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- APS Films.
- Savannah Chatham 911,
what is you emergency?
- This is 3131, Robertson Avenue,
We just heard gunshots.
- Where is it coming from?
- In the area.
- I just heard...
I'm pretty sure it was abour five or six gunshots.
I heard some screams too,
that's what made me go, "uh, oh".
Two neighbors are shot.
- Two neighbors are shot?
- Yes, ma'am. They are not moving.
Him and his girlfriend are laying on the porch right now,
there's blood splatter everywhere.
Oh, my Lord God.
They're not moving, they're just shot,
they're shot, dead.
- I used to be able to watch the news
like a normal person,
but that changed when my family became the headline.
My little sister, Alice, was murdered in 2013,
and I've been trying to figure out how to live
in this new reality ever since.
I'm constantly trying to find a balance
between keeping too many memories around,
which could be painful,
and keeping too few around
which makes me feel like I'm not honoring Alice properly.
My children have stuffed animals passed down
from their aunt, Alice,
although only my oldest ever got to meet her.
My daughter's middle name is Alice,
I even got a tattoo of Alice across my heart,
and a sunflower, which was Alice's favorite flower.
I've been reaching for anything to feel connected to Alice,
I even bought a convertible like the one Alice had.
It is some type of ridiculous, expensive, tribute to her,
I'm ready to give up the car now.
The money from the sale of the car will fund this film.
This is a better way to keep her memory alive.
- We are following
a developing story right now out of Thunderbolt,
an overnight shooting in which two people are dead.
- That's right, Mike,
if you can see those red stairs that lead up
to the black door, we're told that both of their bodies
were found there.
- Police have identified 27 year old,
Forrest Ison, and 24 year old Alice Stevens.
- 27 year-old Forrest Ison,
and 24 year old Alice Stevens
shot outside their Robertson Avenue home.
- One of the victims died on the scene
the other died on the way to the hospital.
- Look at you sitting up, real fancy pants.
Hi.
- 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40.
- All right.
Sir, could you please come close to the window?
- Yes?
- Welcome to Al Burger,
would you like a for piece or a six piece?
- Six piece.
- Okay.
Have a nice day, sir.
Come back to see us soon.
- I'll camp out down here.
- All right, let's all lay down.
- I'll camp out down here.
- Well, we don't turn the light out.
Look up, look at the stars.
Although I don't wanna forget her,
I also really don't wanna feel like this forever.
I've decided to attack my feelings more head on.
I'm gonna travel across the country,
meeting some of the most important people from Alice's life.
And hopefully I can gain a better understanding
of who she was and how she could meet this kind of end,
and maybe even get some closure.
- Carl's missing the best day.
- Eight, nine, 10.
Everybody smile for the cameras.
right there, and wave.
- Hi.
- Say, we're on TV, yay.
- We're on TV.
- I met Alice, I'd say she was around one or two.
It was 1990, and I went up to Maine, up to Kennebunk
and walked in the house to see this cute, little...
I liked to call her Mowgli.
- Beautiful, Alice.
- When I think of Alice, I think of an ethereal nymph.
She would flit about from one thing to the next,
and she was fantastic at so many things.
It was almost as if she was leaving a trail of sparkle
wherever she went.
- Let's see what the maniac does.
Hi, Alice.
- It was a lot of fun,
Alice was caring, loving,
she just always lit up the room when I was there.
- When we came to visit, she was always playing with boys
and she's just always just fun to be around.
I can't remember the exact time or place that we met,
I just know that it was at Cheverus.
And I remember I had a hard time when I first transferred,
but as soon as I met Alice, my year got so much better.
Alice and I got our belly buttons pierced together,
and she was like, "Okay, first step is ask your mom,
second step is, I'll talk you through the pain."
Obviously I was definitely afraid and she was fearless,
and I said, the only way I would do it is if she went first
and if she documented it.
So she brought her camera and took pictures
of several steps along the way.
That was Alice getting ready
to get her belly button pierced.
This was Alice standing up,
right before he put the needle through her belly button.
And this was as she was getting her belly button pierced,
he was actually putting the needle in
and I took a picture of her, just to get her reaction,
to know if I should be afraid.
That's me getting my belly button pierced,
and that's me after I got it done, super proud of myself.
And that's the end product
of us getting our belly buttons pierced together.
I still have mine, I will never take it out.
She was very loving, she was very caring,
she never wanted anyone to feel left out.
- At first I thought Gramps had died,
so, I mean, I was definitely taken aback,
but I kind of expected it over that time
'cause he was getting very sick and all that.
And then it hit me that she had died and it...
It was a terrible feeling that day.
- Maybe from my father, right?
Our father, I'm pretty matter of fact, to the point,
I like to understand things,
I quickly do better when I'm trying to grasp and understand.
Not that any death is explainable but, you know,
an accidental death or my mother dying from cancer,
you know, you kind of saw it co ming,
while tragic, at least you had time to prepare.
I mean, Alice was so young
just getting started with her life,
I needed to try to make some sense of what just happened.
- They're ready? - They're ready.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
- How's it going?
It's hot out here.
- This is Jenny.
- Hi, Jenny.
- Jenny's the one who helped me learn how to laugh again.
- Oh, good.
- You gotta get her picture.
Could you get her picture?
- Can you get her picture?
- My friend, Jenny.
- You still have her pictures?
- Oh, you know I've got tons of pictures.
- Oh, I know, yeah.
- So I can retrieve anything that, you know?
- Okay.
- But the other thing is that is that I went down
to this storage unit and I want you to see
what I have to deal with.
- Yeah, we'll go. Totally.
Hmm, all right. Well, we'll go by the beach
and then we'll meet you in about an hour, okay?
- Okay, you be careful, don't stay-
- I'm not gonna go outside, yeah.
Bye, Jenny.
Bye.
- Have a good time tonight.
Well, Alice, first of all was attached to my leg.
Do you remember that?
I used to teach Sunday school
and she was attached to my leg, all the time.
So this was one of Alice's gymnastics pictures,
she was really little then.
She was up at the Maine Academy then,
so that must've been probably about third or fourth grade.
It was funny, she didn't do exactly
what they said to do either,
so that was kinda hard for them.
- What? In the photo, or?
- Well, see her hand is kind of loose,
the others are kind of really, you know?
And they kept saying you've got spaghetti arms,
but she would never like really...
And of course the two of you.
- But why is it cut?
- I don't know
- Why is it a broken heart?
- I know.
Well, isn't that appropriate?
These are some of her clothes
that I haven't been able to deal with them,
Alice did this for her graduation from high school.
She always wore perfume which gave me an asthma attack
every time I was around her.
She loved her dad, she had that picture made.
, I think, not even asking me about it.
Well, no, that's from Maine actually,
remember when she moved upstairs and had that room up there?
- Yes.
- So we had everything very colorful,
and she wanted stars on the ceiling and...
Yup.
Oh, and then this was out at Phillips,
that's rehearsal dinner and the wedding.
Look at you in here,
and Alice was so sweet, aw.
And then these are just pictures that we took along the way,
the Grand Canyon,
and you were always holding her hand, you were always...
And look at this, you always had your arm around her.
She was always happy with you, I have to say.
- Growing up, Alice and I were very, very close.
I was very excited to have a little sister.
and being an older brother,
I wanted to be super hands-on in her life
and I wanted to do things for her.
I've heard stories about how Alice didn't learn
to talk for a long time because she would talk
in this gibberish and I would know what it was,
and then I would just get whatever it was
that she wanted for her,
because I didn't want her to have to worry
about learning English, I guess.
My family used to spend summers on Islesboro,
an Island off the coast of Maine,
and we would bring friends and have fun,
and that's where I have my fondest
childhood memories with Alice.
We went to school and we had a lot of friends
but we were always there for each other.
We were always pretty much the only other person
we felt like we could count on.
- Well, this is Edwin, he's...
Good one, Edwin, run!
Okay, turn around this way.
Give Edwin a hug and say, good job Edwin.
- Good job, Edwin.
- She used to journal,
so that's something that she did when she was little.
- Recently, my mother gave me access
to Alice's old journals and letters.
I finally feel like I'm ready
to go through them for the first time.
- Here's some random stuff about me
I'd like you to know if you don't already.
I was born in Bakersfield, California, to my mom who was 16
and in high school.
My dad was half black and my mom was 5'2,
with blonde hair and blue eyes.
I was adopted immediately,
and within a day I was on my way home
in an old station in Maine,
with my brother Ed, who you'll be hearing a lot about,
and my parents.
I have three older brothers, Ed is 19, Mark is 35,
and Phillip would have been 42 this year.
Phillip was the only one of my brothers
who experimented with drugs,
he then became an alcoholic and killed himself
two months after his second marriage, last July.
My father used to smoke cigarettes for years,
he survived two different types of cancer;
One in his tongue and one in a nerve
on the right side of his face.
He's had plastic surgery
to make his face look as normal as possible,
yet there's only so much they could fix.
The most amazing thing I've ever heard,
was that before he went into his surgery
he told the doctor, "I don't care about what I look like
or how much people stare, all I want you to do
is to assure me I'll be at my kids' graduations"
- What about studies? Was she studious?
Was she bright?
- You know, I don't really remember her
ever doing homework or studying,
I feel like she was always just having a good time.
- Well, I think in ninth grade we started worrying
about her pranks, which weren't so good.
- And then that's-
- Like what?
- Well, you know, skipping mass to go get a manicure.
Did Audrey tell you about that?
See?
And then she was acting really nasty
if she didn't get her way about things,
and she really, you know, felt that she needed new clothes,
and she was talking about the car she was gonna get,
and it was just kind of really getting out of control.
- When you say nasty,
what kind of things would she say?
- She calls me a fucking biatch, okay?
Okay?
I think Phillip's suicide,
and I think Penn's cancer really, very deeply affected her,
and I think she realized that she wanted to have fun.
So we got really worried about that,
that she was gonna get into trouble.
So I was seeing a therapist
to try to see what can I do for Alice?
Well, she said, well, "Maybe Alice will talk to me."
So we made an agreement that Alice was gonna go
talk to this person for three or four sessions, okay?
Alice got in there and didn't say a word,
so I paid $125 for Alice to go three or four weeks
and not say a word.
We had told her that if she could get a job
and get into one of her sports, she wouldn't have to go,
and she just thought we were kidding.
She picked out a big rock,
I don't know if you picked out your own rock or what,
but she had this big, heavy rock
that she had to carry around with her all the time.
And on there were the burdens that you were carrying
with you and you were trying to work through.
- I really hate that rock.
I imagine myself hiking up a huge mountain
and at the top having a revelation,
and throwing Muffin off to a place
that I would never see him again.
But that moment never came.
Muffin actually came home with me on September 4th.
I guess I realized that although I know what needs to happen
to get rid of muffin,
I wasn't completely capable of doing those things yet.
- Here's some of her baby clothes.
This is the first outfit she had coming home
from the hospital, that size.
We thought she was gonna be very tiny
'cause the mother was tiny, and here she was two weeks late,
so she was eight pounds, 14 ounces.
Alice Stevens, 9/2/89.
A little knick-knacks, baby pillow.
- The only person she ever dismissed was her mom.
I think she fought with her mother
more than the typical teenage girl
would fight with her mother.
I don't really know where the anger came from.
From what I could tell, Dorothy, you know,
she's a great mom, was and is.
She, you know, always wanted to make sure
that Alice was happy and taken care of her,
so I don't really know why it was strained,
why there was issues.
- Look at this, she had it a little wrong.
This is daddy, daddy starts with E.
- Dorothy loved Alice beyond measure,
she would do anything for that girl.
And Alice loved Dorothy
and just wanted to be all of the things she perceived,
Dorothy wanting her to be.
And so they were both setting
their own impossible standards to meet,
not realizing that if they just stripped
all the rest of it away, they loved each other
and were enough for each other already.
- A couple more of Alice's paintings
that I think she was just having fun with,
but I can't give them away,
or throw them out.
Oops.
Some more of her trying to be organized.
Somebody gave her this.
- I met him freshman year of high school.
There was this girl in my art class, freshman year,
who had a huge crush on him,
and so she talked about him a lot.
And I remember her being very upset
and she said that he liked me.
It's funny 'cause, after, him and I dated the first time.
My sister would always make comments
about, "You should get back with Ed,
you should get back with ed.
Remember Ed? Remember when you used to date Ed?"
And I would always get so annoyed.
I'd be like, "Yeah, I know.
I know he was the best guy ever, and I let him go.
I know you're rubbing it in my face."
And then when Ed and I started talking again,
she was like, "See, I told you, I told you."
So Ed went apartment searching for us
while I was still in Maine,
and he sent me this super adorable video
of him touring the apartment.
It was really nice.
When we finally settled on this house,
we were both on the same page, we both had the same vision,
like we just... We could see ourselves here together.
- My soon to be wife at that time, and I,
had just bought a house in LA and we were very excited,
and I had agreed to help my old roommate move out
of his apartment.
So we go to get the U-Haul, I'm already kind of stressed out
'cause of getting married at the end of the week,
we have a kid on the way, we're moving into the new house,
but I had agreed to help her move,
so I felt like it was only fair to fall through in it.
And Ceci calls me.
- Ed's mom had called me, like all in a panic,
and she was like, "Well, I need to get ahold of him,
I have something to tell him, I need to talk to him,"
but she wouldn't tell me anything.
And so I told her that I would call him and let him know.
- And she says, "I just got a call from your mom,
she seems really stressed out.
And I wonder if you should try to get ahold of her."
So I finally get ahold of her
when we're at Nate's storage unit moving out,
and she tells me.
She said that Alice is dead.
- The phone rings, and I see it's Mimi,
and you could just tell.
There was a pause, and there was sobbing,
and there was, you know, right out with it,
just Alice is dead.
And, you know, I got weak in the knees,
I kind of went down to my knees on the table,
and I was like...
And I was just trying to say, you know, like what happened,
and then she said she was murdered.
You know, we didn't have a lot of details,
but she did mention Chief Bob Merriman.
- I got the call at my residence,
I responded to Robertson Avenue.
We interviewed the neighbors,
it was called a canvas.
So we canvassed the neighborhood up and down,
not only Robertson, but Casino, Gilbert,
all the streets surrounding that area.
- I remember I said to him, you know, how can I help?
Like I just wanna understand, and how can I help?
And he basically said, "You need to get here tomorrow."
I found my way over to Thunderbolt,
and I met Chief Merriman for the first time,
you know, got a little bit of a debrief from him.
Two people shot at point blank range,
it was a gruesome scene.
But he definitely spent a lot of time
getting me mentally prepared to walk into that house.
- It was a house like I would expect,
it was a little Southern bungalow.
We went inside, and the first thing I noticed was the smell.
- I mean, it was terrible.
I mean, what we saw there was awful.
- What was it like?
- Do you really wanna know.
- There was shit, literally animal shit on everything,
everything, the bed, the blanket, the pillows,
the sofa, everything.
And some of it was very old, not a day old, not a week old,
like a month old.
- And Alice always loved animals,
so it didn't surprise me that she would have animals,
but the smell told me
that they weren't necessarily cared for very well.
- That's what Merriman was really reacting to.
I mean, this outside scene was gruesome,
but he started to understand who Alice was, right?
He understood her background, who she came from,
you know, the family.
And he was like, I can't fathom how they live like this.
- I don't know what that cleared up for me
except that the picture that I had in my head
of the life Alice was living
was not the same as the reality.
- They built it for the person
who doesn't like the traditional school
and is not living up to their potential,
and they got a lot of kids who came there
with behavior or drug problems.
And Alice was very offended
that we put her into that situation,
because she hadn't done that at that time.
- She butted heads with her mom,
and I think she thought she was going home
after the wilderness program,
and I think that festered into a lot of resentment.
'Cause I think she had a different idea
coming out of the wilderness program;
If she did X, Y, Z,
then she was gonna be able to go home.
- She dated someone there, at Oliverian,
that probably had done some things
that she could never imagine doing,
but she really saw the good in that person.
- She seemed happy at the Oliverian school,
but then she would say, "Well, I'm just gonna learn
all the things that these other people are doing here,
all the bad stuff they do,
so I'm just learning more of that than anything."
Whether the Oliverian school helped or hurt her,
I don't know.
- She got accepted at the University of Denver,
she got accepted at University Of Loyola, in Chicago,
she really got accepted at good schools.
She went to High Point because the boyfriend
got accepted there.
- The first time I met Alice was that High Point University.
We were freshman year roommates,
so I walked into her freshman year dorm room
and I just remember thinking that she is so gorgeous.
This girl is drop dead gorgeous.
- We met the first night,
because we were all out in the hall,
but then we got a little bit closer
when it came to like going to the cafe,
and just being around each other.
- I went on a camping trip, and I was the only one
out of her friends going on this camping trip.
And I like opened my bag in front of the instructor,
and Alice had left me a note in a giant black dildo,
on top of all of my things.
- Balls, that's what we called her.
'Cause the girl had balls.
She was always there, like we stuck together,
and she didn't care enough to worry
about what you thought of her,
she was just giving you who she is.
She always wanted everybody to be happy,
and she would do anything to make you happy,
whether it was bringing in your favorite candy
or just wanting to go for a ride or listen to music.
- Did you know her when she was dating Dan?
- Yes.
- Do you know about that whole thing?
What happened there?
- So, I actually got a lot of those phone calls.
Sometimes they would argue in front of people
and then he would get a little violent,
and me being the fake bad-ass that I was,
I kept a bat in my car.
And so I would go over there,
and I think it happened three times that I went over there
and finally I had to sit down with her one-on-one and say,
"Listen, I'm not gonna hit him, I just wanna scare him.
But if you keep coming over here,
it's letting me know that you really don't care
what happens next."
It was a tainted relationship
that she definitely needed to get out of,
but it just ended up working out
that he got kicked out of school
and that was pretty much their last draw.
- I don't think Alice wanted to admit it,
that these were abusive relationships,
and even when she was dating a really good guy
she would make it become like an abusive relationship.
- Why? How?
- So I think she would initiate a lot of fights
and try to like physically like push them.
Then when Forrest came into the picture,
this bad boy, you know?
So that's kinda what changed that.
She saw this fun, rebellious, attitude, older guy,
so, yeah, she was drawn to that.
Alice was a waitress at a restaurant in High Point
and Forrest was one of the chefs there,
and I do remember the first few weeks of them meeting.
He was a nice enough guy, but it's just something about him,
made us not really love
that that was the influence on Alice.
- I think she felt like he really loved her,
and she felt that he loved her unconditionally,
and I don't think she ever really believed that before.
- And then once she dropped out
of High Point University
we kind of started seeing her less as well.
I think that's when Forrest really came into her life.
- I know they were in love,
and I think we can confidently say
that she was the one for him.
- Yeah.
- Just by the way... You could tell.
The smile that he carried
and, you know, things of that nature.
- And at first Forrest said he didn't want to be involved
with anybody because he was concentrating on his career.
But then he... They got together.
- So Alice was trying to regroup,
and she's like, well what do I like to do?
I think I like photography.
At that point, I think my parents were like,
oh my God, thank God, she has an interest
that she wants to pursue, just go to photography school.
So Alice got accepted into SCAD,
the Savannah College of Art and Design,
and he moved to Savannah with her.
I guess they were close enough at that point
that they didn't wanna be apart.
- SCAD was too much for her,
because those kids they were serious,
they had been developing their art for a long time
and Alice could have.
She could have but she didn't want
to expend the energy on it.
- And she called me and she said, "I missed my first class."
I'm like, how do you do that?
And you know, she...
Obviously, I mean, things happened and she lost her key
and couldn't get there, and-
- Ran out of gas or something.
- Ran out of... yeah.
No, I think she was at the gas station
'cause she was getting something to drink,
and her key broke and she couldn't start the car.
And then the professor said, you know,
get out of my class, and that was it.
And I think she decided then and there
that that wasn't gonna happen.
- She was struggling
but we all struggle at some point in life.
I wonder what would've happened
if she were given the opportunity to get out of her rut.
Why did she trust people that didn't deserve to be trusted?
Why did she give people so many chances
to earn her trust back?
And why on earth was she hanging out
with people who had severe criminal records?
These questions haunt me.
- It hurt, primarily because I felt
like I didn't talk to her,
and it never would have happened.
There was all of those whys of what happened.
- A homicide, you know, that's something serious,
so I had really thought they had started hanging out
with the wrong people and gotten wrapped up in drugs,
someone owed someone money, I don't know.
- The Chief obviously had some theories;
Was there something people were trying
to get in the house?
Were they trying to be robbed?
Did they have money?
Did they have drugs?
All those types of theories,
he was putting out there on the table.
- It was a crime that stunned Thunderbolt,
a couple found shot to death in their home.
Well, tonight police say they know who did it.
- Those men are Nathaniel Wilkins
and Michael Jones, both are charged with malice murder.
- The big question here though,
why would this couple be gunned down?
- Nate got his sister to drive,
who was Mike Jones girlfriend at the time, Tracy Wilkins.
Tracy was driving, Nate and Mike followed them,
they were at that convenience store
right around the corner from the house by the school,
they have them on videotape there.
They have Forrest and Alice there, coming back,
had a fun night out, and within 10 minutes after that
they have the 911 call.
They left getting gas, they drove down the road,
they pulled up to the house,
they were going inside for the night,
and that's when they believe that Tracy pulled up,
Mike and Nate got out of the car, at some point they shot.
And then one of the neighbors told us
that they heard Alice scream.
The story started to unwind
that Nate was a dishwasher at the restaurant,
and Forrest and Nate got into it a few times
at the restaurant, I guess at some point he fired Nate,
and Nate felt disrespected.
That was what he believed
the whole motive of this crime was,
was that Nate Wilkins was disrespected and pissed off,
because Forrest fired him.
There's no trace to Alice being involved in this, right?
I mean, that's probably the most tragic part
from where I sit, is that it was her boyfriend,
she was just coming home, right?
I mean, just think if she got sick that night
or didn't go out, or went somewhere else,
I mean, is she alive?
- I didn't even know she was in Savannah until like a year
before she passed away,
correction, a year before she was murdered.
And I totally regret not spending time with her, you know
not reconnecting, not seeing her,
and I always wonder if it would have made a difference.
If somehow, you know,
I don't know, maybe they wouldn't have been home
if something else was...
Changed?
- Savannah, Georgia,
a historic and beautiful small city
bustling with restaurants and bars,
tourists and art students,
liberals and old money geriatrics.
This is my dream town, the perfect stop for some fun
and self exploration I dreamed for on my life map.
Yet, here I am on this crisp sunny morning,
wanting to stay sprawled out like a jumping jack in bed.
Yesterday morning, I woke up to dog shit on the floor,
a shot of captain Morgan straight out of the bottle,
and no job to head off to.
I don't feel I lack confidence or creativity,
I learn quickly, and I think I'd be quite an asset
to any company or business that I could be a part of.
Where have I gone wrong?
- She called at about,
I think it was- 00,- 30, in the morning and crying.
I don't really know the actual details of it,
but he pushed her up against the refrigerator,
she has a black eye, he strangled her,
she had marks around her throat.
And I think it's that next step
that I think scared the Jesus out of her,
you know, scared the living shit out of her.
- He tried to strangle her,
so she called the police and then he went to jail.
Every day she wrote to him,
she's apologizing to him after that in notes.
- Forrest, I know you're mad and you hate me.
I fucked up a lot, I'm sorry.
I guess I am as stupid as you think I am.
I love you forever, Alice.
- I felt really helpless,
and I went to this therapist, okay?
And she so depressed me when she said
it happens six or seven times
before the person finally gets enough nerve to leave,
if they're not dead.
- She loved everyone else,
she just didn't love herself the same.
She knew she was adopted and she loved all of her family,
but she had that question of why?
- It was hard for me to understand
because knowing Alice's family,
I know that they loved her more than anything.
But I think the fact that her birth parents gave her up
was very hard for her to...
She never really came to terms with that.
- People don't listen to that either,
I said the adoption really bothered her,
and they said, "But she was in such a great family,
and you loved her and you gave her so much."
They don't understand, the adoption really bothered her,
that she was given up for adoption.
And I'll tell you another thing,
Alice has said, that she would rather have an abortion
than put her child up for adoption.
- How does that make you feel?
- It doesn't make...
I wanted to do anything to help her feel better.
I've never seen such a waste of potential and such sadness,
she asked for so little of her life and her relationships.
It did not bother me at all, at all.
- She stayed with him and she...
As it tends to happen in the domestic violence cycle,
she kind of cut herself off from her family,
she didn't talk to us very much.
All of a sudden this happy go lucky girl
that we knew growing up had changed.
- I don't know what I was meant to do in life,
I feel like I missed my chance at whatever it was.
I was supposed to be good at something, I know I was,
but it's like I missed the last bus
to what I was supposed to do, and now I have to walk there.
And along the way, everyone in my life
is handing me cups of water, like a marathon,
except, instead of cheering me on
they're all yelling for me to go faster
and throwing shit at me because I'm in last place and lost.
- I think she felt ashamed, and I think she was depressed
because she knew she wasn't where she wanted to be.
You know, she kind of made a five-year plan,
and she wasn't anywhere near accomplishing anything.
- Alice called me and she said, "I really need some help."
And I said, "Okay, well, what can I help you with?"
She said, I needed to borrow $500 for an abortion.
I need to get an abortion.
And I always wanted to give her money if she ever asked,
but at that point we were saving for the wedding,
it was a significant amount of money,
and I said, "Alice, if you wanna get this taken care of
I think you have to confront mom.
And I think you'll be surprised how forgiving she can be."
So she did get the abortion done,
and my mom became aware of everything,
and Alice said she was very cool about it,
and that's like one of the last texts I got from her.
It was a real fun dancing, uncle Alex.
I remember talking to my mom and saying,
"We can't do this, it's five days before the wedding."
But she felt that, you know, everyone was already coming,
everyone had already made plans,
but having some sort of hope and levity to that weekend
would make the funeral more bearable.
- That is just for the record,
he already threw up a couple of times.
- But the thing is,
the wedding is always gonna be associated with the funeral.
- Daddy?
- I'm gonna go marry your mom.
- Are you...
- I sure am, I sure am.
- Okay.
Let's make this official, huh?
- There's a concept in Celtic Christianity
called, thin places,
and a thin place is where humanity and divinity meet.
And there's just this place where everything,
just kind of comes together.
Ceci and Edwin's wedding was a thin place.
And there was co-mingled joy and grief,
that created this emotion I had never seen
or experienced before.
And it was so Holy.
- To live a new life that marriage generates.
To, the best that we can say
is we come today, honestly, acknowledging our sadness
and choosing for now to celebrate,
to give our hearts to Edwin and Celia, and they to another.
- Ceci had chosen these really nice,
black, bridesmaid dresses,
and it had a whole different feel
now that one of the bridesmaids wasn't there.
Alice was represented by this vase of flowers
that stood in the place where she should have been standing.
- My pleasure to introduce to you,
for the very first time, Edwin and Cecelia Stevens.
- Every funeral, wedding, everything we've ever been to,
nothing had this same sublime sense of peace about it.
That was a peace that you can't explain away,
it was a peace that had to come from someplace else,
because these two people were able,
in this indescribable moment of grief,
to allow their love to be bigger than that.
Even if just for that moment.
I went back to the hotel to sleep
and then I went and helped their parish priest
with Alice's funeral the next day.
- My father, that all who see the son and believe in him,
may have eternal life, and I will raise them up
on the last day.
- The funeral service was the day after our wedding.
Alice had on the bridesmaid dress
that I had picked out for her.
It was really hard seeing her in the casket
with that dress on.
- The worst part was watching my father
bury another kid, for sure.
I had watched him bury my brother
and he had already been beaten down,
he had lost his first wife,
but burying his second kid was just too much to bear.
- That was the first time I saw Mark breakdown.
Yeah, the only other time I've seen Mark cry
is when Phil...
When they found Phil.
- Today we are here to mourn,
with the support and love of each other,
the death of our daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, friend,
Alice Pendleton Stevens.
Many of you have heard me groan about Alice
for lack of direction, too much drinking,
or inability to follow through on things,
or lack of focus on things that needed to be taken care of.
I keep asking myself, has that led Alice
to really move through life
without any great personal achievements or contributions?
- One of the hardest parts of that was when Mrs. Stevens
gave a eulogy for Alice.
It felt like Dorothy was disappointed in Alice,
and I know that she wasn't,
and I know that's not what she was saying at all.
But the way that it sounded
was that Alice hadn't been what she was supposed to be,
rather than Alice was robbed of the opportunity
to share her best self with the world.
- Into your hands oh merciful savior,
we commend your servant Alice.
Receive her into the arms of your mercy,
into the blessed rest of everlasting peace,
and into the glorious company of the saints in light.
- Amen.
- I just felt like I had to remind people
that she was struggling and that we needed to remember
that part of her,
that we loved her no matter what.
- My father died a few months after Alice,
I think in great part because having someone so young
and loving and happy, and just selfless, like Alice was,
purposely killed like that,
made the world very cold and very cruel feeling.
He just couldn't do it anymore,
he couldn't see a way to climb himself out of that hole
when he got in the hospital,
and he made the choice to say I don't wanna fight anymore,
just let it happen.
We buried some of Alice's ashes with him that day,
the rest I kept for myself,
and I'd like to scatter them in a special spot
if I ever feel ready.
A few days before my dad went out to the hospital
for the last time, he wrote me an email.
"Edwin, I know you must be sad
about what happened to Alice, we all are.
Bad things happen to good people all the time.
We lost Phillip 10 years ago,
and I still think of him almost every day.
You will still miss and grieve for Alice,
but you can also enjoy those around you,
and the good and important things in your life.
You're married now and about to become a new father,
and that's really exciting stuff,
so don't let thoughts of Alice get in the way.
Take care and give Ceci and Cooper hugs for me.
Much love, dad."
- The first trial, the Mike Jones trial,
some of the things I remember most,
I first remember meeting Jerry Rothschild, the DA.
- I don't really wanna get into the facts of this case
and probably don't need to, now that I think about it,
but maybe just in general.
It's fair to say that, I suppose my approach early on is,
all in.
Is that a fair way to put it?
- He's very intense, let's put it that way,
super smart and gave us a good walkthrough
of what the proceedings we re gonna be like,
what evidence we had, how the case was gonna go.
And that was just pretty disturbing,
hearing the witnesses and the stories, um...
- The pictures.
- The pictures, yeah. I didn't look at the pictures,
I had had enough with that stuff.
- Like that's the thing,
I really come to care about a lot of these people,
but what I wish more than anything else
is that I'd never met them.
Because to meet them means you met the grim reaper too,
and that's not what I want for anybody.
- One of two men accused
in the killing of a Thunderbolt couple,
will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Michael Donta Jones was sentenced
to two consecutive life sentences
in Chatham County court today.
Wilkins is still waiting to stand trial.
- Evidence was so overwhelming
that the jury deliberated for about 30 minutes
and then came back with a unanimous, guilty decision,
which was pretty fast.
It was so just, that his own family was there,
and they actually apologized to my mom.
They went up and said, "We're so sorry,
this is not who we thought we raised.
He stayed out of trouble his whole life
until he met up with this Nate guy."
There's a lot of racist websites that use them as proof
of why we should be racist.
Because these two nice white people
were killed in cold blood by these two black people,
like that was the only thing they were,
just white and black,
there's nothing else to the story or who they were,
or how they were raised, or anything.
It's pretty disheartening to see their lives being taken,
and then being used as like evidence
of why we should be racist.
Look, how these people weren't racist,
where did they get them?
It's not, in any way, what I want their deaths to represent.
- For me, the most eye-opening piece
of this whole experience
is understanding what it is to be the family
of the victim of violence.
Aw, you know it too.
It's how much this grief differs from grief for my parents,
or grief for my patients, grief in different ways.
Because I'll never get over any of these losses,
but even though my parents were young, they died of disease,
it was something natural though awful.
With Alice, her death was entirely preventable.
- So, I just got a text from my mom
that the trial is tentatively set for April 9th,
so today's October 18th.
So over four and a half years after the murders,
we finally get to try the guy
who apparently was behind the whole thing.
And I've been ready to face this for a while now.
I just want it to be over.
At this point, it's just,
it's really hard to have to keep lingering on.
- Hello?
- Hey mom.
- Hi, how did it go today, honey?
- It was really, really good.
Audrey was amazing.
- She really had a lot of good things to say.
- Yeah, I mean, she was incredible,
'cause she knew all of us,
she knew us for longer than anyone else I've talked to
and probably will talk to.
That's the thing that's so crazy,
is that, you know, I don't feel like I even knew her
for the last six years of her life,
I'm learning so much her.
- You know, I don't think we ever knew
that she had such a positive effect
and far reaching effect.
- You know what's funny?
Is that every single one of these interviews
has said that about her,
she just wanted to make other people happy.
How did everyone else know and we didn't?
- Well, 'cause she didn't act happy at home.
I don't know what the real Alice was,
I mean, I think she was tormented.
- What was she tormented by?
- The adoption thing.
I mean, I think that was the basic rejection
that she just couldn't get over.
- Not to mention that, but I think she knew
that we were all disappointed
that she was with Forrest
and she couldn't get herself out of harm's way.
My one great regret, I think, is that, you know,
I just felt like I wasn't able to protect her
as an older brother.
- Yeah.
- And I had every opportunity,
I mean, that fucking guy was at our house all the time,
and looking me in the face
and acting like he was a good person, we all knew.
What do you do with that?
- Oh, that's so terrible.
- Sorry, I derailed your night
before you walked into performance,
but I just wanted to share those things.
- Oh, that's okay.
Listen, thanks Edwin, for calling, okay?
- Yeah.
- I can probably wait to hear more about it.
- Okay, well, I'll talk to you soon.
- Okay, bye honey.
- Okay, bye.
- No one ever chose to be on that autopsy table,
no one ever chose to be my patient.
And I would say, my ultimate goal
is to try to find the answer to bring peace.
Did they suffer?
I've found that to be, time and again, the number one thing.
And fortunately, as in this case, I can honestly say
they didn't suffer an extended period of time.
And that's not to say, I can tell you exactly what happened,
I wasn't there,
but I can tell you what the evidence says.
You have two people that are coming home
from a night out on the town,
and at some point, two individuals come out of the bushes,
brandishing weapons, one a 45, and one a 22.
The first shots were to the chin of both individuals,
both leaning forward, somewhat.
Perhaps at a defensive posture, they see it coming
so they drop and try to put their hands up.
Miraculously, neither one of those shots hits a vital organ.
They're both probably stunned at that point.
- What is a stun? What does that mean?
- Stunned, I mean, literally they're psychologically,
I think they're both going, what's going on here?
This is outside the realm of normal experience,
nobody expects this to happen.
While they're trying to process that,
Forrest gets a shot to the chest,
that shot leaves his arm.
And given where his body is found,
I believe he ends up on his knees,
and he's got a very large bruise to the small of his back.
That bruise is approximately the size of foot
that could be explained by a forceful kick,
as though you're putting someone down on the ground.
Very clearly, the shooter then came up
and put the gun against the back of his head
and pulled the trigger.
She has a shot to the side of her head,
and it comes out the temple.
I don't personally use the term execution style
but I certainly wouldn't object if someone called it that.
- The first week that I was home,
I did not sleep for the first five nights.
I don't know how that's possible,
but I lay awake in this bed, in this new strange house
that should have been like the most amazing thing,
that we were buying a house together.
It felt so cold and lonely, and dark, and terrifying,
I felt like people could look at me through the window
at any time.
I didn't know what had happened,
I didn't know who had killed them,
I didn't know if there were people looking for them,
If it was a robbery.
I also thought the worst, that like Alice and Forrest
had asked for it, like they must have been dealing drugs.
Like that's what I initially went to,
they must've been doing something
they shouldn't have been doing
to get into this shit like this.
Which, in a way, would have been more comforting,
like, oh, well at least you knew the risk,
like you could have seen it coming.
Especially the way they were basically executed
on their porch.
You think, wow, okay,
that's a message that someone's sending.
But that's kind of the fucked up thing, is it's not.
It's just like...
It's like one day you flipped off someone in traffic
and they decided to follow you home,
I think about stuff like that all the time,
when you think about having a poor reaction to someone
or acting angrily.
I think about, man, there's bigger things to worry about
than yelling at the person
that gets your order on the subway.
There were months where every single night
I would dream about the crime scene,
I'd dream about being there, watching it go down,
what must have happened and what must've been said.
Especially like, the less information we had
the more I just made it up in my own head.
But the problem is now I've actually seen the autopsy photo,
so I have seen it and it's pretty bad.
It's pretty bad.
Now, I kind of dream about what could have been,
I dream about times when we were younger
and we were together,
I dream about her meeting my children.
I had a dream recently
that Alice and Forrest were getting married,
and my family decided not to go to the wedding
because we didn't support Alice getting married
to someone who had abused her.
And then I dreamt that my own wife divorced me
because of it.
- It's hard because we went from our small apartment
which was all nice and cozy, and little,
and I feel like we did everything together.
And then we moved into this big house
and I feel like we don't do everything together anymore.
Some days, Ed and I just cannot get on the same page,
and we're both angry and upset and we can't articulate
exactly what is wrong with either one of us,
but we're just both lashing out at each other, all day long.
Sometimes I feel like something triggers Ed somehow,
and he just has something in his head,
and no matter what I do I can't seem to support him
the right way, I guess.
And sometimes I think I just get so sick and tired
of trying so hard to make sure that I don't trigger him,
that I'm just... Done.
- You?
Well, I knew that you were drinking too much,
and I was really, really worried about that.
And I'm a comfort eater, I know you were eating too much
- Before Alice died,
I'd been getting in pretty good shape for the wedding,
and after she died, I just didn't feel the motivation
to improve myself any more,
I didn't care about myself as much.
I felt like tomorrow someone could run up on me and kill me,
so why wouldn't I just do whatever I wanted all the time
until that happened.
So I ate whatever I wanted, didn't work out anymore,
haven't really worried about eating or working out
for like four years,
and it's affected my health pretty drastically.
I'd been a pretty devout Christian for 27 years
and then this happened
and it just completely changed my outlook.
It just felt like like random chaos,
and that even if there is a Christian God like that,
how could I trust that God?
How can I worship that God
when he did this to my family?
People told me a lot of cliche things;
They said, well, she's in a better place now,
which frankly just made me think, well, why am I here then?
If there's another place waiting for me out there,
why are we all struggling so hard to stay alive?
I think we've convinced ourselves that there's better things
out there so that life doesn't seem so sad.
And then the other thing people would tell me
is everything happens for a reason, which I just thought,
you know, what the hell does that even mean?
What could even be a possible reason
that would make this worthwhile?
It's really hard to be motivated,
to take care of myself in a world
where that can happen to someone who is so wonderful.
On the way to Savannah,
I just increasingly felt my stomach drop
and my heart rate elevate.
The only reason I ever came to Savannah
was after Alice was murdered,
this place just gives me the creeps.
As things look right now,
there are very few witnesses that are allowed to talk,
so we're getting pretty nervous.
Mike Jones, the first defendant,
is the one who's incriminated Nate Wilkins.
We're not allowed to use anything that he said,
Nate Wilkins has been pretty quiet,
whereas with the first defendant, he told everyone.
There's no physical evidence
and there's very little circumstantial evidence as well.
I just really wanna know
what's gonna happen with this trial.
I have to sit like five feet
from the person who killed my sister,
and it's really hard to sit there next to them
breathe the same air.
- Can you imagine him coming in looking like that?
All studious with his glasses on,
and this nice shirt and his pants, and no chains.
It meant nothing to him, it meant absolutely nothing to him
that he killed somebody, he could care less.
- Here's why we're here.
This is Forrest Ison, he's 27 years old,
let's go on and kill the lights so you can see this.
His girlfriend is Alice Stevens, she was 24.
They were young, and they were in love,
and they worked together,
that's how they looked when they were alive.
Next picture.
Here's what he did to them.
There are drive by shootings,
there are accidental shootings,
then there's this thing, up close and personal.
Now that is petty, and dumb, and mean,
as a motivation, you're gonna find.
- I think when you have horrific crimes like this,
this pressure on the prosecution
to come up with some sort of resolve,
and sometimes that pressure forces them
to try to put square into pegs round holes,
and they try to make it fit to get a certain result,
and that's what happened in this case.
- Chris Trebuchet is the one who found the bodies
and called 9/11.
He heard the shots, ran after the perpetrators,
got a decent look at them.
- I heard two gunshots, and a God awful loud scream.
- Human scream? Animal scream?
What kind of scream?
- A human scream, like, you'd see at a horror movie.
- If you know, you know, did it sound male
or did it sound female?
- It was a female, to the extent it would make the hair
on the back of your neck stand up.
- It's tough to hear
about Alice's blood curdling screams,
he said it sounded like something that you hear
in a horror movie.
- I think I feel sadder than I was when I came here
because I had to relive so many times,
hearing her scream, "No, Nate! No, Nate!"
- Then came the really hard stuff,
we went through the autopsies, ad nauseum.
We went through all the pictures
of where the bullets entered their bodies,
where they exited their bodies,
where the fragments of bullets were found
in Forrest's skull.
- This is an identification photograph
- It was just brutal.
- ... Mrs Steven's body.
To account for the bruise in the back, I kick the back,
I send him to the ground,
I walk over, one shot.
At this point I would say-
- I just kept imagining the terror that she felt.
I really feel so terrible at what she must've felt,
knowing that the guy was gonna shoot her.
- You pull the trigger on that,
are you gonna get blood spatter on that gun?
- Yes, sir, you're gonna have what's called blowback,
where material comes back onto the weapon,
blood mainly, brain tissue, back onto the weapon.
- That's all I have for this witness.
- Watch your step.
- Tell us your name, please, sir?
- Michael Jones.
- Michael Jones, you're currently incarcerated
based on the same murder prosecuted, is that correct?
- Yup.
- That said, you know this guy?
- I refuse to answer anything else.
- Do you know this defendant?
- I refuse to answer anything else.
Let the record show, I said that.
- Obviously, he's not gonna say anything.
- He's certainly not gonna help on purpose,
but I had to question him.
- Yeah.
- Did this man participate in this thing?
- I refuse to ask any questions that you got for me.
- Do you know anything about this murder?
- Like I said the first time.
- You think it's funny?
- I refuse to answer anything.
- You understand that if you refuse to testify
this court can hold you in contempt?
- I got to life sentences without parole,
what's contempt to me?
- They brought Mike Jones to the stand,
but he was just super defiant.
He laughed a couple of times,
I mean, he clearly just thinks this is all a big joke
like, look at me, look how cool I am that I did this.
And it's hard to know that the guy he did it with
is sitting there still fighting to get away with it,
and that he has a shot at it, is unbelievable.
It's scary.
So the morning was a mess.
- I heard you testify a little,
that one of the gentlemen had dreads?
- Yes, sir.
- You have never seen that guy before
in the four and a half years
this case has been pending, have you?
- The witness, Chris Trebuchet, suddenly today,
he remembers dreadlocks on one of the people,
he's never said that in four years before.
So clearly he's seen pictures
of the defendant with dreadlocks
and he's trying to help too much.
The Chief of Police from Thunderbolt,
he had to leave the trial because he has a heart condition
and he was looking pretty bad.
- Oh Chief's been very sick.
Yeah, Chief Merriman has been very sick.
From our vantage point it looks like
he's solely holding out for this trial.
- But Chief Merriman gets on the stand,
and man, he's looking gray.
He is not feeling well and you can tell, oh boy.
- You just testified to the jury,
she admitted that she was driving.
Now you're saying that's not what took place?
I may have been confused, Mr Attridge.
- The defense is trying to make him look
like he botched the police work,
and now he looks like this confused old man.
And you're like, maybe he can convince the jury
that he's a confused old man,
and he messed up his last case.
There's only one person who was actually there,
whose testimony matters,
and her name is Tracy Burgess Wilkins.
She's Nathaniel Wilkins's sister,
she drove the getaway car, she had a firsthand account
and saw everything go down.
If her testimony comes off as credible,
I think we're in a good spot.
However, she's not very credible.
She forgets things, and she's changed her story a few times,
so it's hard to say whether or not the jury
will find her as a credible witness,
'cause that's basically this whole case now.
- He pointed a gun at her, and what did she say?
- No Nate! No, Nate! No, Nate!
- You heard her say your brother's name?
- Yes, sir. Out loud.
- Then what happened?
- That's when my brother pulled the trigger
and shot her directly in the neck, and she fell.
- What happened next?
- So that's when the male victim decided
to make one more step,
and Mike pumped every round inside of his chest.
- Did Nathaniel ever describe him
as anything in particular?
- My brother told people
that he got rid of some germs and bacteria.
- With Jerry, Tracy did okay,
but the defense just started tearing her apart.
She got facts wrong, she got dates wrong,
she got the timing wrong, she kept messing up her story,
to look pretty bad.
- Let me ask you this,
did you tell someone at one point in time
that at the time of the shooting, you were in the back seat
of the vehicle having sex with Michael?
- Yes sir, I told my baby sister.
- According to that lie,
who is the shooter then,
if Michael Jones is in the backseat having sex with you?
- Michael Jones was the shooter.
We could have stopped having sex and he could've got out.
- It's unsettling how nervous we are
about the outcome of this trial considering what we know.
That shouldn't be in doubt, there should be no doubt.
- Things aren't looking good for us right now.
Jerry told us that there's a plea deal on the table,
Nate and his representation are offering
that they'll plead guilty to one count of manslaughter,
which gets him 20 years.
He'd probably serve 14 or 16 of those and then be paroled.
He's already served three and a half
which he would get credit for time served,
and people are seriously considering taking this plea deal.
Personally, it doesn't make a difference to me
whether he gets out in a week or if he gets out in 15 years,
is that he deserves to be in jail forever.
If he gets out at all, it's a failure to me.
What's the rest of my life look like
knowing that this guy's out there?
- So we all thought about it that night
and really agonized about it.
The next morning we go in and I very reluctantly said,
maybe that's best to do because the defense attorney
seemed to be trying to discredit the witnesses so badly,
I didn't know how the jury would react.
- So we brought the plea to the defense,
who suggested the plea bargain in the first place,
and then the defendant turned around and said,
"Nah, I don't want it after all.
I think I'm gonna to win this thing."
So after crying and fighting
and deliberating about this plea bargain all morning,
and me essentially losing the argument,
now we're gonna try the case anyways.
- If you would, sir, please speak up loud and clear,
and tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury your name.
- Doris Bernard Cooper.
- Spell Doris for me.
- D-O-R-I-S.
- George Cooper also was a witness, he worked in the kitchen
at Blow And Smoke with Mike and Nate,
and Mike started bragging to him
about how he committed this murder.
And then when Nate rolled up at the end of the night,
Mike took out a bloody shirt and said, "Look at this,
this is the blood that we wiped off the gun."
- This is the T-shirt we used to wipe the blood
and our prints.
- The only reason there's blood on the gun
is because there was a contact shot in the back of the head.
The forensic evidence is now backing up
George Cooper's statement.
Suddenly he looks like a much more credible witness
than just this 'streetwalker', as the defense called him,
'a street person'
who was testifying looking for some reward money.
- Let's look at Tracy Burgess,
who is the foundation to their case.
What is Tracy Burgess?
Tracy Burgess is a thief, she is a liar.
Her testimony has been contradicted
by every other witnesses' testimony in this case.
So not only is she a proven liar,
she is a admitted liar.
- They've been harping and harping on Tracy being a liar,
she said she was on this street
but she was actually on the street,
she said that she wasn't the driver but she was,
and now she's admitting she's a driver...
So the defense brings out one piece of evidence,
this tape of Tracy being escorted to the jail
in a police car with Chief Merriman.
I'm like, oh man, she's gonna look so bad on this,
she's going to look...
She's gonna tell like yet another story
that we don't even know about,
she's gonna look like a liar.
- My brother came to my house.
He said, "Tracey, do you all wanna ride and have some fun?"
We said yeah, so we rode around.
Next thing I knew my brother went into Thunderbolt.
He got out, and the lady, I think, I heard,
she screamed his name.
So my brother shot her.
I don't know where he shot her at, but he shot her.
Mike shot too.
- Why did you tell me earlier
you weren't in the car?
- I was scared, I was scared, I was scared.
And then my brother told me of I tell he'd kill me,
so I left.
I left and went back to Atlanta
because he said he'd kill me if I run my mouth.
Lord, and my brother means what he says.
But I never drove the car, never.
How can you do it?
- Tracy was just sobbing her heart out,
I mean, she was crying hysterically,
so I think that was the real Tracy.
And she's told a different story then, than she had before.
But she's never wavered ever, ever, ever,
no matter how many different stories she's had,
that it was Mike Jones, who was her boyfriend at the time,
and Nate Wilkins, were the killers.
- It's nerve wracking to just sit there
with nothing to do except think about
what the hell this verdict could be,
or if there will be a verdict.
There's only one way that this trial can go,
that we'll walk away somewhat satisfied.
We need the verdict to be guilty.
If there's a hung jury,
then we're gonna have to come back
and do this thing all over again.
They say these things don't usually get better,
usually if you get one hung jury,
that means that he's on the way to getting out eventually,
because witnesses don't remember things better
as time goes on.
Obviously if he's found not guilty,
then that is the worst possible outcome.
Please, please let it be guilty.
Please let it be guilty.
- Defendant, arise.
- In the superior court
of Chatham County, State of Georgia,
State of Georgia versus Nathaniel Willie Wilkins,
Jury verdict; Count one, malice murder.
We, the jury, found the defendant guilty of malice murder.
Count two, malice murder;
We, the jury found the defendant guilty of malice murder.
Count three, felony murder;
we, the jury, found the defendant guilty of felony murder.
Count four, felony murder;
We, the jury found the defendant guilty of felony murder.
Count five, aggravated assault;
We, the jury, found the defendant guilty
of aggravated assault.
Count six, aggravated assault;
We, the jury, found the defendant guilty
of aggravated assault.
- Today, it's finally done.
The verdict came back guilty.
What an elated feeling.
- And then it was, guilty, guilty, guilty.
Oh my God.
- I know, this day was hard.
- I had to not offend anybody by showing joy at the verdict,
what kind of justice is that for the victim?
- Hello?
- Hey.
- Oh, hey.
- So I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that they found him guilty.
- Oh, that's awesome, honey.
That is good, I'm really happy to hear that.
- The bad news is I have to stay through Thursday
because they're sentencing him on Thursday.
- Because they're doing what Thursday?
- They're sentencing him on Thursday.
- Oh, okay.
All right, well
- Hmm?
- That's great though.
- Yeah.
Okay, so I just wanted to let you know.
- Thank you, oh my gosh.
I'm so happy, I'm so glad.
- I love you.
- I love you too.
- Okay, talk to you later.
- Okay, bye.
- That didn't go very well.
I had hoped that if and when this moment happened,
that it would change everything,
that I'd be able to get on with my life.
That things would just instantly get better,
and there is a weight lifted, there is.
The justice system has done all that it can
but Alice is still dead.
Two people in the middle of the night, still snuck up on her
and shot her at close range,
that makes the world feel a little less safe to me,
knowing that can happen to someone like Alice.
She didn't instigate anything,
she didn't have anything to do with what happened,
except that she was just there when two people had guns
and were after her boyfriend.
I have three kids,
it scares the shit out of me that they live in that world.
- The one thing I think these families want
at the end of the trial,
is for Mr. Rothschild to stand up after a verdict and go,
"Now we're gonna open the back rooms to the courtroom,
and here comes your family member back
to sit down with you and leave."
That's never gonna happen,
but that's the one thing they want,
is the one thing I can ever give them.
Ethically, and emotionally, and spiritually,
in every other way they're just lost.
And so I'm not gonna say they get closure,
what they get is a starting line, not a finishing line.
What they can do is start the rest of their life.
- Bye-bye - Thank you, God.
- I've tried to be a good person my whole life,
but I'm not a good Christian, I don't forgive him.
I want everybody to know that they can tell me,
oh, it's time to get on with your life,
or now you can finally move on, or it's closure.
It's not a closure,
the grief is still there, it will always be there.
There will always be an empty chair at the dinner table,
there will always be an empty place in the holidays.
Don't I hope nobody says that to me.
You know Alice kind of had trouble finding herself,
but as you found out, she meant a lot to so many people.
She just did not have the opportunity
to fulfill her potential.
- You want a little card to go with that?
- No, they're for me.
- Oh.
- My daughter's birthday is tomorrow,
she was murdered four years ago,
so those are her favorite flowers
and we're just honoring her.
- That's very sweet.
You got it?
- Yeah, I think so. Thank you
- All right, thank you.
- I gave up everything in my life to be a priest.
I gave up my career, I cashed in my savings
to be able to declare to everyone
that they are part of this eternal wonder of God,
and Alice's murder made me stop and question
if I could do that anymore.
And there are still days when I stand up
in front of a congregation
and the prayer that I have before going out there
is that I need God to show up and do it, because I can't.
That I will be the vessel, but it can't be me,
it can't be my words,
because there are days
that it just doesn't make sense to me anymore.
- So today is Alice's birthday,
It's been,
four years since she died, she would be 28 today.
She loved her coy, so that's why I have the turquoise trim,
the sunflowers, for her favorite flower,
and it's a white cake.
I prefer chocolate, but today since we're honoring Alice,
it has to be a white cake.
Happy birthday to my little Alice,
who we love and miss every single day.
Wish you were here, Alice.
And I wish you liked chocolate instead of white cake.
- Dear Phillip, how have you been doing?
It's been so long since we've hung out.
Remember when you last came to Ma ine?
It was at least four or five years ago.
You came out of the airplane with a new hairdo,
and when we realized it was you,
we sang "When A Man Loves A woman",
cause you reminded us of Michael Bolton.
- This is Alice.
- I remember that day perfectly too,
you couldn't stop complaining about how cold you were
but you should've thought about the Maine weather.
Actually, I have a weird story about your wedding;
When the music was playing and everyone was dancing,
I was dancing with you,
which I have a wicked awesome picture of,
and we both kind of have the same smile.
You look so happy.
That picture is strange 'cause I know the exact song
we were dancing to,
it was called "Dancing In Heaven" by Q Feel,
and I downloaded it when we got home
and listen to it all the time.
But I find it so ironic because it talks about
being in heaven, and despite all the drugs you did,
your addiction to alcohol
and the way you selfishly took your own life,
there's no way God couldn't have let you into heaven
with your amazing smile and your good heart.
I think maybe if I was just there and told you I loved you,
maybe, just maybe, you would have rethought it.
I don't know, I'm just rambling.
I just want you to know, I love you
and that not a day goes by where I don't think of you.
Love, your little sis, Alice.
- I don't think I'll ever really heal fully
from Alice's murder,
I'm probably changed forever in many ways.
But making this film has made me realize how much love
Alice gave to the world,
and how much she was loved during her life
even if she wasn't aware.
And if she's out there somewhere, which I would love,
I hope she's able to hear people take time out of their day
to tell me how wonderful she was.
- It's so incredible to know that she made a difference.
- What kind of things for your happiness now?
- Being with my family, being with my Grandkids.
- Okay, Cooper.
What happened?
- Broke.
- You had too many eggs?
- No, I guess.
- I think so.
I'm going to do my best to keep Alice's memory alive
through my family.
I know that she wouldn't want me to completely fall apart,
that she'd want me to be there,
to be a good father, to be a good husband.
My wife and I just renewed our marriage vows recently,
and our new anniversary is nowhere near the day
that Alice was murdered.
And as much as I don't wanna leave Alice
completely in the past,
I hope that this is one small step forward in my quest
to find happiness again.
Hey!
Aw, look at you.