Oprah Talks to Christine McFadden

Oprah: I don't know how the realization that one after another of your children has been murdered settles with you. How does it?

Christine: I just had to pray that three of them really were asleep.

Oprah: You know Melanie wasn't. She fought.

Christine: [In tears] She was so brave. Right before she was shot, she was putting on her brown eyeliner. She used to sit cross-legged on the bathroom counter to put on her makeup so she'd be closer to the mirror. She would have heard the noise that—it could have been the bullet going through Stu's brain. And then she must have opened the bathroom door, stepped out, and seen John.

Oprah: I know that John left a letter at the scene.

Christine: I didn't read it.

Oprah: Ever?

Christine: I think he said what he had to say when he killed my children. I'm not going to listen to one more word from that person. Not one more thought of his will enter my brain.

Oprah: Did the doctors put you on medication immediately after the murders?

Christine: No. I wouldn't let them that day.

Oprah: Because you wanted to feel?

Christine: I don't know what drugs would have done to me. In the end, I only wanted them so I could sleep.

Oprah: Are you still on drugs now?

Christine: None at all.

Oprah: Even when you were, the drugs didn't diminish the pain.

Christine: No—they only kept me feeling flat, with no highs or lows. What kept me going was the anger that my kids would die and not be remembered, not have their chance to make their mark on the world. I didn't want their lives to mean nothing.

Oprah: So you established a foundation in their names.

Christine: Yes—the MSSM Friendship Scholarship Foundation (www.mssmfoundation.org).