- today
https://t.me/TopFilmUSA1
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00This picture here is of, uh, Lauren and Wes Schermantyne.
00:12Um, I very much hate this picture.
00:18These two guys here, they thought that they were never going to be caught for things that they did.
00:24They thought they were tough guys and badasses, and they didn't have a care in the world.
00:29It's hard for me to look at it. I don't like this picture.
00:37It makes me think of all the horrible things that they did to people.
00:42It's been 20-plus years since Lauren was arrested and convicted, and I've never spoken to any media or any, you know, programs or TV shows all of these years because, quite frankly, I wasn't ready to do so.
01:10Thinking back to when I felt good about this person, there's almost a guilt.
01:20So it's very hard, and sometimes it just takes a minute to remind yourself that it's okay that you loved him for who you thought he was.
01:34what you thought he would have to do with this woman.
01:36What are you doing if you thought he would have to do so?
01:40I don't think that he would have to do so.
01:42What happened to him?
01:44I don't know.
01:46What happened to her as a person?
01:48I don't know.
01:49I wonder if someone does anything.
02:22This is when we first met and when we started first dating.
02:27And this is the motorcycle that Lauren gave me a ride on.
02:32One of the first motorcycle rides that I had ever had.
02:36And it was a very exciting, fun thing to do.
02:40He was funny. He had a good sense of humor.
02:44You know, he was very attractive.
02:47Quite a bit older than me.
02:49And, you know, he kind of swept me off my feet in a lot of ways.
02:55But when you start going back and thinking about that time frame
03:01and, you know, maybe sharing these pictures with people,
03:07it triggers a lot of emotions.
03:08It's very hard for me to enjoy a good memory.
03:19Now, looking back through all of the pain that I went through with Lauren,
03:25it still makes me very sad that he was such a bad person
03:28because he was such a good person when I met him at first.
03:33It was roughly just under a year when Lauren asked me to marry him.
04:00I was very young and naive and I was rebellious, I guess you could say.
04:11I was going to do what I wanted to do and I did.
04:15And I regret it now.
04:16We were married April 16th, 1988.
04:24Little did I know at the time,
04:27Lauren was drinking a lot of whiskey, getting ready for the wedding.
04:33And Lauren wound up passing out.
04:35And I remember being pissed right away.
04:40And I looked over and Lauren was throwing up.
04:44Family members had to run over and turn Lauren over so he wouldn't choke to death.
04:49And so that was a huge red flag.
04:51But I knew that I only wanted to get married once.
04:56And I took it very seriously.
05:01And I tried my hardest for a very long time.
05:10But sometimes things don't work out the way you hope they do.
05:13It wasn't very, very long after we were actually married that I remember one specific time
05:38we were living in the apartment in Stockton.
05:42And I think it was like midnight, 1 a.m.
05:47I remember being on the bed, laying down, and Lauren wanted to have sex.
05:55And I remember telling him, no, I don't want to.
05:59And he got very angry very fast.
06:03As soon as I told him no, he grabbed me by the throat.
06:08And he looked at me and he said, don't ever tell me no.
06:18It very much surprised me.
06:23You know, because you tell somebody no, and their instant reaction is, oh, no, you're going
06:30to do what I want.
06:31You're blindsided.
06:33You didn't see that coming, and it scares you.
06:36I remember I was scared enough that I said to him, I was just playing.
06:44I kind of talked my way out of, you know, pissing him off anymore.
06:52So, yeah, I mean, he forced me to have sex.
06:55That was one of the very first times that Lauren was ever angry like that with me.
07:12And then from there on, it started to be more often and more frequent.
07:18Yeah, it did change how I interacted with him.
07:23I was always very careful to hopefully not piss him off.
07:28Definitely didn't want to tell him no about anything.
07:34Lauren was going to do what he wanted, no matter what I said.
07:37When I was pregnant, Lauren continued to stay out, lay, go, whatever the hell it was he wanted
07:55to do.
07:56And I realized very early on in my pregnancy that I would be solely responsible for taking
08:03care of the baby by myself.
08:04One time, Lauren and a friend of his, Wes, were going camping, hunting to the hills for
08:14the weekend.
08:17Later that day, Wes's wife called me.
08:22Hello?
08:23And said, hey, come over.
08:25So I said, yeah, sure, I'll come over and hang out with you.
08:29So I went over, and I wound up staying the night there.
08:34Going home in the morning, the truck was there, and I didn't think anything of it other than,
08:42oh, he's home, I'll go home.
08:43I'm home now.
08:45And I remember when I walked in and I walked up.
08:51It was dark in the house.
08:52The door that I walked into, you walk in, and then you would turn and go up a couple steps,
09:01and there would be the kitchen.
09:07And as soon as I stepped into the kitchen, Lauren turned on the overhead light.
09:17And I looked over, and he was sitting there with a gun on his lap, and just really pissed
09:26off look on his face.
09:27And it shocked me.
09:28And I remember stepping back, and he asked me, where were you?
09:38You said you weren't going anywhere.
09:40And I said, I was over at her house because you guys were up in the hills.
09:45And he was just so pissed that I wasn't home.
09:59That was one of the first really scary incidences.
10:05After we had the argument, he left the house.
10:09But he very much wanted to scare me.
10:11He made it very known that he was pissed off.
10:16And I think the gun on his lap, he was telling me that he would not hesitate to shoot me if
10:22he wanted to.
10:24Every time there was an incident like that, I got more and more fearful of him and afraid
10:30and let him control my life more out of fear.
10:41So this picture here was Lauren on another motorcycle that he had, and I want to say
10:55it was 1990, the first time Lauren really beat me up.
11:00It was late, and I was asleep, and Lauren called home.
11:08And his motorcycle had broken down, and he needed me to bring him some tools so he could,
11:13you know, try to get it started.
11:14I had gotten dressed and got my purse and gotten the tools and everything, and I sat down on
11:21the couch, and I wound up falling back asleep.
11:28Later that night, I was woken up by Lauren.
11:31He was yelling and screaming at me how I was a bitch.
11:37I can't believe you would do that to me!
11:39And he's hitting me and smacking me and, you know, pulling me around by my hair.
11:44Do you know how long I was waiting for you?
11:49But he was holding our child while doing that.
11:59Who in the hell holds their child while beating on someone?
12:02But when he was done beating me up, he went right to bed.
12:13I remember back then feeling very alone and very scared and very heartbroken.
12:24Just praying that it was over and he wasn't going to be abusive anymore.
12:32More that, at that time.
12:45This photo here, I want to say this was about 1991.
12:53If I remember correctly, I was actually a couple months pregnant with our second child.
12:58But this picture here is of Lauren and then a cousin of Lauren's.
13:04And they have their compound bows.
13:09He had a couple of friends that he spent a lot of time with together, especially at West Sherman time.
13:18So Lauren and Wes were best friends growing up and they did a lot of activities together, you know, whether it was riding bikes or going hunting.
13:26When there were times that Lauren was out with Wes, sometimes for days on end.
13:31For me, it makes me wonder, all those times, there's a good chance that he was out there doing very bad things.
13:40I came home from work one day.
13:50It was on a Saturday and I was tired.
13:54And I went outside to set out on the back patio.
13:57All of a sudden, to the side of me, maybe about a foot or so from me, an arrow stuck into the ground.
14:08The tip on the arrows used for these bows are called broadheads.
14:13And those are basically razor blades, very sharp.
14:16And, of course, it scared me, it startled me.
14:23And when I looked up, Lauren was up in the tree and he had his bow in his hand.
14:30And when I looked at him and looked him in the eye, he actually started to giggle and laugh.
14:42He enjoyed that he scared me.
14:44It was very intentional.
14:47I think it was a reminder that he's in control and I can do whatever I want, when I want, to you.
14:57How disgusting and horrible.
15:00He could have very well damn missed.
15:02It could have went right through me.
15:07You're a damn monster to do that to somebody.
15:11I would never do that to anybody.
15:13There were many, many times that I was just a moment or a second away from Lauren taking my life.
15:21I'm very, very lucky that I am still alive today, that I lived through and survived through a lot of those things that Lauren did to me.
15:29One time, during one of the abusive incidences, he was abusing me, beating me up.
15:55And he was throwing me all over.
15:57I had me by the hair and dragging me around and choking me.
16:01And he hit on me so much that I lost consciousness.
16:05And I remember standing up and I was very dizzy and, like, just kind of out of it.
16:15And I remember getting in bed and I thought, well, if I don't wake up in the morning, I don't wake up.
16:27And I woke up the next morning and I got into the shower and I was washing my hair and stuff.
16:36And that's, I literally counted every knot on my head and I had 15 knots on my head.
16:45That was one of the worst times.
16:46There's a lot of things that I have a really hard time remembering.
16:53And then there's times that things, you know, little, little stories or memories just come to me that I haven't thought about in a very, very long time.
17:03But he was just, he was just angry all the time.
17:14I don't know why, but he was just mad.
17:17I think that for a very, very long time, I, there was still hope that, there was some little hope in me that he was going to do the right thing and be the right person and the right husband.
17:38And, and he wasn't, he wasn't.
17:47I think very much that once Lauren felt that I wasn't going anywhere, that Lauren can start behaving the way he wanted to and being the person he wanted to be or the person that he really was.
18:11Lauren actually always suspected me of cheating or lying and hiding things from him.
18:21There was one time the kids were with a family member and Lauren got on one of his rampages.
18:29I know there's something going on between you two.
18:31You're paranoid.
18:32And I remember this one time I said to him, what do I have to do?
18:39Cut off one of my fingers to prove it to you.
18:41And as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that he was going to say, yeah.
18:49And he said, yeah, you do.
18:51And I remember he even handed me a knife.
19:05And I remember I put my hand out like this and I was holding the knife and I was terrified.
19:10Because he expected me to do it.
19:18He was going to make me do it.
19:20But I was so stupid.
19:21Why would I say that to him?
19:23Knowing the violence that he was capable of towards me.
19:27And I remember I was just kind of like, I was just there.
19:30Like, I was just trying to make it through those moments, hoping that I wouldn't have to cut my finger off.
19:49I'm very lucky that I have all of my fingers.
19:52I really don't know how I managed to get out of there with all of my fingers.
20:03I've said before, I kind of feel like the silent abuse victim.
20:06Because if I just stayed quiet, then I couldn't give him anything else to get angry about.
20:13You know?
20:13So, I was just quiet.
20:22One of the things that me and Lauren used to do, either by ourselves or with friends,
20:31is we would go up to the mountains and go camping.
20:36One specific time, it was me, Lauren, Wes, Wes's girlfriend.
20:43Lauren and Wes wound up going off by themselves.
20:49In a vehicle.
20:50And when they came back to camp, I remember them being both a little heated and aggravated
20:59and, well, just irritated in general, I guess.
21:03I really didn't think anything about it.
21:06I just thought it was, you know, something that happened.
21:12And probably within an hour or so, the police showed up.
21:20When we saw the police pulling up to the campsite, Lauren had a stainless steel .357 revolver.
21:33And I remember him hiding it under a big boulder.
21:41So, when the police came into our campsite, they proceeded to question us all.
21:47Where were you?
21:48Did you go for a drive, a hike a couple hours ago?
21:51Did you have an altercation?
21:52And two gentlemen said that someone fired shots at them.
21:58Did any of you leave your campsite today?
22:03They heard firearms and ricocheting bullets.
22:07You didn't get into a fight with someone today?
22:12Lauren and Wes and I did.
22:13So, when the police left, I do remember Lauren and Wes.
22:23There's kind of that, that sigh of relief, that energy of like,
22:27okay, well, it's done.
22:29We don't have to worry about it anymore.
22:32That was something that should have been a huge red flag to me back then.
22:38Knowing now how absolute crazy Wes and Lauren were, he hid that pistol for a reason.
22:59Lauren woke me up one morning.
23:01He already had made plans prior to go, I believe it was either pheasant or dove hunting with a buddy of his.
23:13And I remember saying, why'd you wake me up?
23:16And he said, oh, because I'm getting ready to leave soon to go hunting.
23:22I'll make some coffee.
23:25And I remember thinking, that was not a regular, normal thing for Lauren to do.
23:31If Lauren had plans to go to work, to go four-wheeling, to go hunting, etc.
23:39He would never wake me up in the morning and say, hey, I'm leaving.
23:47So, I got up out of bed, went into the kitchen to start coffee, and Wes was there.
23:54He was sitting in the chair in the kitchen, and I noticed he was biting on his nails.
24:07He was nervous, fidgety, anxious.
24:11I could tell that he had been up all night and hadn't slept.
24:14You ready?
24:16Yeah.
24:17I mean, at the time, those two things seemed weird to me, you know, but not weird enough to where it was like, okay, what the heck is going on?
24:26That's something that I later on put together as him making sure that I could vouch for him being home that morning.
24:38But I never had any reason to believe or seen anything specific that would have alerted me to them doing the horrific things that they did together.
24:49Looking back now, Lauren was full of crap, and Lauren was a bad person, and Lauren had done some very bad things.
25:12So, this is a picture of Cindy van der Heiden.
25:17I met her just a couple of times briefly, and from what I understand, Cindy actually really liked Lauren as a friend.
25:27I'm glad that it's a picture of Cindy smiling.
25:31I'm glad that...
25:39From this picture, you know, I think that Cindy was a happy person and that she enjoyed life.
25:47I wish that she was still here and that she never had to go through that horrible thing that she had to go through, and I wish that she had never lost her life.
26:02Lauren and his buddy had left to go bird hunting that morning, and I'm at home with the kids, and, you know, just another typical weekend morning.
26:22And I was sitting outside on the back patio, and Cindy van der Heiden's dad stopped by our house and asked if Lauren was home.
26:33And, of course, I said, no, he's out with so-and-so.
26:37He'll be back later.
26:38And Cindy's dad said, okay, can you...
26:40I think he said, can you ask him to give me a call?
26:43I just wanted to ask Lauren if he heard anything or seen her.
26:50They haven't been able to get a hold of her, so I think he was probably just out looking, trying to cover all of his faces.
26:58Thanks.
26:58Later on that day, when Lauren and his buddy got back from bird hunting, I told Lauren that her dad had stopped by and asked if Lauren could please give him a call.
27:13They're looking for Cindy.
27:15Whatever.
27:16Later, his response, he just kind of, in a sense, like, shrugged it off.
27:23It never crossed my mind that Lauren could be a part of or responsible for Cindy's disappearance.
27:31I really never thought that he would do anything like that or be capable of something like that, especially him and Cindy being friends.
27:39Why?
27:41He would have no reason to harm her.
27:46When the detectives knocked on the door, I was surprised to see detectives there.
28:04You know, it's not something that happens every day.
28:07Whatever they ask, I need you to cover for me, okay?
28:12Lauren said to me, you need to vouch for me.
28:14I think I was a little dumbfounded.
28:17I just remember thinking, why in the hell would I need to vouch for you?
28:20Hi, ma'am.
28:21Is Lauren home?
28:22They asked for Lauren, and I said, yeah, he's here.
28:24And Lauren went out with them, and they were out there for a little while, and they were questioning Lauren and whatnot.
28:30At one point, the detectives talked to me briefly, too, for a couple of minutes.
28:39Asked me if I knew Cindy, if I had heard anything, if I knew where she was.
28:44When was the last time you've seen her?
28:45But they also asked, was Lauren home last night?
28:49Do you know what time he got home last night?
28:52Those types of questions.
28:55And I lied to the cops.
28:58I fell asleep early.
28:59I told them that I had fallen asleep on the couch, which was true.
29:05I told the cops that I had woken up roughly about anywhere between like 12, 12.30 or so.
29:12And I told them that I had went to the back door and looked out and seen the light on underneath the barn door, which was not true.
29:22So I vouched for Lauren.
29:32I very much believed that Lauren was not guilty.
29:35He didn't have anything to do with Cindy's disappearance.
29:37Why in the hell would he?
29:39But I was afraid of him, that he would know that I didn't vouch for him, that he would probably kill me.
29:52As time goes by, it went into a couple days and then a week and then a couple weeks and she's still missing.
30:00Well, at this point, I remember thinking, well, she's still missing.
30:03Something bad happened.
30:05And it's in the newspaper and it's on the TV.
30:09It gets very, very overwhelming.
30:14And very scary because you just don't know what the hell is going on or what's going to happen.
30:18For me, there was maybe little moments of thinking, you know, well, God, did Lauren have something to do with this?
30:29Is Lauren responsible?
30:30Does he know where Cindy is?
30:35I think it must have stank in that it was a serious situation and this girl is still missing.
30:40And these people don't need anyone telling a white lie about their daughter or a person that the detectives are looking for.
30:57I want to say that it was within a couple of weeks, maybe a month or so.
31:02I went down to the police station and I said, look, I said, I lied.
31:12I did not see the barn light on.
31:14Lauren was not home.
31:16I went to bed and Lauren woke me up the next morning to tell me he was leaving to go hunting.
31:24I decided to be honest with the detectives and tell them the truth because that was the right thing to do.
31:30So, um, I should have never told them a lie in the first place.
31:38And I, um, that's something that I did back then.
31:43And I wish I could go back and change that.
31:45I would have never done that.
31:46I would have never done that.
32:00After Lauren was arrested, the next time I seen Lauren was in court when he was officially charged.
32:12And I went into the courtroom expecting Lauren to be formally charged with one count of murder.
32:20And he was actually charged with five counts of murder.
32:27And the whole courtroom just kind of let out this gasp of, you know, like, um, disbelief.
32:35How in the hell do you go from one count of murder to five counts of murder?
32:38How in the hell do you go from one count of murder?
33:08I think that was the, you know, sad.
33:31Lauren, in this video, you know, still looking out for his own butt.
33:35still trying to talk his way out of stuff no remorse you know no remorse
33:44whatsoever I would like to think that there was an ounce of good and Lauren
33:48but even if there was just an ounce of good in him it didn't make a damn
33:51difference because he still did very horrible things so it just disgusts me
33:56at this point to hear him say those things because he was full of crap
34:05Lauren told the detectives that Lauren and Wes met Cindy at the cemetery in Clements
34:20and they drove out to a secluded area in Linden and that Wes had raped and then murdered Cindy
34:33and he stood by and watched and he didn't do anything to stop it
34:38if what Lauren told is true about the night that Cindy was murdered and that he was just there
34:46he wasn't a participant he wasn't involved how do you stand there and let someone be hurt and
34:57assaulted and murdered and you just stand there and and don't do anything about it
35:03so rather he actually did something to Cindy he stood by and he allowed it to happen so he's just as guilty
35:10during the trials and the media coverage I started to hear that Lauren and Wes could possibly be
35:32responsible for many many more murders it went from possibly a total of 15 to 30 and kept growing and
35:43growing and the last number that I heard that that Lauren and Wes are suspected in and could be responsible
35:53for is up to 80 murders and so those murders would have happened over say like a 20 year time period
36:02and it was just it was all very surreal I think at that point I was already very much in kind of panic trauma
36:14mode disbelief
36:16it's upsetting to me because
36:36I married this person I loved this person
36:43um had children with this person
36:46sometimes I wish I had taken a different path in life that
36:53you know that made me never I never met Lauren
36:56but if I had never met Lauren and married him
37:01I would have not had my three children and
37:05as hard as everything was
37:11I'm very grateful for my three kids
37:13they're very good people and I love them very much
37:17so um that's the part that I don't regret about my history with Lauren
37:25it's still very upsetting to me to this day because
37:55as someone that I loved so much at one point in my life
38:05um this person was gone
38:10this person took their own life
38:14and um my children's dad was gone
38:21and Lauren had left a note that just simply said tell my family I loved them
38:27and I remember that I got angry over that because
38:34I don't know why I would expect him to but I got very angry that he didn't say anything specifically to me
38:46that he loved me or that he was sorry
38:49um and so I got really angry about that for a long time
38:54I never got an apology
38:57um so this photograph here was taken in 2006
39:18and this was at one of the facilities Lauren was incarcerated at
39:24I continued to stay married to Lauren I never divorced him
39:31even when Lauren was incarcerated
39:35I was still very very scared of him and terrified of of what could happen
39:42I was afraid he was capable of having me harmed by someone else or someone else killing me
39:48or I didn't know the extent of what he was capable of
39:51and it that was very terrifying to me still
39:53I think Lauren's death in some ways was kind of freeing for me
40:00because there was a weight that was lifted
40:04in a sense that it was finally over
40:07I never told Lauren you just had no consideration
40:13you know for for what you've done to other people's lives
40:17and quite frankly you're a piece of
40:19it took me a very very long time
40:32to come out of a trauma mode a survival mode
40:37you know somewhere along the line I realized that if
40:42if I didn't take care of myself that I wasn't able to take care of my children
40:45and I I try very hard to make the best out of life
40:50and not waste time
40:52there's a lot of time and moments that I wish I could take back
40:59use differently but you can't go back
41:02you can only move forward
41:06this is around the time he tried to kill me
41:16the fact that he could take a gun
41:19and point it at his child
41:21I really believe he tried to end my life that day
41:25there's no love
41:26there's just nothing there
41:28okay
41:28you
Recommended
41:29
|
Up next
41:31
41:31
41:31
50:01
30:07
47:16
46:47
1:09:30
47:04
47:00
45:33
46:57
50:02
32:47
47:10
1:06:21
1:22:04
2:09:12