03x03 - History Repeating

[bunniefuu]

The plan was to move forward

to Alaska

and just finish our lives up there.

That was it.

We always assumed we'd just be together

for the rest of our days.

I didn't know what happened to Leslie.

I thought, "Well, maybe she's okay,

maybe something"

"It wasn't as bad.

Maybe it was a bad dream."

The nurse, she says,

"Well, honey, she's deceased."

"She's been dead for a while."

And then it all kind of sunk in.

- Good to go?

- Yeah.

Alrighty!

I hear you.

Oh, there you are!

Uh

Well, the b*llet had gone in

right here

and came out around here.

You can see a scar all the way across

where they had opened it up.

But it looks really odd.

And they said, "You'll probably never

be able to speak again."

My name is Daniel John Paulsrud.

I grew up in Neihart, Montana.

It was a town of 35 people back then.

Everybody knew everybody and their dogs.

I fly fished from the age of five on up.

Did a lot of camping and hunting.

A lot of hunting.

I I loved it. It was great.

We didn't have a whole lot of money,

but I didn't care.

I was an infantryman,

in the Airborne Infantry.

Uh We ended up going to Desert Storm

and Kuwait Liberation as well.

Yeah, it prepared me for a little bit

of life.

It wasn't all, um, blood and guts. It was

I think the more horrific things that

that I saw

was the treatment of people.

I've seen some women

that were beaten almost to death.

Um

Kids that didn't have nothin' to eat,

you know.

Going to combat

with people you've been with

I don't know how to describe it

other than a brotherhood.

There's a trust. Yeah.

Kept going until it was time to go home.

I always wanted to be involved in artwork.

So I ended up in Durango, Colorado

as a sculptor.

And boy, that lasted

for about five years or so.

I ended up moving back to Montana.

You know, and then

that's where I met Leslie.

She was very good-looking,

and, uh, her personality was, uh

wasn't so standoffish.

It was more

more of a friendly type of person.

She had never been the outdoors type,

and I introduced her to that.

And she took to it. She really enjoyed it.

And started hunting

She was spot on.

She was very safety-conscious.

Uh, she wouldn't sh**t

unless she was absolutely sure.

She was great.

Oh, there was

nothing but love at that time.

She has one son and three daughters

from her ex-husband.

Leslie, she had a

a style of raising her kids

without discipline or

or consequences.

If we ever had an argument,

it was about her children, usually.

Her oldest daughter liked to take her

to the bars all the time and

She didn't like me a whole lot

because Leslie was spending her time

with me instead of out with her.

Uh, the youngest, Kailee,

was always with us.

She's a good kid. She, uh

She is very smart.

So Leslie went ahead, and then I

I followed.

Did as much moving as I could.

Then right before

we were almost done moved in

is when all this happened. Yeah.

We were hunting that day

right out of, uh, Fort Benton.

But yeah, it was just after daybreak,

I think we went out.

I think she'd gotten several phone calls

from the kids,

and like, "Well, we better just go home."

Started making plans for dinner.

She got a phone call from her oldest

and immediately started arguing.

So I went to the apartment

we were fixing up

and unloaded the tools and put the

the g*ns in the

in the apartment.

I always unload the g*ns

before I bring them in.

I just assumed that day I did.

Oh, couldn't have been

an hour and a half later or so,

she came in

and she brought beer.

We sat down

and started enjoying the evening.

I had the p*stol on the table.

It was a .357 Magnum.

I carried it, uh

for hunting season, of course.

You know, if you wound an animal,

you can dispatch them quick and easy

without them suffering and whatnot, but

And as I was playing with the p*stol,

I c*ck it.

Mm

Let it down, c*ck it, and let it down.

She had come back from the refrigerator.

I was sitting down.

I c*ck it and was playing with it,

and it went off.

She immediately fell back into the chair

and down on the floor, so

I knew it hit her.

And it was so fast.

It died She died so fast.

And it was

All I could say was "I love you"

and "I'm sorry," and

There was nothing

that could be done at that point.

I sat back in the chair and thought,

"Well, I'll just have to sh**t

sh**t myself in the head

and be done with it."

And I tried.

I couldn't at first, and so I

I went to the refrigerator

and got a vodka we had in there.

I just drank it

and I was able to pull the trigger.

Well, I guess I don't remember

a whole lot after that.

Because I shot myself, it was assumed

after that, that it was deliberate.

I was convicted of deliberate homicide

and given life without parole,

plus ten years.

I never got the chance to,

to tell the kids,

"Hey, this was not deliberate."

"This was a horrific accident."

And I'll never lose the guilt and the pain

that goes with losing her,

and especially being my fault.

Well, I I lost my future.

I lost her kids' future and

I lost the rest of my life

that day.

I think of Leslie all the time.

All the time.

My wife and I were sitting down to

Thanksgiving dinner when I got the call.

The, um, call was to an intoxicated

or an injured person.

When I arrived on scene,

there was a person on all fours, um,

against the curb, partly in the roadway.

My initial thought was that

he had tripped and fallen off the curb

and had hit his face.

He was vomiting.

But when I shined my light onto him,

I could see that it wasn't vomit.

It was in fact blood that was,

you know, squirting out of his mouth.

I ask him if he had fallen.

He made a guttural noise

and shook his head no

and pantomimed the, you know,

putting a

doing this under his chin,

which I assume meant

that he had been shot.

And I ask him if someone had shot him,

and he again made a guttural sound

and shook his head no.

I ask him if anyone was with him,

and he nodded his head yes

and made a guttural sound

and pointed around behind him

with his hand.

Behind him,

I could see these pools of blood.

The blood trail

led back to the apartment.

And when I looked in the apartment,

I saw someone laying on the floor.

And immediately I recognized Leslie

when I saw her.

In a small community, you know everybody.

Uh, and everybody gets to know you.

She was laying on her back, and her hands

were in the pockets of her jacket.

She had been shot,

and laying on the floor, um,

not too far from her

was a Ruger GP100.357 revolver.

This particular style of firearm would be

an extremely rare event

if it was accidentally discharged.

Um, it takes a substantial amount of force

to squeeze the trigger on one of them.

You know, Leslie had her hands

in her pockets, and he shot her.

Who Who does that?

To my mind, there's no way

that this could ever be misconstrued

as an accident.

Dan and I really hit it off.

He was always good fun to be around.

He liked making people laugh

and being upbeat,

and he was a great artist.

My name is LJ Planer.

I met Dan Paulsrud in the military.

Uh, he sent this to me in 2018.

It says, "Paulsrud and Planer,

Desert Storm."

He, uh He writes like such a girl.

He's got girly handwriting.

We used to tease him all the time.

I did anyhow.

"Forever family."

We were M60 machine gunners.

And Dan and I got close.

There was one particular time

where on a mission,

our platoon sergeant

came running down the line,

saying there's a bunch of tanks

coming right at us

and there's no way

that we're gonna be able to stop them.

I said, "All right, buddy."

"This is probably going to be it."

"You want to fight or hide?"

And he said, "If you're gonna fight,

I'll fight with you."

Well,

that attack never came,

but I knew that I had somebody beside me

that was willing to fight to the death.

We both wanted to leave the military

and go hunt and fish.

Every time we talked, it was always about

when we are going to get together,

and I was still in the military,

and so it's hard to plan things.

So it never happened.

I got a phone call

from another friend of ours that said,

"Did you hear what happened to Paulsrud?"

And I was like, "No."

And he said,

"Dude, you gotta check the news."

Uh

"He k*lled his fiancée

and tried to k*ll himself."

And I said, "There's no way."

"There's no way.

It's gotta be somebody else."

I just didn't understand.

I didn't didn't understand.

I was angry that he could let something

like that happen.

He grew up around g*ns.

We

We handled them all the time.

How How could that happen?

He told me it was an accident.

I don't know.

The Dan I knew,

I can't believe that he could ever

of k*lled her on purpose.

I told him, you know,

"I'm sorry for not being there."

Uh

"It's not my place to judge you."

"It's, uh"

"It's my place to be your brother

and support you."

He's responsible.

Um, he understands that.

Dan took a life.

That g*n didn't k*ll her by itself.

He pulled the trigger.

How can you try somebody

in that severe of a case

and give him life plus 10 years

when he doesn't even have the opportunity

to tell his story or his side?

Can't speak, has a traumatic brain injury

with a g*nsh*t wound to the head,

and is medicated to the point

where he is incoherent.

She was always fun,

always smiling,

up for a good time.

When she was bowling with her friends,

they were the party girls.

And I've since joined the party girls,

which is terrible.

What I have

are some photographs of Leslie.

There's my favorite one.

That's one of the times

Leslie had short hair.

But always a smile.

Always a smile.

And these two are with her,

bowling friends,

in the middle, having a good time.

Some crazy bar somewhere.

My name is Susan Yager.

And Leslie is my sister.

Is, was, always will be.

Leslie came to our house when she was two.

She was adopted.

Darling little girl

with a thick head of copper curls.

Her father had k*lled her mother

in the backyard.

Shot her mother and then shot himself.

She saw it.

So, she came to our house.

She had a lot of friends

and just happy all the time.

That was who she was.

She did basketball and track

in high school,

and then swim team in the summer.

So she had a good, good bringing-up life.

She graduated, she got married,

and she turned 18

all within a week.

Any other boyfriend she had

would be introduced to her friends,

and everybody going out together,

and everybody having a good time.

And this one didn't happen that way.

It was no kind of a love story.

She moved out several times.

Why would you leave

if it were a perfect relationship?

I knew that he had threatened her,

that he held a knife to her,

that he had a g*n across his lap

as she moved out.

He said, "I'll take you out

and sh**t myself."

"But you're going to end up

the same way your parents did."

I would say to her, "Are you kidding me?

Why are you even listening to that crap?"

But somehow, he had a pull on her.

Some sort of pull.

She was pissed

and said that Dan had decided

Thanksgiving was with his parents

on Saturday.

And she said, "I'm just done

with this whole mess."

She said, "I'm done

with him deciding everything,

and telling us what to do,

and deciding what my family and I

are doing."

She said, "I'm going back

to tell him just to get out."

"We're done. He needs to leave."

I said, "Stay here. Have dinner with us."

"Nope. I'll go back over

to the apartment."

"Okay."

That was it.

We all miss her

because she shouldn't be gone.

If anybody should be gone,

it should be him.

No, she shouldn't be gone.

Mom!

- I'm here! See?

- Catch!

I'll catch you. I'm right here.

I'm right here. I promise.

One, two, three!

There you go. See?

A lot of things, I see more clearly

now that I'm a mom myself.

Never in a million years would I choose

or let someone come into my kids' lives

and treat them

the way that Dan treated me.

I am Kailee Davidson,

and I am Leslie Davidson's

youngest daughter.

I adored my mom.

Every single night,

she would tuck me in bed and say,

"I'm going to do this, tuck you into bed,

kiss you good night until the day I die."

My parents got a divorce

when, I think,

I was like six or seven years old.

They got along, um, just fine

even though they were divorced.

I was ten years old.

The time from when my dad passed away

to moving in with Dan

was maybe a month.

Maybe a month.

My mom was in you know, infatuated.

And I remember thinking, "But why?"

Like, he was just the

a very heavyset guy.

Didn't I don't think he had a job then.

It was okay for a little bit.

And then, I would say a couple months in,

things started to change.

My mom turned her back to him,

and she was walking down the hallway.

And then he just came up right behind her

and pushed her down, like so hard.

And she flew.

I was sitting on my bed, and she just

her whole body just flew down the hallway.

There was other times when she would have

scratches and bruises all over her.

And I'd be like, "Is that from him?"

And she would say, "No, no, no."

But I knew.

And that happened a lot.

You know, he took a lot of satisfaction

in the amount of power he had over my mom.

He emotionally and mentally abused her

and took advantage of her,

knowing that she would give him

another chance.

And it was just this never-ending cycle.

It's important to every case

when there are things that are wrong

that need to be set right.

We're here to set things right.

My name is Mark Hilyard.

I was the, uh, criminal investigator

for the state of Montana on this case.

I think it was an argument

that escalated to the point

where he took that opportunity

to sh**t her,

to k*ll her.

One of the agents found

inside one of the pockets

a napkin that had been written on.

And that note read,

"For the record,

Leslie has thought about suicide

for some time now."

"She has asked me to end her life

several times."

"She has also asked me

to be a*usive to her

so she could call the police

for her own personal vengeance."

"I feel horrible

for striking back at her."

"I have been pushed to that point."

"Never once have I done this in my life,

and I never will again."

So right there,

he admits that, uh, he struck her.

And he's also trying

to formulate the alibi

that she wanted him to sh**t her.

What bothers me about this

is, uh, he had time to write this.

So after the sh**ting,

he went out to his vehicle,

'cause I found napkins in the vehicle

that matched this exactly,

and a pen that he wrote this,

this note on.

Uh

And he brought it back inside

and wrote that note while she lay there.

He could've got help

during that time.

Yeah, it's been a long time

since I've seen this.

My name's Mark.

What we're gonna do is

we're going to get a piece of paper,

a notepad,

and have you write 'em down.

I'd never had anything like this before

where I had to have the suspect

write everything out to me.

So, it was very unusual.

I have the statement right here.

"Went out hunting that day to go hunting."

You know, "Had a wonderful day."

"Leslie put away the r*fles."

"I grabbed the .357."

"Now, I don't know what happened next

as far as the g*n going off

because I couldn't believe

what had just happened."

I think he's a liar.

I, I You know, I mean,

a liar can't remember all his lies.

I kept telling my mom

to leave him.

If anybody could have gotten

through to her, it would have been me,

and he knew that, and that terrified him.

My name is Amanda Davidson.

Um, Leslie was my mother.

I was the last one

to speak to her that day.

And my sister and my grandmother

had come up from Fort Benton

to meet me and my brother

at Golden Corral in Great Falls.

My mother was supposed to meet us there.

And I get a phone call from her

saying that her and Dan are fighting.

The phone went dead,

and she called me back.

And I'm like, "Did Dan just hit you?"

And she's like, "Yes."

I'm like, "Mom, I'm coming to get you."

She's like, "No, you don't need to.

You're fine."

She goes, "I'm leaving.

I'll be, I'll be up there."

And

I said, "I love you," and the last thing

she said to me is, "I love you more."

We went ahead and ate.

Um, I Hadn't heard from her.

And I had to work that night.

My sister kept

Kailee kept calling me and calling me.

I'm like, "Oh my God, come on.

I just saw you." You know?

And, uh, finally, I picked up.

I'm like, "What?!"

And John Turner, the sheriff at the time,

was on the phone,

and I could hear my sister just howling.

And he's like, "We found your mom's body."

And I collapsed.

So, I went into shock mode.

So I went to work.

Um And then it came up

on the ten o'clock news.

You kind of got to know

that's when it's real.

So this is the letter

that I've held on, um, from Dan,

for many, many years.

It's a reminder

of what kind of a coward he is

and who he will blame.

Anybody but himself.

It says, "Amanda, it is difficult

to put into words

everything I need to say to you

without fear of provoking

that hate and disdain

so common in your character."

"All I have ever known of you

is hostility, alcoholism,

and your trouble with the law."

"But none of these things you've done

to me or the rest of your family

should reflect you deserving

to lose your mother the way you did."

As you can see in what I've read to you,

there's nothing but hatred.

This letter didn't surprise me,

him blaming me,

because I knew who he was.

I knew what kind of a monster he was.

And as I was playing

with the p*stol,

I c*ck it and let it down, c*ck it,

and it went off.

And she was gone,

almost immediately it seemed like.

Yeah, I don't believe that

one bit.

That's the first time I've heard his

"explan" See? I'm shaking

That's the first time

I've heard his explanation, and it

It makes me irate.

She died with her hands in her coat.

She was leaving. Her car was running.

Knowing my mother, she was leaving him,

and I think it was for good.

This has been a good release for me

because I will never think about this man

ever again.

As far as I'm concerned,

Dan can burn in hell.

We were hunting that day.

Yeah, it was just after daybreak

I think we went out.

I think she'd gotten several phone calls

from the kids,

and like, "Well, we better just go home."

Started making plans for dinner.

She got a phone call from her oldest

and immediately started arguing

'cause she had been at the bar and

"All right. Just come over whenever

and tell me"

That whole entire thing is a lie.

They didn't go hunting.

I mean, I I saw my mom that morning.

She picked me up that morning.

The plan was to have

a Thanksgiving dinner with all of us.

My sister,

she wasn't out at the bar.

She was not arguing with my mom.

I was sitting across from her at the table

when my mom called her

and said that Dan punched her in the face.

And to act

like they were this happy couple

and that they weren't fighting

that entire day,

it's not an accident.

It happened behind closed doors.

You don't want anyone to know.

I was the only person

who saw how he treated my mom

for two and a half, three years.

I I witnessed it.

I grew up with it.

That was my normal.

And I know the truth.

Leslie is the love of my life.

I miss her a lot.

I have to drudge forward with her in mind

without being stuck in that pit

of grief and shame

for causing that.

I do believe we would still be together

had she not been hit,

or if she had survived, or any of that.

Yes, I think we'd still be together.

"Leslie has thought about suicide

for some time now."

"She has asked me

to end her life several times."

"I feel horrible

for striking back at her."

"I have been pushed to that point."

"Never once have I done this in my life,

and I never will again."

That sounds like something

that was written right when

before I pulled the trigger, I'll bet.

And I had vodka by then.

I'm trying to think

what I was thinking at the time and

I'm drawing a a blank.

It sounds as though

you k*lled her deliberately.

Oh, ma'am. No, no, no.

No.

Um

I wonder if it was more for closure,

but I wouldn't

I wouldn't say I k*lled her deliberately

and then wrote that, no.

You k*lled our mother

in cold blood.

She died with her hands in her coat.

She was leaving. Her car was running.

Knowing my mother, she was leaving him,

and I think it was for good.

I don't think the car was running.

That doesn't sound right to me, but

I wish

I wish I could've talked

during the trial.

It seems to escalate

every time with her, but

I never really got along with Amanda.

I wish I could help her to move on.

They didn't go hunting.

I mean, I I saw my mom that morning.

She picked me up that morning.

The plan was to have a Thanksgiving dinner

with all of us.

My sister, she wasn't out at the bar.

I was sitting across from her at the table

when my mom called her

and said that Dan punched her in the face.

And to act

like they were this happy couple

and that they weren't fighting

that entire day

That's too bad.

No, we weren't fighting that entire day.

We did go hunting that day.

I feel like she's being influenced

as far as what she is

told to say.

It's not nearly as, uh, horrific

as what some have explained.

It was not intentional,

and that's the truth.