Original subtitles

I'll go ahead and see. OK.

Whenever you guys are ready.

Are you feeling nervous?

I'll get through it. There's only like a

few people have told my story

just because I'm embarrassed

and I shouldn't feel that way,

but I do.

I'm embarrassed it was my dad, my dad

that did it. I just don't want

anybody to know about it. I don't want

anybody to feel sorry for me. It's just

not something I want to tell.

It's just such a shocking thing

for people to wrap their mind around when

you tell them that and they're just like,

oh my gosh, in disbelief. As

an Indiana death row inmate is just hours

away from execution, Matthew Eric

Rinkles is set to die by lethal injection

early tomorrow morning. He did

deserve it. He did what he did,

and that's what had to

happen. But as mad as I

was, he was still my

dad. I

believe people can become evil.

The way you choose to live your life and

make decisions, I think, can make someone

become evil.

But I never thought that

that would happen like it did.

This is a photo of myself and my mom and

my dad and Seth.

It does look like we're just the normal,

average kind of family.

Even looking at this, she wouldn't have

thought anything bad's going on in that

family. There's

pictures on the refrigerator that we had

colored, but there was

actually chaos and

abuse going on.

Actually,kind of sad looking at this

because it's not really real.

I look at myself right here in this

picture, and I look at my eyes, and it

looks like I

put on a smile for someone else, but it

looks like sad eyes

there, that I always

faked everything outside of

home,

that everything was okay.

But it wasn't.

He had just a nasty kind of sense

of humor sometimes.

I had a pet rabbit, and I would sit her

right next to me.

And the rabbit would just stay there.

And she was just so-- she was so soft.

She was sweet.

So, what's for dinner?

Sometimes he would joke and be like, oh,

I wonder what that bunny would taste

like. He just thought it was the funniest

thing. If it ever comes up missing,

you'll know what happened.

Sweetie, he's only joking.

I was in the house and he called me out.

Hey, honey, come out here. See what I got

for you.

It was rabbits he had killed that day.

He had the rabbit's head on a stick

stuck in the ground. I

was shocked and surprised. I remember

yelling out Dad and he just laughed

about it and thought it was just so

funny. Don't be

such a wuss, you know?Don't be so

sensitive. It's just a joke.

But he knew how I was about I didn't want

to kill any bunnies. I didn't think that

was funny. He just had a sick sense

of humor.

My dad had a business. It was called

Carbtoon, a mechanic, a little

shop in his garage. And he

would work on vehicles out there.

He could tear apart anything and put it

back together. And that's what he

specialized in, was taking apart

carburetors. And he was really good at

his job. He'd be

out in the garage and sometimes coming

home from school. I'd go and say, Hi,

Dad, I'm home. Hey, Dad.

Hey, honey. How was school today?

It was good. Yeah?And he

would ask me to come out and take phone

calls andWrite down, you know,

appointments. And he would ask me to

help him pump brakes.

OK. When I get into the driver's seat,

he'd be like, OK, when I tell you, I want

you to pump the brakes. And then when I

say pump the brakes, you pump the brakes,

OK?OKTeamwork.

And I got pretty good at that.

But at the same time, I was nervous

because he had a short temper.

OK, pump the brakes.

Lindsay, pump the brakes. I am. I can't.

Lindsay. I said pump the brakes. He would

yell and say, are you holding the brakes?

Are you holding it all the way down?Did I

say pump the brakes?Did I?What did I say?

Sorry. Please don't do

that. He'd like to throw stuff and that

would scare me. You can't listen.

I'm sorry. I swear to God, Lindsay.

I swear to God.

I didn't want him to get mad at me.

Honey, I'm sorry.

There was some times where I felt there

was more of a normalcy about him. He had

a little bit more patience. Sweetie,

don't cry. Daddy, you know I didn't mean

to. That a girl. All right.

But he was unpredictable.

One minute, he was, you know,

sweet. And then the next minute, wow,

where did that come from?He just-- flip

of a switch.

Seth was so full of life, but

Seth,was just a kid and

rambunctious. And that would

really aggravate my dad.

Seth! I told you not to lie

to me. What did I say about lying,

huhSeth was a fibber. Did you clean

your room?Oh, yeah, I cleaned my room.

His room wasn't clean. You said, Daddy, I

cleaned my room. You didn't clean a room!

That would set my dad off. Look at this!

Blocks, toys, everywhere. Does this look

clean to you?HuhI can remember

standing at my door. I'll clean up later.

You're going to clean it up now.

And he just took his belt off, and he

just started whipping him. And it's like

he wasn't stopping.

He was crying and screaming. It was

horrible.

I knew there was no helping him.

And I was so scared that I was gonna be

next, and he actually came to the door

and and looked at me and said, Do you

want some of this?

You always got to argue.

He would just bring a gun out and say, I

should kill you right now. Give me one

reason not to use this. If you ever

leave, you know, this is what you're

going to get. Now I don't hear you

yapping. And I remember it just got out

of hand before he evenrealized

what he was doing. Dad.

It's a picture of my mom and dad. And

this is...

when they got married.

My dad was with some friends in a pool

hall, and my mom had come in

And my dad, I

guess, was asking around, who's that

girl, that redheaded girl?And

they're like, oh, that's Debbie.

He said that she's so pretty, he couldn't

get over that when she walked into that

pool hall. Nobody ever

drew his attention like she did

something about that girl.

They do look happy.

I believe that they loved each other, but

I I believe over time,

the bad things overtook the good things.

And you would never know

behind this what was actually going on.

They were two bombs just ready to go off

at any time.

My mom was the bill payer, and

he had no concept of money. He would blow

money.

And that caused a lot of-- a lot of

problems. Eric, what are you doing?

Just getting all spending money. She

said, Why don't you go get a real job?He

didn't like to be questioned, and he

didn't like people totell him

what to do. He would tell

her to just shut up. You're

acting like a bitch. It would

just piss her off even more.

My mom would slap him a lot

on the head, face.

And he just had

enough, and he'd just turn around and just

A lot

of times the fighting was at night.

Laying in bed, you could hear stomping

around, yelling,

cursing, and I just laid there,

just thinking, were they going to hurt

each other?Ohh Can

they just stop fighting?Why do they

have to fight?I just wanted it to

stop. Stop

Knock it off. Yeah

They were fighting. I could hear them.

And I wasn't asleep, but I was

pretending to be.

Lindsay, wake up. I want

you downstairs now.

He would say, Kids, come look. I

want you to see how your mom is acting

right now. I said, No, I don't want

to. And he'd say, Get in here now.

And so we would go in there,

and we'd sit down on the couch, and

we'd have to sit and watch.

We were little onlookers, quiet little

onlookers. She would hit him, and then

they'd start hitting each other.

Don't you ever touch me

again. And I was scared somebody was

going to get hurt really bad.

Sometimes he was angry. And

sometimes he was lunatic

angry. And then it led to something

more. Stop cutting me

off. I can remember a few times where

they were fighting. And he's like, you're

going to make me go and get my

gun, you bitch.

Just give me one reason, one

reason to use this, I swear.

He would wave it around just to scare my

mom. Don't make me have to use this,

Debbie. And I was so scared,

like he was going to kill her. And I'm

like, please, Dad, don't put the gun

away. Dad, please

put it away. And he's like, oh,

shut up. And I'm not going to doanything.

I was just kind of scared and didn't know

what to say and what I should and should

not say, so I didn't. I

didn't talk about it.

My dad's philosophy was you don't call

the cops for anything. You deal with the

problem yourself, and

especially family. Family doesn't call

cops. other family,

something you don't do.

I never really, I guess, thought,

is, you know, other people different or

do they do what my parents do?

But we're just scared,

constantly living on edge.

It was getting out of hand.

When I came down, my dad had a gun on

her, so I knew it was bad.

She was sitting on a stool.

She was kind of, like, in the corner of

the wall. And the look in his eye

was like, I just want to kill somebody.

Kind of crazy look. And you

knew that he was-- he was,

very angry.

He put the gun to her head.

My dad told her, sit there and

think about what you have done. And if

you move, I'm going to kill you.

My dad told her,Sit there and

don't move.

We just sat there and just

waited.

It was very quiet.

Nobody was saying anything.

Time just dragged on,

and she just sat there

for hours. He was just so

angry. He told my mom that if she

ever left, that he would-- he would kill

her. I

believed he was capable of killing her.

I thought he was crazy. And I I believe

that she believed that. And I think

that's a lot of reason why we stayed.

Well, when you're screaming at me and

acting like a lunatic... The

fighting got worse. They were up

more at night. He always had a

gun. If he didn't carry it on him, he

would have one in their bedroom. He had

one under the couch.

I didn't understand why he

acted the way he did,

but he wasn't. his self anymore.

He just got so out of control, so

fast, he didn't know how to go

back. He was too far gone,

and he was just on this road to

destruction.

I had spent the night at a friend's

house. The next morning, when we got home,

The house was ransacked.

I can remember going into my room, and he

had completely took apart my closet.

There was just stuff everywhere.

Looking for something?I don't know what

you're talking about. And

he showed me this little pocket

knife, and he said, I found this in your

closet. And your mom was hiding it there,

because she was going to kill me with it.

I know what you and your mom are

planning. He was so, like,

paranoid, out of his mind,

crazy. What else are

you hiding?And he said, and you're going

to stay in here, and you're going to

clean all this up, and and you're not

going to come out until it's clean. And I

said, no. And he

didn't like it one bit.

What did you just say to me?And he said

you're a bitch, just like your mom.

And that freaked me out. out. I felt like

he saw my mom-- you know, my mom in me,

the characteristics of my mom, and he was

just so angry with her. What was he

capable of doing to me?

You were just like your mother.

And I was so scared.

My dad laid down on the couch

to take a nap. And I

called my mom's friend and said, please

come pick us up.

He's saying all these awful things, and

I don't know what he's going to do.

Please. I was like pleading with her,

please come get us. Please come

get us right now.

And we went into hiding.

After so many years of fighting and

arguing, shehad finally had

enough. We had stayed at

my Aunt Jenny's house.

Debbie, I brought you some extra towels.

OK. Thank you. And I want you to know

that you can stay here for as long as you

need to. OK. I'm so sorry to put you out

like this. It's OK. We

had nothing. One set of

clothes, and I just wondered

when we were going to go home, if we were

going to go home. No. Where are we going

to live?I just want you all to be

comfortable here, all right?Thanks. I

don't want you to make yourself at home.

What happens from here?

Every day, you wondered what was going

to happen the next day. All right.

I was hoping that

when we left, that it

was going to be over.

He was so crazed

to find us. That's what

he kept telling everyone. I've got to

find my kids. I need to know where my

kids were. It was like an obsession for

him. He had to find

us. He wasn't quite

sure where we were, but I know that

he suspected the places where we couldbe.

There was always tension wherever we

were. If he finds us, what's going to

happen?Threats were being

made everywhere.

So we were scared.

Somebody had called. and said that he

might have gotten tipped off to possibly

where we were. Mom?

All right, let's get your coat on. Mom!

What's going on?And he was looking

for us. Your father's on his way here.

Mom, what if he sees us through thewindow?

And I told everybody to get on the floor.

I said, crawl. I said, do not stand up.

Crawl on the floor.

And I can remember everybody going out

the back door. It was dark.

I was deathly afraid. I was praying,

please, don't let him find us.

We just had to leave. And

at that time, you weren't worried about

things. You were just worried about your

life.

Lindsey, how about you go join your

brother upstairs?

We were staying at my aunt and uncle's.

She didn't really have anywhere else to

go, and that was her brother.

I'm just glad to see you're doing okay.

All right, you're always welcome here.

So that's why we went there.

Going into hiding and

having to look over our shoulder all the

time just sent me into a bigger

paranoia than ever,

and just the anxiety of

thinking, I wonder where he's at.

But any little thing, any

noise,horns. And if we were

outside, I was constantly watching,

you know, to see if anybody was coming up

the road. And I was just

waiting, you know, to gather everybody if

he were to come and go run into the

house. Because I was thinking,

he-- he will try to kill us.

My mom had got a restraining order. And I

can remember one morning early, we were

all in bed. And we hear us

honking. He was just laying on the horn.

And we look out, and his his truck

is in the front yard.

And I'm like, oh, no. He's here.

We were asleep,

and all of a sudden, we just heard

a horn, and it was constant.

And we all jumped up in a panic,

and and we looked outside,

and there my dad was.

in the truck and on the front lawn,

just honking and honking.

I was just so startled. Everyone was

peeking out and keeping an eye on him.

We didn't know what he was going to

do. He was very unpredictable. And he

always had a gun on him. That's

what was so scary.

I don't doubt that he was sitting out

there laughing, because that's just the

type of person that he was.

And he just drove off.

He wanted us to know we weren't fooling

him. He knew exactly

what was going on where we were at.

And that was why you were always in fear,

because he wanted you to be on your toes

at all times. He didn't want you to

forget who he was.

It's a predator-prey kind of thing.

I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere.

I felt there was no going back.

Things had just escalated and just got

worse and worse. And I didn't feel like

anything was going to get better.

I didn't really know what was going to

happen.

I remember one night laying in bed, and

I was just thinking, you know, if he

would just disappear or just go away and

he'd never come back, it

would be so much more peaceful.

It was just a loud boo.

And I woke up in a panic.

It's kind of when you wake up out of a

deep sleep and you have a bad dream or

something, you're like...

Something bad was happening.

And I can remember my mom, she had a

gun. And I never had seen her have

a gun before. I

knew right then something was wrong.

She went to the door.

And my dad was coming down the hall.

And he has camouflage paint on his face.

He's dressed in camouflage clothes from

head to toe. And I'd

never seen that look in his

eyes that day. It's

like a lunatic crazed.

She shot him with that

little gun she had.

He was shocked. And I think he

said, Debbie, you shot me.

And here I am, kind of just

standing in the background.

It was like an outside-of-body

experience,

seeing all that. But I do

remember saying, Please

don't shoot Mom, because he...

He was mad.

He told me to shut up. And

then he shot her.

And then she fell.

I said, I'm calling the cops. I'm calling

the police.

I went to the living room, and the phone

was already off. No dial tone,

nothing.

Hello?HelloHe

apparently had cut the phone lines before

he entered the house. I saw

my dad start running out the back door,

and Seth was running after him.

I don't know where he went. And all I

could think about was getting out of

there and calling the

police.

I could see him laying on the floor.

He was laying face down,

and I knew at that point, I I

realized he was dead.

So I run out the front door,

and my aunt's laying there,

completely sprawled out, and she's face

down.

And I was in such a panic, I just took

off to the neighbor.

I had no idea where he went. He could

have been right outside the door. Nobody

knew. I was just hoping

somebody would get there fast.

And I can remember thinking the whole

time, Please, my mom's alive.

This is a cute photo, me and my mom.

She was a good mom, and she was a hard

worker, and she wanted the best for us.

I miss her smile. She's very pretty.

She was smart.

And I just miss mom, you know,

having a mom. That's what I miss most.

This is myUncle Tony and my Aunt

Natalie. And it's just sad

looking at these because they were so

young. They were in their late 20s,

and they had so much more life to live.

They were just trying to help.

He did what he did, and

that's what had to happen.

But he blamed me for getting the death

penalty. It was my testimony that

put him where he was, and it was my

fault. He did

deserve it. He

told me at one point, I'm sorry for

killing your mom, but I'm not sorry for

killing your aunt and your uncle, because

they manipulated this whole situation,

and they deserved what they got.

I was really hesitant to go, because I

hadn't seen him in so long. Fear set in.

And I thought, this is his chance.

He could just kill me.

And he knows he's going to die, so what

has he got to lose?I could see

him in a cell, and he just looked

angry and agitated. I

don't know what he's going to do when I

get into this cell with him.

Any time he could just snap my neck and

nobody could get in here fast enough to

get him off of me, I would be dead.

My dad was on death row. I

knew the end was near. Tonight, the

debate is heating up, as an Indiana death

row inmate is just hours away from

execution. Matthew Eric Rinkles is set to

die by lethal injection early tomorrow

morning. At that point, I really didn't

have a relationship with him, and I

hadn't really, I hadn't seen him in

years. Rinkles killed his estranged

wife and two of her relatives in

Evansville back in 1994. Rinkles is not

expected to make any last minute appeals.

I thought, should I go?Should I not go?

I don't want to have any regrets. After

he's gone, he's gone. I can't be like,

well, I wish I would have said this. I

wish I would have asked him this.

But I wanted to come to peace with

it. I felt like I needed a reaction from

him. I wanted to know if he

ever changed his mind about being sorry,

so I felt like I needed to go.

I am

glad

that I went because what I was

expecting. And what I saw was

two different things. He wasn't

that person that I knew him to be.

His demeanor and his attitude was

different. He still had that arrogantness

about him, umm

but he seemed calmer. I was

shocked.

He actually said, Look, I'm

sorry for what I did.

Maybe this man has changed.

I felt like he had

some sort of remorse

about it. And he did feel bad.

He told me he was suffering. Throughout

the years, he said that my mom

would come to haunt him in his dreams at

night. And that was enough for me.

That's what I wanted to hear.

I just want you kids to remember this,

where a family may be at when I'm gone.

Here.

I didn't stay for the execution. I left.

There's no way I could have endured that.

It was hard to say goodbye.

He said he loved me and he was proud of

me. And that--

that made me very emotional.

I felt like I was losing my dad all over

again. As mad as

I was, he was still my

dad. I'm sure there's a lot of

people that question, have question, how

could she forgive him?

It doesn't really bother me because I

know what I know and I feel what I feel.

I've made peace with that and got

my closure. When I walked out of that

prison, I didn't look back. I just kept

going. It's all of us. Today comes a new

day for everybody on us, all of us, all

three of us. I

don't even really think about about him

at all. I

haven't questioned if he's in heaven or

hell. I just know he's gone.

I'm fearful. I live in fear.

I am constantly living fear every day. I

think something bad's gonna happen,

especially to my husband or my kids.

When I'm home alone in the daytime, I

flip open a blind, and I'm

constantly watching outside all

day. Like, I want to know what

cars are driving down the road.

There's some nights where I'm laying in

bed and I hear a noise, then that starts

the whole paranoia thing. Is there

somebody outside?Does somebody want to

get in?What will I do?Where will I

hide?It could be something different

every day. And I feel it's just God's way

of saying, not everything in life is

going to be great. There are reasons

why you go through these struggles. It's

a learning process. Every

day is a struggle, and I just try to be

strong.

I just want to let people know that

regardless of what you you go through,

you can make a better life for yourself.

There's always hope for a better

future. What happens to you doesn't

define you unless you want it to.

I blame my dad for the life

that I had to live,

butLooking at it now, if I

wasn't where I am today, I

wouldn't have met my husband and had my

kids. So I'm glad

I'm at where I'm at today.