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GARY: It's candy.
I'm really nervous. ELLEN: Are you nervous?
I want you to sit down, and for 30 seconds, or maybe a minute, just gather your thoughts.
Okay? I'll see you in a minute. GARY: Yes, ma'am.
NARRATOR: It is 10:30 AM. 15 years of grief, guilt, and soul searching have come down to this moment.
LINDA: Oh my goodness.
ELLEN: Well all these many months that we've been preparing has led us to where we are today.
We have created a safe place for you Linda, and you Ami, to meet with you Gary,
and my role in this meeting is the same as it's always been.
I'm just here to support all of you.
LINDA: I can tell it's going to be kind of a tough day.
The main thing I want to get out of it, Gary, is I want you to know a lot about us,
and what the last 14 and a half years have been like for us.
Not just the bad, the good things, too.
And I want to know the same things about you.
AMI: You pretty much said everything that I wanted to say.
I want you to know that I'm just as scared and nervous as you are.
I don't want to say anything else right now.
LINDA: One of the problems that we have, Gary, is the we never did have enough
of what really happened to put things together.
GARY: I'm hoping, that by going through this all over again,
not on my behalf but on ya'lls behalf, that ya'll don't want to hate me even more
and never going to consider anything about me being good,
and the changing which I've dealt with all these years.
LINDA: I just feel like the sooner we can kind of, maybe we just need get past that.
Can you do it? We'll let you know when we get to a point where we can't listen, okay?
GARY: She saw us having trouble with the station wagon,
and everything I'm telling you is true. I'm not to making it up.
I'm not trying to make my self look good, or my partner look good or anything.
It's just the way it went.
She saw us having trouble, and out of curiosity she asked what was wrong.
LINDA: Can we just interrupt you one minute to ask you where were you when this was going on?
GARY: At the gas station.
LINDA: Do you mind if I ask why she was at the gas station?
GARY: She was getting gas. I remember that.
LINDA: She was just getting gas? GARY: Yes, ma'am.
LINDA: Okay.
GARY: At that time, she said, "Well, I can take ya'll to Alban if you want, bring you back up."
And it was the honest to God truth. This part was voluntary.
At that time the gun was never pulled. There was nothing.
She didn't even know we had it.
It was when we got close to Alban, that's when things winded up changing.
I led her down. Told her where to go down a road that I knew was leading to nothing out in pasture.
And then when she asked why, Marvin pulled the gun.
He had the gun on him and says, "Don't worry about it just do what we're telling you."
LINDA: Do you know why it went in the direction it went?
I mean can you remember back that, what happened?
GARY: The thought was shooting her in the leg would give us time to get away.
And honestly at first there was no intent, it did change up, but there was no intent of killing.
It was to slow her down so we could get in the car and get away and be long gone
before she could tell anybody what had happened.
In our minds we felt we had no choice about this, because she's already seen our faces.
AMI: I mean it wasn't like she pissed you off or you really had to force her to do it.
She was like just doing it just to be nice.
And that's pretty much the last thing she said, it was just 'why'?
GARY: When she was out there heard me and him talking,
and we had realized that we'd already gone too far.
She said "you can take the car. You can take it away.
"You can take anything you want, and I won't say nothing."
And then while we pointed the gun towards her way,
she said, "I forgive you, and God will, too"
and then she put her head down.
And if I don't remember anything else that night as clear as I did it was that right there.
LINDA: That was your momma. Down to the very last moment of her life.
AMI: Did you know that Cathy was pregnant?
GARY: No, ma'am. It did not show.
AMI: No, she was only two months pregnant.
LINDA: But she didn't tell you? GARY: No, ma'am.
I think she was too busy trying to keep up with what was going on.
LINDA: We thought she might have told you to keep you from killing her.
GARY: Honestly, I didn't know this until almost a little bit after the conviction.
Me getting convicted back then.
There was a lot of things I didn't even know.
I didn't know about you.
AMI: I was just wondering what she'd told you like if she said anything about her being pregnant,
or she said anything about me, because I just wondered if that would've saved her.
GARY: My opinion, is why she didn't want to say too much,
is because maybe she would've been scared it could've raised a reaction or more hostility towards her.
AMI: You remember what she looked like?
GARY: I remember she had, I want to say blond hair, kind of blondish brown, and blue jeans on.
I don't remember the color of the shirt.
LINDA: We brought pictures.
This is Cathy when she was little, and I think she was six in that picture.
This was Cathy's wedding. This is the last great picture of Cathy. That was.
See she'd really had brown hair, but she had been messing with it.
AMI: What I have in front of me now, and Cathy not being there, it's been really really hard.
But now that I have a baby, it's even harder at times, because she would've been his grandmother,
and Chase will never get to meet her.
LINDA: That's her son, Chase.
AMI: He's beautiful, isn't he?
GARY (silent)
LINDA: Thank you Gary, we'll see you in a little while.
GARY: Thank you for allowing me to have this chance to try to help ya'll.
LINDA: You are. You are helping.
It's hard and I think it takes a lot of guts to do it, so I appreciate that.
NARRATOR: After four emotional hours, each side goes their separate ways for lunch. They will be back.
ELLEN: Did you have anything to eat?
GARY: A jawbreaker.
NARRATOR: After the details of the crime have been disclosed, there is a noticeable change in the room.
ELLEN: ...you think maybe you should spit that out? Do you want to?
[LAUGHTER]
LINDA: ...it looks like somebody hit you.
ELLEN: Well this afternoon, we're going to talk about several different things.
Linda wants to talk a little bit about their family.
She wants you to know them, just like they want to know you more.
And Ami's also going to also talk about her childhood, so.
AMI: I was just basically--I was afraid of everything as a little girl.
I was so scared of everything.
I'd get dropped off at the school bus, and anytime a vehicle would come down our street,
I thought they were after me, and I thought they were out to get me, and I'd start running.
LINDA: We took Ami to counseling for the first couple of years,
and then again in 7th grade she started having problems with depression.
We had to take her back.
And my sons John and Steve have had a lot of emotional problems over this, too.