"I feel like I have been silenced for too long," she explains, "and there is just some part of me that needs to speak out in my own defense." In summary, she says she had no involvement in her husband's murder. She claims that it is clear now that Diamond, an Army trained sniper, killed Theer, believing that would permit them to be together. The interview was conducted in a small conference room. She was dressed in prison blues  a short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. She had her hair, brown with slight gray on the sides, pulled back. She did not shy from the toughest questions and occasionally seemed near tears when a sensitive subject was broached. Theer was very calm, sometimes fidgeting slightly with her hands. She was articulate, speaking in clear and precise sentences. Following are excerpts from that interview.

Part 1: Her early life

Q. The early days?

A. Well, my dad was in the military, the Air Force, and we moved around a lot. I was born in Abilene, Texas, but we moved, I think about a year after I was born, to Little Rock, Ark., and we were there for just a couple of years, and we moved somewhere in England, about three years. . . When we came back, we lived in Charleston, S.C., and that is where my brother [Tommy] was born. And I went to school. . . first, second, and third grade, in Charleston. I have a lot of good memories from Charleston. . . we lived on the base, and they had woods back behind our house. I remember having a tree house, and there was a little stream that ran back through the trees. . . That is the part of my childhood where I can remember riding bikes with my friends, and playing in the tree house.

Q. You were 7 or 8 years old at the time.

A. Yeah. That's kind of that time in my life when I can remember those wild tomboy years, playing outside until the very last moment possible when it was getting dark and my dad having to come out and whistle for me to come in. . . Then we moved to Colorado Springs, Colo. . . . We were in Colorado Springs, I think, fourth, fifth, sixth grades, for three years, and my sister [Angela] was born there. . . . The tone of those years was darker. . . I thought at first it was OK, my sister was born, and my parents were happy then, but my dad went overseas for a year to Korea, and my mom put me in this private Christian school that was very. . .

Q. Strict?

A. Yeah. I don't like the use word fanatical, but really that's what it was. And when my dad got back from Korea, my parents were starting - they did start having problems . . .

Q. What was your dad in the military, a mechanic?

A. Yeah, he was a heavy-equipment mechanic.

Q. You moved from Colorado Springs to Denver?

A. Yeah. When he came back [from Korea], he got transferred to Lowry Air Force Base, and my parents were having problems, and he was moving in and out, back and forth, and that went on for about a year. . . .

Q. When you talk about the darker days, it was the trouble between your parents?

A. It was the trouble between my parents, and it was the school and the church we were going to. It was a very oppressive religion, very. . . It was Southern Baptist. . . . We had always gone to church. But when I think about that church, and that particular school, I think about the image of a very angry, unforgiving God, a very punishing God who is standing over you and just watching every mistake that you make. And you are going to make mistakes, and you are going to burn in hell for them, you know what I am saying. . . . At the time, it made me very fearful. And I think that their goal was to make you, to scare you into obedience, to scare you into memorizing Bible verses, and at that particular time, that is what it did, and it did for several years. It scared me into obedience. . .

Q. Do you practice any particular religion now?

A. I am studying now, yes. . . . Since December of 2003, I have been studying the Jehovah's Witnesses. . . .

Q. What drew you to the Jehovah's?

A. Love . . . Their expressions of love and the God that they have shown me is a very loving God. He is very forgiving, very loving, very warm, very nurturing, very fatherly.

Q. How long did you stay in Denver?

A. We ended up staying there permanently.

Q. That was 1986, is that right? I think that's what your mom told me.

A. She would know the exact year better. They ended up getting separated for a period of time and finally ended up getting a divorce.

Q. You described a period of your life, from first to third, from fourth to sixth grades. What was going on in seventh, eighth, ninth?

A. I would describe that as more of a chaotic time. High school was kind of chaotic because, you know, when we first moved to Denver, my dad was in and out, back and forth, I really didn't know if my parents were going to stay together or get divorced. There were a lot of times when I wished that they would just get it over with and get divorced. . . .

Q. Was his being away and his fights with your mom–how big an impact did that have on you?

A. I am sure it had a huge impact on me. . . I think my relationship with my dad fuels a lot of my relationships even now. I still even now struggle with my relationship with my dad.

Q. Does he come and see you?

A. He has not come and seen me here yet. He has written and sends me money, and he takes my phone calls. . . . He is completely 100 percent supportive of me. . . . My mom came out here; she's been out here twice. . .

Q. When you say your high school days were chaotic, how were they chaotic? Drugs?

A. Actually, I didn't go through any of that teenage stuff. I didn't experiment with drugs at all. . . . The first time I had ever gotten drunk [was] the week that I graduated from high school. When I say chaotic, I mean with my dad moving in and out of the house. My mom had to go to work full time. . . I had to stay home and take care of my brother and sister. . . . My freshman year in high school, I was a cheerleader, and I was on the volleyball team, and I was in the choir. But then my sophomore year, I had to drop out of all of that because I had to come home after school to watch my brother and sister. I had to cook dinner and fold the laundry. It was like I was a housewife, which I just hated. . . . They [her parents] were just separated. Actually, he went back to Korea for a year my sophomore year of high school. I think when he got back was when their divorce was final. . .

Q. What was your mom doing then?

A. She was working in sales for the Wall Street Journal [in Denver]. . . .

Part 2: Meeting Marty

Q. Where did you meet Marty?

A. I met Marty on New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 1987. . . . I had just turned 16. . . and this friend of mine that I went to school with my freshman year. . . was for whatever reason out driving around with a couple of his friends, and they were over on our side of town, and he used to always just pop in to my house. . . [and] hang out for a little while and visit. So, I guess he had said to the guys, [and] Marty was one of them, there is this really cool girl I know, let's stop in at her house, she is really nice. . . I look a mess, I have no makeup on, my hair's not fixed, I am wearing raggy old sweat pants. And I am laying on the couch watching TV in the family room. . . my mom says, "Michelle, Bob's here, and he has a bunch of guys with him. . . " So I go out into the front room, the family room, and sure enough there's Bob, and he's got, like, two or three guys with him, and I can't see any of them because I have really bad eyesight, my vision is like 20/500. . . And about two weeks later, Bob's telling me, "Yeah, this one guy, Marty, he wants your phone number, he wants to call you. . . " I said, "Well, what does he look like?" and Bob's like, "Well, he was there on New Year's," and I was, like, "Yeah, but I didn't get a good look at him." And, anyway, Bob gave him my phone number, and we ended up talking on the phone for a couple weeks, and then we finally went out.

Q. What attracted you to him?

A. Well, once I finally got a good look at him.

Q. A handsome boy?

A. Yeah, you know, he was really a nice guy. He wasn't a jerk. A lot of guys in high school are really jerks; they think they gotta be tough, macho guys. You know, he was just a genuinely nice guy. He didn't act like he had to be something special. . . . We just always had something to talk about.

Q. Did you click right away?

A. Yeah. . . .We did click right away, and I mean right away, I knew that I wanted to see him again. . . . We dated that whole semester, and he graduated, and then he went to the Air Force Academy, so we started a long-distance relationship pretty quickly.

Q. He was in Colorado Springs?

A. Yeah.

Q. So, in your senior year, he is at the Air Force Academy?

A. Yeah.

Q. How do you get back together? Do you go down to Colorado Springs in your senior year sometimes?

A. Yeah . . . We wrote letters every day for the whole four years. . . there was only really a couple weekends that he was able to leave or that I got to really spend time with him. . . .

Q. I assume the fact that he went to the Air Force Academy influenced you to join the Air Force Reserves?

A. No. Actually, me joining the Air Force Reserves was really almost a whim. . . . I really didn't have any way to pay for college. You know, my parents really had never made enough money to have a college fund. You know, I didn't come from a family that had trust funds and college funds. . . there [was] no such thing as retirement funds, everything is – you make money and you pay your bills. . .

Q. Did you go to college?

A. I ended up going to the University of Northern Colorado, which is in Greeley, Colo. I went there because I wanted to major in special education. . . I went there for two years, and then in January 1991, my Reserve unit was activated for Desert Storm, so I had to drop out. . . . We went down to [a]. . . base in Texas. . . . I actually worked in the command post. I was a command and control technician. . . .

Q. Did you go back to Greeley?

A. No, by then, Marty and I had gotten married. When Desert Storm ended, Marty and I got married, he graduated, and we moved to Enid, Okla., the armpit of Oklahoma. Of course, Oklahoma is sort of the armpit of the United States. We were in the armpit of the armpit. And we lived there for a year. I did the whole housewife thing, which, let me tell you, was very boring. . . . He was in flight school. . . . I didn't go to school that year. I was basically Mrs. Homemaker, at home making cakes.

Q. What was the date of your marriage?

A. June 1, 1991.

Q. Where were you married?

A. At the Air Force Academy chapel.

Q. Where did you go from Enid?

A. We went back to Denver, and Marty went to school there at Lowry Air Force Base to train for space operations. . . . He was training to be an orbital analyst. When he went back to flying, he left that job. . . .

Q. When you left Denver, where do you go from there?

A. Colorado Springs. . . Falcon Air Force Station.

Q. Did you go back to school then?

A. That's when I went back to school. I went to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Q. You finished your degree there?

A. That is when I decided to change my major to psychology. . . . I graduated in December 1994. . . . We ended up leaving Colorado Springs in May 1995, and we spent the summer in Texas. Marty went through a refresher flight course, and then we moved to Florida, to Patrick Air Force Base, right next to Melbourne, Fla., just south of Cocoa Beach.

Q. How long were you down there?

A. Two years, and then they moved the unit that he was assigned to–Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, Valdosta.

Q. How long were you there?

A. Well, I wasn't. Actually, I never went there because I still had one more year of graduate school. So, I stayed in Florida [for] my third year of graduate school while Marty lived in Valdosta, and then I went and did my residency in Auburn, Ala., while Marty did his second year in Valdosta.

Q. You did the residency where?

A. Auburn, Ala., at the VA, the Tuskeegee VA.

Q. When did you get your master's?

A. I want to say 1997, from Florida Tech.

Q. You got your doctorate at Florida Tech?

A. Yeah, in 1999.

Q. You never actually moved to Georgia?

A. No. . . He would have moved there [Valdosta] in 1997.

Q. So when do you end up together again?

A. In Fayetteville.

Q. For that twoyear period, 1997, 1998, are you apart?

A. He was in Kuwait a lot of that time. So, when he was in the country, we would spend weekends together. . . .

Q. So, 1999, in Fayetteville, what month did you move there?

A. He must have come here like in June, and I came at the end of August.

Q. Had you lined up your job with Tom Harbin, a psychologist in Fayetteville?

A. Yes.

Q. Was Fayetteville a tough experience for you?

A. Yes. . . working at the VA. . . before I even knew we were moving here, I had heard nightmare stories about this place from all the Vietnam vets who had been through here on their way to Vietnam. . . I heard about Fayette-Hell, Fayette-Nam, Fatal-Ville. . . .

Q. Did you have a specialty as a psychologist?

A. No, I don't think so. . . I was just still a generalist. I did a little of everything. . . . I think I was very good in relating to my clients. I think I was very good in building empathy with them, very good in connecting with them. A lot of people told me I was very good with adolescents. . . .

Part 3: John Diamond

Q. You met John Diamond through the Internet?

A. I know that I chatted with him online. I do remember. . . him coming across as very funny, very amusing. . . he would send me these little funny messages, and they made me laugh. I finally agreed to meet him in person. And that was main thing about him that attracted me to him.

Q. In all candor, you had done this before, and you maybe weren't as nervous in meeting someone you were meeting online?

A. I wasn't concerned about going to a public place and meeting someone, no. . . when I met him. . . we clicked. He was very interesting, very funny, very charming.

Q. Handsome?

A. Uhhuh. But there's a lot of good-looking guys out there.

Q. But you liked his personality.

A. Yeah. . . He made me laugh. And to me, personally, that's the most important quality.

Q. Marty wasn't making you laugh. You were in a place you didn't want to be–Fayetteville.  Marty was gone all the time. Is there a sense of desperation here on your part?

A. I don't know. . . Believe me, there are times when I am still trying to understand myself. . . people have asked me, and I have wondered myself, was I trying to get caught [in affairs]? And I do think – I honestly do believe – that I wanted to get caught, that I wanted Marty to catch me. And there are times when I think that Marty did know what was going on, and he purposely turned a blind eye.

Q. You mean about Diamond?

A. Yeah. Because I don't know how he could have not known. . . . There were things I did that were very blatant, very obvious, very right out there.

Q. Having Diamond over when he was gone?

A. Yeah. . .

Q. You were living together as man and wife, but the reality was, you were doing your own thing?

A. Well, I think we were. I think we got used to living our own lives when we lived apart. You know, Marty was putting pressure on me about having a family. . . I really felt like he was doing that because he wanted – he felt like that would be a ball and chain that would keep me.

Q. You think he loved you more than you loved him.

A. Yeah.

Q. Were you ever in love with Diamond?

A. I guess I was, yeah.

Q. Were you trying to break it off with Diamond?

A. I did try. . . I was very conflicted. . . I knew that Marty and I were going to have some problems to work through when I first came to North Carolina. . . . I didn't realize how big the problems were going to be. I didn't realize that Marty was going to be leaving Fayetteville in January [2000] to go to a school for five months. That made the problems even worse. . . He went to Little Rock, Ark.. . . aircraft commanders' school. I was really upset about that because he volunteered to go to that. Here we were, just getting back to living together again, after all this time apart. . . and then he goes and volunteers to go there, and leave me stuck in Fayetteville alone. And, then I got involved with Diamond, and that made things worse.

Q. So, you tried to break it off with Diamond?

A. Yeah, it was back in August [2000], it was when I found out that he was married. . . at the trial, they portrayed this as if I knew that he was married and had a kid, and I was trying to break up his marriage. I was so shocked when I found out he was married [she says she knew about Diamond's first marriage, not the second]. . . I was married, and I didn't try to hide it. . . .

Q. You tried to break up with Diamond in August 2000?

A. Yeah, that was when Marty and I had separated. . . . That was when I decided I wanted to work things out with Marty. . . . John was very charming and interesting and fun to be around. But even at the time, there were things that made me feel like I couldn't trust him. . . he would say he loved me or whatever, I kind of felt like he was conning me sometimes. . . . Even now I wonder if he was just using me. But, anyway, I really did want to make things work out with Marty. . . . I told John I didn't want to see him anymore, that I wanted to make my marriage work. . . he got really angry. . . Then he kind of turned to the pleading – well, can't we at least be friends, we had all these good times, and stupid me, I was, like, OK, I guess we can be friends and get together and have coffee now and then. And I thought that I could handle that. I thought that would be OK. Of course, it didn't work out like that.

Q. Was there a second time you tried to break up with Diamond?

A. Yes. The second time. . . was right before Thanksgiving [2000]. This time, he got very angry, and there was a lot of phone calls. . . him repeatedly calling me. . . He did that on occasion–he did threaten suicide on the phone. . . .

Q. Was there a third time when you tried to break up?

A. Yeah. . . right before Thanksgiving.

Q. Why do you think he borrowed the gun at that time? Did he tell you he borrowed the gun?

A. No, as a matter of fact, I did not know that he had borrowed the gun, and I did not make the connection until, actually, when we were – it was actually when I was doing an interview. This was when I was in jail, and I was doing an interview. . . with my lawyer. And he had a typed out timeline, and it. . . had their note of the first time that he borrowed the gun. That was the first time.

Q. And the third time you tried to break up would have been?

A. That was the Sunday after my birthday. . . December 10.

Q. Did you meet him somewhere and say you wanted to break up?

A. No, I told him, I told him on the drive back from Raleigh.

Q. This is when you went to Raleigh to celebrate your birthday?

A. Yeah.

Q. What did you tell him?

A. That I couldn't keep living like this. . . [that] if I was going to make my marriage work, I had to put 100 percent into it, that I couldn't lie, couldn't live a double life. That I just needed to not see him anymore. And he was very cocky about it. . . he acted like he didn't believe me, or like he would just be able to talk me into it again, or something, I don't know. And, later that night, I think he called me, and I told him again on the phone, don't call me anymore. . . And that is when he started calling – either that night or the next morning, I don't remember, he started calling me at, like, 3 o'clock in the morning, every 10 minutes, on the cell-phone, and later started calling my home phone. . . I wasn't answering. . . I tried ignoring his phone calls for as long as I could. And then he started calling my office. . . when he couldn't get a hold of me, I think Tuesday afternoon [Dec. 12, 2000], he called Tom Harbin [her employer]. . . I remember Tom telling me that John called and left a message that he wanted to talk to him. . . I just couldn't take it anymore–he kept calling and kept calling and kept calling. . . I finally talked to him, I said, please stop calling. He was threatening me, I am going to call the APA [American Psychological Association], I'm going to call the state licensing board, and have you – I'm going to say I was a patient, you had sex with me, I am going to make you lose your license. . . He was saying that. . . I'm going to tell your husband and tell him we've been having an affair. . . he was just completely out of control. So, finally, I told him. . . I don't have any time to meet you until Thursday or Friday, whenever it was – I said, just give me until then, don't call, and then I will talk to you. And he said, OK, and he stopped calling.

Q. So, then you meet with him on Saturday at Zorba's restaurant?

A. It was Friday [December 15]. . . I just felt so trapped. . . I couldn't do anything to save myself. If I tried to break it off with him, he was gonna go crazy, he was gonna kill himself, he was gonna report everything to everybody. . . I didn't want to get back together with him, especially now I'm finding that the guy's crazy. But, you know, he gives me the whole spiel. . . if you don't want to be together, we can be friends, we can talk every now and then, so I said OK. You know, anything to appease the guy at this point. . . I just kept thinking to myself, this time, you know, obviously, I can't cut it off, I can't do cold turkey. What I am going to have to do is just, I am going to have to just slowly, slowly cut it off. . . .

Part 4: December 17^th, 2000

Q. So, then you talked to Diamond on Saturday, December 16?

A. I did. I talked to him several times. The next morning, I go outside, and my car is dead.

Q. The Corvette?

A. Yeah.

Q. Was that a 1977?

A. 1976. My mechanic that I normally went to is closed on weekends. I can't remember what – I think it was the starter. . .

Q. Did you call Diamond, rather than Marty, why not just have Marty do that?

A. Marty could barely be trusted to put the gas in the right part of the car. No, I didn't call Marty. Marty was there at the house. Marty helped me push the car out of the driveway. . . I called [Diamond] to ask his opinion. This is what the car sounds like when I put the key in and I turn it. Basically, what do you think it could be?. . . If it is just a starter, can I trust Pep Boys to replace the starter, or are they going to destroy my car? I am thinking if I have to wait until Monday morning to get it towed in to my mechanic, my car is going to be out of commission for two days, and here I've got back-to-back appointments from 8 o'clock Monday morning until 9 o'clock Monday night. . . I just couldn't afford to be without a car. So, I ended up calling him back several times asking his opinion about something, between Saturday and Sunday, I don't really remember. I ended up having it towed in on Saturday, but it was to Pep Boys... It was supposed to be fixed Sunday afternoon, and Marty and I were going to pick it up. . . but then [Pep Boys] actually called while we were on our way up to Raleigh [for Christmas dinner] and said that it wasn't done, after all, and wouldn't be ready to be picked up Monday. . .

Q. In terms of the events on Sunday, December 17, Tom Harbin testified that you had convinced him to invite Marty and Dominique Peterson, the boyfriend of Heidi Mougey, the office manager for the Harbin practice, to the office party?

A. He perceived it differently than I did. The year before, we had gone out for lunch, just the three of us [Michelle, Harbin, and Heidi Mougey]. . . And when Harbin brought it up, he said I thought we would go out for a nice dinner this year, and I said, OK. . . I assumed. . . that we are all going. . . but I realized. . . that he was suggesting that Marty was not invited. . . I was shocked to even realize that he thought I was going to drive, alone, on a Sunday night, an hour and a half [to Raleigh] to have dinner with him and his wife and our secretary. And I said to him, I don't want to go. . . I thought Marty and Dominique were coming. . .

Q. Harbin said he would invite the men.

A. Yeah. . .

Q. Is it true, as the police have alleged, that you told Diamond about this Sundaynight dinner at your lunch at Zorba's?

A. No. Well, if I did, it was inadvertent. I never, as a rule, I never talked to John about anything that Marty and I did together. It was, like, a taboo subject. . . John [said] that he knew I was going. Whether he saw that in my calendar because in my calendar it says, my DayTimer, it says, something like, Christmas party, whatever time, I don't know. Whether he overheard, whether I got a phone call and he overheard me say something–

Q. Well, the cops say you schemed with him?

A. Well, of course they are going to say that.

Q. You are saying you didn't tell him you were going out on Sunday night.

A. I don't recall telling him that. . . John did tell the police that he knew I was going to Raleigh for a Christmas party that night. . . .

Q. You had a good time at the Fox and Hound. You went into the bathroom and called Diamond's cellphone as the party was leaving the restaurant that Sunday night to go back to Fayetteville?

A. Here's what really happened. They [the police] asked me if I had talked to John on Sunday. And I said, yes, that I had talked to him a couple of times. They asked me what time. I said I don't really know what time I talked to him. I talked to him a couple times from the house. And I wasn't sure what time it was, but that I knew it was before – I think I said 4 o'clock – because I knew that we had left the house at, like, 4 o'clock. . . . They said, let's go over everything that happened on Sunday. What time did you wake up? What did you do then? So, we are going through Sunday... I tell them that Pep Boys called [her] in the car, and we got to the restaurant. . . [Marty, Michelle, Heidi, and Dominique Peterson arrived at the restaurant before Harbin and his wife and were seated]. . . I got up, and I went into the bathroom, and as I'm going into the bathroom, I'm thinking about this phone call I got from Pep Boys maybe 15 minutes earlier, and about, God, you know, my car's not going to be ready, I can't go pick up my car tonight. Tomorrow morning, Marty's got to get up in the morning and leave at 4 a.m. because he's got a flight, first thing. And now he is going to be gone at 4 a.m., it's not going to be done until noon, I'm not going to have a car, how am I going to get to work? I am thinking about this. . . as I get up, and I am walking to the bathroom, and as I am standing in front of the mirror putting on my lipstick, and even as I'm doing this, I'm thinking I could call John and he could pick me up and take me to work. And even as I'm saying, God, no, I don't want to ask him for anything. . . I'm wondering if I should call. No, I'm not going to call. Yeah, OK, I'm going to call. So I pull up my [phone], and I dial his number and I call. Now, I don't know what time this is, but it's gotta be. . . like 6, 6:15. But that's when I made the phone call, or I should say I tried to make the phone call because I dialed his number and I think, you know, normally his phone rings like four times and then it goes to voice. So, I dial his phone number, and it rings three solid rings. Even as it is ringing, I'm still debating – oh, I shouldn't be asking him for a favor. So, it rings three times, and I hang up because I am not going to leave a voice mail because if I leave a voice mail, he's going to call me back. Do I want John calling me back when I'm sitting at the table in a restaurant with Marty? No, I don't want to do that. . . . So, anyway, that's what I told [Detective Ralph] Clinkscales that, oh, yeah, that's when I tried to call John, but I didn't talk to him.

Q. But the cops say you made this call as you are leaving the restaurant a couple hours later, as a signal to Diamond that your party was heading back to Fayetteville?

A. They say that. They say that later because that's when they want it, because that's what fits their theory.

Q. This is a big discrepancy between you calling at 6:30 or [three hours later]?

A. Yes.

Q. Diamond claimed that you were the shooter.

A. Right.

Q. How do you feel hearing something like that?

A. I was shocked.

Q. Do you know how to fire a gun? Have you ever fired a gun?

A. Uhhuh. I fired an M16 two times.

Q. In the Air Force?

A. Yeah. . . Once in basic training, and once out at the Air Force Academy, I guess to prove that I was current.

Q. Have you ever fired a handgun?

A. Never, uhuh.

Q. Do you think John Diamond killed your husband?

A. I do now. . . .

Q. Why do you think he did it?

A. Why do I think he did it? I don't know. . . I don't think there is a pat answer.

Q. John Diamond's proffer [his military attorney's offer of testimony to civilian prosecutors] puts it right on you. He said you had told him at Zorba's to meet you at your office at 11 p.m., and he got there, and that, as he approached, he saw this man on the ground, and he said that you had shot him, you were wearing latex gloves. Is this all fantasy?

A. Uhhuh.

Q. You are telling me he was obsessed with you–that you were trying to break it off, you weren't very successful. Why did he do it?

A. I think he just thought it was an easy solution to the problem, to what he saw as being in the way of our relationship. I told him that there [were] other obstacles. As a matter of fact, I remember, in one of the Emails I listed numerous things, numerous reasons why we could not be together, and I very purposely did not include my husband as being one of those reasons because I knew that he wouldn't buy [that] as an argument, anyway, and I knew he would just say, though, you love me more than him, anyway, or, you know, I am better than he is, anyway. I knew that he would discount that. . . I gave him other, solid concrete reasons.

Q. Which were?

A. I don't even know that I can remember now. That Email was included in the evidence. . . . I was hoping that the jury would notice that I didn't say, my husband, the reason I can't be with you, because that would be something that you would think would be manipulative, saying I can't be with you because I have a husband. I can't be with you because I love him more than you. If he weren't around, then we could be together. But, no, I never said anything remotely like that. I gave him all the other reasons.

Q. That's what the cops laid on you – manipulating Diamond into this viewpoint that he thought the only way he could have you. As I read this proffer from Diamond, he is describing you as a cold blooded killer.

A. He's describing himself. I mean, I think even the police and the prosecutors know that there's no way I could have done what he says; otherwise, I'm sure they would have argued it.

Q. Did you manipulate Diamond into killing your husband? Were you the so-called Black Widow that Tom Harbin made reference to in his testimony?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever describe yourself as a Black Widow?

A. Not that I recall.

Q. Even in joking.

A. I don't recall that. . . .

Q. You're not capable of doing what Diamond says you did?

A. No, and I would have no reason. . . .

Q. You're telling me you are innocent.

A. Yes, you know this is one of the things that has just blown me away from the beginning is that people who have known me for years, all my life, who have seen that I am not a cold person. I don't hurt people. My whole life has been about helping people. . . I have been a volunteer since I was 15 years old. . . I can remember getting on the bus and riding the bus to go volunteer at Children's Hospital in Denver, and I did that for several years. . . .

Q. But some people suggest that you are a psychopath, that you showed no remorse.

A. Show remorse for what? I'm not guilty of – I mean how can I show remorse for a crime that I didn't commit? I loved Marty, and even if I, even if our marriage had ended, even if we had decided to get a divorce, even the times when we were having problems, there was never hatred there. And even the times when Marty and I disagreed. . . there was never any knockdown, drag-out fights. And, you know, that was part of the problem we had.

Q. You didn't communicate.

A. Even when we communicated, there was no passion. Even our arguments, there was no passion. . . We didn't hate each other. There was no hatred there. . . . It is so hard for me to understand people who knew us, who basically saw us grow up together, you know, how they could think that I would want to harm Marty. I mean. . . I don't understand it, I really don't. . . .

Q. What happened after the party and you drove back?

A. OK. . . Dominique [Peterson] and Heidi [Mougey] had driven up with us. . . . We got back to Fayetteville pretty quick–Marty drives fast – there's not a lot of traffic on the road. And, we pulled into the parking lot, dropped Heidi and Dominque, and we left, and as we were pulling out, I brought up to Marty, I said, we need to talk about what we are going to do tomorrow about the cars. Because the Corvette's not ready, they said not to plan on it being ready until lunchtime. . . . So, we are kind of talking back and forth, hashing out some different ideas, and Marty looks at the gas gauge and pulls over to get some gas. . . . I just said I will call a cab in the morning, since Marty had to get up so early. . . because he had a flight. I was going to get a cab to take me to work. I had two reports that I had worked on over the weekend – psychological evaluations, they are like 10 to 12 pages long. And one of them I had to have ready the next morning for, like, 8:30 was my first appointment. And I had almost finished it, there was just a little part that I hadn't done because there was a book that I had needed at the office. And, so I said, Marty, well, I'm worried, if I call a cab, what if they don't show up on time, what if I don't get to work on time, I gotta have this report done. . . . So, we decided to go back to the office and get this book that I needed. And, actually, I thought. . . there is another [report]. . . . I will get both of these reports, and I will stay up tonight and finish this. It was 10:30, which for me is pretty early. I'm a night owl. I'd rather stay up to 3 in the morning to get something done and only get five hours of sleep than to go to bed early and get up at, you know, 4 o'clock in the morning. It was only 10:30. We decided to go back to the office, I am going to get my books, and then we'll go home. He's, of course, going to go to bed, and I'll stay up late. So, we turn around – it's only, it's not very far, I thought it was only about a mile, but I guess it's actually 2 miles. And, of course, this time of night, there's absolutely no traffic, all the lights are on green, so it takes no time at all to get back there [to the office]. Marty pulls up behind the building, parks the car, I get out, I go upstairs, and, I don't think there's a light back there, there's a light off to the side.

Q. Was it dark?

A. It was dark, but there's a streetlight. . . . I go up there [up the outside stairway to the second floor back entrance], I open the door, I go in. The office doors are locked. I turn on the hall light. I open the door to my office, I go in, turn on the lights. One of the little booklet things that I need [is] in my file folder. They are there in the office – I get those. And then I go over to the other side of the suites – sort of like U-shaped, with the stairs in the middle – go around to the other side, open that door, and one of the books – the book that I was getting was actually one of Tom's [Harbin's] books – so I have to look for it a minute, it's in his bookshelves. I get that book. . . go into my office, and I'm sort of standing there for a minute. . . [and] thinking to myself, is there anything else that I need to finish these two reports while I'm here? And I'm pausing just for a few seconds. I have been in there, I don't know, maybe two minutes. You know, it's hard to judge time when it's a brief period of time like that. And I heard a noise. And the way I remembered hearing it was hearing one noise and then a pause, and then a series of noises, that's the way I remembered hearing it. And in the police notes, that's the way one of the witnesses says that he heard it was one, and then a series.

Q. That's how Ramsey Lewis describes it, deliberate shots. What did you think it was, a gun, or a car backfiring?

A. It didn't sound like to me what I thought a gun sounds like. . . . To me, it sounded more like a popping sound. And the first thing, really, that I thought of was those little popper things, those little snappers that you throw on the ground. That's actually what it sounded like to me, which I really felt more at a subconscious level than a conscious level, but I heard a noise, you know you have these thoughts, a hundred things in one second, and I remember kind of thinking, what was that? That wasn't a car backfiring, that doesn't sound right, sort of this thought process that happened in an instant. And I walked to the back door, and I pushed the door open, and I looked out, and I didn't see anything that way, and I looked downstairs and I saw Marty laying at the bottom of the stairs, and I ran down. . . the stairs, and really I remember seeing at first. . . the blood on his forehead. And I thought, Marty fell down the stairs and hit [his] head. And, he was breathing, and his breathing was very ragged sounding. He had a lot of phlegm or something in his throat. And I remember wiping the blood off the front of his forehead and saying, "Marty, Marty, Marty, are you OK?" His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at me. He was just looking straight ahead. . . . He was breathing, but it sounded very ragged. . . it sounded like he had a lot of phlegm in his throat.

Q. Did you realize he had been shot then, or what did you think?

A. I just remember thinking, I kept looking at the blood on the front of his forehead and wiping it away and thinking that he had fallen and cut his head. But when he wouldn't answer me, I kept thinking something's wrong. And, of course, this is all happening in about three seconds. And for some reason, which I still don't understand, because it seems illogical if somebody's breathing, but I put my head down on his chest to check his heartbeat or something, I guess, I don't know, but of course I couldn't hear anything because my own heart was pounding in my ear. And I remember telling him, telling him, it's going to be OK, it's going to be OK, I'm going to go get help. I got up and I saw – I was at the bottom of the stairs, and I was facing the building next to us, and the lights were on inside [that] building, and there was a light on at the back of the building and then there was a car parked there–actually there were several cars parked.

Q. On the same parking lot?

A. In the building next to ours. . . . There were several cars parked. . .

Q. Was there anybody in these cars?

A. No, but I will say that it looked like somebody was there because there were lights and the cars, I guess. And all I could think was, somebody help me, somebody help me, somebody help me. And that's what I told Marty, I am going to get somebody to help. . . [she says she ran across the back of the parking lot and banged on the doors of commercial buildings]. . . There were doors all along the back. . . and nobody answered. [She says she then ran through an alley out onto Raeford Road, the thoroughfare that runs in front of her office building. She says she tried to flag down passing cars, but none stopped. Then, she ran several blocks along Raeford Road, losing a shoe, and reached the Video Hut.].

Q. Were you pretty hysterical?

A. Yeah. . . . I started screaming, I don't know what I was screaming: "Is anybody here [at the Video Hut], somebody help me please, somebody, is anybody here?" And this woman walked out. . . and when I said the words, it was like somebody else was saying them. It was like it was the first time I realized this – that somebody shot my husband. . . . I don't think I really realized until that moment that I knew what happened. And she called 911. I know that at some point she gave me the phone, I could hardly hear what the operator was saying, it felt like they were – I remember I had to keep saying the address over and over again. It seemed like they couldn't understand the address. . . .

Q. At the time you got there, it dawned on you that Marty had been shot?

A. I don't even remember even putting together [the words]. It was like the words came out of my mouth on their own. . . .

Part 5: Confronting John Diamond

Q. What prevailed upon you to stay with Diamond after Marty was killed?

A. I really didn't stay with him. That's another thing that the prosecutors really twisted. When I saw Tom [Harbin] the next morning, one of the first things he said to me was something to the effect that, you know, the cops are going to ask about John [Diamond] or are going to find out about John, I don't know, something like that, and I said, I know. And he asked me, do you think John did it? And, of course, my first reaction was to say, no, of course not. I mean, how or why would I think that someone that I cared [about]. . . would do something that hideous? But after he had left, and after some time had passed, I started thinking about it – I mean, of course, I started thinking about anybody who could have done that. Who would do that? Why would they do that? And, you know, I came up with dozens of horrible possibilities. . . I think it was Wednesday morning [after the murder]. . . I was driving to work, and I started thinking. . . if John had done this. And I saw a gas station and I pulled over and I called him. . . and asked if he could meet me at the coffee shop in 10 minutes, and he said, yes. . . .

Q. In Fayetteville?

A. Uhhuh. . . It was in like a mini-mall, so it had like glass along the front. I pulled up outside. . . He was sitting inside on the couch, and I rolled down the window and tapped the horn and waved at him to come out to the car. And he came out to the car, got in, and, of course, he looked very concerned, very sympathetic, and he's like, how are you doing, I am so sorry. And I just looked at him square in the face, and I said, I want you to be honest with me. Do you know anything about this? I didn't say, you know, did you kill Marty? I just said, do you know anything about this? Do you know anything about what's happened? And he just said, no, no, absolutely not. . . .

Q. Were you convinced when he said that?

A. I was. I was. And maybe part of it was, you know, obviously I wanted to believe him, so maybe I was stupid. Maybe he's a really good liar. Well, he is a good liar. Of course, everybody would say I'm a good liar, so whatever. But the point is, I believed him, whether it was because I wanted to believe him, or because he's a good liar, I don't know. It doesn't matter. I believed him. And, that was when, you know, I talked to him for just a few minutes after that. He got out of the car, and I left.

Q. You buried Marty at the Air Force Academy?

A. Yes.

Q. After you come back, is it true that you went to Myrtle Beach with John?

A. I went by myself. . . He was never in Myrtle Beach. . . I was in Denver, and after spending two weeks, about two weeks, just under two weeks, I don't remember the exact date I left, like the 29th [of December]. . . I was just exhausted. I had been with both of my grandparents, both of my parents, my extended family for this whole time. . . I was just feeling completely suffocated and smothered, and I felt like I was just ready to die. I just needed to be alone, that's all I could say. . . I felt like I couldn't breathe. The sight of other people, the constant, you know, petting, coddling, and talking, it was, like, over stimulus. And, so my dad made my plane reservations. . . he made the hotel reservations for me for, I think, two weeks. . . I was in a hotel that was right on the beach. Of course, it was freezing cold. Even though it was the beach, it was freezing cold. I pretty much just stayed in my room; I sat on the balcony wrapped up in my coat and a blanket. . . .

Q. John Diamond was not there?

A. No. . . .

Q. Is this true, from Diamond's proffer – Michelle wrote Diamond that she missed him and loved him, her life was empty without him?

A. Uhuh. I never wrote him. I never wrote him a single letter. I did send him books twice, once when he was at Camp LeJeune.

Q. The proffer says you sneaked a set of silver rings to him prior to his court-martial, wanted him to be patient.

A. Uhuh

Q. This is all bullshit?

A. Yes. . .

Q. Is he making all this up?

A. (She nods yes)

[John Diamond's appellate lawyer, Donald Rehkopf, argues that Michelle Theer continued to manipulate Diamond even after he was charged with Marty Theer's murder. Rehkopf, in an appeal with the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals, says that Michelle Theer arranged to find a defense lawyer for Diamond and even provided the $1,500 used to retain two laywers, Coy Brewer and Ronnie Mitchell of Fayetteville. Brewer says that he has no knowledge that Michelle provided any of the retainer fee.]

Q. One of the things that Diamond's people made a big deal of is that you paid the retainer to Coy Brewer and Ronnie Mitchell. Why did you do that?

A. I didn't. . . .and I'll have to admit my memory about some of this stuff is very bad. There is something about, where I did send his sister a money order for $500 for something. . . .

Q. The Diamond family would have no way of knowing who Brewer was. It seems pretty clear that you must have told them that Brewer and Mitchell were the people to hire?

A. Well, I guess if you were anybody, and you just call and say, who's a really good attorney, anybody could find out.

Q. Did you recommend Brewer and Mitchell to the Diamonds?

A. No, uhuh, now I might have told him you should get an attorney, but actually I might not have because, I don't know.

Q. I think you paid something like $1,500.

A. Well. . . I did save. . . a money order receipt for $500 to the sister [Deborah Dvorak, younger sister of Diamond]. . . I am not sure I remember why I sent that to her, except I did start calling her on the phone after John was arrested. We did start communicating fairly frequently.

Q. Why were you sending her money, to help him?

A. No, no, and I don't remember the specific reason, but I did start communicating with her on a regular basis, and I would say we became friends. . . The best I can remember what I sent it to her for was a loan. . .

I think that is why I sent her the money. . . .

Q. Did you ever practice black magic?

A. No, or white magic.

Q. Both Deborah Dvorak and Diamond's proffer said that you did practice black magic. Deborah told me you put a spell on the military prosecutor in the Diamond case. Where does that come from?

A. I don't know where the two of them cooked that up.

Q. Was your grandmother ever a high priestess, did you ever tell anybody that?

A. No, my family is from New Orleans. There is voodoo stuff in New Orleans. . . .

Q. You never practiced any kind of black magic or put spells on people? You are not going to put a spell on me?

A. No. Uhuh. I used to have a little jar that said, Love Potion Number 9.

Q. On your license plate down in Florida, you had a license plate, Godd5ss?

A. Right.

Q. Isn't Goddess part of witchcraft?

A. No, that was actually part of my – remember I said I went through several religious phases. That was at the point where after I turned 16, I refused to go to church anymore because I was tired of the whole–we had gotten past the dark ages, and we were still going to church, like a Presbyterian, but we were at the hypocrite phase because we went to two different churches where the churches ended up splitting because of divisions in the church. . . . At that point, I decided that all Christians were hypocrites – say one thing, do another, that they were all backbiters and back stabbers. So, when I turned 16 and I got my driver's license, I told my mom I'm not going to church ever again. So then – I don't feel I was an atheist – but I was anti-religious until I went to college and then I sort of opened my mind a little bit, and I went to, like, Christian Student Fellowship and tried to open my mind to that a little bit. And Marty and I were actually married by the pastor of Christian Student Fellowship at Greeley. . . . The first years when we were married, every now and then we would go to church. . . . This is when I got to college, and during the time that Marty and I were married. I was looking for a spiritual home. I felt something missing. But we'd go to a church, [and] if I felt even the tiniest whiff of cultism, or dark ages, or hypocrites, that was it – we were gone, and I wouldn't go back. So, when Marty died, I got angry with God. I mean that I had made mistakes, but, still, I was going to blame God. . . my mom and I spent a lot of time talking, and this is sort of when I entered my Goddess phase. Because I told my mom, I said, you know, why does God have to be a man? Who says the spirit has a penis? Why does he have to be a man? I'm tired of the angry father God. I want to know, what about, what about the father, what about the God Mother? I am looking for the mother. I am looking for the God that is going to be nurturing and is going to mother me. I am looking for the creative God, the nourishing God, that's what I want. So that's what I call – you could call my Goddess phase.

Q. When you are referring to the dark ages, what do you mean?

A. When I say dark ages, I am referring to the time in my childhood when we were going to the Southern Baptist – that's the dark ages of my religious childhood. Yeah, and my mom and I spent a lot of time talking about that, because, you know, my mom is a very strong Christian. . . .

Q. Is Deborah Dvorak capable of making up stuff that you put a spell on a prosecutor?

A. I feel like she would say or do anything probably to protect her brother. And she told me a lot about their family growing up. Her and John had a very rough childhood. . . .

Part 6: Going Underground

Q. What caused you to go on the lam?

A. It wasn't sudden at all. After Marty died, my life was shattered – God, you have to remember, I met Marty right when I turned 16, and so basically, my whole adult life, everything had been planned with Marty, I mean, all the way up to retirement, the plans that we had made, everything we had talked about, even if we wouldn't have done half of it, or if we would have changed our minds about half of it, which I am sure we would have. Still, what we had talked about, and what we had planned, was together. And when Marty was gone, that all went down the hole. It was shattered; it was gone. I was living in a town where I had no one, where eventually I became a pariah. I was practicing in a career where my own state of mind was making it more difficult for me to continue in that career. You know, you have to be able to concentrate, to focus, to set aside your own life; you have to be fairly stable; I felt like I had no roots anywhere. I had nowhere that I could go. I didn't want to go back to Colorado because. . . I was afraid that there was too much there to remind me of Marty. Same with Florida, but at the same time, I didn't want to go somewhere where I didn't have anybody. Eventually, I did start off by going to Florida. I thought, you know, I know some people there, that's where I went to school, I have some connections, let me go down to Florida and practice. So, I left Fayetteville.

Q. When was that?

A. That would have been the end of April.

Q. 2001?

A. Yeah. By then, John was arrested, and charged in March. . . I moved down to [Vero Beach] Florida; I applied for my license to practice [psychology] down there. Actually, most of my stuff I put into storage, but I took a few things with me, moved down to Florida, was going to start looking for a job. . . . I was in a holding pattern waiting to see what would happen with John's trial, and at this point really not sure if he was guilty or not, but wanting to know and waiting to see what I could find out. . . . I didn't testify at his trial, based on the advice of my attorneys.

Q. They called you, and you took the fifth a lot?

A. Right, because I was named as a coconspirator. Had I not been specifically named, I might have [testified].

Q. Were you worried when you left Fayetteville in April that you would look guilty by leaving?

A. Well, you know I really wasn't worried about what the general public would think, but I really didn't see how people could expect me to stay there. . . . Why would I stay in Fayetteville when I had no family, no friends, no life, potentially no work. I am living in a four bedroom house all by myself, alone, why wouldn't I leave? . . . After John was convicted, I was in just in a lot of emotional turmoil. . . I just felt so upset. I didn't know what to do. I decided I didn't want to stay in Florida anymore. . . . I felt a need at that point to be around family, so I decided to go to New Orleans, where my extended family is, so it would be kind of a fresh start, a new place, but I would have the comfort and the security of a very large extended family. So I went and stayed with my grandma and lived with her a couple months.

Q. In New Orleans?

A. Yeah, and actually, to be perfectly honest, I was waiting for them to come and arrest me. . . . I wasn't looking for a job. I was just hanging out waiting for them to come and arrest me. . . . I was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, I was waiting for months. And that's very emotionally draining.

Q. How long did you stay down there with your grandma?

Q. That was on your dad's side, right?

A. Yeah, and then I moved into a condo [in New Orleans]. . . .

Q. How long did you stay there?

A. Until May [of 2002]. . . .

Q. And that's when you moved to LauderdalebytheSea, Fla.?

A. Yes. . . .

Q. Why were you using different names?

A. Well, something had happened in [Vero Beach] Florida. I had met this guy in Florida in July, and had this little fling, I guess you could call it.

Q. July 2001?

A. Yeah, and this friend of his had looked up my name on the Internet and contacted the Fayetteville Police Department. . . This is Nelson King. This is a small town, he goes around telling everybody, that's the chick that killed her husband. . . he didn't want me with his friend. . . Darren Danielson, and he succeeded. It didn't last very long at all. Anyway, after that little fiasco, I decided I was gonna go back to my maiden name. So, when I moved to New Orleans, I legally changed my name back to my maiden name [Forcier]. . . It's so easy, it's so common for people to Google a name. I just didn't want to have to deal with that again.

Q. So when you, when you went back to Florida [in May 2002], is that when you started using the names like Liza Pendragon?

A. When I left New Orleans, that is when I went underground.

Q. What names did you use?

A. Well, I had this fake ID. . . under the name Elizabeth Pendragon. And, actually, a friend of mine who got another fake ID with the same last name is the one who had picked out the names.

Q. It has no signficance, Pendragon?

A. Pendragon, actually, he chose those names because those are the names from the King Arthur novels, and the prosecutor put somebody on the stand during the trial that said Pendragon was the name of some magician that makes people disappear. . . .

Q. What name did you get the Florida driver's license under?

A. Alexandra Solomon.

[She says she also prepared fake birth and baptismal certificates, using a software program.]

Q. Did you get a fake Social Security number, too?

A. I hadn't done that yet.

Q. Just a Florida driver's license?

A. Yeah.

Q. That would have been in 2002?

A. Yeah. . . June.

Q. You were living down there near the water, LauderdalebytheSea?

A. Yeah.

Q. Did you live in a cottage down there?

A. Yeah.

Q. Where did you get your money?

A. Marty and I, we had always invested, we had always invested a regular part of our income, and that is what I lived on after he died.

Q. How much do you think you had in terms of savings?

A. It would be really hard to say. I can tell you that the stock market crash ate up a lot of it because I had left it all where it was.. . . We had IRAs, too. I cashed out the IRAs. . . .

Q. So, you think you had as much as 100 grand?

A. Yeah. . . it was probably around that, with our IRAs. Of course, I was never planning on touching the IRAs, but I did.

Q. That would keep you going?

A. I don't really remember all the details because I really didn't know what I was doing when I decided to leave. It was something that I had been thinking about for months because just the tension of having this over my head. . . I was under an incredible amount of stress. I had become pretty much agoraphobic. I never went out, certainly couldn't go out at night. I went out and got myself a gigantic dog to protect myself, I was paranoid. . . . I had gotten threatening letters from John [Diamond]. . . There were a lot of reasons why I eventually decided that I had to just disappear, that I just had to leave, because my life was no longer a life. . . .

Q. What did he say in these letters?

A. That I was going to be sorry, that he had insurance, quote unquote, he always had a backup plan, and he had insurance to take care of me, that I better watch my back. . . .

Q. So, when you got to Lauderdale by the Sea, is that when you took up with this young fellow, Dana Horton?

A. It was, yeah, not too long after I was there. . . .

Q. He thought you were Liza Pendragon?

A. Liza, yeah, yeah. I lived about two blocks away from the beach. There is a little kind of restaurant on the corner. . . two sides of it were open, open air. And in the corner. . . there was like a little bar area. And they had decent food. . . . Every now and then, I would walk up there and get something to eat. . . . They had a couple of regulars there, always sitting at the bar. . . . They had gotten to where they recognized me, and they would say, hello, and one day when I was walking up there, he [Dana Horton] was there with several of his friends, and I guess it was his birthday, or something, and they convinced me to stay and have a drink, and then you stay for a little while longer, and that's how that happened. . . . I had lived there a couple weeks before I met him.

Q. How big was your cottage there?

A. Well, it had one bedroom, and it had. . . a living room area, and then an office area, and then a little dinette and a kitchen. . . . It was completely furnished. It had dishes and silverware, towels and sheets, and everything – I think it [rented for] about $900 a month.

Q. One of the things that has come up in this case is that you had a way with men. Is that true?

A. I don't treat them like [expletive]. That's the problem. I'm too nice. I even remember Dana [Horton] making a comment. . . to me, he says, you know, I can tell you are not from Florida. I said, what do you mean? He says, most women in Florida, the only thing they are interested in is how much money you make.

Q. What did he do for a living?

A. He was some kind of customer service representative for a cruise line. . . .

Q. How did the U.S. marshals trace you?

A. I think what happened is, I gave him [Horton] my dad's phone number. The police and everybody think that my parents helped me, which they didn't. My dad definitely did not because my dad and I had a falling out before I left [New Orleans]. . . so he didn't even know that I had left. . . . And he certainly had not done anything – hadn't given me any money, hadn't, you know, driven me anywhere.

Q. This is when you were in New Orleans?

A. Yeah, and I can't remember something, my mom [in Colorado] had gotten a letter from a storage unit company [in New Orleans], the storage unit that was by my condo, where I had all my scrapbooks and my photo albums. See, originally when I left I had just said, forget it, I am cutting ties with all my past, and leaving behind all these letters. I must have had 100 photo albums and scrapbooks. I mean, every minute of my life with Marty was documented, and I had just left it all behind, and of course stopped paying the rent. Well, I had eventually gotten in touch with my mom on the telephone while I was down there [Lauderdale-by-the-Sea], and I had given her a mailing address at one of these Mail Boxes Plus. . . .

Q. This is one of those mail box outfits?

A. Right, so she could get in touch with me if it was an emergency. And she had written me that [the storage unit in New Orleans had contacted her]. . . about either coming to get these things, paying the rent, whatever. . . . When I started thinking about it, I was like, I don't want these photos to be thrown away. . . I didn't want to lose them. So, I wanted Dana to call my dad. . . to see if my dad would talk to me. I know this sounds complicated. I don't know why I didn't just call my dad to see if he would talk to me. Whatever, I think it was because Dana was in Nebraska at the time, and, stupid me, I somehow thought if Dana would call my dad from a pay phone, and just find out if my dad would talk to me, they would never be able to track me from the pay phone, right? But, stupid Dana, even though I told him, call from the pay phone, he called from his mother's house. And, so, they tracked. . . from [her] dad's cell-phone; they said, hmmm, what's this call from Nebraska?

Q. Were the marshals watching calls to your dad's phone?

A. I guess so.

Q. So, Dana called from his mother's house to your dad's, and the marshals realized that?

A. They checked out the mother's house and the people associated with his mother's house and then tracked him down to Florida. That's what they said at my trial.

Q. That makes sense, I think. I guess you were pretty shocked when Horton pointed you out to the marshals.

A. He pulled up in front of the complex of cottages and told them which one I was in. . . .

Q. Had you had some kind of plastic surgery?

A. Yeah. . . .

Q. Were you changing your nose?

A. I used to have a little bump here [pointing to her nose]. I had that little bump taken out.

Q. What were the skin peels for? Laser peels?

A. Well, laser, if you actually, if you look at my skin you can see a little bit where I have really uneven coloration here [she points to her right temple area] and along my jaw line here, and actually I wear sunscreen out so it doesn't get bad. But this gets really bad, and I have really bad acne scarring. So, they take the top layers off, and all it really does is smooth out your skin and it smooths out the color pigmentation. I had it done for the first time, actually, about 10 years ago, when Marty and I were living in Colorado Springs because I had really bad acne as a teenager, and it did help a lot. My skin is much smoother now. That is what I had done on the day that I was arrested. The marshal was very nasty about it.

Q. The laser deal?

A. Yeah. I guess part of it is a cultural thing. You know, in Florida, plastic surgery is a very common thing. You know they advertise on TV, finance your boob job, monthly payments, $29.99. . . .

Part 7: Perceptions about Michelle

Q. People have described you as arrogant, superior, manipulative, self-possessed. How do you see yourself?

A. I don't feel like that at all. . . I used to tell my patients, a lot of times they'd say, what should I call you, should I call you Dr. Theer, should I call you Michelle. . . ? And I would tell them, you should call me whatever you feel comfortable with. . . my role is to make them feel comfortable with me, not for me to lord it over them. . . .

Q. Why do you think there is this widespread perception that you manipulate men?

A. It's hard once you get labeled as something like that; it's hard to work that label off. You know, it seems like society loves to tear down a successful woman, you know, and really not even just a successful woman. People are like piranhas. They see something – they see a chance, they see something bad, or dirty, and they just love to tear it up. . . any kind of gossip, oh, look at this, look at this, and, believe me, I see it every day in here. You cannot show a moment of weakness. You show a moment of weakness, they'll eat you alive. . . .

[Michelle begins to explain the trip that she and Diamond took to Florida on Feb. 8, 2001, returning February 12. She dropped him off at her sister Deborah Dvorak's home in Florida, and she visited her friends. She and Diamond returned to her home in Fayetteville on February 12. That same day, Army Sgt. Peyton Donald, who had loaned his 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun to Diamond, called Diamond, in the presence of authorities, and asked him to return it.]

Q. Did you hear Diamond's conversation with Sergeant Donald?

A. No.

Q. Do you know anything about it?

A. No, when we got to the house, he [Diamond] actually said, I need to take a shower, can I go take a shower? I said, yes – use the guest bathroom. He went back and took a shower. . . I wasn't aware that he received any phone calls. I don't remember any conversations, but he came back out and said . . .

Q. After his shower?

A. Yeah, he came back [and said]. . . Let's go get something to eat. . . I remember telling him I really didn't want to go out because it was getting dark, [but]. . . I said, OK, I figured I could stop and get gas and get milk. So, as we are leaving, we get in the car, er, he gets in his car, I get in my car, as we are leaving. . . that's when he told me. . . I forgot, I need to sign into the barracks [at Fort Bragg] before 5 o'clock; otherwise. I would be considered AWOL, whatever. All this time that I've known him, I thought he lived in the barracks. He told me he lived in the barracks. I didn't find out until after he was convicted. . . that he was supposedly living with his wife all this time. But, so he said meet me at the Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I said, OK, so he leaves, I stop, I get gas, because he's got to go to the barracks, that will take a few minutes. I didn't go to the grocery store – I just figured that wouldn't be enough time. I go to the Kentucky Fried Chicken, I go inside, I am sitting there waiting for him, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. I don't have my cell phone. . . It's been like 15 minutes by now that I have been sitting there waiting. . . . I don't know where he is. . . . So, I go and drive by the barracks. . . he comes out of the barracks and he flags me down, and I asked him, where's your car? And he says, I parked it across the street [in the Gavin Hall parking lot]. . . let's go get something to eat. So we go back to Kentucky Fried Chicken, we get something to eat. I bring him back to his car. We pull up to his car, and the window is broken. And he says, oh, no, my window's broken. I didn't say anything. So, he gets out, he walks around, he looks, he says, drive me back to the barracks. I take him back to the barracks, he goes inside, and. . . he calls the military police. I take him back over there [to his car], we wait for the police. . . . At some point, he tells me that, I think it's after the military police arrived, that his military weapon has been stolen out of the car. And I'm thinking of his bayonet because. . . several times I've seen the bayonet that goes on the end of the, I don't know if it's the M16 or whatever, has been in the trunk of the car. And several times when I've seen it, he said, 'Oh, I can get in trouble for having this in my car. I really need to take this out.' And, so the police end up arresting him and taking him away [for having had an unregistered handgun in his car]. . . .

Q. In terms of the way you are portrayed, these various flings on the Internet, what's that all about?

A. Well, tell me who you are referring to?

Q. When you are on the Internet, in a chat room, a guy named Nate, various people. You signed off as sexy brunette. In the stuff that I've looked at, there are references to you dating men off the Internet, meeting men off the Internet, going back a few years, prior to Fayetteville.

A. I did have an affair with someone in Alabama that I met on the Internet, but that was the only person.

Q. You mean prior to North Carolina?

A. Yeah.

Q. Charley McLendon [a North Carolina man who met Michelle on the Internet] testified there was a relationship?

A. Yeah, he really blew our relationship way up. I only saw him maybe three or four times.

Q. What were you looking for?

A. I guess I was looking for what I had lost with Marty, companionship, affection, fun, laughter, someone I could relax with, someone I could enjoy time with.

Q. Why did you lose that with Marty?

A. Well, we all change over time. And Marty had changed. I had changed, too. But Marty had become very rigid, very serious. . . .

Q. You weren't enjoying his company?

A. No. . . .

Q. There is stuff about you going to "swing clubs" and having sex with other people – is that stuff all true?

A. Not the way it was portrayed, no.

Q. How would you portray it?

A. I wasn't meeting people on the Internet and going to swing clubs, no.

Q. How would you end up in swing clubs? What is a swing club?

A. It is a place where couples go to meet other couples to have fun, drink, dance, flirt.

Q. It involves sex, too, doesn't it?

A. Possibly, yes. . . .

Q. Did you go to swing clubs with Diamond?

A. Once.

Q. And did it involve having sex with other people? That's what the record showsat least that's what other people say. Did you have sex with other people?

A. No, actually, we went and we were dancing, and there was a really popular song that summer called "The Thong Song," and one of the couples we had been talking to that was sitting at our table, the guy made some fairly innocuous comment about thongs to me, and I don't even remember what it was. . . and John became violently jealous, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me out. And that was sort of it for the night. . . .

Q. You have been with other men to other swing clubs?

A. I went one other time with one other person. . . a male friend.

Q. This is the kind of stuff implied – that you used sex to get men, manipulated them. You are sitting here telling me that's not the case. Do you think you did, and you don't realize it?

A. What defense [do] I have against that other than people say I manipulated John Diamond to kill my husband? OK, what is my defense to that other than to say I didn't? But I can say, give me an example of what other man have I manipulated into doing other things?. . .

Q. So, you don't think you manipulated Dana Horton or some of these other people you had relationships with?

A. No, and I don't think Dana Horton would say I manipulated him. . . .

Q. Did you have Marty killed for the life insurance?

A. They are going to say that about anybody [who]. . . has any life insurance. . . . I mean, all I can do is say, no, that's not true.

Q. What got you into this corner. . . maintaining a relationship with Diamond after it was clear he was a suspect?

A. I wasn't in a relationship with him. . . .

Q. No, he was just staying there, at your home?

A. I had several people staying the night. . . I didn't like being alone at night.

Q. You had cut off all sexual relationship with John Diamond by this time?

A. After the weekend of December 9, I never was intimate with him again.

Q. It sure doesn't come across that way when you read the trial transcript. There was testimony from neighbors that he was always over there. How do you get around that?

A. They say he was over there the end of December when I wasn't even there. I was in Colorado.

Q. Was he coming, though, more often than you are telling me?

A. No, I think that time – I think that their perception of when he was there – is just distorted. . . .

Q. Your point is that after Marty had died, your affair with Diamond had ended, even though he drove you to Florida, but that was to see your friend and get a little down time.

A. Yes. . . .

Q. Diamond says on that trip he disposed of the gun.

A. He might have.

Q. His proffer says that Diamond and Michelle drove to Florida and stopped at exits along the way, and they disposed of pieces of the gun in dumpsters at each exit.

A. I don't know anything about that.

Q. Was this guy pathological?

A. Yeah.

Q. You are a psychologist, how come you didn't notice that before?

A. I thought about that many times, believe me. The only thing that I can really think of is that I didn't see him in the real world. I never saw him interacting with his friends. I never saw him at his job. I never saw him with his family. If you meet somebody and you are dating them, or, if you live next door to somebody, you kind of get to see how they act in the real world. But when I was with John, it was always sort of a secret thing, and it was always sort of a lie because – well, for one thing, he was lying to me about being married, and lying to me about, he was always lying to me about something, anyway, just our meeting together was always sort of a lie because, you know, I was lying to everybody about where I was and what I was doing. So, it was just like another lie within a lie. . . .

Q. Let's say you were writing this story, what do you want people to convey about you–that you are not this monster?

A. I don't think people will ever believe that I am not a monster. I think I would write a book and say everything there is to be said, and counter every lie that's been said or been written with what I see as the truth, and people wouldn't believe it, because people want to believe the worst because it makes a better story.

Q. In psychology, what is the term for it?

A. Catastrophizing. . . and believe me, I'm a catastrophe.

Q. In your business, what does catastrophizing mean?

A. The worst it could possibly be.

Q. Is that how you see your life? Or how you see what's happened to you? Or is the way people see you?

A. Both.

Q. You mean you are innocent you are telling me?

A. I made a lot of mistakes, and, ultimately, I may be responsible for Marty's death because, if it wasn't for me, John Diamond would never have come into our lives. But I never wanted Marty dead, I never wanted him harmed, and if I could do anything to bring him back, I would.

Q. You say that because you feel that, in some ways, you allowed Diamond to become obsessed with you and because of that he felt cornerred and had no other way out but to kill Marty.

A. I never thought that John would be capable of doing what he did. I never saw him behave in any violent way. I never saw him threaten violence to anyone or anything but himself when he said that he would kill himself.

Part 8: Life since conviction

Q. What's life like here?

A. Pure hell.

Q. Have you adjusted at all?

A. What is adjustment?. . . I don't believe in our justice system, I don't believe there's justice in our legal system, not after what I saw at my trial.

Q. Do they keep you in a cell, or do you have you in a barracks type of setup?

A. It's like a barracks. . . two people to a room.

Q. You have rooms within a barracks?

A. Yes. . . bathroom down the hall, shower down the hall, day room, a TV.

Q. Now, why did they put you in isolation?

A. They [prison officials] claim here that they were misquoted. And, let me tell you, they won't give me a straight answer about why I was kept in isolation for so long. So, don't ask me, ask them.

Q. How long were you kept in isolation?

A. Eleven weeks.

Q. And what is isolation like here?

A. Hell.

Q. What do you do?

A. The inner circle of hell. You don't do anything. You sit in a hot, un-air-conditioned room that's infested with ants. You get your meal three times a day slid through a slot in the door. And, that's about it. . . .

Q. Is it a cell with a toilet, bunk?

A. [She nods, Yes.]

Q. How long were you in here before they put you in isolation?

A. When I got here. . . December 3 [2004]. . . .

Q. How did you end up in isolation?

A. Well, everybody that has a sentence over 15 years has to do 45 days of a longterm adjustment. . . but I get treated differently than everybody here so, of course, I did 11 weeks.

Q. Why do you get treated differently?

A. I don't know, they seem to get special enjoyment out of punishing me, extra hard.

Q. Who is responsible for that?

A. I don't know, but you know what they say – [expletive] rolls down hill, so, whoever started it, I don't know how high up it started. . . but . . .

Q. Michelle, what is your hope, what are you banking on?

A. I don't think about it. . . .

Q. So, you don't think about it, I am going to win on appeal?

A. I don't think about it.

Q. Not at all?

A. No. . . I don't want to have my hopes dashed. . . . I was so hopeful before, I was just so sure that the truth was going to come out. I was just so sure that the jury was going to see that this was all BS. Yes, I had an affair, yes, I thought about leaving my husband, yes, I moved out, yes, we had problems, but none of that makes me a violent killer. How can you make the leap from one to the other? Forty percent of the marriages in this country have problems similar to mine, but they don't end in violent death. Nobody came forward to say they heard us screaming and throwing plates, nobody came forward and said that they heard me say I'm going to kill you for this, nobody. . . . See the complicated thing is that, you can't prove a null. There's no facts to show you didn't do something. . . .You can have facts that show you did do something, but there's no facts to show you didn't do something. . . .

Q. You can't prove a negative is what you're saying?

A.Yeah. I mean, the DA's [District Attorney] did a great job in showing that I had an affair, that I talked to John on the phone all the time. In fact, you know, I talked to John on the phone all the time even up to the day Marty died. If I was planning his murder, wouldn't I stop talking to John for at least a day or two?. . .

Q. Have you thought about writing a book?

A. I've thought about writing a book about my case, and I have thought, even more, really, I have thought that if I was going to write a book, I'd like to write a book, short stories about some of the other women here. . . There are women who are here for murder under very unique circumstances, and I think that society looks at women who have killed and I just say women because I'm not, I don't have any personal experience with these men, so I can't say, but I think that society just looks at these women and just sees monsters. And I don't think they understand. And I'm not saying an excuse, I'm saying that I don't [believe] they understand these women or how they got that way or how they are now. . . .

Q. Do you think you gave me this interview because you feel defeated, that you want to get your story out?

A. I don't know if I feel defeated, but I can tell you that, what I can say is that I feel like I have been silenced for too long, and there is just some part of me that needs to speak out in my own defense, you know. I can understand Kirk's [her trial attorney Kirk Osborn] reasoning for not wanting to put me on the stand, but now at this point, I feel like my silence has just basically become a burden. . . . I guess, in some ways, I do feel defeated. In jail, one girl who has been in several times, she said, I just want to ask you one question. She said, you know, obviously you didn't love him [Marty]. Why did she say that? Because I was having an affair, and she thought I killed him [Marty]. I guess everyone thinks that, that I didn't love him, and obviously I killed him, that's what they think. 

Q. If you got off on appeal, would people think you were innocent?

A. I would go around the rest of my life, and people would say, that is the woman who killed her husband. . . . People will always say, yeah, she killed her husband, and her boyfriend took the fall. . . .'

Q. Was there any one thing that convicted you?

A. No. They brought in troops and troops and troops of people, piling these grains of sand up until eventually you have a mountain. It was circumstantial.  All it proves is that I had an affair. It did not prove that I planned and perpetrated a murder.