Blind Plea - Haunted Land

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Episode one: When John brought his girlfriend Deven to his family property in Calera, Alabama, Deven became the latest in a decades-long line of women to be beaten and broken down on that same land. In December 2017, after a violent evening and years of abuse, Deven shot and killed John. Then, she called 911 to turn herself in.  Resources: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/. If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent  Learn more about criminalized survival https://survivedandpunished.org/  This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to drive social change. To learn more, visit weareevokemedia.com. This series is presented by Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants. Follow host Liz Flock on Twitter @lizflock. For more stories of women and self-defense, check out her book “The Furies” from Harper Books, available for pre-order now. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-furies-elizabeth-flock Interested in bonus content and behind the scenes material? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium right now in the Apple Podcasts app by clicking on our podcast logo and the "subscribe” button. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus and guess what? I've got a podcast. It's called Wiser than Me and each week I get schooled on life by women who are older and yes, Wiser than Me. Older women are this country's biggest untapped natural resource and I want to hear from them. I want to know what they've learned by living 70 or 80 or 85 years. Jane Fonda, Darling Love, Isabella Ande,

and many more. Subscribe and get wise. Wise it in me. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. access to exciting bonus content not only from us but from all the shows across the network. You'll hear exclusive audio that continues to highlight all the ways we can make life suck less. You'd also be helping Lemonada bring you more of your favorite content for just $4.99 a month. Check out a free trial of Lemonada Premium today in the Apple Podcast app by clicking on our podcast logo and then the subscribe button. Lemonada. This show contains violent content and scenes of domestic abuse.

In a small town outside Birmingham, Alabama, sits a plot of overgrown land. It's almost invisible from the road, tucked deep into the forest. Vine snake across the ground, wrapping around trees beside an old broken down trailer. A dark history lies beneath those vines. Forty years ago, a woman shot and kills her abusive husband on this land and now that woman's grandson will die in exactly the same way. So let's go back. Back to the first time tragedy hit this land. It was 1977 and a woman named Kathleen Mitchell, also known as Mama Cat, drove down the driveway

of that property. Her husband was waiting for her, drunk, and angry. Her daughter Sheila tells me the story. Before she could even get out of the car, he had already broken out her windshield and he was throwing things at her and all kinds of stuff like that so she ran into the house and that was when he grabbed her by the net, like choking them. He was choking her and it was just the two of them there. Mama Cat knew she had to do something.

Mama always carried a gun and she was able to get it out of her purse and shoot him and killing. Mama Cat worked with all men at a local plant and she worked the night shift. Her brothers had taught her how to shoot and that day it saved her life. It almost killed her because she had to do that. She went through a really hard time over doing that, but she didn't have any choice. As Sheila tells me the story about her mom over the phone, all I can think about is another woman, Devon Gray. Because decades later, Devon's boyfriend, John Vance, Mama Cat's grandson, brought her to that same property, and Devon had no idea what she was getting herself into. Well, what John was getting them into.

I remember just being covered in blood after every fake outfit. I had blood quite all over me. On the early morning of December 12, 2017, 40 years after Mama Cat killed her husband, all hell broke loose on that same property. Devon says that John beat her for hours. He was drunk, and the similarities to his grandma's story are uncanny. Devon tells me about what she experienced that night. I had blood all reded on my neck, my lips were swollen. I had arms bruised all over me. This wasn't the first time John hit Devon,

but she says John looked different that night, that he had an aura of pure evil, a look in his eyes she had never seen before. He kind of reminded me of the whole, like the way he was just like angry, and then he got to turn on his, and these people are both against staring. Just like Mama Cat, Devon says it was either her or him

that night, that she had to make a choice Now one where's your emergency? I was in clear. I just Me and my births, I'm just fighting and I just shot him and I think he said you shot him I think he said. You shot him? This is Blind Plea, a show about Devon Gray, the trauma we inherit, and who has the right to defend themselves in America. I'm your host, Liz Flock.

host Liz Flock. In some ways, it seems Devon's fate was already sealed when she arrived in Caliria, Alabama. Because when she set foot on the Vance family property in that small town outside Birmingham, she became the latest in a line of women who had come before her, who had been beaten, broken down, and manipulated on that same land,

and who survived by any means necessary. That land served as a pressure cooker with its culture of silence, a history of alcoholism, and abuse, and decades of deep isolation. It all came to a head in 2017, and led Devon to where she is now. Thank you for using Securus. You may start the conversation now.

Hi, what is Devon? Happy birthday. Thank you. Oh my god, you're 30. I know. Prison is not the ideal place to celebrate a birthday, but this year Devon says it was pretty special. The other women in the facility showered her with a birthday banner, cards, and gifts for her big 30. They said really beautiful things about me, and so if it any show know, you know, that even in places like this, you can still find good people and people can see that you're not a bad person. This is Devon's fifth birthday behind bars.

She talks to me from her bunk bed on a prison-issued tablet. That's why it's sometimes hard to hear her. We chat a lot this way. Regularly enough, that Devon even named the automated voice on the prison phone calls. Thank you for using Securus. We call her Martha. Martha, that's a bad to come on.

So I will tell you the good stuff will in a minute. You have one minute left. Yeah, see you. I knew she was going to come on, so I'll call you back and I'll tell you the good stuff. OK? I'm a journalist who covers women who are wrapped up I knew you'd like to come on, so I'll call you back and I'll tell you the good stuff. Okay? I'm a journalist who covers women who are wrapped up in the criminal legal system, often women who are claiming self-defense.

I have been in an abusive relationship myself, so I understand how someone can end up there in a place they never expected to be. I met Devon by phone two and a half years ago, when a lawyer in Alabama connected us. Hey! Hi! Hi, I'm Liz. Thanks for talking with us. Yeah, I'm happy.

One of the first things I noticed about Devon is, she's resilient. She's going to trade school inside prison for auto servicing, because she wants to be a diesel mechanic when she's resilient. She's going to trade school inside prison for auto-servicing because she wants to be a diesel mechanic when she gets out. That way she'll be able to support herself and her daughter. She's determined like that, but also sensitive, a hopeless romantic. She likes listening to songs from Casey Musgraves and Mary J. Bladge, the ones that make you cry. It's a way for her to process her feelings, and she's always writing in her journal about being in love. I hate that I'm like this, but I am so in love with love, like I am a lover and I hate it. That's the thing. But I guess it's just like the hope,

I guess because I've been so deprived of it, that it's like the thing I want the most. If that makes sense, yeah, totally. Devon says she never got the affection she needed from her parents. So when it comes to romantic love, she falls hard and fast. That's how it was with her and John at first. She told me when she first ran away with him, back when she was 19, she had hit rock bottom.

She had been kicked out of college because she was drinking too much. Her mom struggled with alcohol and said a bad example that Devon just couldn't shake. John was her neighbor, he was confident, and she liked that. He was really good at matters like, you know, and, you know, everyone is wanting him around. You know, he was the way that they always wanted him at the party. John was 25, six years older than Devon. They bonded over their difficult childhoods, and they talked about everything. Devon was sweet, and John was tough.

When Devon felt mixed up about what to do with her life, John always had a plan. So how'd you guys get down to Alabama? I know he's originally from there. It was a hot and sticky afternoon in July 2013 and upstate New York. John was on the run and Devon was with him. John had pissed some people off, again, which Devon knew. But she didn't know the whole story.

I didn't really understand that he burned so many bridges with these actions and his anger issues and his violence. John and Devin had already been together for a couple of years. During that time, she said she'd learn that John could go from 0 to 60, that he could get scary and violent in an instant. Not only with her, but with other people, even strangers. They had been living with John's sister, but she kicked them out after John got into a drunken argument

with some people down the street and fired a semi-automatic rifle into the air. The cops came to his sister's house and she told John and Devin they had to go. John had an idea for where they could head next. It was pretty much like we have nowhere else to go. I have family in Alabama. Do you want to come with me?

And I thought he was kidding. And I thought it was a joke. And I was just over it. But I was like, OK, this is not funny. And he's like, I'm not kidding, you know. And so I was a great person. He was like, yeah. Devon says John promised her that Nala Bama,

he'd built her her dream home, that it would be a fresh start from his angry issues and run-ins with the law. John was proposing they go to his childhood home in Caliria, to the property where his grandmother, Mama Cat, killed her husband, though Devon didn't know that yet. All she knew was that John had lived on the property when he was a kid until the age of six when his parents divorced. His mom said his dad became severely abusive, and she fled the property in the middle of

the night with John and his older sister in tow. So at this point, John hadn't seen his dad Henry in over 20 years. He hadn't been back to that property since they left, and Devon didn't know if Henry would welcome her. She's black, and John and his family are white, and it's the south. I didn't know how he was going to treat me. I didn't know if I was going to be accepted. So I was really worried.

Like, hey, don't forget to tell me I was like, I'm a black girl. You know what I mean? But Henry said sure, come on down. And just like that, they were off to Alabama on a greyhound bus. They had only a few bags with them and they left behind everything and everyone Devon knew. The bus ride started off okay. John got Devon her favorite sour cream and cheddar chips and a doctor pepper for the ride. They watched a Melissa McCarthy movie The Heat together on their laptop. John was comforting along the way, checking in on Devon, asking her if she was doing all right. But the ride was 32 hours long, and the closer they got to Alabama, the more distant John

became. He got moody and quiet. because I was just like, what am I doing? I don't. This is not a good idea. This is not smart, you know. But she kept those fears to herself. We all love being out in the sun and getting some vitamin D. But with more sun this time of year, we definitely also need more protection. That's why I love native sunscreen. Native's lightweight sunscreen formula is quick absorbing, ultra-shear, hydrating, and offers broad spectrum SPF-30 protection from UVA and UVB rays. All of their sunscreens are made with a 20% active zinc oxide formula that is dermatologist-tested

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and bring us to where we are today. My next choice, starting this new podcast with Lemonade Media, called Choice Words, where I interview people I admire about the biggest decisions they've made in their lives. Choice words is out now, wherever you get your podcasts. Collier was only a half hour drive from Birmingham, but the long stretches of road bordered by long leaf pines made it feel much farther away. Within hours of arriving at the Vance property,

the promise for fresh start disappeared. I first met with Ashley where they had me and John ended up fighting anyway, so it was kind of crazy actually how that worked out. Devon says John and his dad split a bottle of whiskey and then got into a fight. John was mad that Henry had never been there for him. The land seemed to be a trigger for John. Devon says he took it out on her, that he busted her lip and hit her in the face, leaving her with a knot on the side of her head. he promised. So here we are again. I feel like I've got trips in, but I was already there

so I had to do a deal with it." John had hit Devon before, but he had been so kind to her the last few weeks that she thought things would be different. It was the cycle of their relationship, and it was confusing. The property itself was not what she expected. Creeping kudzu vines covered everything. John's dead Henry lived on the property in a tiny rundown shack. And since Henry had been in the bad car accident years ago, he wasn't doing any upkeep.

The land had taken on a life of its own. It was just so unbelievable. There were trailers and little slats in the middle, like heads and stuff, and we walked around, and we've seen that everything was pretty much run down. And Devon says it looked abandoned, almost like a jungle, with grass as tall as she was, like six feet tall.

The regard dogs chained up in the yard. Years back, Mama Cat's house had burned down in a gasto fire, and there was no room for them in Henry's shack. We ended up going to Walmart and getting a tent. And we went to the tent for like two months. Eventually they did move out of that tent and into a dilapidated camper on the property, which they tried to make livable. We didn't actually have like plumbing like inside, so everything was like, we had a hose, we had a heck of a hose to the trailer.

Straight, like, high in the air style. It was just crazy. Yeah, it was really, like, we roughed it, like, really roughed it. And I remember, like, I cooked outside on a hot plate. I was, I was just like, in like a real barrel. Most of her life, Devon had lived in nice houses, so this was way out of her comfort zone. Still, Devon was accustomed to going with the flow, because as a kid in upstate New York,

she'd moved around a lot. She spent the longest at a grandparents' house on Saratoga Lake. That was the place that felt like home. She remembers swimming with minnows there long after everyone else went inside. This was nothing like that, but John kept telling her it was going to work out. Here's something that I'm going to tell you. I'm going to promise that he was going to build it to house and all that be as self-ported as usual. Here's something you need to know about Devon. She's incredibly hard on herself, especially for ignoring the red flags, for believing it could be different.

But as someone who has experienced abuse myself, I know how hard it is to walk away, especially when you're isolated. Amid all the uncertainty in Alabama for Devon, there was one friendly face. Henry, sister, and John's aunt, Sheila, who you met at the top of that episode. Aunt Sheila is the caretaker of the family. And the property does belong to me. My mom left it to me. She's organized and keeps herself busy. Every time I call her, she's running off

to take care of somebody or something, or to chat with a neighbor. And I have to go get groceries for my brother, and then I've got a bag for my car, so I've got a busy day tomorrow. Aunt Sheila took to Devon immediately. What do you think to Devon immediately. What'd you think of Devon when you first met her?

Oh, I thought she was a slady. Yes, I've always thought that. She was kind of really sad to start with in my first gang, because of course she didn't know any of those. Devon didn't leave the property much because she didn't have a car. So Aunt Sheila sometimes picked her up to run errands. And eventually Devon found her footing.

She spent her days cooking, watching TV, or tidying up the camper. She sometimes brought Henry warm meals since he wasn't doing well health wise. Every now and then, Devon and John would go over to Aunt Sheila's for a holiday or family get together. And when go over to Aunt Sheila's for a holiday or family get together. And when they did, Aunt Sheila noticed something was off.

She finally got to where she was a lot easier with everybody, but to me it was always kind of strange. He never let her get three feet away from him while they were here. I never could understand why he did that, but he was all in it. I never really did get to know John very well. I just, the data I never got to really know him. I really got to know her better than I did him. Since John had grown up in New York with his mom,

Aunt Sheila was absent for most of his life. And now that John was back in Alabama, he was elusive. He drank a lot, and when he wasn't drinking, he was working, always doing odd jobs to make ends meet for him in Devon. When he was home, he sometimes shut guns on the property or rode a tractor around. But he never got too friendly with his dad, Henry, or his aunt Sheila. I mean, I would have loved to get into know him better. Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, both the part he had been in trouble so much was how last. In New York, John had a lot of pending charges for assaulting an inmate while at Saratoga County jail for allegedly stealing $4,000 from two bank accounts. And for that time, he shot a rifle into the air at his sister's place. It's honestly hard to keep track of them all.

So John was a fugitive. He was even on the Saratoga Springs Police Department's most wanted list. And he was paranoid in Alabama about getting caught by the law. Any time he cut his hair, Devon says he would burn the clippings, so there would be no trace and the cops couldn't find him. John's paranoia seeped into their relationship, too.

In Alabama, Devon was no longer Devon, just D. John had renamed them when they arrived. The few people who got to know them in Alabama knew them as their initials, J and D. I remember being a little sketched out because we didn't know anything about him. They had like no social media presence. We didn't know their last names at all.

That's desi. At the time, she was married to Ethan, John's best friend in Alabama. Ethan eventually sold them a trailer so they could move out of the dilapidated camper. Dessie went over to the property once. It was strange. I've never really been on any kind of property like that before. And I just thought they had to have really gotten into something bad to be in this situation, but I never really asked any questions about it.

So in the beginning, Dessie would see Devon every now and again. She was really shy at first. She just seemed kind of uncomfortable all the time. I felt like she was just nervous to be in up. I think that being in this health here in an interracial relationship is not any way to be comfortable. Devon says the real reason she was uncomfortable was because of John and the close tabs he kept on her. She was always worried she might say or do the wrong thing or break one of his many rules, but Dessie didn't notice that. Instead, she thought Devon felt out of place because they were living in Shelby County,

a very white area with a racist history. Just for context, it's the same Shelby County that gutted the Voting Rights Act through a Supreme Court decision in 2013. Devon got there the same year. I mean, I feel like when we weren't in public, she was much calmer. She would get out of her shell.

She would talk to me and she's funny. Desi would become one of Devon's only friends there, if you could even call it that, because Desi was really Jon's friend. Like Aunt Sheila, Desi would take Devon to run errands, but whenever she did, Jon or Jay arranged them. I thought her situation was just like mine. Like when they talked about fighting and stuff, I thought maybe he yelled at her a lot or maybe broke things

in the house because that's what I was used to. I didn't think it was like physical fighting. So it was kind of hard for me to really be like, oh this is a horrible situation because I was in a bad situation, too. So it just felt normal. Like now looking back on my thoughts, not normal at all, but I was 19. Yeah, she was 19, but there was also a culture of abuse in the area. It was common and people lived with it. Summer turned to fall. Devon said she and John had good days, bad days, and very bad days. John's main job was fixing cell phones out of a gas station.

When he got home in the evenings, he and Devon drank together. It always started off fun, but if John didn't make money that day, Devon said it was like a switch flipped and he got angry. They both had a drinking problem and she would almost want me to drink. They both had a drinking problem and she says John took advantage of that. She says it seemed like he always wanted her to be as drunk or more than he was. One night, they got into a fight over something small that had happened back in New York and she says John got

furious. And they're getting like, crap, really hard. And he has kept putting me in the evening. not furious. All my doubts and all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, all my thoughts, in the situation, that there must be something wrong with her. With everything she'd endured, she just wanted to go home, but she was too ashamed. After all the time that he had been, we just not wanting to go back because you know I had a black guy or a half-oos and I just didn't want my family to see me that way.

See me so broken and just, you know, I just couldn't deal with that. Devon did consider leaving him that first year in Alabama. She says when she told John she wanted to leave, he was livid, and they had a horrible fight that he slapped her and threw around the trailer. So she stayed afraid of what would happen if she left. And Devon says John started to keep a closer watch on her, telling her she couldn't leave the trailer without him being present.

He eventually installed surveillance cameras that he kept trained on the property so he could see anyone coming in or out, including Devon. By Christmas 2013, Devon became unexpectedly pregnant. They had always been careful and Devon felt that John intentionally did not take precautions so that they'd have a baby as a way to keep her, a way to tether her to him forever. Devon was worried about bringing a baby into this environment. I can't believe I don't have a life to go on a car, on a friend, without anything. baby into this environment. But once she got pregnant, John stopped hitting her, at least at first. She said she quit drinking alcohol. Things were better.

Around this time, Anchila took Devon to the dentist to finally fix her front tooth. The one she says John had knocked out around six months before. John told Devon to the dentist to finally fix her front tooth. The one she says John had knocked out around six months before. John told Devon to tell Aunt Sheila that she fell in the dark. Actually, what I found is that she had a teeth and something had happened to it. I mean, an artificial tooth and then, well, I never asked her and she never told me. I did wish I had said, well, what happened? But I didn't. I mean, I'm not wanting to ask a lot of questions.

Everybody just amazed that I don't even do that with my kids. If it's something and it's their business, I don't ask questions. I raised them the best I could. And I hope that whatever they do, they make the right decisions about things. There were so many times someone could have intervened,

but they didn't recognize the signs or didn't want to get involved. Maybe they only saw what they wanted to see. Because on the outside, John and Devon looked like a couple making it work. Dessie says they were building a life together. They were very passionate with one another. Like all of their interactions and things.

I mean, he was... I remember thinking, this is such a crazy thought, but I remember thinking that I wish that my husband treated me like he did her. And I'd just get get imagined never thinking that. Now, they only had each other. It's like all they had in the world. Devon's daughter was born in the summer of 2014. Becoming a mother gave her a new purpose.

A photo from the day of birth shows Devon in a hospital gown staring serenely down at her tiny baby. We're not using her name out of respect for her privacy as a minor. While Devon's love of her daughter sustained her for a little while, it wasn't long before the love with John turned scary again. By 2016, when Devon's daughter was two years old, she says the abuse had become a regular occurrence, and it seemed to be escalating.

She says it was physical, sexual, and emotional. Devon was sinking into despair. She could hardly sleep anymore, only three hours a night. About once a week, she'd have a nightmare about the abuse she faced. Devon was barely leaving the house, and when she did go places with gosh, it made me so uncomfortable. This like, it was his human soul. I don't know, like we did everything I did when I was going out with him that I didn't even care if you went anywhere without you. Instead, Devon mostly stayed at home. Her TV and phone were her windows to the outside world.

She used the phone to communicate with John and make doctor's appointments for their daughter. But she says John monitored her calls and texts, and she wasn't allowed to contact anyone from back home. That when she tried to call 911, John got violent. I tried to call the cops, but I did several times. And I've got to hit every time,

and he started turning off my phone and hiding it from me while we saw it. So I didn't have my phone, because he didn't want me to call the cops. So it's not like, you know, I never tried before. It was just something that I never tried again. A few times, she went against John and called her family. She says John found out and changed her number.

So no one could reach her. Devon tried to stand up to John, but there were a lot of things she says she never tried again because she was terrified of the repercussions of what John would do to her. In 2017, she said she only left the house a total of four times. She became a shell of herself. From all my reporting, it's clear she did not leave the relationship because, like many domestic abuse survivors, she could not leave. Devon was under John's course of control, where a perpetrator grooms a victim, creating

trust, and then fear. Psychologists compare it to a state of siege. Devon was a mental hostage. She felt like she had nowhere to go, no one to lean on, and no control over her own life. I'm World Cup Champion Megan Klingenberg. Wondering who you should refer at the FIFA Women's World Cup? I'm hosting a new podcast, my new favorite, Googleista, where I will introduce you to soccer's brightest stars and the causes they are champion.

From the 22-year-old American phenom, speaking out about student athlete mental health, I try to just like approach everything with like you don't know what someone's going through. To the US defender who travels to tournaments with her young son. Am I ever going to be able to run for five litigers straight? Check out my new favorite Fubali Easter, wherever you listen to podcasts. Think about a moment that changed you. A time when you look back and realize, one day I was myself, and the next, I wasn't. I'm Stephanie Whittles-Wax, host of the show last day. On our previous seasons, we've explored deep, complex societal issues, like opioids and suicide and guns.

This season, we are throwing the script out the window and giving you the listeners the microphone. Each week on the new season of last day, I sit down with a new guest to explore happy sad stories of survival, resilience, and transformation. Together, we unpack the lightning bolt moment that changed them fundamentally and forever, and how they learned to move through it. Listen to last day wherever you get your podcasts. As I've gotten to know Devon,

I've spoken to dozens of other women behind bars who defended themselves against their abusers, and have researched hundreds of these kinds of cases. It's common for women to say, like Devon did, that something was different that night, that if they didn't protect themselves, they were going to die. Devon tells me about the night she shot John and how quickly things escalated. It was like a total transformation. It wasn't John anymore. I don't know who that was.

I don't know who that was. It felt like a monster. And he was choking me and I remember. I was like, I look black out. And then he would punch me back away. And I was like, I don't know what else back away. And I'd go to the world, so I don't know how to stop a brandy. And I was just, I was so scared.

I was like, he's gonna kill me, he's gonna kill me, he's gonna kill me. Devon says John told her he was going to finish what he started. She was sure she was going to die. She says he had gotten out his gun and pissed a whips her, that he had shot up the trailer. Meanwhile, their daughter was asleep in the next room. She had grown accustomed to the loud fighting.

Victims of abuse make one calculation all the time. What can I do to stay alive? And so she says, after hours of John beating her when he finally went to lie down she picked up the gun. Now one where wears your emergency. Um, I was in clearer. I just... I...

Me and my birth son were just fighting, and I just shot him. And I think he said... You shot him? What's your name? I'm Devon. Right? E-R-E-Y.

Alright, man. 7, grey, E-R-E-Y. All right, man, stand on line with me, okay? We're gonna get clearer on the line, okay? After Devon called 911, the cops arrived. John's family started to get word of what had happened. Around 3 a.m. on December 12, 2017, Aunt Sheila's phone rang. It was her brother, Henry, John's dad. And he said,

I hate to call you this coming night, but they has shot and killed John. Of course, the police came to kill him. He was asleep. Shortly after that, they brought Henry down to the police station for questioning. Cops were investigating the crime scene now and Devon's daughter was in the hands of child protective services. Meanwhile, Aunt Sheila was piecing together what happened. Did that make you upset with her at all or you felt like you understood from what you thought? Oh, I understood it. Oh, no, no, no. I was none of my family.

I have daughters and a son, and nobody was upset with her once we found out what the whole thing went. And I'm sure she didn't say anything to me about it because of him being my nephew. Aunt Sheila says she understood that Devon was defending herself. Because her mom, Mama Cat, had done the same thing when she killed Sheila's stepdad, 40 years prior. Court records show Mama Cat was charged

with second-degree murder. But Anchila says her mom's charges, they didn't stick. And I mean, that was about one of the shortest trials I've ever seen in my life. It didn't last long at all. So they ruled that she did it in post-defense? Yes, they did. They did. She testified to what happened.

And of course, they wanted some people that knew her to testify and there were several people that did. In fact, I did. I mean, it was just short and sweet and didn't last long at all. Mama Cat got off, but it wasn't that easy for Devon. I'm in Alabama and I feel like it was racing. I'm obviously black. And the fact that I had used to go and his back was turned. Like there were things you really find to come to like, the thing you say,

okay, you're guilty and you've been meant to do this. Devon claims self-defense at a stand-your-ground hearing a year after the shooting. She said she had been severely abused, but the judge denied her claim. In the end, she took a blind plea for manslaughter, in part to avoid a majority white jury at trial. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She was just 25 years old. Blind pleas are rare nationally. They happen mostly in the Midwest and the South. Their

when a person takes a guilty plea without even knowing what sentence they're going to get, which is pretty shocking if you think about it. Even some of the legal experts I spoke with throughout my reporting didn't know much about Blind Please. But that's par for the chorus in Devon's life, because as I got to know the details of her case, it was clear. Her story is about the things we choose not to see. It's about what happens when we ignore our trauma for too long, when generations of pain lead to a point of no return. Next time on Blind Plei, we'll get into exactly what happened the night Devon killed John.

While Devon claims self-defense, the investigator presented a very different narrative of that night, a narrative that came from someone else entirely. Alexis Bernstein, the other woman, John, was dating. She wasn't there the night of the shooting, but she had a lot to say about it. She was shooting the gun and been holed through the ground and everything, and she said she was either going to shoot herself and blame him, or she was going ground and everything, and she said she was either gonna shoot herself and blame him, or she was gonna kill him, and she kept pulling the gun on him,

and he was begging me to come get him, and I just... That's in your feed right now. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at the Hotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. There's more blind plea with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like an interview with John Stadd Henry and Tate from Devons Detective Interview the night of the shooting.

Subscribe now in Apple Podcasts. Blind plea is a production of Lemonada Media. I'm your host, Liz Flock. This episode was produced by Kristen LePore, Shenrika Evans, and Tony Williams. Hannah Boomer-Shine and Rachel Pilgrim are also our producers. Story Editing by Martina Abraham's Allunga. Mixed music and sound design by Andrea Christen Statter

with additional mixing and engineering from Ivan Kuraiv. Naomi Bar is our fact-chicker. Jala Everett is our production intern. Jackie Danziger is our vice president of narrative content. Executive producers are Stephanie Whittles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Cramer, evoke media, Sabrina Mirage-Nayim, and myself Liz Flok.

This series was co-created with evoke media and presented by Margaret Casey Foundation. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow me, Atlas Flock, and for more stories of women and self-defense, check out my book, The Furies, From Harper Books, Available for Preorder Now. Find Lemonada at Lemonada Media across all social platforms.

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