00:00:01
Phoebe Judge: This episode contains descriptions
of physical violence against women.
00:00:04
It may not be suitable for everyone. Please use discretion. Kim Dadou: Well, actually, I knew Darnell
from high school.
00:00:14
We had the same art class together and he
was very, very handsome. I always thought he was a cutie.
00:00:21
And he would meet me at my locker and we used
to do silly things like hold hands under the
00:00:29
art table and just dumb stuff, even though
we were never going to go out together.
00:00:33
Phoebe Judge: This is Kim Dadou. She was a freshman in high school in Rochester,
New York, when she met Darnell Sanders in
00:00:40
1981. She liked him. She says everyone liked him. But he was a couple years older, and she would
never go out with him.
00:00:48
Kim Dadou: And after high school we lost touch. Phoebe Judge: Kim graduated, got a job.
00:00:53
And, as she puts it, got married way too young. It didn't work out. They split up, she moved out and got on with
her life.
00:01:02
Kim Dadou: I was your typical, big hair, '80s
girl. I loved '80s music. I worked.
00:01:10
I worked at Rochester General Hospital. I worked at the United Cerebral Palsy Association.
00:01:17
I was just your average young woman in her
20s, in the '80s. Phoebe Judge: And then one day she bumped
into Darnell Sanders.
00:01:25
She hadn't seen him since high school. Kim Dadou: I went to court with a friend of
mine one day, she was going to court and I
00:01:33
happened to go with her. And Darnell was right there in the courthouse. I hadn't seen him in years and he was right
there and I was like, "Oh my gosh, wow.
00:01:44
It's been a long time." Phoebe Judge: What was he doing in the courthouse? Kim Dadou: Apparently he had gotten into some
physical altercation, so he said.
00:01:51
He had told me he got jumped. So I didn't question him or anything like
that. So we exchanged numbers.
00:02:02
Phoebe Judge: After two weeks, she started
to think he was never going to call. And then he finally did.
00:02:09
Kim Dadou: And we were inseparable from that
day on. [Music comes in.] Phoebe Judge: What did he do for a living?
00:02:19
Kim Dadou: Oh, he worked for the state hospital
in Rochester. We have a state psychiatric center, and he
worked there.
00:02:28
And so I used to go to work with him at the
state hospital and we used to go into different
00:02:34
buildings and I mean... We were young and we were a fresh relationship. And we used to, seriously, I hate to say this,
we used to have sex all over the state hospital.
00:02:47
Like everywhere we went, he just wanted to
have sex. And I was like, okay. I thought this guy was really into me.
00:02:54
I thought this was great. I thought that he was my Prince Charming. I said, holy crap, I just got out of this
horrible marriage.
00:03:01
Here's Darnell, who, he treats me like a princess. He had his homeboy chauffeur us around while
he, I mean, this may sound corny, but he like
00:03:11
finger-fed me shrimp in the back seat. And I don't know, I guess just being treated
like a queen kind of felt good, you know?
00:03:19
Just being chauffeured around and bought nice
things and treated wonderfully and the passion.
00:03:25
And I was just like, wow, maybe I found my
Prince Charming, this guy's great. Phoebe Judge: After six months, Darnell asked
Kim to marry him.
00:03:35
They drove to a park, he turned off the car,
and presented his grandmother's engagement
00:03:40
ring. [Music fades out.] Kim Dadou: And I told him I couldn't marry
him. And he hit me, and he hit me so hard my face
bounced off the glass.
00:03:52
Phoebe Judge: What did he say after he hit
you? Kim Dadou: That I shouldn't be leading him
on.
00:04:04
He thought that I was worthy, apparently I'm
not. So I remember, I was trying to stay really,
really calm.
00:04:15
And I was crying, because I'm in shock and
my face is burning and my head is hurting.
00:04:21
And I said, "Could you please take me home?" As calm as I could, because I wanted to just
jump out of the car and run screaming.
00:04:30
But I said, "Could you please take me home?" And he took me home. Phoebe Judge: Did he call you the next day
or later that night?
00:04:38
Kim Dadou: Of course, that night. That night. "What are you doing? Can I come over?
00:04:44
Let me come get you." [Music comes in.] And when he was nice, I was happy. Things were good.
00:04:52
When things were good, things were really
good. But when things were bad, things were horrible.
00:04:58
Phoebe Judge: Kim says other people like to
tell her what she should have done differently,
00:05:04
starting that night in the car. What they would have done, if they were her. But in the end, it was 12 jurors who determined
the one thing she absolutely should not have
00:05:16
done. I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal. Kim Dadou: I tried to hide it for a long time.
00:05:33
I mean, my sister Janine, she's not really
my sister, but she was my friend that was
00:05:39
like my sister. She was also in an abusive relationship. So we would sit at her kitchen table and she'd
have a black eye and I'd have a busted lip,
00:05:52
or we're all bruised up or whatever. And I'm saying, "You should leave him." And she'd look at me and say, "You should
leave him."
00:05:58
So it just went on. Phoebe Judge: Kim had been seeing Darnell
for about a year the first time the police
00:06:04
got involved. They were all at her mother's house. Kim and Darnell were fighting.
00:06:09
Kim was yelling, and her mother called the
police. Kim says it was the first of many times the
police were called.
00:06:17
She repeatedly went to court to try to get
restraining orders. Kim Dadou: Going to court was scary.
00:06:22
[Music fades out.] Him lying to the people at court was scary. Him making me look bad to the police and to
the judge was scary.
00:06:30
Phoebe Judge: And embarrassing for you, right? Kim Dadou: It was. He said he didn't hit me.
00:06:39
He said he didn't scare me. He said he didn't intimidate me or threaten
me, when he did.
00:06:44
And we'd leave. And that night he'd show up at my house in
the middle of the night, because my mom worked
00:06:50
nights. So he would just let himself in. And I would wake up and he would be standing
over me.
00:06:55
That happened a lot. That was pretty intimidating. Phoebe Judge: That's pretty terrifying.
00:07:00
Kim Dadou: Well. Yeah. But then I would open my eyes and see the
look on his face and be like, "Oh, it's okay."
00:07:05
[Music comes in.] Or I'd open my eyes and see that look on his
face and be like, "Oh shit, here we go."
00:07:11
One time he beat me up. [Tearfully.] It was my birthday and a guy — we stopped
to get gas, and the guy...
00:07:23
I just happened to say, "It's my birthday." And he was like, "Well, happy birthday."
00:07:25
And he gave me a couple pieces of gum. It was the stupidest thing. A gas station attendant gave me
a piece of gum for my birthday.
00:07:33
But Darnell was watching the whole thing from
the car. And when I got back — I pumped the gas.
00:07:40
And when I got back in the car, I knew he
was pissed. And I handed him the piece of gum.
00:07:48
And I said, "Here you go." I said, "He gave me this for my birthday." And he said, "You think that's fucking cute,
don't you?"
00:07:55
And I said, "No, not at all." I said, "I thought it was pretty dumb. He gave me a stick of gum for my birthday."
00:08:00
And it was about a 15-minute ride from where
we were to his job. And within that time, he had dislocated my
right arm.
00:08:18
It was my elbow, my shoulder. I couldn't move it. He twisted it up behind my back.
00:08:24
And I was driving while all this was going
on. And he kept telling me, "You better not crash
this car."
00:08:31
And he proceeded to beat the hell out of me
until I got him to his job. [Crying.]
00:08:40
[Music ends.] So I dropped him off at the front door and
I drove right around to emergency.
00:08:51
And I said, "I used to work here. I know that you guys put our names up on the
board when we're new patients."
00:09:00
I said, "Could you not put my name on the
board?" I said, "The person that did this to me works
here, and I don't want him to know I'm in
00:09:07
emergency." I said, "But I can't drive to another hospital
right now." And they treated me.
00:09:17
And they never put my name up on the board. Phoebe Judge: By Thanksgiving of 1991, it
had been four and a half years since Kim and
00:09:25
Darnell had started seeing each other. Kim says Darnell had been arrested for assault
five times.
00:09:32
On December 17th, Darnell asked if he could
come talk to her. Kim was at her mother's
house with her sister, Wendy, who was nine
00:09:39
months pregnant. Kim waited and waited. She thought he wasn't going to show. Kim Dadou: And then he showed up, at about
midnight.
00:09:46
Phoebe Judge: He pulled up outside the house
and honked the horn. Kim Dadou: I just threw on some boots and
ran.
00:09:55
It was snowing. I mean, it was December 17th in Rochester. We had snow, and my mom lived out by the lake
so there was a lot of snow.
00:10:04
And I ran outside to the car. And I got in the car and we started hugging
and kissing and everything was okay for a
00:10:14
minute. And he said he needed some insurance papers
and the air freshener, he was smoking base
00:10:22
joints, you know, joints lined with cooked
cocaine. So he was smoking base joints.
00:10:27
I didn't do cocaine or smoke cocaine. I don't like cocaine. I don't like what it does to people.
00:10:34
But I smoked weed. So I was like, "Can I hit that?" And he was like, "Well, you don't want to
hit this, it has..."
00:10:40
And I smelled it. And I was like, "Oh, it has that shit in it." I was like, "I wish you wouldn't smoke that."
00:10:45
And he was like, "Oh, go get the air freshener,
get my insurance papers," whatever.
00:10:48
So I went in the house and I got his stuff. I came back out. Phoebe Judge: Kim says she got back into the
car.
00:10:54
Darnell wanted oral sex. She said no. Kim Dadou: And he had this motto like, "It's
mine.
00:11:00
If you don't give it to me, I'm going to take
it." And he meant it. And he was like, "Well, if you're not giving
it to me, who are you giving it to?"
00:11:05
I'm like, "Come on, I'm not giving it to anybody. Stop. We're in the car in front of my mom's house.
00:11:11
Like come on, we're outside." And he got mad. He hit me, accused me of lying to him.
00:11:19
"Say it again, I'll hit you again." I told him, I said, "I haven't been with anyone
else."
00:11:25
And he was like, "Lie to me again." Bam. I had to, I was like, "I haven't been with
anyone else.
00:11:33
I'm not lying." He hit me again. And I tried to get out the door. We had a car, it was like 'our car.'
00:11:45
He had a car, I had a car. And then we had our car. And we were in our car. We were in the Fifth Avenue and it had power
locks.
00:11:53
It was a big deal to have power locks on our
car. And I couldn't get out the door because of
the damn power locks.
00:12:01
[Crying.] And I turned and there was nothing to lift
and I couldn't get out the door and he grabbed
00:12:09
me and he was like, "This is it, bitch. This is it." And he started choking me, and he pushed my
head down, like down below the dash, but he
00:12:20
still had his hands around my neck. And he just kept saying, "This is it, bitch.
00:12:28
This is it." [Music comes in.] And his gun was under the seat. He always kept his gun under the seat.
00:12:37
And I grabbed it and I just wanted him to
get off me. And the gun went off, just went [makes gun
sound: brrrat].
00:12:49
And it stopped. And I mean the bucking, I thought the gun
was misfiring. I had no idea what was going on.
00:12:56
Like, I thought it was going to blow up in
my hand. I didn't know. And I'm struggling, and then he let go of
me.
00:13:04
Phoebe Judge: Kim says she managed to get
the car door open. She fell into a snowbank and scrambled up
the yard to her mother's door.
00:13:12
Kim Dadou: And I heard him scream, "Bitch,
get back here." And I thought, "Oh God, he's going to kill
me."
00:13:19
Phoebe Judge: She ran into the house and locked
herself in her room. Darnell drove away.
00:13:24
Kim Dadou: I thought to myself, "Oh my God,
he's going to come back and kill me.
00:13:28
I can't stay here." And I left. I told my sister, "I got to go." He always told me you never pull a gun on
somebody without killing them, or they'll
00:13:44
kill you. Phoebe Judge: Kim drove to the house of a
friend Darnell didn't know. She said she stayed up all night watching
the news.
00:13:51
[Music fades out.] Kim Dadou: For some reason, thinking that
I was going to see something, or — I didn't
00:13:56
know if I had shot him, if I didn't shoot
him, if he was looking for me. Now I'm wondering, are the police looking
for me?
00:14:03
My mom's neighborhood's really, really quiet,
really, really suburban. I don't know what's going on.
00:14:13
So I'm just at my friend's house, hiding. Phoebe Judge: The next night, on December
18th, Kim says she went back to her mother's
00:14:21
house. Kim Dadou: And when I walked in, my mom and
my sister were sitting in the living room.
00:14:31
And when I walked in, they just looked at
me and I was like, "What's going on?" And Wendy said, "Tell her.
00:14:43
Tell her." And my mom said, "You tell her." [Emotional.] And Wendy said, "Darnell's dead."
00:14:54
And I said, "What?" She said, "Darnell is dead." She said, "His family wants you to call them."
00:15:05
She said, "His sister wants you to call them." And I'm like, "Oh my God, what happened?"
00:15:12
And Wendy said, "They said he died in a car
accident." [Music comes in.] Phoebe Judge: According to the Rochester Democrat
and Chronicle, on the morning of December
00:15:27
18th, police received a call from a woman
who lived around the corner from Kim's mother.
00:15:32
A 1982 Chrysler had crashed into her living
room sometime during the night. The woman said she'd heard a noise, but assumed
her cat had knocked over a chair.
00:15:42
She didn't go downstairs. When police arrived, they found the car, but
not the driver.
00:15:51
After hours of searching, they found Darnell
Sanders' body frozen beneath a pile of snow.
00:15:58
The next morning officers showed up at Kim's
mother's house. Kim Dadou: And they said, "Kim?"
00:16:06
And I said, "Yeah." They said, "You have a Fifth Avenue, blah,
blah, blah." I said, "Yeah."
00:16:13
They said, "Well, it was involved in a car
accident last night. We need you to come identify the car."
00:16:19
Phoebe Judge: When Kim got to the police station,
she was informed that the medical examiner
00:16:23
discovered six bullet wounds in Darnell's
stomach and chest. His death was not being investigated as a
car accident, but as a homicide.
00:16:32
Kim Dadou: And I'm like, "Oh my God." I'm thinking in my head, "Oh my God." [Music fades out.]
00:16:39
Phoebe Judge: But you knew the gun had gone
off inside the car. Kim Dadou: Yes, I did.
00:16:45
I mean, I've never shot anyone before, but
in the movies or — you shoot somebody, they
00:16:50
fall down dead. They don't drive away screaming, "Bitch, get
back here." They don't, they don't, they don't.
00:16:58
Phoebe Judge: Kim says the police questioned
her for hours. And then without a lawyer, she gave an eight-page
statement.
00:17:06
In the statement, which we got a copy of from
the Monroe County Clerk, Kim told officers
00:17:12
that Darnell was crushing her throat and,
"I made the decision to go for the gun.
00:17:18
And when I reached for it, it was there." And they charged you with Darnell's murder?
00:17:25
Kim Dadou: Murder. Yeah. Phoebe Judge: Kim told police officers, "I
just don't know how or why this happened."
00:17:33
We reached out to Darnell Sanders' family,
but never heard back. Kim was indicted on a second-degree murder
charge.
00:17:41
She was 24 years old. An advocacy organization called the Battered
Women's Defense Committee raised $15,000 to
00:17:50
post Kim's bail. The trial began September 14th, 1992. During opening statements, Assistant District
Attorney Angela Reyes told the jury, "There'll
00:18:02
be no doubt in your minds that this defendant
is guilty of murder." [Music comes in.]
00:18:08
Kim did not testify. She says her lawyer told her not to. On her behalf, he told the jury about the
years of injuries and criminal complaints
00:18:18
she'd filed against Darnell. Protesters stood outside the courthouse with
signs reading, "Bring Justice to Battered
00:18:26
Women, Free Kim Dadou." We spoke with the prosecutor, Angela Reyes,
who told us the same thing she told the jury:
00:18:35
that Kim was the one harassing Darnell. The gun was never recovered. We also spoke with the
judge in Kim's case, Patricia Marks, who told
00:18:46
us that the important thing to think about
in a case like this is that the burden is
00:18:51
on the prosecution to convince the jury that
Kim was not acting in self-defense.
00:18:57
And they were able to do that. Kim was found guilty of manslaughter in the
first degree.
00:19:05
What was your sentence? [Music fades out.] Kim Dadou: Eight-and-a-third to 25. I was found not guilty of murder in the second
degree — which is premeditated — because
00:19:15
it was not premeditated. So I was found not guilty of premeditated
murder in the second degree, but I was found
00:19:23
guilty of man one. And that sentence carried eight-and-a-third
to 25. And I'm looking at my lawyer and my head is
spinning and the deputies are coming up behind
00:19:34
me. [Crying.] Phoebe Judge: So they took you right away. Kim Dadou: [Crying.] Yeah, they did.
00:19:43
And I didn't come home for 17 years. Phoebe Judge: Did you meet other women in
prison who were there for similar reasons?
00:19:50
Kim Dadou: Oh God, yes. And we bond. They become your family. They become closer to you than family, they
become your soulmates.
00:20:00
Because you have that one thing in common,
and you can see it in their eyes. They're broken, they're hurt.
00:20:06
I was broken. Phoebe Judge: We don't have much data on how
many domestic violence survivors are in prison
00:20:13
because of crimes relating to abuse. Two state-specific studies in California and
New York found that most women incarcerated
00:20:21
for killing significant others had been abused
by them — 67% in New York and 93% in California.
00:20:29
[Music comes in.] Kim says she went before the parole board
five times and was denied every time.
00:20:37
And then in 2008, after 17 years, she went
before the parole board a sixth time.
00:20:44
By then, she didn't want to tell her story
anymore. Kim Dadou: I said, "I go home in a couple
months on my conditional release date."
00:20:53
I said, "With all due respect, I don't want
to talk about it anymore." And then I come home and all I do is talk
about it.
00:21:00
[Laughs.] Phoebe Judge: She's now one of the primary
victim advocates working to get a piece of
00:21:07
legislation passed in New York. It's called the Domestic Violence Survivors
Justice Act.
00:21:13
Kim Dadou: The DVSJA is a bill that would
give judges and DAs discretionary power when
00:21:23
sentencing and charging a woman who has committed
a domestic violence crime. It would allow the judges to give alternatives
to incarceration programs.
00:21:35
It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card. There's a whole list of criteria that a person
must fall under before they would be eligible.
00:21:45
Phoebe Judge: What would have happened to
you if this bill had been in place? Kim Dadou: I could have probably served less
time, a lot less time, and came home and had
00:21:57
a family, maybe. I always wanted kids, but I spent every minute
of my 30s in prison.
00:22:06
And I don't know, who knows, I might've been
a trailblazer. Phoebe Judge: Kim moved back to Rochester
after her release.
00:22:14
She got a job at a Tim Horton's coffee shop. Now she works at a nonprofit and last summer
she got married.
00:22:22
How did you meet your wife? Tell me the story. Kim Dadou: That's my favorite story.
00:22:26
Phoebe Judge: While she was in jail, she met
a woman named Annie Bell. [Music fades out.]
00:22:31
Kim Dadou: And my friend is like, "Oh, Bell,
this is Kim. Kim, this is Bell." And Bell's like, "You're a cutie."
00:22:37
And I just remember rolling my eyes like,
"Oh Lord, I don't need this right now."
00:22:45
And I said, "What are you guys playing?" And they said, "We're playing spades." You know, I was just being cordial.
00:22:52
And she said, "Can you play?" And I was like, "Can I play?" Now you're challenging my spade game.
00:22:58
You know, it's totally different subjects. So I was like, "Yeah, I can play." She said, "All right."
00:23:03
And she made the girl get up. Then she was like, "She's playing now." And I sat down and I started playing with
her, and we were unbeatable.
00:23:14
And we became spade partners. And then she just wooed me. Phoebe Judge: Sometimes they were in the same
prison.
00:23:23
And sometimes they were apart. When they weren't together, they would each
call the same person on the outside so they
00:23:29
could talk. Kim remembers telling her sister to put the
phones together so they could hear each other's
00:23:35
voices. Kim Dadou: And then she came home in '97 and
she got off parole in '99. And she showed up on New Year's Day 2000.
00:23:52
And I didn't even know she was coming. She came up there with my sister, and I'm
like, "Who is visiting me on New Year's Day?
00:23:58
Everybody I know is hungover and sleeping." [Music comes in.] And I looked in the visiting room and it was
my sister.
00:24:04
And I was like, "Wow, that's cool." And then I seen her, and I was like, "Holy
shit, she showed up.
00:24:13
She came after all these years." And she said, "I told you I'd be here as soon
as I got off parole."
00:24:22
And she was there, and she's been there ever
since. She's the most amazing person I've ever known.
00:24:29
Phoebe Judge: And she kept visiting all those
years? Kim Dadou: Oh yeah. Every other Saturday.
00:24:35
But through it all, we always said to each
other, "When we get home, we'll go out to
00:24:41
dinner and see what's what." And I said, "Okay, just don't love anybody
else, okay?
00:24:46
Just don't love anybody else till I get home." [Music plays at full volume for a few seconds.]
00:24:59
Phoebe Judge: Criminal is produced by Lauren
Spohrer, Nadia Wilson, and me. Audio mix by Rob Byers.
00:25:06
Alice Wilder is our intern. Special thanks to Natalie Patillo. Julienne Alexander makes original illustrations
for each episode of Criminal.
00:25:16
You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter, @CriminalShow.
00:25:23
Criminal is recorded in the studios of North
Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX,
a collection of the best podcasts around.
00:25:33
Shows like Song Exploder, which is one of
my favorite podcasts out there. Song Exploder is a show where musicians take
apart their songs and tell you how they were
00:25:43
made. It's fascinating. There are guests like Weezer, Bjork, Solange,
Wilco, The Magnetic Fields, even Metallica.
00:25:51
This month, the show is putting out their
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Go listen, you won't be disappointed. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight
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00:26:14
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. [Music fades out.] Jingle: Radiotopia from PRX.