state, which then was not
Speaker 6: recognized to go back to the prosecution, That's why she
Speaker 6: went to prison. Today, I don't think it would have.
Speaker 5: Happened you visited her in prison for these interviews. To
Speaker 5: save over a two year period, tell us about her
Speaker 5: life in prison, and tell us a little more about
Speaker 5: those interviews.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will do that, and we don't have too
Speaker 6: much time left. I will say this that the closest
Speaker 6: June ever came to getting real justice, or perhaps mercy
Speaker 6: is the better way to put it, is when she's
Speaker 6: on her way to prison. The officer driving her, he
Speaker 6: almost turned around. I just got to read you this
Speaker 6: because this is a great part of the book, and
Speaker 6: then I'll go into the interview process a little more.
Speaker 3: But let me just read you this. Where am I Okay?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so she's on her way to prison with this uh,
Speaker 6: with this convoy. The rest of the convoy peeled off
Speaker 6: and dispersed just before entering the prison grounds, leaving the
Speaker 6: state trooper alone to drive the final distance to the prison. Finally,
Speaker 6: he spoke, you can sit up now, it's okay. Remember
Speaker 6: I mentioned it. I mentioned before she was down before
Speaker 6: the breakup of the entourage seemed to relax the young
Speaker 6: man with the curly blonde hair, who now became more talkative.
Speaker 6: How you doing, he asked you? And okay, she said,
Speaker 6: slithering backward up onto the car seat the best she could.
Speaker 6: The officer saw her struggling in your mirror, and he
Speaker 6: stopped the car. He got out and opened the passenger door.
Speaker 6: You don't need the cuffs on anymore, he said. Here,
Speaker 6: turn around, I'm taking them off. Removing a prisoner's handcuffs
Speaker 6: in this manner is against police procedure. But the trooper
Speaker 6: was not worried about police procedure. He was worried about June.
Speaker 6: He got back into the front seat and put the
Speaker 6: car in gear. He drove for a minute and spoke
Speaker 6: up again. I don't really want to do this, he said.
Speaker 6: June did not reply. The car kept moving, but at
Speaker 6: only ten miles per hour. The prison loomed a quarter
Speaker 6: mile ahead. Two minutes went by, and the prison drew closer.
Speaker 6: There were still one hundred yards ago when the trooper
Speaker 6: said again, I really don't want to do this. You
Speaker 6: have babies, June. You were trying to protect your babies.
Speaker 6: For a moment, June had a distinct impression that the
Speaker 6: sympathetic young trooper was about to spin the car around
Speaker 6: and drive off as fast as he could in a
Speaker 6: miraculous herculian act. It would save her from the fate
Speaker 6: that awaited her. Now fifty yards and twenty seconds away,
Speaker 6: as he admitted later, I thought about it, I really did,
Speaker 6: but a reasonly got the best of him, slow to
Speaker 6: a stop with the woman he knew should be.
Speaker 3: Anywhere but here. And that's where I met her. So
Speaker 3: that's the end of that quote.
Speaker 6: And that's where I met her in prison. And the
Speaker 6: reason I met her in prison is because I saw
Speaker 6: a story about this ordeal this woman went through and
Speaker 6: I contacted her attorneys, her attorney at the time, and said,
Speaker 6: I published a book by a Warner Books. I'm a
Speaker 6: Warner Books author and I which was about parenting, how
Speaker 6: to raise good kids, and I was interested in the opposite,
Speaker 6: you know, this dysfunctional relationship, and would she be interested
Speaker 6: in possibly investigating a book. And the attorney said, I
Speaker 6: don't know, but here's a REGRESSU you. I can write
Speaker 6: her in prison, and I did, and she wrote back
Speaker 6: and said, yes, I would be interested in getting this
Speaker 6: story out because I want to help other women who
Speaker 6: are in the same situation. That's the whole point of
Speaker 6: the book, if we get down to it. And so
Speaker 6: when I first met her, she was flanked by that
Speaker 6: attorney and another attorney, two women attorney on both sides
Speaker 6: were very protective. Here's a man, another man and coming
Speaker 6: into her life. They don't know who I am, and
Speaker 6: they were very protective of their client. So I got
Speaker 6: through all the security and I went to meet them.
Speaker 6: The two attorneys were not They were glum, grim faced women.
Speaker 6: But June came right over, very very nice, warm, smiling, Hi, Bob,
Speaker 6: I'm Julie Brion And that's the kind of person she was.
Speaker 6: Were lovely, was a lovely person. I am very highly intelligent,
Speaker 6: by the way, the first woman in the state of
Speaker 6: New Hampshire to earn a college degree from behind bars,
Speaker 6: by the way. It's a very right bright person too.
Speaker 6: And so I said, look, I gotta know about your story.
Speaker 6: I need to know about your life and see if
Speaker 6: we have a book here. I don't know if we do.
Speaker 6: And so they only gave me an hour and I
Speaker 6: got the basic Can I explain how the book proposal
Speaker 6: process work?
Speaker 3: And we have to this.
Speaker 6: I don't know if we're going to be able to
Speaker 6: sell this book or not, but I need to a
Speaker 6: lot more information. So she agreed that we could continue meeting.
Speaker 6: She didn't agree then, but the lawyers the next day
Speaker 6: said yes. She liked you, she trusts you, and she
Speaker 6: wants to go on with this. So I met her
Speaker 6: over the next period actually of two years, while I
Speaker 6: was taking notes writing the book and what have you.
Speaker 6: And the more I interviewed her and the more I
Speaker 6: wanted to continue the story what you read the story
Speaker 6: Dan more got more crazy and more bizarre and more
Speaker 6: interesting the longer we went. So that's how the book
Speaker 6: came about. And the point of the whole book was
Speaker 6: and is to this day, is to hopefully be of
Speaker 6: edifying and inspiring to and somehow help other people that.
Speaker 3: Are in the same situation.
Speaker 5: You saw her, how long after the trial had concluded,
Speaker 5: and how long was that after the arrest itself? You
Speaker 5: say she was in you know, she greeted you, But
Speaker 5: when you talk about just before the murder, she was
Speaker 5: down to ninety pounds and she was in a terrible state,
Speaker 5: and you say she was out of her mind and busy.
Speaker 5: And so how long was that I met her?
Speaker 3: A year?
Speaker 6: No, I met her years later. No, No, years later,
Speaker 6: I met her. She'd been in prison prison for nine
Speaker 6: years by the time I met her and heard about
Speaker 6: this story. But she wasn't the same person who went
Speaker 6: in a prison this much much later.
Speaker 5: So your sense of her stay in prison, Her life
Speaker 5: was terrible, But like I had mentioned, and you write
Speaker 5: in the book, there was times when she succeeded. She
Speaker 5: achieved things that she thought she might not ever achieved.
Speaker 5: She had friends, she had people that were paying attention
Speaker 5: to her. We didn't get a chance to talk about
Speaker 5: the two people that intervened on her behalf and got
Speaker 5: to see Jimmy and his anger and his violence up
Speaker 5: close and didn't help June's situation whatsoever. But what happened
Speaker 5: in prison? What was her life like to get to
Speaker 5: the point where you saw are in nine years later?
Speaker 3: Well, what was her life like?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've got like a couple of minutes you could
Speaker 6: go over that.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 6: As the book goes on to describe how she learned
Speaker 6: to fight back, fight the system, begin the process of
Speaker 6: trying to get out of prison. I can't tell you
Speaker 6: what happened. I don't want to swallow the book, but
Speaker 6: there are a lot of twists turns, And it began
Speaker 6: one day when another prison inmate came down to orcell
Speaker 6: to visit her, and I just I just want to
Speaker 6: read you this real quick. It's a short little blurb,
Speaker 6: and it's really the reason I wrote wrote the book.
Speaker 6: She came down and she said, there's a woman named
Speaker 6: Renee said you shouldn't. You shouldn't be here, June.
Speaker 3: You did what you had to do. You know that.
Speaker 6: I know that, everybody knows that. But there's politics involved,
Speaker 6: and you've got to get involved in them. That's why,
Speaker 6: that's what we'll get you out of here.
Speaker 3: People need to know your story.
Speaker 6: You never had a trial, never had a chance to
Speaker 6: defend yourself. And so Rene Renee's words resounded in her head.
Speaker 6: She said, people need to know your story. That statement
Speaker 6: rang true. But how how from behind thick prison walls
Speaker 6: does one person tell her story? Well, you tell her
Speaker 6: through writing a book. So that's that's why this that's
Speaker 6: why this book came about. And and and she had
Speaker 6: a lot of support from other people in prison, and
Speaker 6: everyone knew she wouldn't shouldn't have been there. So she she,
Speaker 6: you know, tried to start the process of getting a hearing.
Speaker 6: And what she did and I can't tell you what happened,
Speaker 6: but the governor of New Hampshire, who was the one
Speaker 6: who prosecuted her ten years earlier, he was he was
Speaker 6: the attorney general at the time of the murder. He's
Speaker 6: one who prosecuted her, and now he's the governor.
Speaker 3: Ten years later.
Speaker 6: He granted a rare pardon hearing. Everybody thinks that they're
Speaker 6: going to get out of prison because they're going to
Speaker 6: tell their story, but they don't get heard. This case
Speaker 6: was so well known that and she had these attorneys
Speaker 6: working for that. He did grant her a hearing before
Speaker 6: the Executive Council. And you have to read the book
Speaker 6: to find out what happened on that. That's where I'm
Speaker 6: going to leave.
Speaker 3: You at the end.
Speaker 5: Absolutely well. You know, the thing is it does chronicle
Speaker 5: as you talked about introduction, about the before domestic violence
Speaker 5: hotlines and safe houses and now the billboards with the
Speaker 5: abused women and all the firings in Hollywood, and you know,
Speaker 5: the conviction of Bill Cosby. There has been a seismic shifts.
Speaker 5: But also since nineteen eighty seven there's been an incredible
Speaker 5: shift in attitude towards the battered woman syndrome. There has
Speaker 5: been many defenses successfully used with that with far less
Speaker 5: horrific example of abuse than June injured. Tell us us
Speaker 5: a little bit about this board, right, you're right.
Speaker 6: I'm going to say right, because the times have changed.
Speaker 6: But unfortunately June was in the wrong place. It's the
Speaker 6: wrong time. But you're right, things have changed now. So
Speaker 6: that's one reason for writing the book too, is to
Speaker 6: explain battered women's syndrome which these women go through, highlight
Speaker 6: this whole issue if domestic violence is so prevalent but hidden,
Speaker 6: like I said at the beginning of the show, and
Speaker 6: get people talking about it. I mean, that is the
Speaker 6: whole point here is what do we do now? You
Speaker 6: speak to people, You encourage others people to speak. You
Speaker 6: need to get to kids when they're young and impressionable
Speaker 6: and impress upon them. And as always and immediately unacceptable
Speaker 6: in any way to mentally or physically abused or be
Speaker 6: abused by anyone period. You've heard of the California the
Speaker 6: law of three strikes, you're out. Well, my opinion is
Speaker 6: when it comes to domestic violence, it's one threat of
Speaker 6: a strike and you're out, because threats inevitably, they inevitably
Speaker 6: lead to a punch or a kicked and too often death.
Speaker 6: And remember, batterers do not get better. We haven't talked
Speaker 6: about that very much, but they will not get better.
Speaker 6: And besides, there's plenty of good decent men out there.
Speaker 6: Why wait, but this takes rational, not emotional thinking, and
Speaker 6: it's very difficult. That's why these women end up in
Speaker 6: dead end, dangerous relationships.
Speaker 3: So what do we do? Let me just conclude on this.
Speaker 6: You confront women who you suspect are being abused. All
Speaker 6: of us know somebody who is being abused. We may
Speaker 6: not see it, see it with the bruises on the
Speaker 6: face because they're beating them in the back, but you
Speaker 6: can suspect it and talk to them, say you're willing
Speaker 6: to listen, get them to talk, get things going. You
Speaker 6: got to make some progress, so you don't keep the
Speaker 6: issue a hidden ones because it's host up to us
Speaker 6: to end this insane epidemic.
Speaker 3: We've got to do something about it.
Speaker 6: So I hope people find the book inspiring, and as
Speaker 6: you and I had both hoped that it'll help women
Speaker 6: in other similar situations.
Speaker 5: Given the time, it's just fascinating to read what people
Speaker 5: put up with. And you know, neighbors knew people living downstairs,
Speaker 5: Frank and Deanna, they knew who there was, the whole family.
Speaker 5: When she dared to get drunk one time, and talk
Speaker 5: to his stepfather Randolph and mentioned the abuse of people
Speaker 5: were horrified, not angered at Jimmy. So this is an
Speaker 5: incredible much different time, much different attitude, and people will
Speaker 5: be horrified of the of the facts and details that
Speaker 5: they read and then to realize that this woman went
Speaker 5: to prison. So I want to also just give out
Speaker 5: a shout out to Wild Blue Press for being able
Speaker 5: to publish this book. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 5: how they might take a look at where to find
Speaker 5: this and if you have a website Facebook page, tell
Speaker 5: us about that.
Speaker 3: Robert, Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: So the book is as you mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 6: of The Beast, I loved a battered woman's desperate struggle
Speaker 6: to survive. And of course it's on the Wild Blue
Speaker 6: Press website. I do have a page there with my
Speaker 6: blog and the overview. It can be purchased on Amazon.
Speaker 6: It's in the kindle form the e book or the
Speaker 6: or print version, or on Wild Blue Press site too.
Speaker 6: You can you can you can purchase the book there
Speaker 6: either way and kindle or audio or assume me the
Speaker 6: e book or the print version. And uh, and I
Speaker 6: write a little bit more. I do have a blog
Speaker 6: there and it's all on Wild Blue Press. Wild Blue
Speaker 6: is one word, wild blue and unpressed. You can find
Speaker 6: more information about about the beast I love there.
Speaker 5: It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for coming
Speaker 5: on and talking about the beast I loved, Robert Davidson.
Speaker 5: Do you have a great evening. Thank you very much
Speaker 5: for this interview.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Dan, thanks a lot, bye way, good night,