Serial Killer Documentary - Convicted murderer Mary Rice talks killing spree along Florida-Alabama coast, claims innocence

0:05 My name is Mary Rice, M-A-R-Y Rice, R-I-C-E.

0:10 And like I said, if there's anything you don't want to talk about, just let me know. But to start, tell me a little bit about you and who you are.

0:17 Okay, so how deep would you like me to go in on that? Because we can go pretty deep.

0:21 Well, so we have a lot of questions. So let's just start with kind of a short synopsis of who you are, and then we'll kind of go through. I think, did she send you some of my questions that I had sent her? I have a couple additional, but that's a majority of what I have.

0:35 Okay.

0:35 So start with telling me a little bit about you.

0:37 Okay, so I've been through a lot of trauma in my life and everything. And I was married and divorced. And basically, I'm a mom. So my children are my life and I'm a mom.

0:51 How many kids do you have?

0:52 I have, I had four. Two have passed away. One since I've been here five years ago. And I have two living.

1:01 I'm sorry about your loss.

1:03 Thanks.

1:03 How old are your babies that are with us still?

1:06 So my baby just turned 18. And then my oldest just turned 25. And I have two wonderful grandbabies. Awesome. Yes.

1:14 And so....

1:17 Let me go through this.

1:18 Tell me a little bit. And I did read Rachel sent me through your appellate testimony. So I did read through some of that to try and refresh myself a little bit. Tell me a little bit about how you met Billy.

1:30 So I met Billy. I went to Tara Freeman, for which is one of my really good friends, Herman Jeffrey Stubbs, his girlfriend. So she had come over to my house and she had asked me if I wanted to go visit him in Santa Rosa County Jail. He was locked up at the time and I said I did. So we both, I went with her and we went to visit him. While we were there, Billy Boyette popped up on the screen and just like popped up and jetted down like in the little corner. And he was like, this is a friend of mine and he wanted to know if I would write him because Billy I wrote people in prison. My brother was in prison, and I was part of a prison writing ministry at St. Mary's Episcopal.

2:17 We would do God letters to people. We would write people uplifting letters, everything, and I was part of that. I also ran the daycare at St. Mary's for a very long time. So it was something that we did, and they would go in, and they would see people that were approved would go in and see them and pray for them while they were locked up and everything.

2:36 So I was like, sure, I didn't mind, and I helped a lot of people You know, I had resources through the church and other things to where I could help people get clothes, the whole nine yards, help them, you know, with the banks for food, help them do food stamps and everything else because I'd gone through some of that stuff myself, being a single mom, you know.

2:56 So I told him, sure, I would ride him and everything. So, and then after I rode him, I rode him one time, then my brother, I talked to my brother on the phone. My brother was in prison and When I talked to my brother, he was like, stop riding him. Don't ride him anymore. And I was like, why? Why don't you want me riding him? And he was like, well, so my brother was into a lot of things and he had gotten in trouble. He was in prison. So he had told me to stop riding him.

3:28 So I stopped riding him.

3:30 I had told Jeff that I wouldn't ride him anymore. And he was like, well, why? But my brother had told me that they had business dealing gone wrong. And there was some money short. There was an argument. There was guns drawn. The whole nine yards that he had basically a vendetta against him or what. Israel James was his partner on a lot of things and one of his best friends. And Billy Boyette, apparently, I would find this out, you know, through my brother, in that he had attacked him with a catclaw, and there was, like, reports and everything. They had went to jail. Israel did and him. It was a violent scene, everything else. I would find out more about him later on. I really didn't know anything about him. So I was like, okay.

4:16 So I wrote Jeff, and I was like, I'm... I'm not going to write him anymore. Can you let him know? So he was like, okay, I will. And when Billy had wrote me, he had wrote me asking me if I could help him and everything else when he got out. That never happened. So I never made contact like that with him when he got out.

4:36 After that whole thing happened and your brother had kind of given you that warning, how did it come about to where he knew where you lived and was coming to your house?

4:46 Well, the first letter that I had wrote him, my address was on there. So I couldn't do anything about that. The damage was already done through the very first letter. So I couldn't take that back after it was done. Okay.

5:01 Pardon if I kind of go around because because of the short time, I'm going to kind of jump a little bit because I have read through your version of events. So I don't want to take 25, 30 minutes talking through quite all of that and then maybe some of this important stuff. Talk to me a little bit about I know he threatened your family.

5:20 Yes.

5:22 At any point, did you find out if there was any truth to that?

5:25 OK, so he had told me that he had there was an abandoned house. place somewhere along the road where my ex-mother-in-law had stayed. He told me that there was someone staying in it and that was watching my kids. He knew where my kids went to school. He knew what bus they rode. He knew what time that they went to school, that they got out of school. He knew where my mom worked. He knew where she lived.

5:49 My mom told me later on, after all this, she had told me that she had seen him in the store When she seen a picture of him on the TV, she was like, oh, my God, I remember that guy because he stood off. He kind of acted weird. And she remembered him coming into the store and like scoping it out, you know, and made her kind of feel uncomfortable.

6:07 But she did at the time. She didn't think anything of.

6:10 It, you know, until later on. And then she was like, oh, my God, that was him.

6:14 So he definitely had followed her, you know, places and she had noticed. And he knew where my brother was in prison. And he was connected. He had been in and out of prison, so he knew people. So he had someone watching my.

6:27 Brother as well.

6:29 And whenever he told me that, I believed him with everything. And what was the second.

6:36 Part of the question? Do you know if he actually, like, after everything ended, do you know if he was telling you the truth? Did he have someone actually there watching, or was that just him using a ruse?

6:45 Okay, so I had told the detectives... And I told my lawyer at the time, for which was Kenneth Brooks. I told them about that. And I told them, please, go look. Go look across the street from Norma's. Go check everything out. I told him, you know, whenever they did the interview with the deposition with Mr. Hunt, I guess he was in the apartment above where everything had happened, I guess. I learned this in trial. He had said something about a guy had come and visited him. They never followed up on that. They never followed up on the leads that I told them about going and checking about an empty place to see if there was any remains of anything, you know, cigarette buds, if there was any garbage that was left behind, anything that showed where

7:32 someone had been sitting there. You know, for an extensive period of time, you know, there would be stuff there. And I told them, you know, could you please go and check this out? And Mr. Brooks was like, oh, I do all my detective work by myself, so I'll go. And he never did. They never followed up on it. Nothing.

7:52 So you don't know if there was someone watching your family as he said there was?

7:57 I mean, I know what he said. And I believed it with the way he treated me and everything happened on my eight-day nightmare. Yes, absolutely. I believed that there was definitely someone on the other end of that phone that he could call. And if he did make that phone call, they wouldn't have had time to call the police because someone running up in your house, they could get six rounds off on you. Before you could even breathe. Yeah, he could have killed everyone in the house. And that was not a chance I was willing to take after losing a child already.

8:28 And that was what I was going to ask, because I don't know if I read it in your testimony or if I listened to a podcast where you mentioned it, but you said something about if you were to have told anybody in any of the stores you were in or the places that you went that you were afraid the cops couldn't outrun that phone call.

8:45 Right. You can't outrun a phone call when someone calls someone. That's immediate. Right. It's not like you walk down the road and then you have to walk back. That's right then. That's okay. They hang up and they're out the door. You can't outrun that. Just like you can't outrun a place radio or anything else. You just, you can't.

9:03 Did you ever think about leaving notes that way? Like when you and he left a place, they left it behind where he couldn't see that you had done something.

9:10 Okay. So he paid the way that he parked in a lot of spots and the places that he went to, he was in Walmart with me. So he would have seen anything. And whenever we went to, like, GNC, there was big, huge windows. I mean, he could see everything in there. He parked right up front. He had a gun on us the whole time. He would have shot through that glass. He would have killed the person in there along with me, no doubt in my mind. So he watched everything that we'd done. And if I would have slipped something to someone, and I wasn't willing to risk my family, because at this point, it's like, I should, I'm missing. I know I'm missing. I know my family knows that I'm missing. The shape that I looked in,

9:51 you know, it was like, how could someone just look at me and be like, okay, everything's fine. I had a black eye. I had, you know, I was, busted up pretty bad talking to these people at GNC. I gave them my full name, my address. I'm on the TV at this point. I know I am because it's already days into this. You know, there has to be a misdemeanor person's report because I know my family. If I don't talk to them every single day, they're wondering where I am, what's going on. the whole nine yards.

10:20 And then I didn't show up for work. Absolutely, there's something going on. And there was a missing person to report, I found out. So with that, I'm all over the news. So I'm figuring I'm in public. I'm trying to take my time, but do what I need to do. I'm figuring someone could call because if I do, then I could take a chance of my kids dying. And then, okay, then I would be free. But then I would be visiting my whole family in a grave. Now what, where's the justice in that?

10:53 So one of the things that has gone back and forth in the public eye is whether you were in a relationship with Billy or not. Why do people say that you were in a relationship with him?

11:05 Okay, so the state said that I was in a relationship with him, but I was not in a relationship with him. Let me get that straight. His girlfriend was Alicia Greer. It was not Mary Rice. It was Alicia Greer. And I had met her one time whenever they had come to my place to pick up Jeffrey Stubbs from my house.

11:28 And talk a little bit. I did hear in the podcast you mentioned about some of the text messages that they didn't look like anything you had ever seen before.

11:36 No, you text like you talk. And these messages I had never seen. So I have paperwork here. where Detective Bainey, this was one of my amended grounds to my 3850. It says, newly discovered evidence, the termination of Officer Jimmy Tatum for untruthfulness and criminal mischief. So whenever you put something up, there was a lot of the text messages that had times and date stamps on them. Some of them didn't. Some of the pictures were out of my gallery that I had never sent to anyone. So with this, I have paperwork. So I wrote my lawyer and I have paperwork where they sent me that about my case that they were, yes, he was untruthful in my case and everything. And I have paperwork here. I have paperwork

12:33 here for, it wasn't just my case. It was other people's cases with the state's attorney. and Mr. Brooks, where they were talking things over. But unless I had requested this and I heard this, I just so happened to hear this. But I told him in court that day, I didn't say that. I didn't send that. That's out of my gallery. I never sent that to anyone. That was a picture, personal picture that I had taken that I had never sent anyone. And then he writes me back and he says, he tells me, I did receive the information from the state attorney's office on Officer Tatum was terminated from his position with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office for untruthfulness and criminal mischief. Enclosed is a notice

13:22 of the copy of the investigation. I received the report and nothing in it appears to have bearing on your case except for he was untruthful in your case. I hope this information is helpful. Okay, well, if you were untruthful in my case, you were the head investigator in my case. So that means that you're tampering with things, you're lying about things to make it a story that fits you. Because basically what it comes down to is how can a state attorney tell me what went on on this eight day nightmare? How can you tell me my story and my testimony? You can't, you weren't there.

13:59 Only I can tell you what happened to me, not you.

14:03 With that, have you been able to use that in any sort of appeals?

14:07 So I sent this. This was part of my 3850, and the courts felt like they accepted it. It was timely done. It's amended, and this is my copy of it. And I sent it in. It was timely done, and it was added to my 3850 along with the... I have so many grounds, so many grounds that if I had had my discovery that I would have been, I would have brought these things up because I would have went through my stuff. But, you know, Mr. Brooks decided that I didn't need to participate in my case. I didn't need my discovery. I didn't need any of these things.

14:49 He didn't need to go over anything with me. He just had me sit in jail for two years almost, and not go over anything. When he came to see me, he would be like, I know you're innocent. I'm working on getting you home. He would tell my family the same thing until the very last time he came to see me. And then he was real smug like, like he wasn't gonna help me, like you're lying, you're this. No, I'm not. I'm telling you everything and I really need my stuff.

15:17 Well, I had a couple questions about him, but on that form where it talks about the detective that was fired.

15:24 Yes, would you like a copy of these? Sure.

15:28 Are they going to allow you to use that for a type of an appeal?

15:31 See, so it says Exhibit D. They have to because it's already part of the original motion. So, but Escambia County doesn't like it whenever you talk about their officers or anything else. You know, they're big boys, they stay together. And with that, they didn't address this. They didn't feel like they needed to address it any further, but it does need to be addressed.

15:53 So are you still in the appeals process?

15:55 I am in the re-hearing process. So I went to court and I have transcripts from where I went to court on September 14th. 2022 I think I have I think that's the one that Rachel sent me okay so and this all should be public record I don't understand why they have my record sealed because the public should be able to see all this stuff is it because the an officer was involved was it because my blood work wasn't you know brought up or anything I'm really unsure because it should not be sealed they should The public should be able to see all this stuff. You can see all the bad stuff, but you can't see any of the good stuff. That's crazy to me.

16:37 So let's talk a little bit about Mr. Brooks so that I'll move to a different topic. Thank you.

16:43 Did you end up filing a complaint on him of any.

16:46 Sort because of the lack of allowing participation and the lack of really including you in your own defense?

16:56 I did with the Florida Bar. I did file something. But they were like, if you don't win your 3850 motion, then we're not going to do anything. So they basically did not look into it. They dismissed it. At this time, I'm not planning on filing anything against him. I'm not going to say that I'm not going to file anything against him. I'm just saying right now I'm more focused on my freedom and letting them see what should have been done and that I'm not guilty of this.

17:30 Well, and part of the issue with him is that you were examined by this doctor. I don't remember if he was a psychiatrist or psychologist.

17:36 Yes, I have that paperwork.

17:37 And that was never introduced at your trial. What were the results from him? What did he have to say?

17:46 So I have the report here. That was a ground that I had had as well. And that was, counsel was ineffective for failing to call expert Steven Zimmerman as a witness. And he had done this, he had done a report on me for all the trauma that I had from four on for the rapes, the molestation, the abuse. everything that I've had throughout my life and everything, and he puts in here that I have PTSD, that I have trauma issues, serious issues going on in my life, and that I'm a survivor, and that, if anything, that people should know that.

18:43 Do you think that should have been introduced at your trial?

18:46 Absolutely. Absolutely, I do. And he believed as well. He was very, I had seen him the day before, and he was like, He was putting the report together and he was giving it to Mr. Brooks and everything he said. But Mr. Brooks, his attitude had changed towards him and everything. And we spent a lot of time with this. I went through a lot of painful stuff with this man, you know, to where he could diagnose me. And this was Mr. Brooks's idea. And then you don't want to use this person. What changed?

19:21 Do you think that would have had a impact on the jury in their decision making?

19:26 Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. If they had known my childhood and they had known the trauma that I've already lived through, you know, that I've already had a child pass away, you know, that I was molested, that I was raped, that everything that I've been through in my lifetime as to why I made the decisions that I made during this trip, you know, that I was on, that I still this is a nightmare that is still going on even to this day. It has not stopped because I went from that to custody to here. It still continues every single day. Every day that I wake up in here is my reminder. of what this man did, and I'm sitting here on principle to his crimes. That's crazy to me. How can you take a victim, an innocent person,

20:19 and put them in prison because he killed himself and you want someone to blame? That's crazy. How did they get away with that? I would like to know that. I really would.

20:30 Well, and I know that the. I'll have you go through kind of your version of events here in a minute, but I want to ask just one specified question before we start, was when y'all were at Kayla Crocker's, which is the one main incident that put you here, right?

20:48 Yes, ma'am.

20:49 Did you have any idea going into that situation that he was going to kill her?

20:53 No.

20:53 No. I stayed so drugged up in and out of things and everything else. I had no idea. I had no idea about the Emerald Sands, what had happened there. I had no idea about that until way later on. And really, until I got to the Sheriff's Department with the detectives and everything else, did I find out about that, to be honest. I mean, towards midway through the thing, the radio had come on. He had turned it off.

21:24 It had said something about Emerald Sands. He made a comment one time, and the family dollar... with one of the sales assistants, you know, that he killed his girlfriend or anything. So, but still, I still have no knowledge of anything that has happened, you know, because I was unaware of any of it happening. So with Kayla Crocker, no, I didn't. I didn't think he was going to.

21:52 So when he had you tie her up, what were you thinking was going to happen in that situation?

21:57 Okay, so with that, Whenever I came up on the porch, there was a piece of rope there and he did have me, he had a gun to us both. So it's not like I willingly did this or anything. I had a loaded gun on me.

22:16 And whenever I tied it, I told her I was sorry.

22:19 And I said, I'm tying this real loose. And I said it real quiet to her. And she was like, thanks. And the one that I tied was in a bow and it was really, really loose on her hands. And then he had me grab food and go to the car. He had reached down after I had done that. He had reached down and he had grabbed the rest of the string, yarn, rope, whatever. And that's what bound her, not what I put on her. She could still move.

22:48 What the other part that they failed to mention is that there was more than just That one rope. And the one rope that was in a bow was very loose. Like as if you were tying your shoes. And the other one was very tight. I did not put that on her. He did. I was not in that house whenever he shot her. I did hear a gunshot go off.

23:11 I was at the car. I was not there.

23:13 What was your reaction when that happened? Shock.

23:17 I went into shock. Because he had played Russian roulette with me many a times. He would Let the, like in the car, you will see in some of the pictures where there was ammunition on the floorboard and everything else. That's because he had these old style guns. He had three guns. He had two that were old style, six years that went round. And then he had one that locked. So, and that one stayed in the door mainly by him.

23:45 He had one that he kept in his pants all the time. And then he had one that he would play Russian roulette with me with, and he would empty it out and he would put one bullet in it and he would spin it and he would close it. And then he'd put it to my head. So, and then he would pull the trigger and only by the grace of God, only by the grace of God, am I sitting here today, period.

24:10 What has it been like for you in these years since trying to process the All of that. I can imagine it is a lengthy process.

24:20 It is. I still have nightmares. I have a lot of trauma issues. Certain things that I used to like, I don't like anymore. Certain smells bother me. I get real jumpy. But as a person, I just try to move forward and try to be kind to people and be nice to people and not let it destroy who I was and who I want to be.

24:47 Tell me who that is. Tell me who you want to be.

24:50 So I work in the law library. And I see since I've been in here, I've seen all the injustice that is done. You know, there are a lot of people in here that do belong in here. But there are some people that don't belong in here that are here because their boyfriend did something or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But they didn't do the crime. But they're here. And I would like to help them people, you know, along with myself.

25:16 I would like to help. this world is just so corrupt nowadays. Everything is about money. The higher the conviction, the more money in their pocket. And that's wrong. That's not what God put in place in the very beginning whenever he had them come up with the justice system.

25:35 If you were ever to be paroled earlier, have your conviction set aside, what are some of the things that you may like to do after experiencing this whole thing and considering what you're doing while you're here?

25:47 I would like to help people. I would like to link up with some of these organizations that look into people's stuff and everything and help them, the ones that are wrongfully convicted. I would like to help them get out. And I know a lot of them don't have money or anything. And I would like to help, you know, raise money and be able to fund things to where I could help get them out.

26:09 Like the Innocence Project?

26:10 Kind of like the Innocence Project in wrongfully convictions and exoneration projects. And then they have, let's see, they have Florida Cares that helps as well and everything. So in society first, and they're trying to help people to where they're not spending their whole entire life in here and dying in here.

26:31 Has your case garnered any attention from those organizations?

26:34 No.

26:35 Okay.

26:41 I haven't reached out to him or anything either. I've put it in God's hands.

26:45 Yeah. And this kind of goes back to one of the things that we just talked about. You know, victims believe that you were an accomplice in this situation. Is there anything that you've done while you've been in here to make amends or try to share your experience of why you say you were not an accomplice?

27:08 Um. Like, give me an idea on what you mean by that question.

27:14 So that question comes from one of my managers. So I'll try to explain it the best I can because I wasn't the one that wrote it. Is there any sort of amends? You know, like AA, when people go through AA, they have amends that they go through. Are there anything that you have done while you're here to make amends to victims?

27:32 So I've definitely taken counseling courses. I take counseling all the time. At least every 90 days, I'm down there in counseling. I was on psych meds at one point in time until I could get a hold of my emotions because I would have panic attacks, depression. It was bad. My night terrors got the best of me at times.

27:55 And I live in a dorm with 86 women. So if you scream in the middle of the night, you're waking up 86 women. You kind of want to be friends with them, not be their enemies.

28:06 So what do you want the families of Billy Boyette's victims to know? What would you say to them if you had a chance to speak with them?

28:16 I would like them to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't save them. I tried to save as many people as I could on this eight-day nightmare that I was on. If I could have done more, I would have. But I was a victim myself. I was in and out. drugged, not in the right mindset. I did what I had to do. Like when I went into stores, I knew he would come in there shooting people up. He was in there with me. If I did the wrong move, if I did the wrong thing, I just did what I had to do. And I'm so sorry that they are having to be without them because I know how it is to be without someone.

28:59 Now walk me through, we've gotten through a lot of these questions and we've touched a little bit on various parts of that eight, nine days. Tell me, we don't have to go like full in depth, but kind of give me a walk through of that timeline and what you experienced from when he came to take you through the Troop County incident.

29:24 So I had, this could take hours.

29:29 That's what I said. Let's try to keep it as as short, not as short, but like a, a summarized version. Cause I do have your, your appellate testimony. So I have that to refer back to.

29:44 Okay.

29:45 Um, but walk, just walk me through kind of, uh, uh, overview of of that timeline.

29:52 Okay so i had i had people the night that he came and he took me i had a young man jamie ham that was staying in the back bedroom and he was a teenager his mom had passed away and his mom um was a friend of mine robin And when she got out of prison, she was one of the people that I had helped get clothes and stuff like that and everything and get back on her feet.

30:16 And she had asked me whenever I was staying, I was over there. She was at Dennis Elliott's house. She had asked me if anything ever happens to me, could you make sure that Jamie's okay, you're a good mother, and I trust him with you. So I would help him. I would help him in whatever situation. He was on probation.

30:35 He needed a place to go. He couldn't stay with his family that he was with. He didn't feel like that was the right environment. It wasn't that he couldn't stay there. It's that he chose that he needed a better environment in order for them to come and see him on probation. So he was staying there with me.

30:50 So I had someone's.

30:50 Life from get-go in my hands. that this man comes in with a loaded gun, put it in my face, acting all crazy, I'm worried that Jamie could wake up and he could shoot him. And then I have a friend, Mike, who is a lifelong friend, and he had come by and he wanted me to leave with him because he seen that I was acting kind of funny, but that was because Billy Boyette was behind the door right there where I was at with a gun on us. And I didn't want him to kill us. If I would have walked onto that porch, we would have been shot dead right then and there. This man's crazy out of his mind. Absolutely, I believe that we would have been shot.

31:28 So from the very beginning, I'm protecting people. I'm, okay, I need to get out of the trailer. I need to get away from this. I need to get these people, make sure that they're safe because their lives are important to me. And I'm used to being a mom. It goes back to being a mom card and protecting your babies, protecting the people that you love. And even strangers. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you. You know, if something crazy popped off. I wouldn't think to run to the authorities right away. I would think to get you to safety. Whether I got shot in the back or not.

32:07 That's my first thing. Is I would want to make sure that everybody was out of the situation. And then whatever happened, happened. So from there, we end up going back. down south and then back up. In the time that he has me, he beats me, he rapes me, he sadicized me, and he hits me with a pistol. You see how my face is right here? You see this here?

32:37 You see how my face kind of gets sunk in? Do you see that? A little bit, yeah. Okay, that's from where my face is chipped. That's from the end of a gun. He puts it to my temple and he goes to fire it and it jams. And whenever it does, he turns around and he goes like this and he just hits me with it. My whole eye was black all throughout here. And that was in the beginning part. My eye was still black at the end of this. So that lets you know just how messed up it was during this timeframe because this was almost eight days later and it's still messed up. My bone literally is chipped there. So he cuts me with the knife right here. You see this scar here? From right here, you see it? From where I put my hands up,

33:33 from where he was hitting me and beating on me. And he pulls a knife out and he just cuts. It starts here and it goes all the way up to here. One time my hand was locking up on me. He was having me roll his spices.

33:47 And it locks up on me because I'm so dehydrated.

33:49 I haven't ate. I haven't had water or anything else. I'm just and it's locking up and I can barely get my hand. He cuts it. He tries to take my fingerprints off. I hardly have any fingerprints. You can hardly see any of them. You know, this is eight years later. You know, I've healed, but I still have the scars to all this. You know, I have cigarette burns here and on my feet all over. They look like that. all up and down my legs, cigarette burns.

34:20 And then I have right here, I have a mark from his tooth where his tooth went in me here through here. See that? That's two teeth marks where he dug, he bit me and he would bite at my face. He drug me by my hair. He strangled me over and over and over again at a motel until I peed on myself and I was unconscious. So I almost died. My, you know, right before you die, you pee on yourself and, you know, your bowels and everything let loose. Like I said, only by the grace of God am I still alive.

34:59 So I went through a lot and I just, I just tried to protect every, every time that I went in someplace, I just tried to protect the people around me because he's got three guns. Okay. If they hold six rounds, each gun, How many people can you take out in a second? Especially when you're in a Walmart or a CVS or something, you know, and you unload all them clips.

35:27 That's a lot of people. Walk me through the back half. You get through these first couple of days where you're traveling through the different parts of Florida, going into the stores. Start with me the day that everything happened with Kayla Crocker and walk me through the end. Okay, so.

35:47 With Kayla Crocker, he needed another ride. He had us stay in this abandoned place off of Nine Mile or Pine Forest or somewhere down in that area. I knew the area kind of because I'd sold shrimp with my ex-mother-in-law for years and years, and we would go to Bala Batry, and we would pick up shrimp, and we would come back, and that was like the first and last chance exit. You know, they say that coming into a going into Pace right there into Pensacola's first and last chance bar for you to get liquor. But this was the first and last place chance for you to use the bathroom before you go through the tunnel. So I kind of knew the area or what, not to the extent that I learned it walking. But he had

36:33 kept me in this abandoned house. I was spitting up blood and everything. It was really cold. It was in January, February, it's kind of cold up there in Pensacola area. So I was spitting up blood. I was having pains. My whole chest from where he had beat on me and everything else was just black. It was just pure black. Ribs, I had issues with ribs. I still have pain and problems with my ribs and everything because he broke my rib.

37:03 And I was throwing up blood the whole nine yards, found this abandoned place, and he took me in there.

37:10 He kept me down there for days, abusing me.

37:12 That's where he cut my hand at and everything and tried to take my fingerprints off. And whenever, after, I don't know, I don't even know how many days we were down in there. It was, it had electricity. It was warm and it had a basement and there was a room on the left side and on the right side. And it kind of looked like a doctor or something stayed there and he had kept me in the room down below abusing me and then whenever a couple days had passed or whatever he had brought me out and we walked down and through a little trail and there was like an RV campground that had ponds and everything with it and I remember that we were in like a hunting box or something that was on the ground and I was so tired I was just he had

38:01 just beat everything out of me You know, whenever they say that they beat you down and then build you up, I definitely was beat down. There was no building up. So he had heard somebody, so he punches me and he's like, come on, come on, we gotta go. So we end up through the trail. And then he waits there until dark and he puts leaves all over me and everything. And he's like, don't say anything, don't say anything.

38:27 And I hear cars and I'm like, well, we must be by a highway or something. And so it starts getting dark. So we leave from there. And it was, it was a highway. And there was a school on the other side. And it was fenced in. Well, we cross the street and we're walking by. We're right out in the open. We're walking down the side of the road by this school and everything. And we walk on down.

38:54 There's houses there and everything. And then there's like a break and there's like a subdivision back in there. But it wasn't built up yet or anything. There was still some wooded areas, but it was already, you know, when they first do their first step before they take all the trees and everything, they do the roads that go down and have cul-de-sacs and everything. So we end up going and we're on the, Kayla Crocker's trailer is on the left. We're on the right side of the road.

39:22 And we're back in this subdivision and we're walking. And then we come down, it's like a little cul-de-sac and then a little dirt area and he sees her trailer through the little dirt area so and there's a wooded area right there to the left so he has a stop there and I'm not sure if he actually planned on going there or if he knew her or what because The next morning, whenever he kicks me awake, we end up walking across the street. It was really early morning, like 4, 35 o'clock in the morning. And I don't know because I don't have a watch on me, so I can't be exact or anything. But I do remember that the sun was starting to come up. We walked in front of the trailer, and then he heard something.

40:09 So he scoots me, grabs me, and snatches me to the back part of the trailer. And then we walk around, and he hears the car start up. and the door was left open. So whenever that happened, then he looks to see if anyone's there, snatches me, and brings me there, opens the back door, tells me to put our stuff in there, and then he shoves me in there. But he's turning, he's at the driver's door, and he's turning the car off and taking the keys and putting them in his pocket. So, and then that happens with Kayla Crocker then. I'm putting the stuff in the car. He comes out. He closes the door. And then we leave from there. We go to a gas station. I just heard gunshots and everything. I can just imagine what took place,

40:59 even though I don't know. So I'm worried about these people. I don't want nobody to die. Not if I can help it. If I can help you live, I'm going to help you live.

41:10 Did you ask him why?

41:11 I had already been abused. I'm already in... Going through all this.

41:17 After that gunshot, did you ask him why he killed her?

41:19 No.

41:19 All right, sorry. Keep going. So from there, did you go to Alabama? Or from there, did you go to Georgia?

41:25 There wasn't a lot of talking with him. And he kept me drugged up a lot. This is the FDLE report that they didn't want people to know. There are over one, two, three, four drugs in my system that proves that I was drugged up the whole time. When you're drugged up, You have, your body, like your mind goes in and out of things between reality and non-reality.

41:50 Especially with the kind of drugs that I was on that he was giving me. Xanaxes, I would find out Dilata's he had me on because they were found in his bag and numerous things. So, and these were found in my system. You can have this as well. Thank you. Yeah.

42:08 So from there, and I know we don't want to talk about the Alabama case because it's still active. Yes, I can. But from Beulah, did you go to Alabama, then Georgia, or was it just from Beulah to Georgia? So I guess my question is, what happened after Kayla Crocker?

42:24 Okay, so after Kayla Crocker, we ended up going to the store. It was the store, Hardee's. Then we hit the interstate. We ended up in Baghdad. Then on out to Munson and on out to the four way. Then we took a right on out to Baker. Then we took a left. And then from there, I went out to we went and we stopped at a dollar general and I was able to get some shoes. I had been in heel boots this whole time. So I was not a willing participant at all. I was in heel boots, the heels this long. They had a, I don't remember if they were gray or white, but they were, you know, nice boots that came up to here. Not something that you're going to go trampling through the woods, doing a whole crime spree with or anything else.

43:23 That was not.

43:26 You know, so that's what I had on. But he finally told me that I could get some shoes because I was slowing him down. And he wanted some food. So he had me go in and buy some food and a pair of shoes, cheap shoes. Then from there, he had drugged me after that. And when I woke up, we were, he was at this, Motel, old hotel motel, you know, in the middle of nowhere.

44:00 Walk me through that day and how things ended. Because that part slips my mind a little bit, whether you went out first or you went out after he fired. Walk me through that.

44:13 I went out first. So what had happened was, so mind you, I wasn't willing to... let anyone bring attention to us or anything. But if the cops showed up on the scene, then he knows that I haven't called them, that they've caught up with you, that your time is up, you know? So, and it's gonna be hard for him to make a phone call whenever they're right there, you know?

44:43 So that day, he had got me up and, He was like, he wanted us to go to the little store that we had passed down the road. And he had me drive. This was the only time that I drove. He said he was gonna trust me. And he had me drive. And he was in the seat beside me and he had it laid all the way back. And he was like, all right, I'm gonna trust you to go in here. I'm gonna trust you to get something to eat. He said, but I'm gonna be watching you.

45:13 And he said, look, I'm not playing with you. I'm not playing with anyone. He said, it's an old country store. I know there's not a lot of people in there. I will shoot everybody. I will kill you. And I will make sure that your family dies. If it's the last thing that I do in this world. And he, whenever I go to turn into the store, he jumps out of the car and he goes like into the little wooded area right there. So I pull in, I pull in by a gas pump. I go in, I get something. I think it was like hot dogs and something And then I go pay for it. I get the gas, I get in the car. And then when I come out, I go around the store and there's a four-way. He's already made it from here all the way to the woods over here. And he comes running

46:04 out and he gets in the car and the seat's laid back and he's acting crazy, you know, but he acted crazy a lot. All the demons in his head and everything that's going on. I don't think he ever slept. He was always on spice. You know, and spice does something to your head. You know, you've heard of people eating people's faces off on spice. So there's no telling, you know, what kind of stuff he's going through in his own mind, let alone what kind of wrath he's fixing to put on me or even these innocent people.

46:34 So I have to take that into consideration. So we leave from there. We end up back at the motel. I get out.

46:41 I go in.

46:41 I put the stuff away. in the room he comes out shortly behind me he sits in the car for a minute and then comes in and then he makes a concoction has me drink it or what then I'm sitting there it takes a little while you know take effect so but I'm groggy already from previous stuff that he's given me and I pass out And then he wakes me up and he's freaking out. And he's like, oh my God, the cops are here.

47:14 The cops are here. They're everywhere.

47:15 He's like, look out the window. And I'm like, okay. So I get there and I slowly put my hand there and slide the curtain over. And I'm like, yeah, cops are here. There's a whole lot of them. And then I close it. I didn't wave. I didn't do all this crazy stuff that they said. No, I opened the curtain slowly. And then I closed it and then I fell down beside the bed. And so he's freaking out.

47:46 They end up calling his name and he takes the mattress and he lifts it up over me. And like when he first walked in, there was like a little closet that poked out and then the bathroom was back here. But there was like a little wall area right there. And then the bed was here. So he lifts it over and he puts the mattress standing up against the wall.

48:10 And I'm on the other side and I'm like, now's my chance because I can run out and I can tell them, you know, to contact my family, my kids, the whole nine yards. You know, I have a I have a chance now and like a real chance because there's. Thousands, you know, so before he's thinking of his life right now, he's not thinking of that phone call because there's over a thousand officers out there. And that's what goes through my head. Now is my chance. I didn't have a chance before, but now I do. So I make it out the door. And whenever I do, I start immediately telling them. about my kids, the whole nine yards. I mean, I'm letting them know, you know, he's threatened my kids.

48:56 Someone's watching my kids. That was the first things out of my mouth was my children. And he has someone watching my children, you know? And then I never heard the shot. They took me to a detective like van thing or whatever else. And they wanted me to tell them what all had been going on. I told them about the rapes and everything. about being drugged. I was showing them the bruises and the cuts, the burns. They took me immediately to the hospital, immediately. So when I got there, it was Kelly Ellington, or lieutenant or whatever she was, Ellington was there. She took pictures of everything.

49:42 She came in and told me that he had killed himself. I wasn't even there for him for any of that. I never even heard a gunshot.

49:50 What was your thought when you found that out?

49:54 Thank God. Thank God.

50:01 When you sit here and think about it all and you think about what was presented to his victims' families, how would you tell them or try to convince them that you were not a willing participant in helping him?

50:18 I wish I had the chance to testify and to defend myself and to tell the truth and tell the story. Because at one point, whenever the investigators had investigated, had me in the room talking and everything else, they were like, oh, you're lying about this. And I've seen that for the first time when I was at trial with the video.

50:47 I'd never seen it before. I'd never seen how messed up I was. I knew that I was in and out of reality and consciousness and talking to these people. One minute I was there with you, the next minute I was in La La Land somewhere. You can literally see that on this video, how drugged I was, even at that point, hours later, after I got from the hospital to the sheriff's department, you know, they took me directly in there. I still hadn't eaten. I had food sitting there beside me and they're questioning me, you know, and I'm just wanting to breathe for a second, you know, but they're grilling me and I'm in and out of reality and everything. So some things were not as it seemed.

51:39 So had they waited and asked me when I was completely sober, it would have been different. Had I been able to get on the stand and tell my testimony, they would have been able to hear the truth, you know? And had I been able to participate in any of my case, then I wouldn't have all these grounds, you know, where council was insignificant for failing to change venue. I'd asked him since my case was so highly publicized, no offense, because y'all put a lot of it out there. But I mean, this is, this is all, this is just what I got being in prison. Imagine what else was out there on the news and everything else, pages and pages, you know, this is, So much media with everything that I asked. I asked them, can we please go somewhere

52:34 else to where I could do the trial? No, no, no, we have to do it here. We have to at least give it a chance to pick a jury here and everything else. We can't just up and move. I had at one point motion to restrict the media. You know, no offense again, but it was such a big thing that I had this in place for a reason.

52:56 So.

52:57 Mr. Brooks decided he was gonna take this off. He'd never discussed it with me, never anything. He just decided for whatever reason, him working with the state, whatever it was that he got off of whatever, he took it off. But we went through all that to get it on just for you to say, oh, no, okay, we'll let them do whatever. And then like pages from the jury, I mean, I had 73, 73 or 74 jurors that we went through. I had never been in trouble before with the law. So I didn't know this whole process.

53:37 I really didn't know the law or anything. My family trusted Mr. Brooks. I was raised with Mr. Brooks. We went to the same church together. I was brought up with his children, you know. So I trusted that he was going to do what he said he was going to do. 73 of these people. So 19 of them had not heard anything about it, except for very little.

54:03 Only three were picked for my jury. Everybody else, highly publicized, knew. Either they lived by Kayla Crocker, they were part, I even had, a lot of them had family that was in the sheriff's department. One of them was a paralegal, worked in the building or close by. One of them was a nurse that actually seen me when I was in Santa Rosa County, you know, had interacted with me and everything.

54:30 We have less than five minutes left, so I'm going to ask you a couple of quick questions, and I don't mean to interrupt, but I want to hear your thoughts on these. You know, from your perspective, this whole thing was about trying to make sure your kids weren't hurt. Have you been able to see your kids since all of this happened?

54:46 I have, and I've been able to meet my grandchildren. Okay.

54:50 What is that like and how do you have conversations with them after all of this has gone down?

54:56 My kids know me and my kids know that I didn't do this because my kids do know me because I was a mom. So they went through a lot. They had to switch schools and stuff and everything. My 14 year old has passed away since I've been in here. He got into a motorcycle accident. It was hard on my daughter. My oldest son at first didn't know what to think. But they know their mom, this is not their mom.

55:23 Do you have a hope of reuniting with them someday?

55:25 Yes.

55:26 Outside of here?

55:27 Yes. Yes, I do. And I'm going to carry that with me. God has made a promise to me that, you know, he's going to bring things to light and that he's going to allow me to go home. And I hope that sooner than later. But I'm just waiting on him. And until then, I'm going to continue to tell my story. I'm going to continue to, you know, fight for what is right. I mean, if I had done something, then okay, I could sit here and deal with this, you know. But I didn't. And the person who did killed himself. And I shouldn't be here paying for his crimes.

56:05 And I'm going to circle back to the very beginning with this. I asked you who you were before all of this started. And a lot of people see him as a monster.

56:15 He was.

56:15 And they associate you with that because of everything that went down. What do you want the people to know about who you are?

56:23 So I was a kind person. I was a mom. I'm still kind. I'm still pushing forward. I'm a survivor. I care about people's well-being. I know the people that know me. know who I am and what I'm about. People that don't know me, if you were able to sit down and talk to me even for a minute, you would see that I'm not this person that the media and everybody portrayed me to be.

56:55 Do you have another hearing coming up? I know that the original appeal was denied and your conviction was upheld. Do you have anything else coming up?

57:03 So my 3850 was denied and then we put in for a rehearing. and we made the cutoff and everything. And it's been three years, and they still have not contacted us about the rehearing or anything else. So yes, we are definitely pushing forward. Rachel can tell you more about all that and everything else because she's my lawyer, of course. So Jeremy? The only question I have is if you could talk to yourself before all this went down, or you could talk to somebody who might be going.

57:35 Through a similar experience, what would you say? Like what advice would you give yourself if you could go back and.

57:47 Talk to yourself before all this happened? Before all this went down, before you met him? I wish I had never wrote him the first time. I wish I had discussed things with my brother before I ever even wrote him. But that's not the case. So you can't turn back time. I would tell people to be careful who they let around them. Absolutely. So my friend Jeff was a great person, still is a great person. I trust him with my life.

58:22 But his friends are not necessarily great people. Maybe to him they are, but not to me. So to be very careful what you do in life. and to try to make the right decisions on whenever you have people's lives in your hands.

58:40 Do you need any cutaways while we wrap up? Say I don't try to be respectful of the time that they give us. Is there anything else? I know we tried to go fast through a lot of these things. I hit on a lot of points while he's shooting these last couple shots. Is there anything else that you think is important for me to know for the Northwest Florida community to know for the victims families to know?

59:03 So I do so William Boyette had he had so he's hurt so many people I found this out afterwards you know since I've been in here and I've been digging up stuff and I've been researching stuff and everything else I'll let you have this copy as well so just How could they keep letting this man out? His mom and them were connected. You know, like his stepdad was part of this community or what. And they golfed all the time and everything. They were like high society.

59:41 You know, his mom actually funded the whole trip. And his mom rented the SUV and everything that he traveled everywhere with.