I don't know how much longer that's going to last but I can tell you this much: If I was to listen and pay attention to everyone that criticized me for, some rightly and some wrongly, I'd stay home under the bed. I don't mean under the covers, I mean under the bed. I would never have achieved a single thing.
If I was to listen and pay attention to everyone that criticized me, I'd stay home under the bed.
I did marry, I did get pregnant, but as I was giving birth, my daughter and I almost died. We were rushed to the hospital. I had an emergency cesarean and in that moment, in the emergency room, I felt my grandmother come to me. She was with me and when my daughter was born, instead of naming her Hailey, I named her Lucy after my grandmother. Hailey lives in the pages of my books.
I very much miss trying cases - I knew that I made a difference in the world working with crimes directly and trying to get verdicts that spoke the truth. On TV, you never really know what effect you're having.
Crimes are being committed 24/7, 365 days a year. My show aired one hour a day, and then a repeat at 2 a.m. So I am launching a website, a crime-fighting website, a community. I will be writing for the website and curating content. Also, we'll have social media, Facebook Live, and a podcast. I'm really excited about it, and I believe we will help people - find missing people, solve unsolved homicides.
In school [I wanted] to be an English teacher.
I had no plans to be ever a lawyer, a crime fighter [in school].
With Keith's [my fiance] murder, I was changed. I thought I would be a prosecutor forever, but there were so many days when I would leave the courtroom during a trial, and go down the hall to the ladies' room, and go into a little stall, and cry.
I would wipe my tears, and walk out of the stall and the bathroom, and march myself back into that courtroom because the only way that I could deal with Keith's [ Griffin] murder was to feel like I was doing something about it. In retrospect, what did I do? I know that I put a lot of bad guys in jail and if I kept them off the street one day more, that may have been one less crime victim.
There's rampant sexism, of course there is! It just goes without saying. Every woman in the workplace knows this; [every woman] in the workplace has to work harder than a man to prove themselves.
If I dare to tear up or shed a tear, then I'm criticized for that as well! It's a horrible double standard, but quite frankly, I don't have time enough to fight that battle and fight crime. I chose to fight crime and ignore the rest. I just keep going to the best I can.
My husband makes me stay totally quiet in movies because otherwise it's [five minutes in] and I go, "Oh, so-and-so did it," and he's like, "OK, I haven't even finished my popcorn and you ruined it for me."
