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00:08tonight on dateline i remember them saying we found a body i just fell to my knees
00:17when i found out that gloria had been murdered you're just trying to adjust to the emptiness
00:26how do you plan a funeral for your child she was 14 years of age an innocent girl walking to
00:34school
00:34alone somebody was seen following her she never screamed she never called for help i believe that
00:42this person had been watching her you have a mystery man that could be your killer we talked
00:48to classmates friends at school teachers months turned into years and years there has to be a way
00:55to solve this they can take a piece of evidence that's 25 years old 30 years old and they can
01:02test it he knew exactly what we had to do i made a promise to her i said gloria i'll
01:08find out who did
01:09this we needed to find the killer get ready for a stunner of a mystery i'm lester holt and this
01:17is
01:17date line here's andrea canning with a promise to gloria
01:38the morning of december 6th got off to a bad start for yvonne pointer
01:43she had a nightmare or maybe a premonition i had a horrible treat blood was everywhere
01:52but when i woke up that morning i sat up in the bed i was like call the police call
01:56the police
01:56when yvonne grasped what was happening she was relieved everything was fine actually better than
02:03fine her 14 year old daughter gloria would be getting a perfect attendance award at school
02:08gloria was excited to get the day started did she just have that bubbly personality yes she did fit
02:15with being a cheerleader she did and people loved her she was always trying to help people with their
02:20problems i remember the first time i saw her cheer when she said hello people how do you do my
02:27name is
02:28gloria and i just stood up and screamed gloria and so she's like oh no that's my mother
02:37gloria called her best friend before sunrise and told her she'd stop by her house on the
02:41way to school to borrow a special comb for her hair she wanted to look her best for the award
02:46ceremony
02:48gloria's cheerleading coach t stallworth would be there to wish her well gloria would have probably been
02:56my friend you know my buddy we would have gone shopping she was like a daughter we were that close
03:06was she going to be something she was going to be something to be proud of um
03:14i loved her it was cold and snowy in cleveland that morning all those years ago in 1984 when gloria's
03:23mom stepdad and brother set out in their car to deliver newspapers along the way they spotted gloria
03:29i saw her walking down the street which was in the opposite direction from which she was normally
03:36going to go and i rolled down the window and i screamed at her so loud i was like why
03:42are you
03:42going this way so you didn't like the route that she was taking the road because she was going through
03:47the back way the cut through which is what she was going through the cut i have always told her
03:52don't
03:52go that way yeah not to take yeah yeah gloria heard her mom but still chose to take the shortcut
04:01to school
04:02she disappeared down the dark alley shortly after gloria's friend lamar thomas left home for school
04:11and caught sight of gloria behind him she'd made it through the alley and was near the school
04:16apparently with a friend are they crossing the street or are they already across the street they
04:22went up outside our house and seemed like they was just goofing off and about to come you know just
04:30a few minutes later they'd be in the school dashawn haley gloria's boyfriend was waiting for her in the
04:36school hallway but there was no sign of her dashawn were you expecting to see gloria that morning before
04:44homeroom yes and were you looking for her every morning we hook up at the locker
04:52at her locker room mine so yeah i was looking for her he wasn't the only one gloria was now
05:00so late
05:01she'd missed the awards ceremony and her best friend told the principal she'd never made it to
05:05her house to borrow the comb the office gave gloria's mother ivan a call they just said it's gloria
05:12there because they called her name to get this award and she didn't respond you know where's gloria and
05:19they they the kids kept coming to me and saying things like t they can't find her the principal was
05:29so concerned he made an announcement on the school's pa system asking if anyone had seen gloria
05:37when that came through the intercom i'm like what they talking about she she in school so she was
05:44right behind me and and they said she never made it and so within about 20 minutes the phone rang
05:53again
05:54but this time it was the principal and he said call the police just like that did your heart just
06:02sink
06:02yeah i'm like call the police for what but police were already on the scene they'd received a call
06:07about something suspicious at an apartment building near gloria's school officers made their way to the
06:13back of the building including detective jack bornfeld it was a metal fire escape
06:21and there were uh steps 15 of them leaning down to the basement level of the building
06:28it was dark but officers could see something at the bottom of the stairs was yvonne's premonition
06:34coming true i remember them saying we found a body
06:56a body at the bottom of a dark stairway to the basement
06:58an apartment building in cleveland was now a crime scene there was a body at the bottom of a dark
07:03stairway to the basement former cleveland homicide detective jack bornfeld when they first went down
07:10there they observed the victim she was laying on her stomach at the foot of the stairs
07:16a school id and book bag were found next to the body
07:21they belonged to gloria pointer
07:25it was an appalling crime gloria had been beaten to death there was evidence of a sexual assault
07:32detective janice abernathy was at the scene it was very hard to sit there and look at this 14 year
07:39old
07:40innocent child that was on her way to school to be victim of such a horrendous crime and a girl
07:46with so
07:47much promise yes word spread quickly at davis junior high the news was too much to handle for gloria's
07:56boyfriend dashon i heard people crying they were saying she was dead and it was like it was just going
08:03around and i just couldn't you know couldn't handle it couldn't believe it just kind of just ran out of
08:09school just the day before t stalworth had talked to her students about stranger danger and i never will
08:18forget gloria said do we have to talk about that today t i said yes we do because people are
08:27crazy
08:29so i just fell to my knees when i found out that gloria had been murdered
08:41after they identified gloria's body police went to yvonne's house to deliver the awful news
08:48i remember them saying we found a body before they could say another word yvonne collapsed to the
08:57floor i was having an out of body experience it's almost like you go to a place of
09:05comfort of comfort of denial yvonne's denial was easy to understand just hours earlier gloria had
09:12bounded off to school upbeat and full of life typical gloria what kind of daughter was she gloria
09:22was the type of daughter that every mother wish she could have had very obedient just a caring loving
09:29person the child that the school loved and the teachers loved and everybody i know i probably make
09:37it sound like she was so perfect but she was what happens that in those first days what are you
09:43doing
09:43what can you do the first days after the homicide you're just trying to adjust to the emptiness
09:50but now you have a funeral to plan how do you plan a funeral for your child
09:58at the funeral home yvonne was warned not to look inside the casket
10:03but she insisted on having a private moment with her daughter
10:08i pulled the cover back and i just looked at her from head to toe and i said gloria don't
10:16worry i'll
10:17find out who did this you made her a promise that day i made a promise to her and grief
10:24took a back seat
10:26at that moment because we needed to find the killer where did she die down there down there
10:33finding gloria's killer also became an obsession for detective abernathy
10:37it's just so hard to think about and so horrific yes detective abernathy retraced the route gloria
10:45took to school on december 6th starting with when she left her house at about 7 a.m you can
10:51almost
10:51imagine her walking down the street on that freezing cold day with all that snow this is the cut the
10:57kids refer to as the cut it's the alley okay so she was going to cut through here she's going
11:02to cut
11:02through here which is a straightaway down or down to the street detectives learned that at 7 10 a.m
11:10gloria was spotted by a teacher who was driving to school she said gloria wasn't alone detective
11:16jack born fell the female school teacher saw gloria along with a male and they split and walked
11:23around either side of the car and the female teacher remarked to her husband i wonder what
11:30gloria is doing out so early in the minutes that followed several other people saw gloria with a man
11:36because it was winter the suspect had on heavy clothing so they couldn't tell whether
11:41he was thin medium or heavy build but it was a very general description nothing specific that stood
11:49out nothing really easy to go on correct none of the witnesses saw anything to suggest gloria was in
11:55danger she didn't show any side of fear she didn't scream not to mention it's you've described it as a
12:03white out yes probably even harder to tell what's going on when there's all that snow and exactly
12:12you have a mystery man that could be your killer you don't know for sure where do you start this
12:21case
12:22rest on good old-fashioned police work pounding the pavement and knocking on doors nothing happens
12:29like on tv you know at the end of an hour you got the bad guy but just hours later
12:34on that snowy day
12:36another frantic call another attack could it be the same man who killed gloria there's some
12:43detectives at the time said well this got to be the guy
13:041984 was a frightening year in cleveland the news of gloria pointer's murder came on the heels of
13:10several other attacks targeting young girls gloria was the fourth girl it was four 14 year old
13:18murdered in like three months times had that been weighing on you just hearing the news about these
13:24other girls absolutely absolutely because i didn't know who her killer was i was so afraid to be at home
13:33by myself when the other kids no one was there so you would come here i would come to the
13:38church
13:38and some days i would sit for eight hours at a time didn't feel comfortable at home didn't feel
13:45comfortable in the streets but here i felt comfortable meanwhile detectives were developing leads
13:52we spent a lot of time tracking down every individual that we could canvassed the entire area
13:59house to house and some rumors started to pop up about possible family members being involved who would
14:07you say kind of rose to the top first as someone that you thought could be responsible her stepfather
14:13why what was that relationship like gloria and her stepfather did not get along she did not like the
14:20man gloria and her stepfather were often at odds and detectives thought his reaction to her murder was
14:26suspicious he was cold um indifferent and um his attitude was it was really poor so he wasn't even
14:40mourning her death it felt like no no no nope he did not mourn did you ask did you have
14:48anything to do with
14:49this absolutely you know he said no he didn't did you believe him at this point i don't believe anybody
14:54but once detectives put together a timeline of the crime they determined gloria's stepfather was
15:01delivering newspapers at the time she was killed so you essentially ruled out he was completely ruled out
15:09so police turned their attention to gloria's boyfriend dashawn and started digging into their relationship
15:16her mother didn't allow her to date right so it wasn't like she can go home and say mom
15:21dashawn coming over and hope it no way and at that morning was there a possibility that she was trying
15:27to get to school early so she could meet with dashawn you brought dashawn in for questioning yes he was
15:34scared he was upset did you feel like they were kind of oh yeah twist like putting the pressure on
15:40yeah to
15:40get answers it was it was it was rough i mean you know i i didn't know what the heck
15:45was going on like
15:46why do they keep coming to me asking these questions they asked me the same questions over and
15:50over again they obviously think that i did something and or or i'm guilty of something i started thinking
15:56maybe i am guilty of something but dashawn denied any involvement in gloria's death and several people
16:04said he was in school at the time of the attack so detectives moved on and a few days later
16:10another
16:11suspect emerged this one was a neighbor he concerned because he was weird you know and strange and
16:19whatever and always talking about female body parts you know and i thought if anybody he could be
16:26somebody that would do something like that yvonne says the man was disturbed and his pattern of
16:32inappropriate behavior turned positively creepy at gloria's wake when he got to the casket he leaned
16:39over and kissed her on the lips and we all just kind of went what what just happened so that's
16:46why
16:46the next day on the way to the funeral he was taken in for investigation not too many people kiss
16:54a corpse
16:56except for maybe a loved one you know these but uh for a stranger to do it did he do
17:03or say anything
17:03in your interviews that was giving you a bad vibe not really not really just we just kept an eye
17:11on them
17:12investigators built a long list of possible suspects but knew they needed a break to solve the case
17:17and they got one at around 6 30 pm hours after gloria was killed there was an attack on another
17:25girl not
17:26far from the school she escaped and a man named ramel broom was arrested detectives thought he might be
17:32responsible for gloria's attack too he had a record uh previous rapes there's some detectives at the
17:39time said well this got to be the guy so you think it's possible he's he's struck or tried to
17:45strike twice
17:46in one day this is what they were thinking he was number one on the hit parade so to speak
17:52and he was checked out top to bottom inside forward backward detectives circled back to the witnesses
17:59who'd seen gloria with that mysterious man and showed them a photo lineup that included broom
18:05two witnesses picked him out of a photo lineup yes but again you got to understand the witnesses that
18:12observed the suspect with the victim only saw him from the side or the back nobody got a good look
18:17at his
18:18face because it was windy and snowing and cold that day the identification was too murky and there was
18:25no other evidence to bring charges but broom was positively identified by witnesses in the case of
18:31trina middleton one of the other 14 year old girls killed in cleveland that year
18:38on october 3rd 1985 broom was convicted for trina's murder the judge sentenced him to death
18:44but there was still no justice for gloria even though detectives believed broom killed her too
18:51so yvonne decided to ask broom herself guess what i started to do write letters to romil my name is
19:01yvonne pointer uh they say you murdered my daughter i just need to know if you did
19:11i would write that letter to him over and over would he write back no not ever the fact that
19:16he's not
19:17writing you back does that make you think maybe he did it no no it didn't make me think he
19:23did it but
19:24it it kept the door open that if you did just say it so we can put an end to
19:30this nightmare
19:32ivan's nightmare would endure for years as she waited for a response those years brought grief
19:38and frustration but also a new way to solve crimes dna technology could it possibly solve gloria's case
19:48this man hoped so was the gloria pointer case one that you felt should be looked at right away it
19:54was
19:54one of the first cases that we opened up
20:10yvonne pointer never stopped mourning her daughter over time she channeled that pain into helping others
20:16enduring similar tragedies she gave speeches across the country and at home she focused on projects to
20:23fight crime like a midnight basketball league hoping to keep kids off the streets and give them
20:29something to focus on we thought if we can get these people who are committing the crimes into the gym
20:36between 10 p.m and 2 a.m that would reduce crime and it did she became a surrogate mom
20:44to the kids in
20:44the neighborhood comforting and counseling when they had no one else to turn to gloria's murder really led
20:51you on a path you never expected i was feeling unqualified for the task but then i think about
20:58god doesn't call the qualified he qualifies the call part of that calling meant keeping gloria's
21:05case front and center every time a new police chief took over i was on a quest and i went
21:11through i think
21:12five or six police chiefs when ed tomba became deputy chief she met with him as well
21:18i went to him i said okay here i am and we're gonna fight solve glorious case i introduced myself
21:25to every chief sometimes i would get these ideas of what we could do to help solve the case and
21:32tomba was right there he never said you're bothering me quit calling my office he was just a wonderful
21:39wonderful person what really struck me about yvonne was she said she wanted to be a partner she wanted to
21:45help in any way that she could to resolve this case and that she would never ever criticize anybody or
21:53make
21:53any assumptions but uh she said that she had a uh a calling to uh keep the memory of her
22:01daughter
22:01alive and to find out exactly what happened to her turns right and janice aber nothing she kept working
22:08the case even after she left the job how badly did you want to solve this case enough that when
22:15i retired
22:16i worked on the case and constantly um keeping in touch with them and giving them any ideas that i
22:24may
22:25have had that i recalled that they may want to look into as the years passed yvonne went to extremes
22:31to
22:31try to solve glory's murder reaching out to convicted killers maybe they knew a convict who claimed
22:37responsibility and she kept writing to ramel broom who was on death row for the murder of another young
22:43girl in the neighborhood police suspected he might have had something to do with gloria's death too
22:49i was worried that he was going to die without answering my question
22:56not hearing back from broom left yvonne despondent but maybe the answer would come from somewhere else
23:03back then judge richard bell was an assistant prosecutor inundated with unsolved cases he got
23:10an idea i went to the county prosecutor at the time and i asked him if we could open up
23:15a cold case squad
23:16the first ever cold case squad in a prosecutor's office was the gloria pointer case one that you felt
23:24should be looked at right away it was one of the first cases that we opened up at the time
23:28of gloria's
23:29murder in 1984 crime scene investigators collected every scrap of evidence from the scene even before
23:35they knew how important it might be someday you got to understand too at the time of this homicide
23:41there was only blood typing there was no dna all right that didn't come until maybe 10 years later
23:49and thank god for that over the years investigators had tried to use developing dna technology to solve
23:56the case there were squabs taken of the victim at the time of her autopsy there were also her underwear
24:04her and her clothing uh shoes socks uh were still in custody at the coroner's office so we had that
24:14uh looked into again and had it tested for dna they were able to get a profile albeit a weak
24:22one by
24:22today's standards and sent it off to various dna databases but didn't get a match from any of them
24:28as the years went by dna technology kept improving producing more markers and better matches so richard
24:36bell's unit tried again we decided let's go back in now and let's see whether or not there's anything
24:43more that could possibly be tested they were able to develop a slightly better dna profile and compared
24:49it to persons of interest in the case and none of those multiple samples that we submitted uh came back
24:55is a hit at that time all these years gloria's boyfriend dashon felt like he was living under a
25:01cloud was that getting around that you were kept being interviewed and how the police were viewing you
25:07was it affecting your life it would definitely affect my life with other people wherever i went
25:13people knew that's gloria pointer's boyfriend investigators would end up testing dashon's dna against
25:20the stronger dna profile he wasn't a match this was vindication for you and now finally everyone knew
25:29for sure for a hundred percent sure it was not you right but more especially for miss pointer she didn't
25:36know who did it and maybe it could have been me you know and and i don't know if she
25:43if that even
25:44crossed her mind but it was good that it was cleared up that definitely it wasn't me investigators also
25:51checked romel broom and his dna didn't match either while that seemed to rule him out from killing gloria
25:58detectives and yvonne couldn't shake the feeling that broom was somehow responsible i knew his execution
26:03date was coming and i wrote him again i said romel please don't take it to your grave if you
26:11did this just
26:12say it i forgive you in 2009 25 years after gloria's murder ramel broom's execution day arrived that
26:21morning he did something he'd never done before he sat down and wrote yvonne a letter was this finally
26:28the confession yvonne had been waiting for
26:47september 15 2009 the morning of ramel broom's execution it was his last chance to respond to
26:55all those pleading letters from yvonne that morning he finally wrote back
27:02just hours later an unimaginable scene unfolded in the death chamber prison officials had trouble
27:08finding a vein for the lethal injection authorities called off the execution and moved it to a later date
27:16days later his letter to yvonne arrived i went to my post office box and there was this big brown
27:25envelope
27:26and it had from romel broom my heart almost stopped and he said with my dying breath
27:36i did not murder your daughter broom wrote that maybe gloria's killer thought he'd gotten away with the crime
27:43because police believed broom was responsible he wrote that is not the case did you believe what
27:49he wrote in that letter i did but it only opened the door for more questions he thought he was
27:57about to
27:57be executed he had no reason at this point to lie he could have just told the truth but he
28:04encouraged me
28:05as a matter of fact in this letter to keep looking that's exactly what she did i was not gonna
28:13stop
28:13until i found out who killed her because i promised her that day in the funeral home that i would
28:20find out
28:21it had been so long 25 years since that snowy day frozen in time and frozen in the memory of
28:29gloria's
28:29cheerleading coach t stallworth i was hoping to prepare and shape glorious life but after gloria i was not
28:40able to trust life anymore and still telling my students when you go out there you be careful stop
28:51trusting everybody and i started doing a segment that wasn't even in the health book about street smart kids
29:02because of gloria you know and i would tell them about gloria
29:09gloria's friend lamar thomas who saw her outside school that morning could never bring himself to
29:15visit the place where she died yeah it haunts me i never went over there to even view you know
29:24what all took place over there i blame myself because if she would have screamed or yelled or
29:32would have been right there but for years you know i just was like it was my fault over the
29:39years he
29:40stayed close with gloria's mother like so many other kids in the neighborhood he leaned on her for
29:45comfort and advice she didn't help me out so much i just like to you know give back like she
29:52didn't
29:52gave back and i do just try to go over there and cut her grass keep the yard work up
29:59rake leaves do
30:01something for her since she didn't done a lot for you know for a lot of people for gloria's family
30:10the
30:10years never dulled their grief or their determination to find her killer then in 2013 almost 30 years
30:19since gloria died something caught the eye of yvonne's sister sylvia it was a newspaper article in
30:25the cleveland plain dealer about using improved chemical dna processing to solve cold cases sylvia
30:31perked up you felt like this this could be something that could help you all i thought so
30:36that maybe this could maybe this could crack the case what no i i thought why why why aren't they
30:41looking at her case sylvia emailed one of the reporters rachel deselle she responded right away
30:49i'll look into it i'm surprised you all haven't heard anything by now then that's when things started
30:56happening deselle the reporter called the da's office to ask if dna from gloria's case could be
31:02entered into the national dna database known as codis when she contacted our office i contacted the
31:09coroner himself and i asked whether or not the case could be put into codis we had asked for it
31:15to be put
31:16into codis on several occasions even though prosecutor richard bell had obtained the strongest dna profile yet
31:23it still didn't meet the standard for codis but two days after the reporter called the dna
31:29was submitted to the state dna database all they wanted was one breakthrough one match boom boom we get the
31:51hit
31:52over the years prosecutor richard bell's cold case unit had submitted several dna samples from gloria pointer's
31:58case to dna databases then in 2013 bell submitted his strongest profile yet and boom boom we get the
32:11hit a dna hit on a case that haunted cleveland for decades i can see you getting emotional just
32:19thinking about it no it was that important to you it's important it was important for the case it was
32:28important for yvonne it's something that we had been hoping for for a very long time
32:36thanks to the dna match tim mcginty then a cuyahoga county prosecutor suddenly had a potential name
32:42and face for gloria pointer's killer 58 year old hernandez warren then immediately i said let's do
32:51a record check on this guy see where he's been and boom he'd been the penitentiary and what for
32:56rape. Bingo. Warren had a long rap sheet that included 16 years in prison for rape and felonious
33:05assault. Now he was back living comfortably in the community. Once you get the DNA, that's just
33:13the first step. Now you're going to have to confront the killer. Warren had grown up less
33:19than a mile from Gloria. He even went to the same school, Harry E. Davis Jr. High. He was 29
33:25when
33:25Gloria was murdered. So we had a team meeting. You got the FBI, you got the prosecutor, you
33:30got the Cleveland police, you got the sheriff, you got the detectives themselves. Working
33:35closely with the FBI, investigators strategized about how to get Warren to come clean. They
33:41decided against a shock and awe arrest, opting instead to simply ask for Warren's help. We
33:52gave the ruse that they wanted to look at old cases in the area from the 1970s and the
33:591980s. Okay. Warren agreed to talk. Like I said, if you guys need anything to food, any drink.
34:08He agreed to talk to the police and the FBI without an attorney. First off, do I have to call
34:14you
34:14Warren? You call me right now. Do the investigators straight up tell him, we have your DNA? No,
34:21absolutely not. You want him to make the first move. You want him to explain whether or not he
34:26knows the person. So this young girl here is Gloria Plainer. Okay. I'll take a better look again.
34:33You wouldn't have any association with her, right? No. Okay. All right. Not to my knowledge. Not to your knowledge?
34:40I'd like you to sit still as possible. Next, police gave him a polygraph.
34:45Did you cause any of those injuries to Gloria? No. He failed. Investigators decided to put more
34:54pressure on Warren. Do you remember her? No, I don't. So they brought in a new team of
35:00detectives to question him for a second day, handcuffed to a chair. You're almost placing
35:07yourself in the courtroom while you're watching this interrogation. I know what I need from the
35:14witnesses. And making an iron cloud. It has to be tight because if it's not, with the personality
35:21that he has, he was going to try to manipulate his way out of it. You were scared. You was
35:27on the drugs.
35:28You wanted to get away. This is Gloria's body. It's her body. It's her face. It's her picture.
35:35And he would turn the picture over so he wouldn't have to look at it.
35:39Can I cut me that off? Please.
35:44This was rattling him.
35:45It was rattling him.
35:47This right here.
35:49Finally, Warren cracked.
35:51I was thinking about one thing.
35:52What's that?
35:53Her dying.
35:54Her dying. Her death, right? So all these years you've been thinking about her death.
36:01Why did I do it? Since it happened, how could I do it? How could I do it?
36:06He confessed and told investigators what really happened on December 6, 1984. Warren said he
36:13spotted Gloria on her way to school and approached her, grabbing her by the elbow. He said he
36:18strong-armed her to the bottom of the stairwell behind the school, attacked her, and beat her
36:23to death.
36:24Is this it? I guess so.
36:2829 years after Gloria's murder, police arrested Warren and called Yvonne to tell her they'd
36:34at last caught the killer. Yvonne met them in a police conference room, a picture of Warren
36:39face down in front of her.
36:41They turned the picture over and slid it across the table, and they said, do you know this
36:46person? I said, I've never seen him before in my life. And again, I wanted to know, are
36:53you sure? Are you sure? That's what I kept asking. Are you sure? And they would say, it's
37:02him.
37:04Yvonne called Detective Abernathy, who remained involved in Gloria's case long after her
37:09retirement. What was your first reaction to that?
37:13I said, oh my gosh. I said, thank you, Lord.
37:15It's so bittersweet because it doesn't bring Gloria back, but it gives Yvonne what she needed
37:20all these years. And you.
37:26I gotta take a break.
37:32It's amazing that after all this time, this is still the reaction that you had.
37:39And my empathy lies with all the, a lot of other people who's lost their child to such
37:47vicious crimes. Yeah.
37:51Emotions a hardened detective never let go of.
37:55Until now.
37:58It's finally released.
38:01It's finally released.
38:04It's finally released.
38:07You cared about her so much.
38:10I mean, I was, um, going through my own troubles when I was younger then, and she brought me
38:18peace and joy.
38:20She made you feel better about your life.
38:22About me.
38:23Yeah.
38:28Warren pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and rape.
38:34Because Yvonne didn't want the death penalty.
38:37He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
38:42Hernandez Warren is perhaps one of the most dangerous people to have walked the streets of Cleveland.
38:49He didn't see himself as a monster, but he was.
38:54He was a monster.
38:55In spite of her immense loss, when Yvonne Poynter came face to face with her daughter's killer
39:01at his sentencing hearing, she chose to forgive.
39:04Second Timothy 4 and 7 says,
39:07I have fought a good fight.
39:09I have finished my course.
39:12I have kept the faith.
39:14May the Lord have mercy on your soul.
39:21In the year since Gloria was killed,
39:24Yvonne has made it her life's work to speak out against violence.
39:27And I'm not okay with what happened to my child.
39:31About how crime disproportionately devastates people of color.
39:35You were inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame.
39:39You went all the way to the White House.
39:41You became a minister.
39:43Look at all these things that you have done in the years since Gloria died.
39:50Her homicide gave me the option that I could lay down and die.
39:55I could rise up and live.
39:57And along the way, I became the person who I was looking for.
40:01How do you want people to remember Gloria?
40:04I want people to remember Gloria as a child who had a right to live in spite of the color
40:12of her skin.
40:13And that there's so many other Glorias out there who deserve the same thing.
40:17Exactly.
40:18Sounds to me like Gloria's life saved other lives through your work.
40:24It didn't save her life, but it is saving other lives.
40:33That's all for now.
40:34I'm Lester Holt.
40:36Thanks for joining us.
40:37Thanks for joining us.
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