Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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For free. Free money. Free money is out there. Just go get it by starting your podcast today. What's going on, everybody? I'm Marah. And I'm Tess. And welcome back to Sisters Who Kill. Happy Pride Month, everyone. Happy Pride Month. Yes, it is the month of June, which is Pride Month. And when I think of Pride Month, I always think back to how Pride Month started. So I always think of Marsh P. Johnson, the Stonewall Riots, of course, in 1968. Right, right. And also the mystery around...
the death of Marsha P. Johnson, which I could go on and on for days about, but she was somebody that fought for human rights and fought for the rights of her people and fought for liberation. And it also made me think about how trans Black women are just being murdered at an exponential rate in America. Then it made me think of the case for today, where one woman's fight for her life became one of the most controversial cases in America. ♪♪
So let's get into our players. So we got a group of white folks and a group of black folks. So we're going to get the white folks out the way first. So for the white folks, we have Dean Schmitz, who is our victim. We have Jenny Torsen, who is his girlfriend. Then we've got Molly Flattery, which is his ex-girlfriend. And then we have Dave with no last name, who was there. On our side, we got Larry Ty Thomas, who is CeCe's boyfriend.
Zavon Zay Smith, Cece's friend. Ronil Harris, her other friend. Lativia Taylor, her roommate slash cousin now.
And Chris Sean, Cece McDonald. I'm ready to rest. So Cece McDonald was born May 26th in the south side of Chicago. She grew up in a family where there was a lot of turmoil in the house. So she was really uncomfortable and ended up leaving the house at the age of 13. She ran away and she had no money. She had nowhere to go. She was in Chicago. So...
She turned to the streets where she was homeless and she also was working as a sex worker. She navigated those harsh streets until she was around 18 years old when she moved to Minnesota. When her greyhound touched down in Minnesota, she already could tell that there was a big difference between the life that she grew up in and the streets of Chicago, you know, as black as hood, like it's survival versus the very diverse streets of Minnesota.
She even enrolled in a community college. She was getting her life together. She was enrolled in a community college and she was studying to become a fashion designer. Uh, Christiana, her roommate Lativia, they were roommates in Minneapolis. They were best friends, but they were more than that. You know what I'm saying? So like they called each other cousins, like, Oh, you're my cousin. Like we that close. Um,
So on June 5th, 2011, Cece and Lativia, they decided they wanted to have some friends over. So of course they invited Ty over because that's Cece's boyfriend, right? They invited Zay over, one of their friends, and they also invited over Roneal. The area that they lived in was really close. Like it was downtown, really close to the nightlife, social life, you know what I'm saying? But they had everybody over to drink, to smoke, you know, have a little cookout in the backyard. We just, we chill in here for the night. You know, we're not really going out. We're not really on the scene.
But around 1130, Lativia was like, hey, let's run down to the 24 hour grocery store and get me a little snacky snack because her food stamps have just hit. So she was, you know, wanted a snack, which makes a lot of sense to me because how many times I've been like, you know what, friend, I'm headed over to your house, but my food stamps just hit. I'm about to go get fruit. Right. Like something random because you can do that. Your stamps just hit. Yeah. Yeah.
So around 1130, they left the surveillance camera at the store, which was called Cub Foods. They caught her walking in about a minute before midnight. And then they left around 25 after heading back to the apartment. Outside of the schooner tavern was a group of white people. Dean Schmidt, his girlfriend, Jenny Thorson, his ex-girlfriend, Molly and Dave, which is a weird crowd to begin with. Already suspicious.
It's a weird group of friends. So they're drunk and Molly's got a drink in her hand. They're standing outside the bar smoking a cigarette.
down the block is Cece and her friends they're walking up because they gotta pass this on their way home seeing that the sidewalk was blocked by people drinking and talking Cece's boyfriend Ty moved them you know into the street to move around the group I already have a problem with that because I am not I am not getting off the sidewalk for a white person you're gonna have to run me over and don't look at me crazy because I'm not getting I'm
I'm not doing it. My ass is that good. I'm not doing it. She dead ass will. I will run... We will elbow each other. And she'll be like, I'm sorry, did you not see me? I know you see me here. She will straight up do that, y'all. I was gonna say, I really like when niggas pull you, like, in a direction. You know what I'm saying? Like when a man takes a lead? But, like, specifically on the sidewalk, like, niggas that won't let you walk on the outside side of the sidewalk, love that shit. I'm the man in my relationship. They walked around and...
And they start hearing a hurl of insults coming at them. And it's mainly Dean and Molly. And they're screaming, niggers, you niggers, blah, blah, blah. White shit. Go back to where you came from. A whole bunch of white shit. Yeah.
All that racist shit that they love to throw at us. Like, can we get some new shit? I was like, two-cent jokes. Like, even then the slurs started becoming very homophobic, very real phobic of everything. Yes. So, very, like... I hate anybody who is not white. Who is not me. And it's like, these are the same old, tired-ass jokes. Anybody who is not a white cis man... Right. Right.
They're, like, hurling all these insults at Cece and her boyfriend. They're calling it an F word. Not fuck. And they're just saying a whole bunch of, like, racist, homophobic, all of that shit. It's just...
This is how you imagine Minnesota though, right? Right, because I'm thinking just about... White Mountains. I'm thinking about George Floyd. Like, it's a mess up there. Cece, she starts yelling back at Molly and confronting her. And Molly jumped big and bad and she was like, I'll take all you bitches on. She then smashed the cup of liquor that she had into Cece's face so hard that she viciously cut into the white meat.
slashing her salivary gland. They start tussling the street. They're pulling each other's hair. Cece's face is stinging because there's liquor in this open gash in her face. Right. Glass bottles can be heard smashing on the sidewalk, and it turns out that that sound is Dean hurling beer bottles at Cece. He's trying to hit her with these and I guess get her off. Dean then runs up on the two women who are fighting, grabs Cece from behind, and pulls her off of Molly.
Molly is on the ground and Cece starts backing away from Dean and she's feeling like lightheaded and she's kind of stumbling back looking back looking at him like right now you don't turn your back he starts to come at her her friends have dipped and they think that she's like running away with them but you know like we said she's not turning her back right Dean comes charging at her
But Cece's looking at Dean. He's got his eyes on her. He's coming towards her. He's obviously angry. He's coming not slow. Like he's coming aggressively at her. So she reaches in her bag and she grabs a pair of sewing scissors. Like they
You know, sewing scissors are stupid sharp. Yeah, those sewing shears. She probably had it for her wig or something. Well, you know, she was in fashion school. That makes a lot of sense. She grabbed her scissors just like, you know, as women, we be on the street. And when you feel uncomfortable around a nigga, you look for anything that you can grab to, like, make you feel at least a little bit of safe, you know? Whether it's...
pepper spray or a little taser, a little knife attached to your keychain, something. Whatever you need. So it makes sense that she went and grabbed it. So she grabs the scissors in her purse and Dean yanks at her hair trying to get her on the ground and they're tussling and Cece does like a get off me son, you know, trying to get him off. And
The next thing Cece and all the witnesses see is Dean, who's wearing a back shirt. He backs off of Cece and he starts screaming, she stabbed me, she stabbed me. And he lays on the ground crying out in pain. And the stab happened so fast that many, including Cece, didn't fully comprehend what had happened. But what we did know was that Dean was stabbed one time in the heart and was then pronounced dead.
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Now, remember when all of this is going on, Cece is leaking from the face. So her boyfriend runs to her and tries to get her to like hold her face, you know, try to stop the wound, try to get a blood clot going on. And they end up flagging down a police car. So when the police get out of the car, he immediately arrests Cece and takes her to the hospital where she got like 18 stitches on her face. Like this cut was insane.
deep there was blood everywhere she was wearing this like my little pony shirt and it's like soaked in the front you know how like niggas sweat and you get that like ring it's that of blood so it's a lot
So they finally get her cleaned up at the hospital and then around 4:51 a.m. they take her. She's in like a medical gown and some barefoot, almost barefoot or slippers. - Probably got them hospital socks. - Exactly, and they put her in an interrogation room and they're like, "Oh, the detective is gonna be here in a minute." So she waits and she waits and she waits for hours. So they put her in at 4:11. The detectives didn't come in to start questioning her until 8:11 in the morning.
So this whole altercation happened around midnight, around midnight, midnight, 30 ish. So midnight 25 is when they, I love this midnight 25. Right. Cause you need to know which 12. So around like midnight 25 is when they were seen leaving the grocery store. So anyways, they start interrogating her for hours, like on and on question after question. And see,
Cece said again and again, look, it was self-defense. She was asked things like, how were you feeling at the time of the crime? Were you angry? They were trying to get her to admit that like you were angry. So you killed this person. And she's like, she's like, I was mad, but like my face. But like, ultimately she was saying, I didn't have no intention on killing this man. I did not wake up saying I'm going to kill a man in the street.
this was an act of self-defense. He was coming at me really hard. And she's like, look, I didn't like stab him. Like, ah, I didn't, ah. I had the knife in my hand because I was feeling like somebody was coming to attack me and he ran into the knife. I didn't even know that he was punctured until he said, she stabbed me, she stabbed me and started laying on the ground. Right. It just like, you collided into it and...
Oh, shit. But here's the thing. This entire time that she was being questioned, she did not have an attorney present. Y'all, if we have told you once, we have told you once again. If we told you a million times, make sure that you say those magic words. And please have a lawyer. Don't ask them for a lawyer. Request a lawyer. Request the lawyer. Do not say shit. Don't ask them. Let me specify. Don't ask them if you need a lawyer. Ask them for your lawyer. Right. Right.
After the interrogation ended, it was a very long questioning day for her. She was handcuffed and placed in a male jail facility where she was immediately placed in solitary confinement. Now, if you're wondering why she was placed in a male prison, that is because Cece is actually a trans woman pre-op, which basically means pre-bossy.
bottom surgery. So although Cece had been identifying as a woman for years and even though she was taking hormones since she still had the anatomy that she was born with they placed her in a male facility for quote-unquote her own protection. It's June 11, 2011 and Cece finds out that she's being charged with second degree murder. So of course we had to look it up for y'all and according to fine law second degree murder is an intentional killing
Less serious than first-degree murder because some malicious factors aren't present, but both first- and second-degree murder in Minnesota have the aspects of felony murder rule. Felony murder is when you kill a person during the commission of another felony. Right, like if you're burglarizing somebody or if you are sexually assaulting someone and that ended in their death. Right.
So what is the other felony that she's committing? I don't know. Okay. I don't know.
Can't tell you. Couldn't find it in all my research. So hearing that you're being charged with murder is crumbling news already. But then being sent immediately to solitary confinement can wreak havoc on your mental health, especially if you just had a traumatic experience. And Cece already up to this point had a pretty fucking hard life, like homeless up until around 18, if not even more. Right. And I think on something I listened to or watched,
They said the reason she ended up leaving home at 13, she got in a fight with her uncle and he had her pinned up against the wall choking her because...
She was dressing as a female and sneaking off to school dressed like that. And even, like, her mom really was transphobic. Like, growing up in that household as a child, especially as a young black trans child, like, you need that love and support. And it is harder to be in a house where you're just told, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're horrible, than trying to figure it out and get it on your own, you know? And her mom's like, I would just ask him...
Like, can you just wear the girl clothes at the house and go to school and, like, repeatedly he, he, he. Yes, using dead pronouns like crazy. And it's like, you see her asking, like, she's having a conversation and she knows her mom is trying. And I think...
It's also that it's a transition that both parties have to go through. Right. And it's like the loss of a son, the gain of a daughter, but the loss of a son, you know what I'm saying? And I guess certain it's what it is, is the loss of expectations, right?
that you have for your child and they always come across as they're trying to protect their children and you know the world is not going to accept you and it's like fuck the world except i need you except i need you to accept like if if nobody else gives a damn in this world can i at least know that you give a damn and at least know i'm safe here right so and she wasn't so she left yeah that's
So when Cece sat down with Vulture, she described what solitary confinement was like. She said, quote, I spent two months in jail in solitary confinement and then another three months in prison in solitary confinement. In solitary confinement, you're in a room for 23 hours of the day and you only get one hour out. So...
Because you only have one hour out of a box, you have to think, what do I want to do with that hour? How do I want to ration that hour? She said that sometimes I had to choose between talking on the phone to family or taking a shower. She also says that it was really, really hard for her. She says they kept this constant light on and you can't really sleep well. So I could never get proper sleep. And it was really starting to weigh on me mentally. There wasn't any concept of time either. In jail, you don't have a clock.
You really don't know because there aren't any windows. And that really wreaked havoc on her life. So according to the 2015 editor-in-chief at Connect Us, solitary confinement has quite a few cons. Some of them are basically that it violates inmates' human rights. So this is like cruel and unusual punishment, right? Like, it's literally a torture technique. You know, there are certain animals that they won't let you by, not in pairs.
Because they're social creatures. And because they have to have someone. Yes. You have to be with someone. And even the most, like, isolated person, there's still natural chemistry that you want to have or natural connection that you want to have with somebody. Because we are natural animals that want connection with people. Yes.
it's natural and you're depriving us of this natural yearning. Right. And then, again, I guess expecting reform out of this shit. Right. You're expecting me not to have, and also, according to that same article, solitary confinement, it results in a lot of personality and mental disorders that can manifest while in solitary confinement, which does not surprise me one absolute bit because I'm just thinking
about how I've never been in solitary confinement, but I have seasonal depression when I don't see the sun. Yeah. And I've never had to choose between, am I going to see the sun, take a shower or call my mom? You know, cruel and unusual. So Cece was still going with this self-defense plea, which it made a lot of sense to me. However, on June 15th, 2011, Cece wrote a letter to the editor at the Star Tribune, one of the local pretty popular newspapers.
And in that letter, she writes about being in solitary confinement, what that's like for her being in a box for 23 hours, everything that we just explained. And how they say that this is for her safety, but she can't understand why. How is this safe?
safe for me or my mental health. She also writes in this letter that she didn't actually kill Dean. She says that she was taking the fall for someone else. And basically after she got questioned, she found out A, that he died and B, that everybody said that she did it. So she was like, at the time, I just made up the story that I did because
because it seemed like the right option and I'm taking the fall for someone else. This went over really bad with the media because you sent it to the media so you know they're going to publish it and you're already saying a self-defense case. This crumbled her. This really messed her up. Because it doesn't
at all line up with the story that anybody is telling. If it was just them two fighting, how is now somebody else the one who stabbed him? Right. And then when they ask her, they're like, did you write this letter? She says, she said, I did write it. Yes, I'm the one that wrote it, but I don't mean what I said in there. I was just exhausted. I was in denial. It was still self-defense. I'm back to, it was self-defense. It's hard. Like I'm having a mental break and I'm thrown in a box. I'm not seeing sunlight. I just had a traumatic experience and I'm,
I don't know. I feel like I could... I don't understand why she would write that letter, especially when you really already had such a solid case for you. That's what's throwing me, is why. Because I think even still, you could say, I'm locked in here for self-defense. I'm in solitary. I think that would have been a much better plea to the media. Right. But maybe...
Maybe she's coming at it with the view of they don't care that my trans ass is in solitary confinement because they're saying they're doing it to keep her from being raped from the other men. But if she would have been in a women's prison, wouldn't she be less likely to be raped by men? Not completely away from it because you still have your fucked up guards and all that shit. But there's less men in there.
And then the rates are just so drastic. They say for like for trans women in a men prison, 51 percent of them experience sexual assault. For men, cisgender men in a men's prison, 4 percent of them experience sexual assault. That's a big difference. That's a huge fucking difference. So she said that I wrote she basically says I wrote it, but I didn't mean it.
So the detectives have her write this letter over and over again, comparing the handwriting. And they're like, okay, we're going to give you about three words at a time. You write, we're going to try and keep this pace going. Okay. And just make sure she remembers. Right. And she's like, I never denied writing the letter. I'm telling y'all, I wrote the letter. I said I was delusional, but why are we doing all this work to prove that I wrote the letter if I'm not contesting that I wrote the letter? Right.
So, they're putting her through all of this, and she feels like basically the prosecution is trying to destroy her credibility. Like, they're trying to find one discretion, you know, one little thing that doesn't match, just to say, okay, she's a liar, and she's like, no, I'm honest, this is the story that I'm telling you. She goes back to her original story, she's like, it was self-defense, and she's like,
From there, she remained in solitary confinement. And this is for months while her new lawyers get ready to take her case to trial. And throughout this time, Cece's story gained a lot of attention in the queer community. Trans Youth Support Network really took up the lead in fighting and protesting for Cece's charges to be dropped. They organized protests and rallies and they were spray painting free Cece everywhere. And she had her defense team paid for by her worldwide community of supporters. When preparing
for this case to go to trial, there are a few things that the defense had up their sleeves. So they really were still sticking with this is self-defense. So the first thing they wanted to do is they were trying to get as many of Cece's statements from her original interrogation thrown out because, well, she was questioned right after coming from the hospital with no sleep and completely exhausted and traumatized. So they're like exhaustion, trauma,
There is no way that she could have made a coherent statement that can be admissible in trial. You know what I'm saying? So the court said, no, they were like, that's going to go ahead and come on to trial. And so the defense is like, okay, okay. So they asked to bring in an expert witness to educate the jury on what
what it is like to be a black trans woman in America. The constant attack that black trans women are under, what life is like for them, just so that they can understand because you may not have a jury where there's somebody that's trans on it, but you need to make sure that they are equipped with everything they need to understand your defendant and understand why she would have acted in the way that she did. Court said no. Which I think makes perfect sense. Which, it's like, let me explain this community. You bring in an expert witness on...
text messages so why not bring in an expert witness on a community that you have no idea about because let me tell you something I think trans is one of the biggest misunderstood topics that we talk about like
throughout these days. Like, and that's the whole issue about trans is it's misunderstood. Exactly. You don't understand it, so you hate it. Fear comes from that lack of knowledge. Exactly. And so to keep these people ignorant about what's going on and that just leaves them in there with their prejudice about it. Because I think that's something that everybody has like some prejudice to, or I guess prejudice is the right word, whether positive prejudice
positive prejudice or negative prejudice, but everybody has some prejudice to it. You know what I'm saying? And you have an idea and a stance about it because it's so... We've talked about it in the military. We're talking about how to share bathrooms. Like, it's filtering into our lives where we have a decision about this thing. You know what I'm saying? And so...
I don't think it's fair to let people come in and not clarify and take away some of the myths about it. You know what I'm saying? Right. So the last thing that the defense was trying to get put in trial is additional photos of Dean's body after postmortem. They, of course, had the wound. But what was missing in those pictures where the wound wasn't is a three inch swastika tattoo. So they were like, boom, racist, racist right here.
it's tattooed on him. So they were like, this is what we need because turns out, oh, of course with that tattoo, he doesn't have a squeaky clean record. He had a record, a pretty long record as well as affiliation with white supremacy organizations, which does not surprise you. It doesn't surprise me. So the defense was like, okay, let's get these additional photos of his body in court. And the court was like,
Can't do excessive photos of the deceased. And it's like, but this makes a point. They also wouldn't allow in Dean's toxicology report because knowing what drugs were in his system would be very helpful. Like, are you on coke? Are you on meth? We know that you were drunk. Like, we can tell. We knew that. So I'm pretty sure he was on coke, but they were like, you're not letting it in. Right, they're not letting it in. So we can't say for sure. And, you know, like, being on coke, like, that's a drug.
that gives you like high adrenaline, high aggression, you know what I'm saying? These are side effects that come with it, which would explain, you know, first of all, his brother said, sometimes, you know, depending on what type of mood he's in, he gets racist. When Sisters Who Kill began, an online store was the furthest thing from our minds. I mean,
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rocket money.com slash sisters meaning how maybe how high he fucking is is how racist he is depending on his mood depends on his racism yeah that's great right so the angrier you are the less judgment you hold at that time because you're fucking drunk right
That's what I have to depend my life on. When the cards are stacked up against you like this, it's hard to gamble for your life. Like, it's a real-life game of deal or no deal. Right. So they're trying to come up with a plea bargain that CeCe and the prosecutor can both be satisfied with. On September 22, 2011, they offer a plea bargain that will give her seven years in prison. So they're like, say you did it, you go to jail, there's not going to be a jury of your peers, and she's like, no deal.
So Howie Mandel is up there with the briefcase and he's like, in one box, you say you did it and you will not stand in front of a jury and your peers and you will get seven years in prison or you can pick another box. She says no deal. She's going to go for another box because fuck seven years. Right. So he calls the banker. They go back to negotiate another plea deal for this trial. Yeah.
It's October 6, 2011, and they out on a second-degree murder with intent, which is 300 months, basically 25 years. So they upped her charges because she decided to not take the initial plea deal. Sounds like a bitch move to me. Yeah. So, you know, the banker calls back down, and he's like, bad move, you know? So her defense and her large group of supporters, they start waiting for trial to begin.
So it's April of 2012 and my favorite thing happens, which is jury selection. It's my favorite thing on television when they ask you a whole bunch of questions and you're trying to either be on the jury or not be on the jury. Okay. But jury selection happens. But...
You know, the jury's supposed to be very unbiased, hopefully doesn't know anything about the case. But the thing is, CeCe's supporters made some fucking noise in the streets and they were sticking behind her. They were doing calls. They were doing all the protests. So it was impossible to not hear her name and know who she is and know something about the case. It kind of reminds me of the George Floyd case. Like you. I was really wondering how you're going to get. You must live under a rock.
Well, during the time you I guess during the time you have to promise that you can still be unbiased. And then while you're actually in the jury, you can't watch TV. You can't do anything. They keep you in a box. You know what I'm saying? A lot of these promise that you're not going to be biased if you don't even realize your own biases. What a wonderful point. I don't know how to answer that question, but it's a great point that maybe some people smarter than us will debate.
Because, yeah. But what they realized is when they were finding the juries, that a lot of people knew about the case. It was a still, you know, very high profile case. And it was very hard to find people that didn't know who CeCe was or at least had an idea of the case. So,
The defense felt pretty confident that proceedings could go on without a hitch. This made the prosecutors nervous. Well, let's say for the record that the white man said that he was not nervous and the media had nothing to do with what they did. But, you know, nervous. He was nervous. Shook. But either way, they looked and they saw that not only did CeCe have great lawyers, she also had a support committee that was fighting tooth and nail in the streets.
And it's basically like, what can you prove in court? You cannot prove that she intended on killing this man. And he also says, like, after looking into this case, he understands Cece more and understands why she would have reacted the way she did that night. But you argue against her having somebody come and explain the trans community to you. Right. But it allowed you clarity to reduce her sentence and give her a better plea deal.
Let's just make it make sense. Make it make sense for us. We're really asking for it. On May 2nd, 2012, prosecution presented the plea bargain of second degree manslaughter, which is a long way away from second degree murder. She ends up accepting this plea bargain. So in Minnesota, when you plead guilty to a crime, you have to also admit what you did. Like you have to stand up and say, this is the
course of events that happened. Yes, I was doing this. Yes, it was manslaughter. Yes, there were scissors. And they asked questions like they asked her. And so you admit that you were handling the scissors in such a way that caused unreasonable risk to Mr. Schmitz. And so she said, had to be like, yes, which is very hard, especially for her supporters, because even though it's not murder, she still has to admit that she was aware of this crime and
And it didn't go to trial for self-defense. When honestly, I feel like they overcharged her from the top. You know what I'm saying? And this is not something that they have to do in Georgia. Like, if you say I'm guilty, be like, all right, I'm guilty. Give me my time. But in Minnesota, they have to do it. I know they have to also do it in Michigan because Michelle Blair, since everybody wants me to do that case that I'm not doing, Michelle Blair also has to stand up and say what she did so you can find out her case on YouTube. So on June 4th, 2012, CeCe finally had her sentencing.
She was sentenced to 41 months in prison. She was given 245 days of time served from when she was in jail. And then she was required to pay $6,410 to the Schmitz family and restitution for like funeral expenses and stuff like that. When she was sentenced, she got a chance to speak and she said, quote,
She was placed in the Minnesota Correctional Facility St. Cloud, which is another men's facility.
Um, there she had the chance to go forward with a civil suit, um, depending on if she felt safe, if she did not feel safe, um, to be transferred to a female prison or not. And kind of Cece was like, look, I face worse things in my life than prison.
While she was incarcerated, her story still gained lots of national attention and international attention. She still had supporters all over the world. And she even got the attention of one Miss Laverne Cox. And Laverne Cox ended up meeting Cece and started working on a documentary about Cece's life. That documentary is where we got most of the information for our episode today. Yep, yep.
She was released on January 13, 2014, and Cece was greeted outside the St. Cloud prison by her friends and Laverne and all of that.
And all that. For the first time in a long time, she can breathe fresh air. She sees trees and houses. She gets to eat. I think one of the first things she went and did was got a wig. Yep. Which, same, girl. Listen, first thing I'm going to have to do is look like somebody. I ain't look like somebody in a long time. Period. You know, she only ended up serving two-thirds of her sentence, 19 months. And she got out early because of good behavior. And, of course, her time served.
But to this day, she still struggles with PTSD from both the attack and her time in prison. You know, because those 19 months, that's a lot. A lot of that time was spent in solitary. And it happened so quickly. Yeah. She does not, however, let this trauma hold her back.
Cece was basically leading her own movement from jail. Like, when you talk to the people from her support group, they're like, yeah, Cece was okaying and calling shots on all of this stuff. Right. There's so many pictures of them going and talking to her. Having meetings. Yeah.
So she was very involved in her own justice. So when she got out, she wanted to make sure that she continued her work, you know, not to just fight for herself, but to fight for other trans people who are in this position specifically. Because so many black trans women don't survive, you know? Exactly.
The life expectancy for a trans person is 35, which is pushing. The average. The average trans person lives to 35, whether it's from being killed or from suicide. So Cece is just sort of the person that made it out. You know what I'm saying? That phoenix rising like her tattoo. Right. She specifically wanted to focus on fixing the justice system and basically focusing on the prison industrial complex.
of how it goes. Right. Right, because she says in an interview, she's like,
Yeah, I was in a male's prison, but the whole thing is fucked up. First, she was like, prison ain't safe for anybody, but it especially is not safe for us. She's like, even if I was going to go to a women's prison, I would have still been in danger. You know, she was like, I was hypersexualized. They focused on her sexuality so much. Like, she's like, I had to wear baggy clothes so you couldn't see my curves. They wouldn't allow her to wear shorts. Like, she couldn't wear shorts. The guys got issued shorts and she wasn't allowed to.
Because you might see that she got hips or something. Right. Which is, you looking too hard, mind your business. I think what's interesting is kind of how do you fix it? Because everybody's like reform, reform, reform. But Angela Davis was saying the answer is not prison reform, it's prison abolition. Right. She said what prison reform does is
is just like a more organized way to keep doing this fucked up shit. You're still fucking up, yeah. And like, she's like, for example, if you make a safe space for the trans people, you now need to fill up this space.
Right. So now we need more trans people in this space. And now you're going to start arresting more people. Exactly. And trans women especially are at a high risk of being almost 90% of trans women have at least been arrested once. She was like all Angela Davis said all the efforts for reform have just increased exponentially.
has increased the prison population. Reform is not the answer. It's abolishing the system and starting it over. Correct. Because of the history of, like, it wasn't built for us. The police started off as slave catchers. Right. And I mean, and Cece even says it herself. It also, I think it's important that she focuses on that because across the country, there's like...
There's no general rule on how to deal with the trans people, right? So the federal law is that each case should be decided on a case-to-case basis after asking where they would feel safe.
Right. Like their placement. Like, do you feel like you should be in a men or women's prison? You should ask and decide on a case to case base. So when Obama was president, he was like, you should put them where they identify their gender to be. When Trump was president, he said, go based off of biology.
And that was his recommendation to the prisons. And so it's kind of really based off of does this person decide and give a fuck about you and your trans life? Right. Which most of the time the answer is no. No, exactly. So after Cece got out of prison, she decided that she was taking up this abolition movement for herself. Of course, the documentary was being worked on that was co-produced by Laverne and hosted by Laverne Cox.
She also ended up being included as the part of the Advocates Annual 40 Under 40 list in 2014. She was the keynote speaker for so many trans awareness, pride awareness events and milestones, and she still is an activist to this day. Now, if you're wondering what happened with Molly Bitchass, because you know that we had to come for her, let me tell you about Molly Bitchass. So, Molly, because she definitely threw the first punch. Or the first...
Molly's the girl who hit her upside the face. Who did the gash in the face, which was the first hit between the crews. She ended up being charged in May of 2012. A whole year later. A whole year later. She was charged in May of 2012 with second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and third-degree assault causing substantial bodily harm. And she got six months in jail.
and probation if anything like you should be charged with murder because because of you your friend is dead right you know start your shit out in these shirts that you can't finish that you can't no but she said she could take us all on right oh lordy all right y'all it is time for well i'm not black i'm oj i ain't do it but if i did this is how i would have done it
I ain't do it, but if I did, I would have not wrote that letter like that. The letter was the big kicker, but... Can we talk about the fact that if you're put based on your anatomy, if you're placed based off of your anatomy...
Black trans women. Think about Cece. She was homeless from the age of 13. Surgery is expensive. As fuck. So it is hard enough to get into the body that you feel 100% comfortable in. And now you're punished for not being in the body, in that body. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, that letter was...
that's what fucked her up. I agree. I feel like that's where her story lost consistency. And I think she knew that too. I don't feel like she meant the letter. I was telling Mariah, she wrote specifically in the letter, it wasn't me.
that was not me who stabbed you know that was not me and I was like what if she meant it as like that what you know when people just black out right and they just like that wasn't me like I don't know who that person was knowing full and damn well it was them but they'd be like I don't know who that person was and she also mentions that while she's being interrogated she's already told everybody hasn't
said that you did it right and so she's like i guess if everybody said that i did it then i must have and that happens like i've been angry enough where i don't know what the fuck happens i'd be like i did what right and you'd be like and people be telling you the story afterwards you'd be like all of that you low-key be embarrassed so you're like oh damn right and so i lost my shit
Parole or no parole, she got out. I think that this was overcharged from the very beginning. It should have been a self-defense. It should have been a self-defense. It should have been a no-brainer self-defense. Had the roles been reversed and the races been reversed. Oh, this would have been, oh, they didn't do this. If the roles were reversed, none of this would have happened. And then something on that documentary was saying, in order to be self-defense in Minnesota, you have to attempt to run.
I'm not turning my back on this crazy big ass white man running towards me.
screaming all the things that show that he hate me i'm not turning my back on him he's already yanked me by my hair once you know what i'm saying like i'm not turning my back on his ass again you got me fucked up and i feel like they and it was like that's why you can't prove self-defense because you didn't you didn't necessarily try and flee you have to run you have to be but she drew this drawing and in the drawing her back is away from him you know what i'm saying and it's
further down from where her scuffle with Molly happened. So you can see that there's an attempt to go in the other direction. And she was followed in that direction. They seem like they don't understand that. Maybe it's because she kind of walked away and was still facing. I think it's probably technical shit. It's really technical shit. And then one of the big things in her interrogation, they asked her
how did you feel? And they were trying to get her mad. She said, I mean, they were like, were you angry? Were you upset? How did you feel? And then she said, I was mad about my face. And I was like, ah, that's where they got you. Cause all you had to say, I'm scared. I was scared. I was scared. And what I don't understand is,
If they were asking me, I know they're asking, are you angry because your face got cut? But the question should be, were you angry? Were you angry because they were calling you these racial slurs, which then turns it into a hate crime? You attacking me and calling me racial slurs.
As many times as you did and through all those, you can get a hate crime through racial slurs. You can get a hate crime through sexuality. Like, he's got several triggers, you know what I'm saying? I feel like that qualifies for that. Right, and being a black trans woman ticks a lot of boxes on the things that he hates. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
And he felt justified to follow her. Right. But it's like, damn, I survived and I'm being punished for taking care of myself. For making it out. Because any other person, if you had anything sharp on you, if a nigga is coming at me, I'm grabbing whatever the fuck I can. I'm scared. I'm scared of you. I don't think niggas understand how scared they are in this day and age. But I was in L.A. and this...
white van. Me and my sister are walking down the street in this white van. Like you can, we're walking through a neighborhood and he pulls over into the residential and we start to turn the other day. He whips that bitch around and pulls out. He was like, Oh, I had to get off my phone with my supervisor to talk to you. I'm like, Oh,
his friend is in a passenger seat licking his lips and glaring it look he looked like a goblin the way he was gleaming at me i was like yeah that is not attractive i feel unsafe that's like when you and i went to go get coffee the other day and that man came up to us and was like excuse me man yeah i just wanted to look at you she said you see me here i am and he was like in a fucking car this man's like i just want to look at you can you come closer tessie's like getting
Oh, my God. Like, that is not. It is scary. It is creepy. Nigga, change y'all approach. Right. Y'all are coming off real desperate, real I'm just going to snatch you or have you ever. And it's scary. It's scary. You're scaring us. All right. So it is time for our reviews. This one I scrolled back down to my birthday because this was posted on my birthday by Love Miss Liss. Hey, Love Miss Liss.
She says, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This one is from Brit Nicole 2012. She says, I love this podcast. Feels like I'm discussing news to my girlfriend. Can't wait to see you all blow up. Me neither, sis. Right. I feel like somebody should just suggest us for black excellence for the read or something. Yes. Like shout us out so we can be everything. Y'all help us grow so we can help y'all. Alrighty. So we've, we've got some really exciting things coming to you next week, but we can't talk about them yet. Um,
Um, if you want to keep up with us, you can find us on a multitude of things. If you want to email us for ad space, if you have a suggestion for a case, if you just want to say, hey, you can email us at sisterswhokillpodcast at gmail.com. If you want to follow us on Instagram, well, you'll find pictures. And, um, sometimes I do fun things on Instagram. That's sisterswhokillpod. If you want to follow me on TikTok, because, you know, I be getting it on TikTok. It's sisterswhokill...
What is it? It's Sisters Who Kill Podcast. Tazzy be on Twitter. Sometimes Mariah infiltrates her Twitter, but... I mean, sometimes it pops in, like, I'm a Twitter user and you're not, but... Yeah. I'm trying to give y'all something. When it's Vibey, when it's Vibey, when Twitter is Vibey, it's Tazzy. When it's like, ah, we're gonna...
It's me. If you can't tell our personalities by now, then I don't know what to tell you. Right. I feel like there should be guesses. We should just leave everything unlabeled and everybody just be like, who am I talking to? Hmm. Feels like Taz. And they just leave their guesses. Um, but yeah, Twitter sisters who kill. I'm simple. Yep. And go ahead and join the discussion group. Make sure you answer the questions before joining. I don't have anything else. Talk to us. We talk back. All right. I got a flight to catch.