I am a Killer (2018) s05e02 Episode Script
Lost Innocence
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] So, when I was a kid,
my grandfather brought home a shotgun.
And I remember the first thought
that went through my head
was, "Damn, it would be
so much easier in life
if I were to just kill her
and get this over with."
But it was just a thought.
You know, it was just
It was just a thought.
[suspenseful music continues]
[man] I wish I could go back
and tell me not to do it.
To literally do probably
just about anything else but that.
And I hate that it's ended up impacting
so many people in so many negative ways.
Especially Ashley.
[Ashley] The loss of our victim's life
weighs heavy on me.
And I don't think I've gotten over
what happened to this day, fully.
But I'm not really a murderer.
And it's a title I have to carry
for the rest of my life now.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[theme song playing]
[man 1] I think
we could all be dangerous people.
[man 2] People say you're a monster.
[man 3] I'm not sitting here
saying I'm innocent.
[man 4] I just murdered
some guy in cold blood.
[theme song fades]
[rain pattering]
[uneasy music playing]
[man] When someone
knocks on your door after midnight,
something is not right.
My wife was concerned.
And thinking back on it,
she was probably correct.
When I opened the door,
I had a young couple standing there.
They were cold, and they were wet.
They told me that
they'd had some car problems.
So I I told them I'd drive them
a couple miles down the road
to where they were going.
[dramatic sting]
What happened after that
was totally beyond my comprehension.
I I couldn't have imagined that, uh,
they were even capable of that.
[police siren sounds]
[music fades]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ashley] My name is Ashley Morrison,
and I was sentenced to 30 years.
I was 17 when I got arrested.
[Christian] My name is Christian Sims.
I have a 35-year sentence
for first-degree murder.
I was 16 when I was arrested.
[Christian]
I've had a lot put on me in my life.
It was just too much.
I just couldn't take it anymore.
I me Everybody has their breaking point,
and I think that was mine.
[Ashley] When I look back,
I feel, like,
this really big sense of loss.
And always that question of just, like,
"What if?"
[music fades]
[hopeful guitar music playing]
[Ashley] We moved to Texas when I was 11.
It was a small town.
They have generations
that have grown up there.
At the school that we went to,
I was always really quiet and shy.
I was very insecure.
So, yeah, I guess I was kind of a nerd.
I definitely had bullies.
But band gave my life a purpose.
I was actually able
to be a leader in my section.
Almost all of my friends
were in band, yeah.
Me and Christian met
'cause we both played the clarinet.
And at first, he was very standoffish.
He didn't talk to anybody,
he didn't have any friends.
Um
And I remember liking the mystery of it,
where he gave off this impression
of being somebody that was not
Like, almost untouchable because
nobody really knew anything about him.
It drew me more to him.
[music fades]
[Christian] As As a teenager,
I mean, I I was fairly introverted.
I was living with my grandparents,
and if I'm just being perfectly honest,
I hated it.
It was not enjoyable.
My grandmother was not very
How do I put this?
She was very heavy-handed.
She, if I'm just being honest,
went out of her way to, uh, destroy
quite a few friendships that I had formed.
So I just never allowed myself
to get very close with people,
because I'd intentionally
always set myself apart.
But with Ashley, you can say
that she finally made me feel accepted.
I was in sixth grade
when I met Ashley Morrison.
She was in seventh grade.
[laughs]
Uh
I mean, she was a pretty girl.
I don't know
if you would call it chemistry.
It was funny.
We had some sort of rivalry going on.
She ended up texting me,
and it kind of just went from there.
[Ashley] As I did get to know him,
Christian told me about
how he had gotten adopted
by, um, his grandparents
because of his home life not being okay,
his parents not being able
to take care of him.
And that's why
he never felt like he belonged.
He told me about his grandparents
and how he wasn't really happy.
[pensive music playing]
Me and my mom
didn't have the best relationship either.
But he made me feel like I had finally
met somebody who understood me.
And it was so nice to feel completely
just understood for once in my life.
That, um, I think in that moment,
is the moment
that I fell in love with him.
We were obsessed with each other.
Looking back,
it wasn't even like I was myself.
I was like an extension of him.
Like, it didn't matter
what I wanted, what I thought.
Like, everything and anything for him.
And I was okay with that.
[Christian] It ended up
sparking pretty quickly.
I mean, we would see each other every day.
I guess because I fell in love
or whatever it may have been,
I ended up letting her in,
ended up getting close to her,
talking with her about stuff
that I didn't talk with anybody about,
you know.
Most likely, that that was
what was drawing us closer together.
We were trying
to find comfort in each other.
[Ashley] So, one night, me and my mom
got into a really bad argument.
And, um, my very first instinct
was to tell Christian,
because he'd protect me.
He'd be there for me.
He and I got together,
and we fabricated a story
for him to be able to move in with me,
because I thought
that he'd be able to protect me.
[pensive music playing]
[Ashley] At first, it was great.
But I didn't know about his mental health
until he moved in with me and my family.
I don't really think
I fully comprehended it.
Little things would make him so angry.
He'd get angry around my sisters,
especially the youngest one,
who was only three at the time.
And he had guns in the house,
um, that he had brought with him.
It made it scary.
[Christian] At first, it was great.
Uh, I obviously didn't have
my grandmother there making my life hell.
But it just seemed like
the more time went on,
the less smooth things started to go.
And it just seemed like everything just
kept tumbling and getting worse and worse.
And I just wanted to get away from it.
And suddenly just, like, you know,
it's, "Fuck it. I'm just gonna leave."
I ended up telling Ashley, "Hey, uh,
I don't know if you wanna come with me,
but I'm leaving."
And she said, "I wanna come with you."
I told her
[softly] Well
Anyway, she ended up
deciding to come with me.
[Ashley] We had one plan,
which was to run away together.
Typical teenager stuff.
But it transformed.
He mentioned wanting
to kill his grandparents,
steal everything from them,
go start our own life.
No rules, no authorities.
I wasn't okay with that.
Did I believe him? Not really.
But I just remember at that point,
like, I wasn't really happy anymore
being with him.
[voice breaking] But he brought my family
into it and threatened them.
When he said, "Well, if I just take away
the reason that you would not go with me,
then you're gonna go with me one way
or the other." Basically, regardless.
At that point, it didn't matter
whether I believed it or not,
because I wasn't gonna take the risk
of not believing he was capable
of something like that and being wrong.
[unsettling music playing]
I honestly don't remember
how that day started.
I remember packing my bags
and my mom coming into the bedroom
and asking what was going on.
And I I remember crying
and telling her, like,
"I have to get out of the house. Like,
we're moving out. Like, we're leaving."
And as I went to go out the door,
my mom shoved me out.
She took my keys. She took my phone.
I wasn't coming back. I was
[voice breaking] I was done
in that family.
[uneasy music playing]
[rain pattering]
[Ashley] So, we started walking.
It was nighttime.
We walked for a long time.
We eventually got to a house
where we knocked on the door
and asked for a ride.
This man gave us a ride
to somewhere in the vicinity
of Christian's grandparents' house.
[music builds]
[Christian] We go to my aunt's house.
Uh, the door was locked.
I end up popping the screen off,
opening the window. We go inside.
So I go looking through the house.
I end up finding the gun.
I check all the rounds, load it back up.
Tell Ashley, "Hey, I'm going to be back
in, like, 15 minutes. Just wait here."
And I leave.
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic sting]
[Christian]
I go up to my grandparents' house.
I can see my grandmother in the house.
I grab some rocks
out of the gravel driveway.
And, uh,
I threw the rocks at the washtub on
the back, trying to get her to come out.
[softly] I don't know, man. This is
[sighs] So,
she came out.
As soon as she looked at me, I shot.
[dramatic music playing]
I ended up walking up to her.
She was still shaking.
So, I was thinking,
"Well, she may still be alive."
So, I put another one
in the back of her head.
[music swells]
"I fucked up." [chuckles]
That was the first thing
that went through my head. "I fucked up."
"What have I done?"
[Ashley] He came back and was manic.
I mean, I knew something wasn't right,
that something was wrong in that moment.
He was waving the gun around,
talking about,
"Hurry, get our stuff, get in the car,"
screaming at me because
I wasn't moving fast enough.
I was confused.
He told me that he had killed his grandma.
[dramatic sting]
I don't really think I fully
comprehended it in that very first moment
or even the moment after that.
He had told me, but, like I said,
I didn't really believe him.
I don't really know which moment
my brain decided to shut down
in the process of everything.
It was like a reality I wasn't gonna face.
What he said to do,
I did without hesitation.
I never thought to save myself.
Um
And I I just I don't know why
I never thought to do that.
[suspenseful music builds]
[dramatic sting]
[suspenseful music swells, then fades]
[uneasy violin music playing]
[Christian] I told an officer immediately
it was all me. She had nothing to do.
You know, if I'm just being honest,
she's an innocent bystander in all this.
Like, she
She definitely doesn't doesn't deserve
to be locked up for some
for my mistake, you know?
[violin music intensifies]
[music fades]
[hopeful guitar music playing]
[man] There's no real words to describe
what it feels like to wake up one morning
knowing you've sat next to a murderer
on the school bus.
To this day, it's still difficult
to wrap my head around.
But I think that,
had Ashley not been in the picture,
this wouldn't have happened to begin with.
My name is Eric Shelton,
and I went to school
with Ashley Morrison and Christian Sims.
[guitar music fades]
I've known Christian
for probably 12, 13 years.
I would describe Christian
as a private person.
You could tell that
he was a very intelligent kid.
Um, smart, he was studious.
Um He just wasn't the most outgoing.
[pensive guitar music playing]
There is no question that Christian was
dealing with some demons from his past.
But he made good grades in school,
and you could tell just by
talking to him that he had a future,
he had a plan, he was going somewhere.
Ashley was a year older
than Christian and I.
[uneasy music playing]
And when you're in high school,
a one-year age difference is huge.
The power dynamic between them was,
if she walked,
he kissed the ground she walked on.
If Ashley asked Christian
to jump off of a cliff,
not only would he do it, but he would ask
her what he should wear when he does it.
It's hard to speak on
what happens behind closed doors,
'cause obviously I don't know 100%.
But I saw
what their relationship was like.
What she wanted, went.
But all of a sudden,
when something bad happens,
of this nature,
that is punishable,
she says she has
no participation at all whatsoever.
That's what sticks out to me.
[woman] From the beginning,
we looked at this as a case
that there were two individuals involved.
But one of the difficult things for me is,
you know, why did this happen?
To me, there was no clear motive.
My name is Jill Drake,
and I was an assistant district attorney
here in Lamar County, Texas,
when this murder was committed.
[pensive guitar music playing]
I was involved with the case
from the beginning.
When the call came in and
we learned that it was the Sims family,
we all said,
"Oh my goodness, Christian Sims,
he was a victim in a case previously."
And, kind of,
the memories started flooding back.
Christian had been a victim of a child
physical abuse case way back in '06.
It was quite a horrific case.
His mother's boyfriend had physically and
potentially sexually abused Christian Sims
when Christian was eight years old.
[Christian, on recording] My mother
ended up getting with some guy.
His name was Anthony Trenton Barbour.
I remember his name.
I don't know. It's kind
It's kind of difficult to talk about.
He was just what you would call demented.
There's quite a few different things
that ended up happening.
I mean, there's beatings,
diff different things like that.
I was scared, I would piss the bed.
And one of his remedies for that
is that he would take a clothespin
and he would put it on,
you know, my privates.
I I guess you could call it
sexual in nature.
[Jill Drake] As a child abuse prosecutor,
it's very difficult for me to hear
the things that Christian says happened
to him, some of which I know are true.
[voice breaking] And it hurts me
to hear that.
It was just a horrible situation
for this child to be in.
[pensive, soft music playing]
His grandparents, they were a very
well-known and well-respected family.
And, you know, did the best they could
and gave him a home.
But this child was going to have PTSD.
He was going to have
to work through these issues
throughout the rest of his adolescence.
And we hoped that
being in the loving home with the Sims,
um, that he would get that help.
[Christian, on recording] I move in
with my grandparents.
And, uh, pardon my French, but fuck it.
[chuckles] I might as well
just go ahead and talk about it. Uh
You're not supposed
to speak ill of the dead,
but my grandmother
was definitely the worst,
most poisonous person that I've ever met.
My grandmother mentally,
physically, and sexually abused me.
Uh, she would come in late at night.
She'd do pretty much the same thing
Trent would do, except
instead of beating me and stuff, she's
trying to cause me pain in other ways.
She would, uh, grab my privates and twist.
I don't know, she was just real sadistic
with the things that she would do.
Far worse than Trent.
[dramatic sting]
[Jill Drake] Well, that was
very interesting. [sighs]
It's the first time I've heard
any allegations of this nature.
I hate to discount when I hear
a person say that they were abused.
I can tell you,
I'm I'm not sure I believe it.
If his grandmother had done
something to him to make him kill her,
then it sure would've been important for
him to tell his lawyer that at a trial.
[pensive piano music playing]
[Jill Drake] It's shocking to me to hear
Christian say his grandmother abused him.
If If that had come out,
we certainly would've investigated that
further and taken that into consideration.
That's what we do.
Prosecutors seek justice.
But he pointed a gun at her
and shot her in the cheek,
shot her right in the face.
And, to me,
that is his way
of making himself feel better
that he's in prison for killing her.
[music continues]
[music fades]
[sheep bleat]
[woman] My mom was the best mom
that you could ever have.
Just very giving and loving.
For Christian to even say that
my mom would've ever mistreated him
is a complete outrage.
It's just another stab in the heart,
a stab in the back, that
my parents did all this for you,
and then this is how you react.
I'm Laurie Geer,
and my mom was Annie Lois Sims.
[soft music playing]
[sucks teeth]
Um, here's a photo of my mom and dad,
and this would have been
probably right after church.
There's my mom in the kitchen.
Yeah.
I wish I could call her today
and ask her some cooking questions.
[pensive, guitar music playing]
When my parents first took Christian in,
it was 100%, you know,
"This is what we need to do."
And there's no way in hell that
my mom would have ever mistreated him.
That's not who she was, and that's never
anything she would have ever done.
They, um, raised him
like they did my brother and I.
But he had been through a horrific thing,
and so they tried to get him the help
that he needed and the counseling,
and then provide a stable,
you know, loving home
to help support from that side of things.
So, there was nothing that that
he would've needed that he didn't get.
[uneasy music playing]
The first time I found out about Ashley
was when they went to prom together,
and I saw the pictures.
You know, you could tell from the picture
that he was, you know, really into her.
But once Ashley came along, uh,
Christian, you know, totally changed.
[soft music playing]
He became, you know,
rebellious and argumentative, and,
you know, th that kind of stuff.
I just don't believe that Christian
would've done anything like this
if it weren't for meeting
and being in a relationship with Ashley.
I hate Ashley Morrison.
You're not supposed
to hate people, but I do.
Uh, I believe Ashley is
just as guilty as Christian, 100%.
She just thought
she could do whatever she wanted,
and that she wasn't gonna have to,
you know, pay the consequence.
I knew Ashley had changed her story.
I think she's very manipulative.
[pensive guitar music playing]
[man] When you go into an
interview, you hope for the best outcome.
And when I was going to interview Ashley,
I was hoping that she would tell me
100% the truth
about everything that happened
and answer every possible question I had.
But do I ever get what I want? No.
My name is Stacy McNeal.
I'm a Texas Ranger
assigned to Paris, Texas.
When I first met Ashley,
my initial impression of her was
she looked like a typical
17-year-old high school student,
maybe a little bit on the immature side.
She spoke very freely and openly,
and she chose to go ahead
and speak with me
outside the presence of her attorney.
She denied having any knowledge,
at that time,
of Christian's grandmother
even being dead.
And she made a statement
that Christian did not have a rifle
when he'd left the house.
Ashley was saying,
"I'm just a poor, frightened girlfriend
that was afraid that Christian
was gonna do something to my family
if I didn't just go along with him."
[dramatic music playing]
In the second interview,
she's trying to keep from implicating
herself in a criminal offense.
But what she actually ends up doing
is implicating herself more thoroughly.
In the second interview,
she's changed a lot of vital information.
She admitted to
helping Christian load a rifle.
This was the first time that she admitted
that Christian had a weapon when he left.
And then Ashley admitted
that Christian had told her
it was his intent
to go out to the residence
and kill both Mike and Annie Lois Sims.
She told no one, she took no action.
She didn't do anything
to try to prevent this.
They were working together,
in concert, to commit this offense.
No doubt you're a party to this.
You're a defendant. You're a murderer.
[uneasy music playing]
[Jill Drake] You might think, "Okay. Well,
you can't charge me with murder
unless I was the person
who was the shooter."
Well, in Texas, if you help in any manner
in the commission of a crime,
you are a principal.
You are the one who did it,
whether you pulled the trigger or not.
And we believed
Ashley Morrison aided Christian
before, during, and after the crime.
[music fades]
[soft piano music playing]
[Jill Drake] One of the key pieces
of evidence at trial
were the text messages between
Ashley Morrison and Christian Sims.
These are text messages
that were on December 16th, 2014,
which would be two days before the murder.
Christian, "I'm going to my grandparents'
and robbing them blind."
"I guess we will have to start early."
Ashley, "Yeah, without a car or money."
"Or yeah, all of those
with my grandparents."
Ashley, "Yeah, I guess so."
Christian, "We could do it tonight."
Ashley, "I don't know
if she's gonna let me go or not."
"Especially if Dad gets involved."
"Well, they can fuck off.
I will kill your dad."
"Okey dokey."
As a result of these text messages,
it was very clear for us
that they planned to leave,
they were gonna rob grandparents blind,
they were gonna kill whomever they needed.
It's all right there.
"I'm gonna kill your dad." "Okey dokey."
What was that?
She's She's a participant.
[music fades]
[Ashley, on recording] I pled not guilty,
'cause I didn't feel that I was.
I thought that the truth
was gonna get put out there,
and they were gonna see
[voice breaks] Like, they were
just gonna see me.
And, um,
that just everything was gonna be okay,
and I was gonna be able to go home.
But they said, because I never
reported him before it happened,
after he told me what he wanted to do,
I was just as guilty
as if I had pulled the trigger,
even though I wasn't
the one that pulled the trigger.
I didn't know that he was
actually able to kill his grandmother.
I mean, he had told me,
but, like I said,
I didn't really believe him.
[Christian] I understand the things
that we had talked about and whatnot,
but those are just the ravings of somebody
who was angry and hurt, you know?
I mean, just, what kind of what kind
of 17-year-old girl is gonna think
that her 16-year-old boyfriend's
actually gonna do that, you know?
I mean, who could
who could reasonably expect that?
[pensive music playing]
Honestly, I feel like it's a bit unjust.
[on recording] Because in my mind,
when I look back,
I don't think there was anything
I could have done to have saved her.
[Jill Drake] I hear Ashley saying
that she feels like it's unjust.
But we charged her, and she was convicted.
That's all there is to it.
This is just Ashley Morrison
rewriting what happened in her own mind
so she can live with herself.
To me, it's an excuse.
It's just something
for her to say at this point
to make her feel better about the fact
that she willingly went with him.
[uneasy violin music playing]
[man] At the trial, the prosecutors said
that Ashley Morrison was a party
to the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the key piece of evidence
that I'm concerned with
is Christian Sims' statement.
"It was all me.
She didn't have anything to do with it."
[soft piano music playing]
My name is Roland Mosher,
and I am an attorney
in the state of Texas.
I practice criminal defense, and I did
most of the work on Ashley's appeal.
[keyboard keys clacking]
I think that there is a sense
in which Ashley was associated
with Christian Sims' actions.
She didn't call the police.
She didn't refuse
to get in the car with him.
She went with him.
But there's enough of a case to be made
that Ashley was coerced.
It's critical to the assumption
of the law of parties
that you be a willing participant.
And if you're being coerced,
you're not a willing participant.
The state's case, essentially,
is that Ashley, a 17-year-old girl,
didn't go out of her way
to disagree with or interfere with
her demonstrably emotionally
unstable and homicidal boyfriend.
But if your crazy boyfriend
comes to your front door and says,
"I'm gonna leave and you're coming with me
and I'm gonna murder people today,"
it's very reasonable to conclude
that, if you do something to offend him
or if your family
does something to upset him,
that they'll be next.
[pensive music playing]
[pensive music continues]
[woman] The person who's
responsible for this matter is Chris,
not Ashley.
I think when people vilify Ashley,
it's partially because
there's intent that's attributed to her
that I don't believe is at all accurate.
My name is Rycke Marshall.
I'm a clinical psychologist.
I did an evaluation with Ashley Morrison.
And I have Ashley's full permission
to discuss this case.
I met with Ashley on four separate
occasions for a total of 12 hours.
She was friendly, but she was traumatized.
Almost childlike, in some respects.
And she's someone
who could be easily manipulated.
For an adolescent to be interviewed
by police, without an attorney present,
would be terrifying.
It's not a level playing field.
And I don't think it's surprising at all
if her story changed.
Chris said,
"I could kill both your parents,
and I could make it
look like a murder-suicide."
[dramatic sting]
It seemed like a very real threat to her,
so she had no choice but to go.
You know, it was Chris's plan.
It was his actions. It was his thoughts.
It wasn't what she wanted.
I just hate it when I think
somebody's being treated unfairly.
And I think she would have
a good chance of a different result
if she were tried again.
But, unfortunately,
that's not what happened.
[soft, dramatic music playing]
[pensive guitar music playing]
[Ashley] So I changed my plea to guilty
during my second trial
because I was guilty.
And I am guilty.
Regardless of my frame of mind,
regardless of the fact
that my family was threatened,
[voice breaking] regardless
of those things, like, I had a choice.
I could've made the choice
to try to stop him.
I could have made the choice to get help.
And I do take responsibility
for my choices.
I don't know if I could have stopped it,
but a really big part of me
wishes that I had just tried.
[music fades]
I was given 30 years all over again.
Honestly, it feels unjust,
when I did not commit the murder.
That's me speaking from my point of view.
That's me speaking from watching
my life slip through my fingers.
But now it's my opportunity
to tell the truth.
My interviews with police,
I was terrified. [chuckles]
But I remember very distinctly
thinking to myself,
"They'd never believe me if I tell them
the truth of what really happened."
I wanted to paint things
in a better light.
But I just wished that
I had told the truth from the beginning,
because now it will always be a question
of, "Well, what really was the truth?"
[Stacy McNeal, on recording]
When I was gonna interview Ashley,
between the first
and the second interview,
she'd changed a lot of vital information.
She admitted to
helping Christian load a rifle.
And then Ashley admitted
that Christian had told her
it was his intent to kill
both Mike and Annie Lois Sims.
[Ashley] I did not go
to his grandparents' house.
I did not commit the murder.
And, in my mind,
I was never helping him load the rifle.
There was a bunch of bullets
on the ground,
and he wanted me to pick the bullets up
and count them back to him.
And that's simply all I did.
I mean, obviously, looking back now,
there's no way I couldn't think that
he was gonna go harm somebody, right?
That's what everybody thinks.
But at the same time,
you don't believe somebody
is capable of something like that,
especially somebody you love,
somebody that you're in love with.
[Jill Drake, on recording] It was
very clear Ashley Morrison aided Christian
before, during, and after the crime.
They were gonna kill whoever they needed.
Christian, "I will kill your dad."
Ashley, "Okey dokey."
"I'm going to kill your dad."
"Okey dokey."
What was that?
She's a participant.
[Ashley] Those texts, that looks horrible.
Like, I understand that.
I understand, from the outside
looking in, how bad that is
and how bad that looks.
But I know for me
that I was brushing Christian off.
Any time I said "okay" or "okey dokey,"
that was my "whatever" to him.
I didn't take him seriously.
But it became serious.
I definitely regret
not trying to stop what happened.
And if I could say something
to the Sims family, I would tell them,
even though it makes up for nothing,
that I'm genuinely sorry.
But, at the same time, I cannot
take responsibility for what he did.
I do believe
I should be in prison for my involvement.
Yes.
Do I believe that I should've gotten
30 years for my involvement, though?
No.
Because the man who pulled the trigger
and concocted the plan only got 35.
[dramatic music playing]
[Christian] I shot my grandmother because
she had beaten and molested me as a child.
I would not have done it
for any other reason.
But, from the outset,
there was no, like, plan.
If I'm just being honest, uh,
I'm an incredibly intelligent individual.
Uh, and I don't mean to say this to sound
uh, like an asshole or anything like that,
but had I planned this out, it would have
happened in a completely different way.
The reason why
I didn't mention the the prior abuse
is because I didn't think
that I would be believed.
[Laurie Geer, on recording]
For Christian to even
say that my mom
would have ever mistreated him
is a complete outrage.
And that's never anything
she would have ever done.
It's just another stab in the heart,
a stab in the back,
that [sighs]my parents
did all this for you,
and then this is how you react.
[Christian] Nothing I can do
or say's gonna convince anybody.
They weren't there.
They didn't have to experience it.
And, if I'm just being honest,
I don't have remorse
for her being dead as a person.
Uh, I think that
I think that she deserved
a lot worse than what she got.
I just hate that it was
[scoffs]my dumb ass who did it.
I honestly couldn't say
what Ashley thought.
[scoffs] What I think that
she's probably told y'all
is probably some truth
with a bunch of bullshit mixed in.
Like, she's talking about how she's
scared of me and other shit like that.
I treated the girl like a princess.
Like, I never did anything to
to hurt her.
Uh, I didn't force her to do anything.
[dramatic music continues]
[end theme music playing]
[music fades]
[man] So, when I was a kid,
my grandfather brought home a shotgun.
And I remember the first thought
that went through my head
was, "Damn, it would be
so much easier in life
if I were to just kill her
and get this over with."
But it was just a thought.
You know, it was just
It was just a thought.
[suspenseful music continues]
[man] I wish I could go back
and tell me not to do it.
To literally do probably
just about anything else but that.
And I hate that it's ended up impacting
so many people in so many negative ways.
Especially Ashley.
[Ashley] The loss of our victim's life
weighs heavy on me.
And I don't think I've gotten over
what happened to this day, fully.
But I'm not really a murderer.
And it's a title I have to carry
for the rest of my life now.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[theme song playing]
[man 1] I think
we could all be dangerous people.
[man 2] People say you're a monster.
[man 3] I'm not sitting here
saying I'm innocent.
[man 4] I just murdered
some guy in cold blood.
[theme song fades]
[rain pattering]
[uneasy music playing]
[man] When someone
knocks on your door after midnight,
something is not right.
My wife was concerned.
And thinking back on it,
she was probably correct.
When I opened the door,
I had a young couple standing there.
They were cold, and they were wet.
They told me that
they'd had some car problems.
So I I told them I'd drive them
a couple miles down the road
to where they were going.
[dramatic sting]
What happened after that
was totally beyond my comprehension.
I I couldn't have imagined that, uh,
they were even capable of that.
[police siren sounds]
[music fades]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ashley] My name is Ashley Morrison,
and I was sentenced to 30 years.
I was 17 when I got arrested.
[Christian] My name is Christian Sims.
I have a 35-year sentence
for first-degree murder.
I was 16 when I was arrested.
[Christian]
I've had a lot put on me in my life.
It was just too much.
I just couldn't take it anymore.
I me Everybody has their breaking point,
and I think that was mine.
[Ashley] When I look back,
I feel, like,
this really big sense of loss.
And always that question of just, like,
"What if?"
[music fades]
[hopeful guitar music playing]
[Ashley] We moved to Texas when I was 11.
It was a small town.
They have generations
that have grown up there.
At the school that we went to,
I was always really quiet and shy.
I was very insecure.
So, yeah, I guess I was kind of a nerd.
I definitely had bullies.
But band gave my life a purpose.
I was actually able
to be a leader in my section.
Almost all of my friends
were in band, yeah.
Me and Christian met
'cause we both played the clarinet.
And at first, he was very standoffish.
He didn't talk to anybody,
he didn't have any friends.
Um
And I remember liking the mystery of it,
where he gave off this impression
of being somebody that was not
Like, almost untouchable because
nobody really knew anything about him.
It drew me more to him.
[music fades]
[Christian] As As a teenager,
I mean, I I was fairly introverted.
I was living with my grandparents,
and if I'm just being perfectly honest,
I hated it.
It was not enjoyable.
My grandmother was not very
How do I put this?
She was very heavy-handed.
She, if I'm just being honest,
went out of her way to, uh, destroy
quite a few friendships that I had formed.
So I just never allowed myself
to get very close with people,
because I'd intentionally
always set myself apart.
But with Ashley, you can say
that she finally made me feel accepted.
I was in sixth grade
when I met Ashley Morrison.
She was in seventh grade.
[laughs]
Uh
I mean, she was a pretty girl.
I don't know
if you would call it chemistry.
It was funny.
We had some sort of rivalry going on.
She ended up texting me,
and it kind of just went from there.
[Ashley] As I did get to know him,
Christian told me about
how he had gotten adopted
by, um, his grandparents
because of his home life not being okay,
his parents not being able
to take care of him.
And that's why
he never felt like he belonged.
He told me about his grandparents
and how he wasn't really happy.
[pensive music playing]
Me and my mom
didn't have the best relationship either.
But he made me feel like I had finally
met somebody who understood me.
And it was so nice to feel completely
just understood for once in my life.
That, um, I think in that moment,
is the moment
that I fell in love with him.
We were obsessed with each other.
Looking back,
it wasn't even like I was myself.
I was like an extension of him.
Like, it didn't matter
what I wanted, what I thought.
Like, everything and anything for him.
And I was okay with that.
[Christian] It ended up
sparking pretty quickly.
I mean, we would see each other every day.
I guess because I fell in love
or whatever it may have been,
I ended up letting her in,
ended up getting close to her,
talking with her about stuff
that I didn't talk with anybody about,
you know.
Most likely, that that was
what was drawing us closer together.
We were trying
to find comfort in each other.
[Ashley] So, one night, me and my mom
got into a really bad argument.
And, um, my very first instinct
was to tell Christian,
because he'd protect me.
He'd be there for me.
He and I got together,
and we fabricated a story
for him to be able to move in with me,
because I thought
that he'd be able to protect me.
[pensive music playing]
[Ashley] At first, it was great.
But I didn't know about his mental health
until he moved in with me and my family.
I don't really think
I fully comprehended it.
Little things would make him so angry.
He'd get angry around my sisters,
especially the youngest one,
who was only three at the time.
And he had guns in the house,
um, that he had brought with him.
It made it scary.
[Christian] At first, it was great.
Uh, I obviously didn't have
my grandmother there making my life hell.
But it just seemed like
the more time went on,
the less smooth things started to go.
And it just seemed like everything just
kept tumbling and getting worse and worse.
And I just wanted to get away from it.
And suddenly just, like, you know,
it's, "Fuck it. I'm just gonna leave."
I ended up telling Ashley, "Hey, uh,
I don't know if you wanna come with me,
but I'm leaving."
And she said, "I wanna come with you."
I told her
[softly] Well
Anyway, she ended up
deciding to come with me.
[Ashley] We had one plan,
which was to run away together.
Typical teenager stuff.
But it transformed.
He mentioned wanting
to kill his grandparents,
steal everything from them,
go start our own life.
No rules, no authorities.
I wasn't okay with that.
Did I believe him? Not really.
But I just remember at that point,
like, I wasn't really happy anymore
being with him.
[voice breaking] But he brought my family
into it and threatened them.
When he said, "Well, if I just take away
the reason that you would not go with me,
then you're gonna go with me one way
or the other." Basically, regardless.
At that point, it didn't matter
whether I believed it or not,
because I wasn't gonna take the risk
of not believing he was capable
of something like that and being wrong.
[unsettling music playing]
I honestly don't remember
how that day started.
I remember packing my bags
and my mom coming into the bedroom
and asking what was going on.
And I I remember crying
and telling her, like,
"I have to get out of the house. Like,
we're moving out. Like, we're leaving."
And as I went to go out the door,
my mom shoved me out.
She took my keys. She took my phone.
I wasn't coming back. I was
[voice breaking] I was done
in that family.
[uneasy music playing]
[rain pattering]
[Ashley] So, we started walking.
It was nighttime.
We walked for a long time.
We eventually got to a house
where we knocked on the door
and asked for a ride.
This man gave us a ride
to somewhere in the vicinity
of Christian's grandparents' house.
[music builds]
[Christian] We go to my aunt's house.
Uh, the door was locked.
I end up popping the screen off,
opening the window. We go inside.
So I go looking through the house.
I end up finding the gun.
I check all the rounds, load it back up.
Tell Ashley, "Hey, I'm going to be back
in, like, 15 minutes. Just wait here."
And I leave.
[suspenseful music playing]
[dramatic sting]
[Christian]
I go up to my grandparents' house.
I can see my grandmother in the house.
I grab some rocks
out of the gravel driveway.
And, uh,
I threw the rocks at the washtub on
the back, trying to get her to come out.
[softly] I don't know, man. This is
[sighs] So,
she came out.
As soon as she looked at me, I shot.
[dramatic music playing]
I ended up walking up to her.
She was still shaking.
So, I was thinking,
"Well, she may still be alive."
So, I put another one
in the back of her head.
[music swells]
"I fucked up." [chuckles]
That was the first thing
that went through my head. "I fucked up."
"What have I done?"
[Ashley] He came back and was manic.
I mean, I knew something wasn't right,
that something was wrong in that moment.
He was waving the gun around,
talking about,
"Hurry, get our stuff, get in the car,"
screaming at me because
I wasn't moving fast enough.
I was confused.
He told me that he had killed his grandma.
[dramatic sting]
I don't really think I fully
comprehended it in that very first moment
or even the moment after that.
He had told me, but, like I said,
I didn't really believe him.
I don't really know which moment
my brain decided to shut down
in the process of everything.
It was like a reality I wasn't gonna face.
What he said to do,
I did without hesitation.
I never thought to save myself.
Um
And I I just I don't know why
I never thought to do that.
[suspenseful music builds]
[dramatic sting]
[suspenseful music swells, then fades]
[uneasy violin music playing]
[Christian] I told an officer immediately
it was all me. She had nothing to do.
You know, if I'm just being honest,
she's an innocent bystander in all this.
Like, she
She definitely doesn't doesn't deserve
to be locked up for some
for my mistake, you know?
[violin music intensifies]
[music fades]
[hopeful guitar music playing]
[man] There's no real words to describe
what it feels like to wake up one morning
knowing you've sat next to a murderer
on the school bus.
To this day, it's still difficult
to wrap my head around.
But I think that,
had Ashley not been in the picture,
this wouldn't have happened to begin with.
My name is Eric Shelton,
and I went to school
with Ashley Morrison and Christian Sims.
[guitar music fades]
I've known Christian
for probably 12, 13 years.
I would describe Christian
as a private person.
You could tell that
he was a very intelligent kid.
Um, smart, he was studious.
Um He just wasn't the most outgoing.
[pensive guitar music playing]
There is no question that Christian was
dealing with some demons from his past.
But he made good grades in school,
and you could tell just by
talking to him that he had a future,
he had a plan, he was going somewhere.
Ashley was a year older
than Christian and I.
[uneasy music playing]
And when you're in high school,
a one-year age difference is huge.
The power dynamic between them was,
if she walked,
he kissed the ground she walked on.
If Ashley asked Christian
to jump off of a cliff,
not only would he do it, but he would ask
her what he should wear when he does it.
It's hard to speak on
what happens behind closed doors,
'cause obviously I don't know 100%.
But I saw
what their relationship was like.
What she wanted, went.
But all of a sudden,
when something bad happens,
of this nature,
that is punishable,
she says she has
no participation at all whatsoever.
That's what sticks out to me.
[woman] From the beginning,
we looked at this as a case
that there were two individuals involved.
But one of the difficult things for me is,
you know, why did this happen?
To me, there was no clear motive.
My name is Jill Drake,
and I was an assistant district attorney
here in Lamar County, Texas,
when this murder was committed.
[pensive guitar music playing]
I was involved with the case
from the beginning.
When the call came in and
we learned that it was the Sims family,
we all said,
"Oh my goodness, Christian Sims,
he was a victim in a case previously."
And, kind of,
the memories started flooding back.
Christian had been a victim of a child
physical abuse case way back in '06.
It was quite a horrific case.
His mother's boyfriend had physically and
potentially sexually abused Christian Sims
when Christian was eight years old.
[Christian, on recording] My mother
ended up getting with some guy.
His name was Anthony Trenton Barbour.
I remember his name.
I don't know. It's kind
It's kind of difficult to talk about.
He was just what you would call demented.
There's quite a few different things
that ended up happening.
I mean, there's beatings,
diff different things like that.
I was scared, I would piss the bed.
And one of his remedies for that
is that he would take a clothespin
and he would put it on,
you know, my privates.
I I guess you could call it
sexual in nature.
[Jill Drake] As a child abuse prosecutor,
it's very difficult for me to hear
the things that Christian says happened
to him, some of which I know are true.
[voice breaking] And it hurts me
to hear that.
It was just a horrible situation
for this child to be in.
[pensive, soft music playing]
His grandparents, they were a very
well-known and well-respected family.
And, you know, did the best they could
and gave him a home.
But this child was going to have PTSD.
He was going to have
to work through these issues
throughout the rest of his adolescence.
And we hoped that
being in the loving home with the Sims,
um, that he would get that help.
[Christian, on recording] I move in
with my grandparents.
And, uh, pardon my French, but fuck it.
[chuckles] I might as well
just go ahead and talk about it. Uh
You're not supposed
to speak ill of the dead,
but my grandmother
was definitely the worst,
most poisonous person that I've ever met.
My grandmother mentally,
physically, and sexually abused me.
Uh, she would come in late at night.
She'd do pretty much the same thing
Trent would do, except
instead of beating me and stuff, she's
trying to cause me pain in other ways.
She would, uh, grab my privates and twist.
I don't know, she was just real sadistic
with the things that she would do.
Far worse than Trent.
[dramatic sting]
[Jill Drake] Well, that was
very interesting. [sighs]
It's the first time I've heard
any allegations of this nature.
I hate to discount when I hear
a person say that they were abused.
I can tell you,
I'm I'm not sure I believe it.
If his grandmother had done
something to him to make him kill her,
then it sure would've been important for
him to tell his lawyer that at a trial.
[pensive piano music playing]
[Jill Drake] It's shocking to me to hear
Christian say his grandmother abused him.
If If that had come out,
we certainly would've investigated that
further and taken that into consideration.
That's what we do.
Prosecutors seek justice.
But he pointed a gun at her
and shot her in the cheek,
shot her right in the face.
And, to me,
that is his way
of making himself feel better
that he's in prison for killing her.
[music continues]
[music fades]
[sheep bleat]
[woman] My mom was the best mom
that you could ever have.
Just very giving and loving.
For Christian to even say that
my mom would've ever mistreated him
is a complete outrage.
It's just another stab in the heart,
a stab in the back, that
my parents did all this for you,
and then this is how you react.
I'm Laurie Geer,
and my mom was Annie Lois Sims.
[soft music playing]
[sucks teeth]
Um, here's a photo of my mom and dad,
and this would have been
probably right after church.
There's my mom in the kitchen.
Yeah.
I wish I could call her today
and ask her some cooking questions.
[pensive, guitar music playing]
When my parents first took Christian in,
it was 100%, you know,
"This is what we need to do."
And there's no way in hell that
my mom would have ever mistreated him.
That's not who she was, and that's never
anything she would have ever done.
They, um, raised him
like they did my brother and I.
But he had been through a horrific thing,
and so they tried to get him the help
that he needed and the counseling,
and then provide a stable,
you know, loving home
to help support from that side of things.
So, there was nothing that that
he would've needed that he didn't get.
[uneasy music playing]
The first time I found out about Ashley
was when they went to prom together,
and I saw the pictures.
You know, you could tell from the picture
that he was, you know, really into her.
But once Ashley came along, uh,
Christian, you know, totally changed.
[soft music playing]
He became, you know,
rebellious and argumentative, and,
you know, th that kind of stuff.
I just don't believe that Christian
would've done anything like this
if it weren't for meeting
and being in a relationship with Ashley.
I hate Ashley Morrison.
You're not supposed
to hate people, but I do.
Uh, I believe Ashley is
just as guilty as Christian, 100%.
She just thought
she could do whatever she wanted,
and that she wasn't gonna have to,
you know, pay the consequence.
I knew Ashley had changed her story.
I think she's very manipulative.
[pensive guitar music playing]
[man] When you go into an
interview, you hope for the best outcome.
And when I was going to interview Ashley,
I was hoping that she would tell me
100% the truth
about everything that happened
and answer every possible question I had.
But do I ever get what I want? No.
My name is Stacy McNeal.
I'm a Texas Ranger
assigned to Paris, Texas.
When I first met Ashley,
my initial impression of her was
she looked like a typical
17-year-old high school student,
maybe a little bit on the immature side.
She spoke very freely and openly,
and she chose to go ahead
and speak with me
outside the presence of her attorney.
She denied having any knowledge,
at that time,
of Christian's grandmother
even being dead.
And she made a statement
that Christian did not have a rifle
when he'd left the house.
Ashley was saying,
"I'm just a poor, frightened girlfriend
that was afraid that Christian
was gonna do something to my family
if I didn't just go along with him."
[dramatic music playing]
In the second interview,
she's trying to keep from implicating
herself in a criminal offense.
But what she actually ends up doing
is implicating herself more thoroughly.
In the second interview,
she's changed a lot of vital information.
She admitted to
helping Christian load a rifle.
This was the first time that she admitted
that Christian had a weapon when he left.
And then Ashley admitted
that Christian had told her
it was his intent
to go out to the residence
and kill both Mike and Annie Lois Sims.
She told no one, she took no action.
She didn't do anything
to try to prevent this.
They were working together,
in concert, to commit this offense.
No doubt you're a party to this.
You're a defendant. You're a murderer.
[uneasy music playing]
[Jill Drake] You might think, "Okay. Well,
you can't charge me with murder
unless I was the person
who was the shooter."
Well, in Texas, if you help in any manner
in the commission of a crime,
you are a principal.
You are the one who did it,
whether you pulled the trigger or not.
And we believed
Ashley Morrison aided Christian
before, during, and after the crime.
[music fades]
[soft piano music playing]
[Jill Drake] One of the key pieces
of evidence at trial
were the text messages between
Ashley Morrison and Christian Sims.
These are text messages
that were on December 16th, 2014,
which would be two days before the murder.
Christian, "I'm going to my grandparents'
and robbing them blind."
"I guess we will have to start early."
Ashley, "Yeah, without a car or money."
"Or yeah, all of those
with my grandparents."
Ashley, "Yeah, I guess so."
Christian, "We could do it tonight."
Ashley, "I don't know
if she's gonna let me go or not."
"Especially if Dad gets involved."
"Well, they can fuck off.
I will kill your dad."
"Okey dokey."
As a result of these text messages,
it was very clear for us
that they planned to leave,
they were gonna rob grandparents blind,
they were gonna kill whomever they needed.
It's all right there.
"I'm gonna kill your dad." "Okey dokey."
What was that?
She's She's a participant.
[music fades]
[Ashley, on recording] I pled not guilty,
'cause I didn't feel that I was.
I thought that the truth
was gonna get put out there,
and they were gonna see
[voice breaks] Like, they were
just gonna see me.
And, um,
that just everything was gonna be okay,
and I was gonna be able to go home.
But they said, because I never
reported him before it happened,
after he told me what he wanted to do,
I was just as guilty
as if I had pulled the trigger,
even though I wasn't
the one that pulled the trigger.
I didn't know that he was
actually able to kill his grandmother.
I mean, he had told me,
but, like I said,
I didn't really believe him.
[Christian] I understand the things
that we had talked about and whatnot,
but those are just the ravings of somebody
who was angry and hurt, you know?
I mean, just, what kind of what kind
of 17-year-old girl is gonna think
that her 16-year-old boyfriend's
actually gonna do that, you know?
I mean, who could
who could reasonably expect that?
[pensive music playing]
Honestly, I feel like it's a bit unjust.
[on recording] Because in my mind,
when I look back,
I don't think there was anything
I could have done to have saved her.
[Jill Drake] I hear Ashley saying
that she feels like it's unjust.
But we charged her, and she was convicted.
That's all there is to it.
This is just Ashley Morrison
rewriting what happened in her own mind
so she can live with herself.
To me, it's an excuse.
It's just something
for her to say at this point
to make her feel better about the fact
that she willingly went with him.
[uneasy violin music playing]
[man] At the trial, the prosecutors said
that Ashley Morrison was a party
to the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the key piece of evidence
that I'm concerned with
is Christian Sims' statement.
"It was all me.
She didn't have anything to do with it."
[soft piano music playing]
My name is Roland Mosher,
and I am an attorney
in the state of Texas.
I practice criminal defense, and I did
most of the work on Ashley's appeal.
[keyboard keys clacking]
I think that there is a sense
in which Ashley was associated
with Christian Sims' actions.
She didn't call the police.
She didn't refuse
to get in the car with him.
She went with him.
But there's enough of a case to be made
that Ashley was coerced.
It's critical to the assumption
of the law of parties
that you be a willing participant.
And if you're being coerced,
you're not a willing participant.
The state's case, essentially,
is that Ashley, a 17-year-old girl,
didn't go out of her way
to disagree with or interfere with
her demonstrably emotionally
unstable and homicidal boyfriend.
But if your crazy boyfriend
comes to your front door and says,
"I'm gonna leave and you're coming with me
and I'm gonna murder people today,"
it's very reasonable to conclude
that, if you do something to offend him
or if your family
does something to upset him,
that they'll be next.
[pensive music playing]
[pensive music continues]
[woman] The person who's
responsible for this matter is Chris,
not Ashley.
I think when people vilify Ashley,
it's partially because
there's intent that's attributed to her
that I don't believe is at all accurate.
My name is Rycke Marshall.
I'm a clinical psychologist.
I did an evaluation with Ashley Morrison.
And I have Ashley's full permission
to discuss this case.
I met with Ashley on four separate
occasions for a total of 12 hours.
She was friendly, but she was traumatized.
Almost childlike, in some respects.
And she's someone
who could be easily manipulated.
For an adolescent to be interviewed
by police, without an attorney present,
would be terrifying.
It's not a level playing field.
And I don't think it's surprising at all
if her story changed.
Chris said,
"I could kill both your parents,
and I could make it
look like a murder-suicide."
[dramatic sting]
It seemed like a very real threat to her,
so she had no choice but to go.
You know, it was Chris's plan.
It was his actions. It was his thoughts.
It wasn't what she wanted.
I just hate it when I think
somebody's being treated unfairly.
And I think she would have
a good chance of a different result
if she were tried again.
But, unfortunately,
that's not what happened.
[soft, dramatic music playing]
[pensive guitar music playing]
[Ashley] So I changed my plea to guilty
during my second trial
because I was guilty.
And I am guilty.
Regardless of my frame of mind,
regardless of the fact
that my family was threatened,
[voice breaking] regardless
of those things, like, I had a choice.
I could've made the choice
to try to stop him.
I could have made the choice to get help.
And I do take responsibility
for my choices.
I don't know if I could have stopped it,
but a really big part of me
wishes that I had just tried.
[music fades]
I was given 30 years all over again.
Honestly, it feels unjust,
when I did not commit the murder.
That's me speaking from my point of view.
That's me speaking from watching
my life slip through my fingers.
But now it's my opportunity
to tell the truth.
My interviews with police,
I was terrified. [chuckles]
But I remember very distinctly
thinking to myself,
"They'd never believe me if I tell them
the truth of what really happened."
I wanted to paint things
in a better light.
But I just wished that
I had told the truth from the beginning,
because now it will always be a question
of, "Well, what really was the truth?"
[Stacy McNeal, on recording]
When I was gonna interview Ashley,
between the first
and the second interview,
she'd changed a lot of vital information.
She admitted to
helping Christian load a rifle.
And then Ashley admitted
that Christian had told her
it was his intent to kill
both Mike and Annie Lois Sims.
[Ashley] I did not go
to his grandparents' house.
I did not commit the murder.
And, in my mind,
I was never helping him load the rifle.
There was a bunch of bullets
on the ground,
and he wanted me to pick the bullets up
and count them back to him.
And that's simply all I did.
I mean, obviously, looking back now,
there's no way I couldn't think that
he was gonna go harm somebody, right?
That's what everybody thinks.
But at the same time,
you don't believe somebody
is capable of something like that,
especially somebody you love,
somebody that you're in love with.
[Jill Drake, on recording] It was
very clear Ashley Morrison aided Christian
before, during, and after the crime.
They were gonna kill whoever they needed.
Christian, "I will kill your dad."
Ashley, "Okey dokey."
"I'm going to kill your dad."
"Okey dokey."
What was that?
She's a participant.
[Ashley] Those texts, that looks horrible.
Like, I understand that.
I understand, from the outside
looking in, how bad that is
and how bad that looks.
But I know for me
that I was brushing Christian off.
Any time I said "okay" or "okey dokey,"
that was my "whatever" to him.
I didn't take him seriously.
But it became serious.
I definitely regret
not trying to stop what happened.
And if I could say something
to the Sims family, I would tell them,
even though it makes up for nothing,
that I'm genuinely sorry.
But, at the same time, I cannot
take responsibility for what he did.
I do believe
I should be in prison for my involvement.
Yes.
Do I believe that I should've gotten
30 years for my involvement, though?
No.
Because the man who pulled the trigger
and concocted the plan only got 35.
[dramatic music playing]
[Christian] I shot my grandmother because
she had beaten and molested me as a child.
I would not have done it
for any other reason.
But, from the outset,
there was no, like, plan.
If I'm just being honest, uh,
I'm an incredibly intelligent individual.
Uh, and I don't mean to say this to sound
uh, like an asshole or anything like that,
but had I planned this out, it would have
happened in a completely different way.
The reason why
I didn't mention the the prior abuse
is because I didn't think
that I would be believed.
[Laurie Geer, on recording]
For Christian to even
say that my mom
would have ever mistreated him
is a complete outrage.
And that's never anything
she would have ever done.
It's just another stab in the heart,
a stab in the back,
that [sighs]my parents
did all this for you,
and then this is how you react.
[Christian] Nothing I can do
or say's gonna convince anybody.
They weren't there.
They didn't have to experience it.
And, if I'm just being honest,
I don't have remorse
for her being dead as a person.
Uh, I think that
I think that she deserved
a lot worse than what she got.
I just hate that it was
[scoffs]my dumb ass who did it.
I honestly couldn't say
what Ashley thought.
[scoffs] What I think that
she's probably told y'all
is probably some truth
with a bunch of bullshit mixed in.
Like, she's talking about how she's
scared of me and other shit like that.
I treated the girl like a princess.
Like, I never did anything to
to hurt her.
Uh, I didn't force her to do anything.
[dramatic music continues]
[end theme music playing]
[music fades]