Ep 28 | Larry Dinwiddie Transcript

Ep 28 | Larry Dinwiddie 

Transcript

 Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Yeah. I never hit her the whole time. We were married until that night. I never hit her. Why didn't you leave? 'cause I loved her. She was very jealous. Very jealous. I had to quit my band. I had to sell my Harley. I had to sell my drums. It's just like something took over my body. It wasn't me. I was just, my heart was racing real fast. My hands are shaking. My whole body's shaking. The thing was that, uh, I didn't know what to do with it and, uh, I really didn't know.

You are now listening to the podcast Voices of a Killer. I'm bringing you the stories from the perspective of the people that have taken the life of another human and their current situation thereafter in prison. You will see that although these are the folks that we have been programmed to hate, they all have something in common. They are all humans like us that admit that they made a mistake. Will you forgive them or will you condemn them? They are currently serving time for their murders and they give us an inside glimpse of what took place when they killed and their feelings on the matter now. Here are the voices of those who have killed.

Welcome back to another episode of Voices of a Killer. Today, we're talking to 60 year old Larry Dinwiddie a Missouri man who is currently serving 20 years for murder. In just a few moments, you'll hear from Larry himself about how, in 2015, he brutally murdered his wife of 26 years. Larry's story is intriguing for a couple of reasons.

Killers are usually quick to dispose of a victim. They might bury the dead body or scatter what remains. But what marks Larry's case apart is his odd choice to hide his wife's body close by for the four years he walked free. Additionally, as we scratch the surface of this case, it becomes impossible to separate this murder from the domestic abuse that was constant in their marriage.

What drove Larry's actions that night? And in the four years that followed, did this onslaught of abuse push Larry to his breaking point? And what emotional cost has Larry faced after killing the woman he loved? All this and more after we speak to Larry Dinwiddie on another intriguing episode of Voices of a Killer.

So Larry, you're from Marshfield, is that where you grew up? No, I grew up just south of Chicago. Okay, how long did you live in Illinois? Oh, until I was about 15. How would you describe your childhood growing up? Was it pretty rough? Was it, how was it? Uh, no, it was just average. I played sports and stuff like that. I had a ton of kids around in the neighborhood. Growing up, did your mother and father stay together? Is there, like, drugs or alcohol involved? Oh yeah, yeah. No, none whatsoever. Uh, my dad was pretty sick. He got, uh, he had a couple heart attacks and then, uh, retired from Fisher Body up there and then, uh, moved to Missouri and, uh, he had open heart surgery and they found him full of cancer that, uh, so I was a sophomore in high school when my dad passed away. My mom died about 12 years ago.

Yeah. So Larry, take me back to how'd you meet your wife? Tell me about that. Actually, um, I played in a band. I played drums in a band. And when I came in that night and, uh, from playing, it was probably late. It was probably like one o'clock in the morning. And my cousin called me and said, Hey, there's a girl over here that saw you guys play last week and she wants to meet you. And i go man and I didn't really want to go. And she said, yeah, she's begging you to come over. He said, you come over, you're going to get laid. I said, okay, I'm on my way. Yeah, that's how I met her. Gotcha. So whenever y'all met that night, y'all pretty much locked it in for good? Not until the next night. Yeah. So, how long after you met her, the first day you met her, did you actually get married? Um, golly, three months. Wow. So that was pretty quick work. You, you fell in love with her? It was, yeah. Those three months between meeting her and getting married.

Did you ever have any big fights with her yet? Not really. No, she wasn't, she was an abusive alcoholic, but back then to drink, it wasn't all that bad. She drank, but she didn't get that bad. It just got worse over the years. After you got married. Did you guys have kids together? Uh, yeah. What year did y'all get married? 1989. How many kids did you have? Uh, she had one prior, uh, he was like, uh, oh, four months old whenever we met. Yeah. But, uh, that was Curtis and I raised him my own. And then, uh, we had, uh, another daughter, uh, Lacrecia, and then we had a son of twins, a boy and a girl. Yeah, that was it.

People love a good love story. Were suckers for the happy Hollywood ending. And Larry's story of falling in love is something we might expect from a movie by his forties. Larry was a drummer in a local rock band, a bachelor, living carefree, and playing regular late night gigs. All that changed when Larry was set up with the woman who would become his wife.

She'd been eyeing him out on stage, and after a whirlwind romance, they ended up tying the knot after just three short months. Early on, it seemed exciting and promising, and the addition of kids capped off the picture of a happy family. Usually, that's where the typical love story ends. Not so for Larry.

Things had moved too fast for him to truly know the woman he had married. It didn't take long for Larry to discover a darker side of his wife's character.

You kind of have, uh, a unique situation where you ended up killing your wife, but You've had some abuse that was, was done to you, and there's, uh, is there a record of that abuse that your wife did to you? Yeah, yeah, I never hit her. The whole time we were married until that night, I never hit her. Not one time. Yeah. Did you have any issues at this time with drugs or alcohol? Yeah, I did. I always did drugs. Drank and did drugs. But I wasn't like an abusive person or anything like that back then. Yeah. Uh, not at all. I just partied some. It wasn't like crazy. What was alcohol her drug of choice? Yeah, my wife, yeah. She didn't like drugs but she liked alcohol. During the course of being married together did you ever have to call the cops on her for abusing you? Oh no I never did. I never did. The neighbors said, you know, would hear us you know and the cops called a couple times.

What would happen when the cops came over? Uh, they just tell us to, you know, if they come back, we're gonna go to jail, you know. Yeah. We just, you know, they would, you know, usually settle it down, you know. It would just be verbal, me and her. Did you ever have any instances where your wife got physical with you with a weapon or her fist or anything like that? Oh yeah, yeah. Take me back to the first time that she actually got physical with you. Just go through that scenario. Oh, I don't know if I can remember the first time. Or, or one, or one time that's memorable except for the, the main event.

Okay, um, she, she would get to the point where, uh, she would get drunk, but I'm working three jobs trying to support kids, and, uh, she would get drunk because she'd want somebody to talk to her. She'd come in there and wake me up during the middle of the night, and, uh, I'd be like, hey, I gotta sleep, I gotta get up in a couple hours, I've only had two hours sleep, then she'd get mad, you better get up, and, uh, you know, and she's hitting me then and stuff like that. But, uh, as far as a weapon, uh, the only time she ever hit me with a weapon was when she hit me with a hammer, threw it at me, hit me in the face. Yeah. Whenever she would get abusive with you, was there any times that you said, you know what, this is not healthy, it's, it's not going to go away, it's only going to get worse, or stay the same? Did you ever think this is the time I need to go ahead and get out of the situation? Oh yeah, yeah and she told me that if I ever left her she would track me down and kill me. Did you, you believe her? Probably. Yeah, she's the one that asked me to marry her.

Whenever it comes to domestic violence, even just that word domestic violence, we always think a woman is getting the violence against them. A lot of times when we hear these stories, and these women are getting all this abuse, one of the things people say constantly, it's always something they say, and I even say it is, leave them. Why don't you just leave? Quit, quit. And there's reasons behind why people can't leave. My question to you is, now on the other end of the spectrum, it's the guy getting the abuse. Why didn't you leave? Yeah. 'cause I loved her. I always thought that maybe she would quit. I talked to her the next day when she's sober, and, uh, it would be like, okay, sorry about that.

It ain't gonna happen again. You know, it wasn't very often that it happened. Not of Oh, good. How many years would it be, got here in in 89, so up until 19, uh, and it, the, the vi, the physical part may have happened, I'd say probably less than 10 times. It was the mental, the mental abuse was the main thing. She was very jealous, very jealous. I had to quit my band. I had to sell my Harley. I had to sell the drums just, you know, for her. Cause I'd take off. She always had to know where I was at. So again, I couldn't play in a rock band anymore cause women were staring at me and stuff like that. Yeah, it was crazy. So she's highly insecure? Oh yeah, yeah.

So your answer about not leaving is pretty common answer for what women give is a man apologizes the next day. They're there for a reason, right? They, they, you love each other. That's why you're there in the first place. So you want things to get better, but unfortunately, they just don't.

A year in Larry's marriage turned rocky when his wife became emotionally abusive. We often think of abuse as physical, and occasionally Larry's wife did lash out violently, but emotional abuse can be even more debilitating. When she drank, Larry's wife became cruel, manipulative, and controlling to her husband, often harassing and demeaning him. She cut him off from the hobbies he enjoyed and accused him of infidelity.

Day in, day out, Larry suffered torment from his wife, which wore down his sense of safety and his self esteem. In matters of domestic abuse, society usually portrays men as the perpetrators, not the victims. Maybe because of physical strength, we're quick to attribute violence to men. But Larry's story sheds light on the fact that women abuse men too.

In fact, his marriage actually fits a textbook pattern we see in abusive relationships. Despite years of relentless bullying, Larry still loved his wife. He would become remorseful and promise to change after an abusive episode, which gave Larry hope to cling to, and a reason to stay. Unfortunately, it's this cycle of abuse that traps victims in their broken relationships far, far too long. And when left to fester, Larry's abusive situation pushed him to make one impulsive decision that changed his life.

So, there's one instance, one fight where things really changed your life forever. You, uh, had some abuse, uh, against you and you snapped. What I want to know is, before that actual event, that day, Were things already escalating? Was there a period of time where things were just really at a bad time or, or what, tell me about that day. Yeah. Uh, it wasn't that bad that day until, uh, she found out that, uh, I had bought a bunch of drugs and spent our house payment yeah, that was my stupid and, uh, she, I finally broke down and told her about it, and she blew up, and, uh, we were fightin' and fightin' arguing, I think she might have slapped me or something like that.

Uh, I went to bed. I tried to go to bed, because I had to work the next day, and she goes, No, you're not going to bed. I told her to leave me alone, and I went over to shut the door, and she come down the hallway with a hammer, and I told her to go away, and she turned around, and, or I turned around, and by that time, the hammer, she threw the hammer and hit me in the head, and broke my nose, and cut my eyelid, where it was hanging off the side and everything, and that's whenever I, I just lost it.

I picked up the hammer, and I had no control. It was just like something took over my body. It wasn't me that did that. Whenever you picked up that hammer and you were in the process of losing control, what was she doing in that instant right there? Was she still yelling at you or was she in the shock that she just hit you or what?

No, she, she went back into the living room, just that took place in the bedroom, and she turned around and went back into the living room, and I just, I just went right at her. Did you strike her from behind? Yeah. The first blow, would you say you put all your might into it? Uh, yeah, I hit her hard enough to where the hammer came off the, uh, the, uh, wooden part of the hammer, the head did. And, uh, but I don't know. It was just an old hammer. Did the hammer go into her head or did it, like, crack her skull? It cracked the skull, yeah. Did she fall down immediately? Yeah. And you said, did the hammer break away from the wood completely or it just broke it a little bit? It came off a bit. And I picked it up.

I got the hammer part and just continued hitting her head with it. In the palm of your hand, the metal part? Yeah. Was she laying flat on her face when you were hitting her? No, she was on her back. Was she able to look at you while you were doing that? Yeah. Was she trying to block it with her hands? Yeah, yeah. What was she saying while you were swinging that at her?

The only word that she said was Larry. That's the last word she ever said. Were you hitting her in her face or the forehead or just anywhere in the head? In the forehead, yeah. Did you straddle her body while you were doing this? Yeah, yep, I did. What were you thinking as you were hitting her each swing? I wasn't thinking anything. I didn't even think anything until it was over, and then I freaked I didn't know what to do. While you're and then I called the cops.

Yeah, , but while you were hitting her, at what point did she finally stop fighting back, and how long after that did you continue to hit her? Oh, uh, No, after, uh, she quit fighting back, uh, I, I finally grabbed the hammer and, uh, dropped the hammer. And, uh, after I hit her several times, and there was blood coming out of her head. And she wasn't quite dead yet, that's when she said, Larry. And I grabbed her by the throat with both hands and proceeded to choke her the rest of the way out. You're still straddling her when you're doing this? Yeah. While you're choking her, is she looking at you? No, her eyes already had just went back. While you're choking her, trying to finish her off, is it, at this point in the time when you're choking her, is it more, I've gone this far, let me finish, or are you just still into the rage? I didn't even, I wasn't thinking of anything. I had no thought process happening at all right then.

Years of abuse reached a breaking point one night at Larry's home. As Larry tells it, the catalyst was one unwise decision. Larry had spent the family's house payment on drugs and this had provoked an explosive argument between him and his wife. When Larry withdrew to the bedroom, the situation spiraled out of control. His wife flung a hammer into his face, breaking his nose and cutting his eyelid open.

At this point, something snapped in Larry. This was the man who had put up with years of his wife's control and manipulation. The anger he had pent up over his marriage erupted at this moment, blinding Larry of his rational thinking. He tackled his wife, striking her repeatedly with the hammer to the point that the handle broke.

As he choked her to death. Larry describes being possessed by a wild unthinking anger. The events he recalls are chaotic and hazy, but he remembers surprising clarity that her last word was Larry. With time, the fog of rage lifted and Larry was left to confront the reality on what he had done.

And once you did finish killing her. Did you stay straddled on top of her for a time thinking and just sitting there on her or did you immediately get off of her? I think I got right off of her,I started thinking what I was going to do next. Was she moving around like nerves, doing stuff, or was she completely? No, no, she was, she was limp. She had a, uh, I wish I would've went to my papers before calling you back up. After, uh, being frozen in a freezer for, uh, what? How many years? Um, she still had a, a lot, a very high blood alcohol content.

After you realized what you had done and you stand up, what were some of the things that you started to think about what you should do? One of those that you ended up choosing was putting her in a freezer, but I'm sure that there were other, other scenarios. What were they? Well, I thought about calling the police and I'm like, no, I can't do that. I'll go to jail. Man I don't want to go to jail. And, uh, I thought maybe I could call her off somewhere else. Throw her in my yard or something and I'm like, no, people see me and don't wonder why there's a big problem doing out here during the middle of the night with a shovel. And I thought she, I gotta do something for now. Prevent her from smelling. I'm go ahead and put her in my deep freeze out of the garage until I get an idea what to do. So that's pretty well that.

How long after you had killed her did you make that decision? About putting her in the freezer? Yeah. Within the hour. Okay. And where was this freezer? How far from the body was it? It was, this happened in my living room. You would have to go through the kitchen and out the door into the garage. That's where the freezer was at. And the time that you're thinking about what you're going to do, did you cover up with a blanket? Did you do anything to that? Yeah. Oh yeah. You tried to stop the blood going everywhere. It was a lot of blood. Yeah, quite a bit. While you're cleaning all this up, did you ever break down crying or, or just, oh yeah many a time yeah. And so did , you, y eah I hate what I did. What's her stats? Is she a tall, big? Oh, no, she's just average size. It's pretty easy to pick her up and put her in the freezer? Oh yeah. I was, yeah, I'm pretty strong.

So, once you put her in the freezer, I guess after that, it was just clean up mode? Yeah. Tell me about that. Did you, was it on carpet? Was there blood on carpet? Uh, yeah, it was on carpet, but as soon as, uh, I got a plastic bag under her head, everything like that, and, uh, uh, got some blankets and wrapped her up in blankets, and drug her across the kitchen floor. I drug her into the, into the garage and then put her in the freezer. Yeah. Was there blood dripping the whole way? No, because I had her covered up, everything kind of wrapped up. So Larry, uh, what was your night like that evening after you killed your wife. Did you? Oh my goodness. Uh, I was a paranoid. Uh, I was, I was, I just kept on doing drugs. What kind of drugs were you doing? Oh, acid. I was already on painkillers. What drugs did you go by to make her mad? Acid. A lot, a lot of acid. A lot of people that do acid, it's not something that causes them issues in life. It's just, it's recreational. In other words, it's not really habit forming. It's not. It's something you do that most people don't take it and then try to work. So how did that cause you issues the LSD? I was also doing, I was smoking crack and eating oxycotins. I the three of them together. Yeah. But yeah, I turned off my TV after I couldn't decide what to do with her. I was, I was scared, paranoid.

So, let me turned off real quick. Let me ask you something. Were you tripping on a, were you tripping on acid when you killed your wife? Yeah. Holy s***. How many hits did you take? A whole four when you hit a window pane. Wow. Yeah. That's, this kind of took a little bit of a turn. I didn't, let's back up a little bit because LSD is intriguing as it is.

What was that like, tripping on LSD and killing someone, if you can explain that, if it's possible? Oh. Man, like I said, I, I, I can't describe what I was going through whenever I did it. I have no idea. It was like I hit a blank and for, I don't know how long it took for the whole thing to happen. All I know is I remember the hammer part, I remember the hammer coming apart and I remember picking it up and hitting her and I remember strangling her. So, I was also on doing meth and it just, I was just heart racing real fast here, my hands were shaking, my whole body shaking. So, was this, people that know about LSD, it's either one of two or both which is visual or body high, was it visual? You'd have visual with it. I mean, with this particular, so you were, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around this, to be tripping on acid and kill somebody is just. Uh, cause it's already, I'm already fascinated by someone taking someone else's life, but doing it on LSD is, uh, it brings it to another level. So, how much LSD did you have left over when you killed her, and how much crack did you have left over? Oh golly, I had, I, honestly, I had probably about 40 hits of LSD left. I think I had 40 hits left. Yeah, because I bought 50. I think I had 40 or 41 right in here somewhere. And, uh, I didn't have, I had a little under an 8 ball of, of meth, but So, after you killed her, did you take some more acid and do some more drugs? Oh yeah, that's the, uh, and I got to the point of paranoia. I sat there for three days, yeah, on my couch, just rocking back and forth.

Did you ever go back to the freezer and check on her? Yeah. A lot. Yeah. Did you ever open the freezer and, and and really like stare at her for a long period of time? No, not for a long time. Did you ever talk to her after she passed away in the freezer? I don't remember. I really don't remember. But you would actually, but I don't, you would actually be tripping on acid and go back and open the freezer and check on things. Yeah, I had checked several times. I don't know if I was actually tripping then or not. Yeah. I was so paranoid. I had my windows full too. My shades full too .

Larry's story takes a bizarre turn with the revelation that he was tripping on acid as he murdered his wife. Murder alone can be hard to understand, now add that to the hallucinogenic effects of LSD and a cocktail of other drugs and the night becomes even more disturbing. Now LSD isn't typically associated with aggression or violent crime. In the way that a substance like heroin is, while it might have impaired his judgement and loosened his grip on reality, it's unlikely that the acid itself motivated Larry's actions. One thing's for sure, it definitely heightened the murder itself to a whole new level, as well as his paranoia on the days following his wife's death.

For three long days, Larry sat on the couch in a darkened room in a constant fear of being discovered. Grappling with what he had done, probably what heightened his paranoia, was his means of disposing of his wife's body. On the night of the murder, Larry couldn't come up with a safe way to eradicate the evidence, so he had to choose to hide her body in the freezer of his garage instead, and this is where she remained.

Many times Larry visited the freezer. The body served as a grim reminder that he had made a life changing mistake. After the break, we find out how Larry kept his daily life while his wife's body sat in the freezer.

So, Larry, now that the deed is done, you probably went through the cycle of going through these drugs and days pass, days turn into weeks. Give me a bit, a little bit of an insight, like a week or so later. What's, what's going on? Are you back to just trying to act like everything's okay or what? Yeah, I, I, I actually, I, I got rid of all the acid, flushed it down the toilet. Sure did. Wow. What made you do that? Just, it was just a thing of, I don't know, maybe it's a way of saying I'm sorry. I'm going to get rid of this stuff because I know it is what caused this. Sure. Yeah, something like that. I think it was just being so high, so long that I just had it done. So from then on, the only thing that I took was painkillers. That's it. Nothing else.

So, Larry, there's quite a bit of time that went by from the time that you killed her to the time that they actually busted you, and to my understanding, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but she was never reported missing for years? No, her family didn't have anything too with her she had driven her mom and dad had moved away. Actually, I believe that she's the reason her mom and dad both had a heart attack and died because she would just call them and yell at them and stuff like that. Did you have a job at the time? Yeah. So you were going right after this murder, you're basically going show back up to work? Yeah, yeah. The next four years you literally, nobody even knows your wife's dead. What's it like you go to work like, how's the wife Larry? You know, I worked third shift, so you know. Everybody knew that me and her didn't get along. My neighbors couldn't stand her because she was mean to them. She was hateful to them. So, you know, I've had several people ask, you know, where she's at. I said, I made her go back to Mississippi where she was from. That's what I told everyone. Yeah, so people work on it every once in a while, asking. Yeah, even my kids never even asked where she was at. Because they wouldn't have anything to do with her.

Did you stay close to checking the internet, watching the news, to see if anything ever came about on the news or anything? No, not really. Four years passed by, were there any Anything that felt like a close call to you or, or times where you Uh, yeah. One time, uh, I was driving and, uh, this girl comes running up to my car, said, will you please help me? My boyfriend's trying to get me. I said, get in the car real quick. So I got here in the car and she had me drive her way out to the country. Some people's house okay. I didn't think of anything of it that was done. Okay. I did a good deeded for someone about the next day. The day after that, I got the police showing up at my house, and this was like over a year after this had happened, with the, with the murder. So as soon as you saw the police, your heart probably would drop? Oh yeah, I thought, they said that they needed to take me up to the courthouse for questioning. And I said, oh my goodness, somebody reported her being gone. So I get up there and they start asking me about this lady who broke out of jail. And they were booking her in and she broke out of jail and they had me on camera and they saw her off of surveillance, off of cameras, and they saw me pick her up and I told them, you know exactly what happened and that, yeah, that scared the heck outta me. But that was that.

The four years following the death of Larry's wife, or surreal. Outwardly, Larry kept up the appearance that everything was normal If anyone asked, he told him his wife had left him and returned to her hometown. However, the garage freezer harbored a terrible secret that haunted Larry every day. His wife's corpse was a daily reminder that he had killed the woman he loved, and the guilt gnawed at him over those four years. In a gesture of repentance, he even flushed the leftover drugs down the toilet. After all, they started this whole mess.

The sad part of this case is that nobody noticed that Larry's wife was missing..Before her death he had sbecome estranged from her family and fallen out of contact with her kids. Perhaps a reflection of her character. This only made Larry's situation more unsettling. He had committed a terrible act, but there seemed to be absolutely no interest in his wife's disappearance.

Once, a chance encounter with a woman fleeing prison gave Larry an unsettling run in with the police. The discovery, though always a looming possibility, seemed to elude Larry until one day.

Four years is a long time. Now, we do get down to year four. You have her in a freezer, but now this freezer has been since moved from your house to a storage facility? Yeah. When did you make, when did you move her? The thing is that, uh, I was going to get a Bobcat, and over at my uncle's house I was going to dig a ditch out there and use his neighbor's Bobcat. That's what kept on taking me so long to do anything because I never could meet up with the guy. He's always on vacation or out working somewhere, and I started driving a truck. Doing over the road driving. And so I'm only home three days out of the month. The rest of the time I'm on the highway. And yeah, I'm always thinking, I hope nobody, my landlord doesn't come in there and start going through my stuff and everything. And if my family was like, well, why don't you just put your stuff at storage and you can stay with one of us whenever you come in or something like that. Yeah, I moved everything into a storage place. I had electricity. I had it locked up and everything, and I didn't make it in.

Whenever you moved the, moved the freezer, how many years into was it when you moved the freezer? About two years. Did you open up the freezer again then and check? Yeah. Oh, yeah. But, I got in there, and then I failed a, I got hit with a urine test and I tested positive. At work? Yeah, so I got fired, yeah. So I got fired and lost my job. So, I ain't got no way to pay my storage bill. I talked to him, I was like, man, you know I'm always paying my bill, even a couple months in advance.

He goes, yeah, I know. He goes, but we're probably going to move the freezer up into a bigger place so I can have that to rent out to somebody else. I'm like, no, you're not going to do that. He goes, yeah, I pretty well got to. Either that or you take the freezer now. And, uh, I said, alright, we'll go with that. But, uh, I said, I'll move it. So, me and this other guy moved it. And, uh, then, uh, I still hadn't come up with another job yet, so, uh, apparently he had another guy pop it open, and, uh, they saw what was in there and called the police immediately. And, uh, he calls me and tells me, you've got to get over here now and get this freezer and get it out of here. He said, it's stinking. He said, you either get it over here or I'm going to haul it to the dump. I said, okay. So I got somebody to help me. To go get the freezer, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. But, uh, we get over there and there was a set up. The cops were already there. I drove by earlier and, uh, there were no cop cars around so I figured it was okay to go there. So we get there and I walk in there and the cops just surrounded me. Yeah, that was that. Which, it was a relief. It really was. It was a big relief. Was it? Yeah. I've heard that before. Heard that before.

So, my question to you is like the time that they're putting pressure on you to move this freezer around, that didn't freak you out that somebody else was going to be, you didn't try to spend the next waking hours just trying to get that freezer out of that place all together? The thing was that, uh, I didn't know what to do with it, and, uh, I really didn't know, but as far as I knew, we were going to just move it to this other part, a bigger garage, plug it in, that's what we did, everything was A OK, no questions or anything. So, whenever they arrested you, did you immediately say, yes, this is all what happened, or did you try to lie at first? No, I told them the truth. You told them, just like you told me? And, uh, my lawyer said that I should have never said anything, but I did. I knew the day was going to come, eventually. Yeah, it's really, people just don't get away with that kind of stuff, especially when you're connected to that person like that.

But it's amazing that you were able to get away with that for four years and people weren't, where's your wife? And they were, but not enough to, you know, cause you to get caught. Oh, and I told the judge, I said, I'm ready to accept whatever you give me. I said, I had no right to take somebody else's life. And I said, and it's killing me a little bit every day of my life. I said, that was my wife. I loved her. I said, yeah, we had our ups and downs. I said, but I had no right to do what I did. And uh, I said, whatever you feel like giving me, I said, I'm good with it.

Larry's four year long ordeal came to an end when he called to retrieve his freezer from a storage unit. Years earlier he'd placed the freezer there as a temporary measure. He'd intended to be a place to store his wife's body until he could make other arrangements to bury her. Now, after missing multiple payments on the unit, Larry's time was up.

In a planned setup, Larry was called in to relocate the freezer and the police swiftly ambushed him. To Larry, this was a big relief. Getting caught actually lifted the burden he'd been living under for the past four years. He confessed the unfiltered truth and pleaded guilty at his trial. As he told the judge, the guilt has tormented him every day of his life and he deeply regrets taking the life of the woman he loved.

But Larry's story makes us wonder, how did his abusive relationship influence his actions? While abuse doesn't justify taking somebody's life, Larry felt trapped and humiliated and this was a key motivating factor when he picked up the hammer. Larry had no prior history of violence. His stepson attested that he knew Larry to be a decent, patient guy who suffered from abuse for all 20 years of his marriage.

So when calculating Larry's sentence, it's likely that the judge considered Larry's abuse a mitigating factor to lessen Larry's time behind bars. Ultimately, Larry is a cautionary tale about staying in an abusive relationship, especially for men who might be afraid to be labeled a victim. Bringing to light stories like Larry's can help victims to recognize abusive patterns in their own lives and escape before a situation escalates to violence, like Larry's sadly did.

What did the judge say to that when you told him that? He said, uh, it was, it was a very sad situation. He said it was so sad and, uh, he said, uh, the, uh, prosecuting attorney wanted me to get, uh, 20 to life, is what he wanted me to get, and, uh, the judge just gave me the 20, which, uh, I got lucky with that. Yeah, you know, it's unfortunate that people can, uh, be together, love each other. And then there's domestic violence where whatever makes us do those things, people do it, and it's hard to get out of those situations because, you know, you're with them for a reason. It's because you love them. And, uh, you don't want to break that tie, yet staying together means more violence, and, uh, it's just a, it's a big problem everywhere, but, um, uh, it, it sucks that that happened to you.

How's prison been for you? Oh, okay. It's a lot better than county jail. I'm sure. it. Do you have support on the outside? Not really. Not very much. Yeah. Pretty well live on the state tip. It makes it hard. Have you gotten any kind of anybody reach out to you? That's a friends or family of the victim, hate mail or anything? No, nothing. No. Yeah. All her family was down in Mississippi side for our children. And I've talked to them several times, but not a whole lot. So what do you think the answer is to somebody that's in love with somebody, but they're being abused? Obviously they love them. They want to stay, but if they do stay, then that means more abuse. What is your answer to that? Oh my goodness, uh it just, I think it comes a time when you just, you have to just say, okay, listen, it's gonna have to stop now, or I'm gonna have to leave. And if it's that bad to where you got somebody that'll threaten to kill you or even, um, you're just gonna have to probably just, uh, hide somewhere, or, I don't know, there's so many different ways you could go on that, uh, call the police.

But it sounds like the answer is to put your foot down and get out of the situation, which I think that most professionals would agree with that. Larry, I appreciate you opening up to me today. Okay. And, uh, I hope everything, uh, works out for you, for your time in prison, and so I appreciate it, man. I'll talk to you some other time.

If you need something, give me a holler, okay? Okay, cool. All right, man. I appreciate that. On the next episode of Voices of a Killer. Do I think I deserve to be out of prison? No. I feel like a monster. Yeah, I feel like a the biggest piece of s*** on the planet for real. I started perceiving that, I guess, mainly that I was the victim in this all. And so my thought was I could get back at her by just taking our daughter away from her, you know.

It's very hard for me to hear this. I, I, I understand that, yes. The love for your daughter did not overcome the hate for your wife at the time? And, uh, there's some stuff in your story that's, that's come back, that you're not being completely honest with us. And I was just trying to hide the fact that I was the one responsible for it.

That's a wrap on this. I want to thank Larry for sharing His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. If you would like to listen to the raw recordings of these interviews, you can visit patreon.com/voicesofakiller. By becoming a patron, you can access not only this, but hours of bonus recordings, correspondence, and you can contribute to the way the show is produced.

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