Teen Killers: Life without Parole


Teen Killers: Life without Parole

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This programme contains some strong language

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and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing from the start

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I just killed Cassie! This is not a fucking joke. I stabbed her in the throat.

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-Dude, I just killed Cassie.

-Oh, my God.

-Oh, fuck!

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I mean, it went by so fast.

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-Shut the fuck up, we've got to get our act straight.

-OK.

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High school is a very hard time.

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I had no idea who I was.

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I had no idea where I fit in among my peers

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and I thought that I was

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a nobody at my high school.

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And I wanted to be known and so...

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I tried all these different identities.

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And I couldn't, you know, find an identity that I could...

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not be pushed out of, I guess.

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So I got into Columbine.

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'We saw these two kids. They were white and they...'

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'Bombs are reported to have gone off.'

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'Upwards of a dozen people were injured...'

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Columbine kind of created a subculture

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for disenfranchised, you know, kids,

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who don't fit in anywhere.

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I saw, at the time, they transcended their high school.

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For the hour that they did what they did,

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they were in the spotlight.

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And that's what I wanted.

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I wanted to be in the spotlight.

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Actually, I was really actually going to do it.

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INDISTINCT SPEECH

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Hey, look, it's Cassie.

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-Hey, look, I don't...

-Hello, Cassie.

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How are you today?

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I'm getting you on tape, OK?

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Say hi, please.

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-Hi.

-OK, see you.

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When I first met Cassie Stoddart,

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I think the first memory I have of her

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is we were joking around in class

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and she was smiling.

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And that's the image I have in my mind, now.

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I can't get that out of my mind.

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And...

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Man, it's hard to talk about. I...

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But in the beginning,

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she was just a nice person and she...

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..you know...

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Sorry.

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I was attracted to her

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and I thought she was a special person.

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But she started going out with this other kid I knew in high school

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and it kind of struck me hard.

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And I was like, "OK, so I am a loser."

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Wait!

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-Have you seen Torey?

-Nu-uh.

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He's supposed to meet me here at 7:30 and it's 8:19.

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He's an hour late.

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You don't even care, do you?

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-Not really.

-LAUGHING: OK!

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'I met Torey Adamcik in sophomore year.

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'He started talking about the movie Scream,

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'how it'd be cool to actually

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'do a Scream-type crime.'

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And I was like, "Oh, OK." He was like,

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"Have you ever, you know, thought about that?"

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"Not really.

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"I mean, I've thought about other things like, you know,

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"Columbine."

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And he really wasn't into that.

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And I was like,

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"Well, I could either be alone

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"or I could join his plan

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"and be with him and, you know,

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"not be alone."

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Torey got here and it was about eight months

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where we would come up every three weeks.

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And we'd leave right after work on Friday,

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drive up all night, come stay in the hotel.

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We wouldn't miss a visit for anything.

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Torey's a good kid and we enjoy the visits.

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We have a good time

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and Torey is the same person he was before he went in.

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My mom still treats me like a mom

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and she tells me to brush my teeth

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as she's leaving the visiting!

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And...

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..tells me to go to bed early or whatever.

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Just the typical stuff.

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But I don't know, I think they're just worried about me.

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You're just a really good kid.

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Torey's a good kid.

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And Torey is just a kind, kind, kind person.

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And we're still a family.

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He's still every bit as much a part of our family as before.

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I remember the first article I read about my case.

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Jeez, I mean, they made me sound like this brutal,

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cold, psychopathic killer.

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They were talking about Brian.

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They were making you just like Brian.

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-They put us, like, as the same person.

-They lumped them together.

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I only hung out with him for six weeks before this happened.

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I think it's crazy how...

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the...last week of me being on the street, being free...

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really has affected the rest of my life.

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If you were to watch that video and nothing had happened,

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it would literally be a joke.

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I don't know if it was my...

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It was probably my fault and I should've seen it, but I just...

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He did not seem capable of something like this.

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And...he completely caught me off guard.

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I was just in...

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I don't know, I just couldn't believe it.

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There should be no law against killing people.

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I know it's a wrong thing, but...

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Hell, you restrict somebody from it, they're going to want it more.

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We've found our victim and sad as it may be, she's our friend.

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But you know what, we all have to make sacrifices.

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Our first victim is going to be Cassie.

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She's going to be alone in a big, dark house

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out in the middle of nowhere.

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How perfect can you get? I mean, like, holy shit, dude.

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-I'm horny just thinking about it.

-Hell, yeah!

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I don't know if either of us would've done it if we were alone.

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We fed off each other, I guess.

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It was a formula for disaster in the end, you know.

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The time is 9:50.

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September 22nd, 2006.

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We know there's lots of doors. There's lots of places to hide.

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I unlocked the back door, so that's all unlocked.

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Now we've just got to wait.

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I was actually the individual who snuck downstairs

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and unlocked the basement door. And...

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Huh! It's that one...choice,

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where I was just kind of going along with it.

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I really didn't stop and say, "Why am I doing this?"

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I just did it. And...

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That one thing that I did, er...

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you know, started this whole thing.

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And that's something that is hard to deal with. Um...

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Because all I had to do was just not do that

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and this may have never happened.

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Cassie was there alone and, er...we both had masks on.

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He walks up and he tells me, er...

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"You do something scary that's going to freak her out."

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And I'm, like, "OK." And so I grab a door and I open it and I slam it.

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And, er...

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Er...then...

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..then we just kind of go to the room and the crime happens.

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And we stab her.

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I really don't...

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have a lot of v...

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er...vivid, er...memories of the actual incident.

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Er...I have what they call a...

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..er...flashbulb images of that.

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She's...breathing hard and...

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and her eyes are open.

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And she's looking off someplace else.

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And, er...

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And then I...

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I remember...

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Er...so many, like...

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She wasn't screaming, but in my head, I can hear that.

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I know she screamed before it happened to her. And, er...

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But in my memories I have,

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she's...screaming.

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When it did happen,

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I was just too shocked to do anything

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and I just ran from it and hid from it.

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And I made a lot of mistakes.

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But...

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They were...

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I don't know. I just think... I look at myself now and I'm 21

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and I think how stupid I was at 16. And I just think...

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..how I feel like

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I'm paying for somebody else's mistakes at this point.

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PLAYERS CALL TO EACH OTHER

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When I was 13 years old,

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I had a friend who was over.

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He was hanging out in the house and my mom just went left on me.

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He said, "Man, your mom's really a bitch.

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"You should kill her."

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And I mean, I didn't really take it seriously

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but that's the first time the thought was planted in my head.

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I started escaping into that daydream.

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When things got really bad, I could say,

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"Oh, yeah, one day they're going to be gone."

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'In the early morning hours of December 17,

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'15-year-old Jacob Ind slaughtered his mother and stepfather

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'in their Woodland Park home with the help of a friend.'

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'Jacob Ind reportedly tried to block out the screaming.'

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'His appearance is that of a studious prep school student.

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'But they say Jacob Ind was cold and cruel,

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'that he recruited schoolmate Gabriel Adams to do the job.'

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The kid was Looney Tunes.

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And I just knew he would help,

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so I asked for his help.

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I just didn't want anything directly to do with it.

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I just wanted the problem solved, things to be gone.

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I didn't want to see it, I didn't want to hear it,

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I wanted nothing to do with it.

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I just wanted them gone and that's what I thought would happen.

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I was sleeping when I heard the gunshots go off.

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The .22 that I gave to Gabriel...

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..really didn't have enough of a punch

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to get the job done.

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I went down the hall and saw the...

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..their door was open to their bedroom.

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It was like one o'clock in the morning. And...

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I saw my stepdad, he was bleeding

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and he said he'd been shot.

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So I went back to my room and I got some pepper spray

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and I came back and I sprayed 'em with the pepper spray,

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my mom and stepdad.

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And I went into their bathroom and closed the door.

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And I figured,

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"OK, maybe this can end.

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"Maybe this can be over by now."

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And it kept going and going and going.

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I couldn't see anything but I heard that there was still ruckus.

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I just wanted it to be over.

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And so eventually... The .357 was in the closet,

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in the bathroom,

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and I grabbed that.

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I loaded it with one bullet and I opened up the door

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and I saw my stepdad there, slumped kind of against the wall,

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and I shot him in the head.

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And he fell over.

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I turned around and went back, put another bullet

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and my mom was there.

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I shot at her

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and I missed her.

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And...

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So I turned around, went back, put in another bullet and...

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..went to shoot her again.

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And she asked me why,

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cos at that point it dawned on her what was going on.

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And I told her cos she was cruel

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and I shot her and she fell over.

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I was just so...

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..I guess disturbed by what I saw.

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I grabbed my alarm clock,

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went to the downstairs couch...

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..and I just laid there.

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And I couldn't think and I said,

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"Man, I fucked up.

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"I fucked up so bad."

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Brian didn't want us to know how much pain he was in.

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He kept that very, very separate

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from our life with him

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and the family's life with him.

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He just didn't want us to know how much pain he was in.

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That's the thing that kept us up at night the most,

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for the longest amount of time, was trying to find...

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trying to remember something that we missed.

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We adopted Brian at birth.

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When I think about our relationship

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and how strong of a relationship we had with Brian and how...

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..good of a relationship we had with Brian, it...

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If you...

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If you walked into our house back then...

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..we were normal.

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And why we didn't recognise

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that we had such a problem...

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..is horrific

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and something we still cannot bear.

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(I'm sorry.)

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PHONE DIALS

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RINGING

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-Hello?

-Hello, this call is subject to monitoring and recording.

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'On November 6th 2002, Stacey and Gary Alflen were shot to death

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'in what many say was the couple's dream home.

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'In opening statements,

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'prosecutors painted the killers as cold-blooded who "kill for fun,"

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'maintaining that Josiah Ivy acted as the gunman.'

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My brother is going to be 26 years old this year

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and he will have spent ten years, a decade, in prison.

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And it's a commitment to stay in somebody's life

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with that circumstance.

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The majority of families forget about them.

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My parents visit him every week, too.

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He's chosen to forgive

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and he's so very grateful of my parents' relationship

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and willingness to commit to visiting him,

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to being interactive in his life.

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And they have a great working relationship.

0:20:220:20:25

What do you mean they have a great working relationship?

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What I mean by a great working relationship

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is that he's not embittered

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by anything that happened in our childhood.

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You know, my parents spanked us when we were kids.

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I don't know if these days that's considered abuse or not.

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I didn't really look at it like that. But...

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OK.

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OK, so maybe, yeah,

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I guess there's some stuff I really don't want to talk about.

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At least not on camera, you know?

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But...

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I don't ever talk about it.

0:21:460:21:47

No.

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As far as our childhood, it was...

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..my parents regret a lot of it

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and I think they would do things very differently now.

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But you can't go back in the past.

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And Josiah has forgiven my parents.

0:22:160:22:18

I know you used the word but did you guys grow up in a cult?

0:22:200:22:23

Yeah. When we were younger,

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we definitely grew up in, like, a religious cult.

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I will tell you, I don't think...

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Like, I don't...

0:22:470:22:48

..like remembering our old home.

0:22:500:22:52

And at the end there,

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you know,

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right before Josiah was going to be sent away...

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..you know, you walk in every room

0:23:050:23:08

and you have memories of things...

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..that you'd rather not have.

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Do you feel like I'm still being closed?

0:23:320:23:34

I think you're being as open as you're capable of being.

0:23:370:23:39

On the abuse stuff, yeah.

0:23:450:23:46

AMBER:

0:23:500:23:52

Just...

0:24:050:24:06

How old were you when your stepfather molested you?

0:24:510:24:54

Four.

0:24:540:24:55

-Four...

-Do you remember it?

-..five, six...

0:24:550:24:58

A little bit of it.

0:24:580:24:59

I mean, it's still something very easy to run away from

0:24:590:25:03

and not address and not confront.

0:25:030:25:06

The brain is a beautiful mechanism

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in keeping stuff like that shut out.

0:25:100:25:13

How long did it go on for?

0:25:140:25:16

And did your mom know about it?

0:25:160:25:17

Did you ever tell anybody?

0:25:190:25:20

No, God, no. I never told anybody about it.

0:25:200:25:23

Can I ask what they did to you?

0:25:230:25:25

It's not really something I like talking about, at all.

0:25:250:25:29

He would have us get undressed...

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..then tie us,

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start to masturbate...

0:25:410:25:43

And after he was done,

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he would get dressed...

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..and say, "You're so BLEEPing dirty.

0:25:520:25:55

"Go and take a BLEEPing shower."

0:25:550:25:57

How do you treat a kid like a piece of shit?

0:26:010:26:03

You know, how do you do that to him?

0:26:030:26:05

I can't wrap my brain around that.

0:26:050:26:07

I mean...just the cruelty of it.

0:26:070:26:10

My mom used to give me enemas,

0:26:150:26:16

from when I was like four or five years old and stuff,

0:26:160:26:19

for reasons that didn't make any sense, you know?

0:26:190:26:22

To me, you think back and it's like, "Well, that's odd."

0:26:230:26:27

My stepdad was the source of terror.

0:26:290:26:33

He'd slam me up against the wall and tell me he'd crush my head in.

0:26:330:26:37

But that was more tolerable really,

0:26:370:26:40

to me,

0:26:400:26:42

than the cruelty and coldness of my mom.

0:26:420:26:45

That...

0:26:460:26:47

..filled me with more despair than anything else.

0:26:490:26:51

I could put up with getting beat up, that's nothing.

0:26:510:26:54

It hurts a little while and then it goes away.

0:26:540:26:57

But being berated for three hours at a time, four hours at a time,

0:26:570:27:02

being told how you're worthless, how you deserved what you got.

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When I was a little kid,

0:27:050:27:08

and this is when I was getting molested

0:27:080:27:11

and probably the worst abuse...

0:27:110:27:14

..my mom told me never to tell the cops anything

0:27:150:27:19

cos if I ever called the cops,

0:27:190:27:21

they would come and give THEM a medal

0:27:210:27:25

because I was such a horrible, rotten kid

0:27:250:27:28

who deserved what they gave me.

0:27:280:27:30

And that stuck with me.

0:27:320:27:34

I spoke up as much as I could...

0:27:350:27:39

..with as weak as I was at the time,

0:27:400:27:43

I thought I was screaming from the mountaintop.

0:27:430:27:45

You know, objectively I was making tiny whimpers.

0:27:470:27:51

But I raised every red flag I could

0:27:510:27:54

and no-one paid attention.

0:27:540:27:56

I don't know, it put me in a very deep, dark place

0:27:580:28:03

where I didn't see an option.

0:28:030:28:05

I joined the Bloods at around the age of 14.

0:28:440:28:47

And as a Blood, you know,

0:28:480:28:50

it didn't really mean much of anything except selling crack...

0:28:500:28:54

..getting into some fights here and there with the Crips.

0:28:550:28:59

But eventually,

0:28:590:29:01

it became more serious.

0:29:010:29:03

As they started shooting at us more,

0:29:030:29:06

we started shooting at them more often.

0:29:060:29:09

And the first time that I ever shot a gun...

0:29:090:29:13

..I killed someone...

0:29:140:29:17

..a young man who was just walking home from work.

0:29:230:29:26

We said to that man that day, he was walking down the street

0:29:300:29:32

and we said, "Hey, what's up, Blood?"

0:29:320:29:34

He said, "I don't gang bang."

0:29:340:29:36

One of the people I was with jumped out of the car and said,

0:29:390:29:42

"I didn't ask you if you gang bang. I said, 'What's up, Blood?'"

0:29:420:29:45

And that young man took off running.

0:29:450:29:47

You know, we laughed. "Oh, look at him. He's running!"

0:29:490:29:52

That man got back in the car, we circled round,

0:29:550:29:58

we were going home. We were about to go home.

0:29:580:30:00

We weren't even thinking about this guy any more.

0:30:000:30:03

But then we saw him running to a house.

0:30:040:30:06

And when he got to that house, he knocked on that door

0:30:090:30:13

and three Crips

0:30:130:30:16

came out of that house.

0:30:160:30:17

And that's how the whole incident started.

0:30:210:30:24

That's when I made the decision,

0:30:260:30:28

"I'm going to, you know,

0:30:280:30:30

"shoot a gun at these guys' house, to scare them."

0:30:300:30:33

TOREY'S MOTHER: He was just a kid.

0:30:580:30:59

I mean, at 16 years old he was very easily influenced by his friends.

0:30:590:31:04

Torey's much more of a follower than a leader.

0:31:040:31:07

-I mean...

-Yeah, who I was at that point

0:31:070:31:10

and who I am now,

0:31:100:31:12

it's like totally different people.

0:31:120:31:14

But who Torey was at that age, at 16, he still didn't commit this crime.

0:31:140:31:18

-I mean...

-He's not saying that. He's not saying that.

0:31:180:31:21

-I'm saying...

-He has changed.

0:31:210:31:22

I've made some mistakes and I learned from them.

0:31:220:31:24

But your mistakes weren't anything you were charged with.

0:31:240:31:28

-They weren't the murder and the conspiracy.

-Yeah.

0:31:280:31:32

That was Brian.

0:31:320:31:33

It must be harder because you're innocent,

0:31:350:31:37

to be facing it.

0:31:370:31:39

Yeah, I guess.

0:31:410:31:42

It's not unusual that he...

0:31:460:31:49

you know, had that response

0:31:490:31:52

and his parents having that response.

0:31:520:31:56

I mean, it's a lot to deal with.

0:31:560:31:58

I mean, you have to accept the societal brand

0:31:580:32:05

that you are a convicted murderer.

0:32:050:32:08

And that is a very scary term

0:32:080:32:13

to have affixed to your name.

0:32:130:32:17

And that's...so it's really hard.

0:32:170:32:21

He wants to please his parents.

0:32:210:32:26

He wants to go home.

0:32:260:32:28

And his, kind of, behaviour is really common

0:32:290:32:33

and it's ordinary, I think.

0:32:330:32:35

Um...

0:32:350:32:37

I think what makes somebody

0:32:370:32:40

extraordinary

0:32:400:32:42

is when they face everything

0:32:420:32:46

and just kind of...

0:32:460:32:48

..accept it.

0:32:490:32:51

It's a hard thing to admit, you know?

0:32:510:32:53

I killed Cassie Stoddart.

0:32:530:32:56

I stabbed a 16-year-old girl to death.

0:32:560:32:59

That's pretty hard to say.

0:32:590:33:01

Life never gets so serious

0:33:080:33:10

until something like that happens, you know?

0:33:100:33:14

You know, I was a 17-year-old kid, I didn't take anything serious.

0:33:140:33:18

I hardly ever went to school.

0:33:180:33:20

I was always skipping class,

0:33:200:33:22

smoking weed, getting drunk.

0:33:220:33:25

That's all I ever did, you know?

0:33:260:33:28

Sell drugs.

0:33:280:33:30

I mean, life wasn't serious. Nothing was serious...

0:33:300:33:32

..until I took someone's life.

0:33:340:33:36

I mean, man, I wanted to get out of the gang right then and there.

0:33:390:33:42

You know?

0:33:420:33:43

BRIAN: When I first got here,

0:33:490:33:51

I tried to blame others.

0:33:510:33:54

And I met this individual in here

0:33:580:34:00

and he asked me what happened, my crime.

0:34:000:34:03

And I told him,

0:34:030:34:04

"Oh, you know, I'm not exactly sure what happened.

0:34:040:34:08

"You know, they s...they said I killed her.

0:34:080:34:12

"I'm not even sure if I did or not."

0:34:120:34:13

And he sat me down and he was like...

0:34:130:34:15

"Stop giving me a whole bunch of bullshit, OK?

0:34:180:34:22

"If you want my help,

0:34:220:34:24

"you have to completely be honest with me."

0:34:240:34:28

And he taught me about how...

0:34:290:34:31

..I owe a tremendous debt to Cassie Stoddart

0:34:330:34:37

and the only way that I can even start paying that

0:34:370:34:43

is to first of all

0:34:430:34:46

tell exactly what happened to her.

0:34:460:34:48

And...

0:34:480:34:50

And do not dishonour her

0:34:500:34:54

in anything that you do in your life.

0:34:540:34:56

And I've, you know, I've tried that.

0:34:560:35:00

It's very hard.

0:35:000:35:01

It's very hard.

0:35:010:35:03

But I think that...

0:35:030:35:05

..that's all I can do.

0:35:070:35:08

And I have the obligation. I have to do that or I'm...

0:35:080:35:11

I'm...

0:35:110:35:13

..you know, a monster, I guess.

0:35:140:35:16

-SEAN:

-When I got to prison,

0:35:500:35:51

I still got myself involved

0:35:510:35:53

in certain situations that were gang-related.

0:35:530:35:57

Still, even then, I felt like

0:35:580:35:59

it was like clothes that didn't fit, you know?

0:35:590:36:02

It just wasn't me.

0:36:020:36:04

And it only took one incident in prison

0:36:040:36:06

for me to say, you know,

0:36:060:36:07

"I'm living the same ridiculous way I was living

0:36:070:36:12

"before I got locked up, man,

0:36:120:36:14

"and I've got to stop this."

0:36:140:36:15

A friend of mine got into a fight with a Crip.

0:36:170:36:20

I went to retaliate.

0:36:200:36:22

After it was over with, I just lined all my friends up in the gym

0:36:220:36:25

and I told them,

0:36:250:36:27

"I'm out."

0:36:270:36:28

I'd been studying Islam, anyway, you know.

0:36:290:36:32

And I told them that I'm going to...

0:36:330:36:35

I'm going to take this way of life called Islam.

0:36:350:36:40

I'm going to take it serious.

0:36:400:36:42

And in order to take it serious,

0:36:420:36:43

I can't live two lives

0:36:430:36:46

because Allah didn't make two hearts in one breast.

0:36:460:36:51

So I chose to, you know,

0:36:540:36:57

live the life of the Muslim

0:36:570:36:59

and I left the life of a Blood behind me.

0:36:590:37:02

When I first went to solitary confinement, I was 17.

0:37:290:37:33

I was stuck in a cell and I couldn't run away from who I was.

0:37:330:37:36

And solitary, that's where all the worst of the worst are,

0:37:380:37:43

which at the time I thought the greatest convicts,

0:37:430:37:46

the tough guys, the real guys are.

0:37:460:37:48

But eventually, I had to decide

0:37:480:37:51

whether I wanted to be like those around me

0:37:510:37:55

or if I wanted to be the type of man I idealised in my brain.

0:37:550:38:01

And then I started looking at myself more in-depth

0:38:020:38:06

and said,

0:38:060:38:07

"I don't want to be who I am right now either.

0:38:070:38:10

"I don't like who I am right now."

0:38:100:38:12

So I started going layer by layer through who I was,

0:38:120:38:16

through how I thought,

0:38:160:38:19

what my outlooks on life were,

0:38:190:38:22

characteristics.

0:38:220:38:23

And if I didn't like it, I'd work on it,

0:38:230:38:27

work on that one thing till I got rid of it,

0:38:270:38:30

move to the next item.

0:38:300:38:32

And as I learned new lessons from my studies,

0:38:330:38:38

I'd learn to apply it into my life.

0:38:380:38:41

Forgiveness is one of them,

0:38:430:38:45

being a more forgiving person.

0:38:450:38:47

Um...

0:38:480:38:49

To try to have empathy with others

0:38:510:38:53

and to empathise with where they're coming from

0:38:530:38:56

and from their situation,

0:38:560:38:58

rather than solely from my own, judging from my own experience,

0:38:580:39:03

which is definitely a radical change in thinking

0:39:030:39:06

for most people!

0:39:060:39:08

I mean, it really changed how I looked at the world

0:39:080:39:11

and how I viewed human interactions and dealt with people.

0:39:110:39:15

And I... To me, it's one of the most important lessons I've learned

0:39:150:39:18

so far in prison.

0:39:180:39:19

BRIAN: I want to have a chance at a life.

0:39:220:39:26

I understand that, you know, Cassie can't

0:39:260:39:29

and I...I never ignore that.

0:39:290:39:34

You know, she is dead

0:39:340:39:37

and not anything is going to change that.

0:39:370:39:39

You know, I did something terrible.

0:39:390:39:41

And, you know,

0:39:410:39:43

there has to be consequences for that.

0:39:430:39:48

You know, everything we do in life, there are always consequences.

0:39:480:39:51

Oh, man, my consequences hurt my dad, my grandma,

0:39:510:39:55

my aunts,

0:39:550:39:57

even my friends and neighbours at school.

0:39:570:39:59

I had no concept that what I was

0:40:010:40:04

doing was going to hurt so many people.

0:40:040:40:07

I was completely clueless about it.

0:40:070:40:10

And that's...it's hard for me

0:40:100:40:14

to build up much sympathy for my mom and step-dad.

0:40:140:40:20

Though, I did originally, right off the back.

0:40:200:40:23

But for all the innocent people that were hurt, like my brother

0:40:250:40:31

and like my family...

0:40:310:40:32

..it's almost unforgivable.

0:40:350:40:37

And it's a weight that I try to avoid, try to keep off my shoulders

0:40:370:40:43

for years and now that I've embraced it,

0:40:430:40:49

my driving factor is, I have to make it up to them.

0:40:490:40:53

They're the only thing in this world that I give a damn about any more.

0:40:530:40:57

And they're the reason I want to be the best person I can be

0:40:570:41:01

and make something of myself, as to make it up for them.

0:41:010:41:06

I don't know, I have a lot of ambitions.

0:41:060:41:09

I mean, if I were to get out...

0:41:090:41:13

I mean, I know exactly what I would do with my life

0:41:130:41:17

but being here that's all I have is just these...it feels like all

0:41:170:41:23

I have is just to sit here and rot

0:41:230:41:26

and there's no redeeming qualities, there's nothing I can do,

0:41:260:41:30

really, to alleviate any...

0:41:300:41:33

I don't know,

0:41:370:41:38

it's like just watching yourself decompose.

0:41:380:41:41

It's just horrible.

0:41:410:41:42

He's been in prison six years

0:41:460:41:50

and he's still on his first day,

0:41:500:41:54

you know.

0:41:540:41:55

He hasn't progressed at all and that is going to hurt him in the end.

0:41:550:42:00

You know, either psychologically,

0:42:000:42:05

if he has a conscience, or the courts.

0:42:050:42:09

They don't want to hear that you're completely innocent.

0:42:090:42:15

You know, he's not innocent.

0:42:150:42:18

He's not.

0:42:180:42:19

You know, I'm not innocent, I'm guilty and he's guilty

0:42:190:42:22

and that's where we all should start at.

0:42:220:42:27

20 years, I would say about 20 years after that incident,

0:42:350:42:40

I began to try to put a plan in motion to,

0:42:400:42:46

instead of feeling bad, feeling down,

0:42:460:42:48

feeling depressed about what

0:42:480:42:51

I did, to try to help people.

0:42:510:42:56

Starting with the people that I was around, you know.

0:42:560:42:59

I didn't have to reach out to the free world, there was

0:42:590:43:03

a bunch of gang bangers in prison.

0:43:030:43:06

You know, so I reached out to them.

0:43:060:43:08

Let them know, you know, hey, there is a better life to live for you.

0:43:080:43:14

There's a life that makes more sense.

0:43:140:43:17

I had a lot of good, positive mentors in prison

0:43:170:43:21

and they would always hand me a book, they would always say,

0:43:210:43:24

"What have you read today?"

0:43:240:43:26

"I haven't read anything today."

0:43:260:43:28

"Well, good, I have something for you here."

0:43:280:43:32

And I came up like that in prison, I grew up like that in prison.

0:43:320:43:35

I began to educate others

0:43:350:43:37

and I began to pass on those same things that those men taught me.

0:43:370:43:41

I started feeling like this is what I'm supposed to do.

0:43:410:43:44

And I wrote to Governor Ritter...

0:43:460:43:48

I didn't write to beg him to let me out of prison, I wrote him

0:43:520:43:57

and asked him, would it be OK with him

0:43:570:44:00

if I were put in a position where I could try to keep young

0:44:000:44:04

people from doing the same stupid thing that I did.

0:44:040:44:08

My last son was convicted of first degree murder

0:44:200:44:23

when he had just turned 17, brain just wasn't mature enough.

0:44:230:44:28

I thank God that I'm not judged permanently on how I acted

0:44:280:44:32

when I was 16.

0:44:320:44:33

We need to fairly assess mitigating

0:44:330:44:37

factors in some of these juvenile cases.

0:44:370:44:39

And we need to fairly assess who that person is today.

0:44:400:44:45

If I could say something?

0:44:450:44:46

All of this makes it sound as if we're making excuses.

0:44:460:44:50

A life was taken, we can not mitigate that

0:44:500:44:55

and we can not say, "Somehow, it's OK..."

0:44:550:44:58

Because whether this kid was 15 or they're 35, somebody was killed.

0:44:580:45:04

But I think we have to look beyond that

0:45:040:45:07

and that's where Sharletta comes in.

0:45:070:45:09

Sharletta Evans lost her three-year-old son, Casson,

0:45:090:45:12

to two juvenile lifers in a drive-by shooting,

0:45:120:45:16

let Sharletta tell her story.

0:45:160:45:18

Hello, thank you, Mary Ellen, erm, 17 years ago my three-year-old son,

0:45:210:45:29

Casson Evans, was killed in a drive-by shooting.

0:45:290:45:32

21 bullets were fired, one bullet into the back window,

0:45:320:45:36

entered into his temple, shattered his brain stem.

0:45:360:45:42

So, the paramedics showed up, right when they came into the house

0:45:420:45:46

where we were standing, erm, Casson took his last breath in my arms.

0:45:460:45:51

I was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow.

0:45:580:46:04

Not knowing what to feel, not knowing to sit down, stand up,

0:46:040:46:08

go to sleep or stay up.

0:46:080:46:10

You're just consumed with sorrow.

0:46:100:46:13

I knew they were teenagers but I wanted justice.

0:46:140:46:18

Years are going by, one of the shooters,

0:46:210:46:24

his mother came to me after 11 years and asked me

0:46:240:46:27

would I beg her pardon, would I pardon her son

0:46:270:46:31

and her for these deeds that they'd done and I'm like,

0:46:310:46:36

"Wow! Are you kidding?"

0:46:360:46:39

You know, "No!" And I just walked away.

0:46:390:46:42

I began to argue with God, I began to cry and argue with God,

0:46:440:46:48

like, what is wrong with these people?!

0:46:480:46:51

They still don't get it!

0:46:530:46:55

I would not forgive anybody and I'm angry about this.

0:46:560:47:00

Right there, I recognised the presence of the Lord,

0:47:050:47:10

the spirit of God saying, "Would you forgive?"

0:47:100:47:15

My heart began to soften and have compassion, where I found myself

0:47:150:47:22

crying and praying and...

0:47:220:47:28

..literally, weeping for who they really were

0:47:290:47:32

and what has happened to them in their lives that caused this

0:47:320:47:35

act of violence, this emptiness within themselves.

0:47:350:47:40

This could actually be my very own son!

0:47:420:47:45

My surviving son was, at this time,

0:47:450:47:48

16 and 17 and...this could very well have been him.

0:47:480:47:52

So, I pretty much put myself

0:47:540:47:58

in the place of the offender

0:47:580:48:03

and the offender's family.

0:48:030:48:05

The guilt and the shame

0:48:050:48:09

is there for the offender's family.

0:48:090:48:12

My whole family...

0:48:150:48:17

My whole family...

0:48:170:48:19

..we won't ever be able to understand

0:48:210:48:26

what the victims' families go through

0:48:260:48:28

but our whole family...

0:48:280:48:30

..hurts.

0:48:340:48:36

Are we, as a society,

0:48:420:48:44

are we grown-up enough

0:48:440:48:47

and spiritual enough to say,

0:48:470:48:48

"OK, there is redemption and rehabilitation for some of them"?

0:48:480:48:53

And does this person deserve a second chance at life?

0:48:530:48:56

Has he shown remorse? What does that look like?

0:48:560:48:59

-JOSIAH:

-I've made terrible decisions,

0:49:130:49:15

they're the worst I've ever made.

0:49:150:49:18

And I've had to live with those, ever since.

0:49:180:49:21

There are so many things that I should have done differently.

0:49:210:49:24

I'm so sorry about what happened to them.

0:49:270:49:31

I...

0:49:310:49:32

I don't know.

0:49:380:49:39

After the crime had happened,

0:49:510:49:53

I had horrific dreams, bad dreams,

0:49:530:49:55

where she was there.

0:49:550:49:57

And just graphic...

0:49:570:50:00

..gruesome dreams about her dying.

0:50:020:50:04

I would wake up in the night

0:50:040:50:07

and I would be scared,

0:50:070:50:09

like, terrified.

0:50:090:50:11

Now I have dreams of her at school

0:50:210:50:25

and everything's, you know, good.

0:50:250:50:28

She's...always smiling.

0:50:280:50:31

But I always know, in the dream,

0:50:330:50:36

that I killed her.

0:50:360:50:38

And those dreams are...

0:50:380:50:41

..are even worse.

0:50:420:50:43

And that's, like...

0:50:510:50:53

The only thing I can do

0:50:530:50:55

is hurt myself.

0:50:550:50:56

It takes away the...

0:50:590:51:00

..pain of...

0:51:020:51:03

..just knowing what I did.

0:51:070:51:09

Remorse equals pain,

0:51:140:51:15

your feeling of pain for what you've done to someone else.

0:51:150:51:19

And it's very easy to deny pain

0:51:190:51:22

and run away from pain.

0:51:220:51:23

And I did it for a long time.

0:51:230:51:25

And then I started becoming aware

0:51:260:51:29

of everyone else who was hurt...

0:51:290:51:31

..and feeling remorse for that.

0:51:320:51:35

And then running away from that pain, as soon as I realised it.

0:51:350:51:38

I said, "Whoa, no, no, I don't want to feel pain."

0:51:380:51:41

So, "No, it's not my fault that all those people are hurt.

0:51:410:51:43

"I'm going to still put it back on my parents.

0:51:430:51:46

"If they didn't do all that to me,

0:51:460:51:48

"then these people wouldn't have been hurt either."

0:51:480:51:50

And it took...

0:51:520:51:54

..probably close to a decade

0:51:560:51:58

before I could have the strength

0:51:580:52:01

to stop and say, "No...

0:52:010:52:03

"My fault."

0:52:050:52:06

What makes so much of it worse,

0:52:080:52:10

now, thinking back on my childhood,

0:52:100:52:12

is now that I'm a grown man, I've seen kids,

0:52:120:52:15

I've seen what the relationship's supposed to be with your parents.

0:52:150:52:19

Obviously they had to have been mentally ill.

0:52:190:52:22

You know, they were passing down garbage from their past,

0:52:220:52:25

you know, it's a cycle.

0:52:250:52:27

They had their own issues that led into it,

0:52:270:52:29

that lessened their culpability.

0:52:290:52:32

And when you start thinking about that, it's like,

0:52:330:52:35

"Wait a minute, they didn't deserve what happened to them

0:52:350:52:38

"that caused them to be that way."

0:52:380:52:40

And it starts feeding into itself and it's like,

0:52:400:52:42

"Wow, if I'm going to say I deserve another shot

0:52:420:52:47

"because I was screwed up and I was made to be who I am,

0:52:470:52:51

"then I have to have the same amount of empathy for them

0:52:510:52:56

"and what they went through, that made them into who they were."

0:52:560:52:59

-SEAN:

-Now, on January 8th 2011,

0:53:240:53:28

one of the sergeants in my cell house

0:53:280:53:31

called me into his office

0:53:310:53:33

and spun his computer around and said,

0:53:330:53:36

"Do you recognise this name?"

0:53:360:53:37

It was the governor's website.

0:53:410:53:42

I said, "Yeah, it's my name." He said, "What does it say?"

0:53:420:53:45

It says, "Sean Taylor..."

0:53:450:53:46

"..sentenced in 1990..."

0:53:490:53:50

"..to life, for first-degree murder,

0:53:530:53:56

"has had his sentence commuted...

0:53:560:53:59

"..to parole."

0:54:020:54:03

I started crying immediately.

0:54:100:54:12

I went back in the cell house and hugged all my friends.

0:54:220:54:25

And, you know, everybody...

0:54:250:54:27

everybody just was, you know, standing around crying...

0:54:270:54:31

..praising God.

0:54:330:54:35

Everything feels beautiful out here, man.

0:54:380:54:41

But I never try to lose focus.

0:54:410:54:43

I say, even though, you know, I've been blessed

0:54:450:54:48

and I'm enjoying my life out here,

0:54:480:54:51

there's still always the mission

0:54:510:54:54

to make sure that I can do whatever I can do...

0:54:540:54:59

..whatever I can do to stop some young person...

0:55:000:55:04

..from doing something like I did.

0:55:050:55:08

I have personally seen my dad cry

0:55:120:55:18

two times.

0:55:180:55:20

And the first time

0:55:200:55:22

was when I won a scholarship

0:55:220:55:27

for a science project I did.

0:55:270:55:30

And the other time

0:55:310:55:32

was when he was on the stand in court.

0:55:320:55:35

And...

0:55:350:55:36

..he was crying because I hurt him so much.

0:55:370:55:41

Your parents, they love you so much

0:55:450:55:49

and then you show them this

0:55:490:55:52

by destroying them.

0:55:520:55:54

I've got special parents.

0:56:000:56:02

CRYING: I just wish I could... go back in time.

0:56:090:56:12

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