then her texts became somehow threatening. if i won, i would have you and i wouldn t crash my car. and ryan answered. you kill yourself, i kill myself. so come on, don t be selfish. that s the only thing i want to live for, you ryan. you keep me living. stop. you hurt yourself, i ll know and i ll do the same. that s why i m going to wreck my car, because all i can do is [ bleep ] up. so you would rather me die because i want to kill myself. good-bye, ryan. i love you. then the final message from ryan. you killing yourself is just another way for you to run away. just five or six minutes later, prosecutors say, justine winter drove her car into erin thompson s lane of traffic to commit suicide but instead killed mother, child, unborn baby. the prosecution had made its case for murder.
welcome back to dateline. i m craig melvin. the prosecution had made their case, now it was the defense s turn. could they convince the jury to see justine winter s text messages in a different light? once again, keith morrison. every day in this montana courtroom the family of now 17-year-old justine winter dutifully shuffled to the front row seats directly behind the defense table. their faces, by their attorneys decree, they say, an intentional blank, emotionless. their apparent demeanor a spur in the hide of an already angry town. but almost no one knew what was really going on. justine s mother, mary, who had been struggling with alcohol, caved in to the stress. tell me how it s changed your life. i ran away for a while.
to not do what is most important in all of this to show and demonstrate to us that you are sorry for having taken them. then, finally, the moment, as justine winter herself took the stand to speak for the first time. i ve wanted to speak with you for two years now. i ve wanted to let you guys know that my heart goes out to you. and as every single one of you came up here today, my heart was breaking. but i just hope that you guys will be able to forgive that i will never be able to say that i intentionally crossed the center line wanting to take three lives from all of you. but before the judge allowed justine to leave the witness stand, the prosecutor stepped to
feel betrayed by it? you feel betrayed by the country you fought for? uh-huh. by the judicial part of the system. they took her, this once promising college bound honor student, to a cell in the women s prison where she instantly became the youngest inmate in the place. and two months later those attorneys, stoft and battle, who declined our requests for interviews, were off the case. that civil lawsuit was dropped. and that s when justine winter decided to tell us her side of the whole sad story. coming up an exclusive interview with justine. you say you probably caused that accident. are you able to say, i take responsibility for that? when dateline continues.
so much that justine s father, randy, buckled under the fresh be you re and was rushed to the hospital and not present in the courtroom. i will ask the clerk to file the verdict and to read it. when, just after four hours of deliberation, the jury came back. we, the jury, enter the following unanimous verdict to the charge of deliberate homicide for the death of erin thompson, guilty. for the death of caden o dell, guilty. it was a horrible, numbing experience, my head fell to my knees. it was like the whole courtroom i felt like everyone just cried about it. how did she look, mary, when she was led off to jail? your little girl. she looked very stunned. she didn t look back. just a week after that verdict, justine winter marked her 18th birthday in a jail cell.