395: What if your son murdered your daughter?
This Is Actually Happening
Audible
4.6 • 10.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2026
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After overcoming addiction and rebuilding her life around motherhood, a woman's world is shattered when her son kills her daughter, forcing her to grieve one child while fighting to protect the other and learning how to survive an unbearable moral and emotional divide.
Today’s episode featured Charity Lee. If you’d like to email Charity, you can reach her at bawmedia@gmail.com. You can also find her on Facebook @IAmCharityLee
Charity has authored a book entitled, How Now, Butterfly? A Memoir of Murder, Survival, and Transformation, available where books are sold.
Producers: Whit Missildine, Andrew Waits
Content/Trigger Warnings: Child abuse and neglect, Domestic violence, Substance abuse and addiction, Suicide and suicide attempts, Self-harm, Child homicide, Graphic violence, Intrafamilial violence, Mental illness, Incarceration and juvenile detention, Grief and traumatic loss, Emotional abuse, Parental abandonment, Trauma and PTSD, Near-death experience / overdose, Religious and spiritual distress, explicit language
Social Media:
Instagram: @actuallyhappening
Twitter: @TIAHPodcast
Website: thisisactuallyhappening.com
Website for Andrew Waits: andrdewwaits.com
Support the Show: Support The Show on Patreon: patreon.com/happening
Wondery Plus: All episodes of the show prior to episode #130 are now part of the Wondery Plus premium service. To access the full catalog of episodes, and get all episodes ad free, sign up for Wondery Plus at wondery.com/plus
Shop at the Store: The This Is Actually Happening online store is now officially open. Follow this link: thisisactuallyhappening.com/shop to access branded t-shirts, posters, stickers and more from the shop.
Transcripts: Full transcripts of each episode are now available on the website, thisisactuallyhappening.com
Intro Music: “Sleep Paralysis” - Scott Velasquez
Music Bed: Salib (SAL) - Tension Underscore 33 A
Services
If you or someone you know is struggling with the effects of trauma or mental illness, please refer to the following resources:
National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Text or Call 988
National Alliance on Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264
National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. |
| 0:04.3 | Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. |
| 0:14.6 | I felt like somebody had just obliterated me into like a billion microscopic pieces of me that would never be found again. |
| 0:32.0 | Then took all those pieces and stomped on them until it was just dust. |
| 0:43.3 | From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldine. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. |
| 0:57.0 | Episode 3.95 |
| 1:00.5 | What if your son murdered your daughter? My parents met when my father was married to my aunt, my mother's sister. |
| 1:38.0 | The marriage between my father and my aunt didn't work, and then my mother and my father got married. |
| 1:47.2 | She was 16. |
| 1:50.1 | I think he was at least a decade older than her. |
| 1:54.3 | My father worked with his dad, my grandfather, who ran a junkyard. |
| 2:01.7 | They also were involved in some criminal-related activities. |
| 2:07.7 | I was born in 1973. |
| 2:10.3 | My mother was 22. |
| 2:14.2 | They were running a trucking company, hauling U.S. mail for the post office. |
| 2:22.1 | Sometime before I turned six, my parents divorced. |
| 2:29.7 | And then in March 1980, they went to Las Vegas on a Friday and got married again. |
| 2:41.4 | And then that Monday, my father was murdered. |
| 2:48.1 | I was about to turn seven. |
| 2:58.3 | I had no idea what had happened. My mother was being investigated. All of this information about their lives was coming out. It was all over the news in Atlanta. My father being such a womanizer, |
| 3:13.3 | the criminal activity that consisted of, you know, stolen car part rings, drug smuggling, and because it was U.S. mail and some of those trucks were used, you know, federal offenses. |
| 3:30.6 | So she was indicted, arrested, put on trial. It was a big story. But then, you know, at the end of it all, she was acquitted. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audible, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Audible and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.