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0:34

Hey guys, and

0:35

welcome back to my channel. So

0:37

today I have another really controversial

0:40

case for you guys, one that I think you guys might

0:43

disagree on. Maybe, I think most

0:45

of you are gonna go one way on this one for sure.

0:47

Today we're gonna be talking about Mary

0:49

Catherine Hidgeton and Stephen

0:51

Freeman. So first let's talk about Stephen.

0:54

He was born on January 1st, 1995, and

0:56

he grew up in the small town of Griffin, Georgia.

0:59

He grew up with both of his parents around, Jennifer

1:01

and Troy, and his brother Blake. And

1:03

he definitely had a happy childhood, loving

1:06

family around him, a large circle of friends.

1:09

According to people that knew him, everybody liked

1:11

Steven. And one thing that a lot

1:14

of people said about him is that he was

1:16

constantly smiling and also

1:18

would not hesitate to say, I love you a lot,

1:21

which I thought was really cool. And from a young age,

1:23

Steven loved the outdoors. He

1:25

always wanted to be outside, you know, fishing,

1:28

hunting, camping. And Steven

1:30

was a very chill dude. His

1:32

family actually said that he

1:35

would outlive

1:35

all of them probably because he

1:37

didn't have a lot of stress that he carried, you know, they

1:40

say stress can kill you. But he was very laid

1:42

back and seemed to never stress out about

1:44

anything. Growing up, Steven had a close

1:47

relationship with both of his parents, but especially with

1:49

his mom, Jennifer. And I thought this was

1:51

really sweet. At one point, Jennifer went back

1:53

to school later in her life and Steven

1:56

wrote her this adorable note when

1:58

she did. It says is it to the most wonderful woman

2:00

in the world and know that if you put your mind

2:02

to it you can accomplish all of your hopes

2:04

and dreams and more. I love you

2:07

to the moon and back, Stephen." And according

2:09

to his mom this was their special sign

2:11

off with each other. They would say I love you

2:13

to the moon and back. So they had a very

2:16

very close bonded relationship. Then we have

2:18

the other person in the story, Mary

2:20

Katherine Hidgdon. She was born in 1994. Her

2:23

family said growing up she was a very happy-go-

2:26

lucky playful fun kid

2:28

who was constantly performing

2:30

for them putting on little plays she

2:32

was always entertaining everybody in the

2:34

room. She's also very creative she

2:36

loved animals one time

2:39

she walked a frog around

2:41

her neighborhood that she found with a shoelace.

2:43

And as you may have guessed Mary Catherine and Steven

2:47

were dating. In fact they were high school

2:49

sweethearts so they have been together for a while.

2:52

As soon as they met they had so much in common

2:54

that that they quickly became inseparable. One

2:56

passion that they both share is that they love

2:58

the outdoors. They love to go camping,

3:01

fishing, hunting together. Mary is

3:03

a pretty rugged type of girl. She's into

3:06

guns, she likes to hunt, she likes

3:08

to get dirty. And

3:10

he really loved that about her. He felt like they

3:13

weren't just in a relationship, that they had a strong

3:15

friendship as well. As soon

3:17

as they graduated high school, they moved into their

3:19

own place in Griffin, Georgia. And Steven

3:21

worked as a metal worker at Drainwright,

3:23

Gutter's and Roofing. And Mary Catherine worked

3:25

as a part-time teacher's assistant in St.

3:28

George's Episcopal School in Milner,

3:30

Georgia. And she also worked at a local sporting

3:32

goods store selling guns. I'm

3:35

sure some of you already know where this

3:37

story will be heading. So one of Steven's best

3:39

friends, Thomas Skinner, actually worked with

3:41

her at the store for a while. And he said that before

3:43

selling guns, all employees there were expected,

3:46

you know, to know how to handle

3:47

them, to make sure they didn't accidentally

3:49

shoot them off in the store, make sure that it could

3:51

demonstrate them correctly to the customers.

3:54

They learn to load and to shoot and

3:57

basic gun safety rules as well. So Mary

3:59

Kathleen.

4:00

Catherine definitely knew how to handle

4:02

a gun, how to load a gun, and how to shoot a gun.

4:04

Steven was also a gun enthusiast and

4:07

owned at least 10 guns. In fact, her

4:09

and Steven kept a Glock 42 in their home. And

4:12

Mary Catherine felt like she was actually even

4:14

more into guns than Steven was

4:16

and that she knew more about them. And she would even

4:18

brag about this to his friends. So Steven

4:20

spent a lot of time with his really close friends

4:22

at the time. Chase Pruitt, Thomas Skinner,

4:25

and Andrew McKee. They were really, really

4:27

close friends and they really cared

4:30

who each other was dating. So of course when they

4:32

met Mary Catherine, they were a bit hesitant, but

4:34

as soon as they got to know her, they actually really liked

4:36

her and they thought that she was perfect for

4:39

him. They loved how outdoorsy she was and

4:41

how happy she was making him.

4:44

His friends thought it was really cool that she did

4:46

so many things that he did as well. And

4:48

they just felt like they were a pretty good match

4:51

at first. Mary Catherine also got along

4:53

with Steven's family. His mother, Jennifer,

4:55

really loved Mary Catherine and said that she

4:58

considered her to be like a daughter.

5:00

Mary Catherine would have dinner with them every Sunday

5:03

night at Jennifer's house with

5:05

Steven's grandparents and extended family there

5:07

as well. So she was really part of their

5:09

family. So by summer of 2018, Mary Catherine was 24, Steven

5:13

was 23, and they had been dating

5:15

on and off for seven years at this point

5:18

and still live together in Griffin. But then on

5:20

August 1st, 2018, a

5:23

call came in to 911 at 1042 p.m. about

5:26

a shooting victim at a house on Sunnybrook

5:29

Drive.

5:37

I'll try

5:38

to put some of the call in, but I

5:40

think it's so important to the case

5:42

and to understanding the case to hear these calls.

5:45

So I'll try to put in a little bit. Yes

5:47

ma'am, I actually am my son

5:50

with Avery and I'm so sorry. I

5:52

just told my boyfriend in the night, I'm just sorry.

5:55

So clearly this woman is hysterical.

5:58

There's been a lot of debate back and forth on.

6:00

this nine one one call some people say

6:02

the call sounds like she's genuinely

6:04

very scared some people say they

6:06

call sounds staged but one

6:08

thing's for sure she said the words

6:10

i accidently just shot my

6:13

boyfriend and that's really important

6:15

she had shot steven freeman right

6:18

in his chest just below the neck

6:20

with her glock forty two so when officers

6:22

arrived to the scene america after and was

6:24

absolutely hysterical according

6:27

to people there she could not be calm

6:29

down no one there could get her to calm down

6:31

steven was lying on a mattress and she was actually

6:33

look like kneeling on the mattress next

6:36

to him just begging over and over

6:38

for you know him to live

6:40

through this for him to survive saying please

6:42

help me please help me over and over again

6:44

as she was led away from the room as she kept

6:46

yelling i can't lose him i can't lose

6:49

him and you know of course

6:51

is is debated it's up to you what you think

6:53

but some people say this is

6:55

very stages very over some

6:58

people say this is very genuine emotion that

7:00

she's displaying so how did this happen

7:02

according to mary mary catherine says the gun

7:04

it just went off as she was handing

7:07

it over to steven she said

7:09

that they keep it next their bed for protection

7:11

she just listed in alberta handed to him

7:13

and it accidentally went off and she said

7:16

she didn't even know that it was loaded when

7:18

she picked it up apparently their

7:20

guns are typically not loaded

7:23

in their house she said she didn't understand

7:25

how the bullet could possibly hit him

7:27

that she was a in right it out ham

7:30

and when they got to the scene steven actually did

7:32

still have a pulse he was rushed

7:35

to the hospital but unfortunately passed

7:37

away a couple minutes before midnight

7:39

when he got there and right off the

7:41

bat officers on the seem as said that

7:43

they thought this was a homicide not

7:45

an accident so of course they took their catherine

7:48

in for interrogation and when

7:50

they sir talking dirty start asking you know how

7:52

was your relationship how are things going

7:54

how did this all happened and she starts explaining

7:57

that she loved it steven use

7:59

a loader live in

8:00

never hurt him on purpose.

8:02

And she told them that the shooting was an accident, just

8:05

like what she said at the crime scene. But

8:07

then she changed her story. She

8:09

said that instead of just handing him the

8:12

gun, that she was tossing him

8:14

the gun when it went off. But the detectives

8:16

right away were not buying it. One of them

8:18

specifically had enough experience with

8:21

guns to know that it doesn't really work

8:23

that way. You know, when you throw a gun, it doesn't

8:25

just go off. You know, someone needs

8:28

to pull the trigger, there needs to be intention

8:30

especially to hit someone right

8:33

there. And the evidence at the crime scene definitely

8:35

makes it seem like this was not an accident,

8:38

that something was going down at that house

8:40

before the gun went off. First of all, there was

8:42

food all over, like all

8:45

over, not just on the counters, like thrown. They

8:47

had had some type of fight where

8:50

food was thrown all around their kitchen.

8:52

Not only that, they also smelled alcohol

8:55

on her her breath, which could mean there was an argument

8:57

as well. So like I said, right away, they really don't

8:59

believe her story, but they get her to agree

9:02

to sit down and talk to them without a lawyer

9:04

and to have it all on tape. As the interrogation

9:07

went on, they

9:08

kept pushing her to tell the truth.

9:10

They just

9:10

did not believe the story that she was just

9:13

tossing him the gun, that it was all an accident. They

9:15

believed a fight happened, you

9:17

know, something went wrong. And at one

9:19

point the detectives really start

9:21

yelling at her and they said, this is an interrogation

9:24

technique, but they started screaming at her to stop

9:26

lying, to tell the truth.

9:35

And this tactic actually worked.

9:38

Mary Catherine admitted that she did

9:40

it and that she did it out of anger and

9:43

it was all on tape. So you

9:45

think at that point, case closed. Why are

9:47

we even talking about this case today? Well, because

9:49

there was a major technical difficulty.

9:52

After they had already arrested her on this confession

9:54

and charged her with murder, they go to review

9:57

the tape and guess what? It is absolutely

9:59

fucked.

10:00

image all you can hear his feedback

10:02

noise and they had no

10:04

backup audio he didn't have like a little

10:06

recorder in their pockets nothing

10:12

even my podcast has backup

10:15

audio and case the first file gets

10:17

corrupted or something all they have now

10:19

is their word the two detectives

10:22

dour in the room versus marry

10:24

catherine's word after all those hours

10:26

and getting her to confess the

10:29

interrogation was useless now

10:31

this was doubling the best evidence that they

10:33

had but it wasn't the only evidence that

10:35

they had there was evidence that the gun had been loaded

10:37

that

10:38

night mary catherine had cooked a

10:40

london broil for their which is very

10:42

greasy this was what officers

10:44

found thrown on the floor or they found that

10:46

cooking grease on the magazine and

10:49

the side of the gun showing that someone

10:51

had a loaded it after cooking dinner

10:53

it also came out that police had been to

10:56

their residents five times

10:58

in the past year and two of those

11:00

time for definitely for domestic disputes

11:03

and one of them apparently was an issue related

11:05

to animals which super weird

11:07

i don't

11:08

exactly know what that was that the more details

11:10

that these are to uncover the more

11:12

they leaned towards homicide

11:15

so they started interviewing people closest

11:17

to mary catherine and steven including

11:19

stevens friends and all of stevens

11:22

friends instantly said that he

11:24

thought that mary catherine did it according to them

11:26

she was possessive and

11:28

very unstable they said that she was

11:30

very verbally abusive to stephen that she

11:32

was constantly yelling at

11:34

him that they were consul yelling at each other

11:36

and whenever he would leave the house to try

11:39

to get away from her get a break from her if they're

11:41

fighting should call him text

11:43

him over and over again till he would

11:45

have to block her one time he

11:47

was at work he was in the car with a coworker

11:49

in the were driving to a job together and

11:51

she called him according to the coworker

11:54

over thirty times

11:55

while they were in the car some

11:57

ways several occasions to

12:00

work and before we even got to the first

12:02

job he had 30 missed calls

12:04

from her but she was just blowing him off the line.

12:06

All of his friends said that Stephen

12:08

was afraid of Mary Catherine

12:10

and get this they said that

12:13

she had pulled a gun on him before

12:15

and that he had told all of them about it and

12:18

not just once three or

12:20

four times she had pulled

12:22

her gun out. All of them said when they

12:24

heard that Steven had been shot, their

12:27

minds instantly went to Mary Catherine.

12:29

So the police are, you know, gathering evidence, putting

12:32

together a timeline, and got ready

12:34

for trial. And they hope to get justice for Steven

12:36

and for his family who was

12:39

absolutely devastated that he had passed. So

12:41

let's go over kind of the timeline

12:43

of their relationship from what the police were

12:46

able to put together leading up to

12:48

the night that Steven was shot. So on April 21st, 2018, three

12:50

months before

12:52

Steven was killed. He texted his friend Andrew

12:55

and said, MK is running around screaming

12:57

at the top of her lungs outside and now

12:59

she's trying to shoot me and herself. Then

13:01

a few weeks later, Steven tells a friend

13:04

that Mary Catherine had pointed a gun at him

13:06

and he specifically said that when he looked

13:08

in her eyes, she had a specific

13:11

look, that she looked like she might

13:13

actually shoot him. That wasn't just, you know,

13:15

for show, just because they were fighting, that

13:18

he really thought she wanted to kill him in that

13:20

moment. And after this happened, he went to a friend's

13:22

house and, you know, got a break from her, but he didn't end

13:25

up reporting it to the police because he really

13:27

loved Mary Catherine and didn't want her to get in trouble.

13:29

So things were toxic with them for a while.

13:32

They fought a lot. And in July

13:34

of 2018, it seemed that Steven may

13:36

have been ready to actually leave her. According to

13:38

his friend Thomas, Steven had definitely made

13:41

the decision by July that

13:43

he was going to move out. And he was actually planning

13:45

to move to a different town and just not

13:47

tell her because that's how afraid of

13:49

her he was. He was going to do this while she

13:51

was at work, you know, just basically

13:54

sneak away. And he had actually planned to leave

13:56

on August 3rd, 2018, which is two days after

14:00

he was shot and killed. On July 30th,

14:02

just two days before he was shot, Stephen

14:05

and Mary Catherine actually exchanged some loving

14:07

text messages and they said, good morning beautiful.

14:10

And then she said, have a great day. And

14:13

he said, you too, love you. But

14:15

that's how their relationship was, you know, hot

14:17

and cold. That's how most toxic relationships

14:20

are, going back and forth between the two extremes.

14:23

So the next day they got into a fight and

14:25

it was so bad that Stephen said he just wasn't

14:27

coming home. And he actually told his

14:29

friend

14:30

that he was running from

14:32

Satan. So that tells you how

14:34

afraid of her that he was.

14:44

So the next night she made him a

14:47

nice dinner, a London broil, one

14:49

of his favorites. She hoped that he would come home.

14:51

They would have dinner together, talk it out and,

14:54

you know, continue on like they always did. but

14:56

Steven didn't come home and he would not

14:58

answer her calls that night. And later when

15:01

she was questioned about this, she said

15:03

that, you know, she just was

15:05

irritated that she had made this meal and he

15:08

wasn't coming back. And she just wanted to know, you know, if she

15:10

should start eating without him or not. And that's

15:12

why she was calling him off the hook. She even went

15:14

as far as to call Steven's mom, Jennifer,

15:17

and his mom said that he was over at

15:19

his friend Thomas's house. So of

15:21

course she jumped in her car and heads

15:23

off to find him. So Steven and Thomas had already

15:26

left his house and were driving around in his

15:28

truck. And this is some real crazy bit shit,

15:31

but Mary Catherine spotted the truck somehow

15:33

and started following them. Thomas said she was right

15:36

up on his bumper and that

15:38

she eventually pulled up to the side of the car

15:40

and started screaming out the window saying, are

15:43

you coming home now? His friend said Steven

15:45

looked like he had given up and he said, yes, I'm

15:48

coming home. Will you calm down? And

15:50

then two hours later, Steven

15:53

was shot. So it's pretty obvious what happened. Steven

15:55

probably went home to end things

15:57

with Mary Catherine. and she didn't like the fact

15:59

that they. weren't gonna just have this nice

16:01

dinner that she made for him you know and

16:03

move on so she through the fit on the

16:05

floor got a gun who knows what

16:07

else exactly happened but at some point

16:10

she clearly shot him the fact that he was

16:12

telling his friends multiple times

16:14

that she had pointed a gun at him and he's

16:16

scared for his life definitely makes

16:19

you think twice about her when you think

16:21

about it it just all makes sense i mean she really

16:23

is very familiar with how to use guns

16:26

for her to say she just accidentally discharged

16:28

it when she's learned all this stuff about

16:30

gun safety in her life is

16:32

just extremely hard to believe but of course

16:34

when it came time for the trial she

16:36

had completely changed her

16:38

story again she was going to be pleading

16:41

not guilty and she claimed that she

16:43

had to shoot steven in

16:45

self defense mary catherine

16:47

was charged with murder aggravated assault

16:49

and possession of a firearm during the commission

16:51

of a felony she was offered a plea deal of life

16:53

in prison with the possibility of parole but

16:55

she did not take this and the case went

16:57

to trial and the trial wasn't too long

17:00

and only took about a week for them to present

17:02

both sides and mary catherine was represented

17:05

by public defenders and they argued

17:07

that this was self defense

17:09

they said that mary catherine was afraid of state

17:11

because his history of abuse

17:14

and since the prosecution did not have

17:16

the confession tape anymore they had

17:18

to rely mostly on physical evidence which

17:21

isn't too much in this case but

17:23

the fact that there was grease on the gun

17:25

was huge and sure that it had been loaded

17:28

so that was a big part of their arguments they

17:30

also brought in steven's friends as witnesses

17:32

of course because they were so familiar

17:34

with how the relationship was according to stephen

17:36

but of course when you go to trial everything

17:39

comes out all of their text messages

17:41

search histories their conversations

17:44

with each other over long periods of time

17:46

and will go over some of that the second but the

17:48

also in a very risky move

17:51

hired at mary catherine take

17:53

the stand and this was pretty

17:55

intense

17:55

she told a completely different

17:58

story of their relationship

18:00

She alleges that she had suffered

18:02

every type of abuse from Steven

18:05

for years. She said he had a very controlling

18:08

and manipulative side that not many people knew

18:10

about and she said he made her act

18:12

a certain way. She couldn't help but

18:15

get extremely emotional and heated

18:17

in times because of the way he

18:19

pushed her. According to her, he was also very

18:21

controlling and had to know where she was at all

18:24

times, what she spent money on,

18:26

what she was eating, what she was doing.

18:29

And of course,

18:30

this is all her word. Keep in mind as I'm

18:32

saying this, I'm not speaking these things as

18:34

if they're facts. It's hard with these cases

18:36

where the victim is not here to speak for

18:38

themselves, you know, defend themselves in any way, but

18:41

this is what she argued in court. She also

18:43

said that one time while she was sitting on her bed,

18:46

Steven kicked her incredibly hard and

18:48

actually pushed her forward off the bed and

18:50

her head hit their doorframe really,

18:53

really hard. And she said she never called

18:55

the police because she would end up blaming

18:57

herself that she had pushed

19:00

him that far to abuse

19:02

her. And the defense also recovered a bunch

19:05

of text messages from the two of them and

19:07

they're not pretty. In fact, there were 63 pages

19:09

of very, very vulgar and

19:13

threatening, scary messages from Steven

19:16

to Mary Catherine that were sent the year before. And

19:18

apparently these messages are so brutal

19:21

that the news hasn't revealed

19:23

a lot of them. A lot of them haven't been shared with the

19:25

public because they're so bad. And

19:27

in one message, he even sent a picture of himself

19:30

holding up a dead fish and said, this

19:32

is you, bitch. In another one, he said, I'm

19:35

going to fucking wreck you for wrecking me. And

19:37

he was actually referring to her

19:39

cheating on him. At one point, she

19:42

did cheat on him and he just

19:45

went crazy over it. He was so,

19:47

so angry. Stephen's mom says that

19:49

she had no idea that he was talking

19:52

to a woman this way, that she's not proud of the way

19:54

he was talking, but she said that this was out of anger.

19:57

I think we've all been in the position

19:59

before. where someone has really

20:01

hurt us and we've said something

20:04

mean to them that we don't mean truly.

20:06

Not that it makes it okay what he said in any way,

20:08

it's very abusive, but at the

20:11

same time, I don't know if it can be used as

20:13

proof that she needed to shoot

20:15

him in self-defense. One of the messages that

20:17

he had sent her even said, "'The more

20:19

shit you talk, "'the more you get punished

20:21

when I get home.'" When the court asked, you

20:23

know, what did he mean by punish, she said that

20:26

he would slap her, grab her,

20:28

punch her. She said that he

20:30

would scream at her, say, why

20:32

can't you just listen to me and do the things that I tell

20:34

you? Why can't you be better?

20:37

He'd smack me around. Sometimes

20:39

he would grab me and shank

20:41

me and say, why can't

20:44

you just do better and be better and

20:46

just

20:46

do what I tell you to do? So at

20:48

any time I'd stand up for myself or

20:51

I'm gonna retaliate. He

20:53

said, don't hit me, because if you hit me,

20:55

I'm gonna get you two nubs harder.

20:56

So Mary Catherine explained as

20:58

much as she could of the relationship. She explained a lot

21:01

about how it was really controlling

21:03

and toxic and when it was good, it was really good, but

21:06

when it was bad, it was just bad. Then they

21:08

revealed that Stephen had a red

21:11

room according to Mary

21:13

Catherine. In Fifty Shades of Grey, this was

21:15

a

21:16

room that was used for, I guess

21:18

we could just say aggressive sex, but Mary Catherine

21:20

said that they would use this room and that

21:22

he would take her in there and punish her

21:25

in the red room. And this is when she made a huge

21:28

accusation and everyone in the court was kind of shocked

21:30

and not expecting this, but she said that

21:33

Steven had raped her twice.

21:35

Now, of course, Steven is not here to

21:37

defend himself. So we have to go off

21:39

of her word. And there's really no way to

21:42

know if she's telling the truth or not.

21:44

She said on one of these occasions, they had just

21:46

gotten back from a trip to Walt Disney World. They

21:48

have a great time at Disney, they come back and

21:51

they have sex. And Mary Catherine claims

21:54

that he was being really

21:56

aggressive and she wanted him to stop and asked him several

21:59

times to stop. And then she says

22:01

that he said, you know, I bought

22:03

you all this stuff at Disney land or

22:05

Disney world, so you have to do what

22:07

I tell you. You have to give me what

22:10

I deserve. And then according to her, he

22:12

raped her. And she claimed that the night that Steven

22:14

died went completely different

22:17

than police thought. She said she

22:19

broke up with him actually, after

22:21

making the London royal for him. That's kind of weird.

22:24

And then he got really angry, freaked

22:26

out, started throwing things, screaming. Even though

22:28

two hours before this, he was fleeing

22:31

from her and she was chasing him with

22:33

her car. But she said that he kept getting

22:36

angrier and angrier. And eventually

22:38

she picked up the gun and pointed at him to

22:40

scare him. And she said her last words

22:42

to him were, get the fuck

22:45

out of my house. And then he lunged

22:47

at her and all she can remember is

22:49

the gun going off. She said he was standing

22:51

there bleeding. He's still conscious. And he said,

22:53

call 911 and then fell down.

22:56

However, while she was on the stand, she didn't specifically

22:58

talk about pulling the trigger. She

23:01

just talks about the lunge and then it

23:03

all happened as a blur. Mary Catherine said that

23:05

she originally had lied to the police,

23:08

that she was just embarrassed to be a victim.

23:10

And Mary Catherine's sister also took the stand

23:13

and backed her up, said that she was

23:16

being abused by Steven. She said that there were bruises

23:18

on her weeks before all of this happened.

23:21

She said at first Mary Catherine said that

23:23

he had just grabbed her too hard,

23:25

but that she knew something more was going on. But

23:27

now let's talk forensic evidence. The

23:30

forensic evidence showed that Mary Catherine

23:32

had shot him while he was

23:34

sitting on the corner of their mattress.

23:37

He had never even moved. He was sitting when he was shot

23:39

and he fell back. Of course, like I said, they called up

23:41

Steven's friends and they all testified

23:44

that she was the abusive one in

23:46

the relationship, not him, which is hard

23:48

because he did write those messages

23:50

and they are horrible. But according to

23:52

them, she was physically abusive

23:54

to him and verbally abusive to him as well.

23:57

Apparently she would hit him in the face, in

23:59

the chest.

24:00

punch him in his shoulder. And they said

24:02

they never saw Steven hit her, that

24:05

one time she slapped him and

24:07

he grabbed her and said not to hit him again.

24:10

And that was all that they ever saw as far as

24:12

physical action against her, which of

24:14

course things can happen behind the scenes

24:16

without friends seeing it. They also pointed

24:18

out the obvious. She worked with

24:21

guns before, she had had gun safety

24:23

lessons. She should know how to operate

24:25

a gun. It's very hard to believe that she

24:27

would accidentally shoot one off. She was constantly

24:30

bragging to people about how good she was with

24:32

guns, and then she accidentally

24:34

misfires one. It doesn't really add

24:36

up. Of course, the defense said that, you know,

24:38

Stephen's friends never actually saw her

24:41

abusing him with their own eyes. They

24:44

don't have proof of it. They also don't

24:46

have proof of her confession, obviously.

24:48

So according to their side, she

24:50

never confessed. They also alleged that

24:52

Stephen had a drug and alcohol use problem,

24:55

which attributed to his violent behavior.

24:58

And the prosecution brought up another very

25:00

important text message. It was recovered from

25:02

Steven's phone and it said, "'I know you

25:05

pointed a gun at me a bunch of times, "'but the

25:07

last time you did it, "'it scared the shit out of me.'"

25:09

But Mary Catherine said this was about shooting

25:11

herself. Mary Catherine often

25:14

would threaten to commit suicide, and

25:16

that's one of the reasons that Steven's mother

25:19

believes that Steven stayed in the relationship so

25:21

long, is that Mary Catherine would

25:23

threaten to harm herself if he

25:25

left. The prosecution also noted that Mary

25:27

Catherine had slightly altered

25:29

or changed her story completely at least 10 times.

25:33

She had told everybody something different. She

25:35

had told the 911 operator that she was

25:37

grabbing the gun and putting it next to the bed.

25:40

She told the first responders that she was handing

25:42

it to Steven. And then she goes in and tells the

25:44

detectives that she had tossed

25:46

it over to him and it accidentally goes off. Her story

25:49

constantly changed. But of course the

25:51

fact remains that all of her interrogation

25:54

footage is completely ruined

25:57

and not usable. And not only that, you

25:59

guys. the murder weapon was

26:01

also tampered with at the scene

26:03

first responders actually had moved

26:06

their gun because they were worried

26:08

that mary catherine might pick it up and

26:10

shoot yourself which is understandable but

26:12

they should have just moved mary catherine

26:14

away from the gun you never touch

26:17

a crime scene and especially the weapon

26:19

and the worst part is they didn't even take pictures

26:22

of the gun in it's original position

26:24

before they moved it they just moved it it it's

26:26

very frustrating as is not like they came to the scene

26:28

thinking it was like a suicide or something she

26:30

said on the phone i shot him they

26:32

should have known to handle the weapon

26:35

to process the weapon correctly it makes no sense

26:37

this is like the number one rule

26:39

i just i don't understand

26:41

so course because mary catherine took the stand

26:44

she's also cross examined of course she was

26:46

grilled about never reporting

26:48

the abuse they were talking to anyone about it

26:50

never texting anyone about it

26:52

it was very rare that she'd have to anyone about and

26:54

she always spoke to people not taxed

26:56

and then they brought up the fact that just

26:59

hours before the shooting happened

27:01

she was actually babysitting and while she

27:03

was babysitting she was looking

27:05

up really violent adult

27:08

content on the computer but she claims

27:10

that this was all done because she's getting ideas

27:13

that that's what stephen was into and she wanted

27:15

to please him and the actually argued

27:17

that there's no way that someone

27:19

who had hired at the sexual trauma

27:22

that mary catherine was claiming to have would

27:24

be looking up these horribly violent

27:27

videos so in closing arguments

27:29

they reminded the jury that

27:31

mary catherine a changed her story so many times

27:34

they also brought the fact that it's unlikely

27:36

that if she was being abused that

27:38

she would track down her abuser

27:41

in their car and force

27:43

them to come home it just didn't

27:45

really add up and they said that you

27:47

know their relationship finally hit a boiling

27:50

point literally when she made that london

27:52

broil and he

27:54

wasn't into having dinner with her and probably

27:57

told her he was planning to leave and in

27:59

the defenses

28:00

closing arguments they actually talked about

28:02

how married catherine had seen

28:04

a face come up on stephen space

28:06

that reminded her of when he would abuse

28:08

her to the actually brought it to jack in the box

28:10

and used it to make the point that

28:12

when you know it's coming as your whining

28:14

it up you're gonna have a reaction are going

28:17

to prepare to defend yourself because

28:19

you know the do it's going to jump out of the jack

28:21

in the box a feeling it's a pretty

28:23

weak comparison i see

28:25

what they're going for but anyway i'm

28:27

so curious why you think at

28:29

this

28:30

point in the video the

28:31

verdict is going to be a before i tell you i'm some

28:34

posit and comment below so this jury has

28:36

seven women and five men and in

28:38

the first few minutes of their deliberation

28:41

they took a vote it was ten to

28:43

two guilty the to jurors

28:45

that we're voting not guilty where men and

28:47

they are struggling because they felt like no matter

28:50

what they did they would destroy a family

28:52

it's a lot of pressure to be a juror i mean i've

28:54

never experienced it but i would not want to be on

28:56

the jury especially for case like this this

28:58

is really really hard because no

29:01

one truly knows what went on in their

29:03

relationship except for them and all of the

29:05

jurors said that they knew for sure that

29:07

she had lied that she'd shot him

29:09

he was that gray area of self defense

29:12

that kept them from saying guilty

29:14

the jury talked back and forth about

29:16

abusive relationships whether

29:18

she would be used to lying or not

29:21

they deliberated for hours after this initial

29:23

though within the following day they came

29:25

to their final verdict mary catherine hedged

29:27

and the sam not guilty on

29:29

all charges we the jury

29:32

find as follows count one malice

29:34

murder we found the defender

29:37

not guilty killed two felony

29:39

murder we found that if and they're not

29:41

guilty of

29:45

stevens family was absolutely crushed

29:48

and the whole prosecution was

29:50

crushes on felt like they had led his family

29:52

down all the jury members said that

29:54

they thought she did it but

29:56

there was not enough evidence to prove beyond

29:58

a reasonable doubt and that's

30:00

I wanna know what you guys think. Do

30:02

you think there's enough evidence beyond

30:04

a reasonable doubt? Of course there's

30:06

personal suspicion. You know, like saying, I

30:08

think she did it because of X, Y, and Z. But

30:11

do you think there is enough evidence to

30:13

charge her with the murder? So just

30:15

like that, Mary Catherine was free.

30:18

All the charges are dropped. And on June 26, 2019, she was

30:20

released from jail. To

30:23

this day, Stephen's mom says that she

30:25

thinks that he just did not get the justice that

30:27

he deserves. and she's extremely

30:30

angry for how everything played out. The jurors

30:32

who have been interviewed since say,

30:34

you know, it was an extremely tough call.

30:37

And some of them, a lot of them think that she

30:39

did it, like I said, but that they felt

30:41

like it was the right decision and that there

30:43

just was not enough evidence. Not

30:46

having that confession tape just

30:48

destroyed this case, destroyed

30:51

any possibility of justice for Steven

30:54

if Mary Catherine Hichton really

30:56

did murder him. But of course some people

30:58

think that she was telling the truth, that they

31:00

had a toxic relationship and it

31:03

got too far at one point. Many people think

31:05

that this was the right call, that she

31:07

does not belong in jail. And that's where

31:10

the case ends. Mary Catherine

31:12

moved to another state, started a new life.

31:15

She says to this day she feels extremely guilty for

31:17

what happened that she never wanted to hurt Steven

31:19

and she hates how all of this ended up. Steven's

31:22

mom is still heartbroken over

31:24

the loss of her son and she still tries

31:26

to raise awareness about domestic violence to

31:28

this day. But Jennifer has not spoken to

31:31

Mary Catherine since, as you can imagine,

31:33

it's pretty tense. She says she doesn't

31:35

plan to either. She says there's nothing she

31:37

can say to make it better, and I completely understand

31:39

that. I'm sure she feels so much anger just

31:42

about how the crime scene was processed,

31:45

about the fact that the audio was ruined.

31:48

I mean, the frustration you would have over those

31:50

types of mistakes, I don't know how

31:51

you'd really ever get over them.

31:56

That

31:56

is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank

31:58

you for joining me for another. episode and

32:00

make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple

32:03

podcasts. It really does help me out. If

32:05

you want to watch the video version of this show, you

32:07

can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be

32:09

linked, or you can just search Kendall Rae. I will

32:12

be back with another episode soon, but

32:14

until then, stay safe out there.

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