Robert, Part I

ROBERT, PART I of II
 
In the Summer of 1988, Robert was released from county jail only to discover that he had just lost everything. His wife was missing, rumors were circulating of her murder, their kids were in DCS custody, and he was homeless. Robert dealt with the loss the only way he knew how, with methamphetamine.

For decades, he was lost in his addiction. In 2018, Robert went into a 30-day rehab program to detox. Then he found a solid church and became friends with another person in that congregation, Rick Davis. For a time, Robert did well, growing in his relationship with a personal Lord and Savior, yet he still struggled with his addictions. Robert relapsed.

Yet, God wasn't going to let Robert go. "It's divine providence," he explained, "God knows us. He knows how to capture our attention and speak to our hearts." One day, Robert walked to a convenience store and did a double take when he saw the strangest truck he had ever seen. "I told myself I've gonna see who's driving this thing because I want to ask him what this is." As it turned out, the driver was Rick Davis. They embraced like old friends. Rick looked at Robert, met his eyes, and said, "I'm at Gospel Rescue Mission, and I don't care what you have been up to, but you need to come and see me." 

Robert has been clean and sober for over six months; he is healing from his past traumas (including the trauma of losing his wife) and growing in faith daily. 

Listen to Robert's powerful story of redemption in this two-part episode. 

IRENE MELANIE MAY
On May 23, 1995, Kerry Lyn Dalton was sentenced to life in prison for the murder and torture of 23-year-old Irene Melanie May. In the Summer of 1988, Irene was staying with Kerry before she went missing. And, for a long time, information was not forthcoming. As Robert had said, his's wife's case went cold. Yet, the people who came forward described the torture which Irene May endured before she was killed. She was tied to a chair, injected with syringes filled with battery acid, beaten with a cast iron frying pan until the handle broke, electrocuted, hit with a breaker bar, and repeatedly stabbed with a knife and screwdriver before she was killed. The evidence against Kerry Lyn Dalton for her involvement in the murder was circumstantial. However, it was very strong circumstantial evidence, enough to convince a jury. Many people believed that she was innocent. Yet, Robert has no doubts. Nor does his daughter.  You can read Jillian's letter at https://murderpedia.org/female.D/d/dalton-kerry.htm

Transcript

Robert May: 0:00

It was something that you see happening to other people. You never like when you watch that stuff on a&e and all these crimes. You're watching something happened to someone else. Right? Well, I'm the guy that someone else is my wife was brutally murdered. My kids are in CPS. And what do I do with that? I'm homeless. I don't trust anyone at that point, because I don't really know what the truth is. I don't know who was involved. Why didn't you intercede if you knew this was happening, my friends? Right? Why would you know? And so all that stuff is flooding into my brain. And I just check out man, because I can't trust anybody. So I disconnect, completely disconnect. I went to outer space, my friend, my drug intake tripled. And Robert May went from planet Earth to outer space.

Pascal Quintero: 1:07

Hello, and welcome to homeless to wholeness, the Ministry of gospel rescue mission. We're a team of Christ followers on a mission to help others find hope and restoration. My name is Pascal Quintero, and I'm the creative manager at gospel rescue mission. But more than that, I'm a seventh generation to Sony. And I have a deep love and a passion for both its history and the people of this great community. So please listen in every other week as we share the inspirational stories and individuals who overcame extreme challenges and found a new life in Christ, moving from homeless to wholeness. As you've heard, we have quite a story for you. I'm talking with Robert, who is a recovery guest to the center of opportunity. And he's at the end of what he calls his prodigal son journey. It's a story of redemption, one that spans decades. So this might have to be a two part episode. But don't worry, we'll try and release the next part next week. So you don't have to wait quite so long for its conclusion. But I assure you, it's well worth waiting for. Well, let's just dive into it. Let's hear the story from the beginning. So Robert, how long have you been clean and sober now?

Robert May: 2:14

Six months, this time, six months, months? Wow. That's pretty cool. It is cool. It's very cool. And it's a much different experience this time. It's my first time in a faith based recovery program. And it's the providence of God, you know, brought me here. And it's been a much different experience for me.

Pascal Quintero: 2:38

How is it different being in a faith based recovery program?

Robert May: 2:42

Well, I'm able to not only learn how to have a healthy relationship with God, but with myself to learn the education of recovery. And I've, I've, this isn't my first go around. This is really the first time for I'm absolutely serious about it. I'm all in. And that's a much different mentality than I've ever had before. I attribute that to God.

Pascal Quintero: 3:16

Now, you were talking about his providence brought you to this place, that now you're saying, I'm all in?

Robert May: 3:23

I'm all in? Yeah, I have no choice. You know, you know, if we think about hard times, as a wine press, almost where God puts us in this wine press as a result, like there's a penalty for our choices there is we want to disobey God. And, you know, we belong to Him, we belong to him, and he's not gonna let us go, right. And so we make bad choices, we put things in front of him, we act on our own strength without biting into the situation and make decisions. And there's a penalty for that. And and so I just kind of view it, it's a wine press, you know, and we're in that thing. And life gets very, very difficult as God's cranking down the handle right? And pretty soon we're at the end of ourselves, and we're like crying out to Him and it's crazy stuff but it's just the reality of it on a spiritual level. It's like, okay,

Pascal Quintero: 4:29

well, there were there was a moment where he made things absolutely clear to you the direction he wanted you to go in.

Robert May: 4:37

First of all, before I ran into my friend, I felt pressed for time inside of myself. I felt it was almost like an almost equated it was like two hands pressing on my chest. I could just feeling pressed for time. So it wasn't just anxiety. No, it was like I felt pressed by something. Right and I'm going to go out Not only I'm here and say that was God pressing me for time. And when I look at the condition of the world today, I would say that makes very good sense, right? God's trying to tell us something. And so in that pressed for time, you know, and it was about two years and six months into my relapse, I'm parking my car at Circle K, at Craig Croft and Golf Links. And I get out of my car, and there's a truck, right. And it's got six wheels for the back to the front. And it looked like an old Dodge pickup truck to me, you know, the old 60s Dodge pickup truck.

Pascal Quintero: 5:50

So what was special about this six wheeled truck? Well, I've

Robert May: 5:53

just never seen one. That's all right. And I have this childlike curiosity. Right. And I think that's because of the way I was raised. You know, I wasn't very curious. I was withdrawn. But now that you know what your car guy, I know, van, I am a car guy. I love mechanics of motorcycles, cars, boats, you know? So I see this truck, and I'm like, What in the heck is that? Right? That's my response. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm going to wait and see who's driving this thing, because I want to talk to him about this. Okay, then out of the over the top of this thing, because Rick Davis, very large man comes walking out a circle K. And I just started laughing when I saw him, because they knew he was the driver. I just knew it. And he saw me and he starts laughing. And I say, if anybody was gonna be driving this, they could be you. You know?

Pascal Quintero: 6:57

Okay, so who is Rick Davis, and

Robert May: 6:59

Davis was a volunteer pastor here, you know, he was doing, you know, Gene news, the one genes job and he trained gene for his job. So and, and guide him into that. And so if you listen to what Gene says he was kind of pressed RIT was pressing, right. And so I'll get to that. But so I met Rick Davis in 2018. When I started going to see at Christian faith Fellowship Church, and he was a part of that church, and we developed a friendship and I would go to his house, we'd have pizza, we'd order pizza. And we work on things. Or we mainly we would sit there and talk about God in our lives. And he was a very affirmative affirmation kind of guy made me. He made me see things about me, and what God was doing in my life that I didn't even recognize, right. And we had some very incredible conversations about God. And so I loved Rick Davis. Right. And Rick Davis loved me. I know he did. And, and so that's the relationship. Right. And so then I relapsed. And so it's been a while since I seen him, I gone over his house a couple of times during that relapse, to ask for help, for working on a car, because he's very, he's a car guy, right? He's very mechanical. And so he helped me fix a car. And, you know, I was able to spend time with him, you know, and thing I loved about him was he didn't judge me for what I was doing. He just loved me. Right. And, and, you know, and so this is the thing, like after he explained to me what the truck was, which I at that time, I don't remember where he said about the truck. Honestly, it was something else that happened right there. He looked at me like he's never like with an intensity, the same intensity and who's tell gene A need to get in here and do this. He says, I'm at the gospel rescue mission, and you need to come and see me come to my house. I don't care what you're doing. He says, right. And he's never spoken to me. He was in an angry tone. It was just in a tone with it. It was intense. And I was like, Okay,

Pascal Quintero: 9:34

so do you think the spirit was using him to speak through him?

Robert May: 9:38

Absolutely. God knew I loved Rick Davis knew Rick Davis loved me, and he was the perfect person for the intervention. Right, and he spoke to me, and even though I didn't see it for what it was worth in that moment, right? Because when I came to the Gospel Rescue Mission I knew Rick Davis wasn't gonna be here. Right? Because God already called him home. You see? And but guess who was? God was, God met me in this place? It was a divine appointment. And I have no choice. As guys, as I look back at things, and I see the provenance of God getting me in his place, you know, and what he's doing in my life here, I have no choice but to say, I just cannot take that for granted. I can't take God for granted anymore. He's gone out of his way, time and time again to show me how much he loves me. Right. And I'm at a point in my life where I'm just like, I got it. God, I got it. And again, you know, it's the prodigal son. You know, it's coming to an end of yourself, waking up in a pigpen and realizing how deprived you are, right and just going, I need your help.

Pascal Quintero: 11:05

Right. So let's talk a little bit about what led to your addiction. Tell me a little bit about your childhood, where you're from.

Robert May: 11:13

Okay, so I was born and 1966 in Carson City, Nevada. My mother's name's Karen, father's name is Leon Mae. They divorced when I was an infant. You know, I've I've seen pictures of my father holding me. Right. As you know, Ninja was born, you know. But, you know, they divorced. And so my mother left Carson City and went back to Indiana, which is where her family's at. So you grew up with your mom, I grew up with my mother. And I had an older brother named Carrie, who grew up with my father. And you know, that was it. I really didn't. I didn't even know this until after, you know, I didn't meet my father and my real brother toys 14 years old. And wow. So we left when I was an infant, and then I'm eating for the first time at 14 didn't even know who he was. My mother never talked about it. Right. And so we go to Indiana, and we start a new life, right.

Pascal Quintero: 12:24

But things weren't always good in that household

Robert May: 12:27

know, things were not always good. My mother, my, my child who was insane. It was really a very scary place. But in that, you know, when I was six years old, my mother stepped into relationship with Christ. Right? And I followed suit. Right? So I was saved at six and baptized and my mother said, I came out of the water and yelled, hallelujah, right? And everybody laughed, you know, and I could see myself doing that. But there's this other stuff going on. Right? You know, I meet, I meet another brother, who's much older than all of us. And comes to find out my mother had him when she was very young, couldn't take care of him. So my grandparents were raising him. Right. And so you see the dysfunctional, this old thing? Well, you know, so there's so on the outside of the relationship of me and my mother. There's people in my life, my older brother, older cousins, uncle, older female, because there's some sexual manipulation going on. In my life. I'm being abused sexually. And then on the other side of it, I have my mother. And she was very in, she was very hostile, angry woman. Even after her salvation, she never quite could connect the healing part of that. And so she was just giving an example. Right? When my mother went off, she would punch me, legs, Back, stomach, arms, head. She didn't even I don't even think she knew where she was hitting me. She was just crazy. Just lashing out. And, and I remember on a few occasions, actually going under my bed in terror to get away from her. And then her being so angry to get down on her hands and knees and actually reach under that bed and grabbed me by my hair with two hands it and drag me out from underneath that bed, just so she could punch me some more. I must and we think about a little kid. I mean, I'm crying Tara iced, right? Right. And this happened a lot more than my mother would care to admit to. But that's, that's going on over there. This other stuff going on over here. By the time I'm in first grade, I'm sitting in it. I can even recall sitting in a classroom and feeling like, I don't belong here. And my mere life was terribly well, my mother verbally bankrupted me. I mean, you're stupid. I hate you. You're worthless. Right? Over and over. I heard those words. And so she basically, from this sexual manipulation is going on, and the physical abuse, my personality, my self esteem, my identity was stolen from me as a kid. And I grew up, people like to say, categorize a child that is quiet. And

Pascal Quintero: 16:05

introspective, introspective.

Robert May: 16:07

Yeah. As being shy, I'm here to say, and wasn't shy, I was broken. Wow. Yeah. And so that stuff carried on and then, you know, it, it grew into being exposed to pornography, you know, and, you know, acting out sexually, being exposed to alcohol as a young kid being sat on adults laps and being told lies about how they knew Batman and Robin and Superman. And let me drink, right? It's cool. i You say, Oh, that's cool. Well, you know, that coolness, right? Well, however cool, you might think that looks me to save for me to become an alcoholic. And so I can remember being just a little kid sneaking my grandfather's beer, and his cigarette, and going out behind the barn. Or the I mean, the garage, his garage, and actually opening up beer laying that cigarette.

Pascal Quintero: 17:12

And this was just normal for you.

Robert May: 17:13

It was normal as normal, the drinking and being allowed to do things like I openly started smoking in front of my mother when I was 14. Even as I mean, can you imagine a little kid being smoking a bomb? No. And I did that. And so yeah, it's normal, right? And so violence is normal. Sex is love, because the people who say they love me are sexually manipulating. So sex becomes love. And you just really, really develop all these false belief systems. You know, it really damaged me. On the outside of that, you know, there was some normality. I like to go fishing. I like to go camping. We had a rock quarry in Indiana we'd go to and we go camping. I mean, there was some doors in everybody's life, right? There is the non normality of a childhood in there.

Pascal Quintero: 18:11

So it wasn't all bad. There were some great times too. But you did move around a lot when you were young. And that created some problems for your friendships, your relationships, and it led to further drug abuse. So let's move forward a little bit and talk about high school. How was high school for you? And so I

Robert May: 18:30

want you to know that okay, so in Colorado, this is how even further God I was. Right? Now, I got enrolled in high school there in Monument Colorado. And I got expelled the very first day of high school because I showed up completely high on multiple volumes and 151. Bacardi. My first day school.

Pascal Quintero: 18:55

Wow, right. Your mom just dropped you off. And you were my

Robert May: 18:58

mom didn't drop me off. You know, we left for school. But we partied before we got there. Right. Gotcha. And that was kind of something that even along the way, can remember even before high school, you know, which I had never, I never was successful in school, I was always a D, A C, D F student, right? Because I believe that was stupid. And I was broken and I was disengaged. And so I can remember even in middle school, being picked up by older friends who had car right, driving to school, and they're gonna drop me off where they go to high school with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and smoking some weed. And so it was just kind of a normal thing, and I obviously didn't feel good enough naturally and needed to drink get high before I had to enter a social situation. And so you

Pascal Quintero: 20:06

felt that uncomfortable being in social situations.

Robert May: 20:10

That's, that's all I can equate it to being broken. And I like I didn't feel like, like I was quite, I was always the quietest guy in the room, right? Even as a teenager was always the quietest guy in the room, and people would make comments about it and say, Why don't you talk, you know, and I just didn't feel like, you know, adding value. So I had to get loaded, see, and so things just kind of faded out, you know, and drugs became the most important part of my life. And so at 16 years old in Louisiana was over. I met these folks in this trailer park we were living at, and it's funny, it was called The Pink Panther trailer park. And so you could take the kid out of the trailer park, but it's getting to the poor guy the kid, right? And so I was meeting people there, you know, that did drugs, right. That's what I was drawn to. And so at that time, I smoked a lot of weed. Like it was just an all day event, smoking weed, but then these guys see these guys. They're making methamphetamine. And I've never done that amphetamine, you know. And they're, they're, they're shooting it up. One day, like, you want to try some of this. And I held my arm out, you know, and got high on meth for the first time in my life. And then they showed me how they were making it. So now I know how to stick a needle in my arm. And I know how to make drugs, right. 16 Wow. Yeah. So life took a very, very serious turn for me. Then, that was the beginning of the end right there, my friend. And I. So you left home. And so yeah, and so I'm still living at home, we're still living in the same 30 foot travel trailer. And so my mother's still just as insane. My stepfather is the buffer. But she's still and so and so one day, I was over friend's house. And we're getting high. And this woman whose name was Irene. Called me, Melanie, her name was Melanie. That's what I was called her. So she comes in a bathroom to stick the needle in my arm, and kisses me and says, Hey, once you come over to tomorrow, right. And so I did, you know, and then a relationship developed, right? The important thing to notice here is it was a drug relationship, man. And call it for what it is, you know, today looking back I view love much differently today than I did then. I didn't have a clue what love look like. So, so I leave the dysfunctional functionality, the dysfunctionality of the house, and I move in with her. Right. And by this time, I'm 17 years old. She's just as dysfunctional as me she's a drug addict. Right? Right. He's a very angry woman. for all intensive purposes. I left my mother and went to my mother. It's crazy. And you when you see that cycle, it's like, wow, you know,

Pascal Quintero: 23:58

but you eventually married her.

Robert May: 24:00

I did. I eventually married her. We moved, we moved from Louisiana. And we went out to Carson City, Nevada, where I was born. I had already met my father, right when I was 14, and developed a relationship with Him. And even then, my father tried to, you know, at 14, my father tried to, you know, be a father to me and enroll me in school. And, you know, there was a stable household. There wasn't abuse going on. But I was so broken already that he couldn't have done anything. Because I mean, he really enrolled me in school. Well, school to me was my cutter friends, right? And drugs and alcohol. And so it was in that time period, you know, where I experienced LSD. Cocaine. Even had tried PCP Before I actually done meth, so I had done other drugs, but meth really became meth became the prime or the primer. That was the drug of choice at that time was methamphetamine and alcohol. Alcohol always has been in the picture. Right. And so we moved, because I got in trouble with the law in Slidell, Louisiana. And so we we left and I go out to Carson City. My dad welcomed us out there, you know, we don't live with him, we had money saved.

Pascal Quintero: 25:34

So how are you making your living at this time, at this time,

Robert May: 25:38

I got a job. And it was my first job ever in life. It was my second job. First job only lasted like a month when I was a steam cleaner. And we go out to all the casinos and we pressure wash the kitchens and grease exhaust systems, you know, and I was the smallest guy. So I was the guy who got shoved in the ducts to clean the ducts and all that stuff. And for me, it was a really cool job. It was at night, everybody party, right? So we're like, clearing, you know, the taps were working, and smoking weed and doing coke. And even going to work high on LSD and stuff. I mean, we were,

Pascal Quintero: 26:24

we were off the hook. But things weren't going too well at home.

Robert May: 26:27

No, things were very dysfunctional at home. Me and my wife, we fought a lot. You know, as I said, I basically, you know, moved in with my mother. And so domestic violence was at work. I mean, and but you know, on that on the flip side of that, right in, where we were there in Carson City, my son Robert was born. And he was born in the same hospital that I was. Wow. And what an incredible what an incredible deal. That was. That was just like, I was in the delivery room, right? And a doctor's like, Excuse me, we'd like to move over so I can deliver this kid. Because I was like right there go to Wow, all right, this is crazy. And had a beautiful, beautiful son. And you know, we're dysfunctional, still was just shooting up drugs and trying to raise a kid and you know, things are a mess. And eventually they get out of control.

Pascal Quintero: 27:34

So starting a family didn't change any of the habits

Robert May: 27:38

Act No, no. We were hardcore, dope fiends broken people. Were we love we to what ever love was to us. And that time we were in love. And we wanted to do this thing. So but things got off the hook in Nevada and we moved. We moved from there to Alpine California. Things did kind of change for the better for because we got sober. I was working two jobs. She was collecting welfare. We saved money. There's still the domestic disputes going on. There's still a dysfunctionality of the whole thing, but we were sober. And, and that's gonna man big difference. And she's pregnant again. Right. So spraying it with my second son. And so anyway, so we get everything together, right and we're going to move out so we move out. We moved down into another town. It's in, you know, San Diego County from Alpine. It's just down the hills. Lakeside, California, right. Wow. I move we move into an apartment. My next door neighbor is a gentleman named Roger. I won't say his last name. But you know, his name is Roger. He's deeply ingrained. He was born and raised in Lakeside, California. And there is a culture going on there. Right there is a circle of drug culture, the whole nother level of methamphetamine world. At that time. San Diego, San Diego was the methamphetamine capital of the United States. And you step right in this is a different kind of methamphetamine than what I was making. Right? I was making memes over a stove. These guys are cooking pounds of meth. Right and I meet and cooks and you know, and you know, wow, it took on a whole How did your life it took on a criminal element. The addiction did at that point. And we were new in this town and we had to figure out, right? Because these guys are convicts. They're there.

Pascal Quintero: 30:00

The hardcore, the hardcore,

Robert May: 30:02

and is a, it's a group of folks I'd never been around before. So getting into this, this whole nother level of drugs, and the, you know, the potency and all of it changed, right? And lost our minds. cents, right? My son was born in San Diego, my youngest son, Jeremy, was born in San Diego. So we had two kids, and least of all, I had a daughter named Gillian. And she, my, my, my wife already had her when we got into the relationship, right. And she was beautiful little girl look like Shirley Temple. And she was beautiful. And I viewed her as my kid, she's my kid, my she's part of the deal. And I loved her. And so but you know, whatever love is, I don't have a clue how to be a father, or a husband, or a functioning adult, it's foreign to me. And I think that the way we are living is normal. That's the crazy part about it. Well, you know, I'll read a letter for you. And you can just see how, how bad it was, and how blind two people were to their behavior. And it was very destructive. I mean, when I, when I read it from my adult daughters perspective of her being a child in that environment, I was like, wow. Where was I at? You know, I wasn't, I wasn't present. You were so logged out in your addiction and drugged out, and my addiction and dysfunctionality I was clueless to my

Pascal Quintero: 31:49

behavior, and how it was impacting your children.

Robert May: 31:53

Yeah. And it did it, it really is still has had an impact on my kids. My two sons are addicts today, that must live in their addiction. And so and so in that scenario, right. When I turned 21, I got arrested for a DUI. It was a very violent drunk. Like I was the last guy you wanted to get put before I'm be dropped before

Pascal Quintero: 32:21

we move on from there. Okay. Go ahead and read that letter.

Robert May: 32:24

Well, let me just talk about something real quick. Okay. So I get arrested when I'm 21. Right. And, and in this process of us having an apartment, we lose our apartment, we become homeless, we're Hotelling it with our kids. I mean, this is how off the hook, everything got. And culture there at that time, the drug culture. Hanging out motels was the norm. Like everybody did it. We have a whole hotel to ourselves, there'd be so many people in that call in that circle. I mean, we all rooms, right and doors open people going from one room to another, we all knew each other. Right? It was crazy. It was crazy, man. And so. But in that, you know, I was I left one night to go collect some money. Somebody owed me. And while I was gone to the hotel management, notice something about my wife. And so they call the police. And the police show up and they arrest her, and they take our kids from us and the kids go into CPS. Alright, and so we got it together, right? We love their kids, right? No, don't don't get me wrong. We loved our kids. And we loved each other. It was just not a correct way. Right? It wasn't healthy, but we loved. Great. And so we did everything we had to do. Right. And it took over a year. But we got our kids back. But still. Right. But still, we had to regress back into our old behavior. Right? And so things were in Lakeside, California. And, you know, like, I lived in San Diego for 15 years. So we're talking there was a stretch of time here. Right? And so this was in the 80s. Me and my wife started not getting along. Right. And so she left and she would leave and she be gone for days at a time and I'm at home with the kids and the kids are crying for the mother. And so there was a time where I left the house and went to find my wife, right because I loved her. I missed her the kids mister and I went to just go and try and talk her into coming home. And while I was gone a little girl, right? There was a there was somebody watching the kids while I went in look for their mother. My daughter got out of the house. Right and she we had where we lived was Kyle most was right at the corner of the street Lakeside Drive. And our apartment complex was here the very end one. And Burger King was right there. Let me just go right up the sidewalk right in the parking lot of Burger King. My daughter went to Burger King asking for food.

Pascal Quintero: 35:16

How old was she at

Robert May: 35:17

the time? Five, five year old, a five year old out of the out of the apartment and goes to Burger King asked for food. Well, what do they do call the police of course, right? They call the cops cost bring her home. I'm I'm not there. And so the cops lever, right and they split. And you know, four time later, I come home. And about an hour later the cops are back at door with CPS. Ouch. And they come in. And you know, the house isn't the way it should be. Right? Kids aren't in the state of that they should be in. I mean, it was really bad. And so they take the kids, you know, and I'm watching CPS walk out the door with my kids. And they're crying. And it was just it was terrible. Right?

Pascal Quintero: 36:12

What did that feel like for you? To watch them go? Uh, tell

Robert May: 36:15

you man, it didn't feel like the way it should have felt right, because I was so convoluted on drugs. Their mother, she don't know this happen. So I gotta find her. I gotta go and tell her. That's what I do. I find her. And we go to this western clothing store on Main Street, lakeside, California, and I'm saying hey, CPS came and took our kids. And let's get back together. Let's figure this thing out. She didn't want to be part of it. And we got to an argument. Well, somebody called the police, because it's kind of a residential neighborhood, too. And so the cops show up, and I got a warrant for my arrest from when I was 21. got arrested for a DUI and never resolved it. I go to county jail for 30 days. While I'm there. The people that my wife when she was leaving and hanging out with murdered her. Wow. Yeah. So 30 days later, I get out of county jail. My wife supposedly murdered. It's just a rumor at this point on the streets. There's nobody's been arrested. There's no body. Right? It's just as rumor. Right? And I'm, I got an asking questions. And

Pascal Quintero: 37:37

did you know the guys that she was high knew

Robert May: 37:39

the people. They were people that they were on the outskirts? Right. And they were so off the chain, that the ones off the chain, hang out with? Right? They were they were foul. Like, one of them actually had rented a room from us in our apartment. And her and my wife just couldn't get along. Her name was Carrie Dalton. And so I had to throw her out. Like, you know what, I dropped my wife for her. Well, it might have been a hard decision for me at that point. It was my wife was very hard to live with do but I tell her, you know, you got to move. Right. And I saw I think there was this hostility born in that moment towards my wife and her. But still, my wife was hanging out with them. Right? And so it was just a really, it was something that you see happening to other people. You never like when you watch that stuff on a&e and all these crimes. You're watching something happened to someone else? Right? Well, I'm the guy that someone else is, like, my wife was brutally murdered. My kids are in CPS. And what do I do with that? I'm homeless. I don't trust anyone at that point, because I don't really know what the truth is. I don't know who was involved. Why didn't you intercede if you knew this was happening, my friends. Right? Why would you know? And so all that stuff is flooding into my brain and I just check out man because I can't trust anybody. So I disconnect, completely disconnect. I have no friends. So where did you go? I went to outer space. My friend. My drug intake tripled. My methamphetamine intake tripled. And, and Robert May went from planters to outer space. And I love how long did

Pascal Quintero: 39:44

you stay high?

Robert May: 39:45

It was like five years. I was gone man. I mean, I was really gone. I didn't. I wasn't focusing on my kids being in CPS. I was the only parent alive. I mean, I was so checked out that nothing mattered. Nothing was real to me anymore. Where were you living at the time? I was still living in Lakeside, California, where the murder took place and stuff. And so, man, and so do you ever

Pascal Quintero: 40:16

find out more about what had happened your wifely?

Robert May: 40:19

Absolutely. I mean, the people who murdered her got busted, right? Because there was a rumor on the street, why? They bragged about it. Right, they told on themselves. And so as the cops like it kind of came became a cold case. And then while they were investigating some other murders that were happening, they stumbled upon evidence of my wife's burger. And so in that they reopen the case. And then they go after these guys. And they busted them. And two of them snitched on the other one, right? Because they were all looking at the death penalty. But two of them got out of the death penalty by cooperating. Right, and we see that all the time is commonplace. So they got sentenced to three years in life. 30 years to life. And the woman who was the conspirator of it, all right, if there was no Carrie Dalton, there would have been no murder. What happened to her he's on death row still to this day. Right? And we're talking over 30 years here. She's still on death row, one of the people involved is already released from prison he did 30 flat years. Then let me read a story because here's, here's my daughter as an adult, she's looking at ours, I adopted him out in 1989. Because I'm on my way to prison. They've already been in the system. And a couple came and visited me while I was in county jail, he pulled me out of court CPS did and his family who had my son's, you know, and I just, and even in my dysfunction, right? I knew there was a God, I knew there was a God. And I just pray to God, Father, God, please take my you know, that my children go to a Christian family, who loves them, and cares for them. In Jesus name, I ask Amen. Right. And so these couple comes down, and they pull me out the core, and they say, Hey, here's my name. My wife's a school teacher, she quit her job, so she could be home with your sons. And we love your kids. And I said, Do you believe Christ died on a cross for you? He's like, yes.

Pascal Quintero: 42:38

So they end up in a very good place.

Robert May: 42:40

Excuse me. So there's the providence of God, broken person's life. Right? I mean, it's crazy. To God loves us so much, even in our brokenness, that he would hear my prayer and respond. So I had no control over my daughter, I probably did, you know, through the marriage, and I just didn't know what my rights were. So they adopted her out. And we're gonna read this letter to you understand what that looks like, but and who she went to. Right. And it's crazy. And in the San Diego is a huge community. It's a large city, right? And spread out. Right. And my two sons and my daughter adopted out to different folks grew up on the same street, in San Diego, California, and actually knew each

Pascal Quintero: 43:41

other. What are the odds of that happening?

Robert May: 43:44

They're incredible odds. And if you talk to a social worker, they'll tell you the same thing. Wow. It's an incredible story. Right? And so in their parents were open with them, you know, and said, Yeah, you got a mother and, you know, your mother's this is your mother's story, right? And this is your father's story. Right? But they went to two families that cared for them, and love Christ.

Pascal Quintero: 44:15

What a blessing to have them go to such good parents. I know we're talking about 30 years ago. So in some ways, it's it's history. But it's also not, you know, it's, it's ongoing. And there are things happening right now that we'll talk about all of that next week. We'll we'll pause right here, and we'll pick it up with that letter.

Robert May: 44:39

Yeah, a letter that my daughter wrote, it was posted on the internet. And it was an experience she had in law class in high school. And so here she is, you know, a teenage woman in high school and experiencing and actually seeing for the first time in her life. The person responsible for Maria and Joan London's interviewing her on a Sunday. There was something to that. I feel she talked about me and my daughter recently, less than a year ago, a&e contacted my daughter, because they're going to do another segment of women on death row. And it's going to involve Carrie Dalton who murdered my wife, and asked if she could be interviewed. And she called me right away. Hey, dad, and he got in touch me, they want me to interview would you like to be a part of I said, Absolutely. So they flew her out here. And some folks interview or, and stuff, they came out from LA, they already had people they hired here in town, to do what we're doing, right, setting up all the equipment and the lighting and everything. And, and so they interviewed me first aid film, me and my daughter together, you know, it's as she pulls up, and I'm seeing her for the first time. And it's been a few years. Right. And, and so it was, it was, it was incredible that, you know, we were going to be able to do something together. That was a healing process. And so they interviewed me, I had the whole room crying, as I was speaking about this event, my life and how it's affected me and my kids. And then my daughter, they interviewed and she had them all really crying because my daughter was, I mean, it's even if it even hits her. It's it's impacted their life, even more so than mine, because they lost their father too. Right? I mean, they lost both of us in that equation, because dad checked out. And yeah, so what an incredible deal. And we were able to tell our side of the story. And so in the letter, we hear her even say, they don't even bother to ask me how I feel, as they're given this woman space on TV national TV to talk about, you know why she's on death row. And for a crime, she says she didn't commit even.

Pascal Quintero: 47:33

All right, that that must take you both pretty hard.

Robert May: 47:37

Yeah, she's crying about her children. And that's what really upset my daughter was. She's crying about her children not being able to hear children. And my children have no mother because of her who they haven't. They don't have a choice. She sold the choice from them. Right. Right. And so what a powerful deal. And yeah, I was I said app, so I didn't even hesitate for a second. Absolutely. I'll do this with you. Yeah, so that was an incredible deal. And it's going to come out sometime. Probably in 23, or at the very end of this year. You know,

Pascal Quintero: 48:17

just what a blessing it is to have that closure together, or at least that

Robert May: 48:22

yeah, it's very healing experience, you know, closure would be admittance giving up the whereabouts of her body because our bodies never been found. That's one of her complaints like I'm on death row for there's no evidence there's no body that was ever found. Well, you know, the fact that her bodies never been found, proves her guilt. Right? I mean, really, my wife didn't just disappear on planner. She's not out there somewhere. Because if she was, she loved her kids. She would be doing the same thing I was doing because I love my kids and trying to find a man.

Pascal Quintero: 49:23

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