Adventures with a True(ish) Crime Show

By Angela Dove

“Could you scream?”

“No.”

“Shout out?”

“No. I already told you. I just sat down.”

The director tapped her chin in thought. “But you cried, right? I mean, we could film you crying? Maybe collapsing onto your husband?”

I watched the match unfold between director and subject. This particular subject, Jacque MacDonald, had the home court advantage. Regardless of all the lights and cameras and sound equipment, this was still Jacque’s home. Jacque’s living room, to be exact. And she wasn’t about to mince words in her own home.

“I most certainly did not collapse,” she said, the London accent of her youth becoming stronger in her anger.

“I sat down. “

The director just didn’t get it. “But you were crying, right?”

Jacque expelled her breath all at once, probably in lieu of shouting. “I had just learned my daughter had been murdered. I was not crying. I was in shock. I sat down.”

The director nodded, her long ponytail bobbing up and down.  “Of course we want to be as truthful as possible—“

“—because it’s a ‘true crime’ show—“ Jacque cut in. I smiled at her.

“Yes,” said the director, unphased. “But what that means is that we present the truth of a situation, not necessarily every little detail.”

I started. Her words sounded exactly like a talk I’d given myself while writing about our family’s story  www.NoRoomForDoubt.com . The murder of Jacque’s daughter (my stepmother) had been the starting bell of a race that lasted for nine years, until Jacque’s efforts finally solved the case.  So much of it was important, but I couldn’t possibly include it all. I had condensed events. I had brought forth key characteristics of detectives and friends while leaving other details behind. But I knew not to change the details of the most gut-wrenching moment in Jacque’s life.

Anyone who spoken to many victims or survivors would understand the sanctity of the Moment. The moment when everything changes. The moment when all the rules are revealed to only be comfortable assumptions. No matter what your storytelling medium, you don’t tamper with the Moment.

Jacque had agreed to do this show because she hoped—as I did—that it could help other families struggling with their own cold cases. Having Jacque reenact her moment was bad enough, but this woman wanted . . . theater. She wanted to tantalize her viewers at Jacque’s expense. It was wrong.

“Let’s take a break,” I said, maneuvering through the cables snaking across Jacque’s carpet.

“I don’t understand this,” Jacque was saying. “I’ve done a lot of these shows, and I always tell the truth. What’s the matter with the truth? I was making tea. My husband returned a call to work. He came out again. He told me the phone call was really about Debi getting killed. I sat down—“

“You were making tea?” The director had let Jacque’s words wash around her while she stood dry on an island of indifference.  “I have an idea! Why don’t we show your husband talking to you, right? And you’re holding the tea pot on a tray, and you spill it—“

Finally, Jacque lost all composure. “I’m British!” she shouted. “The British do not spill their tea!”

The assistant producer (read “gopher”) was a caring soul who obviously understood more than her boss. She was making a bee-line toward Jacque with a glass of cold water. Together we steered Jacque toward the kitchen.

 “You’re right, Jacque,” the assistant said. She had soft curly hair, soft eyes, a soft smile. “We only want to tell your story. The real story.”

 “Has she lost a child?” Jacque fumed glaring toward the living room. “Has she been told her daughter was stabbed to death in her own home?”

I looked toward the director, who was too engrossed in a conversation with her crew to hear the angry grief spilling out of the kitchen. Still high and dry.

“Have some water, Jacque,” I said. She took a shaky sip. “Remember,” I told her. “If you don’t do it, they can’t film you doing it. That’s the biggest truth in the room right now. You’re in control of this situation.”

I didn’t care if the director heard me. I didn’t care if the assistant director was annoyed. What they didn’t understand, but what any survivor could tell them, is that one of the worst components of violent crime is the victim’s feeling of powerlessness. I’d heard Jacque say many times, “When that beast killed my Debi, he took control. But when we found him, I got my control back.” Sure, there were a hundred other emotions with which we all had to contend, but Jacque had the essence of it right there. The truth of the situation, as it were.

Jacque understood my meaning immediately, and we shared a moment apart from any busyness surrounding us. She nodded. Then she turned to the assistant director. “I know what you need, and I’m trying to help you get it,” she said. “I am cooperating, but I will not act in any way other than what I did that night."

I watched warily as the crew filmed Jacque sitting down in her shock and grief. Later, while Jacque was outside, I saw the director have her camera man film Jacque’s tea pot steaming away until its built in whistle screamed into the quiet of the kitchen. She had found her theatrical element at last.

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Angela Dove [link to www.AngelaDove.com] is an award-winning humor columnist and author of the true crime memoir No Room for Doubt: A True Story of the Reverberations of Murder  She has appeared on three true crime shows since the book’s release, and is happy to say that the above incident was unique in its ickiness. 

Living with PTG (Post-Traumatic Gratitude)

By Angela Dove 

      As I began writing a book about my stepmother’s murder, and how her mother solved the case and became one of California’s most recognized advocates, I entered into a world I hardly knew: the world of crime survivors. The inhabitants have experienced the worst that humanity can throw at them and are now living a wide-variety of results. Listening to their stories broke my heart. But in other ways, these folks reaffirmed something I had suspected all along. Many survivors are joyful. They are not dancing in the streets and leaping for joy; instead, they are like the patient who emerges from triple-bypass surgery and looks up into a sky that’s never been so blue. They are living with PTG: Post-Traumatic Gratitude.


      Others walk a very different path. They are angry. Depressed. Some are stuck in the moment of victimhood. In the analogy of our bypass patient, these are the patients who never come out of post-op.


      What makes the difference? How do some survivors achieve PTG? During four years of interviews, survivor’s conferences, and vigils, I’ve noticed some similarities. 


Remembering
      Remembering life B.C. (Before the Crime) is painful. It conjures feelings of loss, of a thwarted future, and often stands in brutal contrast to life in the wake of violence. Because of these feelings, some victims try to lock away the past. That level of denial—of erasing a B.C. life or relationship—takes a tremendous amount of energy. So much energy, in fact, that there’s almost nothing left to carry to victim into his or her future.


      Those survivors living with Post-Traumatic Gratitude have not locked away the past. They confront the pain of remembering, realizing that the joy inherent in those memories can be even stronger. As one woman told me, “Someone stole my child’s future from me, but I decided he couldn’t have my past.” That mother grieved as much as any other, but her past with her daughter was too important not to claim. Listening to this woman tell funny stories about her daughter and laugh—really laugh—was so empowering for me. And I was just a bystander! I could only glimpse the power that remembrance gave this woman. 


Releasing
      Without exception, every victim and survivor I’ve spoken to has nothing good to say about the perpetrator of their particular crime. No surprise there. But the variable between those who have stalled in their healing and those who are headed toward gratitude is the issue of release.


      I won’t use the word forgiveness. Frankly, it’s a term that has all kinds of confusing connotations, from moral to psychological. I have no intention of wading into those waters. But what I have noticed is that it takes a lot of energy to hate someone.


      Take Stan, for example. Stan lost his wife several years ago, and his hatred for her killer was visceral. His days are spent wishing for the perpetrator’s slow and painful death. His nights are marathons of vivid dreams of vengeance. I could not—and would never—tell this grieving husband what he should or should not feel. And I don’t relate this story to indicate any judgment. But Stan’s cycle of hatred leaves no room for anything else in his life—not joy, not peace, and certainly not gratitude.


      On the other hand, a woman named Jenny told me about releasing her hatred for her rapist. “I didn’t do it for him,” she said. “I did it for me.” Jenny realized that her hatred for this man was not harming him, but it had become a major stumbling block for her. “He took what he could from me. I live with that. But he doesn’t get to be a part of my life now.” For Jenny, hating her perpetrator meant taking him through the rest of her life. Releasing her hatred meant she could leave him behind and walk into her own future. 


Reaffirming
      In cases of homicide, many survivors have made a deathbed or graveside promise to their victimized loved one. Mike Reynolds, author of and force behind California’s “Three Strikes” law, promised his daughter that he would stop repeat felons from collecting more victims. My stepmom’s mother, Jacque, stood over Debi’s grave and promised to bring her unknown killer to justice. Both of these parents made promises that were huge, that sprang from love and grief more than from common sense. But every day Mike and Jacque reaffirmed their promises to their daughters, and every day the power of that reaffirmation propelled them forward. Eventually, Mike changed California’s criminal code, and Jacque found her daughter’s killer. 

      In cases where the survivor was the victim of violent crime, the process of reaffirmation is internal. It’s a promise to the self—and often a promise not to lose self identity. Too often, victims who have had their personal power stolen through violence or sexual assault inadvertently continue to lose their power. They live in fear. They isolate themselves from friends or family. They block themselves off from a world they feel has betrayed them. Sadly, these victims have taken over the role of the perpetrator, victimizing themselves day by day.


      On the other hand, those with Post-Traumatic Gratitude have promised not to lose themselves in the moment of the crime. They reaffirm who they are—a husband, a daughter, a friend, a coworker. They reaffirm their inner worth and the importance of their relationships, simultaneously adding value to themselves and their connections to others. They are grateful for the good within them. They feel blessed by the love of those around them, even though many of those people cannot—and hopefully never will—understand what it feels like to be a survivor of violent crime.  

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Angela Dove is an award-winning columnist and the author of the true crime memoir, No Room for Doubt: A True Story of the Reverberations of Murder(Berkley/Penguin 2009). She was most recently seen in the April 26 edition of The National Enquirer, much to her surprise.

"Running on Empty"

By Susan Murphy Milano

I stood on the neighbor's front steps watching as the officers carried out the large black body bags lifting and placing each one into the paddy wagon for transport to the county morgue. In a sigh of pain and relief I exhaled thinking to myself it was finally over.

I prayed my mother was in a peaceful place where anger and violence do not exist . And I hoped my father was rotting someplace in the belly of hell.

I believed that by assisting other women and their children from living in violent households or meeting the same fate as my mother I could erase my own years of childhood trauma and violence. Neatly I packaged my life and placed my feelings in the furthest corner of my mind barely giving them a second thought, always placing the needs of others first. Yet somehow, with each new candle added to the birthday cake, my hope for happiness diminished within my own life.

After 20 years my life's gas tank was on empty. Peace and hope seemed like a far away ship always sailing without me. I was wonderful at giving others what they needed but somehow I was unable to figure out the way do that for me and my own needs.

This past year I had run myself down and fell ill with a deadly flu virus and nearly died. When I awoke to the glaring lights of the hospital emergency room I overheard the doctors say it was a miracle I survived the ordeal. It would be a long two months until I recovered.

With time on my hands I continued to ask myself why I had survived? Surely by now I had more than fulfilled my life's contract. And although I was ready to go home, it was obvious God's plan was for me to stay awhile longer.

Six months later while working on a new book project, unleashing old demons, I realized after all these years I was still punishing myself for not being able to come to the aide of my mother prior to her murder.

Those of us who survive the horrors of family homicide never really get past the guilt and pain associated with the traumatic event. Often we are too proud to seek out professional services from clergy or mental health professionals. Instead, we walk around as if we are carrying 50 pound suitcases in each arm filled with the weight of our deep dark guilt. I have discovered in order move past the pain I must acknowledge it exists and ask God to sprinkle my path with peace and hope.

From the Bible there are many words of wisdom and power. One verse has always held special meaning when I need strength, Psalm 18:6 says:

"In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him into his ears."

Overcoming Fear

by Tanya T. Warrington

One common denominator for all victims of violent crime is the acrid taste of fear that is left behind. We victims and former victims struggle with fears that it might happen again, that we don’t have the strength to carry on with normal living, and that in some way we are responsible for the trauma. 

We wrestle with or work hard to bury, frightening questions. If there is a God who loves me why didn’t He prevent this? If I am a good person why am I suffering such loss? If the other person is guilty why is he receiving such a light penalty? 

Then there are the self-judgments that fear generates.  If I’d only done one thing differently, then this horrible nightmare could have been averted—I am cursed. I should have known this was coming, all the signs were there—I am stupid.  If someone was okay with treating me this way, then there must be something wrong with me—I am defective.

We can try to deny fear and dismiss it. It doesn’t work for any length of time, no matter how many times we tell ourselves that we shouldn’t be afraid.

The trauma happened. It is normal to feel fear after a violent crime has ripped away our sense of security and brought us face to face with evil, with human sin run rampant.

So, what do we do with the fear that we never wanted? How do we process the betrayal(s) that shook us to our core? How do we move on without being crippled by the fear that hangs on to our heels?

To heal the deep wounds left on our heart, mind, soul, and body, we must face our fear. To move on after abuse, murder, kidnapping, rape, mugging, and other violent crimes we must face many fears, one at a time as they surface. 

As an incest survivor, date rape victim, former abused wife, and the parent of children who were sexually assaulted by another, I’ve had piles of fear to overcome. As a Christian, I turn to God for help with the massive task. With God’s help, I’ve learned how to face fears, how to accept them, how to analyze them, and how to take appropriate action in response. 

Here are steps that I take that might help you as you free yourself from that heap of fear that hinders wholeness and peace in your life. The perpetrator’s wrong and unjust actions brought the fears, but you are the one who can deal with your fears and grow in the process. Following are steps that I have found helpful in prevailing over fear:

1. Ask God to help you honestly face your fears.
2. Acknowledge each fear whenever it arises. I am frightened that_______________.
3. Write down the fear in a journal, say it aloud, or talk to a trusted friend about your fear.
4. Explore what the fear is telling you. Pray for wisdom so you can analyze the fear realistically. Are there current dangers that need to be addressed by seeking help from others, by taking precautionary steps, or by trying a new way of doing something? Are there emotions that need to be accepted and processed?
5. Let the fear go. I mentally place the fear in God’s capable hands. God invites us to cast all our anxieties upon Him because He cares for us (1Peter 5:7). I consider fear a heavy burden and I’ve learned that God is willing and able to take care of it.
6. Ask God for the courage to continue doing what is right and good, without letting any other fears stop you. Practice making decisions about how you want to live and then take actions that line up with those desires.

Expect fears to continue to resurface. Healing from trauma is a process, one that takes far longer than we would like. I’ve found that when fears resurface, dealing with them happens quicker and less painfully than the previous time. Progress is made. Healing happens in a deeper layer. My character is shaped. My life becomes more full and rewarding. 

God is an expert at healing and we can trust Him and re-learn to trust ourselves through the healing process.