48 Hours - Afraid of the Dark

Episode Date: March 12, 2017

A kidnapper tried to kill an 8-year-old gir Learn more about your ad choices.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. The attack was always in the back of my head. The scars that I have on my body represent a time in my life when I was scared and left helpless. But they also represent survival.

You may be left with scars, but you can blossom into something powerful. You're a goofy girl. to something powerful. You're a goofy girl. It's really been a lifelong journey of finding who did this to me. The summer of 1990, I just finished the second grade. I just loved life, I loved school. I loved learning. But as far as I can remember, back in my childhood, I just didn't like the dark or sleeping alone. So I found comfort in going to bed with my mom.

We were all that we had was each other. With my mom, we were all that we had was each other. That night, I was very restless, and my mom turned to me and said, you know, you're kicking me, and you're asleep, and I have to work in the morning. Would you mind going into your own room tonight? And I turned, and I said, just because I love you, Mom, I'm going to sleep in my own room tonight. And I turned and I said, just because I love you, mom, I'm going to sleep in my own room tonight. So I left my mother's room, went into mine, and I had a big lamp that was shaped like a light bulb. And I remember clicking it on and it lit the whole room up. That was the brightest lamp ever. And I got some books and just read until I fell asleep.

The next thing I remember was waking up in the arms of a man that I didn't know. He was running with me, carrying me down the sidewalk, and I immediately tried to scream, but he covered my nose and mouth. He had me sitting on his lap as he was driving and held me there. He's trying to calm me down, telling me everything's going to be okay. I'm an undercover police officer. As a child, I wanted to believe him. But the part of me that had just learned about strangers in school. The part of me that was scared of the dark

knew that there was something really wrong here. As we were driving, we passed my grandparents' home. I started to realize that I had actually been kidnapped. I was very afraid of what would happen next. He pulled into the parking lot of my elementary school. He told me to watch the moon, and when the moon changed colors, my mother would be pulling in the parking lot to pick me up. I remember anxiously waiting for those headlights, but they never came.

I think that at that point he was trying to psych himself up for what he really intended to do. I remember him saying, well, your mom's not coming, and starting up the car. And we went just a few blocks away. It was a dead-end gravel road, and he pulled off in an overgrown field. What went through my mind was sheer panic. And then he held a knife to my throat and said, am I scaring you little girl? Am I scaring you? And then he choked me as hard as he could and then he tried to break my neck. I blacked out for a while.

I woke up to him dragging me by my ankles through this field. And he dropped my legs. I heard him walk off, and I heard his car door slam and him drive away. I realized I couldn't scream, and I couldn't figure out why. I had just enough strength to throw my right hand on top of my neck, and that's when I felt this gaping wound. And I looked at my hand, and it was full of blood. I was 8 years old. I was just left to die in a field. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.

It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pit Can once they reached the age of 10 that was still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pit Can. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it,

people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly?

Introducing the best idea yet. A brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala. From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. Many children who are abducted don't live to tell their stories. Jennifer's attacker tried to silence her, but she refused to let him. Jennifer told us she is sharing her story in the hope that she will inspire other women and girls to use their voices. It became light outside.

I remember looking up and seeing tree tops and clouds. I couldn't move my body. I would try so hard to lift my head, but I just couldn't. I had ants crawling all over my body, stinging me. I would come in and out of consciousness. Every time I would come to, I would be in disbelief that I hadn't died yet. Laying there, I could kind of look to the side and through those blades of grass and all the brush-seeked cars. It was like help was right there. And I can't get to it.

I can't scream. I can't lift my head. I can't stand up. But I don't remember feeling scared. I remember feeling at peace with what was about to happen, which was dying. Sometime early Friday morning, eight-year-old Jennifer Shewitt was abducted from her apartment bedroom. On August 10, 1990, I did receive a call from dispatch that there was a possible kidnapping

at the Yorktown Apartments in Dickinson, Texas. Dickinson Police Department at that time was a very, very small agency. As anything new develops, I'll be more than happy to talk with you all about it. We would have had at the time, a total that would have been three patrolmen and myself working. This morning, Jennifer's mother entered the bedroom and found the bedroom window open and her daughter gone.

We decided that it was best that we go ahead and try assemble the fire department and any volunteers that would be willing to come and search some of the fields nearby. It was in the early evening. It was now getting to be dark outside again. The last time that I woke up, I heard children playing, and I felt something hit my foot. These children had been playing a game of tag in the field, and one of them had tripped over my foot,

thinking she had found one of her playmates, and that's how it was found. I remember going unconscious and then waking up to a police officer kneeling down beside me saying, you've been found, you're going to be okay, just please stay with me, please stay with me. And I remember being put into the Life Flight helicopter. Jennifer's condition was grave. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, and quite possibly, we didn't know that,

but we felt that she probably would have been sexually assaulted. As she's airlifted, I'm thinking that we're obviously going to have a murder case here. That's your initial thought. I mean, we're working a murder case. When I first saw Jennifer in the emergency room, I mean, she was a fairly small eight-year-old, very pale, covered with ant bites and scratches on her back.

She couldn't make any sounds because of the injury that she had to her neck. She was alert and awake. She would look at you, and you could see, you know, that she was very fearful. Her family can't be in there with her in this acute situation. We have to stabilize her first. We have to act somewhat like family in their absence.

We try to comfort her and try to reassure her, you know, that we're gonna take care of you. You're in a safe place now. Nobody's gonna hurt you here. I remember being on a stretcher and then putting me into an elevator and I remember them taking the earrings out of my ears before surgery. Jennifer's laceration went through a trachea, fortunately didn't involve any

major vessels. We needed to put a tracheostomy tube in below where we did the repair. We completed her surgery. Her airway is stable. She's not bleeding. So we're very hopeful about her survival. I was on the night shift, came onto the unit, and noticed right away that there was a police guard outside the room. Standing there and looking at Jennifer, this little 8-year-old girl,

in this bed that has suffered this horrendous trauma, and knowing that I had an 8-year-old little girl at home, my heart ached for her. And what on earth was her life gonna be like? How was this gonna affect the rest of her life? The majority of my shift was sitting there at her bedside. Even at night if she was sleeping, I was there, I was in the room with her. She had some trauma to her face and there was some trauma from being sexually assaulted. I was unconscious and didn't know it had happened. I wasn't aware until I was in the hospital.

And really then, like, at 8 years old, you don't really understand what rape means. She just struck me as being my own. And here I was, charged with caring for her. And so I took care of her as if she was my own. I was kind of a hard patient to deal with because I had a lot of male doctors and I was scared of males.

I remember even kicking one of the male doctors in the stomach because I wanted him away from me. My mom and the doctors and nurses there reassured me that I was safe, that there was a police officer right outside of the door. There was a police officer right outside of the door. This man that had hurt me said he was a police officer. In my eyes, who's to say that these doctors could be trusted? Everyone was a suspect in my book. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals.

However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access,

I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.

One of my uncles brought me a little Tinkerbell makeup set. And that's how I had seen myself in the mirror for the first time. I remember opening it up and feeling so ugly. Seeing all the blood vessels in the whites of my eyes, broken from when he tried to strangle me and break my neck. It just didn't look like me. Dickinson is a small community, tree line, real nice. Football is a major thing in Dickinson. This is not something that you would see.

It hit home. I have children close to her age. You tend to take that personal when you see that. It can happen to my age. You tend to take that personal when you see that. It could happen to my kids. So we want, we want to get this guy. An officer canvassing the area had discovered clothing in a ditch a quarter of a mile, maybe less, from the scene. We need to get somebody to get them on the way. We determined that that clothing was that of Jennifer

and that of the suspect. We needed that clothing because we felt that now we have evidence that we can match DNA to someone. I remember having some members of law enforcement having to come in and talk to me, but I would be just terrified. She can write and blink her eyes and so forth, but I don't know how far into it we can go without... Early on with Jennifer,

we knew that we had a survivor that couldn't speak. The challenges were to extract information from her. Now, we're talking about an 8-year-old. It was difficult. It was just so frustrating to me to not be able to say what I wanted to in the way that I wanted to say it. It was mainly me writing notes to my mother, and then she would hand them to the officer outside.

The first night that Jennifer really started giving any details, I was with her, and her mother was asking her the questions. We were asking if she knew the person, what was he wearing, what did he look like. I just remember remembering his name. And so I wrote, he said his name was Dennis. I remember saying that he looked greasy and like he may have had a scar or something on his face. She described the car to a T, the colors, the dent in the side. It tore at me that this little girl was having to sit there and relive this and go over these details.

And it got to the point where I had to leave the room and cry. I could not break down in front of this little girl. I had to be strong for her. And I had to go back in with a strong face and comfort her even more. She was the bravest little girl I'd ever met. I got to Jennifer about four days after she was attacked. I'll never forget Jennifer in that hospital that day and her beautiful blue eyes. When Lois came in, she had these books.

She said we would go through, and for me to really look at the different types of eyes and the different noses and mouths and that together we would come up with a sketch. I couldn't talk, and I'm trying to describe a person through notes. And I'm traumatized, I'm medicated, and the attack just happened four days earlier. But she got me.

Like, she just understood me. I draw like a printer. I just start at the top and go down. First, she gives me the hair, and it's brown hair, and she gives me a hairstyle. Then she picks some really dark eyebrows and eyes. And then she picked a normal nose, nondescript. I had her pick a mustache. And then we got to the lips. And the chin needed to have a lot of stubble. She saw a scar on his left side. I did the sketch in about one hour. I turned it around and when she saw it, she shook her head yes. I was pretty confident that the sketch looked like the person who had taken me. I signed it, dated it, handed it to an officer that was there in the hospital waiting for it.

I felt confident they were going to find him. Jennifer was determined to find her attacker. Even at the age of eight, she understood he needed to be stopped before he could hurt anyone else. Police had never seen that kind of courage and resolve packed into a 45-pound frame. To see more of Jennifer's notes to police, join us on Facebook at 48 Hours. I think I was almost sad to leave the hospital in a way. This place had kind of become a safe haven to me. But I had come leaps and bounds.

I even regained my voice while I was in the hospital. I like to say I haven't shut up since. But going back out into this world where you were just so viciously attacked, like who would want to go back into that? You know, it was scary for me. And then you have to start school. I started school right on time. The rest of my classmates, third grade, and had police

there at the school because the whole community was on edge. No one knew who had done this to me. Right now we just don't have any new information. As time is progressing, the leads are getting colder and colder, and you're losing your resources. It's very frustrating. The case gets cold. As the years passed, the attack was always in the back of my head. I had been so traumatized.

I didn't ever want to really be home alone or at nighttime. I was even more scared of the dark, very fearful of men for some time. Every day growing up for me in the town of Dickinson was like I was on a hunt looking for a suspect. Thinking it could be anyone. This could be our new neighbor. This could be someone at the post office, someone at the grocery store. Is he watching us?

Is he going to come back and finish me off? But I continued on. I graduated high school. I started attending college, and then eventually I was a children's librarian at a local public library, and I loved that job. Jonathan has been there for me through most of my adult journey dealing with my case. So he has been my biggest cheerleader. Over time, my case was handed off so many times. It just became almost unbearable for members of my family to deal with that. So we got to a point where we just really didn't talk about it.

And then I got a phone call that Detective Tim Cromey would be taking over my case, and he wanted to meet with me. I was excited about sitting down with Jennifer for the first time. It didn't go quite the way I thought it was going to go. I was so frustrated. I thought, here we are, 18 years later, what's this guy going to do? I sat there in his cubicle and cried.

I handed her tissue after tissue. She was very much concerned about other people being victims of the person who victimized her. It gave me just a who victimized her. It gave me just a great feeling about her. And I told her, I said, Jennifer, I will do whatever I can do in my power till the end of my career to get you the answers that you need for this case. And that simple sentence changed my life.

I felt like he was as dedicated to the solving of my case as I was. The next phone call that I got was he was bringing Agent Richard Renneson on board. This was the most violent crime I've investigated where the victim survived. It was a unique aspect of having Jennifer there to help with certain aspects of the case that otherwise we had never known. I really wanted to be a part of the solving of my own case. I wanted to help because I was the only living witness. And I wanted to go to trial and see this through to the end. I wanted to be able to face the person that wanted to silence me and show

them that I came out victorious. Often work in cold cases, time is your enemy. People forget, people move away, people die. This was one of the benefits of time in our case was the advances of technology in the DNA field. And then before I knew it, they were submitting evidence that was still in the Galveston County Sheriff's Office evidence room. They felt like the answer might be right there.

We picked out four pieces of evidence. Jennifer's T-shirt, underwear, and the male's underwear and T-shirt. We sent those items off to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia. Both Richard and I knew that this was an 18-year-old case and this was not going to be a case that was going to take priority up at the lab. As time went on and it took so long, my optimism faded. If we didn't get a DNA hit, I wondered if we were ever going to solve this case. It took well over a year to get the results of the DNA test back.

It was 2.30 in the morning. My phone rings, and it's the DNA lab. The DNA examiner told me we got a hit. When I heard the name Dennis Earl Bradford as our offender, my first response was, who? Who is that? We never saw that name in a report, but at the same time, it was a really exciting phone call to say that we got a match and that that person is out there. I immediately called Tim Cromey. I said, who is Dennis Earl Bradford?

Dennis Earl Bradford was convicted in 1997 for kidnapping in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Sexually assaulted a woman that he had met at one of the local bars. Bradford was sent to prison and it was from that sexual assault that his DNA was put into the national database that ultimately matched back to the evidence we submitted. Once we got the name Dennis Bradford, it was a couple days later when Tim and I made the connection back to the notes that Jennifer wrote saying his name was Dennis. Jennifer was 8 years old, on pain medication, couldn't speak, and hand wrote down he said his name was Dennis.

And then all these years later, for that to actually be the fact, at that point, it was monumental that this girl was so accurate. Of course, later we found out how accurate she was on everything. We had a DNA match to Dennis Bradford, and he was living in Arkansas. Since the time that he had been released from prison, it appeared that he was living just a normal lifestyle. We had to find a link to him being in Dickinson

to show that he could have been the one that committed this crime. I contacted the driver's license bureau in Texas, and they were able to get me a photograph from his driver's license that was taken only a few months before the attack on Jennifer. I was floored. Called Tim, almost in a panic state. He was a little excited. Tim, get to your computer. You've got to see this picture, this picture.

It was almost as if Lois Gibson was drawing a sketch based on that driver's license photo. It was that accurate. I've never seen a composite drawing so close to the actual suspect. And then from a young child who'd been through that experience, that's unbelievable. We were able to establish that Dennis Earl Bradford had at least two different addresses in Dickinson. Both places were very close proximity to Jennifer and her mother's apartment. This is the window.

Crazy. And where he lived was right at that water tower. So it was very important that we were able to place him in the area at the time the assault occurred. Go down, meet with the DA's office, review the case. The district attorney authorizes charges for attempted capital murder. Get the arrest warrant. And if convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. We traveled to North Little Rock to meet with officers from North Little Rock

Police Department. They pulled him over on a traffic stop and arrested him on a warrant. When they called me that morning and told me that they really arrested this person, Dennis Earl Bradford, it was the most surreal moment of my life. It meant everything to me. Bradford, this is Richard. Good morning, sir. I'm Richard Branson. How are you doing?

Richard and I got to meet Dennis Earl Bradford for the first time face-to-face. Bradford, this is Tim Cronin. From all outward appearances, he just looked like the guy next door. He lived with his wife, and he had three adult stepsons. Bradford was a welder in Little Rock. We were hoping, most importantly, to get a confession. We didn't want there to be any way this could be beat in court. He told us that he remembered the story and seeing signs back in Dickinson about her being abducted and praying for her.

Do you ever have occasion to come in contact with her? Yes. Tell me about that. No. And the way he said no, it sent chills up my spine. Do you want to talk about it? No. There's a reason why.

You did your homework. And again, that was, to me, that was one of the coldest answers I've ever heard. You're right, we did our homework. He wasn't ready to give up any details of how he knew her. If you're remorseful about this, people need to hear that. There's two sides to every story. He wasn't ready to give up any details of how he knew her. I explained he needed to provide all the details of the attack so Jennifer could have the closure that she needs after all these years. Not a single day goes by where I don't see that bacon.

There is no other side to the story. She was innocent. And I was a sick, deranged, beat up little fuck. It was a long, exhausting interview. She wasn't anybody, I read. I don't remember why I pulled up at those apartments. Bradford told us that he was driving around one night, and he just randomly pulled into a parking lot.

And I walked over to this window. I remember it was open, and I could see it, and then the light was on. I felt like he wanted to confess to everything, but just had a hard time saying it out loud. What do you want? I want you to confess to everything, but just had a hard time saying it out loud. What do you want? I want you to just start talking and tell me everything that you thought, everything that you did, everything that you can remember.

I'm ready for this to be over. I'm sick and tired. I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm sick and tired of looking over my shoulder and being afraid. Okay, forgive me, Mom. I pulled that little girl out of that window and I put her in my car. And she was freaking out and I put her in my car. And she was freaking out. And I told her, please, just don't worry. It'll be all right. I told that little girl that I was a police officer.

And everything would be okay. I pulled off on this little road. And that little girl, It was a little girl. She was so scared. I just lost her. I was like a savage animal. I couldn't approach myself to say it. It's been haunting you I've never known why.

Many, many times, many times I wanted to just end it. I never had the guts. Dennis Earl Bradford told us that shortly after his attack on Jennifer, he had attempted suicide. He was using a shotgun, and just as he pulled the trigger, he made the decision not to take his own life. Blew a hole in my dad's roof. From there, he was transported down to the hospital for an evaluation.

And was put into the hospital in the psychiatric ward, which happened to be the same hospital that Jennifer was still in. That was something we did not know beforehand. Anything to say to Jennifer Schuett, Jennifer? We got the confession, and he filled in a lot of the blanks. And to confirm a lot of what she remembered happened made her feel better about always wanting to remember. I'm not a victim, but instead victorious. I was so overwhelmed at the press conference. And then Detective Crumby and Agent Renison came into the room and hugged me and whispered in my ear,

we told you we'd get him. At the time, that was the single most amazing moment of my life. While Denzel Bradford was in the county jail awaiting trial, I get a phone call in the middle of the night. Tim, I need to talk to you. You need to wake up. I've got some news to give you. I'm headed to the field where I was left back in 1990. I don't really visit there too often anymore. I used to like to go there a lot just to see if it would bring back any more memories.

I just really wanted to be able to remember all the details of the attack so that one day I could go to court and tell my story the way I remembered it. After the arrest, I was preparing for trial. Everyone felt like we had a solid case, and we would go for a life sentence. His attorney said he's going to plead guilty, doesn't want to prolong this anymore. We don't want a jury trial and all that.

Pick a day. We don't want a jury trial and all that. Pick a day. So we were like, wow, how great would it be to pick August 10th, 20 years to the day of the attack and kind of just come full circle and close it out. I remember staying up late, endless nights, trying to perfect my victim impact statement, writing and erasing and writing again and erasing again, just trying to perfect what I wanted to say. I had 19 years worth of things to say to this day don't understand myself.

Dennis Earl Bradford was in the county jail awaiting trial. I get a phone call in the middle of the night that woke me up and said Dennis Earl Bradford had committed suicide and hung himself in his jail cell. All the work that we'd put together to get Jennifer her day in court was just gone. So we had to decide what would be the best way to tell Jennifer. Not knowing if this information was going to be in the news in the morning, Richard and I decided to probably need to call her as soon as possible on the phone and let her know what had happened. It was not a good phone call.

When he was arrested, the first thing that I said after they told me they arrested him was, please don't let him kill himself. I was just crying and screaming on the other end of the phone. She didn't want to believe it. Most I can do is just tell her I was sorry. The only thing that I can describe is devastation. I felt like everything that I had worked so hard for was just ripped away from me in an instant. I sat at Dennis Bradford's grave on August 10, 2010,

20 years to the day that I was attacked. Dennis Bradford, I waited 19 years, 2 months, and 3 days to find out your last name and for you to be caught. I knew your first name. I sat there reading my victim impact statement. I was crying you chose the wrong little 45 pound 8 year old girl to try and murder because for 19 years I've thought of you every single day and helped in searching for you in my heart I knew you were out there

alive either in prison or living a lie and now I know listening to my heart all of these years and never giving up on finding you, I was right. I turned to my husband and I said, I wonder if he's hearing me. And just then, a single fire ant bit me on my leg. And I took that as a sign from God that he heard me loud and clear. I'm a very sentimental person, and I hang on to bonds

that I've formed very tightly. So having people like Sharon and Detective Crumby and Agent Renison as a part of my personal life means a lot to me. To know that they're still there, they're still supporting me, they're not leaving me anytime soon. Just like I'm not leaving them anytime soon. When Jonathan and I found out that we were expecting, we were in complete shock. We just couldn't wait to see what parenthood had in store for us. My daughter Jenna was born at the end of 2012.

Aww, you're the lucky duck! I actually don't even really remember what life was like without her. I don't want to get out right now. Come on, because I've got to go. We wanted to give Jenna a sibling, and I now have a son as well. Jonah.

What you got? A chair? He smiles constantly and laughs and is just such a happy baby. Jenna, no roaring in your brother's face, okay? It's like pinch me. Who would have thought that I'd have not one but two beautiful, healthy children at the end of all of this. They're really my happy ending. Really my happy ending.

Jennifer has become a fierce advocate for other crime survivors. For more of Dennis Earl Bradford's interrogation video, join us online at 48hours.com. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.