Wait the Lucky Land Slots. You can get lucky just about anywhere.
It's your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a while and get lucky. Oh no, nothing like that. It's just these cash prizes add up quick. So I suggest you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and start getting lucky.
Play for free at Lucky Landslots dot com. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary void We're prohibited by Law eighteen plus. Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck.
I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.
With family, canoli's and spins mean everything.
Now you want to get mixed up in the family business. Introducing the Godfather at Champa Casino dot com. Test your luck in the shadowy world at the Godfather slot. Someday I will call upon you to do a service for me. Play the Godfather now at Champacasino dot com.
Welcome to the vdW group. NOPERD is necessary if we were privateted by loss he terms and Conditions eighteen plus.
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 VTK 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 Zufanski.
Good evening. Obviously I knew better than to take a life, but that was before before him. The day we met, in over of nineteen ninety seven, I was working at the District Court in Traverse City, Michigan, as a deputy clerk. It was like most other days with arraignments, sentencing, civil case hearings and the like. People shuffling in and out, everyone taking care of their important business with the court appearances, document filings, paying tickets, fines, and bonding loved ones out
of jail. I loved my job. It was extremely satisfying and interesting, with constant interaction with all walks of life, including people on either side of the judicial spectrum and many in between. Suddenly there he was, tall, handsome and looking so impressive and important in his Michigan State Police uniform with his hat, gun belt and badge. A powerful man who had chosen a profession to serve and protect. He was extremely friendly and upbeat, smiling profusely. Best of all,
he too was unattached. What could go wrong? He was like a dream man. We clicked immediately and began dating exclusively. But he was not a dream man. He was a nightmare. As I learned over the next twelve years. Twelve years of enduring domestic violence at its absolute worst, constant abuse, control, manipulation and threats, sadistic sexual deviance, and sexual violence. It was only going to end one way. Some one would die in our bed and some one would go to
prison for murder. This is my story about domestic violence, resilience, reckoning and survival. The book they were featuring this evening is to Kill or Be Killed, a true crime memoir from prison with my special guest author Joni Ankerson. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Ankerson, are you welcome? Thank you very much. This is an incredible it's an amazing story. Let's get right to where you grew up. Tell us talk about in Michigan, and
you called it an awesome upbringing. So tell us about you and your family where you grew up in Michigan specifically, and what was so awesome about your upbringing and your parents and their marriage. Tell us all about it.
Okay, I grew up in Traverse City, Michigan, which is in the northern part of Lower Michigan, and it's surrounded by Lake Michigan. Really one of the most beautiful places. Really, there is great family. My parents were married for almost sixty years. My dad was the youngest of eleven kids. So I have a huge family, lots of aunts and uncles, also cousins. In Michigan where I live, all the seasons there's winter, some or spring fall, and they're all perfection
to how they're supposed to be. It was just we had a great family, a great you know, we didn't have a lot of money, but we were happy and loved and we're always shown love and taught really good things.
Right, you talked about that you were always your parents were pretty open minded, and you've children were free to express yourselves. And again you see that you saw a very loving and loving marriage by your parents.
Yeah, it was really extraordinary. You know, there's not many people that have that. It was really true love until the end.
What about high school for you and socially where you accepted. How did you do in school? Tell us a little bit about that before we talked about your first marriage.
Okay, No, high school was good. I had lots of friends. I was really in the quickly, you know, the clickie part. We went out a lot, you know, back in those days we'd go out and drinking and driving and all that stuff. But I had lots of friends and really friendly, and I think I was accepted pretty well.
And the relationship with your parents was great, the relationship with your father. Even though you have the typical growing pains in terms of teen angst will say, or teenage life, you didn't really get in any trouble and you still had a good relationship with your family and friends. There was nothing out of the ordinary in your.
No, nothing with no addition or drinking or Yeah, my parents were really open. I mean we could talk to them about anything. They were always really accepting. Of course we got in trouble, but it was always a lesson they did. I really grew up with values and respect and honesty and just the good things that you're supposed to have, you know as a person, really.
And your self esteem as well that you were again were. You went in the most popular kids, but you were certainly not an outcast or anything. And you had the love from your parents and your close friends, so you didn't have any self esteem issues or anything. But tell us about tell us about your early relationships and then leading up to this early marriage.
I always had a boyfriend. I think that was always important to me for whatever reason. Excuse me. I met my first husband just outside of high school, and you know, we fell in love right away, and we were really a whole lot alike. And I wanted to get married early. I wanted to have kids. It was just what I I grew up with such a great example, and that's what I wanted for myself.
Right now you had, you say, you had a father, father of two kids. This relationship lasted five years. You were very young when you met. What was the how did you guys kind of drift apart? What really happened in this sort of wow? You know, the relationship evolved, and so did you?
Right, Yeah, I think we both evolved because we were twenty when we got married and in love, and I think we kind of we were too young. When we got married. He became very he was more interested in what was going on outside of our family life. Who was kind of a selfish person, I always thought, and I just we weren't happy together. And when we split up and decided to get a divorce, it actually we
agreed on that. I mean, I can remember being arm and arm walking down Front Street talking about getting a divorce and how we needed to do that and we're going to make it work for the kids.
Right now, you say it worked out for five years, and of course he was a good father after that. You just mentioned. Now you start working for an attorney, So tell us about what happened working for this attorney and what that led to, and tell us about that relationship that ensued.
Oh well, I worked for attorneys right out of high school. I worked for several different firms in Treverorse City, and I ended up at a smaller firm, two partner firm. They did criminal work, divorce work, and one of the attorneys that was a partner there, he and I began dating, which was really exciting for me. You know, I had just been divorced and he was a really nice guy, and that was a really great time in my life.
What happened in that relationship that changed that though, and you talk about a car accident your aunt and uncle. Tell us what happens with the relationship, and what happens is this accident, how does it affect you?
Well, the accident was my favorite aunt and uncle. We had spent all kinds of time growing up. They had five kids, our family had four. We were very very close with them. We saw them probably every weekend, always did family things together, and for whatever reason, I still don't really understand it, they were killed in a car accident and that really deeply affected me. And I became depressed and anxiety, and I was really sick with migraines
and I just was in really bad shape. And that didn't go over very well with my marriage because my husband didn't you know, you don't ever want your supposed to be like that. I guess I didn't want to get a divorce, but that's what happened, and then it just kind of is how it all worked out.
Now. At that time, you had some psychological problems, like you mentioned about depression and this affecting you with anxiety as well. Were there any visits officially to see anybody at that time regarding this? Oh?
Yeah, I was actually in the psychological ward at the hospital here in town a couple of different times. Just willingly, I knew I needed to try to get myself together. I never could really figure out why I was so depressed and was why I was turned upside down? I felt like and I think that's kind of the case with mental illness. You don't ever really know why you're feeling the way you are, and it was a really hard road for a while.
You also experienced some at least the thoughts of suicide around this time as well, if not more so.
Absolutely, Yeah, I actually tried to take my life after my second husband and I got divorced.
I was just.
Really depressed. I felt miserable, I felt lost, I felt I think, defeated, and I didn't like myself because I hadn't been able to make my marriage work again. And that's a hard thing for me because I again I had such a great example with my parents, and that was I think I put so much pressure on myself. I think that now. Of course, twenty twenty hindsights, you know, easy, but.
Yeah, now tell us what happens. I'm not sure of the years of its ninety six or later ninety seven, but you were employed at the County District Courthouse serving as a clerk in the civil division and after three years in the criminal department, and you were a definitely, definitely clerk. What was your family situation and your living situation at that time, and just personally, what was your situation at that time before we talk about this faithful meeting?
Uh huh. I was pretty happy. I was still working at the courthouse. I was living in town. My kid, my children and I. They were back and forth to see their dad, and that was all working out really well. I was I felt like I was gaining ground. I was working two jobs just to make ends meet, and you know, I had my job and all my friends, and I really really liked that job a whole lot, and I was just kind of floating, you know, waiting to see what was going to happen next in my life.
And you, like, you say you really like the job, and you liked the job because of various things, But tell us some of the things that you really did enjoy about this job itself.
Oh, I loved I loved the people. I mean, I loved the people that I worked with. You know, people were coming in and out all day long, It was really exciting working in the law because I had worked for attorneys, so the law always interested me. And I actually was able to get my court recorder's license and I did that part time as well, which is, you know, really exciting sitting next to the judge and hearing all the criminal cases and the civil cases and typing transcripts.
It was just a really good because I come from a really outgoing family, were very voisterous and happy and friendly, so that job suited me really well.
And you said, also you liked being professional. You liked getting that kind of attention and having an important job and looking good and dressing up as well, and then meeting the people at all loss of life professionals. And so this is how one day, one faithful day, you met you say, in October nineteen ninety seven, while you're working in Diverse City as a deputy clerk, tell us about this meeting, what that day was like and why.
While I was standing at at the counter helping someone in that person left, one of the corrections officers, a female corrections officer from the jail, came over to pick up documents or drop something off, and her and I were chit chatting because there was no one else at the counter, talking about how she was single, I was single, and there was no good men in the town and what we're going to do. And then suddenly a state
trooper walked in. You know, we had this uniform his hat, looked very professional, very handsome, very you know, really happy looking, really friendly, and so he came up to the counter and said hi to the corrections officer. I think they had met before, and we all three of us started talking. He said, well, what are you guys talking about? And I said, well, we're talking about how we're single and there's no good men to date. And he kind of laughed and said, well, well I'm single, and I said,
oh really. And it was almost as if it was like an instant attraction, because it's funny because the girls that I worked with at the courthouse back then still bring this up to me today that they'll never forget. When he walked in, how I was like immediately around to the other side of the counter, you know, talking to him and almost almost egging him onto, well, let's go out, you know kind of thing.
Yeah, well, you certainly left the door open with that last statement there right half away what are you girls doing? Right away? You meet, you have a date. What is his aspirations as a state patrol officer? You find out almost well immediately what is this his aspirations?
Well, at that time he'd been a state police trooper, so he was out on the road, you know, his writing tickets to arresting people. He always wanted to be He always wanted to move up the latter and the next step was to be a sergeant, and I think he eventually really wanted to be a lieutenant. But he had applied to be a sergeant at different posts and was denied. So we started dating, and he he just really pursued that and one day he got a promotion and it was really what he wanted.
Let's go back to the dating, because without that initial great date, despite the you know, you might look like a faithful meeting, and certainly you encouraged it, and you were certainly ready for somebody that could walk through the door and meet them. You were talking about how hard
it was to meet someone. What was it about this dating his personality other than his good looks and his you know, his stature and the swagger you say, and what was it about him that you instantly start dating exclusively with this man.
It was.
The trust that I immediately had and the respect that I immediately had for him. In his position, you know, it was a police officer.
He was.
To serve and protect and to keep everyone safe. He was just very I was very attracted to who he was as a professional, who he was as a person. I just thought, oh my gosh, he's a great guy. He's chose this profession to help people, to be the you know, to be the kind of the person on top in charge, making sure things are done how they're supposed to be done, following the law. That was really attracted to me.
No, I know this. I don't know how to put this any more sensitive than this. But what was it that you instantly fell for him and sexually and then what was it that was not evident whatsoever in terms of the normalcy of the dating, the normalcy of the love making at the very beginning of this relationship? Was anything? I mean, was there anything? Pardon me, what you mean?
What was different about that?
Well? Not different about that? Is it that you say that there was this trust and then you entered into this relationship and as we will talk about this relationship. There was a certain there was certain things that you were willing to do again, trusting this man, being attracted this man. Was there anything right from the beginning that seemed to you surrendered any kind of mistrust and you did submit to this person completely right from the beginning.
What did you think? Why do you think that was? I mean, you've been in other relationships, But what was it about him specifically? Well?
I think it how I looked at him. I saw him I wanted him to be and he was for a long time. He was exactly how he appeared to be. I mean, I grew up you respect police officers. They're like really good people. They're they're great men and women. They're you know, I'm not really sure. But he made me feel so at ease and so comfortable, and he he was so good at sucking me in. Basically, I think I would.
Lucky Land Casino asking people, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Lucky in line at the Delhi, I guess, Ahi in my dentist's office more than months. Actually do you I have to say?
Yes?
You do in the car before my kid's pta meeting. Really, yes, excuse me, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
I never went in.
Tell well, there you have it. You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky Landsloughts dot com play for free right now?
Are you feeling lucky?
No, we're not necessary void my long eighteen plus terms conditions of police worsay details.
It's more attracted to just his position and how much I was going to trust him because that's what I should do, maybe if that makes sense. I mean, he would never do anything bad or anything wrong, he's a police officer. I didn't think I could go wrong dating this man.
You found out early on about his family. His family and they were from Oklahoma, and he had some siblings. So tell us about that meeting in terms of what you noticed in terms of the relationship between your husband Paul or you soon to be husband Paul and his family.
He was the oldest of five kids, and his parents lived in Oklahoma, as did his sister and one of his brothers, and then he had a couple of other brothers that kind of lived around. But we always got together the week of Thanksgiving, and he being the oldest, I noticed straight away, well, he never talked to his siblings on the phone hardly ever. I mean I talked to my siblings all the time and saw them, and it was not that they lived in different places. It was just that he was kind of the odd I
think he was the black sheep of the family. He was very different than anyone else, than any of us other siblings. He was very kind of a loner, very low law abiding. You know, he didn't drink, he didn't smoke cigarettes or never did drugs, my gosh. Or he was just very he was strange. He was he was kind of strange in a weird way. I mean they loved him, of course, but they didn't He never had much of a relationship. I didn't think with any of
his siblings. There was something about him, and I noticed it from the start, but I just kind of brushed it off.
How about your children's impression of him and your famili's what did they think of him?
My family really liked him at first. I think over time, and it didn't take very long, they noticed the oddities that he had. He was. He was very arrogant. He was always thought he was right. Whatever you said really didn't matter kind of thing. But they respected him also in his position, and they they thought, oh, he's going to take such good care of her. He's just being protective, you know, he's protecting her. And they knew that I really loved him and that I was, you know, happy.
They thought I was really happy, and they were happy for me. My family has never been my parents especially, they were never the parents to butt in or ask too many questions. My kids liked him because he was a police officer, and they thought, oh, this is great for our mother. But in time they realized he was just not controlling.
I know, I tried to tempt to ask you this question, and again I'll ask this one because you've written this in the book and this will make a little more sense to the audience. Here. The first time you have sex with this man, he has piercings. What do you deduce from that? What do you how do you accept that? What is your sexual idea in terms of in terms of in a relationship, What is your idea in terms
of the sexual boundaries or the sexual rules? What do you think or what do you deduce after this first Well.
When I first realized that it, of course, I was shocked. I mean I think I think I jumped off the bed, and he was, of course kind of laughing and smiling. He was amused at my reaction, and I said, oh, my gosh, your penis is pierced. What in the heck? And then of course I looked at it and he had two different piercings. And I had never even heard of anything like that, never seen it, of course, And it didn't it never it hit me as odd, but
of course I asked him about it right away. I wanted to have that discussion, why do you have your pen pierced? And he had told me that he had done it actually himself in college, which was in the seventies, which that really surprised me. After I thought about it some more, but then he did it on a dare and I was a little concerned, like, oh my gosh, I've never had sex with jewelry. I mean, it just seemed really strange to me. But he was always very good at oh, it's no big deal, you know, I've
never had trouble before. It's it's so it was. I kind of I brushed that off to It was never really it never bothered me too much at first because I was so accepting, and I realized that was my own, of course, first mistake that I just continued to brush these little things off and you know, kind of sweep them under the rug.
Yeah. No, you're with him and meet him in seventy nine. By November ninety nine, he is proposed marriage and you guys were you are married in November ninety nine at the courthouse where you worked. There's no wedding because it's your third marriage. But what was I going to say? In that two year period other than these piercings, you don't see anything that really is obviously there's any big alarms for you, any any flags, any red flags going off. But when you are moving the moving day, tell us
about the moving day? When Paul tells.
You moving what.
Years into this relationship? Two years into this relationship, you think he's a wonderful guy, and now it's moving day, what does he tell you?
Yep, he gets a truck for me and I'm going to move all my stuff into his house. He wants me to live with him. Sure, I'm excited. I think that's great. And you know he had bought me a car, not a new car, but he had bought me a car. So we're got all my stuff packed and the trucks
at his house were actually moving it in. And suddenly, just out of nowhere, he grabs me by the arm and takes me into the bedroom and shuts the door, and I'm not even sure why I did that, because it was just he and I there, and he proceeds to tell me that he's been having an affair with a married woman, but that he has decided that he wants to marry me. He wants me, he's he's done
with her. And of course I'm already halfway moved into his house, out of my house, ended the lease, and I'm I don't I'm shocked, But what do I He was so good at saying this is I needed to tell you, but it's over and this is who it is. And I was already again halfway moved in. I just kind of went, oh, oh, okay, well we'll see how this goes.
Yeah, So, as as well, you asked questions about his first marriage, because he's recently divorced, and you know the relationship he has with his kids, and the relationship he has he doesn't have, it seems, with friends. So tell us about all these relationships and what you notice.
Yeah, no, he doesn't. He didn't have really any friends who, like I said, he was very much a loner growing up, and his whole family had told me that. You know, he never went to high school parties or college parties, or he was always more comfortable by himself or with someone that he chose to be with. You know, he didn't like the troopers at the post. He never went out with them when they went out after work, or he never nobody ever came over picked him up to
go here or there. He never went on hunting trips or vacations for golf or anything like that. He didn't. He truly really didn't have any friends. His children from his first marriage were older, and they didn't have much of a relationship with him at all. And of course in the beginning he told me it was all because of their mother. It was all her fault. And of course I believe.
That you had other strange circumstances to the marriage other than those things that you had to you know, brush aside as you've mentioned some of his odd peculiar behavior, but there was things like who was in charge of the finances with the joint bank account? Tell us about that, and also just about this dinner at his post, and the time spent doing this this strange demand. By this time, you're writing that this is not a request but a demand.
So tell us a little bit more about this development.
Well, he didn't. I mean, he worked obviously at the post, and he was a sergeant, and he was sitting at the desk, so he was not out on the road. He always needed me to be with him even when he worked. And of course I look back now and think, well, he needed me there mostly because he needed to know where I was at all times. I would leave work and have to get him something for dinner and take to the post, and I'd have to sit there and
eat with him. And it was very odd because he was working, I mean, turpers would come in, calls on the radio, we'd have to run lean checks on people that were pulled over, and I just sat there the whole time. And I of course at first thought, oh, we just loves me so much. He just wants me with him, you know. But it was always very strange, and it became even stranger the longer that it went on,
because some days it was lunchtime and dinner time. So he did whatever he could to make sure that I didn't have any time to myself or definitely no time to do anything with anyone else. So it was always him or I was home.
Now it's even stranger than that for people, you know, Doc listening to chronicle this kind of control. He sat in a washroom with you, Yes, he did tell us about that, that's any one for me.
Well, he would in our bathroom. He we always had a wherever we lived. We had a master bathroom off of our bedroom, and he had one of the barstools from the kitchen in there because if he was in the bathroom, he wanted me to be in there. But mostly when I was in the bathroom, no matter what I was doing, whether it was washing my face, taking a shower, changing my clothes, you know, going to the bathroom, he had to be in there with me. And I never saw it as, oh, he's really that needy. I
saw it as he's just so attached to me. Of course, at first it was I thought it was okay, it was kind of a good thing, until he realized that it's not.
He cut up your debit card. And like you say, he's rarely you're rarely out of his sight. Sex is extremely important to Paul, you say that, and it seems increasingly so talking about sex, say at lunch or dinner. He seemed to be and I would agree, sexually addicted, but he wanted to be not to control, but to
be controlled in the bedroom. Tell us about some of the things that he was introducing into your relationship, and how he would explain this why these things were necessary in the relationship.
Yeah, sex was main his main thing. It was so important to him, and yes he wasn't addicted to it, but he explained it to me at first and again he was always so very good at getting me on his side, and he always made me think that whatever his ideas were were mostly for my benefit, not for his. He wanted me to control him in the bedroom. He paid all the bills, he did everything around the house pretty much, so my one job was to make him
happy sexually. He slowly introduced different things into that, but he explained to me that because he was a police officer and his job was that such, he was always had to be a control. He always had to make the hard decisions, he was always the person in charge. He wanted to relinquish that in the bedroom to give him some sort of relief from kind of being you know, the man all the time. I guess that's how he
presented it to me. I could do this one thing for him, to make him happy and make his life easier.
So at some point there is just a going along with what he wants. There is no it's not a born to you. It might be not of your interest, and it might be distasteful some of the things that he mentions and fantasized, but all in all, this is not a coercive. This is not this is not any type of abuse so far.
Oh no, I didn't believe that it was. And truly at the beginning it wasn't really. I mean, we were newly married. This you know, he needed this from me. I was so willing to give it to him, because if that's what he needs, he does you know, he he, I will do that for you. I always I always clung to the thought that, oh my gosh, this is my third marriage. I have failed so awfully in marriages. I have to make this one work. I have to well.
And it was easy. It was easy for him to do it because he moved me away from my family, and I know we haven't gotten to that part yet. But for the first three years we were married, we were gone, always, away from everyone that I knew, everyone that I loved, my hometown, and it was just he and I. So he was my only focus and that that's what he wanted. But I saw that as, Oh
my gosh, this is great. You know, we're always together, We're always I'm making him happy, he's It's just really how it all started.
Now. At some point, though, you keep asking questions about whether he has been abused, if there's been any abuse in his life, because increasingly the things that he asks for he seems to have no, say, the no ability to be satisfied. So newer, more deviant, more I would say, outside fetishes he introduces to this relationship. And you write at this point that you're very uncomfortable in this situation now sexually, aren't you, Oh, very.
Very uncomfortable because it was constant. It was always something new. I mean, we couldn't go out again. We were just the two of us. I was away from everyone. We would go out to dinner, and the conversation was always about sex, or always about something related to sex. You know. When we got home, it was always sex or something related to sex. It became I realized it was he couldn't live without it, and it was getting increasingly worse.
And it got to the point where I think I even told him more than once, I don't I'm not even sure I can make you happy anymore. You know, the things that you want from me, And it wasn't anything I was never approved. I mean, sex is awesome between two people, but when it becomes a demand, and he was trying to insist that it becomes some kind of lifestyle that he wanted, and I was just blown away by that. I mean, I didn't want that at all.
At the same time, he's not a physically abusive to you, but you see him acting out physically, and some of the things he says can be constituted as some kind of a threat, I would guess. So maybe he tell us what he says, but how does he express himself physically, which is still pretty threatening.
Well, No, he never physically abused me. He never bloodied my nose or blackened my eye or brokeny bones. He would grab me and I would have bruises, but he always said I would never hit you or harm you or bruise you, because that would be evident. That would be evidence for you, and that would be my career. So it wasn't physical abuse. It was very mental and emotional and controlling and manipulative. Everything.
Now physically, what happens to your body, What happens physically to you as a result of this pressure?
Oh, I lose myself. I mean, I'm trying to keep up with all his demands at the same time that I'm realizing, Oh my gosh, this is way out of the box for me, this is way too much. And I didn't understand it. I asked him so many times, you know, why this behavior? Why do you need this stuff? Why do you have to have this? And I asked him a lot of times, what happened to you? You know, how you talk to a friend or you talked to
your spouse. Why do you want this for I always thought he was sexually abused as a child or something horrible happened to him, and I still believe that, but I never got a straight answer. In fact, when I would try to discuss that with him, he would immediately get angry and back off and change the subject and deny it. And he was just breaking me down so bad. I mean, I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't do anything. He was my focus twenty four hours a day, you know,
other than when I was at work. Couldn't I always had the column.
Hello, it is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting or steps, you know, all the mundane stuff. That is why I'm such a big fan of Chumpa Casino. Chumpay Casino has all your favorite social casino style games you can play for free anytime anywhere with daily bonuses. That's your bright new day law actually a lot, so sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com. That's Chumbuck
Casino dot com. No for necessary detailoid overhibity, losty terms and conditions eighteen plus.
With Lucky Land slots, you can get lucky just about anywhere.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today.
Has anyone seen the bride and broom?
Sorry?
Sorry, we're here. We were getting lucky in the limo and we lost track of time.
No Lucky Land casino with cash prizes that add up quicker than a guess registered in.
That case, I pronounce you lucky.
Thanks for free.
At lucky landslots dot com. Daily bonuses are waiting. No purchase necessary boid. We're prohibited by long eighteen plus terms and conditions applack see website for details.
When I left work, I always had to call them before I left the house, calm when I got home. Of course, if I didn't see him right away, he always always knew where I was.
Always you talk about some of the deviants. He's interested in ashyxiation sessions as you call it, obsessed with masturbation, handcuffs. He wants ankle cuffs as well. He sets up so that he can be cuffed to the headboard. And then he has a fixation with your ination again, just more and more sexual demands. You start resisting him, you start denying him. You have this depression that he thinks that
you're faking. This is what's his response to this, Your your behavior now, your resistance, your denial.
Well, I'm I'm resisting him. I'm I'm denying him, saying, you know, and and with all of the abuse and everything that's happening sexually in his manipulation and control, I'm just I'm just becoming.
Less and less of a person. Really, I mean, I'm there's I'm in bed days at a time with the migraine, not not able to move it physically and mentally took so much away from me, get so angry. He would insist that I'd be up and around. He would insist that I pay attention to him. He would that, you know, he would get mad and then he would kind of break down and sit on the side of the bed and cry and try to talk to me and what's wrong?
And I needs you to be well, and I need you to get up, and I need this and I need that. Well, I've never cared what I needed, of course, Yes, So.
You talk about things changing as well, that sometimes his behavior is completely the other way, because he's characterized in this book is very cheap, very controlling. You like an allowance. But there's this big house, So tell us about this this house and what this house seems to promise for you. But at the while he's building this house, what do you actually experience.
Well, when we were building the house, after we moved back from being gone for three years, we moved back to my hometown and built we were building a really nice house. Is that what you're.
Talking about, yes, yes, yeah.
And while the house was being built, we were staying in a motel, and that was of course really I mean, I was excited to be back home. I was excited to be back with my family. I was excited to be back in town. But it wasn't anything like it should have been. I was so secluded from even seeing my family, my kids. He just controlled everything. And while we were living in that motel for I think it was six or eight months now, I can't even really remember,
I tried to kill myself. I got to the point where I just was devastated, and I didn't understand it then as much as I do now, of course, with all this time to reflect. But he just had me buried and I didn't want to live anymore. I wanted so bad to get away from him, but I didn't know how I couldn't. It was impossible.
I felt, yeah, let's use this to stop for a moment for the following commercials. So, Joni, this is two thousand and three. You have an attempt at suicide. You write a note, You say, Paul, you're too controlling, you don't want to be married anymore. You long to see Jesus's face, and he took all the pills you could find in the house. But unfortunately you're saved by who and what does and what is his behavior after again the employees, that smooth talking that got you right in
the beginning on that move day. What does he do? What does he do to convince you that everything is going to change?
Oh? He he Well, he never even really talked about the suicide. That's what was so weird. He convinces me that it's going to be a whole new beginning and he's going to he admits to this sexual abuse. Basically, not in so many words, but he admits that he's not acting properly. Promises that he it'll all stop, he will treat me much better, He'll change. He knows that
I'm really having a hard time with it. Agrees to get rid of all of the little things that we had for the bedroom that he wanted, which he does for a short time, but it was promises broken. I mean, he he couldn't. He couldn't keep those promises because he wasn't able to because he was so deep into the sexual behavior. He couldn't live without it. Again, he just couldn't. For whatever reason.
He was a state patrol officer. And one of the very important things that we haven't talked about is that he had always had a loaded revolver in the house. What did he say to you, looked as loaded revolver.
So you know, as all cops do, they carry a loaded gun everywhere because they can. His was always always loaded. Never well, it was in the in the the the sheath or whatever it had, but it was usually just sitting on the counter or in the bedroom somewhere when he was home. But everyone knew that, of course, that he was a police officer, and that his gun was loaded, and if they saw it, they knew not to touch it. But everyone knew that it was. He would always tell
us that gun. If you ever need to use that gun, that gun's loaded, it's ready to go. There's the safety's not on. All you have to do is pick it up and pull the sugar and I he I mean even as even his daughter, who lived with us on and off during our marriage, knew that, and my kids knew that. But nobody really thought it was odd because he was a cop. So it was just okay, there's
Paul's gun. You know, when we had people over, he'd put it up on the fridge or whatever, but it was he always made it very clear that that gun was available if anyone ever needed to use it for any reason, you know, to protect themselves or whatever.
Yeah, but saying that to you seems very odd in this reading. When I read this, well, I.
Mean, eventually I realized that he wanted He made sure that I know that knew that, and he continued to remind me about that because I think that he really because I had attempted suicide before, I think that he would have been happy if I would have killed myself with that gun.
Yeah, now you weren't ready for divorce, you write, and we'll ask you why you needed a drastic change. However, so what did you do? What did you do with this drastic change?
I did? I was just I had lost I had been fired from my first job at that point, never been fired in twenty eight years that I worked, and it was all because of him, you know. I was just so sick and broken and wrecked. I realized, because I had had mental problems before, that I needed to get away. I needed to get I really felt like the fight or flight I needed to flee. I mean I left him a couple of times, but I think you're talking about the time that I actually told him
I need to get away from here. I need to get away from you. I need a break. I had called my sister who lived in Lower Michigan, and asked her if I could come and stay with her for either a week or two weeks, or maybe even a couple of days. I guess I wasn't sure how long I wanted to be gone. So I remember calling him because I had been in bed at that point for four or five days, and I told him I wanted to go to my sisters, and he said, well, if you go, don't bother coming back. And I said, well,
what do you mean by that. You're telling me I can't go, And he said, no, I'm not telling you you can't go. I'm telling you if you go, don't bother coming back. And he was always very good at not being very direct with things like that, but it was easy to get the message, if you know what I mean. So of course I was disappointed, and I called my doctor and talk to him about possibly going
into a mental hospital. I mean, I needed to get away, and so I made arrangements with my doctor, and I called him back and said, I can leave tomorrow morning and go stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks because I really needed to get away, and that was fine with him. He would rather that I did that than be away somewhere with any part of my family where they may, I think, talk me out of going back, or you know, whatever the reason was. So that's what I did.
Even Morod, before this happens, he rediscovers why not religion, doesn't he Huh?
Yeah, he grew up as a Catholic apparently. I mean, I think that's true. I had always gone to church with my parents, you know, on and off growing up, and always had faith, and my mom's very spiritual. And he decided and he knew that, and that was a vice that he used to keep me around. He decided that he wanted to start going to the church that my parents went to. And he played the guitar and so he played in the praise and worship team at the church. So that was very attractive to me. Oh,
so this will be great. We'll go to church, we'll make friends. You know, maybe maybe he'll have a have a healing of his sexual desires or you know, we'll we'll pray and God'll make it all right. So he used that to keep me around and to it was a ruse for him.
You called a psychiatrist or a psychologist and we talked about suggested the hospital to stay and and you said, Paul was okay with that. But you also got to speak to somebody and speak to a couple of people and also were diagnosed. What was the diagnosis, and what was their advice, their cryptic advice.
And of course when I when I stayed at the hospital, I was there for almost two weeks and never and I told him when I left, I was not going to call him. I was gone, and he was fine with that as well. I at that point I wasn't even really able to talk much about the abuse, which is really, I think normal for victims. I mean, I knew what was happening, it was obviously happening, but to say it out loud and to bring it out, bring
it forth was extremely hard. But I had said enough that they actually told me that I needed to get of this relationship, not even go back, because they thought that I would eventually he would kill me. They diagnosed me with PTSD and chronic depression.
I thought it was odd too that a doctor called your husband Paul about bringing his weapon home every night, and what did he suggest Paul do and what did Paul in fact do well?
And I didn't find this out of coourse till later while I was at the hospital. One of the doctors, one of the psychologists there, had called my husband at the police post when it was working and said, mister Holbrook, we're really concerned about your wife. She's we think she's suicidal.
And we understand that of course you have a gun, you're a police officer, but we really think that it's best that you leave that gun at work, you don't bring it home or put it somewhere where she can't find it, because we're afraid that's just going to kill herself. And of course he didn't do that. He continued, as you know, status call bring the gun home, and I never even knew that they had called him, and suggested that.
Now after the hospital stay, where do you go for a couple of weeks? And what is his behavior after that? After this very dramatic, you know event from you from your behavior being quite different and this tragic event, Well, I.
Get you mean when I get home from the hospital.
Yeah, just what what is his behavior? Like? What does he plage to do? How is he how does he convince you again to come back?
Yeah? Again? You know, he's so sorry, and he everything will change and he becomes the person that I want him to be again, and you know, he's nice and he's forgiving and he's all all of the good things. But but again he could not. He could not, for whatever reason, keep that up. He could not get rid of the sexual demons. And of course that was always his promise, I won't do that anymore. I promise that'll stop. I'll love you like I'm supposed to do, you know
when at that time we're going to church. So I know that God wants me to love you in a certain way, and I'm going to abide by that. And he was just such a master at keeping me around, at saying all the right things, and of course praying on my my continued feeling of I can't get I have to make this marriage work. I will do whatever I have to do to make this marriage work. And I believed that every time that I left and came back that he was going to do that too, because that's when it's old me.
Yes, now you talk about something very, very humiliating and real good evidence of his controlling nature is this. He needed a representative of the family to go to a wedding, so he takes you out the shop because you don't have the clothes. So where does he takeing you? How much does he spend and what kind of money does he give you for your trip?
So he he's got a weird work, you know, because he does shift works. Where he works weekends is a couple of days off here and there. So his niece is going to get married in Oklahoma. And I get home from work one day and he calls me into the bedroom and says, Okay, so my niece is getting married, and I've made arrangements to send you to represent our family. I'm going to fly you to Oklahoma, to say, for five days for the wedding, and you get to go
all by yourself. And I can't even imagine what the look on my face was because he had never ever done anything like that before. He would never let me go anywhere with myself. So I was very, very shocked and very I didn't really believe what he was saying. And I remember him looking at me and saying, hey, I'm trying to do something nice for you. I want you to go spend time with my family, go to the wedding, be gone for five days. I've already made
all the arrangements, your flight arrangements. It'll be great. So I said, okay, yeah, that, And of course I'm thinking in my brain, wow, this is all awesome. I get to be away from you for five days and it's okay with you. So it was really, really a good thing.
So you know, I'm getting ready to leave in a couple of days or wherever it was, and I'm trying to pack for Oklahoma because I live in Michigan and it's cold in Michigan and I don't really have I want to make sure I have enough clothes to take, and I don't have anything that I feel is appropriate to wear to the wedding. And of course he says, takes me into our closet and says, look at all these clothes. You don't you can find something to wear.
And so I remember specifically going through almost almost every piece of clothing that I had that was wedding ish, and we decided together, oh, no, I guess there isn't anything appropriate for you to wear. So he agreed to take me shopping to get a new dress. And he took me to Goodwill, which is I don't know, always are good wills all over the place. I don't even know,
like a second hand store. Oh okay, So we went to good will Will and I found a dress that I thought was okay, seemed to be in pretty good shape. And it was six dollars and ninety eight cents. And that's the dress that I worked the wedding.
Yeah, and he gave you seventeen bucks for shoes, and he gave you forty bucks for travel and anything here, Yeah, no.
Card, forty dollars in cash to fly, you know, to be gone for five days. And I had no credit card, no TechBook, no bank card, no. And I looked and he didn't even give me the money for the trip until we were at the gate. He actually went to the gate with him with me, and I said, I need some money. I don't have any money. So he took two twenty dollars bills out of his wallet and handed me forty dollars, and I think my jaw hit the floor. I mean, I was surprised, but I wasn't
kind of thing. And I said, this is forty dollars. Oh, you'll be fine. You won't need it any more than that. And I said, but I don't have a credit card. What if something happened. Oh, you'll be fine, they'll be just fine. Forty dollars enough.
Yeah, you said at that time, and it seemed like a pivotal time in your entire relationship and in fact of your life. You say, you missed your flight, You stayed at the parents' place. The wedding was nice, the freedom was nice, you missed your flight. You were overwhelmed, and in that being overwhelmed, you had flashbacks. You went back to the hotel and you defied your cheap skate husband, and the clerk was good enough to use your husband's
information to book a room for the night. Otherwise you got stopped in the airport, and you write that you had four dollars in your wallet at that at that point, and then again it was another problem the next day with the flight.
So on the way back to the Yeah, the same thing happened.
Yeah, So two nights where you were gone, and then when you come back, you say, the sexual demands increased what what were now some of the interests that he had that he was introducing to your relationship.
Oh gosh, it was just also statistic. I mean, do you want me to get graphic?
Is that? Well? I mean it is.
I mean, he was, he was he started to rape me and I know a lot of people think, well, that's impossible. How does a husband rape his wife? Yeah, well that that's very possible. And he was, of course becoming very extremely harder to please, and he wanted to be smothered all the time, and he wanted to clean me up after sex. You know, we would have sex and he would come inside of me, but he would insist on licking me clean and sucking all of his sperm out of me. And it was just just nothing
I had ever. It was so degrading, so degrading, and he wanted.
To construct a dungeon, and he had wanted to act like a dog sickening requests you say. And one time, what's even more, you know, more horrifying, is that there's a man at the door. Paul answers and lets him in. What was your experience and that day and what did you again conclude from you.
Know, that was the one of us. Well, I can't say the strangest thing is up there with a lot of the other strange things. But it was we were all sitting at home. It was dark outside because I think it was winter. Paul was me and my daughter and his daughter were sitting in the living room. I think we had the TV on and he was playing his guitar and the doorbell rang and all three of us kind of jumped up to get the door and he said, oh wait, wait, no, I'll get it. I'll
get it, okay, Fine. He walked to the door, opened the door, and a man walked in, a man that I had never seen, my children had never seen, and we were all just looking at the sky. And Paul went back and sat back on the stool in the kitchen and continued to play his guitar while this man is standing in our living room and nobody's saying anything. Nobody said anything, and we're just all looking at each other. We're all looking at Paul, like, what are you going
to do about this? And who is this guy? And why is he here? Still to this day, I don't understand, and I don't I mean, I think I think I kind of I think I think that he obviously knew who that was. And I don't know if something was supposed to happen. I don't know if it was some kind of dare truly, I don't know. I mean, the guy just turned around and walk back out. That was it. But it was the weirdest thing ever, right, and you're talking. When the man left, we all said who was that
and what's happening? And it just brushed it off like you did everything else. Oh, don't worry about it. Nothing. Oh yes, it was something, but you didn't. You didn't question him. Ever, you didn't push him too far, because that was not a good thing.
You talked, you write about in the book about the increasing sexual demands for this his fetishes and this humiliating sex that he wanted you to participate in with him. But when you talked about rape, a lot of people think, well, how can that happen between adults? Maybe somebody doesn't want to have sex. We're talking about forcible, we're talking about we're talking about injuries as a result of anal sex.
And these are the kinds of and i'd say demands, this is rape, This is anal rape, And these are the kinds of things that are happening in your relationship. At some point, one of those attacks, one of those rapes, you said to yourself, that was enough, Yes, tell us as you write, it was just about two days after the last violent attack. Who is at home? Set the stage for us what happens that night.
This was, you know, nine years into our marriage, years after we had been living back at home, and it was just constant. I don't even know how I was survived. I don't even know how I was carrying on every day. It was just and I just I was having just trouble. And my kids were older, they were kind of out of the house, and it was just he and I. A lot of the time. I was having trouble just being around him. His near presence was frightening to me.
I lived in so much fear because I never knew what he was going to want, or what he was going to demand, or how he was going to act. When he came home, he raped me violently for the last time, and a couple of days later, all I could do was think, I have to get out of here. I have to get out of this relationship. He's going to kill me. He threatened to kill me. More than once, and I knew that he was capable of it. I
had no doubt about that. I knew, like I know my own name, that he was going to kill me. And I just decided, I don't ever want him to touch me again. I don't ever want him to put his hands on me again. I don't ever want him to talk at me again. And you know, I knew that. I really felt the only way to get away from him was actually to kill him.
How quick was this plan hatched in your mind? Your son is home, he's upstairs, is he's sleeping, he's at home. So yeah, described how this fire that became from the last attack. You see? You know the guns in the home. You know it's loaded. He's instructed you many times. All you need is to do is point and shoot. You know the safety's off. You know you can't take any more? Tell us about this?
Yeah, you know, I I because after he raped me the last time, it was over those two days before the incident, I couldn't even lay in bed by him. I felt like this evil like his evilness, just his his presence and his and his aura was would like push me out of the bed, like and I can't really explain it, but something in me switched. There was a switch that went off like a fire was burning. And I got up out of that bed. And I had been thinking about it for a couple of days.
You know, I've got to get away from this man. I can't. I can't do this anymore. I can't, I can't live like this anymore. And of course that's not a normal decision that you make to actually think to kill someone, but when you're a victim of domestic violence and broken down and had left him before, there is no other way out in my mind. So I got up and I sat on the couch for about twenty minutes, and I thought, I'm going to kill him, And that's exactly what I did.
Do you remember taking the gun, going into the room pointing, or how much do you remember? Yeah, tell us what you remember.
Oh, I remember all of it. I got up off of the couch. All of the lights were off in the house. Of course, I didn't want him to know that I was even out of the bed, if he would wonder where I was and what I was doing, so I didn't turn any lights on. I went out to the garage where his car was parked, it was August, so his windows were rolled down, and his gun, I knew at that point was in the door of his driver's side. So I went out to the garage. The
windows were rolled down in the car. I reached in and grabbed the gun and took it out of the holster, and I threw the holster on the seat, And when I had come out from the house into the garage, I had left the door opened a little bit. I mean it was very, very intentional. I mean it was very I knew exactly what I was doing, and I knew why I was doing it. So I took the gun out of the holster and I walked quietly back into the house, didn't turn any lights on, like tiptoeing
and holding myself against the wall. Because at the time I picked up the gun, I thought, if he sees me with this gun, he's going to kill me. For sure. I mean, I'm dead, but something there was a fire in me. I knew that I had to save my own life. I just knew it, and it was very purposeful. It was very intentional. I went down the hallway, went into the master bedroom. There was a door that went into our room, and I never turned any life on.
I went into the room with the gun leaned kind of up against the dresser, and he was laying on the bed right in front of me, and I fired three shots.
Lucky Land Casino, asking people, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Lucky?
In line at the deli, I guess a hide my dentist's office more than once.
Actually, do you?
I have to say, yes, you do in the car before my kid's pta meeting.
Really?
Yes, excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
I never went in town?
Well, there you have it. You could get like anywhere playing at Lucky landslaughs. Dot com play for free right now?
Are you feeling lucky?
We're not necessary my long eighteen plus terms conditions plus what every togashim?
Didn't you know?
Why him? Yes? Did you want to ensure that he was asleep to ensure that you would be able to kill him? Were you that afraid of him? Was it necessary?
Absolutely? I yes, And I know that sounds awful. It is awful. It's horrible. But when you're I mean, I think about it now. I've never been in trouble in my life for me to think back to that moment in time where I was so broken down and so wrecked and needed an escape so badly that I thought killing my own husband was the only way to accomplish that. That's unbelievable to me, but that's where my mindset was.
I could not get away from that man, and he would not stop hurting me, he would not stop abusing me, and I knew he was going to kill me, so I and I'm sure, I'm certain he never in a million years ever thought that I would use that gun on him. There's no way he thought that. And I don't even know how I had the strength to do that, other than God gave me the strength because I had to save my own life.
Didn't think of your son upstairs, But he was asleep, and he didn't hear you write that. He didn't hear the shots fired, but he heard you shout for him right after. What did you say to him? Yeah? Because and then what did you and what did you do afterwards?
Because obviously I knew that my son was upstairs sleeping. He had it was summertime, it was August, he had he was getting ready to go back to and he was staying at our house and I and when I sat on the couch and went through with all of that, I didn't I wasn't thinking about him. I was thinking about saving my own life, and of course I wish
I would have thought about that more. But as soon as I fired the third shot, I left the bedroom, went out into the kitchen, turned the kitchen light on, put the gun on the counter, and I went to the bottom of the stairs. We had a two story house and the stairs were all open, and I screamed up the stairs. I screamed my son's name, and I said, come down here now. I said, I killed him. He's dead, and I was so mad, of fact, it was just it's just I wasn't crying. I was just very this
is what I just did. And of course he was horrified. I will never forget him coming down the stairs in his shorts and running like what are you talking about?
Mom?
What's happening? And I said, I just killed him. I just shot him. He's I think I'm pretty sure he's dead. And he's just looking at me like what are you talking about? And I said, you need to call nine one one. He was speechless, he didn't know what to say, so I said no, no, no, he said, I'm not. He said, do you think he's really dead? You shot him? I said, I'm pretty sure he's dead. Well go check on him. I said, I'm not going to go check
on him. I said you could go check on him and I and I think I'm I'm He went in and turned on the light and came back out and said, oh my god, mom, I think he's dead. And I said, I'll call nine one one. I mean, he was beside himself, out of a deep sleep and he's hearing this. Of course, I don't really want to talk about that anymore because it was so Horrible's what I called nine one one
very calm. In fact, one of my very good friends that I've known for a long time and work with at the courthouse actually heard the nine one one tape and said that I sounded like I was ordering a pizza. I was just so, okay, this is Jony, this is what just happened. I just shot my husband. I need help. Not that I need help, but this is what I just did. Basically come and get me, which I which I knew was going to happen, but I was that was okay with me. I was I was resolute in
the fact that killed him. He was dead and I was free. I was I knew I was going to prison, probably for the rest of my life, but somehow that was okay with me because I was alive.
Yeah, you right that the officer arriving asked why did you kill him? Or at least when you were booked, why did you kill him? And you said he was an asshole and treated me badly.
You know, he's a controlling some of a bit. That's why.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean I couldn't even I couldn't.
Now your your connections in the with the law in that in that city, and your your job with attorneys for over twenty eight years working in the judicial system. Tell us about the attorney that you did get and did you know this person and the other people that assisted you in your defense?
Well, you know, so many blessings started happening that night, I believe. I of course I knew a lot of attorneys, but I was stated. I knew that I was going to be arranged probably the next day. That's how felonies work, didn't I just I mean, I hadn't thought too much about that process. I figured that I was going to stand before the judge at my arraignment and asked for a quarter, A pointed attorney. I didn't hadn't called anybody.
I didn't know who to call. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I was going to be arraigned, and I for some reason, that was just the process that I was resolute, and I knew that that was going to happen, and I knew how it was going to happen because I was familiar with it, and I was just ready for that. And then a couple hours before my arraignment, one of the one of the Sheriff's corrections officers, came in and got me and said, come with me or attorneys here, and I said, my attorney, don't.
I don't have an attorney, and he said you need to come with me. And I walked into this conference room the library, and there was this man standing there and he put his hand out to shake mine and
he introduced himself as HI. I'm Jesse Williams. And I had never met Jeff, but I had talked to him on the phone when I worked for an attorney, because he had called that office to speak with someone that worked there and It was funny because when I talked to him only that one time while he was working and I was working, it was a really friendly conversation. He was a really nice guy, and you know, he was the person he needed to speak with, wasn't there.
So we talked and he said, you know, I really need a secretary. I run an attorney for a few years and I can't seem to find anybody to work for me. He said, do you want to come and work for me? And I said, no, I have a job. But I knew someone that was a really good secretary and needed a job, so I gave him her name.
And so when I walked into the conference room that morning and he put out his hand and told me who he was, I said, oh my gosh, Jesse, what are you doing here because my good friend worked for him. And he said, oh my gosh, Sam. He told me what happened. She's been crying all morning. He said, I'm here to represent you. I said what. I was shocked. I was in the course because I had worked in the law. I was like, do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into? I mean, this is this
is a murder case. You can't be serious, And he said, I want to do this in the interest of justice. It's just just just work with me here, let's do the arrangement. I'll enter my appearance on the record and we'll go from there. I mean, it was it was just amazing. I mean, I didn't even realize then how amazing it was. Of course, so he stood with me at my arrangement, put his appearance on the record, and stuck with me the whole time.
M hm. You had another person. He's eighty five years old, but his name is Dean rob renowned civil rights hero and fighter for equality. He had so he had represented others with their husbands as well. So experienced attorney also joined Jesse Williams and another person named Mike Schwager who had helped on Paul Probate case. Now at the same time, for our audience, there is no battered women's syndrome defense in Michigan allowed. So you're looking at a charge of
you're looking at a charge of open murder. So the possibility of spending your significant part of your life, if not your entire life in prison as a possibility, what do these lawyers want to do? Your trial is in twenty ten. They got some psychological testing for you. And so her name is Barbara Jones Smith into aid in your defense. So tell us what they're looking to do and what they're able to do and your experience with Barbara Jones Smith and her diagnosis.
Oh, Barbara Jones Smith, she's a forensic psychologist, actually the nicest woman. She also saw me for three months straight, a couple of times a week pro bono. I mean, these are these attorneys that represented me. I got sentenced a year to the day of the incident, so I killed him on August in two thousand and nine. I got sentenced on August tenth of twenty ten for a whole year. Dean Rob Jesse Williams. I mean, they spent hundreds of hours with me. Barbara Jones Smith did her
forensic psychologist work and was just so nice. It's just amazing the whole thing.
You know.
They really helped me to start talking about all of my trauma, was buried so deep, getting it all out and so do you want me to talk about the plea then yeah, and just.
Talk about what developed in this You were looking at this incredible sentence and then these people, these judicial angels came to your aid. You had the proper testing in terms of you know, being diagnosed for this and the proper representation of what happens with this, looking at life sentence. What were they able to do and how were they able.
To Yeah, we were getting ready for trial. And of course, like you said, the battered women's defense is not they don't. You can't use it in Michigan. You can use it in other states. And Dean rob had gotten a woman who killed her husband, took her to trial and got her acquitted of murder, first degree murder. So that's why he was so interested in taking on my case because he said when he saw me on the news, he told his wife right away that woman spent a beused.
So we were preparing for trial. It was really hard, you know. Jesse was questioning me like a prosecutor would, and.
It was.
All starting to come out, and I just couldn't. I couldn't even handle it. And I said something to Jesse about just get me a plea, Just get me a plea. You know, I don't care what it is. I can't go through this because when you're charged with open murder like I was, and you get convicted of that. It's not just like but mandatory life. I remember vividly, and I knew it was mandatory life, but I remember so clearly.
One day Jesse and I were speaking about that. He said mandatory life, and when he said that word mandatory, it stuck out to me like a blinking light, and I realized, mandatory means that's it. I mean, that's what you get, period, there's no questioning. So I mentioned something about a plea, and he came to me the next day and with a really good offer and said, we've talked to the prosecutor. We're not going to go forth with a trial if you want to take this plea.
It was.
A plea to second degree murder under the agreement that I would get really no more than a manslaughter sentence, which is a high end of no more than fifteen years in prison. And of course I was.
I knew I had to take that deal because I knew that if I pled guilty to second second degree murder, even if I spent fifteen years in prison, that was much better than rolling the dice and going to trial and getting convicted of open murder and going to prison for the rest of my life.
So I thought that was a great deal. So that's what happened actually.
And you knew, you knew going in that you were likely going to do around six years.
Yes, my sentence when we did the plea deal, the agreement was I would get no more than fifteen years, but it was actually up to the judge what the actual sentence would be, what the low term would be, and nobody really knew that, so I didn't know. I actually got six six to fifteen years. The judge decided on at least six years, but no more than fifteen. So I did that. At the six year mark, I went to the pro board.
That's right. Still think at the parole, wasn't yeah, as a minimum before the parole. Now, in terms of your family, you do write about that. Part of the testimony or part of the trial or part of the proceedings were that they heard from Paul's first wife who was star and this woman had tried to kill Paul one night as well. So and he had multiple fairs, so some of his behavior. But the thing is, what was your health supportive was your family and obviously his family was
not very supportive of you. But tell us about that support and your time in prison, and then the impetus of this book Memoir from Prison.
Well, my family was so of course, it was extremely hard. Nobody could actually believe that this had happened. But at the sentencing hearing, the sentencing was almost four hours long, which is really unusual, and there was a witness testimony allowed. At the sentencing hearing, the judge allowed that one whole side of the courtroom was full of my family and friends.
I mean they had to put chairs in the middle of the courtroom for more people to sit because there was only a couple people sitting on the prosecutor's side, a couple of his family members and no one else. I had support, so much support through the whole thing, monetarily through prison cards, letters, mail, phone calls, visit. I couldn't have asked for anymore. Like I said earlier, the blessings that came out of this are just astronomical and they're still happening.
You didn't dwell on your time in prison, and there certainly isn't any of your hardships in there or the struggles in there. And you fast and you fast forward in this book to the idea and your a different perspective on the entire relationship and the trial, the ensuing trial, and then your time in prison. I guess adjusting obviously to something that's totally foreign and treatment in there as well. But the impetus for this book tell us about that.
Is it's I want to be a voice. I want everybody to know what domestic violence is really like, what the intricacies of both sides of the abuser and the victim. I want to be a loud voice with the truth of what really happens. And I'm just so sick of it being swept under the rug and nobody wants to talk about it, and it's just the most horrific thing.
And I can guarantee you that everyone who works in a bigger office or a bigger corporation that work with several coworkers, there are people, men and women that you work with that have a horrible, horrible life at home that they would they will never talk about because victims don't talk about what's happening to them. They don't want it out there, they don't want to tell on their abusers, they don't want to say it out loud. I want to get the truth out. I want everybody to know.
This is no joke. This happens more than you could ever imagine. You would be shocked at the people you know that are probably abused in living a miserable life, and they go to work every day and dress up and put their makeup on and smile and act like they always act. Their life is hell. So I believe that this story is so important it just needs to be told. They need to We've talked about it, and I'm not I've become so strong through all this. I
don't lie. You can ask me anything you want to ask me, but the answer you might not like because it's going to be the truth and it's not going to be very nice. But that's I don't sure. I don't sugarcoat anything anymore. And being in prison, of course, I stick up for myself all the time. Now I learned the word no. It's just two little letters, and it's easy to say now, and I can say no. I'm not even explain myself. You should understand that word.
I'm very bold and very blatant and very very different.
Now, yes, certainly, and you are courageous, and you've done an admirable job and really explaining the dissent. This is not a This doesn't happen overnight, so how does it happen? This book chronicles your true life, true crime operience and how it seems inconspicuous. It's that some of the things that happened seem again, Lynn, looking back, it seems pretty evident. There should have been some flags. But it happens so slow,
and he is so persuasive. So it is very it's a cautionary tale and it's a very very exciting book talking about your journey and from prison you've certainly thrived and this book is testament to that. And I want to congratulate you on this book. Thank you so much for this interview. Tonight to Kill or Be Killed? A true crime memoir from prison now Joony. For those that might not know, this is a Wild Boo press release.
Is there a Facebook page for this book and how could they find out more about this book?
Yeah? I have a Facebook page. It's my name, Joni Ankerson, the author Facebook page. The book is available on Amazon and it's actually already a number one best seller in five or six categories on Amazon law enforcement, sexual violence, some other things. They can get it on Amazon. They can get it on the Wild Blue Press website, but my Facebook page is Johnny Ankerson author.
That's great, Thank you so much. Well great, we'll have to have you on discussing that and we'll be looking forward to that. Thank you so much. To Kill or Be Killed, a true crime memoir from prison, Johnny Ankerson. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Joony, have a great night.
Thank you so much, bye bye, good night.