Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Evil wife hires TEEN hitmen to gun down ex-hubby
Episode Date: April 7, 2021Baron Li hears a noise on his way to his car. It was the first of 9 shots fired by a teen gunman sent to kill the 48-year-old car salesman and dad. The question is, WHY? Police question Li, "Who wants... you dead?" The only name he could come up with is his ex-wife. The couple are in the middle of an acrimonious custody battle.Joining Nancy Grace today: Baron Li - Victim, GoFundMe: Search "#HelpForBaron" Holly Davis - Trial Attorney/Family Law Specialist, Co-Founding Partner at Kirker Davis (Austin, TX), kirkerdavis.com, Instagram/Twitter: @kirkerdavisatx Dr. Jorey Krawczyn - Police Psychologist, Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: Operation S.O.S. - Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide” (July 2021) bw-institute.com Dan Corsentino - Former Police Chief, Former Sheriff, Served on US Homeland Security Senior Advisory Board, Private Investigator www.dancorsentino.com Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner, State of Florida, www.pathcaremed.com Chris Harris - Senior true crime reporter for People Magazine, People.com, Twitter: @chrisharrisment Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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A teenage hitman?
A loving husband and father gunned down in a parking lot?
How does all that fit together?
And you can't tell me that a teenage boy masterminds a hit on a grown man.
On July 10th, Lee was walking to his car at the overlook at Lakemont Apartments when he heard the first shot, then a second.
That bullet had hit my right arm.
And then I looked to my right and I saw this guy running to me with the gun still firing to Lee got to
his car and tried to protect his head and chest I was thinking oh my god I'm
dead you know he's standing right over me with the gun pointed right at me
after more gunshots the bullets finally ran out and Lee lived the 48 year old
has nerve damage in his arm,
12 entry and exit wounds, but it's the emotional damage that keeps him awake at night.
The arrest of his ex-wife and two 17-year-olds brings relief and hope he can now give his son
a better life. That would be my dream that we never have to see her again. If that means her
staying in jail for the rest of her life, so be it. A teenage hitman
feeling yourself go down onto the asphalt of a parking lot thinking, I'm going to die. Again,
thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation Series XM 111. You were just hearing our friend
Allison Grande at KIR07 News, but you were also hearing the shooting victim in this case.
Think about it.
12 entry and exit wounds.
And somehow at that point, anyway, he was still alive.
With me, an all-star panel, Chris Harris, senior true crime reporter, People Magazine
at People.com.
He's on Twitter at Chris Harris Mint.
Also with me, Dr. Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the entire state of Florida, and you can find him at pathcaremed.com. Dan Corsentino,
former police chief, sheriff, served on U.S. Homeland Security Senior Advisory Board, now PI, at DanCorsentino.com.
Dr. Jory Croson, police psychologist, faculty, St. Leo University, consultant with the Blue
Wall Institute, and author of Operation SOS, Practical Recommendations to Help Stop Officer
Suicide.
Also with me, Holly Davis, trial lawyer, family law specialist,
co-founding partner at Kirker Davis at kirkerdavis.com and special guests joining me.
And I want to go straight to him. Believe it or not, he's up walking around. I think a miracle.
Barron Lee, the victim in this case, and you can find him on GoFundMe by searching
hashtag help for Baron. Baron, I can't believe you actually survived 12 entry and exit wounds.
I want to hear everything, every detail. So as you're walking out, I think you were walking to your car. What happened?
I had just gotten
up. It was a
Friday. I actually wasn't supposed to go to
work that day. I was covering for
another manager at work. So I was walking out to my
car and I heard the first
shot, which I thought
it was fireworks. It was July
10th. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there
because I think everybody that's listening right now,
Beren Lee, has heard something.
And you go, whoa, whoa, what was that?
Was that a car backfire?
Was that a firework?
To Dr. Jory Cross, a police psychologist,
isn't that just a human's way of trying to digest
or assess what you're hearing?
The first thing you think is not typically, wow, somebody's shooting at me.
You think it's a firework or a car backfiring.
You're going to go to your most recent memory of the auditorial memory and try to associate that with a past sound.
Like you said, fireworks.
Unfortunately, when you take a physical and add to that, like getting actually hit with that, then your word is changed. You know, I always do that, though.
What you're saying, Dr. Jory Crawson, you hear something, your first thought is not,
wow, somebody's shooting a gun in the parking lot and I'm going to go down.
Back to you, Barron Lee, the victim in this case who somehow managed to survive 12 entry-exit wounds.
So you hear this sound, and you think it's fireworks.
I find that so interesting.
Take it from there.
Yeah, so I looked to the left.
I didn't see anything.
And then the second shot, I hear it, and obviously that was when I actually got hit in my right arm.
And then that's when i
looked to the right and i saw this guy running at me with the gun what did it feel like because a
lot of people say they don't even feel anything um i guess it at the time you feel like i felt
like a real sharp pain like someone pinched my arm um it actually shattered my arm and broke
and i didn't realize it was broken yet. I just, you know, obviously the adrenaline, I see someone running with me with a gun.
I'm looking for the best exit strategy possible.
Dr. Gallagher, how come so many shooting victims don't even realize what's happening and they don't feel it?
But Barron Lee felt something sharp, had no idea he had shattered his arm.
What is that? Shock? Well, it could be. I mean,
people have a lot of adrenaline running and adrenaline tends to dull your perception of pain,
although it does heighten some other senses. So it's not unusual to hear people who have been shot not feel it or have actually somebody else tell them, hey, you're bleeding. You must have
been shot. So it's a very common
thing to do and not an unusual situation at all. Back to you, Baron. So you get hit in the right
arm. You look to the right and what do you see? I see this guy running towards me. He's probably
about, I'd say, 50 feet away from me. I mean, he was pretty close. And so I was about five feet
from my car door. so I rushed to my car
to open it fortunately I had actually already unlocked my car with the fob prior to being shot
as I normally do when I walk up to the car so it was unlocked because I had the keys in my right
hand so as the moment I got shot I actually dropped the keys not you know realizing open the
car door and try to get behind get into my car and that's
when i got another shot behind my right leg and that made me actually fall to ground i couldn't i
couldn't stand um i pulled myself behind the door and i kept firing at me and then a few seconds
later i look up and i take the first shot he comes around the corner take the first shot. He comes around the corner, take the first shot into the chest and goes through the side of my chest.
And at that point, it's like, what am I going to do?
This guy is standing over me for blank firing at me.
So I dive in to the car, kind of hiding my head under the wheel.
Well, hoping, you know,
that to at least protect my head and my heart and, um,
and he unloads the clip or the magazine into my body, the left side of my body,
because that was part that wasn't unprotected.
A total of nine shots is what happened.
Could you see his face as he was doing this, Baron?
So, I mean, I see, you know, like his full face and body,
but not anything where I could recognize. I mean,
I'm not trying to like identify my shooter at that point. I'm just trying to survive.
Take a listen to this. When a 48-year-old father was shot at this apartment complex,
the evidence led detectives to two teenagers over 70 miles away with no ties to the victim.
But when investigators dug deeper,
teens were connected to s
victim, someone with an a
him dead. It's absolutel
shooting of Baron Lee is
Bellevue PDC is often or
a family that's torn apart
child and his ex wifewife in a custody battle.
What happened to Lee on the morning of July 10th as he walked out his front door to head to work is what nightmares are made of.
As he walked to his car, he was confronted by an assailant that he didn't recognize.
The assailant shot him about eight or nine times.
The victim fell to the ground.
The suspect stood over him and continued to fire.
Incredibly, he lived.
And one of the first things he told detectives?
He said that the only person he thought or that he could think of that had anything against him
was his ex-wife.
That was Olivia LaVoie at Q13 Fox Seattle.
Trying to make sense of it. Two teen killers?
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
For those of you just joining us,
it's really a miracle.
Baron Lee survives 12 entry and exit wounds,
his body riddled with bullets.
On an ordinary Friday after Friday morning,
he's not supposed to go to work.
He does to fill in for somebody else.
To Chris Harris, tell me about the location.
He's going out into a parking lot, I think, full of cars. Tell me
what your understanding is of the topography, the scenario.
You know, it's a condominium apartment building. From what I understand, it's a very urban,
sorry, rural area. And yeah, it was just an open parking lot, lots of cars. And, uh, Barron was just on his way to work to cover for somebody, um, which is, uh, it's
crazy that the, uh, the shooter even knew that he was going to be coming out to go to
work that day.
You know, very interesting to Dan Corsentino, former police chief and with Homeland Security.
Uh, you can find her now, privateigator at dancorsentino.com.
Dan, I find it very odd that you would commit a shooting of a target in an open area like a
parking lot where everybody could see you. It was very amateur, Nancy, the way this
case was done in regards to the suspects in this case. I mean,
they clearly, there's no exculpatory evidence or evidence favorable to the defense in this.
They left shell casings behind. They have witnesses. And as we'll see later throughout
this show, there was text messages, a GPS system that was placed on a vehicle. And there was just no plan, very amateur.
And from my perspective, we would have seen with a more mature individual
that had a profession as a hitman or something,
the outcome may have been tragic for Mr. Lee.
You're right about that.
And certainly anyone with any experience would know not to come firing in an open parking
lot.
I mean, back to you, Barron Lee, the victim in this case, you can find him.
Go find me.
Hashtag help for Barron.
There has to be surveillance video.
You're in an open parking lot at a condominium
complex people will look out the window to see what's going on when you turn around baron you
said you heard something you look to your left you felt pain on your right you look and you see
someone coming at you could you tell it was a teen boy no at the time i couldn't tell at all because
they had a mask and they were wearing gloves i had a hoodie on um i couldn't even tell it was a
guy or a girl at that point i just you know what was going through your mind baron i like i told
the police officers from the get-go i was just wondering who my ex-wife had sent to kill me.
I mean, and what I was going to do to survive, you know, at that point,
how I was going to, you know, make it through this so I could be there for my son.
Well, that's an incredibly lucid thought to be having at a time
when you were about to bleed out dead in the parking lot.
But you know what? It's interesting.
I remember when I gave birth to the twins, my daughter and I almost died. And I remember
thinking, who is going to raise them? I'm going to be on the other side of life watching them
being raised without a mother. I remember thinking almost the thought that you're describing at a time
when life was really ebbing away from me. You know, to Holly Davis, trial lawyer,
no stranger to a courtroom with Kirker Davis at kirkerdavis.com. Holly, you know, trying to defend
this teen hitman is tough because you just heard Beren Lee say they had their faces covered
wearing a hoodie and gloves. That shows
mens rea. Malice of forethought, intent, and of course intent
under the law can be formed in an instant.
The blink of an eye, the twinkling of a moment, it doesn't take
or require a long drawn out plan such as poisoning someone over a period of time or, you know, a detailed plan.
To go hide your face, to hoodie, to wear gloves, to show up at the scene with guns, that shows premeditation, Holly.
There's no way around it.
Absolutely.
I mean, what a joke this crime was in terms of, you know, planned out, calculated murder.
And I also believe that the fact that this perpetrator was a complete stranger to the
victim, to Barron, also indicates that he had no other reason to be there in that apartment
complex but for to kill him as
part of this plan and what's even worse is that and i'm sure we're going to get to later in the
show baron's ex-wife is the connecting piece among all of these individuals and her involvement in
this sending him directly this perpetrator would not be in that parking lot but for baron's ex-wife
i mean major culpability on her part as well even though she was not in that parking lot but for Barron Deck's wife. I mean, major culpability on
her part as well, even though she was not in that apartment complex or anywhere near on that morning.
You know, that's what you do when you're analyzing a case. You look at common denominators. What is
the connectivity? What's the connection between this victim and the killer, the would-be killer. Barron Lee, did they try to rob you or take your car?
Nope.
Like I said, as soon as he finished firing, he actually bent down to try and pick up a
couple of casings and then took off.
Guys, take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition.
I took a shot behind my right leg, and that's when I fell to the ground.
Pulled myself behind the car door. He comes around the door and he's standing over me at point
blank range. Fired the first shot without looking and went in my chest here. He
shot me in the leg, in the hip, and twice in the arm until the clip emptied. Did
you think this was a random attack or did you think it was something else?
Absolutely not. I mean from the get go, I just was wondering
who was that that my wife had sent to kill me.
Cops found a GPS tracking device on Lee's car.
It ended up being the victim's ex-wife
who had purchased that tracker.
That led police to arrest 30-year-old, Sharon Kelly.
The investigation also led to this 17 year old who was allegedly to be paid
thirteen thousand dollars for the hit cops say his getaway driver was another 17 year old all
were charged with attempted murder what do you want to say to her honestly i hope she rots in
jail for the rest of her life the animosity that must have existed in her mind to allegedly order a hit on her husband,
Baron Lee, who is with us now.
You know, what's interesting, Dan Corsentino, I don't think this is going to be a difficult
case to prove because of all the forensic evidence, such as you hear Baron Lee state that the shooter tried to pick up the shell casings.
Shell casings can be traced back to the type of ammo, sometimes even the exact weapon, like a fingerprint.
How does that happen, Dan Corsentino? Many people understand you can track a bullet
back to the precise gun like a fingerprint. But what about a shell casing? Well, the shell
casings themselves, there's just like you said, Nancy, it's almost like a fingerprint. There's
marks on the casing, stridations on the casing, and the law enforcement agencies,
regardless of which one it is, is going to be able to run tests to match them up basically to
the capsule of the casing itself. They're also going to be able to determine specifically the
residue very definitively from the gunpowder and the primer remaining in the shell casing.
So that process is pretty simple forensically for them to match up to the weapon, and the link will be very conclusive.
I would try to explain it to juries like this. I love ballistics and have done ballistics tests many times myself at the crime lab.
And you do it by getting the gun in question and firing a bullet down the gun into a tub of water or pillows, whatever.
And then you take that fired bullet that you know came from this gun.
Then under a microscope, you compare it to the bullet that's fished out of the victim barrenly.
And then you'll see the same exact striations. In other words, markings on the bullet,
because every gun is different, like a fingerprint.
Every gun is made of metal and it cools a certain way.
It's forged in fire and it cools.
And that gun has its unique cooling marks inside the barrel.
So as a bullet hurls down the barrel, it's marked by those unique drying spots on the inside of the barrel.
So the bullets will match up like fingerprints. Same thing with the shell casing. As it is
ejected from a particular gun, only that gun will leave that particular mark on the shell casing.
It's really easy and it's so 100% accurate.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
For those of you just joining us, with me is Baron Lee, who managed to survive 12 entry and exit bullet wounds. To tell
his tale, and he's telling it right now for you. Take a listen right now to our friends at Q13 Fox
Seattle. According to Barron, he and his 30-year-old ex-wife have been involved in a bitter fight over
their son. There was also a financial element to the custody of their child.
While the ex-wife may be the only one with an apparent motive,
detectives soon found surveillance video led them to two 17-year-olds in Mount Vernon.
One of the teens had apparently used a GPS tracker to help pin down Lee's location
the night before the shooting.
That GPS tracker was the piece of the puzzle that pointed to his ex-wife.
She had purchased a GPS tracker that we located on the victim's vehicle.
As far as how the ex-wife met the teens, investigators say they're still looking into that.
To Barron Lee joining me, the victim in this case, along with Chris Harris from People Magazine,
Dr. Tim Gallagher, Dan Corsentino,
Dr. Jory Croson, and Holly Davis.
Barron, as you're laying there when the teen shooter leaves, what went through your mind?
Yeah, at the first, at that point, you know, all you're thinking is, you know, is this my last breath?
Am I going to die?
And I was wondering, you know, if I die, you know, what's going to happen to my son? Who I going to die? And I was wondering, if I die,
what's going to happen to my son?
Who's going to care for him?
Is he going to go back to her?
Is the system going to take care of him?
How am I going to survive this at all?
Because I felt a lot of pain,
but I was still breathing.
But you're shot that many times it
it's rushing through my head you know am i going to die is this the last last breath i'm going to
take and um that's you know it was a pretty scary thought you know who called 9-1-1 uh actually
quite a few of my neighbors have actually heard the gunshots and someone peeked out the windows
so there was a few from what I understood,
there was quite a few people that called 9-1-1.
Did anybody come out to help you?
Yeah. So the first thing that happened as soon as the shooter left,
I heard someone scream out, are you OK?
Do you need anything?
And I was like, I've been shot a few times.
I need, you know, an ambulance or someone to come help me.
And they said, don't worry, we already got someone coming.
And then the first neighbor showed up.
She came next to me and saw that I was bleeding.
And so she tried to apply pressure to my chest.
And I was wearing a black jacket,
so they didn't see where all my gunshots were.
She just saw me bleeding through my chest because my jacket had been open.
So she applied pressure to kind of stop the bleeding as much as possible.
But I had also been shot in all my arms and my legs as well.
And so when the police first showed up, they were the first ones on the scene.
I believe there were three officers total. They
tried to put tourniquets around my legs and my arms because I told them where I'd been shot.
And that's basically what happened. And then 911 got there? And then the paramedics got there
shortly after. I would say all within five minutes, it seems like everyone was there.
I'm fortunate because the police, the fire station was literally one block up the road from my home. Let me ask you something. And believe me, I hate politics.
I think they're all lying. It's like a cesspool.
Baron Lee, what do you make of the defund the police movement?
I mean, I honestly I think it's crazy uh you know
officers do a great job i mean like i said that if it wasn't for the detectives and and the police
officers that responded i may not be here may not be alive and look i know there's some bad cops out
there i get it and they should be prosecuted but to to defund the police? My opinion is there's bad people everywhere,
whether it doesn't matter what occupation there is,
but it doesn't mean that you separate.
I mean, you include them with everybody else
because there are a lot of great...
Okay, I'm taking you down a rabbit hole
that even I don't like.
So let me get out of that and get back on you.
Do you remember your ride in the ambulance to the hospital?
Yeah, they had... Basically, they were trying to strip me down uh they were cutting away you know clothing and stuff
so they could get to all the um uh bullet wounds and at that time i i was felt like at peace like
i was ready to die oh dear lord heavening asleep. And I distinctly remember the paramedics were telling me to stay awake,
Baron, what's your name, talk to me, and all this stuff.
And then I kept dozing off,
and then one of the paramedics touched where whatever my wound was,
and it sent sharp pain and woke me up.
And I was like, okay, I'm up'm up i'm up don't touch don't
touch that that's such a scary feeling i i remember that feeling just wanting to go to sleep
and just kind of like drifting off what is that to dr tim gallagher i hate to keep asking the same
question what is that but what is that when you you just you just want to go to sleep and you know that your
life is ebbing away but somehow you don't care well that's a very you know philosophical and
anatomical question um well forget philosophy and give me anatomy well the brain requires oxygen
the brain requires oxygen that's delivered to it from your blood so if you're shot in the chest it definitely one of your lungs have been hit so now
you're bleeding the blood that your brain needs to survive is now bleeding
into your chest so your brain is not receiving the proper amounts of blood so
it starts to shut down areas of itself and this is the feeling that people get
they get sleepy they a feeling of peace comes over
them a feeling of acceptance comes over them and then they pass away shortly after that baron lee
do you hear how close you were to death and and and not being there to raise your son
yeah i think that's what made me the most angry of it all.
You know, when everything was said and done, when I look back, I mean, I like I said, you know, that day was a weird mix of emotions.
But anger was actually one of them when I thought about that because of what could have happened to my son if I had passed.
And to you, Chris Harris, senior crime reporter, People magazine.
You know, very often, Chris, I'd say the majority of the time, you're hearing Barry Lee say, I knew when I saw this shooter, I typically a woman says, if anything happens to me, ex did it, my husband, my fiance, my ex-boyfriend.
They know.
But this time, this once in a lifetime, the person lives.
We don't see that very often, Chris Harris.
No, that's one of the first things I said to Barron when we started talking was, I don't think I've ever spoken to someone who survived nine gunshots.
And he jokingly referred to 50 Cent, the rapper who, you know, when he was in Queens, still a drug dealer, did get shot nine times and survived. So, yeah, Barron, unfortunately, Barron is a rapper and can't make a record.
But, yeah, it's one of those craziest stories.
And I do think it's a miracle that he survived.
You know, Chris Harris, you've been on this from the very beginning.
Chris Harris joining me.
And we're really honored to have you from People magazine that we all love.
Chris, tell me your thoughts on this case.
I feel so bad for Barron.
He's just a guy trying to raise his kid do right by his family. And this woman, to me, I don't see how anyone thinks murder is the answer
for anything, especially in a custody battle. But yeah, this is one of those stories that really
touches your heart because Barron, just from getting to know him through our numerous conversations, such a dedicated dad, so devoted to his son.
You hate to see this happen to someone, a good person like Barron Lee, especially when the motive may have been a trust fund here that she would have had access to had Barron not survived.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Guys, why do we keep referring to the wife as the mastermind behind this plot?
For those of you just joining us, we have a true life miracle, a survivor of 12 entry exit wounds shot point blank.
You can find them on GoFundMe, and I urge you to do that at hashtag help for barren.
Why do so many people think the evil ex-wife was involved?
Well, let's just start with this.
Take a listen to our cut number one.
This is Tommy Mataza at KOMO News 4.
Court documents paint a deliberate and disturbing murder-for-hire scheme.
Bellevue police say Sharon Kelly hired a 17-year-old boy to murder her ex-husband,
Baron Lee, and offered to pay
the teenager $13,000. Something like this is rare. It is rare. On the day of the shooting in July,
police say the 17-year-old got his friend to drive him to the overlook at Lakemont Apartments
in Bellevue, where court documents say he was going to cap someone and empty the clip. Police
say the 17-year-old gunman ambushed Lee, shooting him nine times.
The victim fell to the ground.
The suspect stood over him and continued to fire.
According to court documents, Lee said he couldn't think of anyone
who would want to kill him besides his ex-wife,
saying they were in the midst of a very acrimonious custody battle
that also included a financial motive for Kelly to have sole custody
of their child. And to you, Barron Lee, who miraculously survived a point-blank range shooting,
and you can find him at hashtag help for Barron at GoFundMe. Isn't it true surveillance video
captures the license plate of the getaway truck and leads them to the shooter, a 17-year-old who was supposed to get $13,000.
The getaway truck driver, also 17, who was offered between $4,000 and $6,000.
And they got a tracking device off your vehicle.
And turns out it was bought by your ex-wife, Sharon Kelly.
Barron? That's correct. I mean, I don't know. bought by your ex-wife Sharon Kelly.
Barron?
That's correct.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I can't say I was surprised. I mean, like I told everyone, you know, that this is actually not even the whole story.
This is just the culmination of what's gone on for the past five years.
I mean, I...
What has gone on in the past five years?
I've been fighting for custody for my son. My son was taken from me when he was a year old
because I was served with
a temporary restraining order for domestic violence.
Two weeks later, I appeared in court to fight it. It was thrown out.
We found out that it was a lie, a complete lie.
But my sign in my house was still taken from me.
And then I was forced to pay $6,000 a month in child support to the point where it made me homeless.
And I had to flee the state because they were trying to throw me in jail for not being able to pay the child support.
To Holly Davis, trial lawyer, joining me at kirkordavis.com.
Holly, don't you hate, and I've represented at the Battered Women's Center for free,
women that were domestic violence survivors.
Don't you hate to see the system twisted like this?
Getting a TRO against Barron, that wasn't true.
And then when it was disproved in court, it was already too late.
The boy had been, his son had been given to the wife.
He lost his place.
Everything went sideways.
That is a shame. My favorite thing to do as a trial lawyer on these family law cases is to represent the wrongly accused people with these dangerous protective orders and temporary restraining order claims.
And it's, you know, unfortunately, the way that the court system works, it takes a long time for you to realize that when someone presents an affidavit full of lies to a judge, that looks very dangerous on its
face. And you've got a judge who has to make a split second decision whether or not to sign
that temporary restraining order and kick a person out of the house based on the claims
made in that affidavit. And then oftentimes, it's awful, and it's dangerous. And it's a very
critical moment in time. And usually you get a hearing right away, but sometimes those hearings
get delayed. And that passage of time is what ruins it. Because at that point, even though
what was put into the affidavit is a lie, that lie has grown and managed to kick someone out of
their home. And then only weeks later, do you come back to a hearing where you can determine that
that was a lie. And by then the damage is done. That person's out of the home.
And it's very hard to get back into a home once you've been kicked out,
especially in divorce.
It really is.
And here he is in the hospital just trying to survive.
Barron Lee joining us, a miracle.
Barron, when you heard about the text messages your ex-wife,
Sharon Kelly, sent, unless she wants to claim
somebody stole her phone and sent them, I got to hear your response to text where she said to the
17-year-old, job unfinished after he shot you nine times. You will need to complete unless it resolves on its own. In other words, unless you died in the hospital.
Did you have any idea her hatred was so vile, so toxic?
Yeah, I mean, I'm obviously trying to tell my story, and there's more to it.
Prior to the shooting, she attempted to run me over twice,
and this was filed with the police department as well.
So was I capable, was she capable of this, you know,
act with all, as much as she hated me?
I wasn't surprised.
I mean, you know.
Did she report that to the police, Barron?
Yeah, I had reported it.
Unfortunately, the way our system works, when you're in a family court battle, even the police at the time said there's really not much we can do.
You have to go to the judge and file and let the courts know.
And unfortunately, the family court systems here in Washington, they didn't care.
They didn't care enough to believe me or look into it.
Or at least investigate.
I mean, Chris Harris, joining me, People Magazine.
Isn't it true that as soon as Sharon Kelly learned her husband
apparently was going to survive, she began planning a second assassination?
That is definitely what police are alleging. And they
actually started surveilling her in the months after the shooting to see if she was going to
meet up with the two teen suspects. Yeah, they were on to her pretty early. And yeah, she was
the focus of the investigation right away. Barron Lee, did you realize she was planning, as soon as she got word that you were recovering in the hospital,
she was planning a second attempt on your life, according to you, a fourth attempt?
Yeah, I knew.
That's why the police officers had emergency panic buttons in my home.
I mean, I never knew that she would come back. One of the reasons the
police officers were so quick to find her was obviously my, you know, strong conviction about
it was her, you know, without a doubt. Throughout the investigation, they never gave me any details.
But after she was arrested, they told me told me you know the process on how they
found her and everything what's so crazy is you i'm looking at a photo of her on insta and she
looks like you know an insta star she's cooking some fresh salad it looks like beautiful woman
big smile you would never imagine what's going on in that head, according to police. So, Barry and Lee, how did they end up arresting her?
So, basically, they tracked, you know, used the GPS tracker.
They found that it was tied to her because she had made the purchase.
And then, obviously, they were using, tracking her text messages back and forth between the two kids.
And I remember that week they arrested her.
They said that that arrest was going to be made.
You're probably not going to have to send your son on a visitation this week.
And so that's when I knew it was her, you know, that they were going to get her.
At first, she was jailed with $2 million bond.
Prosecutors go back and argue no bond. They say if Kelly is out of
custody, Barron Lee's life is at risk. Barron, where is your son now? He's with me at home.
You know, he lives with me full time. I actually, after a two year dependency trial
that I had to go through between her and myself. I was awarded him in May of 2019
and he's been home with me since. At the time she had weekend visits until that was revoked as well.
And then she had supervised visits up to her arrest, which I, you know, knowing that she had
done this to me, I had to send my son every weekend to her, knowing that she was capable of hurting him and hurting me.
You know, sometimes I wonder how the courts can be so blind.
But I truly think it is a miracle from heaven that you're alive, your son is alive, and he is with you.
Chris Harris, when is this going to trial?
We actually don't have a trial date set yet.
There's a backlog, obviously, because of a pandemic.
So according to Barron, and he's been in touch with the prosecutors there as well, it might be a year or two before this actually goes to court.
But there's still no bond, correct?
Still no bond, no.
But the funny thing is that even while she's in prison right now,
she's still entitled to video visits with Barron's son,
which some may say that is really putting Barron and his son out,
but that's just the way the system works so she's
still is that true does she have video visits with your son yeah and she she's uh responsible
to facilitate them um with a uh supervisor supposed to pick my son up take him to a
undisclosed location and she's supposed to be able to get video visits once a month
it hasn't happened yet because i haven't been contacted, but that is supposedly her right.
And I fought as hard as I could against this.
But again, the court system has failed me and failed my son.
I can only imagine what she's going to say to your son when she gets the chance.
Barron Lee, please know that you are a walking miracle.
And I fully believe that you were kept on this earth for a reason.
And I'm anxious to find out what that reason is.
I think it was to raise your son happy and healthy.
We wait as justice unfolds.
Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.
This is an iHeart Podcast.