Women Behind Bars - Season 1, Episode 1 - Stacey and Charaty - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman claimed she was driven to kill her father after years of sexual abuse
i performed oral sex and didn't really know it i couldn't believe that this was my dad
that he was hurting me like this we had a victim laying on the couch with apparent
gunshot wounds blood all over his face another woman kills a key witness to keep her boyfriend out of jail
she was in a gang she participated in drug dealing baby doll turned out to be probably one
of the ruthless females that i've ever seen they had wrapped a phone cord around her
throat trying to strangle her as they dump the urine down her throat two women two brutal
crimes these are the stories of stacy leonard and charity white [Music] in the early morning hours of july 4th
1990 tom leonard was shot to death in his home according to investigators the shooter
was his own daughter eighteen-year-old stacy lanart this was a well thought out plan to to kill her father
but allegations of years of abuse painted a different theory stacy was in fear of her father and was
always in fear of her father was this a calculated murder for prophet or a daughter's desperate breaking point
[Music] i remember that carefree time when everything was just okay and you know you're
happy to explore and the world's ahead of you and you feel like you can do anything i did
feel that growing up stacey ann leonard was born in 1972 in st louis missouri to tom and deborah
lennart my dad he was my hero i remember how i would wait for him to come home and i'd just be you know so excited when
he'd pull up and you know i do have those memories and i really try to cling to them
the lanyards from all accounts seemed like they were probably the family next door
[Music] but the smiling family photos concealed a shocking secret it changed after my grandpa lanark died
once he died my dad really started drinking heavily mr lanard was an alcoholic and so people sometimes could excuse
behavior in their mind they'll say oh it was because he was drunk tom leonard's drinking created friction
in the marriage and deborah stacy's mother refused to be with him when he was drunk
we lived near my mother's family and she spent a lot more time with them than she did with us and she became more
independent as a rift grew between husband and wife tom began to spend more time with his
oldest daughter stacy was known as tom's favorite she was the one that he chose to spend
time with the most he rewarded her with more presence because of that it made me feel very
special we had little t-shirts that said um daddy's number one girl it was in the basement of the family
home where everything changed for stacy she says she was eight years old when her dad first molested her
he put marshmallow cream on his area he'd haven't touched him told me that was his little friend
i performed oral sex and didn't really know it he had told me that i was special and that he loved me
and that i loved him and that's what people who love each other do several months later leonard claims
her father's secret game turned violent i knew it had changed because it was the
first time i felt pain and it was the first time they raped me i couldn't really wrap my mind around
what was happening and how it felt because it hurt so badly i couldn't believe that this
was my dad that this was my dad that i loved that he was hurting me like this i just screamed
and i might not even have screamed out loud she did dissociate which is very typical of
battered children children in that sort of abusive situation really almost some of them describe it as an
out-of-body experience they they can't deal with the feelings that they're that they're
actually feeling when they're being raped or molested he took something from me right then at that moment and
part of it was the ability to feel and never feel normal or to ever feel really and truly happy
again you know right then right there on that spot on that floor with him after the rape
stacy screamed for her mom but she was not home according to leonard her father told her
that mom already knew about the abuse and didn't care stacy believed her dad and kept quiet an aunt
said that she thought that stacy acted like a sexual abuse victim because she and her sister who was stacy's
mother had also been sexual abuse victims and she recognized the signs stacy's mom deborah sent her
to a psychologist but stacy denied being raped overwhelmed by a crumbling marriage
deborah did not know what more she could do for her daughter tom and debra lennart divorced when
stacy was 12 years old and shared custody of the children stacy says her father's sexual demands
never let up i didn't want him to touch me i didn't feel like i could go through it anymore
and i'd just rather die than have to deal with what i was dealing with at 14 years old stacy attempted suicide
she tried to overdose on pills leonard says her sister was her only reason to live
you know i took care of my sister and being with her was really the only thing that i had
that kept me hanging on in 1988 tom leonard and his daughters moved to st john missouri a suburb of st louis and
stacy threw herself into high school activities to those on the outside stacy appeared
to be a normal happy student she was a member of the yearbook staff she was a member of the
tennis team she had quite a few friends but stacey was careful not to let anyone
into her private world the closer we grew the more distant she made it and when it ended it seemed that we just
ended better as friends than as boyfriend and girlfriend i think she did what she needed to do in
order to keep her secret she was completely afraid that somebody would find out you don't want to be looked at
differently and there was so much shame and guilt because i always felt like some part of me
allowed it to happen and i wondered how people would treat me once they knew fed up with her
abusive home life the 17 year old quit high school in her senior year and moved to be with her mother who had
remarried a man in the military stationed in guam stacy was doing well out in guam
living with her mother until she got an emergency call from her sister who said that she needed help she
started calling us and she'd be drunk and she's 14 years old she's begging me to come home after a
two-month stay in guam stacey returned home to missouri in april 1990 to help care for her sister
once stacey moves back in the house she now then assumes the role of the mother and wife back in the role that she had
left so there was a lot of tension in the home after stacey moves back from guam
stacy's 18th birthday was far from a happy occasion she remembers that day as one of her
father's worst assaults he was drunk and he just beat me cut off my ponytail brought the knife
down by the side of my face and with what he had left just pulled me to the ground and raped me
and then when he got done he kicked me and he spit on me and he threw 40 on me and told me happy
birthday when women behind bars continues we had a victim laying on the couch with apparent
gunshot wounds blood all over his face eighteen-year-old stacey leonard was the image of a bright outgoing college-bound
teen no one suspected the terrible secret she hid from everyone according to leonard she had endured 10
years of repeated sexual abuse at the hands of her own father then on july 3 1990 tension in the
leonard household reached a boiling point i can't even remember everything that was said or everything that
had happened but him and i had a fight a lot of screaming a lot of yelling and i eventually ran out the door
stacey and her sister christy left the house and hung out with friends at the fair in downtown st
louis and then when it was time to go home i didn't want to go home i didn't ever
want to go home again so we actually went to a little cheap motel i didn't know what we're gonna do you
know chrissy's looking at me for answers and i don't know i really don't we had to go back
to get the dog they had wanted to pick up a puppy that they had got because they were
afraid that their father was going to kill the puppy because he said he was going to get a puppy
[Applause] we drove home and when we got there we went through the basement window we're
trying to sneak in and sneak out before he ever even realized we were there i heard him i heard him upstairs
something had woke him up and i thought we're leaving here we're leaving here right now whatever
i've got to do we're going to leave and the gun was downstairs from him earlier he put it down there
and i took it upstairs she went upstairs because she didn't she knew he'd been drinking all day and she
didn't know what she was going to run into i didn't know what i actually thought i
was gonna do but i think somewhere in the back of my mind i kind of knew that that this might happen
by the time i got upstairs he had passed back out and i put the gun on a ledge and i shot him
[Music] according to the police statement christy lannard says she was in a bedroom when she heard the shot
the first shot while mr leonard was sleeping on the couch struck him in the shoulder and awokened him
at that point he asked stacy to call for an ambulance he thought that he had broken his collarbone he thought he had
twisted and broken his coggles how drunk he was she intended to get him help and she and
he sat up and they talked and she looked for the phone and she was going to call
an ambulance and he starts screaming just yelling at us calling us [ __ ] and wait till
he gets up from here and and so i'm looking around panicked going to where the phone should be the phone isn't
there and i walked back in the living room and there was the gun and i thought it's got to stop
and then i shot him the second time the second shot that she fired was was in the forehead which was the immediate
cause of death well when i first walked in the scene it was extremely hot it was the fourth of
july it was very hot and we had a victim laying on the couch with apparent gunshot wounds blood all over
his face the leonard sisters were taken to the police station for questioning detective tom schulte of the major case
squad was assigned to interrogate stacy i first had my suspicions that she was connected with the case uh when i walked
into the room quite honestly i mean the way he looked at me i knew he knew when i asked about the the abuse in the
household she busted down she just started crying and that's when i knew that she was
involved in the homicide i just remember telling him and when i told him i was at
peace you know how i was and i was so glad that everything was over at one am after six hours of questioning
police asked stacy to do a video reenactment of the crime i didn't want to at all whatsoever i
didn't want to step foot in that house ever ever ever again detective schulte told me that it would be okay and that
i needed to go back so i walked back in there and the only condition that i'd had was that
i didn't see the area they said that if i was sorry about what i did i would go back
and i was sorry stacy walked investigators through the crime scene step by step and i decided at that moment
that i was going to do it i walked he's laying on behind here right here with my client here with the gun
on that little ledge and then pull the turkey then in the early morning hours of july
5th she was booked for murder stacy spent the next two years in jail awaiting trial
chris mcgraw was appointed as stacy's defense attorney and knew he had an uphill battle on his hands
stacy wasn't necessarily forthright with the allegations of sexual abuse at at the
outset i couldn't even say that my dad raped me all i could at that time all i could say was
that he hurt me he hurt me the trial began in october 1992 the cornerstone of stacy's defense would
be her mental state caused by years of systematic and brutal sexual abuse a claim the prosecution would contest
throughout the investigation we could come up with absolutely no concrete evidence whatsoever
that she was sexually abused we talked to enough people and interviewed enough people
that something would have come out and we could not substantiate it one bit dr hutchinson
believed that stacy was actually dissociating at the moment that she shot her father
and that very well may be true because she some of the details she's told about that crime are inconsistent there's
things she doesn't remember very well so there was going to be gaps because if she had disassociated disorder this is
what would happen we would have gaps that we couldn't explain the prosecution started off strong showing jurors the
videotaped reenactment stacy did for police her cool demeanor puzzled jurors and i went downstairs to try and find
the phone i think people on the jury were i don't know if they were surprised or
they were just sort of like well she really didn't care look at her she she's so emotionless
about this she's like she killed just killed her father and she can just walk through it like
there's nothing to it the videotape supported the prosecution's theory that stacy was a
cold-blooded killer but the defense argued that leonard's reaction was evidence that she did shut
down emotionally the court took a recess after the tape and the jurors were escorted out
and all of a sudden stacy just completely melted down just completely unfolded with a hysterical crying and
real outpouring of emotion which fit pretty close to what the psychologists were telling us
and that is is that she can hold things back and take herself out of the situation
for periods of time but then like anything else if it's an avalanche unfortunately for us the jurors never
saw that the prosecution had other evidence that stacy simply wanted her father's money
and was willing to kill for it one witness told the jury stacy wanted to hire a hitman
a friend of hers that used to babysit she said that he knows someone that would do it whose
name to my knowledge is artie okay and i told her she was completely nuts and that
you know no matter how you know much she wants the money or how much she can't stand her dad
that you know that's a little bit too drastic it was determined that she had tried to
hire someone to kill her father and and that never worked out so therefore she had to
to do it herself the prosecutor brought a really strong case for um that it was premeditated we see that
there was pre-planning we see that uh not only shot once but shot twice um and that is a
clear indication that she wanted him dead did she try to hire a hitman probably did she try to do this sure you
know did she do it for the money i don't think so where i differed from the people who
were running the investigation at the time is i believe that she did it because she was being abused
they believed that she did it because she wanted the money that's the difference between murder one and burner
two when women behind bars continues there were people that were just shocked how could we possibly come back
with that verdict leonard was on trial for the murder of her father in st louis county missouri
in october 1992. the defense argued that stacy was a confused and battered child
the prosecution claimed she was a cold calculating killer i have investigated many homicides
probably close to 50. and i can say without a doubt this is probably one of the most cold-blooded crimes that i have
ever investigated quite a few of the jurors and myself included um really had lots of reservations because
she did shoot him twice and the second chat was at very close range she had to go over and see him and get
there and had to pull the trigger a second time make that conscious decision to do that again so
that had a huge impact on people once the court would not allow us to instruct in self-defense i
still felt there was enough evidence out there for the jury to embrace the idea that
stacey committed a homicide but shouldn't be punished to the full extent of the law
there were people that were just shocked how could we possibly come back with that verdict or that
decision at all when the verdict was read there was a emotional response by the spectators they were
there was a lot of yelling and screaming and crying of course it was an emotional packed
case right up to the very you know very end i felt as though justice was served when the jury came
down with a verdict of first-degree murder i really think that the justice system
really had let stacy down you know and i think i was kind of part of that i think the jury believed she
was sexually abused i think the jury said yes you were sexually abused but we don't
care and i think that that's a separate unto itself wound because stacy was not being abused in
the moment of the attack the judge did not allow self-defense as an argument i felt like the defense attorney did
bring out that there was sexual abuse and that it probably was going on but the judge had instructed us
to not really bring that into play because it didn't impact the decision for what had
happened in that moment how could anybody sentence me to life without parole after knowing what we lived through you
know there was that part of me that so badly wanted wanted to be forgiven stacy was incarcerated at the women's
eastern correctional center in vandalia missouri to serve out her sentence of life
without the possibility of parole you know it's taken me a long time to discover anything about life
in the beginning i didn't care you know i didn't care if i was alive or if i wasn't alive i didn't have emotions i
didn't have feelings what other people take for granted i didn't even know was there missouri
state law requires all offenders to hold down a job or attend school stacy works for champ an organization
that trains assistant dogs for the physically challenged they stay with us in our rooms we don't
actually have cells i live in a five-man room there's five people that live in my
room we have bunk beds and the dogs have crates that are up against the wall they sleep in their
crates but the dogs don't look at us as being prisoners the dogs look at us and they care for us
and they love us regardless of what we did or what we've been through offenders who have life sentences
they've come to accept the fact that they're incarcerated this is going to be their life so they need
to make the best of it and you definitely see them become mentors and better adjusted i don't want to say i
like prison because i obviously at some point in time would love the opportunity to be free but
what i like about being in prison is that i have control of my body and what happens to it
she gets very discouraged about this case sometimes she really hopes for a future and she
really wants to have something else than this the hardest part about being in prison
is being separated from my niece i don't think being in prison ever really bothered me until i couldn't be
there for her birth and now for her life stacy's clemency petition filed in 1998 was passed over
by three previous governors and now rests on the desk of current governor matt blunt clemency is an act of mercy
for cases just such as this someone who falls through the cracks in the legal system
and will have no other remedy for release i would love to see her get clemency from the governor
she spent her entire adult life there i think she's probably more than learned her lesson if
we're not successful in this clemency petition stacy will never get out of prison she
will die here the prosecuting attorney's office still firmly believes that stacy lannert
is right where she belongs i cannot possibly fathom the fact that somebody who does us to their own flesh and blood
deserves to be back out on the street i have regret i have a lot of regrets you know i wish i could change things
i wish i was had been stronger and would have found a different way to make it stop
grateful that the abuse has stopped but i wish i had found a different way to make it stop
then the choice that i made made a devastating choice 17 years now she's been in prison for
getting herself out of a situation in a terrible way and i don't minimize the murder of her father she was 18
years old when this happened she's 35 now it's time to let her go being in prison i've been able to become
the person who i think i was supposed to have been before all this started i try to make a difference i do i want
my life to stand for something no matter where i am whether i be here or out or wherever
next up on women behind bars a brutal homicide there were injuries that i'd never seen
before we all cut her we all play deported for more information about women behind
bars go to www.wetv.com on may 3 2000 police detectives discovered the mutilated body of a 19
year old woman dumped in an alleyway the victim turned out to be danielle montgomery a key witness who
was set to testify against her boyfriend in his upcoming murder trial she wouldn't die she kept
fighting she was pleading for her life this was an extremely painful death and it was done
to make her scream even more disturbing was the fact that the killers were three
young girls including a teenager named charity white known on the streets as baby doll there's no question that
baby doll was the ringleader but did charity mastermind this horrendous slaying or was she just
following orders [Music] the gateway arch stands proudly over st louis missouri as a national icon and popular tourist
attraction but just north of the stainless steel monument are broken neighborhoods
scarred by violence and neglect where kids grow up fast charity white nicknamed baby doll was a
product of this dangerous environment at age 15 she left home and had to fend for herself
she was in a gang she participated in drug dealing she participated in other violence she
was admittedly known to carry a gun she had a background a history with our police department for part one
crimes burglaries and things of that nature but no one suspected what charity was truly capable
of we did not know how evil she was and we're thinking she's just into prostitution and drugs
we did not know she had this in her at all the case had its beginnings with the murder of jerome harden
and that happened right after christmas in 1999 it was a drug deal that had gone bad
jerome hardin wanted to buy some marijuana just for personal use and he knew a woman
charity white named baby doll and she told him that she had connections that she could score him some pot
charity and jerome waited together in a parked car for charity's friend charles liston and her boyfriend
demetrius ursory who were supposed to have the drugs charity's plan was to lead him to
charles liston and then charles liston would rob him of the money that he had brought to buy the
pot it was a robbery under the pretense of a drug deal i think a struggling suit inside
the car and mr liston had decided to shoot mr harden the bullet hit jerome hardin in the face
after he was shot liston charity and her boyfriend demetrius ursory fled the scene
they had a tentative id of baby doll charity white as participating in the robbery murder
but the investigation was very slow detectives finally got answers when charles liston's girlfriend
19 year old danielle montgomery showed up at police headquarters when we first saw danielle she appeared
a lot younger than what she actually was she seemed very very quiet very kept to herself danielle montgomery
was living with charles liston the shooter of jerome hardin she at that point had been the victim of
domestic violence and i think she did see this opportunity and thought well maybe this this could be my out if
they actually do arrest him he goes to jail danielle told the police that her boyfriend was responsible for
the murder of jerome hardin i think she also gave them charity white's name maybe just his baby
doll and a third person who was part of the deal danielle's information was the break detectives needed
we felt good at that point that we could get the ball rolling and and get somewhere on this case but if
word got out about their key witness danielle could be in jeopardy because we knew that charles if he found out about
danielle is the one that's trying to turn him in we knew this this could turn bad
[Music] just days later danielle shocked investigators when she returned to headquarters with charles liston in tow
she came upstairs and there's there's somebody with her and from looking at him and from seeing
the pictures and we were trying to locate him we're like oh my gosh she just brought charles to
us danielle lured liston into police headquarters under the guise of dropping battery charges against him
we hurried up and kind of whisked him away got him into one of our interview rooms
and then got her to a different section began talking to her and asking her what
why are you doing this at that point she thought she was doing us a favor and she thought you know that she was
actually doing a good job she felt good about herself she should feel good about bringing them
in you know but this is not the way that we wanted wanted to do this detectives immediately arrested charles
liston for the murder of jerome hardin charles became very irate uh became violent
uh stood up from the the interview table so at that point we knew he was very angry at us and he was very
angry at danielle he went to the medium security institution here in the city of st
louis which we refer to as the workhouse police then picked up liston's accomplices baby doll
and her boyfriend demetrius ursory known as mighty mighty was sent to the workhouse pending
trial charity was called in for questioning but charles finally got up and that's when the shot went off did
you have any involvement in this with was setting this up no iran was not free is there anything that we haven't
covered only that i didn't have nothing to do with it and i was doing what the man
the gun was telling me to do charity was soon released due to lack of evidence danielle left the police station knowing
she would be called upon at a later date to testify danielle was one of those people that we were worried about
because we knew that she didn't have any family around she was probably on the run
she did have limited resources we tried to instill in danielle when she left here that you know please keep in
contact with us unknown to detectives danielle began to have second thoughts and went to visit charles liston in
prison danielle montgomery had gone to tell her old boyfriend charles liston that while she had
turned them in she now regretted it and she wasn't going to testify against them
by that time obviously it was too late you know he didn't trust her according to the
prosecution it was then that charles liston decided danielle had to die [Music] he was thinking if he got rid of
danielle that he would walk on the murder that he was sitting in jail on him and demetrious ersory
from the jailhouse telephone charles liston called charity and his new girlfriend tiny
to coordinate the hit on danielle tiny was diagnosed as as being mentally [ __ ] mindly
mentally [ __ ] tiny essentially did whatever charles told her to do but charity white
had personal reasons for wanting danielle dead and liston knew it he would tell baby
doll you have to do this you have to protect yourself you have to take care of snitches you
have to protect your boyfriend mighty the control that men have over women is it can be very strong and we certainly
saw it in danielle's case when he said to her hey i've got a place for you to live
you need to go stay there she did charles liston was able to coax her into going to stay with tiny
who he said would keep her hidden until his trial was over and then those two could get back together
and she trusted him and unfortunately he was lying the whole time [Music] at the beginning of may 2000 danielle
moved in with tiny and lost contact with detective stone and his partner detective carol all of a
sudden the number that she was supposed to be at for the police she's no longer at
and they can't find her they'd say she's gone to ground she decided to go on her own instead of
talking to the detectives and so she was out of our grasp we couldn't help her danielle trusted the wrong people and
danielle thought she'd solved her own problems unfortunately the people she was trusting were her problems
charles liston became aware that a new grand jury date was coming up and so the goal would be to get rid of
danielle before she could testify in front of the grand jury and then charges would have to be
dropped and as a consequence he convinced babydoll and tiny that she had to die that night
when women behind bars continues they had wrapped a phone cord around her throat trying to strangle her as they
dumped the urine down her throat in may 2000 charles liston was sitting in a st louis jail
awaiting his murder trial he wanted the state's key witness danielle montgomery to disappear before
she could testify against him from a prison phone liston recruited charity white to carry out his deadly
scheme with the help of two other women crystal barge and tiny whose name is being withheld to
protect her identity on the evening of may 3rd danielle never suspected she was being set up to die daniel was
asked to watch tiny's three boys while tiny and one of the other girls charity white had gone to meet with
crystal barge on the way back to tiny's apartment the three girls finalized their plan to kill
danielle montgomery when the girls got back to the apartment danielle was in the kitchen and charles liston
had called and wanted to talk to danielle and when danielle got on the phone with charles
tiny had placed her three little boys in a closet because she didn't want them to see what
was going to happen she put them had made a bed for them in a largish closet that was off of the bedroom and
she turned the radio up in addition to preventing the neighbors from hearing any screams was also to prevent her
children from hearing the screams baby donald went into the into the kitchen and began beating
danielle montgomery knocking her to the ground and each girl took a steak tonight and
began stabbing they stabbed her repeatedly the estimates we have were over 100 stab
wounds and cut wounds alone danielle was fighting for her life and and the wounds on the palm of her left hand
were signs that she was trying to grab the knife and prevent the knife from cutting her further
the kitchen knives were too dull to inflict immediately fatal wounds so the attackers turned to other methods
one of the ways that they tried to kill her was to first suffocate her and they tied
a bag around her neck danielle was still able to get her hands free and try and tear open a hole in the bag
when that failed the girls tried to drown danielle with mop water and even urine from tiny's three small
children who were still in the closet during the attack one of her little boys had to
go to the bathroom and she gave him a cup to pee in they had wrapped a phone cord around her
throat trying to strangle her as they dumped the urine down her throat phone logs from prison
show that charles liston called the apartment numerous times during the attack part of the time that they were killing
danielle they were talking on the phone to charles liston who was egging them on charles listen's
on the phone they're saying here tell charles you love him now he wanted to hear her dying he wanted to hear her
last breath the medical examiner's report revealed even more shocking evidence of torture
there were injuries that i'd never seen before and that was her heels had been slashed the
achilles tendon i can only imagine that someone would do that to keep her from running away
they actually took their knives and severed her ankles completely cut through her ankle all the
way to the bone where she bled profusely they did so many things to danielle it almost defies the imagination she was
going through so much pain but yet she continued to fight for her life and i think that made the girls confused
about what they were actually trying to accomplish because they couldn't get it done and at
one point they referred to even calling someone saying uh this [ __ ] won't die what else can we do
to kill her the medical examiner believed that danielle hung on for over two hours
before she died daniel montgomery finally died they rolled her up in some sheets and then dragged her out to the
back porch and tossed her over in the neighbor's yard they were so amateurish about it i mean
these were three girls who did a terrible thing and then didn't even know what to do with the body
he hadn't thought you know two minutes ahead of themselves the women tried to clean up the blood
that was everywhere in the kitchen before they left charity and crystal told tiny to call police
and pretend she had simply found the body detectives clifford harper and byron harrington got the call to investigate
while i was processing the scene i could see in the yard immediately to the east of the
victim was what i would appear to be a pool of blood coming off the back porch of the
residence there tiny let the detectives into her apartment so they could get a closer look at the blood on the back
porch while walking through the house i noticed that the entire residence was a disaster it was torn apart
everything was out of place and as i entered into the kitchen everything was real clean
they noticed that there were some knives that were in the sink that appeared to have blood on
them i could see what appeared to be the blood splatter on one of the kitchen walls
and obviously with my experience i figured that this is where a crime scene did occur police questioned tiny
and she immediately told them everything that happened tiny was arrested that night
and the wanteds were placed on charity white and crystal barge and they were later picked up about
three or four days later the next morning detectives and the circuit attorney's office
learned that their key witness was dead detective carol and i are sitting there and
we just look at each other and said how did this happen what what happened who got to her it's
every prosecutor's worst nightmare would you give your full name please charity nathan white
charity white and crystal barge readily confessed to the police what they had done
i admit that i did stick up three times and i stuck her in a chair so by then she was still alive
we all cut her we all played a party her own confession explained that she didn't want to lose her boyfriend
mighty she didn't want mighty to go to jail or prison as she was stabbing danielle one of the ways she kept going
through it is this is for mighty this is for my man what kind of a bag was it that you put
overhead some plastic bags and what was that for what did you put a bag over her head for
chimes okay were you intoxicated or under the influence of some type of drug that night
okay [Music] boy which is charity white displayed zero remorse throughout her entire
trial baby doll turned out to be probably one of the the ruthless females that i've ever seen
she was just as evil as charles was you know i never saw charity white as you know
consummate evil or anything i mean these are street crimes and some tough characters
they were poor people and they don't have much education and they don't have parents giving them
good guidance i mean they were a group of dead end kids really [Music] 23 year old charity was incarcerated at
the women's eastern correctional center in vandalia missouri in 2006 crystal barge was also sentenced
to life without parole tiny testified against all three in exchange for second-degree murder
and is now in a prison witness protection program and the person that started all of this
charles liston is serving life without the possibility of parole for the murder in the first degree of
danielle montgomery and murder in the second degree for the murder of jerome harden
for her role in the killing charity white will never be allowed out of prison the rest of her adult life will be spent
coming to terms with the shocking crime she committed as a teenager in this case i barely would glance at a
report and i could remember so many details about it so it's obviously a case that sticks
with you and probably will for my entire life you

Brief Summary

Stacy Leonard killed her abusive father; Charity White murdered a witness to protect her boyfriend, revealing deep issues of trauma and violence.

Key points

A Daughter's Desperate Breaking Point. Stacy Leonard's story reveals years of abuse leading to a shocking act of violence.
The Night of the Murder. On July 4th, 1990, Stacy shot her father after years of abuse.
Trial and Tension. Stacy's trial reveals the complexities of her mental state and the prosecution's claims.
The Dogs' Perspective. The dogs in prison show love and care for their human companions despite their circumstances.
Stacy's Clemency Petition. Stacy's clemency petition has been passed over multiple times, resting on the current governor's desk.
The Murder of Danielle Montgomery. Danielle Montgomery, a key witness, is brutally murdered by three young girls.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I didn't want him to touch me.

Stacy expresses her feelings about her father's abuse.

6:18WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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