09x07 - He Lived a Double Life

[bunniefuu]

The scar that I have
here on my forehead...

it doesn't bother me
to have to see it.

It reminds me that I survived.

I had thought once about
getting it removed,

but I decided against it,
because I want to continue to

remind myself
to never go back.

It also reminds me of
my purpose now.

That was a bad period in
my life,

but I overcame,
and I survived that time.

When I heard what
the truth really was,

it was sickening.

He was
a serial predator.

This very easily
could have been me,

and I think that's what's
so hard for me is because

I've seen the end of a g*n
with... in his hand.

When I found out he was dead,

it was, for me,
a sign of freedom

after all those years,

and I'm glad that he can't
hurt anyone else any longer.

Stafford and I met
by mistake.

A friend of mine was friends
with his best friend.

They wanted to go out,
and so they brought us along

as a wingman,
I guess.

So, what's your story?

So we end up,
you know, just chatting,

having general conversation,
and realized, like,

we had a lot in common.

I liked his sense of humor.

He made me laugh.

We both loved music...
At the time,

I was 20,
he was 27.

He told me he was
going through

a divorce, and they had
two children.

He was a mechanic, so he... you
know, he was self-employed.

He worked on cars, and he had
his own garage.

You know,
maybe we can do this again.

You know,
without the two of them.

He asked me if I wanted
to go out, and I was like, sure.

And then from there,
we just kind of started

seeing each other, you know,
more on a regular basis.

And at some point,
I fell in love.

Perfect.

I was young.
I was naive.

I was trusting

and never in a million
years thinking

that someone would actually
want to hurt me.

You know,
someone that says that

they love me
would want to hurt me.

When we met,
he was living with, um,

one of his family members.

I went to the house one night.

He was downstairs in
the basement washing clothes,

and I was upstairs in his room,

and I was laying across the bed
watching TV,

and his mother comes to
the door, and she says,

"You need to leave him alone
so he can be with his family."

And it...
I was totally taken aback.

Okay?

Why would
you say that to me?

It just came out of
left field.

The only thing I could think
was because the divorce still

hadn't gone through,
so I was okay.

Well, maybe she just wants him
to be back with the wife.

So by the time
I get to the front door,

he's coming back up
the stairs.

Sonja! Sonja, wait.

What's up?
Why are you leaving?

It's clear
I'm not welcome here.

What do you mean?

Your mom doesn't want me here.
I'm gonna leave.

Just give me a minute.
Don't go.

He tells me to wait.

Mom, what the hell
is wrong with you?

And I could hear him
yelling at her.

You've got no damn right
talking to my friend...

He proceeded to continue to
kind of curse her

and tell her off.

Get the hell out of here

any mind your own
damn business.

He comes back, and I was like,
okay, that's a little weird.

Do you always talk
to your mom like that?

Yeah.
So what?

I wasn't raised
like that,

that you curse
at your parents.

I appreciated him standing up
for me, but at the same time,

I didn't like
the fact that he, um,

cursed and yelled at his
mother the way that he did.

That was disrespectful to me.

About a year into
the relationship,

we moved in together.

And that's when things started
to get interesting.

Listen, now that
we're serious, you know,

there's something I should
probably tell you about.

About what?

One time, um, Stafford and I
were having this conversation.

We're just sitting, talking.

And he told me
about this incident

that happened years ago.

When I was younger, I had
an incident with the police.

There was a body that
was found,

a man's body,
in the back of a car.

Um, and the person had been
burnt, and the police

came to him,
because he knew the person.

What?
What happened?

They questioned him.
They had arrested him,

but found that there was
no evidence against him.

And the case just
kind of went away.

I just wanted you
to know the truth

in case, you know,
you hear from someone else.

I need to let you know just FYI,
if it ever comes up,

I'm telling you,
I didn't do it.

For me, it was like,
"Wow, that was...

Dang, that's messed up."

Like this was a traumatic
experience in his life,

that it was something
that he was blamed for

that he didn't do.

I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have brought it up.

Looking back now,
when I think about it,

it makes me almost sick
to my stomach.

Years later, I learned that
the story was a total lie.

It was a, um,
young lady that was

found burned
in the back of a car.

And not only was a girl,
it was a 17-year-old girl,

and it was his girlfriend
at the time.

They thought that
he did it, because he was

the last person
she was with.

She had told him
she was pregnant,

and no one ever saw her
after that.

So it was totally not

what he told me that it was.

I never would have thought in
a million years

that he would be capable of
any of this.

If I would have ever
thought that,

I would have never stayed.

We had a New Year's Eve
party at

our house and had
some friends and family over.

At the end of the evening,

we had to take
one of my cousins home.

And so on the way,
Stafford was going a different

route than what I normally
went to the... to the house.

What are you doing?

And so I asked him, you know,
"How come you're going this way?

How come you don't go
that way?"

And he just kind of
snapped at me.

Don't tell me how to drive!

And told me, "Well, I'm going
the way I want to go,

you know,
don't question me."

You got a problem with that?

I didn't understand...

Why are you getting so upset

over a simple question?

I just said, "Okay,"

and I sat there quiet for
the rest of the trip.

And so we get back home, and he
starts back up with me.

I don't need you
telling me what to do.

You got that?

About,
"Don't question me."

And it turns into this big
blown out argument.

I said I'm sorry!

Then why do you
keep doing it?

Leave me alone!

Before I knew it,
he pushed me down on the bed.

He was on top of me.

His face went...

I don't know if blank
is the word.

I didn't recognize him.

It was like Dr, Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde.

I was scared.

Before I knew it,
he head-butted me,

Split my forehead open.

I was crying,
and I'm just, you know,

kind of hysterical, because I
just I couldn't believe what

has just happened,
and I go in the bathroom.

I cleaned myself up and come
back into the room,

and he looks at me,

and he was... immediately
started apologizing.

I can't believe
that happened.

It was a complete accident.

"Oh, my gosh, baby,
I'm so sorry.

"I'm so sorry.
Um, I won't do that again.

Forgive me. Forgive me."

I was so shocked.

Like, how could you
do this to me?

And he just kept apologizing.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

I won't ever do
that to you again, I swear.

I forgave him.

We're just gonna pretend
like this didn't happen,

and we're just gonna move on,

and this can't ever
happen again.

It's okay. It's okay.

The scar that I have here
on my forehead is from, uh,

when Stafford
head-butted me.

I have a everlasting reminder

of the first act of violence.

I can see the...
The rage,

the, um, the anger.

It's something I never
want to see again.

To all outside appearances,

we were a great couple.

We had a good relationship.

We joked,
and we had a great time.

Inward,
we were a mess.

Everything was a farce.

It was dysfunctional
on the inside.

Unhappy

on the inside, but...

you wouldn't have known it
from the outside.

His erratic work hours
really bothered me.

The hours got longer
and longer.

It might be 11 o'clock
when he came home.

It might be one o'clock in
the morning when he came home.

There would be nights
when he wouldn't come home.

I'm awake.

It bothered me.

I would question, Why do you
have to work so late?

"I don't never know
when you're coming home.

"People close their garages
and go home to their families.

Why are you any different?"

What are you doing
all day and night?

What do you mean,
what am I doing?

I'm working.

He would say,
"I got this car to do.

"I got that car to do.
I'm still working on this.

"And then I got
to go over there,

and I gotta check out
this person's car."

He was a self-employed person.

Um, he was a business owner.

So there was always a...
A reason.

I'm trying to run
a business.

I'm sorry.

I just want you home more.

Stafford was my first real
adult relationship that I had.

I believed what he said.

As time went on, it became
normal that, "No, he's not here.

He's still...
He's still at the garage."

That became my saying...
"He's still at the garage."

This is the journal
that I used to keep.

Thursday,
February the 14th, 2002.

"What a lovely Valentine's Day.

"Yeah, right.

"Stafford didn't come home
last night.

"Of course I was calling
and calling, but no answer.

"It's a terrible feeling to not
know where someone is

and to be very worried about
them when they don't show up."

This particular Valentine's,

I was waiting for him.

He was supposed to have been
coming home,

but he never made it.

Next morning comes,
now I'm just mad.

You never came home.
Never heard from you.

Where were you?

You want to tell me where
you've been at all night long?

He told me
that his aunt was in

the hospital and said that
he was at the hospital.

I was uncertain if he was
really telling the truth.

Why are you being like this?

But that was one of
those times when he, um,

flipped that conversation
around on me,

and, um, told me basically that
I was selfish for wanting him

to be there when he was there

taking care of his family
and checking on his family.

I think if you weren't
so wrapped up in yourself,

you wouldn't get so upset
over nothing.

I became the bad person.

I became what was
wrong with us.

And I had to find a way to

change my behavior so that
these things don't happen.

I'm sorry.

If I would take his feelings
into more consideration,

then we would be fine.

He convinced me
that I was wrong

and that I couldn't see past
what I wanted.

Tuesday, February the 19th...

"We finally made up.

"I have finally come to
the realization that

"I let my emotions
get the best of me.

"I couldn't or wouldn't
see past my feelings

to see that he was
there for his aunt."

Looking at it now,

I can see that he had
convinced me

that it was my fault,
that I'm too sensitive,

um, and that I let
my emotions fog me.

And so my thoughts
became what he told me

that they were, not what I
thought that they were.

Was the beginning of him

starting to mentally
control me.

He started, like,
blaming me for his behavior.

I remember

one night, it was about one
or two in the morning,

and we were sleeping.

He gets up,

doesn't say a word to me,
slams the door.

When he slammed the door, like,
everything shook.

It woke me up.

And I was like,
what in the world?

So I immediately called him.

I said,
"What is wrong with you?"

Stafford? What happened?
Where'd you go?

He was like,
"You know what you did."

I didn't do anything.

I was like, "What are you
talking about?

What did I do?"

He said that I rolled over,

I got on top of him,

and said another man's name.

Stafford.
I swear, there's no one else.

"Whose name were you saying
in your sleep?

You gotta be seeing somebody.
Who is it? Who is it?"

Please, just come home...
I swear,

whatever I said,
I didn't mean it.

It was just
baffling to me.

Just made no sense.

I'm not seeing anybody else,

but all I had to go off of
is what he told me.

I started questioning myself.

Maybe there's something there,
and I'm just not aware of it,

and it's coming out
in my sleep.

I was like, I think... I think
something's wrong with me.

I need help, something
is wrong with me.

Stafford?

Now I understand that what
he was doing at that time

is gaslighting.

He was manipulating my mind

to have me doubting
my own sanity,

and it kept happening over
and over and over again.

There's questions
that I have still to this day

that I will never know
the answer to.

There are parts of my life
that I don't know what was real

and what wasn't,
and, you know,

I just have to live with
the fact that I'll never know.

October 28th of '02.

"I'm doing things in my sleep
I can't explain.

"Unfortunately, I can't
remember any of it.

I have got to fix this,
and soon."

November the 22nd.

"This is happening again.

"Me talking in my sleep
and doing

"things and having
no recollection of it.

"Stafford left at 4 a.m.
this morning,

"stormed out... God,
what is wrong with me?

I just don't understand,
and it frightens me."

Even though it was me
that wrote it,

because I'm not
this person any longer,

I look at it now, and...

I feel sorry for her.

All I can do is shake
my head, because...

I can just see
the pattern, the...

the manipulative pattern...

to make sure that

I stayed where he needed me
to be, in his control.

When we first started dating,

the story was that he was
separated, and that

he and the wife were going
through a divorce.

Stafford called me one day.

He hurt his hand
while he was working,

and he had to go to
the emergency room.

I said,
"Well, where are you?

I'm gonna come up there."
"No, don't come up here."

I went anyway.

So I get there,
and he was with his wife.

They are sitting in
the waiting area waiting to

be discharged.

And so I sat down directly
across from them.

He didn't say
anything to me.

He just looked at me like
he had never seen me before.

And I'm looking at him like...
I said, "Hello."

He didn't say anything.

And she's just looking at me...
The look on his face

was like he was afraid
to say anything.

It was strange.

I wanted to see what
he was going to say.

And so I sat there, and I'm just
looking at the both of them,

very nice, very calm.
Never said another word.

One of my thoughts was, "I think
they're still together."

That just kept playing
over and over my head.

You said you can't stand her.

Okay, what is really going on?

Stafford Shaw,
we're ready for you.

And they called his name

to give him
his discharge papers.

He goes up,
and they proceed to leave out.

So I walked out after.

And I called his name,
and I said, "Stafford!"

And he turned around.

I said,
"Are you really gonna act

like you don't know who I am?"

And he was like,
"Sonja, go home."

I said,
"What is going on?"

He was like,
"Sonja, go home."

And I was like,
I don't believe this.

So I get my car,
I go home.

I get to the house, I take
everything that he owned,

and I put it in a pile
next to the door.

So I'm like, I'm not... I'm not
gonna deal with this.

He gets to the house.

What's all this about?

What do you think it is?

My question was, "Well, are you
all still together?"

"We're not still together,
you know I can't stand her."

I thought you said you were
getting a divorce.

And he said because
the divorce hadn't gone through,

he was still under
the wife's insurance.

So he had to call her to bring
the insurance cards.

So why is it such
a big secret then?

I remember telling him,
"Why were you hiding

"her being there?

All you had to do was tell me
that she was there."

I'm sorry.

I should have handled
it better.

I was in total denial
about everything.

One morning, it was early,
it was probably about seven...

Seven o'clock,
eight o'clock in the morning,

and the doorbell rings,
and he went to the door.

And I could hear him saying,
"What are you doing here?"

When I looked out the front
window, it was his wife.

And she said, "Oh, this is
your nighttime job?"

And I stood there, and I was
like, "Nighttime job?

What is she talking about?
What nighttime job?"

He made her leave.

When he came back in the room,

the first thing I asked him was,
"What is she doing here?"

So she's coming
to our house now?

He didn't seem
the least bit surprised that

she was there,
and he brushed it off.

He was like,
"I'll talk to her.

I'll make sure... I'll make sure
she doesn't come back."

It was like, okay, you know,
wheels are now starting to turn.

There is a reason that this
woman came looking for you.

I thought you two
hated each other.

We do!

And if you two
don't get along,

why does she care
about where you are?

I don't know what she's after.
She's crazy.

We were arguing,

and he spit out
that he was divorced.

Wait, what?

And I said,
"You're divorced?

When did this happen?
How come you didn't tell me?"

He was like, "What?
I'm finally divorced now.

We can finally
be together."

He told me
what I wanted to hear.

She never did show up, you know,
at the house again.

But what she said always kind
of stayed in the back of

my mind...
What did that mean?

We had an engagement party,
and it was just full speed

ahead with the wedding plans,
because now we can be together.

And then one day,
we had another argument.

He tells me,
"I'm not divorced."

You told me the divorce
was final.

He sat there
on the edge of the bed,

and he started just crying
and babbling about us

and his family,

and he started saying
that he wanted to die.

"I just want to die."

I'm sorry.
I just can't do this anymore.

He had a g*n in the house.
It came out.

And he had loaded
one b*llet in the g*n.

He took the g*n,
he put it up to his head.

Put it to his temple.

And I was like,
"Stafford, stop, Stop it."

You don't want to do this.

Begging him and telling him,
you know,

put the g*n down,
put the g*n down.

And he click...
Pulled the trigger.

After it clicked,

I just kept saying,
"Stop, please stop.

"Just put it down.

You want to live.
You don't want to die."

It's gonna be okay.

And he was like,
"Yes, I do.

Yes, I do."
c*ck the g*n back again.

And put it up one more time.

Pulled the trigger,
and it clicked.

Stafford!

I was petrified, and I told him
again, Stop it, Stafford!

Stop it!"

Put the g*n up again.

And this time,

when he pulled the trigger,

he pointed it at me.

I couldn't believe
that we were at this point.

This is not happening
right now.

This cannot be happening.

And I ran down the hall,

and the g*n went off.

I was like, oh, my God.

I came back down the hall

and I peeked in the room,
and he was

still sitting there on
the side of the bed,

and I looked up in the ceiling
right above my head,

and the b*llet was lodged in
the ceiling, and I said,

"You tried to sh**t me!"

You almost k*lled me.

What the hell
is wrong with you?

And he just sat there, crying.

I ran over to him, and I hugged
him, and I comforted him.

It's okay.

The crying spells
were an act.

It was part of
his manipulation.

Part of keeping me there.

I went from the victim to now
rescuing him,

and we sat there.
We talked.

Trying to figure out
what was going on with him.

Why are you doing
all of this?

He was very good at
the manipulation factor.

And so he knew
the things that he needed

to do to kind of reel me
back in.

I had never been to
his garage.

He would describe
to me how it looked,

and I just had a mental
picture in my mind

of the way it looked.

But I had never been there.

One particular time,

the wife had taken the boys,
his children, somewhere.

He heard that she had moved
out of town,

and he didn't know
where they were.

And I was like,
"Well, you know what?

I'm gonna see if
I can find them."

And so I started getting on

the internet and, like, doing
searches and stuff.

His thing was that he didn't
know where the kids were.

So my whole reasoning behind
it was to find out

where the kids were,

you know, because that would
make him happy.

And, um, I pulled her name up,
and when I pulled her name up,

I found an address.

So I drove there.

When I drove by the house,
I saw a garage,

and I'm looking at the garage
and remembering

how he told me
that the garage looked,

the mental picture that I had,

it's right here
in front of me.

This is the garage.

That was when

the big lightbulb came on.

They were together.

He was probably going back
and forth between

both places and still...
being there with her.

I felt deceived.

I had been deceived.

So I parked at the end of
the street, and I sat

and just waited to see
if I saw anybody

go in or out of the house
for a little while.

I didn't see anything,
but I knew enough

to know that he was living
a double life.

Two families, two lives,
two households.

I was the other woman.

So that evening,

I had taken everything,
everything that he owned,

and put it by the front door.

When he came home, he says,
"What is all this?"

What's going on?

I know
where you've been going.

And I told him, I said,
I found the garage,

and eyes got a little big.

He was surprised,
but that didn't last long,

because then it got defensive.

He flipped it around to me

and said that he didn't tell
me because the house was in

her name,
but she didn't live there.

She owns the place.
So what?

And he said, "I just rent
the garage in the back."

I want to believe him,

but my gut knew something's
not right, and you're really not

being truthful with me.

And so I was on this quest now
for the truth.

One of the bills I paid
was the cellphone bill,

and when I went to pay
the phone bill,

seeing a couple of numbers
repetitively.

One of the numbers that was
repetitive was the wife's

phone number,
and then there was another

phone number that was
pretty frequent.

The calls are, like, one in
the morning, really odd.

So when he was sleeping,

I picked up his phone
and looked through his phone,

and I found out the name for
the number,

and the name said Morgan.

I decided that I was going to

call her and find out
who she was.

I was a little jittery, because
I wasn't sure what to say.

Hi.

I'm sorry
for calling you so late.

I never said who I was.

I just said that
I was a friend,

asked her
if she knew Stafford.

She said yes.
She said he was her mechanic.

And I said, "Okay, thanks."
Hung up the phone.

I knew that there was
more to it.

She must have told him
that I called... the next day,

he was very upset with me.

My stomach was in knots,
because something

in me felt that
something was gonna happen.

I didn't know what that
something was gonna be,

but it wasn't gonna be good.

So, while in the kitchen,
I went in the drawer,

and I took out this knife, and
I just laid it on the counter to

protect myself.

Sonja, why are you going
around calling my customers?

He gets on my face and just
starts yelling at me,

about me calling his customers
and, um, it's not my business.

You got no damn right calling
people asking about me!

And he sees the knife
sitting on the counter.

He was like,
"Oh, so what you want...

You gonna try to stab me?"

And he started hitting me
in my body.

He hit me in my face.

I am trying to protect,
you know, my head and my face,

and he just kept hitting
me, and I end up falling

onto the ground.

So he's now over top of me
on the floor,

and I'm telling him
to get off of me,

trying to get him off of me.

His eyes were filled with hate,

and he said,
"I should stab you."

Stop it! No.

He takes the knife, and he jabs
it right next to my ear.

And I managed
to push him off of me.

Something snapped
in me mentally,

and I got mad.

I wasn't scared anymore.

I was mad.

You want to k*ll me?

He looked me square in
my eyes.

He said, "If I had a g*n,
I would sh**t you dead

right now,".

And I told him, I said,
"I do not care."

I gained this...

strength that I hadn't had.

And then he started his crying.

He got down on his knees
on the floor and begging.

Please don't go.

And I just looked
at him now.

I didn't go over to him
like I normally did.

I didn't feel sorry for
him anymore.

I didn't care.
I was done.

May 29, 2015.

It was a Friday,

and...

I just left work, and I was
going on my way to the gym.

This particular highway
I was on was backed up.

I'm like,
"Why is this highway backed up?"

As I got closer, I looked over,
and there was a car that was

in the middle of the highway,
and pretty much the whole front

was gone.

And I remember
I just started praying.

I started crying,

and I got this just
weird feeling

that just came over
my whole body.

And I was like,
"Okay, what is that?

And why am I crying?"

A few minutes later,
I get a phone call,

and it's from a friend of mine,
and he asked me

if I was... had seen the news,
and he says,

"Staff got in an accident,
and they think he's dead."

What?

The news is saying

he had also k*lled
two other people.

There was a girlfriend

that had been found dead.

And, I said,

was the girl Morgan?

And he said yes.

The man police say k*lled
his estranged girlfriend,

Morgan Rogers, and their
one-year-old daughter, Leah,

in their Chesterfield
home Friday,

then hours later, k*lled
a brother and sister in a crash

on Interstate 295 while

eluding police, a crash
that also k*lled Shaw.

I found out that Morgan was
shot... her and the baby.

Shot them
while they were sleeping.

Chesterfield police say

phone records prove Shaw
admitted he k*lled

Rogers and their one-year-old
daughter, Leah.

This was the crash site
that I saw.

I remember seeing it that day.

I remember driving past the...

The accident site,
not knowing what it was.

I had witnessed

where he died

and took two other people's
lives with him.

When I found out he was...
dead...

I could breathe.
I could finally breathe.

He was back living
a double life again.

He went back to his family

but was still seeing
another woman on the side.

That next day,

me and some friends

went to a vigil.

Through prayers and tears,

a community comes together,
mourning the lives of

Morgan Rogers and her
one-year-old baby, Leah,

m*rder*d in
their Chesterfield home.

I have some survivor's
guilt that

I was still here.

And they weren't.

It almost felt wrong

for me to feel thankful

for still living.

And for getting out.

This very easily
could have been me,

and I think that's what's
so hard for me is because

I've seen the end of a g*n
with... in his hand.

The guilt was about me not
speaking up back then and me

not saying anything to Morgan
when I talked to her that day.

And if I would have
said something,

if I would have told her to...

what kind of a person
he really was.

He was a monster.

And I know no other word
to call him than a monster.

While she and others
remember the tragedy in this

home, Holt has this message for
domestic violence victims.

Tell someone.
Don't be... don't be silent,

because this is what happens
when you're silent.

If I didn't leave, would
that have been my fate?

If we did have
children together,

would that have been
our fate?

It became
my personal mission

to educate
other women and girls

about domestic violence,
because

the only way that it gets
stopped as if we educate.

Too many people
are losing their lives

and have lost
their lives,

and it has to stop.

I want people to hear

the signs.

It's not always easy to leave,

but you don't have
to suffer in silence.

I have to keep speaking,
and I have to keep pushing

and helping,

because there's too many
people out there to help.