Speaker 1: Hey you, it's Anna here.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to give you a heads up on
Speaker 2: what to expect in this series because this story has
Speaker 2: some pretty dark moments. It's going to include addiction, domestic
Speaker 2: and sexual abuse, and murder, and a lot of it
Speaker 2: takes place within the prison system. But also, like every
Speaker 2: series of The Girlfriends, this is a story all about
Speaker 2: sisterhood and solidarity. Along the way, I'm going to introduce
Speaker 2: you to a cast of women who've been through the
Speaker 2: most incredible, complex and at times even tragic experiences, but.
Speaker 1: Have managed to come out the other end.
Speaker 2: If you feel impacted by some of the themes in
Speaker 2: this show, you can reach out to No More. There
Speaker 2: are domestic violence charity with a lot of great resources
Speaker 2: to help you or your loved ones. You can search
Speaker 2: No More dot org and we've also put a link
Speaker 2: to their website in the episode description. So do take
Speaker 2: care and get ready for one hell of a story
Speaker 2: and more than a few swear words. If you happen
Speaker 2: to be strolling near Queens, New York in the late eighties,
Speaker 2: you might have found yourself passing by North Shore Gymnastics.
Speaker 2: Inside there's a smell of chalk and sweat in the air.
Speaker 2: Small feet are running across the crash mac covered floor,
Speaker 2: sending echoes that bounce around the room. The room is
Speaker 2: bustling with girls of all ages, each in a brightly
Speaker 2: colored leotard straight out of an eighties workout video. Standing
Speaker 2: at the side with a sassy little expression on her
Speaker 2: face is a seven year old girl with a point
Speaker 2: to prove.
Speaker 1: Kelly Harnett and only seven years old.
Speaker 2: Kelly's just been told she's not big enough to do
Speaker 2: real gymnastics, she can only play games in the sponge
Speaker 2: pit with the other little kids.
Speaker 1: Boring.
Speaker 3: This is not what I signed up for. I don't
Speaker 3: want to jump into a huge like it almost looked
Speaker 3: like a pool of spongy things and play cat and mouse.
Speaker 3: It was basically like tag. That's not gymnastics.
Speaker 1: Kelly should know.
Speaker 2: She's already built her own DIY balance beam at home,
Speaker 2: and she's been some assaulting off the sofa for years.
Speaker 2: So playing tag in the sponges with the babies no,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 3: I was getting really irritated about this.
Speaker 2: Kelly hatches a plan. Looking up into the stands, scanning
Speaker 2: through the sea of proud parents, Kelly make sure her
Speaker 2: mum is watching and then it's go time.
Speaker 3: Okay, one, two, three, and everybody would run.
Speaker 2: Kelly, the coach and the rest of the little kids
Speaker 2: start running towards the sponge pit, but after a few
Speaker 2: conniving strides, Kelly makes a break for it. She's heading
Speaker 2: straight to the balance beam, a proper one, which is
Speaker 2: currently surrounded by a gaggle of big girls who do
Speaker 2: real gymnastics.
Speaker 1: But Kelly isn't phased.
Speaker 3: I just grabbed it the balance Beme and I started
Speaker 3: doing cartwheels and round offs. I remember looking up at
Speaker 3: my mom and she was proud of me.
Speaker 1: She was happy.
Speaker 2: The other moms, well they're not so happy. Actually, they're
Speaker 2: freaking the fuck out, pounding on the glass, screaming bloody murder,
Speaker 2: trying to get the coach's attention.
Speaker 3: I felt like saying, you snitches.
Speaker 2: The snitching works. Kelly's coach turns around to see her
Speaker 2: mid maneuver. He starts booking it across the gym.
Speaker 3: Although he's running. I know I have a few seconds left.
Speaker 3: I did like a cartwheel without hands, did the smell boom,
Speaker 3: and my feet were together, and that's always what they
Speaker 3: mess up on. They back up a little bit. My
Speaker 3: feet were together and he was.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my god, her, are you crazy?
Speaker 3: What is wrong with you? You know, hurt you could
Speaker 3: have gotten I was like, but I didn't get hurt.
Speaker 3: So yes, I got in a lot of trouble for that.
Speaker 1: This memory, it means a lot to Kelly.
Speaker 2: She'll spend her life repeating it over and over again
Speaker 2: in her head, how proud her mother was and how
Speaker 2: special she felt, how she stuck it to the man
Speaker 2: and stuck the landing. At the same time, Kelly says,
Speaker 2: she keeps doing gymnastics, and after a while her coach
Speaker 2: even lets her back on the balance beam.
Speaker 1: But soon that all changes.
Speaker 3: My mom told the head coach that she has to
Speaker 3: take me out. She said, no, no, you can't take
Speaker 3: her out. And my mother said, I don't have a choice,
Speaker 3: and she said, your daughter isn't this This is the
Speaker 3: type that goes to the Olympics. And it made my
Speaker 3: mother cry because she didn't have the money.
Speaker 2: It's about thirty years later and Kelly's walking out of
Speaker 2: a maximum security prison. She's in shackles with a chain
Speaker 2: around her belly and cuffs on her wrists. She's being
Speaker 2: escorted to a hospital appointment via a prison transfer van.
Speaker 2: To pass the time. Kelly gets chatting to a prison guard.
Speaker 3: He started talking to me about previous jobs, because I
Speaker 3: was talking to him about how rough it must be
Speaker 3: to get stuck there and to have a home life
Speaker 3: and whatnot. And he said, yeah, like I missed, like
Speaker 3: the good old days. I said, what'd you do? He
Speaker 3: says to me that he used to be a coach
Speaker 3: at north Shore and that's where I used to go.
Speaker 3: And I said why really, and he goes, oh, gosh,
Speaker 3: I'll never forget the time. And I don't know. Something
Speaker 3: in my heart just told me, like, don't tell me.
Speaker 3: He's gonna tell my story. He said, so as the coach,
Speaker 3: I led them all to the pit, and apparently one
Speaker 3: didn't make it with us. She ended up over by
Speaker 3: the teenagers. I guess I missed half of her. And
Speaker 3: then he did the air quotes routine like still a
Speaker 3: little bit angry, and he goes, but I'll tell you
Speaker 3: she did such a damn good job. I couldn't tell
Speaker 3: her that though, I said, you just did, and he
Speaker 3: looked at me and he was like no. And then
Speaker 3: I started to cry, thinking about seven year old Kelly
Speaker 3: and how crazy life is. It was one of those
Speaker 3: what went wrong moments, You have a lot of them,
Speaker 3: clearly in prison, but not to that extent. But he
Speaker 3: looked at me differently after that, and he was just like,
Speaker 3: what happened?
Speaker 2: I'm Annisonfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is the Girlfriend's Gelhouse Lawyer, Episode one, Hell'sgate. When
Speaker 2: you see a long ramp for the wheelchair accessibility along
Speaker 2: with a regular staircase, that is my courtyard.
Speaker 1: Don't listen to the sign. They got it wrong. I
Speaker 1: am so not kidding. Just walk straight upon entry to
Speaker 1: your left you will see another ramp.
Speaker 3: Go back up the crim I can't see you.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 4: Is that Kelly's house?
Speaker 1: Hi?
Speaker 3: Good? How are you Anna? It's so nice to finally
Speaker 3: meet you.
Speaker 2: Why This is Kelly Hannett, now forty three and still
Speaker 2: with a point to prove. It's late twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: and she's waiting for me outside her apartment in a
Speaker 2: story of Queen's. Kelly's wearing a red top with Bebo
Speaker 2: bajewled across the front. When she hugs me, she smells
Speaker 2: like a mix of rose perfume and the king sized
Speaker 2: cigarette she's smoking. She's got big, wide eyes. Her hair
Speaker 2: is vivid blonde, pulled back into a high ponytail. She's
Speaker 2: sporting a headband that perfectly matches her eyeshadow, which she
Speaker 2: says it always does. This is my first time seeing
Speaker 2: Kelly in person, and up close. I can see how
Speaker 2: she got the nickname Gelhouse Barbie. Kelly got out of
Speaker 2: prison three years ago. She spent almost twelve years behind
Speaker 2: bars for murder. Kelly says she's innocent of all charges,
Speaker 2: but in the eyes of the justice system, Kelly was
Speaker 2: a villain, a perpetrator of a terrible crime who deserved
Speaker 2: to be punished. As the reporter behind the Girlfriends, I've
Speaker 2: always had a victim first philosophy. In fact, I've said
Speaker 2: more than once that we don't interview perpetrators on this show.
Speaker 2: And through that philosophy, through telling the stories we have
Speaker 2: the Girlfriends has unwittingly reinforced the idea that you have
Speaker 2: a victim, generally a woman, and then there's a bad villain,
Speaker 2: often a man who hurts the a bad guy who
Speaker 2: thankfully gets locked up in the end with the key
Speaker 2: thrown away. And in these stories it's clear who to
Speaker 2: root for. The victim, a woman who is a lot
Speaker 2: of the time, let's face it, dead, who then becomes
Speaker 2: forever memorialized, frozen in a state of perfect almost sainted victimhood.
Speaker 2: But real life is rarely so neat, especially for the
Speaker 2: women who survive. One good thing about Kelly, at least
Speaker 2: from a journalist's perspective, is that she is not at
Speaker 2: all withholding. I don't even need to ask her that
Speaker 2: many questions. She's a boiling pot of beans ready to spill.
Speaker 2: Kelly's the type to wear her heart on her sleeve
Speaker 2: and on her front door.
Speaker 1: You have a shed mark here on the door.
Speaker 3: It represents my ethnicity. I'm one hundred percent Irish, but
Speaker 3: we always have to keep the two American flags here too.
Speaker 3: We wished that I am Irish American and that we're proud.
Speaker 5: Supporters of the Paralyzed Veterans of America.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you're welcome. Oh, it's your piano program.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: As I walk into Kelly's apartment, I'm struck by how
Speaker 2: much of a shrine it is to her life. Sure,
Speaker 2: but I actually mean a literal religious shrine. It's full
Speaker 2: of roses, like so many roses, real fake jewelry pictures.
Speaker 1: They're everywhere.
Speaker 3: Oh, but today is a very significant day. I don't
Speaker 3: know if I ever told you about my story about
Speaker 3: Saint Terre's October one.
Speaker 1: Today is her feast day.
Speaker 2: Saint Therez is a Catholic saint. Kelly's been praying to
Speaker 2: her since a rainy day about forty years ago when
Speaker 2: she was around four years old.
Speaker 3: My mom she was driving to the she parked the car.
Speaker 3: I opened the car up and I stepped into a puddle.
Speaker 3: Inside the puddle was a rose. For some reason, I
Speaker 3: don't know why, I picked the rose up. My mom
Speaker 3: got out of the driver's seat and came around and
Speaker 3: she saw me with the rose in my hand. She said, Kelly,
Speaker 3: put that down. It's dirty. So I threw the rose down.
Speaker 3: I go into the rectory and my mom had to
Speaker 3: go in the back, and the nuns were sitting there
Speaker 3: and they had this whole wall of pamphlets of about
Speaker 3: fifty different saints. Randomly, I just picked this pamphlet. It
Speaker 3: was a picture of a saint holding a crucifix and
Speaker 3: holding roses in her hand. As I started to read
Speaker 3: the prayer, it said she will send a message of
Speaker 3: love and a shower of roses from the Heavenly gardens.
Speaker 3: I just kept thinking of that rose outside.
Speaker 5: I wanted that rose.
Speaker 3: When we got back to the car, I waited until
Speaker 3: my mom got in the driver's She grabbed the rose.
Speaker 1: And put in my pocket.
Speaker 3: Throughout my whole life, I had been praying to Saint
Speaker 3: Lores and finding roses constantly. I had shoe boxes upon
Speaker 3: shoe boxes, and then I started marking each.
Speaker 2: Be Sitting in Kelly's Rosa Dorn department, I'm watching her
Speaker 2: as she speaks. I'm listening, but simultaneously trying to get
Speaker 2: the measure of her, looking for hidden context in between
Speaker 2: her words. I guess it's a report and me Kelly's
Speaker 2: eyes light up when she speaks about Saint. There's which
Speaker 2: she does a lot, this Saint. She's one of the
Speaker 2: most important figures in Kelly's life. I'm imagining Kelly, barely
Speaker 2: four years old, reading a prayer pamphlet, a sodden rose
Speaker 2: in her tiny pocket.
Speaker 1: She's beginning to dawn on me how extraordinary this story is.
Speaker 2: And that's when I'm interrupted by the other most significant
Speaker 2: person in Kelly's life.
Speaker 3: Here's my brother, Ronnie.
Speaker 6: I'm terrible, I know, Yeah, that's Ronnie.
Speaker 1: It's my best friend in the whole wide world.
Speaker 3: Ronnie and I, I mean we.
Speaker 2: Kelly and Ronnie live in the same apartment they're called
Speaker 2: home for nearly three decades. Before it was just them,
Speaker 2: they shared it with their mum, dad and their family dog,
Speaker 2: a cocker Spaniel named Casey. You can feel that family
Speaker 2: history here. It's soaked into the walls alongside the nicotine.
Speaker 3: This is my shrine that I meet from my mother.
Speaker 3: I know you're probably thinking, why is there a cigarette
Speaker 3: on top of that. My mother's less words, not to
Speaker 3: be funny, God forgive me was give me a cigarette.
Speaker 3: So I gave her her last cigarette. These are rose petals,
Speaker 3: of course, because of my love for roses.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: These are the rosary beads that were found clamped in
Speaker 3: her hand when she died. So when rigan water sets in.
Speaker 2: Kelly's mom's name was Kathleen. Before she died, she had
Speaker 2: been sick for a long time. Kelly and Ronnie still
Speaker 2: keep her sick bed in the living room. Currently, it's
Speaker 2: covered in teddy bears and a blanket with a poem
Speaker 2: printed on it about how special brothers are.
Speaker 1: A gift from Kelly to Ronnie.
Speaker 3: Yankee pillows because we're Yankee fans. We used to be
Speaker 3: met fans, but we're sick and tired of ruling for
Speaker 3: a losing team.
Speaker 2: But I guess, scanning my eyes around the room, a
Speaker 2: spot a dresser next to the bed. On it a
Speaker 2: pair of nineteen eighties Barbies, still in their original packaging.
Speaker 2: One's a dentist and the other is a lawyer, both
Speaker 2: a blonde, obviously. Also in the living room is a
Speaker 2: makeup table with lights around the mirror, like something from
Speaker 2: old Hollywood. It comes complete with a pink and white
Speaker 2: heart shaped chair, but right at the center of the room,
Speaker 2: in front.
Speaker 1: Of the TV.
Speaker 2: It's one of Kelly's most prized possessions, her electronic keyboard.
Speaker 2: Some evenings, Kelly and Ronnie sit in here on the
Speaker 2: old sick bed converted into a sofa and listen to
Speaker 2: DJ sets on YouTube.
Speaker 1: They dance and sing along. Sometimes Kelly jams on her.
Speaker 3: Since honestly I'm an aspiring DJ. My favorite DJ's Paul
Speaker 3: Van Dyke. However, I haven't gotten the money to get
Speaker 3: the turnity yet the pioneer turntables. I don't have that
Speaker 3: much experience in this. However, I go crazy on my keyboard,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, I'm just freestyle setting me freestyling. I
Speaker 3: had nothing with my end.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Kelly's apartment here in Astoria is a safe haven
Speaker 2: for her and Ronnie. But I'm shocked to learn that
Speaker 2: it's barely three blocks away from the scene of the murder.
Speaker 1: That but Kelly behind bars.
Speaker 2: I know I wouldn't want to stick around so close
Speaker 2: to the place where my whole life fell apart.
Speaker 1: You could have left New York if you wanted to,
Speaker 1: but you haven't.
Speaker 3: I know, home is wherever Ronnie is. If Ronnie's here,
Speaker 3: then this is home. If Ronnie moved, then that would
Speaker 3: be harm Wherever Ronnie would have moved to, I would
Speaker 3: have been going there. And I'm glad Ronnie was still
Speaker 3: here because this is the place that I left.
Speaker 1: We've lived here for thirty two years.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's home, and I can tell you there's
Speaker 3: no place like home.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a very brave thing to stay
Speaker 2: in the same place.
Speaker 1: It's easier to.
Speaker 3: Run, Yeah, yeah, but I don't run from my problems.
Speaker 1: Other than Ronnie.
Speaker 2: The one other, very important reason why Kelly has refused
Speaker 2: to run is because she's always maintained her innocence. I
Speaker 2: was just wondering how important it is to you that
Speaker 2: the people who listen to this podcast come out of
Speaker 2: it believing you.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone's jury. Everyone's going to have their own opinions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what can happen to anyone is a
Speaker 3: wrong for conviction. Nobody could really sit there and say
Speaker 3: what they could definite do in any situation until it
Speaker 3: happens to them. It would be nice if people would
Speaker 3: be open minded. I was put away for thirteen years wrongfully.
Speaker 3: I'm not asking for a retrial here. All I need
Speaker 3: is the chance.
Speaker 2: Next, I'm going to give Kelly the chance to tell
Speaker 2: her side of the story about the terrible night that
Speaker 2: would change her life forever. Why don't we move on
Speaker 2: to the actual night itself? Do you want to start
Speaker 2: us from earlier on that day, like what you'd been doing?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: I just want to warn you that I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be holding back on the grizzly details in this
Speaker 2: series like I've tried to in previous seasons with the girlfriends.
Speaker 1: The brutal details.
Speaker 2: Of the murder Kelly was accused of and what she
Speaker 2: went through either side of it are just too important.
Speaker 2: It's in the details that someone like Kelly is found
Speaker 2: guilty or innocent. It's in the details that her culpability
Speaker 2: is decided, and it's in the details where Kelly come
Speaker 2: more from victim into villain. It all started on July sixth,
Speaker 2: twenty ten. Kelly's twenty eight years old. She still lives
Speaker 2: at home, but she and her mum have been arguing
Speaker 2: a lot recently, mostly about Kelly's new boyfriend, Tommy. Kelly's mother, Kathleen,
Speaker 2: doesn't approve of him.
Speaker 1: Thinks he's bad news.
Speaker 2: More than once in their short relationship, Kelly has turned
Speaker 2: up on her mum's doorstep horrifically beaten, bloody, and bruised.
Speaker 2: Before long, Tommy usually turns up too, yelling vile abuse
Speaker 2: at their windows for all the neighbors to hear, and
Speaker 2: Kathleen's explosive reactions put Kelly between a rock and a
Speaker 2: hard place, so Kelly's staying away from home. She's with
Speaker 2: Tommy instead, But by July sixth, Tommy's gotten into a
Speaker 2: fight with his roommate and says he can't go back
Speaker 2: to his apartment. Now he and Kelly are sleeping under
Speaker 2: a bridge in a Storia Park.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess you could say that I was transient by
Speaker 3: choice and also out of fear and out of love, honestly,
Speaker 3: because I didn't want to leave him in the park
Speaker 3: by himself. So I was like, that's a terrible thing
Speaker 3: for a girlth And did you leave her boyfriend in
Speaker 3: the park by himself?
Speaker 1: I said, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2: So all day July sixth, they're hanging out in the park,
Speaker 2: but Kelly is suffering. She's been addicted to prescription pain
Speaker 2: pills since she was seventeen. She and Tommy actually met
Speaker 2: at a methadone clinic, and right now Kelly is withdrawing hard, vomiting,
Speaker 2: feeling terrible. Tommy has stopped her from getting her methadone
Speaker 2: dose for the past three days, which just seems like
Speaker 2: a cruel act of control to me.
Speaker 3: So right now we're actually standing the scene of the crime.
Speaker 3: I would say I was standing right over here.
Speaker 2: I've asked Kelly to come back to a Storia Park.
Speaker 2: I want to try and make some kind of sense
Speaker 2: of what happened that night back in July twenty ten.
Speaker 3: It's difficult to really say what the scene of the
Speaker 3: crime was because they're drinking.
Speaker 1: Like began over.
Speaker 2: Here, Kelly, still jonesing for her methadone fix, has spent
Speaker 2: the day with Tommy drinking four loco. A single can
Speaker 2: is the equivalent of four cans of beer, and as
Speaker 2: if that wasn't enough to top it all off, it
Speaker 2: also includes roughly a metric fuck ton of caffeine.
Speaker 7: The caffeine being in it, what it would do was
Speaker 7: wake you up, so you keep drinking it, and then
Speaker 7: the caffeine wears off, and boy does that alcohol hit you.
Speaker 1: It sneaks up on you, Cloe.
Speaker 2: By about three am, Tommy and Kelly are wasted, exhausted
Speaker 2: from the rough sleeping and withdrawal. They lay some blankets
Speaker 2: down under the bridge that cuts right through the park.
Speaker 3: It just so happens to ironically be named the Hell's
Speaker 3: Gate Bridge, and boy, your boy was there given the
Speaker 3: correct name because it really was the gate to Hell
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: Tommy notices a man sat on a park bench across
Speaker 2: the way from him. He yells over to him.
Speaker 6: The guy says, olah, I know now he speaks Spanish, right,
Speaker 6: and I speak Spanish fluently, And Telly knew that, and
Speaker 6: he asked me to ask him if it would be
Speaker 6: okay for us to join him, and he said yes.
Speaker 2: Tommy and Kelly walk over to sit with the man
Speaker 2: who introduces himself as Angel, and.
Speaker 3: That's when he told me that his brother threw him
Speaker 3: out of the house because he had been drinking. He
Speaker 3: said he beat him up, and that's when he pulled
Speaker 3: out some type of I don't know if it was
Speaker 3: a key chain or a charm that he was an
Speaker 3: alcoholics anonymous.
Speaker 2: Angel is drunk, like falls over when he tries to
Speaker 2: stand up drunk, but Tommy doesn't care.
Speaker 1: He just sees an opportunity.
Speaker 3: He tells me to ask him if he's ever drankd
Speaker 3: for local and I asked him and he said no,
Speaker 3: but that he would love to try. So the man
Speaker 3: gave Tommy I think it was six dollars, and I
Speaker 3: got up. I had this little book big and I
Speaker 3: put it on and I thought I was going with Tommy,
Speaker 3: except Tommy gribbed the bicycle of the man and I said,
Speaker 3: what are you doing and he said, I'll.
Speaker 1: Be right back.
Speaker 3: I said, what are you crazy?
Speaker 4: Don't believe me?
Speaker 1: Here he just took off.
Speaker 2: So here Kelly is temporarily abandoned by her boyfriend, stuck
Speaker 2: in a dark park with a very drunk man. At
Speaker 2: some point, while Tommy is still gone, Kelly says Angel
Speaker 2: goes way over the line with her. She doesn't want
Speaker 2: to go into the details about it, which I respect,
Speaker 2: but she does describe it as a sexual fans. Before
Speaker 2: too long, Kelly spots Tommy riding back into the park,
Speaker 2: and she bolts towards him.
Speaker 3: I wanted to get to Tommy on bike before he
Speaker 3: got to Angel. I didn't tell him exactly what transpired.
Speaker 3: I just kept telling him I am not comfortable.
Speaker 1: We have to leave. We have to leave, we have
Speaker 1: to live.
Speaker 2: And because you are, Tommy's not listening. He's focused on
Speaker 2: the drinks.
Speaker 1: So I blurted it out. I told him what happened.
Speaker 8: That's when he said, I'm going to ff and kill him.
Speaker 2: It's about three in the morning on July sixth, twenty ten.
Speaker 2: After telling her boyfriend Tommy what just happened between her
Speaker 2: and Angel, Kelly is watching on helplessly as Tommy.
Speaker 1: Races through the park.
Speaker 2: He's headed straight for Angel, who's none the wiser about
Speaker 2: how much danger he's in.
Speaker 3: I'm still fifty yards away. Now, from a distance, I
Speaker 3: see him throw the bike down and he is pommeling
Speaker 3: this guy. Now I ran. You know, first it was
Speaker 3: a fight, and I figured that's what was going to happen.
Speaker 3: So I pulled Tommy's arm. He threw me down and said, bitch,
Speaker 3: stay out of this.
Speaker 1: Your fucking next then I was it. I'm saying, should
Speaker 1: I run because he's.
Speaker 3: Twenty yards from me?
Speaker 1: Should I run in that direction?
Speaker 3: If he turns around and sees me running, he's going
Speaker 3: to catch up to me in a second.
Speaker 2: Kelly stays puts frozen in fear on the Hell'sgate bridge,
Speaker 2: watching on as Tommy's attack goes from violent to murderous.
Speaker 1: He begins to choke Angel.
Speaker 3: If I try to stop him again, he's going to
Speaker 3: kill me. If I run, he's going to kill me.
Speaker 3: So he comes over to me, he grabs my foot.
Speaker 1: All he do is take my shoelace. I thought he
Speaker 1: was poring my leg to kill me.
Speaker 4: You'd think, oh shit, now it's my turn. I saw
Speaker 4: him go over to the man put the shoelace around
Speaker 4: the man's neck and its snapped instantaneously. So he screams out,
Speaker 4: why won't this motherfucker die now. I really he really
Speaker 4: is going through with this, He really is.
Speaker 9: Going to kill this man. Then he took off his
Speaker 9: own belt.
Speaker 2: Tommy strangles Angel with his belt until he stopped struggling,
Speaker 2: until his body goes limp.
Speaker 3: It was at that point that I was the monsquered,
Speaker 3: and he came over to me. It would look like
Speaker 3: a person stalking their prey, not a person, rather an animal.
Speaker 3: And it was then that I made it my point
Speaker 3: to walk to him, literally as I'm doing right now
Speaker 3: with my hands out.
Speaker 2: Kelly's still terrified, she'll be next. She goes into pure
Speaker 2: survival mode, doing whatever it takes to stay alive.
Speaker 3: It was right next to Angel, this poor man laying
Speaker 3: on the ground, but I had to try to manipulate
Speaker 3: Tommy and I put my hands on knowing he's an atheist,
Speaker 3: and I said, pray with me.
Speaker 5: Oh, glorious Saint Therese, whom Almighty God has raised you
Speaker 5: to aid and counsel mankind. I employ a miraculous intercession.
Speaker 5: So powerful are you in obtaining every need of God Savior?
Speaker 3: He screens up while holding my hands. Saint Teresa, please help.
Speaker 5: Me and to carry out your promises, spending goodness upon
Speaker 5: earth and letting fall from heaven a shower of roses.
Speaker 3: Amen. Then he looks at me, he goes, oh, my god,
Speaker 3: I just killed somebody. So like he went back to normal.
Speaker 3: What is too late, because the poor man is on
Speaker 3: the ground now.
Speaker 2: If I didn't know what had happened here in a
Speaker 2: story of park all those years ago.
Speaker 1: I just think it was a nice, normal park.
Speaker 2: You know, it's got winding paths, a huge variety of trees,
Speaker 2: somewhere you can lounge out in the summer months and
Speaker 2: read a.
Speaker 1: Book or kick a ball on the surface.
Speaker 2: It certainly doesn't seem like the kind of place where
Speaker 2: a man could lose his life.
Speaker 3: Now, even though whatever happened happened towards what he said
Speaker 3: to me or did to me, being that his name
Speaker 3: was Angel, I always, due to my faith, felt that
Speaker 3: he was, in some strange way my angel, because had
Speaker 3: it not been for this is terrible to say. And
Speaker 3: I don't mean that his life should have been taken
Speaker 3: to save mine. Obviously, you cannot bring someone.
Speaker 1: Back to life. I wish you could.
Speaker 3: I would do that for that man in a heartbeat. However,
Speaker 3: being that had happened, I always tried to find a
Speaker 3: purpose for it. I try to find the good in it.
Speaker 3: I was addicted to xanax, to conphanto, this that, you know,
Speaker 3: many things, and I had no intentions of getting off
Speaker 3: of any of them. And honestly, when I got to
Speaker 3: Riker's I was sick for five months. It got me
Speaker 3: off of it. So that's the good in it. So
Speaker 3: I feel that the man that was standing right where
Speaker 3: we're standing right now, I feel that he was my angel.
Speaker 2: There's something that makes my stomach flip at the idea
Speaker 2: that this could have all been part of God's plan.
Speaker 2: I do like the idea that someone, something intervened in
Speaker 2: Kelly's life. Well, I guess it just doesn't sit right
Speaker 2: that in order for that to happen, angel had to
Speaker 2: become some kind of sacrificial lamb who had to die
Speaker 2: for Kelly to break free of addiction and of Tommy's abuse.
Speaker 2: I guess as a one time Christian now time heathen,
Speaker 2: I just don't think a true God would have let
Speaker 2: Kelly go through any of this. But then again, I'm
Speaker 2: sure if I'd gotten caught up in something so chaotic
Speaker 2: and senseless and awful, I'd be looking for meaning to.
Speaker 1: So where do we go from here?
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing you need to know is that
Speaker 2: this series is not a who done it. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be proving Kelly's innocence or guilt. That was
Speaker 2: decided in a courtroom years ago, and as we tell
Speaker 2: this story, you can decide for yourself whether that was
Speaker 2: the right or wrong decision. But I do want to
Speaker 2: know how this all happened. How did Kelly, the sassy
Speaker 2: little gymnast who was apparently once destined for the Olympics,
Speaker 2: end up with someone like Tommy? How did she end
Speaker 2: up in the park that night? And finally, with the
Speaker 2: story she just told me, how did she end up
Speaker 2: in prison for twelve years? I'm going to peel back
Speaker 2: the layers of Kelly's life to try and understand how
Speaker 2: she got to where she is today and learn how
Speaker 2: a victim of domestic violence ends up being seen as
Speaker 2: a villain in the eyes of the law and maybe
Speaker 2: in the eyes of many of you too.
Speaker 3: I'm being penalized because of the fact that I chose
Speaker 3: to survive, chose life over death.
Speaker 6: What do you want my blood?
Speaker 3: Visit?
Speaker 7: The way?
Speaker 3: It seems that's what everyone would have preferred that was
Speaker 3: the better outcome. A dead girl in the park.
Speaker 2: Coming up on the Girlfriends Jail House Lawyer.
Speaker 1: Kelly, she got arrested for murder.
Speaker 3: This is the justice system.
Speaker 1: I said, I know my sister, she didn't do this.
Speaker 3: You have to think of the domestic violence aspect and
Speaker 3: not the truth finding aspect. I was afraid of Tommy.
Speaker 1: It was like Kelly was his possession.
Speaker 3: The trial, it was awful.
Speaker 5: And the verdict was guilty.
Speaker 1: Our sisterhood would called ourselves the showties. You showed it.
Speaker 3: She goes, Harnett, you need to get your rest to
Speaker 3: that law library.
Speaker 1: You gotta start finding your case.
Speaker 3: It became the love of my life.
Speaker 1: He says, he's mess your name.
Speaker 3: Kelly. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence?
Speaker 3: And she was like yeah.
Speaker 1: I said, can you please help me not to start crying.
Speaker 3: I was giving a lot of people hope. I said,
Speaker 3: how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here?
Speaker 3: He said, nobody's ever done that. I said, said, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be the first one to do that. He goes, oh, god,
Speaker 3: harn't it. Jelhouse Lawyer.
Speaker 2: The Girlfriend's Jelhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: For more from novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show
Speaker 2: is hosted by me Annasinfield and is written and produced
Speaker 2: by me and Lee Meyer, with additional production from Jako
Speaker 2: Taivich and Michael Jinno. Our assistant producer is Madeline Park.
Speaker 2: The editors are Georgia Moody and me Annasinfield. Production management
Speaker 2: from Shrie Houston and Joe Savage are fat checkers are
Speaker 2: Daniel Suleiman and Fendall Fulton. Sound design, mixing and scoring
Speaker 2: by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by me Alisinfield,
Speaker 2: Lee Meyer and Nicholas Alexander. Original music composed by Nicholas Alexander,
Speaker 2: Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein. Story development by Willard Foxton.
Speaker 2: Creative director of Novel, Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are
Speaker 2: executive producers for Novel, and Katrina Norvel and Niki Etor
Speaker 2: are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and the marketing
Speaker 2: lead is Alison Cantor. Thanks also to Carrie Lieberman and
Speaker 2: the whole team at WME