Berthelot told Christie she was going to spend the night with her sister.īarbara Christie explains why she let her daughter go with Berthelot, a former friend with a rough and tumble past. Berthelot had Christie’s older half sister. “Someone needs to pinch me and wake me up.”Ĭhristie remembers her last day in that tidy childhood home with the all toys. “It was normal.”įor three days, Christie just stared at her mom in awe.įor Bob and Barbara Christie, the reunion was nothing short of a miracle. It all came flooding back: Mom’s kind eyes, her hands, the beautiful house, all the toys. It was then that Christie knew once and for all that Berthelot was a liar. What if everything Berthelot had told her was true? What if the home was filthy, her mom lazy, the refrigerator empty? They were holding up a sign, since they wouldn’t recognize each other. Within two days, the couple put Pepper Christie and her 15-year-old daughter Milan Apley – the couple’s only granddaughter – on a plane to Ohio.Ĭhristie saw her parents from the luggage claim. It was instinct more than anything.”īarbara Christie’s first words to her daughter were, “Shirley took you.” “When she said it the second time, something just clicked,” he said. There was something familiar about that voice, Bob Christie said. “This is your daughter Rhonda.” she said.īut then she repeated, “This is your daughter Rhonda.” “And are you married to Barbara Christie?” she asked. Pepper Smith was Rhonda Patricia Christie, the adoptive child of Bob and Barbara Christie of Upper Sandusky, Ohio. A clerk from the state Hall of Records deducted that Bobby was short for Barbara and located her birth certificate. Christie also remembered her parents were called “Bobby and Bobby.” Among Berthelot’s lies, her birth date was true. She had a standard response: “I don’t exist.”Īll she had was a birth date: Sept. “I’m still missing,” she told them. Ĭhristie said she wanted to forget all about it – the hunger pangs, the belt beatings, the constant stream of racial slurs slung at her – but every time Christie buried it deep, she would have to retell her story when she went to fill out an application. Dugard was abducted by Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, and held captive in a compound in the couple’s Antioch, Calif., backyard.ĭuring the parade celebrating Dugard’s return, Christie walked and prayed. Last year, she marched in a parade celebrating the safe return of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped in 1991 at age 11 from a school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe. “But I wasn’t trying do anything bad I just didn’t know who I was,” Christie said. Without a driver’s license, Social Security card or identification, she couldn’t drive or apply for assistance when she had her daughter. “I knew I came from some sort of love, so I made it out,” Christie said.īerthelot would call her “Pepper,” and the few times the girl was enrolled in school, her last name was listed as “Smith.”Ĭhristie still didn’t know who she was. The faint memories carried her through the darkest hours of captivity. She remembered her tidy childhood home, her canopy bed, a bicycle, her mother’s hands, eyes and beehive hairdo. The results, Strickland's lawyers argue, reveal it belonged to the other man.Still, Christie knew she came from love. The document also requested the results of DNA testing conducted on a pubic hair that was found on Chapa's body. In May, Strickland's attorney Cynthia Orr, Fort Worth lawyer Michael Logan Ware and Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project signed a filing for a proposed order requesting access to physical evidence, records and results of DNA testing, hair and trace evidence, jail phone calls and recorded interviews of the other man. More: Could David Strickland be exonerated in 2012 Portland double shooting? Here's the latest. Strickland's lawyers said his DNA was found on several items at the park, including cigarette butts and an energy drink can. Though he was suspected by police for two years, he was never charged in the case. The other man, from Nevada, admitted he was at the park that night and lived in the area at the time of the shooting. San Patricio County prosecutors argued that even if the hair came from another man, it would not exonerate Strickland. In 2019, one of Strickland's attorneys said a man from Nevada, whose DNA was found at the scene, was actually responsible for the crime. She believed the testing could help exonerate Strickland. His attorney, Cynthia Orr, told the Caller-Times that the type of DNA testing technology that would be conducted on a piece of pubic hair found on Chapa was not available during the time of Strickland's trial. Strickland was sentenced to life in prison without parole in September 2016. Additionally, a firearms expert at the Texas Department of Public Safety testified that the bullet casing at the scene likely matched Strickland's handgun.
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