Ep 57 | KRISTOFER WARDEN PART 2 Transcript

Ep 57 | Kristofer Warden Part 2

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. I wish I could go back and take it back a million times over.

The recidivism rate for men who kill is the smallest recidivism rate on the planet if I'm not mistaken. They do not look men as if men are supposed to get any type of relief for what they went through. We're supposed to be masculine. We're supposed to get over it. Because I'm as broken and hurt as Gypsy Rose Blanchard.

Because I'm as broken and hurt as Mary Winkler. And these are people that have been given an extra chance after they've killed. You met a girl while you were in prison. You're actually married now, right? No, we're engaged at this point in time, yeah. That's just not the type of person that he is. I don't see him as a monster.

I don't see him as a cold blooded, heartless animal, like they wanted to make him out to be. 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 part two of our conversation with Kristofer Warden. Last time, Kristofer took us through his troubled history with hard drugs and sexual predators. All this culminated in the murder of the man who was extorting him for sex, 57 year old Gaylen Terrill. Now, we pick up the story just days after the crime, as Kristofer races to cover his tracks and flee across the state.

How will the reality of his actions catch up with him? This week's episode poses some challenging questions, but it's not just up to Kristofer to answer them. In a first for this podcast, I interviewed Kristofer's fiancée, Maria, who has stuck by Kristofer's side for the past 20 years and who now gives us insight into Kristofer's crime and his character.

With Maria's help, we see closure to a tragic story and the answer to one burning question. Does Kristofer deserve a second chance at freedom? Join us for this final installment of Kristofer's story on Voices of a Killer.

So how long did the body stay there until you were arrested and they found the body? I killed him on July 16th. They found the body on July 21st, the morning of July 21st. Five days. I'd been up all that time. When they arrested me, I'd been awake. Minus a small amount of time where I spent at Skaggs Hospital in Branson.

I'd passed out in the Grand Plaza on the hotels. So where did they catch you at? They caught me in Branson at Skaggs Hospital. I went down there and I was staying down there while I was getting rid of some property and stacking up the money that I had in my pocket. And I was just away from Springfield.

I'd been arrested up there twice for driving, and so obviously I couldn't drive, and so I was down in Branson, and I went to Skaggs Hospital. My girlfriend had broken her foot, and I'd taken her there to get a script bill, and the nurses had seen me on TV all day. They were looking for me. Oh really? Jeremy, the guy I'd asked to help me move the body, had went and told the police that I'd asked to help move the body.

He was... Oh, so the guy... did he help you move it? No, he was the guy that tried to convince me to kidnap... Right, right, right. Gaylen before, and I believe that he was, I believe that now he was jealous of me or something, that I'd went... because he met me at a drug house. And he just walked up to me, and he said, "Hey, man, you smoked that guy, didn't you?"

Yeah. And I just looked at him. Because he asked me so bluntly, I just kind of, I said, "Yeah." And we went and did some drugs together, and I believe he got paranoid, and he ran off, and he called the police, and the police came and picked him up in Rogersville and took him to the Springfield police station and did an interview with him.

And he didn't even tell them my real name. He said my name was Kristofer Wallace. He knew who my real name was. So Kristofer, after you were sentenced to life without parole, what was your reaction to being sentenced to that, you know, to basically a death sentence to prison? Well, I mean, I was facing the death penalty and... well, what I was told by my public defender, Rod Hackenborn, the original public defender before the state put forth the notice to seek the death penalty against me was that they were going to seek the death penalty, he told me, because they had just recently, you know, a year or so before, lost a serious death penalty case to a man who had killed multiple children and a pregnant woman. And that they would be seeking a death penalty against me because of my past history and because of what had occurred, and because of what I had said.

The prosecution, whenever my lawyers went to them to speak to them and tell them what had actually occurred between me and Gaylen, the prosecution sent back a response that I was due to plead either guilty to life without parole or they weren't going to offer me life without parole again. So at that point in time, that provocation and that fear made me decide not to go to trial so that I could tell this story. And so accepting life without parole in court, I was, I guess I was humbled at that point in time because I was giving my life to the Missouri State Penitentiary. Courtroom was standing room only, but I had no family whatsoever in the courtroom, and so I just, I made a speech.

I apologized to his family. I said that I was sorry that I met Gaylen, and I was sorry that I had done what I'd done. Does his loved ones know that y'all had this, you know, sexual, drug fueled relationship? I'm assuming that his loved ones had some idea of what went on with him, and that maybe the prosecution told them something.

This is assuming, this is just my own evaluation, that maybe they said, "Hey, we don't really want to go to trial and try to give him the death penalty because his name's going to get drug through the mud." Our emotions and our discussions in front of the judge had a great deal of questioning about his sexuality.

Yeah, and I just, well, I wondered if they'd, if, my next question, if you would have said yes, is do they believe you or did they think you made up this elaborate story and you actually just barely knew him, you know? I have no idea what they knew or what they said. They said in the courtroom that they still believe that I deserve the death penalty but they just wanted this over with so they could have closure.

Did they address you in the courtroom? No, they made a statement right before I made my statement telling me that they still believe that I deserve the death penalty and that Gaylen was a great educator and that obviously he didn't deserve to die and it was a brief statement. They pretty much wanted the death penalty for you?

Yeah, I believe, and that's understandable when you hear the details and the way it was without the other side. Of course, they're, you know, and even if they've heard the other side, obviously they would, you know, that's how it is. And I'm assuming they just didn't want his name drug through mud. I'm assuming the city of Springfield didn't want the name drug through the mud of someone inside their school system. And his archived work file had came up missing after I was arrested and had been sealed, and so we couldn't even get access to that to see if there was any scandal from the past, which we potentially believe there may have been. For five days, the body of retired principal Gaylen Terrill sat untouched in the basement of his Springfield home.

Decomposition had set in, and the body stank. People would start to notice before long, but Greene County Police caught up with Kristofer before he could move the body. Acting on an anonymous tip, police arrested Kristofer at a local hospital, and under the hot lights of an interrogation room, he tearfully confessed to strangling Gaylen Terrill with an electric extension cord.

Kristofer explains that, early on, the stakes were high. Initially, he was facing more than just jail time. Gaylen's family was fighting for him to get the death penalty. Only once Kristofer took a plea deal was that death penalty taken off the table. By accepting the offer, Kristofer traded a guilty plea for his life.

He would forego a trial and skip straight ahead to the sentencing phase. Now, Kristofer speculates that the prosecutors hurried things along so quickly to avoid the scandal that a trial would cause. During a highly publicized trial, all of Gaylen's dirty laundry would come to light: his sexual proclivities, his m***use, his extortion of Kristofer. All that could slander the name of a highly respected state educator.

So by avoiding a trial, Gaylen Terrill's reputation remained intact. Kristofer, on the other hand, was eaten alive by the press. New outlets villainized him, pasting pictures of his gaunt face under scathing headlines. Any casual observer might see Kristofer as a ruthless monster, the man who had tortured a beloved and innocent principal.

So, I got a question for you. With your extremely turbulent childhood, extremely turbulent life, and the circumstances surrounding your case, when you actually shot him up with something and then hung him. Do you feel like life without parole is unfair or do you think you should be out? I feel like I should've did time.

I feel like 30 years isn't above, that I was supposed to go use the law against him at that point in time. You know, in hindsight, looking back, that I was supposed to go report what he was doing to me. I don't know why the bondsman didn't go and report when I told the bondsman, "Man, this dude is blackmailing me and he's trying to sexually assault me," when he was sexually assaulting me.

I didn't tell the detective when I got arrested what happened because I was embarrassed. You know, I didn't want anybody to know that this guy got his thumb on me and that he had sexually assaulted me all the time. It seems like the sum of everything here is just you being, feeling like you're really put in a position where somebody kind of had their foot on your throat.

So I feel like that, yeah, I deserve to be in prison for taking a person's life. I should have done the right thing and went and told somebody. You know... Or I should have ran off, but... And the thing is, is like, you know, when you read these stories the headline for your story is that you killed the beloved principal, but of course the news ain't gonna say the guy that killed him had a really bad childhood.

You wouldn't believe how bad. This is all what happened. You know, headlines can't be like that, so they pick the one that basically kind of persecutes you, you know. But Toby, even as this was investigated, you know, the prosecution, the sheriff, Jim Arnott, the prosecution, Dan Patterson, Darrell Moore, none of them actually went out of their way to go any further to look into this, to see what really happened.

Once I tell them, "Oh, well, I just killed him for money", or "I just killed him for drugs" to avoid hiding the real truth. Well... At that point in time... All they needed, the only information they needed is that you were a past criminal and that there was a crime that you committed. After that it's all just legal verbiage after that. It's, there's no time for seeing the whys and stuff like that and the why nots and things. It's just their job is just to go by the legal verbiage and, you know, not much else than that. And what year was this? 2003 I moved to Springfield around 2005. And when I moved here, that was whenever the m***was all being made in this area. And they were, the senate and all that was just going crazy on trying to pass bills and take care of this m*** problem in this area.

And finally, they started cracking down on the pseudoephedrine and stuff like that, where you had to get, you know, permission to buy it, or they track you and all that stuff. And then slowly, all that kind of went away, where the, you know, the cartels now bring in the m***, and this area doesn't really make it as much.

But I remember that's, there's a reason why they're trying to correct that s***, because, you know, it does s*** like this, where it just really... If m***wouldn't have been in that equation, you wouldn't have killed this guy. I guarantee you. No. No, I wouldn't have. Yeah, I, the drug addiction and the progression of that in my life is a whole other part of this story.

No, I, just being honest, all the way around, yeah, I probably would not have actually taken his life if I wasn't in that psychosis. Yeah, and also... I would've went and told somebody, you know. And also we could switch that out for if you wouldn't have the abusive childhood, that also wouldn't have happened, you know, cause, I don't know man, it's just some people really, really, like we don't realize, we read headlines. Oh, this guy killed the principal? Well, what a piece of s***. Put him away, kill him.

And I'm not saying that we shouldn't put you away, but we should definitely take some things into consideration. And the consideration is understanding that we don't all live the same life. It's my view that while we should hold offenders to account, we should also see the humans behind the crime.

Nobody is born evil. On this podcast, we've seen that criminals can be victims too, victims of broken homes, trauma, or addiction. And by withholding our judgment, by digging deeper, we can understand the factors that drove them to kill. Our media, however, isn't designed to see complexity in cases like Kristofer's.

Today's news sites pander to clicks and page views. They sensationalize headlines and reduce people to stereotypes for public consumption. It would be simpler to think Kristofer was a boogeyman, another heartless killer. Articles at the time framed him as a dangerous drug addict who had exploited the generosity of Gaylen, an upright citizen.

The reality, now that we know the facts, is more complicated than that. Kristofer is somebody who's had a tough life. He's a man who became trapped in an abusive relationship where he was blackmailed and sexually assaulted. Add m*** into the mix, a lapse of judgment, and Kristofer made an impossible mistake.

He's the first to admit that Gaylen's murder was a heinous crime, and nothing will excuse his actions. But to call Kristofer a monster is inaccurate. And it doesn't do justice to the full, unfiltered picture. The media isn't the only thing that dehumanizes criminals. The prison system does it too.

Kristofer is no stranger to the inside of a jail cell, having spent years in and out of Kansas and Missouri incarceration centers. How has he acclimatized to life behind bars, I wondered, this time, knowing he will not be released? And you'd already been to prison before. I mean, how did you resolve yourself knowing that, you know, all this life, you've had turbulence and outta prison and abuse and all that.

Now you're just gonna be in prison for the rest of your life and that's it. I mean, how do you handle that? You just adjust. It's something that, it's hard for anybody else to fathom the idea of being locked up in prison for your whole life and not being able to be free. I mean, obviously, we sympathize, well, empathize, excuse me, with slavery.

We empathize with people being castigated. We empathize with this. I mean, on some level, we empathize with that, but I just, it's an acceptance and it's something that you gradually get used to in here. I've been in here and people say, "Oh, you got life without parole?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And they're like, "Oh my God, I couldn't do that.

I would just kill myself." You don't understand it until you're in it. When you're in it, then you, you know, your family sends you a nice letter and says, "Hey, are you okay?" Because my intention was to kill myself when I got to the county jail. They put me in a suicide cell for 16 days and the drugs got out of my system and I got a couple letters from my family and that took away my desire to kill myself and then I just slowly adjusted.

You spend two years in the county jail and you just want out of there. The county jails are just so torturous. They're just brutal. Three men in a very small cell. Fights and just constant, there's no tolerance by the guards, they all carry tasers, they're quick to tase you, they're quick to mace you, they're quick to drag you to the hole.

I was taken a whole handcuffed by three officers and they tased me on the way. Just because I got a little bit rambunctious, you know, it's, yeah, there's no tolerance in county jails, and so that's part of why I wanted to get out of there. I think if a person shows themselves in prison to just be consistently doing what they need to be doing for years and years, if they're doing programs, if they're trying to help people. And they have these programs in Missouri Prison, ICC, they have ICBC. They have all these anger management programs. And I understand these are small, and some people don't understand them or consider them, but the recidivism rate for men who kill is the smallest recidivism rate on the planet, if I'm not mistaken.

There's so many of them that have life without, so I, here's the thing is, is, I really do question life without. But I also, and I try to take everything into consideration, but what if this person was one of my loved ones, and all the things that you did, like the steps of, you know, injecting him with something and then hanging him when he's basically looking at you as somebody that you befriended.

It's really, like, it's very dark. But then I actually continue to take into consideration the fact that you've been through a tremendous amount, all the way from a small child and everything, I mean, a total mess all the way through. And you should have some, you know, leeway for that. But what if you were to get out and you're exposed to m*** again, and you start doing m***, and then all of a sudden you're just taking off again?

You know, that's the scary part about, like, the parole board and stuff, what they look at. How do you respond to that? I mean, like, because you're going to be around m***if you were to get out, you know? Absolutely. I think that the parole board needs to take that on a case by case basis. I think that the Missouri Department of Corrections and the Department of Corrections across the nation need to begin psychological counseling for offenders.

They need to... there's no psychological counseling. I've been down for 28 years, Toby, and I've never had a single staff member come to me and say, "Hey, why have you done what you've done? Why are you the way you are?" Nobody has ever came to me in 28 years. I've never been offered psychological counseling.

I've never been offered anything to deal with the traumas that a person experiences. However, like I said, there's so many things that are taken into consideration. If you can show yourself to be feeble, if you can show yourself to be abused as a female, they do not look at men as if men are supposed to get any type of relief for what they went through.

We're supposed to be masculine. We're supposed to get over it. I understand that completely because sometimes I fight with the fact that, you know, men, you know, our feelings, it's, we have to be more careful in how we express ourselves or else now we're going to be viewed differently and things like that. It's very touch and go for us.

And people, a lot of people don't realize that, or, you know, the, at least the opposite sex doesn't. But it can be pretty strenuous on, you know, on us. Kristofer might've escaped the lethal injection, but life without parole is a death sentence in itself. Since his arrest in 2003, Kristofer has had to accept that he will grow old and die within the confines of prison.

That's a hard fact to adjust to, especially considering the brutality Kristofer has experienced during his time in jail. He's also been vocal about the lack of psychological help available to help him come to terms with his indefinite sentence. But as difficult as it is, prison also presents Kristofer with an opportunity to heal from his lifelong trauma.

He brings up an important point in our conversation. It's tough for men to show vulnerability. In a world that associates emotion with weakness, men are discouraged from asking for help when they need it most. Now, at 47 years old, Kristofer is making a concerted effort to right that wrong by addressing the past that he's kept buried for so long.

There are a lot of painful memories he's just starting to unpack: the turbulent childhood, the sexual abuse, the drug trafficking on the streets of Florida. But Kristofer tells me that opening up for the first time has been a cathartic experience and finally, he's on a path to healing. There's no doubt that Kristofer has been through a lot in his life, but does it absolve him of some responsibility for his crime?

After the break, we address that challenging question.

So Kristofer, in terms of like, you know, the m***problem that you had, I see that continuously over and over again for people that do really serious crimes. Because m***is so damn powerful, you know. If we took m***out of the equation, you know, do you think that you would have had the same results by killing Gaylen?

Absolutely not. I would have got away from that situation. I would have went to the police. I would have spoke to the bondsman that I spoke to right after the first incident at the motel, at the hotel in Wichita. I was under the influence of the m***amphetamines. And then, you know, when you put quotations around it, I'm not trying to say... Matter of fact, I took the m***amphetamines. I was even promoting Gaylen's use of the m***amphetamines, which I believe was what triggered his aggressiveness on the sexual level and the provocation that ultimately led to me taking Gaylen's life.

I performed for Gaylen sexually numerous times. Every time I look at a picture of my brother's grave, I think about what it took for me to pay for his grave. But I believe that if the provocation wasn't there, and I was under the influence of m***amphetamines obviously I would not have responded in an angry, violent manner.

The addiction mixed with the m***amphetamines that I took, that I take responsibility for, is what caused me to take Gaylen Terrill's life. And what he said to me whenever I came down to the basement to let him go. And I'm sorry for it. I can't, I can't tell his family, I can't tell my family, I can't tell my people hard enough how I feel because... but at the same time, my remorse is for his family, is for his brother, is for his sister. All of the stuff that happened to me growing up, all of the, give me a second, all of the, all of the homosexuality, all of the sexual trafficking, all of this just came to a head with Gaylen Terrill and this situation.

I wish I could go back and take it back a million times over. I would give my life to help his family feel better because I lost my brother a month before this murder and I can understand that they felt the serious amount of pain. They loved him. They didn't have any reason to hate him. And so I'm sorry.

Kristofer, quick question, do you think that your past excuses you to do that? aDo I I think it excuses me to take a person's life? Yeah, to where we should, well, he had this happen to him in his past, and he was on m***, and that was, you know what I mean? Do you think that is a valid excuse? Not for me not to be convicted of something and to serve some type of time.

I don't think that I deserve to spend the rest of my life in prison. Right, because I will agree that you've been through a hundred percent, you know, hell. I will agree with that. I just wonder, you know, how much people care that, you know, that is something that's happened to you that you shouldn't, that doesn't work for them, you know.

Basically, what I can tell you is there's going to be a group of people out there that have this sentiment to share with you. That's a shame that all those things happened to you. I feel bad for that. But there were people that did love you, your grandparents that told you, "Hey, this is right and this is wrong." And what you did is you went against the people that loved you and you chose to do the drugs and the cigarettes and then progress into the crimes and even though you were continually told over and over and over again, this is not correct and this is. What would you say to those people?

I would say that you have to live it to understand it. For the last 20 years, I've not tried to tell this story to anybody because I've been so ashamed of what happened with me and Gaylen, what happened to me as a child, the sexual trafficking. This is the first time it's taken me to this age to finally become comfortable.

It's taken me going through the programs that I'm going through in here and becoming vulnerable and opening up to some of these people in here that seem to care, some of these other prisoners that seem to care. And I can't tell society that a felon, any felon, one that steals a car, one that uses a credit card, one that robs somebody, one that kills somebody, one that uses drugs, I can't tell them not to feel the way they feel and not to, not to be afraid of the people that are behind these walls.

Because trust me, there are people behind these walls that are just dastardous. I think that people that have life without parole should be taken on a case by case basis. Tell me, if you were to... because obviously the one group of people that are out right now in the public and hate you the most and want to see you not get out the most, what would you tell them about why you should be out?

I don't think that I should get out right now. I think that I need a few more years in here. But see, they want the death penalty, which means definitely don't get out. That got taken away, you got life without, right? Yes, sir. And if you were to say, like, listen, I do think that, you know, I should get out at, you know, whatever time it is, it doesn't matter, but what would be the reason you tell the victim's family?

Because I'm as, because I'm as broken and hurt as Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Because I'm as broken and hurt as Mary Winkler. And these are people that have been given an extra chance after they've killed. I'm as broke as the juveniles that have killed that are getting out today. There's 76, almost 86 of them that are getting out of Missouri.

I was 27 when I caught this case, but arrested development is a serious psychological issue. And when a person is a juvenile and goes through those things and they become arrested, I think that people that have life without parole should be not just rehabilitated, but some of these violent offenders should be given some of the most attention.

You know, we could let some of these drug offenders out. We can let some of these people into community corrections and mark that money towards helping some of the violent offenders that we have in the United States justice system. Or excuse me, in the United States prison system. And give them psychological counseling. Give them education

that's more than just driving a diesel truck or working at a construction site where you're around all people that are using drugs. Give them an education where they can work in robotics, where they can get out and make a $40 or $50,000 a year job. I'll just tell you right now, it doesn't matter where you go.

There's drugs. Construction, I promise you, is not the only place . Absolutely. I understand that. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely everywhere, so. But what do you think the odds of you actually successfully making something happen where you get out? I mean, I think it's very, very slim. My chances are a long shot.

I mean, there's bills that come up in Missouri every year for life without. And I've been told that Maryland just passed one where if you were 20 or younger, they're letting people out. However, the only chance I think I have is to show a governor my changing. You know, to go to a governor and ask for clemency or to ask for my sentence to be reduced to life with parole and allow me to go in front of a parole board and argue for freedom. Allow me to tell them and show them what I've done in here, which I haven't done anything up to now.

Like I said, I just now started to pursue some change in here. Should Kristofer Warden be given a second chance at freedom? The way I see it, there are two opposing arguments. There's the side of the victim's family, who have advocated for Kristofer to die in jail. They would argue that Kristofer deserves to be punished harshly for the agonizing way Gaylen died.

They might point to Kristofer's long criminal record and say his recidivism risk is high, that all it would take is one relapse with m***for him to commit another horrific crime on the outside. Kristofer sympathizes with their feelings. Still, he maintains that he should be given a shot at parole one day.

Kristofer tells me that killing Gaylen was a direct consequence of his traumatic past, a past he has since recovered from. M*** was in control of his actions that day, he says, and without it, he wouldn't be capable of hurting anybody. He intends to take full advantage of the programs prison offers so that he can one day prove to the parole board that he's a reformed man, ready to reintegrate into society. Of course, this is an entirely hypothetical question. Unless some major laws change soon, Kristofer's sentence will remain unchanged. That kind of reform is unlikely to happen, and Kristofer knows his chances of release are slim. But he hasn't just been waiting to be released to continue living his life.

You might be surprised to hear that Kristofer has actually gotten engaged while he's been in prison. You met a girl while you were in prison. You're actually married now, right? No, we're engaged at this point in time. Oh, so you're engaged, but how would you meet a girl while you're in prison? I met her in 1997 when I was doing time in Kansas through the mail, and we... She contacted you?

Another prisoner sent my letter out to her. Is that pretty common for inmates to get relationships like that, even though you, you know, got life without parole? This girl, you know, can't ever really be intimate with you, right? No, she cannot be intimate with me physically. No, not at all. Yes, it is common in here.

We're men. Most of us still want to connect. Well, of course, but I mean, it's hard to find somebody on the outside, much less on the inside. Yeah. So I think it's, that's pretty unique, you know, to be able to have a relationship, you know, as hard as it is for people on the outside to find them, you're actually engaged to someone on the outside.

How often do y'all actually have visits? Well, they have video visits in the prison system now with tablets and video machines, so they can make a buck off of our family. And she also travels down here as much as she can, as much as she can afford to, and stays overnight and visits me for a couple of days, and we visit four or five hours minimum. Yeah. Which are amazing times. Those are amazing four or five hours. We, the passion and the communication is just amazing. It's beyond sex. Do y'all communicate every day? Yes, we talk on the phone almost every day. What is the most physical contact you can have, what's allowed for the Missouri Department of Corrections? A brief kiss and a hug and we can hold hands and, you know, rub each other's wrists and touch and talk and look at each other and just get lost in each other's eyes.

Is that pretty special for you to have her come over there and be with you like that? Absolutely, absolutely. It's, I mean, when... It's not desperate. It's just, it's simply... it's just simply a different level of connecting. Yeah. It's human. I can understand it, I mean. We talk about what we want to do. We talk about our, you know, uh, what we'd like to do.

And I hope that one day I'm able to get out and be with her. That would... If I could walk into her arms from here, that would be... I've watched other prisoners walk out of these gates on TV to their families. And just seeing the excitement and the joy in those prisoners' eyes, prisoners that have killed, many prisoners that have killed, have walked out.

And just seeing the excitement and the joy when they're able to reconnect with their families, I hope that's something that can happen. And it comes from the loss, from not being able to do it for so long, it builds the excitement when it comes, so. I did speak with Maria and she told me she's willing to speak with you.

So y'all can set that up and do that whenever you're available. Okay, cool. Kristofer has fallen in love with Maria, a woman in the free world. You hear of cases like these from time to time, but it's an unusual arrangement. Why would Maria willingly choose to be in a relationship with a man she can't be physically intimate with?

And how does she look past the murders she knows Kristofer has committed? With Kristofer's blessing, I decided to call Maria to learn more about her perspective on Kristofer and his crime. You'll hear that conversation after the break.

So Maria, I spoke to Kristofer and he told me that he actually has a fiancée,, which is you. And I thought that was pretty unique because, you know, obviously when you're with somebody in prison like that, you can't exactly be intimate with that person. However, you know, he corrected me and said, Hey, you know, you could still have a relationship, a thriving relationship without intimacy.

How is that for you?

Well.. I mean, I have moments, you know. There's moments where it'd be nice to have the physical form with me, but through our conversation, our history, the connection that we share, we're able to build on the fact that there's a lack of physical intimacy between the two of us. So how would somebody on the outside like yourself meet not just an inmate, but one that committed a crime that's pretty serious?

Well, actually, truth be told, I met Kristofer almost 27 years ago. Before he went to prison? He was actually in prison in a different state for a different reason when I met him. So how did you meet somebody in prison? Through a friend of my sister's who was friends with a guy in the prison with Kristofer.

Basically it felt like a pen pal thing. Sure. And the first time he was in prison, nothing developed, then he got out and y'all kind of parted ways? Well, yes and no. We were together... I met him in July of '97, and we were together for about two and a half years at that point. And then he was released in '01. And we had broke up in, like, I think it was June or July of 2000.

And then when he got out, he came back here to Wichita, where I live, or came back to where I live. And his family was here and we communicated then. Go ahead. Well, so you actually have, you know, been on the outside, you know, in touch with him? Yeah, it was about two years and he was out and he would call me and he would come and see me and he'd pay me money for my child and he wanted to come move in with me and my son when he got out in '01. But I had just moved out of my dad's house.

My son was an infant. I just wasn't ready to take on all of that at one time. So you met him whenever he was in prison the first time. You probably got some insight on how his past, I mean, he had a really, really rough past growing up and being, you know, going through sexual abuse from different people and switching homes.

Do you feel like that's something that a woman should avoid when she hears these things? Like, okay, those are red flags I should probably avoid because we know, you know what I mean? Well, to be honest with you, I didn't learn about most of that until about this last year or so. I knew about the rocky life that he had led with his mother and some of the abuse that he suffered, you know, at her hands or in her care or whatever, but I didn't know the depth of the abuse that he suffered beyond that, like I said, until about a year or so ago.

So, Maria, you met him way before he committed, you know, murder. Right. And you probably obviously had feelings for him. And then after that, he gets out and he does the crime that he's in there for, which is really, really serious. I mean, there was even a little bit of, well, it was torture, but I know that on Kristofer's part, it wasn't intentional to be torture.

He thought he was going to kill him by shooting him up with lime. Right. And it didn't work. And that turned out to be torture, which he didn't want that to happen. I know he didn't. Right. But then, you know, he tells me the story, wraps a cord or whatever rope around his neck and basically pulls him up off his feet.

Just as he does that, the victim says, "No." You know, like, knows he's about to and says, "No." Now you've got this information, you still haven't changed your mind. You're engaged to him. Why? When I found out about what happened in '03, I felt that... because all I got was a, I got a phone call from his girlfriend at the time.

Telling me what had briefly happened. And then I found on the internet, the newspaper story, the picture of the man that I saw in the newspaper story, Kristofer's mugshot that I saw, that was not the man that I knew. That was not the man that I had spent several years with in the past getting to know.

And I knew at that point, for him to do something that horrific, there had to have been a reason. That's just not the type of person that he is. I don't see him as a monster, I don't see him as a cold blooded, heartless animal like they wanted to picture him, wanted to, you know, make him out to be. I believe, I agree with you. I think there's two things that are big factors in Kristofer's situation.

One, his past, which was very turbulent and nobody can really know what that's like until they have to be jumping homes and being, you know, sexually abused. That's big. And then the second thing is m***amphetamine, which literally just before I spoke to you, I spoke to a guy that really did some crazy stuff while on m***. And that wasn't him. It was, you know, these drugs are so powerful that people just get crazy whacked out and do really weird stuff, you know. Kristofer had been up for 12 days at that point when all this happened. Yeah. So I guess your answer basically is I'm not dating the murderer, I'm dating the Kristofer that I know, without the m***and things. Is that your answer basically?

Yes, exactly, I'm dating a human being. You might find it hard to understand why somebody would enter into a relationship with a prison inmate. But both Kristofer and Maria assure me that their relationship works. As I talk with Maria, I see that she is the most important person in Kristofer's life right now.

She cares about him deeply, that's for sure, and she's a critical link for him to the outside world. Kristofer has gotten caught up in so many manipulative situations over the years, and now he's found a relationship that's built on genuine love and mutual trust. It's the happy ending his story needs.

Of course, the couple can't have much physical intimacy while Kristofer's in prison, but Maria tells me their connection transcends those limits. It helps that Maria knows Kristofer better than anyone else. Before his latest crime, Kristofer and Maria were in a relationship together for many years.

So when Maria saw Kristofer's mugshot on the news in 2003, she was able to see the human beneath it all, where others saw a heartless killer. Maria saw a man who was alone, had lost his way, and needed help. I asked Maria once more, why wasn't she put off when she learned more of the gory details surrounding Kristofer's crime?

That didn't change anything for me. If anything, it strengthened it for me because I knew, like I told you, the person I saw in that picture was not the person I know. Yeah. And I was worried. My first thought was, is he okay? Is he there by himself? Is he injured? How scared is he? Are they taking care of him?

Is he, you know, in pain? I, my heart went out to him. I was worried about him. Yeah. It didn't matter to me that it mattered, but it didn't matter to me that this is what was going on, on the news articles and on the TV and in real life. I was worried about the man sitting in the cell by himself. Yeah. You know, not knowing what was going on or wondering what was going on, and it just was, yeah.

And then, when he went to trial, you know, they were talking about the death penalty, and if that became a thing, I told him, I said I was ready to pack up and come out there and watch that happen. What do you mean, watch it happen? Watch the, watch the death? If they con-, yeah, if they convicted him and they sentenced him to death, I was going to, I would have been there for his execution.

There's no way I wouldn't have been. To actually watch the execution go down? Yes, I would have been there. I wanted to be the last thing on this earth that he saw. That's pretty deep. Yeah, mm-hmm. And even though that's not a possibility now, it still gets to me. But I, I would have, I would have, I would have gone out there and I would have been there for that.

How often do you see him? Well, from the time this happened in '03, we went 19 years without seeing each other. Due to circumstances in my life, my young child, I was heavily under the influence of my father at the time, so that kept me away, but I did communicate with him via the phone or written letters at the time. And then in June of 2022, because we're going on two years, yeah, 2022, I was able to finally work it out where I could drive out there to see him.

And it got to the point where I was going like once a month. But after 19 years, when he walked into that visiting room, it was like we'd never been apart. It was like nothing had ever happened. We picked up right where we left off from '03, from the last night I saw him in '03. You love him? Oh, Toby.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I have for a long time. And that must be difficult to have that connection, but knowing that the extent of your relationship is going to be holding hands across from a table. Yeah, it's not, it's not a, I guess, fairytale ideal or a, you know, perfect idea, but to me and to him both, we've talked about this on numerous occasions, what we get, what we get from each other, what little bit we're allowed to have really, really does work and is enough. Yeah. Have you ever gone to the news articles and read all the stuff about him or have you ever done that? I read initially in '03 when this happened, my son's babysitter pulled an internet newspaper article for me, and I read that. And that was about as far as I chose to read, because again, they were painting the picture of a person, I guess you could say, that I didn't know, and that I don't believe exists.

Do you feel like it was just some journalist trying to get viewership? I think that it was, I think that it was sensationalized for the fact that it was the newspaper. Yes, what he did was wrong. Yes, what he did was heinous if you really want to go that far. But again, I understand that he had, I understand he had a reason.

For Kristofer, that to me, the way I think about it, it was a means to an end for him. It finalized all the abuse that he'd suffered his whole life. It was able to, he was able to finally end it all because he was in an abusive situation with the victim. He had been abused most of his childhood by men, and I think that that was a means to an end for him.

You know, Maria, you saying that, I feel like you just gave me a little piece of the puzzle, because when he was explaining the very ending, whenever he went ahead and killed, I felt like you just explained to me exactly what was happening. He was just like, okay, here's the means to an end, I'm done with this, and I want to go ahead and close the book, you know, the last chapter of my life, and pulled that.

I really, I feel like you just kind of explained it, honestly. Well, and he and I have talked about that at numerous occasions as well, and that, you know, that's how I look at it, because I know the person that's not on drugs. I know the person, I know the person's heart. I know his heart. And I know the human behind all of this. And I know that in a reality, drug-free reality, this would not have happened.

I even had people ask me after this happened, here at home, like family and friends when they found out what had happened to him or what he had done out there in '03, they were like, "Were you not scared? That maybe that could have been you and your son?" Absolutely not. No. I know better. You know, it's a lot. You trying to date somebody that's like that, but I do see your angle.

You're not dating the killer. You're dating the Kristofer that you know. Yeah. Maria offers her own interpretation of why Kristofer killed Gaylen that night. Coming from the person who knows Kristofer best, her opinion carries a lot of weight. The way Maria sees it, the murder was not about one man, it was the cumulative sum of all the abusive relationships Kristofer had ever been in.

Gaylen represented every man who had sexually abused Kristofer. The caretaker who molested him at the boy's ranch. The inmates in Hutchinson Prison who r***d him in '96. By killing Gaylen, Maria says, Kristofer finally ended the patterns of abuse he'd been stuck in for so long. It was a decisive statement, both to himself and the world, that he was no longer going to accept abuse from anyone from this point on. Although Maria expresses her sympathy for Gaylen, she knows that fundamentally Kristofer is not the killer society makes him out to be. Take away the drugs and abuse and none of this would have ever happened. From the way Maria defends Kristofer, we can tell that she supports him unwaveringly.

And that's in spite of the criticism she must face from others for sticking by a killer. How does she respond to those critics? You know, most of my listeners are probably female. Some of them may criticize you. Do you care? I do not. I know this person. I've known this person for a very long time, for half my life.

I don't remember a time in my life without him being in it. We have spent countless hours writing each other, paper upon paper upon paper, writing each other over the years, phone calls. He speaks to me now the way that he spoke to me back in '97 and '99. And when we first met. It's never changed. The way he treats me has not ever changed.

So no, I don't care. They don't know me. They don't know him. And they don't know our relationship. So let me ask you this, if Kristofer got out, obviously there's m***m*** every corner he turns. And I've had people say... Absolutely. I've had people say, well, I just hung around with the wrong people, but m***is everywhere. Drugs are everywhere. So, do you think that he should be out for what he's done?

I do believe that he should be allowed to be free again. I believe that now that he has a strong, dedicated support system, i. e. me, out here waiting for him. I don't believe, like, tomorrow is optimal, you know, maybe 5, 10 years. That way he can continue to mature, continue to be on this good path. He's gotten his mind right. He's been drug free for a while now. And he's going to continue on that path.

I think that once, yes, I do believe that he does deserve a chance to finish out his life out here in the free world. And what about the, you know, the victim's family and friends that are really, like the victim was a principal. So obviously he's got a lot of people that have looked up through up to him throughout his time and family and friends that would tell you like, are you crazy? Like, and one of your things is he's got a support, which is you. Like, what if things went sour and all of a sudden you're like, "Hey, I can't do this anymore. We should break up." And then he's like, "Okay, well, I'm going to go fill that void with m***." I think that if that were to ever to become a reality and we didn't end up ever parting ways, I believe that he has gotten into himself enough and into his, you know, past traumas and has,

he's working his way through them to heal himself from all of that to stay away from drugs. He knows that that's what led him to this situation and I believe that he could, he's strong enough and would be strong enough to stay away from them at that time if that were to happen. But Toby, I'm not going anywhere.

I've been with him through so much over the last two and a half decades. I mean, a murder conviction, you know. I was willing to go watch him be executed if it came to that. I'm not going anywhere. What do you think that would, that would be very traumatizing to somebody like that loves him to watch him like go to from alive to dead.

It would have been a very painful, heart wrenching feeling. A very painful, heart wrenching experience. No doubt. No doubt. But at least then I knew, at that point, if it ever came to that, that he was finally at peace. And that all of this ugliness in his life was over. But, too, for me, it would have helped me know that he knew that he mattered, that he was important.

You know, there's a lot of people out there that their argument to you would be like you're not thinking of the victims. You're just thinking of yourself and what you want, which is Kristofer. I know, and I understand, I understand that side of things. I'm sorry that this happened. To that family and to his friends and to those people. But I... that's about all I can do is just say, I'm sorry.

What do you think of the prison system when you go in there and you hear and see and you get firsthand experience by going to visit him? Do you think that prison and corrections is, is something that's actually works? No. I believe that, I believe... They need more... Intense therapy? Yeah, I agree. They do need more intense therapy.

They need programs that are run by licensed professionals. I think they need more, they need more medical staff, whether it's just, you know, physical medical or whether it's mental health or there's just a lot of discrepancy. There's a lot of discrepancies in there. There's a lot of lacking in there. You know, just whether it's guards to keep them under control, whether it's guards to keep, you know, in the visiting room when I'm there to visit him, whether it's, you know, medical staff or whether it's, you know, facilitators or professionals to help them with their mental health or their psychological health or their drug issues or yeah, they need to really reform and they need to put some good resources in there.

I just don't think there's enough. And I don't really see that happening anytime soon. No. There's so much pressure on the system and with funds to, to fund it. I know. It's not happening. That's, it's pretty much a dead call right now until things really take a turn. So are you okay with me publishing your interview?

Absolutely. Okay. I appreciate it, Maria, and take care of yourself. You need something, give me a holler. Will do. Thank you so much. No problem. Bye bye. All right. Bye bye. Maria knows that Kristofer has changed for the better. She is certain that he's processed his past trauma enough that he will never fall back into drugs.

Time in prison has forced him to take a hard look at himself and strive to become a better man. If Kristofer somehow is released one day, Maria believes he will no longer pose a threat to the public, but will be able to contribute positively to the world as a functioning member of society. Just 20 years into a lifelong sentence, Maria and Kristofer face a difficult uphill battle together, one that has no end date.

It's still early days in their campaign to have Kristofer's sentence reduced, but if this conversation is anything to go on, Kristofer will have Maria and her strong conviction on his side. To wrap up this episode, I gave Kristofer the stage again to share his final thoughts about his crime. So Kristofer, I appreciate you opening up to me.

I know that's extremely difficult. I said it before and I'll say it again. It's just, I can't imagine, you know, I'm thinking back at my age at nine years old and it never even crossed my mind of any of the stuff that you went through. Those are like super, super big, big, big trauma, you know, events. And I wish there was something in place where you guys could get like serious, serious therapy or whatever.

Just anything that's like, you know, really tackles the issue or at least makes some kind of attempt at it besides the same old, you know, classes. But I will say that, I will say that something is better than nothing. So I think those classes, you know, whatever they are, they're, they're, it's better than nothing.

You know, I hope that you do take advantage of that stuff. And whatever should happen, I hope it happens, Kristofer.

But I appreciate you talking with me and I'll catch up with you next time. Thank you for your time, Toby. And I just want to say that we're still humans, we're still U. S., you know, we may be locked up, but we're still, we were U. S. citizens at one point in time. I think that somebody needs to, at some point in time, take a look and find some compassion to deal with the people that come from the poverty stricken homes, the single parent homes, the abusive homes.

Thank you for your time, Toby, and I appreciate the platform. And thank you for your time. I appreciate it. All right, bud. Have a good night. Yeah, you too, man. All right. Bye bye. I appreciate this stage. This is the first time I've been able to tell society my side of the story. And I appreciate it, Toby. It's nice to see that there's some people out there actually, you know, doing things for prisoners in here.

And I see a change in the whole nation. You know what I mean? I see a lot of things coming and it's just nice. I appreciate it, man. Yep, no problem, man.

On the next episode of Voices of a Killer. 27-year-old Damian Delgado of O'Fallon, Missouri. He is charged with murder one, armed criminal action, and murder two. Amy was five months pregnant with her third child, a baby boy. At any point in time up to this point, did you know she was pregnant? I did not.

What was your reaction when she pointed the gun at you? I didn't understand. I was confused and scared. Her whole demeanor and everything just changed all of a sudden. So what do you think your issue is, man? I really, I don't know. Do you think you're a violent person? I think I'm violent when I drink. I'd hit rock bottom.

I hadn't seen my daughter in three months. And if it wasn't for the slightest possibility that I would get to see my daughter again one day, I probably wouldn't be here right now. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. I want to thank Kristofer for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special.

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Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.