Original subtitles

[siren wailing]

I've been avoiding this street for a while.

Every time I've been here, I've avoided it.

He's the scummiest person on this planet,

so no one is below Jesse.

But in his mind, he saw women with vulnerabilities...

as targets.

I immediately thought, if he's here to kill me,

at least my parents are not gonna be collateral damage.

And I got in the car.

[Amy] People just knew he was violent.

They just knew he would make threats.

I don't know if anyone ever knew...

he would harm anyone like that.

[Jenn] I look at the phone and it registers what the picture is.

[Amy] I thought it was a joke.

No one would joke about that, but Jesse would.

And as I'm shutting the phone, he looks at me and he goes,

"Do you believe me now?"

[Elizabeth] When it comes to love, betrayal is the death of

a thousand dreams...

[paparazzi] Armie, Elizabeth, over here!

[Elizabeth] ...and the unraveling of countless lies.

You can spend years picking up the pieces, examining them,

rearranging them, digging through the past

to make sense of it all.

[instrumental "Toxic" by Britney Spears plays]

Navigating through my personal heartbreak

took me back to my roots as an investigative journalist.

-Hi, I'm Elizabeth Chambers. -Elizabeth Chambers.

Elizabeth Chambers,

outside the Los Angeles Police Department.

[instrumental "Toxic" continues]

It ignited a curiosity inside of me about

love that fractures...

You can't escape it.

[Elizabeth] ...inflicts lasting trauma...

He broke me.

Did you think there was a chance he could kill you?

Oh, yeah.

[Elizabeth] ...and can lead to tragedy.

Unimaginable loss.

[Elizabeth] I feel that it's part of my calling to meet with

the victims, the survivors, to listen to their stories...

You're still living in fear.

Every single day.

...show how it can happen to anyone,

and expose the truth.

I'm Elizabeth Chambers, and this is "Toxic."

[instrumental "Toxic" concludes]

[Elizabeth] This is Jesse Winnick.

Keep walking. Keep walking.

[Elizabeth] According to multiple sources, he wasn't just a troubled kid.

Some believed he was something far darker,

even calling him a sociopath,

a manipulator who would charm you, pull you in,

and keep you there.

Wow.

There was something about him that caused these people to

still be in contact with him.

I mean, you look what happened with Jenn, his ex-girlfriend.

[Elizabeth] Most people don't enter a relationship thinking

it will be problematic.

With Jenn, I can remember him being playful and handsy,

relatively loving.

[Elizabeth] But what do you do when

the charm you fell for turns out to be a facade?

[Edward] We want to believe that we can help this person that

we're in love with, when in reality,

that person is simply going to use and manipulate you.

[Elizabeth] When it comes to Jenn Holman, she's just lucky to be alive.

So, give me your background.

Where you grew up, and what was your childhood like?

So, I grew up right down the street, actually, in Reseda.

I had two parents that, you know, were very in love

with each other, and I was their adopted only child.

-So... -Oh wow.

I was all they had, and they were all I had.

My childhood was very uneventful,

peaceful, and calm.

And after high school, what were your plans?

I was like, you know what? I'm going to just travel.

I'm going to go enjoy my life.

So, I ended up working for a band.

[crowd cheering]

New city every night type thing.

I did start dating somebody pretty seriously,

and I ended up getting pregnant.

And we gave our son up for adoption.

I was kind of like,

I want to heal, I want to be in a better place.

I'm just gonna be single for the rest of my life,

and I'll be happy with that.

Wow.

You kind of had just written it off.

-Yep. -[Elizabeth] Enter...

-Enter Jesse. -[Elizabeth] Enter Jesse.

Talk to me about how you met Jesse.

So, he was hanging out with some girls that I had been

hanging out with for a while.

We were at BJ's Brewery one night for one of

my friend's birthdays.

And he's sitting a couple seats down from me.

And he's, like, staring, like, trying to

get my attention, and he goes, "Hey, it's Jennifer, right?"

And I don't go by Jennifer.

Like, even my parents at that point didn't call me

Jennifer anymore. I go by Jenn.

And I go,

"I've heard enough about you

"from other girls in this group.

"I don't want anything to do with you.

Please just stay away from me."

-[ice clinking] -[faint bar chatter]

Jesse dated or slept with a lot of women.

A lot of them were in the same friends group.

I do know that many of them knew each other.

My name is Amy, and my brother is Jesse Winnick.

Jesse was three years older than --

was --

Jesse is three years older than me.

He's someone who feeds off of other people's energy,

and he sucks them dry and then...

jumps to the next person for an emotional supply, really.

[Jenn] Days later, we were at another bar.

[ambient chatter]

Jesse comes and sits with me

and I notice his eyes, so light blue that you could almost

see through them.

And he goes, "Jenn, just give me your number."

And I was like, "Oh, you know my name.

Fine."

We hung out that first night and we went back to my house

and we hooked up and that was not something that I did.

I've never moved that fast with somebody.

And the next day he's like, "Hey, can you take me home?"

We get there and he's like, "Hey, let me pack a picnic

and we can go take a canyon drive and just hang out."

And he was so nice and so genuine.

And at this point, are you both living

with your parents still? -[Jenn] Yeah.

I think I was 22 and he was 24.

When was the first time that you actually met Jenn?

I do not remember my first time meeting Jenn.

I just think I remember her becoming a fixture

all of a sudden.

Because Jesse, when he starts dating someone,

it's fast and furious.

So I think it was just like, this is Jenn,

this is my girlfriend.

[Jenn] I did meet Amy.

She was just like, "Yeah, I'll probably be

seeing you around."

And it was just -- it was very nice.

But Jesse's mom, Hadas, she just was like,

[flatly] "Oh, hi."

[normally] And then went on with whatever she was doing.

And I was like, that's weird.

My parents are always really nice to people I bring home.

What was that?

But Amy and Hadas are close. They're super close.

And so I'm like, maybe I'm just imagining things.

[Elizabeth] So your mom was divorced at this time.

[Amy] Yeah.

And our physical environment at home,

it was tense. We would all walk on eggshells.

Because Jesse's moods were pretty hair-trigger...

for many years.

I can remember him calling my mom a bitch, pretty young.

By the time he was in fourth grade, he was having trouble

adhering to rules in the classroom.

In middle school, he was getting

severely bullied.

I think he started getting into physical fights

pretty young as well.

Eventually, in high school, like, he would leave school.

He didn't fit in.

They just kind of told him to take his GED and leave.

At that point, he sort of focused on us.

I can remember, I was 17, standing in the kitchen.

He came up behind me and kicked me really hard

between the legs.

And I, like, doubled over in pain and started crying

and caught my breath.

And I asked him, "What -- why would you do that?"

And he said, "I just wanted to know if it hurt a woman

to be kicked there."

And I know you've said there are so many reasons why Jesse

is the way he is,

but a lot of people say, like, they just came out with

the wires crossed. -Mm.

Do you think that's the case with Jesse?

As far as I understood, he was diagnosed with

bipolar disorder as early as

the mid-1990s, which at that time was

rare for someone his age to be diagnosed with it.

Now, as much as mental health and mental illness can be

a conversation adjacent to his behavior,

it's never an excuse either.

[Elizabeth] By the time Jesse's 15, his mom, Hadas,

would call the police to help with his violent outbursts.

But this was the mid-'90s, and mental health was not taken

as seriously, nor were there as many resources.

So they would take him to the station, put him in

the drunk tank, and then return Jesse to his mother.

[Amy] She has a pretty strict hold on the house.

It's just that my brother is unmotherable and unparentable.

[Elizabeth] That's a powerful statement.

[Amy] It's kind of a gut-wrenching realization to come to.

-Unmotherable. -Yeah.

Every time Jesse returned, he would always return with

what I now know as a love bombing.

Like, "This won't happen again. Mom, let me stay.

I'm on the straight and narrow."

Even as an adult.

[Elizabeth] What did you like about him?

He was... he was funny.

He let me talk. It wasn't always about him.

I liked talking and being seen.

And it was very weird because I had never dealt

with somebody like him.

I remember thinking...

the [bleep] does she see in him?

[Elizabeth] Did you think that you were

falling in love with him? -Oh yeah.

Like, almost right away.

You know, one day we're coming back from Malibu

and he turns and looks at me and he's like, "I love you."

And I was like...

"I didn't even think about that, but I love you too."

And this was like, two months in, if that.

Jesse really worked, I think, pretty hard to craft and curate

an image of himself and of the relationship

he was offering to Jenn.

His mom was...

uh, leery of our relationship.

I get it now.

Because when the other shoe dropped, it was startling.

He's a shrewd human.

I know that as their relationship progressed,

he was committing similar cycles that he was doing inside

the house with Jenn.

Aggressive, violent, very emotionally unstable.

[Jenn] Three and a half months in,

he's driving my car.

And he goes, "Hey, I need to go pick up something."

I was like, "What do you need to pick up?"

And he's like, "Oh, yeah, I've been hanging out with

a friend and doing cocaine."

"If you're picking up drugs, you're not taking my car.

Absolutely not."

Then he lifted his hand

and hit me in my chest right around here,

looked at me and said, "Well, will you let me have it now?"

-[Elizabeth] You said no to him, right? -Mm-hmm.

[Elizabeth] And the reaction was really big.

It was really big.

He didn't like the word no, but they never do.

[Jenn] Mm-mm.

And when I didn't say anything and started crying,

he goes, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

"I didn't mean to do that.

Maybe we should separate for a little while."

And I said, "You know what?

Just take the damn car."

And I got out on the side of the road

and called one of my friends to pick me up.

Which is exactly what he wanted.

-He got what he wanted. -[Jenn] Yep.

Then he started doing cocaine constantly.

November -- he was coming down off of a high.

I said something to him, pissed him off bad enough that

he backhanded me across the face so hard I fell on

our friend's coffee table and broke it.

When he sobered up, he saw that I had a mark on my face,

and he goes, "What happened?" I said...

"You hit me...again."

And then it was the, "I'm so sorry, it won't happen again.

"I'm sorry, I need to learn

"how to control myself when I'm high.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

We were fine for about a couple weeks, and then on my birthday,

the end of December, we had gone out to one of

my friend's houses,

Ryan's house.

And Jesse goes, "Let me take the car."

And I was like, "No, it's my birthday.

"I'm gonna go out with friends, and I'm going home

and going to sleep."

Right there in Ryan's foyer just...

slapped me across the face,

and Ryan caught it out of the corner of his eye

and was like, "Touch her again, and I will end you."

How did you feel?

Sad, embarrassed.

Scared.

But I think that Jesse sensed something in me

that he was able to exploit...

that I didn't even realize was there.

And so what we started doing was breaking up

and getting back together and breaking up

and getting back together.

Because he's still sweet.

He's still very loving when we're behind closed doors.

He's still making my friends laugh, making me laugh.

He's still showering me with attention.

And I'm like, "Maybe he just had a bad day."

She was vulnerable at that time, and I think he used that

as a chance to love bomb her when she really needed,

like, love and softness.

But Jesse's abuse really was cyclical and snowballing.

He always had something to say about my weight.

He would hand me tank tops and say, "Here's three of them.

"Just put them on so your stomach's

a little bit flatter."

He would yell and scream and then disappear for days

or weeks at a time and come back.

And he would call me repeatedly, ruin my nights.

He had a knack for just materializing out of nowhere,

anywhere I was.

I just would get into survival mode.

Like, I have to keep him even-tempered

because I don't know what's gonna happen.

And at this point, are you still working?

Is he still working? What's his career at this time?

So he is not working. He didn't ever hold a job.

So very quickly it became, "Hey, can you pay for this?

Hey, can you pay for that?"

And then I went and got a part-time job

because I couldn't sustain paying both of our bills.

Get him a motorcycle, cost me seven grand, put it on credit.

Got him an Omega watch, put it on credit, $3,000.

I felt like a credit card.

That was always the way he operated.

How much would Jenn buy him?

How much would she put up with derogatory terms or words?

And the more she would put up with, the more he would try.

And I didn't want to, like,

impose any opinions on Jenn.

I can remember my mom telling her plenty in front of me.

"What are you doing with him? Get the [bleep] out!"

Because she had been there.

[Elizabeth] Amy's parents divorced when she was a newborn,

and Jessie was three years old.

Years later, Hadas revealed that her husband had been

unfaithful and abusive.

The marriage ended, but the damage didn't,

as she began to recognize the cycle of abuse resurfacing

in her son, which is why when new women came into

Jessie's life, Hadas didn't see romance.

She saw warning signs.

My mom cared for Jenn, she wanted her to...

be free of him.

It was New Year's Eve...

of 2006.

I'm driving to go pick up Jesse because I want to talk to him

about what happened on my birthday and see if we're good.

And my car literally starts shooting flames out

of the hood.

So I pull it over under the overpass and, you know,

some passerby has called 911 by this time.

And I called Jesse.

I'm like, "Hey, can you come and pick me up?"

He's like, "No, when you're done,

you can just come over here."

And I call Ryan.

And Ryan shows up in five minutes.

He gets all my stuff in his car.

And that's when Jesse decides to show up.

And Ryan and him just start yelling and screaming

at each other, with my car still smoking, the cops still there.

And Ryan goes, "You're gonna stay the F away from her."

And Jesse disappeared after that.

[Amy] Around those months that they dated, Jesse was not home

that many months.

Like, my mom wasn't allowing him to live there a lot.

She would kick him out for certain things.

He told us he was unhoused at that time.

He materializes out of nowhere one day at my parents' house.

[knocking on door]

No longer has the watch that I bought him.

He no longer has the motorcycle that I bought him.

He has this Bronco.

Why are you here? You and I are done.

I said, "That last time was too much."

And he goes, "No, no, no, I need to apologize."

And I was like, "No, go home."

He goes, "I'm not living with my mom anymore.

She kicked me out. Please just let me come in."

He would tell us he would, like, stay in his car...

under a friend's restaurant in like an underground parking lot.

It turns out he was actually staying with one of

his best friend's dads in, like, a gated community in Calabasas.

I loved him. I did.

I...

I think in some way I thought that I could save him.

So when he leaned in to kiss me, I let him, and I was like,

"Just come in the house, take a shower, and then leave."

And I didn't hear from him again until

Super Bowl Sunday of 2007.

And what happened then?

[Jenn] He calls me out of nowhere.

He's like, "Hey, let's go for a canyon drive."

And I was like, "What do you mean,

"let's go for a canyon drive? It's Super Bowl Sunday.

I have plans."

He goes, "Come on, you still got a couple hours

before you have to be anywhere."

I'm like, "Fine."

We go up to Ventura,

and he makes an illegal turn in front of a cop.

The cop starts following us, puts the lights on.

Jesse pulls over, and he goes, "I need you not to freak out,

but we're most likely about to get arrested right now."

And I turn and look at him, and I'm like,

"What in the hell did you do?"

[siren chirps]

Police lights behind me, guns drawn.

Cop pulls me out of the car, puts me in cuffs, puts Jesse in

the back of the cop car.

And I'm like...

"How is this my life?"

Jesse thought it would be a brilliant idea to take

the plates off my Alero and put it on his Ford Bronco.

-Did you not notice that? -No.

He stole them because his tags had expired.

So here we are.

They assume that I have given him the plates,

and they probably think this car is stolen.

[indistinct radio chatter]

They call for backup.

They're gonna take him to jail.

Then I'm gonna answer some questions.

I was crying the entire time. I don't know what to do.

But the cops let me go.

And then the phone calls started.

I must have fielded 100 calls. "Come and bail me out.

"Come and bail me out. Come and bail me out.

Will you please, please, please just come and visit me?"

-Did you think that was gonna be a huge wake-up call for him? -[Jenn] Yeah.

I was like, "Maybe this will scare him."

Maybe he'll be like, "I don't want to do this again."

And they released him on his own recognizance.

For a couple weeks there,

he was back to the guy I first met.

I was like, maybe we're gonna be fine.

Then, out of nowhere, just radio silence...

for weeks.

We didn't talk again until my parents' anniversary.

My mom and I had gone out to the mall to go

get my dad his gift.

We're walking to the car,

and all of a sudden, I hear somebody scream my name.

And my mom looks at me and goes, "That's Jesse."

I'm like, "Mom, there's no way he knows where I am."

And he falls into my arms.

And I go, "What's wrong with you?"

He goes, "I don't know."

"Where's your car?"

"It's under the restaurant."

I take him there,

and I leave him there, and my mom and I go back

to the house.

My parents leave.

I'm just getting ready to watch some TV, and...

-[doorbell chimes] -...my doorbell rings.

Jesse's curled up in a ball on my parents' front porch.

What was his physical appearance like at this point?

He looked like he probably had started doing cocaine again.

And I go, "Jesse...

what in the hell is wrong with you?"

He goes, "I don't know."

"Where have you been?"

"I don't know." "Why are you here?"

"I don't know."

"Will you go in the house, take a shower, get some sleep,

and then get the F out of my parents' house?"

He takes a shower.

Sleeps for about two and a half hours.

Comes out towards the kitchen,

and he pushes me up against the wall with a knife

at my neck.

And I'm like, "You have to go."

And he's like, "Do you really want me to go?"

And all of a sudden, this man that I was very, very afraid of

for a very long time, I'm like,

I'm gonna go toe-to-toe with him right now.

If I die in the process,

at least I went down fighting.

"I want you to go."

He leans over, kisses me on the forehead, and he says,

"OK, fine," and walks out without another word.

That's how our relationship ended.

Quietly and violently in my parents' kitchen.

Did you think there was a chance he could kill you?

Oh, yeah. 100%.

So I was like, wake up.

I want to be me.

I'm going to go back to school because I want to get

my degree -- it's something that's been heavy

on my heart for years.

I had gotten a dog, and I was really trying to

rebuild my life.

I like the peace and quiet.

My parents like the peace and quiet.

Everybody is happy.

[Amy] At this time, things were escalating very badly between

my mom and my brother.

Often, like, the worst of the abuse would happen when

somebody else wasn't home -- when it wasn't, quote-unquote,

two against one.

One day, he was home with my mom alone.

I don't know what precipitated the argument.

Really, nothing needed to.

Like, he would explode over very little.

But apparently, he attacked her with

an aerosol can and a lighter.

-A homemade flamethrower. -[police sirens approach]

[Edward] At that point, Hadas called 911.

Jesse ended up storming out of the house.

A couple hours later, he came back home,

and Hadas tripped an emergency alarm.

He was in the kitchen with a knife in his hand,

making a comment, "They're not gonna take me alive.

I'm not gonna cooperate."

The deputies came into the house.

-[sirens wailing] -And there was a use of force to take him into custody.

[Elizabeth] After Jesse was arrested, he remained in jail

for two months.

Because this was a violent crime and he had prior arrests,

this charge was considered a strike offense,

making it a felony that would carry a harsher sentence.

Torn over the long-term implications, Hadas asked

the district attorney not to press charges against her son.

[Edward] The maternal part of her kicked in.

-Sure. -And she decided that he's learned his lesson

and that he'll change as a result of that.

And then he came right back to the house, or did he go live

with other friends after that?

That was one of those stages where he would be living with

a friend or living in his car, quote-unquote.

Was he dating Jenn at the time that he went to jail for that?

I don't believe he was dating Jenn at the time.

I was sad.

I was fearful for his mom and sister.

But he called me out of the blue one day.

And he sounded healthy and happy.

And he asked if we could meet up for lunch.

And immediately, I was like, "OK, just lunch."

I think that even staying friends with Jesse was

for my own safety.

If I keep him at arm's length, maybe he'll leave me alone.

[ambient chatter]

When he met me, he leaned in to kiss me and I kind of just

went... "I'm with somebody."

I said, "This is not what this is.

I just want to make sure you're OK."

We had a nice lunch.

I went home, went back to my normal life,

and he pretty much left me alone.

And then, September...

I get a phone call from him.

I had just finished class.

My mom and I are talking for a minute, and we go take

my dog Molly for a walk.

So it's about 10:45 at this time.

And my phone rings, and it's Jesse.

He goes, "Let's go out for a drink."

And I was like,

"Call me back in 15 minutes, I'll see how I'm feeling."

Jesse was always the, "I'll call back in 15 minutes" --

I'll call you back in 30, was more like it,

or 45 -- but he called me back 15 minutes exactly.

He goes, "Hey, are you sitting down?"

And I was like, "No, why?"

And he goes, "You should sit down."

"What do you mean I should sit down?"

And he goes, "I think I just killed my mom."

-[Elizabeth] Jessie said he killed his mom. -Yeah.

And it's dead silence.

And I'm like, "Jesse Bernard Winnick...

what are you talking about?"

He goes, "I'm just kidding. Let's go get that drink.

I'll be at your parents' house in 10 minutes."

Throughout the day, like, I had increasingly clocked

a little bit of tension between my mom and my brother.

I was getting kind of back-to-back phone calls

from each of them.

"Hey, when are you gonna be home?

Hey, when are you gonna be home?"

And I said, "I don't know. Kind of told you

it would be a late night."

Like, I'm kind of annoyed at both of them now

because I am an adult now.

Eventually, I called Jesse to let him know that I was

on my way home. He doesn't pick up.

So I call home. My mom, she doesn't pick up.

So I called Jesse back.

He was like, "Hey" -- really, really short with me.

And I was like, "Hey...

you know, I just got off work. I'm on my way home."

And he said, "Don't go home."

And he hung up.

[Jenn] Jesse was dramatic.

He always blew things out of proportion.

There's just no way.

He was so calm, like eerie-calm.

[Amy] So I called Jesse again.

And he answered.

And I said, "Why would I not go home?"

He said, "Don't go home. I killed Mom."

[voice straining] And I was like, "What?

"Like, you've got to be kidding me --

what are you talking -- no!"

And he said, "Yes, I killed Mom. Don't go home."

And he hung up.

I call 911. I have to.

Like, what if she's home and dying actively?

I don't know what the situation was.

[phone dial pad beeping]

[911 call audio playing]

[Jenn] He pulls up in his mom's Expedition.

She never lets him drive that car, ever.

That's when I knew something was wrong.

I immediately thought, if he's here to kill me,

at least my parents are not gonna be collateral damage.

I look at my mom. "Take the license plate down.

If I'm not home in 10 minutes, call the cops."

[911 call audio playing]

[Amy screaming]

He pulls open his cellphone, and as he sets it in my lap,

he starts driving.

I look at the phone, the picture --

his mom in the kitchen.

She was lying on the floor in a very large pool of blood with

a knife sticking out of her neck still.

And I thought, if she's still alive,

I do not want her hearing me screaming

as her last sounds.

So I bent over her leg and I kissed her leg.

And I ran out of the house.

And right as I ran out of the house, the police

were pulling up. -[sirens wailing]

I didn't even notice her car was gone.

[Jenn] He's driving.

And as I shut the phone, he looks at me and he goes,

"Do you believe me now?"

And I look at him and I said, "Jesse, what happened?"

And right as we hit the stop sign,

he looks me dead in the eye and goes,

"I just wanted her to shut the [bleep] up."

And then he made a right turn.

[Amy] Allegedly, he was making a sandwich

for himself in the kitchen.

My mom harked on him to clean up after himself,

and he said he didn't want to.

She said, "No, I want to use the counter, clean up."

And he stabbed her with the knife that he was making

the sandwich with.

[Jenn] I'm sitting here, and he's holding my hand.

I don't want to say anything that's gonna set him off.

I...finally dare to turn and look at him,

and you could see some of the blood

underneath his sweatshirt.

Did you think about getting out of the car this time?

[Jenn] Yes.

I thought about jumping out a couple times.

This light turns red.

All of a sudden, he turns and looks at me

and goes, "It's a nice car, though, huh?"

That's sick.

And I said...

"I need you to take me home."

And he doesn't say anything.

Both hands on the wheel.

And I'm like, "Jesse, take me home

"and do not get me any more involved in this

if you love me."

And then I hear the turn signal go on.

[turn signal ticking]

He pulls over.

My mom is still standing out here with Molly.

She stayed the entire time.

And as soon as I get the door open,

he grabs my arm and pulls me back

so that we're sitting...

forehead-to-forehead.

And he looks at me and goes, "I really did love you,

you know that?"

And I grab his hand and I said, "I know that now."

I went to sleep and the next morning he was making headlines

and he was on the news.

I want to say it was two, three days afterwards.

Detectives came, questioned me, asked me about my involvement

because my prints were in the car.

My prints were at the house still.

I was one of the first people he called.

That must have been terrifying.

[Jenn] Oh, I was scared to death.

[Elizabeth] Do you think what saved you was the fact

that you "shut the F up"?

Yeah.

I just stopped trying to fight who he was.

I stopped trying to fight...

anything.

I also think that...

he did love me...

in the only way that he knew how, which...

is hurtful and disgusting all at the same time,

because that was not love.

In the moment and after her murder,

I've reflected many times about the fact

that I truly do believe that she sacrificed her life

so I could be free of him.

I think she knew in her heart she was never gonna

break the cycle, and she had to for me.

I think the moment he became a murderer, the veil was

lifted, and I looked back and I saw so much

that I hadn't ever designated as abuse.

I remember sitting with my aunts in my aunt's kitchen

right after he had killed her,

and one of my aunt was saying, "I just can't believe it.

Where did this come from?"

I said, "He's been an abuser. He sexually abused me."

Wow -- how exactly did he sexually abuse you?

I want to say I was in seventh grade, so I was probably 12.

Jesse had forced me into performing sexual acts

on myself in front of him.

He would keep those objects that he forced me to

insert into myself as, like, totems of his abuse.

And occasionally, I remember him, like, reaching his hand

into his drawer and waving that item at me, as if,

like, telling me, you better do whatever I'm telling you to do,

which obviously builds shame into me surrounding that.

So that's what kept me quiet about it.

It lasted under a year.

Jesse would have been about 15.

I never reported it to anyone, never said it.

When she was murdered and I looked back,

I felt guilty for not reporting the thing that I thought

she would have ended their relationship at,

and I could have potentially saved her in that way.

The journey to get him convicted, even though he was

admittedly guilty, was wild, too.

[Jenn] I had nightmares for a very long time.

I was scared he was gonna get off on a technicality

and he was gonna come after me.

[Elizabeth] The case against Jesse Winnick dragged on for years as

he planned to enter a plea of not guilty

by reason of insanity.

Every time the case was set to go to trial,

Jesse and his lawyer would find a way

to delay proceedings,

continuing the hurt he was inflicting

on those closest to him.

I really do have to stop myself and grieve

the fact that I don't have a healthy sibling

and I don't have a relationship with him ever.

I will never have, like, a close sibling to rely on.

[Elizabeth] Four years into his twisted game, Jesse wrote a letter to

another inmate giving them a plan to stalk and harass Amy,

as well as accusing her of being complicit in the murder.

I thank God every day for the inmate who turned

that letter in, because Jesse pled guilty directly after that.

[Elizabeth] Jesse finally agreed to plead no contest to secondary murder

for killing his mother

and was sentenced to 15 years to life.

I think that Jesse has proven that

this is who he is.

Jesse was somebody who I saw as unlikely to do well while in

custody and that the chances of him being paroled were really

somewhere between slim and none.

[Amy] It would only be nine years before I would have to see him

in his first technical parole hearing,

which was Zoom recorded, and in which,

he threatened my life again.

He basically took his thumb and kept slicing it across

his throat at me.

The parole board had me mute and cut off my camera,

and then he ended up saying, "Peace out, I'm gonna

postpone this for two years."

By then, he had been sentenced for another crime.

While in state prison, I know that he was convicted of

attempted murder of a prison guard.

When I found out about him shanking a prison guard,

that just further confirmed what my initial view

of Jesse was, that he was somebody

who was a danger to society

and likely would never be rehabilitated.

The additional time that he received on top of

the current 15-year-to-life sentence

is reassuring in that it will, in all likelihood,

keep him in prison for the remainder of his life.

[Elizabeth] Jesse's up for parole every two years, but must maintain

a clean record in prison to be considered.

He has yet to successfully stay out of trouble for that long.

[Amy] I will fight his parole for as long as I humanly can.

Hopefully, in 2030, he will receive 15 more years

for my mom's murder, which I believe is the maximum he can.

[Jenn] How many times could somebody have saved Hadas

if they had watched the way Jesse was with me?

That's the guilt I carry.

Sometimes I still look over my shoulder.

The statistics tell us I shouldn't be here.

So every single day I got since then has been a gift.

I love my life, and I have things to live for.

And I have not spoken to him since that night in the car.

But for a very long time, he was calling me every year

on my birthday.

-On your birthday? -Every year except this one.

This was the first year that he didn't.

Do you think Jesse feels remorse today?

No.

What do you think he thinks about when

he's sitting in that jail cell?

I don't think he cares.

He's carried out attacks in prison.

He's tried everything that he can to stay in.

I think he's right where he wants to be.

I don't think my brother murdered my mom for a reason.

He murdered her for a million reasons.

I believe I lived...

to use her life as a lesson for other people.

When people are murdered, so much of their life is lost

to their death.

What I want her to be remembered as is mother,

mentor, and friend to all. It's because she really was.

This season on Toxic...

[woman #1] I had my Prince Charming.

I had everything I could have ever wanted.

Like a true fairy tale.

I was like, everything was too right, too perfect.

[woman #3] For 10 years he's been my best friend.

But he's the most dangerous person in the world.

[woman #4] He was my pastor,

and I should have been safe with him.

[woman #5] What David did to Mandy

we're talking about years.

That's when he was really assumed guity.

[man speaking] Stalking is a homicide in slow motion.

I don't think anybody recognized how deeply disturbed he was.

She knew how to work the system and it was just

falling like cards-- da-da-da-da-da.

People get killed over things like this.

This is not the person that you thought.

You know, eventually the truth came out.

She didn't just go there to kill him.

[gun shot] She was trying to erase him.