An interview with Michelle Theer: 'Life in the joint'
Q. What is a typical day here?
A. Well, I go to work all day [in] the clothes house. . . Every week the dining room workers come in and pick up a bundle of their clean clothes, and so we make up each dining room worker's bundle. . . so we pull off the shelves. . . uniforms [and] put together everybody's individual sizes. And when they bring in their dirty clothes, we just roll those up into a big bundle, and those get sent out to be washed.
Q. So you go to work, how long do you spend there?
A. 7:30 to 3:30. . . Then, I go back to the dorm. . . until 5:30. I usually don't go to dinner because the food's pretty bad. And, in the summertime, we get to go outside from 6 until 8. . . .
Q. Michelle, what is your hope, what are you banking on?
A. I don't think about it. . . .
Q. So, you don't think about it, I am going to win on appeal?
A. I don't think about it.
Q. Not at all?
A. No. . . I don't want to have my hopes dashed. . . . I was so hopeful before, I was just so sure that the truth was going to come out. I was just so sure that the jury was going to see that this was all BS. Yes, I had an affair, yes, I thought about leaving my husband, yes, I moved out, yes, we had problems, but none of that makes me a violent killer. How can you make the leap from one to the other? Forty percent of the marriages in this country have problems similar to mine, but they don't end in violent death. Nobody came forward to say they heard us screaming and throwing plates, nobody came forward and said that they heard me say I'm going to kill you for this, nobody. . . . See the complicated thing is that you can't prove a no–there's no facts to show you didn't do something. . . .You can have facts that show you did do something, but there's no facts to show you didn't do something. . . .
Q. You can't prove a negative is what you're saying?
A.Yeah. I mean, the DA's [District Attorney] did a great job in showing that I had an affair, that I talked to John on the phone all the time. In fact, you know, I talked to John on the phone all the time even up to the day Marty died. If I was planning his murder, wouldn't I stop talking to John for at least a day or two?. . .
Q. Have you thought about writing a book?
A. I've thought about writing a book about my case, and I have thought, even more, really, I have thought that if I was going to write a book, I'd like to write a book–shorter stories about some of the other women here. . . There are women who are here for murder under very unique circumstances, and I think that society looks at women who have killed–and I just say women because I'm not, I don't have any personal experience with these men, so I can't say–but I think that society just looks at these women and just sees monsters. And I don't think they understand. And I'm not saying an excuse–I'm saying that I don't [believe] they understand these women or how they got that way or how they are now. . . .
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