I am a Killer (2018) s01e07 Episode Script

Whenever things happen to certain people that they love, they're gonna do everything they can to make you out to be a monster.
To make sure you get what they believe you deserve, which is, at the time, a lot of them wanted me to die.
And here I sit 18 years later.
I just consider myself just, uh a down-to-earth, normal person who tries to help others and better myself at the same time.
More like a people person.
I try to look out for people.
I got a caring heart.
And I walked up, I fired one shot.
And as I got closer, I fired one more shot.
She was shot through the cheek and it stopped in her jaw.
I drove him around behind a desk and I stabbed him approximately 25 times.
I couldn't believe it.
I just thought I can't believe I just killed somebody.
I don't feel bad about it.
I started stabbing him, stabbing the guy on the couch.
I was born in Centreville, Illinois.
It's a part of the city in East St.
Louis.
I was born to some young parents, so my grandparents on my mom and dad's side played a major role in raising me.
They taught me the right you know, right from wrong, try to put me on a path.
My father, uh, he really kept me on a narrow path, exposed me to religion.
I had to go to church every Sunday.
Made sure that I brought home good grades and pretty much exposed me to all different types of instruments, sports, science, you name it.
Him and I used to take rides on his motorcycle.
But this particular day, he wouldn't let me ride with him.
And I was We kinda, like, my own little way, I displayed my little, uh, frustration and anger.
But being that I know my father, I knew I knew not to get too, uh, out of hand because I didn't wanna get a whooping.
So I stormed off.
And, uh And I was playing in the yard, and my cousin's father, he pulled up in this truck, he said, "I think your dad was in an accident.
Get in the truck.
" And so I got in the truck, he took me to this, uh, area.
And when we got there, it was a wreck, looked like a wrecked motorcycle.
And they took the sheet off and I saw my father's body.
And, uh, it was It was a gruesome sight.
I believe that was a pivotal point in my life that caused me to stray another path.
I started fighting, getting in trouble, fighting in school, fighting in the neighborhood.
Instead of it stopping, it just continued.
But around that time, I think I was 13, turning 14, that's when my cousins from California came down and they introduced me to selling these drugs and the work and the money.
I was like, "Wow, I made this money, and I didn't do nothing.
" In my mind, I'm thinking this was no work.
It was a serious epidemic in the inner cities with this cocaine thing.
To me, it wasn't no work, just taking a piece of drugs and giving it to somebody else.
And I'm making more money over here than I was over here.
I was intelligent enough to see it was more money over here, but I wasn't intelligent enough to know exactly where I was going.
And it was like a beginning and no end.
I believe that's when I started carrying a lot of weapons.
And I think what really enhanced it, I was robbed once.
And I was, in my mind, like, that'll never happen again, so I made sure I kept a weapon on me at all times.
Whenever I was in Columbia, I paid a guy 50 bucks a day to answer the door.
I didn't trust 'cause a friend of mine got shot and killed through the door.
And so somebody called me and say, "Man, be careful.
Don't be answering no doors.
So-and-so just got killed.
" So I hired a guy.
I would give him $50, either in drugs or money, whichever one he wanted.
I told him, "However you want it, I'mma give it to you.
All I need you to do is answer that door whenever I'm over here.
" I thought everything was under control 'cause I surrounded myself with these type of people.
People who believed in violence, people who believed in selling drugs.
I I was just fully invested in it for myself into that.
I think the glamour of that lifestyle kinda captivated me.
And, unfortunately, what's in the dark comes to the light.
I first met Angela through her cousin.
And we both just From first sight, we saw each other, it was just one of them moments.
We were She liked how I looked, I liked how she looked, and we just begun to talk and, uh, we went out on a date, and it never stopped.
She was a very beautiful, intelligent girl at that.
We eventually ended up living together and then we eventually ended up having a little girl.
I'll never forget the day she gave birth to her, I was at the hospital.
I was right in the, uh, delivery room with her, and, uh, she came out of her mom's womb.
And I just was like, "Oh, my God.
" And I know how overprotective I am of women in my family and my little sister, so I know.
I'm looking at my daughter like I'm fittin' to do everything I can to make sure she okay.
And, uh, we eventually had our second child.
I mean, it's, uh, unconditional.
Knowing that that's your daughter, man, I was like I didn't ever put my hands on her.
I'm serious.
I would never whoop my daughters.
I really didn't expose Angela to too much of my criminal activity in the beginning.
But eventually, when one of our houses got broken in, I had to explain to her my lifestyle.
We sat down and I said, "Look, we can't let nobody else know where we live at.
" And one day, I left to take care of some business.
And we had a security system and all this, you know, uh So when I got back, my little brother said, "Do you know that Angie's cousin just left from over here?" And I was like, "No.
" I say, "How does she even know where we live at?" He was like, "I don't know.
" And so me being who I am, I'm like, "What the?" I'm already just fucked up from hearing this information, literally.
I'm blown away 'cause I already had a talk with her a while back about the security measures that we had to keep in place.
And then I find out that it was some guys in this car in the driveway that brought her over there.
So not only do I not know who these guys are, so this really got me hot.
So we had We fall out that night.
There was a little domestic abuse.
I ended shaking her up a little bit.
I grabbed her and I shook her because she wouldn't tell me exactly what I thought I should hear.
And she was like, "Oh, it was just my cousin.
" And I was like, "Who the fuck was it in the fucking car? Who was these dudes came over?" "Oh, I don't know.
" And I'm like, "Why the fuck you didn't?" I'm hot.
And so she called the police.
They came, they arrested me.
They took her, locked me up.
I came back, got my clothes.
'Cause I didn't even trust being in this house no more.
The security was just infiltrated.
And so having them experiences with certain family members, it caused me not to trust certain people.
I think we were celebrating my auntie's She just got an apartment.
We all partying, we kicking it and stuff like this.
Socializing.
And I wanted to smoke some marijuana.
So I called a friend of mine and he dropped it off.
I say to my door guy, "I thought he said he was gonna hang out and, uh, smoke some with us?" "He say he had to pick up his girl from work or something.
" I say, "Okay, where the stuff at?" He gave it to me.
And I noticed that the bedroom door was open and the light was on.
I went to the back, broke it down, put it in a little paper, started smoking it.
And, uh, I heard a door open.
So I go up there, I say, "Who Who just came in here?" And everybody was like, "Ain't nobody come in here.
" But I had noticed that the bathroom light was off and the bedroom door was closed.
Anyway, they told me there weren't nobody.
So I go get my door guy, I say, "Well, if there ain't nobody in here, go open up the bedroom door 'cause the door was just open.
" And he saying, "Man, you tripping.
Ain't nobody in there.
" But he never would open up the door.
So I go grab a weapon.
I say, "Man, go open up the fucking door.
" And in the midst of this, I don't know how and what was going on within me, while I'm talking about this door, all of a sudden, I get to feeling strange as a motherfucker.
My mind is just not right.
Like, whatever I was smoking, it was beyond what I've smoked before.
I mean, really, it started taking its effect on me.
And I'm like, "Man, I ain't feeling right.
" He was like, "Man, you tripping.
" I'm like, "No, I'm serious.
Something's wrong with me, man.
" I say, "Man, go open up the fucking door!" And fuck, that's all I really remember.
I don't even know what took place all the way up to 12:50 a.
m.
I don't even know what the fuck happened.
The whole time, the radio is just full of the dispatcher giving information.
There were people shot.
They were trying to give a suspect description, one piece of information right after the next.
I got in my car and started towards Sexton Street.
I knew that would be the, uh, quickest way to get to Mary Street.
When I turned the corner onto Mary Street, I saw someone lying on the ground.
When I got out, I could see that there was a woman laying here and there were children on top of her.
One of them was trying to get out from under her arm.
And there was blood pooling around her neck.
She had no idea that we were there.
She was not conscious.
She was barely breathing.
She was bleeding out.
She didn't respond to us at all.
Um, we knew that it was bad for her.
She was obviously holding those children when she got shot, and it appeared to me, by the way she was laying there, that she had opened her arms up so that her children would avoid the blast.
Copy.
In or out.
I started yelling at him to show me his hands, keep his hands where I could see them.
And he was doing what I was asking him to do, but he seemed worked up.
He was yelling really fast to the point that I couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying.
Get off of me! I do remember being kind of surprised that even though he was acting so agitated, that he was doing the things that I was telling him to do.
So I knew that he was at least understanding my commands.
I was arrested, placed in a police car.
According to what I seen in paperwork, they said I was slamming my head all up against the police door and windows.
I don't even remember none of this stuff.
And I said that, uh I was talking about somebody was trying to kill me.
It was either them or me.
And they said I was belligerent, and sweating, and mucus coming all out my nose, sweating hard.
And at one point in time, I think they said I told them, "Y'all can't protect me! Y'all can't protect me!" So they put me in a, uh, suicide cell observation.
I think I slept, like, two days.
And then when I finally came out of whatever it was I was dealing with, whatever effect this drug had on me, and, uh, she sat me down and she was like, "Do you know what you're in here for?" And when she told me, a tear came down my eye and I was like, "You bullshit.
" She was like, "No.
" Well, that night, I was told I shot Juanita Hoffman, my auntie, William Jefferson, my stepfather, and I shot my girlfriend, Angela.
I actually gave up.
I said, "Fuck it.
If they kill me, they kill me.
" Shit, after what I realized what I'd done, I was like, "Man, they gonna execute me.
Fuck it, let them execute me.
" I mean, 'cause I felt like why should I live based on what I just done? Even though I didn't intentionally do it, but knowing that I'm responsible for it, I didn't even wanna live no more.
I like winter.
I like winter and fall.
Everybody worries about me in November because they know it's hard.
It's a hard time for me because of the thing that happened in November.
I'm Angela's mom, Valeria.
Angela was one of the persons Deandra had killed that night.
And two other people, he had also took their lives.
But he took the life of his mother of his own children.
Everybody she came in contact with say she's mature for her age, she talked well.
She didn't go to bars.
She hated them.
She stayed home and read books.
Oh, she was a bookworm.
And when Angie turned 16, she came to me and said, "Momma, I wanna go out on a date with this guy.
" I said, "Okay, well, we need to talk to him.
" He was a total gentleman because he was nice, polite, spoke polite, brought her back on time, and called her on the phone like normal girlfriend and boyfriends.
You wouldn't think that he was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Around Christmastime, she called me.
She said, "Mom" She said, "Deandra's done lost his mind.
He said the baby, it wasn't his.
" So I said, "Angie, don't stay there 'cause you know you always can come home.
" The door was always open for her.
And then she wouldn't come back over to the house anymore.
He wouldn't let her come.
He kept her hidden away.
Well, then she got shot and killed.
- You all right? - Oh, my God.
Angie had two girls, and I took them because they're my granddaughters.
"If tomorrow starts without me, don't think we're far apart.
For every time you think of me, I'm right here in your heart.
" I had a deep hate, and I want him to hurt just like he hurt everybody else.
I want them to put him to death because he deserves it.
I mean, he killed the people that you say you love.
He didn't love them that much if he's gonna take their lives.
He needs to explain why, you know.
Why did you kill the people that actually truly love you? - You want another water? - Yes.
Sure thing.
- Yeah.
- That's crazy.
Growing up with Deandra, he was, um, spoiled.
He was a spoiled kid.
He had everything.
I'll get you some serving spoons.
Toni, you want bread? Me and my sisters, you know, we girls, but we went to grandmama's house to play with his toys because he had everything.
But he was cool.
He was somebody that I looked up to.
And my family's close-knit, so we just always been close.
We grew a bond.
And it was more of a sister-brother bond with all of us.
He was never mistreated at home.
We all had a good life.
You know, some better than others, but me and my cousins, we all had a good life.
I called his dad "Uncle Joon-Joon.
" So I remember when Uncle Joon-Joon passed away, and I know it affected Deandra.
I don't think that he even cried like a normal child would, losing their parent.
Um, but it's you know.
Over the years, he found different ways to deal with it.
As he got a little older, he started smoking marijuana.
And I think that kind of took the the edge off for him.
My mom, Juanita Hoffman, she was awesome.
Nobody is perfect, but when you speak of Juanita Hoffman, she was the closest thing to being perfect.
My house phone rang and I picked it up, and it was my sister, my big sister, Shontai.
Very upset, uh And it was more of a scream in the phone, "Toni, you need to come in town because Deandra, he shot her.
" So I'm like, "What?" And at that point, I just started screaming.
At the hospital, I looked at the doctor, and I grabbed him and I said, "Please, doctor, please, don't tell me that y'all lost my mom.
" That's when reality hit me.
She was gone forever.
Oh, man.
Man.
God.
You know, and then you sit there and you And I could feel You know, I could feel her pain.
You know that the shot And I'm sitting here wondering like, "What?" You know, when he pointed the gun at her, what was she thinking? You know, was she scared? Being a judge, I don't have any discoveries.
So, I want to at least review that and talk to her about it.
0102, State v.
Sean, it's also my duty to require the assistance of your attorney.
I'm Kevin Crane, I'm currently the presiding judge for the 13th Judicial Circuit which is Boone and Calloway Counties.
Buchanan's charged by me with three counts of murder first, okay? Murder one is the only thing that, in Missouri, has the potential for life without eligibility for probation parole.
It's also the only crime for which the death penalty is possible.
All right.
The family and friends that were at the residence that night of the homicides were They had fun together.
They, you know, they were, uh William Jefferson was kind of the patriarchal guy.
He owned this place and he was very welcoming for everybody to be there.
And everybody felt very comfortable there.
But I think there was this kind of a, uh, pall over the place because as time went on, the defendant became more and more, uh, controlling.
He vastly restricted Angie's ability to move, like, to leave the room or to do anything, you know.
So it's almost two worlds under one roof as I recall.
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
You have the right to an attorney.
If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be hired to represent you.
If you choose to make a statement You can stop doing so anytime until you have your attorney present.
- You understand what I said to you? - Yeah, no.
- Same thing he said to you.
- Yeah.
- Tell me who else was in the house.
- Me, my girl It was you, your kids' mom, two kids Look, my kids' mom and the two kids was in the back.
Okay.
Now, my auntie, my Titi, William Jefferson, my stepfather, he's there sitting on the couch faced back against wall.
I say, "Why are y'all surrounding me?" When you got a funny feeling in your fucking soul about something about to happen to you, that's when I grabbed my shotgun.
I pointed the gun and wondered why they're trying to circle me.
I said, "Why the hell all y'all trying to build a circle around me?" They ain't backed up.
Then they go and say, "No, we got the kids.
" When you got the shotgun and waving it around, they're holding the kids up? Yeah.
What the fuck is that about if y'all ain't up to nothing? - Your kids? - My fucking kids.
I'm still begging my auntie to explain to me what the fuck is happening.
She came at me to take the fucking gun from me.
Why are you trying to take my gun? Then I yanked it back, and she was like, "This is your Titi.
'" And I Man, I lost it.
- That's when you pulled the trigger? - Yeah, man.
- Where did you hit her? - I don't even know, man.
I didn't shoot her in the face or nothing.
I think I just shot.
I'm not gonna lie.
If I fucking get life for all this stupid shit, maybe I shouldn't have pulled the trigger, but at the time, man, don't nobody care about me.
All right.
So, anyway, you encountered Mr.
Jefferson in the kitchen, in front of the refrigerator.
Then what happened? Did you say anything to them? No.
I just looked at him, he looked at me.
I was like, "Man, why the fuck are y'all trying to kill me?" And he said, "Man, this is your stepfather.
" - Then what happened? - And I pulled the trigger.
I ran.
- Out the house.
- Where did you hit him? I don't know, man.
I never I assumed somewhere.
- On the chest? - I don't know.
- You ran out the house? - Yeah.
All of a sudden, I see somebody moving to the right, and I see it's my kids' mother.
- The gun was out of bullets.
- And then what happened? Then I went in my back pockets and loaded the gun back up.
- Who was she with then? - My kids.
- Okay.
And your kids? - Yeah.
- She was running for real.
- You had to run up to catch up to her? Yeah, she stopped.
I was like, "Come here, Angie!" I said, "Angie! Angie!" You know, she stopped.
You know, I get to her.
I'm, uh, I'm asking her, "Why all of a sudden" You know, "Why all of a sudden?" You know, "Why the fuck are y'all trying to take my life?" She got these kids.
"Don't you be pointing a gun over.
" They're my daughters, I can't You know, all of a sudden, I just lost it for her for the simple fact that she tried to set me up several times.
Did you shoot her in the face? Where did you? It had to be somewhere, man.
I don't Man, what I went through - Up or down? - I don't know, it was up.
You know, it was away from my daughter, that's all I know.
How's she holding the baby? She holding the baby like this when I shot.
- On that side? - Yeah.
I don't question he was under the influence of of a controlled substance.
But that's not a defense.
You know, you can't go, "Well, yeah, I drank a fifth of whisky and I don't remember killing the people.
" It's not a defense.
So that was off the table.
So I'm trying to charge this case, and I'm looking at, is there deliberation prior to killing somebody? "Cool reflection" on the matter of killing another person, no matter how brief, okay, is deliberation.
Well, in this case, we had three victims, all right? In this case, we had each one of the victim shot by the defendant with a pump-shotgun.
Let me just go over a couple things.
Number one, now after you shot your aunt, did you work the pump on the shotgun immediately? Yeah.
'Cause I didn't know what was in front of me.
Not only do you have to load and reload the weapon to accomplish these three murders in the first degree, um, he had to rack that action every time he fired a shot.
And then when you shot Mr.
Jefferson, did you work the pump on the shotgun? No, I ran outside.
But then I worked it when I got to the back.
- Okay.
- What the hell was that about? So then you got your ammo out your pocket - and you reloaded your shotgun.
- Exactly.
Did you have to jack the action - to get the tube into the chamber? - Yeah, yeah, you have to.
That was one of the components of of, uh, how I demonstrated to the jury that he "deliberated" on each of the three victims that he killed.
Honestly, man, it was like everybody in that house, man, if I could have caught them all, I think I would have got them all.
And I ain't playing, man.
And I'm serious, because they all came together.
You still believe you didn't effectively represent There's gotta be some responsibility on the individual here.
You know, I mean, it starts with the individual.
It's You don't blame the drug, you don't blame the gun, you blame the individual, yeah.
It's been 17 years as of last November and it's still fresh, like it just happened yesterday for some of us, so This picture here, Deandra and his mom and Juanita are standing by each other, talking to each other.
This is actually June 3rd, 1992, the day that, uh, my grandfather, William Jefferson, married Deandra's mother, Lydia Jefferson.
Deandra was, um, the groomsman in the wedding.
That's my grandfather, William Jefferson, Deandra's stepfather, and one of the people that he murdered that night.
My grandfather died a hero that night.
He was not gonna let Dre do nothing to nobody else in the house because that's his house, that was his domain.
My grandfather just you know, treated him like a son.
And Dre returned the favor by putting a bullet in his heart.
Oh, this is Angie with Deandra's two sons.
By other women, so You know, she was pretty tolerant of Deandra.
Once I started talking to Angie, that's when I knew what was really going on between them, and the abuse that took place.
There was a little domestic abuse.
I ended shaking her up a little bit because she wouldn't tell me exactly what I thought I should hear.
No, it wasn't just a shake.
I think he chooses to describe it like that because he doesn't wanna seem like the bad guy when, clearly, he is the bad guy.
Dre had been arrested for domestic violence against Angie.
Um, and, basically, the incident was that Angela was pregnant with her first child, and he, um, ran out to the street after her and started hitting her with a baseball bat.
He came at her with a weapon.
He'd been so physically violent to her in the past that the court had them separated, you know, like The court had made it ordered that they not be near each other because of how bad he did Angela.
At the time of Angie's death, Dre was not even supposed to be in contact with Angie.
But that's how much control he had over Angie's mental state and how she moved, um But, by law, they weren't even supposed to be in contact with each other.
And, like, she was so afraid of him that even though he did all that to her and the police separated them, she still came back.
You know, she still went back after he did that to her.
I'm still struggling trying to figure out why this happened.
Like how the fuck did I allow myself to do this? Angie, he just cold-bloodedly murdered her, period.
It was definitely premeditated.
It may not have went how he had planned it, but he definitely intended to kill Angie, period.
Angie could have escaped that night.
But Dre called her back.
She just froze up and went to him and that's when he shot her in the neck while she was holding the kids, you know.
She's holding a 5-month-old baby and you shoot her in the neck like she's a piece of trash.
He took the natural path of an abuser.
Deandra did, you know.
He started out with the gifts and the spoiling her, and taking her on trips, and, you know.
He went from that to "you gotta live with me," to "you can't leave the house unless I say so," to "you can't hang out with your family, you can't be around your friends," to killing her.
And it was not drugs that night.
I don't care what he says about him being high off of any drug that night.
I saw Dre with my own two eyes ten minutes before this happened.
I know he was not high.
I know he was not induced into some type of psychosis because of drug use.
That's a false, patented lie that he likes to tell.
The other people that were there that night were really collateral damage, to what he intended to do to Angie anyways, you know? And he had no reason to kill Juanita.
He definitely had no reason to kill my grandfather.
Man, the most important thing I can tell them is I'm sorry, man.
Seriously, I'm sorry.
And I continue to make sure that I do what I need to do to better myself so that I will never be that person again.
Regardless if they ever know that, regardless of who knows that.
I know that I'm not that same person.
I know that for a fact.
I'm still struggling trying to figure out why this happened.
Over these years, I wrestle, like, how the fuck did I allow myself to do this? How did I allow myself to shoot my aunt, my girl, and my stepfather? Shoot my girl while she holding my daughter? I do believe that Deandra was planning to murder Angie, yes.
The other people that were there that night were really collateral damage to what he intended to do to Angie anyways.
I don't No.
No.
Because if that was the case, I could have been done that.
Shit, if I wanted to kill her, I could have been killed her.
And the only thing I keep concluding is, this chemical that I got my hands on, that I wasn't aware of, caused me to react like this.
And when you compile that with my lifestyle, way before I even met Angela 'Cause see, like I said, I was violent before I even met her.
I been involved in all kind of violence where I done seen people lose their life.
I mean, it's nothing to be proud of now I think back on it.
But back then, we thought that was the thing to do.
I'm gonna react a certain way based on the way I've been living and conditioned.
"Cool reflection" on the matter of killing another person, no matter how brief is deliberation, okay? I demonstrated to the jury that he deliberated on each of the three victims that he killed.
This wasn't no planned situation.
I didn't sit back and calculate and say, "Okay, this is what I'm fittin' to do.
" I didn't say I'm fittin' to go kill my girlfriend.
I didn't say I was fittin' to go kill my auntie.
I didn't say I was fittin' to kill my stepfather.
Not one time did I sit back and say, "This is what I'm fittin' to do today.
" No.
Hell no.
According to everything, including myself, and everybody that was there that night, I just flipped out.
That wasn't no premeditated, planned-out situation.
What I truly believed that night was the contributing factor was that door, and somebody coming into that house, and them not opening up that bedroom door to let me see who was in there.
I truly believe that's what contributed to me reacting the way I did that night.
No, it wasn't just a shake.
Dre ran out to the street after her and started hitting her with a baseball bat.
Angela showed me where Deandra had beat her with a wire hanger.
And she showed me welts from the top of her neck, to her knees, where he just whooped her and whooped her.
Hold on, stop that for a minute.
That's a Man Let me tell you something, man.
I ain't never whopped her with no clothes hanger.
This is what really be kind of frustrating me, not to say, "Fuck them all.
" And I That type of stuff there is the type of shit that be kinda, like, getting me upset.
Because even to this day, you still would put that out there like I used a clothes hanger to whoop her.
Like I'm some type of gorilla pimping or some shit.
And see, this is the thing be kinda getting me a little I'm not going to say upset 'cause I understand what I done.
But it gets I'm serious, it gets real struggling, because, usually, I'm like Eighteen years, I've been doing, you know, everything I can to make amends, and then when you hear stuff like that, that's what really be getting me kind of disturbed, when you would add some falsehood to tell your side of a story to try to continue to put me in a negative light.
And I'm being honest with you.
It be kind of frustrating me for real.
That regardless to what they say, how they say it, or how they believe, or what they feel, I'm fittin' to attack this case, and a lot of them gonna be upset.
They can bombard the court house, they can contact the prosecutors.
I wouldn't even care.
For that For that type of stuff there lets me know after 18 years, who's to say I could ever trust them? I'm serious.
And this is how I have to think.
Based on what I just heard, who's to say that when I get out of here, I can honestly say I can be safe in an environment where they at? No, I can't do it.
Because I am gonna get out of here.