48 Hours - Katrina Brownlee: The Good Cop

Episode Date: February 27, 2022

Her ex-fiancé — an officer with a badge — nearly killed her. She says police failed to protect her, so she got her own badge. "CBS Saturday Morning" co-host Michelle Miller reports for "48 Hours."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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ConstantContact.ca When I was in Vice as an undercover, I spent approximately 18 months walking the streets of Queens doing prostitution. The only difference was that I was working undercover and this was their actual life. But we had a lot of similar stories. To hear their stories and not able to talk to them hear their stories and not able to talk to them about my story and how I survived, it was heartbreaking a lot of the times. My name is Katrina Cook Brownlee, and when I was 22 years old, I lived with my ex-fiancee in a house of horror. I don't remember not having a black eye, whether it been the right one, the left one. It was a busted lid.

It was always something. That's why shades became a signature for me. I called the police on him several times. He was a New York City correction officer. And every time he would flash that badge, and every time he flashed that badge, they would walk away. That badge was much more important than my life. She got to the point where she feared for her safety and the safety of her kids. And that's when she decided no more. But when the decision was made to leave,

the risk factor for Katrina went through the roof. My name is Carrie Herzog. In January of 1993, I was an assistant district attorney. I don't think she in any way could have foreseen what was going to happen to her when she came through that door. He opened the door, and he just had like a weird look on his face. It was strange. And he pointed a gun to me and said,

This is the day you die, bitch. And he shot me in my stomach and then he shot me again and... He emptied the gun after the first five, reloaded and proceeded to shoot her again five more times. Each time he would say to Katrina, are you ready to die, Katrina?

Bang. Is this the day you're going to die, Katrina? Bang. You know you deserve this, Katrina. Bang. This was a deserve this, Katrina. Bang. This was a man on a mission, and he was armed and deadly. This could have easily been a homicide, but because of Katrina's will to live and will to survive, it wasn't.

God had a whole different plan for me. My story starts from a very dark place and it becomes a story of grace, a story of love, and a story of hope. Why did you want to become a cop? I wanted to become a good cop. There's a difference? Yeah. A good cop has empathy. A good cop cares about people that they have to protect and have to serve. I was a great cop. 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. 8-Hour's NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. 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 in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. This is the photograph that says suffering to me. Assistant DA Carrie Herzog will never forget opening the case file. This shows a path of blood through the living room and leading into the adjacent room. It literally took my breath away. Carrie rushed to the intensive care unit at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital on Long Island. As soon as she learned, the victim was still alive. There was a horror show unfolding right before my eyes. The first thing that came to my head is how did this woman even survive? In the afternoon of January 9th, 1993, a car came screeching up to Brookhaven's emergency room entrance.

The driver hurriedly put a woman in a wheelchair and pushed her in the door, then sped off. That woman was Katrina Cook Brownlee. Barely conscious and riddled with bullets, the 22-year-old mother of two somehow managed to tell authorities who did this to her and where he lived. That's the house. That's the house right there. Lead detective Raymond Blasco raced to the house where a man calmly opened the door and said, I was expecting you. It was Katrina's ex-fiancee, Alex Ervin. I proceeded to arrest him at that point. The crime scene indicated a violent, brutal attack, and that the victim during it was moving around from room to room,

trying to get away during the attack. The floor of the bathroom, there's a lot of blood on everything in the bathroom. It shows extensive bleeding because of the blood loss. I did not believe she would survive. Neither did the young assistant DA. Carrie took a dying declaration from Katrina at the hospital to use as evidence for a grand jury. Her voice was just above a whisper. Each breath took a certain amount of labor on her part, but she was able to do what we needed to have her do. I didn't think I'd ever see her again.

But Carrie didn't know just who she was dealing with. Katrina had been beating the odds most of her life. Right there, that was my bedroom, right there. Katrina was a struggling 18-year-old single mom living in the Brevoort Projects in Brooklyn when she met the man she thought would get her the house with a white picket fence she'd always dreamed of. A correction officer on New York's notorious Rikers Island.

It was Alex Irvin. So when I get into this relationship with this person, it's a way out. It's a way out. I was in survival mode. And he had a car, wasn't used to riding around in a fancy car. He was a correction officer.

He had a job. He had a career officer. He had a job. He had a great career. A gun. So to me, it was like, okay, my man got a gun. He got a good job. I'm from the projects, and look at me. You thought you'd escaped. Correct.

Right. That's what I'm thinking. Like, I'm winning. When actually I was losing. like I'm winning when actually I was losing. Katrina says he showed his violent temper almost immediately. That's where it began, yeah, out in those streets. Yeah.

He would beat you in the street? Oh, yeah. Katrina knew she should end it, but says her grandmother, the only adult in her life she trusted convinced her to stay my grandmother said to me you know this man has a job and he can provide for you and you have a daughter and he's willing to take on your daughter and to take care of you and i think that this is something you should try to consider so when your grandmother tells you that, then you think, well, maybe, you know what, maybe I should do this. This is knowing that he had physically assaulted you. Yeah. How do you see that now? It was the worst advice that I could have ever gotten.

that I could have ever gotten. They soon had a baby together, a girl, Katrina's second daughter. But Katrina says it didn't stop the beatings. What would spark his anger? Maybe it was just a bad day at Rikers Island. Maybe I didn't want to have sex with him. Maybe the baby was crying. Maybe I had on something he didn't like to have sex with him. Maybe the baby was crying. Maybe I had on something he didn't like to see me in.

He was that abusive. Yeah, he was that abusive. Katrina says she called 911 several times. Every time that I called the police on him, they either would come and tell us to work it out, or he would have a separate conversation either outside or in the room with them, and they would walk away. She called it the blue wall of silence. The minute they saw his badge, she says, they left. After a while, Katrina says she stopped calling. I had no respect for cops. I had no respect for them at all.

In 1992, Alex Ervin moved Katrina and the two girls from Brooklyn to a small house in Medford, Long Island. But she says the abuse continued and only got worse. Finally, after five years of getting beaten black and blue, Katrina said, enough. I was pregnant and I said to myself, I'm not bringing another child into this toxic, violent relationship with this man. And that I am going to save my money, get some strength from somewhere, somehow, and get out of this relationship. And that's what I did.

Katrina and her daughters moved to a local motel, but after a month, she ran out of money. Desperate, she called Alex Ervin. Katrina says he was like a different person and even offered to help her get back on her feet. in person and even offered to help her get back on her feet. We talked and were friendly with one another, something that I had never experienced with him ever. You were hopeful. Yeah, and I didn't think he was clever enough to like try to set me up. On January 9th, Katrina says she walked straight into a trap. She left her older daughter with a neighbor and went with her younger daughter to Irvin's house. This is what she told us happened next.

A warning, you may find it disturbing. He opened the door and he just had like a weird look on his face. It was strange. I went to place my youngest daughter in her bed because she was asleep. And as soon as I came out, he shot me in my stomach. And then he shot me again. I fell back on our couch and I looked down and my stomach had flattened. And I wasn't, like, bleeding. And I said to him, I'm like, why am I not bleeding? And I remember him saying, shut up.

And I remember trying to get up and crawl, and he shot me in my arm here. I remember picking up the phone and trying to call 911. The phone lines were cut. You're in the living room. They're crawling on the floor like a dog. I remember I looked up to him and he took his foot

and he kicked me in my face. This man tortured me. He tortured me. He tortured me. this was an angry angry man alex irvin didn't just want katrina dead says carrie herzog he wanted her to suffer you can almost hear the defendant saying, it ain't over till I say it's over. He was mocking her as he was firing on her. Is this the bullet that's going to do it, Katrina? And he was in no hurry, says Katrina. And he was in no hurry, says Katrina.

When she could no longer crawl, he put her in the bed and covered her gunshot wounds with Band-Aids. At one point, he carried her to the bathroom, leaving behind a bloodstained blueprint of the attack. This didn't happen like within like 20 minutes or 30. This was like a long period of time that he's torturing me and shooting me. Over the course of an hour and a half, the correction officer emptied his service revolver two times at the pregnant mother of two. And ultimately, he shot me ten times. Alex Ervin had planned for everything, says Katrina.

The locked doors and windows, the cut phone line, everything but a knock on the door. As Katrina lay bleeding on the floor, there was an unexpected visit by a family friend of Katrina's fiancé. And upon entering the home, he looked at something which can only be described as something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. According to the friend's statement to police, Alex Irvin told him he had shot Katrina and then he flipped out. Irvin then led his young friend, only 20 at the time, to the bathroom. Katrina was lying face down on the bathroom floor. Panicked, the young man picked her up and carried her to the car. Irvin helped him put Katrina in the back seat.

The two men headed to the hospital with the friend driving. The entire way, Katrina was in and out of consciousness, and he was begging her to hold on that they were close to getting help don't go katrina don't go it was the young man who put katrina in the wheelchair that day her wounds still covered with band-aids if he hadn't come by that house i wouldn't be talking to you i would not be talking to you katrina was rushed into surgery as soon as she got to the hospital after the attack. Multiple operations followed in the days ahead. But doctors were unable to remove six of the bullets that had entered her body, says Carrie.

The placement removal could have been more dangerous to her than leaving the bullets in place. After days of drifting in and out of consciousness, Katrina finally woke up. The first thing I wanted to know, where was my baby that I was having? Where were my children? That was the first thing I said. There she was, having been brutalized, and her first concern was for her children. It made me want to cry. It makes me want to cry right now. Katrina was told her two daughters were safe and staying with a relative. Sadly, Katrina says, the baby she was carrying, a boy, Sadly, Katrina says, the baby she was carrying, a boy, didn't make it. Most of the injuries were concentrated between her chest and her pelvis.

And it became evident that future children were not going to be in the cards for Katrina. That wasn't all, says Carrie. She was very limited in her mobility. There were concerns that she might not be able to walk again. Katrina remembers the day the doctor delivered the grim news. I said, when you say that and I'm not going to walk again and never have a normal life, like, what does that mean? And he said, you know you you're gonna be confined to a wheelchair and you'll have people to have to take care of you and then I said

to him I don't have anybody to take care of me I'm homeless I don't I don't have a place to live I said I didn't have a place to live before I came here and you're thinking what am I gonna do I said I didn't have a place to live before I came here. And you're thinking, what am I going to do? Was it fear, desperation, at your wit's end, or all of that wrapped up into one? I mean, now I'm really all alone. I really am rock bottom. I'm at the lowest place that I think a human being can be at at that point. Your son is murdered. Can't take care of your children. You have nowhere to live. You have no family. It doesn't get no worse than that.

Alex Irvin's mother let Katrina move into her house in Brooklyn, unoccupied at the time. Katrina had round-the-clock care and daily sessions with a speech and physical therapist. But deeply depressed, she refused to work at her therapy. Katrina fell into a hole that was so deep and so wide that she couldn't see bottom and she couldn't see side to side. Then one day, her physical therapist gave her hope that she would fully recover. He said, I believe something tells

me that you're going to walk again. And I don't know what it was that day gave me the will, gave me the hope that it would be done. And I started from the wheelchair, then I went to the walker, and then I went to a cane, and then I started to walk. So that was a process. Katrina devoted her entire being to showing the doctors she could get better. So what were the things they said you couldn't do? I wasn't going to walk again. I wasn't going to have a normal life again. So you went, check.

Right, it was like, check, check, check, check. Check, check, check. She also checked off another box, self-esteem. I started to believe in myself. I started to build up who I was as a person. But the fates weren't done with Katrina Cook Brownlee. She was about to be tested yet again. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.

It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. 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 exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the 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. There were many stops along the way that could have derailed Katrina Cook Brownlee's journey out of darkness. Katrina says that getting thrown out of Alex Irvin's mother's house in Brooklyn while still recovering was one of them.

She asked me to write a letter stating that I shot myself 10 times so that her son did not go to jail. When Katrina refused, she says the mother booted her to the street. I became even more homeless. I don't know how much homeless you could be, but then I really became homeless. I am standing in front of a shelter where I used to live. Katrina, who by then had her two girls back, ended up in this homeless shelter on the Lower East Side of New York. Rats were there. Roaches was there. It was really, really bad here. Really bad. What is going through your head as you were looking at your two daughters? I'm in survival mode.

Everything for me at this point is survival. Stay alive. Just stay alive. Protect my girls. Protect my girls because I felt like I had already failed. They didn't choose him. I chose him, you know. Katrina says the shelter was so filthy,

she wouldn't use the bathroom. I remember putting my youngest daughter in the sink in McDonald's to bathe her, and me, as a grown woman, having to wash up at a sink. While Katrina and her girls were struggling to survive, Kerry Herzog was methodically building a strong case against Alex Ervin. I was going to do everything in my power to bring justice to Katrina.

I fought for her tooth and nail. bring justice to Katrina. I fought for her tooth and nail. But Katrina, who had been cooperating with the prosecution, started backing away. Kerry discovered that Alex Ervin, against court orders, had been calling and threatening Katrina from jail. I wanted to rain down on him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. The arrogance for him to be having this conversation with her from inside the jail was outrageous. He needs to pay. But then the defense presented this letter to the judge, purportedly written by Katrina herself. I, Katrina Cook, the victim in this case, has decided that I don't want to press charges due to duress at the time of my accident. This is a woman who had been shot 10 times, and here she's portraying it as an accident. And then the icing on the cake,

if I am subpoenaed to court, I will testify on the defendant's behalf. I was horrified, but I wasn't necessarily surprised. Katrina had already been placed in the position of nearly seeing her life ended. If she showed any cooperation with me or the court, it could be worse for her. Years later, Katrina would tell Carrie she did not write that letter. But at the time, Carrie was convinced she had. She got Katrina on the phone. She said, I'm not coming in. I'm not going to talk about it. She said, I'm not coming in.

I'm not going to talk about it. In fact, I'm going to disappear, and you're never going to find me. Rage was starting to build up inside of me. I let out this bellow and said, Katrina, I will hunt you down like a dog if I have to. And then she hung up on me. Despite issuing a subpoena, Carrie didn't expect Katrina to appear in court. But even without her star witness, Carrie believed she would win a conviction.

In April 1994, one year and three months after the attack, jury selection began. They were on day four when suddenly the courtroom door flew open. I turn around and I see her. She's in a brightly colored dress and her presence that day actually made me gasp out loud. I never, ever expected her to appear, but there she was. I had decided that I'm going to walk in this courtroom and whatever's going to happen is going to happen. I didn't even look at him. I wasn't giving him that power, because at that point I had got back my power and got back my control, so I wasn't even going to look at him.

He didn't even matter to me. I think that the defendant saw the whites of her eyes that day and knew that the game was over and she was going to do whatever she needed to do to take him down. She was back. She was back with a vengeance. Soon after, Alex Irvin pled guilty to all charges, attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree, and criminal use of a firearm. There would be no trial.

His sentence was now in the hands of the judge. I was very angry that he took the plea. She was more angry, I think, than I was. She lost her mind. I was calming her down because I told her, I said, I've been through this already. Ain't nothing going to happen to him. He got that shield. There's nothing going to happen to him. Carrie made an impassioned plea to the judge to give Katrina's abuser a minimum of 20 years behind bars.

But the judge did not heed Carrie's pleas. He gave Alex Irvin the lightest sentence possible, five to 15 years. After hearing that, it was almost a blind fury that took over me. I gathered up my belongings and returned to my office, and I kicked my garbage can from one end of the office to the other. And I actually kept that garbage can for the rest of my career, with this huge dent in its side. Carrie couldn't deliver the sentence they both wanted,

but she did deliver something perhaps even more important. Nobody ever cared enough to fight for me. She fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself. She gave me hope when I didn't have hope for myself. I'm grateful to her. What do you think of the prison sentence that Alex Irvin received? Go inside the case at 48hours.com. With her ex-fiancé and would-be killer in prison, Katrina Cook Brownlee focused on her future, a future that included a job at a very unlikely place, the New York City Police Department. So the criminal justice system failed you. They failed me. And then you go and enter

the criminal justice system. Yeah, that was logical for you. Yeah, I was like, nope, I'm doing it. You could have knocked me over with a feather. for you. Yeah, I was like, nope, I'm doing it. You could have knocked me over with a feather. No one was more surprised than Katrina's former advocate and now friend, Carrie Herzog. Katrina and I actually talked about why she would join the police department. And one of the things she mentioned that, you know, the best way to change a system is from the inside out. A system that Katrina says repeatedly turned its back on her when she'd call 911 after being beaten in the years before she was shot. Katrina wanted to become what she says she needed all those years ago, a good cop. Why not?

Why wouldn't I want to help protect and serve? Just because I didn't receive it, it doesn't mean that I shouldn't want to help others. others. In July 2001, eight and a half years after her brutal attack, Katrina was one of 1,600 new recruits sworn in at the NYPD's Police Academy. They would go on to be known as the 9-11 class, when just two months into training, Katrina and her fellow police cadets became first responders on September 11th. That was like one of the times where I was like, maybe I don't think I can do this. I pushed through it because the other people that was in the academy also, you know, we all was feeling the same. And I think we just basically was going off of each other's strength. We all was feeling the same, and I think we just basically was going off at each other's strength.

As Katrina started a new life within the criminal justice system, Alex Ervin, the correction officer turned convict, was released from prison after serving 10 years. Carrie recalls Katrina's reaction. It was almost a sigh of resignation when the time finally came up. I was at the beginning of my career, and I wanted to really just put the energy into that and not into him coming out. From the start, Katrina sought out a tough assignment, going undercover in Brooklyn and Queens, even adopting this cigar-smoking persona to catch drug dealers. Anything that entailed undercover?

I didn't. Anything? Anything. So it put you in some dangerous situation. Oh, absolutely. I asked myself, why would someone who's been through what Katrina has been through put herself into that situation? And then I think, what can anyone do to scare her at this stage of her life? She was right at death's door and came through.

Right now we are on a strip that I used to work when I was in vice doing undercover work. And this was kind of like home to me. Many a days, many a nights. Though the mission was to arrest pimps and those soliciting prostitution, Katrina felt a connection to the women she encountered. Being out there in the streets, I realized that each and every one of these young ladies were me in some form or fashion. It allowed me to realize how it was important for me to do my work to the best of my ability while I was out there. After five hard years working undercover on the streets, Katrina took to the streets again as a community affairs officer. I just felt that I had so much that I could give back being a police officer. I just felt that I had so much that I could give back being a police officer.

Despite being the good cop she had always wanted to be, Katrina worried that the secret of her past would hurt her career. So you're on your dream job. You're doing a great job. And yet you're living with always the fear of being discovered. Correct. Your past. My past. Coming back to haunt you. Yeah. Every single day I went to work, I always thought that. You never shared the secret. Nope. It was painful not to be able to. Painful because Katrina believes that the trauma she suffered would have made some at the NYPD question if she was fit to serve. I don't want her on this job.

She's a domestic violence. She may go off and kill somebody. She might not be mentally stable. Though still in fear of being outed, Katrina forged ahead, becoming a detective first grade, the NYPD's highest investigative rank. It wasn't many women that were first grade detectives. No one handed anything to Katrina. What Katrina has done, she has earned. It's still amazing to me now to think about

the progress that she made. And not just progress, success. She and I have talked about it that success is the best revenge. And Katrina wasn't done yet. 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 Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have urged it. 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 Pitcairn. 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 Pitink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Never, ever, ever, ever give up on yourself. I don't care who's against you.

Believe in yourself. Katrina Cook Brownlee had spent a lifetime defying the odds, climbing out of poverty, surviving a near-fatal attack, walking after believing she would never walk again. And in the final years of her NYPD career, she would buck the odds once again. When you were growing up in Brooklyn, did you ever expect you would be working at the mayor's mansion? No, never. Not even remotely close. In 2014, Katrina became one of the few Black women in NYPD history assigned to protect a New York City mayor

when she was chosen to serve on Mayor Bill de Blasio's advanced security detail. You're just one step ahead. I'm just one step ahead. If I'm walking into a ditch, he's going to follow me into that ditch, right? If I'm walking into the sunset, he coming in that sunset. In 2021, after 20 years on the force, Katrina retired from the NYPD. In her last meeting with the mayor, she finally opened up about something she had been hiding for decades, her past. And I said, well, Mr. Mayor, I wrote a book.

And he said, well, what is the book about? And I said, well, Mr. Mayor, I got shot 10 times. And he took a deep breath. And he was like, but you never said anything. And I said, I wasn't supposed to. She was carrying around a secret, and now she has been unburdened. I think people looking at you would never have an inkling that you had lived the life you lived. I often wonder and ask myself that.

Do I look like this has happened to me? You know, and I have scars, right? So for a long time, the scars used to bother me. So I put tattoos on my stomach so that when I looked in the mirror when I'm getting dressed, I didn't see it. If I may be so bold to ask, what are your tattoos? Roses. Just a bunch of roses and flowers. Because that's what I felt like.

That's what I became. because that's what I feel like that's what I became. Katrina has also found a way to let go of the emotional scars. In spite of everything that has happened to me, Ryan, I forgive. I forgive. You forgave your assailant, your abuser? Yeah.

I had to. I had to. I had to forgive him. So I can get back my control. So I can get back my power. And so that I can have a peace within myself. There's no peace when you harbor an anger, when you're mad. There's no peace in that. You remember Katrina? When she was young, yes, I remember her.

We went back with Katrina to the projects where she had grown up. I remember when you was growing up with your grandmother. She's moved away, but not so far that she has forgotten all the other Katrinas who are now where she once was. What's next for you? Just to tell my story and to continue to work on my organization with my girls, young ladies of our future. Katrina's organization has been mentoring young ladies for the past 10 years. You don't want any other girl or woman to ever, ever, ever have to go through 5% of what I went through.

If you build and you teach and give young people these tools, you save them every single time. Oh, you know I'm checking report cards. She has that helping gene in her. This is what I have to give to these girls is love. She is offering help that surpasses what she had. How does the Katrina sitting here today differ from that 22-year-old Katrina? Oh wow. The 22-year-old Katrina was lost, broken, forgotten, violated, at the lowest point that a person can be. And now today, I feel like I am a beautiful black queen that fought the fight.

Yeah. A college student, gunned down. Basically almost was like execution type style. Police couldn't find her phone, but they found her Apple Watch. What did the watch tell you? Would clues on the watch lead to the killer? 48 Hours, Saturday on CBS. 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.