01x03 - The People vs. Sally McNeil

[bunniefuu]

I have these nightmares

every now and then

where I'm trying to get away from Ray.

I try to fly,

and I just barely get out of his grasp,

and he'll grab me and pull me down.

And it just repeats again.

A jury will decide the fate

of Sally McNeil, a female bodybuilder

accused of k*lling her husband,

another bodybuilder,

on Valentine's Day last year.

Seasoned prosecutors

have an eye for drama.

Good lawyers want the case to be poignant.

So, why not start the trial

on Valentine's Day?

Opening statements

start today

if convicted, McNeil faces

up to 35 years to life in prison.

If I do a good opening statement,

I've already persuaded the jurors.

She is a bully, she is a thug.

And that's hard to say

when you're talking about a woman,

but Sally McNeil has managed

to bridge the gap of gender

and become somebody

who is physical, confrontational

I was arguing she was a violent person,

and a violent person

can't be a battered woman.

And her devotion

got her beaten.

Got her degraded.

Sally was a battered woman.

The law recognizes that if you have

the right to defend yourself

against imminent harm, possible death,

you have a right

to use force to remove that threat,

and it could be deadly force.

The DA said that in a jealous rage

that I k*lled Ray.

It wasn't a jealous rage, it was fear.

I'm not a sophisticated woman.

I'm not diabolical.

I don't have bad intentions.

I have good intentions to be

the best mother I can to my children.

My kids were back in Pennsylvania.

I'm separated from them and I'm by myself,

living in a studio room,

hoping that I'm found innocent.

Premeditated first-degree m*rder,

or self-defense?

Did she use her strength to defend herself

or to m*rder her husband?

Is she a strong woman or a victim?

Diane Dimond has the story

of the pumped-up princess

who's charged with k*lling Mr. California.

Bodybuilder Sally McNeil

may be only 5'3",

but Sally is no weakling.

I'm Diane Dimond, and I am the voice

you hear on Hard Copy

back in 1995, reporting on

the Sally McNeil m*rder trial.

I think the key story point in

the Sally McNeil case was Sally McNeil.

She was, uh, an attractive blond.

It was this subculture

that people didn't know much about,

the bodybuilding community.

And even though domestic abuse

was the crux of her defense,

that's not what attracted us

to the Sally McNeil story.

It was her. It was that brawny bride.

It was that pumped-up princess.

It was the ability

for us to write lines like,

"Instead of pumping iron,

she was pumping b*ll*ts into her husband."

And I I'm a little embarrassed

to tell you that.

But that's the way it was back then.

That is what got the audience

to come in and stay.

See these biceps?

I can curl 120 pounds for ten reps.

Now just think what I can do to your neck.

Sally had the misfortune of coming

in an era of reporting on "angry women."

Amy Fisher, who shot

her married lover's wife in the head.

And then, of course, we had

the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal.

Why?

Then there was Lorena Bobbitt

a year later.

Bobbitt acted out of anger

Cut off her husband's manhood,

claimed years and years of abuse

by her husband.

These are not the typical women who

stayed in their place back in the '90s,

quiet housewives with children.

These were women who burst onto the scene,

like Sally McNeil,

and we couldn't look away.

There was a lot of press,

there was a lot of media.

And them talking about my mom,

it was devastating, it was depressing,

because we were always known

for good things.

You know, for bodybuilding

and stuff like that.

So it was hard to see

all the negative stuff.

Sally McNeil

is a threat to public safety,

a powerful, violent woman

who is better off behind bars.

My lawyer told me

not to talk to the media,

and I should have.

I should have been talking to them,

because nobody knew how much he abused me.

Now, this woman

with a body of steel

has been reduced to a weak

and weeping emotional wreck.

It would be on the news.

My grandparents would shield us

away from it.

It would upset me when I was a kid,

because I would want to watch it,

despite the fact that they were saying

bad things about my mother on TV.

And despite the fact that they would

say things like "a former Marine,"

or "k*ller Marine Sally,"

or stuff like that,

because I would get to see

pictures of my mother.

And I missed her so much.

Me and my brother, we did move

to Pennsylvania with my mom's mom.

She was very loving.

Sometimes reporters called,

and I remember my grandmother saying,

"The kids don't need

to be a part of this."

"They need to have a good life."

The defendant backed up,

loaded another round

When you start out

a homicide prosecution,

really you take the role of instructor.

You're instructing the jury

on why this person is guilty.

And the first part of my case

was the forensics.

Sally McNeil initially claimed

that Ray had been beating her up,

but the forensics

just didn't spell out somebody

who is in the middle of a confrontation.

Looking at the autopsy,

Ray McNeil had been shot twice.

He was shot with a slug from a shotgun

at approximately eight feet.

It went in perpendicular to his body.

He fell, and was shot again in the face.

It was the first shot

that actually k*lled him,

but it took a while.

He bled out in his abdominal cavity

and his chest cavity.

One of the critical facts

of the investigation

was the issue of the reload.

And then right after you shot him

He came after me. He came after me.

Okay. Where's the second shell?

It was in my hand.

I was holding it in my hand.

The hand that was pulling the trigger.

- Okay.

- Okay.

So, then when you had to reload

- I just put it right in.

- Right in.

Sally McNeil's initial statement

to law enforcement

was that after she shot Ray

by the kitchen,

he came at her.

She reloaded and turns around and shoots

him immediately while he was standing up.

If she did that,

the expended shotgun shell

from the first shot

would be in the living room.

The shotgun shell from the first shot is

in the back bedroom, where the a*mo is.

So what happened was,

she went to the back bedroom,

got another shell and had to load it.

To load that shell back into the g*n,

she needed to release the other shell

from the firearm.

It landed in the bedroom.

She put the second round in

and went out to the living room,

while Ray is down and dying.

He was shot in the face

while he was on the ground.

To prove that, there was a lamp

in the living room on the end of a table.

The blood spatter

was underneath the lampshade.

That meant that Ray had to be down

when the shotgun shell hit his face

and the blood flew up.

If he was standing up when he was shot,

the blood would be on the outside of

the lampshade, spraying down and out.

The defendant shot an unarmed man,

then she reloaded and shot him again.

The State said that empty shell

in the bedroom was proof

that she had premeditatedly gone back

and gotten a second b*llet

to really do in Ray.

It was cold-blooded, first-degree m*rder.

You're sitting, listening to

the prosecution put on their case.

You can see the jurors.

You can watch their expression.

It changed with the second shot.

And I didn't have a forensic expert

that would counter that.

to getting information

I really did think that the best defense

strategy was battered woman syndrome.

My expertise is crime and justice,

so I have long known about domestic abuse

and its devastating long-term effects.

But in the '90s, I think we were

just waking up to it.

Suddenly, there was this thing called

"battered women's syndrome,"

and psychologists started

appearing on television, talking about it.

It is a slow deterioration

of the of the victim.

And, of course, we'd gone through

the OJ Simpson case,

which talked about that.

The defendant beat her,

humiliated her, and controlled her.

I didn't know what

battered woman syndrome was.

I think I may have heard it

during the OJ Simpson trial,

but I didn't associate myself with that.

I was in denial

that I was a battered woman.

And I've learned to, like,

suppress things and block them out.

I was retained by the defense attorney

to conduct a full psychological evaluation

of Sally McNeil.

I had evaluated probably over 500

battered women at that point in my career.

If he wasn't punching me in the head

or throwing me, he was choking me.

A lot of times,

I would run and dive on the bed.

He'd come running after me

and dive on top of me

and start choking me.

She's small.

I was surprised

at how small she was. Short.

It was, you know, just really

She was sad.

struggling.

She had a hard time

talking about some of the issues,

particularly the sexual abuse.

Sally is like other battered women

who've been battered before.

Repeated abuse can often cause

post-traumatic stress disorder.

Victims of domestic violence very often

show post-traumatic stress disorder,

and in fact, what we know now

that we didn't know at the time

was that brain scans

of domestic violence victims

who are in some of these highly,

highly dangerous situations

mirror the brain scans

of prisoners of w*r.

Battered woman syndrome is a sh**t-off.

It comes from PTSD. I actually had PTSD.

Not from the Marines, from Ray.

I was not mentally able to leave.

I was just as sick as he was.

She had been isolated.

She had, you know, endured broken bones.

She had had strangulation incidences.

And I think that dictates

all the decisions

that a victim is gonna make

in that situation.

I k*lled him because

I was protecting myself.

He was trying to k*ll me.

Live or die.

To me,

it seemed like he came after me.

To me, and I'm not even gonna say

"seemed," he did come after me,

and what I remember,

it seemed like

it was going in slow motion,

and we were going around,

and I was just

I was running.

I ran away from him and shot him.

When he was choking me,

or like, when he hit me, and like, I I

I don't remember everything.

And if I don't get everything

right in order,

it doesn't mean I'm lying.

This happened 26 years ago.

I don't remember everything

quite that well.

I didn't plan this.

If I had planned this,

I would have never done a day in prison.

This man was choking me,

had been choking me for eight years.

So I'm sure I wasn't quite right.

This man beat me down so bad

I didn't think I could get away.

I did the evaluation.

I believe I spent

about nine hours interviewing her,

and I testified as an expert in the trial.

I thought an expert

like Nancy Kaser-Boyd

would help you understand

why Sally behaved in the way she behaved,

why she thought she needed that degree

of force to eliminate the threat.

In testifying for Sally,

I do recall the prosecutor

making a lot of objections.

The prosecution made battered women

seem almost silly.

For example, asked questions like,

"Isn't it true

that some battered women leave

and some battered women don't leave?"

"Isn't it true that some battered women

go to the hospital,

and some battered women

don't go to the hospital?"

And in reality,

there is no one way battered women react.

But the reality is,

anyone can become a battered woman.

All it takes is being in a relationship

with someone stronger

and more willing

to engage in violence against you.

And, yes, she's out there,

you know, beating up women

she thinks are sleeping with her husband

and things like that.

Victims are not perfect people.

We expect them to be perfect,

we want them to be perfect.

And then when they're not,

we blame them for it.

The defendant is anything

but a battered woman.

Um, she, uh she's one of the most

violent people that I've ever prosecuted,

and, uh, calling her, uh,

suffering from battered woman syndrome

is is the abuse excuse.

I have enormous respect

for Dr. Kaser-Boyd.

She said that Sally's a battered woman.

There's another possibility too,

and that is Sally McNeil

is a battered woman

and Ray was a batterer,

but there was no imminent threat.

As much of a a jerk

as Ray McNeil was at times,

he didn't love her the way

she wanted him to love her.

It's, "If I can't have you,

nobody else will."

The moment when I became hip

to how the trial was going

was the parade of Ray's friends

coming in and testifying against me.

The district attorney called me

and asked me,

would I testify in the trial?

And I said yes.

When Ray and I met before his death,

he was telling me

that he was leaving Sally.

He was gonna break up with her,

pack up and leave,

and then go and live this happy life

with Marianne.

He fell in love with me.

Um

Now, he had had previous infidelities

before then as well.

I don't think he was

ever happy in that marriage.

There was a woman's phone number

on the phone bill the one time.

He lied about it, and I called it,

and it turned out to be this one woman

that would work out at the gym.

I called her and told her,

you know, I said,

"I'm gonna kick your a*s if you,

you know, fool around with my husband."

I think Sally knew

that Ray was leaving.

She knew that on Valentine's Day.

Instead of him being with her,

he was out with somebody else.

And I knew she wasn't just gonna

stand by and let him leave like that.

The state prosecutor brought in

several witnesses to testify about Sally,

about her demeanor,

and, to a person, she was described

as being aggressive, uh, quick to temper.

Not just against Ray McNeil,

but against neighbors, babysitters.

Anybody who crosses Sally McNeil

is in for it.

The defense tried to counter

this testimony

with character witnesses of their own.

There was one girlfriend who came forward

and testified

that she'd seen bruises on Sally.

I saw her broken arms.

I saw her broken nose.

She did not tell anyone else

about the abuse.

The only reason she talked to me about it

was because I saw it

and I questioned her about it.

So, at the trial, there was nobody

to put on the stand but me.

Hers was a pretty good testimony.

But that was only one person, really,

talking on my side.

I was really surprised when

I mean, it's shocking anyway

when the incident happened,

but just, um,

to know the background of it,

and to know how much trouble

she had had with him

was really it was devastating.

I wish that she had told me.

She must have been ashamed.

I think that that's what it was.

I think that she

she didn't want people to know.

I think she was just ashamed.

Why aren't we discussing

physical evidence?

On the night of the sh**ting,

McNeil's attorney said she suffered abuse,

and she finally struck back.

During the course of trial,

it is important to get information

from witnesses who were present

during the event.

Now they may not have witnessed all of it,

but they may have seen a portion of it.

So I needed Shantina in order to describe

the interaction between Ray and Sally

when Ray got home.

The day I testified,

I think I was 12 years old.

I remember him asking me about,

what did I hear?

And I told them that my dad

was choking my mom.

And I remember explaining the sounds,

because I knew

And he said, "Well, how do you know

your dad was choking your mom?"

And I said,

"Because, uh, whenever he chokes her out,

she makes these sounds."

I remember feeling embarrassed,

but I had to say it, because they weren't

asking a lot of questions.

And, um

I said, "Well, when my dad

does choke my mom,

these are the sounds she makes."

Because I've seen him choke her.

I've heard him choke her.

I've banged on the door

to try to get him off of her.

Shantina became emotional

during both direct and cross-examination,

and I asked

that the examination be terminated.

Uh, the judge was sympathetic to the child

and stopped really stopped

the examination.

I felt like my mom's lawyer

didn't do enough questioning me,

because I felt like I was just in and out,

and I wanted to tell my mom's story.

I wanted to tell everybody what happened,

and I just felt like they were just asking

all the wrong questions.

They weren't asking about

what my mom had to go through,

what my mom's feelings and mentality was.

It made sense for them to not let me

go on the stand because I was younger,

but I was very sad and upset

that they did not interview me,

because I had a lot of things

that I needed to say.

And I wouldn't have cried at all.

I would have told the truth of

the pure hell that went on in that house.

Sally had just witnessed

her daughter testifying.

Now, Sally decided

that she needed to testify.

And I tried to talk her out of it.

By the time I represented Sally,

I had tried well over

100 criminal jury trials.

I could count on one hand how many times

defendants had testified

in any of my trials.

And I can recall only two times

that I thought it wouldn't hurt them.

And Sally McNeil was not one of those two.

I wanted to tell

my side of the story,

and tell how the DA

was not looking for the truth.

He wanted to win at all cost.

I don't think my lawyer

wanted me to testify,

but I ended up testifying,

and I think that was the worst thing

I could have done.

Do you solemnly swear

She got up on the stand

and took the oath

to tell the truth.

And then she just got rigid,

turned into a little Marine

who's gonna show no emotion whatsoever.

Answered my questions,

"Yes, sir. No, sir."

I was thinking to myself,

"This isn't going well. This is horrible."

I knew

when she was gonna take the stand

that I would dismantle her.

And so that phase of cross-examination

is just getting her to concede

what you know she's going to concede to.

For instance

You obtained a shotgun. Yes or no?

You know how to sh**t a shotgun.

Yes or no?

You loaded a shotgun. Yes or no?

After you loaded the shotgun,

you needed to target the weapon.

Yes or no?

She targets the weapon.

You just take it incrementally.

I put the g*n in her hands, figuratively.

I had her aim the weapon

at Ray McNeil, figuratively.

I had her sh**t Ray McNeil

in front of the jury, figuratively,

and then I had her reload

and sh**t Ray again.

That DA is booming,

"She's a liar! She was never abused."

"She's using the battered woman

as an excuse to get away with m*rder."

I'm a battered woman,

so I'm gonna shut down

and I'm gonna get scared

and I'm not gonna testify right.

And he knew this.

That was awful.

Before Sally McNeil testified,

there had been videotapes,

there had been posters,

there had been physical items

that the judge excluded from evidence,

saying they were not significant

to this case.

So these pieces of evidence

aren't coming in

unless the defense

opens the door for them.

And her testimony did exactly that

during the cross-examination.

The prosecutor said, "You're known

by the name of k*ller Sally McNeil."

"Isn't that true?"

I'm the best wrestler.

You'd be interested in wrestling me

I can be reached at the end of the video.

And she denied it.

And in her mind,

I can see why she denied it,

because, "No, I'm not known by that."

No, I was acting.

When I made these wrestling videos,

I was acting.

Sally is so literal.

It wasn't a name to her.

It was a character.

If you had asked her,

"Have you ever portrayed

a character named k*ller Sally McNeil?",

she would have said yes.

But that's not the way he phrased it

and that's not the way she answered it.

Because she answered no,

an exhibit that had been excluded

was now available

for the prosecutor to use.

The item was a poster

to promote her video wrestling business.

In it, she's posing with the m*rder weapon

and titled k*ller Sally McNeil.

By the title on the poster,

she's telling you what she's gonna do

with that m*rder weapon.

She's a k*ller.

It was devastating.

It was absolutely devastating.

Yeah, I think it was damaging

that the DA showed that poster.

I wasn't advocating violence.

It's just, that's what bodybuilders do

to promote themselves.

Is that okay?

I think I was in a dissociative state

during the cross-examination.

I was, like, there but not,

and I was thinking to myself,

"Everything we've worked on is gone."

And I actually thought, honestly,

that he was gonna get a first-degree

m*rder conviction after that.

Closing arguments wrapped up today

in the m*rder trial

of bodybuilder Sally McNeil.

Today in court, McNeil kept quiet

and didn't say much to anyone.

Prosecutor Daniel Goldstein described

Sally McNeil as a dangerous woman

who has a lot of pent-up anger.

In fact, Sally McNeil is a violent,

aggressive individual.

There's no greater experience than

standing up in a closing argument

and the world is your oyster.

Right? Just like I like this interview.

There's nothing you can say

that will make me not love it.

Calling Sally McNeil a person who can

claim the battered woman syndrome

is like calling hockey

a non-contact sport.

Say "cheese."

Cheese.

She's coming to get me! Ah!

I think in society now,

and back in 1996,

we have a tendency to look at women

and we don't believe

that they can be violent.

We look at men.

We know men can be violent.

But indeed, women can be violent too.

And women can harbor murderous intent,

and women can be a*usive.

It was no longer about gender.

It was about violence.

He said

that I wasn't a real woman.

Just because I'm a bodybuilder

and just because I'm a Marine

doesn't mean I'm not a real woman.

He made me out to be this monster.

Jury members

are expected to begin

deliberations tomorrow morning.

If convicted of first-degree m*rder,

she could get 35 years to life,

or the jury could find her guilty

of lesser charges,

like voluntary manslaughter,

second-degree m*rder.

Or find her innocent, and she could walk.

The jury's deliberating.

We get excused from the courtroom.

I run to the train station,

take the train home.

So I go to work out

because I needed an outlet.

I'm just waiting on the verdict,

hoping that I'm found innocent.

At the most, voluntary manslaughter.

After three days

of deliberation,

the jury in the Sally McNeil

m*rder trial has reached a verdict.

The North County bodybuilder

has been free on bail

since she shot her husband

more than a year ago.

Phoebe Chongchua joins us now

with the verdict. Phoebe.

Kim, Steven,

Sally McNeil appeared in court today,

awaiting a fateful outcome.

We, the jury, in the above entitled cause

find the defendant, Sally Marie McNeil,

not guilty of the crime

of first-degree m*rder,

in violation of penal code section 187.

We, the jury, in the above entitled cause

find the defendant, Sally Marie McNeil,

guilty of the crime

of second-degree m*rder.

"Sally McNeil is guilty

of second-degree m*rder."

All's I can remember,

it was a like a "womp-womp."

You know, the room closed in on me.

Sally McNeil was found guilty

of second-degree m*rder.

Second-degree m*rder is the intent

to k*ll someone unlawfully.

There is no reasonable

provocation for the k*lling.

There is no excuse and no justification.

Jurors who gathered

outside the courthouse

didn't believe the sh**ting

was in self-defense.

That's what we agreed on as a jury,

that there was no imminent danger.

She just decided

that she was going to end his life.

She went into the bedroom

and got a g*n and came out

and pointed it at him and shot him.

And then to make sure, she shot him again.

I was sentenced

to 19-years-to-life.

I was gonna get taken away from my kids

and never see them again.

It's like I was k*lled anyway.

They lost their mother anyway.

So that meant, to me,

I was never getting my mom back.

It was hard. It was

It was

A child needs their parents.

I had a feeling

she was gonna go to prison

because she took the second shot.

I never in a million years

would have imagined

she would do as long as she did.

I was devastated.

I really I didn't understand.

Not that she didn't get off,

but that she got

the kind of time that she got.

You know, like,

and that she could feasibly

spend the rest of her life in jail.

I miss him.

I miss his friendship.

I miss talking to him.

I just miss him, period.

Wow, it just It's just sad.

It brings back some bad memories.

It's just tragic.

We loved everybody in that family,

including Sally.

We saw both sides of the story, so

You know, we we really felt

that they just should have just

split apart.

It was pretty bad. It was toxic.

I arrived

at Valley State Prison for Women

on the 1st of May, 1996.

I'm in California. I'm in Chowchilla,

the armpit of the USA.

My children are on the other side

of the country, 3,300 miles away.

Being in prison has taught me that

life goes on while you're stuck in prison.

You can't expect a lot from your family,

you can't make big demands,

because they have

a life to live out there.

My mom used to bring the children out

once a year, in July,

when they were on vacation from school.

Those annual visits meant the world to me.

It was really hard.

It was hard leaving, you know?

And it may not have been a right decision,

but we ended up not going anymore.

Because I had to explain to friends

that I was going to California

to see my mom in prison.

And I hated letting people know

that my mom was in prison,

because then you have to explain

everything in your life,

and why you're living

with your grandparents.

And it was just easier for me to tell them

that I lost both of my parents

on Valentine's Day.

Nobody ever asked questions.

I missed Shantina's prom.

I missed Shantina's graduation.

I missed John when he took third place

in the state wrestling meet in California.

Then I missed him graduating high school

and going to his prom.

All those things that I've missed.

When I joined the military,

my mother and I would correspond.

But I reached a point when I had a child.

I wrote my mother a letter saying that

she didn't have my sister and I in mind

when she pulled the trigger,

and then I didn't speak

to my mother for a while

while she was in jail.

And I wish I would have been there more

for my mother.

I just kept hoping

after she was sentenced that, you know,

maybe they'll let her do five years

and they'll let her out.

Maybe they'll let her do ten years

and they'll let her out.

And then I just stopped hoping.

I just didn't think they were

ever gonna let her out.

I've gone through

five parole board hearings since 2011.

The first time,

I got denied because they said,

"You are not a battered woman."

So the last time

I went to the parole board,

I had to say it was my intention

to k*ll my husband,

like as though

he never abused me or beat me

or broke my bones or choked me.

It was all me,

that I accepted responsibility

for what I did.

I'm sure you'll interview her

and she'll say

she didn't do anything wrong.

I'm sure that she believes

that Ray needed to die.

He didn't.

She was justly convicted.

And after that, I'm out of the show.

Do I think in this present day,

if I were a juror,

would I convict her

of second-degree m*rder? No.

I think it's unfortunate

that it happened in 1995.

I actually don't think Sally's

sentence would be any different today.

I see women 25, 30 years later

after Sally's case

who are getting equally long sentences.

We're better now at protecting victims

than we used to be,

but there's a lot more we could do.

I just feel badly that we,

the media, me included,

didn't delve more into,

who was Sally McNeil?

Who was she really?

Past the the greased-up

muscles and the steroids.

And we didn't do that then.

If I could meet her,

I might apologize to her for that.

- Really?

- Yeah.

And there's a Diet Coke.

Thank you. Ooh, that looks good

Oh my God.

Oh my God, I haven't had that in 25 years.

Sally.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

When I first got out,

I lived at the VTC.

The VTC is

the Veterans Transitional Center.

They welcome us back to society.

Give us homeless vets

a place to stay at the VTC.

I have a job in a warehouse.

I can make my own money.

Nobody's telling me when to eat

or when to sleep.

Life is good.

Freedom tastes wonderful.

The last time

I saw my mom was in 2004.

She's been in prison for, what, 25 years?

So, when I was your age.

She is my mom.

She's a grandmother.

You know, I want her

to watch her grandchildren, you know?

Those are the things

She's entitled to everything.

Just because she messed up,

it doesn't mean she's a messed-up person.

Hey, old lady!

Oh my God!

Oh my God, look at you!

And look at your hair. It's so pretty

And look at you. You look good, Shantina.

- I'm tall. Yeah?

- You're beautiful.

- You're so tall.

- Oh God.

These are my prom pictures.

Your prom. And who's that cute boy?

He's Rolfe. School friends.

He's handsome.

Yeah.

After I graduated high school,

I joined the military.

I deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division

to Iraq.

I do have PTSD,

and it's both from combat

You know, just being over there

changes you a little bit.

And then from my ex,

while I was stationed in Iraq.

I was, um, physically abused

for three years,

and my unit didn't know about it.

I could never understand

why my mom did not leave.

But when I found myself

in a situation like that,

I kind of stayed for the same reasons.

I just wanted to be loved, you know?

I was repeating that same cycle.

I could see how captivated

my mom and dad were for each other

in the same scenario

that I have found myself in.

And what I chose to do is like,

"Hey, this is wrong."

"You're not for me and I'm not for you.

We have to get out of this relationship."

And then I did, I left.

Um

And after that, I re I

I realized nobody would ever

hit me again.

Now I just focus on my son.

That's the only man in my life

that I need to take care of.

There's different pressure points in here.

I dream about seeing my son, John.

He's living down in Texas.

I call him about once or twice a week.

My relationship is really good

with my mother right now.

But I haven't got a chance to visit her,

because I've been

to drug and alcohol treatment,

and for treatment for combat PTSD.

I had five combat tours in Afghanistan.

I had deployed so much

and I'd fought so much

that I just mentally

couldn't do it no more.

I got out

and I just fell into drug addiction.

I had a wonderful wife.

She took care of me in every way.

I was very bad to her.

It's one of the biggest regrets

I have in my life.

Between the fighting growing up as a kid,

between five combat tours,

my entire life has been violence.

I don't want to be

around violence anymore.

Every Wednesday, we go to

our support group program at the VTC

and talk about our experience in prison.

And, um, I met my boyfriend there.

Stewart and I have been together

for ten months now.

I'm in love with Stewart.

He's so laid back and easy to be with.

He's not trying to be in control of me.

He lets me be me.

Time has taught me that you only get

one special gem in your life.

My initial fear was

I would be too impulsive,

so I was like,

"We have to date for a long time

before anything serious

comes about this relationship."

I knew to take it slow.

He fell in love with me real fast,

and, like, his friends

were all telling him,

"You know what she was in prison for,

don't you?"

They were more nervous for him than me.

This is spectacular

Stewart and I

have a future together,

and we're gonna get married.

I'm happy

that my mother's getting remarried.

She's missed 26 years of her life.

That's time she's missed with her family,

life experiences,

intimacy with another man.

You know,

I'm happy that she's found a lover.

I didn't deserve

this sentence of 19-years-to-life.

I wanna do an appeal on what happened,

but I'm just so happy I'm I'm free.

I don't care anymore.

I'm free.

Glory ♪

Oh ♪

Everyone standing, please.

When we get married ♪

- I, Sally

- I, Sally

- take thee, Norfleet

- take thee, Norfleet

to be my wedded husband

to be my wedded husband

- to have and to hold

- to have and to hold

- from this day forward.

- from this day forward.

Norfleet, you may kiss your bride.

Hold on a minute,

'cause this might take a while.

♪ You won't belong to me, I let you down ♪

I walk around and see

♪ Your night skyline ♪

I feel the light

♪ But you don't want to stay ♪

So lonely now

♪ Just let me off downtown ♪

- Sad and free ♪

- Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪

♪ Everybody, everybody ♪