This is a photo of Rick hugging my mom.
He looks happy, but even with a smile on his face,
there's something evil about it.
It just makes my blood run cold when I see this photo.
Seeing my mom's beautiful face and how much joy
she had in this photo
and this monster hugging her,
it was like a demon on her back.
This photo is a lie.
There were happy moments. It was not a happy life.
[phone dialing]
[phone ringing]
[phone conversation continues]
[sniffling]
I don't even know what to say.
[The Paper Chase's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" plays]
[strings continue playing sinister tune]
[static crackling]
-[knock at door] -[creaking]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[water dripping]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[sinister chord strikes]
This is a picture of my mom and I sitting on a couch
when I was really little.
You can see how happy she is in this.
My mom was my hero from the time
I came into this world.
I wanted to look like her, I wanted to be like her.
I just all around wanted to be with her 24-7 at this age.
I admired her my whole life.
By the time I was five, my mom had been divorced twice
and had three kids.
I know she was still struggling because she was young,
but as a kid, she felt like she was meant to be a mom.
In 2002, my mom met Rick.
They'd go out onto these lovely dates, and she'd come back with
a huge glow on her face and flowers, and it was so
sweet, and that's what actually made me warm up to him so fast
was seeing how he treated her.
They didn't get married until several years
into the relationship.
At this time, it was too early to imagine that this charming,
sweet man would be the person to drag us all into darkness.
[Kayla] At first, everything seemed very normal and fantastic.
But once Rick moved in, he started taking on a more
disciplinary role with my siblings.
Instead of having a normal reaction, it was always
an exaggerated reaction to every little thing.
One of my siblings was potty training, and he was beyond hard
on him, and if he didn't go to the bathroom the way he was
supposed to outside of the diaper,
he was told he was lazy and worthless.
I remember there was this one day when my brother had had
an accident, and he was afraid to say anything to Rick,
but Rick could smell that he had gone to the bathroom
in his pull-up.
At that point Rick said, "OK, well, now we're going
to the backyard."
He grabbed him by the arm and just kind of led
and dragged him to the backyard.
He was terrified.
Rick told him to drop his diaper, face the fence,
and he turned on the hose on the highest setting so it was
like a pressure wash situation and hosed him off.
My brother was begging him to stop.
"Please don't. This is cold.
It's so cold, it hurts. I'm freezing."
And he was just sobbing.
It was winter at the time,
so it was a very dramatic experience.
[sinister laughter]
I remember Rick, he was smiling, and he was laughing
the entire time.
He found it to be amusing when any of my brothers
were in pain.
After that incident, I noticed my brother absolutely
shaking and terrified.
And he's like, "Please don't tell Daddy I had an accident.
I don't want him to know."
For me, watching my brothers go through this, I felt like
I needed to do something to protect them, but I didn't know
how because I was a kid myself.
But this was my turning point
on when I started watching Rick more closely.
[Kayla] Rick's go-to meals were hamburgers or hot dogs.
Usually, hot dogs was something we'd eat for months on end
every single night and some lunches because it's the least
amount of money he had to pay to feed us.
And even when we had money, it would be spent on food
he liked for himself.
Rick would make his steak, potatoes, and would audibly be
enjoying his steak and potatoes as a way of showing how much
he liked it.
Mm.
[Kayla] And then this night, once again, we had hot dogs
in front of us.
And just the smell of them were making me
like, gag it down.
I couldn't even bring myself to take a bite.
And I begged Rick, "Please don't make me eat this."
I can't do this.
You're not going anywhere till you finish your dinner.
And he said, I am not leaving that table until the food
is gone. And I took one bite,
and I ended up throwing it up.
Rick lost his mind.
[thud]
He tossed me some paper towels
and told me I needed to clean up.
Scrub the floor!
[Kayla] He told me I had to stay there and finish that food,
even if it meant I was there all night.
Everyone went to bed.
I was sitting there with the hot dog all night,
just staring at it, essentially.
And it got so late, and I kept thinking, OK, if I just force
myself to eat this hot dog, I can go to bed.
And then I tried to take another bite,
and then I'd throw it back up.
But I was so tired that I ended up just falling asleep on
the table right next to the hot dog.
I think it was another power play for Rick.
This was just the beginning of Rick and his volatility.
And all that would happen next is his wrath and torture.
We had no idea that things could possibly get any worse.
On one time in particular, when we moved into the house,
we noticed that there was a dog still there.
Me and my brothers were so excited.
We begged and pleaded to keep it.
And even my mom begged him to let us keep it.
So he gave in and let us have her.
And one day, Rick was downstairs on the computer
across the room from us.
[kids clamoring]
We were all right around the dog, and my youngest
brother fell and landed on her back hip.
She kind of made a little gruff sound.
[dog barking]
As soon as Rick heard the sound, he jumped up
and said that she tried to bite my brother.
She bit you?
And I was right there, and I said, "No, she didn't.
She just got scared that he fell."
And Rick started going on a tangent about how
she tried to bite him.
And he said, our only option is to put her down ourselves.
When Rick said he had to put her down,
I immediately was heartbroken.
I didn't understand what that meant at first.
But then it kind of clicked that that means to
take her life.
And we all started bawling hysterically.
My mom came downstairs and heard all of us bawling
our eyes out.
And she was trying to tell Rick, we don't need to
put her down.
And at this point, my mom and all of us were frantic.
Rick, what are you talking about?
-You don't have to do this. -Stop!
Rick had us all go outside, and he told my mom to keep all
of us facing forward, and not to turn around.
I knew in my heart that something was about to happen.
And I see Rick dragging our dog, and he has a shotgun
in his hand.
[children crying]
And he kind of pins her down,
[dog barking]
takes the shotgun to her head,
and pulls the trigger.
[gunshot blasts]
I was horrified.
I remember his eyes making eye contact with me, and he almost
looked like he had a smirk, like he was proud of it.
So I feel to this day like that was the show to show us what
he could do if he wanted to.
The pain is still there every time I think about the story
and telling it, I feel like I'm just living it again,
just watching as Rick takes something I loved.
And it just shattered me, and it made me angry,
and it broke my heart.
[whispering] I'm sorry.
[voice breaking] Looking back at just everything
and all the things he did,
it just looks like everything he did was all for a show
and was to prove his power he held over everyone else.
And it was all a game for him.
[whispering] I'm sorry.
I thought I had no tears left to cry.
This is a testimonial my mom wrote.
And I believe she wrote it as an insurance policy in case
something worse happened or in case she did finally get to
escape and have proof of the years of damage
she had to endure.
"He locked me out of the house.
"He threw my cell phone across the room when I tried to call
"someone for help in the heat of an argument.
"He shoved me into the kids' room and bent me over
"my daughter's bed face down.
"He then proceeded to tell me all the different things
"he could do to me, and I couldn't do
"a thing about it.
"He grabbed my hair by my ponytail, when I twirled around,
"he threw his fist in my face, stopping within
"an inch of my nose.
"I started crying, and he laughed at me.
"He thought it was amusing how scared I looked.
He told me to never speak to him like that again."
I knew Rick
manipulated my mom, gaslit my mom.
But I, at no point, realized that this was
the physical violence that she had to endure.
That was his tactic, was fear.
Shows that he was the kind of, I don't want to say "man,"
the kind of evil who would
enjoy watching someone be afraid of them
and seeing someone suffer.
I didn't realize how bad it was.
[Kayla] Rick had the expectation that when he was coming home from
work we had to already be in bed and asleep,
and if we weren't it -- it was a huge disaster.
One evening, we were all playing in the living room,
and we were all having fun and having a good time.
And then all of a sudden, Mom got a phone call.
[phone ringing]
Hello?
[Kayla] And after she got off, she seemed very anxious.
And she said, "We need to get you guys in pajamas,
and you guys need to get in bed now."
Whatever you do, do not open the door.
She said, "Lock this door. Don't open it for any reason."
OK?
I heard the front door swing open,
and I could hear Rick
just immediately start cussing and carrying on,
and I'm hearing my mom say, "You're not making any
sense, Rick. They are in bed."
And at this point, I'm getting really scared that
he's gonna try and bust through the door
or something like that.
And then it sounded like he grabbed her and dragged
her into their room.
[as Rick] Enough!
[Kayla] I heard a lot of slamming around.
[indistinct shouting]
I remember my mom crying and a lot of muffling sounds.
And I just kind of sat there and listened to it all.
I remember thinking, he's hurting her and I needed
to help her, and I couldn't because if I exited the room,
it would be me.
[muffled shouting]
I felt really guilty in that moment because all I wanted to
do was help my mom because I could hear
that she was clearly in pain,
but...I couldn't.
I've come a long way to where I know it's like,
nothing I could do.
I know I was just a kid, but...
I wish I could have helped her.
My mom protected me, I needed to protect her,
but I just wasn't strong enough.
And I know that's not how it works, but that's how it feels.
[birds singing]
The next day, I saw my mom, and she had her hair over
her shoulders, and she kept looking down like,
like she looked ashamed of something.
And I remember asking her if everything was OK.
She kept saying, "I'm fine."
Her lips were even quivering a little bit, like she was on
the verge of tears. She couldn't keep eye contact.
She just kind of kept looking down with so much shame
and sorrow on her face, and I saw a big purple mark,
and then another huge purple mark right here.
And they were massive enough that I thought that
he had choked her that night.
It wasn't until way later I found out that they were
aggressive bite marks from him sexually assaulting her that
were so bad that they were deep, dark blue.
I immediately was afraid for her life.
I was terrified to see what else he was willing to do.
At the time, I couldn't figure out why he had so much power
over my mom.
And it wasn't until later that I found out that he had been
making threats to her to take her kids and to do things to
her that pretty much kept her in submission.
[Kayla] My mom was planning on leaving Rick.
And actually, on a day that Rick went to work, it was
the day we planned on making our escape.
I helped my mom pack everything we could throw into trash bags.
My mother went to stay with my grandmother,
with my siblings.
But my mom was so concerned for my safety
that she contacted my dad.
And they agreed for me to live with my dad until everything
could be figured out.
When I left, I was hysterical.
All I wanted was for them to be free of him.
And I didn't want to go to my dad's.
I didn't want to get away from them.
While Rick worked on manipulating his way in again,
Rick took everything.
While I was living with my dad, I missed my mom and my siblings
a lot, but I had a lot of hope because I know she had a lot
of hope. She wanted to get a job.
She wanted to help get a place for her and my siblings.
She just wanted a fresh start.
She wanted to be completely free of him.
In this moment, she thought she was free,
and she thought she would never have to see him again.
About two years after I had left to go live with my dad,
I was finally allowed to go back for a summer
and visit my mom.
[giggling]
Oh, look at you.
I see my mom, and I'd never been so happy in my life.
I finally got to see her again.
I ran up to her, and gave her a big old hug.
And the first thing I noticed is that she had
her wedding ring on.
Why are you wearing that?
Oh.
And I asked her, I said, "What is this doing on your finger?"
And she said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "You left that on the counter when you left Rick.
He's back, isn't he?" And she said, "Yes,
Kayla, but there's a lot to it. I need to talk to you."
Mom.
[Kayla] She said, "Please, please, let me talk to you.
Let me try to get you to understand."
I just stood there in shock.
But I was so angry in the moment because I missed out
on seeing her and my siblings for two years
because I wanted her to get away from him.
She said, "Rick showed up, and he made all these promises,
and we're gonna have a fresh start."
I said, "What fresh start?
"Look at everything that's happened.
"Look at everything you've been through.
You just escaped. Why are you back with him?"
And I could tell she wasn't really giving me all the truth.
I don't think she wanted to.
That's when Rick came downstairs.
And I'm trying not to throw up because I'm so nervous
and so upset that he's even there again.
And I knew it wouldn't change anything.
And he's not talking to me. He's ignoring me.
And all I can think is, the man who kept me from being able to
see my mom all this time is here and living here like
he deserves to, and treating me like dirt,
even though I didn't do anything wrong.
But my betrayal was because I had done everything
I could do to help her leave.
And I really thought it was gonna follow through.
And I felt disappointment because I felt like
I had failed her.
And I felt that someone could have done something more to
keep Rick from coming back in our lives.
[Kayla] About a week in, I'm like accepting things for the way
they are, and I didn't want to be anywhere around him.
And I mean, he'd been avoiding me too, so I thought it was
pure coincidence that we ended up in the same room alone.
We need to talk.
And at this moment, he turned towards me and said,
"Now that I've got some alone time with you,
I've got something I need to say to you."
And I'm shaking because I have no idea what he wants to say to
me after all this time.
And he said, "I'm going to tell you right now, if you ever help
"your mom leave me again, I will kill you,
"and I will take your body,
and I will hide you where no one will ever find you again."
They'll just think you ran away.
You understand?
Good.
And I just said, "OK, yes, sir."
And I got out of the house as fast as I could, and I cried
because the entire reason I helped mom leave him
was because of reasons like that.
I just wanted Rick to not exist.
And instead, he harassed and instilled more fear
and took away her hope and sucked her back in.
And then it just got worse from there.
[sniffling]
[softly] I'm sorry.
He took a family --
He took a family that had so much hope and could have done
some good, and he just killed us all.
[Kayla] When I was 17 and in high school, I was living with my dad.
I found out that I was pregnant with my first daughter.
When my dad found out, it did not go over well.
I left my dad's as soon as possible and flew to Colorado
to go live with my mom.
I was thrilled to be around my mom because I had her support.
But being around Rick in the most vulnerable time of
my life was awful. He made my life miserable.
When my brothers reached the ages of 11 and 12 and 14,
Rick decided it was time for them to do manual labor.
One night, I was able to have a talk with my brothers about
how things had been going.
I found out that they had no access to a shower,
had no access to bathing unless it was from the hose.
For weeks or months at a time, if Rick was upset with
my brothers, he'd make them sleep outside in a tent and earn
their toilet paper, earn their meals,
and anything that they'd need to survive,
they needed to earn through labor.
And even then, if the work wasn't up to par,
then they didn't get food.
One morning, Rick had woken up one of my brothers at 5:00 AM
who had been up all night throwing up.
And my brother said he couldn't work.
I don't feel well.
[Kayla] Rick said he needed to learn what it's like to be a man.
And so even though he was throwing up,
and had a high fever, he dragged him out of bed...
[mocking] "I don't feel well."
...and picked him up and threw him about 10 feet.
No excuses!
When my mom would speak up and tell him
that we'd had enough...
-Stop! -Shut up!
...he would start yelling at her for undermining
his authority and that what he says is what goes.
And I had realized nothing had changed, and things were just,
in my opinion, worse than they even were before.
I knew there wasn't anything I could do to stop it, but to see
him treating them even worse than he was before,
it killed me.
One day, I was working at the local campground,
and I received a phone call.
And when I answered it, it was a lady on the other end of
the phone, and she introduced herself an employee who worked
for DCFS, and there was a case that has been opened up
at my household, and that they'd be taking my daughter
along with the other kids to go stay with my aunt.
She said because I was at 18, I could either go with
my daughter or stay with the adults.
I was very blindsided, and the idea of leaving
my two-month-old baby, I chose to go with her.
The lady immediately came to my work to pick me up
and to take me to the house to gather some of my things.
When we arrived, Rick was waiting for me.
I'm just going to give her a hand.
DCFS came to interview each of us separately,
and Rick said that he was gonna help me get my bags.
The lady kind of looked apprehensive about allowing
that, but let it happen.
So Rick and me went upstairs so I could gather some things
for me and my baby.
And as I'm packing, Rick is talking very quietly to me
about what happened.
He said one of my siblings reported them to DCFS.
And he asked if it was me, and I said no.
We were all far too scared to be honest with DCFS.
I lied, and only one of us told the truth.
It was one of our younger siblings.
But my siblings' bravery is what made it possible for us to
get away from Rick.
Then he followed me outside, pretended to give me a hug,
to say goodbye, and he said, "If you tell them the truth,
you will never see your daughter again."
I could feel his hot breath on my neck.
He told me, "Snitches get stitches."
And in that moment, I did feel weak in the knees, and I was
absolutely terrified, and my blood went cold.
I absolutely believed Rick would separate me
from my newborn baby.
We knew all that was gonna happen was it was going to
escalate, and we were all terrified what his next step
could possibly be.
[sigh]
[sobbing]
I'm sorry.
[through sobs] Oh, my God.
She looked so broken
and so defeated.
I've never seen her that way.
So instead of screaming and alerting and possibly being
rescued at that moment, she was quiet because
she didn't want the kids to get hurt.
I only hope I can be half the mother she is.
She knew it was only a matter of time,
and Rick was gonna kill her.
-Yes. -OK.
[creaking]
[quiet sobbing]
On the morning of July 18th, my boyfriend and I were with
our daughter, and I received a call from a family friend.
When I picked up, my friend said, "Kayla, I need to
tell you something." And I said, "What?"
And she screamed, "Kayla, your mom is dead."
And I screamed, "What do you mean, my mom is dead?
What happened?"
And then she said Rick broke into the house
and stabbed my mother.
Rick killed her.
And I just...
...I broke.
Everything that was once there,
broke into a million pieces because I knew, I just knew
something was gonna happen.
And in that moment, I realized my mom,
the one person in my entire life who had ever loved me
and accepted me,
risked her life and gave her love to someone who took
her from the rest of us.
And then I just screamed and wailed and cried for
like an hour.
I didn't want to move. I didn't want to breathe.
I didn't even want to be alive in that moment.
But I was just wailing. I couldn't breathe.
My heart broke.
[phone ringing]
[muffled sobbing]
It breaks my heart to hear
the chaos and the...
the fear in the...
what I believe is my uncle's voice.
And in the background, just my grandma yelling,
"Is my daughter OK?"
And Rick threatening to kill her.
It just never had to come to this.
It should have never come to this.
When Rick broke in, my mom immediately woke up to it
and saw it was him and was screaming for my youngest
siblings to run, go run, go hide.
And she was pleading with Rick, "Please don't do this,
please don't hurt them, please don't do this."
Even though she was afraid, all she wanted to do was make
sure the kids were OK.
So for the 14 years they were together, she not only had to
protect herself, but always put us first.
And then she died the same way.
[news broadcaster] Police say Richard broke through the back window,
sending glass onto the bed where Kirsten
and the kids were sleeping.
What was going through your mind?
Not much...just wanted to die.
Did you go there to take your life?
Yes, sir.
Did you go there planning to take your wife's life?
No, sir.
I remember talking to Kirsten,
turned my back so she didn't see me stab myself,
and stab myself in
both sides of my neck.
Do you think you took your wife's life?
No.
You don't?
No.
My guess is she picked up the knife and stabbed herself.
What Rick is saying in this video
is what he used as his defense.
My mom just couldn't imagine life without him,
and so she must have done it to herself.
So he continually used any defense he could
as a ploy to get out of it instead of
taking responsibility.
My mom had battled for 14 years
to leave this worthless human being.
What would make her choose this time after everything
and finally having freedom to kill herself?
Richard Lockett was a coward, and that's why he was
the way he was.
Our entire lives all rounds back to the fact that
he was a coward.
It's just for all of these years, I've kind of had to
keep it all to myself.
I feel like it's the only way to move forward.
It's just hard to think about and talk about,
and also just realizing how bad it was.
I appreciate sharing it because it's...
[whispering] it's good to talk about.
[normally] Even if I'm crying.
[deep exhale]
Talking about it has felt like it is helping me heal.
And it's helping me take that big step I always needed to
start the healing process.
I wanted to do this because I not only see online
the statistics of women who are battered, let alone murdered on
a regular basis.
I know women have a hard enough time getting into domestic
abuse shelters, and the ones that do exist are in deplorable
conditions, which tends to force them back into the home
of their perpetrator.
And I am so tired of hearing and seeing this happen so much
that something needs to change.
And I'm hoping that with this, something at least lights
a small fire because
this isn't the way to live.
Living in fear is not a way to live.
I'm not ready to see this monster in prison yet,
but when I am ready, I want to be confident
in my stride and unbreakable.
I want to walk in there and look tougher
than he has ever been.
I want to tell him I'm fine, and what he did,
it broke us temporarily.
But while he rots in prison and is forgotten,
our mom will live on for generations to be talked about,
to be remembered in every way possible.