Original subtitles

This is our courtyard area,

in which we have all our surveillance cameras.

There's one right here.

There's also one on the corner that's outside of the house.

There's several of them strategically planned under the carport.

This was called the vehicle camera.

If I parked here to bring groceries in,

he could watch what bags I was carrying in.

And he knew how many bags I carried in.

He always wanted to know everything.

At every single moment, I was being tracked by something,

whether it'd be another person, a camera, or a mobile app.

They weren't for security.

They were for me and the rest of the family in the house.

I knew he was trying to control me.

It just got worse and worse. He just started losing it.

Burt had managed to live this secret life,

but everything was starting to crumble.

His lies had caught up with him

and he was at rock-bottom,

with a son that hated him.

Second degree murder is the killing of a human being

when you have the specific intent to kill somebody.

And manslaughter takes a murder,

and then manslaughter says, "Okay, but was it in the heat of passion?"

Was there something that provoked the shooting

that a reasonable person would have lost it, basically?

After having lengthy discussions with Dana Cummings,

what's clear about her position is that she saw manslaughter,

which means we would go in and plead a manslaughter,

and the judge would determine sentencing, anywhere from zero to 40 years,

and we can't do that.

It kept me up at night.

It's not black and white,

and especially with domestic violence cases sometimes there's gray.

You say that this young man had a terrible life, but you know what?

Based on Anthony's own statement,

I don't think he really feared for his life at that moment.

I don't know, he just holds things over your head, and obviously he's abusive

and he fucked up my education from the start.

If this guy has been abusing you for years,

it seems that rather than, "We didn't get along,"

would be, "He abused me for years."

But there were no medical reports that I received

that indicated he had been taken anywhere for treatment

or anything of that nature.

So there was just not proof that it did happen.

You see, this is exactly how it was left after Burt got shot.

This is papers from me trying to teach Anthony,

since he had never been in school.

I had to teach the child his name

and his date of birth, and his address, and his phone number.

One day I asked him what his address was, and he said, "70817."

I said, "That's your ZIP code."

Burt told me Anthony was home-schooled by his grandmother,

and as the months went on, I started to understand

that there was no school.

This was his learning how to write his ABCs at age ten,

upper and lower case.

I made him take a piece of paper every day

and keep writing it over and over, like punish work.

I taught Anthony addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

And when I got to the point of division,

his father told me not to teach him division

because he could just use a calculator.

I thought it was strange that he wasn't going to school,

and there were times where I'd ask my mom and she didn't really know.

Me and Burt discussed putting Anthony in school.

But at that point,

the grade that he would have been in

would have been extremely uncomfortable for him.

He would be 16 in a classroom of third or fourth graders.

And why not put him in school earlier?

He wouldn't do it.

-Who wouldn't? -Burt.

It wasn't discussed.

What school do you go to?

I've been home schooled all my life.

Okay. So if you're home schooled, do you have different grade levels?

No. My education isn't that great.

Okay, so you know how to read?

I know how to read.

You know how to write?

I can write every letter in the alphabet.

Okay.

Towards, like maybe 10, 11, 12 age,

I started to feel like I wasn't treated the same as normal people were.

It's easier to control a dumb person than a smart person, right?

The truth is, my younger self reminds me of Anthony.

And growing up where I grew up,

I have a lot of negative qualities from my childhood

that I've brought into adulthood.

But one of the positive things I brought in is that nothing will stop me.

I grew up in a family where my mother and father were hippies.

My father was dealing drugs at a pretty prodigious pace,

and it got really, really, really ugly.

When I was a child, my father kind of disappeared.

My mom would take me to these cocaine houses.

They did everything in the open, all the drugs, all the partying,

all the crap, all in the living room.

So that's what my life was.

I mean, there was nothing I could do about my parents' behavior

but live with it.

And so I'd always thought, "I want to be a lawyer,

defending those who could not defend themselves."

And I think it was probably because

my young life was filled with hopelessness.

And so I hate to see people that are hopeless.

And so that's why I have such a strong draw to Anthony,

because I feel like he was given so little.

And so, I've taken this case pro bono.

I won't charge him any money, ever.

And I told him, "Everything about you is on the line here."

"Your liberty, your freedom, the rest of your life is on the line."

"I'm here to fight for you."

If this case went to trial,

I am hard pressed to believe that 12 people would agree

on either "murder" or "not guilty."

My best prediction would be that if you get 12 reasonable people,

they will compromise with manslaughter.

In order for me to be effective at a jury trial,

I have to be able to get the jury to come to our belief about the case on their own.

It appears from the outside

that Burt's the victim and Anthony's the perpetrator.

It's the other way around completely.

We're gonna do a full mock trial.

I've never done this, not at this level.

And so I'm doing this because I get a chance to practice my arguments

in front of a set of people

with the ultimate goal of saving Anthony from a lifetime in jail.

In this process, I will present my case

just like it would happen in an actual trial.

And David will present the state's case.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

This is not a case of whodunit, right?

Anthony Templet admitted and confessed

to intentionally killing Burt Templet.

Did Anthony take two firearms and cock them back? You bet he did.

Did he intend to kill him? You bet.

Anthony cocks two firearms, not one.

You got to ask yourself, "Why does he cock two firearms?"

Why? He's coming through the door!

Boom. Boom.

What the evidence will not show is any proof of any physical violence

against Anthony Templet ever.

Do we have medical records? Do we have pictures?

You think an abuser secreting away this kid takes pictures of what he does?

Ladies and gentlemen, you can't get confused

and listen to the defense tell you,

"Oh, there's a history of assault, and of physical behavior,

but there is no evidence."

I can't tell the jury to put themselves in the place of the defendant.

I'm barred from doing so by law.

And so I have to tell this story to the jury

in a way that they get emotionally connected to the theory of innocence.

He's tried to tell his dad to stop.

He's gone to the bedroom, locked himself in.

He's fleeing over and over from this encounter.

He's getting away as much as he can.

You see, for Anthony, it's him or his dad.

That's exactly what that is at that moment. It's him or his dad.

Anthony knows "I've got to do this. It's got to happen."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the defense case.

Our entire target is the deliberation.

It's going to be super interesting

to see what goes on in the deliberation room,

pulling back the veil from somewhere we're not normally allowed to go.

And not even the decision as much as the deliberation.

How are they talking about the case between themselves?

And how can we affect their deliberation by the way that we put this case together?

We all agree that Burt was not a good man.

-He was abusing people, right?

So I do, I agree that was a pattern throughout this child's life.

There was definitely emotional abuse,

but did that emotional abuse in that--

um, in Anthony's mind warrant,

"I'm in immediate danger, physically, that I'm going to die," or bodily harm?

I wish the defense gave more examples of him being abused.

-No examples to document. -Yeah.

I just cannot find "not guilty"

because he got two guns out.

If one didn't kill him, the other one would.

-It was gonna happen one way or another. -Yeah.

You think he thought there was another way?

I can't say, 'cause he's not--

So you can't say that he did, that he should have.

But his goal wasn't to stop the harm that night.

-His goal was to kill. -In his mind, that'd stop it.

-Well, but it's murder. -Yeah, it's still murder.

I'm sorry. I feel for him, and I agree with him.

In his place, I can't say I would do something different, but it is murder.

It's just murder.

-Let's go where we're at. -Manslaughter.

-Where you at? -Manslaughter.

-Manslaughter. -Where you at?

-Manslaughter. -Where you at?

Manslaughter, I hate it though.

And I'm at "not guilty."

I got some insights on where I think the jury gets lost,

how the psychological wounds of abuse is the factor in this case.

We needed someone to come in and show the abuse is real,

his feelings are real, and none of that sort of existed,

because none of it had ever been reported.

So we hired our own expert.

I was contacted by Mr. Jarrett Ambeau,

to conduct a forensic psychological evaluation of Anthony Templet.

The evaluation was to understand

Anthony's mental state

in the days, weeks, and months leading up to the shooting.

When Burt was home, everybody walked a fine line.

Everybody was nervous.

You might-- One second, the house is quiet.

The next second, dishes are being thrown,

yelling and screaming is going on…

The instant he sees something he doesn't like, he gets mad.

His moods could change in a second.

Anthony was always on the lookout.

He was always on edge,

he was always studying his father's behavior

to determine the mood his father was in.

Even then, sometimes that wasn't helpful,

because his father was quite unpredictable in his violence.

Yeah, I've been punched and thrown and… kicked and…

and it wouldn't stop for, like, hours.

So, yeah, it was bad.

It was nothing but shoving and punching.

He'd call me "fat ass,"

a "dumb motherfucker."

Sometimes he would chuck a Jenga box as hard as he could at my head.

Very rarely

was it anything other than hell living there.

Burt had an app on his phone

that any movement, it would send him a text

with a picture of what was going on.

Every time I turned my car engine off, he got an alert that my engine was off.

Burt's got complete control of the home.

He's got complete control of everything that happens inside that home.

And so the threat of violence is constant.

It's everywhere.

Since any of this happened, has anybody come forward to any of you guys

with any stories about abuse,

aside from the deprivation of the education?

-Susan-- -Her ex-husband.

He said that, on two occasions, he had contacted authorities of some type

because he suspected abuse

of both Susan and, or Anthony.

Anthony.

Physical abuse would have been weekly, verbal, every other day.

And so Peyton called his dad.

And I told my mother, my dad's going to be here in 15 minutes.

He's picking me up. I cannot do this any longer.

So Dennis, my ex-husband, picked him up…

How're you doing, sir?

…and he sent the police to the house.

Well, that's my son. You can ask him.

Hey, we're going to do something for a little while.

Look, I've had enough of this bullshit.

I'm-- Everything's okay here, Anthony. Alrighty.

A police officer came and specifically asked Anthony,

"Has your father physically abused you? Has he beat you?"

And Anthony's response to that was "No."

He says, "I've never witnessed Susan be beaten, I haven't been beaten."

That did cause me concern.

Their contention was that he had an opportunity

to say that at that time and he did not.

So it looks like maybe he's just making it up now,

in order to justify the cold-blooded murder of his father.

I am aware, as well,

that he would have to be afraid of repercussions from that.

Do you remember cops coming to the door?

Oh yeah, definitely. A lot of times actually.

Did you think the cops could do anything?

No, they didn't--

They proved to me time and time again they couldn't do anything for me.

Cops left every time.

He never got in any trouble.

I asked Anthony several questions about

his living situation,

what had changed in the months leading up to the shooting,

and he noted that Susan's departure was really sort of the beginning of the end.

The night before I left, we were arguing in the bedroom,

and Burt punched me in the face,

and he walked away from me.

And he turned back around

with the most satanic look in his eyes,

and he said, "You have no idea what I'm capable of, little girl."

So the next morning, I called a hotel

and I booked a room for two months.

She just took the car and left.

It didn't really surprise me. She did this before.

I'd asked her, "Is Anthony going to be safe if you're not there?"

"He'll be fine."

I don't think she ever was concerned that something would happen to him.

If I would have tried to take Anthony from him, I would be dead.

Because there would not have been a safe rock for me to hide under.

I had no choice.

The next morning, I went to the police department

to report domestic violence,

and I filed the restraining order which stated that he threatened my life.

Attorneys for the teenager accused of killing his father

told 9 News today there is evidence the teen was acting in self-defense.

That evidence, they say, comes from a 55-page protective order.

In the order, Susan Templet claims that Burt

repeatedly punched her in the head and was verbally abusive.

I can't remember who tipped me off, but when we pulled this protective order,

it painted this picture of, of what was possibly going on in this house.

His files went all the way back to the early '90s.

There was an element of violence in Mr. Templet's personality,

and that was especially particular when alcohol was involved.

Alcohol and violence,

those were the two things that, that were really consistent

through his life that we were able to find.

Anthony's attorney argues this history of abuse helps prove their case

that Anthony acted in self-defense when he killed his father.

There is no doubt in my mind that Burt abused Susan.

By the same token, Susan, when she's abused,

she reported it to the police, right?

Nobody said, "And Anthony has been beaten,

and Anthony has incurred all these injuries" or whatever.

How could you not report the abuse of a child

if you knew that it was happening?

And I have a big problem with that.

One misconception is that if somebody's in an abusive relationship,

it's always physical.

But Anthony experienced multiple types of traumas.

This includes physical abuse, psychological abuse, and also neglect.

When Susan left, it basically destroyed him

and he started drinking way more than normal,

and on a bad day it would heighten the abuse.

The cases that turn into fatal cases of domestic abuse

are when someone is leaving permanently.

That's when the abuser has lost control.

Anthony described that his father began drinking every day,

and began drinking to inebriation every day.

He noted that in the few weeks right before his father's death,

his father was consuming approximately 24, or a case of beer, a day.

He started getting super religious. Like that's all he cared about.

He's putting all these crosses everywhere, and…

He'd say I'm, like, evil, and, you know, "You're demonic,"

and it was crazy, you know.

He described the house as sort of like a war zone,

where his father was on edge every day.

Isolation was Anthony's way of coping.

It was an adaptive way for him to survive in this sort of war zone environment.

He would isolate in his room, nearly all day, every day.

I stayed in my room, constantly.

That's all I wanted to do, was stay in my room.

I can't really do much without upsetting him,

so I just-- I just try not to--

I tried to make myself as kind of invisible as possible.

Burt wanted to control everything.

The cameras, and the GPS on the phone, and not letting Anthony go places.

He wouldn't put him in school because,

"'If I don't, there's no chance he'll tell a counselor what's going on."

"If I don't let him have friends,

there's no chance he'll tell them what's going on."

His father never allowed him to have friends.

I asked him, "Did you ever have play dates?"

"Did you hang out with neighborhood kids?"

He was never allowed any social contact with any children ever.

Anthony was living in a bubble with his father

in this very carefully orchestrated environment.

I didn't have contact with the outside world.

I was almost never out of the house without any-- anyone by-- with me.

Anthony never saw a doctor growing up.

He never saw a dentist.

He received no routine medical care whatsoever.

We always get records from schools, and medical records, and clubs.

And in this case, we had zero.

There were no other sets of eyes on him, no professionals

who were experienced to recognize abuse.

Burt had this ability to live two lives.

"I'm going to be this regular engineer guy at work that does pretty good."

But at the house, he's beating his children,

and he's essentially secreted Anthony away from the world for years.

Really confusing for me to see a man

the way I saw him, and then…

behind closed doors, he's a completely different person.

He did a real good job of…

of hiding it, and that, and that-- It really angers me.

The physical abuse is always there

and can be available to a perpetrator.

But it is not the dominant thing.

More times than not, you'll see the intimidation,

the isolation is a huge one.

Getting someone to feel like they don't have any friends, family,

that would assist them out of the situation is a very powerful tool.

The cops were coming by like almost daily,

trying to serve him some, uh, court papers.

So he'd, like, turn off all the lights, and try to hide,

and try to get me to hide too.

And it was during this time where Burt began keeping loaded guns

on his person at all times, day or night, while they were in the house together.

Anthony described a particular incident, where a sheriff's deputy came to the door

to serve papers from Susan,

and Burt was ducking behind the door with a loaded shotgun in hand.

They made repeated attempts to serve.

He wouldn't come out the house.

And they said they couldn't forcibly give it to him.

So after two months, I got fed up with it, and told my sister, "I'll help do it."

My dad and I had to serve papers on Burt because the judicial system failed.

We were like, "Sure." He was. I was like, "Fuck it. Let's do it."

The first time I walked up and banged on the door.

Answer the door, you fucking pussy.

I'm looking in the window, and I see him sitting at the table.

Man, I was pissed, dude. I'm like, "I see you. You fucking clown."

He was afraid of Michael and Junior

because he knew at points they could be just as crazy as him

when it comes to his family.

We go with my aunt to go get the furniture,

and it was me, my dad, Peyton, and Susan.

Burt wasn't, um, at home.

Apparently Anthony was already home, and started texting his dad.

Well, Burt tells Anthony not to open the door,

that we're there to beat up Anthony.

So Anthony's terrified in his house.

My aunt opens the door, and turns the alarm off,

and is like, "Anthony chill out. They're not here for you."

There was a rifle in the corner of the living room.

There was a shotgun out of the sheath on top of his dresser.

We were moving stuff out, and Burt comes flying in there with his truck,

and tries to jump out the truck, screaming at my aunt and my dad.

He ends up getting back in his truck, and locking the doors.

I said, "We need to give you these papers."

At the last second, as he's driving out the neighborhood,

I threw the papers in the truck

and he drove off.

About three days later,

I posted the restraining order

on nextdoor.com

that stated the things he stated to me before I left.

And nextdoor.com went wild. It blew up.

So I went online and found this thing on Nextdoor.

It was a lengthy paragraph about how he had been abusing her for years

and she wanted everybody to know.

"You need to know what's he's about, he's abused me for years, beat me."

You know, it was-- It was bad. You don't see him for the longest time.

Then one day, he's walking around the block with a smile on his face.

If I beat my spouse…

…and it was all over the neighborhood, I would not show my face on the street.

If I did or didn't do it, I just wouldn't.

Uh, he seemed like a sociopath.

Susan posting the restraining order on the Nextdoor app

really freaked Burt out.

Everyone in the neighborhood now knows.

And Anthony saw him falling apart.

Anthony saw him crumbling, walking around the house with a gun,

and his behavior had gotten so crazy

that Anthony knew, "Something is different."

"Something is different here than has ever been with my father."

We're in a stage in this criminal proceeding

where we're trying to work it out.

And so we begin to negotiate with the district attorney.

"We're preparing for this case,

but we're also talking to you about a possible outcome

that's good for all-- for all parties, right?"

That may be that Anthony pleads to a crime,

although I don't believe he should,

but that's really in his best interest because the risk is so great.

That to roll those dice, and go to trial,

and my client go to jail for the rest of his life?

I could not let that happen.

I've never had a case like this.

It was something I worried about

because if it's murder, it's a life sentence.

That's pretty big stakes, right?

She's beginning to have an appreciation for the nature of this case.

And whether or not she believes it was justified in killing him,

she at least understands where we're coming from,

and so she's getting closer to, uh, what we believe to be a decent outcome here.

When you take into account what had happened to him in the past,

what he had experienced in that house,

would that provoke someone?

Perhaps.

I found out Burt had lost his job

for poor job performance.

And he had $80,127 in credit card debt.

Burt was now desperate,

and without a job, and hurting financially,

his wife is gone.

So I think, based on what Anthony's told me,

that his father was sort of losing his grip on everything

that he had once had control over.

He just changed.

He changed so drastically.

He seemed more scared and paranoid.

One might assume Burt was in a state of mind

where he was completely reckless, and had nothing left to lose.

Anthony said he felt very afraid around his father,

because he described that his father was unhinged enough

to repeatedly physically attack him over the years.

What would stop him from shooting him

with a loaded gun he had so accessible on his hip?

It was kind of do or die, you know?

Kind of felt like my life was in danger.

And I felt like no one could help me, so…

I asked Anthony, "Why this night?"

Anthony indicated that he was asleep when his father barged in his room.

Burt accused Anthony of being in contact with Susan,

which he had forbidden.

I said, "Why're you going through my phone?"

He didn't want me talking to her without him.

It's all a part of Burt not feeling included

and thinking people are talking about something he should know.

"You're talking to her. What are you saying?"

We argued over that for a little bit and then he ended up

getting violent with me, and he just lost it.

His father lunged at him, and attempted to attack him.

He-- He was on me.

Anthony dodged, and was able to go into his father's bedroom.

I locked the door on him.

He was, like, busting the door down,

and I grabbed the guns off the top shelf, and…

I felt like this was the-- the worst I've ever seen him,

and then I felt like my life was really in danger.

Anthony said, "What was I going to do?"

"Call the police who would then bring me right back to my dad's house?"

So he didn't trust the legal system,

he didn't trust the social justice system, any of it,

to help him escape the situation.

He had gotten to such a point that he was crazy.

I felt like this was it for me.

Once you understand the entire picture

of this young man's life,

and when you understand the totality of his experiences,

that he was never going to be able to escape his father,

it became clear that Anthony wanted the abuse to stop,

and the only way to make it stop

was to kill his father.

What do you do with this person that has never had a life,

the experts say is not going to be a danger?

People should plead guilty for what they did.

So I felt he should plead guilty to manslaughter.

But by the same token, if you load him up with jail time,

and what really-- What purpose does that serve?

I mean, I guess you're punishing him, but in the end,

he's been punished since the day he was born.

I met with Assistant District Attorney Dana Cummings,

and the elected District Attorney Hillar Moore.

I said everyone in Burt's life not living with him

has said they didn't see any physical abuse of Anthony,

but that when this happened, none of them were really surprised,

and that none of them wanted Anthony to go to jail.

I said, "The only other people we have as witnesses

are the two people that lived with Anthony and Burt, Susan and Peyton."

"And both of them will testify in court

that they witnessed physical abuse of Anthony."

"That the physical abuse was enough,

combined with an extreme control environment,

to sort of oppress everything that was Anthony Templet."

"And we have Dr. Lawing's report."

Throughout my forensic psychological evaluation of Anthony,

there was no indication that he was responding abnormally

on any tests that measure truthfulness or social desirability.

Anthony manifested just about every, um, psychological marker of abuse

with me when I evaluated him.

And so I said to the district attorney,

"I know that you guys can't dismiss this case."

"But I think a reasonable outcome here is negligent homicide and probation."

All right, buddy.

So we talked to the DA.

They're gonna-- They're gonna offer you negligent homicide, man.

-For real? -Yeah.

-They're gonna let you free to probation. -No way.

-Yeah. On March 1st. -For real?

-On March 1st? -Yeah.

-It's confirmed I'm getting probation? -It's done.

Whoa, that's crazy.

Probation, negligent homicide, not a crime of violence,

and you can expunge it from your record when you're done.

All right.

-It's good, huh? -That's the best--

-Come here. -That's the best I could've hoped for.

I'm so happy for you, man. Seriously. Seriously.

I can't even…

What rang true throughout the report is,

look, this young man has basically never had a life.

And whether you put it under a specific diagnosis,

or just realize he's a human being

and he did not know how to deal with this situation,

he was never taught how to survive this… this man he was living with.

I'm confident that this young man killed

because of the situation that he was in.

This is not a wholesale lease

to tell everyone that has a problem with a family member that's dysfunctional

that you can kill. It's no license to kill.

Every case is unique, the circumstance is unique.

And in this case we believe that justice is served.

Honestly, this will be a success story

for everybody involved,

if he actually takes this opportunity,

and turns into a productive member of society that has a full life.

That's all we can hope. And that's definitely what we hope.

-Thank you, Mrs. Cummings. -Thank you.

If Anthony doesn't make it on probation, then, you know, he's had his opportunity.

Yes, he still has challenges because of the way he's raised.

But you know what, he's been given a lot of resources,

a lot of attention, a lot of care

to get him to be able to be a functional human being.

And I hope that's what he does.

The whole world is available to you,

because you're no longer fucking shackled to Burt

or to this event.

I have a strong want and desire for Anthony to be successful in life.

He lived an incredibly hopeless life,

and no one got involved to help him

until he shot his father.

And that act, unbelievably,

has brought all of this care and concern into his life.

It's a remarkable sort of juxtaposition of this incredibly violent act,

bringing in all this love, and care, and concern.

And in the end of the day, the system came through for this kid.

You can hop on the Internet

and see what Louisiana's track record is for-- for criminal justice.

It's not the greatest.

So I think Anthony is lucky to have someone like Jarrett.

We, as a society, tend to shy away from wanting

to explore domestic abuse.

People say, "Oh, that's not my business."

"I shouldn't know what's happening behind closed doors."

And nothing has changed in the 20 years that I've been working with abuse victims,

in that they're still ashamed to admit that that's something they experienced.

We oftentimes hear, "Why are you in this? Why are you staying?"

We don't necessarily ask the question,

"Why does this person abuse, um, someone that they claim to love?"

That's a better question that we should ask as a society.

But unfortunately, we're still not there

in terms of our response to domestic abuse.

Burt was a bad person overall, and I don't know if he was always like that,

but that's how it ended,

so I guess that's how he'll be remembered.

If people worry about me being like my father, that's not gonna happen.

-Oh, just-- -Throw it over?

-Hey! There you go. You were almost smart. -I didn't get it.

-Should I make a bow? -Yes. Let's make a bow.

Anthony hasn't been home in 11 years.

I hope he likes his family.

I mean, um, he loved us when he was little, so much,

and he was so happy when he was with just all of us,

instead of his father, so…

been waiting for this day forever.

I don't really remember at all. And it's really weird coming down here

to meet some people that I know but don't know.

You know, it's just-- It's very odd.

Oh, that's him.

Oh dear.

-Honey, don't make me cry now. -Mm-hm.

Hey, son.

-Is that him? -How's it going?

-Oh, he's so handsome. -Oh, sweetheart!

-I'm Grandma. -You look so handsome.

-Can I hug you? Oh, I love you. -Hey, how's it-- Yeah.

Mwah!

-Nice to meet you. -It's so good to see you again.

-I met you many times…

…changed your diaper and all that.

I'm sure a teenager wants to hear that, right?

Hi, sweetie. How you doing?

-Good. How're you? -Good.

I don't remember it looking like this. I remember it being, like, bigger.

-Maybe it's all the trees. -You were little, looks bigger.

Are you nervous, a little bit?

-We are. -Oh yeah.

That's your sister and you.

That's how big our house was.

That's us upstairs taking a picture of you.

-I remember that. -You do?

-Those were big stairs, wasn't it? -Yeah. It was.

You always tried to slide down that one, right?

-I think Tasha jumped off of it. -Yeah.

I about had a heart attack, yeah.

Y'all were something else.

I bake you a cake every, every year on your birthday.

Yes, she always made you cakes.

But this time you're going to eat a piece of it.

That's good.

Now, I just said, I-- I want you to be happy.

-Are you happy? -I'm pretty happy right now.

-You still got a lot more lives to go. -Oh, yes--

-I started over many times, you know. -Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm 82 years old, so I may not get to see you again after this.

But remember me.

-All right. -Okay.

I'm sorry you went through what you went through. I'm so sorry.

I can't tell you how bad I've felt. I've cried about it.

But nonetheless, it hasn't changed the way we love you.

Well, this is what I've been planning to do with you.

I know it's not much, and we don't do much around here, but…

-It's really pretty out here. -Yeah.

-If you ever need peace, you know? -Yeah.

This is harder than losing him.

I want to be his friend.

'Cause I know it would never be a mother-son relationship.

That-- That was the past.

There's so much I want to tell him.

That we were all very, very close when he was a child,

and don't let what happened to you make you a bad person,

and just remember that you got a family that loves you,

and you deserve better…

…than what you went through.

And I just want to wish him good luck.

A lot of luck.

I want him to be able to live a normal life.

Whatever normal is.

What's normal life mean to you?

Just doing normal things.

What's a normal thing to you?

Just not be-- Damn, I hate this shit.

Oh, my God.

It's very important to feel in control of your life.

You get your freedom stripped from you in jail,

and it just kind of made me realize that.

And, you know, it's kind of what I value--

It's a little-- I value it a little bit more, I think than…

I just want to be normal.

Just want to live normally and be happy and…

just move on.

You think you can do that?

Yes.