Twice Offended: The Interview of Cheryl Bartlett Fann

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all's kJ here back for an another episode of Unspeakable. How is it going? I am so excited for what is gonna happen today. You know you've been a listener for a long time, hopefully, but you know that my motto of this podcast has always been victims first, right, and if you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Well, today I have a guest for you, uh and she is if you listen to last drop. Make sure you listen to last drop before you listen to this one. If you're out of order. Okay, but last week we dropped an episode and we spoke about these horrible brothers. Horrible is the only word we can say, and that they committed atrocities against a miss Cheryl Bartlett fan. Well, y'all know me.

1:49 Y'all know that I can't leave well Enough alone. And so I got on Facebook and I did my Facebook investigations like I always do, and I was able to find Miss Cheryl through that trusty resource of Facebook, and today I have her live and in the flesh right here. Hi, Miss Cheryl, Hi, how are you doing today? Okay, you're doing okay. I add to some little nervous and I want you to know that nervous. Nervous is for a place, not here, because I'm here for you with you. The listeners of my podcast are here for you. They want to hear what you have to say, and this is your story. So try not to be nervous because I'm here because I want to hear what you have to say. That's all I want to have. I want to hear.

2:34 So and you're joining me in Kentucky, right, yes, So shout out to everybody in Kentucky that listens. I've got one of your fellow what we say, Kentuckians, Yeah, kentucky Onians. So tell me, tell me a little bit about your life today. How what are things like today? Things are a whole lot better than they've been. I have my husband in thirty six years, I am mister Danny. Yes, I have four grown boys, fifteen grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. So your your family has flourished and blossomed. It sounds like what a lucky lady in that regard, right, Yes, But we're going to back up some right, so hopefully everyone has already listened, like I said to the previous episode, and you've heard of things that happened to miss Cheryl. And what I was hoping we could do is kind of pick up with after the attack on you, and maybe you could walk my listeners through what it was like to have been only one of two surviving victims. Correct, Yes, and there was a total of nine, well nine nine nine n yeah, because there was quite a few, right, And what was it first of all? What was it like when it kind of started coming together? Because I know the little girl was killed what three weeks after your attack? Is that correct? Yes?

4:04 So did y'all did you know in the at the beginning that it was tied in or did you find that out later on? Well before my attack. I never knew of the other ones because I hated the news. And then when the little girl happened, that's when my dad sat me down and said, we need to talk, and he explained what was going on, and then it was just terrifying. It was just to realize that they're out here killing these couples and they're not finding out who they are, right, and they kind of had free reign. Oh, we didn't know where. How far away from where you were did the little girl's murder occur? Do you know? I think what was on the other side of town. I believe I'm not too familiar with that side of town, but I mean you could have driven there. Oh yeah, easily. Yes, So is there something like tell me, just how does it feel when you know you're only one of two survivors of all of these people? Why do you think that is or do you have any you know, thought on that you have guilt that you survived and as twelve year old died, you wonder every day how these kids and they were all kids died and they hit a future ahead of them and I made it. And then you just you carry that guilt around even

5:36 though it's not my fault. I still carry it, do you. I hope. Look, you're the victim, but I get to speak on behalf of the people that care about victims, even if we've never met in person. Do you know that so many people look at you as the guiding light for these victims because you make it and tell me you to be the voice. Well, when the first episode, when the first interview come out with A and E, and a couple of people come up to me and said, I'm sorry, you know, and then you read this stuff online and you got people saying what did you do to deserve it? And you go Anthony and Nathaniel and it was just disgusting. And then when the second interview came out, one lady come up to me and wanted to hug me.

6:28 I'm not the type of person to hug me if I don't know you. And I told her no, that it was okay, and she got offended by it, and then she said, well, I just wanted to say I'm glad you're alive. And I said, thank you. I'm glad i'm alive too, you know, because I don't trust other people much and I think you should have that right. My goodness, right to be attacked out of the blue by people you don't know. I think that should be a learning point too to everybody that's listening to this episode, that you've been through a tragedy such as you have and a trauma that there are long lasting effects. And I even touched on that in the episode when you had told me that obviously you're not a prejudiced person, and I shouldn't have to even say that, but I'm gonna throw it out there if anyone's curious. Neither one of us are prejudiced people. However, it's it's hard to not say that you wouldn't be afraid of another man that you don't know coming into your hospital room. Then, on top of that, you said that your nurse was an African American right R nurse and you had been attacked by the exact same you know, uh, not person, but demographic of person, and that was kind of jarring to you. So how do you does that become complicated as a victim, you know, for someone who's ever been through it, does that become complicated? The only thing that is complicated, like where I live and we have a black male here that has that, How can you

7:59 say that like a the smell that I smelled, uh huh, and and I kind of freaked out because it was just me and him in the elevator. Oh I see, So that brings it back like a back. It's like a flashback. Yeah, it just brings me all the way back to that. And I had to get off because I start hypergunolating and start having anxiety attacks. So now I learned not to get in. I feel bad because he's a really nice guy, but it's just that certain smell that I get, or like if I go to a garage, no, I can't handle that. I will stand outside and if I hear it smell like a whift of it, I'm gone, Like the oil and the all of that.

8:48 You're done, How incredible, serioussociating everything, even in today's times. Do you are you afraid of guns? No, not really, just the people that carry them and may use them in an improper way. Yeah, I understand. So you were in the hospital and you recovered, thank the Lord, and you were able to get out. But I did also say in the episode that the relationship between you and Bud failed. It did not last much longer, and he went on and did his thing. Where did that leave you? Because I'm looking at you or thinking of you back then, you're young, you're in your twenties, right, and you've lost First of all, you're attacked, you're scared, your fiance and our son's father leaves, and you kind of felt left with nothing. I guess you got stripped of everything literally, And how did that? How did you work through that? Well? I kind of went while for a while because I thought, Okay, look what they did to me. He left me because of it, and I took my revenge out on other people, like other men.

10:13 I got to a point where I had him fall in love with me or like me really good, and then I'd say, oh, pushback, you're getting too close. So I changed a lot compared to what I was when I was eighteen. Did you go to any therapy for it? Did you think you needed it? Well? I went to therapy one time, to a doctor and a psychiatrist, and he we found out he was a pervert. He got arrested and he was in prison. He asked me detail every single detail. He didn't want he didn't say, let's start off, you know, how was your day something like that. He wanted every single detail of what happened, and then we end up finding out he got arrested for being inappropriate. You think it sounds like it, Yeah, And so it goes supposed to be in a trusted environment where you can relax and you can talk about something, and then he ends up getting arrested. The therapist did yes. Then, so I don't go to one because I don't trust him. I don't. I didn't know that before we started recording. I'm kind of like processing that in every way possible. This seems to have just not gone well for you. Yep. So then trial, well, I don't want to skip straight to trial. I want to talk about as more people were killed? Did you You didn't know in the moment, but y'all

11:45 started figuring it out right that they were connected to one another. Yes, my mom worked with two of the couples, and when we found that out, and then all the other ones come in, and then I see that they thing on the TV of Anthony where he I think it was Swicky that he killed, and I started getting really scared and hyperventilating him. My dad says, what's wrong. I said, that's him. I don't care what nobody says, that's him. And then so Jack got up and he called the what do you call them, an detective or the detective and told him they needed to come out, and then they came out, and then we sat down, and so that sketch was really like, you knew the second you saw that face that sketch that that was him. And so when the arrests were made, did they call you right then to say we've got want in custody that is responsible or did they how tell me from a victim's standpoint, how were you in the loop or not in the loop? Where did this all go awry? I was not in the loop. They did not call me. We've seen it on TV that they they arrested him for Swicky Anthony and that they he may and with other ones, other murderers around here, but they didn't know. They didn't contact me right away, so you just had to kind of hope I guess he was the right guy. Yeah, okay, so once it once they were both arrested and both in custody,

13:20 and we know that they're responsible. There was a confession which I did go listen to. By the way, you at your you had told me that I could go find it on a certain channel on a certain episode, and I did go listen to it, but they kind of broke it up. I tried to find the full confession in one but I was unable to do that. So when you didn't even know that there was a confession, correct? No? Well no, I was so upset because they I when I talked to him, I felt like they thought I was lying because I mean to go back to because I said where they arrived those the police said, that's not their m mole. How do they know what their m is? These other people were dead. They could have took the took things off of them and the police would have never known. Got you because they took two dollars, right, Bud had two dollars in his wallet. They took his wallet which had the IDs in it, which had y'all's addresses in it.

14:16 They Bud had a nice watch, you said, yes, and then my wedding rings and your wedding rings, and my mother's ring and your mother's ring. Was that ever recovered? No? No, never got that back. So you're right though, to your point, though, how would anybody know if they were robbed? They're dead, They can't speak, They can't tell you what they had or didn't have. Even if they had cash on them, nobody would know that. So I guess they meant main main motive was sex and murder and control. Is that how you interpreted it? Yes, I guess they figure, you know, nobody can Nobody said anything about them stealing anything in which they can't. They just figured, you know, it's just another line, just like they lied about not having my DNA.

15:03 So talk to me about that part. I know you were very upset about that, So let me tell my listeners this real quick. Miss Cheryl and I did speak last week or the week before, and you were very upset. And I feel like this someone might think this should be behind the scenes. To me, this should be the forefront of the scenes, because this is where we need to learn, and we can learn from your experience that you said a lot of things happened that you felt weren't right, and you felt revictimized by the process and the way that things went. So when you were in the hospital, they did a DNA test. They came in and I mean a rape test kit, right, which was very invasive. Would that be a correct way to say that, Yes, and when I got to the emergency room, it was painful. Yes, it was painful and invasive. And how many people were in the room? Do you remember when they were doing that? Kid? They let my mom stay in there with me. There was probably three nurses and a doctor waiting and then doing the year they had to do. Right, So I want the listeners understand there's four strangers in there and a very private very You've just been raped and shot.

16:12 If we're going to put it all in there, and now you've got four strangers, which I totally respect the medical community and all that they have to do, but it's still for you. Was a lot of people in your private space after all of this has just happened. They did that rape test kit, and then what happened with it that I don't know. I don't understand because they said they had no DNA and I don't understand what they do with that. I don't understand what they do with my clothes. So whenever, and I'm not trying to be graphic, I'm just trying to be factual here, whenever they raped you, they did not use any type of protection, no condoms or anything like that. No, so and they both completed the act of rape. Of what you know, everyone understands what I'm trying to say. They both completed what they started out to do. Yes, so and then you read rest correct, you put on underwear in your pants, yes, which is exactly how they got the DNA on the last victim. Was that when she redressed, the seaman continues to drip out of the body and they were able to get that off of clothing that got trapped in her pants. So your pants and your underwear were never brought up again.

17:18 And then that DNA kit or the rake test kit everyone a word at kit was never brought up again and never mentioned, no, never, They didn't say nothing about it. And so when y'all went to court, and I'm trying to be it's hard, guys when you're doing these type of episodes because there's so much you want to say, and it's hard to go in a timeline order, because this didn't quite happen in a ABCD order, right. It was kind of all over the place. But they came to you and said, we cannot connect them to you directly because we don't have a DNA connection. No. I think when they came to me They said that they that they can't take them up on my charges because the other charges they got on the other kids were better than mine. So they took him up on mine. And because I I d'd him and then Buddy didn't I d him at Anthony, that's what got they They kind of got confused about it, and they said they would be like getting up on a stand and you're being confused, and it'd be just a waste of their time. So in other words, I'm a waste of their time. That's how you felt, was that you speaking up and telling your part was a waste of their time.

18:30 I felt, Yeah, I was angry. I felt like I got raped by Ohio all over again. Wow. So it makes me kind of think back here where I'm atam in Louisiana, we had a serial killer, Derek Toddley, and I'm gonna be doing a series on him soon. But when it all was said and done, some of the victims that everyone believes he was the perpetrator on these people. When they went to trial, those people were left off because they felt like the case wasn't as strong as the other ones, and they wanted to make sure to get the conviction so I could understand that from a conviction standpoint. What I want to say, though, is from a victim standpoint, it mattered to you that you be included in those charges. Is that fair? Yes? I should have been in there. They took they did what they did to me, and that's not right. I'm living. I'm here to tell my story. I could have went and gave them everything that I said that they did before they interviewed them.

19:38 Tony confirmed it, and I felt right Tony, and I felt like the police thought I was lying until even when they when they confirmed everything I said, I never heard nothing from the police about it. They never followed up with you. They never said, well, this is what we've got. So you didn't even know there was a a confession. You found that out by watching the television show when you were asked if you would interview. Yes. I watched after we got that known with the interview, and after they showed it on and I sat there and all of a suddenly, I was in the kitchen doing dishes and I heard them speak and I heard them say what they did to me, and I dropped. And it just it's so wrong that they couldn't even give me the decency to tell me that they finally confessed to it, where they kept saying, we can't do nothing about it, and then I felt like they didn't believe me, but they believed them what they had to say, right, And this should be a testament to law enforcement today that the victims have. And I'm telling you, I've sat through many a training of law enforcement today and I'm you know, I'm not even I'll be forty in August, so again and different generation because this happened to you in the eighties. Correct the date, so I'm sure we've come a long way since then. But it is so important that these victims be kept abreast of all, you know, things that can be shared with

21:12 them that wouldn't compromise the integrity of the investigation, but to let and to be heard and to be believed. You know. Even in nine to one one training, which I also train on train other students on nine one one, it says the number one complaint that people have in all facets of life, whether it's policing, whether it's nine one one, whether it's Walmart, the number one complaint that comes out, which I'm not speaking on behalf of Walmart by the way, is that people complain that people were rude to them, and the next one was that they didn't feel like they were believed about what happened. And that is so important, especially what you went through, that you are believed. I believe you. I believe everything you say, and I believe that you're truthful. If that's worth anything, I want you to hear me say that that I believe you, and I believe that you're truthful, and I believe that you are the epitome of the voice for victims that do feel victimized by things not quite going. You know, it's more than illegal with that, would you agree it's more than what happens in the courtroom. Yes, the courtroom part is more or less for them and for them to stand up. You know they from what I understand, when they went through court, they were laughing and looking around and more or less antagonizing them. I'm glad I didn't show up at one point, because I don't I would have lost it because as it is, when Nathaniel got out,

22:47 he looked at us, walked past us and just smirked. And I hate to say this, and I don't like guns, but if I could have got away with it. It would have happened, and I would have been okay to go to prison for it. And you look, I have a shirt just so you know. It's not I don't have it on right now. I have a different one on. But I said one time in an episode, I'll smile on my mugshot over the safety of my children and the things that I love, and people loved it. We ended up making a shirt. I was smiling my mug shot. It's not fair, it's not right. And then we're all supposed to turn the other cheek and be the bigger person when these people have done such atrocities. They don't, you know, they deserve so much more than what they got. You deserve so much more than what you got on different you know ends of it. So you tell me you said that when you did these shows that there were things you wanted to say that you felt like they cut it out or they didn't acknowledge it. Can you talk to me about those things? Well, when we did this show, we talked about how I felt about them. We talked about how I felt that Julia Bates, the prosecutor, did and she did a lousy job. She everybody else thinks she's this and that, but twenty years that's bs because they you know, twenty years is going to go by fast. She told, call me and said, okay, the majority of

24:17 the family, Well, let's to go with the twenty years. I said no. She said, well, we can't go with just you, we can't go with just them. Well you are going with them. I'm speaking. I think he needs more time. Well, I'm sorry, but this is the majority, and that's it. She's lied to me a couple of times. She said, what can ohie, because I there was a thing in it's little blade about me, and she said, what can we do to help you and make things right? I said, I have a scar from the middle of my breastbone all the way down. Get me a plastic surgeon, and it's like two inches wide. And I said, I can get it down to it inline or get it taken away. She said, okay, let me work something else. So she calls back and says, yeah, if I but you have to bring your insurance. So in other words, Tennessee would be my insurance in Tennessee would be paying for in that Ohio and then here she said, well, do you mind if we have newspeople there or somebody there documenting this. No, I'm not on show for her, right, I mean you're trying to because for listeners that don't know, we do have like victim funds in our states for this type of stuff, and it covers a gamut of things. Maybe I need to do an episode on that that or it's supposed to cover a gamut of things because victim, you didn't ask for this. You didn't ask for this to be done, and you just want to be made whole again as best as possible and to feel good about yourself, and then to be asked, can we bring people to document it, like like privacy again? Right? You just want

25:51 I've been pretty lucky so far about the privacy that other than just a few people have came up to me and one lady wanted to hug me. And I don't like being touched by people I don't know, so I don't try to be mean or nasty, and I don't know. I just I'm so angry over the way everything turned out. But like people say, well he served twenty he did his time. I'm still doing my time. You're gonna do your time till the day you die. Yes, I'm gonna remember it. I'm gonna every time I get that smell, I get that feeling, or I see a man walking down the street in an army jacket in a ski cap, I freak out. Danny and I was walking down the street one day and there was a guy coming down the other side of the street and he had an army jacket on and a ski mask. I ran back to the house and he said all he did is turn around, look, and I was gone, why do you have a ski mask? One?

26:48 I don't not not the toboggan that's about Okay, Okay. I was like, cherryl why are these men running around with these ski masks? Bless your hard? Well? What else? I said, let me let me back up if we can say this so in the episode, and I hope that you'll go listen to it if you're if you are so inclined. Obviously, I don't want to force thenone to do anything they don't want to do. But I mentioned in there that when we elect prosecutors, they like to tout that their conviction rates are so high. But to me, conviction rates are irrelevant. If everything's a plea bargain, and they're doing nothing for what they've done. You know, a conviction is no, it doesn't matter like if you come into my house and you burn it down or something, and then you may do a plea bargain and say, Okay, you're going to serve thirty minutes for it. Have you really gotten justice? Have you really accomplished anything. No, you've put a feather in your cap saying that you got a conviction. But the victim's over here going wait a minute, the conviction doesn't do anything for me. They need to pay for what they did, right, I totally agree. See, I'll never feel satisfied over this, not till the day they die. And when they died, were we've all agreed. The families that are left, we've all agreed, when they died, we're gonna have the biggest fastest party there is because hey, hell's gonna be full. Yes, when those two were gone, and I'll say, because I don't care, I also went and looked up the not Anthony,

28:18 which one Nathaniel. He's the one that's out right now living with the mom right, Yes, Yeah, So I went and looked up where he lives and all of that and an interviewer went and said, oh, I went to interview him, but I sent a letter ahead of time so that I wouldn't be you know, so he would be prepared. And I kind of sat back and thought, who the hell are you. This woman did not get a letter to warn her what was going to happen to her and give her a heads up. The twelve year old little girl whose brains were bashed, and she didn't get a heads up. The other couples who were shot and tortured and stuffed in trunks, they didn't get a heads up. But you want to act like you some kind of you're being superior, morally superior by giving him a heads up that you're gonna come talk to him about the atrocities that he committed on his own volition and choice. And then she shows up on the doorstep and he says, that's in the past. I just want that to remain in the past. And then the interviewer or the woman that read the article said, I was just surprised at how he was an older man, and he was he was a mild mannered everybody gets old.

29:27 That doesn't mean anything. I know, I'm watching you on screen like, what are people missing? Until they're a victim or they've been in my shoes, they'll never understand. They can say that he's the sweetest man ever, but until they know that, unless they were there that night when that happened, he wasn't no sweet man, not when you got a knife at your throat and you're being raped and their boyfriend's got a gun in his head and they take the mask off so he can watch, and not so he can watch, so he will watch, yes, And I'm sorry, but they wanted him to suffer too. Yes, they wanted to watch you be defiled.

30:11 They got off on that power. They got off on the whole, on the whole scheme of it to make both of you suffer. And they tried to end your life. And the fact that they didn't doesn't mean crap. They tried to, So I don't know why they're being given this this. Oh well, she didn't die, so what would you would? Would it? Would the world feel better if you had died, like in a weird way? And I don't mean this crass, but what does it take? Does the victim have to lose their life for someone to say, oh, maybe we need to put a bullet back in them. Well, there was other victims and look what they did to Dawn and then they pat him on the hand. That's why, I said Julie Bason in the Slio Police department. They're they're rotten. They got to like on the slash shold.

30:59 They gotta protect themselves by lying. They sat there in no DNA bull crap. There was DNA. How can you not give DNA because they did not use no protection and there was two of them. Yes, I wonder do you think do you wonder if maybe they lost the rate test kit or something? Yeah, it's possible, Yeah, and they just trying to back themselves up. I'm curious. I'm genuinely like, this is genuine curiosity. This is there's no there's no production, you know, like, don't dn't daw about this. I'm genuinely curious about your DNA kit. I don't understand how they can get DNA off of Sandra and this I'm not exactly sure what't happened to Sandra, but I don't know how they can get DNA off of her, but they couldn't get it off me. And they did a rate kit.

31:48 When they do a rate kit they scrape and they get what they can get, and you're they're telling me they couldn't that they're the only thing they got off or a RAATE kit was a small patch of seamen on the pants. Boy, right right, They're wrong. Something's something is a miss there. Yeah, I mean, I'm convinced something is a miss there. And I'm not accusing anyone of anything malicious on purpose, but I am as your friend. Can I call myself your friend? Because I feel like I'm on your side. I want to know what happened to it? Where is the DNA kit? That would be nice, but I think they've botched it somehow, them or the hospital did something. Because I'm with you, there's no way. Whenever they gave their confessions and they said okay, you were contact and said you don't need to come to court, no one's going to be speaking, No one's going to be as far as victims go. Can you talk to me about what happened there too? Yeah. They said that they were going to do a plea agreement and I told him I still didn't agree on it. They said it's done set because they they they told on everything and they said, don't worry you don't have to come to court. None of the family's gonna come. It's just gonna be a quick deal in and out of court. We were at my We were in Ohio that weekend or that week to help move my mom, and when she called and said,

33:19 don't worry, don't come, we said, okay, fine. Later that day on the news everybody was there and that everybody got to speak. I felt, you know, it was like I'm pushed aside. Again. You're living, be thankful for that. These victims are gone. So in other words, I'm a living victim. But they have more rights. And it's not whether they had rights or I had rights. But I would have liked to have been there and been able to talk to the judge or whoever I had to and say what I felt that they did to me. But Julie Bates said, no, don't worry, don't come. We don't need you here. It's just gonna be in and out. Did you call after that?

33:59 Did you call to say why did you tell me not to come? Or was it just so emotional that you just I just I didn't want to talk to her because I knew if I talked to her, she would not have liked what I had to say to her, Well, tell me this if you could speak. And I know we're on this is I know this. We didn't plan any of this, so I know this is kind of off the cuff. But there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast a lot. What would you say to them? Not to the people that listen to the podcast. I'm saying to Anthony and to Nathaniel, if you could have a moment and you wanted people to hear, because I want to give it to you, what would you say, because way more people I want to I want you to know this. Way more people are going to listen to this podcast than would have been in that courtroom. So I'm gonna I want people to hear. What would you say? Oh boy, I've gone over and over in my head and this is this is really different.

35:02 I don't know if I could have stayed calm. I was. I was eighteen years old, and they took my self esteem away. They took a part in me away. Because after that happened, I went nuts. And I don't mean literally nuts. I just didn't care about life. And I hate them. I hope they writ in hell. I hope they've burned for eternity to where it just eats their skin up so bad. If I would have had a gun, they wouldn't be here. And I don't care who likes it. I just I hate them. They're just they're just pigs and they are and you're right, and everything that you're saying right now should be said. It should be said. You deserve that. Why do we give and I hope you can feel the genuineness in my heart right now to you.

36:07 Why do we give them the decency of sitting in the court and being tried? And I understand laws, Okay, so I know people aren to come after me, but if we're just talking pure raw emotion right now, just pure raw emotion, why did they get to sit in a air conditioned courtroom with a button up shirt, getting to groom themselves to look appropriate before a jury or what? Why do we and then the victim, the victim who actually suffered, never gets a moment to look them in the face and say, you're a piece of shit and your mom should be ashamed of you, and your people who are friends with you should be ashamed of you.

36:55 You know what I mean? You have to be the bigger person. I just get sick of that. It's the whole purpose of my podcast. When they showed it down in the news, they were sitting there laughing and cutting up and like leaning back in their chair like ha ha, here I am mine, look at me, and you just you want to go up there and just slap on you, just want to do whatever you have to do to get it off their face, because that neither one of them had a remorse. He didn't even have a remorse when he got out, because then when he got out in August of eighteen, I think it was he come walking in the courtroom, looked at all of us and just laughed and just walked ahead and like, I'm getting out and there's nothing you can do about it. And he was right. I don't. I don't know how you carry that every day, and I think that you are so I'm so I don't know what the word is. I'm so proud of you. I don't know if proud is the word. I'm so impressed by you that you carry that day in and day out, and look at you though, real quick, the biggest joke on them is look at you moved on with your life married. I'm your absolute stud muffin of a husband. Right, how many years ago? Been married? Thirty five? Thirty five years? Raised four boys? If anything, I think you yourself. You know, you can't always be reaching outwards for vindication. You are your own vindication. I hope

38:28 you feel that when you look in the mirror, I hope you feel like, look at you. You know. I always wonder why, what is my purpose in life here? You know? And I wonder if going through that make help, did you know, not help, like make me understand a little bit, because I want to get it out there that you know. There's one thing I didn't tell you about, and you probably read it is a week before this happened, I drunk, I was getting raped and shocked, and I listen to my dreams. Now I know people say, oh, that's crazy. No, it's not crazy, because if I would have listened to my dream I never would have been out in that street like that. But then I wonder if they would have caught Buddy on the way home and they would have wrong. Buddy would have not thinking and bought them to the house with our son. There. See, that's a lot of why I didn't run home because of my son there well. And also none of this would have come full circle. And I don't think they would have gotten any justice if you hadn't jumped up and seen that photo or that drawing and said that's him. You know you did play an integral part of them getting locked up. You did, and while on this earth, you know, it doesn't feel like enough, but eternity is going to be a bitch.

39:50 Sorry for them because they're gonna get it. But I just back. I want to tell you this though. You know you look at that beam a light coming down for people who are watching us. You said that beam a light man? Can you see it in your video? In your in your video. I'm telling you you have been so important to this case and you could have done so many other things, but you picked yourself up by your bootstrapped. You did that nobody else and you went on with your life and you raised four boys. Tell me about Eric though, how how you said he's in his forties today? Right? Yes, he's forty five. I think he'll be forty five. Yeah, he's older than me. And he's the baby of the story I keep talking about. And he's older than me. Yeah, what does he do like you told. Let me tell you why I'm asking this real quick, you said, And I listened to your heart when you said, while you were being raped my baby, would I ever get to see him grow up? Who would take care of him?

40:49 Who would love him? The answer was you, because they couldn't stop you tell me about him growing up? Oh, he was. He loves hockey. Hockey was his whole like the whole time. He's grown up because a little bit of my sister and my fault because we went to the hockey game. Slot he is. He he had his first child at eighteen. He was a little mischief teenager. But now he does painting. He has come. Yeah, he's a painter, jim producer, Jimothy. He for thirty something years sold paint and did painting. So he does. He's got his own company. He's doing good. He's he's doing really good. He he don't like watching any of the shows I've done or any of the interviews because it hurts him. Yeah, his father's not here no more, and then he just it bothers him what happened to me? So he he'd rather not listened to his stuff. But he's doing really good. Awesome and his brothers are younger than him or are y'all blended family? Two of his brothers are forty two and forty and then the my old well, Danny's oldest, which I kept play on his mind. He's forty eight and he's like my best friend. Yeah, how wonderful, How wonderful. You've got all your boys, and you've got your Danny. Yep, and you're telling your story and a lot of people can't do that. And you need to give yourself

42:22 when you turn off this camera and when you are done with me today, I hope you walk around in the fact that you said your peace and you're doing you. You're everything that I would hope for a victim, Honest to God, You're living your life, you're married, you have children, and you didn't let it get you. No. I let it give me for a little while, and then I had to say enough was enough, and I came to Tennessee and met Danny and straightened my life up. And I'm so proud of you. If that's worth anything. I know you don't know me personally, but I'm rooting for you. Thank you, and I know my listeners are rooting for you. Is there anything. Is there anything else?

43:06 Sorry, is there anything else you'd like to say that while you've got the floor. Yeah, I'm kind of. One of the other things I'm angry with Julia Bates's office is when Nathaniel got out, they gave him a car, they gave him money, they gave him a place to stay, They worked it all out with some kind of organization to help him rebuild his life. But meanwhile, me as a survivor, doing the best I can do to get a car, to make it to do things. But they just he comes out, it's like a pat on the back. You're out now, you served your time, and they gave them. You gave him all that stuff, job, car, everything, and it's then they want me to bring my insurance from Tennessee. But they're gonna help me. No.

43:58 There they're a joke. You know. You bring up a good point too. So, like I told you before, I work in I worked in prison, and I was always dumbfounded by the number of people. I understand trying to see the best in people. I do, trust me, I do, and you want good things, but some people are flat out undeserving. They are flat out undeserving and they play the game. And hope, I hope my listeners will hear me on this as someone who has worked in a prison amongst the people like Anthony and Nathaniel. And if you go ask anyone worth their salt who's worked or arrested or been in the field of dealing with this type of facet of person. They play a game that sound good. People don't understand because they smile in your face when you go in there in your little church programs. And I'm not down in church. I'm a Christian and I love jes Christ. But when they smile in your face when you go in there and you go try to have church with them, and they smile in your face whenever you're over there, do it helping with therapy programs, or when you're writing cards and sending them to prison, or I've seen people, you know, drop off stuff at Christmas time to lift their spirits. And then when you leave the prison, and I'm telling you now, anyone worth their salt will back me up on this. When you leave the prison, the facade drops and they're back doing their games that they

45:31 play behind bars. They're back having sex with each other behind bars. They're back swindling single women who are outside of the gate sending them money because they're in love with the prisoner. They're back playing these games. People don't change like that. Someone who's willing to put a knife a knife to a woman's throat and rape her and then watch his brother follow up and rape her. That is not you and me. That is not the average Joe walking this planet. That's an animal, and animals need to be where animals belong in cages. I agree, And you're gonna give them a car, and you're gonna try to help them rebuild their life. Excuse my French, what fuck your life? Dan? I want to help you. I'm sorry. I just I'm on a tangent right now because I want to give you a car.

46:34 I want to give you some money to go help buy your baby at the time, a crib to sleep in, and to upgrade your circumstances to get you out of the area where this type of stuff occurred. But we're gonna, we're gonna feel sorry for them, Danny to. We were all in the room and Danny said, just let us take them out for a drink. Just give us five minutes with them, and we'll take them for a drink, and Julia said, no, we're not going to go that route. He said, why he took advantage of my wife. He did what he did, but we can't have time with him. But you're giving him a car and money and you're doing everything for them, But what are you doing for the ones that survive nothing? This is not the twenty years he got it made for the other families been okay, me, I think he should have been in there for life, you know, now there was of course he should look at all the people they killed. Yep, there was down. Yeah, don was twelve. And did you ever hear their reason for why they kidnapped Dawn? They thought she was seventeen because that makes it better. Yep, because she was seventeen, they said that. They asked why did she take her? Because she was only twelve years old?

47:52 But we thought she was seventeen. I don't care if she was eighty two. They don't give nobody a reason to do this, especially when they did that child. You know, that's the one I feel more. I instead of feeling sorry for myself, I feel more sorry for her. She never got to go to prom, she never got to have a boyfriend. She never got to do the things an adult did. And that poor thing was tied up by chains for a week and they continuously raped her, both of them. No food, no water, no nothing. That's the one who I feel I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I had time to feel more sorry for that child than I do anything, because I've got grandchildren at age, and it matt Man and her, and you know, that little girl was thinking about her mama and wanting her mama and begging these animals to let her go, and they did what they wanted to do.

48:52 They I just this case, and I'm telling you this is why I focused on you specifically, because I know there's a lot of victims. I do and I want, but I just feel like, you know, as a victim, and that you should have been given more. And I don't mean stuff necessarily. I just mean they got all of the grace, they got all of the being heard and getting to talk about it and getting just unbelievable. Twenty years was not enough. Forty years wouldn't have been enough, Eighty years wouldn't have been enough. A bullet would have been plenty for me, or an electric chair would have been fine. A firing squad would have been great. And I know people get mad at me for saying this, but I really don't care. He put it a knife to your throat. He tried to end your life, your gift of life. He tried to take it from you. He did take a twelve year old. He killed the father. They killed the father correct of of a girl and her boyfriend.

50:04 They killed people found in trunks, people mining their own business, and we're gonna give them twenty years. Unacceptable on all levels. And I think the States should be ashamed of themselves, just because the families of the other victims and God bless them. And I'm not talking ugly about them in any ways. They have suffered as well. But twenty year conviction. To me, I've seen people put in prison for marijuana, multiple marijuana, you know, dealings longer than twenty years. They killed a multitude of people. The States should be ashamed. I agree. It's like being raped all over again by them. And I've got to a point I don't care if they know it.

50:55 In fact, I believe right after all that went down, wrote Julia Bates and told her I felt what she did, and sudden and all this never got a response, never emailed me back and said I'm sorry. I even give her my phone number. Nothing. She don't care. She just thinks she's got one more notch on her belt, saying I put them behind bars. She don't care about the families. I don't know anything about her, So I guess I. You know, I don't have thing to add to it, but I will support you because I think your feelings are validated.

51:36 I think that what you went through no one should ever go through. And soil they ran my shoes. They you know. They can't sit there and say, well I would have done this. No, you don't know what you would have done, because now, like I'll tell Danny, if I think if I would have ran home, nothing Meal would have caught me because I had to passed him, and then they would have took us to our house. And what were they done to my son in front of us? So you have to at the moment, you have to think what is the best option, and you have to go with it, even though you suffer with it the rest of your life. But you know your child is safe. But the answer is this, and I have to tell you this.

52:17 The answer is you did the exact thing you needed to do. You did exactly what you needed to do because you survived. You survived, your son survived, and he had his mama the rest of his life. There's no way you can tell me you didn't do exactly what you needed to do. You shouldn't even suffer in that used to me. Should walk with your head up going guess what. Put a knife to my throat, put a bullet through my body, rape me twice. You can't stop me, and you didn't stop me. Yep. That's when Nathaniel or not Nathaniel and Tony goes up for paroh in December. I'm going to be there. I don't care if I have to travel all the way to Ohio. I will you there, and this time it'll be on. And I'm glad you brought that up because we can close with this. I've got the link I pulled it up to where if you have something you would like to say against his release, you're welcome to do that. Did y'all know that? Listeners, you are welcome to do that. And I on behalf of missus Cheryl. I'm gonna post that and I would love for my listeners to go click it and say exactly why you think he should not be released, just based on the facts and the things we've spoken about today. Because miss Cheryl is your friend and when you care about her. Now, right now that we've gotten to hear your story and get to know you, I think anyone should has the time to click the link and just go put their thoughts in there of why he should not. And Honey, we got thousands and thousands and thousands of

53:50 listeners. It takes five minutes. Please do so on on this. I want you to know I'm gonna do my part. I got things to say on there. I'm going to post that link. I would be proud for my listeners to go and to say their piece and to do it just in honor of you and your goodness and your fighting spirit. And I want to tell you thank you so very much for coming on my show today's sharing your most private and intimate struggles. That means the world to me that you would feel safe enough to come in here and to talk about it. I want to thank you for letting me say the things that I've said on both of those shows and they cut out. It won't be cut here because it's that's that feels like you're being defiled all over again. They ask you what you feel, you tell them, then they cut it out. Why you're here to tell the truth, tell the truth and even the ugly, even the ugly and the messy parts. So you have you have my word. My word is my bond. So you have my word. And I'm looking you in the eyes when I say it. We will not be cutting anything out.

54:58 Everything you have to say will be really And I'm putting that link and I hope that all of my listeners will go in and say their piece for you. Thanks. Normally, when I end my episodes, I have a mic drop moment that I say something sassy. I'm not doing that today. I just want to thank you so much, like I said, for sharing everything that you've shared with me today, to know that anyone else who's a listener, and I do have a lot of survivors of sexual violence that write me often, I hope you listen to this. I hope this can be an encouragement to you that you can make it and your feelings are valid, and that there's never a day or a moment or an outfit or a circumstance that ever ever allows for someone to do something like that to somebody else, it's because they're animals. I agree. All right, until next time, guys, thank you so much for listening, mis Cheryl. I hope you have a wonderful week and we'll catch you all next time. Hm,