Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: There were things that were spoken about and things that weren't.
Speaker 1: There were ways we acted in public in ways that
Speaker 1: we didn't. The house had to be cleaned before we
Speaker 1: could have anyone over. My mom had a phone voice
Speaker 1: and a regular voice. We were encouraged to make up
Speaker 1: white lies to get out of uncomfortable social situations and
Speaker 1: always present our best selves to teachers, friends, and especially boys,
Speaker 1: only allowing the uglier parts of our personality to come
Speaker 1: out in private. I was ready to break that pattern.
Speaker 1: No more lies, no more pretending.
Speaker 2: That's Michelle Horton, writer and advocate, author of Dear Sister,
Speaker 2: a memoir of secrets, survival, and unbreakable bonds. Perhaps all
Speaker 2: secrets are dangers, but Michelle's story is about the most
Speaker 2: dangerous kind of secret, the kind where life itself is
Speaker 2: on the line. It's also a story about tremendous courage, tenacity,
Speaker 2: and sisterly love. And it has a happy ending. I promise.
Speaker 2: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is Family Secrets. The secrets
Speaker 2: that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from
Speaker 2: others and the secrets we keep from ourselves.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in the nineties early two thousands
Speaker 1: in the Hudson Valley of New York, which is positioned
Speaker 1: like halfway between New York City and Allpany. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, cul the sac kind of neighborhood where everyone
Speaker 1: kind of had two kids in a dog situation, including
Speaker 1: my family. It was me and my little sister, Nikki,
Speaker 1: she was born a little over two years after me.
Speaker 1: To me, seemed very normal, you know, a breadwinning dad
Speaker 1: and a mom who stayed at home and then did
Speaker 1: odds and ends to make ends meet. We always had
Speaker 1: somebody home with us, We always had food on the table,
Speaker 1: involved in activities like dance and gymnastics. Everything from the
Speaker 1: outside just seemed very normal. My dad grew up in
Speaker 1: a tough environment where he was bullied. He spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time working and was kind of emotionally checked out.
Speaker 1: But it was who every weekend with us, and to
Speaker 1: the best of his capabilities, he showed up for us
Speaker 1: in ways that I know his parents didn't show up
Speaker 1: for him. So I think from his perspective, he was,
Speaker 1: you know, just mile above what his family was able
Speaker 1: to do for him as a kid, and I think
Speaker 1: he just te did his best. He was very in
Speaker 1: love with my mom and just completely enamored with her
Speaker 1: our whole lives. My mom is a very warm person.
Speaker 1: She was very easy to get along with. She loved
Speaker 1: us intensely. We were kind of her world. She always
Speaker 1: said she felt like her purpose in life was to
Speaker 1: birth us. She didn't have great career aspirations, she didn't
Speaker 1: think very highly of herself as far as her own life.
Speaker 1: She really gave everything she could to us and in
Speaker 1: some ways kind of lived through us.
Speaker 2: So growing up with Nikki, what was your relationship like
Speaker 2: as sisters?
Speaker 1: But we were very young we were close playmates, and
Speaker 1: then as we got older we were always close in proximity,
Speaker 1: but emotionally we were not. There was like teasing and rivalry,
Speaker 1: and again, to me, it was all in the realm
Speaker 1: of what's normal, Like you're wearing my shirt, take off
Speaker 1: my shirt, you know that's my toy. Kind of to me,
Speaker 1: typical sibling kind of dynamic. And then we've definitely drifted apart.
Speaker 1: During our teenage years. We just had our own social circles,
Speaker 1: our own lives. I was very outward focused. I looked
Speaker 1: out for validation. I looked out for my goals and
Speaker 1: my dreams. And I really had this sense that if
Speaker 1: I could just be an A plus student and do
Speaker 1: all the right things and get the right internships and
Speaker 1: the right jobs, and I can just plan and control
Speaker 1: my life how I wanted it to be. So I
Speaker 1: was very tenacious, and I had ten year plans down
Speaker 1: to like the year, and I just had a tight
Speaker 1: grip on what I wanted my future v and I
Speaker 1: was kind of tunnel vision as far as what I
Speaker 1: wanted for myself. That probably contributed to our distance, because
Speaker 1: you know, I just was really like focused on getting
Speaker 1: out and doing big things. And we were both good kids,
Speaker 1: you know, like we didn't really get into drugs and alcohol,
Speaker 1: we didn't get into trouble at school, we got good grades.
Speaker 1: I was really focused on my career what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. She always wanted to have babies and be
Speaker 1: a mom. And she was just quieter. I mean, we
Speaker 1: were both pretty quiet, but she was quieter, more timid.
Speaker 1: We both kind of had internal lives that we were
Speaker 1: focused on and that we didn't totally share with each other,
Speaker 1: you know, looking back now, I know, but she was
Speaker 1: struggling with as a kid at the time, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I just thought she just kept to herself. She didn't
Speaker 1: share a lot about her likes and her dreams and
Speaker 1: her thoughts. You know, she was just a very private person.
Speaker 1: I went away to college when she was in high school.
Speaker 1: The family really fell apart, not because I left, just
Speaker 1: who knows, just for a lot of reasons. Everything fell apart,
Speaker 1: and I kind of left my sister with a lot
Speaker 1: to handle on her own. My parents separated. We were
Speaker 1: very distant during those times, and then I had my
Speaker 1: son right out of college. I was twenty two, and
Speaker 1: Nicky showed up for me in a huge way. She
Speaker 1: was in college at the time, locally to where I
Speaker 1: was living, and just babysat all the time, and really
Speaker 1: showed up in a way that was different than we
Speaker 1: had in the past. We stopped bickering, we stopped fighting,
Speaker 1: we became friends. And then four years later she had
Speaker 1: a baby, and it really was motherhood. I think we
Speaker 1: both really became more ourselves through a motherhood and we
Speaker 1: realized we liked each other and we helped each other,
Speaker 1: and I think that's when we really started to form
Speaker 1: a bond through the lens of motherhood. Her showing up
Speaker 1: for me during that time was really a continuation for
Speaker 1: how she only showed up for me since my son
Speaker 1: was born. She was someone I could rely on and
Speaker 1: she was just always there for me, and I definitely
Speaker 1: confided in her a lot. When you speaking of secrets,
Speaker 1: you know, I was married to someone who had a
Speaker 1: crippling addiction, and it took a long time for me
Speaker 1: to even say that out loud and to call in
Speaker 1: help for my family for a variety of reasons. And
Speaker 1: once I did, she never judged, she never lectured me.
Speaker 1: She was just there for me. So when it all
Speaker 1: fell apart and I knew I had to get out
Speaker 1: of that situation because it was getting dangerous, she was
Speaker 1: one of the first people I went to and she
Speaker 1: really did help me through that.
Speaker 2: Did you know that your husband had an addiction or
Speaker 2: was that something that sort of crept up on you.
Speaker 2: Was it like frog and boiling water territory or was
Speaker 2: it you knew and you just kept it to yourself
Speaker 2: for as long as you could.
Speaker 1: I think both. I think it did come out of
Speaker 1: nowhere for me, as far as he had a prescription
Speaker 1: from a doctor and that prescription got pulled when he
Speaker 1: was showing signs of dependency, and then he was moving
Speaker 1: into street drugs and he let me in enough to
Speaker 1: know there was a problem, but he still kept a
Speaker 1: lot for me. So it took many years of kind
Speaker 1: of unraveling the truth of how deep his addiction was
Speaker 1: and how bad things really were. And in that time period,
Speaker 1: it was like, am I overreacting? Maybe this isn't that
Speaker 1: big of a deal. Maybe the lies he's telling you
Speaker 1: are true, you know, in that sense, I kind of like,
Speaker 1: wasn't making a big deal about it. And then when
Speaker 1: it got to the level of multiple car accidents and
Speaker 1: he's in and out of the hospital because he's you know,
Speaker 1: crushing his pills and snorting them, and you can't breathe
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: he's going to die any day, and my bank account
Speaker 1: is being siphoned, and it got to an extreme level
Speaker 1: where I had to let people in because he was
Speaker 1: going to die.
Speaker 2: And was Nikki among the first people that you let
Speaker 2: in during that period of time.
Speaker 1: Definitely, her and my mom were some of the people
Speaker 1: that I went to because, you know, we shared a
Speaker 1: life they were helping me with my son, and they
Speaker 1: were around my ex a lot, and it was becoming
Speaker 1: obvious as something was very wrong.
Speaker 2: It's early twenty seventeen. Michelle has extricated herself from this
Speaker 2: difficult relationship and is raising her son Noah as a
Speaker 2: single mom. But she's not alone in it. She has
Speaker 2: the help and support of her sister and her mother,
Speaker 2: along with her tight knit community in the Hudson Valley.
Speaker 2: She also works at a well known retreat center called
Speaker 2: the Omega Institute, one of the most perfect places to
Speaker 2: land after a chaotic time.
Speaker 1: Omega Institute is this beautiful kind of oasis in Rhinebeck,
Speaker 1: New York. Just the grounds itself are special. There's this
Speaker 1: healing energy that's there that is I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: even want to sound woo woo, it's palpable when you're there.
Speaker 1: That there is just a real connection to nature and
Speaker 1: a connection to community that's there, And from what I
Speaker 1: experience working there, it really transfers in the people who
Speaker 1: work there. It's just a really beautiful, holistic environment where
Speaker 1: they see the whole of people and situations and their
Speaker 1: mission driven. So everyone's there because they want to do
Speaker 1: good work. In the world, and truly, if you're in
Speaker 1: a crisis, there's not a better place on earth you
Speaker 1: could be. It was just this cradle for me when
Speaker 1: I both like in the crisis of needing to get
Speaker 1: an order of protection against my husband and separating and
Speaker 1: all of that like chaos that I was dealing with,
Speaker 1: I was really getting on my feet for the first
Speaker 1: time in many years just getting out of that relationship.
Speaker 1: It really felt like there was like a frequency that
Speaker 1: was clearing, and I was becoming more attuned to myself
Speaker 1: and my own needs and my own wants and healing.
Speaker 1: In a way, Omega really introduced me to all of
Speaker 1: these other healing modalities I never would have considered, and
Speaker 1: I was very committed to meditation and checking in with
Speaker 1: myself and paying attention and being mindful. It was just
Speaker 1: kind of like an emergence of myself after that relationship ended,
Speaker 1: and I was just so excited for my future and
Speaker 1: I felt so hopeful that this was my time to
Speaker 1: step into myself fully. And then in September, the end
Speaker 1: of September, just an ordinary day, I'm going to Omega,
Speaker 1: my son's getting ready for school. There's a very loud
Speaker 1: and aggressive knock on my door and I open it
Speaker 1: and there's a police officer standing there, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: that it means my husband's dead, because of course it does,
Speaker 1: like this is everything in my life was leading up
Speaker 1: to my husband dying and a police officer telling me that.
Speaker 1: He then instead says that my sister is at the
Speaker 1: police station and we have to get her children, who
Speaker 1: are two and four, and they give no information other
Speaker 1: than that, and I'm just kind of thrown into this
Speaker 1: day of complete uncertainty of what the hell is going on,
Speaker 1: like why is my sister at the police station and
Speaker 1: what is happening? And no one's giving us any information.
Speaker 1: And by the end of the day, it's revealed to
Speaker 1: me through my mom that my sister killed her partner, Chris,
Speaker 1: someone I knew very well and the father of the
Speaker 1: two kids, and she's arrested and potentially going to be
Speaker 1: church with murder. I was shocked. There was nothing that
Speaker 1: could have been crazier to me at the time, knowing
Speaker 1: my sister, I knowing Chris, and you know, all this
Speaker 1: normalness that we had. I was the one with all
Speaker 1: the problems, you know, Now, all of a sudden we're
Speaker 1: in this family crisis, and it's like reality is flipped
Speaker 1: on its head. I felt completely groundless and numb and
Speaker 1: just like sheets of adrenaline. That is kind of what
Speaker 1: the physical sensations were like. And my mind was just
Speaker 1: constantly spinning trying to make sense of it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: come up with the like how she would have done it,
Speaker 1: why she would have done it? Nothing made sense, Like
Speaker 1: there was no narrative I could put to it that
Speaker 1: made sense. So I kind of was just living in
Speaker 1: this space of openness of well, someone's gonna tell me
Speaker 1: at some point make this make sense, because me trying
Speaker 1: to imagine what this is is not possible. So I'm
Speaker 1: just going to kind of put one foot in front
Speaker 1: of the other and completely and utterly present because there
Speaker 1: was no reality on either side, Like everything in my
Speaker 1: past and everything in the future was completely obsolete, and
Speaker 1: I was just living in this strange reality where I
Speaker 1: knew nothing.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. Nicky didn't allow very many people in.
Speaker 2: She didn't let a lot of people get too close
Speaker 2: to her, but she had mentioned a friend she'd made
Speaker 2: named Elizabeth. Michelle isn't sure how close Nicky and Elizabeth are,
Speaker 2: if at all, but in her desperate need for information,
Speaker 2: she reaches out and Elizabeth proceeds to tell Michelle that
Speaker 2: Chris was a really bad guy. Her exact words. Okay,
Speaker 2: so Elizabeth and Nicki were close. Elizabeth continues to share
Speaker 2: everything that she knows, all the awful things she had witnessed,
Speaker 2: and everything Nicki had confided in her about the abuse
Speaker 2: she'd been enduring.
Speaker 1: As she was telling the story, it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this makes sense, Like all of these little
Speaker 1: inconsistencies throughout the years, things that didn't totally make sense,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't going to ask about it because it's like,
Speaker 1: it's not my business, and especially in the last like
Speaker 1: six months to a year before the shooting, like the
Speaker 1: bruising that was on her, Niki always had an excuse.
Speaker 1: But once Elizabeth was giving me the contact that it
Speaker 1: was actually Chris who was doing these things, it all
Speaker 1: made sense. I didn't know that there was a gun
Speaker 1: in the house, Like there were so many elements of
Speaker 1: what my sister was living that I didn't know. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: was one of the only people that Nicki led into
Speaker 1: her life and said, yes, I'm being hurt and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get out of this, and Elizabeth was working
Speaker 1: closely with Nicki's therapist, and they were safety planning and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to leave and what she
Speaker 1: would need if she were to leave, and you know
Speaker 1: the logistics of it, which are complicated. She was there
Speaker 1: when Nicki would drive past her house with the kids
Speaker 1: and then ultimately go back to an unsafe house. She
Speaker 1: was there taking Nicki to the hospital and Nikki wouldn't
Speaker 1: get out of the car and get help because she
Speaker 1: didn't want to get police involved. Elizabeth had been my
Speaker 1: sister's person for over a year at the time, so
Speaker 1: really she was telling me so much information about my
Speaker 1: sister that I didn't know.
Speaker 2: One of the things Michelle didn't know was that there
Speaker 2: was a text chain shared by several women who were
Speaker 2: concerned about Nicki's safety. On this chain, aside from Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: was Sarah, Nicki's therapist, and Laurie, who had been Nicki
Speaker 2: and Chris's landlord at one point. So on this same
Speaker 2: day that the world is crumbling, the same day that
Speaker 2: she's learned that her sister has killed her partner, and
Speaker 2: Michelle is trying to sort out what to say to
Speaker 2: her tiny nephew and niece. She's also discovering that there
Speaker 2: was a small world of women who were terrified for
Speaker 2: her sister, and that none of them had thought to
Speaker 2: reach out to Michelle herself.
Speaker 1: There was so much going on at once that it
Speaker 1: was almost like there wasn't even time or space for
Speaker 1: my own feelings to emerge. It was kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm clocking that I'm actually feeling really angry that nobody
Speaker 1: came to me. But when I express it in a
Speaker 1: gentle way, because I was not, you know, there was
Speaker 1: no space to even like really emote. But when I
Speaker 1: would say why didn't anyone tell me, the answer was
Speaker 1: always that Nikki didn't think I would believe her, which
Speaker 1: is humiliating. So there's like the embarrassment that all of
Speaker 1: these people knew what was going on and I didn't.
Speaker 1: Shame and guilt that I'm pulling in all of this
Speaker 1: help for myself a situation that I was like labeling
Speaker 1: as dangerous, but I never once thought going and getting
Speaker 1: an order of protection meant it was going to be
Speaker 1: the end of my life, like it is for so
Speaker 1: many domestic violence victims. You know that the level of
Speaker 1: lethality in what my sister was dealing with was a
Speaker 1: completely different level. All of those feelings were very cerebral,
Speaker 1: where I was like, oh, yeah, it makes sense that
Speaker 1: I feel like that, but I'm not dealing with that
Speaker 1: right now, Like I'm not actually going to make space
Speaker 1: for that in my body because there's no there's no
Speaker 1: reason to like, this is a crisis and I just
Speaker 1: need to gather as much information. And it wasn't really
Speaker 1: a choice. Am I going to show up for my sister?
Speaker 1: Am I going to take in her kids? It was
Speaker 1: just this is what I need to do. And I
Speaker 1: think me showing up the way that I did so
Speaker 1: immediately helped my sister realize like, oh, actually my sister
Speaker 1: is here for me and she is going to believe me. So,
Speaker 1: I mean it took a long time. We're even having
Speaker 1: these conversations in this time period that I'm living, like
Speaker 1: going back and apologizing and because it's so deep, those
Speaker 1: feelings of guilt and shame and embarrassment are so deep.
Speaker 1: But at the time, it was just like information is information,
Speaker 1: and I will deal with all of those feelings another time.
Speaker 1: I'm also having to talk to CPS worker Child Protective
Speaker 1: Services because there was a case that was opened right
Speaker 1: before all of this happened of someone anonymously in the
Speaker 1: community saying they think Nikki's being abused by Chris and
Speaker 1: it's affecting the kids, which was really the catalyst for
Speaker 1: what I know that was going to be a murder suicide,
Speaker 1: and it ended up Nikki saving her life that night,
Speaker 1: but someone opened a CPS case, so there's still an
Speaker 1: active case that they are investigating. So as I'm talking
Speaker 1: to the CPS workers and just kind of parroting back
Speaker 1: what I'm learning from Elizabeth, all of the bruising that
Speaker 1: I saw all of my own like real time confusion
Speaker 1: and like, oh my god, I can't believe I didn't
Speaker 1: see this earlier kind of revelations. I'm doing it to
Speaker 1: someone who's recording it, you know, the CPS worker, And
Speaker 1: it was very immediate that it came up of this
Speaker 1: is deeper than just someone snapping and shooting their partner,
Speaker 1: Like this is very, very deep, and it goes back
Speaker 1: to Nikki's childhood and I know there was sexual abuse
Speaker 1: when she was a kid that nobody ever got her
Speaker 1: help for. Like it was just kind of the route
Speaker 1: to me immediately that I knew we didn't talk about
Speaker 1: her being sexually abused, but from what I saw in
Speaker 1: her diary and then just putting the pieces together as
Speaker 1: I grew up. Oh, Nikki doesn't like to talk about sex.
Speaker 1: She's actually super disgusted by sex. I first discovered her
Speaker 1: diaries when we were in the stage of not being
Speaker 1: so great to each other and snooping in each other's rooms,
Speaker 1: and you know, I went through her stuff and I
Speaker 1: found an old diary and I brought it to my
Speaker 1: mom then when I was in high school at the time,
Speaker 1: and she got a little flustered and was kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe, And I would bring it up
Speaker 1: to her a little bit throughout the years, and it
Speaker 1: was always with a question mark, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe something happened, and she would say like, well, I
Speaker 1: did find blood in her underwear, and that was when,
Speaker 1: you know, all of this happened, and she says, you know,
Speaker 1: I did find blood in her underwear and she was
Speaker 1: wetting the bed. But it brought her to the doctor,
Speaker 1: and the doctor said it was normal because she was
Speaker 1: you know, five, and all of her separation anxiety was normal,
Speaker 1: and the change in her personality was normal for that age,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of just like authority figures
Speaker 1: like doctors to kind of like telling her it wasn't
Speaker 1: a big deal, so she believed it my mom, But
Speaker 1: you know, once all of us happened, it was kind
Speaker 1: of like really obvious that this question of maybe something
Speaker 1: happened to her was not a question anymore. This absolutely happened.
Speaker 2: And the word that you use is foundational.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I just knew that there was something that
Speaker 1: happened when she was little that no one got her
Speaker 1: help for. Then wanted the CPS workers to know that
Speaker 1: because to me, it explains its context. I think there
Speaker 1: was also a real escalation of violence. So before the
Speaker 1: injuries were visible, there was such an escalation that I
Speaker 1: didn't see. So there were so many more subtle signs
Speaker 1: that I don't think I would have been capable of
Speaker 1: really picking up on at all unless I was super
Speaker 1: tuned into like the science of trauma and domestic violence.
Speaker 1: A lot of the abuse to start was sexual which happens,
Speaker 1: you know, where no one is seeing, and the injuries
Speaker 1: where clothes are so there was a lot of ability
Speaker 1: for her to hide the actual evidence of the abuse
Speaker 1: because it wasn't showing up on her skin until it
Speaker 1: was escalated to a highly lethal level. I don't think
Speaker 1: I had the imagination to really grasp what was happening.
Speaker 1: You know, her saying that she tripped or that Ben
Speaker 1: hit her in the face with a guitar or something
Speaker 1: was like way more plausible than the idea that she
Speaker 1: was living in a very dangerous home, just because I
Speaker 1: had been I had known Chris. He you know, abusers
Speaker 1: don't just their partner, and they condition everyone around them.
Speaker 1: So everything was very strategic on his part too, of
Speaker 1: like who he showed himself to be, which is a
Speaker 1: tactic where she thinks, no one's going to believe me
Speaker 1: because this guy seems so great to everybody. So there's
Speaker 1: that aspect of it. But then as far as like
Speaker 1: even prior when it comes to like the childhood stuff
Speaker 1: she went through or the very beginning of her relationship
Speaker 1: with Chris, there were signs where even police were involved.
Speaker 1: There was this culture of I don't want to say
Speaker 1: something to make her upset. I don't want this is
Speaker 1: this really my business, you know, like if she needs me,
Speaker 1: she'll talk to me. I don't want to like rock
Speaker 1: the boat family dynamic where we just don't want to
Speaker 1: upset each other. As I've grown older, I've kind of
Speaker 1: like wondered if that's kind of a part of codependent enmeshment,
Speaker 1: where it's like I don't want to point out this
Speaker 1: issue because then it becomes my issue because there's no
Speaker 1: boundaries between anyone. But there's just this this element, this
Speaker 1: unspoken element of what is appropriate and not appropriate to
Speaker 1: talk about and to push back on. And I just
Speaker 1: never really wanted to embarrass her or I just wanted
Speaker 1: to keep the peace, I guess, which is just I
Speaker 1: think pretty common and a lot of family dynamics.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, it's so.
Speaker 1: Hard because whenever something happens and there's someone who was
Speaker 1: an abuse there there's always people who say like, well,
Speaker 1: he wasn't like that with me, so he couldn't have
Speaker 1: been like that with anybody, And it's so hard. I
Speaker 1: think whos was to me is very different than even
Speaker 1: like his friends or his family would say to me.
Speaker 1: He was just very distant, kind of had just a
Speaker 1: flat personality, like he was very hard to get close to,
Speaker 1: never really shared much about himself, was just kind of
Speaker 1: very surface, like, hey, how were you? There was no
Speaker 1: depth to our relationship at all. I'm sure that was
Speaker 1: for a reason, but I just never felt like I
Speaker 1: really got close to him ever. But he was just
Speaker 1: very nice and he worked with kids. He was a
Speaker 1: gymnastics coach. He was really good with kids, like as
Speaker 1: far as my own son was very close to him,
Speaker 1: and he seemed good with his own kids, you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of like this goofy kid like he was
Speaker 1: really into video games and superheroes and just seemed very
Speaker 1: like safe and non threatening. That's just kind of how
Speaker 1: he came off to me at the time.
Speaker 2: When Michelle finally sees Nicki, she learns there's even more
Speaker 2: to the story. Nicki had felt like she was under
Speaker 2: a constant threat in her relationship that if she ever
Speaker 2: left Chris, he would kill her and she would never
Speaker 2: see her kids again. That was the threat the trap.
Speaker 2: Michelle also learns from Sarah Nicki's therapist that Chris had
Speaker 2: also been trafficking Nicki. He was a videographer who made
Speaker 2: horribly degrading, violent videos of his wife and put them
Speaker 2: up on the Internet for people to watch and in
Speaker 2: some cases, for a profit. At a certain point, the
Speaker 2: police had received an anonymous tip about this trafficking and
Speaker 2: this is the moment Chris threatens murder suicide, And this
Speaker 2: is the moment Nikki says, enough, this is her breaking point.
Speaker 1: I mean, the way she described it is it it
Speaker 1: wasn't really even a choice. It was just she had
Speaker 1: the gun in her hands by crazy luck as far
Speaker 1: as scrambling and getting the gun, and the way she
Speaker 1: described it as like milliseconds of time of him making
Speaker 1: the threat and then her just lunging and pulling the
Speaker 1: trigger like without a thought. It was just her body
Speaker 1: a natural reaction to the threat. It was not like
Speaker 1: she hemmed it hot and made a decision or even
Speaker 1: that she like snapped, just her body's survival instincts kicking in.
Speaker 1: But she tells me basically what happens on the phone
Speaker 1: that night. Because we do not know anything about the law,
Speaker 1: We've never been in trouble, we don't really understand you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to say things on the phone or like
Speaker 1: you know, the role of prosecutors. We're completely naive. But
Speaker 1: she says it on the phone, and all of the
Speaker 1: context is able to be said to me through like Sarah,
Speaker 1: her therapist, through Laurie, who has a background in sex trafficking,
Speaker 1: like She's on a coalition for sexual violence and her
Speaker 1: job is helping sex traffic youth. She just also happens
Speaker 1: to be Nicky's landlord. Like all of these people who
Speaker 1: have this expertise and are able to communicate it to me,
Speaker 1: teach me and help me understand so that Nicki doesn't
Speaker 1: have to dump all of that and like relive all
Speaker 1: of it with me, which was great for her because
Speaker 1: there was so much she was keeping for me that
Speaker 1: to have to like go back like it was a
Speaker 1: relief for her when I would come and visit her
Speaker 1: and I already have the information, so then she can
Speaker 1: just start from there instead of having to drop all
Speaker 1: of these bombs about trafficking, and I mean, it was
Speaker 1: humiliating for her. It was another layer of keeping her
Speaker 1: tethered to him, because the blackmail of you know, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell everyone that you like these videos and
Speaker 1: I'm going to get your kids, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: get custody, and you know, I'm gonna slutshame you, and
Speaker 1: it was a real true factor in keeping her in
Speaker 1: an unsafe situation.
Speaker 2: Nicki's case begins to be processed in the Duchess County
Speaker 2: Court system. But then is abruptly moved to Putnam County.
Speaker 2: The reasons for this move are concerning. There had already
Speaker 2: been record in Dutchess County of Nicki as a victim
Speaker 2: of domestic abuse. There was already an awareness within the
Speaker 2: police department of the trafficking which they were tracking, of
Speaker 2: a gun in the house of small children of Chris
Speaker 2: as perpetrator. It was a tinder box of a situation,
Speaker 2: so they were moving carefully trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: to keep Nikki and the kids safe. So instead of
Speaker 2: dropping the murder charges as they could have done, they
Speaker 2: accused themselves without giving the real reason. They just say
Speaker 2: there's a conflict. This is where Hannah, a prosecutor in
Speaker 2: a Putnam County justice system, enters the picture.
Speaker 1: It takes like quite a few months for the Dutchy's
Speaker 1: county to recuse themselves, where Nicki's just sitting in jail,
Speaker 1: and so by the end of twenty seventeen beginning of
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Hannah comes on board. And she's a woman
Speaker 1: who previously worked prosecuting domestic violence and sex crimes down
Speaker 1: in the Bronx. So we thought that was a good
Speaker 1: thing that she would understand these kinds of cases, and
Speaker 1: she was a woman, which we also naively assumed would
Speaker 1: be a good thing. And then she came in kind
Speaker 1: of as this person saying, I just want to understand
Speaker 1: the truth. I'm going to investigate thoroughly. That took many months,
Speaker 1: which is real time that my sister's doing, sitting in
Speaker 1: jail and the kids don't know when their mom's coming home.
Speaker 1: And then over time she really expertly manipulates the evidence
Speaker 1: and manipulates a lot of things and concocts an alternate
Speaker 1: narrative where my sister is, as Hanna said, a master
Speaker 1: manipulator who planned a very imperfect murderer, and she was
Speaker 1: pursuing a conviction very aggressively.
Speaker 2: Did you end up ever having any kind of theory
Speaker 2: about why? I mean, because her reasoning was so preposterous
Speaker 2: for why a woman would end up with these really
Speaker 2: grievous physical injuries and hide them from everyone, So that
Speaker 2: really the people who end up knowing are a very
Speaker 2: small circle of people and have to figure it out.
Speaker 2: And you know, you yourself or sister aren't seeing it.
Speaker 2: She's hiding it and coming up with this counter narrative,
Speaker 2: and one of the things that seemed most confounding to
Speaker 2: me is that she uses the abuse that Nicki suffered
Speaker 2: at the hands of Uncle Butch, and also another incident
Speaker 2: where Niki was later abused by another man named Dave
Speaker 2: who sort of took her in under the guise of
Speaker 2: I'm going to protect you and then was in a
Speaker 2: position of power over her and raped her. What Hannah's
Speaker 2: response to that is, lightning doesn't strike twice. In other words,
Speaker 2: there's just no way that Nicki would have been, you know,
Speaker 2: abused this many times, and you know that that would
Speaker 2: mean that Chris wasn't her abuser. And Sarah the therapist's
Speaker 2: response is a really powerful one, you know, which is
Speaker 2: you know that when it comes to sexual assault and abuse,
Speaker 2: like thing strikes again and again and again. It's a
Speaker 2: complete misunderstanding of what that pattern is.
Speaker 1: Psychologically, Yeah, it did seem like she was using every
Speaker 1: domestic violence myths and trope and exploiting that. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if that was purposeful or that was really
Speaker 1: her own biases and her own misunderstandings. I've spent so
Speaker 1: much of my life trying to like figure out what
Speaker 1: her motivations were, because it does feel very personal. But
Speaker 1: from what I've seen, because I've been advocating for my
Speaker 1: sister publicly brings a lot of other people to me.
Speaker 1: So a lot of other cases I'm privy to like
Speaker 1: seeing how they were handled, And it does seem across
Speaker 1: the board that this is the tactic that prosecutors use
Speaker 1: because it's what wins cases. It's very easy, you know,
Speaker 1: all of the cultural foundation is there to get a jury,
Speaker 1: to disbelieve women, to blame women. It just doesn't take
Speaker 1: a lot to like, very burn engage women. It's very easy.
Speaker 1: There's a playbook there, and Hanna really plugged into it
Speaker 1: and it felt personal. But I can't know if it
Speaker 1: was really her just doing her job to get a conviction.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Nicki is doing time. Even that phrase doing time
Speaker 2: is in this case so poignant. Time is passing. Michelle
Speaker 2: and Nicky's mom suffers a stroke from which she never
Speaker 2: really recovers. Michelle's own health is suffering. I mean, how
Speaker 2: could it not be. She's responsible for three kids who
Speaker 2: are all in different states of being traumatized. Thankfully, Michelle
Speaker 2: is blessed with next level executive functioning skills. She's effective
Speaker 2: together with Nicky's loyal, supportive friends. They rally the community
Speaker 2: and when bail is set at four hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: cash six hundred thousand collateral, raising, Nicki's bail becomes an
Speaker 2: around the clock job and they do it a testament
Speaker 2: to their amazing community. Nicki is released on bail and
Speaker 2: here is where another kind of extraordinary human enters the picture.
Speaker 2: A well known child therapist named doctor Crenshaw.
Speaker 1: So Sarah the therapist and Laurie the landlord both worked
Speaker 1: with doctor Crenshaw. He does teynotes all over the world
Speaker 1: and is very renowned in play therapy and just an
Speaker 1: incredible human with a wealth of knowledge. And everyone was
Speaker 1: pointing us towards him, so Sarah and Laurie pulled him
Speaker 1: in and he was just giving us advice as a person.
Speaker 1: We weren't paying him or anything. He just sat with
Speaker 1: us and gave us advice. And one of the first
Speaker 1: things he told us is that children can handle the
Speaker 1: truth much better than they can handle the mystery, because
Speaker 1: they are not stupid, and they're going to take the
Speaker 1: temperature of the room and figure out something's wrong. And
Speaker 1: if you lie or you hide things, they are going
Speaker 1: to put a story to it that is often much
Speaker 1: worse than what is actually going on, and that story
Speaker 1: will often involve blaming themselves. So he encouraged us to
Speaker 1: be age appropriate. I mean, no one could really guide
Speaker 1: me on Okay, well, what's an age appropriate way to
Speaker 1: say their mom killed their dad? What? So? I mean,
Speaker 1: there really isn't really a very age appropriate way to
Speaker 1: say that, but to answer truthfully when they ask, and
Speaker 1: that when they're ready for the information, they'll ask for it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to overload them with information that it's
Speaker 1: going to be hard for them to process. Just answer
Speaker 1: their questions as they come, as truthfully and as age
Speaker 1: appropriately as you can. And that really was our north
Speaker 1: star as we were figuring out how to talk to
Speaker 1: the kids about this. He also said that it's crucial
Speaker 1: for Ben and Fey to be able to trust the
Speaker 1: grown ups around them, and if they get the sense
Speaker 1: that we are lying to them, it is just fundamentally
Speaker 1: damaging for their attachment and their sense of safety in
Speaker 1: the world. And at that time Ben had been screaming,
Speaker 1: he's four at the time, screaming for us to tell
Speaker 1: him the truth, where is his mom? Because we didn't
Speaker 1: know like, should we say she's in jail, should we
Speaker 1: say she's away? Like what's the language? So we just
Speaker 1: kind of weren't giving him a clear answer, and I
Speaker 1: was very worried by that, because I was worried the
Speaker 1: damage was already done as far as him trusting us.
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.
Speaker 2: Michelle and Nicki's mom passes away in January of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Nicki's trial is set to start in April. In the
Speaker 2: months in between these two major family events, Michelle is
Speaker 2: still trying to put all the pieces together of Nicky's life,
Speaker 2: all the while trying to do right by three traumatized
Speaker 2: kids and grieve the loss of her mother. Because Michelle
Speaker 2: is now deeply ensconced in the world of child psychology
Speaker 2: as she's been trying to apply it to Noah, Ben
Speaker 2: and Fay, she begins to think more and more about
Speaker 2: the questions that were never asked in their own childhood,
Speaker 2: and so now in adulthood she does. She asked Nicki
Speaker 2: about the sexual abuse she'd been through with their uncle.
Speaker 2: What did Uncle Buche say to you, Michelle asks her sister,
Speaker 2: And what was it that made you think Mom wouldn't
Speaker 2: believe you.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine a world where Noah or Ben or
Speaker 1: Fay would get hurt as much as Niki was hurt
Speaker 1: and not come to me for that idea that they
Speaker 1: would hold that for me was so scary, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to blame Nicki and say, like, why didn't
Speaker 1: you just say something? But I wanted to understand the
Speaker 1: psychology what was really holding her back. And Niki very
Speaker 1: plainly said I did tell her. She didn't remember exactly
Speaker 1: what she said, but she knows it was hard for
Speaker 1: her to say. She remembers exactly where they were in
Speaker 1: the backyard, and she remembers my mom's initial response was
Speaker 1: to tell her the story of the Boyant christ Wolf
Speaker 1: and to be careful because people wouldn't believe her, which
Speaker 1: you know, was absolutely devastating for me, because this whole time,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking Hannah wasn't the first person to say
Speaker 1: they won't believe you, or her attorneys. Wasn't even Chris
Speaker 1: saying they won't believe you. It was butch who was
Speaker 1: the one saying they won't believe you. To me, he
Speaker 1: was the original villain that implanted this idea in her
Speaker 1: that no one would believe her. So then you know,
Speaker 1: in the middle of my grief that my mom had
Speaker 1: just passed away, and I still had all of these
Speaker 1: conflicting feelings about feeling angry at her but also compassionate
Speaker 1: for her, and the grief was just so big that
Speaker 1: to then get this information that that original voice was
Speaker 1: my mom's was crushing.
Speaker 2: Nicki is offered a plea deal, but of course, a
Speaker 2: plea deal means pleading guilty in order to receive a
Speaker 2: reduced sentence. Michelle learns that this is often the case
Speaker 2: in the criminal justice system. Trials are time consuming, expensive
Speaker 2: and risky. A deal is often considered the most practical
Speaker 2: solution by the prosecutors. But there are a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of things wrong with this picture. First, it will still
Speaker 2: mean a significant number of years in prison away from
Speaker 2: Nicki's young kids. Second, it will mean she will forever
Speaker 2: be someone who's guilty of murder. And third, once a
Speaker 2: deal is accepted, it cannot ever be appealed. Nicki decides
Speaker 2: not to take the deal. Her trial is set for
Speaker 2: three weeks later. The community is in an uproar. They
Speaker 2: form the Nicole Atamando Defense Committee. Many of whom attend
Speaker 2: the trial each day, along with journalists from local media.
Speaker 2: Nicki takes the stand in her own defense and does
Speaker 2: a remarkable job, something that seems almost impossible because of
Speaker 2: the trauma she's endured. She is strong, powerful, and eloquent.
Speaker 2: But when the verdict is handed down, it's a guilty verdict,
Speaker 2: which carries with it a sentence of a minimum of
Speaker 2: fifteen years to life. This is the worst day, worse
Speaker 2: than the knock on the door, Worse than Michelle hearing
Speaker 2: her young nephew say that everything has been taken from him, everything,
Speaker 2: his father, his mother, his home, his whole life. Five
Speaker 2: months later, because it's possible that Nicki's case should have
Speaker 2: fallen under the protection of the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act,
Speaker 2: the family is hopeful that the judge will take this
Speaker 2: into account in his sentencing. But things do not get
Speaker 2: better if such a thing is possible. They get worse,
Speaker 2: and Niki is sentenced to nineteen years to life.
Speaker 1: It's important to know that the judge was given a
Speaker 1: lot of evidence. Of that evidence, Hanna, the prosecutor really
Speaker 1: tried to get a lot of it suppressed. As you know,
Speaker 1: that's a prosecutor's job, I suppose, and he agreed to
Speaker 1: suppress it. But he saw the screenshots of the porn
Speaker 1: sites and how it was linked to Chris, and all
Speaker 1: of the reports that Nicki made that named Chris, and
Speaker 1: he saw all of it. He also was the bureau
Speaker 1: chief in the District Attorney's office in Duchess while Niki
Speaker 1: was being circulated as a VIC, so for all sorts
Speaker 1: of reasons, he was very embedded in this Duchess County
Speaker 1: system and we thought he would use the law. It
Speaker 1: was a brand new law that was signed into law
Speaker 1: right after Nicki's conviction, and it was a law that
Speaker 1: took ten years to get passed, mostly because it was
Speaker 1: opposed by the District Attorney Association and you know, people
Speaker 1: who thought women would use it as an excuse, like
Speaker 1: the abuse excuse they say, so they wouldn't pass it.
Speaker 1: But all it really does is give judges a lower
Speaker 1: sentencing structure if you think that or if it's proven
Speaker 1: that the crime committed is connected to domestic violence. So
Speaker 1: in Nicky's case, when she was convicted, the lowest was
Speaker 1: fifteen years to life. Under the law, the lowest could
Speaker 1: be five years and the highest would be fifty team
Speaker 1: with no life. So I mean, it's very significant. And
Speaker 1: the reason that it passed finally was that it gave
Speaker 1: judges discretion. Judges really did not want their hands tied.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to be told what to do. So
Speaker 1: the judge had discretion and he chose not to apply
Speaker 1: the law. And it was devastating because it was the
Speaker 1: proof that the system was not going to believe her.
Speaker 2: Nikki's story goes from being of local to national interest.
Speaker 2: News outlets pick it up and people from all over
Speaker 2: the country become involved. It's a precarious time for our
Speaker 2: country and for our world. Remember we're in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: At first, it's impossible to separate it from like the
Speaker 1: cultural context of what was happening in the world, Like
Speaker 1: when this first happened, when the shooting happened, it was
Speaker 1: right when the Me Too movement broke, and there was
Speaker 1: just more organizing in general as far as the women's movement,
Speaker 1: you know, everything that happened in twenty sixteen, and there
Speaker 1: was just more of an attitude of organizing at least
Speaker 1: where we were that we were able to tap into.
Speaker 1: And then when she was sentenced, we're now in COVID
Speaker 1: and divesting violence rates are skyrocketing. They were already skyrocketing.
Speaker 1: It's a silent epidemic everywhere, but COVID was especially dangerous
Speaker 1: time and people were really paying attention. And also the
Speaker 1: judge put some things on the record, like her verdict
Speaker 1: was very unfair, and that got more people involved. But
Speaker 1: it was really her sentencing when the judge very publicly
Speaker 1: said he didn't believe her and used phrases like, you know,
Speaker 1: he thought she reluctantly consented to the abuse, which just
Speaker 1: shows a fundamental misunderstanding of consent. And he said that
Speaker 1: the motive for the killing is that Niki's a broken person,
Speaker 1: which really activated a lot of people. They're like words
Speaker 1: of abusers, and I think that did draw a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to the case. And you know, she had
Speaker 1: a change dot org that got six hundred thousand signatures,
Speaker 1: like very quickly, and we as a committee organized just
Speaker 1: relentlessly around the appeal, and then we did more around clemency.
Speaker 1: We were hoping Governor Hokeel would give Nikki clemency. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we definitely activated a huge movement, you know, not even
Speaker 1: in the country, like around the world.
Speaker 2: So then the case is appealed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the case is appealed by different attorneys than the
Speaker 1: trial attorneys. It was the first case that this Appellate
Speaker 1: Department decided on this new Domestic Violence Survivor's Justice Act,
Speaker 1: and they decided that she should have been sentenced under it.
Speaker 1: They could have said there's a mistrial because there was
Speaker 1: so much misconduct on the prosecutor, but then that would
Speaker 1: have just made another trial happen in front of the
Speaker 1: same judge. They also could have said that the trial
Speaker 1: judge leads to resentence her, which is insane because he
Speaker 1: would have just given her the max of fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So the Appellate Corps was pretty kind in resentencing her themselves,
Speaker 1: and they gave her seven and a half years, which
Speaker 1: to me, I think is still way too much for
Speaker 1: someone who's defending their life from their abuser, but much
Speaker 1: better than nineteen years to life.
Speaker 2: Nikki's sentence was reduced to seven and a half years,
Speaker 2: including time served. She's home now. She was released from
Speaker 2: prison in January of twenty twenty four. While she served
Speaker 2: out her time, she became involved in a nonprofit program
Speaker 2: called Puppies Behind Bars, and she spent her time raising
Speaker 2: service dogs for wounded vets and law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So the day after she was released, we close not
Speaker 1: a house, just the way the world worked, like the
Speaker 1: timing of it all. So we have a house now
Speaker 1: where we all live together. My dad lives in like
Speaker 1: a basement apartment area, and then the rest of us
Speaker 1: live in the upstairs and all the kids have their
Speaker 1: own rooms, and my son's at high school and Ben
Speaker 1: is going into middle school and Fays the last one
Speaker 1: in elementary school. So like, you know, they're nine and
Speaker 1: eleven now. They were two and four when this happened,
Speaker 1: and we have been so therapeutically supported throughout this that
Speaker 1: everything is as smooth and good as it possibly can be.
Speaker 1: The kids, you know, it took a lot to maintain
Speaker 1: connection to Nicki in prison, but we did it, and
Speaker 1: I think that paid off because they still have a
Speaker 1: bond and you know, Niki can put them to sleep,
Speaker 1: and she went to Ben's orchestra concert for the first
Speaker 1: time yesterday and got to be there for Fay's dance
Speaker 1: competitions and all of these things that she missed she's
Speaker 1: now able to experience. And it's still surreal. It's been,
Speaker 1: you know, but like five months that she's been home,
Speaker 1: it feels kind of like forever, but also it's still
Speaker 1: very surreal. Even just to be able to text her
Speaker 1: is like very surreal. So we're all really enjoying our time.
Speaker 1: And also the layers of trauma that she endured, everything
Speaker 1: she went through with Chris and everything that happened in
Speaker 1: the courtroom. I didn't really understand when the people say
Speaker 1: like they're suing for like emotional distress. I didn't really
Speaker 1: get it until I watched what happened with Nikki, and
Speaker 1: just having your identity decimated and your story told in
Speaker 1: ways it didn't happen so publicly. That is something she's
Speaker 1: healing from being institutionalized and being property of a state
Speaker 1: for so long. You know what that's done to her psychologically.
Speaker 1: There's just so much that she is only beginning to
Speaker 1: heal from, and some days are really really hard for her.
Speaker 1: But she's in therapy and she's doing everything less she
Speaker 1: can do, and she's doing it really courageously. But it's
Speaker 1: definitely not all rainbows and butterflies, you know.
Speaker 2: Here's Michelle reading one last passage from Dear Sister, a
Speaker 2: letter Nicki wrote to her during her last days in prison.
Speaker 1: Dear sister. A few hours after I received my appellate decision,
Speaker 1: I was walking up the hill to METS at six pm.
Speaker 1: A big, bright yellow butterfly landed next to me, and
Speaker 1: I stopped walking. Even when the officer yelled at amando,
Speaker 1: what's the hold up? I just pointed it was so beautiful.
Speaker 1: Two more inmates and the officer stopped next to me,
Speaker 1: looking down at the butterfly, whose wing was half missing.
Speaker 1: Not a small tear, a whole chunk gone. We watched
Speaker 1: her lift off, fly in circles, and delicately land again.
Speaker 1: Oh look she's broken, one of them said. I shook
Speaker 1: my head. She's not broken. I said, look, she's still flying.
Speaker 2: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Mollie's Acre is
Speaker 2: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.
Speaker 2: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,
Speaker 2: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear
Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight
Speaker 2: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also
Speaker 2: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd
Speaker 2: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,
Speaker 2: check out my memoir Inheritance.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.