05x04 - If Things Were Different

[bunniefuu]

[foreboding music playing]

[somber voice] Thanksgiving night of 1999,

I did something really ignorant

to someone that did not deserve it.

I let my anger turn to rage.

But that's not who I am anymore.

[music intensifies]

[somber voice] I've had to deal with

reliving that night for almost 24 years.

I really don't know

what it was that triggered me,

but I believe the state should release me.

I'm nowhere near as violent as I was.

[eerie music playing]

[man 1]

I think we could all be dangerous people.

[man 2] People say you're a monster.

[man 3]

I'm not sitting here saying I'm innocent.

[man 4]

I just m*rder*d some guy in cold blood.

[music fades out]

[gentle piano music playing]

[woman] Growing up, I always wondered

what my life would be like

if my dad was here.

And how different things would be.

Hey, get that camera out of my face.

Hey! Hey!

[chuckling over video]

[chuckles]

[indistinct chattering over video]

[woman] He would be the person

that I could call no matter what,

and he would be there.

I feel like if my dad was here,

we'd be best friends.

There is no excuse

for what Michael Highley did.

Whether it was drugs,

or just mental illness,

or a combination of the two,

I don't think there's any excuse

for k*lling my father.

[music fades out]

[uneasy instrumental music playing]

[Highley] Since I've been locked up

for almost the last quarter of a century,

I've had to do a lot of self-reflecting.

And I still do not understand

why I reacted that way.

[man] Let's get this one on you.

[music continues]

[Highley] It still brings up

some messed-up feelings

when I think about that day.

It wasn't something I intended.

My life should have been so much better.

[music fades out]

[gentle mandolin playing]

[Highley] Growing up

in the south suburb of Chicago,

I lived with my mother,

my grandmother, my grandfather,

and a couple of siblings that I had.

[music fades out]

The only thing I knew about my father

was he was in the Marine Corps,

and the only real memory I have

was watching him in his vehicle

pull out of the yard and drive away.

[melancholic music playing]

[Highley] I started drinking

around the age of seven or eight.

One of the friends that I had growing up

was part of a local g*ng.

Him and his friends were always showing up

with 12-packs of beer, bottles of whiskey.

And

by the time I reached my ninth birthday,

I would say I was a full-blown alcoholic.

Being intoxicated,

it helped hide some of the confusion

and anger that I had.

And it helped me hide some

intimate details about myself

that I didn't want to face.

[rhythmic pensive music playing]

[Highley] It was one of those things

of trying to fit in

and make sure that I had, you know,

people I could call friends.

I was, uh, definitely exposed

to a lot of violence.

I was kind of a hothead,

and I had a lot of anger.

Got angry at someone,

you tried to beat him up.

You were throwing punches,

you were throwing kicks,

you were headbutting people.

That was how you proved

you were one of the boys.

[music fades out]

[sweeping somber music playing]

[music fades out]

[Highley] After moving to Montana,

I was supposed

to be working for my stepdad,

but he wasn't paying me.

So I decided to try and get even

by stealing some r*fles.

I knew some people that that were willing

to purchase them for for cash and drugs.

But some of the individuals

that I did business with

turned in some of the hunting r*fles

to the police.

So I was, uh, arrested,

and that was the start of my

my prison life.

[dark, foreboding music playing]

Prison wasn't the learning experience

that I think they wanted it to be,

and, uh, even being incarcerated,

I I was still intoxicated.

[music becomes sinisterly rhythmic]

[Highley] Coming out of prison,

I had buried the issues

with my feelings deep enough

to where I wasn't dealing with them,

and my main concern was

where my next 12-pack is gonna come from.

Where my next quarter gram

is gonna come from.

I had that attitude,

"Nobody is going to tell me I can't."

So I kept drinking, kept getting high.

Unfortunately, that wasn't

a really good attitude to have.

It was just making me more expl*sive.

[dramatic final beat]

[music fades out]

[somber acoustic guitar music playing]

[Highley] The night before

Thanksgiving of 1999,

I rode my pedal bike to my local bar.

I brought the bike inside

and left it in the corner.

An old acquaintance of mine,

Mr. Harris, told me he would be willing

to keep an eye on it for me.

So I told him I was going to be

over at the pool table,

and that was pretty much the start

of a bad night.

[uncomfortable chuckle]

One of the bartenders approached me,

and he accused me of being

one of several people

that he suspected went back

behind the bar a night or two prior

and took some money out of what they call

the "shake a day" container.

[ba*ls clattering]

- My anger meter was raising quickly.

- [pinball machine clanging]

If you're going to accuse me of something,

make sure I did it.

[music becomes suspenseful]

I wasn't out-of-control angry,

but I was just about there.

I'm not exactly sure

how much time went by,

but the bartender

caught my attention and said,

"I'm sorry, the individual

that did take the money confessed to it."

But I just kept

thinking about being accused

of doing something I didn't do.

I continued to drink.

I dwelled on it.

[ba*ls clatter]

And when I glanced up,

I noticed the bike was gone.

My anger level instantly started to boil.

[music continues]

I asked Mr. Harris, "Where's the bike?"

And I slapped his shoulder.

He turned and looked at me and told me,

"Even if I knew where it was,

I wouldn't tell you."

And

that that was it.

I went from being angry

to being in a full-blown rage.

I remember the bartender yelling,

"Take it outside."

I remember

Mr. Harris coming out of the bar,

walking across the street.

As soon as he got close enough to me,

I stabbed him three times.

[music crescendos, steadies]

[music fades out]

[sighs]

I still do not understand

what it was that triggered me.

I cannot even begin to speculate

what was going through my mind.

[dramatic sting]

[gently uneasy piano music playing]

[woman] Throughout his life,

Michael had a habit.

He gets angry, he does something,

and he doesn't think about it

until after he does it.

I couldn't understand it.

I'm Carol,

and I'm Michael Highley's mother.

[music fades out]

[melancholic music playing]

[Carol] When Michael was younger,

he was drinking all the time.

And he was doing drugs,

but I didn't realize he was doing that

because he didn't do it here.

I'd come home, he'd be

he'd be home for dinner,

and he'd ask to go play with his friends.

But what he was doing

was actually going to a drug dealer.

When he got in trouble,

Michael always had this "fight or flee."

This one incident,

the dope dealer was chasing him home.

Probably he was getting chased

'cause he owed the drug dealer some money.

And he went and took

his sister's .22 r*fle.

He just stuck the r*fle out the window,

and he shot him.

[music continues]

[music fades out]

[Carol] I thought if I took him away

from this environment,

that things would smooth out.

But it seemed like

no matter what we say or what we did,

somehow or another

it didn't get blocked into his head.

I think it just went, psst,

one ear and out the other.

But as far as the anger issue,

I took him to the doctors

trying to find why he blows up like that.

Everybody tried to pinpoint it,

but nobody knew what was going on.

And that's why I always told Michael,

"Think before you do something.

Just turn around and walk away."

But he don't listen,

and that's why this last incident

with the knife happened.

[somber piano music playing]

[Carol] When I found out the person

that Michael knifed had died,

I was thinking [sighs]

"This is something

I can't get him out of."

I don't know why he was that angry.

I don't think it ever stuck in his brain

to think about something

or the consequences of doing it

before he did it.

[train bell ringing faintly]

[music fades out]

[car horn honks]

[melancholic music playing]

[man] When we get these cases,

they're always tragic.

There should've been different ways

to handle a dispute than this.

But now this happened,

and someone is dead.

My name is John W. Larson.

I'm a district judge in Montana,

and I presided over the case

of Michael Highley.

[music continues]

[music fades out]

[John] Prison is generally a last resort.

We have to give them

a chance to change their life.

You're not thrown back in jail

for every violation.

But Highley was given a lot of chances,

and chances can't be unending.

[foreboding music playing]

[John] Mr. Highley did have

sufficient opportunities to change,

but he had these violent tendencies.

And in the end,

someone was stabbed to death.

And when there's such violence,

we have to make sure

that everybody else is protected.

[music continues]

[John] The sentence in Highley's case

is one that is appropriate.

It had enough punishment,

but it wasn't extreme.

It had a component,

uh, for rehabilitation.

[uneasy piano music playing]

[John] There was a requirement

that before he'd be considered for parole,

he complete rehabilitative programs

both in chemical dependency

and mental health.

So Highley needs

to take advantage of his sentence

and utilize these chances to change.

[music fades out]

[gentle mandolin music playing]

[Highley] The first few years in prison

were really tough for me.

I shut down mentally.

I didn't want to think

about what got me here.

And that was pretty much

what I did for my first few years.

But I had gotten to a point

where I was trying

to make changes in my life.

And listening to g*y individuals

try to explain how things

are so much different in the world now,

and how things are so much more accepted

It was 2016 that I came out

as being transgender.

And mentally, I have never looked back.

And it's helped me move forward

from where I was back in 1999.

[somber orchestral music playing]

[Highley] I should have faced it

a long time ago.

But an individual had to die,

and I had to be sent to prison

for pretty close to the rest of my life

for me to realize

that facing the world the way I did,

it it wasn't a life I should have lived.

And it had me reviewing

everything that I have

ever done in my life.

It helped me

realize that I shouldn't have been ashamed

of who I was.

[sniffs]

[music fades out]

[melancholic music playing]

[Highley] I started wearing

women's clothes at a really young age.

It was right around the time

that my father had left.

I did a lot to try and suppress it

because

the way society looked at people

that were transgender back in them days

wasn't remotely socially acceptable.

And I had been caught a few times

dressed up in women's underwear

when I was in junior high school.

They caught me in the

in the boys' locker room

wearing, uh, a teddy

and my gym shorts around my ankles and

I was laughed at and made fun of and

Yeah, it was, uh it was traumatizing.

[somber music playing]

[Highley] I would have to say

that trying to fit into a man's world

while inside, I felt different.

I didn't process it very well.

The way I dealt with it

was by drinking all the time,

trying to medicate myself

to where I didn't think about it anymore.

And being intoxicated to help deal with

feeling so down on myself.

So I kept drinking, kept getting high,

and there was a lot of violence.

[music fades out]

But since I came out as being transgender,

I've been the happiest I've ever been.

[resolute instrumental music playing]

[Highley] I've been trying for parole

because my thirst

for rehabilitation has never been

so far to the forefront

like it has been since I made the decision

just to accept that this is who I am.

My current name is Ezdeth Antinua Highley.

You can like me or or not.

I've got to live with me, not you.

[music fades out]

[foreboding melancholic music playing]

[birds chirping]

[woman] We received notifications

that Michael Highley

wanted to change his name.

And they told us what he wanted

to change his name to.

I had the lady on the phone

spell it for me,

and it was E-Z-D-E-T-H.

And I said, "Easy death?"

I was shocked.

That's kind of a slap in the face

to a victim's family

where that's what it looks like

that's what his name is.

Eventually, when they told us

Highley wants to transition

as much as you can in prison,

I I don't know.

It's a lot to deal with

and to try and understand.

And I'm

I'm sure it is for him internally,

for what he's feeling.

[music fades out]

[birds chirping]

[gentle somber piano music playing]

[plants rustling]

[Leslie] Paul was hilarious growing up.

A little prankster.

We always had to watch what he was doing

so we didn't get in trouble

and join in in the shenanigans.

He was just fun to have around.

A good brother.

In the late '90s,

Paul was living in Missoula.

And he met

his girlfriend Tracy in about '97.

And then they went on

to have twin baby girls.

And they were born in 1999.

He was really excited about being a dad.

I think it's unfortunate

that he had to pass away

and didn't even get that chance.

[birds chirping]

[music fades out]

I'm not really sure why Highley

thought that he should stab my brother.

But they ended up getting into, uh,

an argument about the bike.

Paul told his friend,

"Put that in the back of your truck,

and it'll be funny

to see him say, 'Where's my bike?'"

You know, it was just

a simple joke that went wrong.

I think that's pretty severe anger issues

that you have if you want to stab somebody

um, over a bicycle

that wasn't even stolen.

[troubling violin music playing]

[Leslie] Highley has been up for parole

multiple times.

But I feel that

when you take somebody's life,

that you should spend

the remainder of your life incarcerated.

At the last parole hearing via video,

Highley said that he felt

like he was a woman,

and maybe that that's where some of his

anger or rage came from.

It's hard to say what you feel about that.

I mean, I feel for people that feel

feel that way anyways in their life.

But he k*lled somebody violently,

and it doesn't make it go away

'cause your name changes.

[music fades out]

[gently eerie music playing]

[woman] There's a lot more going on

contributing to Ezdeth's behavior

than just her gender identity.

I think it provides context

for some of the things

that she was going through,

and some of the things

that she was struggling with.

But the vast majority of people

with gender identity issues

do not commit m*rder.

My name is Laura Kirsch.

I'm a clinical

forensic psychologist in Montana.

And I primarily evaluate

criminal defendants

for the Montana judicial system.

[music continues]

Human behavior

is very hard to parse apart.

Why anyone does anything

is an interaction of so many variables

that are internal to a person

and then external as part of a situation.

I think a large driver

of her behavior at that time

seems like anger, substance use,

and antisocial personality traits.

Is some of that

due to her gender identity? Probably.

But being able to draw a straight line

from her gender identity to the m*rder,

I think, would be highly impossible to do.

[somber piano music playing]

Based on the information that I've read,

it sounds like she had a pretty antisocial

and delinquent childhood.

And I think when you have someone

who perhaps doesn't start out

with a whole lot of

great emotion regulation capacity,

and they're raised in an environment

where they don't get the extra assistance

that they need with it,

that could certainly lead

to using violence

as a means to solve problems

or as a means to express herself.

But I don't think they provide an excuse

or a justification for her behavior.

[music fades out]

[tense music playing]

[music becomes rhythmic]

[device clicks on]

[Highley]

Since I came out as being transgender,

I've been the happiest I've ever been.

It gave me a body high

like nothing I have ever done before.

The thing that made me decide

to start facing my issue

was remembering the contentment

and freedom it caused me to feel

every time I'd be in the basement

wearing a dress and high heels.

And I had decided I just don't care

what people think anymore.

But an individual had to die,

and I had to be sent to prison

for pretty close

to the rest of my life for me to realize

that facing the world the way I did,

it it wasn't a life I should have lived.

My life should have been so much better.

[device clicks off]

[music fades out]

[Laura] One of the characteristics

that's pretty consistent

with antisocial personality

is kind of a self-centeredness

or self-absorption.

And I thought it was striking

in all of the material

that she was very self-focused.

So it's possible

that a lot of her behavior was driven

by antisocial personality traits.

And I think it's striking

how much she's focused on herself

and how little she's spoken

of the victims and the victim family.

[somber music playing]

I think if Ezdeth

would like a better chance

of getting paroled in the future,

she needs to show

genuine remorse for what she did.

So part of her journey that she's on

should incorporate really considering

the impact of her behavior

on her victim's family,

on his young daughters,

who have faced significant obstacles

growing up without a father.

And it's not totally clear

from what I've seen and heard

that she recognizes that and understands

that she was a major factor

in their difficult childhood.

[music fades out]

[birds chirping]

[grim melancholic music playing]

[dog barks]

I have some pictures

of my brother Paul Harris.

There's some in here that my niece Madison

has never seen before.

At the time of Paul's death,

we didn't know

what was gonna happen with the girls.

I was a single mom to a five-year-old,

and I wasn't sure, you know,

could I take two babies,

and all of a sudden have three kids,

and be a single mom.

You know, now I think

I should have just made it work.

[music continues]

[music fades out]

[Leslie] I think this is the first picture

that I saw of you girls.

Look at how tiny you are.

I don't even know who's who. Can you tell?

Yeah, you can tell that's Brianna

because of her dark hair.

After my dad passed away,

my mom was in and out of the picture,

and my twin sister and I were in and out

of group homes for years.

Because of what Michael Highley did,

I was surrounded by drug use, abuse,

neglect, all those things growing up.

I just remember thinking all the time,

like, I would give anything

to just have, like, a regular family.

It does anger me

that we didn't get that chance

because of somebody else's choice.

I definitely feel like if he was here,

things would be different.

[sniffs]

[voice breaks] But I'm just thankful for,

you know, the family that we do have,

and, um, that they stepped in to help

'cause

[sniffs]

you know, through everything

that we went through as children

I think we're pretty okay. [laughs]

[melancholic music playing]

[Maddie] It doesn't matter to me

if Michael Highley has changed or not.

Whether he was suffering

with a mental illness or a drug problem.

I don't think there's any excuse

for k*lling my father.

[music continues]

[Maddie] They didn't give me

very long to talk.

It was just, "Why do you think

he shouldn't be released early?"

And I just said,

"Because he took my dad

away from our family."

I believe that he should serve

the sentence that he was given for m*rder.

Any and all future parole hearings,

I will testify that Michael Highley

should not be released early.

[birds chirping]

[music fades out]

[machinery clanging]

[somber discordant violin music playing]

[woman] It feels terrible.

Somebody calls and tells you

your son is dead.

You know, every mother's fear

is losing their children.

But I have forgiven Highley.

You can't keep holding on

to things like that

because they hurt you

more than anybody else.

I'm Cheryl, and I'm Paul Harris's mother.

[music fades out]

[Cheryl] I always run the scenario

through my mind about,

"Well, what if Paul

wouldn't have moved his bike?"

Would he still be here?

If it wasn't for that one little thing.

I mean, there's all these parameters

that we can bring in and try to make sense

of something that happened.

But trust me when I tell you,

I've gone through 10,000 of those,

and they don't help.

Nothing that I could say or do

would bring my son back.

Nothing.

[gentle, uplifting music playing]

[Cheryl] So I decided

that I was gonna forgive him,

and I wanted to at least give him a chance

that he could change.

[Cheryl] I asked about having

Michael's sentence reduced.

I didn't want to punish him,

just lock him in a corner

and leave him there forever.

I asked

if he was gonna be getting any training.

I was trying to find the

a good side to him being in prison

and taking different classes, and

one that would help him.

[somber music playing]

[Cheryl] I am glad

that Michael Highley is changing.

I think he is learning the hard way.

But he's coming to terms

with being transgender,

and I think it's hard for him

being in prison and trying to find

those changes and those answers.

I hope he gets out of prison

and can live a life

that everybody deserves.

I would like the best

to happen to him that could,

but he also has to do some of it too.

[music fades out]

[somber piano music playing]

[Highley] Everything I have done

in the last 13 years

has been to better myself,

but I am a work in progress.

[sniffs, exhales]

I shouldn't have put my victim

in the position of being a victim.

But I am always thinking about

his mother and his children,

and it definitely means a lot to me

to hear that she has forgiven me.

That That definitely takes a

a strong woman to say that.

[music fades out]

Coming to terms with what I did

Thanksgiving night of 1999

has taken me a really long time.

But that's not who I am anymore.

Transitioning has helped me

maintain my thoughts of rehabilitation

because it gives me

something to strive for.

I'm steps away from being the person

that I've always wanted to be.

I am a woman

trapped inside of a man's body.

I am not this Michael Highley.

My name is Ezdeth.

[tense somber music playing]

[Leslie] Highley has been

up for parole multiple times,

but I feel that when you take

somebody's life,

that you should spend

the remainder of your life incarcerated.

When they told us

what he wanted to change his name to,

I had the lady on the phone

spell it for me,

and it was E-Z-D-E-T-H.

And I said, "Easy death?"

I was shocked.

That's kind of a slap in the face

to a victim's family

where that's what it looks like

that's what his name is.

[music fades out]

I'm sorry that she sees it that way,

and I really do hope

that she will be open-minded enough

to give me the opportunity to prove

that it is not intended

as a slap in the face

to any of her family.

When I came up with the name,

it was a made-up character

in a role-playing game

that had

qualities that I appreciated.

She would always try to deal

with situations in a communicative way.

And she always tried to find balance.

It's not supposed to mean anything

to anybody else but me.

[melancholic music playing]

[Laura] I think what comes across

in everything that I've read

and seen about Ezdeth

is that she's got a number

of antisocial personality traits.

And one of the characteristics

that's pretty consistent

with antisocial personality

is kind of a self-centeredness

or self-absorption.

I think it's striking

how little she's spoken

of the victims and the victim family.

And it's not totally clear

from what I've seen and heard

that she recognizes that and understands

that she was a major factor

in the daughters' difficult childhood.

[sniffs]

[sighs]

[sighs]

[sniffs]

How How How do you say I'm sorry

for for for taking a

taking away someone's loved one?

How How do you say you're sorry?

[sniffs]

Maybe that's something I need to do is

learn the fancy words

that people will accept.

I regret the fact that they had

to grow up without their dad.

But to me, actions do speak

louder than words.

Twenty-five years ago,

I was a drunken, addicted jackass.

Everything was about me.

That's not who I am anymore.

It's your actions that have to prove

that you've learned,

that you're trying to change.

You know, I would like

for my victim's family

to find peace in

in this atrocity that I have caused.

[sniffs]

I want the few remaining family members

that I have to find peace

out of all this bullshit.

[sniffs]

And nobody else

is gonna find it until I do.

And I am doing my best.

That's what I want my actions to show.

[sniffs]

[sighs, sniffs]

[somber violin music playing]

[music fades out]