Episode 5: "I Forgive You and God Will Too"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi, I'm Jim. And I'm Vic.
And this is the criminal. I thought I'd try something new.
Maybe not. Can you hear that Tooting?
How inconsiderate are my neighbours?
They're very inconsiderate and we should probably get through
this really quickly before they start banging next door with

(00:25):
hammers. What if they're fans?
Hi. Hi.
Hi, neighboury. No.
Hey, have you got the hay fever?I've got the hay fever.
And the bid them. Nasally.
Nasally. More so, I think, than I did in
the Lori Vallow episode, so I apologise.
You need to smother your face inhoney and bees.

(00:47):
Maybe not. Oh, talking of honey, my friend
Andy, who is, he's a listener. Hello, Andy.
Hi, Andy. He does a podcast too called
Beyond Graves and Stars. I think he's got a couple of
podcasts. He does because you've told me
about them and I do need to check them out.
And Andy, I will check them out and you've been wonderful with
all your comments. Thank you.

(01:07):
But he sent me because I had a birthday and he sent me birthday
presents and he sent me the Blood and Honey movies, the
Winnie the Pooh movie because he's just done a podcast about
childhood ruined. So basically, you know, movies
and stuff that. Yeah, because Winnie the Pooh
supposed to be your friendly bear.
Does that sound like Winnie the Pooh?

(01:27):
He. Shouldn't do a Winnie the Pooh
voice in front of our CEO? Oh my God, are you going to
explain that? Why have you brought this up?
My dog has a. Sexual relationship with a
Winnie the Pooh toy that talks. There we go.
And what does it say while she humps it relentlessly?
My fluffing stuff feels happier now.

(01:47):
My fluffing stuff always feels happy after, you know?
Friends are for hugging. I'll play them on here one time.
I'm going to go squeeze his belly.
Yeah, don't hump it. How many of these have we had to
have because of the humping? We're on poo too and then we
bought a replacement poo which the puppy then.

(02:08):
Humps no to. Yeah, but that one doesn't talk,
thankfully. So anyway, hello Andy and thank
you for my birthday present. Thank you for my Oh no you never
got me a birthday present. Your comments and likes are
present enough, thank. You So what?
You've been up to Gemma. I have been working, working,
working. I attended a fabulous murder
mystery event where I'm pretty sure we stole the show.

(02:32):
Oh, I think so. It was so much French accent
because that was Georgette. You were Georgette and I was
Agatha. Oh, balls.
I knew my name at the beginning.Agatha something.
Agatha eaten. Hog Agatha eaten Hog and it was
my engagement to Bunny Mandelson.
Turned out to be a right card, didn't he?
Oh yeah, it was a box set. Maybe we should show the box

(02:54):
set. It's really old.
It was like we had to get the cassette player out so.
Didn't you have to buy a cassette player?
I did get a cassette player, butthen it didn't work and so Dad
had to get his cassette player out the loft or wherever he kept
his cassette player. Oh, it was so much fun, but the
box set and the instructions andstuff didn't really go very
well. But it all came together and we

(03:17):
enjoyed it. And Victoria made fantastic
food. I made a three course meal and I
I poached pears and I'd never done that before and they were
delicious. Actually, they were a beautiful.
I love a poached pear. I do think poached is one of
those words that I don't like though.
It's it's not a good word, is itpoached?
But they I had to poach them in so turns, which is like a really

(03:41):
fancy schmancy dessert wine which we just happened to have a
bottle of in the house. That doesn't surprise me.
I think I bought it for Christmas and it just didn't
happen so. What have you been up to?
I went to. Landon you Sally, You're from
London. Landon to see my southern bestie

(04:02):
Becks. Another one of our fans.
Another one of our. I can't call her Becks because I
don't know her and I can't. I just can't do that.
So hi, Becky. And we went to see a a country
music artist called Kip Moore, who you drilled over, not really
heard of, but he was blooming brilliant.
It was a little intimate gig in a HMV, like there was a book.

(04:25):
Not. Yeah, literally.
Cool. Yeah.
You should put pictures up. Yeah.
Oh, he was amazing. Really, really good.
And I'm not. I'll take or leave country
music. You know, I'm not.
There's a lot. Of whining in it.
He is country, country, country because she's got country music
boyfriend. She's got her own cowboy Rob
Lewis music. Like we're doing all the shout
outs today. We are.

(04:46):
Rob, don't know you, but great music.
And. Wait, wait, wait.
If we know these music people, why have none of them offered to
do a better theme tune for us? Is what I'm wondering.
They write the theme tune. Sing the theme tune.
I've I've never suggested it to them but.
Well, yeah, you. Could do us a theme tune if you

(05:06):
like. That would be awesome.
Otherwise, we're going to have to go with the one on the blue
purge reel that I've not posted yet, but I'm gonna.
Oh no, is this the one with the beatbox?
Yeah, wow. It was amazing.
I would also like to give a shout out to my baby brother.
He's 26. Liam, who so we, so my half of
my family live in Holland. I'm not Dutch.
No. I'm half Scouse, half Scottish

(05:29):
with a smattering of Irish and we have a group chat and in it
for some reason Liam just thinkshe gets persecuted by the rest
of us. So he wanted us to do an episode
about the tragic life of Liam Hampson.
So just a little shout out there.
Well, hopefully he doesn't have enough tragedy in his.
He has no tragedy. He brings up episode.

(05:51):
Shrimp. No crack.
No, he brings up shrimps in a tank.
Remember there was the murder? Like one of the shrimps was
trying to eat a baby shrimp. He has me and I'm amazing.
He's got my brother Anthony as well.
Who just wind them up? But it's because Anthony is
incredibly happy all the time and Liam can be a miserable
little sod, can't you? Anyway, this is going to be a

(06:11):
long episode, so we should probably.
We should probably crack on withYeah, yeah, she got it.
That's my Sheldon laugh. So tell me, Gemma, what is the
crack? Well.
The crack today is not the crackit was going to be.
Oh, I'd chosen another case and I'll do it at another point.
But the feedback was suggesting that we'd been quite dark so

(06:33):
far, so I thought that I would do something with a little bit
of light at the end of it. And it's still dark.
Don't get me wrong, there is trigger warnings.
It's awful and I'm covering 2 cases and both are awful.
However, my first case is a survival story.
OK, I'm perplexed. Sat here perplexed.
Perplexed and I'm trying to lookat Vic but I've got this thing

(06:56):
about my microphone being on an angle so now I'm anyway.
I've got a funny angle. So we always put our references
at the end, we put them on our Spotify blurb.
But I've heard a lot of podcastsmentioned bits at the start too.
So I'm just going to say that quite a lot of my references for
this episode came from newspapers.com and, and in

(07:16):
particular the Austin American Standard, which I've had a great
time looking through the American newspapers and an I
survived episode. But I'm not going to tell you
the name of the I Survived episode until the end because
it's a bonkers name and I'm not using the name for this, but
it's bonkers. So shall we crack on?
Let's yes, let's. Today's episode is a little

(07:37):
different to what I usually do because I'm covering 2 crimes
that have become forever linked because of two wonderful women.
Both of these women faced traumaand managed to come out of the
other side and have helped otherpeople as they did so.
They're wonderful. You may cry.
Oh no, I. Think both of the cases I tell
you about will open the doors ofdiscussion and we really welcome
discussion on our Facebook page.We are both gonna try to be a

(08:00):
lot more active on there. As Victoria's alluded to before,
we have other jobs. We're both also a little bit
ditzy and not the best with organisation.
Yeah, I've been super busy lately, but I do want to do
more. I do too and if.
Yeah, if you prompt us, we'll we'll, we'll try really hard.
So the crimes I'm sharing today are horrific and include murder

(08:20):
and sexual assault. I'm using the word sexual
assault when I obviously mean the R word, but a lot of the
streaming services don't like that word even though I put
explicit warning on the description.
So when I'm referring to sexual assault, sometimes I think that
sounds like it's diminishing what actually happened.
But in no way is that what I intend.
By the time I finish this episode, I hope, I hope I won't

(08:44):
have ruined whatever day you're listening to this on and that
you can see the light that I've seen as well.
And I'm going to try and do it in two parts.
Part 1 begins in the hot, hot summer sun of Austin, TX on the
26th of August 1986. While temperatures were hitting
between 23 and 30° every day, which we've just had up to 28°
and it was hot, but the humidityis different in America.

(09:06):
And I just feel like that would be like being in an oven.
You've had hot. We're out by the coast and it's
been. I've been on the coast most of
the week. A young transient man from
California has just delighted the bus after a 1500 mile
journey. 1500 miles, the same as1500, right?
That's. Far it is far that's

(09:27):
Bloomingfall slung over his shoulder.
He had a duffel bag containing everything he could grab after
attacking his brother-in-law andmaking a break from the law to
avoid the consequences. Assessing the scene, he found
himself in the city of Westlake Hills.
Now I would consider this quite a small city.
From what I found online at thistime it covered an area of
around 4 square miles and in the1990 census the population was

(09:49):
around 2565 people. Very small, so it's echo it.
Is Echo City. It is Echo and the population of
Wesley Hills was mainly made-up of fairly well off people with
residents whose income was belowthe poverty line was around 1.2%
and child poverty was at one point 1%, which I think we can
agree is very low. Yep.
So this was to say that basically, this young man had

(10:12):
found himself in a rather nice part of Austin, aimlessly
wandering into town. He then crossed the Colorado
River, using what the locals refer to as a low bridge as a
what bridge? The low bridge.
OK. The low bridge?
Is there a high bridge? I didn't look, I've got you take
the High Road and I'll take the low load on my head now.
But for context, I did look it up and it's one of those bridges

(10:32):
that's like really wide, really flat, really close to the water,
and it's got no sides, which freaks me out.
See, I like the sound of that. Oh.
You can drive over it, but you can also walk over it.
But if you were drunk walking over it.
I mean, it's quite wide, so if they needed you to do a sobriety
test, you've got plenty of spaceto wiggle about.
Stepping off the bridge, the manmade his way into a community of

(10:55):
houses set into the hills. All the while he was watching
the people there saying who was coming and going and working
out, who belonged to which home.He did this for over a day, in
fact it could have been up to two days, we're not entirely
sure. Searching for something whilst
trying to stay unobserved and blending into the scenery.
Finally he find what he was looking for and hunkered down

(11:15):
and patiently waited. Two to three days later 43 year
old Ellen Jew it's D UW EI thinkit's Jew woke to the signs of
her two teenage boys getting ready for school and her husband
pulling out his golf clubs and preparing for a day on the
green. I think that's what golfy people
say. Calls of goodbye and have a
great day rang out as her familywent out of the door, leaving

(11:37):
Ellen to enjoy some quiet time before a day that promised to be
a busy one. Now Ellen did work, but I've not
really been able to work out where she worked, but I know she
had an office. Wandering through to the
kitchen, she poured herself a coffee and sat down to read the
paper for a while in peace and quiet.
When she was fully caffeinated and up to date with current
affairs, Ellen decided it was time to get herself ready, so

(11:57):
she made her way to the bedroom she shared with her husband.
She removed her nightwear and pottered into the en suite and
turned her shower on. When she was done, she turned
off again, wrapped a towel around herself and reached into
her bedroom wardrobe for a robe.Suddenly, her jaw dropped as she
became aware of someone dressed as a ninja staring at her from
the corner of the room 0. My goodness.

(12:18):
Paralysed by fear. Now I've gone really in depth
here because I want you to feel exactly not how she felt, but I
want you to get a real good picture.
Paralysed by fear, She took in his eyes and the skin around
them. These were the only body parts
visible to her. Then her eyes swept upwards to
his right hand. A large knife was grasped in it.

(12:38):
Screaming, she bravely ordered him to quote, get out of my
house before he rushed at her. She recounts in an episode of I
Survived that for a split secondshe actually thought that maybe
this was a joke, like a prank. And in the moment she found
herself laughing about it. She just couldn't believe what
was going on. And then her mind flipped and
thought, no, maybe it was a nightmare and she just had to

(12:59):
wake up. So she recalls telling herself
to quote, wake up, wake up, wakeup.
It isn't incredible what your brain will do to protect you
like this can't possibly be whatI think it is.
As her brain began to clear, shefelt the gravity of what was
happening to her and she startedto fight him, giving it all she
could. This made him really, really
angry. Using the back of his left hand
he hit her hard across the face which sent her stumbling.

(13:22):
At the same time he was shoutingat her to get down on the floor
and as she stumbled about with his free hand, he was pushing
her backwards and she fell and landed on the ground.
But she didn't stay on the ground.
She tried to get back up again but he hit her and sent her
right back down. From what I already know, and I
think you're probably already working out, Ellen was a feisty
woman and she decided she was not going to sit where he wanted

(13:44):
and she'd got up again. But this time she headed into
her bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed instead.
Her bare feet, her wet legs, dangling face to face, she was
able to take in what he was wearing on his body.
He wore a suit that leaked like that, which she believed a ninja
would wear. So it's like, you know, the long
black sleeves, like a tunic style, something around the
waist, black trousers. Yeah, that's what I've got in my

(14:06):
head, yeah. Yeah, and she said he had black
gloves over both hands. So like literally there was no
skin apart from his eyes and then obviously his eyeballs,
which are not skin but you know what I mean.
And the weapon in his hand was quote, the biggest knife she'd
ever seen. I'd like you to remember at this
point, she's only covered up from under her arms around her
knees by that towel. This attack was really quick.

(14:28):
This happened within 5 minutes. And I can imagine that
adrenaline brought on by stress and pure horror which is running
around her body. And even though it was really
hot outside, I can just see her sitting, shaking with fear as
she sat there petrified. He taunted her, dragging the
blade of the knife across her bare feet.

(14:50):
She was really confused. She didn't understand why he was
doing that. She was desperately racking her
brain trying to figure out why he was there, What did he want?
And I'm guessing that she thought if she found the sight,
she could give it to him and then he would leave and she'd be
safe. Yeah.
Tying her hands behind her back,he then began to bind her feet
together, and as he did, he started talking.
He told her that her home was lovely and then drilled her with

(15:14):
questions about how much money she had.
What was in the house? Was her money at work?
What was in her bank? She deduced that money must be
as objective. She was probably thinking that
once he robbed her he would justleave.
So she began to plead with him, promising him that he could have
every penny she had in the bank and she would even write him a
cheque and drive him to the bankto cash it.

(15:34):
She'd give him anything, but this made him angrier than he
was in the 1st place. Now this anger really seems to
have made him chatty. He began ranting, almost
shouting at Ellen, saying that she was going to have a terrible
accident, saying quote you're going to have a bad day lady, a
bad accident. And then his lips got even
looser. He boasted to her.
He had been hiding in her home for the last two days.

(15:57):
Oh, before she'd even discoveredhim.
He was living in her attic. Is that do they call that
something? Do they call it frogging or
something? Well, this was back in 1986 and
the I survived episode I can nowtell you is the ninja in the
attic. I find this horrifying.
I've seen videos online where like, people have thought

(16:18):
something's going wrong and like, it tends to be these tiny
little apartments and they'll set a camera up and then they'll
watch the footage and like, people are crawling out of their
walls and things. Yeah, they they have crawl
spaces and stuff and the the infrastructure of houses is a
bit different I think in America.
That's the impression I get anyway from yeah.
Videos like those. Things that I've seen, but that

(16:38):
is horrifying. It is horrifying.
So remember he had walked aroundthe community after it and that
this is what he was looking for.He was looking for a home that
he could get into. All of them probably had quite a
bit of money. Assuming watching their routines
to see where the males are leaving the house as well.
Well, everybody, I think, yeah. But he wanted somebody to be

(16:58):
there. I'm assuming you wanted a
victim. Yeah, Yeah.
It's not just robbery. No.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not.
It's not going to be that easy. I didn't think so.
On the day he had turned up, he had chosen Ellen's home, which
was 401 Terrace Mountain Drive, and he'd waited until nightfall,
broken in and made himself comfortable in our loft, and

(17:19):
they had no idea. Four people lived in that home,
two teenagers, the husband and Ellen, and nobody knew.
He was a stealth ninja. He was something else.
It's just bizarre. For the next two or three days,
again, we're not really sure howlong he was in there.
He hid there and he listened to the unsuspecting Jew family go
about their daily life. And it was because of this that
he knew he had time to act out the plans he had for Ellen.

(17:42):
Hi. His spying gave him the
knowledge of when Ellen would beleft alone in the home and
roughly how long he would have with her, meaning that this
monster knew exactly when it would be best to reveal himself.
She properly relaxed and let herguard down in the morning.
Nobody else was in the house. I think we all do that.
As his anger grew, he shared hisevil plans with her, gloating

(18:04):
that he was going to rape her. Oh, I'm not meant to say the R
word. And Ellen says these weren't his
exact words, but it was what he meant.
So you can imagine he was swearing at her using the F
word. You know, it wasn't nice.
And she was crying. She was begging and begging and
not to do it, But you did. Anyway.
I haven't included this in the episode, but later I read

(18:26):
research that said she didn't tell people that this had
happened for a long time becauseshe was so ashamed.
And it's something we hear all the time.
Yeah. And it's not.
We know. And logically, anybody who's
been through it knows they shouldn't feel ashamed, but it
does bring shame it. Is never the victim's fault,
never always the perpetrator's fault.

(18:46):
Cutting the bindings he'd only just tied around her feet, the
man screamed at her to get on the bed again and lie down,
hoping to appeal to something inside him.
Ellen told him she was Christian.
However this had no effect either.
He violated her there on her ownbed.
Then he had the Gaul to tell herthat he'd enjoyed that, placing
A blindfold over her eyes and wrapping the tape around her

(19:09):
ankles again. He left her prone and broken on
the bed as she sobbed, and he took a shower as she heard the
water running in the adjoining room.
Ellen desperately tried to form a plan to get away.
But frustratingly, she found that with her arms behind her
back, her feet tied together andher eyes covered, there seemed
to be no viable method of escape.
She was terrified that if she tried and failed, she'd be

(19:30):
signing her own death warrant. Yeah, and she's a fighter.
I think we've already seen that she's a fighter, and she's
answered him back. She sat where she wanted, but
she just didn't see herself getting out of this house.
As the shower went quiet, I can only imagine she braced herself
for what was to come next. He pulled the blindfold off,
which is always a terrifying thing to happen because once

(19:52):
you've seen them, what happens next?
Exactly. You've seen that face.
Yeah, he was back in the ninja gear, but he allowed.
He took the blindfold off her again, thrusting his hand.
Towards her face, Ellen realisedhe was proffering one of her own
cheques to her. Something's just dawned on me
here. He put the blindfold on her
while he was in the shower so hewould rape her.

(20:13):
But she wasn't allowed to see. I get the face, but yeah.
Yeah, he, yeah, because that would be a a vulnerability on
his part. And he's not poor.
Baby. So.
So I felt, I felt like I needed to do a little FYI for younger
listeners because we don't use cheques now.
So a cheque is a piece of or wasa piece of paper that went with

(20:33):
the bank card basically and was attached to your bank account.
You could use them to pay for items or to transfer money over
to another person's account. So you could pay for your weekly
shop with a cheque. As we know, 'cause we are from
that era. I don't think I've ever done it.
I don't think I've ever paid in a shop with a cheque.
But my mum used to. Oh.
Gosh, I have, yeah. Have you had a cheque?
But I've probably still got it somewhere.
Well, I was given cheque becauseI just lost them.

(20:54):
Back to me being a hoarder. I bet you do as well.
She's going to go and look for them later and then give you all
our bank details. Our mother's maiden name on her
card last three digits. So basically if you wanted to
use a cheque, the account owner would fill it in with the name
of the person the money was for,or with the shop's name.
Or they would use like a little gudumphi stamp thing, you know

(21:15):
like a. Yeah, I love that word that you
just made. Gudump gudumphi brilliant.
I love a gudump for a gudumphi. Whenever you start before.
Nope. Well, you could and you would
put the amount that it was for and you had to do it in numbers.
Remember Anja, to write it out in words.
Yeah. And it would be signed by the
account holder. And it was sort of like credit,

(21:36):
wasn't it? Because they took about 10 days
to clear. So you could do a massive shop
and then be like. Yeah, I don't actually have that
money. That's what they were good.
For though bouncing, yeah. I know I'm going to get paid in
four days. This is going to take 10 days to
clear. So yeah, it was blank except for
where he had written $600 in theamount section and he wanted
Ellen to sign it and I just his name as a recipient.

(21:58):
So this meant he had to give herhis name, which is a little bit
stupid, no? Yeah, totally.
You're not allowed to see my face, but this is my name.
I bet Ellen agreed with us that this is a really stupid thing to
do, and I'm only speculating as to how I'd be thinking at this
point, but in the same position.I think that this meant that it
was all over for me if he was willing to give me his name.

(22:21):
But on the flip side of that, ifshe had been killed, surely any
check wouldn't have time to clear, so that would be.
No, but he could still use it. He could.
No, he could still cash it because they wouldn't find out
instantly she was dead and then you've got that ten day grace
period so they wouldn't find outuntil after and he could be long

(22:42):
gone. I suppose I just felt like you
wouldn't keep your appearance hidden and then hand off your
real name. Yeah, and then leave you alive.
Anyway, he cut the binding roundher hands off again and she
signed the cheque and filled in the two section with Troy
Wiggly. I don't mention his name much in
this, but that's his name. And she handed the cheque back
to him. The ninja now had a name.

(23:04):
I don't know why I wrote that. Ninja wiggly do you?
Want to know his full name? I don't know if I do, but tell
me. Troy Eugene Wakeley.
Hmm. OK.
I'm not sure the city had thought.
I'm not sure this idiot thought through much of his plan, to be
honest. And after he gave out his name,
he then tied her hands back again.
So he spent quite a lot of time tying, binding, cutting, but.

(23:29):
That might be part of his the stuff that turns him on, because
sometimes. I don't think it was.
I think is it just? He didn't think things through.
Yeah, he was just like, oh shit,I need her too.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh God, now I need her to sign this.
I better untie those hands and go.
Oh, no, yeah, yeah, more likely,isn't it?
And it probably came, but I don't know whether.
Some do get off on Yeah, they dothe.

(23:51):
Bond well BTQ. Yeah, which is not a sandwich.
Could be though. Bacon, ketchup, Turkey.
Ohh yeah sorry ohh having bacon on Turkey might have Turkey
bacon bacon. I was gonna say tits.
It's because of your picture theboob age.
The boob lady. Anyway, back to forcing Ellen
back into the bathroom again. This beast unleashed an attack

(24:12):
on her which is horrific beyond words, so we've not got to the
worst. I've read all about it myself
and it wasn't an easy read for me.
It actually made me cry and thatdoesn't happen too often,
although it's happened loads in the last week thanks to a
certain person across the table from me.
You made me cry with your birthday.
Card. I know, I'm sorry.
She's not so well. If you would rather not hear to

(24:35):
a few details, I will put a timestamp in the Spotify
information for you so you can skip and come back to it when
it's over. Unfortunately, Victoria has to
listen. I'm going to try and get through
it quickly. Ellen had no clue about what was
to happen when on her knees, herhead on the floor, she felt a
hard heavy blow from behind thiscentre, reeling sideways and

(24:58):
before she could catch her breath he stabbed her in the
left breast. He pulled her back upright, hit
her again on the other side of her head with what turned out to
be a hammer. He hit her head and stabbed at
her repeatedly before she felt the knife being jabbed into the
neck neck of her neck twice in quick succession.

(25:21):
So like, this is a boring obviously and what happened to
this poor woman next is just awful.
This complete monster then put pulled the knife out of her and
started trying to stab her through her skull.
This is just torture. And we know most of us know that

(25:41):
skulls are really, really hard. I mean, they're there to protect
our brains. So stabbing through 1 is just,
it's no easy feat. And when he was unable to manage
to do this in anger, frustration, and rage, he
reached for his hammer and used it to hit the end of the knife
to hammer it into her head. Oh my God, I'm sorry.

(26:04):
That's all right. Like a hammer and a nail.
I know it gets worse. It gets worse.
What a. Monster.
When he tried to pull the knife out, he couldn't.
It was stuck in her head. Oh my God, I hope at this point
that she was in so much shock that she didn't feel this.

(26:27):
And I wish I could tell you thatthis was the end of this attack
on Ellen, but unfortunately, it wasn't.
Buckle up to get the weapon out.Ellen remembers he put his foot
down hard on her head to get a better purchase on the knife and
used his weight to force her head down and release the blade.

(26:48):
All the while he was screaming at her to keep her head down.
Now, as you can probably imagine, Ellen was in and out of
consciousness. She would have had no clue what
was going on. She's facing head trauma from
her spot on the bathroom floor. She could see him in her
bedroom. Through a haze of blood in her
eyes she could see that he'd removed the ninja costume and

(27:10):
was now dressed in other clotheswhen he spotted her looking and
started yelling at her again. Striding towards her on the
floor, he raised the hammer and hit her head over the head one
last time. She now realised his aim was to
leave her dead, so she closed her eyes and tried her best to
convince him she was. In his final move.

(27:30):
He grabbed her left hand and started trying to force her
wedding rings off. All the while she was praying.
Let them come off. Let them come off because she
didn't think she could stay silent if you tried to cut her
fingers off. And with that, he was gone.
This when? This was a 2 hour attack.

(27:51):
My version of it obviously sounds really quick, but this
was prolonged. And ferocious.
And just. Awful.
Hazy. I know Hazy from the blood loss.
Ellen knew she was dying, but for a long time she was too
scared to even move. And who wouldn't be?
He's been living in her attic for days without her knowing, so

(28:14):
how would she know if he'd left the house?
Finally, her instincts did take over.
Survival instincts took over. She knew if she didn't move she
would die and that couldn't be her ending.
So she quote slithered all the way from her bathroom, across
her bedroom and down a flight offucking stairs.
Wow. She got to the level below and

(28:35):
to a telephone. This woman is incredible and
honestly, it does show. You hear about people lifting
cars and things like that. It shows how the impossible can
become possible. I don't know if I'd be strong
enough to do this. And Lynn, survival, all that
stuff, she was obviously meant to survive this.
Yeah, I wonder. I'm not a woman of faith.

(28:56):
I wonder if this is. I wonder if her faith helped
her. Yeah, potato strength.
Yeah, I think you could be right.
Somehow, with blood in her eyes,and bear in mind her head had
been repeatedly beaten, she'd had a knife through it, Ellen
managed to dial her parents number.
They reckon it was muscle memorythat did it.
Her fingers just did the work. They didn't live that far away.

(29:16):
Within minutes they were in her home.
This is a horrible bit dipping in and out of consciousness.
The first she realised they werethere to save her was hearing
her own father's scream in horror.
I say every episode something isheartbreaking but this really,
it really gets me. The thought of finding anyone in
this state she was in is bad enough, but your child just

(29:38):
can't even imagine. She was 43, same as you and me.
Yeah, Yep. But to her parents, she was
still a baby. Her father called 911 and she
could actually hear them tell him that they didn't think she
would survive based on what he was saying.
She was naked, beaten and bloody.
But hearing that, hearing them not expect her to survive
sparked something in this absolute badass.

(30:00):
I mean, she is a badass. And she gets even more.
There's even more badassery to come.
And she just decided that she wasn't going to die.
Nope, he wasn't going to be the one to end her life.
As EMTs took her out of her homeon a stretcher, she managed to
tell them the name of the monster that did this to her.
Because remember the cheque thatyou wanted her to write?
Yeah. Fucking idiot.

(30:20):
Oh, I actually said yeah. Dude was a dumbass here because
I'm trying not to swear so much.I apologise.
I'm trying. The police bizarrely caught him
really, really quickly. No way.
But I know it's incredible. Police skills too.
Oh. Skills Miguel's Actually they
did well in this case, but skills Miguel's while Ellen was
in hospital having emergency surgery, which she had more than

(30:43):
one bite of surgery and being sewn back together.
She had 600 stitches in total. Jeez, this guy, who by the way,
is not what you would call clever clogs by any stretch of
the imagination. He was standing in the A bank
not too far away from Ellens home with her check in hand.
He also had his duffel bag whichhad her jewellery.

(31:04):
And guess what then in Jacostu. Right.
What about the knife was that? I still have that because if
he's taken a big knife with him.I don't think he took the knife
with him. I think he probably thought I'll
get rid of that and then nobody will know.
Yeah. So for a lot of victims, anybody
in the true crime world will know that there can be a lot of
time between their perpetrator being apprehended and then taken

(31:25):
to court. But in this instance, it did
happen fairly quickly. So on Wednesday the 18th of
November 1986, is that the rightday?
Yeah. Sorry.
On Wednesday the 18th of November 1986, Troy Eugene
Wrigley stood trial for the aggravated robbery.
Ellen, the badass warrior that she has spent two hours on the
stand talking the court through the events of the 29th of August

(31:46):
that year. Can I just go back to the can?
I just say aggravated robbery. Yeah, well, he didn't kill her
like by the. Grace of God, Sexual assault,
Attempted murder. I think the sexual assault.
Voyeurism because he'd been watching it for two days from
her own house. I think that it's aggravated
robbery because of the sexual assault.
I think that's the component that comes in there.

(32:08):
I think that's how they do it. Because over here we would have
like we would have, we have a manslaughter, don't we?
And then we have murder. Whereas over there in America,
anybody feel free to correct me,but they've got first degree
murder, which is premeditated murder.
Second degree is you murdered somebody, but it maybe wasn't
like you did it in a fight or something like that.
And then what's the last? I don't know, I can't remember,

(32:30):
but I think that's what makes Set aggravated.
But I've just realised that Wednesday the 18th of October
1986 ties in with the next case and I hadn't even noticed that.
So we're in court. Before she attended court, Ellen
had no idea nobody told her this, that while she would spend
hours going through her testimony in front of the man
that attacked her, she would notbe afforded the same experience.

(32:52):
When it came time for the defendant to do the same, she
had to leave the room. That's disgraceful.
I know her, she had friends and family in there that were able
to tell her what was going on. But she said it wasn't the same.
And it it feels like you're putting the victim through more.
Yeah, like he gets to hear mine.As a victim as well you we find
there's normally two different kinds.
So you either want to know absolutely everything and you

(33:15):
need that mm hmm to process yourrecovery or you want to own what
you already know and just leave it at that and not elaborate.
Yeah, not go to do more to. It and both ways are correct.
Yeah. But to eliminate her from that
is actually disempowering her completely.

(33:36):
That's just. I hope things have changed,
Yeah, because this was, as I, I keep saying, 1986.
But for Ellen at the time, this was really unacceptable.
And she's wondered ever since then, why would the court do
this to a victim? It's the same as over here.
If you make a statement about sexual assault, you do your
statement and then they obviously go and speak to the

(33:57):
other person. And the other person's allowed
to read your statement in full. You're not allowed to know
anything about what they said. So again, the perpetrator has
been given the power over the victims.
It's it's wrong. It's so wrong.
When? On Thursday the 20th of
November, which again is that goes into the next case.
I've just blown my own mind. The jury found Wiggly guilty and

(34:20):
sentenced him to life in prison.And Ellen was more than happy
with this. She said, quote, it's really
powerful sitting there facing that accuser, knowing that
you're going to be part of getting him out of the public
and going somewhere he can't hurt anyone else.
It was pretty amazing what he actually said, which I didn't
include. He turned to the judge and said,

(34:41):
oh, I forgive you. This the guy's a Dick.
Yeah, I was going to say for her, probably.
I don't know if she's Christian.They probably don't believe in
the death sentence anyway, do they?
So life in prison. It's different.
I think it can be different. OK.
Now, so many times people will read about a case and this is
where it stops for them. You know, court cases usually

(35:01):
take so long to happen and by then Joe Public have forgotten
all about it. Over here.
I know you'll hear about something happening, something
horrific happening for three days.
You'll hear about nothing else. And then there's absolutely
nothing. So I wanted to go through what
it's like for the victim and what help is out there for them.
When Ellen came out of hospital,she went straight back to live

(35:22):
in the same home, which I think might surprise a lot of people.
I'm not sure I would personally ever feel safe there again.
But everyone's different and herreasons are that, quote, the
house didn't do it to me, he did, which I think is really
strong. I kind of love that.
So this Wonder Woman got herselfa house alarm fitted and made
sure she could use it, which shewas quite proud about being able

(35:43):
to use it. Job done.
But don't be fooled, Ellen's a normal woman and of course she
was affected by what happened toher.
Like most people she went through pain, physically,
emotionally and mentally. She felt completely worthless.
She cried constantly for months.Her marriage broke down as her
husband at the time couldn't cope with what had happened to
her and she lost her job too. For her many surgeries she had
to have her head shaved so she had scars all over her face and

(36:05):
her head and her body was just unrecognisable, even to herself.
And I'm going to be really honest here in a way to show you
why I chose this case and why I am with eyes with Ellen so much.
It's not the same, but we've mentioned before that I was born
with a cleft lip and palate, which led to numerous surgeries
when I was little and when I wasreally young.
When I was really, really young,when I first started having

(36:26):
operations, I didn't know about it.
Then when I got older, it was kind of fun because I was on the
children's ward and, you know, it was a bit of a fun time away.
But for my last surgery, I remember having to wear like,
this little nose bag and it wentacross my nose and like round
the back of my ears and tied in a bow under my chin.
And I was like, my nose was packed with gauze and stitches

(36:48):
and it was weeping and bleeding pretty much constantly.
I remember feeling so ugly and like, worthless and who's going
to want to speak to the girl with the nose bag sort of thing?
And I know it's nothing comparedto what she went to, but I just
wanted to kind of empathise withher a little bit.
Is she beautiful? Oh, thank you.
So are you? You could do your hair once in a

(37:08):
while though. I've brought my straighteners.
With me, I I was at work before I came here.
For a long time, Ellen felt likea pariah When she left her home,
people would actually cross the road rather than talk to her
because they just didn't know what to say to her.
And these were people that knew her and had heard what had
happened to her, and they didn'tknow what to say to her.
And I get that they're not knowing what to say, but I think

(37:28):
it's deplorable to just ignore the fact.
And it may feel awkward, but it's not actually about you,
it's about the other. Person say actually you know you
feeling at that little bit awkward, get over it.
Talk to your friend, talk to this person that you know does.
Doesn't really matter what you say.
No, it doesn't a simple I've been thinking about you.
We'd probably have gone a long way.

(37:48):
These encounters, or lack thereof, compounded how Ellen
felt about herself and probably made leaving the house for her a
lot harder. If you know that this is gonna
happen every time. But I'm glad to tell you that
Ellen was surrounded by people in her life that loved her and
actively helped her heal. Her sister and parents would rub
lotion into her scars, listen toher, hold her while she cried
and her mother, who's now about.Well, when the I survived came

(38:10):
out, her mum was 98. She sought a Rape Crisis centres
and encouraged her to attend andthese things helped set in
motion her healing. Ellen started seeing a therapist
and met other survivors of crimeand found that hearing their
stories helped her immeasurably.She began to realise that she
wanted to be better, stronger. In fact, she wanted to be
stronger than she'd ever been before, not just for herself but

(38:31):
also her family, as Ellen was incredibly aware that it wasn't
only she that was affected by what had happened.
So like Victoria and I have saidbefore, crime effects those far
and wide. It's not just the initial
victim, it also so affects the third parties such as family and
friends of the victims, police officers who attend scenes and
hear statements, the EMTs, hospital workers, counsellors,

(38:51):
just so many people. Yeah, like when you drop us down
in a pond, there is a ripple. And that's how crime effects
beyond. Yeah, just it's not just that
one primary victim. No, I completely agree.
And as I say, we'll probably saythat in many, many episodes,
yeah. Through her own personal journey
of recovering from what happenedto her, Ellen learned the power

(39:13):
of sharing her own story. Sharing with others made her
feel a little bit better every time she did it.
And in the same way she found comfort in listening to other
people talk, they find the same when she spoke.
It feels like a revelation when you realise you aren't alone in
how you feel. And that your that your emotions
and responses are valid and justified as well because.
And normal. Sometimes you might feel like

(39:34):
you're an alien, but it's not the case at all.
You you'd be surprised the emotions that you go through
like are shared with so many people.
Yeah, which is sad. Which is sad, but actually then
there is a kind of comfort in knowing that you're not alone.
Yeah, well, no two people have got the same experience.
People can. When somebody says to you, oh, I

(39:56):
can, I can only imagine how you feel.
Sometimes they can, a lot of times they can't.
And it's nice to find the ones that.
Those are real words. Yeah.
So for years, Ellen spoke wherever and whenever she could.
And in 1991, she was asked by the Texas governor at the time,
Anne Richards, to serve on the Texas Board of Criminal Justice.

(40:17):
She became the first person on the board who was open about
being a victim of violent crime.During her six years there, she
researched and educated herself about the Texas justice system,
worked. She also began to meet with
female inmates in Texas gaols and found that a lot of them
have been in similar positions to her as victims of crime.
But for whatever reason, we knowthere are many, they find

(40:37):
themselves taking a different path.
And this led to a unit at prisons specifically for female
inmates in Burnett, Texas, beingnamed after Ellen in 1995.
The Ellen Halbert Unit holds 600beds for women in the prison
system who need support with substance abuse.
And did you notice the change ofname?
Yeah. At some time after her divorce,

(40:59):
Ellen met a lovely man, and the two are still together to this
day. He supports her in every way,
just as she deserves. In 1997, Ellen was awarded a
National Crime Victims Service award by Janet Reno, the US
attorney General. In the same year, Ellen's time
as a board member of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice ended,
and Ellen still felt that it wasincredibly important for her to

(41:21):
find ways to help victims of violent crime to heal.
And this is when restorative justice became a huge part of
her life. Now, for those who don't know,
restorative justice is is an approach to help those involved
in violent crimes, and this includes the victims, their
families, the community and the offenders, which I know a lot of
people have a problem with. But this is about Ellen and her
story and I want to cover it as it helps her and others in

(41:43):
similar similar situations. But please feel free to weigh in
on our Facebook page and let us know what you think, but just be
respectful. The aim of restorative justice,
which I'm going to call RJ because I'm struggling to get
that out, is to aid in the healing process and to encourage
a vendors to take responsibility.
The latter's not only important as it allows the victims to see

(42:04):
or hear that that attackers takein full responsibility and
blame, which can help victims because they take on a lot of
the blame themselves, but it also forces the perpetrator to
realise the level of harm they've done, which quite often
they don't. Yeah, I suppose in the UK we,
well, they do in America as well, don't they?
They have victim impact statements and that's, that's a
teeny tiny teaspoon of what you know.

(42:25):
That's like the amused Bush of. That's perfect.
Yeah. Of.
Restorative, RJ Yeah, RJ So there's quite a few ways that
you can administer. I'm just restorative justice.
But the most popular one, and the one that Ellen uses for her
work involves arranging mediation between the victim and
the attacker in a safe environment for both parties.

(42:45):
This is called victim offender dialogue.
And there's loads of research toshow that rates of re offending
or recidivism do drop because the offenders have had to face
their victims directly and it does have an impact.
I guess that makes sense. Yeah, I can.
Then why that would be effective?
I think there's probably a lot of people that are in gaol for
doing heinous things that have came out of a situation that

(43:08):
they find themselves in. Things have got too big and
they've done something stupid, which is different to what
happened to Ellen because he went in there.
When when some crimes are a reactive crime rather than a
planned and and premeditated, I can see that that would work.
Yeah, there are certain stipulations that they have to
adhere to as well, which I can'tremember if I put them in here,

(43:29):
but they have to have acknowledged that they were to
blame. They're not allowed to have been
in any further trouble since they've been in prison thing,
you know, things like that. Yeah.
Ellen's worked in a programme called Bridges to Life, or BTL
since the early 2000s and I've taken most of the next part from
the BTL website, but it's just to give you an idea of what it
is and why it was started. BTL, based in Richmond, TX, was

(43:50):
started by a man called John Sage.
I'm not going into his whole story because we don't have
time. But John faced his own personal
tragedy in June 19, 93, when hissister Marilyn Sage Meagre was
murdered in her own apartment and it was basically for her
car. In the aftermath, he find that
the loss of Marilyn and the way she was taken had a huge effect,

(44:11):
but not only on him and his family, but the community too.
And this included people that they didn't even know, people in
Marilyn's life such as friends, colleagues, people she bumped
into at the same shop that she went to, you know, things like
that. And this led to him creating a
faith-based restorative justice programme which utilises victim

(44:33):
offender dialogue going forward.Ellen became a victims rights
advocate, held the position of Director of Victim Services for
Austin's District Attorney and she is on the board of the
Overseers for Texas Prisons. So from 43, her life kind of
started again. Yeah, Yeah.
I think sometimes when these things happen, you don't
necessarily choose that path. No, But you have to make the

(44:56):
most of things. And you are.
You have this knowledge then andyou want to do something to its
best use. Yeah.
It's positive, yeah. Yeah.
And Ellen's story doesn't end here, but let me first tell you
about another case and then how the 2 came together.
I'm interested in this because you said you've just blown your
own mind with the dates and I want to know what I.
Have it's just that the dates sort of link and I hadn't

(45:20):
noticed that. So we're going on to Part 2.
Kathy Leno Daniel was excited when she arrived at our mother
and father's house on Sunday the16th of November 1986, with her
new partner by her side, a Doctor Who I couldn't find his
name. They'd just been on a weekend
away together, out of state. Kathy was the middle child of
John and Linda White, and it would be fair to say she'd

(45:41):
experienced a rough time over the previous few years.
She'd fallen pregnant accidentally lead into a shotgun
marriage and then a divorce. Alcohol had become an issue for
a little while, but finally things appeared to be coming
together for her. She was 26 years old, a mother
to her little girl Amy, and she and her new fella had come to.
My upbeat fella came to the Whites home to share excitedly

(46:03):
that they were expecting a childtogether.
So she was two months pregnant and they were planning to marry
I'm. Smiling all over my face at
this, but I know it's going to go horribly wrong, isn't?
It it does. I'm like La La la happiness.
Baby, it does. It's like she'd finally find her
place, which you hear this so many times.
Everyone was delighted and afterthey left to head home, Linda,

(46:24):
Kathy's mum, was tickled pink torealise that her son-in-law to
be was none other than the son of Linda's own paediatrician
from when she was pregnant back in the 60s with her three
children. So she reached for the phone,
despite the late hour and told Kathy this and they both laughed
about it in amazement. Neither one of them could have
guessed that this would have been their last ever
conversation. Smile gone.

(46:47):
Smile gone. It was the very next day when
Kathy went missing from the Houston area of Texas on Monday
the 17th of November 1986. So this is the same week the
trial for YEAH. And so sorry she was pregnant as
well. Two months pregnant.
OK. Kathy was last seen at a service
or filling station in North EastHouston.
I never know what to call them because we call them petrol

(47:08):
stations. A petrol garage I think they
call them, don't they? No, because I they say gas.
Don't they? Oh yeah, Gas station.
That's what they call them. I might remember that when we
get to it be a mentioned again, but I might call it something
like a flipper each about. Who knows?
It was believed that she had stopped there, but not for fuel
to fill her car radiator with water because it was playing up

(47:30):
and after. This.
It was hot, wasn't it? Yeah, no, this is November now.
So sorry, yeah, now. Ellen's attack was in the
August, but the court case was in November.
Yeah, got you. Oh, that's my microphone.
After this it was crickets and Linda and John sat at their
dining room table waiting for news.
No one could understand why she would disappear.
Her life was looking up. She was so excited, and her
parents didn't believe that she would purposely leave and not

(47:52):
tell anyone. But for four days they waited
for news from the police and there was nothing.
Bizarrely, though, Kathy's brother received an anonymous
call from a young man telling them not to worry about Kathy.
She had asked him to let them know that she'd fallen out with
her boyfriend and just needed a few days to herself to sort out
some, quote, personal issues. Now she left the house the night

(48:12):
before. Everybody was happy as Larry.
She was getting married. There was a baby on the way, so
it didn't seem likely. Five days after Kathy last spoke
to her parents, her body was found discarded in a remote
field at the end of a dirt road.And she was just left there, her
face in the soil, honestly just thrown away.
And it hurts my heart to think about her out there on her own.

(48:33):
So I can only imagine what her parents thought when they were
told. When she was examined, it was
deduced that not only had she been shot with a small calibre
gum more than once, but she'd been sexually assaulted prior to
her horrific murder. For the Whites, this awful
discovery came out of the blue. Remember they hadn't heard from
the police much and it left themin turmoil.
Linda has since shared that she just sat looking at the wall for

(48:55):
three weeks, smoking and drinking coffee following the
news she just stopped. But police had been working hard
on this since since 2 days before on Thursday the 20th, 5th
of November. So we'll just backtrack a little
bit. Unbeknownst to the whites, and I
think, although I could be wrong, the general public, just
one week earlier, two boys had broken free from a Texas Youth

(49:18):
Commission home in Houston on Sunday the 16th of November
1986. And as an FYI, some of the
reporting says that happened onemonth earlier.
But I've worked my way back through the dates and read quite
a lot of articles and I think itwas actually a week.
Gary Philip Brown and Marion Douglas Berry, also known as
Marvin, were both 15 years old and they've made a break for it
from this unit to basically finddrugs and get high.

(49:39):
When they made it clear of the actual unit, they stolen
employees motorcycle and hightailed it out of their head.
And for Travis County, where Berry was from, as soon as they
could, they found a dealer and traded the bike for some cocaine
and a syringe each. They spent the rest of that
night holed up under a bridge shooting up.
The following day, the pair spotted a man loading furniture
onto a station waggon in a nearby Target car park.

(50:00):
The vehicle wasn't actually parked by the way.
The engine was still running andthe guy kept leaving it to grab
more furniture. And of course, these two little
shits stole it. Paling out of the car park, they
eventually parked up. They didn't attack the man
though. They didn't.
While the man was in getting thenext piece of furniture.
They don't attack big grown men.No, no.
Don't be silly, OK? Well, to be fair, they've not

(50:20):
talked to anyone at this point. Not that I want to be fair to
them. Not only did they get the waggon
and the furniture, but under thedriver's seat they pulled out a
.22 coat pistol. They quickly offloaded the
furniture and used the money to buy more drugs and spent the
rest of the night injecting themselves with speed walls.
Which for anyone else who's clearly this, is basically a
mixture of cocaine and methamphetamine.
They sold the car as well, by the way.

(50:41):
By Sunday the 20th, they must have run out of drugs again as
Harris County cops find them in Greenville, TX in another stolen
car. Both were then arrested
initially for being on the run from the juvenile centre, but as
soon as the plates were run on the car, they were also
apprehended in the disappearanceof Kathy Lynn O'odaniel.
But they haven't found her yet, remember?
I can only imagine what they were on when they saw poor Kathy

(51:01):
standing at the service station with a broken down car.
She literally had no chance. We know this now because one of
the boys, I think it might be Gary, but it might be wrong,
shared what happened and where Kathy could be fined, probably
in a bid to be treated more leniently than his counterpart.
And also because they were 15, so they probably shot it when
they were getting questioned about this.
Probably. I don't think I need to go into

(51:23):
more details as I've already told you she was sexually
assaulted and shot. But whoever it was that talked
took the police to a block of flats or apartments and showed
them where to find the gun and then took them to the field
where Kathy lay. These children abducted her from
the fuel station and forced her to drive them to Brazoria County
and down the dead end track to the field where they attacked

(51:44):
her and took her life. In 1987, after a long drawn out
process, both were certified to be tried as adults.
However, due to their age, they were declared to be ineligible
for the death sentence. Both took plea deals and the
sentences of 55 years for Berry and 54 for Brown were handed
down. Now, the Whites weren't actually
that much involved in this process because they were

(52:04):
fighting for her custody of Amy at the time against her
biological father, who I don't think I'd had much to do with
her. But let's go back in time again,
slightly back to 1986, when Cathy was fine.
John and Linda were shocked beyond belief when it was first
revealed to them that the peoplewho took their baby girl were
babies themselves. Initially, they were upset to
find out that the boys would be treated on adults in course but

(52:26):
wouldn't face the death penalty.They were all for it.
At the time, the Whites were members of a group called
Parents of Murdered Children, orPOMC.
It was a support group, but it was also an advocacy group and
the parents there were calling for harsher punishments and
sentences for perpetrators, likemaking it harder for parole and
stuff like that, including thosewho are children.
According to an article by Slatethat you can find in my

(52:47):
references, Linda even stood up and voiced that she thought the
age for the death penalty quote should go as low as 13 years
old. She was even in a POMC video
advocating for it. And honestly, I can't say I
blame her feeling this week given the circumstances.
Personal feelings aside, I just I can totally understand her
wanting those boys to die at that point.

(53:07):
Yeah, well, it's like the boys that Jamie Bulger, James Bulger.
Yeah, the things. One of them's gone on to
reoffend and reoffend and reoffend.
They did to that child. I know why.
What was the point in keeping them?
But remember how wild that felt?I remember thinking up until
that point it did because I got bullied quite a lot.
And I remember used to, I used to think, well it's not like

(53:29):
they're going to kill me so it'll be fine.
And then realised and wait 10 year olds do and can kill.
Yeah, it was with them as well that James Bulger was the second
child they'd taken that day. They got caught taking a little
girl so they fully had intentions.
Yeah, it was premeditated. They gone out that date with
that today. But yeah, anyway, back.

(53:49):
Sorry back. No, that's OK.
It's good to hear. I just think, I just think they
should not have been protected the way that they have over the
years. I agree.
I I'll be honest, I don't agree with the death penalty because I
know of so many wrongful conviction cases for a start,
and I also don't agree with eye for an eye.
However, that's not to say that my mind couldn't be changed if I
was in the situation that Linda was in.

(54:11):
Yeah, and you can, you can understand their feeling.
Yeah, and I the other thing is because these boys are children,
you know, site from a psychological point of view,
like their brains haven't matured yet.
They don't have the capability to understand consequences
properly yet, which people think's bizarre cause a lot of
people seem to think 15's grown up, but it isn't.

(54:31):
It's not grown up. Not at all.
But to do something like this isjust heinous, and I think the
drugs probably had quite a lot to do with it.
But that's not an. Excuse.
I think that they're grown up. Oh, we thought we were grown up
at that age. So at these meetings of POMC,
there was never any talk really of healing or finding a way to
get through the grief and pain. It was always just about

(54:53):
vengeance. And at the end of one of these
meetings, after they left, John asked Linda, quote, where do
they get the energy for all thatbitterness and anger?
And all of a sudden, Linda's Linda understood that she didn't
want to be like them and she changed her life.
And I mean, she changed her life.
Linda at this point had little more than her GED, which is the

(55:14):
General Educational Development Certificate, which is basically
in America. I think you have to complete
high school. If you don't, you then go on to
do your GED. I think you struggled to get
jobs without it. She went back to school and
earned ABA in psychology. She followed that up by gaining
her master's. She wanted to understand fully
how people deal with experiencedtraumatic loss and she wanted to
kind so people. But the more studying she did

(55:37):
and teaching that she began doing and she realised that the
knowledge she's gained in teaching these students and the
same subject was actually healing her.
She knew retribution wasn't for her.
And through reading and researchand eventually she found
restorative justice and the concept of victim offender
dialogue. RJRJ So at this point, 1997,

(55:57):
Linda's 57, she was studying in a doctoral programme now for
adult education, during which she was not only teaching in,
but she was also working on her dissertation, meeting prisoners
and hearing them share remorse. And she decided she wanted to
try RJ for herself. And having met Ellen Halbert as
he both taught in the prisons, she knew who to ask despite

(56:18):
never being a mediator herself. So Ellen was more the, the like
a management. She understood it.
She'd done all the training, butshe didn't mediate for people.
But despite this, she decided todo it for Linda cause Linda
asked her personally. And she set about trying to
arrange for Linda to be able to meet with the two boys who took
Kathy away from her. Now obviously at this point,
they're no longer boys. They're 42 years old.

(56:39):
And victim mediation was not an option with Marvin because he'd
been in a ridiculous amount of trouble in prison.
But it was with Gary Brown and it was arranged.
I'm not going into this in detail because, well, there's a
reason. I'll tell you in a minute.
I can tell you that it went well.
And Gary was incredibly remorseful and still is.
And he gave Linda a lot of peacewhen he shared Kathy's last

(56:59):
words with her saying, quote, she said, I forgive you and God
will too. And then she put her head down
and that's when she passed away.While this mediation was being
arranged, A filmmaker called Lisa Jackson approached Ellen
and asked did she have a case that they could film for a
documentary on the victim offender mediation.
And Linda was suggested. Linda agreed to take part.

(57:21):
And you can actually watch this.So Linda, her husband, her
children, and I think she had two or three teen grown boys and
Amy, who was Kathy's little girlwho's no longer a little girl,
all discussed it. And while Linda and Amy, while
Linda was the one who really wanted to do it, the rest of
them didn't. But Amy decided she did want to

(57:42):
meet the person who killed her mum.
So they supported her, but they never went through it.
But Linda and Amy and there's a documentary on YouTube called
Meeting a Killer. I've not watched it myself
because I've not been able to yet, but I've decided, and I've
not asked Vic that we're going to watch it together one day.
And then we're going to discuss unscripted, just chat about what

(58:06):
we think about it. But I thought what we could do
is I was thinking about a watch party sort of thing.
But I'm thinking I'm going to give you guys a date in the next
week or two where I'm going to set up an event on the Facebook
page so we can all chat about it.
So there'll be a date that you have to have it watched by.
Well, you don't have to watch it.
You could even just come along and hear what we're thinking.
But we will have an episode recorded for that day and you

(58:27):
can have a listen to that too. And then we will respond
launched questions. We might even go live if we're
able to make it work on Facebook.
I thought you were going to say we're going to do it like a
Gogglebox style where live response.
That goes into copyright and things though it also we would
say things that were ridiculous.Well, now I was just thinking
you wouldn't be out of focus properly on it properly.

(58:49):
I just use properly on it. Yeah, let's just watch it.
Take note. Have it done by date and then
discuss. Yeah.
So for discussion, we'd love to know what you guys think about
that. And I know this has been a
really long episode, but I just felt that you needed to know
these, these women and these cases.
They sound incredible. Yeah, and just for my part to

(59:09):
close out, I'm just telling you that Ellen did consider doing
mediation as well. She considered meeting with Troy
Wigley. However, he won't admit
responsibility even to this day.He's still in gaol, so it's not
possible. And so she just doesn't want to
meet with him. So while I've not told you too
much about the end of this, I think you should go and watch

(59:30):
the documentary. So again, it's meeting with a
killer and there'll be articles in the references where you can
read more about that as well. And.
We'll obviously put the link to the documentary in as.
Well, we will. We'll put that in the event as
well so you don't have to go searching for it if you want to
watch it and then discuss it with us.
But I do know that Gary Brown has built a friendship with

(59:51):
Linda White. Right.
She supports him I think. Again, she comes from a
faith-based. I was going to say, it's got to
be a lot of. Yeah, they've got to be putting
a lot in their faith and their beliefs that people can be
forgiven. I.
Suppose and people can change and I think the fact I don't
know if it would be the same if it was adult offenders, but I

(01:00:12):
think because he was so young, Imean, we all did stupid things.
We were young, nothing like this.
But you know, he is genuinely remorseful.
So check out the I Survived episode Ninja in the Arctic.
Yeah. Thanks, Gemma.
That was really horrible. And also, yeah, I like that it
was a survival story, but bloody.
Brutal. I know it was.

(01:00:32):
What a badass. And it's gonna feel like we are
finishing this really quickly, but it's because we are.
We are on a schedule today for picking up children.
So thank you, as always, for being here.
And next time you get Victoria and she's promised me, it's not
a horrible case. It's a bit of a daft one, but
hopefully you'll enjoy it. Yeah.
Thanks everyone. Thank you and thank you, Vic.

(01:00:54):
Keep on trucking, bye bye.

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