Episode 303

<v Speaker 1>Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
<v Speaker 1>not intended for all audiences.
<v Speaker 2>Listener discretion is advice.
<v Speaker 3>Welcome out this store. You're struggling.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, can you believe Margaret called me a Nazi again?
<v Speaker 4>Oh?
<v Speaker 5>Hi?
<v Speaker 1>This is Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that
<v Speaker 1>the worst monsters are real. This is episode three oh
<v Speaker 1>three of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that
<v Speaker 1>the worst monsters are real. In case you haven't heard,
<v Speaker 1>which would be really weird because we repeated every single episode.
<v Speaker 1>There's a thing called Sword and Scale Television. At swordscale
<v Speaker 1>dot com, we have about sixteen episodes now of the show,
<v Speaker 1>true crime hour long each some of the best true
<v Speaker 1>crime you'll find. Go check it out and support independent creators. Hey,
<v Speaker 1>how about them terrorists. We're not here to talk about
<v Speaker 1>terrorism or politics or any of that, but there is
<v Speaker 1>a common thread, betwe between all of those things and
<v Speaker 1>what we talk about here, and that's that humanity is
<v Speaker 1>at the center of it all across the country. Over
<v Speaker 1>the last I don't know a couple of years. Ever
<v Speaker 1>since BLM, we've seen ramping up an escalation, if you will,
<v Speaker 1>of dissent across college campuses all over the country, and
<v Speaker 1>it hasn't just been isolated to called campuses. It's an infection,
<v Speaker 1>a virus, if you will, spreading across the young people
<v Speaker 1>of today, a need to stand up for those who
<v Speaker 1>have been wrongfully oppressed. When you have no understanding of
<v Speaker 1>history and you operate strictly on emotion, sometimes you stand
<v Speaker 1>up for the wrong person, like oh, I don't know
<v Speaker 1>a terrorist. Sometimes you just start spewing terrorist propaganda literally
<v Speaker 1>and prevent other students from getting to their class, other
<v Speaker 1>people from getting to work, and contributing to society, the
<v Speaker 1>society we're all supposedly trying to build here. Standing up
<v Speaker 1>for the wrong person, no matter how good your intentions are,
<v Speaker 1>can have disastrous consequences. Gays for Gaza would be a
<v Speaker 1>fantastic example of that if you played it out to
<v Speaker 1>its inevitable conclusion. But again, we're not here to talk
<v Speaker 1>about politics, just pointing out these similarities between the story
<v Speaker 1>we're about to tell you in society at large, because
<v Speaker 1>that's what we do here. We tell you stories of
<v Speaker 1>real people that have really happened in a way where
<v Speaker 1>we try to make it apply to your everyday life,
<v Speaker 1>or in scale, isn't really a true crime podcast. It's
<v Speaker 1>a human nature podcast. It's a podcast about right and
<v Speaker 1>wrong and how we figure out what's what, how we
<v Speaker 1>incentivize the good, and how we the bat It's about
<v Speaker 1>making sense of it all in a time when making
<v Speaker 1>sense of things has become a bit of a challenge.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure thirty five year old Michelle Rogers, who lived
<v Speaker 1>in Lancing, Michigan, in twenty fifteen, understood that challenge. She
<v Speaker 1>was trying to stand up for the wrong person. Lancing
<v Speaker 1>is a pretty typical Midwest city. It's a state capital,
<v Speaker 1>so you've got the big government buildings downtown, but most
<v Speaker 1>of the city seems a lot more low key. The
<v Speaker 1>neighborhoods are quiet and lined with trees. Most of the
<v Speaker 1>houses are modest, nothing too flashy, but comfortable. It's the
<v Speaker 1>kind of place where people say hi when they pass
<v Speaker 1>each other on the street, but everyone, you know, mostly
<v Speaker 1>keeps to themselves, like we do in every major city
<v Speaker 1>in America. A lot of scary people out there, as
<v Speaker 1>we all know. Anyway, Lancing used to thrive because of
<v Speaker 1>the auto industry. A lot of places in Michigan were
<v Speaker 1>decimate made it after the auto industry kind of went
<v Speaker 1>overseas you could still see parts of that history, and
<v Speaker 1>it is really quite interesting and beautiful. Some of those
<v Speaker 1>old buildings are incredible, a symbol of bustling capitalism and
<v Speaker 1>growth at its peak. But we're living in a different
<v Speaker 1>time and a lot of those factories have closed down.
<v Speaker 1>Now it's more about schools, government jobs, and local businesses.
<v Speaker 1>The few that are left. People tend to stick to
<v Speaker 1>their routines work, family, maybe catching a ball game or
<v Speaker 1>heading to a park on the weekends. Even though the
<v Speaker 1>crime rate is a bit higher, so is the community
<v Speaker 1>and level of neighborhood vigilance. Michelle was an independent and
<v Speaker 1>self sufficient woman with a great career and almost everything
<v Speaker 1>she wanted in life. She had everything except for one thing,
<v Speaker 1>someone to go out to dinner or dancing with. One day,
<v Speaker 1>feeling the need for adult company, she signed up to
<v Speaker 1>a dating site. She wasn't looking for anything serious, especially
<v Speaker 1>with a young son to care for, just somebody to
<v Speaker 1>hang out with, have a couple of dates, have a
<v Speaker 1>little fun, no harm, no foul. She swiped left and
<v Speaker 1>right through dozens of pictures and profiles, seeing if anyone
<v Speaker 1>matched her energy, and then after a couple swipes, she
<v Speaker 1>found Matthew Terry's picture. It popped up on her screen
<v Speaker 1>and she was hmm interested. At the same time, Matthew
<v Speaker 1>was checking out Michelle's profile. He liked her vibe and
<v Speaker 1>the fact that they had common interests. They probably just
<v Speaker 1>thought she was hot, because that's how guys think. But
<v Speaker 1>whatever the reason, they hooked up they started dating. Michelle
<v Speaker 1>kept her guard and didn't want to get too serious,
<v Speaker 1>but Matthew was so easy going and they had such
<v Speaker 1>a great time together. It just kind of flirt. He
<v Speaker 1>was attentive, not just to her but to her son.
<v Speaker 1>He took him fishing and sled riding, and even her
<v Speaker 1>son liked Matthew. The fact that they were so compatible
<v Speaker 1>came as a surprise to Michelle, and she was starting
<v Speaker 1>to believe Matthew when he said he thought they were soulmates.
<v Speaker 1>It's easy to get caught up in that.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. What's the location of your emergency. It's
<v Speaker 3>across the street from.
<v Speaker 6>Six twenty five Worthington Drive.
<v Speaker 3>Ok, what's going on here?
<v Speaker 6>There's a man who had a woman shamed on the
<v Speaker 6>ground in their driveway there fighting.
<v Speaker 3>She's screaming, why are you doing this to me?
<v Speaker 6>Literally rolling in the driveway right now. Perfect, she screams
<v Speaker 6>the help right now.
<v Speaker 3>She's see a new weapon. I don't want that other
<v Speaker 3>white black ash just fanner white, okay, wearing.
<v Speaker 6>She's got a green T shirt and jean. She's stream
<v Speaker 6>called an ambulance.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. Is she saying what she needs an ambulance for?
<v Speaker 1>That would be a no. She did not say what
<v Speaker 1>she needed an ambulance for. You could tell because she's
<v Speaker 1>screaming for her fucking life.
<v Speaker 6>She's screaming, somebody please help me.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, hang on, just taking a lot to stress with
<v Speaker 3>ambulance go ahead page for an unknown medical at six
<v Speaker 3>twenty five war things and it's going to be some fortifier.
<v Speaker 1>Can you tell this operator just doesn't like her job.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think she'd like any job, to be honest
<v Speaker 1>with you, But I digress. It was definitely a fight
<v Speaker 1>and Michelle was determined to survive. It started in the house,
<v Speaker 1>but now Matthew was assaulting Michelle in the driveway and
<v Speaker 1>neighbors could see it all going down. It was horrifying.
<v Speaker 7>I do.
<v Speaker 6>It's directly across the street from me, a canhouse with
<v Speaker 6>a red door, black for a CUD in the drive way.
<v Speaker 6>She has her pinned right to the ground, and she's streaming,
<v Speaker 6>bloody letter.
<v Speaker 3>What if he's saying, he's not saying a word, and
<v Speaker 3>she's just she keeps streaming help me, help me, help me,
<v Speaker 3>and he's not saying a single word. Are you looking
<v Speaker 3>at her?
<v Speaker 6>I mean he's literally on top of her, like just
<v Speaker 6>like yet right now, and he has her in like
<v Speaker 6>a chofold with her legs over her head, her.
<v Speaker 3>Legs over her head.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, she's just beating her head on the ground. He
<v Speaker 6>has her hair. Now, who's running?
<v Speaker 3>And said.
<v Speaker 4>Again?
<v Speaker 6>He went inside and she's up. She's all bloody, ma'am.
<v Speaker 3>They're right there, haven't. I mean, Jones is coming. They don't.
<v Speaker 3>They're right there. Ry Andrews is coming. Shit, just sit
<v Speaker 3>right there, just set.
<v Speaker 6>She covered in blood.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, what is she saying? A baby in the house.
<v Speaker 3>It's okay. And ambulance is on the way. It's okay.
<v Speaker 1>Even though Matthew was completely wasted, he used his knowledge
<v Speaker 1>as a wrestling coach to subdue her. Combined with his
<v Speaker 1>rage and adrenaline, it was a deadly combination. But finally
<v Speaker 1>Michelle dragged herself across the street to her neighbor's house
<v Speaker 1>for safety.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, their day. What's her name?
<v Speaker 6>You're Michelle Rodgers in the name of Matt Terry.
<v Speaker 3>Did you have a weapon?
<v Speaker 4>Okay?
<v Speaker 3>His name is Matt Terry. Matt Terry. He had a
<v Speaker 3>knife with him. I'm sorry he had it on him. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>hang on second, yep, I can hear the Sireen's okay
<v Speaker 3>and everything six twenty five Worthington. The mail had a knife.
<v Speaker 6>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>We have an angela coming in.
<v Speaker 1>Okay?
<v Speaker 3>Okay. Did he thrown her with a knife?
<v Speaker 6>She covered in blood?
<v Speaker 3>And did she looked at are you cut?
<v Speaker 7>Michelle?
<v Speaker 3>Are you cut? Somewhere? She stabbed you? She's been stabbed?
<v Speaker 6>She said, where have you been?
<v Speaker 8>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>I seen the them, honey, Where were you stabbed?
<v Speaker 6>Where?
<v Speaker 3>Where were you scammed?
<v Speaker 4>That?
<v Speaker 6>And the shoulder?
<v Speaker 3>Your stands the neck and the shoulder.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle was in bad shape, but she was less worried
<v Speaker 1>about herself than she was about her nine month old son,
<v Speaker 1>who was still in the house with his drunk and
<v Speaker 1>violent dad.
<v Speaker 3>You can't even go down their way if they're coming.
<v Speaker 7>Three jobs.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, she's for sure is successfully covered.
<v Speaker 6>And like, Michelle, where do you Okay?
<v Speaker 3>Now they know that your son's and now, okay, you
<v Speaker 3>still have a knife as far as I go. Nice, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>I need her to set it down somewhere. It's sitting.
<v Speaker 6>It's hurt.
<v Speaker 7>The knife that she has on the ground next to her,
<v Speaker 7>it's the nice she took from him.
<v Speaker 6>That they were multiple knives.
<v Speaker 3>In the house.
<v Speaker 1>Another neighbor also phoned nine one one and wanted to help,
<v Speaker 1>but was too afraid to ask Michelle in because she
<v Speaker 1>was elderly and lived alone. She could easily become a
<v Speaker 1>second victim. So she did the next best thing. She
<v Speaker 1>took out a blanket and covered Michelle with it. The
<v Speaker 1>sirens were getting closer. Michelle was running out of time.
<v Speaker 1>But here she is to tell you exactly what happened
<v Speaker 1>to her that night. Let me just set some things
<v Speaker 1>up first. She was actually coming home from being out
<v Speaker 1>with Matthew that night, but she was forced to leave
<v Speaker 1>Matthew behind at the bar because he was in no
<v Speaker 1>shape to drive.
<v Speaker 9>Even months prior to this, I was I met with
<v Speaker 9>an attorney to see how I could get out of
<v Speaker 9>the relationship, and it just seemed like, you know, there
<v Speaker 9>was no good way, But so I went to his
<v Speaker 9>parents' house and I picked up our son, and as
<v Speaker 9>I was grabbing him, they're like, well, you know, where's Matt.
<v Speaker 9>And at that time, I said, well, I don't know.
<v Speaker 9>He's still down there drinking. I don't know, don't care whatever,
<v Speaker 9>grabbed the baby and I laughed, and I went home
<v Speaker 9>and I fed the baby and put him to bed upstairs,
<v Speaker 9>and I was just sitting there watching TV. And like,
<v Speaker 9>the whole house had an open layout, so the living room,
<v Speaker 9>in the kitchen, you know, you could see through there.
<v Speaker 9>There was like a little bar area. And on the
<v Speaker 9>backslider door, I hear a knock. I'm like, okay, what
<v Speaker 9>the hell? And so I look up and it's Matt
<v Speaker 9>knocking on the back door.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle says that besides being drunk off his face, he
<v Speaker 1>seemed angry. Alcohol sometimes does that to you, pulls out
<v Speaker 1>all the angry demons inside and they start lashing out.
<v Speaker 1>But she sat on the couch, ignoring him. Well, he
<v Speaker 1>tried to make a sandwich keyword try. Then all of
<v Speaker 1>a sudden, she has no idea what it is, she said,
<v Speaker 1>but she must have said something because he came at
<v Speaker 1>her running angry and ready for a fight.
<v Speaker 9>The only way I can describe it is like kind
<v Speaker 9>of like a football player, right, like they're running at you,
<v Speaker 9>like they're going to tackle you. And I remember like
<v Speaker 9>him coming at me, and I braced myself with my
<v Speaker 9>arms in front of my chest and I'm like, you know,
<v Speaker 9>what are you doing? And then that's when he made
<v Speaker 9>contact with me and pushed me into the front door,
<v Speaker 9>which was directly behind me at the time, and we
<v Speaker 9>both fell to the floor. Then you know, we're going
<v Speaker 9>around on the floor and he is essentially treating me
<v Speaker 9>like he's wrestling with me. Like I could recognize wrestling moves, like,
<v Speaker 9>you know, because he's a wrestling cot and so I
<v Speaker 9>recognized some of these things he was trying to like
<v Speaker 9>pin me down in and there were some that were
<v Speaker 9>really scary, like he was putting me in chokeholds to
<v Speaker 9>the point where I was starting to black out and
<v Speaker 9>feel dizzy, and somehow, you know, don't ask me how
<v Speaker 9>I would manage to break free from these things or
<v Speaker 9>like rig a lot of them, and then he would
<v Speaker 9>just keep you know, putting me in more on the floor.
<v Speaker 9>So we're on the floor, he starts punching me in
<v Speaker 9>the face. He's punching me in the chest.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle was face down now trying to scoot her way
<v Speaker 1>back to the carpeted area of the living room so
<v Speaker 1>she could get a grip and push herself up. The
<v Speaker 1>tile in the kitchen was covered in blood. Now that
<v Speaker 1>he'd broken her nose and knocked her teeth out, he
<v Speaker 1>was relentless, and he dragged her back into the kitchen
<v Speaker 1>each time. Then he started banging her head repeatedly on
<v Speaker 1>the floor.
<v Speaker 9>I will never forget the black trash can that I
<v Speaker 9>was staring at that whole time. Like I'm laying there
<v Speaker 9>staring at this trash can, just watching it like fade
<v Speaker 9>in and fade out. Is my head's getting pummeled on
<v Speaker 9>the floor, and the only thing I can think is,
<v Speaker 9>holy shit, don't don't pass out, Like, don't pass out.
<v Speaker 9>And for some reason, the thought popped in my head,
<v Speaker 9>you know, I had learned it somewhere apparently in my life,
<v Speaker 9>was that, you know, don't tense up your muscles, because
<v Speaker 9>if you tense up your muscles, like you're going to
<v Speaker 9>have more damage. And so I tried to relax as
<v Speaker 9>much as I could while he's doing this, And I
<v Speaker 9>don't know if that helped or not. But that was
<v Speaker 9>one of the thoughts that kind of you know, passed
<v Speaker 9>through my mind.
<v Speaker 1>At last, it seemed like Matthew had stopped. Michelle sat up,
<v Speaker 1>trying to steady herself, but her back was to him.
<v Speaker 1>Suddenly he came at her again, this time with a
<v Speaker 1>kitchen knife, stabbing her in the front of the neck.
<v Speaker 1>Panicked and bleeding, she ran towards the garage. She hit
<v Speaker 1>the button to open the door, gasping for air as
<v Speaker 1>he stayed close behind. As the door started to rise,
<v Speaker 1>Matthew forced it back down, slamming on the button. With
<v Speaker 1>only a small gap left, Michelle rolled under it, desperate
<v Speaker 1>to get out, but Matthew was right behind her, able
<v Speaker 1>to roll under the door as well. Michelle's relationship with
<v Speaker 1>Matthew started out very differently a while back. There were signs,
<v Speaker 1>but she could have never known that one day she'd
<v Speaker 1>be in fear for her life.
<v Speaker 9>Yeah, matt and I had, you know, we had a
<v Speaker 9>lot of fun adventures together. He had quite a broad
<v Speaker 9>group of friends, and so there seemed like there was
<v Speaker 9>always something going on. Somebody was having a party or organizing,
<v Speaker 9>you know, a shortification over the weekend, or just something.
<v Speaker 9>And so we were always really busy. But there did
<v Speaker 9>come a time, you know, within a few months after
<v Speaker 9>doing all these really fun things that one hundred percent
<v Speaker 9>of the time involved drinking, that I realized he had
<v Speaker 9>a problem.
<v Speaker 1>Matthew took the good times too far. When they were
<v Speaker 1>out with friends. She sometimes had to remind him to
<v Speaker 1>drink less. He just wasn't the same person when he'd
<v Speaker 1>had one too many, and she wanted to get him
<v Speaker 1>home safe.
<v Speaker 9>I noticed the drinking pretty quick quickly. There were a
<v Speaker 9>few instances where he, you know, would drink so much
<v Speaker 9>that he would just pass out. Specifically, I remember going
<v Speaker 9>down like a lazy river trip, so we were all
<v Speaker 9>on tubes on this river, just floating down, and he
<v Speaker 9>was passed out on his tube and just sleeping the
<v Speaker 9>whole way because he had drank so much in the beginning,
<v Speaker 9>he didn't wake up at all. And I kept thinking,
<v Speaker 9>you know what happens if he just falls over in
<v Speaker 9>the water and you can't touch the bottom right like,
<v Speaker 9>I can't lift him out, so someone would have to
<v Speaker 9>save him because he was just he wouldn't wake up.
<v Speaker 9>So things like that that would happen throughout these activities
<v Speaker 9>where he would just be obliterated all the time.
<v Speaker 1>It was a few months into the relationship and Michelle
<v Speaker 1>was a runner preparing for a big race. She thought
<v Speaker 1>it through and was going to break things off as
<v Speaker 1>soon as the race was over. She just didn't want
<v Speaker 1>to take on someone who had a potential drinking problem.
<v Speaker 1>But as the race came closer, she started to feel ill.
<v Speaker 1>She took a test and realized that, oh shit, I'm pregnant.
<v Speaker 1>Things continued normally for the next year and a half.
<v Speaker 1>Matthew was a good dad and for the most part,
<v Speaker 1>a loving partner. There were just times when he took
<v Speaker 1>his partying a little too far, and it concerned Michelle
<v Speaker 1>even more now that she had a child with him.
<v Speaker 1>On Saint Patrick's Day of twenty seventeen, the couple went
<v Speaker 1>out with friends for the day. They stopped for lunch
<v Speaker 1>at an Irish pub and had a couple of beers.
<v Speaker 1>Then they moved on to another Irish bar, where Michelle
<v Speaker 1>slowed down but Matthew did not. By six pm, Michelle
<v Speaker 1>was ready to go out, but found Matthew in another
<v Speaker 1>bar next door. He was the only one in the place,
<v Speaker 1>and he was so plastered he couldn't even talk That's
<v Speaker 1>when she decided to just go home alone. I don't blamer,
<v Speaker 1>nobody wants to put up with a drunk Michelle walked
<v Speaker 1>a mile and a half through the snowy cold weather
<v Speaker 1>just to get away from her significant other, just to
<v Speaker 1>get home. Exhausted, she then drove to the home of
<v Speaker 1>Matt's parents and picked up the kids, and when she
<v Speaker 1>got back home, she sank into the couch. Just a
<v Speaker 1>couple of hours later, a very different version of Matthew
<v Speaker 1>than the man she loved showed up at the screen door,
<v Speaker 1>knocking to get in. This seemingly ai representation of the
<v Speaker 1>man she loved proceeded to stumble through the kitchen and
<v Speaker 1>started to make himself a sandwich. Michelle sat in the
<v Speaker 1>open concept living room where she could watch TV but
<v Speaker 1>still keep an eye on him. He was drunk, but
<v Speaker 1>things were peaceful, that is until they weren't. Michelle was
<v Speaker 1>in the hospital fighting for her life now, and Matthew
<v Speaker 1>was arraigned in the morning after the attack. The lead detective,
<v Speaker 1>who coincidentally shares the same first name, remembers what Matthew
<v Speaker 1>said from jail.
<v Speaker 2>Hello, my name's Matthew Crumback. I'm a retired detective with
<v Speaker 2>a City of Llansing police department here in Michigan. They
<v Speaker 2>didn't really discuss too much about what Matt had done.
<v Speaker 2>He was very vague about what he had done, kind
<v Speaker 2>of claimed that he didn't quite remember well what had happened,
<v Speaker 2>because I don't think that he wanted to tell his
<v Speaker 2>father what he had done. He made a comment to
<v Speaker 2>his dad that she was in the hospital and wife
<v Speaker 2>was she in the hospital, And he was rather vague
<v Speaker 2>and trying his explanation, was trying to get his dad
<v Speaker 2>to say, Hey, could you come down here and bail
<v Speaker 2>me out? Could you put some money together? Could you
<v Speaker 2>get me out of this situation. I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>lose my job. It was more concerned obviously about himself
<v Speaker 2>than he was Michelle. He did not plead guilty. He
<v Speaker 2>was transferred out to the Ingham County jail. Ultimately, his
<v Speaker 2>family did bail him out on bail, a substantial bail.
<v Speaker 2>I believe it was around a quarter million dollars. His
<v Speaker 2>family had the ability to bail him out prior to
<v Speaker 2>the trial. It was assigned to court date and then
<v Speaker 2>we went to court and he pleaded not guilty.
<v Speaker 1>When it was all said and done. Michelle survived, but
<v Speaker 1>had the assault continued even for just another second, the
<v Speaker 1>outcome could have been very different.
<v Speaker 9>And I just remember, and this might sound a little crazy, right,
<v Speaker 9>but you know how you have like your voice in
<v Speaker 9>your head. It was like this other voice that was
<v Speaker 9>guiding me to do certain things right, and this other
<v Speaker 9>voice like yelled at me, and it's like, grab the
<v Speaker 9>fucking knife, like he's going to kill you, and so like,
<v Speaker 9>as he came down for the fourth, the fourth stab,
<v Speaker 9>I like grabbed the knife and I remember I had
<v Speaker 9>the blade end of it, and I'm laying on my
<v Speaker 9>back and I'm grabbing this knife and I'm literally pulling
<v Speaker 9>it across my face from right side to the left
<v Speaker 9>as he's trying to push it in, you know, push
<v Speaker 9>it forward into my face. And all I could think
<v Speaker 9>was like, oh my god, he's going to poke my
<v Speaker 9>eye out. He's gonna like I don't know what's going
<v Speaker 9>to happen. Somehow I managed to get this thing pulled
<v Speaker 9>across my face. And as I did, and I pulled
<v Speaker 9>it to the other side of my body, the knife
<v Speaker 9>fell kind of like to my left side and I
<v Speaker 9>was able to sort of talk it underneath me enough
<v Speaker 9>and sort of roll to my left a little bit
<v Speaker 9>where he wasn't able to find it.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle had seven stab wounds, a broken nose, loss of teeth,
<v Speaker 1>and head injuries. He even bit her face several times
<v Speaker 1>in an attempt to wrestle the knife away. Matthew, on
<v Speaker 1>the other hand, barely had a scratch on himself. Clearly
<v Speaker 1>Michelle had met a monster, but no one else in
<v Speaker 1>Matthew's life seemed to view him that way. I guess
<v Speaker 1>he was really good at hiding his illness. A lot
<v Speaker 1>of people are. He was quite a popular guy, in fact,
<v Speaker 1>so he was probably pretty good at it. At trial,
<v Speaker 1>his family brought a numerous character witnesses, and matt himself testified,
<v Speaker 1>trying to claim that all of Michelle's injuries were the
<v Speaker 1>result of her attack on him, and that he was
<v Speaker 1>merely defending himself. Don't you hate it when the aggressor
<v Speaker 1>plays victim. Seems to happen a lot these days.
<v Speaker 2>He was charged with attempted murder. His family was able
<v Speaker 2>to secure him a private attorney that was reputable in
<v Speaker 2>the city of Lancing, and that he requested that there
<v Speaker 2>would be a lesser charge included under attempted murder, which
<v Speaker 2>would be great bodily harm less than murder. The jury
<v Speaker 2>did find him guilty of the lesser charge of great
<v Speaker 2>bodily harm less than murder, and he was sentenced to
<v Speaker 2>three years in prison in the Michigan Department of Corrections,
<v Speaker 2>which he did serve three years. I believe that Matt Terry,
<v Speaker 2>now that I'm retired, can say this, should have definitely
<v Speaker 2>been found guilty of attempted murder, and you should still
<v Speaker 2>be in custody. In the state of Michigan. Juries are
<v Speaker 2>wishy Washington, and I hope every person that said on
<v Speaker 2>that jury is well aware of what Matt Terry did
<v Speaker 2>in the aftermath of being released from the Michigan Department
<v Speaker 2>of Corrections, and I hope they live with that every
<v Speaker 2>single day of their life.
<v Speaker 1>Matthew was out in just three years, and Michelle was petrified.
<v Speaker 9>As soon as I found out he was getting paroled,
<v Speaker 9>I had started looking for jobs out of state. I
<v Speaker 9>knew that if he was going to stay anywhere, he
<v Speaker 9>would stay with his parents, and his parents were literally
<v Speaker 9>twenty minutes from where I lived, and there was there
<v Speaker 9>was no way I was going to stay, And so
<v Speaker 9>I was terrified. I just knew I had to get
<v Speaker 9>myself and my kids somewhere safe. So I started looking
<v Speaker 9>for jobs out of state. I accepted a job offer,
<v Speaker 9>you know, and then I had to file with the
<v Speaker 9>courts to both try and or try and move both
<v Speaker 9>of my children, so one for my oldest son, one
<v Speaker 9>for my youngest son, to try and relocate them, which
<v Speaker 9>isn't an easy thing to do, if you know anything
<v Speaker 9>about that.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle felt completely isolated. It seemed like everybody around her
<v Speaker 1>had been taken in by Matthew's facade. Even somebody she
<v Speaker 1>wants trusted deeply turned against her, siding with the man
<v Speaker 1>who nearly ended her life. Nobody talks about how lonely
<v Speaker 1>it can be to confront your attacker, but holy shit,
<v Speaker 1>can you imagine losing your friends because someone else was
<v Speaker 1>violent towards you.
<v Speaker 9>So I was traveling back and forth, you know, between
<v Speaker 9>states for a year, trying to get approval to move
<v Speaker 9>my kids with me, and then kind of behind the scenes.
<v Speaker 9>This is something I don't think anybody knows because I've
<v Speaker 9>never talked about it in a podcast, But like my somehow,
<v Speaker 9>because my ex husband didn't believe me. He said that
<v Speaker 9>matt was too nice to be an abuser, and then
<v Speaker 9>I was a liar. And so somehow he and matt
<v Speaker 9>had connected behind the scenes, and they were working with
<v Speaker 9>the same attorneys, trying to kind of tag team to
<v Speaker 9>keep so one of them could win, so that I'd
<v Speaker 9>have to stay in the state and I wouldn't be
<v Speaker 9>able to move with my children.
<v Speaker 1>She didn't know if she'd ever be free of Matthew Terry,
<v Speaker 1>but she knew one thing for sure. He wasn't done
<v Speaker 1>hurting people. Living in fear that he might return consumed her,
<v Speaker 1>and she knew in her heart that it certainly wasn't over.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle Rogers of Lansing, Michigan, only wanted someone to share
<v Speaker 1>parts of her life with. As a mechanical engineer, she
<v Speaker 1>had a career, a young son, and a pretty great life.
<v Speaker 1>That is until she met forty two year old Matthew Terry.
<v Speaker 1>At first, the relationship was full of social gatherings and
<v Speaker 1>fun dates, but just when she started seeing red flags
<v Speaker 1>and planned to break up, she got pregnant. When her
<v Speaker 1>son was nine months old. Matthew violently attacked her on
<v Speaker 1>Saint Patrick's Day after drinking himself into a stupor. She survived,
<v Speaker 1>but her life would never be the same. She carried
<v Speaker 1>the physical and emotional scars of Matthew Terry's violent outburst.
<v Speaker 1>The justice system failed her, with Matthew only getting a
<v Speaker 1>slap on the wrist. Three years and he was out
<v Speaker 1>after stabbing and beating her, leaving her just seconds from death.
<v Speaker 1>How would you feel? That thought of him walking free
<v Speaker 1>again filled her with dread. She knew what he was
<v Speaker 1>capable of, and the idea that he was just out there, somewhere,
<v Speaker 1>free walking around was a wait that she couldn't escape.
<v Speaker 1>Three years just wasn't enough. Nobody learns anything in three years.
<v Speaker 1>It takes a little longer than that, at least for
<v Speaker 1>what he did. And then one night, suddenly who could
<v Speaker 1>have predicted it? There's another call for help. In the
<v Speaker 1>early hours of the morning, Hillsborough County Deputies responded to
<v Speaker 1>a distress call from sixty two to eleven kidderage Drive
<v Speaker 1>and Lithia, Florida, Lithia, Florida, Where the hell is Lithia, Florida?
<v Speaker 5>Saturday, May twenty eight, two Thousy twenty two nine.
<v Speaker 6>On one police BI medical I need emergency police work,
<v Speaker 6>A ambulance y on the line. Yes, there's someone.
<v Speaker 3>Who found the line them writing her in my house.
<v Speaker 7>My husband just went out there or next door.
<v Speaker 3>I'm trying to get out with my door, but my
<v Speaker 3>dog is my dog is trying to stop me. Someone
<v Speaker 3>someone has hurt. Uh, someone has hurt outside my houd
<v Speaker 3>maam I need you to read the ass to a verification.
<v Speaker 3>Don't have what happened?
<v Speaker 7>Laterated lashery cut, Okay, let's cut.
<v Speaker 3>Uh someone next door was this?
<v Speaker 7>She's she's that they have a major cut to their necks.
<v Speaker 3>You know what happened? I don't know.
<v Speaker 6>My husband heard someone screaming, and then we came outside.
<v Speaker 3>There's there's struggle in the house. Coming out of the door.
<v Speaker 3>They're struggling. I'm sorry, don't even get out of the house.
<v Speaker 1>God, can you hear the panic in her voice. It's
<v Speaker 1>giving me extreme anxiety right now. And the operator just
<v Speaker 1>couldn't give a flying fanny way. The neighbors had no
<v Speaker 1>idea what was going on, only that a young woman
<v Speaker 1>lay bleeding from the neck near her home. The confusion
<v Speaker 1>was palpable. A quiet neighborhood suddenly turned into a scene
<v Speaker 1>from a nightmare, with no clear answers. For anyone. Anxiety
<v Speaker 1>ridden neighbors looked out their windows as the red and
<v Speaker 1>blue lights flashed from the police cars and ambulance. Horrified,
<v Speaker 1>phones still in hand, they wondered what just happened? Two
<v Speaker 1>people wrestling outside, screams cries for help? Who was this woman?
<v Speaker 1>What happened to her? As paramedics rushed to the scene,
<v Speaker 1>the police began piecing together the story, a nightmare story
<v Speaker 1>that was all too similar to what happened in Michigan.
<v Speaker 1>But this crime happened in Florida, and Matthew Terry lived
<v Speaker 1>in Michigan, Or did he? The young woman was Kay Baker,
<v Speaker 1>a math teacher and mother of two. She was barely
<v Speaker 1>holding on as first responders worked to stabilize her. Blood
<v Speaker 1>gushed from her neck wound and turned the green grass
<v Speaker 1>to red where she'd collapsed in the yard between her
<v Speaker 1>home and a neighbor's gasping for air turned to a
<v Speaker 1>deadly gurgling through the deep slash in her neck that
<v Speaker 1>almost decapitated her. They watched in horror as paramedics loaded
<v Speaker 1>her onto a gurney and placed a sheet on her
<v Speaker 1>body and over her face. She didn't make it. They
<v Speaker 1>couldn't have known the full truth yet, that this wasn't
<v Speaker 1>a random attack. The man responsible was not a stranger.
<v Speaker 1>It was someone Kay had welcomed into her life. So
<v Speaker 1>when she believed she could trust, police were already searching
<v Speaker 1>for him and his name was Matthew Terry.
<v Speaker 3>Over a powny fire, he recorded, fine.
<v Speaker 10>How may I help you?
<v Speaker 11>Hey?
<v Speaker 3>We need jaw and what's going on over there? They
<v Speaker 3>need your emergency?
<v Speaker 7>I think the dog bit him, but he was also
<v Speaker 7>bleeding already. It has to do with why y'all are
<v Speaker 7>out there earlier with the female that was bleeding. It's
<v Speaker 7>related to that the stabbing. Yeah, man, was it a
<v Speaker 7>cane but well that's something I don't know. I believe
<v Speaker 7>the canine bit him, but he was already bleeding when
<v Speaker 7>they found him in the woods. So is the emergency
<v Speaker 7>or they said emergency And I can't talk to them
<v Speaker 7>because they said to hold the station.
<v Speaker 3>So that's all I have for you. Okay, is the
<v Speaker 3>scene secure? Yeah?
<v Speaker 7>They need to like now, okay, all right, We're gonna
<v Speaker 7>go and thinking dear night.
<v Speaker 1>When deputies entered the home she shared with her boyfriend,
<v Speaker 1>Matthew Terry, they found signs of a violent struggle. A
<v Speaker 1>bathroom door was damaged consistent with being kicked in, and
<v Speaker 1>the bedroom was locked. When they kicked it open, they
<v Speaker 1>found an open window with its screen pushed outward and
<v Speaker 1>lying in the yard, hinting that someone had escaped through it.
<v Speaker 1>Blood traces led from inside the house through the backyard
<v Speaker 1>toward a wooded area bordering Lithia Pinecrest Road. The area
<v Speaker 1>was cordoned off with a yellow tape as investigators and
<v Speaker 1>crime scene units meticulously examined the surroundings. Bloodhounds or let
<v Speaker 1>loose to trackt Matthew's movements. Following a trail of blood
<v Speaker 1>through the thick bushes near the property, they discovered more
<v Speaker 1>bloodstains and a trampled area of leaves. A deputy and
<v Speaker 1>his canine partner, Champ, traced the suspects approximately one hundred
<v Speaker 1>yards east of the scene. Matthew was lying in dense
<v Speaker 1>grass wearing only a blood soaked T shirt and underwear. Howpathetic.
<v Speaker 1>He also had cuts on his neck, but later it
<v Speaker 1>would be determined that he'd cut himself on purpose. And
<v Speaker 1>the clip you just heard about the dog bite, Yeah
<v Speaker 1>that's Champ, the canine. He took a nice chomp out
<v Speaker 1>of Matthew Terry and good on him. That's a good boy, Champ,
<v Speaker 1>good boy. Indeed, here is Detective Crumbback.
<v Speaker 2>I saw parallels in the case from Michigan to Florida,
<v Speaker 2>and it's eerie on how similar these cases were. I
<v Speaker 2>mean eerie on how close they were. I mean from
<v Speaker 2>the point of he took a knife from a butcher
<v Speaker 2>block in Michigan and assaulted Michelle. He took a knife
<v Speaker 2>from a butcher block in Florida and assaulted dead victim,
<v Speaker 2>and it seems like he had been consuming alcohol. There
<v Speaker 2>was an argument, you know, the fact that he was
<v Speaker 2>found in both cases in his underwear and T shirts
<v Speaker 2>soaked in blood in Michigan. In Florida, they found him,
<v Speaker 2>you know, one hundred yards away from the house, lying
<v Speaker 2>in the woods with his underwear and a T shirt
<v Speaker 2>soaked in blood. I'm like, wow, this looks very familiar
<v Speaker 2>to me. And you know, I think that there appears
<v Speaker 2>to me. I wasn't an investigator down in Florida, but
<v Speaker 2>I noticed that inflicted a couple of wounds on himself
<v Speaker 2>in the Florida case, and I'm thinking, well, you know,
<v Speaker 2>he's probably thinking I better cook something up. You know
<v Speaker 2>that self defense claim works kind of good in Michigan.
<v Speaker 2>I went from fifteen to three years. Maybe I can
<v Speaker 2>do the same thing here down in Florida. But it
<v Speaker 2>didn't work out for him so much.
<v Speaker 1>Really, the only difference between the twenty seventeen assault against
<v Speaker 1>Michelle and the twenty twenty two assault against kay Baker
<v Speaker 1>is that Michelle was much luckier.
<v Speaker 2>That's it.
<v Speaker 1>She survived while k Baker bled out and died before
<v Speaker 1>paramedics could reach her. That's the only difference. When Matthew
<v Speaker 1>walked free in twenty twenty, another woman was already waiting
<v Speaker 1>for him. This time, he didn't need to charm his
<v Speaker 1>way into her life. Kay Baker, a former high school friend,
<v Speaker 1>had willingly opened that door. In fact, she even testified
<v Speaker 1>on his behalf at the trial in Michigan, making this
<v Speaker 1>whole story even sadder.
<v Speaker 9>So I wasn't a part of like I couldn't be
<v Speaker 9>in the courtroom because I had to testify when she
<v Speaker 9>came for the twenty seventeen trial. But she did testify
<v Speaker 9>to his character then. But that wasn't the only time.
<v Speaker 9>She also had come into some of her child custody
<v Speaker 9>and parenting. Like the court hearings to testify on his
<v Speaker 9>behalf as well. You know, I don't want to say naive,
<v Speaker 9>but she just she thought he was different than what
<v Speaker 9>he portrayed, just like I did. And it wasn't anything
<v Speaker 9>that was her fault. He had just told her a
<v Speaker 9>story that she believed, and she really loved him and
<v Speaker 9>cared for him, and she wanted to believe that he
<v Speaker 9>was the person that he portrayed to her. And so
<v Speaker 9>I don't fault her at all for being there to
<v Speaker 9>speak to this, because all he ever showed her was
<v Speaker 9>the good side, right, And maybe I guess I don't
<v Speaker 9>know what else he showed her, but I'm assuming that,
<v Speaker 9>you know, she saw the good stuff, and she believed
<v Speaker 9>that he was really a good person. She'd known him
<v Speaker 9>for a long time and so she truly believed that
<v Speaker 9>he was that person that she was saying he was.
<v Speaker 1>Kay Baker was, by all accounts, the kind of person
<v Speaker 1>everyone wanted in their corner. She was bubbly, compassionate, and
<v Speaker 1>fiercely loyal to her family, friends, and students that she
<v Speaker 1>taught As a middle school math teacher. She didn't just teach,
<v Speaker 1>she mentored, encouraged, and inspired her two boys were her
<v Speaker 1>entire world, and she juggled her career and motherhood with
<v Speaker 1>a smile. Admirable, but like anyone else, we get lonely.
<v Speaker 1>We reach out into the ether looking for companionship, and
<v Speaker 1>sometimes the ether has a sense of humor, a dark
<v Speaker 1>sense of humor. When Kay reconnected with Matthew Terry through
<v Speaker 1>social media during his try well, she didn't see a monster,
<v Speaker 1>but a man she thought she knew, the boy she
<v Speaker 1>remembered from high school, the boy she was convinced had
<v Speaker 1>been misunderstood. I think it's a good time in the
<v Speaker 1>story to reiterate that standing for the wrong person can
<v Speaker 1>be deadly. Kay became one of Matthew's staunchest defenders, even
<v Speaker 1>testifying at his trial in her words, he wasn't a
<v Speaker 1>dangerous man, but someone who made a terrible mistake. I've
<v Speaker 1>heard that before, that whole Oh he's not bad, he's just,
<v Speaker 1>you know, not as privileged or something. It's a great
<v Speaker 1>excuse for doing awful things and then getting away with it.
<v Speaker 1>But Kay truly believed that matt deserved another chance, and
<v Speaker 1>of course so did he. Detective Crumbach and Michelle got
<v Speaker 1>to know each other very well from the twenty seventeen trial,
<v Speaker 1>and he remembered all of Michelle's efforts to prevent Matthew
<v Speaker 1>from striking again. Instead of being resentful that Kay was
<v Speaker 1>siding with her assailant. She tried to warn Kay, but
<v Speaker 1>as it often does, this message fell on deaf ears.
<v Speaker 2>She sent her pictures. She's like, don't let this happen
<v Speaker 2>to you, and she just kind of blew her off.
<v Speaker 2>And Kay's friends down in Florida they believed Matt Terry.
<v Speaker 2>They believed, you know, his explanation for why he was
<v Speaker 2>in prison. They believed that he was wrongly convicted. You know.
<v Speaker 2>They believed this bullshit story because he's that good of
<v Speaker 2>a liar. And now they're all like, oh my god,
<v Speaker 2>you know now our friend is dead. We shouldn't have
<v Speaker 2>believed him. We should have believed Michelle. And I'm like, well,
<v Speaker 2>maybe you or your children or somebody in your life
<v Speaker 2>will be saved because you were touched by this. So
<v Speaker 2>who knows. And that goes to tell you what a
<v Speaker 2>excellent con man Matt Terry is. He is a self absorbed,
<v Speaker 2>narcissistic s ob, is what he is. And he's damn
<v Speaker 2>good at what he does. He can make anyone believe
<v Speaker 2>the lie that he is telling them. And of course,
<v Speaker 2>you know, you know, his father is going to stick
<v Speaker 2>up for him for the utmost, and his brothers stuck
<v Speaker 2>up for him and his family. They came to court,
<v Speaker 2>they tried to victim see Michelle, they tried to intimidate her.
<v Speaker 2>In fact, even after the fact the homicide in Florida,
<v Speaker 2>when we were down in Florida testifying, you know, we
<v Speaker 2>were asked to come down on a couple of occasions
<v Speaker 2>and testify in that case. And even then, you know,
<v Speaker 2>mister Terry made comments to the Tampa Journal that in
<v Speaker 2>the case involving Michelle that if he really wanted to
<v Speaker 2>have harmed or killed Michelle, he would have. I'm thinking
<v Speaker 2>to myself, were you not in the same trial I was,
<v Speaker 2>Have you not seen amount of evidence? Have you not
<v Speaker 2>seen the seven stab wounds? You know, the broken molars,
<v Speaker 2>the black eyes? Have you not seen the bite marks
<v Speaker 2>on her face? And you're telling me that that self defense?
<v Speaker 2>But that goes to tell you what kind of a
<v Speaker 2>twisted individual his dad, Mark Terry is. He made those
<v Speaker 2>statements after he had murdered a woman in Florida, And
<v Speaker 2>it's just outrageous. In fact, he even got caught when
<v Speaker 2>he was testifying on behalf of his son during the
<v Speaker 2>portion of the death penalty where he had gotten caught
<v Speaker 2>once again on a jail call to his son the
<v Speaker 2>night before, referring to Michelle in a derogatory term, and
<v Speaker 2>the prosecutor brought it to his attention, and of course
<v Speaker 2>that stopped everything right there because there was an objection
<v Speaker 2>and oh, you didn't bring this up. But yet it
<v Speaker 2>was very clear that Matt Carey's father, Mark was talking
<v Speaker 2>to his son on the phone after he had been
<v Speaker 2>found guilty of first degree murder and we were testifying
<v Speaker 2>in the penalty phase of a possible death penalty, that
<v Speaker 2>he was still blaming Michelle Rogers for all his problems.
<v Speaker 2>And I just thought, you are a piece of work,
<v Speaker 2>and you're also a piece of something else. But it
<v Speaker 2>just but tag goes to tell you where Matt Terry
<v Speaker 2>comes from. That's that's that's how he was raised.
<v Speaker 1>Right after A. K. Baker's murder, her ex husband's contact
<v Speaker 1>information was found in her wallet, so he and his
<v Speaker 1>wife were brought to the station. Detectives knew who had
<v Speaker 1>done this, but were careful with what they revealed, and
<v Speaker 1>what they really wanted to know was what led up
<v Speaker 1>to the violent outburst that left K bleeding out to die.
<v Speaker 1>Okay sister in law share that on that day, a Friday,
<v Speaker 1>K's two boys were with her and Kay's brother for
<v Speaker 1>their scheduled custody weekend. At around two pm, one of
<v Speaker 1>the boys called K to excitedly share that she had
<v Speaker 1>received a good score on a school test. It was
<v Speaker 1>the last day of the school year, and Kay began
<v Speaker 1>celebrating early with her teacher friends and of course with Matthew.
<v Speaker 1>When they were brought in, they had no idea what happened,
<v Speaker 1>and they also had no idea that they would gain
<v Speaker 1>full custody of K's two boys simply by default.
<v Speaker 8>Let me do this first.
<v Speaker 3>Do you have any contact for her, would be her
<v Speaker 3>legal next of kin, parents, anything up north.
<v Speaker 1>The issues started at a bar at around ten o'clock
<v Speaker 1>that evening. This is one of Kay's friends who was
<v Speaker 1>at the bar with her.
<v Speaker 12>Shortly after my says he's going to ask to sit down,
<v Speaker 12>and he's going to say he wants to leave because
<v Speaker 12>he's kind of had his fill on the DD and
<v Speaker 12>I'm like, no, sweetie, let me say I think it's
<v Speaker 12>getting kind of tense over here. I know that he
<v Speaker 12>was getting very upset because he thought someone was in
<v Speaker 12>the bar was dancing with Kay, or Kay was actually
<v Speaker 12>dancing with this gentleman as well.
<v Speaker 1>The he that she's referring to is, of course, Matthew Terry.
<v Speaker 1>Tara decided to take on the role of de escalator
<v Speaker 1>for Kay. What she's describing involves Kay and another friend
<v Speaker 1>at the bar that night.
<v Speaker 12>The way it was, the two of them went inside,
<v Speaker 12>went to the bathroom or whatever, came back and was
<v Speaker 12>dancing around at the bar, and a guy came from behind.
<v Speaker 12>Kay even said she didn't notice him, and Kelly collaborated
<v Speaker 12>that story, and I could tell by the way Kay
<v Speaker 12>was acting she really didn't notice and know what he
<v Speaker 12>was talking about, but he.
<v Speaker 8>Was pretty upset about it.
<v Speaker 12>So I slid over because traditionally I was sitting in
<v Speaker 12>that and you see where that versus before I was
<v Speaker 12>actually sitting, Ay was where I'm standing now.
<v Speaker 8>I moved over because I thought, you know, maybe I was.
<v Speaker 12>I didn't drink as much as everyone else because I
<v Speaker 12>knew I'd be driving, So I slid down and I thought,
<v Speaker 12>maybe I can make this kind of go away a
<v Speaker 12>little bit, because you.
<v Speaker 8>Know, sometimes when people drink them that kind of stuff.
<v Speaker 12>Happened, right, So I thought maybe I could calm this down.
<v Speaker 12>And I basically just said listen, you know to him,
<v Speaker 12>I said, if you.
<v Speaker 8>Must really love her a lot, and because you're getting.
<v Speaker 12>So jealous, and I said, and she loves it, but
<v Speaker 12>she loves you, write back, buddy, because she didn't even
<v Speaker 12>notice the guy and he looked at me and he said,
<v Speaker 12>wait a minute, what are you talking about getting jealous?
<v Speaker 8>And he goes, I'm not jealous, and he was that's
<v Speaker 8>what right there.
<v Speaker 7>He was upset.
<v Speaker 12>He was talking to her the whole time, and I
<v Speaker 12>was trying to calm it down. And that's when I
<v Speaker 12>realized I might have even made it worse, because that
<v Speaker 12>really made him upset, that word, that jealous word, like
<v Speaker 12>his eyes popped and he didn't seem drunk.
<v Speaker 8>Really, I know that Kay was, you know not I
<v Speaker 8>wouldn't call her like falling over drunk.
<v Speaker 12>But they were drinking, and he was just really upset
<v Speaker 12>with that word. And he goes, yeah, jealous means like
<v Speaker 12>you're envious. And I said, well, you know what I mean,
<v Speaker 12>like you're jealous, like you care about her that you
<v Speaker 12>want to make sure she's okay. You're protective, and he goes, yeah,
<v Speaker 12>because she's beautiful, look at her, and I love her.
<v Speaker 8>And I think I kind of just sort of appeased
<v Speaker 8>him by changing around my words for him.
<v Speaker 12>But then Kelly kind of went back into another incident
<v Speaker 12>that must have happened, I don't know, pretty close to
<v Speaker 12>the night we were there, and she said, this isn't
<v Speaker 12>going to be like on Saturday or whatever when we
<v Speaker 12>were at Clearwater. You know, you knew this was our
<v Speaker 12>celebratory night into school.
<v Speaker 8>You need to stop.
<v Speaker 12>And I think her husband realized the waters had kind
<v Speaker 12>of settled and got her to stop, and there was
<v Speaker 12>a little bit more back and forth, and then it
<v Speaker 12>kind of chilled and I thought we were okay, but
<v Speaker 12>I wasn't one hundred percent.
<v Speaker 8>I still felt a little bit attention.
<v Speaker 12>That's why I texted her right away after I left.
<v Speaker 1>Jara wasn't the only one at the bar who witnessed
<v Speaker 1>the tension, and wasn't the only one who later checked
<v Speaker 1>up on K This is her friend Kelly. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>got there about third, took a.
<v Speaker 8>Did you know did they leave before you or they
<v Speaker 8>still there when.
<v Speaker 10>You and she was coming out of the bath and reached aback,
<v Speaker 10>and when we were just dancing features.
<v Speaker 3>Some old man.
<v Speaker 1>What got At that point, her friend throws her arms
<v Speaker 1>up into the air, demonstrating what she saw. It was
<v Speaker 1>a harmless interaction with a complete stranger, an old man.
<v Speaker 1>As Kay and her friend Kelly left the bathroom, they
<v Speaker 1>were in high spirits, laughing, celebrating the end of the
<v Speaker 1>school year. The two were playfully dancing for just a
<v Speaker 1>few seconds, enjoying the moment. Their positive energy seemed to radiate,
<v Speaker 1>and an old man who happened to be walking by,
<v Speaker 1>caught onto their vibe and started to mimic their carefree
<v Speaker 1>dance as he moved past playfully, nothing sinister about it.
<v Speaker 1>They were barely even aware of his presence.
<v Speaker 8>And just for the record, for the ALUs of the dance,
<v Speaker 8>see what you're doing. You're just kind of raising your
<v Speaker 8>arms up like you're dancing. Yes, So, I mean it
<v Speaker 8>was like everybody walked away. I went to it off,
<v Speaker 8>and she walked to the chair.
<v Speaker 7>And so she had stopped to talk to a couple
<v Speaker 7>of the.
<v Speaker 10>Neighbor I sat down after the bathroom and he's like,
<v Speaker 10>who's that guide became as dancing. Why she wasn't dancing
<v Speaker 10>with anybody. Somebody came up. We were dancing and somebody
<v Speaker 10>came up to.
<v Speaker 8>Us, and the kind was like sixy case.
<v Speaker 1>Friends could tell that Matthew was pissed, but no one
<v Speaker 1>could understand why.
<v Speaker 5>I don't know.
<v Speaker 8>I can't remember when he said it.
<v Speaker 10>Then I guess he went over and said something to her,
<v Speaker 10>and he's just like, oh, up to it, owing up
<v Speaker 10>to it.
<v Speaker 8>She was like what, she didn't remember what had happened.
<v Speaker 8>He seemed to look like we both kind of got
<v Speaker 8>on and we were.
<v Speaker 10>Like stepping an idiot, and so then he seemed to
<v Speaker 10>get over it.
<v Speaker 1>But then but then suddenly he wasn't over it. Because
<v Speaker 1>that's how obsessive narcissists are, especially under the influence of alcohol.
<v Speaker 1>Give me a good four hours and I'll tell you
<v Speaker 1>all about it. At some point after I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe the third or fourth drink, it becomes all about
<v Speaker 1>them and they're paranoid and controlling. As soon as Kay
<v Speaker 1>and Matthew left, Kelly got a call from Kay on
<v Speaker 1>the other end, asking her to verify that nothing had
<v Speaker 1>happened with the old man. This call came in at
<v Speaker 1>around eleven forty eight pm, and within an hour she
<v Speaker 1>would be dead. Kay sent one last text saying all
<v Speaker 1>good before she got home, and it wasn't all good.
<v Speaker 1>The attack was relentless. Deep lacerations on both hands showed
<v Speaker 1>k clearly fought back. Matthew stabbed her neck four times,
<v Speaker 1>and each stab went deeper. He'd already had enough practice.
<v Speaker 1>One stab wound to the front right of her neck
<v Speaker 1>was so deep it hit the spinal cord but narrowly
<v Speaker 1>missed the carotid artery. A deep laceration to the back
<v Speaker 1>of her neck extended from the right side to the left,
<v Speaker 1>cutting to her spine. The most catastrophic injuries were to
<v Speaker 1>the left side of her neck. These forceful jabs were
<v Speaker 1>so brutal that it was like someone with a machete
<v Speaker 1>hacking through dense bushes. Slashes, stabs, erratic punctures, one of
<v Speaker 1>which did sever her carotid artery. If she had lived,
<v Speaker 1>she would have likely lost her voice because her larynx
<v Speaker 1>was also torn. This was nothing but butchery.
<v Speaker 2>He murdered somebody who went above and beyond, drove from
<v Speaker 2>Florida to Michigan for Chrazt's sake, to, you know, comfort,
<v Speaker 2>you visit you in prison, and this is the thank you,
<v Speaker 2>invite you into your home in Florida, try and start
<v Speaker 2>a life with you. You killed her. I'm like, well done.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like I'm just yeah. And me personally, I could
<v Speaker 2>see this kind of coming a mile away. I was like,
<v Speaker 2>this isn't the end for him, you know, my gun
<v Speaker 2>instinct told me. I was like, yeah, he's going to
<v Speaker 2>continue in this vein. And Michelle knew that too. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>she pleaded with people to listen to her and they didn't.
<v Speaker 2>They're all like, he's going to do this again. He
<v Speaker 2>is going to kill somebody. And they're like yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And what did he do? Within you know, a year
<v Speaker 2>and a half, he killed somebody.
<v Speaker 1>Initially, the state attorney chose not to pursue the death
<v Speaker 1>penalty against Matthew. Case family wanted life in prison for
<v Speaker 1>Matthew because they didn't want the drama and prolonged process
<v Speaker 1>associated with the death penalty. But on August fourth, twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty two, Governor Ron DeSantis suspended the current state attorney
<v Speaker 1>point at a new one. The following day, the previous
<v Speaker 1>decision was reversed and a notice was filed to seek
<v Speaker 1>the death penalty against him, citing the especially heinous nature
<v Speaker 1>of the crime and his history of violent behavior. The
<v Speaker 1>trial was a dark reminder of how the justice system
<v Speaker 1>sometimes gets it wrong and leaves grieving families feeling even
<v Speaker 1>more empty. Once again, Matthew Terry would claim self defense,
<v Speaker 1>but this time there was no victim to speak for herself.
<v Speaker 1>This would again fall on Michelle Rogers. In the aftermath
<v Speaker 1>of k Baker's twenty twenty two murder in Lithia, Florida,
<v Speaker 1>grief turned into outrage. Her family, still reeling from the loss,
<v Speaker 1>faced an unimaginable task of having to explain to her
<v Speaker 1>two young sons that their mother was gone forever. Case
<v Speaker 1>friends and colleagues were shattered. The joy of the last
<v Speaker 1>school day turned into disbelief as the news spread. How
<v Speaker 1>could this have happened to someone so full of life,
<v Speaker 1>someone so much to give? But this wasn't just a tragedy.
<v Speaker 1>It was a failure. Matthew Terry had already shown the
<v Speaker 1>world who he was, and we just ignored it and thought, man,
<v Speaker 1>maybe he'll be better. In Michigan, he stabbed his ex
<v Speaker 1>girlfriend Michelle Rogers in a drunken frenzy she had survived
<v Speaker 1>by sheer will, and yet the justice system handed him
<v Speaker 1>only three years because somehow we're trying to normalize this behavior,
<v Speaker 1>maybe because it happens in certain communities that we want
<v Speaker 1>to lift up or something. I don't know, But why
<v Speaker 1>don't we just punish the things that are wrong and
<v Speaker 1>let everything else sort itself out. Jesus fucking Christ, am
<v Speaker 1>I the only sane person on earth? Anyway? Now Matthew
<v Speaker 1>had taken Kay's life and once again pleaded not guilty,
<v Speaker 1>Michelle and Detective Crumbach were about to relive their twenty
<v Speaker 1>seventeen nightmare.
<v Speaker 2>He's never going to show one of your remorse, you know, now,
<v Speaker 2>he may, well, why I take that back. You know,
<v Speaker 2>during the course of the trial in Florida, he sniffled
<v Speaker 2>and sobbed and you know, things like that. But once again,
<v Speaker 2>you got to remember what an actor he is. And
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure he actually during the course of the trial,
<v Speaker 2>he made a comment that he wanted to testify, and
<v Speaker 2>he made a comment to the later that you know,
<v Speaker 2>he said, well, I wanted to testify, but my attorneys
<v Speaker 2>told me I couldn't, and they made me a promise.
<v Speaker 2>And this and that and the other thing, and you know, hey,
<v Speaker 2>he's intelligent. You know, I think he was worried that
<v Speaker 2>he was going to be found guilty of and charged
<v Speaker 2>with a death penalty, and he was already trying to
<v Speaker 2>set his appeals up.
<v Speaker 1>You're probably wondering how Matthew thought it was even remotely
<v Speaker 1>possible to avoid a long prison sentence this time, or
<v Speaker 1>at least how to avoid the death penalty. He was
<v Speaker 1>someone everyone had already heard of about from the Michigan case,
<v Speaker 1>including Michelle, who was a victim of his rage attack
<v Speaker 1>and lived to tell about it. He and Daddy and
<v Speaker 1>Daddy's expensive attorney already concocted a story. He got the
<v Speaker 1>wrong guy, they said.
<v Speaker 2>Because he did not testify. Is one of his lawyers
<v Speaker 2>gave this long drawn out discussion in regards to what
<v Speaker 2>really happened, and basically it was, you know, the one
<v Speaker 2>armed man theory. Somebody broke into the house and footsteps
<v Speaker 2>were heard. People went outside, and it went to investigate,
<v Speaker 2>and somebody had assaulted. Old matt showed up and he
<v Speaker 2>was the hero of all these sort of things. And
<v Speaker 2>I was just like, nobody bought it for a millisecond,
<v Speaker 2>But they had to cook a story up and they did,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and you know, unbelievable as it was, and
<v Speaker 2>obviously no one believed it because in a case like this,
<v Speaker 2>when a jury comes back in an hour and ten minutes,
<v Speaker 2>you're guilty, Like yeah, they didn't believe that. They paid
<v Speaker 2>close attention to the trial, and they paid very close
<v Speaker 2>attention to the evidence, and they found him guilty.
<v Speaker 1>The penalty phase was different from most. While prosecutors usually
<v Speaker 1>pursue the death penalty from the start, a twist in
<v Speaker 1>the case changed the trajectory, a political twist because crime
<v Speaker 1>and politics sir twined in case you haven't figured that out. Initially,
<v Speaker 1>the state attorney's office had indicated they wouldn't seek the
<v Speaker 1>death penalty. Cay's family supported this decision because they just
<v Speaker 1>wanted relief. They didn't want to engage in the long
<v Speaker 1>process of appeals. They knew where this was headed. But
<v Speaker 1>when a new state attorney was appointed to the case,
<v Speaker 1>he was determined to push for the ultimate punishment. As
<v Speaker 1>the jury deliberated Terry's fate, the tension in the courtroom
<v Speaker 1>was palpable. Would he receive the death penalty or would
<v Speaker 1>he spend the rest of his life in prison. Ky
<v Speaker 1>Baker's stepmother of thirty five years, asked Matthew some hard
<v Speaker 1>questions in her victim impact statement during the penalty phase proceeding.
<v Speaker 4>What words did Kay say that night to justify you
<v Speaker 4>killing her? How bad could those words be? Did she
<v Speaker 4>say Dad was right? Michelle was right? Was that what
<v Speaker 4>got her death sentence? It is very unsettling, as apparent,
<v Speaker 4>to fear for your daughter because as a partner they've chosen.
<v Speaker 4>I feared for Kay's life. Her dad feared for Kay's life,
<v Speaker 4>and I don't understand why she did not.
<v Speaker 8>I hope you fear for your life.
<v Speaker 1>During the penalty phase, one last surprise guest showed up
<v Speaker 1>to speak on behalf of k I have.
<v Speaker 11>That here this week and listened to everything that has happened,
<v Speaker 11>everything that has been said. I have watched the giggles
<v Speaker 11>and the last and the complete and disrespect for a
<v Speaker 11>woman's life.
<v Speaker 8>That woman is not here today. She is passed away, and.
<v Speaker 11>I feel like it's a slack in the face, especially
<v Speaker 11>when I heard that there were no priors when you
<v Speaker 11>were given instruction that there were.
<v Speaker 8>I was not allowed to.
<v Speaker 11>Testify in any of this because I accepted misdemeanors rather
<v Speaker 11>than pushing for a trial in felonies.
<v Speaker 1>Surprise, surprise, that was yet another girlfriend of Matthew Terry
<v Speaker 1>who he assaulted back in two thousand.
<v Speaker 8>He broke into my house.
<v Speaker 11>I was assaulted my girlfriend, which was not any lesbian sense.
<v Speaker 11>My friend that was a woman was also assaulted, and
<v Speaker 11>he chased us around the house. When the police came,
<v Speaker 11>he pretended to be the victim rather.
<v Speaker 8>Than the assailant.
<v Speaker 11>And a lot of the things I heard today regarding
<v Speaker 11>case forgot today rather but this week we're very similar
<v Speaker 11>to the things that I enjoyed, and so I did
<v Speaker 11>not plan on saying anything today. I did not plan
<v Speaker 11>on being a part of this at all, but I
<v Speaker 11>feel that Kaye deserves that support.
<v Speaker 1>Kay's mother expressed a hope that Matthew Terry would experience
<v Speaker 1>the same fear he inflicted on others. The judge ensured
<v Speaker 1>he would have that chance.
<v Speaker 5>I listened to the testimony of Missus Rogers, both during
<v Speaker 5>the Williams Rule hearing and during the trial that we've
<v Speaker 5>been in here and additional testimony regarding the charges, the trial,
<v Speaker 5>the sentence in Michigan. I don't know what happened in
<v Speaker 5>Michigan as far as the trial and the sentence, But
<v Speaker 5>based on what I heard, I believe that you should
<v Speaker 5>have been in prison in Michigan and Miss Baker should
<v Speaker 5>still be alive. This is Florida. You're going to prison
<v Speaker 5>for the rest of your life.
<v Speaker 1>That should be on a T shirt. The added testimony
<v Speaker 1>of Matthew's girlfriend certainly helped informing the final sentence, but
<v Speaker 1>in reality, Michelle Rodgers played a pivotal role in revealing
<v Speaker 1>exactly who Matthew Terry was. She was determined that she
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't let him escape a sentence he deserved.
<v Speaker 2>Michelle Rogers is probably one of the most outstanding, brave,
<v Speaker 2>tough victims that I've ever had the privilege of working for.
<v Speaker 2>And she saved her own life. She recognized what was
<v Speaker 2>happening right in front of her. I don't think a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people would have the fortitude and the strength
<v Speaker 2>to recognize what was happening immediately and saved their own life.
<v Speaker 2>And after the fact, she was extremely brave and went forth.
<v Speaker 2>In the trial was an overwhelming sense of people against her.
<v Speaker 2>Meeting matt Terry's family, Matt Terry's friends, they all kind
<v Speaker 2>of like pointed the finger at her, like she was
<v Speaker 2>the one who was at fault, that she was wrong,
<v Speaker 2>that she somehow precipitated all these events against her, and
<v Speaker 2>she certainly did not.
<v Speaker 1>Detective Crumbach also had a few choice things to say
<v Speaker 1>about the Michigan jury and the justice system. He doesn't
<v Speaker 1>mince words.
<v Speaker 2>This guy. That's what you call a wishy, washy, dishwash
<v Speaker 2>dishrag type of a jury. You know, we'll find him
<v Speaker 2>guilty of something, but not what he actually did. And
<v Speaker 2>that's what happened. I don't have the names of all
<v Speaker 2>those jurors, but I hope to God every single one
<v Speaker 2>of them, every single one of them knows what he
<v Speaker 2>did after the fact and what he did down in Florida.
<v Speaker 2>And I hope it tortures their souls when they sleep
<v Speaker 2>at night, because they did an injustice not only for Michelle,
<v Speaker 2>but they did an injustice for that victim down in
<v Speaker 2>Florida too. Ladies dead, two boys don't have a mother.
<v Speaker 2>Mom and dad think of her every single day. Her
<v Speaker 2>sisters think of her every single day. And it's all
<v Speaker 2>because a couple of jurors up here in Michigan didn't
<v Speaker 2>do their job in a case where there was overwhelming
<v Speaker 2>evidence that was well prosecuted, and they found well, let's
<v Speaker 2>go with the lesser charge. And I will tell you
<v Speaker 2>in my career, I saw that happen many, many, many times.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 9>It makes me sad that, you know, I used to
<v Speaker 9>say that I feel like when I went through my
<v Speaker 9>stuff in twenty seventeen that I feel like he got
<v Speaker 9>jypped on his sentencing because there wasn't a dead body.
<v Speaker 9>Because I was somehow miraculously slaved and I survived, he
<v Speaker 9>didn't get hit as hard as he should have, because
<v Speaker 9>there's always that doubt, right if you're not there and
<v Speaker 9>you're not one of the two people that goes through
<v Speaker 9>it like, well maybe she is really not telling the
<v Speaker 9>truth or stretching the truth or whatever, right, And so
<v Speaker 9>because I wasn't dead, there was always that doubt, and
<v Speaker 9>so he again I didn't feel like he got the
<v Speaker 9>sentence that he necessarily deserved. But like with Kay, there
<v Speaker 9>was a dead body, right, so finally there was something
<v Speaker 9>that was actual evidence and actual proof that he did this. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 9>you know, somebody had to die, and that's just so unfortunate,
<v Speaker 9>so unfortunate, and I feel like if someone just would
<v Speaker 9>have listened to me like, because you don't know how
<v Speaker 9>many people I tried to fight against his release and
<v Speaker 9>against him and just it felt like nobody was doing
<v Speaker 9>anything like nobody.
<v Speaker 1>Michelle Rogers survived because she saw Matthew Terry for who
<v Speaker 1>he truly was. She didn't fall for the excuses or
<v Speaker 1>the hollow apologies. When the red flag started piling up,
<v Speaker 1>the controlling behavior, the bursts of rage, she tried to leave.
<v Speaker 1>She recognized that staying meant putting herself and her son
<v Speaker 1>in danger. That awareness, that fight to escape is what
<v Speaker 1>ultimately saved her life, though not without leaving her with scars,
<v Speaker 1>both visible and invisible, that she will live with forever.
<v Speaker 1>On the other hand, k Baker's story is different. It's
<v Speaker 1>not that she missed the red flags entirely, but her
<v Speaker 1>memory of Matthew, the Matthew she once knew back in
<v Speaker 1>high school, painted a picture of someone far removed from
<v Speaker 1>the man who committed these acts of violence. She was
<v Speaker 1>deceived by her own memory. Kay had such a good
<v Speaker 1>heart that she wanted to see the best in people
<v Speaker 1>even when it wasn't there. That kind of sentiment can
<v Speaker 1>get he killed. She wasn't naive or blind, She was hopeful,
<v Speaker 1>and that hope, paired with her loyalty to someone she
<v Speaker 1>once trusted, made her believe in the possibility of change.
<v Speaker 1>Not everybody can change, and not everybody can be saved.
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't case fault. It was her kindness, her optimism,
<v Speaker 1>her unwavering faith in people that to find who she was.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, all those things are good things. We want
<v Speaker 1>to encourage that in people, right. We want a society
<v Speaker 1>where everyone is kind, is optimistic, and has faith in humanity.
<v Speaker 1>But people like Matthew Terry ruin it because they exist.
<v Speaker 1>Matthew wasn't the person she thought she knew, and he
<v Speaker 1>exploited that, as monsters often do.
<v Speaker 2>You ultimately somebody that he can no longer control convince
<v Speaker 2>or I think that she no longer believed in him.
<v Speaker 2>When he lost that control, he murdered. That goes to
<v Speaker 2>tell you what a just a useless human being that
<v Speaker 2>he is.
<v Speaker 1>We all want to believe in people. We all want
<v Speaker 1>to trust the version of someone we hold in our minds,
<v Speaker 1>the good one. We all want to think positively. But
<v Speaker 1>let's not forget that we live in reality, not a
<v Speaker 1>Disney contrived fiction. It comes down to the fundamental base
<v Speaker 1>code of what makes us who we are, and it's
<v Speaker 1>a tough bounce to get right. Optimism versus pessimism, seeing
<v Speaker 1>the good in people versus fearing the worst. I'll tell
<v Speaker 1>you it's very hard to get right. It's something I
<v Speaker 1>still struggle with every day. I tend to be more pessimistic,
<v Speaker 1>but I can see the value in being optimistic despite
<v Speaker 1>the danger. We all want to keep a version of
<v Speaker 1>the people around us that's shaped by our memories, added
<v Speaker 1>with our own good character, and make that the real
<v Speaker 1>version of the person that is in front of us.
<v Speaker 1>But people like Matthew Terry turn that trust into a weapon,
<v Speaker 1>and they do it seamlessly. It's just about seeing the
<v Speaker 1>red flags. It's about being able to be aware enough
<v Speaker 1>to distance yourself when you spot them. Maybe start protecting
<v Speaker 1>yourself because you're the only one in charge of that.
<v Speaker 1>I guess the why est lesson that can be derived
<v Speaker 1>from something like this is that it's important to listen.
<v Speaker 1>It's important to open up our minds to what could
<v Speaker 1>be other than what we think is. Michelle tried to
<v Speaker 1>warn us, She tried to warn us all, and we
<v Speaker 1>all just ignored her. We're all so locked into our
<v Speaker 1>own belief systems and resistant to change. We just can't
<v Speaker 1>see different points of view sometimes until the worst has happened,
<v Speaker 1>And then we look back and we see the bodies
<v Speaker 1>behind us and wonder if it's maybe time to start
<v Speaker 1>listening to those who keep warning us. Yeah, Cheryl keeps
<v Speaker 1>wanting about the patriarchy. Oh hi, we've reached the end
<v Speaker 1>of the show. So this is where I tell you
<v Speaker 1>to help independent creators like us by heading over to
<v Speaker 1>swordanscail dot com and signing up for plus or don't,
<v Speaker 1>I don't care, I don't know does reverse psychology even work?
<v Speaker 1>Don't get Sordenskaille plus. I forbid you to get Swordan's
<v Speaker 1>Kale plus at swordscale dot com.