Susan Spencer (48 Hours correspondent)

Mindy found out she was pregnant.

She would later miscarry, but she didn't know that then.

How did you think this was going to play out?

I thought he would kill me.

On the afternoon of September 27th, 1995, Mindy came home to discover her father had searched her room again.

This time, he had found her ashtray.

I just got really scared.

She broke into her father's bedroom and took his shotgun.

She was going to kill herself, she says.

I went into the bathroom because I figured if I messed up and I didn't kill myself, I didn't want to get in trouble for making a mess on the wall.

What stopped you?

So then I just decided that I couldn't.

But before she had a chance to put the gun back, Mindy says, her father came home from work.

Mindy Pereni insists she killed her father in self-defense.

To convince a jury of that, she will use the risky and rarely successful battered child defense.

She'll claim physical but especially emotional abuse, abuse that left her in such terror of her father that one look from him that night sent her over the edge.

Mindy's attorney, Larry Dilabio.

What would you call this?

But a huge problem for the defense is that Mindy told no one, not one soul, about the abuse until after the killing.

She didn't tell anyone?