The first moment that I tried to pull away from him,
he just grabbed me by my throat
and squeezed so hard,
and I was terrified.
I knew that there was only one way for it to end.
And, uh…
I wasn't willing to let it end with me dead.
I just knew, like, I had to…
I had to fight back.
I always saw my parents being very loving.
I can remember, you know, my dad kissing my mom good morning in the kitchen, and…
I always wanted that.
My name is Jema Donahue.
I was sentenced to ten years in the Department of Corrections.
I was born in Berlin, Germany.
My father was in the military.
I was the baby of the family.
You know, everybody says the baby is spoiled,
but that wasn't the case in, in, uh, my household.
I didn't get away with anything.
Like, I was almost punished before it ever even happened.
We didn't really have friends because we moved every, like, five years.
So, we just really loved and embraced each other as a family.
I was homeschooled from second grade until sixth grade.
And then my mother decided to enroll my brother and I in public school.
The children were a lot more advanced than I was.
They just knew more about the world around them,
whereas I feel that we were kind of kept in a bubble.
My last year in middle school was really hard.
After the assault, I had begged my mom not to call the police
because I just wanted to act like
nothing had ever happened.
And she promised me that she wouldn't, and then she did.
I do remember law enforcement was trying to deter my mom
as far as pressing charges,
which, of course, my mother, she's a mama bear,
so she was like, "No, she's gonna continue this."
I experienced a lot of bullying.
I had to leave the school district.
I blame my mother, um…
for a lot that happened, um, when I was a teenager.
She became so protective.
I really wasn't allowed to have friends.
My mom would do background checks on everybody.
So I stayed at home a lot.
Everybody around me was telling me that, you know, that I ruined my life.
And the day that I gave birth to my son
and looked in his eyes…
…I knew
there was nothing I wouldn't do…
…for my children.
There's nothing in the world
like coming home from a hard day at work and…
walking through that door
and your children just running up to you and wrapping their arms around you.
I need a moment.
We were introduced from a mutual friend.
Javon had went to prison,
so he was being released from prison.
And the same mutual friend had asked me
if I would let him use my address as a home plan.
And I said yes.
I remember, um, just being so curious about his childhood
because it was so different from mine, um…
He bounced around a lot and, um…
that was new to me,
and it was almost tragic.
He was previously, um, incarcerated
for manufacturing and distribution of drugs.
But I believed that he had been rehabilitated
and changed his life around.
So, from the very beginning, I just had this…
longing, like I needed to protect him.
We never really established that we were going to be together.
It just kind of sort of happened.
I was going to University of Central Missouri.
And he would stay at home with the kids.
And that spoke volumes to me
that he could be trusted with my children.
The officer at the time said to me
Javon was a well-known crack cocaine dealer in that county.
And I was just floored
because I had never heard or seen anything like that.
And that was like the first
instance I ever realized
that maybe there were things going on behind my back
that I wasn't exactly aware of.
I was angry with Javon.
And I was like, "You just need to go. Leave us alone."
And he just grabbed me by my throat and squeezed so hard
and was, like, choking me.
I remember to the point that I couldn't breathe and I was terrified.
And he was telling me, like, "You're never gonna leave me."
"The only way that you'll ever leave me is if I kill you, bitch."
I remember saying to him, like, "I love you."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
And he would tell me,
"Fear lasts longer than love."
Like he never wanted to hear…
…um, that I loved him.
I would tell myself that if I could just help him
or get him away from the drug scene
that our marriage would be better.
But the abuse with Javon continued throughout our marriage.
I learned really early on
that the less that I struggled during a strangulation,
the quicker I would pass out.
And that made things easier.
I do believe
that Javon loved me.
But the only way he knew how to show me was through violence.
It was just…
a nightmare,
but I think that also is what made
the good times so good,
because they were so far and few in between…
…and we cherished them.
I didn't really want anyone to know how bad it was,
so I just tried to keep it under wraps and appease him.
But then he was closer to his old friends and started using drugs again,
and it just got ugly.
He locked me in the room.
Beat me with a belt.
Um…
Held knives and screwdrivers to my neck as he would sexually assault me.
And he would be just telling me,
"I will kill everybody. I have nothing to lose."
And I believed him.
I knew, at this point…
something had to change
because now it wasn't about me.
He wasn't just hurting me. He was threatening to hurt everybody.
Which brought us to Good Friday,
which would have been April 14th of 2017.
I just remember being really anxious
because it was gonna be the first time since obtaining the order of protection
that I was going to be alone in the house.
I went downstairs.
And when I opened up the family room door…
…Javon was standing there.
He flew forward at me, grabbed me by my throat.
He started dragging me up the stairs, um…
…um, by my neck.
The scariest thing in the world is to know that somebody else…
…is holding your life in their hands.
He started checking the windows and the doors,
making sure they were all locked.
He went back downstairs.
And then,
I heard him call my name.
And… I went downstairs.
And when I stepped into the bedroom…
he was holding a gun.
And he pulled the trigger.
And the gun jammed. It didn't go off.
So he became angry that the gun was, like, not working
and he hit me over the head with it.
And whenever he did, um,
it fell to the ground.
So I picked it up, and I just remember, like…
aiming it at him, and, um…
I told him, "I want-- Just leave. Just get out."
And he didn't want to.
So he stepped forward,
and whenever he made that forward motion, I just pulled the trigger.
I hit him about right here in his left shoulder.
And, um, he screamed,
like, "Ah! You hit me!"
And then lunged forward at me again, um,
grabbed me by my wrists.
So my hands were kind of up like this,
and he had both my wrists,
and I pulled the trigger again.
And he was flinging me around and slamming me to the ground.
And in that motion, I pulled the trigger again.
Um…
When he landed on top of me,
like as we were coming down on the ground,
he said, "Fuck it. We're gonna die together, bitch."
And he laid his head right next to my head
and he grabbed the back… handle, like the butt of the gun,
and aimed it towards his left ear.
And I just wrapped my finger around to grab control of the handle
and pulled the trigger.
And, um…
I just remember that last final shot.
Just feeling the weight of him on top of me.
Everything was black.
I never realized my eyes were closed.
Like, I thought it was black because I was, like, dead.
I thought it was…
And then, um…
I just kind of crawled out from under him when I realized,
like, "Okay, it's over. I'm not-- I'm not dead."
My mom pulled up from work…
…and the phone was ringing.
And it's saying, like, Johnson County on the caller ID.
I have no recollection of calling 911, but I remember that I did call 911.
And I handed her the phone.
And I was, like, shaking my head no.
I was like, "Please."
I just felt like, in that moment,
my best decision of protecting my family and my children
was to not…
let anybody know.
My mom answered the phone.
And, um, she said it was a mistake. "We didn't mean to call."
The dispatch then said to her, um…
"We're gonna send somebody out there anyways."
So I went and sat outside…
…and waited for the police.
I remember my mom coming out to the front step
and kind of tapped me on my shoulder, rubbed me, and said,
"Come inside, Jem. No one's coming."
My name is Margaret Heffernan,
and I'm the mother of Jema Donahue.
Jema is the youngest of three of my children.
I can remember her as, um, an infant sitting on my lap,
and I said, "You'll never be too old."
She excelled in school.
Things were going in the right direction
until she was sexually assaulted at the age of 13 by a 21-year-old man.
I was given the excuse that they couldn't locate him.
I was very surprised.
So I told my son to go to school.
First one that could tell me where he is,
I would give them a hundred dollars.
And in 15 minutes, that phone rang
and I was told where he was.
And I went out
and sat in the car
and waited for him to come out to his
and followed him.
He started coming towards me and swearing at me.
It's like a switch went off on me.
And I drove straight for him.
I was going to hit him.
And the individual jumped over hedges.
I lost common sense, I guess you could say.
I had the sheriff's department come out to my house.
They said, um…
well, possibly, if I don't press charges against him,
they won't press charges against me.
And I said I would not drop the charges.
Jema was very angry with me
for contacting, um, the police.
She felt that I betrayed her,
and, um, our relationship, I would say,
was damaged through her teenage years because of that.
You want to protect your child.
And you want to be able to handle a situation.
And it was out of my hands.
I questioned him,
and I said, "Did you put your hands on my daughter?"
And he didn't answer me.
And I told him, "You just answered me by saying nothing."
I says, "Promise me you will never lay your hands on her again,"
and he wouldn't say the words.
I'm angry that he hurt my daughter repeatedly.
Especially, you know, when I asked him, "Please don't."
She's a survivor of domestic violence.
It was self-defense.
Nobody knows what they're going to do until they're in the situation,
and…
and it's done.
My name's Aaron Brown, and I'm a major here
with the Johnson County, Missouri Sheriff's Office.
I got a call from a-- a source.
They advised that, um, Javon Donahue
was, in fact, shot and killed by his wife Jema.
Um… And during the process of that,
um, the body was taken to the farm and buried on the farm.
We went out to the residence, uh, the farm.
But Johnson County is, is a rural county.
It's a cattle-grazing, uh, farms area.
Um, so just merely driving down a road,
uh, you're not able to see terribly much, just the house.
We needed a helicopter or a plane to go overhead to look at this property.
At this point, it is a crime scene.
So we tape it off,
uh, we begin coordinated interviews with everybody that was on the property
or in the house.
And during a conversation with one of the individuals at the farm,
they advised that they knew where Javon was buried at on the property.
And they led us to Javon.
We dug up the body,
wrapped in a white tarp with rope around, uh, the tarp.
We needed to locate those individuals
and conduct interviews with them immediately.
And, uh, one of those happened to be Jema's mom.
Just shut it off.
Just shut it off and I'll talk to you.
I told them I saw Jema standing outside, dazed.
She said, "Javon is in the house."
I says, "We need to call the police."
"No, he's dead."
I said, "Are you sure he's dead?"
And she says, "He's dead."
She had dialed 911 and hung up.
911 called back.
She's throwing the phone at me. She's shaking her head no,
back and forth, but no words.
And I told them, "I'm sorry to bother you,"
that I made a mistake.
And he said, "Unfortunately, we still have to send somebody out."
And I said, "I understand."
I remember saying to her,
"When the cops come, Jema,
please let me tell them I did this."
"I lived my life."
"You have children to raise."
She said, "No, Mom. I will not."
But it's what I wanted to do.
I let Jema down when she was 13,
and I felt
I can't do that again to her.
I remember our relationship just being undone
overnight.
I didn't want to go through that again.
We were probably out there a good 45 minutes, and they never came.
And I told myself maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.
When the police didn't show up at the house was the turning point
that we'll take matters into our own hands.
I thought, "Okay, we can do this."
"We can get away with this."
We placed Javon's body
in an area that he dug.
And he says, "I don't want you to know where I'm gonna bury him."
"I have two other holes dug."
And I thought, "Well, that's good that I-- I won't know."
I-- I prayed that Jema was gonna be strong enough
to keep her mouth shut
and not share this with anybody.
That we would have to go to our grave
knowing what we did.
My name is Dr. Lisa Witcher.
And I was a state-appointed forensic examiner, um, for Jema's case.
When we're looking at battered spouse syndrome,
we're looking for the cycle of violence.
Part one is this tension-building phase.
So where you start seeing the perpetrator of the abuse
becoming triggered by either you or the environment around them.
The second phase is the acute or crisis phase.
That is when violence occurs.
After that, the honeymoon phase,
when the batterer promises
to never let that happen again.
And then the cycle starts over again.
There was an incident.
We were in a motel room.
And Javon raped me, sodomized me,
and afterwards, he called his friend
and was kind of laughing and making jokes,
saying, "How long is it gonna take her to stop, like, bleeding?"
Like, from my rectum. And…
Just anything to humiliate me or degrade me.
You know, calling and bragging about beating a woman…
It's either a twisted call for somebody to come intervene
or it's truly despicable.
It's truly someone who believes that they have
done what's right
and taken what's theirs.
I am surprised that Jema made it as long as she did.
And that she is alive at the end of this story.
Had he not come to the house that day,
I don't think he would have stopped pursuing her.
She meets all of the factors
that we look for, um,
and that research has shown is tied to women who become
battered spouses.
To my knowledge,
battered spouse as a self-defense
has not been successful yet in Missouri.
It's been here a while, but it has not really ever been a successful defense.
Okay, come on.
But the question wasn't whether or not
she suffered from battered spouse syndrome.
It was whether or not she used deadly force
justifiably under the circumstances.
A slap to the face doesn't justify someone shooting someone.
My name is Rob Russell,
and I was the attorney who prosecuted Ms. Jema Donahue
for the homicide of Javon Donahue.
As we were coming down on the ground, he said,
"Fuck it. We're gonna die together, bitch."
And he laid his head right next to my head
and he grabbed the butt of the gun
and aimed it towards his left ear.
And I just wrapped my finger around
and pulled the trigger.
And, um, I just remember that last final shot. Just…
feeling the weight of him on top of me.
Well,
her story doesn't match up with the injuries suffered by Mr. Donahue.
There are four bullets in his body.
One is in the shoulder.
One is through his jaw.
One is in the back of his head.
And one is underneath his chin, straight up.
The shot to the back of the head would have been a fatal shot.
The shot underneath his chin was a fatal shot.
His jaw would have been broken
in such a way that he would not have been able to talk to her
and tell her that he loved her
in this Romeo and Juliet moment, they were both going to die together.
That didn't happen because he couldn't talk.
So, I don't think the jury really
bought into that she was acting in self-defense.
Certainly, when people try to…
hide evidence of homicide,
and certainly hiding the body
tends to give you the impression
that the person who's doing that has a guilty conscience.
If they had accepted the self-defense argument from Ms. Donahue,
she would have been found completely not guilty.
But instead, they found her guilty of manslaughter.
I think that the decisions that were made after Javon was killed
did put her in prison.
The dedication to burying the body
really stuck in the craw of a lot of the jury members.
Her mom certainly could have acted differently.
I don't know if in her mother's mind
that that was really a choice,
but the concealment of Javon's body
made things a lot worse for Jema.
I blame my mother, um…
for a lot that happened, um, when I was a teenager.
I really wasn't allowed to have friends.
My mom would do background checks on everybody.
So I stayed at home a lot.
You know, becoming a social pariah
at a very young age for a sexual assault she could not help.
Then the…
the withholding of any type of social relationship.
Essentially, what her mom was doing was holding her hostage.
Holding her in such a safe place,
um, that it went overboard. It went overboard into, quite honestly,
emotional abuse.
Um, not letting your child out of the house ever.
Not letting her socialize in any normal type of way
certainly sets up a sense of learned helplessness.
I don't think there's anything malicious about it.
I just do not believe their relationship has ever been healthy.
Jema describes her mother as "an evil, wicked woman
who is controlling and vengeful."
"If she has the chance, she will kill me. I'm sure of it."
"She will bury me like she did my husband."
It's very possible that the line,
"She will bury me like she buried my husband,"
was Jema's acknowledgement of
"I'm into this even further now because of her involvement."
During my trial, um…
I had a strained relationship with my parents.
I was drinking.
I was abusing drugs. Um…
Do I think today that my mother would kill me or bury me in a field?
No.
We've come so far.
It's not even the same relationship.
Like, we're not even the same people.
I've made great strides, and she's made great strides.
I've changed as a parent
realizing that
my ways of being a helicopter mom over an adult was wrong.
It's-- It's their life, their choice, their decisions,
and their consequences.
This part of me that always had to be in control and fix problems.
Why give myself more problems than I already have, you know?
It's just, um…
It's not my problem. I don't need to fix it.
Of course, I would do things differently.
I blame the police not showing up.
But ultimately, I, I told them, like, "You don't have to come."
"It was a mistake."
So I started that.
I started that with a lie.
And the day had to come where I had to acknowledge it.
I have learned a lot,
you know, about accountability
and the importance of it
in order for a person to learn by their mistakes.
I have seen such improvement in Jema
since she's been incarcerated.
She lights up when I see her, when I visit her.
And always a big hug, a kiss on the cheek.
That's my daughter. That's the baby that I had.
When I first came to prison, um…
life was in an uproar.
But once I started to take advantage of the different programs…
I enrolled in, like, women's empowerment.
I was able to kind of see my prison life in a different light.
It wasn't so much condemnation
as much as rehabilitation.
Also, in here,
I've learned accountability
because the fact is I still made the choices that I made.
The shot to the back of the head would have been a fatal shot.
The shot underneath his chin was a fatal shot.
He would not have been able to talk to her and tell her that he loved her
in this Romeo and Juliet moment, they were both going to die together.
That didn't happen.
There was no Romeo and Juliet moment, where Javon said, "Do you love me?"
He said, "We're gonna die together, bitch. Till death do us part."
Those were his words
as he was flinging me around and slamming me to the ground.
It's a really hard situation to decide,
um… whose life is more important.
Or do you take the chance of fighting for your life?
I hate the fact
that I have to wake up every day…
…and know that I took somebody's life.
And on top of that, it was someone's life whom I loved.
I remember saying to her,
"When the cops come, Jema,
please, let me tell them I did this."
And she said, "No, Mom."
"I will not."
I admire…
…what my mother risked in helping me
and trying to save me.
She threw everything away.
And honestly,
I probably would do it for my children as well.
I mean, not go about it like that, but…
we do what we need to to protect and save our-- our babies.
This time in our life is almost over, and…
I see all good days ahead for us.