This is our courtyard area,
in which we have
all our surveillance cameras.
There's one right here.
There's also one on the corner
that's outside of the house.
There's several of them
strategically planned under the carport.
This was called the vehicle camera.
If I parked here to bring groceries in,
he could watch
what bags I was carrying in.
And he knew how many bags I carried in.
He always wanted
to know everything.
At every single moment,
I was being tracked by something,
whether it'd be another person,
a camera, or a mobile app.
They weren't for security.
They were for me and the rest
of the family in the house.
I knew he was trying to control me.
It just got worse and worse.
He just started losing it.
Burt had managed to live
this secret life,
but everything was starting to crumble.
His lies had caught up with him
and he was at rock-bottom,
with a son that hated him.
Second degree m*rder
is the k*lling of a human being
when you have
the specific intent to k*ll somebody.
And manslaughter takes a m*rder,
and then manslaughter says,
"Okay, but was it in the heat of passion?"
Was there something
that provoked the sh**ting
that a reasonable person
would have lost it, basically?
After having lengthy discussions
with Dana Cummings,
what's clear about her position
is that she saw manslaughter,
which means we would go in
and plead a manslaughter,
and the judge would determine sentencing,
anywhere from zero to 40 years,
and we can't do that.
It kept me up at night.
It's not black and white,
and especially with domestic
violence cases sometimes there's gray.
You say that this young man had
a terrible life, but you know what?
Based on Anthony's own statement,
I don't think he really
feared for his life at that moment.
I don't know, he just holds things
over your head, and obviously he's a*usive
and he f*cked up my education
from the start.
If this guy has been
abusing you for years,
it seems that rather than,
"We didn't get along,"
would be, "He abused me for years."
But there were no medical reports
that I received
that indicated he had been
taken anywhere for treatment
or anything of that nature.
So there was just not proof
that it did happen.
You see, this is exactly how it
was left after Burt got shot.
This is papers from me
trying to teach Anthony,
since he had never been in school.
I had to teach the child his name
and his date of birth,
and his address, and his phone number.
One day I asked him what his address was,
and he said, "70817."
I said, "That's your ZIP code."
Burt told me Anthony was home-schooled
by his grandmother,
and as the months went on,
I started to understand
that there was no school.
This was his learning
how to write his ABCs at age ten,
upper and lower case.
I made him take a piece of paper every day
and keep writing it over and over,
like punish work.
I taught Anthony addition,
subtraction, and multiplication.
And when I got to the point of division,
his father told me
not to teach him division
because he could just use a calculator.
I thought it was strange
that he wasn't going to school,
and there were times where I'd ask my mom
and she didn't really know.
Me and Burt discussed
putting Anthony in school.
But at that point,
the grade that he would have been in
would have been
extremely uncomfortable for him.
He would be 16 in a classroom
of third or fourth graders.
And why not put him
in school earlier?
He wouldn't do it.
- Who wouldn't?
- Burt.
It wasn't discussed.
What school do you go to?
I've been home schooled all my life.
Okay. So if you're home schooled,
do you have different grade levels?
No. My education isn't that great.
Okay, so you know how to read?
I know how to read.
You know how to write?
I can write every letter in the alphabet.
Okay.
Towards, like maybe
10, 11, 12 age,
I started to feel like I wasn't treated
the same as normal people were.
It's easier to control a dumb person
than a smart person, right?
The truth is, my younger self
reminds me of Anthony.
And growing up where I grew up,
I have a lot of negative qualities
from my childhood
that I've brought into adulthood.
But one of the positive things
I brought in is that nothing will stop me.
I grew up in a family
where my mother and father were hippies.
My father was dealing drugs
at a pretty prodigious pace,
and it got really, really, really ugly.
When I was a child,
my father kind of disappeared.
My mom would take me
to these cocaine houses.
They did everything in the open,
all the drugs, all the partying,
all the crap, all in the living room.
So that's what my life was.
I mean, there was nothing I could do
about my parents' behavior
but live with it.
And so I'd always thought,
"I want to be a lawyer,
defending those
who could not defend themselves."
And I think it was probably because
my young life
was filled with hopelessness.
And so I hate to see
people that are hopeless.
And so that's why
I have such a strong draw to Anthony,
because I feel like
he was given so little.
And so, I've taken this case pro bono.
I won't charge him any money, ever.
And I told him, "Everything about you
is on the line here."
"Your liberty, your freedom,
the rest of your life is on the line."
"I'm here to fight for you."
If this case went to trial,
I am hard pressed to believe
that 12 people would agree
on either "m*rder" or "not guilty."
My best prediction would be
that if you get 12 reasonable people,
they will compromise with manslaughter.
In order for me
to be effective at a jury trial,
I have to be able to get the jury to come
to our belief about the case on their own.
It appears from the outside
that Burt's the victim
and Anthony's the perpetrator.
It's the other way around completely.
We're gonna do a full mock trial.
I've never done this, not at this level.
And so I'm doing this because I get
a chance to practice my arguments
in front of a set of people
with the ultimate goal
of saving Anthony from a lifetime in jail.
In this process, I will present my case
just like it would happen
in an actual trial.
And David will present the state's case.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
This is not a case of whodunit, right?
Anthony Templet admitted and confessed
to intentionally k*lling Burt Templet.
Did Anthony take two firearms
and c*ck them back? You bet he did.
Did he intend to k*ll him? You bet.
Anthony c*ck two firearms, not one.
You got to ask yourself,
"Why does he c*ck two firearms?"
Why? He's coming through the door!
Boom. Boom.
What the evidence will not show
is any proof of any physical violence
against Anthony Templet ever.
Do we have medical records?
Do we have pictures?
You think an ab*ser secreting away
this kid takes pictures of what he does?
Ladies and gentlemen,
you can't get confused
and listen to the defense tell you,
"Oh, there's a history of as*ault,
and of physical behavior,
but there is no evidence."
I can't tell the jury to put
themselves in the place of the defendant.
I'm barred from doing so by law.
And so I have
to tell this story to the jury
in a way that they get emotionally
connected to the theory of innocence.
He's tried to tell his dad to stop.
He's gone to the bedroom,
locked himself in.
He's fleeing over and over
from this encounter.
He's getting away as much as he can.
You see, for Anthony, it's him or his dad.
That's exactly what that is
at that moment. It's him or his dad.
Anthony knows
"I've got to do this. It's got to happen."
And that, ladies and gentlemen,
is the defense case.
Our entire target is the deliberation.
It's going to be super interesting
to see what goes on
in the deliberation room,
pulling back the veil from somewhere we're
not normally allowed to go.
And not even the decision
as much as the deliberation.
How are they talking about the case
between themselves?
And how can we affect their deliberation
by the way that we put this case together?
We all agree that Burt was not a good man.
He was abusing people, right?
So I do, I agree that was a pattern
throughout this child's life.
There was definitely emotional abuse,
but did that emotional abuse
in that
um, in Anthony's mind warrant,
"I'm in immediate danger, physically,
that I'm going to die," or bodily harm?
I wish the defense
gave more examples of him being abused.
- No examples to document.
- Yeah.
I just cannot find "not guilty"
because he got two g*ns out.
If one didn't k*ll him,
the other one would.
- It was gonna happen one way or another.
- Yeah.
You think
he thought there was another way?
I can't say, 'cause he's not
So you can't say that he did,
that he should have.
But his goal
wasn't to stop the harm that night.
- His goal was to k*ll.
- In his mind, that'd stop it.
- Well, but it's m*rder.
- Yeah, it's still m*rder.
I'm sorry. I feel for him,
and I agree with him.
In his place, I can't say I would do
something different, but it is m*rder.
It's just m*rder.
- Let's go where we're at.
- Manslaughter.
- Where you at?
- Manslaughter.
- Manslaughter.
- Where you at?
- Manslaughter.
- Where you at?
Manslaughter, I hate it though.
And I'm at "not guilty."
I got some insights
on where I think the jury gets lost,
how the psychological wounds of abuse
is the factor in this case.
We needed someone to come in
and show the abuse is real,
his feelings are real,
and none of that sort of existed,
because none of it had ever been reported.
So we hired our own expert.
I was contacted
by Mr. Jarrett Ambeau,
to conduct a forensic psychological
evaluation of Anthony Templet.
The evaluation was to understand
Anthony's mental state
in the days, weeks, and months
leading up to the sh**ting.
When Burt was home,
everybody walked a fine line.
Everybody was nervous.
You might
One second, the house is quiet.
The next second, dishes are being thrown,
yelling and screaming is going on
The instant he sees something
he doesn't like, he gets mad.
His moods could change in a second.
Anthony was always
on the lookout.
He was always on edge,
he was always studying
his father's behavior
to determine the mood his father was in.
Even then, sometimes that wasn't helpful,
because his father
was quite unpredictable in his violence.
Yeah, I've been punched and thrown
and kicked and
and it wouldn't stop for, like, hours.
So, yeah, it was bad.
It was nothing but shoving and punching.
He'd call me "fat a*s,"
a "dumb m*therf*cker."
Sometimes he would chuck a Jenga box
as hard as he could at my head.
Very rarely
was it anything
other than hell living there.
Burt had an app on his phone
that any movement,
it would send him a text
with a picture of what was going on.
Every time I turned my car engine off,
he got an alert that my engine was off.
Burt's got complete control of the home.
He's got complete control of everything
that happens inside that home.
And so the threat of violence is constant.
It's everywhere.
Since any of this happened, has anybody
come forward to any of you guys
with any stories about abuse,
aside from the deprivation
of the education?
- Susan
- Her ex-husband.
He said that, on two occasions,
he had contacted authorities of some type
because he suspected abuse
of both Susan and, or Anthony.
Anthony.
Physical abuse would have been
weekly, verbal, every other day.
And so Peyton called his dad.
And I told my mother,
my dad's going to be here in 15 minutes.
He's picking me up.
I cannot do this any longer.
So Dennis, my ex-husband,
picked him up
How're you doing, sir?
and he sent the police to the house.
Well, that's my son.
You can ask him.
Hey, we're going to do something
for a little while.
Look, I've had enough of this bullshit.
I'm Everything's okay here, Anthony.
Alrighty.
A police officer came
and specifically asked Anthony,
"Has your father physically abused you?
Has he beat you?"
And Anthony's response to that was "No."
He says, "I've never witnessed Susan
be beaten, I haven't been beaten."
That did cause me concern.
Their contention was
that he had an opportunity
to say that at that time and he did not.
So it looks like maybe
he's just making it up now,
in order to justify
the cold-blooded m*rder of his father.
I am aware, as well,
that he would have
to be afraid of repercussions from that.
Do you remember cops
coming to the door?
Oh yeah, definitely.
A lot of times actually.
Did you think the cops
could do anything?
No, they didn't
They proved to me time and time again
they couldn't do anything for me.
Cops left every time.
He never got in any trouble.
I asked Anthony
several questions about
his living situation,
what had changed in the months
leading up to the sh**ting,
and he noted that Susan's departure was
really sort of the beginning of the end.
The night before I left,
we were arguing in the bedroom,
and Burt punched me in the face,
and he walked away from me.
And he turned back around
with the most satanic look in his eyes,
and he said, "You have no idea
what I'm capable of, little girl."
So the next morning, I called a hotel
and I booked a room for two months.
She just took the car and left.
It didn't really surprise me.
She did this before.
I'd asked her, "Is Anthony
going to be safe if you're not there?"
"He'll be fine."
I don't think she ever was concerned
that something would happen to him.
If I would have tried
to take Anthony from him, I would be dead.
Because there would not have been
a safe rock for me to hide under.
I had no choice.
The next morning,
I went to the police department
to report domestic violence,
and I filed the restraining order
which stated that he threatened my life.
Attorneys for the teenager
accused of k*lling his father
told 9 News today there is evidence
the teen was acting in self-defense.
That evidence, they say,
comes from a 55-page protective order.
In the order,
Susan Templet claims that Burt
repeatedly punched her in the head
and was verbally a*usive.
I can't remember who tipped me off,
but when we pulled this protective order,
it painted this picture of, of what
was possibly going on in this house.
His files went all the way back
to the early '90s.
There was an element of violence
in Mr. Templet's personality,
and that was especially particular
when alcohol was involved.
Alcohol and violence,
those were the two things that,
that were really consistent
through his life
that we were able to find.
Anthony's attorney argues this
history of abuse helps prove their case
that Anthony acted in self-defense
when he k*lled his father.
There is no doubt in my mind
that Burt abused Susan.
By the same token,
Susan, when she's abused,
she reported it to the police, right?
Nobody said, "And Anthony has been beaten,
and Anthony has incurred
all these injuries" or whatever.
How could you not report
the abuse of a child
if you knew that it was happening?
And I have a big problem with that.
One misconception is that
if somebody's in an a*usive relationship,
it's always physical.
But Anthony experienced
multiple types of traumas.
This includes physical abuse,
psychological abuse, and also neglect.
When Susan left,
it basically destroyed him
and he started drinking
way more than normal,
and on a bad day
it would heighten the abuse.
The cases that turn into
fatal cases of domestic abuse
are when someone is leaving permanently.
That's when the ab*ser has lost control.
Anthony described that his father
began drinking every day,
and began drinking
to inebriation every day.
He noted that in the few weeks
right before his father's death,
his father was consuming approximately 24,
or a case of beer, a day.
He started getting super religious.
Like that's all he cared about.
He's putting all these crosses everywhere,
and
He'd say I'm, like, evil,
and, you know, "You're demonic,"
and it was crazy, you know.
He described the house
as sort of like a w*r zone,
where his father was on edge every day.
Isolation was Anthony's way of coping.
It was an adaptive way for him to survive
in this sort of w*r zone environment.
He would isolate in his room,
nearly all day, every day.
I stayed in my room, constantly.
That's all I wanted to do,
was stay in my room.
I can't really do much
without upsetting him,
so I just I just try not to
I tried to make myself
as kind of invisible as possible.
Burt wanted to control
everything.
The cameras, and the GPS on the phone,
and not letting Anthony go places.
He wouldn't put him in school because,
"'If I don't, there's no chance
he'll tell a counselor what's going on."
"If I don't let him have friends,
there's no chance
he'll tell them what's going on."
His father never allowed him
to have friends.
I asked him,
"Did you ever have play dates?"
"Did you hang out with neighborhood kids?"
He was never allowed any social contact
with any children ever.
Anthony was living in a bubble
with his father
in this very carefully
orchestrated environment.
I didn't have contact
with the outside world.
I was almost never out of the house
without any anyone by with me.
Anthony never saw a doctor
growing up.
He never saw a dentist.
He received no routine
medical care whatsoever.
We always get records from schools,
and medical records, and clubs.
And in this case, we had zero.
There were no other sets of eyes
on him, no professionals
who were experienced to recognize abuse.
Burt had this ability
to live two lives.
"I'm going to be this regular engineer guy
at work that does pretty good."
But at the house,
he's beating his children,
and he's essentially secreted Anthony
away from the world for years.
Really confusing for me
to see a man
the way I saw him, and then
behind closed doors,
he's a completely different person.
He did a real good job of
of hiding it, and that, and that
It really angers me.
The physical abuse
is always there
and can be available to a perpetrator.
But it is not the dominant thing.
More times than not,
you'll see the intimidation,
the isolation is a huge one.
Getting someone to feel
like they don't have any friends, family,
that would assist them out
of the situation is a very powerful tool.
The cops were coming by
like almost daily,
trying to serve him some, uh,
court papers.
So he'd, like,
turn off all the lights, and try to hide,
and try to get me to hide too.
And it was during this time
where Burt began keeping loaded g*ns
on his person at all times, day or night,
while they were in the house together.
Anthony described a particular incident,
where a sheriff's deputy came to the door
to serve papers from Susan,
and Burt was ducking behind the door
with a loaded shotgun in hand.
They made repeated attempts
to serve.
He wouldn't come out the house.
And they said
they couldn't forcibly give it to him.
So after two months, I got fed up with it,
and told my sister, "I'll help do it."
My dad and I had to serve papers on
Burt because the judicial system failed.
We were like, "Sure." He was.
I was like, "f*ck it. Let's do it."
The first time I walked up
and banged on the door.
Answer the door, you f*cking p*ssy.
I'm looking in the window,
and I see him sitting at the table.
Man, I was pissed, dude.
I'm like, "I see you. You f*cking clown."
He was afraid of Michael
and Junior
because he knew at points
they could be just as crazy as him
when it comes to his family.
We go with my aunt
to go get the furniture,
and it was me, my dad, Peyton, and Susan.
Burt wasn't, um, at home.
Apparently Anthony was already home,
and started texting his dad.
Well, Burt tells Anthony
not to open the door,
that we're there to beat up Anthony.
So Anthony's terrified in his house.
My aunt opens the door,
and turns the alarm off,
and is like, "Anthony chill out.
They're not here for you."
There was a r*fle
in the corner of the living room.
There was a shotgun
out of the sheath on top of his dresser.
We were moving stuff out, and
Burt comes flying in there with his truck,
and tries to jump out the truck,
screaming at my aunt and my dad.
He ends up getting back in his truck,
and locking the doors.
I said,
"We need to give you these papers."
At the last second, as he's driving out
the neighborhood,
I threw the papers in the truck
and he drove off.
About three days later,
I posted the restraining order
on nextdoor.com
that stated the things
he stated to me before I left.
And nextdoor.com went wild. It blew up.
So I went online
and found this thing on Nextdoor.
It was a lengthy paragraph about how
he had been abusing her for years
and she wanted everybody to know.
"You need to know what's he's about,
he's abused me for years, beat me."
You know, it was It was bad.
You don't see him for the longest time.
Then one day, he's walking around
the block with a smile on his face.
If I beat my spouse
and it was all over the neighborhood,
I would not show my face on the street.
If I did or didn't do it, I just wouldn't.
Uh, he seemed like a sociopath.
Susan posting
the restraining order on the Nextdoor app
really freaked Burt out.
Everyone in the neighborhood now knows.
And Anthony saw him falling apart.
Anthony saw him crumbling,
walking around the house with a g*n,
and his behavior had gotten so crazy
that Anthony knew,
"Something is different."
"Something is different here
than has ever been with my father."
We're in a stage
in this criminal proceeding
where we're trying to work it out.
And so we begin to negotiate
with the district attorney.
"We're preparing for this case,
but we're also talking to you
about a possible outcome
that's good for all for all parties,
right?"
That may be
that Anthony pleads to a crime,
although I don't believe he should,
but that's really in his best interest
because the risk is so great.
That to roll those dice, and go to trial,
and my client go to jail
for the rest of his life?
I could not let that happen.
I've never had a case like this.
It was something I worried about
because if it's m*rder,
it's a life sentence.
That's pretty big stakes, right?
She's beginning to have an appreciation
for the nature of this case.
And whether or not she believes
it was justified in k*lling him,
she at least understands
where we're coming from,
and so she's getting closer to, uh, what
we believe to be a decent outcome here.
When you take into account
what had happened to him in the past,
what he had experienced in that house,
would that provoke someone?
Perhaps.
I found out Burt had lost his job
for poor job performance.
And he had $80,127 in credit card debt.
Burt was now desperate,
and without a job,
and hurting financially,
his wife is gone.
So I think,
based on what Anthony's told me,
that his father was sort of
losing his grip on everything
that he had once had control over.
He just changed.
He changed so drastically.
He seemed more scared and paranoid.
One might assume
Burt was in a state of mind
where he was completely reckless,
and had nothing left to lose.
Anthony said he felt very afraid
around his father,
because he described
that his father was unhinged enough
to repeatedly physically attack him
over the years.
What would stop him from sh**ting him
with a loaded g*n
he had so accessible on his hip?
It was kind of do or die, you know?
Kind of felt like my life was in danger.
And I felt like no one could help me, so
I asked Anthony,
"Why this night?"
Anthony indicated that he was asleep
when his father barged in his room.
Burt accused Anthony
of being in contact with Susan,
which he had forbidden.
I said, "Why're you going
through my phone?"
He didn't want me
talking to her without him.
It's all a part
of Burt not feeling included
and thinking people are talking
about something he should know.
"You're talking to her.
What are you saying?"
We argued over that for a little bit
and then he ended up
getting violent with me,
and he just lost it.
His father lunged at him,
and attempted to attack him.
He He was on me.
Anthony dodged, and was able
to go into his father's bedroom.
I locked the door on him.
He was, like, busting the door down,
and I grabbed the g*ns
off the top shelf, and
I felt like this was the the worst
I've ever seen him,
and then I felt like
my life was really in danger.
Anthony said,
"What was I going to do?"
"Call the police who would then bring me
right back to my dad's house?"
So he didn't trust the legal system,
he didn't trust
the social justice system, any of it,
to help him escape the situation.
He had gotten to such a point
that he was crazy.
I felt like this was it for me.
Once you understand
the entire picture
of this young man's life,
and when you understand
the totality of his experiences,
that he was never going
to be able to escape his father,
it became clear
that Anthony wanted the abuse to stop,
and the only way to make it stop
was to k*ll his father.
What do you do with this person
that has never had a life,
the experts say
is not going to be a danger?
People should plead guilty
for what they did.
So I felt he should plead guilty
to manslaughter.
But by the same token,
if you load him up with jail time,
and what really
What purpose does that serve?
I mean, I guess you're punishing him,
but in the end,
he's been punished
since the day he was born.
I met with Assistant District
Attorney Dana Cummings,
and the elected District Attorney
Hillar Moore.
I said everyone in Burt's life
not living with him
has said they didn't see
any physical abuse of Anthony,
but that when this happened,
none of them were really surprised,
and that none of them
wanted Anthony to go to jail.
I said, "The only other people
we have as witnesses
are the two people that lived
with Anthony and Burt, Susan and Peyton."
"And both of them will testify in court
that they witnessed
physical abuse of Anthony."
"That the physical abuse was enough,
combined with an extreme
control environment,
to sort of oppress everything
that was Anthony Templet."
"And we have Dr. Lawing's report."
Throughout my forensic
psychological evaluation of Anthony,
there was no indication
that he was responding abnormally
on any tests that measure truthfulness
or social desirability.
Anthony manifested just about
every, um, psychological marker of abuse
with me when I evaluated him.
And so I said to
the district attorney,
"I know that you guys
can't dismiss this case."
"But I think a reasonable outcome here
is negligent homicide and probation."
All right, buddy.
So we talked to the DA.
They're gonna They're gonna offer you
negligent homicide, man.
- For real?
- Yeah.
- They're gonna let you free to probation.
- No way.
- Yeah. On March 1st.
- For real?
- On March 1st?
- Yeah.
- It's confirmed I'm getting probation?
- It's done.
Whoa, that's crazy.
Probation, negligent homicide,
not a crime of violence,
and you can expunge it from your record
when you're done.
All right.
- It's good, huh?
- That's the best
- Come here.
- That's the best I could've hoped for.
I'm so happy for you, man. Seriously.
Seriously.
I can't even
What rang true throughout
the report is,
look, this young man
has basically never had a life.
And whether you put it
under a specific diagnosis,
or just realize he's a human being
and he did not know how
to deal with this situation,
he was never taught how to survive
this this man he was living with.
I'm confident
that this young man k*lled
because of the situation that he was in.
This is not a wholesale lease
to tell everyone that has a problem
with a family member that's dysfunctional
that you can k*ll.
It's no license to k*ll.
Every case is unique,
the circumstance is unique.
And in this case
we believe that justice is served.
Honestly, this will be
a success story
for everybody involved,
if he actually takes this opportunity,
and turns into a productive member
of society that has a full life.
That's all we can hope.
And that's definitely what we hope.
- Thank you, Mrs. Cummings.
- Thank you.
If Anthony doesn't make it on probation,
then, you know, he's had his opportunity.
Yes, he still has challenges
because of the way he's raised.
But you know what,
he's been given a lot of resources,
a lot of attention, a lot of care
to get him to be able
to be a functional human being.
And I hope that's what he does.
The whole world is available
to you,
because you're no longer
f*cking shackled to Burt
or to this event.
I have a strong want and desire
for Anthony to be successful in life.
He lived an incredibly hopeless life,
and no one got involved to help him
until he shot his father.
And that act, unbelievably,
has brought all of this care
and concern into his life.
It's a remarkable sort of juxtaposition
of this incredibly violent act,
bringing in all this love,
and care, and concern.
And in the end of the day,
the system came through for this kid.
You can hop on the Internet
and see what Louisiana's track record is
for for criminal justice.
It's not the greatest.
So I think Anthony is lucky
to have someone like Jarrett.
We, as a society,
tend to shy away from wanting
to explore domestic abuse.
People say, "Oh, that's not my business."
"I shouldn't know
what's happening behind closed doors."
And nothing has changed in the 20 years
that I've been working with abuse victims,
in that they're still ashamed to admit
that that's something they experienced.
We oftentimes hear, "Why are you in this?
Why are you staying?"
We don't necessarily ask the question,
"Why does this person abuse, um,
someone that they claim to love?"
That's a better question
that we should ask as a society.
But unfortunately, we're still not there
in terms of our response
to domestic abuse.
Burt was a bad person overall, and
I don't know if he was always like that,
but that's how it ended,
so I guess that's how he'll be remembered.
If people worry about me being
like my father, that's not gonna happen.
Tie a yellow ribbon ♪
- Oh, just
- Throw it over?
- Hey! There you go. You were almost smart.
- I didn't get it.
- Should I make a bow?
- Yes. Let's make a bow.
Anthony hasn't been home in 11 years.
I hope he likes his family.
I mean, um, he loved us
when he was little, so much,
and he was so happy
when he was with just all of us,
instead of his father, so
been waiting for this day forever.
I don't really remember at all.
And it's really weird coming down here
to meet some people
that I know but don't know.
You know, it's just It's very odd.
Oh, that's him.
Oh dear.
- Honey, don't make me cry now.
- Mm-hm.
Hey, son.
- Is that him?
- How's it going?
- Oh, he's so handsome.
- Oh, sweetheart!
- I'm Grandma.
- You look so handsome.
- Can I hug you? Oh, I love you.
- Hey, how's it Yeah.
Mwah!
- Nice to meet you.
- It's so good to see you again.
I met you many times
changed your diaper and all that.
I'm sure a teenager
wants to hear that, right?
Hi, sweetie. How you doing?
- Good. How're you?
- Good.
I don't remember it looking like this.
I remember it being, like, bigger.
- Maybe it's all the trees.
- You were little, looks bigger.
Are you nervous, a little bit?
- We are.
- Oh yeah.
That's your sister and you.
That's how big our house was.
That's us upstairs
taking a picture of you.
- I remember that.
- You do?
- Those were big stairs, wasn't it?
- Yeah. It was.
You always tried
to slide down that one, right?
- I think Tasha jumped off of it.
- Yeah.
I about had a heart attack, yeah.
Y'all were something else.
I bake you a cake every,
every year on your birthday.
Yes, she always made you cakes.
But this time you're going to eat
a piece of it.
That's good.
Now, I just said, I
I want you to be happy.
- Are you happy?
- I'm pretty happy right now.
- You still got a lot more lives to go.
- Oh, yes
- I started over many times, you know.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm 82 years old, so I may not
get to see you again after this.
But remember me.
- All right.
- Okay.
I'm sorry you went through
what you went through. I'm so sorry.
I can't tell you how bad I've felt.
I've cried about it.
But nonetheless,
it hasn't changed the way we love you.
Well, this is what
I've been planning to do with you.
I know it's not much,
and we don't do much around here, but
- It's really pretty out here.
- Yeah.
- If you ever need peace, you know?
- Yeah.
This is harder than losing him.
I want to be his friend.
'Cause I know it would never be
a mother-son relationship.
That That was the past.
There's so much I want to tell him.
That we were all very, very close
when he was a child,
and don't let what happened to you
make you a bad person,
and just remember
that you got a family that loves you,
and you deserve better
than what you went through.
And I just want to wish him good luck.
A lot of luck.
I want him to be able
to live a normal life.
Whatever normal is.
What's normal life
mean to you?
Just doing normal things.
What's a normal thing
to you?
Just not be Damn, I hate this sh*t.
Oh, my God.
It's very important
to feel in control of your life.
You get your freedom
stripped from you in jail,
and it just kind of made me realize that.
And, you know, it's kind of what I value
It's a little I value it
a little bit more, I think than
I just want to be normal.
Just want to live normally
and be happy and
just move on.
You think you can do that?
Yes.
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