(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(CALLER SPEAKING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(CALLER SPEAKING)
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
(OFFICER ON RADIO)
(ASHLEY SPEAKING)
JESS: If you had a man that had beaten you,
and all of a sudden, this man was going at your child,
what would you do?
That's the reason why I got up and fought every day,
was to protect them.
JESS: Ashley's got a lot on the line.
She is looking at life in prison if she's convicted.
PROSECUTOR: Two separate stabbings.
That's not self-defense, Your Honor.
(CRIES)
My name is Jess Hoeme. I'm a criminal defense attorney in Wichita, Kansas.
I am representing Ashley Pearson.
She's charged with second degree murder
for having stabbed her live-in boyfriend
and the father of one of her children.
The punishment for second degree murder is up to 41 years in prison.
On the evening of September 14th, 2018,
Ashley was home with her family
when at about 11.30, her boyfriend Kyle Hill,
returned from the bar.
Ashley said Kyle came home very intoxicated.
His intoxication proceeded
until about two o'clock in the morning,
when he became enraged that there were no leftovers
from the dinner that Ashley had made for him.
Ashley claims that Kyle grabbed her by the back of the head
and slams her head on the counter,
and proceeds to punch her in the back of the head.
Ashley told me that the noise caused her toddler to wake up
and come from her bed into the hallway crying,
and that Kyle was enraged even more in his drunken state.
Ashley saw Kyle approaching the toddler in an aggressive way,
and she knew that she had to protect her baby.
She grabbed a knife to brandish it in such a way,
hoping that Kyle would stop his approach,
and during his advance towards the toddler,
Ashley stabbed Kyle in the chest, causing his death.
Initially, Ashley was not charged.
The county attorney at that time declined to file charges,
making a determination that in his opinion,
she was acting in self-defense.
For four years following this incident,
Ashley tried to move on with her life,
but after a change in administration,
a new County attorney reviewed the case
and had a different opinion of it.
The County attorney's perception of the cut to the arm,
is that Ashley had intent in mind
when she committed the act,
and so he made a determination
that second degree murder should be charged.
Our defense of Ashley is exclusively self-defense,
but the challenge in this case is that
there were only two adults in that house,
and one of them is dead now.
And the difficulty for me,
is if I can't prove that Ashley's version of the story is true,
then she could go to prison for 41 years.
(CHUCKLING) Water baby.
ASHLEY: It was my birthday.
I was getting ready to go out to dinner.
All of a sudden, there's a knock on the door.
The investigator said he had an arrest warrant for second degree murder.
Then I just... melted.
My kids were standing right behind me.
I'm trying to hold it together, and not panic them.
It was such-- It was just
such a horrible situation to be in.
(WHINES)
Take your time and make them super pretty though, okay?
CHILD: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Okay, I'm gonna go and grab the drawers, and the keys, and my coffee.
Do you need help?
My kids have been through enough,
and for them to show up on my birthday.
They sat here and watched me,
like, you say goodbye. Like, say goodbye to them.
(VOICE BREAKING) But when I walked out the door,
I didn't know how long I was gonna be gone.
Ever since the re-arrest, the kids have a problem with me leaving and stuff like that.
They were never like that before.
They would have no problem with you leaving
because they knew you were coming back.
Yeah, I've done what I can to, like, appease them for now,
but if there's the day that I walk out
and I can't come home, like, that means I've...
-you know-- -No, you can't think like that.
AMANDA: I know that I can never, ever,
fully understand what she's going through.
I don't think anybody can.
She's had all these years
to move on from what had happened.
ASHLEY: Jail, would be devastating on everybody.
I already know the consequences,
but to think about what their little minds
are gonna go through is horrible.
It's such a sickening feeling.
JESS: So, today I'd like to bring Ashley in
to meet with her to talk about
some of the more fine details of the events of that night...
Hi, Ashley. How are you today?
I'm good. How are you doing?
Come on in. Let's go sit.
...and why it was, that she felt in that moment,
that the only way that her child was gonna survive,
was to use the knife, uh, to protect herself?
All right.
So, let's talk about that night, September 14th.
So, um, that night,
the kids went to bed really good.
Kyle and I, we had had such a good day,
and he was in, I mean, in a good mood,
and then his mom called to remind him,
"Hey, you're supposed to be taking me to the bar."
I think he was gone, like, an hour and a half, probably.
Did you observe him to be drunk?
Yes. I did-- I did know
that he was intoxicated at that point.
So, what happened between midnight and 2:33?
He was upset that there was no more food left.
So, he slammed my head down... (VOICE CHOKING)
...and, uh, he hits me in the back of the head a couple of times.
He was particularly violent when he drank?
Yeah.
It was like something masked over him. (SNIFFLES)
You could tell when that... that switch happened.
And it would take something super small or take nothing.
What happens next?
I heard my daughter wake up crying.
He says, "All that (BLEEP) baby does is cry".
And, like, that he was gonna stop it.
At that time, any time she cried,
I mean, it was... annoying to him.
Just, he couldn't stand it.
So, he tries to go through me to get to her.
What do you think Kyle was gonna do to your daughter?
I know in the state of mind he was in,
and the results of what had happened to me,
if he would have got to her,
I know he would have severely hurt her, I know that.
So, that knife was sitting there and that's just what I grabbed.
Not to harm him, but just to wake...
kind of snap him out of it for a second.
That's where he stops.
It didn't click in my mind at that point that he was hurt.
He just stopped progressing towards me, or whatever,
and I just went and got my daughter,
put her back in bed, closed the door, came back out,
and I see him start falling.
Like, he knew, and I knew, that he was hurt.
And he said, "I think you stabbed me."
I grabbed the phone, and dialed whatever I could,
and told them to get me help there.
So... (VOICE BREAKING) I mean,
(CRYING) I just sat there with him.
Once the police got there,
all they said was, "Who stabbed him?"
And I said, "I did." Like, "Help him."
The only thing that saves me, my heart and everything is,
I know that because of this happening,
I didn't have to go to one of my kids' funerals.
This I can hopefully live with, you know, but that I can't.
JESS: This is a tough case.
The severity of the offenses
that you're looking at are extreme,
so the stakes are very high.
But I believe that we can convince the jury
that what you did was absolutely necessary to protect your child.
The biggest challenge now is just being able to
piece together the rest of the story,
so that the jury has a clear picture
of the life that she was living,
and the hell that she was living in.
JEFF: Ashley is charged with second degree murder.
The burden of proof is on the state of Kansas
to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that Ashley acted intentionally
or recklessly with the intent to kill Kyle.
Our defense of Ashley
is that, yes, she did intentionally kill Kyle,
but she did so because she had to,
to defend herself and defend her child.
So, what I'm trying to do today is review the discovery,
to try to find what the state believes is important evidence,
and prepare myself to counteract that.
Ashley gave an interview to the detective
on September 17th of 2018, about 3:15 in the afternoon.
She doesn't have any specific recollection
of which knife she grabbed.
She tells the detective she didn't know that she had even stabbed him.
Our argument will be,
that he had grabbed the back of her head
and slammed her into the... into the countertop,
and that he punched her in the back of the head, and back of the neck.
So, just a flurry of activity
and it caused her some critical incident amnesia.
That's very common in these kinds of critical incidences.
JESS: When the detectives viewed her person,
they didn't see any marks or bruises on her.
It seems like the state's position is that
Ashley acted more maliciously.
The state is going to try to show
there was no clear indications
that she had been abused that night,
and rather than acting in self-defense,
she intentionally killed him.
That's gonna be a problem.
As a kid, she was the one that we were...
the least worried about.
Oh, my gosh, how old was I when I made this?
It says '99, so you would have been in...
-Third grade? -Third grade.
ANGELIA: She was my perfect child.
She never got into trouble.
-I was an ugly ass teenager. -You were not!
Yeah, look at all these pictures.
I'm glad I got cuter as I got older.
Yeah. You got gorgeous.
ANGELIA: She was very goal-oriented.
By the time she was 18,
she had her own house, her own child,
and her own car bought by her.
So, she was the one that was gonna be, you know,
taking care of me in my old age.
I really like these pictures.
Good times. Good memories.
ANGELIA: During the day, she's happy and positive.
That's because of the kids.
There's not a prison that can be worse
than what she's living through right now.
I think Kyle was a positive thing for her
in the beginning,
before the times were bad.
He made her really happy.
I mean, they could sit and talk for hours and stuff,
so, she deals with that loss constantly.
That was the last thing that she ever wanted to happen.
So, destroying her, and her kids over it,
I don't know that the kids would come out whole if it goes wrong.
JESS: Despite the fact that Ashley did love Kyle,
she has told me that Kyle was
particularly violent when he was drunk.
She's told me about a number of prior incidences of physical abuse,
and we have pictures of her swollen and battered face.
On July tenth, just two months before the final incident,
Ashley said Kyle hit her so severely
that it broke her eye socket.
The challenge is proving that those injuries were from Kyle,
because no charges were filed.
Nothing could be done without Ashley saying
that he had struck her,
and she was too scared to do it.
JESS: I need to find more evidence
to build up the idea that he was a violent person,
and that he was being particularly violent on that night,
and he showed no deference to who he was going to assault,
whether it was Ashley or Ashley's child.
JESS: The difficulty with domestic violence cases
is the perpetrator of that violence
usually has one version of the story,
and the victim of the violence
usually has another version of the story,
and the truth often is somewhere in between.
And so, trying to extrapolate that information
after the fact is very challenging.
JESS: We need to be able to show
that there is a history of violence,
and that Ashley did exactly what she needed to do,
to make that violence stop and protect her child.
All right,
so the problem we have, Rylee, is how do we show
that Kyle Hill was particularly violent?
I think we need to make a timeline
to show the events leading up to the deceased's death.
Good idea. Let's do that.
I propose we start with when Ashley and Kyle began their relationship.
Ashley told me that when she initially started dating Kyle,
he became violent pretty quickly.
JESS: September 4th, 2017,
Ashley went to the emergency room.
She had severe injuries to her face.
We also need to include that on June 13th, 2018,
there is an emergency room report
saying she suffered a broken jaw.
Which was about a month before he passed away.
-Correct? -Correct.
And then on July 10th, 2018,
Ashley claims that Kyle was incredibly abusive.
She had a broken eye socket.
Melissa Stewart took pictures of Ashley's injuries.
It is my opinion that he was literally beating on her
less than a month after he already broke her jaw.
So, there was escalation of violence leading up to the incident
that ultimately ended Kyle's life. Right?
Correct. The problem is,
Ashley said she didn't tell the officers
or the nurses at the hospital,
that those injuries were from Kyle
because she was scared.
We don't have any direct evidence
that he was the perpetrator, so it's circumstantial.
So, do we have other witnesses
to corroborate the violence against Ashley?
Seems to me only three people would know.
Kyle's mother, his grandmother, and Melissa.
JESS: Aside from Ashley,
I don't think anyone really knew the character of Kyle
better than his mother and his grandmother,
and his mother's best friend, Melissa.
The challenge is a lot of the witnesses are family members,
so it's likely that their bias is going to be in favor of the deceased.
But I'm gonna do my level best to make sure
the jury is aware of all these previous incidences of violence.
ASHLEY: This is Drury Dam.
You got to cast it out, bubba. Like this, over your head.
Kyle grew up here.
This is, like, his special place,
but the second he brought out me out here too,
it's just instantly mine, too.
Mommy, can you help me?
Okay, back here. Push the button.
We had a lot of fun times out here.
When I come out here, I don't see the bad stuff.
I see my friend and...
like, who I really lost.
Despite Kyle being violent when he drank,
Kyle during the day was a completely different person.
He was fun, and he was always laughing.
It was like dealing with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
But... I didn't wanna abandon him.
I didn't want Kyle to go to jail.
I wanted him to get help.
I felt trapped in a way.
I was trying to be a good mom and shelter them,
but not give up on him.
I was dead set on making it work,
but it accelerated so quick, in such a little time.
I don't even think that
my brain has fully comprehended the severity of that night,
because there's still some days I wake up
and I think that he's gonna pop around the corner.
JESS: The two officers that first responded to the scene
were wearing body-worn cameras.
Those cameras picked up
things that they observed as soon as they arrived.
JESS: According to the officers,
Ashley reported that she observed the victim falling to the ground.
She said that she pulled up the shirt and observed the stab wound.
The problem with that, is when the officers arrived on scene,
their body cam doesn't seem to indicate
that the deceased had a shirt on.
Three days later, the detective returned to the house
but never found such a shirt.
It is problematic
because if there are any inconsistencies
in the story that she tells,
the prosecutor will certainly make the most of them.
JESS: The officers found knives,
but Ashley doesn't recall
what knife it was that she used to stab Kyle.
But, there's a knife in the trash can.
How did that happen? Nobody really knows.
The problem is, it enables
nefarious ideas to come in to play.
There's a knife in the trash can,
and they think that they have a bloody shirt
that's missing somewhere,
and the idea from the prosecutor's perspective
is that Ashley was hiding evidence.
That's gonna be hard to explain.
JESS: One of the problems that we have is that
we've recovered previous incidences of violence,
but no charges were filed.
Ashley didn't tell the officers the truth because she was scared.
So, I have every intention of talking about
all of these prior incidences of violence at trial,
through the witnesses that were aware of the abuse that she suffered.
JESS: I'm gonna go visit with Melissa today.
She's known Kyle since forever,
having been a lifelong friend of Kyle's mother.
She's not family to Ashley.
She's not family to Kyle.
So, she has some level of objectivity,
but she also has the familiarity of a family member.
-Hey, how are you? -MELISSA: Hi, Good. How are you?
-Got a minute to visit? -Sure, I sure do.
MELISSA: Kyle could be so charismatic.
I mean he was just... I loved him to pieces.
I mean, he was just like one of my nephews.
Since he was little, tiny,
-I've been in his life, so... -JESS: Yeah.
But, man when he would drink...
Bam! That was it.
Ashley's been through a lot,
with all of the chaos of the relationship.
Ashley just wouldn't admit it
because she wanted help for Kyle.
She wanted to save her family.
Ashley Pearson doesn't deserve
to go to prison for fighting for her life.
-JESS: Nice to see you. -All right. Good to see you, too.
-JESS: Thank you. -Thank you again for coming.
JESS: Melissa's going to be
a very important witness for the defense.
She has knowledge of Kyle's violent tendencies,
and the particular incidences of violence against Ashley.
I think she's gonna be very helpful for our cause.
JESS: Melissa's testimony is the last piece of the puzzle.
She corroborates the things that Ashley has told me,
about the abuse she's suffered.
All the evidence seems to indicate
that Ashley had no choice but to defend herself
and defend her child.
So, we filed a motion to dismiss the case
based on a claim of self-defense.
The state of Kansas believes, that if you defend yourself
you shouldn't be subject to being put through
a prosecution through jury trial.
JESS: So today I'd like to bring Ashley in,
to meet with her, to explain what it means for the case.
Hey, Ashley. How are you today?
I'm good. How are you today?
-Wanna come on back and we can visit? -Sure.
JESS: Our hearing is just a couple of weeks out,
so it's really crunch time. Time to get ready.
We recently filed a motion to dismiss your case.
The Hearing, it's like a trial.
We'll present evidence to show that you had a history of abuse.
If the state can't show that it was not self-defense,
uh, then the case has to be dismissed.
-So, this is over with... -Good.
...and if were not successful,
it gives us a really good opportunity
to get a preview of the evidence from the state.
We're gonna know everything by the time we go to trial,
so this is a good opportunity for us.
Okay.
Now, when you tell the judge the story,
we're gonna try to tell that story
as concisely as we can.
-Okay? -Okay.
I don't want you to stretch your imagination.
If you don't know specifically,
you have to say I don't... I don't recall.
All I can say is what I know happened,
and I could try to speculate, but I don't see that...
-I don't want you to speculate. -...but that's definitely--
-As a witness, you don't speculate. -Yeah.
All that we need to be able to show the judge,
-is that we don't know how it happened exactly. -No.
All that I know is that I had to do something.
Otherwise, he was going to cause bodily harm
and injury to your daughter.
-Ashley, thank you for coming today. -Thank you. Ready, Mom?
JESS: Whether it's on a motion to dismiss or at a jury trial,
this case is going to turn on Ashley's testimony.
I think that she understands
as well as she can at this point,
but nobody will ever appreciate that position
until they're sitting in that chair.
ASHLEY: So next week we go in front of the judge.
Either this is gonna go to a trial,
or the case is thrown out.
So, it's nerve-racking.
I do worry about getting up there,
but at the end of the day
it's about what happened, and why it happened.
I think that it's gonna bring up some emotions,
but at least it'll be a step in the right direction.
At least we'll be closer to an end.
We're all just ready for it to be over.
JESS: Today we've got a hearing on a motion to dismiss.
The state has to show that there's not probable cause
to believe that she acted in self-defense.
I think the thing I'm most worried about,
and nervous about going in,
is going over everything again
and just hearing everybody's perspective on it.
I'm just ready to tell my story
and move forward, whatever that means.
CLERK: All rise.
JUDGE: Thank you. Please be seated.
All right, this is the State of Kansas versus Ashley Nicole Pearson.
Thank you, Judge.
JESS: Here we go.
Detective Wilson,
why don't you start walking us through your interview?
What did she tell you happened?
He came up behind her, and he was hitting her on the back of the neck area.
Did you note any injuries to her at all?
We didn't find any physical injuries,
cuts, bruises, anything like that.
What did Ms. Pearson advise you happened
after what we've described so far?
DET: WILSON: She said she went to him, raised his shirt,
and that's when she realized she'd stabbed him.
Was Mr. Hill still in the residence when you first arrived?
Yes.
Was he wearing a shirt at that time?
No.
-Was that shirt ever located? -No.
Officer Meyer, I'll ask you to take a look at those.
Items number two and ten. What are those two items?
Both of those were knives found by the kitchen sink.
And what was item, number nine?
Number nine would be an orange-handled paring knife.
An orange paring knife found in the trash can in the kitchen.
So, someone at some point had thrown the orange knife
-in the trash, right? -Yes.
CLERK: All rise.
JESS: The knife being in the trash can,
kind of the same as the missing shirt.
The state's trying to show
that she was tampering with evidence.
She was hiding evidence.
It is a worry.
The inference is a nefarious kind of act,
and that's what we're trying to avoid,
because I do not want it to go to jury trial.
But now I need to paint the picture
of these prior incidences of violence for the judge.
I'm gonna do my damnedest to show
that Kyle was a violent man.
No further questions with that, Your Honor. Thank you. I pass the witness.
JESS: Ms. Bailey,
your son, Kyle Hill, is he a violent person?
He had been in the past, yeah.
He had beaten her many times before, would you agree with that?
He's struck her, yes.
Let's talk about it. Tell me.
At the apartment, they had been arguing,
and from what Kyle has told me,
she was attacking him, and he punched her.
She fell and her eye got broke on the bathtub.
Was that the incident that he,
uh, broke her orbital socket?
DENA: The bathtub.
Okay. The bathtub broke her orbital socket?
What about the injuries to the side of her neck?
She's got injuries there, too. How'd that happen?
I've never seen that photo.
He didn't tell you about choking her?
No? Okay.
Nothing further, Judge.
PROSECUTOR: During the course of your examination,
-were you able to determine a cause of death? -Yes.
What was the cause of death?
A stab wound of the trunk.
Did you find any other injuries of note to Mr. Hill's body?
He had another stab wound on his right forearm.
Did you believe that the wound to his arm was a defensive wound?
Yes. It's consistent with it given its location.
No further questions, Your Honor.
PROSECUTOR: Ms. Dunn, are you familiar with the situation
where Ms. Pearson got her jaw broken?
I was.
Did Ashley tell you what had happened?
She did.
She came home drunk, tripped
and fell and hit her face on a toy in the yard.
Did she ever tell you that Kyle had laid hands on her,
-or caused that injury to her? -She never said that.
-JESS: Is Kyle a violent kid? -No.
He's not violent? All right.
No, he was not a violent child. No.
Is he a violent person?
Only after he was older.
Why didn't she leave?
Why did she stay and push him to that point?
JUDGE: Ma'am, you don't get to ask questions.
This is Ashley's fault?
CINDY: That she did not leave.
She could have taken that baby and left.
(ASHLEY CRYING)
JESS: I think a break would be a good idea, Judge.
(CRYING)
JESS: The state's witnesses, the family members, Dena, and Grandma Cindy Dunn,
it's hard to comprehend how they're trying so hard
to protect someone that was so obviously violent,
and they're doing it at the cost of Ashley's freedom.
Ma'am, I'm gonna ask you a series
of "Yes or No" questions.
Her jaw was broken, right?
Yes. She was swollen.
Yes or No, Kyle Hill broke her jaw?
Thats not what she told me.
Who broke her jaw then?
She did. She tripped on the sidewalk.
It's what she told me.
Nothing further, Judge.
JESS: The state has rested,
so, it's our turn now to present our case,
and Melissa is gonna be our first witness.
Melissa was the first one on scene.
She is aware of Kyle's history since he was born.
I think she's gonna be a really great witness.
JESS: You were the one that got the call
about 2:30 in the morning.
-Correct? -Yes, sir.
What did you anticipate that you would encounter?
Oh, that I was gonna have to get Kyle off of her,
because Dena told me,
"He's probably beating the (BLEEP) out of her right now. Hurry, go!"
Why do you suppose Dena called you instead of 911?
Well, because she didn't want the police involved.
She didn't want Kyle to go to prison.
JESS: The pictures I marked as defendant's exhibit 1B.
Those were all your pictures, weren't they?
Mm-hmm, I insisted.
What caused all those injuries?
Kyle.
Nothing further, Judge.
JESS: Ms. Pearson, describe how Kyle's affect changed
when he kind of went into his rage.
Describe that to the judge.
Um, it's like he, like, clicked out.
Like, he wasn't there anymore.
JESS: I'm sure that it's a blur in your mind,
but why do you think you grabbed a knife?
Because he had taken his attention off me,
and it was towards my baby girl.
When he is in that state, whatever direction he's set,
that's the target.
Do you have any doubt in your mind
that if you wouldn't have stopped him,
he was gonna injure your baby?
If I didn't stop him,
I would have been going to my kid's funeral,
and I wouldn't...
I wouldn't be able to deal with that.
PROSECUTOR: Were you in love with Kyle?
Yes, very much. He was my best friend.
On September 15th, you had been drinking?
I did have a few beers, yes.
How many is a few?
Like, five or six.
So, you continued to drink after Kyle came home?
Probably. If he was in a good mood, then yeah,
I would have cracked open another beer with him.
So, Kyle was in a good mood when he came home?
Yeah, he was.
Judge, the Defense will rest at this time.
Your Honor, I don't think that she's risen to the level
of having this case dismissed.
What we have is a young lady
that, upon being carefully and closely inspected
by law enforcement, had no injuries.
The only injury that we have here,
are two stab wounds to Kyle Hill.
Two separate stabbings.
That's not self-defense, Your Honor.
Multiple knives were found.
Unfortunately, we'll never know
why the other knife ended up in the trash,
but I do believe that was an effort to hide evidence.
And so, for that reason, I just ask that you deny the defendant's motion
and that we schedule this matter for jury trial.
So, the question, Your Honor, is, do I have a theory
why Ashley stabbed him that night?
Damn right. She did it to save her baby.
We'll never know exactly how it played out in there,
but what difference does it make?
What matters is why it happened.
So, what I've done, for Your Honor,
is I've presented a long history of violence.
Ashley took a lot of beatings from Kyle,
but something changes in a woman when you go after their baby.
She did what she had to do,
and for that, the state of Kansas says
you are immune from prosecution,
and I hope you agree, Judge.
ASHLEY: Thank you, God.
-You good? It's over. -Than you so much. Yes.
(SOBBING) I know. Thank God...
ASHLEY: It's been a... just a roller coaster.
It's scary thinking that you're gonna go away
for the rest of your life for...
for being a mom.
I'm so glad it's over.
I'm so glad to get to go home and hold my babies.
JESS: Today is the beginning of the end for Ashley.
She has closure. She doesn't have to worry about these charges
ever popping up again with the next prosecutor
that has another idea about the case.
So, this is it. She can move on with her life.
ASHLEY: Now that this is over,
we can all start healing from it.
I get to tell my kids that I'm coming home no matter what,
and I am 100% confident in that now.
Like, it's such, that's an amazing feeling.
I was put here to protect my kids then,
and I'm gonna continue to do that.