'I shot Dad DEAD'
Tuesday 30th June 2009
Clinging to the phone, I couldn't stop shaking. It was January 2009, and I'd been waiting for this call for 18 years. 'You've been pardoned,' my lawyer told me. 'You're a free woman.' I was 36 and I'd spent half my life behind bars, serving a life sentence. My crime? The worst you could commit. I killed my own father.
My story begins when I was 8. My dad, Tom Lannert, then 31, and I would often play together in the basement of our house in Alhambra, Illinois, while my mum, Deb, 29, and 6-year-old sister, Christy, watched telly upstairs. 'Let's play touch tongues,' Dad would say. It was a game where we'd run at each other, touch tongues and pull away, squealing. It was innocent. Until… 'Let's play it differently,' Dad suggested one day. He taught me how to French kiss.
The abuse quickly got worse. Pulling down his pants, he'd rub cream on himself and tell me to lick it off. 'All daughters love their daddies this way,' he'd say. I believed him. In my eyes, Dad was Superman. Every night, Christy and I would wait at the window for him to get home from work as a business consultant. He'd bring us heart-shaped sweets. But when Dad drank, he turned into a stranger. I was 9 when he raped me for the first time. As he pinned me against our wood-burning stove, I burned my hand and passed out. Coming round in agony, I finally realised what Dad was doing was wrong. 'Tell Mum and she'll hate you,' he warned. So I learned to live with the rapes, which happened every few days. My only hope was Mum. But when I was 13, she divorced Dad and moved 1,200 miles away. I stayed with Dad, and Christy moved between relatives. Looking back, I'm not sure how I survived.
Finally, when I was 17, I moved in with Mum. But three months later, I heard Christy, 15, had moved in with Dad. 'Please come home' she begged on the phone. Was he abusing her too? I had to protect her. I had no choice but to go back, and when I did, the attacks started again. But when I turned 18, I started to rebel. I'm an adult now, I thought. I'll take Christy and leave. I went out and bought a puppy, something Dad had always banned, and called her Caitlyn. But on the afternoon of 3 July 1990, Caitlyn weed indoors and Dad flipped. 'Get rid of that dog!' he roared. 'Fine!' I yelled. 'But I'm leaving with Christy.' Dad just laughed. 'She's your replacement,' he sneered, and dragged her into his room. 'No!' I yelled, banging on the locked door. As I heard her screams, I sank to the floor, sobbing. 'This is never going to end,' I despaired. 'Never.'
When Christy came out of the room, I saw the familiar blank look in her eyes and hugged her. 'Let's go,' I said. I didn't have a plan. I just knew we had to go as far away as possible. It was only later, when we checked into a hotel, that I realised we'd left without any clothes or toiletries, and what about Caitlyn?
It was 4am when we crept in through the basement window, but while I was looking for Caitlyn, I heard voices. Had Christy disturbed Dad? I took his rifle and crept up the stairs. He was lying on the settee, his eyes closed. His hair was greasy, and beer cans littered the floor. Vile pig. A wave of repulsion swept over me as I thought of what he'd done to Christy, of all the years he'd hurt me. A voice in my head was telling me to get Christy and go. But another voice was shouting louder… 'I hate you. I hate you.'
Without a second thought, I pointed the gun at Dad, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. His scream made me drop the gun. Blood poured from his shoulder. 'Call an ambulance!' he yelled. But Dad had hidden the phones. 'Where did you put them?' I screamed. He didn't answer. Instead, he spat: 'You whores. I'll make you pay.' I had no doubt that he would make us pay. At that moment, it felt like it was him or us. I aimed the gun again, closed my eyes and fired. Then I ran out to the car.
We drove to the hotel in silence, then curled up in bed in shock. The next morning, I dropped the gun off at a friend's house, Ron Barrett, 26. 'I-I shot Dad,' I said. 'I'm so sorry,' he replied, hugging me. Then we called at Dad's neighbour. 'I think there's been a break-in at Dad's,' I said innocently. The police searched the house, then drove Christy and I to the station for questioning. 'Did your dad ever hit you?' an officer asked. 'No,' I replied, but my emotions welled up and suddenly, I was sobbing. I described the years of abuse, how I'd snapped. 'You shot him in the head,' she said. 'He's dead.'
Despite everything, I cried for him. That night, locked in my cell, though, I slept soundly for the first time in years. But both Christy and I would pay. In 1991, aged 17, she pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit murder and got five years in jail. She was far from guilty, but if it had gone to trial, she could have faced a much longer sentence. Mum visited monthly, but we didn't talk about the abuse or Dad. Shortly before my case came to court, though, she blurted: 'Why did you do it?' I told her all the details. 'I'm so sorry I wasn't there,' she wept.
In December 1992, it was my turn in court. I'd been charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Due to Missouri law, the abuse couldn't be brought up, and the prosecution made out I was a cold, calculating murderer who killed Dad for his £66,000 inheritance. I got life, with no possibility of parole. I could have let the sentence crush me. Instead, I threw myself into prison life. I worked as a dog trainer for the disabled, became an aerobics teacher and helped abused girls. Christy and I wrote to each other and when she was released after two-and-a-half years, she came to visit. 'We'll get you out,' she and Mum promised. I tried to be hopeful, but over the years, five appeals were rejected. Until that phone call. 'We got clemency,' my attorney said. I was free!
I'm just so grateful to have this second chance. Everyone deserves that. Maybe even Dad. That's why, after my release, I went and laid a white rose on his grave. 'I'm sorry,' I whispered. I've set up a help group called Healing Sisters. I'm determined to make a difference in the lives of women like me. This Father's Day, I'm going to go back to the cemetery. Perhaps now I'll be able to find it in my heart to forgive him.
Stacey has not been paid for her story. Instead we are making a donation to Champ Dogs, which provides dogs for people with disabilities and takes them into jails for prisoners to help train