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You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good evening. Before domestic violence hotlines and safe houses were widespread, June Bryant shot four bullets into her husband's head and was sentenced to fifteen years to life. This is the shocking true story of survival and the intense bond June shared with her pathologically violent husband, a monster who physically and sexually tortured, degraded, and dominated her so relentlessly that she refused to believe
he was dead even after she killed them. What kind of woman would slay her own husband? What kind of man would drive her to do it? Why didn't she just leave him? Based on hundreds of hours interviewing June Bryant, speaking with her lawyers, and poring over countless pages of court transcripts, police and hospital records and interviews with virtually
every key person involved with this case. The author explores those difficult questions while exposing the twisted dynamics of a relationship that enslaves a woman and drives her to kill the beasts she loved when she was finally out of hope, out of time, and out of her mind, at once terrifying and maddening, heart rending, and ultimately exhilarating book, including
an unforgettable glimpse inside a maximum security prison. The book to feature in this evening is The Beast I Loved, A Battered Woman's desperate struggle to survive with my special guest, journalist and author Robert Davidson. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Robert Davidson.
Yeah, Hi Dan, I'm here and ready to go ahead.
Thank you very much. The very very interesting book, and I applaud you for this incredible access and we're going to get right into being able to see exactly how this could ever occur. I want to ask you how you came to be in a position to write this book, and without giving too much away at all, why did you want to write this book?
Well, I won't give too much way because there's a lot of twists and turned. It turned out this was of all the crime novels I've read, this this turned out to be more bizarre, more strange, more fast paced than anything I've ever read. And it's nonfiction. This is true story, but I wrote it essentially. The first reason is what I just said, is this a fascinating story that I wasn't sure we had a book here until I got into the interviewing process. So I'll tell you
a little more about later. And aside from the fascinating story, the idea is to focus attention on domestic violence and raise public awareness and really to take people into the homes of these victims who are not allowed to cry out for help for fear that they'll be beaten again or maybe next time killed, as our batter is so often threatened to do. So we don't see it, you know. The domestic violence is a hidden epidemic, and whether you want to believe it or not, it's in your neighborhood.
It's in every neighborhood, not just the poor and uneducated. Is white collar too, I mean doctors, lawyers, the rich, the famous batter women and they abuse and degrade them. I mean, it's been in the media daily. The timing for this book couldn't be better to it was just released last month with all this Me Too movement and the media night and day discussing this issue, everything from the entertainment industry right up to the White House. But I think the timing is very good and it really
couldn't be better. And the other thing, Dan is the violence against women is not diminishing, it's getting worse. According to a twenty seventeen FBI report, a woman in this country is beaten every fifteen seconds, resulting in a staggering
four million assaults per year. That's just reported by the Way who probably triple that, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports and even more incredible statistic, and that is one in three women have been the victims of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime, one in three. Wilds is so pervasive that Congress now has passed funding to study with the Surgeon General calls a
public health crisis than it is. So that's why I wrote the book, is to get focus on this and to tell this stunning story that's got more horrific the more I talk to this woman. So that's the answer question long long way around, but that's the answer a question.
Because of the incredible access that you had to her. And so she was, of course amazingly candid with her life to be explained, how on earth she got to the point of killing her husband. We have to go, and you do in this book, go right back to her incredible and strange upbringing in southern New Hampshire and Merrimack,
a little place called Merrimack. And you say, she's living with her grandmother, Mary Jackson, deeply religious, and her her grandfather, and tell us where what happened to her about her mother and her father, and tell her she came to be in this environment living with her grandparents, And then tell us, as you do in the book, this incredibly bizarre living arrangement and life that she was born into.
Well, that's right, Ju and beyond was dropped off at her grandmother's doorstep the day she was born, dropped off by a promistuous mother who had no interest in raising her, nor did her grandmother. She'd already raised her kids. She has a grandmother, but she had no choice and things went downhill from there. So she was raised in a home as you saw in the book with it, as June described it, void of love. There was no love these kids. June at four years old, was making her
own sandwiches for her daycare. It was just a very strange and bizarre lifestyle. Or the grandparents basically sat in front of the television from dawn till dusk and didn't pay attention to these kids. And so she had no love, She had no support, she had no encouragement, and that's I think every kid, or every person, but certainly a little kid more than anything, you need love and acceptance
and supporting and she got none of that. So she was groomed, I think dan from the beginning to be a victim, as probably many women were, and she needed love so much that she accepted, you know, whatever came along, and it was crazy people that came along in her life besides her own family.
You say, she got a taste of all kinds of negative and bizarre experiences, including a schizophrenic uncle, Charlie, and then a person that was a police officer but also a proud KKK officer that produced his own moonshine. And you say, and you also talk about that not only were these grandparents not prepared or interested in being grant being parents to June and her sisters, but they also there were incredibly and unusually quiet people, weren't.
They Yeah, they were just they were. They weren't the brightest people either. I think the Jackson's were semi literate at best, and they were quiet. And as you said, Mary Jackson was a you know, a real Bible thump from nut. I mean that she she preached the Bible from day and all day long, and to the point where these kids finally you remember in the story that the kids finally said we're not We're not going to church anymore, and that completely blew the cork on their
living situation. But yeah, they were quiet, they were impassive, and they didn't really care what went on. So these kids a pretty much raised themselves and and uh, you know, how good can you do when you have no support at all. So so that was the environment that June
grew up in. And and as like I said, that was the beginning of of her uh really unusual and desperate need for for love and and and certainly the reason that she accepted what she did later in life with these with these abusive people she she was involved with. But let me read you. You know, there's a there's a page in the book that the editor I thought was an important excerpt. Let me read you this and this. This will tell you a little bit more about June's
state of mind. And this was later on when she was married, uh to, to Jimmy. Beyond the batter or the abuser. And this is a little quote. I think it's a good thing to put in right now, I'll read to you. With my pregnancy, I hoped there would be a change in Jimmy's behavior. Two kids, two cars, the American dream would be mine. Jimmy had been calm during most of my pregnancy, but then one night, when I was six or seven months pregnant, it all crashed down.
Jimmy attacked my oldest daughter, Johnna. I tried to protect her, but he shoved me out of the way and I fell to the floor. When I crawled over to her and tried to pull her away, he turned and kicked me in the stomach. I shrieked, not in pain, but in terror that he would terror that he would kill the unborn child that was still in me. He slapped me punched me and kicked me. I tried as hard as I could to protect my unborn baby. Then Jimmy
stopped hitting us and started screaming. He said subjected us to hours of screaming, terror, and threats of death if I ever got in his way again. When he was disciplining Jana, he said he'd kill me if I ever ran away. That's one of the first quotes in the book. So I think it gives you a sense of the environment that you know June fell into after she was out of the grandparents' home. And that's really what the
book is about. It's a preliminary to the grandparents issue is preliminary, but once she gets into this relationship with this violent batterer than it's then it gets worse and worse and worse. As you know because you read this book. I wonder if I could just mention a couple of just things I think are important, A couple of quick statistics I think your listeners might benefit from, dan And one of them is up here in New England, just
an example, a little small Massachusetts, small state. But you've heard many statistics, but just just just to name a few in Massachusetts, for example, the yearly average is fifty thousand people seeking restraining orders. Fifty not five hundred or five one thousand, which would be a lot. Fifty thousand in this one little state alone. That's where I am up in New England. So the numbers are astounding. As far as it's not just June, it had gone through this,
This is all over the place. I read recently a World Bank study and I got a quote here. It says, quote, rape and domestic violence deprive women worldwide of more years of healthy life than all forms of cancer combined.
Unquote.
That's just a stunning statement, you know. But you see much more publicity and fundraising on breast cancer or Alzheimer's multiple sclerosis in the rest, but domestic violence is much more prevalent. But the problem is that you can't see it, so it doesn't get the attention. If it doesn't mean it's not there. Well, I think we all know someone who is being emotionally or psychologically battered every day, and it's a sad thing because these people's souls, their hopes,
and their dreams like June's. I just read that was the American dream for her. It dies a little more each time they're battered. So that's one reason I wrote the book. To go back to your very first question. You know, we've all been psychologically wounded, but we didn't like it, and it causes tears and fear and self doubt, and we've all been there, but you don't want to
stay there. It's a terrible place to be. And if you do stay in that environment, in that situation, and it goes on, and if it goes on for an extended period of time, you become sick, you know, mentally and physically sick, as was the case with June, which you all describe a little more about that as we go on here. But so I think I just think it's important to people who realize that this is everywhere. It's a hidden epidemic. It's all over and it's just
never obvious. You know, for June beyond, she was a master at hiding her injuries. For example, people don't know what domestic violence looks like because they don't see it.
You see other.
Murder stories on the TV and what have you, but you don't see these, You don't.
See what these people go through.
She was a master at hiding her injuries. All victims are because they know that the consequences for not covering for their abuser, because the perpetrators of violence are cowards and their self images critical things to them. And above all, they secret, you know, they want secrecy so they's not going to be found out. And the women comply because they don't want to go through any more hell that they've been through.
So we need to expect that.
We need to explain in this though, as you do brilliantly again by having access to be able to interview June, is that how she got into the situation that you was so needy is from these grandparents not caring and at crucial times when she thought maybe they would be upset, she meets a man that's thirty eight years old when she's fourteen years of age. Tell us what they agree to instead of what a normal response to with a fourteen year old and a thirty eight year old and
your custodian, your parents. So what happens and this and you explain a lot of details on how her mentality shaped her being able to be prone to the advances of these men. First, this man at thirty eight years old named Ron, and what he was really interested in. You talk about her unfortunate life to the point where she gets a dog bites her face, takes a piece of her face out, and there's a lawsuit involved. Tell us a little bit about this before she meets Jimmy Bryant.
Oh that's interesting. Well, all right, Jimmy is friand is how you pronounce it, briand he he was the second husband. June was married at fourteen, which the grandparents were thrilled about. Why would they be thrilled get rid of this burden they'd been carrying around for fourteen years they had no
intention of raising as this child. Remember, and June had met She was shopping one day and she met this nice looking fellow and he asked for her phone number her and before before he had finished even asking for it, she was already giving the phone number. This is someone's interested in me.
Finally.
I've had no interest, no one's interested in me all my life, and now someone is. So she gave her phone number. They started a relationship and it turned out this was this was a sexual deviate, This was a This was a creditor.
Who talked his.
Way into marrying this fourteen year old kid who the parents were again gave their blessings too, and that became another long story, but that that was basically a a just a crazy relationship that But again June, well does she know, she's fourteen years old and she finally has somebody interested in her. And the dog bite you're talking about was not the main reason that this guy married her. But it was one reason because he knew there was a lawsuit involved and there may be some money coming
her way. But the main reason was for sex. That's that was the reason for her. And eventually he left her. So that was another example of someone who was primed and and and ripe for being taken advantage of because she needed love so bad. And then came to your mor beyond after that marriage failed after a couple of years,
which and this continues going downhill. As I said at the beginning, after her mother dropped her off at day one at the grandmother's house, her life went downhill into this horrible ending was ended up in a murder.
The thing is, though, in between this that you say, it gradually gets worse her life, but there are times when she is very optimistic. She has a child, she gets married, she does things that she wanted to do so badly in need of attention. She had some confidence from success at work, and so she was getting out social meeting people, gaining confidence. And yet this marriage here to this ron ended and then she had a child.
So tell us the circumstances that she was in, the situation she was in, and how Jimmy and she met.
She So, after the first marriage ended, her mother whom she rarely saw, but now June is sixteen years old and they had a little more contact, and her mother invited her to go to her favorite local dive, her bar in the Crummy Bar in New Hampshire where this is the day after and June had left her husband. And the next day they go to the bar, and who is at the bar of all the bad luck you could asked for it, Jimmy Briond is at the bar and she meets and he comes over and introduces himself.
And that's the beginning of the second relationship, the day after the first one ended. So that's how that happened. Her mother Drugger to her favorite crummie bar in New Hampshire in the basement of an old storage building, and that was the beginning of that relationship. To answer your question.
Yeah, and the thing is too you talk about the incident that Jimmy seemed to be much different than the deviant that she had married previously, and at first, again, can only compare people to other people, and so she thought he was quite tender and gentle. And then there's an incident with his ex name Cheryl and his daughter. So tell us about what happens here and how the family grows by virtue of this incident.
Well, this is when they had decided to they'd only been together a few months before they got married. And one day there's a phone call there and they're living together now, and there's a phone call by uh Cheryl saying that she wanted to meet Jimmy at a restaurant. Didn't know why, June didn't know who Cheryl was. They drove to the restaurant and Cheryl UH came over to the car and handed the couple jim Jimmy and June
the kid did I don't want the kid anymore? That was that was Jimmy's kid with this Cheryl girl who was not his wife.
And so now she has.
Two kids, or she had one kid, and then she canna have another halfter.
But.
Uh, so, do you see the kind of element we're talking about here?
These people?
People give away kids, People don't care if you have an education or not. You have a racist uncles. So this is the environment this woman was brought up and and you.
Know, I interviewed her.
Over a two year period. I just want to tell you a little bit more about this and move this along. I feel like that's the other things I want to
read to you. And I read through dozens of legal file boxes containing police reports and legal documents, sociologist reports, psychologists evaluations, and so I know ugly know the facts, and I feel that I came to know the batter or Jimmy beyond intimately through all that, and so I can tell you this, I have no doubt whatsoever that had June been foolish enough to defy him and try to run away, which was the constant threat they'll ever try to leave me, that he, without question, he would
have made good on his threat to kill her, because after all, he had always made a good on every other threat he had ever made, and he was exceptionally reliable when it came to that. So in domestic midlands homicides, which is what happened here. Most of them end up with the man killing the wife or the girlfriend who tries to get away or threatens to get away or attempts to leave. But this case was different than the victims stopped the abuser. So there was another reason I was interested.
And to understand, to understand this and comprehend this.
Though.
You talk about Jimmy having at one time again better prospects, and he had a dream. He looked at other people's success and he wanted that, but he also wanted a family life. So she thought, as you write in here, that that she just wasn't getting things right because at first it was not so bad, and then he was particular about cleaning and things like that. So she always thought that she she just got it right, and then that at some point changed. Did she realize it wasn't
about getting things just right? Was it?
Well? That's right?
Was?
That's the expression she used over and over. And this is a two year period where I interviewed her and wrote the book, and she kept bringing that up. I just couldn't get it right, you know, sort of Sarcastle. At that point that was his favorite comment or besides airhead, you're an airhead, and you're an eff and bitch and this and that, and you know, if you could just get it right, I wouldn't have to keep doing these
things to you. And she was in such a state dan that of going through this childhood and this crazy first marriage that she was in need of a relationships. So she's not about to say stand up like you and I would. And what are you talking about, I'm doing a good job. You have to think differently when you're thinking about a person in this situation who's beaten down like this and in such need.
Of love that they're going to comply.
So you No, she didn't think she was getting it right. She believed him, and she was fell more and more into what I'll talk about in a little while here, battered woman syndrome, syndrome where you don't believe in anything you do is gonna work. I think it'd be a good place to read you an example of this issue
of white women don't leave. I think it's a good time to bring this in because the reason she kept saying, uh, yeah, I guess I'm not getting it right is because she was uh falling into this this this battering woman syndrome in what's called learned helplessness. And I have no doubt in my mind that at the time of the murder, which was seven years into this marriage, June was as
deranged as any raving lunatic in any insane asylum. What happened was that the night of the murder, she was arrested and she was taken to the local jail in Hudson, New Hampshire, And in the jail was a cell mat who looked over at June and saw her shaking and cowering in the corner. Jimmy Briond had driven his wife so insane. When she was first sent to jail for this murder, she told her cell mate in answer to her question, what's the matter with you? She said to her, Jimmy's not dead.
You don't know. Jimmy. These bars won't stop him.
He is going to come down here and kill me, just like he always said he would do.
End quote.
That is That's the state of mind this woman was in, and that's why she kept saying, yeah, I haven't I can't get it right. I'm going to keep trying to get it right.
She was suffering.
From what they call learned helples. Those are in the form of battered women syndrome. I'd like to read you a little bit about her state of mind, because I think it's important. I don't want to ride around of time here about the fact that I just said that she was clinically insane, and she was clinically and so I'm going to read you from the book. And you read this too, damn, but I'm going to bring it back to you.
Quote.
Here was a twenty four year old mother of two who was trying to protect herself from her children from a madman who had driven her into such a state of mental disarray that, to some experts who examined her, she was quote clinically insane unquote at the time of the shooting. Her behavior immediately after coming to prison seemed
to bear this out. As another reporter or no, and here's a note from the reporter, June Brionn believed beyond a doubt that at any moment, her raging monster of a husband would burst through her prison bars and rip her to shreds. This was That's why I just read you a moment ago in my quote. This is his statement continuing, this was not a woman who should be
held in prison. Until she was fifty two years of age. Indeed, many of those who studied the case closely felt June Brionn was suffering from isolated explosive disorder, a condition most commonly characterized by a single instance of failure to resist an impulse that then leads to a violent act with tragic consequences. That's the end of the reporter's quote. But now I go on in the book here. Others felt June should not spend one minute behind bars for a crime.
It was clearly one of self defense, but the law on such a defense was iffy at best. Self defense quote had different interpretations in different states. In many states, including New Hampshire, a person had to be in quote imminent danger of lethal harm in order to pull a trigger in self defense. Was June in such a state? Did the knife that Jimmy so often held to June's throat have to be present at the very moment she
pulled the trigger? So the two points one is she was clinically insane, and two, there was no justice for this woman. Obviously, she happened to be in this new hand for a very conservative state, and the wrong place to be when something like this happens.
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dot com slash murder. Before we talk about and you've talked about the murder, you've talked about the conclusions in court, but we still haven't talked about probably and likely and as they would to be able to prosecute her successfully for murder. Is that they talk about a woman named Helen that became a friend, noticed the abuse, how you couldn't notice the abuse, and then had her own fantasy
that again prompted June to have ideas. So tell us a little bit about more abuse from you alluded to it. You talked about the knife to the throat. You also didn't talk about the extensive gun collection. So let's talk about Helen, her friend, the gun collection, and just more bizarre violent incidents that proved to June that he was likely to kill her, that she had no way of escaping, and decreased her ability to fight, to to have any life, and to think that there was a chance in hell of escape.
All right, I want to do it backward. That's a good point, Helen. That's that's that's the night of the murder.
So let me let me build up to that. That's a good point.
Let's let's go into a couple of incidents here that drove June further and further into the state where she became unable to think straight and she she shot somebody.
Let me let me read to you.
An incident that it's maybe this answer is better than anything. The first question I always get, and a June constantly got when the press was had contacted her after this whole thing happened. The first question is why why?
Why didn't you just leave?
Why don't they leave? I wrote a whole blog on that and that subject as a matter of fact, why don't they just leave? Well, let me give you an incident here that's a great but I want to read it to you, and then I think you might understand your audience might understand a little more of why they don't leave, besides the fact that they're falling further and further into the state of learned helplessness. I'll read you later, but let me just read you this story. And I
think I'll understand better. Jimmy came home late and did not want anything to eat. June had just made a dinner for him earlier, but by eight o'clock she figured he was out drinking again and decided to put the food in the refrigerator. When he walked through the door at eight forty five, she was just finishing reading a story to Jana, who was almost asleep but not quiet.
June had put her to bed at seven, but Jana couldn't sleep, so she put her on her lap in the living room to read her Jimmy went to another part of the house, and when he came back, he was furious. Here's June's quote. He started in about Jana's room. He said he was sick and tired of telling her to keep it clean. I argued that she was only a child, a three year old child, and she didn't understand about keeping a room in perfect order. Jana was so tired she didn't even notice the argument and kept
nodding off to sleep. Then Jimmy started yelling directly at her wake up, he said, and she would wake up and fall back to sleep. He kept yelling at her wake up. Pay attention, listen when I'm talking to you as if she was ten or twelve.
But she couldn't stay awake.
She kept falling asleep and didn't pay attention like he wanted. Jimmy really started yelling then, out of control, only this time his craziness was directed towards his own daughter. I saw then something I had not realized before. He wasn't just loud and obnoxious. He was cruel and mean. For the first time since I hadn't met him, I was scared. I saw he was dangerous the way he was screaming
at a little kid who hadn't done anything wrong. All of a sudden, Jimmy grabbed Jana and started smacking her in the face. I pulled her away and jumped up and ran out of the room. Jimmy kept screaming in the living room, and I just opened the back door and ran out. He didn't even know we were gone. He was raving so much. Jana had on her foot sheeep of jama and I was barefoot and wearing my baseball pajamas with his elastic band. I had been wearing
them ever since I was six months pregnant. She was now nine months pregnant by the way nine months pregnant when this happened. Continue All I remember was running. I wanted to get away from Jimmy, just run away as fast as I could, but I was as big as a house and I couldn't move very fast. I got down the street about one hundred yards when Jimmy grabbed my hair from behind and he pulled me backwards. I started to fall and had Janna on my hip, but luckily I had time to tuck her in front of
me before I landed on my rear end. Now I'm crying, Jana's crying. Jimmy screaming in the middle of the street and slapping us both. He didn't care who he hit, he was just hitting. Then he started dragging me by the arm back to the house. He was screaming and pulling me, and then he let go of my arm. I thought he was going to stop, but he didn't. He went around behind me. He grabbed both my legs and started dragging me like he was a plow horse.
I was yelling and crying for him to stop, yell that he was hurting me.
But he wouldn't.
My head was bouncing on the pavement as he pulled me I could feel the hair getting sanded off the back of my head and my spine scraping along the pavement. I tried to hold onto Jana with one hand and put my other hand down to raise off the ground, but the skin on my hand was peeling off, and I couldn't do it. I was getting all scraped up no matter what I did, But Jimmy didn't care. He kept dragging us all the way back to the house. That's the end of her quote. Let me just continue
a minute here. When they got back inside the house, Jimmy shoved June in the chest and she fell back onto the couch. He was silent then for a few seconds. It paced back and forth in front of the couch. Then he stopped and turned to her and said something he had never said before. Quote, if you ever leave me again, I'll kill you. I will kill you unquote. After what he had just done, June had no doubt
that he meant it. So to answer this kind of insane question of why don't they just leave, that's why they don't leave. That's one reason why they don't leave, besides the fact that they're compromised and they're not thinking straight. Because a guy like Jimmy Brion would have found her and killed her and her kids. So that's why they don't leave. We got to quit victimizing the victim in these situations and further punishing people who never deserve to
be punished in the first place. In June's case, she's never spent a day in prison. And these are people who need love and understanding, not criticism and ridicule and judgment. But I'll tell you it's the first question I get.
Why didn't she just leave?
What do you mean jump into BMW with her Gucci bag full of credit cards and just take off like you would? Buddy, No, she's not you, So you gotta think differently, you know. I find this interesting. I had a note here I wanted to mention. A National geographic writer, Andrew Cockburn, had an article called twenty first century Slaves.
Let me just quote a short quote here.
He says slave traffickers posing as employment agents find victims in poor Eastern European town and lure them abroad with promises of good jobs. When the women arrive from Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and the US, they're delivered to buyers who typically beat, rape, and terrorize them into compliance, just like Jimmy did to his slave June. I see a correlation. Why didn't they just leave, get on a bus or a train and
just leave. The answer is because they're smart enough to know they could never get away, and they'd heard what had happened to those who tried. So I think we have to get past this really unfair question, and I find it most interesting. No one questions why a ten year old child doesn't leave when being sexually or physically abused at home. No one questions that. But women don't leave for the same reasons the kids don't run away from home. I mean they're scared, they have no resources,
no place to go. More than anything, they need love and then a place to fit in. So I mean many battered women, I think, are like kids. They don't know how to leave. They don't have the resources of confidence, and they're incapacitated by fear and uncertainty, and.
For good reason. I mean, they're being threatened with more bodily injury. But I got to read it.
Dan, If I can't, can I read another incident? This is so stunning that I just can't sure do it. And we'll get another idea of why this woman was going insane.
Basically, let me just read it. This crazy incident.
In January of nineteen eighty four hour, about a year after moving to Central Street, Jimmy's violence reached a new height. He had an obsession with orderliness. It was more intense than ever, and June was becoming more and more submissive, trying harder each day to do things the way Jimmy wanted and, as you said before, Dan, to get it right. At the same time, Jimmy was becoming more moody, less satisfied with himself. He was drinking more than ever, and
even in the morning, his breath reeked of beer. Quote from June. I was not infallible. I couldn't be everywhere watching everything at every moment. But that's exactly what Jimmy expected. One day, when Jimmy came home for lunch, he went through the refrigerator poured a glass of milk. But I was doing something and wasn't watching him. I heard him say, what's this.
And then I held my breath.
I thought he was looking at the milk lid and saw some dried milk on it. I knew I'd get hit for that. But he was just asking about some leftover That's why I was relieved, Jimmy told me. Then Jimmy told me to make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I grabbed the jar and opened them on the wooden cutting board and made the sandwich. I had just screwed the lid back on the peanut butter when Jimmy grabbed the jar and held it up to the light like he was trying to look through it.
Then I saw what I did wrong. The lid was on crooked.
In a flash, he picked up the knife and stabbed me in the back of the hand. He caught me in the web between my first and second finger. I couldn't move my hand. It was impaled on the cutting board. I just looked at the knife sticking out of my hand. It wasn't the pain. It was so bad it was seeing my hand stuck to the board. I felt sick to my stomach. Then he said, if you can't get the lid on right, maybe you should just stand there and think about it for a while. I was beyond
crying by then. I still didn't think he was mean. That's how crazy I was getting. I thought, as usual that it was my fault for not getting the lid on straight, and that if I had done like I was supposed to, if I had been a better wife, this wouldn't have happened. It was never Jimmy's fault. The closest Jimmy ever came to giving an apology for anything came later that night, when he walked in and saw June sitting quietly at the kitchen table with a bandage
on her hand. She was gazing at the wall, looking at nothing. Jimmy passed by her on the way of the refrigerator. He took out a beer, closed the door, twisted off the cap, and stood there for a moment. He looked at his wife and said, I wish you would stop making me do these things to you. Then he took a swig from the bottle, up loudly and walk into the living room to watch television.
Let's get to talking about how this is complicated, though you talk about it, and I don't disagree with you. I wholeheartedly believe in the battered woman's syndrome when it forced, its chronicled. Every bit of evidence is there, so I'm not disagreeing. I'm on the same page and I'm sure the audience is there as well. However, there is prosecution.
She was prosecuted, and the reason for prosecution is complicated incredibly by this woman named Helen Thomas Helen Lewis pardon me, eighteen years old, who they became friends and even though Jimmy didn't like her and Jimmy taunted her, they still remain friends. And she visited the home in January. February, she was over there quite a bit. What did Helen know? What did June tell her? And what did Helen soon talked to June about?
Okay, so long story short, the reason June was convicted of murder and when it was sentenced to fifteen years to life was because of Helen. Had Helen not been in the picture, Jude, I'm sure wouldn't have never happened.
Helen was the.
One and only friend that June had. June had no friends, no car, no no family, no parents, no money, and so the the this one woman whom she had met at this minimum wage job she had took to June and for some reason Jimmy allowed her to come and visit with June.
Who knows why, but he allowed that.
And by the way, this is Jimmy Bieron. This is this is a guy who did not allow his wife to have a phone book in the house. You wonder why she didn't call the police or an eight hundred number. There were no eight hundred numbers back then when this happened. There no there was two safe houses in the entire state in New Hampshire. But he took a job directly across the street from the apartment. I don't mean down the street, I mean directly across the street as a
mechanic with the roge door robans. We could keep an eye on the house. That's how much control he had over her. But but why he allowed Helen to come by? Who knows, But she did. And essentially, to make a long story short, Helen wasn't accomplice in this murder.
She was the one.
She was the one who encouraged June to get rid of Jimmy. He's gonna kill you if you don't kill him first. He's got guns all over the place. Just get get the gun and you know, to shoot him.
Blah blah blah.
And she talked about this for months and then one night it actually happened. June had the gun under the couch and she had fallen under the spell of Helen said, come on, he's in there sleep and let's this is time to do it. And that's essentially what happened. June stepped into the I don't want to give too much away in this book, but I'll tell you what happens. That as he slept, June stepped into the room and
she said it was pitch black. She had no idea where she was shooting, and she was about to shoot and she couldn't do it. She came back out and Helen said, get back in there and do it, Helen standing there with her. So she had accomplised that she should have gone to prison as well. And j went back in and just blankly into the doctor shot four four shots.
All four shots went.
Into Jimmy's head and killed them. And then they then they ran and ran out and the police came what have you? And she was never charged. As simple as that there was there was actually a small part of the story they could. All they was concerned about is that they had the actual murderer, and they prosecuted her. They did not prosecute Helen because they had.
No evidence that that was the case.
But that's why this happened because Helen, Helen pushed June to do it.
You say there was no prosecution, but didn't they use Helen as a tool of the prosecution.
No, No, Ellen was not involved. Now Helen was not involved. They had they had June beyond and they questioned her and they she finally broke down and in the interrogation and they said, where's where's the gun?
Where's the gun?
She would tell them she finally it's in the it's in the dirty clothes basket. And they went and found the gun and they prosecuted her. So that's how this happened. But again Helen would have Helen was the impetus for this, and and I don't believe June would have done this on her own. So June took June took the hit, and she went to prison. And why did she go to prison? Because she I, if you're poor and semi literate person with no money and no resources, you don't
hire a lawyer. And she had no representation, and so she went to prison and pulls out there was no trial, no trial.
So this happened.
So she didn't have she didn't have representation. That was reasonable whatsoever with this case too. You talk about class and money in terms of this was not a high profile case. When this murder happened. There was not a lot of attention from anybody about this.
Was there, Yes, yes, there was, Yes, there was. It was supposed to. It was the most celebrated case in New Hampshire. In New Hampshire mostly celebrated. There must abuse murder. There was.
It was all over the newspapers and what happened. There was a buzz all over the place that it was. It was, it was. There was death threats against June. You know, you don't women don't kill men in New Hampshire and get away with that. You know, it doesn't happen.
So there was there was a big hul up a little about that, so much so that during the trials, when she was being transported from jail to the courthouse, there was a convoy of state trooper and June was on the floor of the patrol car because they death threats that they should be shot, because no women get away with this in New Hampshire.
So yeah, there was a big hullabaloo about that.
And you know, but why wasn't there Why wasn't there a Why wasn't there support for her? Given, you know, given this story. I mean, if you even get a glimpse of this story, wasn't there What I meant was there wasn't any positive favorable I mean, it seems bizarre to me. Like I said, I I'm based in Canada, so I obviously I'm I'm very interested in American crime, and obviously I'm up on both countries state of the judicial system. But Canada is long recognized as battered women syndrome.
In fact, if you want to see how comic a comical has become, the other way is that serial killer Carla Hamalco was referred to as a battered woman, and I was part of her defense. So what will be what I'm saying is in Canada is the these sets of circumstances, these details would have it would have been an easy slam dunk that the entire Canadian society would have been supportive of the battered women's syndrome. She wouldn't
have spent a minute in jail given the same. So I don't understand why, given those that those those those details, given the story that's there, why was there no support? Why didn't given how controversy on how high profile had ended up being. How come no one came to her aid pro bono? How come there was no lawyer in the US who would travel there and represent her. Why did that not happen?
Well, because it's not Canada. You know you don't lock your doors up there either, do you? And you don't hear about shootings in Canada. This is this different country, I would say, but you know it is the statement I would say, we don't. We weren't dealing with justice here in New Yry. We were dealing with law. That's why a lot of the criminal criminal justice professors are assigning this book to their for their students to read, because it's crazy.
It's a crazy case. Justice wasn't done.
But the law states you shoot somebody, you're.
Going to prison. Back then.
Now now battered women's syndrome is more recognized, Dan, let me just read it, just a couple of sentences on what about battered women's syndrome which was not recognized then? To answer your question, that's why had this case happened. Now she was and she had any kind of representation, she would have not gone to prison. Back then when this was this occurred. You're talking in the nineteen eighties. It was just the very beginning.
Of well, let me just read it to you. Indeed, June was falling into what would.
Later later be widely known as battered women's syndrome, a condition that includes total submission to a dominant, threatening spouse, complicated by quote learned helplessness, a psychological state resulting from the domination and mind control of the perpetrator. And again,
as I mentioned before, Junior was ripe for this. She was ripe for such conditioning complete dependence on her husband, two children to care for, minimum wage job, no friends, isolation from the world around her, no transportation, no parents, no money, poor self esteem, learned submissiveness from the earlier marriage we mentioned at the beginning of the show, and above all, the belief that everything that was happening to
her was her own fault. If she could just get it right like other wives did, everything would be fine. So she was in that state, which then was not recognized to go back to the prosecution, That's why she went to prison. Today, I don't think it would have.
Happened you visited her in prison for these interviews. To save over a two year period, tell us about her life in prison, and tell us a little more about those interviews.
Yeah, I will do that, and we don't have too much time left. I will say this that the closest June ever came to getting real justice, or perhaps mercy is the better way to put it, is when she's on her way to prison. The officer driving her, he almost turned around. I just got to read you this because this is a great part of the book, and then I'll go into the interview process a little more.
But let me just read you this. Where am I Okay?
Yeah, so she's on her way to prison with this uh, with this convoy. The rest of the convoy peeled off and dispersed just before entering the prison grounds, leaving the state trooper alone to drive the final distance to the prison. Finally, he spoke, you can sit up now, it's okay. Remember I mentioned it. I mentioned before she was down before the breakup of the entourage seemed to relax the young man with the curly blonde hair, who now became more talkative.
How you doing, he asked you? And okay, she said, slithering backward up onto the car seat the best she could. The officer saw her struggling in your mirror, and he stopped the car. He got out and opened the passenger door. You don't need the cuffs on anymore, he said. Here, turn around, I'm taking them off. Removing a prisoner's handcuffs in this manner is against police procedure. But the trooper was not worried about police procedure. He was worried about June.
He got back into the front seat and put the car in gear. He drove for a minute and spoke up again. I don't really want to do this, he said. June did not reply. The car kept moving, but at only ten miles per hour. The prison loomed a quarter mile ahead. Two minutes went by, and the prison drew closer. There were still one hundred yards ago when the trooper said again, I really don't want to do this. You have babies, June. You were trying to protect your babies.
For a moment, June had a distinct impression that the sympathetic young trooper was about to spin the car around and drive off as fast as he could in a miraculous herculian act. It would save her from the fate that awaited her. Now fifty yards and twenty seconds away, as he admitted later, I thought about it, I really did, but a reasonly got the best of him, slow to a stop with the woman he knew should be.
Anywhere but here. And that's where I met her. So that's the end of that quote.
And that's where I met her in prison. And the reason I met her in prison is because I saw a story about this ordeal this woman went through and I contacted her attorneys, her attorney at the time, and said, I published a book by a Warner Books. I'm a Warner Books author and I which was about parenting, how to raise good kids, and I was interested in the opposite, you know, this dysfunctional relationship, and would she be interested in possibly investigating a book. And the attorney said, I
don't know, but here's a REGRESSU you. I can write her in prison, and I did, and she wrote back and said, yes, I would be interested in getting this story out because I want to help other women who are in the same situation. That's the whole point of the book, if we get down to it. And so when I first met her, she was flanked by that attorney and another attorney, two women attorney on both sides were very protective. Here's a man, another man and coming
into her life. They don't know who I am, and they were very protective of their client. So I got through all the security and I went to meet them. The two attorneys were not They were glum, grim faced women. But June came right over, very very nice, warm, smiling, Hi, Bob, I'm Julie Brion And that's the kind of person she was. Were lovely, was a lovely person. I am very highly intelligent, by the way, the first woman in the state of New Hampshire to earn a college degree from behind bars,
by the way. It's a very right bright person too. And so I said, look, I gotta know about your story. I need to know about your life and see if we have a book here. I don't know if we do. And so they only gave me an hour and I got the basic Can I explain how the book proposal process work?
And we have to this.
I don't know if we're going to be able to sell this book or not, but I need to a lot more information. So she agreed that we could continue meeting. She didn't agree then, but the lawyers the next day said yes. She liked you, she trusts you, and she wants to go on with this. So I met her over the next period actually of two years, while I was taking notes writing the book and what have you.
And the more I interviewed her and the more I wanted to continue the story what you read the story Dan more got more crazy and more bizarre and more interesting the longer we went. So that's how the book came about. And the point of the whole book was and is to this day, is to hopefully be of edifying and inspiring to and somehow help other people that.
Are in the same situation.
You saw her, how long after the trial had concluded, and how long was that after the arrest itself? You say she was in you know, she greeted you, But when you talk about just before the murder, she was down to ninety pounds and she was in a terrible state, and you say she was out of her mind and busy. And so how long was that I met her?
A year?
No, I met her years later. No, No, years later, I met her. She'd been in prison prison for nine years by the time I met her and heard about this story. But she wasn't the same person who went in a prison this much much later.
So your sense of her stay in prison, Her life was terrible, But like I had mentioned, and you write in the book, there was times when she succeeded. She achieved things that she thought she might not ever achieved. She had friends, she had people that were paying attention to her. We didn't get a chance to talk about the two people that intervened on her behalf and got to see Jimmy and his anger and his violence up close and didn't help June's situation whatsoever. But what happened
in prison? What was her life like to get to the point where you saw are in nine years later?
Well, what was her life like?
Yeah, I've got like a couple of minutes you could go over that.
Well.
As the book goes on to describe how she learned to fight back, fight the system, begin the process of trying to get out of prison. I can't tell you what happened. I don't want to swallow the book, but there are a lot of twists turns, And it began one day when another prison inmate came down to orcell to visit her, and I just I just want to read you this real quick. It's a short little blurb, and it's really the reason I wrote wrote the book. She came down and she said, there's a woman named
Renee said you shouldn't. You shouldn't be here, June.
You did what you had to do. You know that.
I know that, everybody knows that. But there's politics involved, and you've got to get involved in them. That's why, that's what we'll get you out of here.
People need to know your story.
You never had a trial, never had a chance to defend yourself. And so Rene Renee's words resounded in her head. She said, people need to know your story. That statement rang true. But how how from behind thick prison walls does one person tell her story? Well, you tell her through writing a book. So that's that's why this that's why this book came about. And and and she had a lot of support from other people in prison, and
everyone knew she wouldn't shouldn't have been there. So she she, you know, tried to start the process of getting a hearing. And what she did and I can't tell you what happened, but the governor of New Hampshire, who was the one who prosecuted her ten years earlier, he was he was the attorney general at the time of the murder. He's one who prosecuted her, and now he's the governor.
Ten years later.
He granted a rare pardon hearing. Everybody thinks that they're going to get out of prison because they're going to tell their story, but they don't get heard. This case was so well known that and she had these attorneys working for that. He did grant her a hearing before the Executive Council. And you have to read the book to find out what happened on that. That's where I'm going to leave.
You at the end.
Absolutely well. You know, the thing is it does chronicle as you talked about introduction, about the before domestic violence hotlines and safe houses and now the billboards with the abused women and all the firings in Hollywood, and you know, the conviction of Bill Cosby. There has been a seismic shifts. But also since nineteen eighty seven there's been an incredible shift in attitude towards the battered woman syndrome. There has been many defenses successfully used with that with far less
horrific example of abuse than June injured. Tell us us a little bit about this board, right, you're right.
I'm going to say right, because the times have changed. But unfortunately June was in the wrong place. It's the wrong time. But you're right, things have changed now. So that's one reason for writing the book too, is to explain battered women's syndrome which these women go through, highlight this whole issue if domestic violence is so prevalent but hidden, like I said at the beginning of the show, and get people talking about it. I mean, that is the whole point here is what do we do now? You
speak to people, You encourage others people to speak. You need to get to kids when they're young and impressionable and impress upon them. And as always and immediately unacceptable in any way to mentally or physically abused or be abused by anyone period. You've heard of the California the
law of three strikes, you're out. Well, my opinion is when it comes to domestic violence, it's one threat of a strike and you're out, because threats inevitably, they inevitably lead to a punch or a kicked and too often death. And remember, batterers do not get better. We haven't talked about that very much, but they will not get better. And besides, there's plenty of good decent men out there. Why wait, but this takes rational, not emotional thinking, and
it's very difficult. That's why these women end up in dead end, dangerous relationships.
So what do we do? Let me just conclude on this.
You confront women who you suspect are being abused. All of us know somebody who is being abused. We may not see it, see it with the bruises on the face because they're beating them in the back, but you can suspect it and talk to them, say you're willing to listen, get them to talk, get things going. You got to make some progress, so you don't keep the issue a hidden ones because it's host up to us to end this insane epidemic.
We've got to do something about it.
So I hope people find the book inspiring, and as you and I had both hoped that it'll help women in other similar situations.
Given the time, it's just fascinating to read what people put up with. And you know, neighbors knew people living downstairs, Frank and Deanna, they knew who there was, the whole family. When she dared to get drunk one time, and talk to his stepfather Randolph and mentioned the abuse of people
were horrified, not angered at Jimmy. So this is an incredible much different time, much different attitude, and people will be horrified of the of the facts and details that they read and then to realize that this woman went to prison. So I want to also just give out a shout out to Wild Blue Press for being able to publish this book. Tell us a little bit about how they might take a look at where to find this and if you have a website Facebook page, tell us about that.
Robert, Oh, yeah, yeah.
So the book is as you mentioned at the beginning of The Beast, I loved a battered woman's desperate struggle to survive. And of course it's on the Wild Blue Press website. I do have a page there with my blog and the overview. It can be purchased on Amazon. It's in the kindle form the e book or the or print version, or on Wild Blue Press site too. You can you can you can purchase the book there either way and kindle or audio or assume me the e book or the print version. And uh, and I
write a little bit more. I do have a blog there and it's all on Wild Blue Press. Wild Blue is one word, wild blue and unpressed. You can find more information about about the beast I love there.
It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for coming on and talking about the beast I loved, Robert Davidson. Do you have a great evening. Thank you very much for this interview.
Thank you, Dan, thanks a lot, bye way, good night,