Episode 303

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

I'm sorry, my children are trying to get out of the house.

Yeah, can you believe Margaret called me a Nazi again?

Oh, hi!

This is Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

This is episode 303 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

In case you haven't heard, which would be really weird because we repeat it every single episode, there is a thing called Sword and Scale Television at swordandscale.com.

We have about 16 episodes now of the show, true crime, hour long each.

Some of the best true crime you'll find.

Go check it out and support independent creators.

Hey, how about them terrorists?

We're not here to talk about terrorism or politics or any of that, but there is a common thread between all of those things and what we talk about here, and that's that humanity is at the center of it.

All across the country over the last, I don't know, couple years, ever since BLM, we've seen a ramping up, an escalation, if you will, of

dissent across college campuses all over the country.

And it hasn't just been isolated to college campuses.

It's an infection, a virus, if you will, spreading across the young people of today.

A need to stand up for those who have been wrongfully oppressed.

When you have no understanding of history and you operate strictly on emotion, sometimes you stand up for the wrong person, like, oh, I don't know, a terrorist.

Sometimes you just start spewing terrorist propaganda, literally, and prevent other students from getting to their class, other people from getting to work, and contributing to society.

The society we're all supposedly trying to build here.

Standing up for the wrong person, no matter how good your intentions are, can have disastrous consequences.

Gaze for Gaza would be a fantastic example of that if you played it out to its inevitable conclusion.

But again, we're not here to talk about politics, just pointing out these similarities between the story we're about to tell you and society at large.

Because that's what we do here.

We tell you stories of real people that have really happened in a way where we try to make it apply to your everyday life.

Thornton Scale isn't really a true crime podcast.

It's a human nature podcast.

It's a podcast about right and wrong.

and how we figure out what's what,

how we incentivize the good, and how we punish the bad.

It's about making sense of it all, in a time when making sense of things has become a bit of a challenge.

I'm sure a 35-year-old Michelle Rogers, who lived in Lansing, Michigan in 2015, understood that challenge.

She was trying to stand up for the wrong person.

Lansing is a pretty typical Midwest city.

It's a state capital.

So, you've got the big government buildings downtown, but most of the city seems a lot more low-key.

The neighborhoods are quiet and lined with trees.

Most of the houses are modest, nothing too flashy, but comfortable.

It's the kind of place where people say hi when they pass each other on the street.

But everyone, you know, mostly keeps to themselves, like we do in every major city in America.

A lot of scary people out there, as we all know.

Anyway, Lansing used to thrive because of the auto industry.

A lot of places in Michigan were decimated after the auto industry kind of went overseas.

You could still see parts of that history and it is really quite interesting and beautiful.

Some of those old buildings are incredible, a symbol of bustling capitalism and growth at its peak.

But we're living in a different time and a lot of those factories have closed down.

Now it's more about schools, government jobs, and local businesses.

The few that are left.

People tend to stick to their routines, work, family, maybe catching a ball game, or heading to a park on the weekends.

Even though the crime rate is a bit higher, so is the community and level of neighborhood vigilance.

Michelle was an independent and self-sufficient woman with a great career and almost everything she wanted in life.

She had everything except for one thing.

Someone to go out to dinner or dancing with.

One day, feeling the need for adult company, she signed up to a dating site.

She wasn't looking for anything serious, especially with a young son to care for.

Just somebody to hang out with, have a couple dates, have a little fun.

No harm, no foul.

She swiped left and right through dozens of pictures and profiles, seeing if anyone matched her energy.

And then, After a couple swipes, she found Matthew Terry's picture.

It popped up on her screen and she was, hmm,

interested.

At the same time, Matthew was checking out Michelle's profile.

He liked her vibe and the fact that they had common interests.

He probably just thought she was hot, because that's how guys think.

But whatever the reason, they hooked up.

They started dating.

Michelle kept her guard and didn't want to get too serious, but Matthew was so easygoing, and they had such a great time together that it just kind of flourished.

He was attentive, not just to her, but to her son.

He took him fishing and sled riding, and even her son liked Matthew.

The fact that they were so compatible came as a surprise to Michelle, and she was starting to believe Matthew when he said he thought they were soulmates.

It's easy to get caught up in that.

Danela, what's the location of your emergency?

Um, it's across the street from 625 Worthington Drive.

Okay, what's going on here?

There's a man here's a woman pinned on the ground in their driveway.

They're fighting.

She's screaming, why are you doing this to me?

They're literally rolling in the driveway right now.

Okay.

She's screaming for help right now.

Do you see any weapons?

I do not.

Are they white, black, Asian, Hispanic?

White.

What's he wearing?

Looks like a green t-shirt and jeans.

She's screaming, call an ambulance.

Okay, is she saying what she needs an ambulance for?

That would be a no.

She did not say what she needed an ambulance for.

You could tell because she's

screaming for her fucking life.

She's screaming, somebody, please fucking help me.

Okay, hang on just a second while I start those ambulance.

Sure.

Go ahead.

Page for an unknown medical at 625 625 Worthington.

It's going to be some sort of fight.

Can you tell this operator just doesn't like her job?

I don't think she'd like any job, to be honest with you, but I digress.

It was definitely a fight, and Michelle was determined to survive.

It started in the house, but now Matthew was assaulting Michelle in the driveway, and neighbors could see it all going down.

It was horrifying.

I do.

It's directly across the street from me, a tan house with a red door, black, forward, I think, in the driveway.

She has her pinned right to the ground, and she's screaming, bloody murder.

What is he saying?

He's not saying a word, and she's just, she keeps screaming, help me, help me, help me.

And he's not saying a single word?

He's not.

Is he looking at her?

I mean, he's literally on top of her like.

Just like right now, he has her in a control fold with her legs over her head.

Her legs over her head?

Yes.

She's just beating her head on the ground.

He has her hair.

Now he's running inside.

Oh my god.

She went inside and she's up.

She's all bloody.

Ma'am, sit right there.

Have a seat.

And Angelina's coming.

Sit down.

Sit right there.

The ambulance is coming.

Sit.

Just sit right there.

Just sit.

She's covered in blood.

Okay.

What is she saying?

She's just with the baby.

She has a baby in the house.

It's okay.

An ambulance is on the way.

It's okay.

Okay.

Even though Matthew was completely wasted, he used his knowledge as a wrestling coach to subdue her.

Combined with his rage and adrenaline, it was a a deadly combination.

But finally, Michelle dragged herself across the street to her neighbor's house for safety.

What there's a man that's coming.

What's your name?

You're Michelle Rogers and his name is Matt Terry.

Does he have a weapon?

Okay.

His name is Matt Terry.

Matt Terry, he had a knife.

Is he with him?

I'm sorry?

He had it on him?

She was a little bit of a snow.

Okay, hang on just a second.

Yep, I can hear the silence, okay?

Hang on.

Go ahead.

Referencing 625 Worthington, the male had a knife.

Okay.

Yeah, and Angela's coming in, please, okay?

Okay, did he threaten her with a knife?

She's covered in blood.

She looks like she's knife.

Are you cut, Michelle?

Are you cut somewhere?

He stabbed stabbed you?

Oh.

She's been stabbed?

That's what she stabbed.

Where have you been?

Yeah, I see that one, honey.

Where were you stabbed?

Where were you stabbed at?

And then neck and in the shoulder.

She was stabbed in the neck and the shoulder.

Michelle was in bad shape, but she was less worried about herself than she was about her nine-month-old son, who was still in the house with his drunk and violent dad.

It's okay, Michelle.

I'm that way, okay?

okay?

They're coming.

I mean, her shirt is just absolutely covered in blood.

Michelle, where do you

okay?

No, they know that your son's in there, okay.

Does he still have the knife?

As far as she knows,

she has the knife down.

Okay, I need her to set it down somewhere.

It's sitting, it's

the knife that she has is on the ground next to her.

It's the knife she took from him, but there are multiple knives in the house.

Another neighbor also phoned 911 and wanted to help, but was too afraid to ask Michelle in because she was elderly and lived alone.

She could easily become a second victim.

So she did the next best thing.

She took out a blanket and covered Michelle with it.

The sirens were getting closer.

Michelle was running out of time.

But here she is to tell you exactly what happened to her that night.

Let me just set some things up first.

She was actually coming home from being out with Matthew that night, but she was forced to leave Matthew behind at the bar because he was in no shape to drive.

Even months prior to this, I met with an attorney to see how I could get out of the relationship.

And it just seemed like, you know, there was no good way.

But so I went to his parents' house and I...

picked up our son.

And as I was grabbing him, they're like, well, you know, where's Matt?

And at that time, I said, well, I don't, I don't know.

He's still down there drinking.

I don't know, don't care, whatever.

Grabbed the baby, and I left and I went home, and I fed the baby and put him to bed upstairs.

And I was just sitting there watching TV.

And like the whole house had an open layout, so the living room and the kitchen, you know, you could see through there.

There was like a little bar area.

And on the back slider door, I hear a knock.

I'm like, okay, well, what the hell?

And so I look up and it's Matt knocking on the back door.

Michelle says that besides being drunk off his face, he seemed angry.

Alcohol sometimes does that to you.

Pulls out all the angry demons inside and they start lashing out.

But she sat on the couch ignoring him while he tried to make a sandwich.

Keyword try.

Then all of a sudden, she has no idea what it is she said, but she must have said something because he came at her.

Running, angry, and ready for a fight.

The only way I can describe it is like, kind of like a football player, right?

Like they're running at you like they're going to tackle you.

And I remember like him coming at me and I braced myself with my arms in front of my chest.

And I'm like, you know, what are you doing?

And then that's when he made contact with me and pushed me into the front door, which was directly behind me at the time.

And we both fell to the floor

then.

You know, we're

going around on the floor and he is.

essentially treating me like he's wrestling with me.

Like I could recognize wrestling moves, like, you know, because he's a wrestling coach.

And so I recognized some of these things he was trying to like pin me down in.

And there were some that were really scary.

Like he was putting me in chokeholds to the point where I was starting to black out and feel dizzy.

And somehow, you know, don't ask me how, I would manage to break free from these things or like wriggle out of them.

And then he would just keep, you know, putting me in more on the floor.

So we're on the floor.

He starts punching me in the face.

He's punching me in the chest.

Michelle was face down now, trying to scoot her way back to the carpeted area of the living room so she could get a grip and push herself up.

The tile in the kitchen was covered in blood, now that he'd broken her nose and knocked her teeth out.

He was relentless, and he dragged her back into the kitchen each time.

Then he started banging her head repeatedly on the floor.

I will never forget the black trash can that I was staring at that whole time.

Like, I'm laying there, staring at this trash can,

just watching it, like, fade in and fade out as my head's getting pummeled on the floor.

And the only thing I can think is, holy shit, don't, don't pass out, like, don't pass out.

And for some reason, the thought popped in my head, you know, I had learned it somewhere, apparently in my life, was that, you know, don't tense up your muscles because if you tense up your muscles, like you're going to have more damage.

And so I tried to relax as much as I could while he's doing this.

And I don't know if that helped or not, but that was one of the thoughts that kind of, you know, passed through my mind.

At last, it seemed like Matthew had stopped.

Michelle sat up, trying to steady herself, but her back was to him.

Suddenly he came at her again,

this time with a kitchen knife, stabbing her in the front of the neck.

Panicked and bleeding, she ran towards the garage.

She hit the button to open the door, gasping for air, as he stayed close behind.

As the door started to rise, Matthew forced it back down, slamming on the button.

With only a small gap left, Michelle rolled under it, desperate to get out.

But Matthew was right behind her, able to roll under the door as well.

Michelle's relationship with Matthew started out very differently a while back.

There were signs, but she could have never known that one day she'd be in fear for her life.

Yeah, Matt and I had, you know, we had a lot of fun adventures together.

He had quite a broad group of friends, and so there seemed like there was always something going on.

Somebody was having a party or organizing, you know, a short vacation over the the weekend or just something.

And so we were always really busy.

But there did come a time, you know, within a few months after doing all these really fun things that 100% of the time involved drinking that I realized he had a problem.

Matthew took the good times too far.

When they were out with friends, she sometimes had to remind him to drink less.

He just wasn't the same person.

when he'd had one too many and she wanted to get him home safe.

I noticed the drinking pretty quickly.

There were a few instances where he,

you know, would drink so much that he would just pass out.

Specifically, I remember going down like a lazy river trip.

So we were all on tubes on this river just floating down and he was passed out on his tube and just sleeping the whole way because he had drank so much in the beginning.

He didn't wake up at all.

And I kept thinking, you know, what happens if he just falls over in the water and you can't touch the bottom, right?

Like I can't lift him out so someone would have to save him because he was just

he wouldn't wake up so things like that that would happen throughout these activities where he would just be obliterated all the time.

It was a few months into the relationship and Michelle was a runner preparing for a big race.

She'd thought it through and was going to break things off as soon as the race was over.

She just didn't want to take on someone who had a potential drinking problem.

But as the race came closer, she started to feel ill.

She took a test and realized that, oh shit, I'm pregnant.

Things continued normally for the next year and a half.

Matthew was a good dad and, for the most part, a loving partner.

There were just times when he took his partying a little too far, and it concerned Michelle even more now that she had a child with him.

On St.

Patrick's Day of 2017, the couple went out with friends for the day.

They stopped for lunch at an Irish pub and had a couple of beers.

Then they moved on to another Irish bar where Michelle slowed down, but Matthew did not.

By six PM, Michelle was ready to go out, but found Matthew in another bar next door.

He was the only one in the place, and he was so plastered he couldn't even talk.

That's when she decided to just go home, alone.

I don't blame her.

Nobody wants to put up with a drunk.

Michelle walked a mile and a half through the snowy, cold weather just to get away from her significant other, just to get home.

Exhausted, she then drove to the home of Matt's parents and picked up the kids.

And when she got back home, she sank into the couch.

Just a couple of hours later, a very different version of Matthew than the man she loved showed up at the screen door, knocking to get in.

This

seemingly AI representation of the man she loved proceeded to stumble through the kitchen and started to make himself a sandwich.

Michelle sat in the open concept living room where she could watch TV but still keep an eye on him.

He was drunk, but things were peaceful.

That is, until they weren't.

Michelle was in the hospital fighting for her life now, and Matthew was arraigned in the morning after the attack.

The lead detective, who coincidentally shares the same first name remembers what Matthew said from jail.

Hello, my name's Matthew Crumback.

I'm a retired detective with the City of Lansing Police Department here in Michigan.

They didn't really discuss too much about what Matt had done.

He was very vague about what he had done.

kind of claimed that he didn't quite remember well what had happened because I don't think that he wanted to tell his father what he had done.

He made a comment to his dad that she was in the hospital and why was she in the hospital and he was rather vague and trying his explanation,

was trying to get his dad to say, hey, could you come down here and bail me out?

Could you put some money together?

Could you get me out of this situation?

I don't want to lose my job.

He was more concerned, obviously, about himself than he was Michelle.

He did not plead guilty.

He was transferred out to the Ingham County Jail.

Ultimately, his family did bail him out on bail, a substantial bail.

I believe it was around a quarter million dollars.

His family had the ability to bail him out prior to the trial.

It was assigned a court date, and then we went to court, and he pleaded not guilty.

When it was all said and done, Michelle survived.

Had the assault continued even for just another second, the outcome could have been very different.

And I just remember, and this might sound a little crazy, right?

But you know how you have like your voice in your head?

It was like this other voice that was guiding me to do certain things, right?

And this other voice like yelled at me and it's like, grab the fucking knife, like he's going to kill you.

And so like as he came down for the fourth, the fourth stab, I like grabbed the knife and I remember I had the blade end of it and I'm laying on my back and I'm grabbing this knife and I'm literally pulling it across my face to from right side to the left as he's trying to push it in, you know, push it forward into my face.

And all I could think was, like, oh my god, he's gonna poke my eye out.

He's gonna, like, I don't know what's gonna happen.

Somehow, I managed to get this thing pulled across my face.

And as I did, and I pulled it to the other side of my body, the knife fell kind of like to my left side.

And I was able to sort of tuck it underneath me enough and sort of roll to my left a little bit where he wasn't able to find it.

Michelle had seven stab wounds: a broken nose, loss of teeth, and head injuries.

He even bit her face several times in an attempt to wrestle the knife away.

Matthew, on the other hand, barely had a scratch on himself.

Clearly, Michelle had met a monster, but no one else in Matthew's life seemed to view him that way.

I guess he was really good at hiding his illness.

A lot of people are.

He was quite a popular guy, in fact.

So, he was probably pretty good at it.

At trial, his family brought in numerous character witnesses, and Matt himself testified, trying to claim that all of Michelle's injuries were the result of her attack on him, and that he was merely defending himself.

Don't you hate it when the aggressor plays victim?

Seems to happen a lot these days.

He was charged with attempted murder.

His family was able to secure him a private attorney that was reputable in the city of Lansing, and that he requested that there would be a lesser charge included under attempted murder which would be great bodily harm less than murder.

The jury did find him guilty of the lesser charge of great bodily harm less than murder and he was sentenced to three years in prison in the Michigan Department of Corrections which he did serve three years.

I believe that Matt Terry now that I'm retired can say this, should have definitely been found guilty of attempted murder, and he should still be in custody in the state of Michigan.

Juries are wishy-washy, and I hope every person that sat on that jury is well aware of what Matt Terry did in the aftermath of being released from the Michigan Department of Corrections.

And I hope they live with that every single day of their life.

Matthew was out in just three years.

And Michelle was petrified.

As soon as I found out he was getting paroled, I had started looking for jobs out of state.

I knew that if he was going to stay anywhere, he would stay with his parents.

And his parents were literally 20 minutes from where I lived.

And there was no way, there was no way I was going to stay.

And so I was terrified.

I just knew I had to get myself and my kids somewhere safe.

So I started looking for jobs out of state.

I accepted a job offer, you know, and then I had to file with the courts to both try and or try and move both of my children.

So one for my oldest son, one for my youngest son,

to try and relocate them, which isn't an easy thing to do, if you know anything about that.

Michelle felt completely isolated.

It seemed like everybody around her had been taken in by Matthew's facade.

Even somebody she once trusted deeply turned against her, siding with the man who nearly ended her life.

Nobody talks about how lonely it can be to confront your attacker, but holy shit, can you imagine?

Losing your friends because someone else was violent towards you?

So I was traveling back and forth, you know, between states for a year trying to get approval to move my kids with me.

And then kind of behind the scenes, this is something I don't think anybody knows because I've never talked about it in a, in a podcast, but like my

somehow,

because my ex-husband didn't believe me.

He said that Matt was too nice to be an abuser and that I was a liar.

And so somehow he and Matt had connected behind the scenes and they were working with the same attorneys, trying to kind of tag team to keep

so one of them could win, so that I'd have to stay in the state and I wouldn't be able to move with my children.

She didn't know if she'd ever be free of Matthew Terry, but she knew one thing for sure: he wasn't done hurting people.

Living in fear that he might return consumed her, and she knew in her heart that it certainly wasn't over.

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Michelle Rogers of Lansing, Michigan only wanted someone to share parts of her life with.

As a mechanical engineer, she had a career, a young son, and a pretty great life.

That is, until she met 42-year-old Matthew Terry.

At first, the relationship was full of social gatherings and fun dates, but just when she started seeing red flags and planned to break up, she got pregnant.

When her son was nine months old, Matthew violently attacked her on St.

Patrick's Day after drinking himself into a stupor.

She survived, but her life would never be the same.

She carried the physical and emotional scars of Matthew Terry's violent outburst.

The justice system failed her, with Matthew only getting a slap on the wrist.

Three years.

And he was out after stabbing and beating her, leaving her just seconds from death.

How would you feel?

That thought of him walking free again filled her with dread.

She knew what he was capable of, and the idea that he was just out there somewhere, free, walking around, was a weight that she couldn't escape.

Three years just wasn't enough.

Nobody learns anything in three years.

It takes a little longer than that.

At least for what he did.

And then, one night, suddenly, who could have predicted it?

There's another call for help.

In the early hours of the morning, Hillsborough County deputies responded to a distress call from 6211 Kitteridge Drive in Lithia, Florida.

Lithia, Florida?

Where the hell is Lithia, Florida?

Saturday, May 28,

2022.

901, police fire medical.

I need

emergency, please.

What kind of

ambulance?

Stay on the line.

Yes, there's someone stay on the line, ma'am.

I think it's

right in front of my house.

My husband just went out there.

Or or next door.

I'm trying to get out my door, but my dog is my dog is trying to stop me.

Someone is hurt.

Someone is hurt outside my house.

Ma'am, I need you to repeat the assets for verification.

Do you have someone outside?

What happened?

Lacerace.

Lacerate cut.

Okay, who's cut?

Someone next door.

Who is this?

She's this.

thing that they have a major cut to their neck.

Do you know what happened?

I don't know.

My husband heard someone screaming, and then we came outside.

There's their starting, get out of the house!

Don't come out this door!

They're struggling.

I'm sorry, my children are trying to get out of the house.

God, can you hear the panic in her voice?

It's giving me extreme anxiety right now.

And the operator just couldn't give a flying fanny way.

The neighbors had no idea what what was going on, only that a young woman lay bleeding from the neck near her home.

The confusion was palpable.

A quiet neighborhood suddenly turned into a scene from a nightmare, with no clear answers for anyone.

Anxiety-ridden neighbors looked out their windows as the red and blue lights flashed from the police cars and ambulance.

Horrified, phones still in hand, they wondered what just happened.

Two people wrestling outside, screams, cries for help.

Who was this woman?

What happened to her?

As paramedics rushed to the scene, the police began piecing together the story.

A nightmare story that was all too similar to what happened in Michigan.

But this crime happened in Florida, and Matthew Terry lived in Michigan.

Or did he?

The young woman was Kay Baker.

a math teacher and mother of two.

She was barely holding on as first responders worked to stabilize her.

Blood gushed from her neck wound and turned the green grass to red, where she'd collapsed in the yard between her home and a neighbor's.

Gasping for air turned to a deadly gurgling through the deep slash in her neck that almost decapitated her.

They watched in horror as paramedics loaded her onto a gurney and placed a sheet on her body and over her face.

She didn't make it.

They couldn't have known the full truth yet, that this wasn't a random attack.

The man responsible was not a stranger.

He was someone Kay had welcomed into her life.

Someone she believed she could trust.

Police were already searching for him.

And his name was Matthew Terry.

Hey, Poppy, I got Ovaro County Fire Rex D recorded blind.

How may I help you?

Hey, we need y'all.

And what's going on over there?

They need your emergency.

I think the dog bit him, but he was also bleeding already.

It has to do with why y'all were out there earlier, with that female that was bleeding.

It's related to that.

The stabbing?

Yes, ma'am.

Was it a canine bite?

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I don't know.

I believe the canine bit him, but he was already bleeding when they found him in the woods.

So.

Is it emergency or non-emergency?

They said emergency.

and I can't talk to them because they said to hold the station, so that's all I have for you.

Okay.

Is the scene secure?

Yeah, they need you like now.

Okay.

All right, we'll get them going.

Thank you, Anthea.

Bye.

When deputies entered the home she shared with her boyfriend, Matthew Terry, they found signs of a violent struggle.

A bathroom door was damaged, consistent with being kicked in.

and the bedroom was locked.

When they kicked it open, they found an open window with its screen pushed outward and lying in the yard, hinting that someone had escaped through it.

Blood traces led from inside the house through the backyard toward a wooded area bordering Lithia Pinecrest Road.

The area was cordoned off with yellow tape as investigators and crime scene units meticulously examined the surroundings.

Bloodhounds were let loose to track Matthew's movements.

Following a trail of blood through the thick thick bushes near the property, they discovered more bloodstains in a trampled area of leaves.

A deputy and his canine partner, Champ, traced the suspects approximately 100 yards east of the scene.

Matthew was lying in dense grass, wearing only a blood-soaked t-shirt and underwear.

How pathetic.

He also had cuts on his neck, but later it would be determined that he'd cut himself on purpose.

And the clip you just heard about the dog bite?

Yeah, that's Champ, the canine.

He took a nice chomp out of Matthew Terry, and good on him.

That's a good boy, Champ.

Good boy, indeed.

Here is Detective Crumback.

I saw parallels in the case from Michigan to Florida, and it's eerie on

how similar these cases were.

I mean, eerie on

how close they were.

I mean from the point of he took a knife from a butcher block in Michigan and assaulted Michelle.

He took a knife from a butcher block in Florida and assaulted that victim.

And it seems like he had been consuming alcohol.

There was an argument.

You know, the fact that he was found in both cases in his underwear and t-shirt soaked in blood in Michigan.

In Florida, they found him, you know, 100 yards away from the house lying in the woods with his underwear and a t-shirt soaked in blood.

I'm like, wow, this looks very familiar to me.

And, you know, I think that there appears to me, I wasn't an investigator down in Florida, but I noticed that inflicted a couple of wounds on himself in the Florida case.

And I'm thinking, well, you know, he's probably thinking, I better cook something up.

You know, that self-defense claim worked kind of good in Michigan.

I went from 15 to three years.

Maybe I can do the same thing here down in Florida.

But it didn't work out for him so much.

Really, the only difference between the 2017 assault against Michelle and the 2022 assault against Kay Baker is that Michelle was much luckier.

That's it.

She survived while Kay Baker bled out and died before paramedics could reach her.

That's the only difference.

When Matthew walked free in 2020, another woman was already waiting for him.

This time, he didn't need to charm his way into her life.

Kay Baker, a former high school friend, had willingly opened that door.

In fact, she even testified on his behalf at the trial in Michigan, making this whole story even sadder.

So I wasn't a part of, like, I couldn't be in the courtroom because I had to testify when she came for the 2017 trial, but she did testify to his character then.

But that wasn't the only time.

She also had come into some of our child custody and parenting, like the court hearings, to testify on his behalf as well.

You know, just as I don't want to say naive, but she just she thought he was different than what he portrayed, just like I did.

And it wasn't anything that was her fault.

He had just told her a story that she believed, and she really loved him and cared for him.

And she wanted to believe that he was the person that he portrayed to her.

And so I don't fault her at all for being there to speak to this because all he ever showed her was the good side, right?

And

maybe, I guess I don't know what else he showed her, but I'm assuming that, you know, she saw the good stuff and she believed that he was really a good person.

She'd known him for a long time.

And so she truly believed that he was that person that she was saying he was.

Kay Baker was, by all accounts, the kind of person everyone wanted in their corner.

She was bubbly, compassionate, and fiercely loyal to her family, friends, and students.

as she taught.

As a middle school math teacher, she didn't just teach, she mentored, encouraged, and inspired.

Her two boys were her entire world, and she juggled her career and motherhood with a smile.

Admirable.

But, like anyone else, we get lonely.

We reach out into the ether looking for companionship, and sometimes the ether has a sense of humor.

A dark sense of humor.

When Kay reconnected with Matthew Terry through social media during his trial, she didn't see a monster, but a man she thought she knew.

The boy she remembered from high school.

The boy she was convinced had been misunderstood.

I think it's a good time in this story to reiterate that standing for the wrong person can be deadly.

Kay became one of Matthew's staunchest defenders, even testifying at his trial.

In her words, he wasn't a dangerous man, but someone who made a terrible mistake.

I've heard that before, that whole, oh, he's not bad, he's just, you know, not as privileged, or something.

It's a great excuse for doing awful things and then getting away with it.

But Kay truly believed that Matt deserved another chance.

And of course, so did he.

Detective Krumbach and Michelle got to know each other very well.

from the 2017 trial, and he remembered all of Michelle's efforts to prevent matthew from striking again instead of being resentful that kay was siding with her assailant she tried to warn kay

but as it often does this message fell on deaf ears she sent her pictures she's like don't let this happen to you

and

she just kind of blew her off and Kay's friends down in Florida, they believed Matt Terry.

They believed, you know, his explanation for why he was in prison.

They believed that he was wrongly convicted.

You know, they believed his bullshit story because he's that good of a liar.

And now they're all like, oh my God, you know, now our friend is dead.

We shouldn't have believed him.

We should have believed Michelle.

And like, well,

maybe.

you or your children or somebody in your life will be saved because you were touched by this.

So who knows?

And that goes to tell you what a excellent con man Matt Terry is.

He is a self-absorbed, narcissistic SOB is what he is.

And he's damn good at what he does.

He can make anyone believe the lie that he is telling them.

And of course, you know, his, you know, his father is going to stick up for him for the utmost and his brothers stuck up for him and his family.

They came to court.

They tried to victim shame Michelle.

They tried to intimidate her.

In fact, even after the fact, the homicide in Florida, when we were down in Florida testifying,

we were asked to come down on a couple of occasions and testify in that case.

And even then,

Mr.

Terry made comments to the Tampa Journal that in the case involving Michelle, that if he really wanted to have harmed or killed Michelle, he would have.

I'm thinking to myself, were you not in the same trial I was?

Have you not seen the mountain of evidence?

Have you not seen the seven stab wounds, you know, the broken molars, the black eyes?

Have you not seen the bite marks on her face?

And you're telling me that that's self-defense.

But that goes to tell you what kind of a twisted individual his dad, Mark Terry, is.

He made those statements after he had murdered a woman in Florida.

And

it was just, it's just outrageous.

In fact, he even got caught when he was testifying on behalf of his son during the portion of the death penalty, where he had gotten caught once again on a jail call to his son the night before referring to Michelle in a derogatory term.

And the prosecutor brought it to his attention.

And of course, that stopped everything right there because there was an objection and oh, you didn't bring this up.

But yet it was very clear that Matt Terry's father, Mark, was talking to his son on the phone after he had been found guilty of first-degree murder.

And we were testifying in the penalty phase of a possible death penalty, that he was still blaming Michelle Rogers for all his problems.

And I just thought, you are a piece of work.

And you're also a piece of something else.

But that goes to tell you you where Matt Terry comes from.

That's how he was raised.

Right after Kay Baker's murder, her ex-husband's contact information was found in her wallet.

So he and his wife were brought to the station.

Detectives knew who had done this, but were careful with what they revealed.

And what they really wanted to know was what led up to the violent outburst.

that left Kay bleeding out to die.

Kay's sister-in-law shared that on that day, a Friday, Kay's two boys were with her and Kay's brother for their scheduled custody weekend.

At around 2 p.m., one of the boys called Kay to excitedly share that she had received a good score on a school test.

It was the last day of the school year and Kay began celebrating early with her teacher friends and of course with Matthew.

When they were brought in, they had no idea what happened, and they also had no idea that they would gain full custody of Kay's two boys simply by default.

Car accident?

Let me do this first.

Do you have any contact for her, what would be her legal next of kin, parents, anything of North?

The issues started at a bar at around 10 o'clock that evening.

This is one of Kay's friends who was at the bar with her.

Shortly after, my my husband's going to ask to sit down and he's going to say he wants to leave because he's kind of had his fill on the DD.

I'm like, no, sweetie, let me say I think it's getting kind of tense over here.

I know that he was getting very upset because he thought someone was in the bar was dancing with Kay or Kay was actually dancing with this gentleman as well.

The he that she's referring to is, of course, Matthew Terry.

Tara decided to take on the role of de-escalator for Kay.

What she's describing involves Kay and another friend at the bar that night.

The way it was, the two of them went inside, went to the bathroom or whatever, came back and was dancing around at the bar, and a guy came from behind.

Kay even said she didn't notice him, and Kelly collaborated that story.

And I could tell by the way Kay was acting, she really didn't notice and know what he was talking about.

But he was pretty upset about it.

So I slid over because traditionally I was sitting in that.

You see where that verse is?

Where I was actually sitting, Kay was where I'm standing now.

And I moved over because I thought, you know, maybe

I didn't drink as much as everyone else because I knew I'd be driving.

So I slid down and I thought maybe I can make this kind of go away a little bit.

Because, you know, sometimes when people drink, then that kind of stuff happens.

Yeah, it intensifies a little bit.

Right.

So I thought maybe I could calm this down.

And I basically just said, listen, you know, to him, I said, if

you must really love her a lot because you're getting so jealous.

And I said, and she loves, but she loves you right back, buddy, because she didn't even notice the guy.

And he looked at me and he said, wait a minute, what are you talking about getting jealous?

And he goes, I'm not jealous.

And he was, that's what right there.

He was upset.

He's turning towards you.

Yeah.

Because he was talking to her the whole time and I was trying to calm it down.

And that's when I realized I might have even made it worse because that really made him upset, that word, that jealous word.

Like his eyes popped.

And he didn't seem drunk, really.

I know that Kay was, you know, not, I wouldn't call her like falling over drunk, but they were drinking.

And he was just really upset with that word.

And he goes, you know, jealous means like you're envious and I said well you know what I mean like you're jealous like you care about her that you want to make sure she's okay you're protective and he goes yeah because she's beautiful look at her and I love her and and I think I kind of sort of appeased him by changing around my words for him

but then Kelly kind of went back into another incident that must have happened I don't know pretty close to the where the night we were there and she said this isn't going to be like on Saturday or whatever when we were at Clearwater you know you knew this was our celebratory night into school you need to stop and I think her husband realized the waters had kind of settled and got her to stop.

And there was a little bit more back and forth, and then it kind of chilled.

And I thought we were okay, but I wasn't 100%.

I still felt a little bit of tension.

That's why I texted her right away after I left.

Tara wasn't the only one at the bar who witnessed the tension and wasn't the only one who later checked up on Kay.

This is her friend Kelly.

She was my best friend.

Yeah, we got there about

6:30.

I got there about 7.30.

Yeah.

We left.

We took a new home about midnight.

Yeah.

Do you know, did they leave before you?

Are they still there when you left?

We left around the same time.

We were walking.

She was coming out of the bathroom.

I was coming into the bathroom.

We were just kind of dancing.

Teachers were celebrating.

Sure, it's last day of school, yep.

And some old man went like that.

At that point, her friend throws her arms up into the air, demonstrating what she saw.

It was a harmless interaction with a complete stranger.

An old man.

As Kay and her friend Kelly left the bathroom, they were in high spirits, laughing, celebrating the end of the school year.

The two were playfully dancing for just a few seconds, enjoying the moment.

Their positive energy seemed to radiate, and an old man who happened to be walking by caught on to their vibe and started to mimic their carefree dance as he moved past.

Playfully.

Nothing sinister about it.

They were barely even aware of his presence.

Just for the record, for the audience that they can't see what you're doing, you're just kind of raising your arms up like you're dancing.

Yes.

So,

I mean, it was like everybody walked away.

I went to the bathroom, she walked to the chair, and so she had stopped to talk to a couple of the neighbor.

I sat down after the bathroom, and he's like, Who is that guy Dekay was dancing with?

I was like, She wasn't dancing with anybody.

Somebody came up, we were dancing, and somebody came up to us.

The guy was like 60.

Kay's friends could tell that Matthew was pissed, but no one could understand why.

I don't know.

I can't remember what he said, but then I guess he went over and said something to her and just like, own up to it, own up to it.

She was like, own up to what?

She didn't even remember what had

happened.

He seemed to like we both kind of got on him and were like, stop being an idiot.

And so then he seemed to get over it, But then.

But then, suddenly, he wasn't over it.

Because that's how obsessive narcissists are, especially under the influence of alcohol.

Give me a good four hours and I'll tell you all about it.

At some point after, I don't know, maybe the third or fourth drink, it becomes all about them.

And they're paranoid and controlling.

As soon as Kay and Matthew left, Kelly got a call from Kay on the other end, asking her to verify that nothing had happened with the old man.

This call came in at around 11.48 p.m., and within an hour, she would be dead.

Kay sent one last text saying, all good, before she got home, and it wasn't all good.

The attack was relentless.

Deep lacerations on both hands showed Kay clearly fought back.

Matthew stabbed her neck four times, and each stab went deeper.

He'd already had enough practice.

One stab wound to the front right of her neck was so deep it hit the spinal cord, but narrowly missed the carotid artery.

A deep laceration to the back of her neck extended from the right side to the left, cutting to her spine.

The most catastrophic injuries were to the left side of her neck.

These forceful jabs were so brutal that it was like someone with a machete hacking through dense bushes.

Slashes, stabs, erratic punctures, one of which did sever her carotid artery.

If she had lived, she would have likely lost her voice because her larynx was also torn.

This was nothing but butchery.

He murdered somebody who went above and beyond, drove from Florida to Michigan for Christ's sake to, you know, comfort you, visit you in prison, and this is the thank you, you know, invite you into your home in Florida, try and start a life with you, and you kill her.

I'm like, well done.

I'm like,

I'm just, yeah.

And me personally, I could see this kind of coming a mile away.

I was like, this isn't the end for him.

You know, my gut instinct told me, I was like, yeah, he's going to continue in this vein.

And Michelle knew that too.

I mean, she pleaded with people to listen to her.

And they didn't.

They're all like, he's going going to do this again.

He is going to kill somebody.

And they're all like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And what did he do?

Within, you know, a year and a half, he killed somebody.

Initially, the state attorney chose not to pursue the death penalty against Matthew.

Kay's family wanted life in prison for Matthew because they didn't want the drama and prolonged process associated with the death penalty.

But.

On August 4th, 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis suspended the current state attorney and appointed a new one.

The following day, the previous decision was reversed and a notice was filed to seek the death penalty against him, citing the especially heinous nature of the crime and his history of violent behavior.

The trial was a dark reminder of how the justice system sometimes gets it wrong and leaves grieving families feeling even more empty.

Once again, Matthew Terry would claim self-defense, but this time there was no victim to speak for herself.

This would again fall on Michelle Rogers.

In the aftermath of Kay Baker's 2022 murder in Lithia, Florida, grief turned into outrage.

Her family, still reeling from the loss, faced an unimaginable task of having to explain to her two young sons that their mother was gone forever.

Kay's friends and colleagues were shattered.

The joy of the last school day turned into disbelief as the news spread.

How could this have happened to someone so full of life, someone with so much to give?

But this wasn't just a tragedy, it was a failure.

Matthew Terry had already shown the world who he was, and we just ignored it and thought, man, maybe he'll be better.

In Michigan, he'd stabbed his ex-girlfriend Michelle Rogers in a drunken frenzy.

She had survived by sheer will, and yet the justice system handed him only three years because somehow we're trying to normalize this behavior.

Maybe because it happens in certain communities that we want to lift up or something?

I don't know, but why don't we just punish the things that are wrong and let everything else sort itself out?

Jesus fucking Christ.

Am I the only sane person on earth?

Anyway, now Matthew had taken Kay's life and once again pleaded not guilty.

Michelle and Detective Krumbach were about to relive their 2017 nightmare.

He's never going to show any remorse.

You know, now he may, well, I take that back.

You know, during the course of the trial in Florida, he sniffled and sobbed and, you know, things like that.

But once again, you got to remember what an actor he is.

And I'm sure he,

he actually, during the course of the trial, he made a comment that he wanted to testify.

And he made a comment to the court later that, you know, he said, well, I wanted to testify, but my attorneys told me I couldn't.

And they made me a promise and this and that and the other thing.

And, you know, hey, he's intelligent, you know.

I think he was worried that he was going to be found guilty of and charged with the death penalty.

And he was already trying to set his appeals up.

You're probably wondering how Matthew thought it was even remotely possible to avoid a long prison sentence this time, or at least how to avoid the death penalty.

He was someone everyone had already heard of about from the Michigan case, including Michelle, who was a victim of his rage attack and lived to tell about it.

He and Daddy and Daddy's expensive attorney already concocted a story.

You got the wrong guy, they said.

Because he did not testify,

one of his lawyers, you know, gave this long, drawn-out discussion in regards to what really happened.

And basically, it was, you know, the one-armed man theory.

Somebody broke into the house, and footsteps were heard, and people went outside and went to investigate, and somebody had assaulted, and oh, Matt showed up, and he was the hero, and all these sort of things.

And I was just like, nobody bought it for a millisecond.

But they had to, they had to cook a story up, and they did, you know, and, you know, unbelievable as it was, and obviously no one believed it because in a case like this, when a jury comes back in an hour and 10 minutes, I'm like, you're guilty.

I'm like, yeah, they didn't believe that.

They paid close attention to the trial and

they paid very close attention to the evidence and they found him guilty.

The penalty phase was different from most.

While prosecutors usually pursue the death penalty from the start, A twist in the case changed the trajectory.

A political twist, because crime and politics are intertwined, in case you haven't figured that out.

Initially, the state attorney's office had indicated they wouldn't seek the death penalty.

Kay's family supported this decision because they just wanted relief.

They didn't want to engage in the long process of appeals.

They knew where this was headed.

But when a new state attorney was appointed to the case, He was determined to push for the ultimate punishment.

As the jury deliberated Terry's fate, the tension in the courtroom was palpable.

Would he receive the death penalty, or would he spend the rest of his life in prison?

Kay Baker's stepmother of 35 years asked Matthew some hard questions in her victim impact statement during the penalty phase.

Please proceed.

What words did Kay say that night

to justify you killing her?

How bad could those words be?

Did she say

dad was right?

Michelle was right.

Was that what got her death sentence?

It is very unsettling as a parent to fear

for your daughter because of the partner they've chosen.

I feared for Kay's life.

Her dad feared for Kay's life.

And I don't understand why she did not.

I hope you fear for your life.

During the penalty phase, one last surprise guest showed up to speak on behalf of Kay.

I have sat here this week and listened to everything that has happened, everything that has been said.

I have watched the giggles and the laughs and the complete disrespect for a woman's life.

That woman is not here today.

She has passed away.

And I feel like it's

a slap in the face, especially when I heard that there were no priors when you were given instruction that there were.

I was not allowed to testify in any of this because I accepted misdemeanors rather than pushing for a trial and felonies.

Surprise, surprise.

That was yet another girlfriend of Matthew Terry, who he assaulted back in 2000.

He broke into my house.

I was assaulted.

My girlfriend, which was not in a lesbian sense, my friend that was a woman was also assaulted.

And he chased us around the house.

When the police came, he pretended to be the victim rather than the assailant.

And a lot of the things I heard today, regarding case, or not today rather, but this week,

were very similar to the things that I I endured.

And so

I did not plan on saying anything today.

I did not plan on being a part of this at all.

But I feel that

Kay deserves that support.

Kay's mother expressed a hope that Matthew Terry would experience the same fear he inflicted on others.

The judge ensured he would have that chance.

I listened to the testimony of Ms.

Rogers both during the Williams rule hearing and during the trial that we've been in here,

and

additional testimony regarding the charges, the trial, the sentence in Michigan.

I don't know what happened

in Michigan as far as the trial and the sentence, but based on what I heard, I believe that you should have been in prison in Michigan and that Miss Baker should still be alive.

This is Florida.

You're going to prison for the rest of your life.

That should be on a t-shirt.

The added testimony of Matthew's girlfriend certainly helped in forming the final sentence.

But in reality, Michelle Rogers played a pivotal role in revealing exactly who Matthew Terry was.

She was determined that she wouldn't let him escape a sentence he deserved.

Michelle Rogers is probably one of the most outstanding, brave, tough victims that I've ever had the privilege of working for, and

she saved her own life.

She recognized what was happening right in front of her.

I don't think a lot of people would have the fortitude and the strength to recognize what was happening immediately and save their own life.

And after the fact, she was extremely brave and

went forth in the trial with an overwhelming sense of people against her, meaning Matt Terry's family, Matt Terry's friends.

They all kind of like pointed the finger at her like she was the one who was at fault, that she was wrong, that she somehow precipitated all these events against her.

and she certainly did not.

Detective Krombach also had a few choice things to say about the Michigan jury and the justice system.

He doesn't mince words, this guy.

That's what you call a wishy-washy, dishwash, dishrag type of a jury.

You know, we'll find him guilty of something, but not what he actually did.

And that's what happened.

I don't have the names of all those jurors, but I hope to God every single one of them, every single one of them knows what he did after the fact and what he did down in Florida.

And I hope it tortures their souls when they sleep at night because they did an injustice, not only for Michelle, but they did an injustice for that victim down in Florida, too.

The lady's dead.

Two boys don't have a mother.

Mom and dad think of her every single day.

Her sisters think of her every single day.

And it's it's all because a couple of jurors up here in Michigan didn't do their job in a case where there was overwhelming evidence that was well prosecuted.

And they found, well, let's, let's go with the lesser charge.

And I will tell you, in my career, I saw that happen many, many, many times.

You know, it makes me sad that

You know, I used to say that I feel like when I went through my stuff in 2017, that I feel like he got he got gypped on his sentencing because there wasn't a dead body.

Because I was somehow miraculously saved and I survived.

He didn't get hit as hard as he should have because there's always that doubt, right?

If you're not there and you're not one of the two people that goes through it, like, well, maybe she is really not telling the truth or stretching the truth or whatever, right?

And so because I wasn't dead,

there was always that doubt.

And so he, again, he didn't, I didn't feel like he got the sentence that he necessarily deserved.

But like with Kay, there was a dead body, right?

So finally, there was something that was actual evidence and actual proof that he did this.

Unfortunately, you know, somebody had to die.

And that's just so unfortunate.

So unfortunate.

And I feel like if someone just would have listened to me, like, because you don't know how many people I tried to fight against his release and against him, and just it felt like nobody was doing anything.

Like nobody.

Michelle Rogers survived because she saw Matthew Terry for who he truly was.

She didn't fall for the excuses or the hollow apologies.

When the red flags started piling up, the controlling behavior, the bursts of rage, she tried to leave.

She recognized that staying meant putting herself and her son in danger.

That awareness, that fight to escape, is what ultimately saved her life, though not without leaving her with scars, both visible and invisible, that she will live with forever.

On the other hand, Kay Baker's story is different.

It's not that she missed the red flags entirely, but her memory of Matthew, the Matthew she once knew back in high school, painted a picture of someone far removed from the man who committed these acts of violence.

She was deceived by her own memory.

Kay had such a good heart that she wanted to see the best in people, even when it wasn't there.

That kind of sentiment can get you killed.

She wasn't naive or blind.

She was hopeful.

And that hope, paired with her loyalty to someone she once trusted, made her believe in the possibility of change.

Not everybody

can change, and not everybody can be saved.

It wasn't Kay's fault.

It was her kindness, her optimism, her unwavering faith in people that defined who she was.

I mean, all those things are good things.

We want to encourage that in people, right?

We want a society where everyone is kind, is optimistic, and has faith in humanity.

But people like Matthew Terry ruin it because they exist.

Matthew wasn't the person she thought she knew,

and he exploited that, as monsters often do.

He ultimately murdered somebody that he could no longer control, convince, or

I think that she no longer believed in him.

When he lost that control, he murdered.

That goes to tell you what a just a useless human being that he is.

We all want to believe in people.

We all want to trust the version of someone we hold in our minds, the good one.

We all want to think positively.

But let's not forget that we live in reality, not a Disney-contrived fiction.

It comes down to the fundamental base code of what makes us who we are.

And it's a tough balance to get right.

Optimism versus pessimism.

Seeing the good in people versus fearing the worst.

I'll tell you, it's very hard to get right.

It's something I still struggle with every day.

I tend to be more pessimistic.

But I can see the value in being optimistic, despite the danger.

We all want to keep a version of the people around us that's shaped by our memories, added with our own good character, and make that the real version of the person that is in front of us.

But people like Matthew Terry turn that trust into a weapon, and they do it seamlessly.

It's just about seeing the red flags.

It's about being able to be aware enough to distance yourself when you spot them.

Maybe start...

protecting yourself, because you're the only one in charge of that.

I guess the wisest lesson that can be derived from something like this is that it's important to listen.

It's important to open up our minds to what could be other than what we think is.

Michelle tried to warn us.

She tried to warn us all.

And we all just ignored her.

We're all so locked into our own belief systems and resistant to change.

We just can't see different points of view sometimes until the worst has happened.

Then we look back and we see the bodies behind us and wonder if it's maybe time to start listening to those

who keep warning us.

Yeah, Cheryl keeps whining about the patriarchy.

Oh, hi, we've reached the end of the show.

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I don't care.

I don't know.

Does reverse psychology even work?

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