04x02 - A Mother’s Love

[bunniefuu]

[somber melodic music plays]

[birds chirping]

[bell ringing]

[woman] The first moment

that I tried to pull away from him,

he just grabbed me by my throat

and squeezed so hard,

and I was terrified.

I knew that there was only one way

for it to end.

And, uh

I wasn't willing to let it

end with me dead.

[tense instrumental music plays]

I just knew, like, I had to

I had to fight back.

[cryptic music plays]

[somber melodic music plays]

[birds chirping]

I always saw my parents being very loving.

I can remember, you know, my dad kissing

my mom good morning in the kitchen, and

I always wanted that.

My name is Jema Donahue.

I was sentenced to ten years

in the Department of Corrections.

[upbeat music plays]

I was born in Berlin, Germany.

My father was in the military.

I was the baby of the family.

You know, everybody says

the baby is spoiled,

but that wasn't the case in,

in, uh, my household.

I didn't get away with anything.

Like, I was almost punished

before it ever even happened.

We didn't really have friends

because we moved every, like, five years.

So, we just really loved

and embraced each other as a family.

[somber instrumental music plays]

I was homeschooled

from second grade until sixth grade.

And then my mother decided to enroll

my brother and I in public school.

The children were

a lot more advanced than I was.

They just knew more

about the world around them,

whereas I feel

that we were kind of kept in a bubble.

My last year in middle school

was really hard.

After the as*ault,

I had begged my mom not to call the police

because I just wanted to act like

nothing had ever happened.

And she promised me that she wouldn't,

and then she did.

[birds chirp]

I do remember law enforcement

was trying to deter my mom

as far as pressing charges,

which, of course, my mother,

she's a mama bear,

so she was like, "No,

she's gonna continue this."

I experienced a lot of bullying.

I had to leave the school district.

I blame my mother, um

for a lot that happened, um,

when I was a teenager.

[car horn blares]

She became so protective. [sharp inhale]

I really wasn't allowed to have friends.

[birds chirp]

My mom would do background checks

on everybody.

So I stayed at home a lot.

[sirens wailing]

[somber melodic music plays]

Everybody around me was telling me that,

you know, that I ruined my life.

And the day that I gave birth to my son

and looked in his eyes

[gasps]

I knew

there was nothing I wouldn't do

[chokes up]

for my children.

There's nothing in the world

like coming home

from a hard day at work and

walking through that door

and your children just running up to you

and wrapping their arms around you.

[gasps]

[sighs]

[gasps] I need a moment.

[moody instrumental music plays]

We were introduced from a mutual friend.

Javon had went to prison,

so he was being released from prison.

And the same mutual friend had asked me

if I would let him use my address

as a home plan.

And I said yes.

[bell ringing]

[metal squeals]

I remember, um, just being so curious

about his childhood

because it was so different from mine, um

He bounced around a lot and, um

that was new to me,

and it was almost tragic.

He was previously, um, incarcerated

for manufacturing

and distribution of drugs.

But I believed

that he had been rehabilitated

and changed his life around.

So, from the very beginning,

I just had this

longing, like I needed to protect him.

We never really established

that we were going to be together.

It just kind of sort of happened.

I was going

to University of Central Missouri.

And he would stay at home with the kids.

And that spoke volumes to me

that he could be trusted with my children.

[cryptic music plays]

[birds chirping]

The officer at the time said to me

Javon was a well-known

crack cocaine dealer in that county.

And I was just floored

because I had never

heard or seen anything like that.

And that was like the first

instance I ever realized

that maybe there were things

going on behind my back

that I wasn't exactly aware of.

I was angry with Javon.

And I was like,

"You just need to go. Leave us alone."

And he just grabbed me by my throat

and squeezed so hard

and was, like, choking me.

I remember to the point that

I couldn't breathe and I was terrified.

And he was telling me, like,

"You're never gonna leave me."

"The only way that you'll ever leave me

is if I k*ll you, b*tch."

[ominous music plays]

I remember saying to him,

like, "I love you."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

And he would tell me,

"Fear lasts longer than love."

Like he never wanted to hear

[deep inhale]

um, that I loved him.

[grim instrumental music plays]

I would tell myself

that if I could just help him

or get him away from the drug scene

that our marriage would be better.

[birds chirping]

But the abuse with Javon

continued throughout our marriage.

I learned really early on

that the less that I struggled

during a strangulation,

the quicker I would pass out.

And that made things easier.

I do believe

that Javon loved me.

But the only way he knew how to show me

was through violence.

[birds chirping]

It was just

a nightmare,

but I think that also is what made

the good times so good,

because they were

so far and few in between [chokes up]

and we cherished them.

[sniffles]

[birds chirping]

[somber melodic music plays]

[birds chirping]

[birds chirping]

I didn't really want anyone to know

how bad it was,

so I just tried to keep it under wraps

and appease him.

[inhales deeply]

But then he was closer to his old friends

and started using drugs again,

and it just got ugly.

[birds chirping]

He locked me in the room.

[sighs]

Beat me with a belt.

Um

Held knives and screwdrivers to my neck

as he would sexually as*ault me.

And he would be just telling me,

"I will k*ll everybody.

I have nothing to lose."

And I believed him.

I knew, at this point

something had to change

because now it wasn't about me.

He wasn't just hurting me.

He was threatening to hurt everybody.

[eerie instrumental music plays]

[music intensifies]

[music crescendos]

Which brought us to Good Friday,

which would have been April 14th of 2017.

[birds chirping]

I just remember being really anxious

because it was gonna be the first time

since obtaining the order of protection

that I was going to be alone in the house.

[tense instrumental music plays]

I went downstairs.

And when I opened up the family room door

[music intensifies]

Javon was standing there.

He flew forward at me,

grabbed me by my throat.

He started dragging me up the stairs, um

[gasps]

um, by my neck.

The scariest thing in the world

is to know that somebody else

[inhales sharply]

is holding your life in their hands.

He started checking

the windows and the doors,

making sure they were all locked.

He went back downstairs.

And then,

I heard him call my name.

And I went downstairs. [chokes up]

[music intensifies]

[quavers] And when I stepped into

the bedroom

he was holding a g*n.

And he pulled the trigger.

And the g*n jammed. It didn't go off.

[ragged breath]

So he became angry

that the g*n was, like, not working

and he hit me over the head with it.

And whenever he did, um,

it fell to the ground.

So I picked it up,

and I just remember, like

aiming it at him, and, um

I told him, "I want Just leave.

Just get out."

And he didn't want to.

So he stepped forward,

and whenever he made that forward motion,

I just pulled the trigger.

[g*nsh*t echoes]

I hit him about right here

in his left shoulder.

And, um, he screamed,

like, "Ah! You hit me!"

And then lunged forward at me again, um,

grabbed me by my wrists.

[swallows]

So my hands were kind of up like this,

and he had both my wrists,

and I pulled the trigger again.

And he was flinging me around

and slamming me to the ground.

And in that motion,

I pulled the trigger again.

[inhales sharply]

Um

When he landed on top of me,

like as we were coming down on the ground,

he said, "f*ck it.

We're gonna die together, b*tch."

[sharp inhale]

And he laid his head right next to my head

and he grabbed the back handle,

like the butt of the g*n,

and aimed it towards his left ear.

And I just wrapped my finger around

to grab control of the handle

and pulled the trigger.

And, um

I just remember that last final shot.

Just feeling the weight of him

on top of me.

Everything was black.

[music crescendos]

I never realized my eyes were closed.

[quavers] Like, I thought it was black

because I was, like, dead.

I thought it was

[gasps]

[hoarsely] And then, um

I just kind of crawled out from under him

when I realized,

like, "Okay, it's over. I'm not

I'm not dead."

[birds chirping]

[somber music plays]

My mom pulled up from work

[phone ringing]

and the phone was ringing.

[ringing continues]

And it's saying, like, Johnson County

on the caller ID.

[ringing continues]

I have no recollection of calling 911,

but I remember that I did call 911.

And I handed her the phone.

[ringing]

And I was, like, shaking my head no.

I was like, "Please."

I just felt like, in that moment,

my best decision

of protecting my family and my children

was to not

let anybody know.

My mom answered the phone.

[muffled clicking]

And, um, she said it was a mistake.

"We didn't mean to call."

The dispatch then said to her, um

[inhales] "We're gonna send somebody out

there anyways."

So I went and sat outside

[birds chirping]

and waited for the police.

[inhales] I remember my mom coming out

to the front step

and kind of tapped me on my shoulder,

rubbed me, and said,

"Come inside, Jem. No one's coming."

[cryptic music plays]

[traffic passes]

[indistinct chatter]

[steam hissing]

My name is Margaret Heffernan,

and I'm the mother of Jema Donahue.

[Margaret] Jema is the youngest

of three of my children.

I can remember her

as, um, an infant sitting on my lap,

and I said, "You'll never be too old."

She excelled in school.

[somber melodic music plays]

Things were going in the right direction

until she was sexually assaulted

at the age of 13 by a 21-year-old man.

[tense discordant music plays]

I was given the excuse

that they couldn't locate him.

I was very surprised.

So I told my son to go to school.

First one that could tell me where he is,

I would give them a hundred dollars.

And in 15 minutes, that phone rang

and I was told where he was.

And I went out

and sat in the car

and waited for him to come out to his

and followed him.

He started coming towards me

and swearing at me.

It's like a switch went off on me.

And I drove straight for him.

I was going to hit him.

[music intensifies]

And the individual jumped over hedges.

I lost common sense,

I guess you could say.

[birds chirping]

I had the sheriff's department

come out to my house.

[somber melodic music plays]

[Margaret sighs]

They said, um

well, possibly,

if I don't press charges against him,

they won't press charges against me.

And I said I would not drop the charges.

[birds singing]

Jema was very angry with me

for contacting, um, the police.

She felt that I betrayed her,

and, um, our relationship, I would say,

was damaged through her teenage years

because of that.

[quavers] You want to protect your child.

And you want to be able

to handle a situation.

[inhales sharply]

And it was out of my hands.

[grim instrumental music plays]

[music intensifies]

I questioned him,

and I said, "Did you put your hands

on my daughter?"

And he didn't answer me.

And I told him, "You just answered me

by saying nothing."

I says, "Promise me you will never

lay your hands on her again,"

and he wouldn't say the words.

I'm angry that

he hurt my daughter repeatedly.

Especially, you know, when I asked him,

"Please don't."

She's a survivor of domestic violence.

It was self-defense.

Nobody knows what they're going to do

until they're in the situation,

and

and it's done.

[moody instrumental music plays]

[birds chirping]

[music crescendos]

[birds chirping]

My name's Aaron Brown,

and I'm a major here

with the Johnson County, Missouri

Sheriff's Office.

I got a call from a a source.

[indistinct radio chatter]

They advised that, um, Javon Donahue

was, in fact, shot and k*lled

by his wife Jema.

Um And during the process of that,

um, the body was taken to the farm

and buried on the farm.

[music intensifies]

[eerie discordant music plays]

We went out to the residence,

uh, the farm.

But Johnson County is, is a rural county.

It's a cattle-grazing, uh, farms area.

Um, so just merely driving down a road,

uh, you're not able to see terribly much,

just the house.

We needed a helicopter or a plane

to go overhead to look at this property.

[cryptic melodic music plays]

At this point, it is a crime scene.

So we tape it off,

uh, we begin coordinated interviews

with everybody that was on the property

or in the house.

And during a conversation

with one of the individuals at the farm,

they advised that they knew

where Javon was buried at on the property.

And they led us to Javon.

We dug up the body,

wrapped in a white tarp

with rope around, uh, the tarp.

[passing traffic]

[grim melodic music plays]

We needed to locate those individuals

and conduct interviews with them

immediately.

And, uh, one of those

happened to be Jema's mom.

Just shut it off.

Just shut it off and I'll talk to you.

[birds chirping]

[dog barking]

[birds singing]

[Margaret] I told them

I saw Jema standing outside, dazed.

She said, "Javon is in the house."

I says, "We need to call the police."

"No, he's dead."

I said, "Are you sure he's dead?"

And she says, "He's dead."

[eerie music plays]

[phone ringing]

[ringing continues]

She had dialed 911 and hung up.

[ringing continues]

911 called back.

[ringing]

She's throwing the phone at me.

She's shaking her head no,

back and forth, but no words.

[receiver clicking]

And I told them,

"I'm sorry to bother you,"

that I made a mistake.

And he said, "Unfortunately,

we still have to send somebody out."

And I said, "I understand."

[quavers] I remember saying to her,

"When the cops come, Jema,

please let me tell them I did this."

[smacks lips]

"I lived my life."

"You have children to raise."

She said, "No, Mom. I will not."

But it's what I wanted to do.

[somber melodic music plays]

I let Jema down when she was 13,

and I felt

I can't do that again to her.

I remember our relationship

just being undone

overnight.

I didn't want to go through that again.

[birds chirping]

We were probably out there

a good 45 minutes, and they never came.

And I told myself maybe this is

the way it's supposed to be.

When the police didn't show up

at the house was the turning point

that we'll take matters

into our own hands.

I thought, "Okay, we can do this."

"We can get away with this."

[eerie discordant music plays]

We placed Javon's body

in an area that he dug.

And he says, "I don't want you to know

where I'm gonna bury him."

"I have two other holes dug."

And I thought,

"Well, that's good that I I won't know."

I I prayed that Jema

was gonna be strong enough

to keep her mouth shut

and not share this with anybody.

That we would have to go to our grave

knowing what we did.

[somber melodic music plays]

[sirens wailing]

[downbeat instrumental music plays]

My name is Dr. Lisa Witcher.

And I was a state-appointed

forensic examiner, um, for Jema's case.

When we're looking

at battered spouse syndrome,

we're looking for the cycle of violence.

Part one is this tension-building phase.

[grim music plays]

So where you start seeing

the perpetrator of the abuse

becoming triggered by either you

or the environment around them.

The second phase

is the acute or crisis phase.

That is when violence occurs.

After that, the honeymoon phase,

when the batterer promises

to never let that happen again.

And then the cycle starts over again.

[Jema] There was an incident.

We were in a motel room.

And Javon r*ped me, sodomized me,

and afterwards, he called his friend

and was kind of laughing and making jokes,

saying, "How long is it gonna take her

to stop, like, bleeding?"

Like, from my rectum. And

Just anything to humiliate me

or degrade me.

[Lisa] You know, calling and bragging

about beating a woman

It's either a twisted call

for somebody to come intervene

or it's truly despicable.

It's truly someone

who believes that they have

done what's right

and taken what's theirs.

I am surprised that Jema made it

as long as she did.

And that she is alive

at the end of this story.

Had he not come to the house that day,

I don't think

he would have stopped pursuing her.

She meets all of the factors

that we look for, um,

and that research has shown

is tied to women who become

battered spouses.

[tense discordant music plays]

[sirens wailing]

[man] To my knowledge,

battered spouse as a self-defense

has not been successful yet in Missouri.

It's been here a while, but it has not

really ever been a successful defense.

Okay, come on.

But the question wasn't whether or not

she suffered

from battered spouse syndrome.

It was whether or not

she used deadly force

justifiably under the circumstances.

A slap to the face

doesn't justify someone sh**ting someone.

My name is Rob Russell,

and I was the attorney

who prosecuted Ms. Jema Donahue

for the homicide of Javon Donahue.

[Jema] As we were coming down

on the ground, he said,

"f*ck it.

We're gonna die together, b*tch."

And he laid his head

right next to my head

and he grabbed the butt of the g*n

and aimed it towards his left ear.

And I just wrapped my finger around

and pulled the trigger.

And, um, I just remember

that last final shot. Just

feeling the weight of him on top of me.

Well,

her story doesn't match up

with the injuries suffered by Mr. Donahue.

There are four b*ll*ts in his body.

One is in the shoulder.

One is through his jaw.

One is in the back of his head.

And one is underneath his chin,

straight up.

The shot to the back of the head

would have been a fatal shot.

The shot underneath his chin

was a fatal shot.

His jaw would have been broken

in such a way that he would not

have been able to talk to her

and tell her that he loved her

in this Romeo and Juliet moment,

they were both going to die together.

That didn't happen

because he couldn't talk.

So, I don't think the jury really

bought into

that she was acting in self-defense.

Certainly, when people try to

hide evidence of homicide,

and certainly hiding the body

tends to give you the impression

that the person who's doing that

has a guilty conscience.

If they had accepted the self-defense

argument from Ms. Donahue,

she would have been found

completely not guilty.

But instead,

they found her guilty of manslaughter.

[car horn honking]

[somber melodic music plays]

[Lisa] I think that the decisions

that were made after Javon was k*lled

did put her in prison.

The dedication to burying the body

really stuck in the craw

of a lot of the jury members.

[traffic noise]

Her mom certainly

could have acted differently.

I don't know if in her mother's mind

that that was really a choice,

but the concealment of Javon's body

made things a lot worse for Jema.

[Jema] I blame my mother, um

for a lot that happened,

um, when I was a teenager.

I really wasn't allowed to have friends.

My mom would do background checks

on everybody.

So I stayed at home a lot.

[Lisa] You know, becoming a social pariah

at a very young age

for a sexual as*ault she could not help.

Then the

the withholding

of any type of social relationship.

Essentially, what her mom was doing

was holding her hostage.

Holding her in such a safe place,

um, that it went overboard.

It went overboard into, quite honestly,

emotional abuse.

Um, not letting your child

out of the house ever.

Not letting her socialize

in any normal type of way

certainly sets up

a sense of learned helplessness.

I don't think

there's anything malicious about it.

I just do not believe

their relationship has ever been healthy.

[eerie music plays]

[grim music plays]

Jema describes her mother

as "an evil, wicked woman

who is controlling and vengeful."

"If she has the chance, she will k*ll me.

I'm sure of it."

"She will bury me

like she did my husband."

[music crescendos]

It's very possible that the line,

"She will bury me

like she buried my husband,"

was Jema's acknowledgement of

"I'm into this even further now

because of her involvement."

[birds chirping]

[Jema] During my trial, um

I had a strained relationship

with my parents.

I was drinking.

I was abusing drugs. Um

Do I think today that my mother

would k*ll me or bury me in a field?

No.

We've come so far.

It's not even the same relationship.

Like, we're not even the same people.

I've made great strides,

and she's made great strides.

[somber melodic music plays]

[Margaret] I've changed as a parent

realizing that

my ways of being a helicopter mom

over an adult was wrong.

It's It's their life, their choice,

their decisions,

and their consequences.

This part of me that always had

to be in control and fix problems.

Why give myself more problems

than I already have, you know?

It's just, um

It's not my problem.

I don't need to fix it.

Of course, I would do things differently.

I blame the police not showing up.

But ultimately, I, I told them,

like, "You don't have to come."

"It was a mistake."

So I started that.

I started that with a lie.

And the day had to come

where I had to acknowledge it.

I have learned a lot,

you know, about accountability

and the importance of it

in order for a person

to learn by their mistakes.

I have seen such improvement in Jema

since she's been incarcerated.

She lights up when I see her,

when I visit her.

And always a big hug, a kiss on the cheek.

That's my daughter.

That's the baby that I had.

[birds chirping]

[Jema] When I first came to prison, um

life was in an uproar.

But once I started to take advantage

of the different programs

I enrolled in, like, women's empowerment.

I was able to kind of see my prison life

in a different light.

[birds chirping]

It wasn't so much condemnation

as much as rehabilitation.

Also, in here,

I've learned accountability

because the fact is I still made

the choices that I made.

[Rob] The shot to the back of the head

would have been a fatal shot.

The shot underneath his chin

was a fatal shot.

He would not have been able to talk to her

and tell her that he loved her

in this Romeo and Juliet moment,

they were both going to die together.

That didn't happen.

There was no Romeo and Juliet moment,

where Javon said, "Do you love me?"

He said, "We're gonna die together, b*tch.

Till death do us part."

Those were his words

as he was flinging me around

and slamming me to the ground.

It's a really hard situation to decide,

um whose life is more important.

Or do you take the chance

of fighting for your life?

[sighs]

I hate the fact

that I have to wake up every day

[chokes up]

and know that I took somebody's life.

And on top of that,

it was someone's life whom I loved.

[Margaret] I remember saying to her,

"When the cops come, Jema,

please, let me tell them I did this."

And she said, "No, Mom."

"I will not."

I admire

[inhales]

what my mother risked in helping me

and trying to save me.

She threw everything away.

And honestly,

I probably would do it

for my children as well.

I mean, not go about it like that, but

we do what we need to

to protect and save our our babies.

This time in our life is almost over, and

I see all good days ahead for us.

[somber discordant music plays]