I felt that Matt was a good match for Michelle.
He seemed like a really fun person.
What manipulators do well
is they show you all these amazing good times...
[Michelle speaking]
[Michelle's son speaking]
...and then they show you the nightmares.
[Michelle screaming]
[woman speaking]
[theme music playing]
[mellow guitar music playing]
[Michelle speaking]
[Michelle's son speaking]
[Michelle speaking]
MICHELLE'S SON: Whoa!
NARRATOR: 35-year-old Michelle Rogers films
her boyfriend, 41-year-old Matthew Terry,
fishing with her son.
Matt really liked to fish, and he enjoyed taking my son
to fish at various locations.
[Michelle's son speaking]
[Michelle speaking]
[Matthew speaking]
I started recording when he had a fish on the line,
and I just wanted
to catch him pulling it in, because he'd never really
pulled in a fish before.
-[Michelle speaking] -[Michelle's son laughing]
[Michelle speaking]
[Michelle's son speaking]
-[Matthew speaking] -[Michelle speaking]
[Michelle's son speaking]
I remember this fishing day to just be a really fun day.
-[Matthew speaking] -[Michelle speaking]
-[Michelle's son speaking] -[Matthew speaking]
He was so afraid of it. He was just so afraid.
-[Matthew speaking] -[Michelle speaking]
That was a good time with Matt.
You know, we did have a lot of good
quality time together.
Matt and I met in May of 2015 on a dating app.
And at the time,
really, I wasn't looking for anything serious.
He was very quick to say that we were soulmates
and that, um,
that we were good for each other,
and, you know, part of that felt good.
He had a good job, and,
um, and he, he was very attentive towards her.
I felt that Matt was a good match for Michelle.
He seemed like a really fun person.
He had a lot of friends that he hung out with often.
He was active and doing fun things,
going to concerts, going to parties,
doing all of the activities that I would like to do
with a significant other.
[Michelle speaking]
I noticed a different side to Matt
only a few months into the relationship.
There were
a few times where he drank quite a bit.
[Michelle speaking]
When he would get drunk,
it wasn't so much what he said.
It was just the way he would act.
He would just be a completely
different person and stumbling all over himself,
barely being able to have coherent words.
We had conversations about,
can you please just have a drink, have two drinks,
you know, make sure that we get home safely,
and he could just never -- he could never stop.
That was a huge red flag to me.
Lansing gets a lot of snow in the winter.
It's Michigan, and there's lots of fun
activities that we do in the snow.
We are at a sledding hill, and this is, uh,
[chuckles]
this is my son and Matt.
They went up and down this hill for hours, just hours
going up and down until they finally tired out.
My son had a good day that day.
ROSE: Matt was doing his very best to love
or at least participate in her son's life.
And that was very, very attractive to Michelle.
So Matt did start running with me, because I was a big runner,
and I was running races at the time, trying to get in shape.
At first, it was like, oh, he wants to go running with me.
He wants to help me get in shape,
and he's being supportive.
But I think that very quickly turned into,
you know, he just doesn't want me
to be alone, because he doesn't trust me.
And there were instances where he would question
whether or not I was cheating
or who I was with or things
along that line that made it very clear
that he was there to keep track of me.
So in 2015, I --
I was ready to break it off with Matt
officially, and I was
supposed to run a race that weekend, and I was feeling
very ill and couldn't figure out why,
and I found out shortly thereafter that I was --
I was pregnant.
Matt was upset, and at first, he tried to convince me
to have an abortion, and I told him that wasn't an option.
And I explained to him that
he could walk away, that I didn't need him,
that I could do this on my own,
and I was more than willing to do this on my own.
He didn't talk to me for a couple of weeks,
and then he showed up with, like, a large
gift basket full of all the pregnancy things,
you know, like anti-nausea medication and giant towels for
my big belly and, like, all those things.
So I let him in, and we sat down, and we -- and we talked.
I was more just surprised that he would go out of his way
to make such an effort.
That was very sweet.
And so then it just made me think, well,
maybe I should give him a chance.
Knowing what I knew about Matt Terry
at that point, I thought, well,
there could be worse things.
He's -- he seems like a good guy.
[cheering]
In January of 2016, I contacted Matt's friends
to put together a large birthday party for him
as a surprise for his 41st birthday.
There were balloons and decorations and a fishing cake.
Everyone had a really good time,
and he didn't drink a ton that night.
It made me feel good to be
able to do something nice for him like that.
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!
Around five months after the birthday party,
in May of 2016, I gave birth to my son.
We were both pretty excited.
I really enjoyed being there, you know, to just hold him
and welcome him to the world.
NARRATOR: In December 2016,
Matt and Michelle move in together.
They are now a family of four,
with their new baby and Michelle's son.
Oooh!
Oh, I like this one.
So this video always makes me smile.
It just shows that...
like, he would have fun with our son.
He would try to make him laugh,
and he's just -- he's all smiles.
Hanging with his dad.
[baby squeals]
[Michelle laughs]
[baby squeals]
[Michelle speaking]
So that's just one of those --
you know, that's just one of the happy moments that we had.
But he wasn't really around when
we lived together in that house.
He just wanted to leave the baby more often
so that we could go to drinking events and things,
and as an -- as a mother, I didn't wanna leave my child.
So that was hard.
It was really frustrating to
be the one that kind of had to
always hold everything together when he wasn't there.
So I told him that, you know,
I'm not happy in this relationship, and I'd like to
have a discussion on where this needs to go,
because I'm just -- I can't do this anymore.
We were in the kitchen of our --
our new house, and Matt was cooking breakfast,
and he was making eggs,
and I remember him pausing briefly,
and then he took that pan, and he heaved it towards us.
And I remember just looking at him, and I'm like,
"What are you doing? Like, why did you do that?
"You could have hit us. You could have hit me.
You could have hit your child."
And then he angrily went out
into the garage and slammed the door.
He came in just a few minutes later, and he...
wrapped his arm around me as I was still feeding the baby.
And he said, "I would never hurt you or our child."
I guess I just didn't know the danger I was in at the time.
[Michelle speaking]
In March of 2017,
my son was only nine months old,
and he was already so close to walking.
[baby grunting]
So it was pretty early and --
and we were really excited and just trying
to capture that on video.
[Matthew speaking]
It just seemed like everything was okay.
[Michelle speaking]
[Michelle exclaims, laughs]
What manipulators and abusers do well is they show you
all these amazing good times, and then they show you...
the nightmares.
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Michelle screaming]
[woman speaking]
KRUMBACH: On March 17th of 2017,
two 911 calls came into
the Lansing Police Department Dispatch Center
regarding an assault.
[woman speaking]
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
KRUMBACH: The first time that I listened to that 911 call,
it was extremely just harrowing.
[indistinct]
[woman speaking]
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
It sent chills down your spine.
[woman speaking]
-[Michelle speaking] -[woman speaking]
This was a life-and-death type of a situation
that they were responding to -- time was of the essence.
[siren wailing]
[over radio] We're gonna have enough units here at the house.
Whoever's showing up late right now, have them
go [indistinct] -- the ambulance is about to leave.
When officers arrived right on scene,
it was very apparent that the female
had minutes to get to the hospital.
[officer speaking]
[EMT speaking]
[officer speaking]
[EMT speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[EMT speaking]
[female speaking over radio]
[officer speaking]
[female speaking over radio]
When the EMT was taking Michelle into
the ambulance, she was saying, "My child,
my child," and trying to get attention
and keep her child safe.
[man over radio]
[woman over radio]
The information had been relayed to them that
the accused and a small child was inside the residence.
[officers speaking]
[dog barking]
The accused did come downstairs,
walk towards the front door, and obey the commands
of the Lansing police officers on scene.
[officer speaking]
[dog barking loudly]
[officers speaking]
[Matthew speaking]
[male officer speaking]
-[female officer speaking] -[male officer speaking]
[baby crying]
At that point in time, the child was located upstairs in bed,
and fortunately, he was safe.
[female officer speaking]
It appeared that he could care less,
uh, where the mother of that child was,
which I found shocking as he was standing there
in his underwear and T-shirt soaked in her blood.
[police siren wailing]
When I first responded to the scene,
it was indicated to me by perimeter officers
that a knife had been recovered
across the street where they found
Michelle, uh, in the front yard.
[woman speaking]
MAN: Okay.
It takes quite a bit of effort and strength
to snap the tip off of a knife,
and it tells me that that attack was horrendous.
Matthew Terry was under the influence of alcohol.
Because of the level of his intoxication,
I knew that I was not going to be able to attempt
to get a statement from the accused at that time.
When I arrived to the hospital
where Michelle Rogers was, I was, um...
shocked by what I saw,
the level of savagery of the attack.
ROSE: I walked into the room where Michelle was.
I was in disbelief, like, what just happened?
And just laying there all swollen and...
bit and stabbed and bloody.
The whole evening, I couldn't leave her side.
MICHELLE: I remember waking up for a few minutes
in the trauma room, and I...
I see my mom and my brother and my sister-in-law,
and I see my baby,
and then I just -- I passed out until the next day.
KRUMBACH: When I was interviewing Michelle,
and she was describing how that day began,
I believed that she had no indication
whatsoever by the end
of this day that she would be fighting for her life.
Matt and I had plans to go out
with his friends to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
And we were having some food, we had some drinks.
It was starting to get to be the time when
we had told Matt's parents that we would
be back to pick up our -- our son.
And I approached him and said, "Hey,
you know, we have to go."
He was incoherent, stumbling all over himself,
just...I hate to say
typical Matt, but it was typical Matt, and...
I was so just over this happening that I just turned
around and I walked away,
and I went to go pick up our son
from his parents' house.
So then after I put our son to bed,
I sat on the couch and was watching some TV,
and I hear a knock.
[distant knocking]
His demeanor was very...
I guess I would say angry or frustrated.
And he was still very, very drunk.
He was making some food for himself,
and the next thing that I remember was him coming at me.
So he pushed me into the door,
and then we both fell to the ground.
At that time, he was taking
every opportunity that he could to punch me,
whether it be the face, the chest, the side,
wherever he could get access.
There was blood everywhere, because, you know,
he had broken my nose during this fight.
I just remember thinking, like, don't pass out, don't pass out.
He takes his arm, and he wraps it around
the front of my throat,
and he stabs me in the center of the throat
with a kitchen knife.
I took my right hand, and I kind of put it on
my throat and just looked down,
and there was blood everywhere, and...
I just...
in my head, I'm like, I have to get
the hell out of this house or I'm gonna die in here.
NARRATOR: Michelle flees to the front of the house,
but Matt is close behind.
I'm screaming at the top of my lungs.
You know, "Somebody, please help me."
I was so afraid I was gonna die in that driveway, and, um...
he took the knife, and he stabbed me
three times in my shoulder, in my right shoulder.
He then bit this side of my cheek, not once but twice.
At this point, by some miracle,
you know, I'm hearing people screaming
from across the street.
And I would later find out that they were
my neighbors that were on the phone with 911.
I think he was trying to murder me.
There's no question.
I ended up spending five days in the ICU for
a broken nose, a concussion, seven stab wounds,
and I was beaten up pretty badly.
Um, my face was completely black and blue...
...for weeks.
NARRATOR: Matthew Terry is charged with
assault with intent to commit murder.
My life was in pieces, and I didn't
know where to start to pick them up.
The only thing I knew how to do after I got out of
the hospital was obviously to get all of my stuff out of
the house that I was in and move.
NARRATOR: As Michelle moves her family
away for their own safety, in October 2017,
Matthew Terry's trial begins.
GALLAGHER: The defendant called multiple character witnesses,
and one of the witnesses
that testified in his case in chief was Kay Baker.
MICHELLE: Kay was there, because they had
been friends for a really long time.
He had -- he had this whole entourage of his friends
and his family there to support him,
because everybody thought he was this great guy,
and I was the crazy one.
KRUMBACH: It's hard to escape
the sense of arrogance, entitlement,
his narcissistic overall attitude during the trial.
It was very clear to me that he thought he was
going to walk out of there a free man.
The jury had a decision to make in regards to finding Matt
guilty of attempted murder or great bodily harm
less than murder or finding him innocent.
They did find him guilty of great bodily harm less
than murder, which, to me personally,
was a disappointment.
I think that he should have
been found guilty of attempted murder.
The defendant was sentenced to around
three years and then up to 10.
But that meant that his first possibility of parole
is gonna be after that three-year period.
I was disappointed for Michelle.
She deserved better than this after what she had endured
and survived.
NARRATOR: Michelle tries to make a fresh start
with her children in their new home.
MICHELLE: I didn't think anybody had the address,
but I started receiving packages from
Matt's mom and dad for our son,
and the first package I received,
I literally went into a panic attack.
I took it out, and I put it in the dumpster,
and I -- I was just shaking. I was so upset.
Matt knew where we were,
and so I was on high alert.
NARRATOR: By December 2017, Matthew Terry is serving
his prison sentence in Michigan,
and he started a relationship with an old-school friend
named Kay Baker.
When I first moved to Florida,
um, Kay was one of my first friends.
We hung out and sat in the backyard, had a glass of
wine, uh, talking about my work days
and her work days and just life in general.
Kay was the most amazing human being
I've ever met in my entire life.
She was the sweetest friend,
the best mother that I've ever seen.
She was a elementary school teacher.
She loved teaching, she loved her job.
When I first met Kay, she was going up to Michigan a lot.
She didn't really go into too much detail
about who she was going to see.
But she made it seem like it was someone important,
because she was going up and down from Michigan to Florida.
That's, you know, quite a ways to go.
I had later found out she was going
up to support, um, Matt.
Kay and Matt were communicating on jail calls.
I had heard, like, she was just helping him kind of as
an outside person, like, helping him to do things.
And once I found that out, I --
I searched her on Facebook, and I sent a picture of myself in
the hospital,
and I said, you know, "He's not --
"He's not who he says he is.
"He's lying. He's gonna manipulate you.
"Please, please don't let this be you.
You have to get out of this."
In 2020,
I got the letter from the parole board
stating that they were going to parole him.
My heart sank.
I felt panic. I felt anger.
I felt very disappointed, because I was
told I would be part of that decision -- I wasn't.
GALLAGHER: Michelle had left me a voicemail, and it
was very apparent that she was very concerned.
I immediately called the parole board office,
because Michelle had said that she was never notified
of that, and that would have been her right.
We tried to fight it and wrote a letter for more oversight,
more conditions, even a longer period of parole,
but the parole period was not changed.
MICHELLE: So at that point in time,
I started looking for jobs out of state, and I --
I cried every day, because I didn't know if it was gonna
be the right thing, I didn't know what to do.
I just knew I had to keep my family safe.
I was -- I was just afraid he was gonna come for us.
GALLAGHER: The defendant took some domestic violence classes
in prison, he was educated,
he came from a background that was well off.
He had every reason to have a really productive,
fulfilled life.
Um, and so it was not surprising to me that,
in prison, he could -- he could comply with the rules.
I felt like Michelle had to constantly worry about
her safety, and I felt helpless to do more
for her, because the parole decision was made.
NARRATOR: By December 2020,
Matthew Terry has been released from
prison after serving his minimum term.
I was not happy with him walking free.
He was definitely a danger to society,
and I clearly communicated that to the parole board
and anyone that would listen, but nobody would really listen.
NARRATOR: After his release, Matt moves to Florida to live
with his girlfriend, Kay Baker.
I saw, you know, pictures of her with Matt, um...
I had reached out to her, and she was, you know,
telling me how excited she was and how it was a rekindled
relationship and how things were going great.
And, you know, I was just so happy to see a man in her life,
that she wasn't, like, doing it alone.
To see her being in a relationship was just,
you know, heartwarming.
It made me happy for her,
and she looked and seemed genuinely happy about it.
There was a point in time when
I did question myself, and I did think,
he's in this relationship with this new person, and she seems
really happy with him from what I know.
Maybe he can change.
Maybe he is different.
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
-[operator speaking] -[woman speaking]
On May 28th of 2022,
about 12:28 a.m.,
a 911 call came into the sheriff's office
in the Lithia area.
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
[operator speaking]
[woman speaking]
When deputies first responded,
they find the victim laying -- soaked in blood, essentially,
between these two houses.
She's obviously got a large laceration to her neck,
so they're trying anything they can to
provide medical aid to her, including CPR.
But it was pretty apparent that
there was too much blood being lost.
She's pronounced deceased on scene.
Deputies, from the neighbors' information, learned that
the victim was a female named Kay Baker.
Miss Baker's residence is a couple of houses down,
and we need to see if there's any other victims
or a potential suspect inside.
The responding deputies find that Miss Baker's residence has
a window wide open from one of
the bedrooms with a screen pushed out.
Gives indication that somebody may have fled out of the house.
[dog barking]
[officer speaking]
[officers speaking]
OFFICER: Mm-hmm.
My initial observations of Miss Baker's home,
there's the obvious signs of damage and a struggle inside.
However, there was no any kind of blood or indication of
any injury to Miss Baker that took place inside the house.
So that leads us to focus where Miss Baker was found,
and there was a lot of blood,
a lot of signs of spatter.
That gave me the indication that whatever happened
to her actually happened right where she was laying.
I made some brief observations to Miss Baker and her injury,
and I could see the severe laceration to her neck.
Almost looked like she had been decapitated.
So while we're processing the inside of the house,
in the kitchen,
there was a butcher block of knives on the counter,
and of particular note, there was
a single knife missing from that butcher block.
Some of the items in the house were obviously male clothing.
So there was a clear indication that
Miss Baker was living there with somebody.
There was also a vehicle in her driveway, and it comes
back in a database of ours registered to a Matthew Terry.
He's somebody, obviously, we want to talk to.
As additional deputies respond,
they start canvassing the area.
During that time, there were what had looked like
blood spots in the backyard, almost creating like a blood
trail either going to or from where she was laying.
It wasn't until we got to the main road
where this blood trail continued
that it became apparent that this could be
somebody fleeing that area.
NARRATOR: A K-9 unit arrives on scene to track the blood trail.
[officer shouting]
The K-9 only tracked about a hundred yards
before they located a large pooling of blood
that led back into that thicket of the woods.
[officer speaking]
They tracked into the wood thicket line there
a short distance...
[dog barking]
OFFICER: Still gotta get him secured.
...before they found a male laying in the grass on
his back, concealing himself.
That person was identified to be Matthew Terry.
He was pretty stoic but also, I think, intoxicated.
He didn't say a lot of words and just kind of went with
the flow and was calm.
Matthew Terry was charged
with first-degree premeditated murder.
He declined to make any statements to us at that point.
[phone ringing]
MICHELLE: My phone rang,
and the name that came up was Matt's ex-wife.
And instantly, I got this bad --
just this bad gut feeling, like something's wrong.
And she's like, "Matt killed Kay. He [bleep] killed her."
And...
I don't know how you explain that feeling.
It was --
it was like I was out of my body for a while.
RETTEW: As the investigation continues,
we try to gather a motive of why Matthew Terry killed
Miss Baker, and we do that by continuing to piece
together the events that led up to what happened.
A neighbor indicated to us that Miss Baker
and Matthew Terry were actually at the bar
he works at just prior to this incident.
The bar had video surveillance,
which we were able to collect.
NARRATOR: Reviewing the footage at 11:39 p.m.,
detectives spot two people leaving the bar.
It's Matthew and Kay.
It's a great piece of evidence, because it gives us
the exact time we can see Matthew Terry and Kay Baker
leaving together,
and that's within half an hour of a 911 call.
Once you kind of grasp the fact that this is
her last moment, and you're seeing it on video
before they go home and she's killed,
it's a little surreal.
It seems like she didn't have any
indication of what was about to happen.
NARRATOR: Detectives review earlier surveillance video
from the bar, where 43-year-old Kay Baker
was last seen with her boyfriend,
47-year-old Matthew Terry.
RETTEW: Reviewing the video from the bar,
Miss Baker gets up from their table --
she's the one wearing a red shirt --
to go to the bathroom area.
A short time later, Matthew Terry gets up to go
to the bathroom area wearing what looks like a green shirt.
Miss Baker is now exiting the bathroom,
and she kind of crosses paths with Miss Baker's friend.
She starts dancing -- one of the other patrons,
a male, tries to walk past them to the bathroom and jokingly
starts involving himself in
the dancing and just throws his arms up.
At that point, Matthew Terry
is also now exiting the bathroom and can
be seen looking at this dancing motion
that they're doing.
It's very innocent, in my opinion,
but the dancing that Matthew Terry observed
appears to bother him.
NARRATOR: Matthew, Kay, and her friend
eventually return to their table.
Although there's no sound on the video surveillance,
just watching this discussion take place back at
the table, it seems like Mr. Terry
is accusing Miss Baker of dancing or infidelity
or what have you.
You can even see Miss Baker and her friend kind of acting...
their body language seems puzzled as to why she's being
accused of dancing when all it was
was this kind of arm raising motion that they're doing.
Once we had gotten the video surveillance from the bar,
I went to Miss Baker's friend, actually showed her
the innocent little dance move.
And she confirmed that that's what
he was worked up about that night.
Miss Baker actually called her friend on their way home
and told her that Matthew Terry was still bringing
up the dancing, and she wanted her friend to explain to him,
like, it wasn't a big deal.
He's, even on their way home,
still bringing it up to the point where Miss Baker feels
like she needs to get her friend involved again.
NARRATOR: When detectives learn about Matthew Terry's
previous attack on Michelle Rogers,
they realize the two cases are almost identical.
Both involve him drinking to excess before
a violent confrontation, where he stabs
his victim in the neck with a kitchen knife.
RETTEW: When we hear about Matthew Terry's past,
it definitely adds a little bit more motivation
to make sure that, you know, he doesn't do this a third time.
In November of 2022,
this case went to trial in Hillsborough County Court.
I told everyone down in Florida, I'm like,
"I will do whatever it takes. You just get me down there.
"I will testify, I will do whatever is needed,
"because he's gonna get put away this time, like,
we're done with this."
NARRATOR: The prosecution outlines what they believe
happened on the night of Kay's murder.
Matthew Terry and Miss Baker were going out with some
friends at a bar on the evening of May 27th
to celebrate her last day of teaching of the school year.
I don't know that there was any ill intentions
by Matthew Terry until this accusation
or this incident of dancing happened at the bar,
and I think the alcohol they were consuming that night
probably fueled that flame -- that leads into going home that
night and just not being able to let it go.
I think when they got home,
he probably wanted to re-address it right away inside the house,
and Miss Baker was possibly
trying to escape from Matthew Terry.
It appeared that he was probably persistent in trying
to get to her before Miss Baker is finally able to lock herself
in a bedroom and flee out of a window.
Once he got wind that Miss Baker fled out of the window,
he likely ran out that front door.
And I think, at that point,
Matthew Terry confronted her right there in between
the neighbors' houses with
a knife that he had gotten from the kitchen on his way out.
Finally let the jealousy and rage
consume him and stabbed her multiple times.
I then think,
whether Matthew Terry inadvertently cut himself at
that point or was cut in the struggle between them,
then fled to the backyard, leaving that blood trail
through that thick brush out to the main roadway.
Later, to get more details about how it happened,
it was...
very eerily similar to what he did to me.
Just made me realize how close I really was.
Matthew Terry was found guilty as
charged for the first-degree premeditated murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
The verdict in his trial
and the sentencing, you know, it gives you...
a lot of feelings, especially since someone had to die
for the truth to be known,
and that's heartbreaking,
but there's also that sense of relief that's like finally,
he's going to jail, and he can't do this to anybody else.
HAMILTON: Matt took
one of the brightest stars out of the sky.
How does that happen
to an amazing person like Kay
when all she does is light up a room?
How could something so bad happen to someone that good?
It just doesn't make sense.
Let him live in prison knowing what he did to Kay,
to her family, to her sons,
to his family,
let him sit there and just simmer in that
every single day for the rest of his life, because...
that's what he deserves.
MICHELLE: Since trial, I'm just working on healing.
I'm working on building a happy life for myself
and my kids.
I've been doing things to help spread the awareness
about domestic violence and the epidemic that it is.
I'm dedicating my second chance at life
to be able to share my story and to save lives.
Narrator: Next time on American Monster...
He was a really good dad.
Something evil happened in that home.
I just didn't know what it was.
I would have never thought that
he would have ever done anything like this.
Drugs messed up his mind.
It made him a monster.
♪