Original subtitles

No one has ever asked me what it was

like for me. How was it for

me as a child

to live with such a monster?

A man that I wanted to love

more than anything. And he was

so wicked.

Sorry. How did

it feel to be that little child?

Nobody ever housed me.

So I wanted to tell you. I'm

sorry.

Well, apparently, they think they've got

some kind of evidence or something that

they they think they can charge me with

murder. For years, that truth was hidden.

I was the only living person that knew

that truth. He had already

murdered. I was convinced he would again,

to protect himself, to keep the

secret. They're bringing up stuff that's

25 or 30 years old, and I have no

idea. They haven't fingerprinted me or

muck shot at me yet, but I'm sure that's

coming. I feel bad for people

that have huge secrets like I had.

Don't let it consume you. Tell the

secret. Tell your secret.

This is my father at Christmas.

And if you look at the picture, that

should be so lovely.

I still see in his eyesthe

evil that he was.

He certainly doesn't look as evil in his

younger days, but I can still see in his

eyes that... I can see a darkness in his

eyes. He would become volatile

over anything. Sometimes it's hard to

believe that a person so

vicious could have been my father.

He had no empathy, no boundaries,

no respect. How do you

describe someone as evil as

this man?

When I was very young, I was under the

impression that all daddies

beat their wives and their

children. And my

father's rage was completely

unpredictable. It would go on for

hours of him ranting

and screaming and throwing stuff.

My mother was wonderful, but she wasn't a

saint. And sometimes my mother would

violently intervene, if that's what

it took to stop my father from

beating her children.

I remember one time, we were all swimming

in the pool. My oldest

sibling, Susan, my brother, Craig, and

then Kelly, and then myself. Do you kids

even understand how much I do for this

family, huhHow much you depend on me?

My father was telling us that he was

going to leave our home, that they were

going to get a divorce, and that

we were going to starve. We wouldn't have

any toys. Our mother couldn't

support us. I'm done with all you spoiled

ratchet. And he said a lot of words I

didn't understand. He called her a whore

and a tramp. And we all were begging him

not to leave. Please, don't go.

But it almost seemed like he got pleasure

in being wicked, in being

mean. He was just twisted.

You and your whore mother can starve for

all I care. My mother was inside the

house. And she came to that

open window and heard my father. Eugene,

what the hell are you saying to the kids?

So my mother started yelling at him to

shut up, and he wouldn't. And there

was a small transistor radio sitting in

the window with music playing. She picked

up that radio and slung it, and

it hit him upside the head.

And then she ran out to the door and

comforted us, andTold us it would be OK,

that we weren't going to starve, that she

was a grown woman, she was an adult, she

had a job, that she would feed us,

that it would be OK if my parents got a

divorce. No matter what happens, we're

going to be OK. She assured us

it wasn't our fault and

put us all to bed. He was

furious. That night was like

hundreds and hundreds. and

hundreds that had happened before.

It seemed like so

normal, as if everybody's parents

behaved that way.

I think that my mother filed for divorce

because in that much dysfunction,

my poor mother had just reached her

point. She needed to save her children.

She needed to save herself,

and she couldn't do that with my father

in our life.

My father moved out, and he moved about

four or five miles into a

neighboring city of Phoenix. It was

like a breath of fresh air. It's

amazingly how quiet our house became

when he was gone. But during

the divorce, my father wanted the house,

he wanted the car, and he wanted all four

of his children. And my mother wasn't

going to settle for that. She wasn't

gonna give up custody of her four

children.

My mother had started dating

the night they got their final divorce

decrees. She had a babysitter at our

home, but my

father came over... Hey, kids.

How's it going in here?...and excused the

babysitter and told her to go home.

He wasn't angry. He wasn't yelling at the

babysitter. And he was very

polite about it. And so the

babysitter went on home.

My father was in the home, and my mother

came home from her date. I can't take it

home. Get back here, Diane.

I'm not stunting you. The fighting

woke me up. I came walking down

the hallway, and my father was

beating my mother. terribly.

And she was yelling back at him, Leave

the home or I'll call the police. Stop

it, Jean! Get out of here. She was

screaming. The fighting must have woken

up Susie, 'cause I remember her coming up

behind me. And I remember

this grip that she

had on my shoulder that was like a

death grip.

She just wanted me to stay right there

and not get involved. My mother

noticed her children standing there,

and she started screaming for us to go

back to bed. Susie, Lori, go back to

your room. She was distracted just

momentarily to say that. A second

after that, my father hit my mother.

Just a right hook

that would have knocked a full-grown man

out. And she whipped back and

hit her head against the rail on the

door and slid to the ground.

I thought she was sleeping. It

looked like my father

made my mother go to sleep. At

that point, Suzy grabbed me,

and we went and hid in her closet.

And we fell asleep in the closet. We

would often fall asleep in the closet

during the fights.

I was so young and

so naive. I was assuming at the

time it was just another night with

the same violence.

I woke up later. Susan was asleep. So

I came out the door quietly of the

closet, and I started looking for my

mother. And I heard noise out

back. And I saw my

mother laying next to the pool.

And she looked like she was sleeping. And

I thought that was very odd. And then my

father started to dig a hole with a

shovel. And I

remember the very distinct sound

of the shovel going into the dirt,

that sound as

eachshovel was removed.

Never did I understand that that was

death, nor did I understand my father

was going to bury her there.

My father was preoccupied

with the yard equipment and

what he was doing to notice that I was

even standing out the door.

It's a very confusing situation when

you're five, that Mom is

sleeping on the ground and Dad's doing

yard work. I

was confused on sleeping

and death.

I hadn't experienced death yet. My

sister came up behind me again,

and she carefully, quietly,

Pulled my shoulder and had me step back

into the house and she ever so

quietly closed the door.

We didn't discuss what we had

seen that night

and we never discussed it. Not one day.

We woke up the next morning and my

mother was gone and there was a fresh

location in the dirt. where my father had

buried my mother.

After that night, my

father told anybody that would listen

that my mother ran away with a man,

that she had left him to

raise her four children.

It appeared to me everybody believed him,

but I didn't believe my father when he

said she left. I knew she was

in the hole in the backyard.

Life went on for a short

time, and things seemed to go on in the

house just without her presence.

But certain things would trigger my

memory. When it was

dinnertime, I would realize that my

mother was still not with us.

She wasn't making the dinner, washing the

dishes, or making me clean my plate.

But when I was about three or four,

my turtle, touché,

went and hibernated. And my mother

explained to me that sometimes

the animal will dig a hole and go inside

and take a nap. And I firmly

believed my mother was in the hole in the

ground, too, just like touché,

sleeping. I

said out loud a number of times, We need

to go wake up Mommy. so she can eat

dinner, too. But what about

Mom?

My father would start getting angry.

My father had a stare, and that's what it

would start with.

He would turn around and look at you, and

you knew it was as if you

looked at Satan.

Susan wouldKind of snatch me up

and take me down the hall and distractme.

You have to remember only she and

I knew the secret.

Kelly and Greg did not see

my mother get murdered, so they didn't

know. And they believed the story that

my father had told everybody that my

mother ran off. But Susan was old

enough to know that her mother had died

and. That she needed to protect

us. So every

time I would bring up the subject, I

would obviously be putting myself in

danger. She would have to remove me from

it so that I would quit talking.

One day, this slab of cement appeared,

finished, dried,

covering my mother. He told

everybody he was going to put a shed up,

but he never did put a shed up.

I became even more desperate.

How was she going to get out when there

was a slab of semen on top of her?

I think my father was worried that I knew

the truth. He needed me to shut up

and he was becoming fearful. I think my

father needed to do something

to get me to be quiet.

It was very late. We were asleep.

And Susan, I remember her

running in the room, desperate. Lori,

Kelly, wake up, wake up. And she was

trying to drag us out of our bed, wake us

up, get up, get up. She was screaming.

The whole bedroom was filled with smoke,

and it was hot.

She got us out of bed. My

two sisters were behind me, and my

brother Greg was behind

them. The smoke was so

hot, and it was so thick.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't walk. So I

crawled. I was crawling

down the hallway, and the fire just

leaped underneath me and blew me back

down the hallway, and it burned the

entire front of my body. It

burned my arms. I remember

with the pain and the heat, like,

tumbling back, it-- it

just blew me back into my

sister's.

And my sister. Oh, shoot, you guys.

I'm sorry. This made me cry.

I remember the feeling of

her laying on top of me. I was

burned, and I hurt so bad

that she felt

so comforting to lay on

top of me.

She held me, and she said, I love

you, repeatedly.

I love you. I'll never

ever leave you.

It was the most

intimate,

precious love

in its purest form

that I've ever experienced.

We could hear the fire trucks coming in

the distance. She said, Listen, wait.

The firefighters, the firemen, they're

going to come get us. It'll be OK.

They'll come get us. And she said she

loved me. And then we died.

When the Phoenix Fire Department came in,

they found Suzie on top of me, and she

was holding me. They had two very

large mulberry trees in our yard. And

they laid all three of our little bodies

under the mulberry trees and

began trying to revive us.

Every time I coded or died,

it was as if I was standing next

to the firefighters,

and I could see my body. And it's

like watching a movie that you're

in, and then they would revive me, and

thenAnd then it would hurt

after.

I was 50% burned on my body

in a third, fourth, and fifth degree.

Fifth degree is when you have bone loss.

I was burned upside on the side of

my face, and it formed a horrible

chelation right here. It's very

tight, and it hurts. When I

pull my head all the way around,

I have extensive muscle loss.

On my side,

I have bone loss. It burned so bad that

it burned my ribs off. I'm burned

down my hand. I don't know if you can

see, but recently this healed again. My

scars, they tend to rip open

in areas of my body that

move.

I was afraid when I first woke up. It

hurt a lot. And when I

looked down, I was wrapped up like a

mummy, and I could hear what

the adults were saying. My

brother, Greg, jumped out the window. The

neighbors kind of bundled him up in a

blanket, andtook him across the

street. My brother was not burned.

They said that my sisters had passed

away. Even after

this much time,

it still hurts. And there's

still a

tremendous amount of loss.

This is a picture of my sister, Kelly.

That's exactly how I remember her. Look

at all her little freckles on her nose.

She was such a little redhead. She was a

lovely child. She was quite feisty.

I shared a room with her and I was very,

very close to her. She

was behind me with my sister

Susan. When the fire hit us,

Kelly went back into our bedroom that we

shared together and she was

found dead on our bed.

This is Susan. I remember this

blouse. You know, she's such a

loving child, such a loving

soul. And I don't even know if she ever

had her first little boyfriend,

her first crush. She was very

doting. I look back

and understand what the burdens she

must have had to know

that her father was a murderer

and yet to try to protect her siblings.

I'm sure my mother would be so proud of

her.

When I woke up initially, my father

wasn't there. I didn't see him for quite

some time. As an

adult, I obtained all my medical

records. In those records, there were

several comments in there about the fact

that my father was not attending to me.

how odd they thought it was that he

wouldn't be by my bedside,

holding my hand or nurturing me. He

lacked any empathy,

any compassion. The

facts about the fire

weren't explained to me, but my

father's story was that he went to the

laundromat, and he said,

inadvertently, without him knowing it, he

left a pan on the stove. with

his water in it that he

would boil for his instant coffee.

All the adults seemed to always

believe him, but I didn't

understand why my father had to go to the

laundromat because my mother had a

beautiful washer and dryer in my home.

I think that my father started that fire

purposely to kill me so that I would

quit telling everybody that my mother was

sleeping in the backyard.

The house burned down in January. I

believe April 11th, my father came

against doctor's wishes and hospital

orders and took me out of the hospital. I

still didn't have any skin. I was still

wrapped up with bandages. I still needed

medical care. At that point, my

father was rebuilding.

our home that had burned. So my

father rebuilt two rooms. The living

room was our bedroom. And no

matter where you stayed in the house, the

smell of what was

left of the burning structure, it

surrounded you. I didn't like that

at all. I didn't like the smell

of death. But

it was his way to remain in

control over my mother's remains.

He had to still own the house.

Once the house was completed, then

actually I found a lot of comfort from

being there. That's where my sister

loved me. That's where all my wonderful

memories were. That's where my

mother was. So I would

sit with her in a very strange way.

It was comforting. to be able to

sit next to her grave.

My father, in the

'60s, purchased two

independent gas stations. So

often, young men would come in with their

cars. It was at that gas station that

I met Michael. He was a nice young man.

Mike went to Vietnam. And Mike

passed away in Vietnam. He was killed in

in that war. I

was told that we were going to go to a

memorial service and that it was Mike's

memorial service. I didn't understand a

memorial service. I thought it was a

party.

And it wasn't. It was his funeral. And

Mike was dead in a casket.

It looked like he was sleeping, just like

my mother. But then

they wanted to put the casket in the

ground. I didn't understand why

they would put him in the ground, too,

when he was sleeping.

Shouldn't we wake him up?And then

there was a woman, and she explained to

me that that was death and that he wasn't

going to come back.

It was at that time that I put the pieces

together. Mike wasn't coming back,

and nor was my mother.

That was death. What a shocking

moment in my life. It was at that

moment I realized my father had killed

my mother.

What a sad moment...

for any child.

I didn't know the word of murder,

but I knew if my father

couldmake my mother die

and nobody came to look for her?Who

would come to look for me

if I was dead?

I was terrified,

terrified when I realized that

my father was a murderer.

As soon as I came to understand

the situation that I was in, I

never said another word.

to another soul and began to

repeat the lie that I was instructed to

repeat from my father, that my mother had

run away.

I would pretend to not remember.

I let him believe that I didn't know

anymore.

But at one point, my father bought a

boat, and he would go deep-sea

fishing. He would throw me in the ocean

and tell me to swim back to the shore.

Swim, you little bitch. Swim or

drown. There were

times we were out so far, I could barely

see the shoreline.

I was injured from the fire

bad still, and so I could only dog

paddle. Every time I stretched, it ripped

my skin open, my scar tissue.

And I would bleed again. But when you

have body fluids coming out into

the ocean, the fish would come up

and nibble on me, bite me. It

was terrifying.

I would often end up having the current

drag me down the beach quite a ways.

before I could actually get on the beach

and walk.

When my father returned to shore, he was

always surprised to see me.

He would say, Oh, you made it back, huh

As an adult, I understand now, I could

have drowned. That would be easy to

explain to the authorities.

I probably swam. Back to

shore 8 or 10 times,

at which point I I simply refused to go

out on the boat anymore.

As I grew up, I thought my

father came to the conclusion that

maybe I forgot, because the whole

story just kind of went away.

I lived with my father until I turned 18.

I ran. I never wanted him to know where I

was at.

So I was shocked and terrified when my

father found where I had moved to. And I,

to this day, don't know how he found me.

But all of a sudden, he was there.

I remember him showing up. I was on my

way out the door. He was angry, yelled at

me for not calling home.

I just kept my feet moving.

I was terrified, terrified that he had

found me, terrified that he kept coming

back. Get back here, Lori. I'm talking to

you. My father would

appear at these different times, you

know, here and there. He knew

that my fear for him was larger than

life. The only

reason he would come by is to keep tabs

on me, to keep that threat over me.

to never, ever reveal the secret about

my mother's murder. It worked.

Over time, I think my father just

went on maybe with his life and and

didn't seek me out as often as he had

when I was younger.

I started living my life to its

fullest. Finished high school, went on to

college, worked several jobs,

was married, purchased a horse.

Although there was a big portion of me

that was still captured in that fear, I

was trying to have a life.

One day, this lovely show horse laid down

to deliver her foal, and the baby

was born, but the baby didn't break out

of the placenta. And the baby didn't

breathe.

And the mother knew it. My

horse knew her child needed a

breath or she wouldn't live.

So my horse, she jumped up

and started pushing her child.

That's what ripped the placenta. She

would have died for that child

in that moment. I understood

to the core of my soul, to the marrow of

my being, that my mother loved me

that much. And I

had to go back and recover her.

I sat on that fence rail and

cried. Sorry.

I knew what I had to do.

My mother's case. stayed

a missing persons case from the day she

vanished until I was

31 and walked into the PlayStation.

A detective sat down with me.

I had written a small statement,

and I'll never forget taking it out of my

handbag and sliding it across the desk to

that gentleman.

I told them what she was wearing.

How she was killed, where she was buried,

and that she still remained there. I told

them the entire story. I

remember him being shocked

that I had so much evidence that I was

bringing forth. I said, would you

like me to sign that?And I

took a pen out of my handbag and signed

my name to my statement and slid it back

across the desk to him. And I

was terrified what was going to come

next. But I was so relieved

that possibly now somebody would help me.

One day, my older brother phoned me. The

detective had gone to my father's home

and interviewed him. And the detective

did tell my father that I had come to the

authorities and brought new information.

So my father was ranting and raving at

this dinner event that if I didn't

shut up, he was going to silence

me. I was the only

proof. I was the only living

soul that saw the murder of my mother.

I was terrified. I slept with a

gun under my pillow.

He had already murdered. I was convinced

he would again. to protect himself,

to keep the secret.

My father had sold my

childhood home some years before I

went to the detectives, and I found

out that the home was a rental property.

So I had a real estate agent negotiate a

contract where I could purchase my

childhood home. I called the

detective, and I told him I was going to

buy the home. And I was going to go back

and get my mother. And

the detective asked me on the phone

if I would wait 24 hours.

And I told him that's all he was going to

get.

They recovered my mother that same day.

Part of me almost hoped that

my memories could be proven

inaccurate, that it was a

bad dream. But

every single thing I had said, they

confirmed it to be truth. I wasn't

mistaken, not even about the dress

she wore when she went out that night. I

strangled her with stockings. And he

still left the silk stockings on her

body when he buried her.

You're under arrest for murder,

OK?The murder of Diane Kidell. I

dug up her body today in your backyard.

I I had no idea. I have, you know,

I don't know anything about that. He

seems very arrogant. On the outside.

But I know him so well, I can tell he's

fearful. My father didn't see

that coming at all. My father thought

that my mother's remains were

entombed under a slab of cement. How

could she get buried in your backyard?How

could she get buried in your backyard

when you're living there?No idea. I

wasn't living at the time. What do you

mean?You were too. From the day she

disappeared, he lived there. Watching

this, I can tell in his arrogance,

my father still thinks he's gonna get

away with it. He still thinks if he

calls an attorney, he can

control the situation and make it goaway.

It was unbelievable to think that I...

could have a funeral that I could lay my

mother to rest with her children.

It's like a wave of so

many different emotions.

Joy and grief.

Pain.

Acceptance.

It allowed me, as an adult, to grieve

when I wasn't allowed to grieve as a

child.

Knowing that they're all together, that

my sisters are with my mother, was what I

needed to step

forward.

The fire department reopened an

investigation on the house fire.

In the end, they amended the death

certificates of my two sisters as an

arson house fire and murdered children.

But my father was only charged and

only convicted of the murder of my

mother. The prosecuting attorneys

told me if it ever looked like he would

be released, they would instantly then

charge him with the murder of my two

siblings and the attempted murder. of my

brother and I. But

ultimately, everyone knew that my

sisters were murdered. And

that became enough. One, two, three.

The last time I saw my father was in the

courtroom the day of his sentencing.

Every time an appeal was filed, I was

always given a notice in the mail.

This process went on for several years. I

would get letters. One day I got another

letter from the victim advocacy

department, but this letter

said that he had died at the

hospital and that they would be no longer

contacting me.

I had never thought, really, about my

father's death. I had never

thought about that.

And I cried.

I cried for his soul. I cried

that he died still, the same

evil man.

My father passed away, never

admitting the truth.

He took it to his grave.

I believe that all of us are held

accountable for what we do on this

earth. And my father's not any

different. He'll be held accountable,too.

The bodies were cooped up in a freezer

like meat. I was afraid to even walk

by the freezer. I immediately thought,

we're going to die. I'm

basically a decent human being if it

wasn't for the fact that I was also a

monster. I just want to put my hands

around his neck and just shake the hell

out of him. Why?Why

I do not believe my son is evil at all.

My son is being influenced by evil

spirits. In the name of Jesus, I command

you, evil spirit, to leave my son. A week

after I was married, my girlfriend told

me, There's a guy on America's Most

Wanted who looks just like your hubby,

and he's a murderer. That night, when he

came to bed, I had to pretend everything

was okay. I have lung cancer.

I want to tell the story while I'm still

able. The whole time I was growing up,

you never told me.