Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
It's summertime and it is officially self-care season. How are you taking care of yourself? Are you working out? Are you eating healthy using that sunscreen that you're supposed to use? Well, whether you're off to the pool, hiking, or traveling this summer, you can bring your microbiomes with you too. That's right.
Seeds DS01 daily symbiotic benefits your gut, skin and heart health with just two capsules a day. I've been really trying to figure out my health journey. I've been telling you guys about this, especially since I'm 30. And one thing I've noticed is that my gut
I have to make sure that this is all the way together and seeds dso1 daily symbiotic has been so great for me your body is an entire ecosystem and your gut is the central hub for various pathways through your body and a healthy gut microbiome means benefits for digestion skin health heart health and immune system and so much more and trust me this is backed by science a lot of science
So support your gut this summer with Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic. Go to seed.com slash sisters and use code 25 sisters to get 25% off your first month. That's 25% off your first month of Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic at seed.com slash sisters code 25.
25 sisters. I love being outside. And when I mean being outside, I mean going to events.
concerts, baseball games, basketball games, anything that you can think of. I love being just in the mix. My family has a tradition of going to the Braves game every single year and I haven't missed a year yet. And this year buying tickets is going to be easier than ever with the Game Time app. I'm using the Game Time app to buy Father's Day Braves tickets for my cousin and for the rest of my family and we'll all get together. And the deals that I see for these seats are a
So much cheaper than they would have been going through any other app or the team website. I can customize my spot. They've got flash deals. And I am so excited about all the MLB games that I will be able to see this year because finally there's something in my budget. You can save up to 60% off when buying last minute tickets for sports, concerts,
comedy theaters, anything that you can get a ticket for. And trust me, it is the lowest price guaranteed. And you know that means a lot to me. And if you find a price that's lower, don't you worry your pretty little head. Game Time will credit you 110% of the difference. Now that is a guarantee that I can work for.
So take the guesswork of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code SISTAS to get $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem with the code SISTAS to get $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed.
This episode of Sisters Who Kill is completely brought to you by Target. That's right, this is a Target takeover in support of Illuminating Intersectionality, a new three-part series brought to you by Target's Black Beyond Measure platform, hosted by Fran of Hey Fran Hey and the Friends Zone podcast, Chef Jade of all Jades, and Dr. Takiyah Robinson from the Getting Grown podcast.
Check out Illuminating Intersectionality on the Loudspeaker Network's YouTube page. The whole three-part series is out now and you do not want to miss it. Enjoy the show, then go check out their show. What's going on everybody? I'm Marah. And I'm Tez. And welcome back to Sisters Who Kill. I think that being a teenager deeply in love is crazy.
Trust me, I've been there and it made me crazy. And when emotions are at their peak and you don't really have the life experiences to control your emotions properly, the outcome can be fatal. Our players this week are Antoine Woodford, Tiffany's baby daddy, and Tiffany James, our murderess.
Tiffany James was born on June 12th, 1992, and she attended Sam Hudson High School in San Antonio, Texas. Despite the fact that she grew up in what would some people call a rough neighborhood, and she attended a tough high school. I mean, this high school had a large dropout rate, a large rate of fights go breaking out every day. Those teachers brought in a lot of people.
obviously weren't getting paid enough to keep these kids in line. Despite all that, she was described as a very quiet, shy, kind, smart, loving, and a model student. She had a great love for the culinary arts and she was really talented in it. And she was known as a leader in her culinary arts school. Did we have home ec or culinary arts? Yes. At Tucker? We did. Did you take it?
Um, you remember that year where we did block scheduling and it had like an elective? I thought you took jewelry that year. No, that was when we had regular, but I'm talking about we had block. It was, it was staggered block and we only had this elective class one day out the week. It was like a Wednesday. Right. And you were taking culinary? Yeah.
Did not know it existed in our school. But anyways, she had dreams that she was going to like take the culinary field by storm. She wanted to attend St. Phillips College to do just that. She was described as like a very kind girl. She was always saying her yes ma'ams, her no ma'ams, her yes sirs, her no sirs, very humble. And one day she was out chilling with her girls and she was at the park.
And she saw these niggas playing basketball. And you know how guys are when they see girls watching them play basketball. They get very flirtatious. Oh, this shot for you, bae. Or I make this one, this is for you. And she was like, this man that is playing basketball?
I want him. I need him. And his name was Antoine Wolford. He was a local basketball star and a ladies' man. According to his mommy, Sean Wolford, he had the kind of personality where you couldn't stay mad at him for long and he would make you laugh. All the girls wanted him and he knew it. As I said before, he liked the ladies, they liked him, and he was known for leaving himself open for any girl to shoot her shot.
Despite how many girls tried their best, none of them had anything on Tiffany. I mean, you know, if you want, the heart wants what it wants, you know what I'm saying? And although Tiffany had been known to be shy, quiet, sweet, not in the streets, she
All of that shit went out the window when it came to her man Antoine. She was outside on the scene. She had no issue letting people know that they needed to fall back because he was now hers. She was showing up at the basketball games and like,
sweatpants and then the shirt also had his name on it I can only imagine that it was like airbrushed or some shit I don't know I never actually saw the shirt shirt but I'm imagining those airbrushed sweatshirts from the mall with his name on it with his number on it she'd paint his number on her face like you name it name on the notebook type shit you were gonna know that Antoine belonged to
to Tiffany. Very, very inseparable. Either Antoine was at Tiffany's house, Tiffany was at Antoine's house. The families were really getting to know each other as well as getting to know the kids. And they were treating them like family. Like they loved when Tiffany came over and Tiffany's folks loved when Antoine came over. At this point, they were in deep, deep with like mama, daddy, sister, um,
His sister, her name is Shabana Walford. She was like, I mean, we all love Tiffany. She was like my little sister. We would do stuff together all the time. We loved it. We loved having her around. So mind you, at this time, Tiffany was 14 years old and Antoine was 15 years old. So no surprise that their love was deep, deep, deep as the ocean.
And they started fucking like rabbits. And on the first time that they had sex, according to Tiffany, they were teenagers. Who knows if it was actually the first time. A few months later, she finds out she's having a baby.
Now, Antoine, he was a stand up little nigga. He had a lot of heart or whatever. And so he told his mom what was happening. And his mom, of course, was initially upset because he's 15 years old. She's 14 years old. And he was like, no, no, no, mom. This is not me trying to ask you for help. This is not me saying that you're going to take on the responsibility of another child.
I'm about to be a grown ass man. I'm about to be a daddy. And so I'm just letting you know, as my mother, not as the future, you know, caregiver of this child that is about to be had, which sounds like what every teenage boy would say to his mother when he finds out that he's 15 and got a girl pregnant because now they're a man. Right. Right. On June 11th, 2007, one day before Tiffany turned 15, they had their son,
They were known as pretty great parents and they seemed to have a pretty good co-parenting relationship. When Alex wasn't with his mom or with his grandma, he was with his daddy, like definitely was a daddy's boy at the time. When he was hanging out at Tiffany's house and the baby was on the scene, if Antoine was there, the baby was with Antoine. Like being an active father, especially for 15, 16 years old, right? Yeah.
And now, according to his mom and his sister, Antoine wasn't really at their house that much. He was coming in just to get some clean clothes and then he was headed right over to Tiffany's. But we're going to put a pin in that for now. Now that the relationship was growing, there started to see some cracks in the relationship. One of the things was that Antoine was 15 years old. And so he started, you know, experimenting with smoking weed. Wow.
Tiffany didn't like that at all. And she was like, you're just getting high all the time. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. You just want to do this, that, and the third. And he's like, you are changing. Like, if I want to smoke weed, that's fine. That doesn't make me a bad person. And I get it because when I was in high school, I was dating a dude that smoked weed and I didn't smoke weed at the time. And I was like, how could you? You're horrible. Your life is going to go down the drain. But I mean, you're still young and technically weak.
Your mind is developing. Technically, weed is not the best thing to do at 14, 15, up until like 18 years old. And I'm not advocating for weed until you're an illegal adult. But it's something that is commonly experimented with. And Tiffany wasn't having that. Also, their relationship was kind of on the rocks. He kept saying that Tiffany was changing. And I really believe, like, not a professional, but I think, you know, she was young and having a baby. And there was a little bit of postpartum there, I think, yeah.
Because she felt like he wasn't doing the same things he used to do to take care of her. And he felt that she wasn't even acting the same. I saw this meme one time. Oh, my gosh. It's so bad. I saw this meme. It was on one of the messy Instagram pages. And it was like, hey, girl, let me love you like your baby daddy loved you before you had that baby. I was like, oh, my gosh. But...
It started to be like that. And to the point that they started having a little bit of a violent relationship. Like one time Antoine hit Tiffany and like busted her lip. And so Tiffany went to her daddy and her daddy was like, you need to call the police. So,
So they called the police. They filed a police report. They never went through with charges, but there was a police report on file because he had gotten a little violent. So fast forward two years later, Antoine is 18 and has dropped out of school to work and support his little family. Now, at 17, Tiffany is thriving in school and even grabbed the attention of a local newspaper where she was featured in a major article.
In this article, they're kind of talking about how there's hope left for the neighborhood and there are kids still doing good. And, you know, look at Tiffany, for example. She's got the grade. She's doing well. You know, there is a future here.
She was set to have a very bright future ahead of her. And on the outside looking in, she and Antoine had the ideal relationship, the perfect family. But behind closed door, there was nothing but a bunch of fussing and fighting going on. This very same newspaper became the bone of contention in their relationship and caused a never-ending argument between these two lovebirds. After spending the majority of their relationship as Antoine's cheerleader, Tiffany was finally in the spotlight and she was not apologizing for it.
Not needless to say, Antoine was very, very jelly and he didn't like it. He was pressed and according to some people, including Tiffany, Antoine started to develop a marijuana problem. Did you see that video? Girl, hold on. I know this is not part of the story, but have you seen that video on Twitter recently of this kid in high school, in the middle of class, lighting a blunt? No. No.
Girl, they were like, there's no hope for the future. I was like, this nigga is lighting up in school. Like, it's one thing to be smoking in high school. You shouldn't be doing it anyways. Like when my ex was doing it and when I was doing it in high school, we shouldn't have been doing it. But it's another thing to be doing it in the, I'm telling you Tazzy, in class.
At his desk, pulled it out of his book bag. I was like, what? That's a drug problem. Yeah. But it's crazy. Like the there was still like a little bit of I don't want to say shame, but there was a little like, I'm not going to do this in front of a whole bunch of people. I'm going to. Yeah. Like, I'm going to bring an extra pair of clothes if I do sneak off a campus. Right. This is I know that I still want a future ahead of me. Right. I care a little bit.
Just a hair, just a hair, just a tinch. And then the reason Tiffany was so concerned with Antoine's marijuana problem is because it would send him into violent rages at any given time. And now I don't I don't know if weed was the cause for his violent rages, but that was a correlation that she made. And it contributed to the couple's arguments in a major way.
Now, to this day, friends and family of Antoine say that none of this is true. And they weren't exactly clear why the young couples suddenly couldn't get along. But they think it was just teenage jealousy, stress, new young parents. Like, you're up against a lot right now. The one thing that everyone did agree on, though, is that when things between them were good, they were great. And when they was bad, they was bad.
And baby, and here's some tea. So Antoine's friends said that having a baby with Tiffany did not slow him down one bit. He was still a ladies man. OK, he was a little freaky league, you know, Shamika, Keisha, Tara, freaky league, Sabrina, Krista, Deronda. He was a freaky league. Felicia, Tanisha, Siobhan.
Christina, Yolanda, every day of the week. Okay? Every day of the week he has somebody else. And no one was really aware of this
womanizer thing that he had going on other than Tiffany. Of course, she knew about it, but let his friends tell it. Tiffany was just another name on a list. Added to the list. Freakily, Tiffany. She got his fucking baby. At that point, you got something over all these hoes.
Oh, wait. You think so? So he was in so deep. And not only did he have a solid roster, but he had a whole nother girl pregnant three months before Tiffany was pregnant with Alex. Well, well, well. And if that wasn't enough, child. OK, at the time that Antoine dropped out of school to start working.
Tiffany got a hold of a pay stub of his. And in that pay stub, she discovered that some of his wages were being garnished for child support. Is that how she found out? That is how she found out.
That is how she found out. And we're trying to figure it out. Okay. You know what? Got the girl pregnant three months before Tiffany, right? Tiffany's pregnant. This pay stub, these garnish rages, they were not going to baby mama number one or to Tiffany. There was another baby mama. Oh, hell no. All right. You're doing a fine job.
Three baby mamas. You're doing a lot. And so it's like, okay, everybody's talking about Tiffany is jealous and Tiffany is this, but my nigga, you got three baby mamas. All right, so it is Friday, November 20th, 2009. And Tiffany's Friday morning is starting just like any other weekday morning. Got to go to school.
Thanksgiving is coming up. Conversations are filled with, you know, what are you thankful for assignments? And of course, look at my cute ass baby. Everything in her day seemed to be going according to plan, nothing really out of the normal. And she was talking to anybody who would listen about her plans to go to Houston to visit family. And she was going to leave little Alex with her mom and Antoine.
Okay, so that afternoon, she's back at home. Her sister Shayla and her son are in the back room, and Tiffany and Antoine get into an argument that ended with Antoine storming out of the apartment.
Just for him to return a few minutes later. And he comes back, lividly banging on the door, yelling, screaming in a drug-fueled rage for Tiffany to let him back inside. He's like banging on this door. It's dumb heavy. The window's rattling and shit. Tiffany's afraid of what would happen if she opens the door. She runs into the kitchen. She grabs a steak knife and then lets him in. Within seconds of walking through the door, they go out.
at it in this huge screaming match. He is cussing her, cleaning the fuck out, telling her, you know, you got that knife. You better use that shit. You know, threatening like, nigga, you don't scare me and shit.
She's cussing him out. She's like, please, you just need to get out of here. My baby's back there. My sister's back there. Like, you need to chill, calm down, get out of here, get out of here, right? It's not long before the argument turns physical and Anton begins grabbing Tiffany's arm, pushing her up against the wall. Now, she's still got this knife clenched in her hand and he pins her up against the wall and he was like, you're going to pull a knife on me? I'll kill you first, bitch.
As the altercation moves to the bedroom, Antoine pins Tiffany to the bed with both of her arms held down on either side. Antoine then pulls her hair and slaps her across the face multiple times. When he released one of her arms to go in for another slap, Tiffany plunges the steak knife into his chest. Even after being stabbed in the chest, Antoine continues to attack her. As they continue to struggle,
Tiffany stabs him with the steak knife again. This time, it's a deep stab into his back. Antoine collapses, but somehow quickly gets on his feet and begins aimlessly stumbling around the apartment, leaving a hefty trail of blood behind him before he finally collapses on the floor.
By this time, Shayla comes out the room to find her sister crying hysterically over Antoine's body. And she's also like trying to apply pressure to the wound on his back. She's not doing a very good job, but like shit's crazy right now. Shayla starts yelling, you need to call 911. You need to call now. And she's shoving the phone into Tiffany's bloody hand. But Tiffany's urgent tear-filled cries to the 911 operator were no match for how fast that blood was running out of Antoine's body.
He bled out long before the arrival of the paramedics and was pronounced dead at the scene. Now, what we just told you is a story that Tiffany gave the officers who arrived at the scene. And when they asked why she didn't call the police as soon as Antoine came back in a second time, rather than letting him in the house, Tiffany quickly explains that, you know,
I've done this in the past with two officers and, you know, y'all come here, y'all say it's not really that big of a deal. Y'all leave and guess who's left to deal with his rage? Me. Like, I don't understand the point of calling on these situations because it hasn't proved helpful in the past. She felt helpless and like nobody cared and they're telling her to ask for help and she's like, you know, what's different? Now, despite this sad story of self-defense and powerlessness,
Her confession to the stabbing led officers to arrest Tiffany at the scene. Now, the neighborhood was known for having many domestic disputes, and investigators were inclined to believe Tiffany's story. However, they got to digging, and they was uncovering a lot. Like...
Sis, let's take a step back here. So in the interrogation room, a very distraught Tiffany repeats over and over again how she was just like, I didn't think the knife would go in. I was just scared of him. That was it. They're about to release Tiffany after all of this questioning and they're like, wait a minute. Let me just hit up Antoine's family real quick. Double check this history of abuse that you are saying. Detective Dwayne Smith reaches out to Antoine's mom and says,
Of course. Mama is like, first of all...
My son is not abusive. He's anything but abusive. My son loved this girl. And she, what happened? He's what? He's dead? I thought this girl loved him. I've never heard an inch, a minuscule portion of a dust speck of him being abusive at all.
to Tiffany. And then she's like, what you need to do is keep digging into Tiffany because, oh, she may be as sweet as she want to be, but the family, we have seen the other side of her. One day she'll come in and she's just nice and sweet and loving. The next day she'll come in and she's fucking crazy. She's a Gemini. So the detective spoke with Antoine's roommate and was asking Antoine's roommate about, you
do you know anything about this domestic violence abuse between the two? And the roommate was like, oh yeah, they'd argue all the time. I mean, when they went up, they went up. But it seemed to me from the roommate's perspective that it was all Tiffany starting all the shit.
And Antoine's friends and family, they're all saying the same thing. They're like, listen, she's sweet. She's nice, but she flips. OK, remember, he has a roommate, but also he's spending most of his time at Tiffany's crib. Right. And in the conversation that they were having with Antoine's family, they discovered that Antoine, in fact, was working on the breakup with Tiffany. And he had come to the apartment that day with the intention that.
of breaking up with Tiffany. So apparently he had been going around telling people that he was done with Tiffany and yeah, that may be his baby moms, but that ain't his girl no more. They realized that, okay, we have this story from Tiffany where he was the aggressor, but according to everybody else, she seems to be a very big aggressor in this situation. As the detectives continue to review the interview, they're like, okay, okay, okay. If she was afraid of him,
Again, why didn't she call the police instead of letting him inside? Why would she grab a knife, then let him in and start all of this can of whoop ass, right? Well...
Is it possible that when she opened the door to let him in, that she already had the intention of stabbing him? So they're putting everything that Tiffany said under a microscope. They're like, OK, what's going on with this story? They were like, there's a lot of holes in this story. These holes are pretty large. I don't think that we can take what you're saying at face value. So we are going to formally charge you and...
You're getting charged with murder, okay? In the many days following up to her initial arrest that led up to the trial, we're not at the trial yet,
Tiffany James becomes like the poster girl for battered women. Another media outlets going crazy. They were media outlets across the country were using her situation as the prime example of the kind of tragedies that could occur when reports of domestic violence aren't taken seriously and aren't followed up by law enforcement. Because that was the whole thing. Like I have called the police about this nigga and you all have done nothing. So now I took matters into my own hands and I'm being charged with murder.
So the media outlet was really helping her spin that story. Now, the process of investigating abuse goes under a lot of scrutiny. And journalists were saying that this case of Tiffany James was, quote, an American tragedy.
When women who were survivors of domestic abuse rallied for Tiffany, saying that her situation was an unfortunate consequence of women facing these issues being forced to fight back because they felt unprotected by the law. ♪
This episode is brought to you by Target's Black Beyond Measure platform. And an incredible new program on that platform is Illuminating Intersectionality, hosted by Fran of Hey Fran Hey and the Friend Zone podcast.
Chef Jade of all Jades, and Dr. Takiyah Robinson of the Getting Grown podcast. Now this series features dynamic discussions about identity, power, and intersectionality as a tool for honoring the beautiful complexity that is Black womanhood. Conversations cover topics such as race, class, and socioeconomic status, education, food and food access, cultural expression, and more. They're covering it all. We're getting deep on here, okay?
In addition, brilliant black women-owned companies like Mintate Cosmetics, Essie Spice, and Partake Food are highlighted. I'm telling y'all, that's my favorite part. Yeah, it is really nice to hear everybody's different journeys to where they are now. And some people are like, yeah, Essie from Essie Spice, she was like, yeah, my whole family is full of entrepreneurs, but when I wanted to start this, everybody was like, oh. Yeah. And what else are you doing? Oh, and...
Do you have another job lined up? Like, it's so crazy to... Because I definitely got that same energy with this podcast. Oh, my gosh. So many people gave it to us. And we were like, no, like, this is a thing. Like, we really made a business. So make sure that you all check out Illuminating Intersectionality on the Loudspeaker Network's YouTube page.
All three parts of this series are out now and people were able to join the conversation live via Twitter chat. They were tweeting with Fran, Dr. Takiyah, Chef Jade. Also, Target founders were being featured like KJ Miller of Minted Cosmetics, Essie Bartell of Essie Spice, and Denise Woodards of Partake Food.
And some of our favorite black women's social media personalities were all in the conversation. I mean, like Crystal West was tweeting, Sylvia O'Bell, Scottie Beam, Jasmine Lawson, all of them were just like having this really great dialogue, posing good questions, like digging deeper alongside this great dialogue that was happening with Fran, Kia and Jade.
So make sure that you watch the series and you follow the hashtag IIBBM. What's the hashtag, friend? IIBBM. And hashtag Black Beyond Measure to share your perspectives. ♪
So the residents of San Antonio are split. Some are rushing to Tiffany's defense, accusing local authorities of rushing to judgment and rushing to arrest her. They said had the incident occurred in any other part of town, officers would have been slower to make an arrest and for damn sure would have asked more questions. Now, others believe that the police got it right and Tiffany deserves every click of those handcuffs due to the state of the crime scene because...
The apartment was covered in blood. Like, you know, that stab in the back was pretty deep. He's pouring out. He's stumbling across the apartment. So it's everywhere. There's wall-to-wall blood spatter, and the evidence is all there. We have Tiffany confessing to doing the stabbing, and it...
comes clear very fast that this is not going to be a slam dunk in the whole situation. Yes, we have a confession, but the court of public opinion has already started and this is about to be a full-blown media circus. Their burden would be convincing the jury that the murder of Anton Wolford was not a case of self-defense, but in fact, a crime of passion. And they got ready for trial.
So the trial finally began in 2012 and the jury was composed of 10 women and two men. And most believe this would result in a great wave of sympathy for Tiffany's defense. I think I would have been feeling very confident if it was 10 women. I'm like, ladies, hold me down.
I don't even know if it was women of color or not, but also we're thinking about Texas and the women in Texas are a little outrageous, but I would have walked in pretty confident. Yeah. So the prosecution get up there and they're telling them that Tiffany is the aggressor and she's a spurned lover. They said she was jealous, enraged at Antoine's repeated infidelity, and she was furious with the thought of him breaking up with her. Is it infidelity if you're not married?
Yeah, cheating is cheating. But it's like, I guess adultery is when you're married, right? Yeah. Okay, sorry. I'm sorry I cut you off, but that confused me. Go ahead. Um...
They claimed that when Antoine confronted her about ending the relationship, she snapped. They said that she instigated fights and used over-the-top retelling of what led to the physical altercation in the clips of her initial interview to support her theory. They quickly pointed out many options that Tiffany had that day besides opening the door and letting Antoine back in. He was locked out. That was her moment to call the police. And before you open the door, you grab a knife. What are you expecting to do with that knife, Tiffany?
But bottom line, main point they pushed across is, you know, her being the instigator, you can't start a fight and then self-defense. It's just not how the law works. Don't start no shit, won't be no shit. So the defense, they portrayed Tiffany as the every woman. Look at her. She's young. She's smart. She's beautiful. This article about how she has everything going for her, despite the neighborhood that she's been growing up in.
They asked the jury to consider their own teenage daughters and the relationship that they could have been in at the time. Remember that she was young, so her decision-making skills are not fully developed. And not only is she young, but she's a young mother, so...
There's a lot going on in her body at the time. They really leaned into the battered woman syndrome as the catalyst for the stabbing. We do have a documented history of some form of abuse. They argue that if you were violently approached by somebody who had already been physically abusive to you in the past, then there's no reason to believe that, oh, he's just not going to be abusive to me again.
They argue that there were many valid reasons that Tiffany didn't call the police. Now, first of all, they're from East San Antonio. There is a huge level of distrust in that area. Like the...
The area at the time is already known for not trusting the police because the police be running through there all the time on some bullshit. So there's a distrust that people are not considering, especially a white jury, especially a white government is not understanding. It doesn't click with them. So of course she felt like... Right. Of course she didn't. Because...
Why wouldn't you call? I was watching this Rick and Morty episode because I love Rick and Morty. And it was when Mr. Nimbus, if y'all know, y'all know, was there and Mr. Nimbus controls the police. And they were like, hello, there's a creepy man on my lawn, da, da, da, da, da.
well I don't know why it's relevant but yes I am white and the police were like shoot and they came versus like I don't know if he was like if I'm black it was like okay we'll see you when you see you they also were going after Antoine and Antoine's character right he has a drug habit you know he's smoking weed all the time he's a womanizer he got three baby mamas and Tiffany I know about him not all
Three baby mamas under 18 out of wedlock. Look and see who this person is. This is what the defense is doing.
Now, they also called a very close friend of Tiffany to the stand. Her name was Whitney Davis. They called her to the stand to testify about Antoine's violent nature towards Tiffany during Tiffany's pregnancy. And Whitney also recounted two physical arguments that occurred before the stabbing in which Antoine was the aggressor. So Whitney had a little bit of tea. And so then the grand finale, Tiffany takes the stand.
Tiffany is up there and I mean she is crying. She's got it.
thick tears okay she tells this long epic tale of her and Antoine's rocky romance and she really does appear to be extremely remorseful she describes their relationship with graphic violent details and she says that she never wanted Antoine to die never was that her intention she just wanted him to stop hitting her and remember after the first stab he continued to hit her so
For many, both Antoine and Tiffany's friends and family members filled the courtroom. I mean, it was really, really a packed courtroom. And it was the first time that many of them had heard any story of physical abuse in this relationship, any story of them being rocky. They were definitely good at covering it up. Now, for Antoine's side, they were not here for any of that shit.
They didn't believe it. They said that Tiffany is just lying through her little teeth and everything that she's saying is wrapped up in bullshit and it's preposterous. It's hard for them to grieve because they're also outraged by Tiffany.
the statements that Tiffany is making. As Tiffany completed her statement, there really wasn't a dry eye in the house. I mean, people were crying from both sides, whether they were tears of remorse or tears of anger. The vibe in the courtroom really impacted the jury. Last but not least, the defense sets out to prove that it actually was Anton's fault that he died that day.
The defense reminds the jury that during the 911 call, Tiffany was instructed by the dispatcher to apply pressure to Antoine's wound. But when she tried to do so, they could hear...
Antoine snatching away from her and he goes back to thrashing around the house. He's still angry and he's still got this jealousy inside of him due to Tiffany getting all this newfound attention. Newspapers and shit, everybody reaching out. Like, they're like, this is what fueled his anger. This is what fueled his rage. You say Tiffany was instigating? Was she instigating or was she just being a successful young woman and that was a threat to him? Mm-hmm.
The defense also brings up that Antoine's addiction to drugs and his impaired state caused him to be numb to pain of stabbing, which is why he was moving about so effortlessly in the apartment and spreading blood all over the place. It's like he don't even feel shit. What? I feel like I've been high plenty of times, but I will. I mean, it's a great defense for it's a great leg to stand on as a defense. And I would especially to a jury in a state that's very anti-drugs.
In 2012. It's a great defense. But as somebody that smokes weed, like, you pinch me, I'm still going to feel that shit. I don't know. They use it for pain management, don't they? Yeah, but that's for, like, chronic pain. I think that is chronic pain.
It's not chronic pain. The chronic pain, like if you have an injury, it's to relieve that pain. But if you get a new pain, you know what? I'm no doctor. I'm just a recreational smoker.
Long story short, the defense decides to go with the story that Antoine's no good, he's drugged up, he's womanizing, and he is responsible for the actions that led up to his death. By the time the jury leaves to deliberate, no one is feeling confident about how the jury is going to go. The defense is shaky, the prosecution is shaky. Everybody in the courtroom got their fingers crossed and their toes too. Now...
Now, one thing for sure, it definitely felt like this trial would come down to a decision of who was truly deserving of justice. Was it Antoine and his family? On July 26, 2012, after nine long hours of deliberation, everybody gets their answer. The jury returns to the tension-loaded courtroom with a guilty verdict of...
Manslaughter. Basically, it's like the jury came to a decision like, we all know she committed the murder. We're not going to let her just ride off into the sunset free of accountability. But,
We do also see that there are circumstances which may have led her to this, and we don't necessarily want to call her a murderer. That's a lot, you know what I mean? So we're going to meet here in the middle. You know, you deserve some time, but we're not going to take your whole life, and we're going to call it a day. Antoine's family was devastated.
They cried and cried, and it just really broke them that Tiffany was being sentenced to a far lesser charge. Tiffany was brought in for sentencing the following day with really high hopes. Okay, it's manslaughter. You know, this happened in 2009. We're in 2012. Maybe I'll get time served, and I'll be out on probation.
And I don't know why she had this idea that even for manslaughter, she was only going to get two years time served because you still did stab him in the front and in the back. So...
Her hopes were very high. Clearly, the judge had not been moved. And he was like, hold on, girl. Don't start trading your commissary and giving your belongings to everybody in the jail because you're going to go to jail for a solid nine years. So we have combed the internet streets looking for any sign of what Tiffany's life might have looked like since she was supposed to be released from prison a year ago. However, we found very little about her.
Now, her son would have only been 14 at the time of her release, and she would have been just a fresh 29 years old. So, you know...
you know, it's hopeful to believe that, you know, despite the mystery surrounding the motive of her stabbing Antoine, that she may have spent that time getting her shit together and just is back into being a mom and going about her life. Maybe she's, you know, focused on her and only her now. She ain't got to worry about nothing else but her and her son and getting right back on the path. So hopefully she is working towards that. Yeah. So I guess the only thing is that we can hope that she's doing the things that she needs to do.
to get done the things that needs to get done and be a productive member of society. All right, y'all, we're not going to let you forget it. This episode is brought to you by Target's Black Beyond Measure platform. And on this platform, we have the mini series Illuminating Intersectionality hosted by Hey Fran Hey, Chef Jade and Dr. Takiyah Robinson.
That's right, Illuminating Intersectionality is just one of those incredible offerings you can find on Target's Black Beyond Measure platform. It also stocks all of your favorite brands. You can humidity-proof your hair with Miel Organics or keep your smile poppin' with vibrant colors from Thread Beauty. And of course, do not forget Tabitha Brown for Target. Mm-hmm.
Everybody's favorite auntie. But outside of that, Black Beyond Measure also supports important programming just like illuminating intersectionality. Make sure y'all hop on, join the conversation, live chats with us.
with Fran, Dr. Takiyah Robinson, Chef Jade of all Jades. We have your favorite black women media personalities out here. You know them, I know them. Crystal West, Sylvia O'Bell, Scottie Bean, Jasmine Lawson. They're all here. They're all talking. Come be a part of the conversation. Make sure you follow us. Use the hashtags IIBBM. What is it, Mariah? IIBBM. And hashtag Black Beyond Measure to share your perspectives.
All right, y'all. Now it's time for... Well, I'm not black. I'm OG. I ain't do it, but if I did, this is how I would have got away with it. I ain't do it, but if I did, if I locked that nigga out of the house, I'm just going to keep him locked out of the house. Like, he does have a home to go to. Right, because you don't even live here. And he'd be there, though, right? He'd be there, but you don't live here. And if I say I'm done, then I'm done, nigga, go.
And I would have probably just like taken his personal belongings and put them out the fuck side. Throw them out the window. You can still be crazy without killing nobody. Throw them shits out the window. And maybe your trip to Houston would have been cut short. You probably would have had to stay home with your baby. But you'd have been all right. Or let him know you want your baby. He'll be at my mama's house, as we discussed.
And you can pick him up from there, but you're not going to pick him up from here. Period, poo. I found out about that third baby mama might have sent me over. That'd be the one. I ain't do it, but if I did, you know, I was going to say she got to have a paper trail, but I can't tell her how to be so specific in her paper trail, but her paper trail wasn't strong enough. I ain't do it, but if I did, as soon as that nigga got in there pinning me up, I'd have been yelling for my sister to call 911.
Right. Go ahead and get him on the phone because it's about to be a doozy. Yeah.
I ain't do it, but if I did, I just feel like they were just so young and dumb. And I just, I look at like my high school relationships and how quickly they could have turned this violent. I ain't do it, but if I did, I would probably have been in like some young mother support group or something like that. Because at the end of the day, the day before you turn 15, you had a baby. Nobody knows what you're really going through. Yeah. Nobody. They may understand it. And I really feel like there was a bit of postpartum there because
And I, nobody knows what you're going through. I would have probably had to be like, I need to be involved with some other people that really understand the shit that I'm going through with this ain't shit nigga. Like if he really ain't shit and he was really doing all of these things, I think that there is always some type of resource that you can reach out to even before it got violent or even while it was violent, you decided to stay. Like you want to say I ain't do it, but if I did, I would have left that nigga. But back to her being violent,
15 years old, like, and be alone in this shit. Like, I think being scared of just having a baby alone would, like, make you put up with a lot more than you probably should. Especially at that age. Like, I have to put myself in the mind of...
15 year old me and I was 15 year old me even though I didn't have a baby and I wasn't in an abusive relationship at that time I was still putting up with more shit and doing shit that I would never do now putting up with shit that I would never put up now it's not even a conversation now like you wouldn't have gotten past this point
there are boundaries that were crossed that I didn't have at that time that I do have now you know so it's very and I think that having those resources around her like you are young and impressionable and clearly things aren't going the way that you want them to it's time for us to figure out how to get you some type of resources some type of help I ain't do it but if I did you
you know, at least somebody has to know what's going on. Like her daddy did, her friends did. It's just his side that didn't know what was going on. I think I would have started snitching because when Redacted number- That's what I'm wondering. I'm like, I'm trying to figure out if I would have told his side of the family, but it really depends on what type of relationship I had with his side of the family.
Like, even if I don't want to... But they said they were close. I'm going to let some marks be showing and somebody going to ask me what the fuck going on and I'm going to tell them what the fuck going on. Like... Right. Because even the whole busted lip situation, there is a picture of her with her busted lip because they took a picture of it. So it's not like it wasn't undocumented, but they didn't know. If you ask me, I ain't fall downstairs. I'm going to tell you what really went on. Because when I sent Wusser College to jail back in Florida...
I called her mama, your child in jail. And here are the pictures. Do with this information as you please. Because y'all not going to sit here and say I'm crazy. Right. This is what happened. And they're like, I can't believe you called my mama. Because she needs to know her child ain't shit. Before she gets to talking like, no, not mine. Yes, yes, yours. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Precisely. All right. Parole or no parole? She is out.
What do you feel about... I think her sentencing was just fine. A smooth... Yeah. Smooth... It was nine. I think a smooth 10 would have been nice. She got out at 29. Hopefully the prison conditions weren't so bad that she still has, like, a life. She's still in childbearing years. Her body is still at a place where she can...
do things, hopefully. Yeah, I agree with what she got. I'm fine with that. Yeah, I'm totally fine with that. I just feel so bad because sometimes people are in prison for their childbearing years and they get out at like 40 and, you know, that's super high risk. And those are things that I think about. But yeah,
I hope that she was able to repair her relationship with her son because I feel like that was probably really hard as a child knowing that your mom's not here because mom stabbed dad.
And dad is dead. So mom's in prison. And here I am at 14, the age that my mom birthed me. And now she's getting out of prison. I can only imagine. I hope I just hope and pray that that family is going through some type of counseling and making sure that they're all straight, because that's a lot for a 14 year old boy to go through a 14 year old child to go through it. You know, but that's all I got.
All right. Let's read some reviews. All right. This one is from Cola. It came in our email. It says, I just want you guys to know that I love, love, love your show. I've shared my listening experience with my sister and friends. Y'all keep it up and grow, grow, grow.
We trying, girl. This one's another one from the DMs. I've been clearing out the unread messages. This one says, I don't sit still long enough to listen to anything, but y'all make me have several seats. I love this podcast. Great job, ladies. Thanks. All right. Thank you so much. We're so appreciative. You guys are so great. We love you so much.
If you want to keep up with us, you can email us for ad space just to say hi. Leave us a review. You can do that at sisters who kill podcast at Gmail dot com. Follow us on Twitter at sisters who kill. You can join us on Instagram sisters who kill pod on TikTok sisters who kill podcast and join the discussion group. As long as you are answering my questions and you speak like, you know, in a way that Mike Zuckerberg can't see that we're talking about murder. Anything else, friend?
Well, before we get out of here, I just wanted to thank Target for taking over this episode in support of Illuminating Intersectionality series. Go check it out. Go check out Hey Fran Hey of the Friend Zone podcast, Chef Jade of All Jades, and Dr. Takiyah Robinson of the Getting Grown podcast. Get deep into this subject of intersectionality, what it means, what it means to you.
what it feels to be in this perspective. So be sure to check out Illuminating Intersectionality on the Loudspeaker Network's YouTube page
It's premiered on November 7th. All the episodes are available for you to watch now. Join the conversation. Join the conversation. There's a hashtag that can connect you. I-I-B-B-M and hashtag Black Beyond Measure. Share your perspectives. I'm going to go and search the hashtag and I'm going to be seeing what y'all saying. So, you know, be a part of the conversation.