48 Hours - Victim or Abuser: The Interview with Tracey Grissom | My Life of Crime

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

On May, 15th 2012, 27-year-old Hunter Grissom is gunned down at work by his ex-wife, Tracey Grissom. Grissom is then convicted of murdering Hunter and sent to prison in Alabama. In Part 2, 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty calls Tracey Grissom in prison to hear her side of the story leading up to her conviction. Erin also speaks with Tracey's lawyer Warren Freeman, with whom she is writing a book, about his handling of the trial and how he sees Tracey. This episode of the My Life of Crime podcast is an extension of the 48 Hours episode, “The Girl Next Door”.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. It's Erin Moriarty, and we have a special episode for you today from my original podcast, My Life of Crime. I'm taking you inside true crime investigations like no one else, taking on killers and those accused of crimes. Here's an all-new episode of My Life of Crime

that takes you deeper into the girl next door. Follow along as I go beyond the scene of each crime, beyond prison walls, and into the killer's inner thoughts. It's all on this season of My Life of Crime. Your name is Tracy? Yeah. Okay, and you killed your husband? Ex-husband, yes.

Ex-husband. A killer doesn't usually call 911 right after unloading a gun on her victim. But that's exactly what Tracy Grissom did on May 15, 2012. How did you kill him? I shot him. Do you have the gun? I got the gun. What kind of gun do you have?

I couldn't touch it no more. Okay, calm down. I couldn't touch it no more. Tracy claimed self-defense. He had hurt me. He had done a lot of things to me. I didn't want him dead.. I didn't want him dead. I still don't want him dead.

But if Tracy had been abused, why was she charged and two years later in 2014 convicted of murder? Were there important facts about Tracy that the jury didn't know at her trial? I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 Hours, and this is my Life of Crime. This is part two of Victim or Abuser, What Really Happened to Hunter Grissom. We all knew she was capable of doing this. That's Gina Prisuk, Hunter's aunt. Hunter's family always believed that Tracy falsely claimed that Hunter had abused her, and instead, she methodically planned to kill him. She hunted him down.

She hunted him down. Throughout their marriage, Tracy never reported any abuse by Hunter. What's more, at the time of the shooting, Tracy was in a deep financial hole, a hole that the sizable insurance policy on Hunter's life would fix. Thank you for calling at light. This is Pam. May I please have your name? Tracy Grissom. That's a recording of a call that Tracy made to the insurance company the day before she shot Hunter, checking on a policy on Hunter's life. It's Hunter Grissom.

Thank you so much. Can you please verify his date of birth? Tracy had been paying for the policy and was the primary beneficiary. She wanted to make sure the company had her current address. Is there anything else I can do for you today? That's going to be it. And Tracy called the company again after Hunter died. And how can I help you today? Well, I was actually calling because I didn't know what I needed to do.

Hunter passed away May 15th. And I actually am going through a court case right now because it was due to self-defense. And while Tracy told the jury at her trial that she shot her ex-husband because she thought he was about to kill her, two witnesses testified that Hunter was running away. His mother, Melanie Garner, told me she believes Tracy is dangerous. Borderline demonic. I mean, I absolutely believe that she is that troubled. And I just feel like that she is exactly what she was convicted of and that she is a murderer.

And as we investigated Tracy's case and claims, we learned about evidence the jury never heard. Do you believe that Tracy Grissom has told the truth of what happened? I do not. That's Shelly Standridge. She was Hunter's attorney, and she planned to defend Hunter against Tracy's accusations of rape, sodomy, kidnapping, and domestic violence. Those charges, though, were all dropped after Hunter's death. Do you believe if Hunter Grissom had gone on trial for rape that he would have been convicted?

Absolutely not. Do you think Tracy knew that? Probably. Standridge says Hunter told her a very different story about the night of the alleged rape. For one thing, Hunter says that Tracy invited him to the house. So that night, Hunter says that she was depressed and claiming she was going to kill herself. She was saying she wanted their relationship to work.

And Hunter told his lawyer that while the couple did have sex, he said it was consensual and that Tracy had afterwards demanded more financial support. He said that she threatened him, if you don't want the responsibility of these children, I'll make it to where you don't ever get to see them again. Hunter insisted, says his lawyer, that Tracy got that cut on her head not from him but from falling after taking more than her prescribed dose of an anti-anxiety drug it's similar to alcohol where you your balance is impaired your speech is impaired i'll be honest i was skeptical when i heard hunter's explanation because of course that's what you'd expect an abuser to say.

So it kind of comes down to, he said, she said. But what she says is not true. I never found anything independently that verified any of her claims. He told me that he was going to kill me. I was knocked unconscious. Tracy's bloody head wound seen in photos? Was knocked unconscious. Tracy's bloody head wound seen in photos?

Medical records from that night refer only to a superficial wound. That required how many sutures to close? One suture. And pictures that Tracy showed us of deep bruising on her legs? They don't look like the pictures medical personnel took on the night of the alleged rape. Something doesn't add up. Shelly Standridge questions when some of Tracy's photos could have been taken. According to Standridge, one photo appears to have been taken more than three weeks after the alleged rape.

Then why would she cry rape if it didn't occur? I don't know what her motive is, but I will tell you that she told me under oath that she was upset that he had a girlfriend. The jury never heard any of that and still convicted Tracy of murder. In late 2014, Tracy began serving a 25-year prison sentence. But I couldn't forget her. This case has always deeply troubled me. Why would a 30-year-old nurse living with her two children in a beautiful lakeside home in Alabama just throw it all away?

Would a woman really make up a story of abuse? There had to be something more to the story. And as it turns out, there is. Wait a minute, is this Tracy? This is Tracy. All right, so let's get started. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals.

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It's just the best idea yet. I mean, it has been over six years since I've spoken to you, Tracy. Yes, ma'am. I know. How are you holding up? I'm doing a lot better now than I did when I first got in prison. In the summer of 2021, we reached out to Tracy, who is now in Columbiana, Alabama, living in a prison known as the Therapeutic

Education Facility. I mean, it sounds like, I mean, you kind of landed in the five-star version of prison. I mean, yes, ma'am. It's a state-of-the-art facility that specializes in rehabilitation. Tracy lives in a dorm with eight other women and gets therapy and job training. Where I'm at right now, it's more on treatment and like changing thinking patterns and more specific for like mental health. So physically and mentally, I would say I'm doing better now than I have in probably 10 to 11 years. Yet therapy and time haven't changed Tracy's story. She still insists she was the victim, not the aggressor. I will never say that I'm a cold-blooded killer.

I will never say I'm a murderer. That's correct. So what are you? How would you describe it then? So what are you? How would you describe it then? I am a battered and abused woman that had a really, was not in a good mental spot. And that day, I felt it was a life or death situation that he was to kill me, or I had to do what I did. And she sticks to that story, even after I point out that at the time of the shooting, she had not had direct contact with her ex-husband for a year and a half. You weren't being actually physically threatened by him. Right?

I had not been physically threatened by him again. However, the fear was still there. I mean, do you think some of that was in your head? It very well could have been. I mean, because it had happened. So yes, it very well could have been. So if you could go back, what would you do differently? I would have never stopped that day. At times, the conversation with Tracy was awkward and uncomfortable. I'm just wondering why. Why did the prosecution charge you with murder? Why didn't they believe the story that your life was at risk? That I can't answer. I mean, I think the prosecutors felt that you might have exaggerated

some of the abuse, that you created some of the injuries yourself and maybe photographed some injuries that didn't come from that night. What do you say to that? I know that I didn't. I know that what has happened, what I've been through has been horrible. And it is sad that women aren't protected. But as we continue to talk, Tracy told me something new about her background, something I had never heard before. And while it doesn't excuse what Tracy did, it may help explain it. Tracy Grissom says she is a damaged woman and that much of that damage, woman and that much of that damage, she says, occurred long before she met Hunter.

Well, growing up, I really didn't realize that my life wasn't normal. My mom owned nightclubs, and I was in the nightclub more than I was at home, for real. What was the worst thing that you remember? There was a whole lot of violence. Tracy's childhood, she says, was difficult, spent in bars that her mother ran. One of my mom's places was across the river, and they used to make a joke and say that when you go in there, it's like bringing, that you better bring a knife or a gun because there was always fights. And as a child, you know, I saw people getting fights and brawls, and I saw the police beat up people. I mean, I saw a lot of stuff that a child should never see.

Were you sexually abused as a child? I was. I did not really realize that I was. I thought that it was normal. And I, at, you know, 12, 13 years old, I was being touched. And I liked it. And I now know that that, you know, is a natural thing. So you're supposed to, but however, for a 29, 30-year-old man to do that to a child is wrong. Tracy's mother died in 2016.

She's now writing a book about her life with her lawyer, Warren Freeman. Tracy is one of those people that she came when she came to me, I didn't really realize how broken this lady was. I don't know that I really realized how broken she was until I began writing the book and having interviews with her at the prison. She grew up in a bar. Her mother owned a bar. Her mother owned several bars. She told me, she said, if I was going to see my mother, She told me, she said, if I was going to see my mother, I had to be at the bar because that's where she was. She was exposed to sex, to adult situations, to a mother that would get shot drunk, and then Tracy, as a teenager, would have to go take care of her and have to try to get her clothes back on while the mother's swinging at her, and then try to get her home,

fix her something to eat, and put her in the bed, tuck her in like a child. He says that Tracy was 14 when she was sexually abused by a 30-year-old bartender. Do you think because of the way she grew up, she didn't even know how to have a healthy relationship with a man? I would say totally she did not know. She even told me that she didn't realize that this 30-year-old was acting as a predator. She didn't understand. She just thought he loved her. You mean the man who abused her when she was just a teenager, just a child?

That's right. Yes. She said, I didn't realize until I was in prison in counseling that this was not proper behavior. Warren now believes that Tracy's life as a child made it difficult for her to have healthy relationships as an adult. She didn't have any stability in her mind from youth on up to make proper decisions. In hindsight, she's a broken person who did not make good decisions and ultimately made the worst decision of her life by killing a man. And he told me that because of her past, Tracy really may have felt fear when she shot her ex-husband that day. But help me out then, Warren, because I don't know quite what to think of Tracy.

This is a woman who went down. She had to drive down there. I went on that road. She went down there. She went with a gun. She didn't have to go see him. He was running away from her, and she shot him. So it's hard for someone to believe.

This case seems, you know, gray at the best. It's really hard to understand why she would have killed him. It's a subjective thing. What you've got to realize is that somebody whose mind is skewed, somebody who has a skewed view of reality, as she did with him. All he had to do is make a certain face at her, and suddenly she goes into the mode of, I've got to defend myself because of the history. Warren now wishes he had known Tracy's full history at trial, but his biggest regret, he says, is what happened at the very end, right before the case went to the jury. Tracy decided to gamble on the jurors. Rather than allow them to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter that could mean less time in prison, they would only have two options, convict her of murder or acquit her. There would be no middle ground.

She said, if I'm convicted of murder, I lose my children, I lose my nursing license, my life is over. If I'm convicted of manslaughter, I lose my children, I lose my nursing license, my life is over. And I said, and of course I argued it wasn't over. It was going to be, she was going to be treated differently if she has a class B felony, manslaughter, instead of a class A felony, murder. But as we now know, Tracy lost that gamble. Warren says he blames himself. I got inside the prison in the room and I said, I've got to get something off my chest. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't regret.

When the judge wanted to charge the jury with manslaughter, I regret not taking you into a room, I regret not taking you into a room, calling your family in, and getting them to help convince you to let this judge charge the jury with manslaughter. But let's be honest, Warren. I mean, in some ways, and you may not completely agree with me, but she was a little delusional. She really thought the jury would not convict her. She did. I see that so clearly. I saw it clearly then. And I said, I argued with her. I said, but Tracy, we haven't gotten one picture. We haven't gotten one witness in to where the jury can understand what you were going through. We don't have the basis right now for them to find you not guilty. She still believed they would.

If Tracy had been convicted of manslaughter, she might already be out of prison. Instead, she will have to serve at least another seven years before she can apply for parole in 2029. Is it hard sometimes to believe that you're sitting in prison? Um, it is definitely not what I, um, you know, as a little girl wanted out of my life, that's for certain. And my biggest thing is I have gotten a lot of help. There is never just a single victim of a crime. When Tracy took her husband's life, she destroyed his mother Melanie's life too. My son died running, running for his life. Melanie's consolation, Hunter's daughter with Tracy, Anna Grace, now lives with her.

She's 13 years old. Tracy's oldest child, her son, James Michael, from her first marriage, is in his 20s and has had his own brush with the law as a teenager. He's now an adult with three children of his own, which means that Tracy, at age 40, is now a grandmother. Do you get to see your kids at all? I do not get to see my daughter at all. No contact order was placed after I came to prison. How old is she now, Tracy? She's 12.

And you have not spoken to her since you went to prison? I have gotten to write letters, but I haven't spoken to her. Is that the hardest part for you? Absolutely. What do you write her? What do you tell her? I've wrote her and told her different things about cheerleading and gymnastics and beauty walks and just I send her color pages, Christmas cards, things that I make just so that she knows that I love her and that none of this was ever her fault. Do you think that you'll be able to see her before you get out? I'm not expecting that. By the time Tracy is eligible for parole, her daughter will be 20 years old. I know that I can't change what has happened. I can only move forward. So my

biggest thing every day, I try to get up and help some other women that may not be as far along on their journey as I am to heal. You know, they say hurt people hurt people, but heal people help heal people. So every day I just try to get up and do the best that I can. I really appreciate you talking to me. Yes, ma'am. All right. I don't think we will ever really know the full story of why Tracy killed Hunter Grissom. Was he the abuser she says he was? Or was Hunter the victim of a woman who says she spiraled out of control after a childhood of abuse and neglect. And you have to wonder, could this tragedy have been avoided? Warren Freeman believes it could. She needed some severe mental, a family member should have grabbed her and put her

into some kind of counseling that would have helped her deal and cope with her fears, whether they were real or only real in her mind. That's incredibly sad when you think about it. So, I mean, is it possible because she did not get counseling because people didn't recognize that her family or therapist didn't recognize how damaged she was, that she ended up killing a man who never intended to hurt her. And she's now in prison for the rest of her, for a large portion of her life. portion of her life, and he's dead. You have just, in one sentence, stated what I believe. That summarizes right there what Tracy Grissom was about. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 Hours, and that's my life of crime. This podcast series is developed by 48 Hours in partnership with CBS News Radio.

Judy Teigart is 48 Hours executive producer. Jonathan Clark is CBS News Radio executive producer. Production and editing for this season of My Life of Crime by Alan Pang. This episode was also produced by Chris Young-Ritson of 48 Hours. Craig Swagler is vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio. And finally, a thank you to all of you, our listeners. We owe it all to you, the millions of 48 Hours fans. Don't forget to join me online.

I'm at EF Moriarty on Twitter, and we're at 48 Hours on Twitter, Facebook, and... 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. 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 harbored 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 Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. 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

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