I Shot My Molester

Janice Clark Smith says her father was a monster. "My daddy was a very sick, disturbed, perverted molesting monster. I can't remember a time in my life that my father wasn't angry or abusive to me or my mother or my siblings."

After suffering a lifetime of sexual and emotional abuse, Janice learned that he was doing the same to her own daughter and became enraged. "He fondled her, he felt her, he tried to penetrate her. I wanted to kill him." She sought help from the police, yet, "he only stayed in jail two, maybe three days."

Then she learned her mother had cancer. "Something hit me and I was like, 'This is not going to happen anymore,'" Janice said. "'My mother's dying and she is going to have some peace in her life.' I went down to my daddy's. I said, 'God, if you don't want me to kill him, let those doors be locked.'

"I got down at his feet and I was begging and pleading with him, 'Daddy, why are you doing this? Why won't you straighten up? Because mama needs you right now.'

"I recall him standing in the hall as I picked up my gun and pointed it at him. He did not try to get it away from me. Then I started pulling the trigger. It hit him in the chest and he fell on his back and he said, with this devil voice, what I called it, 'You done it now.' And I said, 'Yes, Daddy, I did.' And I shot him again."

After being sentenced to seven years in prison, Janice said, "I know it was the wrong thing to do, to take law into my own hands, but I wanted peace for my family."