Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 28-year-old beauty Melissa Sousa missing, found dead, rolled in a tarp

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

A beautiful, young mother of twins goes missing and is later found in rolled up in a tarp in the basement of her own home. What happened to Melissa Sousa?Joining Nancy to discuss the case:Ashley Willcott - Judge and trial attorney, www.ashleywillcott.comSteven Lampley - Former Detective, Author "Outside Your Door"Dr Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst Dr Michelle Dupree - Medical Examiner & Author of “Homicide Investigation Field Guide"Alexis Terezchuck - Investigative Reporter, Radaronline.com   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. The disappearance of a beautiful young mom of twins, Melissa Sousa, remains a mystery. But then, her body found in a waterville home. Her body wrapped in a tarp, hidden in a waterville home, her body wrapped in a tarp hidden in a basement. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. We want justice. What happened to this mom, Melissa Souza, at the prime of her life? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. 29-year-old Melissa Sousa of Waterville is missing. Melissa put her two twins on a school bus in front of her home and that's the last time she was seen publicly. That was Tuesday morning. Around midnight, Waterville front of her home, and that's the last time she was seen publicly. That was Tuesday morning.

Around midnight, Waterville police arrested her boyfriend, Nicholas Lovejoy, and charged him with having a loaded rifle in his car and endangering the welfare of a child. Police say he left his and Sousa's twin, 8-year-old girls, home alone. That home is where Maine State Police evidence technicians have been searching. This is not like her to disappear. This is completely out of the ordinary. Wednesday afternoon, police searched this property on Taylor Road in nearby Winslow, where neighbors say Lovejoy kept a trailer. Police left a short time later. Megan Legacy is Sousa's friend and co-worker.

She's a good person. She cares about her kids. She just wants to be happy. And I don't think she got the chance to do that. Legacy says Sousa was frightened of Lovejoy. Just a lot of guns. I mean, he has a lot of guns. He has a lot of, there's a lot of easy way to do it. I mean, he could easily do it and not think twice. Leaving Legacy fearing the worst has happened to her friend. I feel like she would have contacted someone.

What happened to Melissa Souza, a young mother just 29 years old, the mother of eight-year-old little girl twins? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star panel, Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, anchor at Court TV. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Stephen Lampley, detective, author of Outside Your Door on Amazon. Renowned psychoanalyst out of Beverly Hills, Dr. Bethany Marshall.

South Carolina medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, Dr. Michelle Dupree, and joining me right now, investigative reporter with RadarOnline.com, Alexis Tereszczuk. Alexis, first, thank you for being with us. What can you tell me about how it was first noted that this 29-year-old mother of two was missing. Her friend made a welfare check. She called the police and said, we have not heard from her all day long. She has not been on Facebook, and we are very, very worried about her. And it's terrifying to think that a mother puts her two children on the school bus.

8 o'clock in the morning, the girls leave the house. They go ride on the bus. They come home, nothing. No mommy, and the friend is the one that has to sound the alert. Well, here's the thing. Doesn't she work at Dunkin' Donuts with her friend? They have to get up really early hours and work really late hours. So, you know, if you don't show up at 6 o'clock in the morning, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, people may chalk it off to, oh, they overslept. So what tipped her off, Alexis, that something was wrong?

She knows this woman. She knows her. She knows Melissa. She knows how unhappy she has been in her relationship. And she knows personally that she has been threatened by her boyfriend, by him. She is afraid for her life. She has said repeatedly, he has so many guns. I'm so afraid what he's going to do to me. So she knew the family history here. We know to Ashley Wilcott, the boyfriend, Nicholas Lovejoy, was arrested on a guns charge. How often do you see the target of the bigger investigations such as kidnapping, aggravated assault, or murder? You see the target or the person of interest arrested on minor charges. I mean, I always think about Timothy McVeigh. Remember, they who bombed the Oklahoma

City building, the federal building, the Murrah building, and killed so many Americans, including children. They pulled him over for a taillight infraction. No idea that this was the OKCity bomber. Right, Nancy. So statistically, it's true. Often these types of person of interest do have some type of criminal history, even if it's minor. Every once in a while, we'll see someone who commits a major horrible crime who has no history, but generally, they've got something. They've been stopped for something. It's interesting to Stephen Lampley, former detective and author of Outside Your Door on Amazon, how the boyfriend is arrested on a weapons charge. I'm all about you know the bill of rights and all your personal freedoms but it always creeps me out when someone has a a treasure

trove an arsenal of weapons that just freaks me out also, he was arrested on a gun charge. I mean, you've got Melissa Sousa missing. She's never left her children before, and they get him on a gun charge. Is that a pretext? Well, Nancy, it's my understanding of what I know of this case, that they went to his house. He would not let them in. And so they backed out and then observed him for a period of time and waited for him to leave and then initiated a traffic stop. We used to do this all the time.

We would sit back and wait, and we would find probable cause to stop the vehicle. And you can usually find probable cause, but somebody is going to do something. And in this case, they apparently had probable cause, stopped him, found the loaded rifle, and then discovered that he had left the two eight-year-old children at home and then proceeded to get the search warrant. And bam, it's just that easy. And when you say we find probable cause, you know, a defense attorney would have a field day with that. The reality is, hey, you don't have to fabricate it.

They give you probable cause to arrest. I mean, I've got PC right now. I've had three mothers, three mothers pull me over in traffic in the pickup and drop-off line to tell me my taillight's out on one whole side. I know this. I've been riding around in that busted minivan and I know it and I haven't had time to go get it fixed. That's PC right there. If any cop wanted to pull me over, well, there's PC for it right there. So what I'm saying, Ashley Wilcott, a judge and trial lawyer, is that it's not like the cops have to fabricate something. All they have to do is watch you for about an hour. They'll catch you doing something wrong. You will definitely not

stop at a stop sign, not put on your blinker, have a busted taillight. I mean, it's just a matter of time. It's just whether they want you or not. Well, that's true, Nancy, but it's also what the law provides for. So people get frustrated by that, right? Like defense attorneys do say, oh, there was no reason to stop. Guess what? I'm not frustrated. I don't have a problem with it. I don't either. But some defense attorneys absolutely do. But the fact of the matter is that's what the law provides for probable cause any reason at all, any violation, any anything they see that's any violation of any traffic law, any other type of crime. Yeah, they have the authority to stop you. I will never forget, too. Dr. Bethany Marshall joining me, psychoanalyst out of L.A. I had been,

I was working a murder case, and the best friend of the murdered victim, her husband did it, by the way, he was a millionaire, and he set it up to make it look like a house fire. Then why was she covered in bruises? Wow. You know, how did that happen? Anyway, I was out trying to find her best friend, much as in this case. Her best friend in the case that I was prosecuting was a fellow piano teacher. And that piano teacher got to drinking wine and playing the piano. We had a good time.

I stayed at that lady's house till midnight. I did not drink, of course. She talked to me about the victim, Patricia, and about how long they had known each other and about her abusive marriage. A ton of information. Okay. So I was driving back. It was now was now like 12 15 I get pulled over I get pulled over and I rolled the window down said why are you pulling me over and he said you crossed the yellow line I'm like no I didn't but fine he goes I guess I got to give you a breathalyzer I said are you kidding me he said I can't treat you any differently than anybody else I'm like fine do a breathalyzer. So I did it.

And within about five minutes, I was on my way home. What I'm saying is it can be crossing the yellow line. It can be anything. Why does that make people so angry? I mean, we want cops out there to protect us. But then when they pull us over, people don't like it so much. Well, hopefully, as a part of our discussion on this radio show, the listeners can learn that when police pull people over for seemingly minor infractions, often there's a whole world of misery underneath. It's

sometimes that's the canary in the coal mine, the very small tell. I'll tell you what's underneath this, Nancy, the night he was pulled over. There are two twin eight-year-olds at home without their mother and father. And you know in the legal system, children, infants are vastly underrepresented because they cannot speak for themselves. And in this case, we're talking about him getting pulled over on a gun violation. We're talking about the mom missing. Let's make a part of our story that there are two little girls at home. I mean, you have twins. How old are they now? 12, 13? Can you imagine them being at home? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Bethany, did you just say 14? No, 12 or 13. How old are they now? Bethany, you know what? I'm No, 12 or 13. How old are they now?

Bethany, you know what? I'm putting you on probation. Go to the corner for not knowing that. Twins have just turned 12 years old. Shame, shame, shame. Shame, shame, shame. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is the house where that body was found and where 29-year-old Melissa Sousa was last seen putting her two 8-year-old twins on the school bus Tuesday morning. Now, 48 hours later, police are still on scene and friends are fearing the worst.

This morning, a mom missing. I feel like she would have contacted someone. Friends of Melissa Souza terrified. If she knew all of this was going on, she would have said something. As police combed through her Waterville home throughout the night looking for clues, a body was discovered in the basement. This is not like her to disappear. This is completely out of the ordinary. Sousa's boyfriend, Nicholas Lovejoy, has been arrested. Police saying they stopped him around midnight Tuesday. Right now, they've charged him for having a loaded gun in the car and endangering his children, leaving them alone he has a lot of there's a lot of easy way to do it i mean he could easily

do it and not think twice friends say they were scared of lovejoy they were scared their worst nightmare might come true she's a good person she cares about her kids she just wants to be happy and i don't think she got the chance to do that. Again, no one has been charged. Investigators are expected to be back on scene this morning and an autopsy is likely to be conducted later today. That from our friends at News Center Maine. That was Zach Blanchard speaking. What is he doing out riding around with a car full of guns at midnight and his two eight-year-old children, two little girls, home alone. You darn right he should be pulled over, Alexis Tereschuk.

Joining me, Alexis Tereschuk, investigative reporter with RadarOnline.com. Alexis, so they pull him over, but now a body has been found in the basement. Pick it up where you left off. So the police had been observing him in the house. They had noticed him going. They were looking through the basement. Pick it up where you left off. So the police had been observing him in the house. They had noticed him going, they were looking through the windows. They were just out on the street, on a public street, not doing anything wrong. And they were watching him go in and out of the kitchen, different places. So they see him get in the car with, and they, they pull him over. There's a rifle. They say to him, you know, what is going on? He says nothing at all. They then end up talking with

the little children, the little twin daughters, and they say that there had been a fight between mommy and daddy. They say that she had confessed that she had loved someone else. So police now are suspicious that he killed her in a rage, a fit of jealousy and they go in the home they they dig around the thing that's very interesting to me is they don't find her right away they don't search in the basement of the house okay wait wait wait wait wait wait you know alexis teres chuck you and i've covered a lot of stories together and i'm almost always on the side of the police they're just humans trying to do a good job and most often they do do a good job a great job as a matter of fact but come on not looking in the basement hello that's what I thought too it seemed a little strange I don't

think that maybe it's a hidden basement that's the only thing that I I can think of because I agree with you. Usually the police are very thorough. They check everything, something you wouldn't even think of. Even the way they enter a room during an investigation, they would have a couple people with them. They would cover the door. They would make sure there was nobody in there to hurt them. So this was very strange. It took quite a few hours for them to locate, almost an entire day, in fact, to locate her body in the basement. Okay, I don't understand that. Where was it in the basement? How was it that hard to find? Well, she was wrapped up in a tarp, or in a rug, actually, and hidden in the basement. Wait a minute, that's the first thing I would look at. Stephen Lampley, you see a rug rolled up. Of course you're going to look in there. Yes, Nancy, you would. And again,

I wasn't there, and I don't want to try to second-guess them, but based on this, I wonder, why did they not look in that rug? It's like a movie on television. Why would you not look at a rolled-up rug in the basement? But the reality is they did find her wrapped in a rug. And remember, isn't it true, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, a jury can look at a defendant's behavior before, during, and after the event, the incident. Including if you shot someone in self-defense or let's just say you claimed somebody died of a natural cause.

Like in Tot Mom, Casey Anthony, who claimed her two-year-old Keely drowned in the pool and then her body was, quote, hidden. If this was an accident or it was self-defense, why not call police? Why wrap her up in a carpet and stash her in the basement? Exactly. You are allowed to present that evidence to the jury for the jury to make a determination. And the other piece that it goes to, although, as you well know, prosecutors don't have to prove motive, it makes a significant difference to have motive. And so those pieces can also be introduced to a jury for motive as well as state of mind. Take a listen to our friend Jackie Mundry at NewsCenter Maine. In the news tonight, we expect to hear within this half hour if the body found yesterday in Waterville is Melissa Souza.

She's the young mom who was last seen putting her twin girls on the school bus Tuesday morning. The body was found in her home. The body has been at the medical examiner's office in Augusta all day today. They're confirming the identity and they're looking for a cause of death. News Center Maine's Jackie Mundry has been following this story and she joins us now live from Waterville with an update. Hi Jackie. Good evening Sam and Lee. That body as you said has not yet been identified but it was found at the home behind me just behind the Maine State Police truck here in Waterville. Friends and family fear that the body found in Melissa Sousa's home is in fact her as since you as you said she hasn't been seen Tuesday morning. Those friends

are posting photos and sharing memories on social media and telling me that she is pure, gentle, and sweet. Friends of Sousa also say that her relationship with Nicholas Lovejoy is not healthy. They say he often shows up at her work at Dunkin Donuts to make sure she's actually there when she tells him she says she is. They also say Sousa has been trying to leave him. But all of that aside, they want to just tell everyone how wonderful Sousa is. We love Melissa. We love her so much. And even if she was standing here with me, I would always say that she was, like I said,

trustworthy, honest, and pure. And I would say that, like I said, if she was standing in front of me, and I'll say it now, and I'll say it years from now. Joining me right now, Dr. Michelle Dupree, South Carolina medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Dr. Dupree, we are learning that she was shot twice in the stomach. How hard is it to figure that out in autopsy? What were they waiting on? Nancy, they probably weren't waiting on determining that she was shot, but they're probably waiting on other things. Bullets are going to destroy a lot of the internal organs,

so they're going to want to make sure that they can trace the pathways of each of those bullets. They're going to want to describe those injuries and the wounds. They're also going to be looking at toxicology, and they're going to be looking at other tests that they may need to run for the autopsy before they give results. Explain that. Dr. Dupree, all of us in the criminal law world know what you mean, or most of us do, but explain when you say they've got to run toxicology. Who's they, and what do you mean run toxicology? Well, the medical examiner would take samples of blood and bodily fluids to run toxicology tests,

which are substances that may be in the body, such as drugs, whether they're street drugs or prescription drugs, to determine if there were drugs in the body. There may be other tests that they may run. They may run gunshot residue tests to see if the firing of bullets were close range or not. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The body found inside this home in Waterville has been identified as 29-year-old Melissa Sousa. Sousa was last seen on Tuesday morning when she was putting her twin 8-year-old daughters on the bus. Her longtime boyfriend, Nicholas Lovejoy, has been charged with her murder.

Sousa's friends feared this all along, saying that Lovejoy was controlling and she wanted to leave him but couldn't because of their daughters. One friend saw Lovejoy with their daughters at a birthday party on Tuesday evening. Between the time Sousa went missing and the time he was arrested for an year-old's home alone. He didn't make eye contact. He, like I said, I've handled conversations before and it was just different. It was just unsettling. And like I said, at the time, I didn't think anything of it. But as time went on, now I replay the conversation and it just gets weirder and weirder to me every time I think about it. Lovejoy is being held at the Kennebec County Jail. You are hearing the victim, 29-year-old Melissa Souza, the mother of two 8-year-old twin girls.

Her friend, Jordan Tower, speaking to Jackie Mundry at News Center Maine. Over and over, we hear it. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining me out of L.A. Dr. Bethany, the friends describing his behavior toward her. Another friend said, quote quote she told us his big thing is quote tick tock your time's coming i have got two choices it's kill you or kill you and that that was his way of controlling her now her melissa seuss's boss and friend says that Lovejoy, the boyfriend, threatened her daily that he had held guns to her head, sent threatening texts to her. Now, this is the mother.

These are his two little girls. And he's convinced she's got a boyfriend, but he drives by and sees she's there at work every single day where she says she's going to be. Well, Nancy, threats and intimidation are a part of every domestic violence situation. Financial abuse, often withholding money, preventing a partner from going to work, jealousy towards pets, you know, animals, friends, threatening to hit you or punching a wall, making you feel guilty for wanting time apart. The fact that he kept showing up at work, I cannot tell you how often I hear this in my practice from women who are in disturbed or abusive relationships. The man always shows up at work and he's always convinced that he's going to find her with another man. This woman worked at Dunkin' Donuts. She's not hanging out with another man

there. I also want to say 3.3 million children every year witness the abuse of either their mother or a female caretaker at the hands of their father. So if these little girls were saying, you know, something like, you know, mommy told daddy she was in love with somebody else or mommy wanted to go to work. And then I wouldn't be surprised if they witnessed him abusing her. So she was not the only victim. These two little girls were victims too. Guys, I want you to take a listen to one of the most bizarre things about this case. Now, first of all, the body is in the basement, but they don't, the police don't see it at first. It takes a couple of days to figure out the body's in the basement, number one. Coworkers have to call and report her missing. Then we learn of threat after threat after threat.

How many times do you know of a woman murdered in domestic violence scenarios when there was one red flag after the next, after the next, after the next? I want to give you a toll-free domestic abuse hotline, 877-890-7788. 877-890-7788. Now, just when you think you've heard it all, surprise, take a listen. A lot of new information coming out of that police affidavit this afternoon, mainly a confession and then a claim of self-defense. 28-year-old Nicholas Lovejoy telling police that he shot Melissa Sousa last Tuesday after their twin 8-year-old daughters went off to school.

Lovejoy saying the two got into a fight. Sousa pushed him down a flight of stairs. She tried to shoot him, but the gun didn't go off. He told police that he grabbed a handgun of his own and shot Sousa twice in the stomach. He rolled her body up in a tarp and dragged it to the basement. Family and friends of the victim said today that Sousa was planning to leave Lovejoy and take the twin girls with her, this after repeated death threats. Now the girls are in the custody of the DHHS. Sousa's mother wants custody of her granddaughters. The family is obviously devastated, upset, confused. It's very difficult on them. DHHS

has to look into the best place, the most suitable placement for the children, and that's what's going on at the moment. So as for Lovejoy, he's being held here at the Kennebec County Jail in Augusta without bail, by the way. A grand jury will likely indict him over the next 30 days, and he'll be back in this same courtroom to face arraignment then. We were hearing our friends at WMTWABC, that was Jim Keithley. Now a defense emerges. Lovejoy says, yes, I shot her twice in the stomach, rolled her up in the carpet and put her body in the basement.

But it was all in self-defense. Okay. He says that this tiny little woman, Melissa Sousa, shoved him down the stairs, tried to shoot him, but the gun failed. Lugjoy then shot Sousa twice in the stomach. All right, that scenario doesn't even make sense to Stephen Lampley, detective and author of Outside Your Door, that scenario doesn't make sense unless they were both holding a gun at the same time like a shootout in the wild, wild west in their apartment on the stairs leading down to the basement with the twin girls at home. Doesn't add up to me. You're right, Nancy. It doesn't to me either. One of the big questions I have is if this is how it transpired, she took the rifle, attempted to shoot him.

It didn't fire. Then he, according to what I read, he went and retrieved the gun and then came back. Why didn't he leave? I don't buy the story that he was in a self-defense mode. I don't buy that. If he was truly in self-defense mode, why did he hide the body? To Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, if you have time to leave and go get a gun and turn around and come back and fire, it's no longer self-defense. Explain. Exactly what I was going to say. So that's the problem with his story that he's come up with. Self-defense means at the time you are in fear of your life and you respond with force to react to that, to protect yourself. He could obviously, in that amount of time, he could have left the home. He could have run away. He could have gone and called 911.

All of those things mean it wasn't self-defense. Another issue, I'm curious, was there any indication to AlexisThereseShotRaterOnline.com that he was acting in self-defense? Was another weapon found? Did she have any gunshot residue on her hands? What do we know about his claim of self-defense? His story is that the gun did not go off. I think it wasn't loaded. So she would not have gunpowder residue on her hands, but he had multiple weapons in the house. So he is saying that he just grabbed

another one, which seems a little strange that she would have grabbed out of all the weapons in the house, the one weapon that doesn't go off or that doesn't have bullets in it. So tell me about his claim of self-defense. What do you make of it, Alexis? I find it hard to believe. I think it's very hard to believe. And I think that he came up with this after he killed her. They got in a big fight and he killed her because then he, I believe he told the girls that mommy said she had a new boyfriend and she was leaving probably to tell them why mommy wasn't home. And that just plants the seeds in their mind so that when they talk to the police, because their mom is missing, they're going to say, oh, no, mommy's not here. She went off with her new boyfriend. So he definitely had a plan to get rid of her. And this was part of it. And so with by

hiding her body and then driving away with the rifle, it's all part of his plan to get rid of her. I don't think that this was self-defense. To you, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining me out of LA, why do you believe this is not self-defense? Well, as the whole panel is saying, if he really felt his life was at risk and he had the time to go get a gun and load it and come back, then obviously he wanted to kill her. You know, Nancy, you know what this reminds me of? Jodi Arias. Do you remember during the trial, she kept saying that she was in the closet and that he lunged at her and then she went to get a gun to save herself? Well, then she follows him into the shower, severs his neck, plunges a knife into him, tries to clean it up by throwing clothing in the washing machine, and then she claims it's self-defense. I think we just hear this over and over again, compounded with the fact that

criminals are so stupid. They are so stupid. They actually believe their own lies. The fact that he thought this was credible is just remarkable to me. And have you seen pictures of him? Do you know what he looks like? Oh, yes, I have. He looks like he's a meth addict. Right. Meth addict. He definitely looks like there's something not quite right going on inside his head. Another issue that indicates to me it was not self-defense is that he lied repeatedly. First, he told investigators he had not seen Sousa since Tuesday morning when they came to do a welfare check. He would not allow them in. He is the one that claimed she had a boyfriend and she was leaving and he was angry about it. Then there's the behavior of hiding her body in a rug. Prime Stories with Nancy Grace.

There was longtime girlfriend Melissa Souza was first reported missing. She was last seen dropping her twin daughters off at the bus stop. Now there was a body taken out of the apartment building where Sousa and Nicholas Lovejoy lived in Waterville. Late yesterday police confirmed that was her body and charged her longtime boyfriend with murder. Lovejoy had since been in jail had been in jail since Tuesday night. Police arrested him then for having a loaded gun and for leaving his daughters alone at home. Friends told us Lovejoy and Sousa's relationship was not healthy, saying he was controlling and that she wanted to leave him but couldn't because of their

daughters. One woman says she saw Lovejoy at a birthday party with his daughters on Tuesday night between the time Sousa went missing and when he was arrested. He didn't make eye contact. Like I said, I've handled conversations before and it was was arrested. He didn't make eye contact. Like I said, I've handled conversations before and it was just different. It was just unsettling. And like I said, at the time, I didn't think anything of it. But as time went on, now I replay the conversation and it just gets weirder and weirder to me every time I think about it. We're hearing our friend Sean Stackhouse at News Center Maine reporting when co-workers call police to do a welfare check, they find nothing. Days later, they find her body rolled up in a rug in the basement.

Now, the father of her children, her boyfriend, her live-in, claiming he killed her in self-defense. Straight out to Dr. Michelle Dupree, South Carolina medical examiner and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Dr. Dupree, the state has charged him with murder. Why is it that you believe they're not buying the theory of self-defense? Well, Nancy, again, as everybody else has stated, self-defense is a moment in time. It's immediately taking action when you are in fear of your life or someone else's. And the evidence just doesn't show that. When we look at the totality of circumstances and look at the actions that were taken, it does not equate to self-defense. What can you tell from the actual bullet wounds? From the actual bullet wounds, we can tell the trajectory. We can also

tell approximately how close or how far that person was away when they were shot. And given that, if the person has enough time and enough distance that they can back up or leave, then they can do that. To Alexis Torres, check RaiderOnline.com. Tell me about the threats he made against her leading up to the murder. Their relationship has been so terrible, but this is what is so scary about this. This woman has told everybody, her family, her friends, her coworkers, how afraid she was for him, how many guns he had. And she had no way to get out. She worked at Dunkin' Donuts, probably did not make a lot of money, made an honest living working, you know, in a great job that she tried to support her two little girls, but had no way, no recourse, nothing that she did could save her life. She was

afraid. She knew that he had all these guns. And what the medical exam, the woman was just saying, we don't even know if he's telling the truth. He shot her in the stomach. He could have shot her in the back as she was running away from him. This is, that's probably another reason why they're charging him with murder. This wasn't just her coming down the stairs with him and he shot him. This is probably, he's a liar. And this is probably not even the truth of where she was even shot. Telling her family, friends, and co-workers that she was afraid.

Holding a gun to her head according to her. Threatening to kill her. Tick-tock, tick-tock, your time is up. I've got two choices. To kill you or to kill you. That is what she told friends. He said to her, the threat's unrelenting.

To Dr. Bethany Marshall, how often is unfounded jealousy a part of domestic violence? I would say in every single case. I would say there are a few symptoms that we see in every domestic violence situation. Threats, threats through intimidation, threats through bullying, threats through hitting, that is a major part of it. Jealousy runs through every single domestic violence case because what happens is that the abuser cannot distinguish between separateness and autonomy and betrayal and cheating. It all becomes one big swirl in the abuser's mind. So they cannot, you know, a part of every healthy relationship is spending

time apart as well as spending time together. It's a very basic, basic principle, coming together and going apart. That very basic concept is not in an abuser's mind. So for any of your listeners who are in abusive relationships, they might want to think about if they are unable to have separate friends or to go to work without their husband or partner stopping by, if they always have to share the content of their phone by, if they always have to share the content of their phone conversations, if they're never allowed to walk out of the room when they're talking on the phone, when the guy goes through her personal effects or personal belongings to make sure she's not with somebody else, that these are really very strong, palpable signs

of domestic violence. To add insult to injury, take a listen to our friend Taylor Carnes, WGMA 13. Melissa Souza, a Waterville resident and mother of two, was found dead in her home last week, and former co-workers here at the Dunkin' Donuts on College Avenue decided to help out with those funeral costs by collecting donations. According to employees, those donations were stolen, and this wasn't the only location it happened at. Dunkin' Donut employees tell us that an unknown amount of cash was stolen from donation buckets at the stores on College Avenue, Main Street, and inside Walmart. Waterville police say it happened Sunday night. Sousa's family says the news was hard to hear.

My sister was in tears. She doesn't understand how anybody can do this. Waterville residents are just as shocked. It's disgusting that people would actually do that when this lady just died. She has kids. Family members of Sousa say the donations were being used to pay for her funeral and to help out her two girls who are now in the foster care system. All the funding was going to go towards everything the girls need from now to their future. So whoever did this really hurt our family by taking from these kids. Duncan employees say all stolen buckets have been replaced and they hope people will continue to donate. It just breaks my heart, breaks my heart. Family violence, domestic abuse hotline [phone]. Repeat, 877-890-7788. Bethany, Dr. Bethany Marshall, how does domestic

violence escalate to murder? It escalates when the woman begins to assert herself. And that is the very sad fact. In very mild cases, like very mildly dysfunctional relationships, when a woman becomes more autonomous, the man will simply lose interest in her. So that's a low level of dysfunction. In a high level of dysfunction, any act of independence is really what incites the man, which is why I thought it was so brilliant that you asked about jealousy, because that really gets at the core of it. You can look at all these behaviors such as hitting, threatening, slapping, but what is underneath it? We talk about power and control, but really what's more profound is the inability to be separate from the love object without feeling abandoned and betrayed. So to answer your question, that is when it escalates. When a woman tries to leave, when she develops friends, when she goes to work, when she spends money independently, when she cuddles her children in bed or puts them on her lap.

These are the times when it escalates. If she was just willing to be by the man's side all day long and let him do whatever he wanted to do, maybe she would maintain her life, but that's no life either. Is it true to Alexis Tereschuk that the twin girls told police, quote, dad was mad at mom because she had a new boyfriend, that daddy took them into bed Tuesday night and said police were coming to get him. Yes, that is what the police have revealed. And this is, so this is

the story that he has told the children. He's told them, you know, mommy's left. She has this new boyfriend really to cover his tracks. And this is so scarring for these little kids. And this is just another piece of evidence that the prosecutors are going to use to show that this was definitely not self-defense. And now the two little girls in a foster home. Friends say, quote, he's a nightmare, he's a devil. She was afraid. She was afraid, and that's why she stayed. Domestic Abuse Hotline [phone]

Nancy Gray signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.