Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

Episode 5: Deven wasn’t the only woman John was dating. He had another girlfriend, too: Alexis. Alexis’ version of events became critically important to Deven’s criminal case – and it was the one the police were more interested in believing.

Resources:

• If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/.
• If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE
• Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent
• Learn more about criminalized survival https://survivedandpunished.org/

This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to drive social change.

This series is presented by Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants.

Follow host Liz Flock on Twitter @lizflock. For more stories of women and self-defense, check out her book “The Furies” from Harper Books, available for pre-order now. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-furies-elizabeth-flock

Interested in bonus content and behind the scenes material? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium right now in the Apple Podcasts app by clicking on our podcast logo and the “subscribe” button.

Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Speaker 6, Liz Flock, Alexis, System, Christine, Mike, Darla, Desi, Ethan Powell, Deven, Police

Liz Flock  00:01

This show contains violent content and scenes of domestic and sexual abuse.

 

Police  01:23

I appreciate you coming back. I know it’s gonna be hard on.

 

Alexis  01:29

This point, I just it has to be made right.

 

Liz Flock  01:33

It’s December 13 2017 the day after John died. Calera PD have brought Alexis Bernstein back to the police station for a follow up interview. The first time police talk to her was the day before. That’s when investigators revealed John’s death made interview. She was so distraught they had to cut it short. Now she’s back in the interrogation room with investigator Mike Mehlhoff.

 

Mike  02:00

Now, you came back in you said you thought about some more stuff after you went home yesterday.

 

Alexis  02:06

Well, like I don’t know. I feel like part of me was in shock that he did it part or that she like it hatless that he died that he that I don’t I don’t even know. I feel like obviously it’s a really hard thing to process.

 

Liz Flock  02:25

By this time, word had spread across Calera about the shooting and Alexis this phone was blowing up.

 

Alexis  02:30

And everybody kept talking to me and you know, asking me like what happened and all this stuff because I mean, all of his friends, everybody went really shaky, sorry.

 

Mike  02:43

No, you’re fine.

 

Liz Flock  02:44

The night after learning John was dead. Alexis didn’t want to be alone. She lived with her mom, Darla Dan Durant, and together they sprawled across the Alexis’ bed, trying to make sense of the tragedy. They did what anyone would do in a time of uncertainty in the modern era. They Googled for answers. There were just a few short articles online, all without much info. One published on aol.com, read woman charged with shooting boyfriend dead early Tuesday. Alexis told the investigator that as they read, her mom had even more questions.

 

Alexis  03:22

She had pulled this stuff up and was looking at it and she was like, why is Deven listed as his girlfriend and you know, blah, blah, blah. And she’s she’s not her girlfriend and she, you know, got all defensive and I told her it wasn’t worth it to me.

 

Liz Flock  03:35

Deven was listed as his girlfriend because she was she and John still lived and slept together. At the time of his death, John had also been seeing Alexis for around five months. But like you heard an episode two, Deven knew about it and went along with it because she says it meant that John was homeless often to abuse her. Alexis provided a lot of benefits for John. For one, she had a car and gave him rides to work when he needed them. Plus, her family seemed like an escape from the stress of John’s home life with Deven and his daughter, where there was never enough money and where he and Deven were often fighting. So he was soon a fixture at Dallas house, sharing meals with the family and goofing off with Alexis’, his daughter and siblings. Which makes it even stranger how little Alexis really knew about him. In that same follow up interview with police. She makes a surprising admission. She didn’t know who the quote old dude on the property was.

 

Alexis  04:35

I didn’t know that was his dad until yesterday.

 

Mike  04:38

Oh, really?

 

Alexis  04:38

Yeah, until that detective told the other guy that was in here when I was in hysterics, he told me that’s his dad. And I was like, hold up, wait a minute.

 

Mike  04:46

You didn’t know that.

 

Alexis  04:47

He told me that they were related. But he did not say that that was his dad.

 

Liz Flock  04:51

Alexis tells the investigator that she knew John sometimes went by Barry Walsh. But she was realizing now that she didn’t know the full story.

 

Mike  05:01

Has he ever identified himself to you as Barry Walsh?

 

Alexis  05:05

I mean, I know when that whole thing with the girl accusing him of raping her happen that he got arrested as Barry Walsh.

 

Mike  05:15

How did he get the rest of this very well?

 

Alexis  05:17

I don’t know, I have not, I don’t know so that made no sense to me. And we tried to figure it out last night. We were like googling a bunch of stuff and everything because I thought maybe I’d come up with something or wish I would ask them.

 

Liz Flock  05:33

So Alexis. really know John? The man she loved died with many mysteries. Things Alexis wish she could have asked him things that she was now having to Google.

 

Liz Flock  05:51

This is Blind Plea. I’m Liz Flock.

 

Liz Flock  06:06

So far in the series, you’ve heard evidence that John was physically abusive, that he held Deven as a mental hostage, and that she killed him in an act of self defense. But you’ve also heard, not everyone believes this story. And in the aftermath of John’s death, an entirely different narrative began to emerge. It went like this. John would never lay a hand on anyone. Deven was actually his abuser. And in the end, she shot him in cold blood. We can trace this version of events back to one person, Alexis, John’s other girlfriend. If I’m being honest, this was not an episode our team was comfortable making. It felt wrong to explore a narrative that paints Deven as a cold blooded killer, when none of the evidence I’ve uncovered in my reporting supports that theory. Still, I couldn’t ignore a Alexis’ perspective, because the investigators that interviewed her believed her side of the story. And those statements she made to investigators became the basis for the prosecution’s case against Deven, a case that argued Deven was jealous of Alexis, and that her jealousy was her motive for killing him. Even knowing all of that, Alexis remained an enigma to me. Where did she come from? Who was she really? And how did her version of events become so important to this whole case? In this episode, we’re turning the spotlight on Alexis, the other woman, the wrecking ball that crashed through Calera changing John and Deven’s lives forever, before disappearing. I wanted to hear from Alexis firsthand about her relationship with John, how it all began and how it ended. But Alexis had left Alabama after John’s death, and I didn’t know where she’d gone. So I called up her mom, Darla, who still lived in the area to see if she put me in touch.

 

Liz Flock  08:16

Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.

 

Darla  08:20

Absolutely, kind of I’m kind of leery I’m not gonna lie. Like what is how about because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of stuff to the case that nobody really a lot of information. So I’m like, who is Elizabeth? Who is this?

 

Liz Flock  08:32

I told Darla, I was investigating Deven’s case.

 

Darla  08:35

You know, he knew my family and him and Alexis, they were just they were really close. And they were each other’s people, if that makes sense. Like they finally found you know each other.

 

Liz Flock  08:51

Darla said she encouraged her daughter to talk to me. But she warned me it was a long shot.

 

Darla  08:57

After everything that had happened that day. You probably won’t get a whole lot from her. It’s a subject that even I’m like, well, if I bring up she’s just like, I can’t. Like she just can’t even I mean, I thought for three days. I know I want to take a baseball bat to her car that her NJ worked on. Like, she I mean, she’s throwing up she’s like I can’t and she was angry and hurt me she was devastated.

 

Liz Flock  09:28

Still, Darla gave me Alexis his phone number, so I left a message.

 

Liz Flock  09:33

Hey, Alexa, this is Liz Flock.

 

Liz Flock  09:36

But all I got was radio silence. I followed up a few more times over the coming months.

 

Liz Flock  09:41

Hey, Alexa, this is Liz. This is a journalist who has been trying to reach you about J.

 

Liz Flock  09:49

Even though Alexis never replied to my phone calls. I still had the ability to hear her side of the story. Thanks to her police interviews. They’re all public record.

 

Alexis  09:58

Start from the beginning. Process is all out and I’m gonna write it all out. But I want to process it before I write all this.

 

Liz Flock  10:07

In those interviews, Alexis doesn’t just talk about the night of the shooting. The investigators also probe into her past, starting with how she and John first met. Darla actually introduced them.

 

Police  10:19

How do you know?

 

Alexis  10:21

My mom actually how I met him. My mom moved down here with her my youngest sibling father. And they lived down here for a couple years. And she used to manage the […] over here, and he worked next door at that vape shop Mo and Ali’s vape shop.

 

Liz Flock  10:39

Before Alexis moved in with her mom in Alabama. She had been living up in Ohio with her daughter and fiance. Every so often she would come down to Alabama to see her mom. And she visited once around Thanksgiving 2016.

 

Alexis  10:53

My mom brought me over met everybody. You know, she introduced me to people that work she worked with so you know, she was like, oh, this is my daughter, you know, came down typical like Mom stuff.

 

Liz Flock  11:04

John was one of the people Alexis met that day. On that visit, they didn’t interact too much. John was more of Darla’s friend and he was a lot older than Alexis. She was 19 and he was 30. But Alexis does remember going over to the vape shop later to buy a vape kit and some cigarettes before returning home to Ohio. A few months later, Alexis and her fiance have three years split up. After that she and her daughter moved in with Darla in Montevallo, Alabama.

 

Alexis  11:36

I moved in with my mom, just to kind of take a break from the world I guess you can say.

 

Liz Flock  11:42

In her police interview, Alexis told investigators that she and John started to hang out shortly after she moved in with her mom. But it wasn’t until that summer that they started to get close.

 

Alexis  11:54

My phone broke the last week of July it was messing up is being stupid. And I know J. fixes phones from when when he worked at the vape shop like he had told us and everything like that because I have the brand new seven plus. Well, I mean, it was brand new last year. Now they got the gate and I want it really bad. But I had met with him the end of July and like you know was like hey, it’s my phone loves me friends.

 

Liz Flock  12:20

In exchange for fixing her phone. Alexis gave John some baby clothes for his and Deven’s daughter. They were hand me downs from Alexis, this kid. To Alexis’ John was kind, funny and generous. He was obviously tight with her family. So much so that he came to the birthday parties of Alexis’, his daughter and her younger sister. From the start. Alexis knew John lived with Deven. She knew they were partners raising a kid together. But she claimed that by the time she and John started dating that summer, he was done with Deven.

 

Alexis  12:55

They weren’t together when him and I first started hanging out as friends. And then they stopped being together. And then him and I became together.

 

Police  13:03

But they’re still in the same house. living together?

 

Alexis  13:06

Yeah.

 

Liz Flock  13:07

Despite what Alexis says, Deven and John were still romantic with each other. Deven told me that she was kind of naive about John’s relationship with Alexis at first. She was used to John working during the day. So it was normal for him to be gone for long stretches of time. That fall, John finally told Deven, what was really going on, that he and Alexis were dating. Deven understood this to mean that Alexis was John’s girlfriend on the side. And like you’ve heard before, it was a relief to Deven that John was away from home more often.

 

Deven  13:42

And after a while, it was like good to go see her. Because when you’re gone for a couple of days, it means you’re not putting hands on me. And you’re not traumatizing our kid every night that he’s not at home drinking and beating up on me is one less night that I have to heal. So I was so far messed up in that abuse that it didn’t faze me. I used to help him pack to go to her house.

 

Liz Flock  14:11

But Alexis claims almost exactly the opposite. She told the investigators a story that stuck. The John was staying over at her place because he was escaping Deven. And some of these stories from Alexis were pretty bizarre.

 

Alexis  14:26

As crazy as it sounds, he stopped he he thought she was poisoning him. And he thought it had something to do with him and I hurt him and I being together. And that’s why she was doing it. And I thought he was insane. I’m not gonna lie. I don’t know how to prove if you’re getting poisoned. I said I don’t know how to smell food or check. I said I don’t even think that’s a thing. And you know, I tried looking it up. I’ve tried googling things. I’ve tried, you know, checking symptoms and seeing you know, I don’t know what I was doing. I’m not a Scientologist or anything like that.

 

Liz Flock  14:59

I think she means scientist here, not Scientologist. As Alexis continued speaking to investigators, her stories began to form a pattern. She claimed that Deven was jealous. So she lashed out at John in different ways. Maybe poisoning him, maybe even beating him up.

 

Alexis  15:17

He would come home and like, have a whole busted mouth. And I’d be like, what the hell? Like, what happened? And he’s like Deven’s drunk, I just left, I just left. I’m not doing it, I just left I’m not dealing with it, did it, and so you know, I’ll go over there and I’m like Deven with fog and she was like, I was just drunk, I was just drunk. And be like, this isn’t okay like, this isn’t this can be a thing like.

 

Liz Flock  15:38

To Alexis, those injuries on John were a clear sign that Deven was abusing him. But maybe she only saw what she wanted to see. Or maybe she just saw what John showed her. Because Deven says John’s injuries were actually a result of her defending herself against his attacks.

 

Deven  15:58

When we would fight like, I would fight back or like, you know, a lot of it was, you know, he would he would try to grab for me and I would try to grab him and get him off of me.

 

Liz Flock  16:09

We almost never talked about this part of domestic abuse that abuse victims often defend, react against and resist the violence from an abuser. The term mutual abuse gets thrown around to describe relationships with this dynamic. But is there really such a thing as, quote, mutual abuse? According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and other experts, there isn’t. There are toxic relationships, of course, where people are equally awful to each other. But domestic abuse is different. Because at its heart, it is about an imbalance of power and control. One person has control of the money, or mobility or their partner’s mental state. Meanwhile, the other person is left fighting for some shred of agency. From all our reporting, it’s clear, John had the upper hand, the power. If Deven fought back, I would not call that mutual abuse. Alexis likely wasn’t seeing the whole picture. But that’s the picture the investigators got.

 

Liz Flock  18:23

The dynamic between John, Deven and Alexis was complicated from both the inside and the outside. Even those close to John didn’t know what to make of his relationship with Alexis. Ethan, John’s friend didn’t seem to think John was that serious about her.

 

Alexis  19:35

How was J with Alexis versus with the like, how was it different?

 

Ethan Powell  19:39

He didn’t open the door up for Alexis. I do remember that.

 

Liz Flock  19:44

Ethan told me he thought it was just a phase that John was seeing Alexis on the side in a casual way. After all, John referred to Alexis as the big butt girl from Montevallo.

 

Ethan Powell  19:56

Said well, you know you’ll be back today note I’m soon as this girl finds somebody that’s a little bit more gangster than you’re, like suspicious of wants to be. But I didn’t like Alexis, to be honest with you at a personal level. I don’t know her, but I don’t trust her.

 

Liz Flock  20:21

What about her was untrustworthy?

 

Ethan Powell  20:24

The vibes off? She would just talk smack instantly, about people she didn’t know. The way that she instantly was like it had this attraction for J.

 

Liz Flock  20:46

Unlike how Ethan saw their relationship, Alexis claimed they were serious. so serious that they talked about going to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday, and had even discussed getting married there. And that wasn’t all.

 

Alexis  21:01

We were gonna buy a house cuz I had to get my credit score up working for like months now to try and I was literally down 20 points to get the hell I wanted as hell, but I got it.

 

Liz Flock  21:18

The more I heard from Alexis, the more I had to stretch my imagination. John had been living in a trailer with Deven for years struggling to make ends meet. And yet he and Alexis were about to buy a house. But maybe John was just doing the same thing with Alexis that he did with Deven, making grand promises at the beginning to get her where he wanted her. It’s called Future faking. And it’s a common tactic of abusers. John had told Deven that when they moved down to Alabama, he built her her dream house, and they’d have a good life together. Five years later, none of that had come true. Now John seemed to be telling Alexis a similar story. Ethan and his wife at the time, Desi would hang out with John and Alexis on occasion, like Ethan, Desi told me she was uneasy about their relationship.

 

Desi  22:11

J was telling us he had pictures to even have Alexis and was like talking about her butt and stuff and I was like, how does this work with Deven? And he was like D’s my girl, you know, do use my girl out and this is just a thing, blah, blah, blah.

 

Liz Flock  22:27

According to Deven, John had never really been satisfied with just her. He had slept with other women in the past and Devin found out about it.

 

Deven  22:35

He always wanted like me and somebody else. And I guess that was like part of my, I guess I feel like I wasn’t in for good enough or whatever.

 

Liz Flock  22:49

Instead of putting the blame on him, Deven concluded that there must be something wrong with her that she wasn’t enough for John. And it wasn’t just that John wanted to sleep with other women. He also wanted Deven to join in. One night in early 2016, Ethan and Desi came over to hang out at John and Deven’s trailer, Deven says John had told her to get Desi alone at some point to see if she would be interested in a threesome. When they arrived, they all started drinking together.

 

Desi  23:19

She kept pouring me these what had never drank it before it’s really good club for logo, Red Bull together, in like shot form. And I don’t know how many of those I drink.

 

Liz Flock  23:32

When John and Ethan stepped outside of the trailer to shoot guns, Devin and Desi are alone.

 

Desi  23:39

She was kind of like rubbing on my leg leaning on me laughing on me and, you know, it’s really hard to say if she was just trying to have a friend. Or not the only reason I ever thought that maybe our took that as she would try to come on to me it’s because later on she sent me that an appropriate picture of J.

 

Liz Flock  23:59

Which that picture of J was what was it again?

 

Desi  24:03

It was his penis.

 

Liz Flock  24:05

Just his penis?

 

Desi  24:06

Just his penis.

 

Liz Flock  24:08

I asked Deven about what Desi told me.

 

Christine  24:11

The only reason I was wanted to ask you about that was just to see whether that was like, you know, a fun thing in which case, I have zero business or whether knowing or whether it was like a John pressure thing, in which case, I’m just wondering if that was like part of his, you know,

 

Deven  24:30

Yeah, that was definitely a downsizer thing, because that’s not my thing. I don’t really like heartache and things like that. That’s not my thing at all. So, yeah, that was definitely a John thing.

 

Liz Flock  24:45

And John was persistent, that incident with Desi wasn’t the last time he would push for a threesome. He did eventually make it happen with Deven and Alexis. It was a few months before the shooting in September 2017, Alexis never mentioned the threesome in our interview with investigators with them, she made it sound like John and Deven were totally over by this point. But it’s clear that the lines were much blurrier. We know that had happened because John recorded a video of the threesome on his phone. According to Deven’s lawyer who has seen the video, neither of the women seemed like they wanted to be there. That lines up with what Deven has told me.

 

Deven  25:29

I feel like I was forced to be her friend forced to do things with her force to be around her.

 

Liz Flock  25:36

After the threesome, Deven says John lashed out at her and beat her up because he could tell she wasn’t into it.

 

Deven  25:44

It was like he felt bad so he beat me. He felt bad or hurting my feelings, so he beat me.

 

Liz Flock  25:51

And Deven says the beating that night happened right in front of Alexis.

 

Deven  25:56

She was like, oh my gosh, she’s like J don’t and he was like you stay out of this. So what you know what I mean? He realized I didn’t really want to do it. I never really wanted to do it. But I did it because they can happy, and I think he realized that.

 

Liz Flock  26:12

After the shooting, police would discover that video on John’s phone, something so private would become a key piece of criminal evidence in this case. Without John or Alexis, his point of view on the threesome, I only had Deven’s a perspective the cops didn’t believe. So I asked John’s mom Christine about it, because they were so close they shared intimate details with each other.

 

Speaker 6  26:40

So what’s up with the?

 

Christine  26:43

Yeah, I think I asked you this before, because I felt awkward about asking you but I wanted to bring it up since it was part of the standard ground hearing and everything they brought up. They brought up the threesome with Alexis and Deven at the standard ground as evidence.

 

Speaker 6  26:59

Yeah because there was a video of it. Right. And they use it to say that Devon was Dallas and everything. So I just want your thoughts on all

 

Christine  27:11

I know my son, and I know Deven. I know my son loves that kind of stuff.

 

Liz Flock  27:19

John, love that kind of stuff and he wanted Devon to love it too. But she didn’t, the reason I even bring up the threesome video at all is because it became a convenient piece of evidence against Deven for a couple of reasons. First, the video helped establish a motive that aligned with Alexis his statement to investigators that Deven was jealous John had another girlfriend and that her jealousy caused her to turn on John and even kill him. And second, the threesome video was supposedly proof that Deven was a liar. In her police interview, she told investigators that she didn’t know if John and Alexis were sleeping together. But investigators later found proof of the threesome video on John’s phone and they pounced on the discrepancy. nevermind the fact that Deven had given her police interview mere hours after the shooting when she was exhausted and battered. Well Devoe sat in Shelby County Jail hours after her police interview in December. Investigators were trying to get Alexis to write down everything she’d shared on paper as a witness statement. In the recording, you can hear Darla come into the room trying to calm Alexis down.

 

Darla  28:35

We know she can claim self defense all she wants but we know okay, so we need to get this just as we get it for J.

 

Liz Flock  28:43

The following month, Alexis shared a similar message about finding justice for John on her Facebook page. Next to a photo she posted of her and John together she wrote you were taken too soon and we will not let it be pushed aside. But after Alexis gave her statement to the investigators damning Deven she basically disappeared from the case. She was never even called as a witness. She moved back to Ohio with her daughter got engaged again and then married. All within a couple of years. Alexis had left Alabama and everything that happened there behind and yet, her recollection of events lived on influencing the prosecution’s case and turning people against Deven.

 

Liz Flock  29:45

In Alexis’ version of events, Deven was the villain. And after hearing that story, one key person would turn against Deven, Christine. Until then she had been one of Deven’s closest allies. She was one of the few people Deven had contact with and Alabama during all those years of isolation. Christine was even the first person Deven talked to after she called 911 the night of the shooting. Deven had wanted to break the news to her the John was dead. And about a week later, as Deven was awaiting her fate in jail, she called Christine again to explain exactly what happened that night.

 

Christine  31:46

You want? I know, I understand.

 

Liz Flock  31:55

I understand, Christine said it’s kind of incredible how understanding she is towards Deven in this call. It made me wonder if Christine was sympathetic because of her own experience with abuse or because she knew that her son had been abusing Deven.

 

Christine  32:12

We got about 30 seconds left. You know I love you.

 

Liz Flock  32:18

I love you too, Deven told her, but that understanding what it last just three days after this first call from jail, Christina and Deven talked again. This time Christine had a very different take on what happened that night.

 

System  32:35

All phone calls are subject to monitoring and recording. You have three minutes available for this call.

 

Deven  32:43

Hello.

 

Christine  32:45

Hello.

 

Deven  32:46

Hi.

 

Christine  32:48

Okay, I gotta ask you a question. Do you remember calling me that night?

 

Deven  32:54

Yes.

 

Christine  32:55

Do you remember telling me you shot him in the back of the head? Okay, why didn’t you tell me about shooting the trailer up?

 

Deven  33:06

I didn’t shoot up the trailer.

 

Christine  33:10

Yeah, okay.

 

Liz Flock  33:11

You can hear that Christine received some new information from detectives, that it was Deven, who shot up the trailer.

 

Christine  33:19

You realize that they were people listening to everything that was going on during that?

 

Deven  33:24

Yes.

 

Liz Flock  33:26

By people. Christine means Alexis and Darla who were listening in over the phone.

 

System  33:32

You have one minute remaining.

 

Deven  33:34

Because he was shooting […]  that the girl was on the phone. She knows that he told me to pick up the gun. I picked it up but I put it right back down. I wasn’t shooting up for me, she.

 

Christine  33:47

Wasn’t he tells you to pick up the gun? Why would he tell you the gun? […] To shoot you I could oh yeah my son was trying to start a new life and do good for his family, no matter what the obligations you guys had, is going to tell you to kill him. When making a life running a store and work in the field with the tractor and all that he’s gonna tell you to kill him.

 

Deven  34:21

Yes, we did that.

 

Liz Flock  34:25

This call would be the last time that Deven and Christine speak. And to this day, Christine, thinks Deven is guilty of premeditated murder and wants her to suffer for what she did to John. Alexis’ version of events had turned one of Deven’s main allies and witnesses against her. And as time went on, that narrative would do much more damage, not only infiltrating Christine’s view of what happened, but also changing the entire criminal case.

 

Liz Flock  35:04

Okay, so there’s one more thing we want to tell you about Alexis. As we were wrapping up work on this episode, we’re able to verify a new piece of information. Turns out Alexis made a GoFundMe after John’s death to raise money in his name. Christine found it.

 

Christine  35:22

So let me see if I can find GoFundMe. In the oh, wow can you fucking believe this? It’s 165 it popped up.

 

Liz Flock  35:41

To GoFundMe?

 

Christine  35:43

Yes.

 

Liz Flock  35:44

Oh my God, can you send it to me?

 

Liz Flock  35:47

Christine sent me the screenshot. The campaign is titled loss of loved one. And you can see the goal was to raise $5,000. But like Christine said, it had only accumulated $165. Either way, it seems to her like Alexis and Darla were trying to make money off her dead son.

 

Christine  36:06

She had his baseball up there, made this money and she never told me a damn thing. And never sent me and done. We’re so I mean, that to me is someone that is not trustworthy, in a certain respect.

 

Liz Flock  36:22

Christine says it herself, someone who is not trustworthy. But she’s still trusts what Alexis told detectives, and the prosecution ran with Alexis’ says story as they built the case against Deven. Next time on Blind Plea, Deven faces Her charges in one of the most conservative counties in Alabama.

 

CREDITS  37:06

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at the hotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. There’s more Blind Plea with Lemonada Premium, subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content. Like an interview with John’s dad, Henry and more excerpts from Deven’s detective interview the night of the shooting. Subscribe now in Apple podcasts. Blind Plea is production of Lemonada Media. I’m your host Liz Flock. This episode was produced by Kristin Lapore, […] Evans and Tony Williams, Hannah Boomershine and Rachel Pilgrim are also our producers. Story editing by Martina Abrahams Ilunga. Mix music and sound design by Andrea Kristinsdóttir  with additional mixing and engineering from Ivan Kuraev. Naomi Barr is our fact checker. Jayla Everett is our production intern. Jackie Danziger is our Vice President of narrative content. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittles Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer, evoked media, Sabrina Merage Naim and myself, Liz Flock. This series is presented by Marguerite Casey Foundation. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow me at @LizFlock. And for more stories of women and self-defense, check out my book The Furies from Harper books available for preorder now. Find Lemonada at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms, and follow Blind Plea wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership. Thanks so much for listening.