Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Murdered Father- yrs of sexual abuse- prison - now attorney-Stacey Lannert

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Murdered Father- yrs of sexual abuse- prison - now attorney-Stacey Lannert · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi. I'm Brent, Cassidy.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the nightmare success in and out podcast, where we
• 0:08
  explore a, how to overcome your fears.
• 0:10
  And Nightmares is set yourself free.
• 0:13
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:20
  These stories can be inspiring. Sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:23
  humor but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something
• 0:27
  that will help you knock down some of the prisons you built.
• 0:30
  In your own mind. All right, folks, we're back.
• 0:35
  And I have a fascinating and I think just riveting, inspiring
• 0:44
  person here. Stacy Lantern.
• 0:47
  And one of the things that I think is, well, first of all,
• 0:52
  this is a story about somebody who got convicted.
• 0:57
  Life without parole, she was physically sexually abused by
• 1:03
  her father and she killed her father.
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  And the story that wraps around that she spent 18 years in
• 1:11
  prison. And in that time period,
• 1:14
  eventually the her sentence was commuted by the governor.
• 1:18
  And then she was eventually pardoned.
• 1:20
  Her story has been one. That many people have been
• 1:24
  interested in and want to cover Oprah.
• 1:28
  American Justice A&E, Nancy Grace. 2020 prime time.
• 1:33
  She wrote a book Redemption, a story of Sisterhood, survival,
• 1:38
  finding Freedom Behind Bars. And I'm, I was lucky enough to
• 1:43
  meet Stacy to give a shout out here to Chantel, Fisher who she
• 1:49
  had put together a very cool panel on Second Chances and
• 1:55
  Stacy was given the No speech. And I was thinking of sitting
• 2:00
  there thinking, gosh, I really like to have this girl on my
• 2:02
  podcast. She is incredible and so
• 2:05
  station. I've been talking back and forth
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  so I snagged her. I got Stacy.
• 2:08
  Stacy, welcome. Welcome in.
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  So your story. I'm going to ask you to to scoot
• 2:17
  up, so everybody will be able to hear you.
• 2:21
  Alright, so your story is just one, you know, obviously the
• 2:26
  reason why it's been covered, it has so many layers to it and
• 2:30
  then the back end of it. I think it was what is so I
• 2:35
  think inspiring is that you took your life and now you're an
• 2:39
  attorney, you're a district Defender and the Missouri state
• 2:44
  public defender's office you work with people on parole and
• 2:47
  you're using, all those experiences.
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  I was just talking to you about the fact that isn't it so
• 2:53
  effective and needed to have people who have experienced the
• 2:58
  system, have a seat at the table to be able to help and you're
• 3:03
  doing that using All your experience of making a
• 3:06
  difference with and you took all those steps and they weren't
• 3:09
  easy steps. We were just talking about that,
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  they're taking that L sat and going and doing and not knowing
• 3:14
  if you're going to be accepted. And what all the things happen
• 3:19
  So Stacey take take his back to what was life like for you
• 3:24
  growing up as a little girl. so, in the beginning, I had a very
• 3:31
  normal childhood which Middle class, right.
• 3:37
  Blond-haired blue-eyed. Yeah, and the two kids I have a
• 3:41
  younger sister. She's two years younger than me
• 3:43
  and our life is really pretty good.
• 3:47
  The abuse didn't actually start for me till I was eight.
• 3:51
  And when it started, like I really didn't have words for it.
• 3:53
  I didn't know how to explain it. And when it first started, it
• 3:57
  wasn't It wasn't scary. Like there's this grooming
• 4:01
  process that happens. Unfortunately, I was led through
• 4:04
  that so I didn't really realize how wrong it was when I did
• 4:09
  realize how wrong it was. I was about 12 and I still
• 4:14
  didn't really have words for how to explain it, but I was
• 4:18
  starting to fight against it and was starting to try to get help.
• 4:26
  This was back in the 80s. Yeah, right there.
• 4:29
  The internet, they write, it wasn't talked about no cell
• 4:32
  phones, right? And there was always this
• 4:35
  perception that sexual abuse incest molestation didn't happen
• 4:40
  to families like ours, right? Because you were the people next
• 4:44
  door, the All American people that were just being normal,
• 4:47
  right? Exactly.
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  So when you look at our family from the outside, you just, you
• 4:52
  would never see it. Even though I thought everybody
• 4:54
  could, you definitely couldn't so something happened.
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  Around that same time, my parents got divorced and it was
• 5:03
  just a, you know, a lot happened at one single time, my parents
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  divorced when I was 12, they got joint custody my mother.
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  Eventually got remarried. She moved halfway across the
• 5:15
  country to Guam to Guam. Yes.
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  She married a military man and moved there and I always tell
• 5:26
  people and I don't know how to explain it.
• 5:29
  I do have a degree in Psychology, but I don't, I still
• 5:32
  don't understand. A lot of times I was more angry
• 5:35
  with my mother when I was with my father.
• 5:38
  Well, I was going to ask you about that Stacy because in the
• 5:41
  house, you know, did you feel like even the and I can't
• 5:47
  remember if you'd actually told I know the babysitter new and a
• 5:51
  maybe a counselor or psychologist or Psychiatrist
• 5:54
  new, but did your mom know? No, no, no.
• 6:00
  I felt like she did. You felt like she did it, right?
• 6:02
  He told me that she did but she didn't.
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  And one thing that I think, people need to really understand
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  is my mom was abused herself by her.
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  I read that. And so when she would confront
• 6:13
  my dad, he would tell her that she was just being crazy.
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  He'd never do that, right? She never really saw any
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  outright Signs. Now that being said, she never
• 6:23
  asked either, right? Right?
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  So probably is a defense mechanism.
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  Patches. It would have been a lot for her
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  to deal with because she had gone through that herself.
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  Probably and maybe she did feel and how do you have those
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  conversations you know as a society.
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  We're getting a lot better. We're racing the shame, we're
• 6:41
  empowering our children by teaching them the right words,
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  but we didn't have that back in the 80s.
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  Mhm. But I like to think we're
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  evolving as a society and and moving moving in a positive
• 6:53
  direction, it still exists. Yeah.
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  But hopefully someday we'll eradicate.
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  I hate it. I'm curious how so when this was
• 7:00
  going on and then you know, 12 years old.
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  You're like this, this is this is awful.
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  This is I know, it's not, right? How is it affecting you in the
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  rest of your world, like school friends, coming over?
• 7:13
  You going over to sleep at their house and everything.
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  Were you living two separate worlds?
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  Not at 12:00 because at 12, my parents were in the middle of
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  that divorce. Okay, so it's more about being
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  bounced back and forth by them. And being taken from what we had
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  known and being moved into different neighborhoods.
• 7:33
  Different. Like, when my parents divorced,
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  we moved, you know we moved out of the house we were in and
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  before that we were living in like rural Illinois.
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  And so we had three acres, we didn't have It felt different.
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  I was very alone. Yeah.
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  Child and then when I got older when I was 12 and they did they
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  started to divorce. I just I never really had those
• 8:00
  friendships where I really spend the night or I mean occasionally
• 8:06
  I really don't remember a lot of it, I wish I did.
• 8:09
  Yeah, well, you said a lot of things started to change along
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  those time, lines and your dad started, drinking a lot more
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  because that wasn't necessarily part of your life up to that
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  point in that world that you didn't notice so much.
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  That he almost was a dr. Jekyll mr.
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  Hyde personality, when he drank correct.
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  So it was probably more prevalent than what I realized.
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  because he only like every time that there was some kind of
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  abuse, he smelled like alcohol like you'd smell it and to me
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  his features would change and he would morph and He felt like a
• 8:50
  completely different person. So, like, I would separate him
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  in my mind. This is my dad, this is Tom, and
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  that's how I survived through it, like, almost pretending.
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  It didn't happen. I read something Stacy and I
• 9:02
  can't remember which article it was, but it was talking about
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  how you divided those two people were, he had blue eyes as the
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  nice guy. And his eyes blue eyes, turned
• 9:13
  like the ice almost, like an eerie scary look.
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  And I just can't imagine for You that?
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  When all this was happening as a child basically is you what you
• 9:27
  were? I mean, 12 13, 14 years old,
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  you're just figuring out all the others things.
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  And then you're having to figure out this gigantic thing that
• 9:36
  nobody really talks about and you were alone, and your sister
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  didn't know about it. And I think, from what I
• 9:44
  understand is your sister didn't know about it, until when all
• 9:49
  that happened. Around that time, that your dad
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  was killed. Is that right?
• 9:55
  So that's interesting because I've got three daughters and I,
• 9:58
  you know, they are there and I can tell that you and your
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  sister really close. So that had to be a heck of a
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  thing that was a dividing line that you wouldn't cross in that
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  world of not talking about that thing.
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  So I think for me it was more about just protecting her.
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  Yeah, and making sure that she was okay or that she didn't have
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  to go through it, right? Like I don't know how to really
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  explain, you know, if I'm family, Dynamics are all unique
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  and there they are. And so, before the divorce ever
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  even happened, there was like, almost, as fracture in the
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  household. And like I said, when the abuse
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  first started, it wasn't wasn't necessarily - like, it didn't
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  didn't hurt wasn't painful, and I wasn't scared.
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  And I actually thought it was something special between my
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  dad, and I, and my sister. stir was more my mom's favorite, so
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  we kind of already had that little internal split and it
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  just always remained. So the You went away and went to
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  live with your mom. So she your sister stayed with
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  your dad, so not that's almost accurate.
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  What happened was when I was 17. I got really sick and I had to
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  go to the hospital. They did an exploratory surgery
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  and I had pelvic inflammatory disease.
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  And so everything changed after that.
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  Because then I found it, I can no longer have children, do
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  discard fallopian tube, which is something that you said and that
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  you always wanted. Yes.
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  I imagined, you know, I daydreamed a lot, right?
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  Yeah. Like any time, my life was
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  really raw for painful. I just kind of create this
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  little safe space imaginary world.
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  Yeah. And someday, I'm going to have
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  my own family and I have a baby that I'm going to name this be
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  married and have a happy family. So when I found out, But I
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  couldn't have told her, it was actually a pretty devastating my
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  sister hadn't been living with my father.
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  And I she was living with an aunt, okay, so when I started
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  getting sick she went and stayed with the aunt, my mom's sister.
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  And so I felt like she was safe. Was she aware of what happened
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  to you like this? Devastating news?
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  I'm not certain, I mean, she might have known, but then I
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  don't think she really ever. It's hard to explain it, sounds
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  like we weren't close, but we do know, I can tell that by reading
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  and that's why I think it's interesting.
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  It sounds like you were very close and I think that's the
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  thing. The struggle that I feel like
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  that's something sisters do try to protect each other, you know
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  that my daughter's would go to war and back for each other.
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  So I get that being close doesn't mean that you won't tell
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  something to somebody because you're trying, Protect them and
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  that that information could be not just disturbing because
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  devastated. I'm so I get that and I don't
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  think it was necessarily like a rational thought, right?
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  The over, not going to discuss this.
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  I mean, she knew I was in the hospital.
• 13:31
  She knew I had been sick. Yeah, but we had more surface
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  dust is our relationship was more, just not deep
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  conversations, right? Because I don't think we knew
• 13:43
  how to have those. Those right?
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  We do know. Yeah, but we didn't at that
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  time. So I don't think we even really
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  necessarily knew how to access our emotions to talk about it.
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  Like I just Couldn't. So she was with my aunt.
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  I went and lived with my mother and I was hoping I don't know.
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  There was definitely some type of fracture for me because you
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  didn't you said you didn't feel welcomed when he went over to
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  see your mom. You felt like you were kind of
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  an imposter? I did.
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  Like it was just it was a hard. It was a hard moment, you know,
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  I expect my mom to be there. Yeah.
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  And my mom has spent the last several years growing and
• 14:23
  changing into somebody else. Right?
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  And we didn't really know each other.
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  Plus you add this other person into the mix, which was my
• 14:31
  stuff. Father.
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  And we just at the time we were. What was that like with the
• 14:36
  stuff? I was very uncomfortable.
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  Yeah. I was very uncomfortable because
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  I think I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, like, I
• 14:42
  never trusted him. I never really spoke to him.
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  I was never kind to him. He's not somebody.
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  I wanted in my life, right? Here's the man.
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  That move my mother halfway across.
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  I was angry. Yes, I was very angry.
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  Was he in the military? Yes.
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  Okay, well, that's the makes sense.
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  Then you never really had that relationship.
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  We just never did we do now? And a large part of it is
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  because when I went to trial, he was the only person sat in that
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  courtroom every day. My stepfather my stepfather
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  really, when they put me back on the plane to come back home, my
• 15:17
  stepdads looked at my mom and he said, I feel like we really
• 15:21
  failed her. And so I came back home, I came
• 15:24
  back to st. Louis by April 15th.
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  April 17th. And then wound up catching a
• 15:30
  case, July 4. So, my sister had moved back in
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  with my dad while I was in Guam. Yeah, and while I was there, she
• 15:38
  had skipped a lot of school, a lot of school.
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  So I went there in January, she moved in, she moved back with my
• 15:46
  dad, like the week after I left. She thought her and he would
• 15:50
  have a different relationship without me being okay, okay.
• 15:54
  She wanted to be closer to him, right?
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  Because she'd always kind of been more close to closer to
• 15:58
  your mom, correct? Yeah.
• 16:00
  And my father wasn't physically abusive towards me.
• 16:03
  He was physically abusive towards my sister, interesting.
• 16:06
  Yes. So my sister my sister was a bit
• 16:10
  of a challenge growing up. Yeah.
• 16:13
  Like she'd she'd fight back a lot to where I was The Quiet One
• 16:17
  and I took it and I tried to smooth everything over and so
• 16:21
  her and my dad just really didn't get along.
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  And my dad would hit her. Hit her when he was drunk or not
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  drunk. Correct?
• 16:29
  Yeah. Correct more was.
• 16:31
  So when he was dropped it, There came a Time towards the end when
• 16:34
  he was almost, never didn't matter who was drunk, most of
• 16:37
  the time. So Stacy this day of July 4th is
• 16:42
  unbelievable because I didn't realize.
• 16:45
  Until I started reading background on this that there
• 16:48
  were shots fired. Was it the day of?
• 16:52
  It's actually like July 3rd. Okay?
• 16:55
  July 3rd, but I didn't realize any of that.
• 16:58
  So you had, you would come into town.
• 17:01
  There was a It was an argument and you guys, you and your
• 17:05
  sister March out of the house angry.
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  And you're trying to pull her away from this bad situation of
• 17:13
  the dad and you're going to go back in and tell him, you know,
• 17:17
  you SOB this and stay and we don't want you and all this and
• 17:22
  and when you go to knock on the door, you have defenses kind of
• 17:28
  go down to where you're not going to do that.
• 17:30
  You go to and starts. Sobbing laying on the couch and
• 17:36
  you hear some shots. No, that's not quite how it
• 17:39
  happen, Okay? So my birthday was May 28, okay?
• 17:45
  And I felt like when I was 18 years old that so you can't
• 17:48
  believe everything you read. It's closed.
• 17:51
  It's closed. You know, that's the thing about
• 17:54
  these stories and the red and there's usually a nugget of
• 17:57
  Truth in there somewhere. Yes.
• 17:58
  And it's very, very close. Yeah.
• 18:00
  So when I was Turned 18, like I felt like this is.
• 18:05
  May 28. That's okay, 28.
• 18:07
  I was like. Okay, so now I'm 18.
• 18:09
  This is going to stop. Yeah, you feel I felt like I
• 18:12
  would be in power card just because I would be an adult,
• 18:14
  sure, right? Like I don't know, all of a
• 18:17
  sudden I had superhuman powers or something.
• 18:19
  So poster had to be a lot of just built up aggression about
• 18:23
  the fact that you had wanted to have kids.
• 18:26
  And this is this, it was kind of taken away from you and the
• 18:29
  whole thing of that has to be Brewing.
• 18:32
  I don't think it was, I really don't think it was, it was, it
• 18:36
  might have been somewhere on the back.
• 18:38
  It was more about getting out. Okay, how do I get out?
• 18:42
  How do I get out? Because I never really expected
• 18:44
  to find myself back. I thought when I went to live
• 18:47
  with my mother, that would be it.
• 18:48
  You know, my sister would be at my aunt's.
• 18:51
  I'd be with my Mom, I'd go to college.
• 18:53
  I'd never really fun living back with him again, but my sister
• 18:59
  had skipped school had made him mad and he You wanted my sister
• 19:03
  to actually come live with us and Guam and my mom said no, she
• 19:08
  didn't want both of us because I was a handful.
• 19:11
  I mean I was a helpful. So I felt like, well I'll go
• 19:19
  home and then he'll send Christie.
• 19:23
  And then once she goes to Guam, then I'm almost 18.
• 19:26
  I'm going to be 18 next month and I can leave, and then when I
• 19:30
  got there, my sister didn't want to leave.
• 19:32
  Hmm, didn't want to go live with my mom, which I understand
• 19:36
  because I had felt I didn't feel Wasn't like it should have been.
• 19:42
  Yeah. Right.
• 19:44
  So, And then my dad was fine as long as I was back because then
• 19:50
  I could take care of her. So, that's kind of what we fell
• 19:55
  into, and the closer I came to 18, the more, I don't want to
• 20:02
  say rebellious, but the more I pushed back against the abuse,
• 20:05
  like, no, this isn't going to happen, right?
• 20:07
  Like, I'm, I'm almost an adult. You can't do this to me anymore.
• 20:11
  So, when I was over on my 18th birthday at fell close to
• 20:17
  Memorial Day weekend, and I had went away for the weekend,
• 20:19
  didn't even tell him where I was going.
• 20:22
  Came back in, like, shortly after the weekend, he was very
• 20:24
  upset, very, very upset. And I had brought a dog home.
• 20:29
  So on July 3rd, I was taking my dog, my sister.
• 20:33
  And I were supposed to go to the VP fair with friends and I was
• 20:38
  taking my dog outside, this little puppy before we left and
• 20:42
  the puppy potty on the floor. Right in front of my dad.
• 20:47
  And You know, I'm kind of proud of the puppy like like, yeah, I
• 20:54
  understand, I understand that's what you think, but he got
• 20:57
  really mad and he told me that the puppy had to go and I was
• 21:02
  like, that's fine. Well, well, I'll go known.
• 21:05
  He was like, nope, you can go the puppy can go, but she stays
• 21:11
  and he pointed to my sister who had walked in somewhere behind
• 21:14
  me. And I was like, that is not
• 21:16
  going to happen. We're all leaving, right?
• 21:18
  so that's where that altercation came in at and we had we had
• 21:22
  some words then and he went and He went and grabbed my sister
• 21:33
  and took her well before he did that, he pulled the phones out
• 21:37
  of the wall because he thought that I was going to call my
• 21:39
  mother. I'm not really, I'm not really
• 21:41
  sure why he pulled the phone. And then he grabbed my sister
• 21:47
  and took her in his room and I couldn't get in.
• 21:51
  I ran outside. I, the windows were just high
• 21:55
  enough. I mean, I'm short.
• 21:56
  I'm 5 foot. I'm five foot one and a half,
• 21:58
  although I claim 5 foot two and, you know, I remember trying to
• 22:03
  beat on it trying to get in and I couldn't and You know, here I
• 22:08
  am in the middle of a subdivision and for whatever
• 22:11
  reason, it doesn't even dawn on me to go next door or to just
• 22:17
  start screaming. I mean I'm screaming out and I
• 22:20
  do love my Lon. Yeah. and, You know, there's a
• 22:26
  house. Probably.
• 22:27
  I can't even begin to tell you how many feet away.
• 22:30
  Just next door that I could have probably went up to the door,
• 22:33
  not. Hmm, I didn't.
• 22:36
  And I think part of that was just that aloneness.
• 22:39
  Like, I felt like nobody would ever come nobody would ever
• 22:41
  help. And I walked back inside and I
• 22:46
  still don't know what happened in that room, my sister and I to
• 22:49
  this day still have not sat down and actually spoken about it.
• 22:53
  Like I've heard her tell story. I've heard her talk to other
• 22:57
  people but her and I've never really together talked about it.
• 23:00
  She got right which we probably need to do through therapy
• 23:03
  someday but she walked out of that room when she walked out of
• 23:06
  that room she just didn't look She looked changed, right?
• 23:14
  And I could have been I could have been reading into it, I
• 23:19
  don't know. But We're supposed to get
• 23:25
  friends. And like I remember just kind of
• 23:29
  touching her face and being like, are you?
• 23:31
  Okay, let's let's go and but I wasn't I wasn't together, right?
• 23:38
  Like my I couldn't think, I couldn't really even breathe.
• 23:45
  So I gave her my car keys and she went and picked up her
• 23:48
  friend and then she was supposed to come back and get me, which
• 23:52
  she wasn't old enough to just drive.
• 23:55
  Anyway, I used to do that a lot. Exactly.
• 23:58
  Well, and I used to give her my car at night so that she could
• 24:01
  go out and be safe. Yeah, right.
• 24:04
  She actually got arrested for it.
• 24:06
  All right. Right.
• 24:09
  But so then she so that then when that happened, like I went
• 24:13
  to go downstairs, I was laying on the couch and then that's
• 24:18
  when I heard, I heard a pop didn't even it.
• 24:21
  Didn't even dawn on me. That it was a shot, and I look
• 24:24
  up and there's my dad standing with this. 22 and shot and shot.
• 24:30
  And but I didn't really know it at the time.
• 24:33
  And, you know, then he just said, a bunch of hateful things.
• 24:36
  He'd always as he had he ever done anything like that before
• 24:40
  with guns and rifles and stuff. No.
• 24:42
  Like, I didn't even I mean that to me would just be the most
• 24:45
  startling thing Stacy as you, but all of a sudden look up in,
• 24:49
  your dad has shot a 22 and it was not, I mean he wasn't trying
• 24:54
  to hit you but it was in your direction right here.
• 24:57
  Didn't know cuz he shot through a door like a wall.
• 25:00
  Yeah, he could have hit anything.
• 25:02
  Yes. But but our whole for the last
• 25:06
  month, everything had been escalating.
• 25:08
  Yeah. Like he would talk about how he
• 25:10
  could kill us and it would be an accident or and just describe
• 25:15
  different ways. Right?
• 25:16
  And so did he also I meant to ask you when you were when you
• 25:21
  were younger, Stacy, did he put a fear in you that you couldn't
• 25:27
  really talk or you get? He would do something to you.
• 25:29
  If you said something to somebody about it or was that
• 25:31
  just something you built on? I think it was something that I
• 25:34
  built in. Yeah, right.
• 25:36
  Like I think that as I got older and I pushed back then came the
• 25:42
  threats but they weren't right away.
• 25:44
  Yeah. It was more than 0 and they
• 25:46
  don't care. Right?
• 25:48
  And then instance has happened where we did where I did.
• 25:52
  See. Be violent.
• 25:54
  Like he would hit my sister or one time he ran over our family,
• 25:58
  cat shelter, cat with us, in the car, like just, and I'm certain
• 26:05
  they came about. But they didn't come about, they
• 26:08
  didn't accompany the beginning of the abuse, but part of that
• 26:12
  was, I didn't realize it was wrong, right?
• 26:14
  Like it was more after for the first six months or so, it was
• 26:19
  just touch the actual rape. Right after the rape, that's
• 26:25
  when the threats started and I can't really tell you exactly
• 26:28
  when that was, I'd have to think about it and truthfully.
• 26:31
  I don't allow my well. I was just curious.
• 26:34
  If that was something that you also had to Bear, but it sounds
• 26:37
  like you had enough to bear that it was just a wall and you were
• 26:42
  you felt alone and and you didn't feel like there was a
• 26:44
  whole Army out there that was going to help you out this
• 26:48
  situation. Okay, so let's go to the
• 26:51
  Nightmare Night. So my sister and I, my sister
• 26:56
  did come back. I want up leaving with her and
• 27:00
  we left and we went to the fair and, you know, somehow we acted,
• 27:04
  like, absolutely nothing had happened.
• 27:06
  We went out to eat having a good time.
• 27:08
  We had a right? We just July 4th, everybody's
• 27:11
  having a good time. July 3rd, July 3rd bright, but
• 27:14
  it's still it's that weekend, right?
• 27:16
  And I still I don't really know how we how we were able to do
• 27:23
  that, right? But we did.
• 27:24
  Yeah and compartmentalised. Yeah I think we had been doing
• 27:29
  that for so long you just kind of get used to it.
• 27:33
  Hmm. And you can have this horrific
• 27:35
  thing happen and 10 minutes later you act like it never did.
• 27:39
  Hmm, right? Because You have to survive,
• 27:44
  right? And I I try to make sense of it
• 27:46
  and I just can't and I tell people there is there isn't a
• 27:52
  lot of logic when you're just trying to survive, right?
• 27:56
  And really that's what we're trying to do is to serve, right
• 27:59
  survive. So we went to the fair, we came
• 28:02
  back to the house we pull up, it's about, I don't even know
• 28:05
  what time it was probably 11 and I'm thinking I just don't want
• 28:09
  to walk in that door. Just I don't want to go back in
• 28:13
  there and because I can't, I can't like if we go back in
• 28:20
  there will probably never get out right?
• 28:23
  Like So we actually went to hotel and we were there for a
• 28:27
  little while, and we're laying down and we're trying to go to
• 28:29
  sleep. And it's Emily.
• 28:32
  And I'm thinking, okay, what do we need to leave?
• 28:37
  We need to leave because we don't have anything.
• 28:39
  We just have the clothes on our back and my car keys, which is
• 28:42
  actually the car was in my father's name.
• 28:44
  Not even my name. Hmm.
• 28:47
  I'm like, well, we need some clothes.
• 28:50
  We need right. Maybe we have to get close my
• 28:53
  dog. I might puppies.
• 28:55
  Where is your dog? She was back at the house and I
• 28:58
  thought, how can I just leave her there?
• 29:00
  I got to get her. I don't necessarily can get more
• 29:02
  close. I can get a job.
• 29:04
  But don't get the dog, can't leave her with him because he'll
• 29:07
  killer, and I believe that with every heart.
• 29:11
  So we returned to the house and my sister stay outside, the dog
• 29:16
  had peed on the floor. So, yeah.
• 29:18
  You could be thinking that he might do something to the time
• 29:20
  he would. I mean, he'd kick it.
• 29:23
  Yeah, right now. Yeah, he was angry that he
• 29:26
  didn't want dogs right? Which you know I did.
• 29:30
  I just wanted something to love right, like I'm too old for
• 29:32
  stuffed animals. Which is a little bit of
• 29:36
  foreshadowing later on in your life.
• 29:40
  So we end up going back and I came in through the bedroom
• 29:45
  window. So the basement was pretty much
• 29:50
  I know it sounds weird to come through a window but if the
• 29:53
  doors were we had the front door and the back door and those were
• 29:57
  both on the main floor. So if I'd come through, either
• 30:00
  the doors would have woke him up so we actually would come and go
• 30:05
  through our bedrooms window. So hopefully we didn't didn't
• 30:11
  wake him, but once I got in the house I thought I heard him.
• 30:19
  And that gun was like just left in the corner.
• 30:22
  So I picked it up and went upstairs.
• 30:24
  Because now, now I am upset, right?
• 30:27
  Like now everything's coming back and I don't want to be here
• 30:31
  and I'd I want to leave. I just want to leave And so I
• 30:35
  get up there and he's passed out passed out.
• 30:40
  And you know, I wish I could tell you exactly what emotions I
• 30:44
  was feeling, but I just I can't, I don't know if it was just pure
• 30:49
  anger, pure fear a combination combination of all of it, but I,
• 30:57
  there was a ledge behind the couch.
• 30:59
  And I set that I set the gun on the ledge and I just closed my
• 31:03
  eyes and pulled the trigger. And I didn't deliver a fatal
• 31:08
  shot. It actually shot him in the
• 31:10
  shoulder and he said up, I was calling my name.
• 31:14
  And, you know, when he did that, like, just I still feel the
• 31:18
  nausea and not, not over him, calling my name, but over.
• 31:25
  What I had just done, right? Like the full force of it, just
• 31:29
  kind of hit me all at one time. And I remember thinking, Dying.
• 31:38
  I just got to get him help. I gotta get him out.
• 31:41
  And so I threw up in the front door, I flipped on the porch
• 31:45
  light. And I went to find a phone but
• 31:51
  the phones were all because he's pulled him out earlier.
• 31:54
  If you had pulled him out earlier and he had hit him in
• 31:56
  his bedroom and I didn't know that till long after they had
• 32:00
  been charged, but I'm I'm frantic frantic not, not just
• 32:06
  because of what happened, but all of it, I guess all of it was
• 32:11
  just too overwhelming is too much too much and then he got
• 32:16
  angry and he started cussing and calling me, and my sister, all
• 32:21
  kinds of names and I remembered thinking if he gets up, We're
• 32:31
  dead or dead and so I shot him the second time and then he
• 32:39
  says, so I can't imagine. I mean that that's that moment
• 32:47
  has to be something that it's painful.
• 32:50
  It's still is to this day and it was how many years ago, how 40,
• 32:55
  or 30 some years. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:57
  Like it's What were your, what was your immediate?
• 33:02
  I mean, I'm sure everything was blurry.
• 33:04
  What did you think? What am I going to do now?
• 33:07
  No, there was, there was no thought it's like taking a deep
• 33:11
  breath and holding it and just not being able to pray, not
• 33:15
  breathing, I'm breathing. And what did you do right then,
• 33:18
  where did you go? you know, somehow like I must
• 33:25
  have gathered stuff up, went back to the car and we went back
• 33:29
  to the hotel and I don't remember any of your sister was
• 33:35
  where she was outside. She was outside.
• 33:39
  So she you come out frantic gather the stuff we're getting
• 33:42
  out of here and so then you're I'm sure you're telling her what
• 33:49
  all happened and now you're just driving Just driving. very blank
• 33:59
  like you like, I you know, maybe it's your, my brains way of
• 34:04
  protecting my psyche, but there was no, there was, no, rational
• 34:10
  thought period, and that moment or four hours afterwards, like,
• 34:17
  I think it would almost be the same as if you witness like a
• 34:21
  horrific crash and just trying to wrap your brain around it and
• 34:28
  I remember the next day thinking, I've got to get help.
• 34:31
  I've got to, I've got to get help, I've got to tell somebody.
• 34:35
  And so, I did, I actually went to thought somebody who I
• 34:38
  thought was a friend, they gave me way wrong advice, but I would
• 34:41
  have followed anybody's right lead at any time right there.
• 34:45
  But I remember driving and I remember thinking people are
• 34:51
  still going to work. The sun is shining.
• 34:55
  How is it possible that the sun is shining?
• 34:58
  When this all this happened, how can, how can there be anything
• 35:03
  that even looks or feels normal, right?
• 35:07
  Like how, how is this possible? And it's okay, your own bubble?
• 35:14
  Yeah. And I don't I don't, I still,
• 35:19
  you know, I can't explain it. I can't make anybody else
• 35:21
  explain I understand it. It's your brain kicks in and
• 35:26
  does something to protect you. And I think that's kind of what
• 35:30
  happened in this case and somehow I just kind of stumbled
• 35:33
  through stumble, through the next couple hours.
• 35:37
  The next day, tried to follow what the person told me to do
• 35:42
  with your stupid. Like, I should have just called
• 35:44
  the police. Mmm.
• 35:46
  Had I had a phone I would have called the police because she
• 35:49
  would have it on you just done it right?
• 35:52
  Well and it had the phone's not been pulled out of the hmm.
• 35:55
  Well, that was I was definitely calling please.
• 36:00
  And I should have just been honest from the very beginning,
• 36:05
  but I don't think I knew how to be right.
• 36:07
  Honest, I didn't know how to access what had happened, right?
• 36:12
  You were still dealing with that all the trauma.
• 36:14
  Yeah. It like it really, really took
• 36:17
  me years to be able to process what would happen, what
• 36:20
  happened? And it's kind of unfair and our
• 36:23
  criminal legal system that we want people to be able to talk.
• 36:28
  About what happened immediately. And, you know, like when you
• 36:32
  give your confession, right? You expect somebody to be able
• 36:35
  to access all that horror that they just went through.
• 36:40
  I mean, granted some of it might have been that person created
• 36:43
  it, but your psyche really needs time to process it and to access
• 36:51
  it because You just shut down. And I think it's a matter of
• 36:57
  self-protection, at least, it was for me, it was a matter of
• 36:59
  self-protection. And unfortunately, I had been
• 37:02
  just shutting down for years, so maybe not even recognizing it.
• 37:09
  Yeah, I had no idea. I was doing it.
• 37:11
  Absolutely none. Like, it took a lot to learn
• 37:15
  when I was getting ready to go into that kind of Fugue and make
• 37:18
  sure I didn't go go there, right?
• 37:20
  Like learning how to heal. But yeah, I still don't I don't
• 37:27
  think I could have really accessed everything that had
• 37:32
  happened. For a long time afterwards.
• 37:36
  And then when we were talking about it, you know, when I was
• 37:40
  able to kind of access a little bit process, some of it.
• 37:48
  It's not that I wasn't believed some people believe me, but your
• 37:52
  detective dead. He did.
• 37:54
  Ya Thang Thang. First first man on the scene,
• 37:58
  thank God for that. Because we ended up playing a
• 38:02
  bigger and bigger role in your life.
• 38:05
  Absolutely. Because if it wasn't for him,
• 38:06
  I'd still be, I'd probably still be decomposing in a Cell, you
• 38:13
  know. And he just When when we were
• 38:16
  there he was like, you, you have to tell me what happened, so
• 38:20
  that we understand. And he said, I I think there's
• 38:26
  more there and he said because when I asked you, if your father
• 38:31
  hit you you cry and I know you want to tell me and you know I
• 38:39
  told him what I could which was he didn't hit me my father raped
• 38:45
  me, right? But I didn't use the words
• 38:47
  raped. I would say molested or touched
• 38:55
  and I think the detective really just he got, he was a specialist
• 38:59
  somewhat in that field, he was. And I did not, I did not know
• 39:03
  that. Yeah, but But I he was I was
• 39:10
  able to talk to him some but he never he wasn't called to
• 39:15
  testify at my trial. That's the whole thing with the.
• 39:20
  Can you walk us through now that your attorney because there's
• 39:23
  there's things that happen in your defense that were left out,
• 39:30
  you know, there was The Battered spouse syndrome.
• 39:34
  There were some other things that That could have been given
• 39:38
  you more of a defense obviously, he wasn't called as a witness
• 39:43
  which would have been incredibly different.
• 39:47
  And there were a couple of jurors afterwards that found
• 39:50
  that without their jury instructions and what they have
• 39:52
  gotten that they would have obviously a felt a lot different
• 39:55
  about what had happened. What how did you feel as the as
• 40:00
  this trial was going on? I'm sure you were dealing with
• 40:02
  all kinds of different emotions because you're having to relive
• 40:05
  this whole thing day to day today.
• 40:08
  It's an unusual unfamiliar situation being in a courtroom
• 40:14
  with them. Wanting to give it to you of
• 40:18
  murder was how are you, how are you dealing and coping at that
• 40:26
  moment with going through all that, not?
• 40:28
  Well, yeah, well at all, you know, I don't mean to make light
• 40:32
  of it, but I just started taking some psychiatric meds shortly
• 40:37
  before trial. They weren't even something that
• 40:40
  I wanted, but it was something that the jail put me on and you
• 40:45
  got to take him to. I It took 800.
• 40:50
  Took about eight hundred days before I actually went to trial
• 40:54
  and even then I didn't receive any counseling to your in county
• 40:59
  jail all the time which is the worst.
• 41:01
  It was called gumbo. Yeah.
• 41:03
  And we don't know if you people understand that there's a big
• 41:06
  difference between County jail and prison right big difference.
• 41:09
  Huge so County jails just it's the bomb down, 23 hours a day
• 41:16
  where where I was we did get to get out for meals.
• 41:19
  Like we'd go to meals. Was it and breakfast was always
• 41:21
  served at like 5:00. So I never went to that, but I
• 41:26
  was locked in. It was more like pods then there
• 41:31
  was no cells. So the smallest amount of people
• 41:34
  that I was locked in a room with was 11 other women and then
• 41:37
  there was a hallway and there be another 11, women are 12 women
• 41:41
  over on the other side so you're never alone.
• 41:43
  You're never You're you're just as a lot, was your stuff on the
• 41:51
  news? Like why you were in jail.
• 41:53
  Yeah, but it wasn't. I'm sure it was there.
• 41:58
  One of the people just sitting and watching the news and
• 42:02
  saying, oh my gosh, that's Stacey, maybe, but I didn't want
• 42:05
  even plugged into it, right? Hey yeah.
• 42:12
  Because I still, that was my way of coping, with still the
• 42:15
  shutdown. So, a lot of through my trial, I
• 42:17
  was just shut down, your totally shut down completely.
• 42:21
  Did you feel like with your attorney that you through this
• 42:26
  process? Did he did he believed that he
• 42:29
  was going to get you? Beyond this and not be convicted
• 42:34
  of this crime for life without parole.
• 42:39
  So I think he never really saw a jury convicting me life that Pro
• 42:43
  specially when we were able to introduce some of the things
• 42:46
  that happen. But I still really wasn't at a
• 42:51
  point where I could verbalize, right?
• 42:54
  Like same thing, like, I could barely talk about it because to
• 42:57
  me, you say the word touch, and it means something completely
• 43:00
  different than what somebody else.
• 43:02
  I think, you know, like, if I said my dad touched me, right?
• 43:05
  That means a horror that most people cannot even begin to
• 43:09
  understand, right? And I, like I said, when we went
• 43:14
  to trial, I hadn't had therapy. I hadn't had counseling and my
• 43:17
  attorney was a guy, right? Like, it's a man, it's not like
• 43:21
  he and I sat down and had in-depth conversations about
• 43:24
  some of the things I went through.
• 43:26
  No, we probably had 20 minute meetings in the law library a
• 43:29
  couple times here and there and My attorney did the best job he
• 43:34
  could, he actually really did a good job.
• 43:37
  The law was just brand new at that time and like I said we
• 43:42
  didn't really access what the abuse really meant, but it
• 43:48
  really didn't matter. Because there was still the you
• 43:53
  have to get over the hump like I had to get over the traditional
• 43:56
  self-defense. Hump of immediate immediate
• 43:58
  aggression. I mean, imminent and immediate
• 44:01
  danger. Yeah.
• 44:02
  And Because my father was passed out.
• 44:03
  I wasn't in immediate danger, even though in my brain, I am
• 44:08
  sure she'd been aggressor 8 years old right forward.
• 44:12
  Right. But in that instance I was
• 44:15
  considered the initial aggressor.
• 44:17
  Yeah. Now the laws looked at a little
• 44:18
  bit differently and they said well, who is really the initial
• 44:21
  aggressor, but at that time it was me.
• 44:26
  And so, yeah. I, you know, I can't imagine
• 44:29
  though. What I was thinking when I was
• 44:30
  reading through that Back and forth between the judge and then
• 44:35
  that the circuit court and then they how they reluctantly went
• 44:38
  with, but I was starting to think, you know, like if I was
• 44:41
  if I captured you and I was kid, I kidnapped you and your held
• 44:46
  hostage and I've raped you or physically abused you or
• 44:50
  whatever. And then I fall asleep and you
• 44:54
  kill me. It seems like that would be what
• 44:58
  you would do to get away. To get away from the captor but
• 45:02
  it wasn't taken like that. No, it wasn't.
• 45:06
  And part of it was the prosecutor did not believe there
• 45:10
  was abuse know to this day to this day to this day and he's
• 45:14
  adamant. It's, you know, it's funny
• 45:18
  because, you know, time time after time after time, you see,
• 45:22
  guys that are was talking to you about it.
• 45:24
  Earlier with the guys up in Michigan, that sort of 28 years
• 45:27
  and 20 years or whatever, but that is, so, so hard for that
• 45:31
  prosecutors say, no, we we actually put somebody in prison
• 45:36
  that wasn't supposed to be there, but it's it's a weird
• 45:40
  phenomenon. And, you know, every I always
• 45:44
  say everybody's entitled to their opinion and He just, he
• 45:52
  did not believe abuse was there because they do have discretion
• 45:55
  and he could have charged down, right?
• 45:57
  And I was offered a plea bargain, but I would have to say
• 46:00
  I did it for money, right? And I just wasn't willing to do
• 46:04
  that. So it was kind of difficult for
• 46:06
  me to understand how they can offer me a life sentence if I
• 46:09
  was willing to do it for money. But when I When I owe my truth
• 46:17
  and I took it to child, then I wind up with left that for all.
• 46:21
  Yeah. Like I knew that if I had taken
• 46:25
  that life sentence and just plead it out that I would never
• 46:28
  be able to look at myself again. Yeah, right like this is all I
• 46:32
  have right is all I have, I have nothing else except what you do
• 46:35
  for my truth Your Truth, my truth.
• 46:38
  And I have got to stand and give that away because I literally
• 46:42
  had nothing else. So, you know, I wasn't good at
• 46:46
  articulating. It I wasn't good at expressing
• 46:50
  it but I felt like there would be hope someday farther down
• 46:55
  right? Like somewhere and you didn't
• 46:59
  lose hope. That's what I was going to ask
• 47:01
  you because What does what is a brain think?
• 47:07
  When it hears you are going to prison forever?
• 47:12
  You're going to die in prison without parole.
• 47:14
  I mean, I hear you say, you still had hope So the Hope was
• 47:21
  is somehow some way I'm going to have and get someone to
• 47:24
  understand and when they understand it won't be this way.
• 47:29
  So there wasn't a lot of that thought process going on.
• 47:32
  It was more still just survival. Like, I've got to get through
• 47:35
  today. I've got to get through
• 47:36
  tomorrow. I had to just get through so
• 47:38
  survive the day. When I heard that pronouncement,
• 47:41
  I don't think it really actually dawned on me life that probably,
• 47:45
  there was forever, right? Like, I always felt like, I
• 47:51
  don't know, like it's just, it's not right, this isn't right.
• 47:54
  And it's not going to remain, right?
• 47:56
  Like once people understand it will change so that that
• 48:00
  understanding came a little later, but in the beginning, it
• 48:03
  was just survive today. All right, survive today.
• 48:08
  So when and I guess your attorney probably said, Hey,
• 48:12
  listen, this isn't the end. I'm going to, you know, there's
• 48:15
  other ways that we can go with this and whatever whatever.
• 48:18
  But in the meantime, Getting ready and are going to walk into
• 48:22
  prison. As far as you know, you are
• 48:26
  dubbed as life without parole. What was it like for you too?
• 48:32
  And I'm not sure. What prison did you go to, with
• 48:35
  my first one was, It's Farm. Okay.
• 48:40
  Jefferson City. Jeff City.
• 48:42
  Yeah. So I was actually just really
• 48:44
  glad I really was like away from the county jail.
• 48:49
  A farmer has constant noise what was your first day like going
• 48:54
  into that to a prison? So, I mean, it did suck.
• 49:00
  We had our jelly. I mean, all of it.
• 49:03
  Yes, of course, it does, right. But it really wasn't that
• 49:07
  terrible. Yeah, because I mean, I don't
• 49:10
  know how to explain it. I always tell people, I felt
• 49:13
  Freer in prison than I ever felt walking in my own front door.
• 49:16
  Yes, at least this is how this is supposed to be, right?
• 49:20
  Like this makes a structured environment that you know, the
• 49:24
  rules are given to you and you live within it.
• 49:26
  Rules are and you know what you can do and what you can't do,
• 49:30
  you know what's going to get in trouble?
• 49:31
  It's not going to get in trouble.
• 49:33
  When you live with an abusive alcoholic, walking through your
• 49:36
  front doors and anything can happen.
• 49:38
  Anything, you just look wrong or flip your hair wrong and the
• 49:41
  next thing you know, it's bad, right?
• 49:45
  So prison prison wasn't terrible.
• 49:50
  It is, I had people had told me when we were in jail, how it
• 49:53
  would be? So I kind of expected it yet.
• 49:56
  Still. Dating.
• 49:57
  Oh yeah, yeah because you got to go.
• 49:59
  You got to be strip searched. You got to be like deal iced.
• 50:02
  No, they all that stuff's very humiliating.
• 50:05
  It's almost like prison izing. You know?
• 50:07
  They as you walk through, I always say that.
• 50:10
  I felt like my freedom was shedding off my skin, like
• 50:14
  everything that I did from that gate to the point where they put
• 50:17
  those weird clothes on me. I had gone through these layers
• 50:21
  of feeling different about I am in.
• 50:24
  I'm in now I'm not out. Men.
• 50:27
  But my whole thing was, is I can't lose who I am.
• 50:31
  So I consciously everyday tried to continue to try to be me by
• 50:37
  doing things that I would do on the outside, but pretend like I
• 50:41
  was, you know, in a different type of environment.
• 50:43
  But, you know, get a good prison job, you know, read all these
• 50:46
  books, get in really good shape, but don't fall into being
• 50:50
  institutionalized. That's what always scared me to
• 50:53
  death. Was those guys, is it just given
• 50:56
  up and I didn't really know all that and I didn't know who I was
• 50:59
  on that side, right? Like, I know who Will you say in
• 51:04
  that you found yourself? I did prison.
• 51:07
  Yeah, well, because I had to grow up.
• 51:08
  Yeah, and I'm able to grow up without the without Terror like
• 51:14
  where you basically what? 20 years old walking into
• 51:16
  prison. Yeah, I had my 21st birthday was
• 51:19
  21st, birthday in prison that's not how I ever imagined my 21st
• 51:22
  birthday to be but did you find people helping you as you came
• 51:26
  in? And it did you have the motherly
• 51:28
  figure? And what I really found that was
• 51:31
  always a surprise to be Stacy. You know, your mind.
• 51:36
  Nothing is as bad as your mind makes it out to be not even
• 51:38
  prison but I was I thought that it was like these Wolves at the
• 51:42
  gate. You know, they're going to when
• 51:43
  I walk through there, I was going to be attacked and I was
• 51:47
  immediately helped. Yes.
• 51:49
  And it just was like, oh okay, I mean not that there was some bad
• 51:53
  people but for the most part there's some really good people.
• 51:56
  And and when I say that on talking to people that are
• 51:59
  outside of prison or like really, no really Right?
• 52:03
  And I would say the majority of I would say the majority of
• 52:07
  women who are incarcerated have been through some kind of abuse.
• 52:11
  Yeah, sexual emotional physical and so there was really a
• 52:16
  community there that You know, for the first time ever, in my
• 52:22
  life, I don't have to hide what's happening inside my home,
• 52:26
  right? Transparent.
• 52:27
  Yeah, I don't have to pretend like, we're this perfect little
• 52:32
  family and I'm this perfect little person.
• 52:35
  It is what it is at this point. And so, I made friends, and I
• 52:41
  learned what was important to me and what wasn't important to me.
• 52:44
  And I learned to find my voice and I learned to healing and,
• 52:50
  you know, I always tell people I found Freedom while I was
• 52:53
  incarcerated in prison. Absolutely, yeah.
• 52:56
  An interesting title of a book wasn't.
• 52:58
  Right? So, when you did that, how did
• 53:03
  you like, what would your strategies to live in that
• 53:06
  environment? Where you looking for work or
• 53:08
  you work out reading books? What like what did you do?
• 53:12
  I think are what are we thinking?
• 53:13
  You needed to do to be the, this finding, you had how you came to
• 53:18
  that. So, Actually, I kind of just
• 53:21
  fell into it, okay? And let me explain that a little
• 53:27
  bit. So when I was being evaluated
• 53:31
  for before trial, I had a psychiatrist or psychologist, I
• 53:35
  don't one of those two and they gave me the courage to heal
• 53:39
  workbook and they told me that it was part of my evaluation
• 53:43
  which it wasn't. It was really from therapy for
• 53:46
  me because I wasn't receiving. Okay?
• 53:48
  And going through that workbook with some of the hardest things
• 53:51
  that I had ever done because you have to face troops and you have
• 53:54
  to face realities You have to face emotions that I had never
• 53:58
  faced you just buried him. Right.
• 54:00
  Right. But I had shut down they just
• 54:02
  zombied through somehow so that helped me some like it helped
• 54:07
  me, it did help some and when I got to Chillicothe, not older
• 54:12
  aunts Chillicothe a couple years later some lady, a volunteer
• 54:18
  came in and gave another gave a class and it was the courage to
• 54:22
  kill class. Oh well, I took the class. and,
• 54:30
  I can't even begin to explain it because this time, I'm not doing
• 54:33
  the book alone and giving the giving the assignments, like, as
• 54:39
  an assignment, never hearing feedback.
• 54:40
  Now, there's other people who went through the same thing,
• 54:44
  like we can discuss it. They encourage they support and
• 54:48
  that was just life-altering, life-altering.
• 54:52
  And in the, in the meantime, like, I'm just living through
• 54:54
  prison, right? Like I'm at my job.
• 54:57
  I'm I do sports or whatever. But it was really more.
• 55:02
  I just lived. I just lived that you felt like
• 55:06
  you. I guess what I'm hearing is that
• 55:08
  you were living open? Yes.
• 55:10
  And that was the biggest change for you is everything that you
• 55:14
  had buried was. You were living your life in an
• 55:19
  open way that you could just be you.
• 55:21
  Yes. And I'm not Yeah, absolutely.
• 55:25
  Which is interesting because I mean, you're in prison.
• 55:27
  So you having to live through that whole environment.
• 55:30
  But you found yourself is feeling like you found some
• 55:33
  comfort. In the fact that you were in an
• 55:36
  environment where you could be you and there was nothing.
• 55:39
  He had to hide, right? That's the interesting thing
• 55:42
  about prison. I think it's, you know, it's
• 55:45
  it's primitive but it's You have to, you know, be respectful, you
• 55:53
  know, you can't do things to people or that you know, causes
• 55:57
  trouble. I mean there's the only reason
• 55:58
  why there's dramas usually when somebody's not respecting
• 56:01
  somebody in prison. Respect is huge and you have to
• 56:04
  be willing, you have to be willing to stand up for what you
• 56:08
  believe in, right? And even if that's just your
• 56:11
  sense of self. Like, by that, I mean, if it's
• 56:15
  my time in the washer and somebody would try to take my
• 56:19
  spot, I have to be willing to yeah.
• 56:21
  Oh no. Alright.
• 56:24
  See you really you can find yourself.
• 56:27
  Find your voice or you can Bury it, right?
• 56:32
  Yes, once again it's about survival.
• 56:34
  It is but But I didn't have that fear.
• 56:40
  I don't know, like I think part of it was with my dad and he'd
• 56:45
  explain so many times about how he could kill us and just get
• 56:48
  away with it right? Like or turn it to where we were
• 56:53
  the bad people. So even in prison, like, say
• 56:58
  something happened, when I was there and say something terrible
• 57:00
  would happen like nothing ever did, but say something did
• 57:02
  happen. It would have investigated and
• 57:05
  it would have came out like the truth.
• 57:09
  The truth was there, right? And I think once you own your
• 57:12
  truth and you stand on it like there's a power and there's a
• 57:17
  power in it that's a different point of being a victim and a
• 57:21
  Survivor. I think correct.
• 57:25
  With your dad's situation. Did you grieve?
• 57:30
  Oh yeah. So you grieved all that it was,
• 57:33
  you know, it's And that's, that's the hardest part.
• 57:37
  Because no matter what there's not always just, hey, there's
• 57:40
  love also, right? So there's love.
• 57:42
  There's hate, there's fear. There's here's the person that
• 57:46
  if somebody else hurts you, they're going to pick up that
• 57:48
  sword. They're going to defend you,
• 57:49
  right? This is the person that loved me
• 57:54
  more than anybody else. But also hurt me more than
• 57:58
  anybody else, right? And that's deep it is and when I
• 58:04
  was such a young age, my brain didn't know how to process it
• 58:07
  and hence the splitting in the too and it was the only way I
• 58:12
  survived it. Like I completely separated it
• 58:15
  from what I lived through daily to survive.
• 58:19
  Yes, because I don't think I could have otherwise.
• 58:22
  Well, After being in there and basically learning to survive
• 58:28
  and, and more or less finding yourself and finding really
• 58:34
  comfortable with who you were, because everything was more open
• 58:37
  to who you could be. When did things start turning
• 58:40
  for you that on the legal side? That this could actually be
• 58:46
  something that could happen in your not life in prison.
• 58:50
  How did that all transpire for you?
• 58:53
  So every time you file an appeal you have hope, right?
• 58:56
  Like somebody's going to look at this and be like, oh this is,
• 58:58
  this is good that the reads really good and so you always
• 59:02
  have that hope every time I had a new public defender.
• 59:06
  She was my appellate attorney. Her name is Ellen and she came
• 59:11
  up to Chillicothe one day and pretty much sat me down and was
• 59:15
  like, we're never going to win an appeal, the law is just not
• 59:17
  on your side, so the whole immediate it doesn't feel good,
• 59:22
  right? Whole immediate debt like we'd
• 59:24
  never get over the hump that we needed to get over.
• 59:29
  To change the law, it actually did change a few years later,
• 59:32
  but we were never going to win the appeal.
• 59:36
  And so, Ellen had said, I'd really like to handle a clemency
• 59:41
  for you, and I kind of knew what that was, but I really didn't a
• 59:46
  lot of people don't because they think of Pardon, right?
• 59:49
  Well, clemency is the overall charge.
• 59:52
  Yeah. Right.
• 59:53
  And then, clemency can break down into different categories.
• 59:56
  So what she was wanting to do for me, was to request a
• 1:00:00
  commutation, which would be to commute my sentence, so and
• 1:00:05
  you're done. It means we're taking your
• 1:00:08
  sentence from not done, but means that you're done with the
• 1:00:13
  life without parole to whatever you could get, correct.
• 1:00:16
  So all we were asking for was, let's remove the without parole
• 1:00:20
  and give me just life sentence, right opportunity?
• 1:00:23
  Absolutely. So we started that Journey like
• 1:00:26
  in 1998. And figured out how to file it.
• 1:00:31
  She put together this petition gathered information and
• 1:00:36
  something straight. Something was happening at the
• 1:00:38
  law schools. At the same time, they had put
• 1:00:41
  together a group of students and they were fighting for clemency
• 1:00:45
  for battered women. So there was a whole Coalition
• 1:00:48
  for clemency, for women, see for people who were battered
• 1:00:51
  correct. And so they were students were
• 1:00:55
  looking at our cases, this one student had wrote a journal
• 1:00:58
  Article about why should be granted clemency because the
• 1:01:01
  state of Washington actually has a battered child syndrome, so
• 1:01:06
  they were kind of comparing it to that, but I didn't fit the
• 1:01:09
  traditional battered spouse syndrome.
• 1:01:12
  Like I didn't. I kind of felt her some cracks.
• 1:01:16
  I wasn't a part of the Coalition, but the law professor
• 1:01:22
  was interested, in my case assigned, a student to it, he
• 1:01:26
  later became a prosecutor. Once he graduated and so him a
• 1:01:31
  man, Ellen, really worked to get me.
• 1:01:35
  They worked hard for my a cool is that it's so he was in law
• 1:01:38
  school and I got out and began to help with your case.
• 1:01:41
  He was much older when he went to law school.
• 1:01:43
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:44
  And this was his second career in life.
• 1:01:45
  Yeah. And he told me, he said, when I
• 1:01:48
  actually went to law school he's no.
• 1:01:52
  It was when he was going to become a prosecutor, like he
• 1:01:55
  graduated. He and I had become friends. he
• 1:01:59
  said, you know, as a prosecutor he said, I don't feel like it's
• 1:02:03
  my job to punish people. He said, I think that there's
• 1:02:08
  very few true evil out there, but it does exist.
• 1:02:11
  He said, I need to protect the public from that, right?
• 1:02:14
  It's another than that. It's my job to help guide people
• 1:02:17
  who are getting off on the wrong path and opportunity to get back
• 1:02:20
  on the right one. Wow.
• 1:02:22
  And when you put it like that, I was like, okay.
• 1:02:23
  You can be a prosecutor can still be friends, right?
• 1:02:27
  But so these two kind of tag-teamed and at that time,
• 1:02:34
  Anyway, that we had that journal article, it got to Governor
• 1:02:38
  Carnahan was Chief of Staff. Okay, so Governor Carnahan heard
• 1:02:42
  about my case and we'd gotten that's a long ways up the chain.
• 1:02:47
  Yes. Yeah.
• 1:02:49
  Yes. And we've gotten word that when
• 1:02:52
  the senate race with Ashcroft was over that he was going to
• 1:02:55
  really look at my case. And most likely grant me life
• 1:02:58
  sentence, the commutation but then he died in a plane crash.
• 1:03:03
  and then the next governor who came in was governor Holden and
• 1:03:07
  we had a meeting and we were told You need public support
• 1:03:14
  behind. Stacey because there's political
• 1:03:16
  pressure. My prosecutor was still against
• 1:03:20
  me being released and was vocal about it.
• 1:03:22
  Yeah. So like what do you do?
• 1:03:25
  How do you get public support right?
• 1:03:28
  That's later that week a freelance reporter contacted
• 1:03:33
  Ellen, and was like I saw the website you put together for
• 1:03:37
  Stacy which I don't even know the website is, right?
• 1:03:40
  Because you're in prison, have a prison and there's no internet,
• 1:03:43
  right? And I want to do, I want to do
• 1:03:47
  an article about her case and so Ellen comes to me, okay.
• 1:03:51
  We're going to, you need to do this and I was like nope not
• 1:03:54
  doing this. I don't I don't want to do this
• 1:03:56
  because I didn't want to be public.
• 1:03:58
  I didn't want. I don't know how to explain it
• 1:04:01
  even if it would help, right? Because now not only do I have
• 1:04:08
  the shame of what he did to me, but now I have the shame of what
• 1:04:12
  I did to him, okay. And how How do I get that too
• 1:04:17
  often? How are you perceived?
• 1:04:18
  How do I face this? How do I, how do I deal with it?
• 1:04:21
  How do I? Because, you know, it's however
• 1:04:24
  many years later and I still haven't fully dealt her, that
• 1:04:27
  right? It's a big deal.
• 1:04:31
  Oh my God, I don't know how to say anything more than it's
• 1:04:35
  huge. Yeah, so the fact that you're
• 1:04:37
  sitting here and we're having this conversation is huge
• 1:04:42
  because you've overcome so much and you don't overcome it, you
• 1:04:48
  live. I guess that.
• 1:04:49
  Yeah, I guess that's the wrong word.
• 1:04:51
  It means that your you survived. So much is what I mean.
• 1:04:54
  Correct. And and that was kind of, it was
• 1:04:56
  the Ellen. Ellen sat me down Down and
• 1:05:00
  Ellen's Islands, an amazing person.
• 1:05:01
  And she's like, look, if you don't do this, you better do
• 1:05:04
  this die in prison. Yeah and I don't think I ever
• 1:05:07
  had it put to me that way. It's just like even she said no
• 1:05:11
  matter what they're going to tell your story, they might as
• 1:05:13
  well. He must still be involved in it,
• 1:05:15
  right? Yep.
• 1:05:16
  And the main thing was just as hard as it was just to be
• 1:05:20
  present because you know what my brain, I wanted to escape to my
• 1:05:24
  little safe World. Sure, I created for myself so I
• 1:05:27
  had to stay present. And I just you have to just be
• 1:05:32
  open and you have to be transparent because it is what
• 1:05:36
  it is at this point. You know, I'm not asking
• 1:05:38
  forgiveness, right? I'm asking for understanding,
• 1:05:41
  which is completely different. Yeah.
• 1:05:43
  And I'm saying, I am still a human being, I still deserve
• 1:05:47
  some type of life because You know, I mean, might be started
• 1:05:53
  at a time in prison at 18, what what?
• 1:05:56
  Yeah, so anyway, Governor Hogan left, my let me back up just a
• 1:06:03
  second. So that's what led to all the
• 1:06:06
  other media attention, that that Glamour magazine article that
• 1:06:09
  Glamour magazine articles was the Genesis of of everything
• 1:06:14
  else that started rolling for you for public.
• 1:06:17
  Absolutely. We did like like Live.
• 1:06:22
  And I remember, Ellen saying, oh, they're not going to allow
• 1:06:25
  satellite. So you're going to get this
• 1:06:27
  reporter named Nancy Grace. I'm like, no.
• 1:06:32
  But we did it. We did it.
• 1:06:33
  And, you know, the first words out of her mouth, or if you
• 1:06:36
  think, I'm gonna let you sit on TV and cry and we can another
• 1:06:40
  Prosecutor's case, you need to think again, but by the end of
• 1:06:43
  the interview, like she supported my that's so great
• 1:06:46
  release. Yeah.
• 1:06:49
  Good for you. Thank you.
• 1:06:50
  It was terrifying. Sighing but you know what?
• 1:06:52
  It is what it is it and this is my life and people are either
• 1:06:56
  going to understand and help and it's more just getting them to
• 1:07:00
  see that. Yes, this happened, you know.
• 1:07:02
  Yes this happened. I need you to understand how I
• 1:07:04
  could have gotten to this point. So when it got to Governor
• 1:07:09
  blunt, so T would have known quite a bit about it because it
• 1:07:13
  would kind of would have been encircling.
• 1:07:15
  So we did all that during Governor, Holden's
• 1:07:16
  Administration. Okay.
• 1:07:18
  And then Governor Holden left my application unanswered.
• 1:07:22
  And then Governor blunt came in, picks it up and picks it up.
• 1:07:25
  But, you know, at that time, I'm done right?
• 1:07:28
  Like I just, I can't do it. Well, there's a years that have
• 1:07:30
  gone by. Yes, well, and I can't continue,
• 1:07:34
  right? Like any time we had an
• 1:07:37
  interview request. We just, I had to stop because
• 1:07:39
  it was very painful because you try to and I'm sorry, I didn't
• 1:07:44
  do it with you, but I try to access more of myself at that
• 1:07:48
  time. Of course, I have walls.
• 1:07:51
  Up. But I still have to be able to
• 1:07:53
  survive the next day, right? And no matter what, even, 20,
• 1:07:57
  something years later, it's still painful, absolutely, it
• 1:07:59
  still hurts. And I've removed myself from it
• 1:08:03
  just a little bit, not full force like I used to do but
• 1:08:07
  enough where it doesn't affect me to a devastating degree.
• 1:08:14
  It still hurts, always going to hurt and so it stopped in
• 1:08:19
  interviews. And I did one final one and it
• 1:08:22
  was about me kind of making peace with where I was, right?
• 1:08:29
  Because no matter where you are, that's your life and no matter
• 1:08:32
  what you got to live it when the day one day at a time, and it
• 1:08:35
  doesn't matter where it is, it doesn't matter if it's behind
• 1:08:38
  bars, it doesn't matter. If it's on a deserted island,
• 1:08:40
  doesn't matter if it's, you know, in Paradise, you have to
• 1:08:44
  live your life and that was kind of, I had found from doing
• 1:08:50
  those. Interviews.
• 1:08:51
  I'd had so many people that reached out to me and it's all
• 1:08:55
  in the book. People can go read it but just
• 1:08:58
  having their understanding Having their understanding freed
• 1:09:05
  me in a way. The nothing else.
• 1:09:09
  Yeah, there's that feedback of of knowing.
• 1:09:11
  Yeah, and for it to also be that I understand, you know, I could
• 1:09:17
  have easily been you. Like, how many people, yeah, had
• 1:09:21
  the same thoughts that I had had like, who understood?
• 1:09:26
  They didn't write. It was just amazing, how many
• 1:09:29
  people understood and how many people had compassion and it
• 1:09:33
  wasn't the you did this and you did that and you did this
• 1:09:36
  because the other questions. Public Narrative of when it all
• 1:09:39
  happened. Yeah, correct.
• 1:09:40
  Because one of the first questions you always get, is why
• 1:09:42
  didn't you tell somebody? Why did tell somebody told
• 1:09:45
  somebody when I was in the eighth grade and they were
• 1:09:47
  married to a police officer. And they what I thought they did
• 1:09:50
  was, I thought they told my mom standing in front of me. but,
• 1:09:56
  And then how that parlays into the rest of.
• 1:09:58
  Now, I'm too scared because now, you know, they are do well, they
• 1:10:01
  believe me or all the other things along with that.
• 1:10:03
  Yes, I'm a kid. Yeah.
• 1:10:05
  Right. Right.
• 1:10:06
  There's not that compassion for. Yeah, this is a kid and maybe I
• 1:10:12
  didn't necessarily always deserve that compassion.
• 1:10:14
  Well, I think kids always deserve compassion because
• 1:10:17
  they're just trying to get. There are not an adult yet, but
• 1:10:20
  going back to the governor blunt thing, he How do you find out
• 1:10:26
  about this? So Christmassy so Thanksgiving
• 1:10:30
  comes blunt, has decided, Governor blunt has decided not
• 1:10:34
  to run again. It was governor, Matt blunt and
• 1:10:38
  his office made an announcement on Thanksgiving that they would
• 1:10:42
  be granting Chrome clemencies around Christmas which I always
• 1:10:45
  Governor's. Always do that.
• 1:10:46
  They do it around the holidays, people are busy less attention.
• 1:10:50
  So Christmas Eve comes and well before Receive like during that
• 1:10:55
  week, like I'm watching all these people, get these white
• 1:10:58
  slips of paper in the mail and it's people getting their
• 1:11:01
  answers back from the governor's office and I never got a white
• 1:11:06
  slip of paper. And then Christmas Eve comes and
• 1:11:10
  Channel 12, News out there and Jason Jefferson City, announces
• 1:11:16
  12, clemency, recipients, and be it.
• 1:11:19
  Like, it could have been a pardon could have been a
• 1:11:20
  commutation, but 12 happened and, you know, As they're
• 1:11:25
  reading the names. Like I keep waiting to hear my
• 1:11:26
  name. Just hoping I'm getting her name
• 1:11:29
  and I don't, and I'm devastated devastated.
• 1:11:33
  Because the next governor and Governor Nixon and he's a former
• 1:11:36
  attorney general idea. Yeah.
• 1:11:38
  And I'm like, I'm just this isn't going to happen, you know,
• 1:11:40
  he's probably gonna be elected for eight years.
• 1:11:42
  So this is it. This is it.
• 1:11:46
  This, this is the moment that I had.
• 1:11:48
  The I have left that Pearl, and I'm going to die in prison.
• 1:11:51
  Yeah, now it landed right on your head.
• 1:11:55
  Ed. And I was bitter, and I was
• 1:11:57
  angry and I was suicidal. And one of the reasons why I
• 1:12:02
  hadn't committed suicide when I was younger, was, I did a junior
• 1:12:05
  thesis on it and I had remembered reading a book by dr.
• 1:12:12
  Raymond Moody. And they talked about people
• 1:12:14
  that had committed suicide and they said people who commit
• 1:12:16
  suicide or like trapped on this plane of existence forever,
• 1:12:19
  which is probably why I didn't kill its prior to coming to
• 1:12:25
  prison and then I thinking, okay, well, if I L myself right
• 1:12:29
  now. Then I'm trapped on this plane
• 1:12:31
  of existence forever and there's no end, right?
• 1:12:33
  Like so I had my come to Jesus meeting or I'm like okay God if
• 1:12:39
  this is it this is what you want for me then just please give me
• 1:12:42
  the piece that I had when I had hope you don't have to.
• 1:12:45
  Let me go give me hope, just give me not, I hope give me
• 1:12:49
  peace. Peace, yes, let me find my
• 1:12:52
  purpose. All right, and so then I started
• 1:12:55
  taking stock of everything I did have which Like mentally, I was
• 1:13:00
  healthy, right? Like, I had my senses, I felt
• 1:13:05
  and I understood, I have my dog's where I could train them.
• 1:13:11
  We hadn't even talked about. Well, there's, there's a lot so
• 1:13:15
  I had them and I could love them and I could be a bridge for
• 1:13:18
  somebody who was incarcerated by their body brain.
• 1:13:21
  Like there was a lot of good that I was doing this dog.
• 1:13:25
  Training thing was such a big thing for you because As you
• 1:13:28
  made these connections with these dogs that I thought was
• 1:13:33
  so. And what do you have?
• 1:13:35
  You have a great quote love this because I love dogs.
• 1:13:41
  I hope I can be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.
• 1:13:45
  Yeah, they actually have a little plaque on that, like, I
• 1:13:47
  love little, I've never heard that before.
• 1:13:49
  I love that, but somebody had said that and it's true because
• 1:13:52
  they just look at you especially laugh every day.
• 1:13:54
  It's like you, when you come home, it's like the first time
• 1:13:57
  that they can't believe that. Back.
• 1:13:59
  So I'd started that yes. And how long, how long had that
• 1:14:02
  been going on with you training? The dogs.
• 1:14:05
  How many dogs did you train while you were in prison a lot?
• 1:14:08
  Yeah, but it's dark. I can't remember the exact year.
• 1:14:11
  It started. I almost want to say 2006.
• 1:14:14
  Okay. So closer towards the end, it's
• 1:14:17
  for like two or three years, three, four years.
• 1:14:19
  So I had when I did the glamour article, I didn't have the dog,
• 1:14:25
  okay? And then Shortly after like the
• 1:14:29
  dogs came in and it was it was shortly after that.
• 1:14:33
  Yeah. And the dogs really helped me
• 1:14:34
  cope? Oh, I bet I just can't imagine
• 1:14:37
  it would be so great. So yep.
• 1:14:41
  Completely help me cope. So, so I had that come to Jesus
• 1:14:44
  meeting. And you know what?
• 1:14:46
  I really did have peace and I was filled with a piece, I
• 1:14:49
  think. I'm all right.
• 1:14:51
  Yeah. Okay.
• 1:14:52
  This is what it is, right? And I know who I am as a person.
• 1:14:56
  Hmm. And I really was a piece.
• 1:15:03
  Of course, I still, you know, wanted sure right?
• 1:15:06
  What if I wouldn't you but it was it was my sister just had a
• 1:15:11
  baby and I think that me not being able to be a part of that
• 1:15:15
  child's life was just devastating.
• 1:15:17
  Sure. Right.
• 1:15:19
  So anyway I had that come to Jesus meeting and it was
• 1:15:24
  Saturday so sitting on my bed Let me back up his dog training.
• 1:15:31
  It was a Wednesday. I get a little slip, a little
• 1:15:36
  sticky note, that says, call your attorney tomorrow.
• 1:15:39
  So, I called her on Thursday at 1:00 and she told me, she said
• 1:15:46
  Stacy, they're still looking at your case.
• 1:15:50
  I said, no, they're not like know that they've already done
• 1:15:54
  with her going already happened and she's like, no detective
• 1:15:57
  Schulte called me and they had called him detector.
• 1:16:00
  Schulte was first guy at the scene of the crime.
• 1:16:03
  Took your testimony office, never testified and he He talked
• 1:16:09
  to the governor's office and so she's I said well she said I
• 1:16:14
  didn't know whether to tell you or not because I didn't want to
• 1:16:17
  get your hopes up. Hmm.
• 1:16:21
  Excuse me, and I was like okay it is you know it is it is what
• 1:16:25
  it is and I'm going to be hopeful but I'm not like I throw
• 1:16:31
  myself all the way out there, right?
• 1:16:33
  And so Saturday, I was sitting on my bunk and I was in a
• 1:16:36
  four-man room and I get called out to the Rotunda account time.
• 1:16:41
  I don't know if, you know the horror of being called out to
• 1:16:43
  any time you get called out in. Prison is usually a bad thing I
• 1:16:48
  count time. It means Count On Me.
• 1:16:50
  You with your not in your spot account time.
• 1:16:53
  They can, they can put you in the hole because they call it a
• 1:16:58
  Escape, or whatever they want to deem you for.
• 1:17:01
  But it's a biggest thing in prison is Count time.
• 1:17:03
  And if you get called to the attendant count time, it usually
• 1:17:06
  means one of two things, one year in trouble, or to somebody
• 1:17:09
  in your family died. Yeah, right.
• 1:17:11
  Yeah. So, it's Saturday I'm reading in
• 1:17:14
  People magazine and I get called out to the Rotunda and it's an
• 1:17:18
  officer that I don't know. I don't I know this officer and
• 1:17:23
  She hands me the phone, the state phone, the white fo the
• 1:17:28
  real one. Right?
• 1:17:30
  Like that does not happen. So he hands me the phone and I'm
• 1:17:34
  like hello and it's the captain and it's a female and she said
• 1:17:39
  this Lantern, I need you to take this telephone number down and
• 1:17:43
  then I need you to go to the offender phones and I need you
• 1:17:45
  to call this number and I said Well ma'am.
• 1:17:49
  I don't have a pen. So we can imagine.
• 1:17:54
  So she said have that officer give you a pen to gives me a
• 1:17:58
  pen. And I write the number on my
• 1:17:59
  hand and then I give it back and she goes okay.
• 1:18:02
  I want you to get off this phone and go call this number.
• 1:18:06
  They don't tell me who it is, and it just tell me go call this
• 1:18:08
  number. And I said, Well ma'am, I can't
• 1:18:11
  do that because it's count time. And I have been counted and
• 1:18:14
  thrills. Yeah, and I guess I was
• 1:18:17
  institutionalized and we did, we all get some institutionalized.
• 1:18:20
  You have to write and so she goes, you put that officer on
• 1:18:25
  the phone and she was in, you make that call.
• 1:18:29
  I'm the captain of the ship captain and I'm giving you a
• 1:18:31
  direct order to go make that phone call and I'm like, okay
• 1:18:34
  can you please tell him? Because, I don't know him,
• 1:18:36
  right? So so I go and I go to the
• 1:18:41
  offender phones, the blue phones.
• 1:18:42
  I pick up the phone and I called this number that's written on my
• 1:18:45
  hand. And it was Ellen, it was herself
• 1:18:50
  or her whatever phone. Yeah it was a private.
• 1:18:54
  I had always called her at her office.
• 1:18:56
  So this my attorney Ellen and they start playing the, this
• 1:19:02
  call is from an offender at a correctional facility, blah blah
• 1:19:05
  blah. And but before that happened, I
• 1:19:06
  hear her go Stacy and the nothing right then they roll
• 1:19:11
  into the fender call Hunter. Yeah.
• 1:19:14
  And then she presses it and she comes home.
• 1:19:17
  And she goes, we got it, right? And I said we got it and she
• 1:19:26
  said, yeah, we got it. And I just laid the phone on
• 1:19:30
  this little table. There was this little table in
• 1:19:32
  front of me. They just laid the phone and I
• 1:19:33
  just laid my head down and I just started crying.
• 1:19:37
  And then when I composed myself a little bit, you know, I picked
• 1:19:41
  the phone back up and I'm like, okay what does this mean?
• 1:19:44
  And she's like, I don't really know what it means.
• 1:19:47
  She's like, they commuted your sentence 20 years.
• 1:19:49
  Time. Served immediate release.
• 1:19:51
  Good Lord. Yeah.
• 1:19:53
  Wow. And she's like, I'm like, okay,
• 1:19:56
  I'll and I got to go, it's count time.
• 1:20:01
  She's not coming back after count.
• 1:20:03
  So, I go into the bathroom. Like, it's a shared bathroom,
• 1:20:07
  and I go into the bathroom. Before I go back into my room
• 1:20:09
  because I can't walk. Like, I can't, I can't take
• 1:20:13
  those few easy steps. Yeah.
• 1:20:15
  Just processing. Right?
• 1:20:16
  Like I'm dizzy with you telling me this and I've never had a
• 1:20:20
  process. Anything?
• 1:20:21
  Good. Yeah.
• 1:20:21
  Right like so my brain just didn't really know I was just
• 1:20:25
  off the charts. Yeah.
• 1:20:27
  So I'm Crying. It's veggie a whole bucketful of
• 1:20:30
  Serotonin. People hear me crying.
• 1:20:33
  But one of my friends comes into the bathroom and she's like,
• 1:20:37
  what's going on? And I'm like, I think I think
• 1:20:39
  I'm going home and she's like, what?
• 1:20:43
  So, so anyway, so then I finally make it back to my room.
• 1:20:46
  The officer that I don't know calls over the loudspeakers like
• 1:20:49
  everybody go back to your rooms because we're a little out at
• 1:20:52
  this point and it is Count time. So, I go back to my room and the
• 1:20:57
  second I walk in the door. I just fell to my knees.
• 1:21:00
  Mmm. Right.
• 1:21:01
  And it just into that like yoga prayer pose baby pose.
• 1:21:05
  And you know, I just thank God because I mean that was nothing
• 1:21:08
  short of a miracle. Oh my gosh, I mean, you went
• 1:21:11
  from life in prison without parole to being released six
• 1:21:15
  days later, six days later because we didn't know what the
• 1:21:18
  immediate release meant and Monday.
• 1:21:21
  Did that mean, how do you get immediately released?
• 1:21:24
  How does that work? So, Monday was the governor's
• 1:21:26
  last day like the new Governor's coming.
• 1:21:28
  And in on Monday, right? Nick.
• 1:21:30
  Yeah Governor Nixon inaugurated on Monday.
• 1:21:34
  So it was kind of we thought and the parole board always had the
• 1:21:38
  six month waiting period. Like anytime you got clemency
• 1:21:41
  had to wait, six months before you saw him so we thought I'd
• 1:21:43
  have a six month six months. Yeah, it's kind of funny because
• 1:21:46
  so that day the Monday, Monday morning, the IPO the
• 1:21:52
  institutional parole officer walks into the Rotunda and I was
• 1:21:55
  nice to almost everybody because you don't have anything against
• 1:21:58
  the people. There, but I never liked the
• 1:22:00
  IPI. It's not that.
• 1:22:01
  I didn't like them. It was there were difficult.
• 1:22:05
  No, they were enough clothes. It was, too, painful.
• 1:22:08
  Yeah, to know, to be pleasant. Yeah.
• 1:22:11
  Like so I just kind act. Like they didn't exist what the
• 1:22:14
  other way, right? I never really made eye contact.
• 1:22:17
  I was never Pleasant. You never formed any kind of
• 1:22:20
  right? Hello.
• 1:22:21
  Goodbye driving because I'm never going to see them.
• 1:22:24
  I don't need to know their name, right?
• 1:22:27
  And this time, the IPO Who walks in the Rotunda.
• 1:22:29
  And I actually looked at them and I wave because I and I
• 1:22:33
  remember thinking you're going to know my name, right?
• 1:22:37
  Like before you never would. But you're going to know my name
• 1:22:40
  and it looks at me and he points at me and gestures for me to
• 1:22:42
  come out there and I was like me.
• 1:22:46
  So I walk out and this IPOs and their attendant he's like you
• 1:22:49
  ready to go? Do your home plan and I was like
• 1:22:56
  Yeah, right, I guess. So after 18 years, I might as
• 1:22:59
  well go check out the Home Plant, right?
• 1:23:02
  So I went back to the my room grabbed, my address book and
• 1:23:07
  went back to the back and told him where I was going to go
• 1:23:09
  live. And I even asked him, I was
• 1:23:12
  like, what about the six month waiting period.
• 1:23:14
  I'm like, look, you brought that up.
• 1:23:16
  Yeah, right. Like, stupid me, mr.
• 1:23:19
  Denis, did you guys forget about the six-month wedding?
• 1:23:22
  Planner I said this is a holiday.
• 1:23:24
  Where are you here? Yes.
• 1:23:26
  Said the board called me and said go do your job and I said
• 1:23:31
  well but you know this Governor's on the way out.
• 1:23:34
  Yeah that matters my boss and when he gave the orders my boss,
• 1:23:39
  so and we're going to do with fishing to do and so that was a
• 1:23:43
  Monday by Friday. I left the institution.
• 1:23:46
  Tell me about that. What was on the other side of
• 1:23:49
  that fence. So I talked to some Somebody,
• 1:23:53
  the day before, they gave me two different time options to leave
• 1:23:57
  because there's a lot of media there because it was, it was
• 1:23:59
  deal. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:01
  And I mean, your stories, a big deal nationally.
• 1:24:04
  I mean, it's something that. I mean, you get you to sit down
• 1:24:07
  with Oprah, which by the way, you were very good on Oprah.
• 1:24:10
  I mean, you were, so, I would think when you go on a, you'd be
• 1:24:14
  like frozen paralyzed, because this is Oprah, and you were just
• 1:24:18
  so authentic and honest. And just, Even kind of funny.
• 1:24:22
  You said something at the end there about I forget what it
• 1:24:25
  was. We had something to do with real
• 1:24:29
  cause when it's over, I'm probably going to ask you if
• 1:24:31
  it's okay to leave, but it was kind of funny because it fit the
• 1:24:36
  moment. Anyway, you you, I'm sure.
• 1:24:39
  Yeah. You walked out into a world of
• 1:24:42
  media, so they, yeah, and they'd given me two different time
• 1:24:46
  options to leave. Like I could either leave it
• 1:24:47
  seven or I could leave at 9:00 because everybody.
• 1:24:51
  It was scheduled for release was leaving it like 7:30 well I
• 1:24:55
  didn't want to impact their leaving because they were
• 1:24:57
  scheduled to leave. Right.
• 1:24:58
  Right. So I was like I'll wait to leave
• 1:25:01
  after them. Okay.
• 1:25:02
  Well, they wound up calling me at 7:00 to leave and I wasn't
• 1:25:06
  ready like my brain, my brain. And I remember walking out of
• 1:25:11
  the housing unit, I had this long loan walk to the Portico,
• 1:25:17
  Because the yard wasn't open yet like it was 7 a.m. and it didn't
• 1:25:20
  open till I'm 90. And I remember thinking, am I
• 1:25:25
  going to be? Okay, having this is only home
• 1:25:27
  I've ever really that. I've had been your home, right,
• 1:25:31
  right. You're leaving a lot of people
• 1:25:32
  that was like, family that you kind of feel like you're
• 1:25:35
  abandoned him because they're going to stay behind my family
• 1:25:38
  of choice, right? So, it was 18 years out, 18
• 1:25:42
  years in and I'm walking that walk and I'm like, I don't know,
• 1:25:47
  I don't know who I am out there. I know who I am and here.
• 1:25:50
  Yep. And I don't even really know how
• 1:25:52
  to survive out there. So, I had all this doubt, well,
• 1:25:56
  because it all came at you at once.
• 1:25:58
  Yes. And as I'm leaving, so I had all
• 1:26:00
  this doubt and fear that's like it's Weighing on me for the
• 1:26:04
  first few steps and then I was like, you know, what's good?
• 1:26:07
  God hasn't brought me this far to just had a miracle and I
• 1:26:12
  can't let doubt and fear get right in the way of what.
• 1:26:16
  Future's going to be. So these are going to be the
• 1:26:20
  last steps I ever take on this path and I'm walking to a new
• 1:26:26
  life. And now it's my turn.
• 1:26:28
  Now, it's my turn because before when I was at home, it wasn't my
• 1:26:32
  life. I didn't have choices.
• 1:26:34
  I like that. Now, it's your turn.
• 1:26:36
  Thanks. It's my turn to discover who I'm
• 1:26:38
  going to be out here on your terms.
• 1:26:41
  Yes. Yeah, I think I know who I am.
• 1:26:43
  Now, let me find out who I really am and what I'm really
• 1:26:45
  Ali capable of and here I am. And here you are and you did
• 1:26:50
  stop. I think, gosh, I mean that you
• 1:26:54
  did so many different things, you know, and all these things
• 1:27:01
  that you did to, you didn't know it was stepping into the
• 1:27:03
  unknown. You still did some dog training
• 1:27:07
  but you went to law school and you stepped into to really doing
• 1:27:12
  great things in the world of law because there can be things that
• 1:27:15
  aren't so. Great in the world Allah.
• 1:27:16
  But you're doing things that you use in your experience where it
• 1:27:19
  really affects things that you know, and it's just, you know, I
• 1:27:25
  think Stacy if there's more of that the whole, you know,
• 1:27:31
  everything could be better. But it's I just think it's so
• 1:27:33
  great that you have a seat at the table with who you are doing
• 1:27:38
  what you do and how do you feel now that you've got asked this
• 1:27:43
  to going through everything that you've gone through.
• 1:27:48
  And survived. What you've gone through.
• 1:27:50
  What would you tell the listeners out there of what your
• 1:27:52
  biggest takeaway is, how you make that happen.
• 1:27:58
  So one step at a time, right? One step at a believer in that,
• 1:28:02
  right? We talked about me going to law
• 1:28:03
  school but it started with me going to community college,
• 1:28:06
  right? So I went to Community College
• 1:28:09
  and then I went and did finished up my four-year degree and then
• 1:28:14
  went to law school. So every single thing was just A
• 1:28:19
  single step because otherwise, it comes to heavy and it weighs
• 1:28:23
  you down. Like, when I was studying for
• 1:28:25
  the bar, I had a mental block after after I graduated law
• 1:28:30
  school and I'm studying for this bar because I had already been
• 1:28:32
  approved through character and fitness this.
• 1:28:34
  Before I received a pardon, and I've been approved for character
• 1:28:39
  Fitness. So, here I am.
• 1:28:40
  I'm a felon. I'm sitting for the bar with my
• 1:28:43
  felony intact and so many people believed in me.
• 1:28:48
  So many people, Believed in me and supported me.
• 1:28:50
  So, what if I've gotten this far?
• 1:28:52
  And I've graduated law school and I passed the bar.
• 1:28:54
  Are I flunked a bar, right? Like it was just, it was so
• 1:28:59
  much. And, you know, I just really had
• 1:29:01
  to repeat. I have a couple mantras like one
• 1:29:04
  of them is life begins. At the end of your comfort zone.
• 1:29:07
  I love that. Thank you.
• 1:29:09
  And the second is, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a
• 1:29:12
  time right now to nobody, actually I know, but it's so
• 1:29:15
  good, but it is, and it's true. And you just have to take.
• 1:29:18
  You have to To prepare today for what you want tomorrow and take
• 1:29:23
  the steps and Faith. Well, I'll tell you something.
• 1:29:25
  I think, and it's something personal to me.
• 1:29:28
  Is it, when we met each other and we're at this nice, really
• 1:29:33
  nice. Basically, the Harvard of the
• 1:29:35
  Midwest and Stacy. You got out there onstage and
• 1:29:39
  you presented yourself so well and, you know, we're such a,
• 1:29:43
  basically an inspiration to everybody that was in the room
• 1:29:47
  there that you would been through all this.
• 1:29:49
  And you were just confidently, telling these numbers and
• 1:29:52
  telling your story. And and I was thinking, you
• 1:29:54
  know, it made me so proud because we are all in this
• 1:29:59
  ex-felon world and you give such a good representation to that
• 1:30:05
  face and that voice. I just, I hope you just keep
• 1:30:08
  doing that because that is so important to creating that
• 1:30:13
  change of the second chances of people looking for that people
• 1:30:16
  can get out. Out find their way, grit their
• 1:30:20
  way through, but like you said, one step at a time in elephant,
• 1:30:24
  one, one piece at a time but he had, you do have to step under
• 1:30:28
  the unknowns. Yes, you do.
• 1:30:29
  And those are fearful and that's why we call this podcast
• 1:30:33
  nightmares, success. Everything you want is on the
• 1:30:35
  other side of that fear. You got to get over under around
• 1:30:37
  it wherever you go, but you've lived that which I think is
• 1:30:41
  really cool. Stacy and part of it's just like
• 1:30:47
  I've been able to do things that I didn't even know we're
• 1:30:49
  possible. Yeah, part of it is more just
• 1:30:53
  because I thought, let's try. Yeah, let's try.
• 1:30:58
  Yeah. And I think to I, you get a
• 1:31:00
  mindset, I think when you get out is that I'm not going to
• 1:31:02
  waste time. Yes, exactly.
• 1:31:05
  You're not going to waste time. And the other part is just Like,
• 1:31:09
  for me, I love what I'm doing to passion.
• 1:31:12
  Yes, it is a passion. Yeah, because I get to remind
• 1:31:14
  people that people who are in prison, they're still people.
• 1:31:18
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:31:19
  Yes, there's Humanity. Underneath, whatever, Horrors
• 1:31:22
  happened. And I think that's why I think
• 1:31:28
  that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate.
• 1:31:29
  Well, and I think it's you, don't you, when you go through
• 1:31:32
  what you've gone through, you don't judge a book by it's
• 1:31:34
  cover. You get deeper, get into the
• 1:31:36
  layer because you never know. Never know, right?
• 1:31:42
  For those looking for a book out there again, Stacy did right
• 1:31:48
  one, it's called Redemption, a story of Sisterhood, survival,
• 1:31:52
  finding Freedom Behind Bars and look.
• 1:31:54
  Hey, Brent. Also wrote a book, it's called
• 1:31:57
  nightmare success is yours Barnes & Noble Amazon Amazon.
• 1:32:01
  Yeah. Okay - yeah Barnes & Noble
• 1:32:04
  Amazon if they want to go there, love the likes.
• 1:32:08
  Social Media comments, if you want to leave a review on Apple
• 1:32:13
  Spotify you want to follow the show.
• 1:32:16
  There's a little three little lines up on the Apple corner
• 1:32:18
  there drops down. Say follow Spotify, you got a
• 1:32:21
  little bell, leave me a message broadcast e.com, I like that.
• 1:32:25
  We can talk back and forth about your ideas and thoughts about
• 1:32:28
  the show as I used to say, I used to say, when I was writing,
• 1:32:33
  my emails and Communications back and forth, 11, where stay
• 1:32:37
  strong and I'll do the same. Stacey.
• 1:32:40
  Thank you so much for being a guest today.
• 1:32:42
  You're awesome. Nightmare success in and out.
• 1:32:45
  Thanks for being here today.