Killer Sally (2022) s01e03 Episode Script

1
I have these nightmares
every now and then
where I'm trying to get away from Ray.
I try to fly,
and I just barely get out of his grasp,
and he'll grab me and pull me down.
And it just repeats again.
A jury will decide the fate
of Sally McNeil, a female bodybuilder
accused of killing her husband,
another bodybuilder,
on Valentine's Day last year.
Seasoned prosecutors
have an eye for drama.
Good lawyers want the case to be poignant.
So, why not start the trial
on Valentine's Day?
Opening statements
start today
if convicted, McNeil faces
up to 35 years to life in prison.
If I do a good opening statement,
I've already persuaded the jurors.
She is a bully, she is a thug.
And that's hard to say
when you're talking about a woman,
but Sally McNeil has managed
to bridge the gap of gender
and become somebody
who is physical, confrontational
I was arguing she was a violent person,
and a violent person
can't be a battered woman.
And her devotion
got her beaten.
Got her degraded.
Sally was a battered woman.
The law recognizes that if you have
the right to defend yourself
against imminent harm, possible death,
you have a right
to use force to remove that threat,
and it could be deadly force.
The DA said that in a jealous rage
that I killed Ray.
It wasn't a jealous rage, it was fear.
I'm not a sophisticated woman.
I'm not diabolical.
I don't have bad intentions.
I have good intentions to be
the best mother I can to my children.
My kids were back in Pennsylvania.
I'm separated from them and I'm by myself,
living in a studio room,
hoping that I'm found innocent.
Premeditated first-degree murder,
or self-defense?
Did she use her strength to defend herself
or to murder her husband?
Is she a strong woman or a victim?
Diane Dimond has the story
of the pumped-up princess
who's charged with killing Mr. California.
Bodybuilder Sally McNeil
may be only 5'3",
but Sally is no weakling.
I'm Diane Dimond, and I am the voice
you hear on Hard Copy
back in 1995, reporting on
the Sally McNeil murder trial.
I think the key story point in
the Sally McNeil case was Sally McNeil.
She was, uh, an attractive blond.
It was this subculture
that people didn't know much about,
the bodybuilding community.
And even though domestic abuse
was the crux of her defense,
that's not what attracted us
to the Sally McNeil story.
It was her. It was that brawny bride.
It was that pumped-up princess.
It was the ability
for us to write lines like,
"Instead of pumping iron,
she was pumping bullets into her husband."
And I I'm a little embarrassed
to tell you that.
But that's the way it was back then.
That is what got the audience
to come in and stay.
See these biceps?
I can curl 120 pounds for ten reps.
Now just think what I can do to your neck.
Sally had the misfortune of coming
in an era of reporting on "angry women."
Amy Fisher, who shot
her married lover's wife in the head.
And then, of course, we had
the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal.
Why?
Then there was Lorena Bobbitt
a year later.
Bobbitt acted out of anger
Cut off her husband's manhood,
claimed years and years of abuse
by her husband.
These are not the typical women who
stayed in their place back in the '90s,
quiet housewives with children.
These were women who burst onto the scene,
like Sally McNeil,
and we couldn't look away.
There was a lot of press,
there was a lot of media.
And them talking about my mom,
it was devastating, it was depressing,
because we were always known
for good things.
You know, for bodybuilding
and stuff like that.
So it was hard to see
all the negative stuff.
Sally McNeil
is a threat to public safety,
a powerful, violent woman
who is better off behind bars.
My lawyer told me
not to talk to the media,
and I should have.
I should have been talking to them,
because nobody knew how much he abused me.
Now, this woman
with a body of steel
has been reduced to a weak
and weeping emotional wreck.
It would be on the news.
My grandparents would shield us
away from it.
It would upset me when I was a kid,
because I would want to watch it,
despite the fact that they were saying
bad things about my mother on TV.
And despite the fact that they would
say things like "a former Marine,"
or "Killer Marine Sally,"
or stuff like that,
because I would get to see
pictures of my mother.
And I missed her so much.
Me and my brother, we did move
to Pennsylvania with my mom's mom.
She was very loving.
Sometimes reporters called,
and I remember my grandmother saying,
"The kids don't need
to be a part of this."
"They need to have a good life."
The defendant backed up,
loaded another round
When you start out
a homicide prosecution,
really you take the role of instructor.
You're instructing the jury
on why this person is guilty.
And the first part of my case
was the forensics.
Sally McNeil initially claimed
that Ray had been beating her up,
but the forensics
just didn't spell out somebody
who is in the middle of a confrontation.
Looking at the autopsy,
Ray McNeil had been shot twice.
He was shot with a slug from a shotgun
at approximately eight feet.
It went in perpendicular to his body.
He fell, and was shot again in the face.
It was the first shot
that actually killed him,
but it took a while.
He bled out in his abdominal cavity
and his chest cavity.
One of the critical facts
of the investigation
was the issue of the reload.
And then right after you shot him
He came after me. He came after me.
Okay. Where's the second shell?
It was in my hand.
I was holding it in my hand.
The hand that was pulling the trigger.
- Okay.
- Okay.
So, then when you had to reload
- I just put it right in.
- Right in.
Sally McNeil's initial statement
to law enforcement
was that after she shot Ray
by the kitchen,
he came at her.
She reloaded and turns around and shoots
him immediately while he was standing up.
If she did that,
the expended shotgun shell
from the first shot
would be in the living room.
The shotgun shell from the first shot is
in the back bedroom, where the ammo is.
So what happened was,
she went to the back bedroom,
got another shell and had to load it.
To load that shell back into the gun,
she needed to release the other shell
from the firearm.
It landed in the bedroom.
She put the second round in
and went out to the living room,
while Ray is down and dying.
He was shot in the face
while he was on the ground.
To prove that, there was a lamp
in the living room on the end of a table.
The blood spatter
was underneath the lampshade.
That meant that Ray had to be down
when the shotgun shell hit his face
and the blood flew up.
If he was standing up when he was shot,
the blood would be on the outside of
the lampshade, spraying down and out.
The defendant shot an unarmed man,
then she reloaded and shot him again.
The State said that empty shell
in the bedroom was proof
that she had premeditatedly gone back
and gotten a second bullet
to really do in Ray.
It was cold-blooded, first-degree murder.
You're sitting, listening to
the prosecution put on their case.
You can see the jurors.
You can watch their expression.
It changed with the second shot.
And I didn't have a forensic expert
that would counter that.
to getting information
I really did think that the best defense
strategy was battered woman syndrome.
My expertise is crime and justice,
so I have long known about domestic abuse
and its devastating long-term effects.
But in the '90s, I think we were
just waking up to it.
Suddenly, there was this thing called
"battered women's syndrome,"
and psychologists started
appearing on television, talking about it.
It is a slow deterioration
of the of the victim.
And, of course, we'd gone through
the OJ Simpson case,
which talked about that.
The defendant beat her,
humiliated her, and controlled her.
I didn't know what
battered woman syndrome was.
I think I may have heard it
during the OJ Simpson trial,
but I didn't associate myself with that.
I was in denial
that I was a battered woman.
And I've learned to, like,
suppress things and block them out.
I was retained by the defense attorney
to conduct a full psychological evaluation
of Sally McNeil.
I had evaluated probably over 500
battered women at that point in my career.
If he wasn't punching me in the head
or throwing me, he was choking me.
A lot of times,
I would run and dive on the bed.
He'd come running after me
and dive on top of me
and start choking me.
She's small.
I was surprised
at how small she was. Short.
It was, you know, just really
She was sad.
struggling.
She had a hard time
talking about some of the issues,
particularly the sexual abuse.
Sally is like other battered women
who've been battered before.
Repeated abuse can often cause
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Victims of domestic violence very often
show post-traumatic stress disorder,
and in fact, what we know now
that we didn't know at the time
was that brain scans
of domestic violence victims
who are in some of these highly,
highly dangerous situations
mirror the brain scans
of prisoners of war.
Battered woman syndrome is a shoot-off.
It comes from PTSD. I actually had PTSD.
Not from the Marines, from Ray.
I was not mentally able to leave.
I was just as sick as he was.
She had been isolated.
She had, you know, endured broken bones.
She had had strangulation incidences.
And I think that dictates
all the decisions
that a victim is gonna make
in that situation.
I killed him because
I was protecting myself.
He was trying to kill me.
Live or die.
To me,
it seemed like he came after me.
To me, and I'm not even gonna say
"seemed," he did come after me,
and what I remember,
it seemed like
it was going in slow motion,
and we were going around,
and I was just
I was running.
I ran away from him and shot him.
When he was choking me,
or like, when he hit me, and like, I I
I don't remember everything.
And if I don't get everything
right in order,
it doesn't mean I'm lying.
This happened 26 years ago.
I don't remember everything
quite that well.
I didn't plan this.
If I had planned this,
I would have never done a day in prison.
This man was choking me,
had been choking me for eight years.
So I'm sure I wasn't quite right.
This man beat me down so bad
I didn't think I could get away.
I did the evaluation.
I believe I spent
about nine hours interviewing her,
and I testified as an expert in the trial.
I thought an expert
like Nancy Kaser-Boyd
would help you understand
why Sally behaved in the way she behaved,
why she thought she needed that degree
of force to eliminate the threat.
In testifying for Sally,
I do recall the prosecutor
making a lot of objections.
The prosecution made battered women
seem almost silly.
For example, asked questions like,
"Isn't it true
that some battered women leave
and some battered women don't leave?"
"Isn't it true that some battered women
go to the hospital,
and some battered women
don't go to the hospital?"
And in reality,
there is no one way battered women react.
But the reality is,
anyone can become a battered woman.
All it takes is being in a relationship
with someone stronger
and more willing
to engage in violence against you.
And, yes, she's out there,
you know, beating up women
she thinks are sleeping with her husband
and things like that.
Victims are not perfect people.
We expect them to be perfect,
we want them to be perfect.
And then when they're not,
we blame them for it.
The defendant is anything
but a battered woman.
Um, she, uh she's one of the most
violent people that I've ever prosecuted,
and, uh, calling her, uh,
suffering from battered woman syndrome
is is the abuse excuse.
I have enormous respect
for Dr. Kaser-Boyd.
She said that Sally's a battered woman.
There's another possibility too,
and that is Sally McNeil
is a battered woman
and Ray was a batterer,
but there was no imminent threat.
As much of a a jerk
as Ray McNeil was at times,
he didn't love her the way
she wanted him to love her.
It's, "If I can't have you,
nobody else will."
The moment when I became hip
to how the trial was going
was the parade of Ray's friends
coming in and testifying against me.
The district attorney called me
and asked me,
would I testify in the trial?
And I said yes.
When Ray and I met before his death,
he was telling me
that he was leaving Sally.
He was gonna break up with her,
pack up and leave,
and then go and live this happy life
with Marianne.
He fell in love with me.
Um
Now, he had had previous infidelities
before then as well.
I don't think he was
ever happy in that marriage.
There was a woman's phone number
on the phone bill the one time.
He lied about it, and I called it,
and it turned out to be this one woman
that would work out at the gym.
I called her and told her,
you know, I said,
"I'm gonna kick your ass if you,
you know, fool around with my husband."
I think Sally knew
that Ray was leaving.
She knew that on Valentine's Day.
Instead of him being with her,
he was out with somebody else.
And I knew she wasn't just gonna
stand by and let him leave like that.
The state prosecutor brought in
several witnesses to testify about Sally,
about her demeanor,
and, to a person, she was described
as being aggressive, uh, quick to temper.
Not just against Ray McNeil,
but against neighbors, babysitters.
Anybody who crosses Sally McNeil
is in for it.
The defense tried to counter
this testimony
with character witnesses of their own.
There was one girlfriend who came forward
and testified
that she'd seen bruises on Sally.
I saw her broken arms.
I saw her broken nose.
She did not tell anyone else
about the abuse.
The only reason she talked to me about it
was because I saw it
and I questioned her about it.
So, at the trial, there was nobody
to put on the stand but me.
Hers was a pretty good testimony.
But that was only one person, really,
talking on my side.
I was really surprised when
I mean, it's shocking anyway
when the incident happened,
but just, um,
to know the background of it,
and to know how much trouble
she had had with him
was really it was devastating.
I wish that she had told me.
She must have been ashamed.
I think that that's what it was.
I think that she
she didn't want people to know.
I think she was just ashamed.
Why aren't we discussing
physical evidence?
On the night of the shooting,
McNeil's attorney said she suffered abuse,
and she finally struck back.
During the course of trial,
it is important to get information
from witnesses who were present
during the event.
Now they may not have witnessed all of it,
but they may have seen a portion of it.
So I needed Shantina in order to describe
the interaction between Ray and Sally
when Ray got home.
The day I testified,
I think I was 12 years old.
I remember him asking me about,
what did I hear?
And I told them that my dad
was choking my mom.
And I remember explaining the sounds,
because I knew
And he said, "Well, how do you know
your dad was choking your mom?"
And I said,
"Because, uh, whenever he chokes her out,
she makes these sounds."
I remember feeling embarrassed,
but I had to say it, because they weren't
asking a lot of questions.
And, um
I said, "Well, when my dad
does choke my mom,
these are the sounds she makes."
Because I've seen him choke her.
I've heard him choke her.
I've banged on the door
to try to get him off of her.
Shantina became emotional
during both direct and cross-examination,
and I asked
that the examination be terminated.
Uh, the judge was sympathetic to the child
and stopped really stopped
the examination.
I felt like my mom's lawyer
didn't do enough questioning me,
because I felt like I was just in and out,
and I wanted to tell my mom's story.
I wanted to tell everybody what happened,
and I just felt like they were just asking
all the wrong questions.
They weren't asking about
what my mom had to go through,
what my mom's feelings and mentality was.
It made sense for them to not let me
go on the stand because I was younger,
but I was very sad and upset
that they did not interview me,
because I had a lot of things
that I needed to say.
And I wouldn't have cried at all.
I would have told the truth of
the pure hell that went on in that house.
Sally had just witnessed
her daughter testifying.
Now, Sally decided
that she needed to testify.
And I tried to talk her out of it.
By the time I represented Sally,
I had tried well over
100 criminal jury trials.
I could count on one hand how many times
defendants had testified
in any of my trials.
And I can recall only two times
that I thought it wouldn't hurt them.
And Sally McNeil was not one of those two.
I wanted to tell
my side of the story,
and tell how the DA
was not looking for the truth.
He wanted to win at all cost.
I don't think my lawyer
wanted me to testify,
but I ended up testifying,
and I think that was the worst thing
I could have done.
Do you solemnly swear
She got up on the stand
and took the oath
to tell the truth.
And then she just got rigid,
turned into a little Marine
who's gonna show no emotion whatsoever.
Answered my questions,
"Yes, sir. No, sir."
I was thinking to myself,
"This isn't going well. This is horrible."
I knew
when she was gonna take the stand
that I would dismantle her.
And so that phase of cross-examination
is just getting her to concede
what you know she's going to concede to.
For instance
You obtained a shotgun. Yes or no?
You know how to shoot a shotgun.
Yes or no?
You loaded a shotgun. Yes or no?
After you loaded the shotgun,
you needed to target the weapon.
Yes or no?
She targets the weapon.
You just take it incrementally.
I put the gun in her hands, figuratively.
I had her aim the weapon
at Ray McNeil, figuratively.
I had her shoot Ray McNeil
in front of the jury, figuratively,
and then I had her reload
and shoot Ray again.
That DA is booming,
"She's a liar! She was never abused."
"She's using the battered woman
as an excuse to get away with murder."
I'm a battered woman,
so I'm gonna shut down
and I'm gonna get scared
and I'm not gonna testify right.
And he knew this.
That was awful.
Before Sally McNeil testified,
there had been videotapes,
there had been posters,
there had been physical items
that the judge excluded from evidence,
saying they were not significant
to this case.
So these pieces of evidence
aren't coming in
unless the defense
opens the door for them.
And her testimony did exactly that
during the cross-examination.
The prosecutor said, "You're known
by the name of Killer Sally McNeil."
"Isn't that true?"
I'm the best wrestler.
You'd be interested in wrestling me
I can be reached at the end of the video.
And she denied it.
And in her mind,
I can see why she denied it,
because, "No, I'm not known by that."
No, I was acting.
When I made these wrestling videos,
I was acting.
Sally is so literal.
It wasn't a name to her.
It was a character.
If you had asked her,
"Have you ever portrayed
a character named Killer Sally McNeil?",
she would have said yes.
But that's not the way he phrased it
and that's not the way she answered it.
Because she answered no,
an exhibit that had been excluded
was now available
for the prosecutor to use.
The item was a poster
to promote her video wrestling business.
In it, she's posing with the murder weapon
and titled Killer Sally McNeil.
By the title on the poster,
she's telling you what she's gonna do
with that murder weapon.
She's a killer.
It was devastating.
It was absolutely devastating.
Yeah, I think it was damaging
that the DA showed that poster.
I wasn't advocating violence.
It's just, that's what bodybuilders do
to promote themselves.
Is that okay?
I think I was in a dissociative state
during the cross-examination.
I was, like, there but not,
and I was thinking to myself,
"Everything we've worked on is gone."
And I actually thought, honestly,
that he was gonna get a first-degree
murder conviction after that.
Closing arguments wrapped up today
in the murder trial
of bodybuilder Sally McNeil.
Today in court, McNeil kept quiet
and didn't say much to anyone.
Prosecutor Daniel Goldstein described
Sally McNeil as a dangerous woman
who has a lot of pent-up anger.
In fact, Sally McNeil is a violent,
aggressive individual.
There's no greater experience than
standing up in a closing argument
and the world is your oyster.
Right? Just like I like this interview.
There's nothing you can say
that will make me not love it.
Calling Sally McNeil a person who can
claim the battered woman syndrome
is like calling hockey
a non-contact sport.
Say "cheese."
Cheese.
She's coming to get me! Ah!
I think in society now,
and back in 1996,
we have a tendency to look at women
and we don't believe
that they can be violent.
We look at men.
We know men can be violent.
But indeed, women can be violent too.
And women can harbor murderous intent,
and women can be abusive.
It was no longer about gender.
It was about violence.
He said
that I wasn't a real woman.
Just because I'm a bodybuilder
and just because I'm a Marine
doesn't mean I'm not a real woman.
He made me out to be this monster.
Jury members
are expected to begin
deliberations tomorrow morning.
If convicted of first-degree murder,
she could get 35 years to life,
or the jury could find her guilty
of lesser charges,
like voluntary manslaughter,
second-degree murder.
Or find her innocent, and she could walk.
The jury's deliberating.
We get excused from the courtroom.
I run to the train station,
take the train home.
So I go to work out
because I needed an outlet.
I'm just waiting on the verdict,
hoping that I'm found innocent.
At the most, voluntary manslaughter.
After three days
of deliberation,
the jury in the Sally McNeil
murder trial has reached a verdict.
The North County bodybuilder
has been free on bail
since she shot her husband
more than a year ago.
Phoebe Chongchua joins us now
with the verdict. Phoebe.
Kim, Steven,
Sally McNeil appeared in court today,
awaiting a fateful outcome.
We, the jury, in the above entitled cause
find the defendant, Sally Marie McNeil,
not guilty of the crime
of first-degree murder,
in violation of penal code section 187.
We, the jury, in the above entitled cause
find the defendant, Sally Marie McNeil,
guilty of the crime
of second-degree murder.
"Sally McNeil is guilty
of second-degree murder."
All's I can remember,
it was a like a "womp-womp."
You know, the room closed in on me.
Sally McNeil was found guilty
of second-degree murder.
Second-degree murder is the intent
to kill someone unlawfully.
There is no reasonable
provocation for the killing.
There is no excuse and no justification.
Jurors who gathered
outside the courthouse
didn't believe the shooting
was in self-defense.
That's what we agreed on as a jury,
that there was no imminent danger.
She just decided
that she was going to end his life.
She went into the bedroom
and got a gun and came out
and pointed it at him and shot him.
And then to make sure, she shot him again.
I was sentenced
to 19-years-to-life.
I was gonna get taken away from my kids
and never see them again.
It's like I was killed anyway.
They lost their mother anyway.
So that meant, to me,
I was never getting my mom back.
It was hard. It was
It was
A child needs their parents.
I had a feeling
she was gonna go to prison
because she took the second shot.
I never in a million years
would have imagined
she would do as long as she did.
I was devastated.
I really I didn't understand.
Not that she didn't get off,
but that she got
the kind of time that she got.
You know, like,
and that she could feasibly
spend the rest of her life in jail.
I miss him.
I miss his friendship.
I miss talking to him.
I just miss him, period.
Wow, it just It's just sad.
It brings back some bad memories.
It's just tragic.
We loved everybody in that family,
including Sally.
We saw both sides of the story, so
You know, we we really felt
that they just should have just
split apart.
It was pretty bad. It was toxic.
I arrived
at Valley State Prison for Women
on the 1st of May, 1996.
I'm in California. I'm in Chowchilla,
the armpit of the USA.
My children are on the other side
of the country, 3,300 miles away.
Being in prison has taught me that
life goes on while you're stuck in prison.
You can't expect a lot from your family,
you can't make big demands,
because they have
a life to live out there.
My mom used to bring the children out
once a year, in July,
when they were on vacation from school.
Those annual visits meant the world to me.
It was really hard.
It was hard leaving, you know?
And it may not have been a right decision,
but we ended up not going anymore.
Because I had to explain to friends
that I was going to California
to see my mom in prison.
And I hated letting people know
that my mom was in prison,
because then you have to explain
everything in your life,
and why you're living
with your grandparents.
And it was just easier for me to tell them
that I lost both of my parents
on Valentine's Day.
Nobody ever asked questions.
I missed Shantina's prom.
I missed Shantina's graduation.
I missed John when he took third place
in the state wrestling meet in California.
Then I missed him graduating high school
and going to his prom.
All those things that I've missed.
When I joined the military,
my mother and I would correspond.
But I reached a point when I had a child.
I wrote my mother a letter saying that
she didn't have my sister and I in mind
when she pulled the trigger,
and then I didn't speak
to my mother for a while
while she was in jail.
And I wish I would have been there more
for my mother.
I just kept hoping
after she was sentenced that, you know,
maybe they'll let her do five years
and they'll let her out.
Maybe they'll let her do ten years
and they'll let her out.
And then I just stopped hoping.
I just didn't think they were
ever gonna let her out.
I've gone through
five parole board hearings since 2011.
The first time,
I got denied because they said,
"You are not a battered woman."
So the last time
I went to the parole board,
I had to say it was my intention
to kill my husband,
like as though
he never abused me or beat me
or broke my bones or choked me.
It was all me,
that I accepted responsibility
for what I did.
I'm sure you'll interview her
and she'll say
she didn't do anything wrong.
I'm sure that she believes
that Ray needed to die.
He didn't.
She was justly convicted.
And after that, I'm out of the show.
Do I think in this present day,
if I were a juror,
would I convict her
of second-degree murder? No.
I think it's unfortunate
that it happened in 1995.
I actually don't think Sally's
sentence would be any different today.
I see women 25, 30 years later
after Sally's case
who are getting equally long sentences.
We're better now at protecting victims
than we used to be,
but there's a lot more we could do.
I just feel badly that we,
the media, me included,
didn't delve more into,
who was Sally McNeil?
Who was she really?
Past the the greased-up
muscles and the steroids.
And we didn't do that then.
If I could meet her,
I might apologize to her for that.
- Really?
- Yeah.
And there's a Diet Coke.
Thank you. Ooh, that looks good
Oh my God.
Oh my God, I haven't had that in 25 years.
Sally.
Hi. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
When I first got out,
I lived at the VTC.
The VTC is
the Veterans Transitional Center.
They welcome us back to society.
Give us homeless vets
a place to stay at the VTC.
I have a job in a warehouse.
I can make my own money.
Nobody's telling me when to eat
or when to sleep.
Life is good.
Freedom tastes wonderful.
The last time
I saw my mom was in 2004.
She's been in prison for, what, 25 years?
So, when I was your age.
She is my mom.
She's a grandmother.
You know, I want her
to watch her grandchildren, you know?
Those are the things
She's entitled to everything.
Just because she messed up,
it doesn't mean she's a messed-up person.
Hey, old lady!
Oh my God!
Oh my God, look at you!
And look at your hair. It's so pretty
And look at you. You look good, Shantina.
- I'm tall. Yeah?
- You're beautiful.
- You're so tall.
- Oh God.
These are my prom pictures.
Your prom. And who's that cute boy?
He's Rolfe. School friends.
He's handsome.
Yeah.
After I graduated high school,
I joined the military.
I deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division
to Iraq.
I do have PTSD,
and it's both from combat
You know, just being over there
changes you a little bit.
And then from my ex,
while I was stationed in Iraq.
I was, um, physically abused
for three years,
and my unit didn't know about it.
I could never understand
why my mom did not leave.
But when I found myself
in a situation like that,
I kind of stayed for the same reasons.
I just wanted to be loved, you know?
I was repeating that same cycle.
I could see how captivated
my mom and dad were for each other
in the same scenario
that I have found myself in.
And what I chose to do is like,
"Hey, this is wrong."
"You're not for me and I'm not for you.
We have to get out of this relationship."
And then I did, I left.
Um
And after that, I re I
I realized nobody would ever
hit me again.
Now I just focus on my son.
That's the only man in my life
that I need to take care of.
There's different pressure points in here.
I dream about seeing my son, John.
He's living down in Texas.
I call him about once or twice a week.
My relationship is really good
with my mother right now.
But I haven't got a chance to visit her,
because I've been
to drug and alcohol treatment,
and for treatment for combat PTSD.
I had five combat tours in Afghanistan.
I had deployed so much
and I'd fought so much
that I just mentally
couldn't do it no more.
I got out
and I just fell into drug addiction.
I had a wonderful wife.
She took care of me in every way.
I was very bad to her.
It's one of the biggest regrets
I have in my life.
Between the fighting growing up as a kid,
between five combat tours,
my entire life has been violence.
I don't want to be
around violence anymore.
Every Wednesday, we go to
our support group program at the VTC
and talk about our experience in prison.
And, um, I met my boyfriend there.
Stewart and I have been together
for ten months now.
I'm in love with Stewart.
He's so laid back and easy to be with.
He's not trying to be in control of me.
He lets me be me.
Time has taught me that you only get
one special gem in your life.
My initial fear was
I would be too impulsive,
so I was like,
"We have to date for a long time
before anything serious
comes about this relationship."
I knew to take it slow.
He fell in love with me real fast,
and, like, his friends
were all telling him,
"You know what she was in prison for,
don't you?"
They were more nervous for him than me.
This is spectacular
Stewart and I
have a future together,
and we're gonna get married.
I'm happy
that my mother's getting remarried.
She's missed 26 years of her life.
That's time she's missed with her family,
life experiences,
intimacy with another man.
You know,
I'm happy that she's found a lover.
I didn't deserve
this sentence of 19-years-to-life.
I wanna do an appeal on what happened,
but I'm just so happy I'm I'm free.
I don't care anymore.
I'm free.
Glory ♪
Oh ♪
Everyone standing, please.
When we get married ♪
- I, Sally
- I, Sally
- take thee, Norfleet
- take thee, Norfleet
to be my wedded husband
to be my wedded husband
- to have and to hold
- to have and to hold
- from this day forward.
- from this day forward.
Norfleet, you may kiss your bride.
Hold on a minute,
'cause this might take a while.
You won't belong to me, I let you down ♪
I walk around and see
Your night skyline ♪
I feel the light
But you don't want to stay ♪
So lonely now
Just let me off downtown ♪
- Sad and free ♪
- Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪
Oh ♪
Oh ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody ♪