Blind Plea - The Other Woman

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Episode 5: Deven wasn’t the only woman John was dating. He had another girlfriend, too: Alexis. Alexis’ version of events became critically important to Deven’s criminal case – and it was the one the police were more interested in believing.  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. 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. Post of the hit podcast, Dine for Sex, a show I made about my best friend Molly's last month of life. On my new show, Near Death, I'm joined by Reverend Peggy, a chaplain with decades of experience sitting at the bedside of people at the end of their lives. Together, we'll share Peggy's stories and the wisdom she's gained from those moments.

We'll celebrate all parts of life and help you be a little less afraid of whatever comes next. Near death is out now wherever you get your podcasts. Lemonado This show contains violent content and scenes of domestic and sexual abuse. It's December 13th, 2017. The day after John died. Collier PD have brought Alexis Bernstein back to the police station for a follow-up interview. The first time police talked to her was the day before. That's when investigators revealed John's death made interview.

She was so distraught they had to cut it short. Now, she's back in the interrogation room with investigator Mike Melhoff. Now, you came back in, you said you thought about some more stuff after you went home yesterday? Well, the thing is, like, I don't know. I feel like part of me was in shock that he did it, part of her, that she, like, it had let's study the eyes, that he, that I don't even know. I feel like, obviously, it is a really hard thing to, um, process. By this time, word had spread across Calira about the shooting, and Alexis's phone was blowing up.

And everybody talking to me and, you know, asking me like what happened and all this stuff, because I mean, all of his friends, everybody, my really shaky, sorry. don't know, you're fine. The night after learning John was dead, Alexis didn't want to be alone. She lived with her mom, Darla Damterant, and together they sprawled across Alexis's bed, trying to make sense of the tragedy.

They did what anyone would do in a time of uncertainty in the modern era. They googled for answers. There were just a few short articles online, all without much info. One published on al.com read, women charged with shooting boyfriend dead early Tuesday. Alexis told the investigator that as they read, her mom had even more questions. She had pulled the stuff up and we're looking at it and she was like why is Devon listed as his girlfriend and you know, love a lot. She's not her girlfriend and she, you know, got all defensive and I told her it wasn't

worth it to me. Devon was listed as his girlfriend because she was. She and John still lived and slept together. At the time of his death, John had also been seeing Alexis for around five months. But like you heard in episode two, Devon knew about it and went along with it because she says it meant that John was homeless often to abuse her. Alexis provided a lot of benefits for John. For one, she had a car and gave him rides to work when he needed them.

Plus, her family seemed like an escape from the stress of John's home life with Devon and his daughter, where there was never enough money and where he and Devon were often fighting. So he was soon a fixture at Darla's house, sharing meals with the family and goofing off with Alexis's daughter and siblings, which makes it even stranger how little Alexis really knew about him. In that same follow-up interview with police, she makes a surprising admission. She didn't know who the quote, old dude on the property was. I didn't know that was his dad until yesterday.

Oh really? Yeah, until that detective told the other guy that was in here when I was in his barracks. He told me that's his dad and I was like, hold up, wait a minute. So you didn't know that one? He told me that they were related, but he did not say that that was his dad. Alexis tells the investigator that she knew John sometimes went by Barry Walsh, but she was realizing now that she didn't know the full story. As he ever identified himself to use Barry Walsh?

I mean, I know when that whole thing with the girl accusing him of raping her happened that he got arrested as Barry Walsh. How did he get arrested as Barry Walsh? I don't know. I don't know. I've known. I don't know. So that made no sense to me. And we tried to figure it out last night. We were like Googling a bunch of stuff and everything

because I thought maybe I'd come up with something or wish I would have asked them. So did Alexis really know John? The man she loved died with many mysteries. Things Alexis wished she could have asked him, things that she was now having to Google. This is Blind Plea, I'm Liz Fluck. So far in this series, you've heard evidence that John was physically abusive, that he held Devon as a mental hostage, and that she killed him in an act of self-defense.

But you've also heard, not everyone believes this story. And in the aftermath of Jon's death, an entirely different narrative began to emerge. It went like this. Jon would never lay a hand on anyone. Devon was actually his abuser. And in the end, she shot him in cold blood. We can trace this version of events back to one person, Alexis, John's other girlfriend. If I'm being honest, this was not an episode our team was comfortable making.

It felt wrong to explore a narrative that paints Devon as a cold-blooded killer when none of the evidence I've uncovered in my reporting supports that theory. Still, I couldn't ignore Alexis's perspective, because the investigators that interviewed her believed her side of the story. And those statements she made to investigators became the basis for the prosecution's case against Devon. A case that argued Devon was jealous of Alexis, and that her jealousy was her motive for killing him. Even knowing all of that, Alexis remained in an ignitemy.

Where did she come from? Who was she really? And how did her version of events become so important to this whole case? In this episode, we're turning the spotlight on Alexis, the other woman, the wrecking ball that crashed through Caliria, changing John and Devon's lives forever before disappearing. I wanted to hear from Alexis first hand about her relationship with John, how it all began and how it ended. But Alexis had left Alabama after John's

death and I didn't know where she'd gone. So I called up her mom, Darla, who still lived in the area to see if she'd put me in touch. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm kind of leering. I'm not taking the time. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm kind of leering, not going to lie. I'm like, what is all that? Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff to the case that nobody really, a lot of information. So I'm like, who is Elizabeth? Who is this? I told Darla I was investigating Devon's case. You know, he knew my family and him and Alexis, they were just, they were very close and

they were each other's people. That makes sense. Like they finally found, you know, each other. Darla said she'd encourage her daughter to talk to me, but she warned me it was a long shot. After everything that had happened with Jay, you probably won't get a whole lot from her. It's a subject that even I'm like, well, if I bring up, she's just like,

I can't. She just can't even, I mean, I saw it for three days. I want to take a baseball bat to her car that her and Jay worked on. She's throwing up, she's throwing up. She's like, I can't. And she was angry at her.

And she was devastated. Still, Darla gave me Alexis' phone number. So I left a message. Hey, Alexis. This is Blizzbock. But all I got was radio silence. I followed up a few more times over the coming months. Hey, Alexis, this is Liz.

This is the journalist who's been trying to reach you about Jay. Even though Alexis never replied to my phone calls, I still had the ability to hear her side of the story thanks to her police interviews. They're all public record. Start from the beginning. The process is all out, and then I'm going to write it all out. So that I want to process it before I try and write all this. In those interviews, Alexis doesn't just talk about the night of the shooting. The investigators

also probe into her past, starting with how she and John first met. Darla actually introduced them. How do you know Jay? My mom, actually how I met him, my mom moved down here with her, my youngest siblings, father, and they've lived down here for a couple years. And she used to manage this dollar general over here. And he worked next door at the Babe Shop, Mo, and Ali's Babe Shop. Before Alexis moved in with her mom in Alabama,

she had been living up in Ohio with her daughter in fiance. Every so often, she would come down to Alabama to see her mom. And she visited once around Thanksgiving, 2016. My mom brought me over, met everybody. She introduced me to people that were she worked for us. So she was like, oh, this is my daughter, you know, came down typical

like mom stuff. John was one of the people Alexis met that day. On that visit, they didn't interact too much. John was more of Darla's friend, and he was a lot older than Alexis. She was 19, and he was 30. But Alexis does remember going over to the vape shop later to buy a vape kit and some cigarettes before returning home to Ohio. A few months later, Alexis and her fiancé have three years split up.

After that, she and her daughter moved in with Darla in Montevallo, Alabama. In her police interview, Alexis told investigators that she and John started to hang out shortly after she moved in with her mom. But it wasn't until that summer that they started to get close. My phone broke. The last week of July it was messing up, it was being stupid. And I know Jay Fix's phone from when he worked at the vape shop, like he had told us and everything like that because I have

the brand new 7 Plus. Well, I mean it was brand new last year. Now they got to get that I want it really bad. But I had met with him the end of July and I was like, you know, it was like, hey, it's my phone. It loves it. It loves me, friends. In exchange for fixing her phone, Alexis gave John some baby clothes for his and Devon's daughter. They were hand me downs from Alexis's kid. To Alexis, John was kind, funny, and generous. He was obviously tight with her family,

so much so that he came to the birthday parties of Alexis's daughter and her younger sister. From the start, Alexis knew John lived with Devon. She knew there were partners raising a kid together, but she claimed that by the time she and John started dating that summer, he was done with Devon. They were together when him and I first started hanging out as friends, and then they stopped being together, and then him and I first started hanging out as friends and then they stopped being together and then him and I became together with their still in the same house. Yeah, despite what Alexis says Devon and John were still romantic with each other.

Devon told me that she was kind of naive about John's relationship with Alexis at first. She was used to John working during the day, so it was normal for him to be gone for long stretches of time. That fall, John finally told Devon what was really going on, that he and Alexis were dating. Devon understood this to mean that Alexis was John's girlfriend on the side. And like you've heard before, it was a relief to Devon that John was away from home more often. After a while, it was like, good, go see her. Because when you're gone for a couple days, it means you're not putting hands on me. And you're not traumatizing our kid. Every night that he's not at home drinking and being a bummy is one last night that I have to heal. So I was so far messed up in that abuse that it didn't phase me. I used to help him pack to go to her house.

But Alexis claims almost exactly the opposite. She told the investigators a story that stuck. The John was staying over at her place because he was escaping Devon. And some of these stories from Alexis were pretty bizarre. As crazy as this sound, he thought she was poisoning him. And he thought it had something to do with him and I hurt him and I being together and that's why she was doing it. And I thought he was insane. I'm not gonna lie. I don't know how to prove if you're getting poisoned. I said, I don't know how to smell food or check.

I said, I don't even think that's a thing. And I tried looking it up. I've tried googling things. I've tried checking symptoms at seeing, I don't know what I was doing. I'm not a scientist or anything like that. I think she means scientist here, not Scientologist. As Alexis continued speaking to investigators, her stories began to form a pattern.

She claimed that Devon was jealous, so she lashed out a John in different ways. Maybe poisoning him, maybe even beating him up. He would come home and have a whole busted mouth, and I'd be like, what the hell? What happened? And he's like, Evan's drunk, I just left, I just left.

I'm not doing it, I just left, I'm not dealing with it. And so, you know, I'd go over there and I'd be like, Devon went to fuck and she'd be like, I was just drunk, I was just drunk. I'd be like, this isn't okay, this isn't, this can't be a theme. To Alexis, those injuries on John were a clear sign that Devon was abusing him. But maybe she only saw what she wanted to see.

Or maybe she just saw what John showed her. Because Devon says John's injuries were actually a result of her defending herself against his attacks. When we would fight, like, I would fight back or like fight back, or a lot of it was, he would try to grab for me and I would try to grab him to get him off of me. We almost never talk about this part of domestic abuse. That abuse victims often defend, react against, and resist the violence from an abuser. The term mutual abuse gets thrown around to describe relationships with this dynamic.

But is there really such a thing as, quote, mutual abuse? According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline and other experts, there isn't. There are toxic relationships, of course, where people are equally awful to each other. But domestic abuse is different. Because at its heart, it is about an imbalance of power and control. One person has control of the money, or mobility, or their partner's mental state. Meanwhile, the other person is left fighting for some shred of agency. From all our reporting, it's clear. John had the upper hand, the power.

If Devon fought back, I would not call that mutual abuse. Alexis likely wasn't seeing the whole picture, but that's the picture the investigators got. Hey, it's me, Sam B, and it's no secret I'm pro-choice. Yes, that one, but also others. Because I'm not just pro-choice, I'm pro-choice says those crazy life altering decisions that shift our life path and bring us to where we are today. My next choice, starting this new podcast with Lemonada 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. I'm World Cup Champion Megan Klingenberg. Wondering who you should root for at the FIFA Women's World Cup? I'm hosting a new podcast, My New Favorite, Google Ease, 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 footballista, wherever you listen to podcasts. The dynamic between John, Devon and Alexis was complicated, from both the inside and the outside. Even those close to John didn't know what to make of his relationship with Alexis. Ethan, John's friend, didn't seem to think John was that serious about her. How was Jay with Alexis versus with Dee, like how was it different?

He didn't open the door up for Alexis. I do remember that. Ethan told me he thought it was just a phase. The John was seeing Alexis on the side in a casual way. After all, John referred to Alexis as the big butt girl from Montevallo. I'm sad, well, you know, you'll be back to Dean no time soon as this girl finds somebody that's a little bit more gangster than you're like suspicious self I want to be, but I I didn't like Alexis to be honest with you had a personal level

I don't know her, but I don't trust her What about her was untrustworthy? The vibes off I don't know her, but I don't trust her. What about her was untrustworthy? The vibes off. She would just talk smack instantly about people she didn't know. The way that she instantly was like it had this attraction for Jay. Unlike how Ethan saw their relationship, Alexis claimed they were serious. So serious that they talked about going to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday and had

even discussed getting married there. And that wasn't all. We were gonna buy a house. Um, because I had to get my credit score up. I've been working for like one snout to try and... I was literally down 20 points to get the house I wanted. There's hell. Um, but I got it, and I...

The more I heard from Alexis, the more I had to stretch my imagination. John had been living in a trailer with Devon for years, struggling to make ends meet. And yet he and Alexis were about to buy a house. But maybe John was just doing the same thing with Alexis that he did with Devon, making grand promises at the beginning to get her where he wanted her. It's called future-faking, and it's a common tactic of abusers. John had told Devon that when they moved down to Alabama, he'd built her her dream house, and they'd have a good life together.

Five years later, none of that had come true. Now John seemed to be telling Alexis a similar story. Ethan and his wife at the time, Desi, would hang out with John and Alexis on occasion. Like Ethan, Desi told me she was uneasy about their relationship. J was telling us, he said pictures to Ethan of Alexis. And it was like talking about her butt and stuff.

And I was like, how does his work with Dee? And he was like, Dee's my girl, you know, D's my girl. Oh, this is just the thing. Boba, Boba. According to Devon, John had never really been satisfied with just her. He had slept with other women in the past and Devon found out about it.

He always wanted me and somebody else. And I guess that was part of my, I guess, it feels like I wasn't enough or good enough or whatever. Instead of putting the blame on him, Devon concluded that there must be something wrong with her, that she wasn't enough for John. And it wasn't just that John wanted to sleep with other women.

He also wanted Devon to join in. One night in early 2016, Ethan and Desi came over to hang out at John and Devon's trailer. Devon says John had told her to get Desi alone at some point, to see if she would be interested in a threesome. When they arrived, they all started drinking together. She kept pouring me these, When they arrived, they all started drinking together. She kept pouring me these, which I'd never drank at the port of Trillegress, called Forloco and Red Bull together in like, shop form. And I don't know how many of those I drank. When John and Ethan stepped outside of the trailer to shoot guns, Devon and Desi were alone.

She was kind of rubbing on my leg, leaning on me, laughing on me, and you know, it's really hard to say if she was just trying to have a friend or not. The only reason I ever thought that maybe our tip, that as she was trying to come on to me is because later on she sent me that inappropriate picture of Jay. Which I- The picture of Jay was, what was a picture of Jay was what was it again? It was his penis. Just his penis.

Just his penis. I asked Devon about what Dessie told me. The only reason I wanted to ask you about that was just to see whether that was like, you know, a fun thing in which case I am zero business or whether knowing about it or whether it was like a John pressure thing in which case I'm just wondering if that was like part of his you know yeah that was definitely a job pressure thing because it's not my thing I don't really like my cake in things like that and that's not my thing at all. So yeah, that was definitely a job thing. And John was persistent.

That incident with Desi wasn't the last time he would push for a threesome. He did eventually make it happen with Devon and Alexis. It was a few months before the shooting in September 2017. Alexis never mentioned the threesome in her interview with investigators. With them, she made it sound like John and Devon were totally over by this point. But it's clear that the lines were much blurrier. We know that it happened because John recorded a video of the threesome on his phone.

According to Devon's lawyer, who has seen the video, neither of the women seemed like they wanted to be there. That lines up with what Devon has told me. After the threesome, Devon says John lashed out at her and beat her up because he could tell she wasn't into it. It was like he felt bad, so he beat me. He felt bad for hurting my feelings, so he beat me. And Devon says the beating that night happened right in front of Alexis.

She was like, oh my gosh, she's like, they don't. And he was like, you stay out of this. So what? You know what I mean? He realized I didn't really want to do it. I never really wanted to do it, but I did it to make him happy. And I think he realized that. After the shooting, police would discover that video on John's phone. Something so private would become a key piece of criminal evidence in this case.

Without John or Alexis's point of view on the threesome, I only had Devons. A perspective of the cops didn't believe. So I asked John's mom Christine about it because they were so close they shared intimate details with each other. So what's up? What's the... Yeah, I think they're going to ask you this before because I felt awkward about asking you, but I wanted to bring it up since it was part of the standard ground hearing and everything. They brought up the threesome with Alexis and Devon at the standard ground as evidence. Yeah, because there was a video of it. Right.

And they used it to say that Devon was jealous and everything. So I just want your thoughts on all of that. OK. I know my son and I know Devon. I know my son loved that kind of stuff. John loved that kind of stuff, and he wanted Devon to love it too. But she didn't. The reason I even bring up the threesome video at all is because it became a convenient

piece of evidence against Devon for a couple of reasons. First, the video helped establish a motive that aligned with Alexis' statement to investigators. The Devon was jealous John had another girlfriend and that her jealousy caused her to turn on John and even kill him. And second, the threesome video was supposedly proof that Devon was a liar. In her police interview, she told investigators that she didn't know if John and Alexis were sleeping together. But investigators later found proof of the threesome video on John's phone, and they pounced

on the discrepancy. Never mind the fact that Devon had given her police interview mere hours after the shooting when she was exhausted and battered. While Devon sat in Shelby County jail, hours after her police interview in December, investigators were trying to get Alexis to write down everything she'd shared on paper as a witness statement. In the recording, you can hear Darla come into the room trying to call Alexis down. We know. She can claim self-defense all she wants, but we know.

Okay. So we need to get this justice, but we need to get it for Jay, okay? The following month, Alexis shared a similar message about finding justice for John on her Facebook page. Next to a photo, she posted of her and John together. She wrote, you were taken too soon and we will not let it be pushed aside. But after Alexis gave her statement to the investigators, damning Devon, she basically disappeared from the case. She was never even called as a witness. She moved back to Ohio with her daughter,

got engaged again and then married, all within a couple of years. Alexis had left Alabama and everything that happened there behind. And yet, her recollection of events lived on, influencing the prosecution's case and turning people against Devon. Hello, how you doing? I'm my president, host of the Warrzmah Mind podcasts and the Lemmon Adam-Edean Network. A podcast about how we can better take care of our heads in the head melty chaos of the modern world, and each week we'll be exploring the beauty and the beast that is our minds, so lend us your ears and see if we can help you make better sense of it all. And I'll be joined by some of the biggest global tankers and leaders to discuss the end and

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In Alexis' version of events, Devon was the villain. And after hearing that story, And after hearing that story, one key person would turn against Devon. Christine. Until then, she had been one of Devon's closest allies. She was one of the few people Devon had contact with in Alabama during all those years of isolation. Christine was even the first person Devon talked to after she called 911 the night of the shooting. Devon had wanted to break the news to her that John was dead. And about a week later, as Devin was awaiting her fate in jail, she called Christine again to explain exactly what happened that night.

You what? I stand. I know. I know. I understand. I understand. I understand." I understand, Christine said. It's kind of incredible how understanding she is towards Devon in this call. It made me wonder if Christine was sympathetic because of her own experience

with abuse, or because she knew that her son had been abusing Devon. I love you too, Devon told her. But that understanding wouldn't last. Just three days after this first call from jail, Christina Devon talked again. This time, Christine had a very different take on what happened that night. Our phone calls are subject to monitoring and recording. You have three minutes available for this call. Hello. Hello. Hi. Okay, I got to ask you a question. Yes. Do you remember calling you that night? Yes.

Do you remember telling me you shot him in the back of the head? Yes. OK. Why didn't you tell me about shooting the trailer up? I just took up the trailer, and you shot up the trailer. Yeah, OK. You can hear that Christine receives some new information from detectives, that it was

Devon who shot up the trailer. By people, Christine means Alexis and Darla, who are listening in over the phone. gun. Why would he tell you he'd get up and gun. You would see him. I told you he'd look cute. You look cute. You look cute. I picked him up. Oh yeah. My son was trying to start a new life. And you good for his family, no matter what the locations you guys had, it's going to tell you to kill him,

land him in the making of life, running the store, and working the field with the tractor and all that. He's going to tell you to kill him when he saw his light over. Is that what he's having with me? Yes, please. That's the end. I'm going to try to go. This call would be the last time that Devon and Christine speak. And to this day, Christine thinks Devon is guilty of premeditated murder

and wants her to suffer for what she did to John. Alexis's version of events had turned one of Devon's main allies and witnesses against her. And as time went on, that narrative would do much more damage, not only infiltrating Christine's view of what happened, but also changing the entire criminal case. [♪ Music playing in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, in background, background, in background, in background, background, in background, background, in background, in As we were wrapping up work on this episode, we were able to verify a new piece of information. Turns out Alexis made a GoFundMe after John's death to raise money in his name. Christine found it.

So let me see if I can find GoFundMe. Okay. In the... Oh, wow! Can you fucking believe this? What? It's 165. It popped up.

Did you go find me? Yes. Oh my God, can you fix this to me? Christine sent me the screenshot. The campaign is titled, Loss of Loved One, and you can see the goal was to raise $5,000. But like Christine said,

it had only accumulated $165. Either way, it seemed to her like Alexis and Darla were trying to make money off her dead son. She had a space hole up there, made this money, and she never told me a damn thing, and never sent me a dime. Yeah, it's weird.

So I mean, that to me is someone that is not trustworthy in a certain respect. Christine says it herself, someone who is not trustworthy. But she still trusts what Alexis told detectives. And the prosecution ran with Alexis' story as they built the case against Devon. Next time, on Blind plea,

Devon faces her charges in one of the most conservative counties in Alabama. In Shelby County, the mindset is, is, propolis, and if you wouldn't have been messing up, doing what you were doing, if you got arrested and you got this far you probably did it. 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 PLEE with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content, like an interview with Christine about the secrets we keep in families. Subscribe now and Apple podcasts. Blind plea is a production of Lemonada Media. I'm your host, Liz Vlock. This episode was produced by Hannah Boomer-Shine. Rachel Pilgrim is also our producer. Kristen Labore is our senior producer. Tony Williams is our associate producer. Story-editing by Martina Abraham's Illumga.

Mixed music and sound design by Andrea Christen's daughter, with additional mixing and engineering from Ivan Kuraiv. Naomi Bar is our fact checker. Jala Everett is our production intern. Jackie Danciger is our vice president of narrative content. Executive producers are Stephanie Widdle's Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, a Volk media and Sabrina Mirage Naim,

and myself Liz Vlock. This series was co-created with a Volk media and presented by Margaret Casey Foundation. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow me at Liz Flock and for more stories of women and self-defense, check out my book The Furies from Harper Books, available for preorder now. Find Lamanada at Lamanada Media across all social platforms and follow Blind Plea wherever you

get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime Membership. Thanks so much for listening. Join me, V-Sphere, your podcasting bestie on V-Interesting from Lemonade Media. We'll tackle today's chaotic world with optimism as we go beyond the headlines. From politics to human rights, to business and tech, we'll break down what you need to know to become the most interesting person in any room. Like I say on the show, let's be smart together. Listen to Be Interesting every Friday on Amazon Music, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey there, I'm Sujim Park, and I'm Cool Opti Lysok. Join us for Add to Cart. Every week we talk about the things we buy, and and buy into and what they say about who we are. That's right, like our friend Nicole Byer. I am a lady who has many tabs open and they all have carts filled with things. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Got a bajillion tabs full of stuff, too?

We'll break down what that says about you and us every week. Search for Add to Cart wherever you get your podcasts. Habs full of stuff too, we'll break down what that says about you and us every week. Search for Attacart wherever you get your podcasts.