The headline read: Couple Accused In Grisly Slaying.

I was 20something, and newly separated from a 7yr relationship with my kids father. A single mom. My mom was terminally ill with cancer. I was in my last year of my apprenticeship in the construction trades. There were 94 apprentices in my class, i was the lone female. (Picture Irish ruled, 10,000 member union, and only 14 of them women.) It was damn good money, damn good benefits and school was free. The men i worked with weren't so pleasant. Needless to say, i was stretched about as far as i could be without snapping. I was also a sheltered, stupid girl. Smart enough to graduate high school at sixteen, but absolutely oblivious when it came to the seedier side of life.

I met this "great guy" in the midst of the madness that was my life. He was good to me. He was good to my kids. He was like a knight riding in to save me from my fucked up life. He smelled blood. I believed in Prince Charming, so I married him.

Until the day we married, he had never hit me, yelled at me, nada.

After he had "ownership papers" aka, a marriage license, he decided to show his true colors. He hit me for the first time 30min after we exchanged vows.

He moved his uncle in with us right after we married. This uncle turned out to be his gay lover, and not an uncle at all. When i learned the truth, i left him. He killed all of my pets, 9 of them in total. Calling and leaving messages describing their deaths in gory detail, telling me i had better come home before he killed another. When that didn't work, he went after my kids with a gun. I went to the police, but it didn't do much good. I ended up going back to him just to keep him calm until i could find a safe place for my kids and me. I was beaten, threatened and terrorized into compliance.

During this time, he viciously beat and killed this "uncle" in our home. Afterward, he took me to a hotel, cuffed me to the bed, took the phone receiver and left. After what seemed an eternity, he returned with the story of how he savagely dismembered this man with a steak knife in our bathtub. He threatened that if i went to the police he would tell them it was me that did the deed and i would never see my kids again. I'd never see the light of day again.

A few weeks later the FBI knocked on my door telling me that he was working for them as an informant and had i seen him. Apparently, he hadn't checked in in a while.

My life became a nightmare. He made me ride around in his car with this mans head behind my seat. He told me if i ever told anyone, we (my kids and i) would be next. He'd bring home copies of of the criminal statutes and tell me what laws i had broken, and how he could get around them, but i couldn't. His FBI buddies would help him. He tapped our phone twice. Once from inside the house with hidden tape recorder, once from the pole in the alley. He would call me incessantly. He would break into my house. He hacked my computer. He obsessively checked the mileage on my car. He slept on my front porch in the middle of February in ass-deep snow. He parked at the end of my street and watched my house.

I was terrified of not going to the police and terrified if i did. What if he caught wind of an investigation through his FBI "buddies"?

Fast forward to 2 1/2 yrs later. He had been stalking me for the entire interim period. We had moved across country trying to escape him and when he found me and my kids and told us he'd make "gator bait" out of us, I moved back home with family. I confessed to my aunt what had happened because i just couldn't live the way i was living anymore, i wanted it over. Her daughter, who eavesdropped, in retaliation for an imagined slight, turned me into the police. She thought she was hurting me, in reality, she saved our lives.

I was arrested and charged with first degree murder. I was also facing the death penalty. I was given a one million dollar bond. My face was all over the news and the papers. My family walked away from me. I got stuck with a overworked, underpaid public defender. Bless his dedicated, smart-as-a-whip self. He never let me go to court alone. He never gave up on me.

I had a complete breakdown upon my arrest. I spent the first three weeks of custody in the mental ward of the jail. Gorked out of my mind on drugs.

I was blessed with this awesome therapist, Dr. Gary. He helped me work through a lot of the "whys" i ended up in the situation i was in. I didn't want to come home the same person that went in. It was intense. I worked my ass off. I refused to accept any possibility i wouldn't go home, much to Dr. Gary's frustration.

Jail was absolute hell. The difference between jail and prison is like the difference between sleeping in the woods without a tent and kicking back in a luxury spa. The rules for detainee (jail) treatment and inmate (prison) treatment are vastly different. I also learned for the first time that i could depend on me. I could survive. I earned my street smarts the hard way. I learned and saw things i never wanted to know, yet, those same things keep me safe now.

All through the court process my ex tortured me. Horrible letters. Visits from creepy people with ominous warnings. On one occasion he was able to reach through the bars of his holding cell when i was walking past it to the courtroom and get me in a choke hold against the bars. Surrounded by armed guards, i knew he could reach out and touch me. Anywhere. Anytime.

They found evidence after the arrest that he was planning another murder and they suspected it was mine. They also managed to get the FBI involved. Their criminal profilers came to the jail and grilled me for hours and hours, only to tell me before they left how sorry they were that i had married a "sociopath the likes of Ted Bundy" and that they were certain there were other victims, but they just couldn't prove it.

My family didn't show up for court dates. They refused to hire a lawyer. They didn't visit (well, i got 3 visits in 3y8m). They told me i "ruined the family name" and they were done with me. Now i have a pretty nifty family, hand-picked by yours truly.

I didn't get to see my kids the entire time i was incarcerated. My family tried to make them forget me. They figured I'd never come home, that my kids just needed to move on.

I sat for 3y8m in a county facility awaiting trial. It took over a year for the prosecutor to realize i had nothing to do with this whole fiasco (even though he gave a 17 page confession), but i was their only witness. A witness who saw nothing, but heard everything from behind a locked door.

They refused to drop my charges. I ended up never having to testify, as they offered him a sweet ass deal for 20yrs. He did 8 1/2. Apparently, their case against him 'mysteriously' fell apart two months before his trial was set to begin, because the coroner changed his mind and could no longer definitively state the "uncle" was murdered, even though that was what was originally on the death certificate and had been for nearly 3 1/2 years. They came to me with a choice: take a guilty plea to concealing a homicide or they would take me to trial on ALL charges, death penalty on the table, and use my ex as a witness against me. Dirty bastards. Ass covering at it's best. Make sure i cannot ever sue. Being that there was too much risk involved with a jury trial, i jumped on it. I was home 4 days later. I stepped off the bus to see my kids waiting. We had Subway sandwiches in the park. It was, and continues to be, an indescribable moment.

He still attempts to contact me with veiled threats. He told our judge that if he ever got out, he was going to hunt me down and kill me.

I suffer from PTSD now and am almost completely agoraphobic. I've also been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

Recently, the full weight of my life has finally registered in my brain and i feel like i am drowning. I know it will never go away. I can't hide it. My name and the ensuing story come up five entries down on a Google search. Things will never be "normal" again. I feel like any kind of romantic relationship just isn't possible. I keep everyone i know at arms length. How can i put anyone else at risk with this lunatic roaming the earth? It isn't their fear to carry.

I don't regret what happened. I've taken responsibility for my bad choices. I paid whatever debt i owed to society. I did my best to fix what got me there. It's made me into the woman i am today. I do, however, regret what it did to my kids. I regret the time i lost with them. I regret my family walked away from my kids because of me. I regret all the pain this has caused them.

We've managed to get through this and remain extremely close, but the guilt of it all still eats me alive.

As for our justice system, it is broken. I sat beside so many women charged similarly to me. All but one of them are doing lengthy prison sentences. Some, as high as 88yrs. I was that truly rare instance where, in the end, it worked for the most part. Yes, there was a ton of suffering along the way, but the 'good guy' won. I realize, too, just how lucky i really am.

Don't even get me started on The Media. Pawns in the court of public opinion. They don't report the news, they report what they are fed as news. They maintain enough of the truth to keep from being sued. They embellish enough to destroy your life and reputation, without consequence. Without retraction. Tried and convicted with skewed and twisted versions of facts.

The most difficult part of all of this is the fact that i have to live like a recluse. I can't get credit, utilities in my name, a bank account, order a magazine subscription, sign up for my favorite store's mailing list. Nothing. I have to live and leave no electronic footprints.

This 'community' is the one place i know he'd never be and never expect me to be. I never shared this part of myself with him. I've lived it, felt the passion, the control, it still burns in my belly, it always will. It would have to be a pretty extraordinary set of circumstances for me to ever be there again and i am not putting my eggs in that basket. I have to be content with what i do have, lest the longing drive me mad.

He knows all of my personal information and he is also a computer fanatic. He does searches for me. How do i know? He finds my friends and family and contacts them. He is absolutely fixated on me.

I can't get an order of protection because he is smart enough to get right to the line of illegal, but never cross it. I can't own a gun, i am a convicted felon. I was issued a new social security number based on domestic violence. I can't change my name because of the felony. Without a new name, the new number is useless. If i marry for a new name, i lose my social security benefits. I don't qualify for witness protection by federal government standards and my state doesn't even have a program for witness protection. He still lives in the same state as i do and knows people everywhere. I am too fucking broke to move. I'm scared shitless i'll run into someone he knows and it'll get back to him.

At one point, this was almost a crusade for me. In the end, because of all his involvement with the different government agencies, FBI, County Sheriff, Postal Inspector, and given the judge that presided over our case was also the same judge that gave my ex probation on another charge and while on that probation, committed this murder, no one wants this shit in the open. No one will touch it. It's my gut feeling this is precisely the reason he got such a sweet deal. Either that or he found someone to inform on in jail.

I've been to the reporters who covered the story originally, from the onset of our arrest. I've talked with criminal attorneys, civil rights attorneys. I've mass mailed letters to everyone from my local politicians, to the governor, the state police, both our federal senators. I've assaulted their fax machines with letters. It made a few ripples and i received a call from the states attorney (who penned a letter i had attached with my letter, where she states clearly, "Based on my knowledge of the case and the information obtained, I believe XXX XXXXX is a threat to "Snippette" and her family. Please assist her in obtaining a new social security number.") telling me i had better stop showing that letter around or i wouldn't like the consequences. She was running for office as a judge. Seems there is nothing that can be done to protect myself, legally.

Fucking politics.

As much as the thought of a confrontation with him scares me, i know he'll be there for one reason only, my demise, the mere thought of killing him in a frenzy of fear scares me more. Fear of turning into an animal capable of killing, even if it is self-defense. Fear of turning into something resembling him. Fear of being victimized by the justice system, again.

I am mentally prepared, but i want to avoid it at all costs.

I am physically prepared. There's a weapon of sorts within arms reach in every room of my apartment.

My nightmare isn't over. It may not be fear based on imminent danger, but it's the fucking purple elephant in the room no one ever discusses and everyone pretends not to see.

I don't want pity. I don't want revenge. I don't want to be rescued. I'm not really even concerned with getting justice anymore.

As for those i have met since this occurred, I've yet to have one person NOT throw it in my face in the heat of anger. "Fucking axe murderer." "Fucking cannibal." You name it, I have been called it. I don't trust anyone anymore.

Judge me if you will, but I have already been judged. It's over and done. My debt has been paid.

All i want is to have a life again. Is that too fucking much to ask?