All language subtitles for I AM A KILLER_S02E08_Crossing the Line.en.closedcaptions

[distant conversation]

[door opens]

[woman]
I feel like I need to tell my story

because I don't feel like a killer.

I just was a hurt little girl...

that, um, had a lot of pain.

I'm not a bad person.
I just made a mistake.

It could have been different.

I could have, um, walked away,

'cause it's... it's not...
it's not right to take somebody's life.

And if I could take it back, I would.

I would, because...

it was wrong.

[man 1] This is a true story.

I'll start it off like that.

[man 2] I just wanted to rebel.
I wanted to cause chaos.

I looked over at him.
We're gonna see who kills who.

[woman] I made the choice.

I took his life.

[man 3] It's something
that I never intended to do,

I wish I didn't do.

[man 4] I knew I was gonna get out
of that car and murder those two men.

[man 5] As he kneeled in front of me,
all I remember is pulling the trigger.

[man 6] I'd killed them both.

I'd stabbed them to death.

My name is Cavona Flenoy.

I've been incarcerated for ten years
for a shooting.

[train horn blares]

I was born in Kansas City, Kansas.

[birds singing]

I grew up, like, in the middle class
and, you know, I had everything I wanted.

I didn't go without anything.

You know, my mother was a minister.

I used to help her at her church,

and I helped her, um, sing
and clean our house.

I just liked my big mama.

I'm a big mama's child.

It all got bad
when I went to middle school.

I got into kind of a back-and-forth thing
with this little boy.

He pushed me down...

and he lifted up my shirt.

He started, um, licking my breast.

I had many forms of abuse.

You know, I lost...

I lost the best part of me.
I lost my virginity.

I lost hope. I lost my self-esteem.
And I feel like they got away with it.

They just got...

on the wrist, easy. No justice for me.

I was very lost and confused

and I wanted to ask God
why it happened to me.

That's when I started being a little girl
that was bitter and angry.

They got me a counselor.

So, when I start talking about it,
I get angry,

because I'm just like, you know,
it's just bringing up the past issues.

Then, when they put me on medication,
I stayed asleep.

How is that dealing with my problems?

I started using drugs and alcohol
to numb my mind,

numb my heart.

And I just feel like I'm living in hell.

[birds chirping]

I was 16, turning 17 years old,

when I had my son.

That was the most beautifulest thing,

because I felt like
my son was going to be the only man

that probably wouldn't hurt me in life.

I had to say, "No more," to hurt or pain,

because now I had to be
a protector for him.

So, if I couldn't protect myself,
how can I protect my son?

And then I felt like,
"If I go and get a boyfriend myself,

then I will have somebody to protect me."

And...

that was no good either.

When he started drinking and smoking
with me,

his mind kind of got mad.

He used to punch me

and got very abusive with me.

And he hit me so hard to black me out
that I had to get rushed to the hospital.

And when I was in the hospital,

the police asked
do they want to make a police report.

I said no because
what was he just gonna get? Probation?

After that, I was scared,
so I called my cousin.

And I told him what was going on.

And he said that there was a gun for sale

and he said it was $100,
and I got the gun.

I took my gun, like, everywhere with me.

It was always in my purse.

At this time, I was living
on 78th and State in Kansas City, Kansas,

right up the street from the liquor store
where I met Hassan.

I drove down to go and buy liquor.

And the man that was at the counter

told me that he know this wasn't my ID.

And that, you know, I can have the liquor
if I go on a date

with Hassan
because he's looking for a friend.

So I agreed to go on a date.

The day of the date,
I dropped my son off at my mother's house.

And my mother didn't want me
to go anywhere.

She was telling me that, you know,

she feel like something bad
is about to happen, you know.

I'm like, "Mama, it's okay.
Everything will be fine."

Hassan picked me up in front of my house.

So I went out and he said
that he was taking me to Golden Corral.

Then we got on the highway.

As we was going, I'm like,
"We're driving a long time."

And he said,
"Yes, I feel like that I wants

to go to the house and take a shower."

So, thinking, you know, me...
you know, having a job myself,

I get from working,
I would want to take a shower too,

so I had very much understanding.

So when I went to the house,

he asked me did I want some Hennessy
and I said yes.

And then...

he gave me something
that I didn't even know what it was

and he said that it was PCP.

And so I tried it.

When he got out the shower,

he was butt naked with a condom on.

And he told me that I owed him.

You know,
for the liquor and everything else

and he told me that I had to suck his dick
or fuck him

or I wasn't going anywhere.

I told him, "Please, no.

Just please let me go home.

Let me go back home to my son."

And he said, "No, you're staying.
You're staying with me."

And this man is like 6'7",

200 pounds.

In my mind, I felt like there's...

there's no way
I can get away from this man.

[sighs]

[groans]

And so...

he laid down and...

when he laid down, I...

tried to go the other way. He said no.

So, at the first instant,
I grabbed the gun out of my purse.

And I closed my eyes and I shot.

[gunshot]

After I shot, he ran towards me.

And when he ran towards me,
I'm like, you know,

me as a kid looking at the movies,

like, when you shoot, you know,
they cannot move anywhere.

And, no, he came running after me
and told me to give him the gun.

I shut the door and I tried to...

He tried to bring the door this way.

So I'm shooting through the door
and I'm like, "Please stop."

So then, after that, I ran,
grabbed his car keys

and he's still chasing me out.

And I got in his car.

And I didn't know where I was going,

so I just kept on going straight.

And I went to my cousin's house
and I told him,

I said, "I'm scared and...

I did something bad and I don't know...
I don't know what I should do."

And I wasn't going to call the police,

because I'm like, "Well, um,
what would they do to help me?"

[woman] I don't believe
that my daughter wanted to hurt this man.

He tried to make her do
some things sexually

that she didn't want to do.

My name is Stacey Lewis
and I'm Cavona Flenoy's mother.

She was very unique, even as a baby.

You know,
she had these big, bright bubble eyes

and stuff like that,

but her main thing was dancing.

Cavona was a dancer.
She could dance you under the table.

Cavona told the lawyer
that she wanted to claim self-defense.

Self-defense is like a five to seven,
a seven to ten.

But the lawyer advised Cavona
to plead guilty to a second-degree murder,

because she said
she was gonna lose in trial.

They gave her no other choice...

but second degree.

I knew she was gonna go to prison.

But the lawyer had told me

that it was up to the judge
on how much time that she got.

I thought the most that my daughter
would have did was ten.

And then I thought
she would do the rest on probation.

I was very shocked
when my daughter got 25 years.

Only thing that they cared about
is this girl came into Platte County

and she was black, of color.

She killed someone in their county.

And they wanted to prosecute her.

They wanted to send her away.

And they painted that picture.

"If you come in Platte County,
this is what you're gonna get."

Going to trial would have been
a better option for her,

'cause all the evidence
and the truth would come out.

[woman] Cavona's plea to second degree
was a mistake.

The fact that she pled
to second degree

said that she was guilty of things
that were not true.

She didn't have that intention
to kill him.

She was trying to defend herself.

So that could have been presented
to a jury

and I think would have led
to a really different outcome for her.

My name is Marilyn Hutchinson.

I am a psychologist in Kansas City,

and I was hired by Cavona Flenoy's
defense attorney to evaluate her.

Most of the cases that I do have
some sort of inherent tragedy in them.

People who were abused in childhood,

people who had long suffered
in domestic violence situations.

Um, this particular case
was also true to that.

I met Cavona on August 5th, 2010.

Prior to that,
I read a number of the investigations

and interrogations and police reports.

In the DVD that was made
of her police interrogation,

one of the things I was struck by
when I listened to her

is she had multiple instances
of sexual assaults,

beginning at a young age.

[Cavona] I got raped my whole life.

[sobbing] I... I didn't...
I didn't trust nobody.

-I understand.
-And the people...

The people that raped me so many times...

[sobbing]

...none of them got in trouble.

-None of them got in trouble!
-It's okay.

None of them.

How did that happen?

[Cavona cries loudly]

[officer] How many times
have you been raped? Your relatives?

Your relatives? Your family friends?

Everybody, people that live
around my neighborhood.

When I went into sixth grade...

[bleep]

He raped me in his house.
It got investigated, got dropped.

Then, the next week, his friend got me
in the woods by my house and raped me.

[sobbing] Then his other friend,
the next week, came and raped me.

And all three of them, they did it.

So... So messed up!

[Marilyn]
I found Cavona to be an anxious...

depressed...

slightly suicidal woman
who was really scared.

She had multiple instances
of sexual assaults,

beginning at a young age.

The first time she was raped,
she was 12 years old.

She reported them and nothing happened.

She clearly would have learned...

"I'm not a person who matters.

People can do to me what they want.

People who are in authority
aren't really gonna help.

And I'm on my own."

After I completed my interview with her,

I reached my diagnosis
that PTSD was very evidenced.

That's post-traumatic stress disorder.

In post-traumatic stress disorder,

there's an immediate freeze,
fight or flight

that is completely outside
of conscious control

and it's just an impulse in the moment.

What it predisposes you to
is to be extremely reactive

in any situation that is similar to that
that caused the trauma to begin with.

And he said that, you know,
I had to suck his dick or fuck him

or I wasn't going nowhere.

I had the whole flashbacks
of when I was 12 and when I was 13.

All that came to my mind at this time,

and, um, I couldn't take no more.

[Marilyn] Cavona's history
of sexual assaults certainly surpasses

any... normal human experience.

I know that Cavona killed a man.

I believe wholeheartedly
that she did that in self-defense.

I believe that the law provides for people
to defend themselves

when they are going to be seriously hurt
or harmed.

And, as such,
I believe that she was treated unfairly

and that it was not just.

[distant siren]

[police siren]

[woman]
Once Cavona pled guilty to murder...

it was going to be extremely difficult

to convince a judge
to vacate that guilty plea.

I'm Kate Webber.

I've been an attorney for many years

and I represented Ms. Flenoy
on the appeal of the denial

of her post-conviction motion
in state court.

I filed a brief with the Court of Appeals,

arguing that, basically,
the Motion Court was wrong

and the court should have allowed her
to withdraw her plea.

The way the system is now,
it's a guilty plea mill.

Only about 3% of people
charged with crimes actually go to trial.

And that's because there is
unbelievable pressure

from start to finish to plead guilty.

If the 97% of people who plead guilty
actually demanded a trial,

the system would grind to a halt.

I mean... [chuckles]
...we don't have the resources for that.

I think what stands out
about this case is...

[sighs]

...that the plea was so coerced.

In Platte County, a plea offer there
is sort of a carrot and a stick.

"Here's the good thing we'll do.
We'll recommend second-degree murder.

But if you don't accept this offer
by this date,

we will recharge this case
as first-degree murder."

And, in my experience,

they almost always follow through
with that threat.

So, I mean, in my opinion,

that's unconstitutionally coercing
a guilty plea.

Um, you don't punish somebody
for exercising their constitutional right

to make the state prove them guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt.

And I think that's what it does.

What choice did Ms. Flenoy have
at that point?

"Roll the dice and maybe never see
my two-year-old son again

outside the walls of a prison...

or just go ahead and take this sentence

and hope that the judge sees through it
and gives me some decent time."

What kind of choice is that?

It's just very unfortunate

that this happened to occur
in Platte County, in my opinion,

because I think a young white woman

with the same circumstances
and background,

there probably would have been
a different outcome.

I think that plays a factor. After all,
the prosecutor is an elected official.

He's elected by the people around him

and the people around him
are largely white.

The larger cities tend to understand...

the realities
of what Ms. Flenoy's life was like.

And Platte County doesn't.

[rumble of traffic]

[man]
The citizens of Platte County have decided

that they believed
in strict law enforcement.

We likely have higher sentences for murder
than many other counties.

It's not uncommon
for us to have defendants who say,

"If I had known I was committing
this crime in Platte County,

I never would have done it."

That, to me, is exactly what I want
would-be criminals to think.

I'm Eric Zahnd. I'm the Platte County,
Missouri, prosecuting attorney.

I've been a prosecutor since 2003.

I prosecuted the case
against Cavona Flenoy.

Cavona Flenoy looked
like an innocent little girl.

Uh, her actions demonstrated her
to be a very dangerous

and violent, murderous person.

I believe that...
that we could have proven,

um, a... a first-degree murder case

and Ms. Flenoy would have spent
the rest of her life in prison

without any possibility of parole.

At the same time,
because of... of Ms. Flenoy's young age,

uh, because of, um,
some of the other things

that she had gone through as a child,
we believed...

that we could obtain justice with a...
with a second-degree murder charge.

So we allowed her to plead guilty
to that second-degree murder

where we asked for life in prison.

Now, that means
that she'll still be eligible for parole

by the time she's about 40

and will certainly be released
by the time she's 45.

So she'll have a chance to...
to re-enter, um, society,

to, um, I assume,

to reconnect with her... with her son,
who was quite young.

I do think
that Ms. Flenoy had a choice to make.

Whether she wanted to plead guilty
to second-degree murder

or whether she wanted
to take that case to trial

and risk facing life in prison
without the possibility of parole.

I think it was
a fairly generous plea agreement,

given the facts of this case.

[man] Ms. Flenoy...

went to that apartment with Mr. Abbas
for one reason only.

To take his money.

And she shot him three times.

Once in the chest, once in the face
and once in the side.

It shows no intent of self-defense.

My name is
Detective Sergeant Dennis Jones.

I was one of the detectives for the...

Hassan Abbas homicide here in Riverside.

The city of Riverside is not that large,

so when a homicide does occur,
it's a little bit of a shock.

It upsets them
that something like that can happen here,

because it's not supposed to happen
in your community.

Uh, especially one of this size.

We are at the complex
where Mr. Abbas lived.

This is his building here,
his door to his apartment.

We got the call from the roommate, saying
that he found Mr. Abbas on the floor.

Uh, obviously been shot.

On the, uh, officers' arrival,

they found him near the front door.

You could obviously see the, uh,
the victim, Mr. Abbas...

uh, was not shot in the doorway.
He had moved throughout the apartment.

This is the...
the floor plan of the apartment.

This was his bedroom here.

And that was where the first shot
was fired, while he was in the bed.

He was able to get up...

and she fired again
and hit him in the chest and in the face.

Uh, he came around this way.

She fired again, missed and hit the wall.

She went out the bedroom door
to the, uh...

front room, he followed her

and collapsed right there
by the front door.

His car keys were missing.
His wallet was missing.

The roommate was able
to give us some good information

on a female that had visited
and that's, um, how this opened up.

We were able to, uh, identify Ms. Flenoy
pretty... pretty quickly

with information from the roommate.

And we were able to, uh, get her name
from the clerk at the liquor store.

So we knew who we were looking for.

Uh, she had his car, so we knew
what kind of vehicle to look for.

When she was arrested, she was transported
to the police station here

and interviewed by two detectives.

Walk me through this weekend,
tell me how it got out of control.

[Dennis] At first, she tried
to make it seem like it was self-defense.

He was, uh, going to rape her,
that was the story, and that she felt...

uh, that she needed to protect herself.

[indistinct speech]

[sobbing] If he wouldn't have did that,
I would have never did that.

I swear to God.

I was just so scared.

[Dennis] But during the investigation,
we found out

that she planned out this whole event.

So she wasn't a victim.

We found out that she goes back
to his apartment more than once.

On...
Were you over there Sunday afternoon?

No, I wasn't over there Sunday.
I was just over there Friday and Tuesday.

Did you spend the night, Friday night?

-Yeah. He took me home Saturday morning.
-Okay.

So she spent the night with him
Friday night, and he takes her home.

That Saturday afternoon,
she purchases a gun.

How long have you had that gun?

I just got it on Saturday.

We discovered that she knew

that he had just recently received
$2,400 in tax return money.

That was the real motive.

It was some type of robbery
or some way of getting some type of cash

or some type of, um, monetary value
from Mr. Abbas.

That's the reason she was there,
the reason she bought a gun.

This is not someone
who is in fear for her safety.

This is a woman
who knew what she was doing,

just didn't plan it out very well.

[birds singing]

[Eric] We may never know the full extent
of what happened in that apartment.

But the evidence points to the fact

that Ms. Flenoy may have wanted
to rob Mr. Abbas

and he died in that encounter.

In my opinion, she didn't give
a full account of that, uh, murder

until she was left alone
in the interview room

with a couple of pieces of notebook paper.

And among the things she wrote

was, "I push him down
like I was about to fuck him.

I got the gun
and I just pulled the trigger."

That, to me, is the most forthright
admission from Ms. Flenoy

as to what really happened in this case

and, frankly, that amounts,
in the State of Missouri,

to first-degree murder.

Premeditated murder.

She, in the words of the Missouri law,
deliberated.

She coolly reflected upon the matter
for some period of time,

no matter how brief,

and decided
that she was going to shoot Mr. Abbas,

ultimately resulting in... in his death.

Hassan Abbas paid
for Cavona Flenoy's crimes with his life.

I believe that a long prison term
was absolutely justified.

[car horns beeping]

[Kate] I don't see how the world is safer

because Cavona Flenoy is in prison
for 25 years.

She took a life,

but she is not a killer.

If the state's theory was this was...
this was a planned robbery,

this was a planned murder,
this was deliberation,

she planned to kill somebody
to take his car or his credit cards

or... or, you know, any other property,

it doesn't fit with the dozens of cases
that I've seen where that's happened.

[horns beep]

She did take his car,
because he had driven her over there.

She had no way to get home.

She tried to use the gas card
because the car was on empty.

I mean, these are the actions of somebody
who felt threatened, panicked

and then really panicked
when she realized what happened.

You don't leave your shoes
at a crime scene.

You don't run out. That's the action
of someone who's panicking.

[indistinct conversation]

The police utilized
all the familiar tactics to...

encourage her to talk to them,

which she had no obligation to do
whatsoever.

Now, the state
that Cavona Flenoy must have been in

at that point, emotionally,

I can't begin to imagine.

But they interrupt that interrogation

and they leave her
with a pad of paper and a pen.

Write a letter to yourself, God,
to your mother.

Whatever you want to do.
That's totally up to you.

Doodle, draw.
Whatever helps you to relax. Okay?

[Kate] This is a common tactic

for getting people
to make incriminating statements

or statements that could be twisted
into incriminating statements.

One little line of that
could be interpreted...

as incriminating.

But I think
it's a very ambiguous statement.

And there were many, many other statements
in that doodling

that directly contradict the inference
that the state was trying to portray.

For example,
those notes included a comment

that there was just no way
she was going to have sex with this guy.

But Mr. Zahnd didn't bring that part out.

He brought out the one thing that she said
that could be...

twisted to look incriminating.

And once they have that,
then they own that interrogation.

Because they can go from there.

And that's what happened.

[birds singing]

[Cavona] I feel like this is a dream

and, one day, I'm gonna wake up.

At that time,
I was going through my own thing,

my own mental illness.

I just feel like, um,

why am I here?

'Cause sometimes
I don't feel like it's fair.

My plea offer, um...

[Cavona chuckles]

...it wasn't for real a plea offer.

They mainly told me, um...

if I don't take the second-degree murder,

um, they're gonna make sure
I never see my son again

and I will live in the penitentiary
for the rest of my life.

If I have my time again,
um, I will take it to trial

and I will...

explain, get to explain everything.

[interviewer] How many times
did you go to that apartment?

One time.

And that was the day that...

that happened.

[Dennis] She planned out this whole event.

So she wasn't a victim.

She goes back to his apartment
more than once.

She spent the night with him
Friday night, and he takes her home.

That Saturday afternoon,
she purchases a gun

and she shoots him.

Some stuff...

Like, um, I don't know.

Like, in that time,
I was on drugs and alcohol.

Like, I don't remember everything.

You know? So...

[scoffs]

It's... it's not like, you know,
I'm one of the persons

that got up in the morning and said,
"Today, I'm gonna shoot somebody."

No.

No, I, um...

I didn't even remember I had the gun...

in my purse until I was in the room.

Like, it was in my purse, um...

a week and a half
before I even met Hassan.

[Eric] In my opinion, she didn't give
a full account of that murder

until she was left alone
in the interview room

with a couple of pieces of notebook paper.

And among the things, um, she wrote

was, "I push him down
like I was about to fuck him.

I got the gun
and I just pulled the trigger."

I mean, at...

that time of, um, the video, um...

um...

I don't know, I guess I was just...

writing stuff down of, you know...

a lot of stuff that, um, happened
that I didn't say, but...

it's like I say,
it came out the wrong way.

You know, like,
"Push him down so I could fuck him." Um...

I literally was trying to have in my mind

what is the faster way
that can keep him down and I'm up,

that I can run.

But, um, through my mind, um...

I... I felt like, after that...

I don't have no chance.

I felt like the only option was to shoot.

[distant conversation]

That person that was there that night
was not me.

It was, uh, that scared little girl
at the age of 12

that was going through
all of them emotions,

um, that really didn't get healed
and really didn't forgive...

all them times that I was hurt, um...

Now I have 25 years.

Like, is this really my life?

Is it really?

Is this really what I deserve?

[distant conversation]

I wish I could take it back.

[sobbing] I wish I could take it back,
but I can't.

[sniffs]

[sighs]