Killing Dad: The Crystal Howell Story - 3: Troubled Teen Turns Runaway

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Crystal and her dad’s close relationship is tested, leading her to run away for relief, but a friend’s concerned parent calls the police to help bring her home. The incident would leave a permanent mark. 

The following episode contains graphic material and distressing themes that may be triggering to some audiences. This is a global talent prepaid call from Crystal, an in-mata and some correctional center with calls with the monitored and recorded purchase. Crystal Howell had, by virtue of the unfortunate turn of events, been forced to live with her dad in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. She struggled to acclimate to the environment, far away from her friends and home in Georgia. It was a new routine.

With her short, bouncy, brunette curls that danced around her sizable piercing blue eyes, Crystal tried to make the best of it and adapt to her father's way of life. It was a far cry from what she was used to. I got a school. You could take me up in the bus stop. We would do a daily hike each day. We would have dinner. We would sit on the porch. In my dad's call it family bonding time. He was kind of being sarcastic about it. And so we sit on the porch and we would watch the sun go down and there's this cross,

a few mountains over. I think that mountain is called Mount Lynn Lowry. And so every night, they light a big cross. And so we would stay out here until they cross with us. Young, innocent love is not without its fair share of teen drama. Having only been dating for a few months, Crystal and Tyler Lee kept the relationship going, despite the long distance. Crystal longed for the person that understood her the most. Her boyfriend, Tyler. Crystal Longed for the person that understood her the most, her boyfriend Tyler, but young

love can also fuel a bad joke. It's not going to bad for him. I go inside of the stall and I just blitz my shirt up and I'm like, it's the bottom of the Christmas picture. Nothing he has ever seen before. I didn't know if he was in the store or not when he took those pictures. But yeah, I mean, of course, when we were teenagers, you know. So I finished the picture and then we're still texting

when I go back in class and I guess I'm getting over-compensation. I'm not eyeing my phone well enough so the teacher comes and takes my phone. And so I think there's a couple periods later. The principal call I'm going to is often. So I go down there and the principal will be with a mail he is sitting at his desk and there's a female all sitting in the room and they're just like telling me what they're doing in my phone and that my phone can't vibrate and vibrate so he's sitting at his desk and notice that there are some sensitive images on there and so they tell me that they're gonna come

on that and that this is just a good, good, good child for homeroom. They were just making a big deal about it. We worried that long distance of relationships. Yeah, I do remember the sex thing and stuff, but yeah, that, you know, that was just normal. Raising a teenage daughter in love would prove to be taxing on any dad, but what Crystal was about to tell him would change their relationship. They call my dad and told him to come pick me up.

So my dad came and I was saying to the office and he clearly could stop. He's made a car to you and he's like, no wait in the car. And so I go out there and I'm just like, I'm in trouble. This isn't good. And he comes out of the car and he's yelling at me, like, why would you do something to do to what's going on? Because there's things that you're

showing inside the sexual abuse. And I didn't fit in the thing, because they never say anything like that. And he went out sitting in there. So he kind of caught me off guard, and I just started crying, because I was like, I felt like everything was catching up to me that I was like, I felt like everything was catching up to me

that I was keeping hidden. Because I had to tell them about the sexual abuse that were seen from my uncle. And so I'm crying and he kind of slowed down and it's looking at me and he's looking worried. Because I don't cry a lot. So it was very uncommon for him to see something like that. So he could tell that something was wrong.

And that's when he was like, what's going on? And I told him. Crystal says she finally got up the nerve to tell her dad about the sexual abuse she went through at the hands of her uncle, abuse that happened while she lived with her mom in Georgia. Immediately afterward, I thought I'm guilty of calling an incident that I was like, oh, I didn't see a calling, but I could tell from my dad that I had a conversation he was talking to his lawyer

who was making a good stuff. So I didn't feel kind of happy because my dad was doing the same for me that my mom had done. So I felt a little bit less worried about telling him. Crystal finally felt she had an ally who believed her, but Crystal's reveal about her uncle may have been too big of a bombshell for her dad to handle. After the call with his lawyer, Crystal and her dad never discussed it again.

I'm Melissa McCarty, and I'm Kelly McLear. We are Emmy-nominated investigative journalists, and we've been talking to Crystal Howell since her dad's murder in 2014 Eight years after Michael Howell's murder at 25 years old crystal is telling her story We bring you the exclusive series killing dad a first-degree mistake first degree mistake. Crystal was hoping she finally had an advocate in her dad when it came to her claims of being molested by her uncle. The Michael House attention fell on the sexting with her older boyfriend Tyler instead. I just come up one day to go to the bathroom,

and there's not a bathroom door, and I'm like, where's the bathroom door at? She might have told me I could not be trusted to use the bathroom door on myself, so just the bathroom door, I'm just, and me and Gunn is finding in the bathroom, and I'm like, he's trying to take the bathroom door at his, but that's a little bit extreme.

I can understand the intervention door, but the bathroom door, where I have to shower, I need the bathroom. So, the bathroom is right in the living room. So, my dad has a recliner chair and it's basically right in plain view of the bathroom. So, it's not like it's just all summering room. Like, it's in the view of the bathroom. So it's not like it's all summering and room like it. It's in the middle of everything. Did he do that as punishment?

To make her the sex thing into this. Yeah, her the sex thing into this. That's awkward. How long did the door remain off the hinges? Probably about two months, that's saying maybe one to half. the hinges. Crystal says her dad's mood swings slowly changed the way she'd function each day, leaving her always uncertain and anxious. just being able to talk to him and be myself to be on like, she might be making the wrong mood. Like, questioning everything I do basically, when I'm putting the dish in the dishwasher, am I putting them in the order that you like to send in?

Am I loading this right? Am I watching the laundry right? Am I breaking right? I'm not sure what's going to happen to me. I just feel a little bit chinchot times because I don't want to do something that's going to piss them off. I don't want to disappoint him. She felt her home was no longer a sanctuary and her dad no longer a best friend to confide in. My office is already kind of lacking.

I'm already kind of awkward in this already thinking it's myself in social situations. So from my house, I've been on this place where I'm comfortable to kind of open up and go to the showroom. Now, I need for me to have to feel like I'm at home too now. It's kind of feels like I'm feeling a big trap. Tyler says Crystal was ping pongponged between two parents, often having to choose the better option in the moment.

The issue I think was with her is she had two parents that had each other's guts more than they cared about raising their child. And it's facing the issue that they should have seen with her. Crystal internalized the actions of her parents to be signs of discontent for her. Now she told me she was abused more by her mother and it was more of an emotional abuse for her mom and stuff she said she would get from her mom. And me, I had physical and emotional abuse for my dad.

My dad is a prisoner for five, and he's never getting out. So we had this connection there, and the difference is, I didn't really get the therapy. She didn't get the therapy, and I think we started to find that therapy within each other. So like, she was very emotionally immature, and said that he felt like,

I felt like she felt like everything that happened to her was that she deserved it. Crystal says she was growing emotionally weak. At this point, she wasn't speaking to her mom, Christina, and was walking a fine line with her dad. Her friend Taylor remembers when Crystal would just disappear from time to time. Or regardless of who it was with,

she was constantly trying to get out of her house or have someone with her at the house. She never wanted to be alone at her house with her dad. And it would be like two or three, sometimes like three or four days where she would just like disappear. She decided living elsewhere would be a better option. That is when her title of a troubled teen turned into

the runaway. Crystal wasn what happened to her? Crystal wasn't talking to her mom, and the relationship with her dad was growing more unstable by the day. She felt running away, was the best solution. I'd always been at Freddy. I was staring her for brains, her face, her face, her face. It would be so better if've never really thought about. Like, okay, if I'm going out to live on the streets,

what can happen to me then, but on thinking of it, what can happen to me if I stay? Crystal packs a bag of clothes and tells her dad she's staying at her friend Jennifer's house for the weekend. But in fact, her plan was to couch surf as long as she could. So we're at this football game,

and my van just in the back of the truck of the random guy she was seeing. And so about that time, I'm wandering around kind of by myself just sneak away from her. And I did go up to some random guys like, hey, y'all can y'all take me somewhere like I need to ride and you know being a pretty young girl like guys are thinking oh yeah I'm gonna jump on that I'm taking her so I find a guy to take me um he drops me all the Nashville Texas South 40 so I go into the party and I'm just thinking, I don't really have a plane. I'm asleep.

I'm like, well, I'm awake at home. I'll figure it out as I go. Like, I'm smart. I can wing it. And so I'm hanging out with Guy and nothing happens. We're just hanging out and he's a college student. So we're back in dorm and And we saw a sleep in the next morning, we woke up to the sound of a phone by bringing on a desk. So he used his phone because I have a phone, but it's all, I don't have it on because I wouldn't be able to be trapped or anything. So my dad had found out from the record that Verizon was

wireless, that I was with this guy, and he's threatening him. And the guy doesn't know, I'm like 14 years old, I believe at the time. And so he's called to me and he's like, I've got a 14 year old in my dorm room. Like this is not good. Basically, you need to go, like, I don't know where you're going to go, but you're not going to stay here. So I just kind of get passed around, like to people that they like just stranger. I don't know like just friends

and friends and friends. And that's my end up in the house of this guy. I don't know. He's named Owen. Owen's mom is Michaela Denny. She remembers the first time Crystal came to her home. He was having a good kids over one night, and she was one of those kids. They were up all night. And I was, we had a small house. It's not huge. But they spent a lot of time on the front porch.

He was having a hard time. He didn't really want to go home. Yeah, well, the mom was there the whole time, but she was like very laid back, and she's very friendly. But anytime Owen would leave the house of his girlfriend, you know, I would kind of go and so I would just kind of hang out with him basically like a third wheel. And, you know, they'd talk to me like,

because they know I'm a runaway, so they're like, why should I leave? And now, I just basically, I didn't give a full explanation, but I was just like, I'm just here to home like my dad hits me sometimes and I just don't want to be there right now. I get so hot. And they're like, okay, cool. So a couple days past, and the mom's just like,

how long is this girl gonna stay with us? Like, what's up? It's like, I've never seen her before. Do you even know her? And I guess he tells her like, well, this is a situation. I'm not going to have a teenager in my house. You know, with a bunch of boys here, and she's saying, you know, I've been abused, you know, and not do something about it. I felt like he was in a decent situation. I just felt like

we needed to call this thing. That I wasn't comfortable taking her home. And she agreed to that. It was pretty quiet. I mean, Jett, she had the kids that the other kids that were here were friends friend and they were very supportive of her. Everybody was real quiet. She went off and you know, she went to a corner of the desk and the corner of the porch and talked to the police. I think she didn't want to go home.

I think she was afraid of her dad. And I hate to say that because I didn't know the man. I don't know what to say. You know, I said,'s a best feeling I got. So we're sitting out on my side of an enclosed and like a stringed-in porch. Like we're not in the house, we're not talking to him. I'm sitting outside kind of.

And he's just basically like looking at me. And he's making kind of nervous because I haven't really had very many encounters with the I've been taking out of school So I'm just like is this a good guy or a bad guy like what do I say? What do I not say? Because I want help I don't want my dad to get in trouble like I don't want to see him back in jail So I just tell him I was like well my dad hit me and I'm just here to go home Your what's gonna happen if I do go there.

And he was like, well, I'm going to take you home and it seems like a safe there. He said, I'm trying to know the stuff. So if it's not safe, then I won't make you go in. And so that's why I'm like, OK, cool. He's going to go figure something out. And then maybe he can get some help. Crystal gave the officer her trust.

She was relieved thinking this could be the answer. The drive home with the officer was an excruciating 45 minutes. It was pretty quiet. It was a silence and so quiet that you can hear the wheels rolling and you just stare out the window and he's not saying anything. All of the hopes she had in that moment for a turning point with her dad vanished with one sound. The car he drove down the driveway and when he sees our house I hear him laugh.

Like I'm kind of under his breath. Like I haven't seen him in the car like is this girl more real? I mean it's a big house. We have a land river park in the driveway. It's in this nice area. So I feel like in his head he's thinking, what can be wrong with this girl's life? She lives here like,

what can possibly be met stuff about it. What the officer saw was the sprawling mountain retreats and the high-priced vehicle in the driveway. But what he didn't foresee was the permanent mark that would be left on crystal. He knocked on the door. It doesn't take long for an end to come. Now, my dad doesn't really see much. So, he's at the door immediately,

the dog is walking, and I just kind of slide in like now I'm inside the house, and I'm just over there with the dog like hanging out. And they're just talking about my dad's like, you know, she's a troubled teen, she just wants the fuck against the system, like, I just need to try to get her under control, I'm sorry I won't happen again. And the cops didn't allow me, it's like the idea that it just happens all the time, like, whatever. Just brushes it all. And leave. And I felt kind of stupid to know that even just a little bit like nobody cares what's going on. Nobody is willing to listen.

So what's the point of even speaking up? Crystal says she was told to take a seat at the kitchen table. And he's rolling his water and I'm like, what's going on? Like when that doesn't drink any hot, I don't know what it can be, or whatever, it's that people boil. I'm like, oh no, it's gone on. And I'm just sitting there, and he grabs a turkey baster, and the water is boiling, and it's screaming. And he grabs a turkey baster, and it fills it was all water. And he grabbed my face and like pours the water on him. And his hands are on me like,

creeping my face so hard like he can't close your mouth. And I feel his pain and I spit the water out as fast as I can and it lands on my arm and it burns me there too. And like it's just the pain, it's already fine like you can't, you don't want to breathe because your breath blows the burn, you know. I don't know, it just hurts. And he looked at me and said, this is what happened to Stitches

and just walks out of the room and I'm just, they are kind of on the floor like, fill out my chair like the pain. And I'm just like, I'm not going anybody else again. This is what happened. Crystal, it sounds like this memory and this incident is really, really hard for you. Can you tell us why? Yeah, yeah.

This, like, I didn't expect that to happen. I was just trying to do the right thing, I was trying to help. And from both angles, like, I'm not getting the results. I want the police or help the me. My dad is doing something crazy, but I feel like I would only have been happening in like a hostel movie or something. Like who does that? Like who's brain thinks of that?

And then afterward, it was like this T-catal that was on a, I've never seen it before, but after this, it just, he left it out on the stone. It was always there. So every time I'm in the kitchen, I look at it, and I remember what happened. He referred to as a snitch for two months. He said, instead of your name.

Yeah. Yeah. He referred to as a snitch for two months, he said instead of your name. The scars and marks on Crystal's neck and throat did not go unnoticed by her friends, and the moniker of snitch, given to her by her dad, is seared into Christel's mind. But Christel tried again around a way, and this time to stay away as long as she could. Once again, she reached out to Owen and his mom, Makayla, for help. The Christel called my son, and Owen dropped everything and came to me and asked if we could go pick her up.

She doesn't think she, these kids thought it meant for the helper. And I didn't know Crystal that well, except from the first night. And Owen was the assistant that she needed to ride. And so we went and got her, brought her back here. That's the night we woke up the next day and she had gone. And so the vicious cycle of running away continued. Each time it ended with Michael finding Crystal and bringing her home to the mountaintop.

On one unforgettable day, she waited for a calmer moment to ask her dad a question, she'd hope would create a turning point in the relationship. It was a waiting question for a scared teen apprehensive of the answer she would receive. We were sitting on the porch like we do every day and just kind of staring at a mountain and talking about stuff.

And for a while, silly things, like just the making conversations. And but over time, it became obsessions over my mom and obsessions over the past, obsessions over just the brain and things. I was like, when did dad do you, well I started to act like this, and I was like, do you remember when we used to talk on the phone every day when I was back in Georgia? He's like, yeah, of course I remember how could I forget something like that. That was a big thing for us.

During the song called when I was younger, he always told me it's first of them. Me and you versus everybody else. So on this afternoon, I asked him when did it stop being us first and then to us first to see each other, like, I don't understand. And he just kind of got quiet. And he didn't really say anything. But Michael did respond in aned way. On the next episode of Killing Dad, Crystal gets her first shooting lesson in the woods

that would soon become a first-degree mistake for murder. He grabs the gun and he tells me, okay, one pumpkin's your mom, one pumpkin's your second dad and one phone could do your sit there. But you're on to run on me and I see I'm scared and please go now Thank you.