A NEW TRIAL
Vanessa's Recantation
"The tragedy of this case is that it isn't just one life that was lost. Many are gone and some still suffer 20 years later. Vanessa no less than some and more so than others. She thought I would hate her, "and should", trying to just let me know without expecting forgiveness.
I can never fully express the emotions we both experienced during the short time she came back into my life, nor can I give a true sense of the urgency in which she revealed her shame and regret for what she had done to me and what her life had become since.
I can't let her efforts be for naught and I want others to know she tried in the end.
All of what she shared will never be revealed, but this series of letters should give some indication of what she was feeling and thinking during her last days."
Scott
10th December 2020
In early Sep 2020 I received a message that Vanessa wanted to speak with my attorneys ‘to set the record straight.’
This was 21 years after she had first implicated me in the killing, and 17 years after her lies gave me a death sentence.
By early December of 2020 my attorneys had still not spoken directly to her and she sent a message that she and I should talk.
This was something I had no desire to do and needed to avoid lest the prosecution accused me of tampering. Regardless, at this time I felt I had little choice if I were ever to know why she had done this to me and what exactly her intent was now.
She started writing me a series of letters starting on December 10th 2020. This was just days after an ‘embarrassingly premature’ and ‘ultimately unfulfilling’ sexual encounter with her ex-husband’s cousin and an assault by that ex husband when she ‘laughingly refused’ his drunken sexual advances. She felt increasingly pressured and uncomfortable there so she called a friend to ask if she could stay with her awhile. Within two months she would be dead from an overdose.
Can you even imagine first hearing from the person whose lies put you on death row? The following is just that.
Vanessa was scared of what she was doing by trying to come clean and ‘set the record straight’. She was not only afraid of what more the prosecutors would do to her, but also of what the reaction would be from those she had maintained these lies to, all these years. So called friends and even her own sons. She was ashamed and guilt-ridden and rightfully so.
She was also brave in the end, so follow her path here through these series of letters. Try to understand better as I attempt to express the emotions experienced by the both of us during this crucial time.
21st December 2020
This is the second letter. The things she was telling she was telling me of her life since we were together were heart-breaking and tragic. She still held back though, from the shame of what she had done, and because she knew what I would think. But deep down she knew that the depths to which she had sunk were in a way examples of her punishing herself for what she had done to me, and to her sons. She wanted to let me know that she too had suffered and deserved it, while knowing that nothing could ever make up for the betrayal.
Vanessa knew that I was the only person in the world that she could not lie to about what she said I did.
Read her words. Feel her pain. Sense the shame.
Most importantly keep in mind who she was to me and try to think how you would feel if this person came back into your life after her lies gave you a death sentence.
More to come.
3rd January 2021
As you can see she was opening up some, but still remorseful, as she would have forever remained. I had an extremely difficult time interacting with her, especially when she would allude to the circumstances that led to me being put here. I wanted her to talk about it in her own time but I also has a sense that time was of the essence.
She was drinking and getting high again (which was enabled by people like Larry and Kevan) so what would come to be her end was inevitable and she needed to ‘come clean’ with what she had done. It was torturous for us both, especially when she was made aware that I knew her mental health history. When she referred to my daughter and how she should have been the mother… it repulsed me.
I did know her better than anyone but that didn’t keep her deceptive nature at bay. She needed to tell her story, but the process for that was agonisingly slow. Self-preservation will do that, even with a guilty haunted mind. I think the fact that I never said anything about her, or anyone else, ate away at her conscience as much as the lies she told to put me here. She had been my friend, she still loved me, but ultimately it was her lies and actions that killed me too.
More to come
