Murder With My Husband - 56. Melissa Dohme - The Brave Girlfriend

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

On today’s episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the story of Melissa Dohme. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBPTh1LZAb0&t=2526s – Unique True Crime Obsessed https://handsacrossthebay.org/melissa-dohmes-story/ https://www.today.com/news/woman-marries-paramedic-who-helped-save-her-life-after-brutal-t109572?cid=sm_npd_td_fb_ma Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband  If you or someone you love are going through domestic violence, speak up. Call The National Domestic Abuse Hotline: [phone] Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yes, you energy. Energy for everything. Casp the banner now to learn more. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband.

And I'm the husband. We just want to say hi to everyone. If you are here from TikTok, hi. We love you all. Thank you for joining in. If you are listening on podcast, please subscribe. Please leave us a review. It helps us out so much. And if you are here on YouTube, please turn on notifications and follow us and also leave a comment. We reply to, well, we try to reply to all of our comments. We love talking with you guys. So thank you for commenting.

We are going to just jump right into it today. Garrett, what is your 10 seconds? My 10 seconds. Well, I bought a barbecue. Oh, he did. Or a grill barbecue, whatever you want to call it. Peyton and I were discussing whether it's called a barbecue or a grill last time. Yeah.

Anyways, we bought one. Yeah, we did. We haven't set it up yet, though. It's still just an hour. Actually, because the people who delivered it were supposed to set it up, but then they said they couldn't. And I'm like, well, now that means we have to set it up and we're not very good at that stuff. So we'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll video it for you guys. I don't know what happened. Lose brought it said, oh, free delivery and set up. So they knocked on our door. He came out with the grill and he said, hey, I have to put this in your garage.

And I asked him about set up and he said, Oh, we can't do that. And so anyways, that's what I was so confusing. So yeah, now we have to try to set up the girl. So we we're going to do it. We'll be fine. We'll figure it out. Okay. So our case this week was suggested by Michelle Ruth. Her Instagram is Michelle underscore, Ruth underscore. So thank you, Michelle Michelle for sending this in. Our sources are a YouTube channel called Unique True Crime Obsessed, hands across the bay.org and today.com. Our episode this week takes place in Clearwater, Florida, which is a beautiful city along the coast in the United States with stunning beaches. It's the middle of the night on January 23rd, 2012. A girl named Serena Tolson is hanging out with her friend

whose name is Israel at a local park. While sitting on a picnic table, they hear a scream. And they kind of sit there and are like, well, it's like 3 a.m. So that was a little weird. And then they hear another scream. So they both began running towards the scream because it kind of sounded like someone was being hurt. It wasn't like a scary scream. It was more like someone was needing help. And so that's why they went

towards if you're running or if you're wondering why they ran towards a scream in the middle of the night because I probably wouldn't have done that. And the scene they came across was gruesome. A man was on top of a woman in the middle of the street, stabbing her over and over again at 3 a.m. Serena runs up and yells for the man to stop. She yells, you know, you're killing her stop. Israel runs up and pushes the man off of the victim. And the man then gets up and

runs over to his car and opens the door. Oh no. Serena begins calling the cops at this point. So the man that walked back to his car, when he walked back, he actually was getting a bigger knife out. And then he walked back to the victim and stabbed the woman again. And at this point, Israel and Serena are kind of backing off the scene because they feel threatened and they feel in danger. They had already tried to push this man off. He obviously wasn't backing up so all they could do was call the cops and kind of safely distance themselves. But both of them heard this stab, this final fatal stab and she's actually on the phone with the 911 operator when this happens and you hear it happen and then you hear her freak out so we're going to play that for you now. This is so brutal.

So after this the man just got up and walked away with the knife in his hand and got back into his car. So now we're gonna back up. Melissa Dome was born the baby of her family. She loved to play outside with her sister and the neighborhood kids. She was a good student in high school and dreamed of being a baby nurse when she grew up. Melissa's mom says that Melissa was a sweet girl that never got into much trouble. She took college classes in high school. She had straight A's and she also worked at dairy curl, which is a small business in clear

out in clear water by the beach. Like dairy queen? I'm assuming some I'm assuming it's a play on it, but dairy curl is kind of popular in clear water. So I'm assuming anyone who lives there knows about this place. And the job at dairy curl was a really fun high school job for Melissa because a lot of kids from school would stop there on their way to and from the beach because it was right by the beach. They kind of would hang out there for the night.

It was definitely like a hang out place, a cool place, which made work way more fun for Melissa because all of her friends were constantly coming in all the time. And at this time, I guess it was kind of like the spot to be in in her grade. Not to mention Melissa worked hard and this made it so she could buy a car for herself and pay for things on her own, which was important to her, but also made her kind of like the cool friend because she had a little bit more than everyone else.

So when Melissa was a junior at Clearwater High School, she met a boy named Robert Burton, who was a senior at the time. So she was a junior, he was a senior. And we all know how that kind of goes. Why is it so cool to date the older guys? I don't know. But Robert was funny and sweet and had two different colored eyes,

which kind of made him stand out. He had a blue and a brown eye. By the way, I'm older than Payton. There you go. I did. I'm married the older guy. So he had even stopped in, Robert had even stopped into the dairy curl a couple times and had seen Melissa and Melissa was kind of excited when Robert and her started talking because she had also seen him at the dairy curl and was interested in this older guy at

school. So after a couple months in October of 2009, after Robert had graduated high school, him and Melissa began officially dating. As Robert and Melissa became more official, Robert's mom actually got remarried, and so Robert kind of began spending a lot of time away from home. He felt kind of like the outcast of his own family because all these new kids came in.

And Melissa's family really took him under their wing, welcomed him into the family, kind of made her new fresh boyfriend, part of the family welcome. Yeah. It seemed like to Melissa's friends that her and Robert were completely falling for each other. They had the first love kind of going on,

you know, like it's the first love, they're both into it, like wholeheartedly. They were inseparable, counting the months they were together like, it's our one month anniversary. That type of thing. But like most teenage love stories, things didn't stay rainbows and butterflies for long. Melissa found out that Robert had been smoking cigarettes behind her back and lying to her about it. Melissa was sad because he had consistently lied about this covering up the smell like it had been a long time lie and that kind of hurt her feelings. But Robert promised her

that he would quit. Once she found out he was like, I'm done, I won't do it again. Melissa hoped this was a one time thing like just a bump in the road. But as time went on, more and more issues began to emerge with this young couple. Melissa had actually won multiple awards for her academics at school. She's now a senior. And instead of being congratulatory, Robert began making sarcastic remarks in front of Melissa's family about how, oh, it's just Melissa. She gets everything. She's perfect. Yaddi, yaddi, yaddi, like sarcastically, like almost bitter, kind of like I've graduated high school and I'm just kind of sticking around with my girlfriend

who's still in high school and just getting all this recognition. Got it. Melissa also found out she was accepted into the college of her dreams, but Robert convinced her to go to the community college near him. You know what college that was? It was like a predominant college,

but it didn't say which college. Okay. Melissa told everyone, actually, it was my decision to go to the community college. So she was kind of covering up for Robert because everyone was like, why are you staying here? You guys can date long, or he can follow you there and she's like, no, no, no, I want to go to community college. But she knew that she had actually made the decision solely for him. She was giving up her dream. Despite this road, Bump Melissa held to her plan of becoming a nurse and began working shifts at the local hospital while doing nursing school

at this local college. It was at this time that Robert actually started showing up at her work and fighting with her on shift. What did he not work? No, so he would show up and she'd be like, hey, I still have a lot, like a lot of time left on shift and he was like, it's fine, I'll just hang out here. So he would show up and be like, I'm just gonna hang out and she'd be like, well, no, like this is my place of work.

Yeah, I got more to hang out. And then he'd start yelling. Like, what do you mean I can't just hang out? I'm just supposed to sit here and follow you along while you just pursue your dreams and like people would hear, he'd make a scene at work. Get in person by the way. Yeah, and he did a things.

And he did it multiple times. Okay. So he also began keeping tabs on her at all times and insisting that all of her free time be with him. If they'd go to a party together, he'd like, just sit there and not say anything and be like, why are you talking to them? Why aren't you hanging out with me?

Why aren't you talking to me? It was very controlling. Very controlling. This also was the point where the name calling kind of became a consistent thing in their relationship. He would call her dumb and crazy. Gaslight her. Robert was twisting every scenario, every fight to be Melissa's

fault. Like she'd be like, well, you can't yell. I mean, like, Daddy Beck, well, you're the one making me do a type thing. In the spring of like, well, you can't yell at me like, that you're the one making me do it. Yeah. type thing. In the spring of 2011, so they've been dating, I mean, they met in 2009. Melissa's sister invited her out to the beach with a couple other friends at the party. One of their friends brought up a story that had to do with Melissa's ex-boyfriend, like a funny story like, oh, remember the time that he did this?

And Melissa got so nervous because Robert was there and she knew that would make him mad that they had brought up her ex-boyfriend. So on the way up to their car after the party was over, Robert kind of kept purposely flat-tiring Melissa, which if you don't know what that means, he was stepping on the back of her shoes as she was walking ahead of him. And she asked him to stop because she knew it wasn't in a playful manner.

He was doing this because he was mad. It was an answer to do you have an anger. But he didn't want to like, you know, full on hitter or like, and he didn't want to bring it up because he knew it was stupid. But at the same time, he like needed to show her. Do something. Yeah. And so he just kept doing it over and over.

And so Melissa kind of began running away from him after asking him to stop. She just started running so that he wouldn't keep doing it. And Robert chased her. So Melissa turned around when they kind of got up to the top of the hill and told him stop chasing me. Like this isn't funny. I'm not playing. And Robert shoved her down and Melissa fell backwards down the hill, like fell down the hill. Oh my God. And scraped her leg up pretty bad. She was bleeding. And this had kind of like been loud because she'd been like, stop, stop, you know?

And so the group of friends is still back down on the beach. And so Robert ran back to the group of friends and said, oh my gosh, Melissa fell down a hill and they were already running up to be like, what's going on? And so they all run up to find Melissa and Melissa tells them, I didn't fall. He pushed me down the hill. And so this is when it becomes awkward because it's

this group of friends and Robert starts screaming at Melissa, why are you lying? Why are you lying to them? I didn't touch you. I didn't push you. And so Melissa's sister, who's there, tries to de-escalate the situation. She just says, guys, stop. I will take Melissa home. Robert, you just leave. That's so intense. Yeah, you don't need to fight. And that would be really awkward.

It's awkward. And so people don't know what to say. And they're like, you don't need to sit here and fight. I'll just take her home and you just leave. Like, obviously, this is not a good situation right now. Melissa tried to stay away from Robert after he pushed her down the hill that day, but Robert began threatening suicide. Like if you leave me, I will kill myself and so Melissa couldn't leave. Obviously

Melissa's family did not want her seeing Robert anymore after her sister came home and was like, hey, I think he pushed her down the hill. Yeah. And they were not happy that he had physically hurt her, but after only a few weeks, Melissa and Robert were back together. Does it pretty toxic relationship? Very. It was now the summer of 2011, and Melissa and Robert had been dating for about a year and a half. And ever since the first case of physical assault when he pushed her down that hill, the abuse just got worse and basically spiraled out of control. One night, they were alone at Melissa's house and she's still lived with her parents.

So it's not like her apartments, her parents. And they get into a tiny argument that's kind of stupid and about nothing, but Robert just began strangling her. And Melissa finally got him off her and ran outside into the front yard. She was hyperventilating, having a panic attack, and Robert ran out after her and began yelling at her to get back in the house,

stop causing a scene. The neighbors are going to come out, stop overreacting, get back in the house. Even though he had just been straight. He's crazy. Yeah. She obviously didn't want to go back in the house, but she didn't have shoes. She scared of Robert. She didn't want to go back in the house, but she didn't have shoes. She scared a robber

She didn't have her keys nothing and so when she went back into the house Robert was holding some alcohol and some antibiotics of hers Threatening that if Melissa left him he would kill himself. So anytime she was like, hey, I'm gonna leave like this is it I'm done. He would threaten to do that and so she would fill It's completely unfair and she would feel completely stuck Melissa was hysterical just sobbing like Campy leave this is what's going on camp believe this is my life and so then Robert then grabbed a knife and backed her into a corner and Said if you don't stop crying. I'm going to kill you. Like, stop crying, shut up.

And so she's like, did she call the police at this point? No, because she, he's got an iPhone on her. She doesn't have her phone. She's just like literally having a panic attack. So she tries to stop crying. And Robert says, if you don't stop crying right now, I'm going to kill you.

And then I'm going to wait for your whole entire family to get home and I'm going to kill them one by one as well. He's insane. Literally insane. So Melissa just felt completely trapped at this point, like what she's supposed to do. Okay you guys, we are getting into an ad. I know you guys have both heard the story about how Garrett and I were both paying separately for peacock and then we used rocket money and realized how dumb we are and are so happy

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Melissa began lying to her family and hiding things, which is a tell-tell sign of domestic violence abuse, is that you get cut off from your whole family, you're hiding the actions you won't tell anybody. She also began buying Robert his cigarettes because feeding his addiction of them kind of made him more calm. Like it led to less outbursts for him. And so she was kind of like,

if I give him like and buy him cigarettes, he won't hurt. And so she was kind of like, if I give him like and buy him cigarettes, he won't hurt me. And this is kind of interesting to me because the first indication of problems began with her not wanting him to smoke cigarettes, right? And now she's buying them for him to make her life easier. Yeah. Which is just so sad.

Like the where it went was so sad. On October 25th, 2011, Robert and Melissa were hanging out with friends when Robert asked her to leave and go by him cigarettes. So they're all hanging out and he's like, hey, go buy me cigarettes. And she's like, no, like we just got here. She didn't wanna leave her friends.

She had been spending money on cigarettes for it. Like she was like, this is not the place I don't wanna do it. I've just had enough, I don't wanna do it. Before, she was like, this is not the place I don't want to do it. I've just had enough, I don't want to do it. Before, so Robert then grabbed Melissa's car keys and was like, fine, I'll go get them and you're coming with me. We're going to go get them together. Before they left, Melissa turned to one of their friends and under her breath said, please follow us to the gas station, I'm not comfortable.

Wow. Which this is the first time she's like she's made in like a trying to reach out to someone like I'm uncomfortable. And so they obviously get to the gas station and Robert asked why the friends followed them and Melissa's like I don't know maybe they needed to come to the gas station too. I don't know why they followed us. And so then they just go back. And after the party, Melissa and Robert got into a huge fight because of this in the driveway of Melissa's family home. And Robert ends up throwing Melissa's wallet, keys, and phone.

Like, they get out of the car and he ends up throwing them around the yard. Trying to make her feel trapped, like, taking her personal life. Why is this guy such a psycho? Yeah. And what is he doing? It's just domestic abuse. It just kind of frustrates me. Like, that's so mean to treat someone like that. Somebody like that. Yeah.

So Melissa began screaming for him to stop. Like they're obviously gonna wake people up. Like this is a big deal. And Robert punches her face and she falls onto the ground and he just gets climbs on top of her and begins punching her because she won't be quiet which is he doesn't want people to come out, obviously. Well, dude, you're punching her.

Exactly. And I'm like, my, she should, you know, she should be screaming. She can be punched in the face. Melissa actually kicks Robert in the balls and he climbs off of her because, you know, men are weak, just kidding. And she gets up and runs to where he had thrown her phone and she dials 911. Like she her phone and she dials 911.

She grabs the phone and dials 911. And then she hesitates to press send because Robert had told her countless times that if she ever told anyone, he would kill her family. Oh, just press send. And we see this a lot with domestic abuse victims because it's just they have so much control over you. So she's like hesitating to press send and then she turns around and sees that Robert is stood up and is coming towards her. So she just presses send and begins running down the road, like just booking it down the road on the phone. The 911 call,

I'm not gonna play it but there's another 911 call here and it's an eight-minute long call and you just hear her He's chasing me. He's hurting me. He's chasing me. Please say saying her address over and over and this 911 call really bothered me because The operator sounded really annoyed with Melissa like can't she just run away? Just run. I don't know. I don't know No, he did not. Yes, like so annoyed, so annoyed that Melissa's calling for help. I feel like this has happened when, what's the story we did about the survivor that was in the trash. The mom in the trash and they're just like, we can't hear you.

We can't hear you. She's like almost dead of hypothermia. Yeah. And Melissa even says like, are the police close? Like she's running. She's like, are the police close? And the operator goes, you literally just called me two minutes ago. What do like, are the police close and the operator goes, uh, you literally just called me two minutes ago. What do you mean are the police close?

Like she's being so rude. I'm so weird. It's so weird. I may all, maybe I'll insert it or maybe I'll put it in if we don't end up inserting it. But it was just like kind of weird to me when I was listening. So I was like, no one even talked about it either. And I was like, what the heck? Like, I would be so sad if I called for help.

And this is how I was getting treated. But so she ran all the way. Melissa runs all the way to an intersection before she realizes that Robert is no longer chasing her. Like she turns around and she's like, he's no longer chasing me. She's still on the phone, so she's like, okay, he's not chasing me anymore.

But then she's like, wait, where is he? So she turns around and ends up running back towards the house. No. Because she's scared that he has her keys and she's scared that he just went in and hurt her family. Because her family's all asleep in the house Oh my gosh And so that's what round her head is like oh wait. No, he went back to hurt my family

So she begins running back and as she gets back to the house he jumps out of the bushes He had been waiting for her to come turn around like get tired turn around and come back so that he could attack her again So he's hiding in the bushes and as she runs by, he jumps out of the bushes. But as soon as he wraps his arms around her, the police pull up. They were on the street, they pull up. They obviously see him like hurting her. He's wrapped his arms around her. He's not being nice.

They're struggling. And the police pull up, he lets go of her Melissa runs to the police and Robert says, look, her and says, you called the police, are you seriously doing this to me? This guy is the... Are you seriously doing this to me? Yeah. He's 100%, I mean, the whole time he's just been gaslighting her and manipulating her.

Oh, yes, so sad. So the police arrest Robert and they take Melissa into her mom's house and they wake her up and they explain about domestic violence. Keep in mind Melissa's mom thought everything had been better since he pushed her down the hill that time. So she's like completely taking it back and they explain, listen, you can't go back to him or we will see you again. Yeah. Like they don't stop. He's not going to stop hurting you.

He's not going to stop beating you. So if you go back to him, this will not be the last time we're here. Yeah. And she's like, I know, I know. So Robert was charged with domestic battery, which is a misdemeanor charge. The next morning, Robert called Melissa from gel to come pick him up. Did she do it? No, she's like, I'm not coming to pick you up.

On January 23rd, Robert had a court date. Later that night in the middle of the night, Melissa was woken up by a call from Robert. She ignored the call because they were broken up at this point. Like, he got arrested and she was like, I'm done. I'm not talking to you, I'm not, I'm the word broken up. Yeah. And so she's like, why is he calling me in the middle of the night?

She knew he had his court date that day, but she's like, if anything, he shouldn't be calling me. That's what the court date was for. And so she ignores the call, but he just kept on calling. Melissa answers and told him, you know, you're not supposed to be calling me. Like, we're not supposed to be talking. And he says, you know, I love you. I just want to tell you, I love you. And I know I'm not supposed to be talking. And he says, you know, I love you. I just want to tell you I love you.

And I know I'm not supposed to be near you. But can I come by and get one last hug? Like, can I get some closure? Our relationship was long. Don't do it. Like, can I just come by and get a hug? He says, I'll leave you alone forever if you just let me come by and say goodbye.

He was crying, talking about closure all this. Somalista agrees. She's like, okay. She grabs her phone, her keys, and some pepper spray and goes outside. Now, it kind of seems like he was already at the house because the way the story was told, it was like she grabbed her keys, went out,

and then boom, he's there. And so I'm kind of like was calling from outside, right? I don't know for sure, but that's kind of what I was feeling was happening. Melissa notices when she walks out that Robert was dressed up, but it was the middle of the night. So it was dark, like why is he wearing fancy or clothes than he normally does?

Like she's been dating this guy forever, she knows him. So Robert walks up and just immediately puts his arms around her there in the middle of the street, executing that promised hug. Why? So why is she in the middle of the street? Why isn't she on her doorstep or by her house? He just pulled up and parked to the street.

Okay. Yeah. And while his arms were wrapped around Melissa, she heard like a clicked sound. Oh, no. And now do you remember it's being a story? They walked up, he was stabbing a woman in the middle of the street. So now we're caught up. Got it. The 911 call happened. We obviously know that Robert had a knife behind her back. Lord, Lord heard her to come out to give one last goodbye hug. He literally wrapped his arms around her and began stabbing her. And then the witnesses came up and watched him kill her.

So after Robert stabbed Melissa, he left her for dead. Police showed up to the area because Israel and Serena had called the cops our two witnesses and they found Melissa's body. Police say coming up on her body was one of the most awful sites she had been stabbed in the face, the neck. There were teeth knocked out and laying in the streets. What an absolute psycho. That is monster so sad. Yes. Her slippers were bloodstained and in the road. She had been just, it was horrible. Police call for backup because they don't know where the guy went.

They don't know who we know as Robert went. But as they are sitting there, they notice something. They look over and it looks as if Melissa is like breathing. Yeah. Like she's not doing anything, but they're like watching her and they're like, her chest is kind of moving and so they walk over They check her pulse and it's faint, but Melissa has a pulse Did they just assume she was dead? Yes, because Serena on the 911 call said he just killed her. Okay. He just killed her

So they check her pulse. It's so faint Melissa had survived the awful attack up to this point Not knowing how much time they had, police tried to wake Melissa up and ask her her name, like, keep her awake, right? Like, that's the whole thing. Uh-huh, keep her conscious. And so they tried to wake her up, and she kind of comes to,

and she mumbles, Melissa, they say, what's your name? She mumbles, Melissa, they say, who did this to you? She says, Robert, Robert's name. The police can't understand her very well. Keep in mind, she'd been stabbed and slashed in the face. Yes. So Melissa tried a hardest to spell out Robert's name. She's like, are, oh, like she's trying her hardest to say who did it.

So hard break it. They can't understand her. Paramedic showed up and tried their hardest to get Melissa to stay with them. She was in and out. She just kept telling them I have to go now. That's what she kept saying over and over is I have to go now. Oh, that's so sad. Paramedics were like, what? And she's like, I have to go now. Yeah. Oh, I can't. I just get Melissa had actually prayed to God in those last moments before police showed up prayed for angels. And she had actually dragged herself to the side of the road. So after Robert got back in his car,

she was like, he's gonna run me over. So she used her arms to drag herself over to the side of the road, which is why police kind of had a hard time finding her at first. She was literally a warrior. Like, in, she's almost dead and she's like, I've got to get over so he doesn't run me over with the car. So both Serena and Israel, the two witnesses from the park

that came up on the attack, identified Robert's picture. Because after they figured out who the victim was, they were like, this is her boyfriend, we've been called here before. So they get a picture of Robert, they walk over, they show it to Serena and Israel, and they're like, oh yeah, that's the guy. Police frantically wake up Melissa's mom and, you know, tell her the news.

She ran outside and tried to talk to Melissa before they took her away. But police didn't want Melissa's mom to see her like that. That's how badly damaged. We're also like, we don't have time. Like, yeah, yeah, the reason she hasn't gone yet is because a helicopter was being called in. Oh, so they were life fighting her. Yeah, because that's how bad of the situation it was. Yeah. A helicopter was called in by a fireman named Cameron Hill. And he had responded to the scene and he knew this girl needed rush to the hospital. Like, he was like, we don't have time to drive even if it's the middle of the night.

We've got to get her in the helicopter. When Cameron saw Melissa, he was so sad for her. I mean, she didn't look, she was mangled. She didn't look good. He needed her to survive. He had a feeling that he would see Melissa again and that she would survive. During the flight, it's only six minutes long.

Melissa was non-responsive. They lost her. They were running out of time. Robert had nicked Melissa's jugular vein in her neck, Melissa was non-responsive. They lost her. They were running out of time. Robert had nicked Melissa's jugular vein in her neck, so she had lost a ton of blood. Yeah. They also found a total of 32 stab wounds. Oh my gosh. She had 32 stab wounds on her chest up to her face. And we've talked about before, like one or two is usually

to stab someone 32 times. Yeah, but 32 times is just beyond. Also remember remember our witnesses, he used a small life, went back in his car and got it bigger. Night. Melissa had facial paralysis, which is why she couldn't say the name. She couldn't move her face. Her face was paralyzed. Uh, she also had a fractured skull.

Her nose was broken. Her jaw was broken, and a lot of her teeth were knocked out. She had no pulse upon arrival to the hospital due to lack of blood. They needed to stop the bleeding and they also needed to restock her blood, because she had lost so much. According to hands across the bay, Melissa flatlined four times in the ER. That's a lot. And she also suffered a stroke at the ER. Okay. They attempted resuscitation over and over again,

and eventually Melissa came to, she survived. They found Robert the next day after he crashed his pickup truck into a convenience store because he had passed out at the will after taking pills and attempting to take his own life. Oh my gosh, this whole story is just insane. I can't believe she survived. I know. Robert was taken to the hospital

and immediately confessed to what he did to Melissa. This is when police told Robert, well, Robert, Melissa actually survived. What do you do? He was talking the whole time like she was dead and he just sat there blanks there. He had no idea. No idea that she survived the attack.

Melissa had to learn how to walk and talk in rehab after getting out of the hospital. She also had to testify because the DA didn't want to plead down and give Robert a chance of getting out and hurting her again. This is the situation we run into with domestic violence. If they don't end up killing them, it's harder to put them away for life. Serena and Israel were there for Melissa as she testified because of this. And Robert ended up changing his plea to guilty later on on the DA terms. And Melissa confronted him at sentencing.

She told him that she forgave him. That was what she said when she got up. She said, Robert, I forgive you because I need to forgive you for myself. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Yep. So he'll never get out. The responding officer who found her is still a long-term friend with Melissa like they still hang out. They go to dinner. They've had a great bond ever since then. The best part of this whole story is that Cameron Hill, the man who got the helicopter there attended a dinner of Melissa's after the attack, all the all the first responders did. And after that dinner, they ended up

falling in love. No way. He proposed to her as she was throwing a first pitch as a survivor at the Tampa Ray's baseball game. So she married the first responder that saved her life. It's like a love story. Well, not technically. But it kind of like is a really happy ending to such a sad story. No, wow, but it's such a happy ending to such a sad story. Like she married the man that helped save her life after a horrible toxic relationship. Literally, she was dead. Like they've cheap flatlined. Wow, that's so crazy.

And they got married in 2017. Wow, that's so crazy. Good for them. I know. The amazing program called Hands Across the Bay helped Melissa get into a gated apartment after this whole thing happened. They helped her furnish that apartment. They have helped her share her story too.

They also helped Melissa travel to have facial nerve and muscle surgery so that she can smile because keep in mind her face was paralyzed. So, mass eye and ears, facial nerve center, actually donate surgery to domestic violence survivors. And so they helped her get her smile back. So, shout out to them. That's awesome that they do this.

Melissa is now an advocate and stands against domestic violence full time this is what she does for her job. She often thinks, why did she live? Like why of all the domestic violence victims did she get the one to be to live? But she knows and says it's her duty to share her story and help other women who might be suffering, which is why we're sharing her story today. Yeah. That is it's her duty to share her story and help other women who might be suffering which is why we're sharing her story today.

That is it. That is the case of Melissa Dome. Oh man, that's so just crazy. Yeah. Just, oh, it's kind of frustrating. Like what a psycho. Yeah. It's just so messed up that you could do that to another human being.

Domestic violence. It's the most dangerous. It was being domestic violence. It's it's the most dangerous. It was just domestic violence and it's crazy. Yeah, like he, he went there to kill her. He had multiple weapons. They found him in his truck and not just shooter. Like he went there to, he stabbed her 32 times stabbed her. So nuts.

Literally, nocturty. Okay. Yeah. We went through everything. Yeah. But if you or someone you love are going through domestic violence, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. I'm so, I'm so sad that this is a thing that happens.

And if you need help, please, I know it's hard. Please get help. Please reach out. I know it's hard. Please get help, please reach out, I know it's hard, but you deserve more. Okay, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. A reminder, if you are on YouTube, please subscribe, please turn on notifications, and please comment and interact with our videos that helps us so much.

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