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Her husbands shocking secret · Let’s Never Meet Again - Dating Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Get into it let me take you to Griffin Georgia
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: it's a small city in Spalding County about 40 miles
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: south of Atlanta with the county courthouse sitting right in
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the middle of town that's where this story lives and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: it's where it ends Marjorie Crystal Evans Mallory lived there
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: most people called her Crystal she was 44 years old
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: she was a mother and according to her daughter Precious
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: she was a woman who loved peace those were Precious's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: own words after her mother died my mom loved peace Now,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: before I go deeper, I want to be upfront with
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you about how I'm telling this story. I'm going to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: separate what has been confirmed from what has been alleged.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you who is saying what,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: because in this case, some of the most important details
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: are disputed. I think you deserve that. I'm also going
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  Speaker 1: to ask you a few questions along the way. So
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: stay with me and think about what you would have done.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: All right. Crystal was married to a man named Tom Mallory.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: He was 55 years old. By the time most of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the world heard their names, the marriage was already over
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in every way that mattered. Late in 2022, Crystal filed
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: for divorce. And from that point on, according to her family,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: her life turned into a waiting game, waiting for court dates,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: waiting for the legal system to catch up with what
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: she was already living. I want you to picture what
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a divorce like this looks like from the inside. It
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: isn't just paperwork. It's a long stretch of months where
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: two people are still tied together on paper, still tangled
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: up in shared property and shared history. and one of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: them is trying to get out safely. Domestic violence advocates
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: often warn that the period around leaving a relationship can
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: be one of the most dangerous times of all. Keep
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: that in mind, because that's the backdrop for everything that follows.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: According to Crystal's daughter, her mother was not quiet about
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: what was happening. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Crystal
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: repeatedly told Spalding County authorities that Tom was threatening to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: kill her. Precious says her mother reported his behavior over
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  Speaker 1: and over, and that the authorities, in her words, dropped
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the ball. Now, the sheriff's side of this matters too,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: so let me give you what Spalding County Sheriff Dix
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: has said. His office confirmed that deputies had responded to
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: multiple domestic violence calls at the Mallory household. He confirmed
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that Tom had been arrested for domestic violence before and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: had bonded out. Crystal's family says Tom was arrested at
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: least twice. The sheriff has also said that, at times,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the violence was mutual and that, with no witnesses, it
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: was hard to tell who the aggressor was. Hold on
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to that statement. Her family strongly disputes how the authorities
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: handled her case, and we'll come back to it. Then
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: there's an affidavit. In it, Precious said that Tom had
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: taken her mother's cat, and that when the family tried
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to get the cat back, he pulled a gun on them. Remember,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that is Precious's account, and I'm telling you it's her account.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: But sit with that image for a second. A family
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: trying to bring a pet home, and a gun pulled
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: in front of them. And then there's the post. In 2023,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Crystal wrote on Facebook, and I'm quoting part of it.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Please know if something happens to me, Mallory did it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: She put that out there for anyone to see. Why
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: would someone write that? Maybe to leave a record. Maybe
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: because she felt like nobody was listening. We can't know
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: her reasons, but we know she wrote it. Let me
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: ask you something. If a friend of yours posted that
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: publicly and told you the people who were supposed to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: protect her weren't taking her seriously, what would you do?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Would you call someone? Would you show up? would you
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: tell yourself it would probably be okay? Because the next
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: chapter of this story is the one where it finally
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: looks like Crystal might be okay. So let's go back
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to that Wednesday, September 11th, 2024. After almost two years,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a Spalding County Superior Court judge granted Crystal Mallory her divorce.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And the final decree didn't just end the marriage. It
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  Speaker 1: included a restraining order against Tom, ordering him to have
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: no future contact with her whatsoever. Not a phone call,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: not a message, nothing. The Atlanta Journal Constitution described it
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: as a permanent restraining order. Take a second and think
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  Speaker 1: about what that moment means. Almost two years of court dates,
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  Speaker 1: of waiting, of looking over your shoulder, and then a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: judge says it's done. A judge says, in writing, that
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: this man is not allowed anywhere near you. If you've
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: ever fought for something for that long, you know that feeling.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: It's relief, but it's also something deeper. It's the feeling
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  Speaker 1: that the system finally heard you. And according to her daughter, Precious...
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: That's exactly how Crystal felt. Precious said her mother was
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: happy after the divorce. She said her mother felt free.
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  Speaker 1: They were even talking about throwing a party to celebrate.
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  Speaker 1: Let that sink in for a moment. A mother and
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  Speaker 1: a daughter planning a celebration. Not bracing for the worst.
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  Speaker 1: Planning a party. But now I want to ask you something,
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  Speaker 1: and I want you to really think about it. When
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  Speaker 1: a judge signs an order that says stay away, what
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  Speaker 1: exactly protects the person on the other side of that paper?
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  Speaker 1: The honest answer is uncomfortably A restraining order is a
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  Speaker 1: legal command. It gives police and courts the power to
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  Speaker 1: act if it's violated. But it can't stand between two people.
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  Speaker 1: It can't block a door. It only works when someone
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  Speaker 1: enforces it. And enforcement usually starts with the person in
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  Speaker 1: danger picking up the phone and reporting the violation. So
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  Speaker 1: the order isn't a wall. It's a promise. And a
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  Speaker 1: promise is only as strong as the people who keep it.
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  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Thursday, September 12th. According to a
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  Speaker 1: notice that Crystal's daughter's attorneys later sent to the city
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  Speaker 1: of Griffin, the day after her divorce was granted, Crystal
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  Speaker 1: walked into the Griffin Police Department. She told them Tom
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: had already violated the restraining order. She said he had
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: been following her and spying on her, and she allegedly
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: brought proof, tape recordings of harassing phone calls that she
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: says Tom made to her. Stop and think about that.
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  Speaker 1: One day, the ink on the order was barely dry,
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  Speaker 1: and she was already documenting violations. She wasn't waiting for
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  Speaker 1: someone else to build her case. She was building it
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: herself with recordings, with dates, with a report made in
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: person at the police station. Now, here's where the story
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: gets heavy, and I want to be careful, because this
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: next part is an allegation. It comes from that same
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: legal notice, and the city has not accepted it. The
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: notice alleges that the officer who spoke with Crystal advised
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: her to bring up the alleged violations with the magistrate
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  Speaker 1: court judge the next day, rather than police taking immediate action.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Why the next day? Because Crystal already had a hearing.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Separate from the divorce, there was a forgery issue between
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: her and Tom, and it was scheduled in Spalding County
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Magistrate Court on Friday, September 13th. So the advice, according
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to the notice, was essentially this. You're going to be
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in front of a judge tomorrow anyway. Tell the judge,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not here to tell you that was a bad
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: call or a good one. You've just won the biggest
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: legal fight of your life. The next day, you walk
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: into a police station with recordings in your hand. What
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: do you want to hear? If the notice is accurate,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: she was pointed toward the next day's hearing. Or do
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you want someone to look at you and say, we've
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: got this from here? Tell me in the comments what
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you would have wanted that officer to do. We don't
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: know what Thursday night felt like for Crystal. We don't
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: know if she slept. What we know is that the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: next morning, she went to court. On Friday morning, September 13th,
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  Speaker 1: Crystal went to the Spalding County Courthouse for that hearing.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: According to Precious, a friend of her mother's went with
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: her and sat in on the hearing too. And this
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: is where we hit the most disputed claim in this
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  Speaker 1: entire case. Precious says that friend asked for a protective
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: escort for Crystal when she left the courthouse. She said
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  Speaker 1: the sheriff's office had been called to the Mallory home
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  Speaker 1: multiple times and that the authorities should have seen the danger.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Dix denied that any escort was requested. He said
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: surveillance video shows Crystal never asked for one. I want
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  Speaker 1: to give you both sides with total fairness. The family
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: says a request for protection was made. The sheriff says
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the video shows it wasn't. Both statements have been reported publicly.
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  Speaker 1: I can't see that video and neither can you. So
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you what each side says and I'm leaving
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  Speaker 1: it right there. But whatever the truth about that request,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: here's what is not in dispute. Crystal left that hearing
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  Speaker 1: and a short time later, she was sitting in her
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  Speaker 1: vehicle on South 6th Street, right near the courthouse. According
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to Griffin Police, Tom Mallory fired several shots into her
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: vehicle while she was parked. The notice from her daughter's
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  Speaker 1: attorneys describes it this way. Tom pulled up beside her
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  Speaker 1: in his truck and fired multiple shots into her car.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Deputies heard the gunfire. According to 11 Alive, Tom sped
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  Speaker 1: away and did not stop for the police. Crystal died
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: at the scene. The Spalding County Medical Examiner confirmed her death.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: She was 44 years old, two days after a judge
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  Speaker 1: told the world she was free. Two days. Let me
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: say it as plainly as I can. On Wednesday, a
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  Speaker 1: judge says it's over. On Thursday, she goes to the police.
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  Speaker 1: On Friday, she is gone. That isn't months, and it
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: isn't years. It's about two days from the end of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a long legal fight to the end of her life.
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  Speaker 1: If there was ever a window when extra protection might
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: have mattered most, it was that one. I can't tell
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you whether anyone could have closed that window, but I
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: can tell you that advocates often point to exactly this
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: kind of moment, right after a legal separation, as the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: time to take the risk most seriously. It didn't take
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: long for police to find him. Griffin police located his
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  Speaker 1: truck a short distance from where Crystal was shot and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: found Tom Mallory with a gunshot wound that police said
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: he inflicted on himself, a shot to the head, according
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to the sheriff. He was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta. Early reports said he was alive and recovering.
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  Speaker 1: He was charged with murder. And now I need to
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  Speaker 1: tell you the part that changes how this story ends.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Because if you're waiting for a trial, there isn't going
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  Speaker 1: to be one. On September 29th, 16 days after the shooting,
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  Speaker 1: Tom Mallory died. He had been moved from the ICU
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  Speaker 1: to the hospice unit at Grady. He was 55 years old.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Think about what that means. In most true crime cases,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: we get a courtroom. A prosecutor lays out the evidence.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: A defense attorney pushes back. A jury listens. Witnesses answer
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  Speaker 1: questions under oath, and slowly, the story gets tested. In
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: this case, the one person who could have been held
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: accountable in a criminal courtroom is gone. And so is
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the chance for a criminal trial to test any of
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the competing claims. The escort request. The video. What happened
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: at the police station on Thursday. Those questions don't disappear.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: They just have fewer places to land. And here's what
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I think is the real breakthrough in this case. And
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: it isn't a clue. It's a pattern. Usually in a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: true crime story, the question is who did it. Here,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: there was never a mystery about that. Police named him quickly.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And they found him a short time later. The real
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: mystery lives in the paper trail. A Facebook warning, repeated
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: reports to the sheriff's office, multiple domestic violence calls to
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  Speaker 1: the household, an earlier arrest, an affidavit about a gun,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a permanent restraining order, and a report at the police
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: station the day before. Every one of those pieces was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: on record before the shots were fired. This isn't a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: story about a secret nobody knew. It's a story about
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: warnings that were put in writing in several places and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: what happened to them. Earlier, I asked you to hold
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: on to something the sheriff said, that at times the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: violence in the Mallory household was mutual, and that without witnesses,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it was hard to tell who the aggressor was. I
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: promised I'd come back to it, so here it is.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: That is the sheriff's description of how those earlier calls
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: looked from the outside, and it's fair to put it
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: on the record. But notice the tension in it. On
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: one side, you have calls where officers say they couldn't
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  Speaker 1: tell who was in the wrong. On the other... You
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: have a woman who kept telling authorities she was afraid
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: he would kill her and who later received a permanent
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: protective order from a judge. Both of those things exist
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: in the same case. I think that's why this one
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: is so hard to sit with. In the days after,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the community came together the way communities do. On September 18th,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: people gathered at the courthouse and Precious spoke. She said
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: her mother had repeatedly reported threats and Tom's behavior to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: law enforcement. She promised she was going to get her
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: mother justice. She also said she felt like she had
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: lost both of her parents. Imagine carrying that. A daughter
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: grieving a mother and, in a way, grieving the family itself,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: all at once. Then came a candlelight memorial and balloon
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: release that drew more than 70 people. White and pink
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: balloons were handed out and released into the sky. People
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: sang Amazing Grace. Candles were lit to raise awareness about
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: domestic violence. Jodi Sellers, the attorney who represented Crystal in
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: her divorce... urged anyone suffering from abuse to get help.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And speakers reminded the crowd that Crystal herself wanted to
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: help other victims and that no one should stay silent.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Her family and supporters didn't stop there. They began working
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to pass something they called Crystal's Law during the 2025
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: state legislative session. A letter from one of the supporters
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: said the law was meant to address the failures that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: contributed to Crystal's death and the continued lack of protection
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: for women facing domestic violence. If you know where that
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: effort stands today, drop it in the comments, because I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: want this story to stay accurate. Then, in March of 2025,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Crystal's daughters, Precious and Talon, through the Adams Law Firm
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: in Macon and the Sellers Law Firm in Griffin, delivered
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a formal notice to the city of Griffin. She was
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: so happy.