.
(CHILDREN'S VOICES)
(MAN LAUGHS)
(CHILDREN LAUGHING)
Going into the church.
The little ones out here playing.
(CHUCKLES)
Having fun? (CHILDREN LAUGHING)
How's everybody doing? Dale.
How you doing?How you doing? Good to see you, bud.
How you doing? This is my son, Quentin.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
Recently, my parole officer just allowed me to start going to church.
I've been attending for about six weeks now.
And it's a blessing to me.
Hey, Dale. Good to see you. How you doing, bro?
(CHUCKLES) Greasy hands. That's OK.
It's OK. God bless you.
I have waited for this moment for a long time,
and these people understand that.
CONGREGATION: God, guide me to make right decisions,
and teach me to use my time
to accomplish the greatest good and to strengthen this life of mine.
WOMAN: I think it would be appropriate now, Dale,
if you'd come forward and give us your testimony.
I just want to say that I'm grateful for each and every one of you
that have given me an opportunity.
You've opened your hearts,
and you've opened your church, and you've opened your lives to me.
I wasn't strong enough until three, four years ago
to be able to step forward and admit who I was and what I was.
I went to court for capital murder in 1990,
and ended up on death row for three years,
for the life that I took from someone
trying to blackmail me into a homosexual relationship.
Some people think that I shouldn't even breathe another breath.
After the moment that I took that life.
So, because I'm a murderer, I don't have the right to tell the truth?
I'm not concerned about the people that want to speculate,
because the children of God will understand.
(BIRDS TWEETING)
It's important that people understand
that we all have these trials and tribulations
that we go through in life.
And that day that I took that life,
I was taking my own, because I didn't want to live anymore.
Cos I was tired of living in that pain.
In my childhood, I went through some things.
Being molested at the age of ten, it scarred me and hurt me for life.
I was just growing up with that stigmatation of being molested.
It was hard.
It made me question about my sexuality and who I was,
and am I really a man?
It was like the catalyst to self-destruction
eventually 11 years later,
cos I was running from my demons and my fears.
And...when I came to Texas, it all started again.
At the time around the murder, I was really emotional.
I was really lost.
I was back on the intravenous drugs, shooting meth, cocaine...
..and it's when I met John.
And um, we became close friends. He let me come over and shower,
you know, take a nap.
I confided in him and told him about, you know,
what I'd been through and why I was living on the streets, and...
being molested at the age of ten.
You know, in time,
yeah, I trusted John. I got to know John,
and I thought he was a really sincere, good friend.
One night, when I came over to his house,
I took a shower and...
lay down. I fell asleep. I woke up, he was on top of me.
And I pushed him off of me.
I said, "What are you doing, man?" And I grabbed my stuff.
And that...that fear kicked in.
Of when I was ten.
I said, "John, I befriended you, man.
What made you think that I would want that?"
He told me, "Man, if you don't agree,
man, I'm gonna tell everybody that you were doing it anyway."
I suppressed everything for all my life, but...
I reached my breaking point.
I befriended John...
..and then he tried to blackmail me into a homosexual relationship.
I told him I don't have nothing to live for.
I said, "If you do that, I promise you I'll kill you."
And I meant that with all my heart,
because I didn't care about my own life.
Two days after John tried to abuse me
is when he made calls looking for me,
and I took that as a threat that he was going to tell people that
we had a sexual relationship, which was a lie.
Because I may be a lot of things,
and I might even be a killer, a murderer...
..but I've never been a homosexual.
And I decided that I was going to fight back.
That I'd warn him...
and I was going to fulfil what I said I was going to do.
April 6th 1990.
I walked into that Subway sandwich shop...
and he says, "So you decided to come around and see it my way, huh?"
And I took the .45 out of my pocket.
I set it on the table top, and I push it right in front of him.
And he started shaking, literally. He was terrified.
I shot him six times in the chest.
(SINGLE GUNSHOT)
And when he fell...
..I emptied the rest of the clip, shot him,
twice in the back of the head as he lay there.
I question myself a lot.
About how I let myself get in that situation, that I would do that.
It's a dark place to be.
I mean, to be that broken...
And I'll forever be paying for that
and I wish I never would have taken John's life.
No-one deserved that.
That's why I haven't forgiven myself to this day.
And people tell me I gotta get past it, I gotta forgive myself.
It's not an easy thing to do.
You know, but I can't turn back the hands of time.
All I can do is make my life count and matter now,
and try to give back.
You know, my life has been...
..a torment of winds and frustrations
and tides that just kept pulling me out deeper and deeper.
That's why I wanna tell the story and give back.
I wanna help other people, let them know being molested, being abused,
whatever you're going through, you have to reach out
to somebody, until somebody hears you.
I didn't do nothing as a ten-year-old child
to warrant being molested.
But I held that my whole entire life.
I had nowhere to release it. I had nowhere to go.
But that pain became my process to my purpose.
To the vision that God has for me.
Because I know, each and every day of it I live,
and every breath that I take
is living proof that miracles really can happen. Thank you.
CONGREGATION: Amen!
MAN: I think it's a story of redemption, and...
we're all capable of being redeemed, if we go the right route.
I thought it was tremendous.
MAN: I can relate to Dale a whole lot.
Cos I was locked up myself for 28 years flat.
On an attempted murder case.
But I didn't do like Dale. Dale got smart and found God
and all that stuff, and I didn't. I was...
I just kept rebelling.
I think Dale is a good man.
He knows what he's talking about.
There's been a lot of blessings since I've been out.
And a lot of peoples hearts have been softened.
That's the prayer I've had since I've been out.
Yeah. So God's been making a way.
Over these few months...
..Dale has made a lot of progress.
He has won a lot of people over, especially the church members.
They are just blown away by him
when he testifies, and tells them his story.
Dale is winning people over every
time he has the opportunity to speak with them.
Ah! Hi! Come on in!
Come on in. How y'all doing?
All pretty good. Bubba, this is Dale.
Dale, this is my grandson Shannon. Junior.
Hey, how you doing? Jenny, and Cheyenne.
I appreciate you guys coming over.
I've wanted to, I've just been busy.
With me, what you see is what you get.
There's no question you can't ask that I won't try to answer.
And I own who I am and what I am and where I've come from.
One thing I've never been
is timid to the point of where, you know, I won't answer a question.
Do you mind us asking, like, how?
You wanna know how?
Back when I was ten, I was molested as a child.
11 years later living on the streets,
someone tried to blackmail me into a homosexual relationship.
And I told him, "Where I'm at in life at this time,"
I said, "if you do that, I'm gonna kill you."
I said, "Cos all I have left is,
you know, my reputation, and...
..keeping my word and being a decent individual,"
you know, and...
he thought it was a game.
So you shot him, huh? Yeah.
And I took two lives. His and mine.
But it's by the grace of God that I'm still alive.
Not everyone is going to understand or be receptive to my story
because there's two types of people in the world
that people are most terrified of.
And that's murderers and child molesters.
And I'm a murderer.
Too much cuteness, too much. Good seeing you, man.
Gradually, people that have gotten to talk to me and converse with me,
and hear my story, they generally see the man I am now.
Appreciate y'all coming. Yes, sir. See y'all.
Don't be a stranger, come on by. Yeah, come by any time.
So, what you think about him?
He talks a lot. (CHUCKLES)
I mean, yeah, he's been inside...
prison all his life. Nah, he's cool.
He's gonna talk. He's gonna tell everybody his story.
So everybody knows who he is.
Yeah, seemed like he learned a lot in prison.
He was on drugs and going through a rough time.
And the guy also did something to hurt him too.
I'd probably do the same thing anyway.
DALE: 'Before the murder, I was on the streets,
and I met John Zeltner.'
'You know, I trusted John. I got to know John.
I thought he was a really sincere, good friend.'
'And then, he tried to blackmail me into a homosexual relationship.'
'I told him, "I don't have nothing to live for."
I said, "You do that, I promise you I'll kill you."'
(STOPS PLAYBACK)
If he's saying that's what he believes today,
and still believes that that was justified,
I'll be frank with you. I got problems.
I got concerns um...
with society being exposed to that type of irrational thought.
I'm not going to call somebody a liar,
because I don't know what's true or not, but I will say this...
..if that information is true, and if it's accurate,
that's information that should've been told to a jury.
And so, I'll be frank with you,
I wouldn't believe that on face value.
He's claiming, if I'm correct, that he's been...blackmailed...
..by an individual saying that he...
..um, is gay.
All right?
To me, I think it's rather ridiculous.
If someone wants to um...
claim that my lifestyle is something other than it is, I don't care.
Go right ahead. I know who I am.
What's that gonna do to me? How is that gonna hurt me?
All right? I certainly don't have a right to go take your life.
It's pretty extreme. No, that's very extreme.
And um...
..it's really irrational.
Mr Sigler is now reversing roles.
He has turned himself into the victim...
..and John Zeltner into the bad guy.
And he was out a victim. He is NOT a victim.
If he's a victim of anything, he's a victim of himself
and of his own actions. Nobody else.
Nobody in society is to blame for what happened.
Period. Except himself. And you need to get on your knees
and not only thank your God, but you need to thank society
for giving you that second chance.
He says people need to understand him.
Well, let me tell you, it's society that's given you this second chance.
You need to be grateful, you need to be humble.
You need to be accountable.
Quit making up excuses. Quit talking about it and move forward.
And now do what's right.
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
It's no about shifting blame.
It's about telling the truth.
I take full responsibility for the life that I took.
But try to understand how I got to that point.
I couldn't see clearly.
I couldn't see a future. I couldn't see a life.
All I see was the torment and the pain.
PRODUCER: Was there nothing else you could've done,
rather than killing?
(CHUCKLES) That's what people don't understand is,
they wanna to talk about what you COULD have done.
Hindsight's 20/20.
You know, what you could have done in conjecture 30 years later...
that's a waste of time to me.
It doesn't resolve a situation. It doesn't bring John's life back.
What people don't want to understand is the pain and the torment
that got you to that point to where you would take a life.
Why didn't you tell people at the time?
Why would I wanna tell people?
The times that I tried to reach out and tell my attorney, tell people,
you know, it's like I was ridiculed.
I was told the first time I met my attorney.
Were you the biggest stupid idiot in the world?
The judicial system doesn't really wanna know.
My attorneys really didn't wanna know.
So, why would I wanna share with anyone?
Because I felt like there was no way that anyone was gonna understand.
It didn't matter to me.
I just wanted it over.
I wanted to die.
Do you have resentment towards gay men, or are you homophobic?
How do you fee about people who are gay?No.
I didn't kill him because he was gay.
I've never been resentful or homophobic
or had any type of issues with other people's choices in life,
cos I'm not judgemental of people.
Do I believe in homosexuality?
No, I believe it's an abomination of God,
cos that's what the principles
of the word of God tell me. That's what they teach me.
But you're damned to live that life.
But I don't sit in judgement of people. I love people in spite of.
So no, as a child, and even to this day, I'm not judgemental.
I don't hate anyone for their beliefs,
or their sexuality.
Never have.
But it seems other people wanna sit in judgement of me
because I killed a homosexual, trying to make it into a hate crime.
It wasn't about that.
I wonder if he could have misread your signals.
There is no way that you can misread my signals.
There is no way you can misconstrue the type of man that I was.
There's no way.
See people think that there just may be something more to this,
that we just don't know, or...
maybe this is just for a five minutes of fame.
Or maybe this is, you know...
trying to cover something else up, or...
No. This is genuine.
This is exactly what happened, and the truth of the matter.
I'm telling the story now, not to villainize the individual,
not to make an excuse, not to...
try to justify... what I've done.
I don't care what people say, or what they think, or what they see.
Because I know it's the truth.
GREG MILLER: It's the perfect cover because the person that can really
tell everybody what really happened...is dead.
I guess it's pretty easy to shift responsibility to a dead man,
when he can't come forward and...
..tell us probably what really was the relationship
between Dale Sigler and himself.
And even if you were to say Sigler's telling the truth there,
that's sure not much of a reason to go out and kill somebody.
Because of an attempted homosexual liaison?
I mean, come on. Gimme a break.
Well, I suppose the question becomes...
is it a worse set of facts that John Zeltner got killed because
Dale Sigler alleged he was a homosexual
and was blackmailing Dale Sigler?
Or is it is a worse set of facts that he killed John Zeltner
because he wanted to get money
for more drugs and more booze?
Either scenario is pretty damning, I think.
You know, whatever spin you wanna put on it,
there is one common denominator, and that is John Zeltner is dead.
I really have no idea if he's remorseful.
I hope he is.
And I hope he thinks every single day what he's done to my family.
There's no forgiveness.
I will never, ever forgive him.
He couldn't say or do anything to me to bring my brother back.
Should I forgive him?
No. No. Not at all.
Wouldn't change one bit if I thought he'd be reformed.
I'd still feel the same way.
You know, what you did before...
you should pay for.
I think anybody that has been a prosecutor, defence lawyer
or a judge for any amount of time have asked the question:
What is a fair punishment for murder?
And...I will tell you that's a very difficult question to answer.
I am comfortable with the sentence that he received in this case.
Regardless of what people say,
30 years in prison is a boat-load of time.
Dale has basically spent almost 60% of his life in prison, so...
I'm OK with the sentence.
But he'd better not screw up again.
# COUNTRY ROCK
Driving a car after 30 years...
it's a beautiful thing.
I waited a long time to be able
to get in my own automobile
and be able to drive, and take myself to work,
and just enjoy life, and have the wind blowing in your hair.
You know, have the radio on,
just being free, and that's really what it's about.
(CHICKEN CLUCKS, SHEEP BAAS)
I look forward to coming out here every day,
cos it's a little bit, you know, quiet.
Peace. Tranquillity.
I mean, being stuck in prison with all that screaming and hollering,
you know, it's kinda frustrating.
But now you don't have to deal with that, it's a big relief.
Ain't nothing like a hard week of work,
come home with a pocket with money in.
Take a shower, sit down, eat dinner with someone you love.
You know, just talk about life. Just enjoy life, you know.
We just take it for granted. I know I did.
You know, every moment's precious now to me.
CAROLE: I've been... kinda on my own for a while now.
And even though I like my privacy,
it's nice to have somebody else to talk to,
and just pal around with.
So, we're having a good time.
Learning about things, about our past and each other.
Enjoying it. Just enjoying it.
That's my yearbook from high school.
This was, I got this - That's when I was four.
1967. And? So what are you trying to say?
That's a good year!
Oh, OK.You should have had a real good year that year.
Your picture in there? Yes...(CHUCKLES)
Yeah. Oh, cut it out.
Yeah. (CHUCKLES) Cut it out.
Our relationship is still good.
We still love each other, but yeah, we have our moments,
but we always kiss and make up.
You really wanna see my picture? Yeah, where is it?
I ain't gonna tell you. (CHUCKLES) Ah.You gots to find me.
Dale is still a big kid at heart.
He gets goofy. He's having fun and he's wanting to express
that happiness, and he can only do it by being a big kid.
Still ain't found me? Uh? You're trying to stop me
getting your picture. I'm not.
Yeah, you are.No, I'm not! Yeah, you are.
No, I am not! OK, I'm just sayin'...
That's you. Yep.
You were beautiful.
You still beautiful, but you was BEAUTIFUL.(CHUCKLES)
Well, thank you.
If I was 19 years old and I was in school with you then,
I would have been chasing you. Ah!
You was gorgeous. You was gorgeous.Ahh.
I really didn't know that much of the details
about the murder until we were sitting in the living room,
and I asked him about it.
When he told me what happened, I was in a little bit of shock.
And then, my heart broke even more.
Because I could see how much he was hurting.
So, I didn't change my opinion of how I felt about him.
And, no matter what, I got his back.
Life at the moment is... pretty beautiful.
When you think back on how far I've come.
What I've came through.
I couldn't see this day coming.
To be in this moment, and just be able to...
..smell the fresh air, look at the clouds in the sky...
..just...it's a beautiful day.
What is a fair punishment... for murder?
I know that I deserve this opportunity.
I know I've earned...
this freedom.
After 30 years of incarceration,
I've paid my price. More than enough.
I've changed. I've grown. I've matured.
So, yeah. I deserve this.
I deserve opportunity just like anyone else.
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