marlys

Retiree
Shot: June 17 1999
San Fernando Valley California

Was I just looking for love so bad?

Marlys: "When I got married I was fifteen; I was pregnant, my husband was nineteen. When I met him, he was charming. Now I have four kids, seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. I've been beaten, kicked with steel toed boots, strangled, had a knife put to my throat, my hair's been pulled out. Everything I learned was from him. I trusted him. I was very naive. When you're abused you don't tell anyone, you put a mask on. As I look back, did I love him, or was I just looking for love so bad?

I wanted my ex-husband to know

"I was married forty-one years. It took me ten years to leave. After the divorce was final I became a born again Christian and I wanted my ex-husband to know the peace you can have with the Lord. I started seeing him, taking him to doctor's appointments. On the way home from the doctor one day he wanted beer. He was a hypochondriac and the doctor hadn't said what my ex-husband wanted to hear. I stopped at a 7/11. When he started drinking, he said, 'Watch, out for cops.' I said, 'If we get stopped I'm going to be responsible because I'm allowing you to drink in the car.' He said, 'No, you won't.' We didn't really argue. He sat in the back seat going, 'Hmm, hmm,' as if he knew something I didn't. We got to his house and we went to the front room, if we were arguing, it wasn't a huge argument. He said, 'You're making me mad, I'm going to kill you.'

I could hear, but I couldn't see

"I've tried and tried to remember what we were talking about, but I can't. He went and got the loaded gun he kept under the mattress, the gun was legal, it was registered; he had no criminal record. He had pulled a gun before. But I thought, this time he's going to do it. He started kicking my legs, the gun was cocked, he had his hand on the trigger, and then he was hitting me over the head with the barrel. I yelled for my daughter, she said, 'Put it away, come on Dad, let's have a nice day.' And he said, 'Get out, or I'll kill you too. If you try and call the police I'll shoot her right in front of you.' Then he was by the sofa and he shot me point blank in the chest, it was a 38 caliber wad cutter bullet, they're flat on the end instead of pointed. The blow was tremendous. Once I was shot I could hear, but I couldn't see. I kept saying, 'Hurry, help me please, hurry,' over and over.

My kids were frightened if he got out

"He said, 'God forgive me.' That's all. He called 911 and he called the neighbor next door to tell her what happened. He said, 'I shot my wife.' I haven't heard the tape of the 911 call, but my kids have heard it. On the tape they asked him, 'Was it accidental?' He said, 'No, it was intentional.' The ambulance and police came. The bullet went through my heart, through my right lung and collapsed it, paralyzed my diaphragm on the right side, broke a couple pieces off my ribs and lodged in the back near my spine. There was so much blood; it probably clotted so they didn't see the hole in the heart at the hospital. My blood pressure went real low, I went into a seizure; the bullet had gone through my heart. All at once, I stopped breathing and my heart stopped. This was maybe three hours after I was shot. They rushed me into surgery, trying to revive me. After surgery, the doctors told my kids, 'Everything's working, I don't know how, it must be God.' Because they didn't know how I was alive. He's in prison for the rest of his life. From June 17 of 1999 he was never let out. My kids wanted no bail; they were frightened if he got out. The bail was a million and a half. My ex-husband couldn't raise it."