I Am a Killer (2018–2020): Season 1, Episode 3 - The Mockingbird - full transcript

[Dickens] The "What if?" that's a...
that's a question every day.

What if I didn't go in there?
What if I didn't kill him?

What if I never fired a shot?

[gunshot]

You beat yourself up
with these questions.

That's pretty much all your life is
in here, is... self-reflection and, uh...

thinking about the things that go on,

the things that didn't go on,
and the things that you wish could go on.

My name is Justin Wiley Dickens.

I was convicted of capital murder
and a robbery/homicide.

And I received the death penalty.



[man 1]
And I walked up, I fired one shot.

And as I got closer,
I fired one more shot.

[man 2] She was shot through the cheek
and it stopped in her jaw.

[man 3] I drove him around behind a desk
and I stabbed him approximately 25 times.

[man 4] I couldn't believe it.

I just thought I can't believe
I just killed somebody.

[man 5]
I don't feel bad about it. [laughs] [man 6] I started stabbing him,
stabbing the guy on the couch.

[Dickens] I was born in Amarillo, Texas,
July 1976.

I was born two months premature
because my mom was using cocaine.

I mean, it was an off-and-on struggle,

but my parents kind of held it together
until I was 13.

Then they completely split up for good.

And then, uh...

you know, it was just rocky.



I'd run the streets with my mom,
you know.

She was...
She was just a homeless drug addict

who, you know, would just commit
petty thefts at stores,

and we'd do drugs together
and go to jail together

and bond out and just keep repeating
and repeating and repeating.

Dallas Moore was a local tattoo artist

and he was a... real charming character,
fast-talker, slick,

got everybody under his wing
and as close to him as he could.

Being lost as a kid
and looking for a father figure,

I was just drawn to him
and I was just kind of brainwashed by him.

Martha was Dallas Moore's fiancée.

If they didn't have
such a severe drug habit,

they would've been really cool friends.

I met Dallas and Martha
when I was about 15 years old.

After me and my friend stole
a bunch of weed,

I went to Dallas Moore's house
to see if he wanted to buy it.

They was having a big cocaine party.

Everybody shooting the cocaine.

I told him I didn't want to try any
because my mom was a drug addict,

and I seen what needles do to people.

But he said it was just a mental thing,
it wasn't a physical thing,

so he eventually got me
to snort some cocaine.

And about a day or two after that,

of, you know, around the clock
hanging out and drinking,

he finally broke me down
to try shooting the cocaine.

And once I shot the cocaine,
we never snorted it again.

I was just kind of lost.

When I was 17, we was partying
for about a week straight.

And Dallas passed out.

He was asleep in the bed

and Martha went into his pocket
and took an ounce of cocaine.

And she alone used a bunch of it.

And before the sun came up,
she was in a panic.

And asked me and my fall partner,
Craig Pennell, to drive her around

to try to sell some to get the money
to pay Dallas before he woke up.

When you're a drug addict,
alls you can think about is drugs.

The repercussions of whatever it is
are out of sight.

You don't think about that.

We couldn't sell any of it.

And all three of us ended up
doing the rest of the cocaine.

[bell ringing]

And on the last stop we made
before we dropped Martha off,

we heard Dallas Moore
was after us with a pistol.

When Dallas caught up with me,
it was about 2:00 in the morning.

I was asleep on Craig's couch.

I woke up with a knife to my throat.

A local drug addict named Eddie Ramos
was with him.

And they were talking about
how they were gonna kill me.

Craig came in
and then Dallas started beating us up

and slapping us around with the pistol.

And then he told us to follow him
back over to his house.

So, we went out there and, uh...

he pretty much blamed it all on me.

He told me that I was to take Martha
to the Amarillo Blvd.

and pimp her out while she turns tricks
to raise the money.

But when I agreed to it...

he busted my nose
and almost knocked me out.

Saying, "Oh, you would allow Martha
to go pimp herself?" And he told me
I was gonna get his money.

And he pointed to a ski mask
that he had hanging on the wall.

And when gets in a jam,
he handles his business with the ski mask,

and he said, "I expect you
to do the same thing, too.

I don't care what you do.

You're just gonna get me my money."

Me and Craig took off in Craig's truck.

The only place I knew where to get a gun
was my great-grandfather's house,

way out in the country.

So, we drive back into town, and I'm like,
"Pull over here, pull over here,"

you know, just trying to find something
that we could do.

And he's like, "No, I know a place
over by my grandparents' house."

So we drive across Amarillo.

We get to the Mockingbird
Pawn and Jewelry store.

Looking back on it now,

there's no predicting
that was gonna happen,

but the day felt wrong.
The day felt wrong.

[gun clicks]

The reason why I went through with it:

because my fear of Dallas overrode

my fear of the repercussions
of what the law would do.

I walked up to the door,
and the door had a buzzer lock on it.

[buzzing]

So, they seen me in there
and they buzzed me in.

I said I was getting married
and I'd like to try on a ring.

And, uh, they turned their back on me.
When they turned their back on me...

I pulled the gun out and cocked it.

And I said, "Get down on the ground.
I ain't shitting you, I'll kill you."

Mr. Jacobs laid where I couldn't see him.

And Mr. Carter laid between
the two counters with his head facing me

just, like, five feet away.

I froze up.

I mean, I was totally out of my element.

I should've just said, "Put your hands up
and give me some money

and let me out," but hindsight's 20/20.

Then out of nowhere, Mr. Carter came up
with a shoulder tackle...

and picked me up off my feet.

It was just a lightning-strike tackle.

He never said nothing the whole time.

-He slammed me into the wall.
-[thudding]

And I just shrugged up and fired a shot...

-[gunshot]
-...that hit him in the torso.

Then I slid down the wall with my pistol
raised straight in the air like that.

He grabbed the barrel of the gun
while he was leaning over me

and he jerked the gun straight up,
and the bullet fired through his hand

and hit him in the forehead.

[gunshot]

And I was like, "Oh, no."

Mr. Jacobs, he ran out the side door.

And I tried to get out
out the front door.

So I shot the last two shots
into the lock...

and I missed it.

I started ramming it with my head,
kicking it...

but I couldn't get out.

So I ran out the back door.

And I looked to the left,
and Craig was driving away without me.

He looked right at me,
and we made eye contact,

and he just kept on going.

I thought, "Nah,"
you know, "Story of my life."

So I took off running.

I just thought...

I can't believe I just killed somebody.

That thought was just on a loop
over and over and over on my mind.

There wasn't no
"Am I gonna get away with this?"

Nothing. I just... I was stunned.

[camera shutter clicking]

[tape recorder clicks]

[Campos] For the record, Justin,
would you identify yourself?

I'm Sergeant Campos.
This is Sergeant Montano.

What's your name, full name?

[Dickens] Justin Wiley Dickens.

[Campos] Okay.

[Dickens] They said,
"Sir, we know what happened.

Your fall partner,
Craig Pennell, is over here.

He's done told us everything."

I just hung my head
and started crying.

I said, "I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to kill nobody.

I didn't mean to kill nobody,"
and I left it at that.

[Campos] Could you start
from the beginning, if it was planned?

-Will you tell us?
-[Dickens] It wasn't planned.

I didn't know there was a death penalty,

but I knew I was... in deep trouble.

[train bell ringing]

[birds chirping]

[Farren] The robbery and murder
at the Mockingbird Street Jewelry

occurred March 12th, 1994.

It was the first major case I tried
after becoming district attorney.

Justin Wiley Dickens
was a volatile individual.

I think he suffered
from sort of a Napoleonic complex.

He realized he wasn't a large fellow,

and he compensated for that
by strutting and trying to demonstrate

that he was a big, bad, dangerous guy.

As far as his... rationalization,

justification for committing the robbery,

being that he's afraid
of Dallas Moore,

I think is true of most falsehoods,
most lies--

you mix in some truth with the lie,
and it makes it more believable.

I think it was more of a humiliation
than any serious beating he took.

I think he was beside himself

when he was humiliated
in front of other people who knew him

because, again, his driving desire
was to convince everybody that...

"I may not be very big, physically,
but I'm a dangerous guy.

You don't want to mess with me."

I believe, and I think
the evidence demonstrated,

that's exactly what happened
in the Mockingbird Street Jewelry robbery.

Francis Allen Carter
tried to approach him

and convince him
to abandon this robbery attempt.

"Put down the gun. Don't do this.
You're gonna ruin your life.

Let me talk to you. Let's talk about this.
You don't want to do this."

Dickens responded,
as he always did, violently,

and shot and killed Francis Allen Carter.

-[gunshot]
-[thuds]

Part of Dickens' defense was that...

Francis Allen Carter
provoked his use of the weapon.

And that's one of the questions
the jury has to answer--

whether or not the victim provoked
the acts of the defendant.

If the answer to that is "yes,"

then, by law, the death penalty's
not a possibility.

There's no way that kind of struggle
was occurring while he was being shot.

It would be impossible
for what he describes to have occurred

and not have blood all over him.

The forensic evidence is consistent
with him being a sufficient distance away

from Francis Allen Carter
while those rounds are being fired.

I don't think Jacobs saw a struggle.

I think he just made the assumption
that that was going to happen.

Once he came up off the floor,

there was only one thing on his mind,
and that was fleeing out the door.

I think that's what caused Dickens
to panic and start pulling the trigger,

not a bull rush
from Francis Allen Carter.

Justin Wiley Dickens deserved
the sentence he received from the jury.

He deserved the death penalty
because of the kind of person he was

and because of what he did,
but also because of the victim

that he chose to take from all us.

Francis Allen Carter, he was absolutely
one of the most exemplary human beings

I have ever heard about,
and Dickens robbed all of us of that.

I'm Barbalee Blair.

I taught with Allen from 1978
until his death in 1994.

And I'm Kim Leal,

and I was in Mr. Carter's
junior English class.

And I've since moved on to teach English
in the very same classroom

that I took junior English
with Mr. Carter.

[Blair] Allen was a complex,

dynamic, interesting, conflicting,

confusing man who loved kids.

[Leal] He looks so young.

-He was.
-He was.

Well, technically, he was 50,
but he sure didn't act 50.

[Blair] The kids he helped the most

were the kids who would be those
who slipped between the cracks.

There were no cracks for Allen.

The ones who might not make it

were going to make it
because of Allen Carter.

[Leal] He recognized the underdog,
always.

[Blair]
He simply would not let a child fail.

[birds chirping]

[Blair]
That night when we first heard it,

nobody had a clue
that there had been a robbery

or that he had been shot.

We just knew he had died.

But the next day at school,
details began to come out.

And that's when I remember us all,
all the teachers in the teachers' lounge,

talking about how would Allen
have reacted.

What would Allen have done
in an armed robbery?

What would you do?
What would I do?

None of us could see Allen confronting
somebody with a gun physically.

Strong, dynamic,
all those things are true,

but I can't imagine Allen
rushing a gunman.

Just not his character.
It's not his nature.

It's not the way he would behave. But I can imagine him talking

with every bit of force and vigor
and push that he could

to try to get this kid, whoever he was,
to see what he was doing.

That this is not acceptable,
this is not okay.

And Allen would have expected
that the child would comply,

understand, see that,

but, of course,
that's not the way it happened.

My name is Rus Bailey.

I was the lead attorney
for the trial of Justin Wiley Dickens.

Justin, to me, seemed to be
a fairly decent young man.

I'm not gonna say he was wonderful based
upon what had happened at this point,

but, you know, I liked him.

-[waitress] How are you?
-[Bailey] Fine, thank you.

-Good.
-Thank you very much.

[Bailey] Any time you have
a capital murder trial,

chances are, in all likelihood,
they're gonna ask for the death penalty.

That's the only reason to file
for a capital murder charge.

The first thing we did was plead guilty
to involuntary manslaughter,

which is a lesser included offense
as part of the charges against Justin.

Now, the issue here is whether or not
Justin really intended to kill Mr. Carter

because he felt like it
or even because he wanted to.

I mean, Mr. Farren read
the same reports I did.

And realistically, the only way
this could have taken place is this way.

When Justin pulled the gun,

there was a counter between Justin
and the two individuals

that were in that store
at that point in time.

He did tell both parties to get down.

And with that point, he realized
he was making a very foolish mistake.

And I think as a result of him
turning his back on Mr. Carter,

Mr. Carter came across that counter.

And in the course of events was shot
when they were fighting for that gun.

There was an eye-witness-- Mr. Jacobs.

But he wouldn't sign his statement
unless he got approval from Mr. Farren.

I'm not too sure why he needed
Mr. Farren's approval,

because I knew if... I knew
if I gave a statement to somebody,

I would live with that statement
because it's true.

[Farren on recording]
The forensic evidence is consistent

with him being a sufficient distance away

from Francis Allen Carter
while those rounds are being fired.

[Bailey] I just can't fathom
that they actually accepted that.

I would have assumed
that the police department

would have at least what they call
string or strung the room

to determine where the bullets went
and where they came from.

This would have proven
or shown, possibly,

about the fight between
Justin Dickens and Mr. Carter.

But they never strung it.

They didn't think it was relevant.

It could have made
a big difference for us. Then again, the police department
doesn't work for the defense,

they work for the State of Texas.

[chuckles]

Justin, to me, seemed to be
a very young man

that was just scared to death.

What we were able to ascertain
is that Dallas Moore had threatened him

to get him some money back
for something that he, Justin,

and Mr. Moore's wife
had supposedly done.

If Dallas Moore had taken the stand,

then it may have come out
that there were a lot more things going on

than the State was willing
to acknowledge to that jury.

And if we could have got his wife there
separately from Dallas,

his wife could have testified as to what
actually happened between him and Justin.

But it was amazing.

All of a sudden, Mr. Moore and a lot
of other witnesses we wanted were gone.

Now, I don't know what happened,

how it got there to that point, but our
investigator could not find him anywhere.

And I'm not saying
the state did anything wrong.

It's just the fact
Dallas was covering his own.

Back side, so to speak. [chuckles]

So, yeah, I can understand him
taking off based on that.

But he sure would have helped us.

[birds chirping]

[Chante] I met Justin two years
before the incident in seventh grade.

We were in a summer school class
together at Sam Houston Summer School.

Just gonna feed him.
Bates! You want to eat, babe?

No leftovers in this house.

Justin, he was a little wild country boy
talking about hog hunting

and, you know, bow and arrows.

He was pretty wild for a kid.

Okay, guys, come on.

Share and be nice.

My father knew his mother from drugs.

Be nice.

So I ended up running into Justin
at my dad's house.

At that moment, I think I realized
that my friends were doing

a little more than smoking a little weed

and having a couple of shots
here and there at a party.

My father, he's really charismatic.

I mean, people are drawn to him.

I would say that he's comparable
to a much more friendly Charles Manson.

He, um... He just can draw the people in.

He has a way of making people
do what he wants them to do.

He was in and out of prison my whole life.

Each time he got out of prison,
instead of getting better, he got worse.

It just seemed like the further it went,
it was like a downward spiral,

you know, more and more charges
until it led to this point,

you know, 25 years later.

The last eight months,
he's been a fugitive

for actually tying up an 83-year-old woman
and hurting her in her home.

A home invasion.

[sniffles] Uh...

something that you wouldn't think
that your father would do, but...

[Moore] Well, my Dad wanted Fort Worth.

My mom wouldn't let him name me
Fort Worth, so I ended up with Dallas.

My name came up,
like, 58 times in this trial, so everybody's wanting to talk to me.

I'm like the star of the show.

I don't lie.
Most people will tell you I don't lie.

I shoot straight from the hip.

[Moore] My daughter introduced me
to Justin. Did she tell you that?

Man, that little shit.

He caused so much trauma in my life.

My wife liked him.

They stole over fucking an ounce from me.

Did he tell you that?

I was asleep.
Took it all from me.

I put my gun to the kid's head
and I said, "We're going to Martha's

and you guys are gonna apologize
for letting her leave my house,

you know, and robbing me.

You're supposed to have been
my friends.

[Dickens on recording]
He pretty much blamed it all on me.

He pointed to a ski mask
that he had hanging on the wall.

And he said, "I don't care what you do.
You're just gonna get me my money."

Whoo, that's a-- I put that on the Bible,
I swear to God.

Man, that is a fictitious lie.
That's a fictitious lie.

I never said boom, boom, boom,
you're gonna go and do this and do that,

go get my money,
and sent him on a robbery.

That is BS.

I did not want no involvement
in his bullshit

and had no idea that he would
fucking goddamn do that.

I let him off.

He didn't really rob me,
my wife robbed me.

So I said, "I want you to take my wife
to the motel and watch her.

Make sure no trick stays with her
more than 15 minutes.

Let her earn my fucking money.
She's the one who took my shit.

Will you do that for me?"

He goes, "Yeah, I'll pimp that bitch."

When he said that, I hit him.

Look at his mugshots.

When he got to,
I wouldn't let him get up.

I kick-stomped his ass
straight out of my house

and I told him,
"Don't you ever come back to my house.

You can't pay me, you can't buy nothing,
you can't do nothing, you can't apologize.

I don't want your piece-of-shit ass
in my house ever again."

That's what I told him.

I'm not gonna be a made out
as some Charles Manson.

You know what I mean?

I don't wanna be no involvement
of that man getting murdered

because I didn't have
no involvement in it.

He didn't owe me nothing.

His debt was paid in full
when I punched him out.

I think he should get a break,
but not a break at my expense to sit there

and say, "I told him
and ordered him to go do that," dude.

I would tell you
if I had said that, but, no, no.

If he went to rob then, he went to rob
that to try to fucking impress my wife.

[crickets chirping]

Well, my name
is Martha Cummins-Bell now.

I got clean from all drugs in '97.

I'm a mom.
I have seven kids.

-Four sandwiches and two salads.
-Okay, thank you.

[Cummins-Bell] I work at an agency

that specializes in treating people
with borderline personality disorder.

Almost always suicidal or self-harming.

So, I can relate to that.

I cut ties with Dallas a long time ago.

So I'm not afraid of him anymore.

[Cummins-Bell] He's just nervous.

[Cummins-Bell chuckles]

[Chante] Oh, God! [laughs]

[Cummins-Bell]
I remember when I met Justin.

I lived in an apartment with Dallas.

-This is cute.
-That one--

[Chante] There's Justin.

[Cummins-Bell] First of all,
I thought he was about 12.

[Chante] There he is right there, Martha.

[Cummins-Bell]
And he was, like, a little street kid.

The little short one is Justin.

There was a real innocence about Justin.

[Chante] Oh, there's Dallas.

[Cummins-Bell]
Dallas was ten years older than me

and I met him
after he had done, I think...

close to ten years
in a Missouri state penitentiary.

I think we were
all kind of sucked into that excitement

and, um... the drug use.

And Dallas was older than all of us
and had already been to prison

and was just so cool.

-[Chante] Ben with a gun in Dad's mouth.
-[Cummins-Bell] Kenny!

-[Cummins-Bell] Remember him?
-[kid] Is that real?

[Chante] Yes, that's a real gun!

-[kid] Does it have bullets in it?
-[Chante] I'm sure it doesn't. There were reasons to be afraid of Dallas.

Dallas passed out,
and Martha went into his pocket

and took an ounce of cocaine.

I think I had some resentments about him
having the cocaine in his pocket.

And, um...

I wanted it in my pocket.

So, one night,

I gave him a lot of Valium...

and put him to sleep
and took the cocaine out of his pocket.

Craig and Justin and I
started doing the cocaine,

and we got to a point in the bag
where there was no return.

And I knew...

I knew that we were all fucked, basically.

I know that Dallas
expected to be reimbursed.

And...

that we were all pretty terrified.

I don't know why
it all became Justin's responsibility.

There was a ski mask nailed
onto the wall in our... in our trailer,

and Dallas pointed at the ski mask
and said, "That's how I handle my debts."

I think that Justin did
what he thought he had to do.

And I don't think that he meant
to ever hurt anybody.

I think he just meant to pay Dallas back.

And I know a man lost his life.

Right? I mean, that's the other side
of this, is that somebody died.

[breathes heavily] But... [exhales]

Um, it also took Justin's life.

Justin pulled the trigger.

Craig drove the car.

I stole the dope.

And if I had been a guy
and I hadn't have been married to Dallas,

I probably would have been
in the car, too.

I just don't know how someone can get put
on death row for something like this.

[Farren]
Dickens' defense was that

Francis Allen Carter provoked
his use of the weapon.

And if the answer to that is yes,

then, by law, the death penalty
is not a possibility.

[Bailey] There was an eye-witness,
Mr. Jacobs,

but he wouldn't sign his statement
unless he got approval from Mr. Farren.

[Jacobs] Allen, of course,
was a teacher.

And as a side venture

he would buy and sell jewelry.

Yeah, he was a good personal friend.

Allen and I were visiting together...

and a customer came to the front door.

It was electronically protected
as far as in and out is concerned.

So we buzzed him and let him visit around.

When we were off doing our business, um...

he just pulled a gun on us and said,

"Okay, this is a robbery.

Get down on the floor."

And so, that's what we did.

We laid down on the floor and, um...

and he said, "Spread out,"
for whatever reason.

At some point,
and I still don't know why,

Allen decided it was time for him
to take action.

And he came up off the floor
across the jewelry counter...

and engaged the kid

and was trying to take the gun from him
when it went off.

[gunshot] That was the first shot.

Then the second one
was when he was pushing--

trying to push the gun away,
I think, and it came up

through the webbing in his finger
and hit him in the head as well.

[gunshot]

The one that caught Allen the second time
was the one that I'm sure killed him.

And that's when I went out
the back door.

[Farren] I don't think
Jacobs saw a struggle.

I think he just made the assumption
that that was going to happen.

The forensic evidence is consistent

with Dickens being
a sufficient distance away

from Francis Allen Carter
while those rounds are being fired.

Farren, he's good at his job. No problem about that part of it at all,

but I don't understand him
trying to put words into the circumstances

that I was seeing.

When I told him that Allen
was trying to get the gun

when the shots went off,
so how can you do that from afar off

if you aren't close enough
to grab the gun?

[chattering]

[birds chirping]

[Carter-Boyd] Grief never goes away.

It changes.

You feel sadness, you feel anger,
confusion, frustration.

You feel all alone in the world,
but it never goes away.

Your heart aches for that person
all the time.

My name is Christi Carter,
and I am the daughter...

the very proud daughter of Allen Carter.

[train bell ringing]

Daddy always came to Amarillo
on Saturdays to do his jewelry business.

This particular Saturday,

I just had a bad feeling,
and I didn't want him to come to Amarillo.

And at 4:30 that afternoon,
he called me.

I can still hear his voice.

It was, you know, "I love you, baby girl.
I'll call you when I get home."

And that was it.

I was watching the five o'clock news

when they had breaking news

that there had been a shooting
at Mockingbird Pawn and Jewelry.

And I knew immediately.

I knew immediately that something
had happened to Daddy.

So I just went to the hospital,
and he was still alive.

And he had just passed away
when Mama got to Amarillo.

But I had to tell her.

The only reason that Daddy
would go for the gun

is because he felt that no amount
of talking could persuade Dickens

to not do this or put down the gun.

But that was also Daddy.

Daddy got the Soldier's Medal in Vietnam
for saving three other soldiers' life.

That's right under the Navy Cross.

That's what Daddy did.

He tried to find a solution.

He didn't know any different,
he didn't do any different.

And so, to me, if he went for the gun,
that's exactly what he was doing.

You know, it was a young man struggling
and he was going to help him.

If I went to see Dickens, I think that...

he really wouldn't care that I was there.

But I just need him to see
that life did go on for us.

And, yes, it's been hard,
and, yes, it's been painful.

To be 20 years old and lose your father
and to see Mama alone...

missing him and me missing him...

but he didn't take it all away.

And I need him to know
that I have forgiven him for what he did.

That doesn't mean I like him.

That doesn't mean I wanna be
his pen pal.

But for me to go on, I had to forgive him.

But I don't think he would care.

The one thing that will always stick out
in my mind about Dickens

is the very last question of the trial.

And James asked him,

"Now that you have met
Mr. Carter's wife and daughter

and mother and brothers and sisters,

how do you feel about what you did?"

And Dickens looked at us and then looked
at James Farren, and said, "You know, Mr. Farren, I'm really,
really sorry this happened to me."

[Dickens] I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry I said that.

I'm sorry.

I was...

I was a jackass.

I mean...

what I said was probably
devastatingly cruel, but...

I can't even make an excuse for that.

[Moore on recording] He caused
so much trauma in my life.

Man, that little shit.

I never said boom, boom, boom,
you're gonna go do this and do that,

go get my money,
and sent him on robbery.

I wasn't gonna be made out
as some Charles Manson.

You know what I mean?

I don't wanna be no involvement
of that man getting murdered

because I didn't have
no involvement in it.

I really met the wrong person
in a very pivotal point in my...

juvenile days, and, uh...

[stutters]
It created disaster and tragedy.

I was Dallas' little protégé.

I idolized him.

I didn't think he was dangerous like that.

I thought he was a big kid
until the mask kinda came off and, you know, it was directed at me.

[Cummins-Bell on recording]
I stole the dope.

I don't know why it all became
Justin's responsibility.

Dallas pointed at the ski mask and said,
"That's how I handle my debts."

And if I had been a guy
and I hadn't been married to Dallas,

I probably would have been
in the car, too.

It's a small blessing.

All I've ever asked for
is just to let it be heard, you know.

I bear my own cross
and I live with what I done, and...

you know, it ain't...

it don't never change,
it don't never get no easier.

That's all I ever wanted was somebody
to speak truthfully about it, you know.

[Jacobs] He said, "Okay this a robbery.
Get down on the floor."

At some point,
and I still don't know why,

Allen decided it was time for him
to take action.

Allen was trying to get the gun
when the shots went off.

And it came up through the webbing
in his finger and hit him in the head.

Um, I got chill bumps. I mean...

I never thought anybody would admit
to anything like that.

That I just didn't go in there
in cold blood

and just for wanton reasons.

I mean, I was... I was scared.
I was--

I was in water
that I never swam before,

and I didn't know--
I didn't know what I was doing.

And I was in a situation.
And, uh...

I don't really know what to say to that
because that's the last thing

I really expected to hear
through this right here. Uh...

I need him to know
that I have forgiven him for what he did.

That doesn't mean I like him.

That doesn't mean
I want to be his pen pal.

But for me to go on,
I had to forgive him.

[producer] Hearing that, do you have
any message for Christi Carter?

Thank you.
I mean, thank you.

I know I'm not worth nothing,
but thank you.

Really, thank you.