NARRATOR: 21-year-old Amanda Sigers wants a career
in law enforcement, until a man steals her heart.
AMANDA: You could just tell he had life together,
and he really just laid out the red carpet.
NARRATOR: But her marriage to Sy Ghose turns
into a crash course in criminal behavior.
I can't imagine what that would feel like to be
victimized, stalked, harassed,
knowing there is a weapon involved.
Police tell her, "Well, he hasn't done
"anything illegal yet.
There's not much we can do."
AMANDA: And he knew exactly what button to push,
which was going after my daughter.
NARRATOR: Amanda's life is on the line as she
tries to shield her family from becoming his victims.
This behavior can't go on forever -- whether it's
the victims or it's the perpetrator,
something's got to give.
AMANDA: I woke up to gunshots outside of my bedroom window.
[theme music playing]
AMANDA: My mom and dad were married in Michigan
and divorced when I was two.
So I really don't know my parents to have had
a relationship together,
but they were really good co-parents.
And then when I turned probably around 12 or 13 years old,
my mom graduated from x-ray school, and we moved to Texas
for work.
I found myself being very alone in the beginning,
uh, especially through middle school,
but we made it, and I don't think you could pay me to go
back now.
I graduated high school in '99,
and I wanted to be a police officer.
I'm not quite sure what motivated me to go down
that route -- I've always been kind of a square,
didn't -- never been a rule pusher or breaker.
So it was just kind of a fit for me.
NARRATOR: In 2002, 21-year-old Amanda Sigers is in her second
year studying criminal justice at San Jacinto College in
Houston, Texas.
I was a young girl that had the world at my fingertips,
really, I was having a decent time with
my friends exploring the city and just living life.
One day, a friend and I were preparing for a test
and we chose to go to a local bookstore,
coffee shop and study.
We happened to look over, and there
was this guy sitting at an adjacent table.
He was very handsome.
After a while, conversation ensued with him.
NARRATOR: 25-year-old Sy Ghose
tells Amanda and her friend that he
works as a pharmaceutical sales rep but intends to go
back to school.
Sy had told me that he
graduated from UT with a pre-med degree.
He applied to get into Baylor College of Medicine, and he was
accepted, but he denied the acceptance and ended up
venturing into something else.
He eventually got both of our phone numbers, and I thought
for sure he was gonna call her,
but he ended up calling me, and I was ecstatic.
The beginning of our relationship was very fun.
Sy was very much a gentleman from the word
go, and he really just laid out the red carpet.
He was very, very polite, very cordial, pretty much like
Amanda had told me -- he was a tall,
handsome man, and I knew that she was, you know...
She was very smitten.
Culturally, he was very different from me.
I found him to be, um, very interesting.
Even though he was raised here in the United States,
he had a lot of Eastern values.
His parents were first generation Indians.
I got to learn a lot about
the temples and just the peaceful nature of Hinduism.
It's such a beautiful culture.
He told me that his father and mother were divorced, and prior
to us getting together,
he had moved out of his father's home and into,
um, his mother's home.
He was very
uncomfortable at his mother's house.
She would consistently be on him, nagging him
about something,
um, mostly his career, because in that culture,
career and education is number one.
They generally live in the home for quite some time,
even after college, in an effort to save as much money
as possible, and so he was, you know,
staying in the house even at an older age, because that's
culturally just what was of the norm for them.
Sy's mother's name is Lipika.
She was very much about money, prestige.
She didn't care for the union between Sy and I.
He relayed that message to me, and I feel like she wanted him
to marry an Indian woman and not a white woman.
But we -- we chose to look past it.
Three months later, she realized that he was serious
about me, because he actually brought me home, and we ended up
staying the night there, and she opened up the door, and I was --
and I was there -- she shut the door very fast.
And Sy had to go put that fire out.
She was very vocal about me being a white bitch.
[indistinct shouting]
And she didn't want that white bitch
staying the night in her house.
It was certainly a shock,
but I knew that he wasn't going to listen to that.
I knew how he felt about me, but it was very hurtful.
We ended up leaving, and I don't
believe I ever stayed the night there again.
NARRATOR: Sy's dad, on the other hand,
welcomes Amanda with open arms.
AMANDA: Sy's father, his name is Biz.
I did not feel like he was
racially against me or us being together.
I felt like he genuinely wanted to see us
succeed in life.
He was just a very kind soul.
NARRATOR: In late 2002, Biz asked his son
and Amanda to come live with him and his current wife, Kay.
He has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and wants to
spend his last days with his son.
AMANDA: The first few weeks were good.
Kay was on board with everything -- she knew that
we were there to help and not to hinder.
But then it started to decline.
I could tell that there was tension between Kay and Sy.
Sy went on to tell me that
Kay would say false things about him.
Eventually, it felt like
I was walking on eggshells everywhere I went.
One evening, Kay cornered me, she said, "You have no idea
"the person that you're getting involved with.
"You have no idea who he is, and I would
highly encourage you to stay away."
At the time, I thought,
whatever, I'm in love, and he's so good
to me, and he has nothing good to say about her,
so it tainted my ability to
really take her seriously.
NARRATOR: Despite the tension, all three focus
on caring for Biz until
his death in July of 2003.
Sy is inconsolable.
He was devastated.
Biz was a primary force in his life.
And once he passed, I think that Sy felt
empty, I think he felt scared.
Very different -- mentally, very different.
NARRATOR: Things come to a head
when Amanda finds something suspicious in Sy's car.
I found a box of condoms, and it prompted a lot of questions.
He became defensive,
and it led to a horrific argument,
and I started to get a little bit scared,
and I had attempted to make a phone call, and he ripped
the phone off the wall.
So I made my way to the front door, and I pushed
the panic button on the alarm,
which immediately sends a call
to 911.
So I knew that they were on the way, and he knew
they were on the way, as well, and he left.
So the police showed up,
and I let them know what had transpired.
I did not press charges.
It was hours later
that he came back, and I vividly remember just
being so upset that he was gone,
not knowing what was going to transpire,
if we were breaking up.
NARRATOR: Sy begs Amanda's forgiveness,
and Amanda rationalizes that
he is deeply grieving and not acting like himself.
I forgave him, and we just chose to
ultimately put it behind us.
I had a lot of big hopes for our --
our relationship and I wanted things to be normal again.
So I just made it okay.
And we were fine. We were fine after that.
NARRATOR: In 2005, Amanda and Sy decide
to take the next big step.
MIKE: I was very happy for my daughter to get married.
She was very happy about getting married.
NARRATOR: And by this time, Sy's mom
has accepted Amanda into her son's life.
AMANDA: So we had a Hindu ceremony
at the Meenakshi Temple.
And two days later, we had the Christian ceremony.
My family came to the Hindu ceremony.
I had to wear a red sari, red and gold.
It was absolutely beautiful.
The highlight was when I saw them walking towards
the limousine to spend the rest of their lives together.
That's the way it was supposed to work.
I felt like my dreams were coming true.
We were in forward motion.
NARRATOR: Sy applies to medical school,
and life seems on track until
he does an about-face and pressures
Amanda to change her career.
It came out of left field for sure.
He was very adamant that being a police officer,
that was a blue collar job.
It wasn't acceptable to him or his family.
And he made it very clear that it
was not where he saw his life going.
NARRATOR: Instead, he wants her to go into healthcare, as well.
I was to go through nursing school, and we were
going to open and run a practice together.
In theory, it was the fairy tale.
I caved in, because I felt like he knew better than I did.
He was five years older than me, and he had a plan.
NARRATOR: Sy chooses a podiatry school in Des Moines, Iowa,
and Amanda gets accepted into a nearby nursing school.
MIKE: When they moved to Iowa,
they were about 10 hours closer to Michigan
I think, so I could see them more often.
I would take the train over,
help her decorate, and I loved doing it -- as a father,
that was -- it was great for me to be able to do that.
NARRATOR: But Amanda doesn't adapt well
to her new field of study.
Well, I was in a clinical setting one day, and I ended up
passing out, and that's when my professor
pulled me to the side and said,
you know, "You may want to rethink your career choice."
She said, "Dad, I really want to do it,"
but she knew that she couldn't do it because she couldn't stand
the sight of blood, so...
NARRATOR: Amanda decides to withdraw from the program.
When I told Sy, he didn't react well.
He made it very clear that he was embarrassed by my decision.
He told me he was very disappointed
and that I needed to do it.
I stood my ground that I wanted to do something
else, and...
ultimately, he had called me white trash and [bleep] bitch
and wished that I was dead.
That's when I realized that I had
[voice breaking] made a mistake.
NARRATOR: When Amanda Ghose quits nursing school,
her husband, Sy, becomes verbally abusive.
But I'm a loyal soul.
I'm very loyal to my mate.
And I chose to stay.
I didn't think that there wasn't anything
that we couldn't fix.
I took my vows, my marriage vows, very seriously.
NARRATOR: Amanda forges ahead despite Sy's disapproval.
I took all of my criminal justice and nursing courses
and wrapped it into a general studies degree,
basically the highest level associate degree
you can get from a junior college, and I moved on.
But I didn't feel proud of that accomplishment,
actually -- Sy belittled me, because it wasn't good enough,
and so I felt like a failure.
And I felt that there was things going on that I didn't
know about, which relayed into their marriage
some friction.
AMANDA: He definitely made me feel devalued.
I felt alone. I felt isolated.
I missed my family.
[phone ringing]
NARRATOR: And then a call from out of
the blue brings family directly into Amanda's life
in an unexpected way.
Amber was my half sister.
She was born to my dad and my stepmom Joyce.
She was four years younger than me
almost to the day, the only sister I've ever had,
and as she got older,
she became dependent on drugs.
We went our separate ways.
[baby crying]
NARRATOR: While struggling with addiction,
21-year-old Amber gives birth to a baby girl, Kelsie.
When Kelsie is a few months old,
Amber is ordered by a Michigan judge
to enter rehab for 90 days.
AMANDA: The paternity had not been established on Kelsie,
and I received a phone call from CPS asking me if I would
be interested in doing a temporary foster placement
for my niece.
It was a no-brainer for me,
but I wanted to make sure it was okay with Sy to bring her
into the home, and he agreed.
NARRATOR: In January of 2007,
Amanda travels to Michigan to get her niece.
AMANDA: When I first saw Kelsie, she was only 11 pounds
at seven months old -- I knew instantly
that I was never gonna give her back.
Amber was not capable of taking care of a child,
but Amanda was,
so I was happy that Kelsie was in a safe place.
I knew that I was on the path that God had laid out for me.
She was a sickly baby due to being born addicted.
-She cried incessantly. -[baby crying]
It is very hard to deal with a baby that never stops crying.
But somehow you figure out how to deal with it.
Amber didn't finish her rehabilitation,
so the court awarded Amanda to keep taking care of Kelsie.
AMANDA: Even though he never said it,
I think Sy felt like he had made a mistake.
I think he quickly realized that the responsibility
of a child was far more than he anticipated.
Unfortunately, it wore Sy down over time.
I was doing the laundry one day,
and the baby was crying. -[baby crying]
I walked around the corner, and he was shaking her violently.
-I was shocked. -[baby crying]
I couldn't believe that he was doing what he was doing
to such a tiny, fragile little baby.
I was just blown away.
And it was in that moment that I knew I had to leave.
He has absolutely crossed the line.
I need to get her out of there.
He didn't deserve the title of being a dad.
NARRATOR: In May 2007, Amanda moves back to
Houston with Kelsie, leaving Sy behind in Iowa.
AMANDA: I was gonna take care of this baby.
That was my mission.
Why the career choices that I had
made and why it didn't pan out --
I knew that I was supposed to be Kelsie's mom.
I was able to find a townhouse apartment right next door to
my mom, which was extremely helpful,
because she was able to help me with the baby.
I got a part-time job so that we could survive.
Somehow, we made it work.
All of a sudden, I became a single mom.
We were divorced in December of 2008.
He filed for divorce, and it was uncontested.
It was easy, two-page divorce.
I felt like it was the worst thing that had ever happened
to me, but probably the best thing that could have
ever happened to me at the same time.
It was such a weird feeling.
NARRATOR: Amanda enrolls in a sonography program
for training in ultrasound.
AMANDA: I felt very confident.
I found my independence.
I was going to school, and I was working full-time.
Kelsie was going to daycare and thriving in daycare.
We were happy.
I was free of all of the dysfunction
that I had lived in for so long.
NARRATOR: But Amanda's newfound peace will not last for long.
Sy moved back to Texas in December of 2009, early 2010.
And that's when
the stalking began.
I can't imagine what that would feel like, to be
victimized, stalked, harassed,
knowing there is a weapon involved.
This behavior can't go on forever.
When is somebody gonna break?
NARRATOR: Amanda Harris has moved on with her life,
while Sy flounders.
Ironically enough, he decided that medical
school wasn't quite right for him.
NARRATOR: Sy drops out of podiatry, converts to
Christianity, and returns to Houston.
AMANDA: One day, he called me and told me that he had
obtained a job at a pizza place near my apartment.
And I thought, why in the world
would he take a job delivering pizzas?
And then it dawned on me that he could drive in
and out of my apartment complex on the daily,
on the hourly sometimes.
I found it to be bizarre behavior.
DR. MASSNICK: He's a pizza delivery driver.
Where being
a law enforcement officer wasn't good enough for her,
now he's going to drive and deliver pizzas, not because
he wants to, but because it allows
him to have the freedom to drive by and check on her
whenever he wants to.
NARRATOR: In early 2011,
2.5 years after her divorce, Amanda moves to a new home in
a new neighborhood and doesn't share her address with Sy.
It's a new beginning.
I was encouraged by my friends to get out there.
So I put my profile up on
an online dating site, and I met Wayne.
NARRATOR: Wayne Harris works in the motor sports industry
and like Amanda, is divorced with one child,
a boy named Nick.
So I met up with --
with him, and I thought he was
an attractive man, and our conversations just flowed
so well -- I just knew right away.
I was so ecstatic to feel this feeling again,
to know that I was capable of feeling, you know, the joy,
the butterflies again.
And he was as well, that we just didn't miss a beat.
We decided that we were gonna see each other the very
next day, which turned into the very next day and every day
thereafter, unless he was out of town, uh, for work.
MIKE: And I thought he's just a fantastic guy.
Real nice to be around. Very energetic.
AMANDA: So Super Bowl Sunday
rolled around, and Wayne came over
that evening, and I was cooking,
and I would oftentimes let Kelsie play
at the park right there,
because I could see her.
She's within -- basically within arm's reach of me.
So Kelsie's playing,
Wayne and I are talking, -[knocking noises]
and I get a knock at the door,
and it's the police officer that lives on site.
He had received a call from a concerned person
letting them know that I was --
I let my child play outside unattended.
NARRATOR: Amanda invites the officer inside to discuss it,
embarrassed that her new boyfriend is a witness.
We all had conversation, Wayne had conversation with him.
We were all in agreeance that
she was certainly within an eye shot, ear shot, arm shot
of me and that she was perfectly fine.
I asked the officer who had made
the call, and he couldn't tell me.
But I knew in my gut who was at the root of this.
I felt frustrated.
I felt
violated again.
It's a -- it's a very uneasy feeling to know
you're being watched.
At this point,
my relationship is blossoming with Wayne, and I didn't let him
know everything that was
going on, because I certainly didn't wanna taint a good
relationship with my baggage and drama.
I didn't want to bring that into the relationship.
NARRATOR: Amanda's strategy is to block Sy completely.
I figured he didn't get his way.
Hopefully he'll move on now, but that never happened.
And he knew exactly what button to push,
which was going after my daughter.
NARRATOR: It has been five years since
Amanda took custody of Kelsie.
Now, as Amanda is on the verge of becoming Kelsie's
legal mother,
Sy starts to stir things up.
What he did is he cleverly went to a therapist,
told the therapist all of his grievance toward me,
and made me out to look like a neglectful mother,
and it was her duty to call CPS by state law.
I received a phone call from CPS
that they were going to interview my daughter that day.
I felt mortified.
And as soon as she stepped foot in my door,
she realized quickly that Kelsie was just fine.
I just couldn't believe that he -- he did that.
It was like, when does it stop?
Kelsie, the adopted daughter, is the reason
she left him in the first place.
So by calling CPS, if that worker had not done
a thorough and proper investigation or had just
rushed to judgment,
then Amanda could have very easily lost Kelsie, and for all
intents and purposes, her niece, who is now
her daughter, is the most important thing she has,
and it would have been devastating.
NARRATOR: Concerned that Sy's unpredictable behavior
is escalating,
Amanda seeks help from the local police.
I don't think it's ever gonna go away,
and I honestly have no idea how to deal with it.
I've gone to the police department at this point.
I've talked to officers that have asked me to just
ignore it, and as long as he doesn't put his hands on me,
there's really nothing they can do.
It's very frustrating.
I felt horribly harassed, unprotected,
and you feel so helpless.
NARRATOR: Wayne steps up and asks Amanda and Kelsie to
move in with him on the other side of Houston.
It was
the best feeling -- I felt Kelsie
was gonna have a great role model,
a great father figure -- moving to the north side of
town was good, because Sy didn't know where I had gone.
And so the stalking had come to a halt
for a short period of time.
Life was actually going really, really well.
It was very...
very comforting to know that she was
with somebody that was safe, and Kelsie, too.
NARRATOR: That all changes
one night when Wayne is away on business.
-[gunshots popping] -AMANDA: I...
woke up to gunshots outside of my bedroom window.
[gunshots popping]
I knew he was out there.
NARRATOR: In 2012 in the Houston suburb of Tomball,
Amanda Ghose is awakened by -[gunshots popping]
gunshots outside her window.
I immediately called the police.
She did not see Sy shoot the gun,
but she did see him get in the car -- when that happened,
well, that's when I really became concerned.
AMANDA: When they showed up, he wasn't there.
They checked the perimeter of the home.
They didn't find any shell casings.
They spoke with the neighbors.
None of the neighbors had heard any gunshots.
And so I kind of felt like they didn't
believe me, and it really went nowhere.
NARRATOR: Amanda is on high alert,
and it's not long before another incident occurs.
One night, Wayne and I were sitting in the living room
watching TV, and our dog ran to the window
and it was barking his tail off.
[distant dog barking]
So we knew somebody was out there, and I had a feeling
that it was Sy.
Wayne popped up quite angrily, and I encouraged him to just
settle down for half a second.
Let me call the police and get them there this time
so that they could witness what was going on.
They were right around the corner, so it only
took a couple of minutes, and they caught him there.
Thank God -- this time, he had finally been caught, and they
issued him a trespass violation and a warning.
We actually felt good after that for a while.
We didn't see him for quite some time after that.
NARRATOR: With Sy in her rearview,
Amanda commits to her bright future.
We decided to get married on 12-12-12 at 12:12
at the Justice of the Peace.
MIKE: They were very, very happy.
And in fact, at the time that they got married,
they adopted Kelsie at the same time.
AMANDA: I had been fighting for custody of
Kelsie for the better part of seven years.
It was quite the process, but we'd finally gotten there.
And then two days later,
I found out I was pregnant for Gemma.
MIKE: It was great to see.
Wayne wrote notes for the unborn baby for her to read
later on and, you know, when she grows up.
So, um, he was very, very excited
about being a new father.
AMANDA: Gemma was born with a very,
very rare condition called VACTERL Association.
She was born with only one kidney as well as no esophagus,
a cardiac defect, and a vertebral defect.
Needless to say, she required 24-7 attention, care.
MIKE: She was a perfect little child.
Of course, all of my grandkids were perfect.
They are a blessing.
AMANDA: About a year and a half after Gemma was born,
we moved into this beautiful home that neither one of us
thought we would ever be able to live in.
And here we achieved it.
We were on top of the world at this point.
Christmas Day 2015, we woke up rather early with the kiddos,
because they were just super excited,
and we just sat down to open our gifts
and I hear a tap at the door.
[knocking noises]
And who else but Sy?
NARRATOR: Sy tells Amanda that he would like
to pray with her and her two daughters.
I just couldn't believe that he -- he even came back around.
Especially at a time when a family is...
getting together for Christmas.
AMANDA: Wayne came unglued that day.
He escorted Sy off of our property with
a lot of profanity and a lot of anger and aggression.
NARRATOR: Sy's stalking has been going on for almost
six years, ever since Amanda decided to leave him.
There are some individuals
who cannot take no for an answer.
They cannot move on and regain their sense
of balance until they're back in control again.
Maybe if Amanda were to run back to him
and he could say no, I don't want you,
then he would have control again, and he could move on.
Right now, none of the decisions are his,
except the ones that he uses to torture and drive
them crazy.
NARRATOR: She is aware of Texas's
strong Stand Your Ground laws
and asks the police for more information about self-defense.
So I asked the officer what my rights were -- if I had
the right to hold him at citizen's arrest until
the police got there.
He told me that we definitely had that right.
NARRATOR: Wayne owns a gun and suggests Amanda buy one too.
Wayne encouraged me to go get my license to carry and buy
a weapon to protect myself due to all of this incessant
harassment, stalking.
So I took a few classes and tried
to become as capable with my weapon as possible.
[gunshot blasts]
June 28th, 2017, was Kelsie's 11th birthday,
and she chose to just have a "she day."
She chose to do all kinds of things like get her nails done,
get her hair done, very girly stuff.
NARRATOR: Amanda, Kelsie, and Kelsie's friend, Georgia,
meet up with Wayne, his son,
Nick, and baby Gemma at Kelsie's favorite restaurant.
AMANDA: And after dinner, Gemma was exhausted,
so I asked Wayne to take her back home,
uh, so that I could finish shopping with Kelsie
and her friend for her birthday.
So he obliged and reached over and gave me a kiss,
a really long kiss.
The kids were in the background "ewing."
I will forever remember it.
I stayed at the mall with --
with Georgia and Kelsie for probably about another hour.
Kelsie asked me if her friend could
stay the night, and I said sure.
So all three of us went back to our home, and as I was
rounding the corner of my street,
I saw Sy on -- on his hands and knees
at my front door with Wayne pointing a gun at him.
I knew immediately that I needed to protect my family.
I reached into my glove box,
I grabbed my gun, and I told the girls to sit down
and not to move.
I got out of the car, I held the gun in that direction,
and I called the police.
DISPATCHER: Hold on, hold on.
NARRATOR: On June 28th, 2017,
Jennifer Provaznik is visiting friends who
live down the street from where Amanda and Wayne live.
I work in law enforcement, and it's my day off.
So I just want to really enjoy my day with my friends.
NARRATOR: They are oblivious to the scene
unfolding a couple of yards away.
Okay.
NARRATOR: From inside the car,
11-year-old Kelsie also calls 911.
[gunshot blasts]
JENNIFER: And I hear three distinct gunshots
and a woman screaming.
-[gunshot blasts] -[woman screaming]
So at this time, my training kicks in and I told my friend,
I was like, listen, "Call 911, I'm going down there."
I had been shot, but I didn't know it.
It was all so surreal.
I saw my husband fall to
the ground out of the corner of my eye.
And as I sat up from the position I was in,
I was shot again, and I was laying between the two cars
when I saw Sy's feet moving around the car
and circle back to me.
And when I looked up,
he was holding a gun at my head,
and he -- and he pulled the trigger,
but it didn't fire.
I had been saved by the grace of God.
It didn't fire.
And something, some divine force,
picked me up,
and I got to my feet, and I ran for my life.
JENNIFER: I see a woman running into the house
and slamming the door.
And then there's this guy just standing there in between
two cars, looking around,
and he looks right at me and then takes off running.
NARRATOR: Sy Ghose gets in a car and flees the scene.
JENNIFER: And that's when a little girl gets out of the car.
She looks at me, and she starts screaming, "Save my daddy!"
And I look down, there's a -- there's a body in the driveway,
and I was like, "Listen," I said, "There's a woman
"behind me, you take your friend,
"you do not stop till you get to her.
Do you understand me?"
And she goes, "Yes."
And so I sent her off at that point.
I look at the individual on the ground, and I know there is
no point of me even attempting CPR or any other
life-saving matters.
All I could think is he's gonna fire through this door.
And I realized in that moment that I had
left Kelsie in the back seat of the car.
I ran back out the front door,
and I was met by a very kind lady.
I know that she's wounded, and she's also in shock.
Uh, and she's, she's yelling
about her babies being missing, she's also screaming,
uh, "I knew he would do something like this.
I knew it," and then she notices the man in the driveway.
She kindly grabbed me by my arm.
That's when I realized I'd been shot in my arm,
and she walked me over to his body.
And I was able
to say goodbye
to my husband,
and they were putting me in an ambulance shortly thereafter.
[woman sobbing]
NARRATOR: When police arrive, they find five-year-old Gemma
and 17-year-old Nick hiding in a closet.
That's when Amanda's father drops by on his way home
to say happy birthday to Kelsie.
As I got out of the car, there was
three or four policemen that came up to me,
and the first thing they said was,
"Amanda's in the hospital, but she's okay.
She's been shot, but she's gonna be okay."
And right at that point, that's when my heart just fell.
And the first thing I thought of was the kids.
Are the kids, okay? What happened?
And they said, yeah, the kids are -- the kids are here.
They're with some of the neighbors that are here.
And then I said, "Well, what about Wayne?"
That's when they continued to tell me he didn't make it.
MAN: We begin with that breaking news alert out of League City.
A man police initially wanted for
questioning is now wanted for murder.
TJ: We were the first news crew on the scene.
We're getting there, and it's the chaos of the scene,
because you have a gunman on the run,
you have dead body and someone seriously wounded,
and everyone's trying to figure out what happened.
They put the hospital on lockdown,
because Sy was on the run.
I was at her bedside the whole time.
I don't know, it's like a movie, a bad movie.
It was a horrible nightmare.
TJ: So as this statewide manhunt is going on,
police had reason to believe that Sy was gonna try to run
for the border, and it was at a checkpoint in El Paso,
uh, they were able to identify that Sy was trying to cross.
There wasn't much of a resistance at that point.
Even Sy had figured out that this was over,
and he was gonna be taken into custody.
When they look inside the vehicle, they do find a gun,
they find several clips with bullets inside where
the casings match the 12 that
were found on scene of the shooting back in League City.
AMANDA: I don't know how I made it through.
I really don't,
but I have children, and they needed me,
and life didn't stop.
I had to get out of bed every day.
I had to accept that he was never coming back.
Thank God for my children.
I stayed in the house until the trial came,
and it took us two years to go to trial.
NARRATOR: As the family tries to heal,
Amanda assumes the only time she will ever have to
encounter Sy again is in court, but she is wrong.
[phone ringing]
One day, I get this phone call, and I can
clearly see that it's the jail on my caller ID.
So I turn on the voice recorder, and...
I took the phone call.
I could not believe that I was listening to
this person on the other end of the phone.
How is this even allowed? Who is running this jail
and allowing a murderer to call his victim?
NARRATOR: Sy's staggering ability to keep harassing
Amanda will even continue through the trial itself.
AMANDA: Sy was charged with murder in the first degree,
aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,
and stalking.
TJ: In the middle of the case,
Sy fires his defense attorney
and decides he's going to defend himself now.
But I know that he wanted to
get me on the stand and question me,
and that was his way of doing it.
He was able to question me for a very long period of time.
TJ: Sy thought that Amanda was gonna wilt on the stand.
That's not what happened.
Amanda comes through this a hero.
The fact that she does not cave,
that she looks him straight in
the eye and answers his questions.
So if he wanted control, he didn't get it.
He got to talk to her,
but he didn't get the responses, the feeling,
the control that he was seeking.
So in that case, Amanda comes out a winner.
I don't know how the law allows your attacker to question you.
How does that -- how is that even possible?
But it was. It happened.
NARRATOR: After the trial wraps up,
the jury is quick to return guilty verdicts.
And on March 5th, 2020, Sy is sentenced
to 50 years in prison.
He will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years.
I was disappointed, because I feel like he should
have gotten life without the possibility of parole.
I truly believe that if he were to walk the streets again,
if he were to ever get out, that he will kill me.
He will finish the job.
I hope he never gets out.
And all I can do is just say,
you know, let Jesus take the wheel.
Even though I'm that close to her,
I can't imagine
going through what she went through.
We get through it every day.
It's a process where we're all working through it.
I was angry with the police.
I feel like they failed my family,
and I think Sy Ghose is pure evil,
but there's still a big life to live,
and I choose to just be happy.
We have what? 40? I have 40 summers left.
I'm gonna make the best of the 40 summers
I have left -- Wayne wouldn't want me to waste them.