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Chapter 1: What led to Mindy Berenyi's tragic decision to shoot her father?
I come from a small town.
It's a farm community. I think people think, well, you have the right to raise your child how you want.
What goes on behind closed doors stays there. That's what we were always told in my family. Whatever goes on here, you better not ever tell anyone.
The mystery of what really went on here in this middle-class house in Antwerp, Ohio, is at the heart of an unspeakable crime. A beloved father lies dead. His daughter, Mindy, a high school cheerleader, is in jail, awaiting trial for killing him in cold blood. I had said before, you know, out of anger, I could kill him.
But I'm not a murderer.
She doesn't deserve to be there. We, myself as a parent, should have saved her.
And I didn't. So packing up at her Indianapolis home. We'll get up there tonight. I'll take Mindy her clothes. Mindy's mother, Shirley Bereni, is preparing for the fight of her life. Court starts tomorrow morning. She'll be taking the stand at her daughter's murder trial to explain what happened.
She was still daddy's little angel there.
To a father-daughter relationship that had once seemed magic.
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances surrounding the Berenyi family dynamics?
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.
He just told me the night before that if he caught me smoking again, it would be the last time. And then I started to think about being pregnant, what he was going to do. It just kind of all built up.
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?
Every time I got ready to pull the trigger, I just... All I could think of was that I was pregnant.
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.
Right when he opened the door, he hollered, where the hell are you? I just got really scared, really angry. I just screamed at myself to stop, but I couldn't. The next thing I remember is him turning around and looking at me. I just thought, oh my God, Dad, I'm sorry.
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.
She killed her father. She shot him, but she didn't murder him.
Mindy's attorney, Larry Dilabio. What would you call this?
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Chapter 3: How did Mindy's relationship with her father evolve over time?
Running away. Of an out-of-control teenager who cut down her father in cold blood.
I feel for Andy still today. I go to the cemetery and feel like I have to apologize to him for what's happening to his name.
I feel he's seeing this going on.
Did he spend much time down here? Oh, yeah. Summertime was river life. It's been four years since Andy Barini died. Andy knew where every rock was in the river. But his second wife, Joni, still cherishes every memory with every glimpse of the river behind their house. We had a pontoon. The weekends, we'd go on the pontoon.
When Mindy'd go, he'd pull her on a tube, and she'd go tubing in the river.
They married in 1992. Joni helped raise Mindy from the time she was eight. She was a sweet little girl.
I loved her as my own.
And Joni says that as the only other person actually in the house watching it all unfold, only she knows the true relationship between Mindy and Andy Barani. He was a great father. He was not a child abuser. That is the issue here. Right, and that is definitely not a true statement. She says Andy was nothing like the monster Mindy and her mother described.
Andy was a strict parent, but he was not an abusive parent.
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Chapter 4: What evidence supports Mindy's claim of self-defense?
Who is the criminal? Who is the victim?
Hold the court doors on two. That's clear. All rise. It's day one of Mindy Barani's murder trial in Lima, Ohio.
Yes, sir. Larry Dallavio, Mindy Barini's lawyer.
And her lawyer is feeling the pressure.
She's a good kid. She should be out. She doesn't deserve to be in jail.
But 20-year-old Mindy faces life in prison, unless a jury believes her risky defense, that she was a battered child. Sleep last night?
No.
Battered not just physically, but emotionally.
We're just going to tell him the facts. We're going to tell him the truth.
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Chapter 5: How did the trial unfold and what were the key arguments presented?
She said, if my mother doesn't want me and doesn't want anything to do with me, then I'm willing to go to a military school, foster home.
But Mindy was a minor, and what to do was Andy's decision. A week before the killing, when Alvarado saw Mindy for the last time.
She just didn't open up as much, and it was like, She had just given up and she was not disclosing anymore.
Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
Because, says D'Alabio, Mindy by then had given up hope. As he heads out to the jail two nights later... Big day, important day tomorrow. He must make sure she doesn't lose hope again.
Mindy's credibility is going to be big tomorrow. It's going to mean a lot. The jury sees her.
Mindy will testify tomorrow. I have nothing to lie about. And that means stealing herself to relive the abuse that she says drove her to kill.
As tough as it's going to be, put yourself there. Put yourself there. Okay? As tough as it might be to talk about it, just get down to it.
I would like nothing more than to go home. To be someone, to raise children.
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Chapter 6: What were the reactions of the family members during the trial?
She spends six grueling hours on the stand.
You did fine, baby. You did fine, baby.
It's going to be, man, it's just, no, no, no, it's just going to be, you know, it's just going to be how they're going to listen to all those things and how they're going to interpret all those things. You did a fine job, okay? You did the best you could. You did all that you could, okay?
You don't think it went good? I think it went fine.
No, you don't. You can tell me the truth. No. If you think it went bad, I want you to tell me and I'll prepare for it.
You certainly don't think it went great.
No, I don't think it went great.
But one unexpected observer was moved by her testimony. Jill Harris, a juror from Mindy's first murder trial, has driven miles to be here.
I just felt that I connected with her some way and I should be there just to show support that someone cares.
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