Sarah Cindy White Video

0:07

7 secondsYou know, I’m not a monster. Not a bad person. I did a bad thing.

0:18

18 secondsThe state said you and Roberson were lovers and that when you felt jilted you lashed out by

0:25

25 secondssetting the fire. You say it was a cry for help and a way to escape a desperate situation, an abusive situation.

0:35

35 secondsA live-in babysitter sets the house ablaze and then escapes, killing 4 young children and their parents.

0:42

42 secondsI did it. I struck that match and I set that fire, but it wasn’t to kill anybody.

0:50

50 secondsIt wasn’t. Those in the babies, Michael, Dale,

0:56

56 secondsGary, and Rita, all choked to death by that smoke and terror. I ran to the bedroom and I told him the house is unfa.

1:05

1 minute, 5 secondsGod help me. I tried to get them out.

1:11

1 minute, 11 secondsAlmost 50 years later, Indiana’s longest serving female inmate Sarah Cindy White answers for setting that fatal fire and saving herself.

1:22

1 minute, 22 secondsYou got yourself out the window. I fell out.

1:25

1 minute, 25 secondsI’m assuming I can’t remember. How do you explain the fact that you remember everything up to then and then everything after that.

1:32

1 minute, 32 secondsI can’t explain it. I really can’t. Free psychiatrists told the court that you’re a pathological liar.

1:41

1 minute, 41 secondsYou lied on the polygraph you took. You lied at the sentencing. You lied about setting the fire. Yes, I did.

1:49

1 minute, 49 secondsYes, I did. But am I lying today? No. I set the house afire, not meaning to kill anybody.

1:57

1 minute, 57 secondsGod knows I didn’t mean to kill him. Now she’s making accusations of her own and pointing the finger at one of her victims.

2:06

2 minutes, 6 secondsHe says, if you run or cry to get away from me, he says, I will drive by and I will kill her. But the only evidence is her own word.

2:16

2 minutes, 16 secondsWould you believe you? Yes. Would you forgive you? No. Would you free you?

2:25

2 minutes, 25 secondsThat’s a good question.

3:26

3 minutes, 26 secondsI’m just outside Indianapolis heading to meet a woman who’s been in prison for longer than most Americans have been alive.

3:35

3 minutes, 35 secondsAnd yet a half century of incarceration isn’t enough to live down her one and only crime, the murders of a family of 6 by arson.

3:46

3 minutes, 46 secondsNow more than anything, Sarah Cindy White says she just wants to be believed with growing calls to release Indiana’s longest serving female inmate.

3:56

3 minutes, 56 secondsWhite has a controversial story to tell.

3:59

3 minutes, 59 secondsAnd thank you guys. I wanna hear her out and get a glimpse into the mind of this convicted murderer.

4:07

4 minutes, 7 secondsOnce a known liar, can she ever be believed?

4:11

4 minutes, 11 secondsWe’re really here to. To understand the mindset and motivations behind your actions so long ago.

4:20

4 minutes, 20 secondsIt’s my job to embody the skepticism of the viewer.

4:24

4 minutes, 24 secondsI have a duty to probe the way you would want me to if you were on the other side of the TV trying to figure out what to think.

4:33

4 minutes, 33 secondsDoes that make sense? Yes. White is 67 years old, wheelchair bound and frail. Why are you here today talking to us, Cindy?

4:42

4 minutes, 42 secondsAnd there’s also a unique sensitivity at play that calls for a gentle tact.

4:47

4 minutes, 47 secondsI’m here today because there are little Cindy’s out there going through what I went through.

4:55

4 minutes, 55 secondsAnd if they hear my story, And they can find other ways to handle the situation that I did. They don’t have to end up in here.

5:06

5 minutes, 6 secondsWhite says her story begins with child sexual abuse. It happened to you at a time when most victims suffered in silence,

5:17

5 minutes, 17 secondsright? Exactly. I lived the abuse that my father gave me from being a daddy’s girl to being daddy’s special little girl, and that’s when the secret started.

5:28

5 minutes, 28 secondsThat’s also when the damage started. Yes, it just went too far to where his hand was gloating on my shorts, and that just was not right.

5:37

5 minutes, 37 secondsBut I loved him. That was my dad at the age of 8. He says this is our little secret.

5:43

5 minutes, 43 secondsWhite says her father’s home was a living hell, and she began inventing ways to avoid it. The brain is wired to cope.

5:54

5 minutes, 54 secondsAnd at one point you took to pretend fainting.

5:57

5 minutes, 57 secondsThe weekends were horrible, you know, the, the cyclone would happen in the house and he would just, and I was like I can’t do it, you know, to have a tooth knocked out and uh,

6:09

6 minutes, 9 secondsyou know, it was just one thing after another. It got to the point that around Friday.

6:17

6 minutes, 17 secondsI would either be delivering my newspapers or something like that, and my last newspaper would be delivered and I knew what I had to go home to.

6:25

6 minutes, 25 secondsAnd it just got to the point.

6:28

6 minutes, 28 secondsThat I would make myself fall, and it happened on Friday to avoid the weekend terror.

6:36

6 minutes, 36 secondsYou know, I was faking falling off my bike. One day I fell and my leg was actually numb. I could not, I couldn’t feel a thing.

6:45

6 minutes, 45 secondsAnd later on they diagnosed as hysterical paralysis. Around 16 it got so bad that you were institutionalized for almost a whole year,

6:55

6 minutes, 55 secondsyeah, for 10 months. They diagnosed you for an extreme stress

7:01

7 minutes, 1 secondcondition known as conversion reaction, basically a psychological injury with physical manifestations.

7:09

7 minutes, 9 secondsThey never explained that to me. There was also. A diagnosis that you had a tendency to exaggerate and distort facts.

7:19

7 minutes, 19 secondsIt says that she has marked difficulty in telling straightforward stories. Does that ring true to you? Does that make sense to you?

7:26

7 minutes, 26 secondsIt does make sense. But I’ve never heard this before. All of this is from the case record. You’re right. It sounds like a compulsion.

7:34

7 minutes, 34 secondsDo you think that that’s a coping mechanism that your brain sort of devised to somehow reconcile the world that you lived in?

7:45

7 minutes, 45 secondsIt could. Uh, that’s very, very, very possible. Is that still something that you want to do at times?

7:55

7 minutes, 55 secondsCould, could that be part of the, the lasting damage you’ve sustained that sometimes your mind, you know, bends what happens in order to protect yourself emotionally?

8:07

8 minutes, 7 secondsNo, nothing like that now. Uh, in fact, I’m a very straightforward person. It’s also totally relevant to the case because it cuts against your credibility,

8:17

8 minutes, 17 secondsright? As she was coming of age, White languished in the psychiatric hospital.

8:25

8 minutes, 25 secondsBut one local family had become a saving grace, the Robersons. You had already met the Robersons. Yes, I met them on my paper route.

8:36

8 minutes, 36 secondsSo they watched you grow up in a, and in fact they would ask me to babysit a couple of times.

8:44

8 minutes, 44 secondsShe says Charles and Carol Roberson had even taken her in as a younger team.

8:49

8 minutes, 49 secondsWhen she needed safe harbor from her own family, and she would help care for their 4 young children. At that point, by all appearances,

8:58

8 minutes, 58 secondsthey seemed like well-meaning decent folks they were.

9:01

9 minutes, 1 secondIt was fun. And it was just wonderful and that’s when I started fantasizing of Charlie because he was being kind to me.

9:10

9 minutes, 10 secondsHe was, you’re pretty. You know, look at you. You, you are a really pretty woman, you know, and I have never been told that.

9:19

9 minutes, 19 secondsAnd so therefore I was infatuated with him. How old were you at that point? I was 15. That’s where the romantic feelings started, even before you,

9:29

9 minutes, 29 secondsyou were institutionalized. Yes, yes, they kept in touch with you when you went to La Rue. They did. They would come see me. They would even come visit,

9:37

9 minutes, 37 secondsreally, yes. White says she was finally released from the psychiatric hospital just as she was turning 18 and soon landed in the one place she’d felt safe, the Roberson home.

9:49

9 minutes, 49 secondsBy then, according to investigators, White and Charles Roberson were exchanging these sexually charged letters. October 1975, the month she moved in,

10:01

10 minutes, 1 secondshe tells him, I wish I could have you all to myself and that she wants him to be her first.

10:09

10 minutes, 9 secondsHe writes her, you’re at a legal age when you can have sex with me with no problem. Did you fall in love with him in a child’s mind, yeah.

10:20

10 minutes, 20 secondsAn adult mind, no, you were 18 at that point. I was still a child.

10:25

10 minutes, 25 secondsI was so damaged and he would flirt with me and he would tell me things that everybody wants to hear. Can you describe it to me what you felt for Mr.

10:34

10 minutes, 34 secondsRobison? I got excited when I seen him. Um, I would giggle when he would say something, you know,

10:43

10 minutes, 43 secondsand it, as I think back now it was it would be just, you know, a kid thing. I didn’t want sex really at the time.

10:50

10 minutes, 50 secondsI just wanted someone to tell me I was pretty to tell me that I amounted to something more than a piece of ass. You wanted love, yeah,

11:01

11 minutes, 1 secondsomething that I’ve never, never received. Other than from the kids. Is it possible?

11:09

11 minutes, 9 secondsIn your damaged mind at the time that um you were overinterpreting some of these things that he would say. I don’t think so.

11:20

11 minutes, 20 secondsI don’t think so. And then, according to you, things suddenly get very dark.

11:26

11 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. White alleges both Charles and Carol Roberson became her lovers and then her captors.

11:36

11 minutes, 36 secondsIt first started off with he got porn. The 3 of us sat there and I sat and picked with my fingers,

11:43

11 minutes, 43 secondsand they kept telling me to look up at the screen. Both of them, yes.

11:52

11 minutes, 52 secondsIt was to the point that I didn’t know what else to do, but did it never cross your mind, Cindy, that if I light this match,

12:01

12 minutes, 1 secondI could kill everyone in the house? I didn’t, I didn’t contemplate on it that long.

12:11

12 minutes, 11 secondsAs a teenager, Cindy White was committed to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed as prone to distort and fabricate facts, mental illness she attributes to an abusive childhood home.

12:24

12 minutes, 24 secondsSo after being released from the hospital, she turned 18 and took refuge with a local couple for whom she used to babysit, the Robersons.

12:34

12 minutes, 34 secondsYou’ve described two very different experiences in their home,

12:39

12 minutes, 39 secondsright? You said, oh, if I could imagine what Disneyland would be like, that would be it because I was so loved. Yeah, I felt it.

12:47

12 minutes, 47 secondsThe kids, oh my, you know, they were just, you know, there’s Aunt Cindy, there’s aunt Cindy. And I mean they would come running.

12:56

12 minutes, 56 secondsThey’d see me coming on my bike and you know how puppies are when they see you and they’re like jumping up and down wanting to.

13:04

13 minutes, 4 secondsThat’s exactly what I got. And I loved every bit of it.

13:09

13 minutes, 9 secondsThe Roberson’s young children, Michael, Dale, Gary, and Rita had known White for most of their young lives as a trusted babysitter.

13:18

13 minutes, 18 secondsWhat were your duties? What, what did you? I would help Carol. Carol was a clean freak. She, I mean, she, uh.

13:33

13 minutes, 33 secondsSorry. It’s OK. Take a minute. Find some tissue in. I love those kids.

13:45

13 minutes, 45 secondsYou need a minute, we can take as much time as you need, please, just for a second. Sure sure.

13:58

13 minutes, 58 secondsAll right. The kids, we would go,

14:05

14 minutes, 5 secondsthe school wasn’t very far from the house and I would take them at least once a day. That was their little reward for being good.

14:12

14 minutes, 12 secondsAnd we would go and play on the recess activities, yeah, and we play in the sprinkler before it got too cold.

14:22

14 minutes, 22 secondsAnd, uh, you know, little kids stuff.

14:29

14 minutes, 29 secondsBut White says soon after she arrived, the Roberson’s home somehow transformed from a safe haven into a hellhole.

14:39

14 minutes, 39 secondsAnd then according to you, things suddenly get very dark. Yeah. It first started off with he got horn.

14:49

14 minutes, 49 secondsCharlie would say, come and watch this with me and I said, I don’t want to see that. And he grabbed me and he grabbed me hard. He said he said, Yes you are. You’re gonna sit here and watch it.

14:59

14 minutes, 59 secondsWhite’s account of this 3 month long stay with the Robersons describes a litany of outlandish horrors and abuse now impossible for her victims to refute,

15:10

15 minutes, 10 secondsand I’m like, Carol will die if she fears this. And then one day she walks in and she says, what are you doing?

15:19

15 minutes, 19 secondsAnd she said, Oh, you’re watching porn. And so she sat down and the three of us sat there and I sat and picked with my fingers and they kept telling me look up at the screen, both of them,

15:30

15 minutes, 30 secondsyes. And so then, uh, Charlie decided he wanted to make some movies. Pornographics pornographic movies.

15:39

15 minutes, 39 secondsWas Caro in on that too? It was Caro and I that he made. And that was my first lesbianism experience.

15:48

15 minutes, 48 secondsYou say he invited other sexual partners to join him. Who, who were they? People that he knew?

15:55

15 minutes, 55 secondsIn fact I myself thought I’d seen a couple of them on the police of course.

16:03

16 minutes, 3 secondsInvestigators later concluded that White and Charles Roberson were having a consensual affair, but found no evidence to corroborate her claims of abuse.

16:15

16 minutes, 15 secondsThere’s also a story about forcing you to have sex with an animal,

16:20

16 minutes, 20 secondsa dog. He wanted to videotape it, and he dictated exactly what it was that I was supposed to do.

16:29

16 minutes, 29 secondsI was supposed to allow the dog to Lick me, the family pet. Yeah, he was the family pet.

16:37

16 minutes, 37 secondsI take the issue of sexual abuse very seriously. And it is not my practice to question the accounts of,

16:47

16 minutes, 47 secondsof victims. Um You obviously have no reason to lie about

16:53

16 minutes, 53 secondswhat happened in, in your home with your father. However, you do have a reason to lie about the Robersons. They were among your murder victims,

17:04

17 minutes, 4 secondsand the worse you can make them look. The more sympathy and consideration you might get.

17:14

17 minutes, 14 secondsIs that fair? It’s fair what you’re saying, but it’s not, no, it’s not the truth.

17:21

17 minutes, 21 secondsI would not rake someone’s name through the coals like that. I would not falsely accuse.

17:30

17 minutes, 30 secondsAnybody of anything, uh, especially something of that nature. Obviously they’re, they’re not here to defend or speak for themselves,

17:39

17 minutes, 39 secondsright, nor, nor do we have any other information that implicates them in wrongdoing apart from your own accusations that came many years after the fact.

17:52

17 minutes, 52 secondsAt no point between your arrest and a decade or so later.

17:59

17 minutes, 59 secondsDid you ever note for the record or even tell your own attorneys about the abuse by the Robersons? I clammed up.

18:06

18 minutes, 6 secondsI was scared. I was ashamed. You also say there were some very brutal acts of intimidation,

18:15

18 minutes, 15 secondsincluding a chilling story about a kitten. Yes, the kitten. What happened there? I said, I’m gonna go see my grandmother, and he said, You’re not going anywhere.

18:23

18 minutes, 23 secondsAnd he grabbed me and he pushed me against the wall, and the kids are screaming. And so he let go of me and he went out and got the kitten.

18:32

18 minutes, 32 secondsHe said, I’m gonna show you what I’m about, and he said, and jerked the head off. What do you mean? He, he literally removed the head from the the kittens like this.

18:43

18 minutes, 43 secondsHe had the kitten like this. He took the head and he ripped it and he pulled the head off the kitten. It was horrible and that was one of the first times that I ran.

18:55

18 minutes, 55 secondsWhite says to prevent her from leaving the home, Charles Roberson threatened to murder her sister who lived nearby.

19:04

19 minutes, 4 secondsSo he takes me down my grandmother’s street. And my baby, baby sister, which is Christie, she’s 4,

19:11

19 minutes, 11 secondsshe’s out in the front yard, she’s playing, and he says, if you run or cry to get away from me, he says, I will drive by and I will kill her.

19:22

19 minutes, 22 secondsAnd I believed him. I mean, look what he did to the cat, and I said I wasn’t coming over here and he said yes you were,

19:29

19 minutes, 29 secondsand he’s slapped me he backhanded me. This is a man who along with his wife, yes, who I felt safe with, but it just started, I mean,

19:40

19 minutes, 40 secondseverything just started unraveling. These explicit letters were found by investigators dated during the first two months of White’s stay with the Robersons.

19:50

19 minutes, 50 secondsIn them, she makes no reference to any problems apart from Charles’s marriage.

19:57

19 minutes, 57 secondsStill, White now claims that during the 3rd and final months she lived with the family, she was desperate for a way out.

20:05

20 minutes, 5 secondsThat’s when she says late one night, a dangerous idea came to her. So I go on to bed and then we get the phone call in the middle of the night.

20:16

20 minutes, 16 secondsThat’s your grandmother’s house caught on fire, but they all got out and everybody’s OK. And I said, that’s it.

20:26

20 minutes, 26 secondsIf I set a small fire. Want to smoke it up to where everybody gets out.

20:34

20 minutes, 34 secondsI can leave. So by your account, all this leads up to New Year’s Eve, right?

20:41

20 minutes, 41 secondsDecember 31st, 1975. Cindy, in as much detail as, as you can remember after all these years,

20:51

20 minutes, 51 secondstell me what happened that night.

21:01

21 minutes, 1 secondOn New Year’s Eve 1975, an 18 year old live-in babysitter crouched beside the family Christmas tree with a matchbook and a terrible idea.

21:12

21 minutes, 12 secondsAsleep in their bedrooms were Charles and Carol Roberson and their 4 small children, Michael, Dale, Gary, and Rita.

21:21

21 minutes, 21 secondsNew Year’s Eve, right? December 31, 1975. Now this is going back 50 years or so.

21:31

21 minutes, 31 secondsHow much can you remember about that period? I remember everything you do. I do. I’ve got a very good memory as far as that goes,

21:39

21 minutes, 39 secondsCindy, in as much detail as as you can remember after all these years, tell me what happened that night.

21:48

21 minutes, 48 secondsIt was below freezing, snowing, and we had went shopping and I had gotten a pair of the footy pajamas, we had all gotten some throughout the day.

21:56

21 minutes, 56 secondsAnd I had those on and I got ready to unplug the Christmas tree cause they had went on to bed and I said, that’s it.

22:05

22 minutes, 5 secondsIf I set a small fire. Want to smoke it up to where everybody gets out.

22:12

22 minutes, 12 secondsI can leave at that point that you’re so desperate, you’re about to light the house on fire, um, wouldn’t it have been better to just walk out the door and take your chances?

22:24

22 minutes, 24 secondsI couldn’t take my chances with my kid and my family. Because he showed me what he was doing, he showed me what he was about.

22:33

22 minutes, 33 secondsAnd I prayed to God before I struck that match, and I said, God, if this is your will.

22:40

22 minutes, 40 secondsLet it happen, but if it’s not your will, please, please don’t let it happen. That’s not really how God works, is it? No, I know that.

22:50

22 minutes, 50 secondsI know that now. When I struck that match and it went up and it went up the wall so fast,

22:56

22 minutes, 56 secondsI ran to the bedroom and I got Charlie. And I told him the house is on fire, God help me.

23:04

23 minutes, 4 secondsWe went to Gary and Cissy’s room and I got them and Carolyn went to the back bedroom.

23:11

23 minutes, 11 secondsAnd she got in there and I had Gary and Cissy, and they pulled away from me and I couldn’t, the smoke was so thick that I couldn’t find them.

23:21

23 minutes, 21 secondsSo we go in the bedroom, and Carol tells me to open the window, and it was a larger window, and I tried to open it, and it wouldn’t,

23:30

23 minutes, 30 secondsit was, it just wouldn’t, and the smoke was, I mean, everybody was just And She told me to get up on the top because there was a high window.

23:44

23 minutes, 44 secondsAnd she said, I’m gonna hand you the kids. Open it and I’m gonna hand you the kids. Were the kids all there in the room at that point?

23:51

23 minutes, 51 secondsI couldn’t find Gary and Cissy because the smoke was too thick.

23:55

23 minutes, 55 secondsSo I, uh, got up on the top bunk and the next thing I know is I’m laying on the ground and I don’t know how I got out.

24:05

24 minutes, 5 secondsYour memory fails. I don’t know how I got out. There right at that point, you remember everything up to that,

24:12

24 minutes, 12 secondsand I don’t, and I want to know how I got out because it was a small window. I tried to get them out.

24:20

24 minutes, 20 secondsYou got yourself out the window. I fell out. I’m, I’m assuming this is what I’m assuming. I don’t know for a fact. I don’t know. I can’t remember.

24:28

24 minutes, 28 secondsHow do you explain the fact that you remember everything up to then and then everything after that. I can’t explain it. I really can’t.

24:37

24 minutes, 37 secondsThe last thing I remember is I was on the topic bunk. Opening this window.

24:46

24 minutes, 46 secondsAnd then I’m laying on the ground and I’m hearing these these sirens and things like that and I’m thinking it’s a bad dream.

24:55

24 minutes, 55 secondsWas there a moment at which you realized, oh my God, what have I done?

25:01

25 minutes, 1 secondYes, I did. I was like, oh my God, they’re still in there. Yes, you know, I did. I was like, my God, what happened?

25:11

25 minutes, 11 secondsWhat happened? I keep trying to get back in there. I kept trying to go up there and get in the house and they wouldn’t let me,

25:19

25 minutes, 19 secondsand they left me standing there. The neighbors had to restrain you. Yes, it was a lost cause at that point. Were you at that point wracked with the feeling?

25:29

25 minutes, 29 secondsI’m responsible for this. No, I didn’t, not until I was in the hospital and I had a chance to just put things together. At that point in time, no.

25:42

25 minutes, 42 secondsProsecutors later argued that White set the fire when she felt jilted by Charles Roberson. Then immediately abandoned the house and the family to burn.

25:54

25 minutes, 54 secondsWhite insists that’s not true.

25:57

25 minutes, 57 secondsThere is no way that I, you know, that I set the fire and I ran around the house because I wanted to get rid of him.

26:04

26 minutes, 4 secondsI wanted help. I wanted some, I wanted to try to remove the house so I can leave. I did not intentionally do it to earn any money.

26:17

26 minutes, 17 secondsLet’s take a minute. No.

26:27

26 minutes, 27 secondsI wish to God it had never happened, but if it happened, I wish it could have been in this day and time because it what it would have never happened because people would have known the right questions to ask.

26:41

26 minutes, 41 secondsAnd I’m not blaming them, but, but I am because I’ve done what I only thought was right. And how can I say setting a fire was right.

26:55

26 minutes, 55 secondsBecause it was to the point that I didn’t know what else to do. Did it never cross your mind, Cindy, that if I light this match,

27:04

27 minutes, 4 secondsI could kill everyone in the house? I didn’t, I didn’t contemplate on it that long.

27:10

27 minutes, 10 secondsI didn’t. I really and truly, David, I really and truly 100% believed that they were getting out.

27:19

27 minutes, 19 secondsHow could you believe that? Because I thought that I could get them out. Excuse me, but I’m up here, it’s up. I know it is,

27:28

27 minutes, 28 secondsand it’s hard to believe that. I have no reason to lie right now. I have nothing. I’m, I’m doing life.

27:38

27 minutes, 38 secondsAfter the blaze was extinguished, White pretended to be the miraculous sole survivor of a Christmas tree fire.

27:45

27 minutes, 45 secondsThen arson investigators found evidence of an accelerant, and she was charged and convicted of murder in 1977, all the while maintaining her innocence.

27:57

27 minutes, 57 secondsIn fact, for the first decade or so of your sentence, you still denied the crime did because I was ashamed.

28:05

28 minutes, 5 secondsI, I, I mean, I don’t want to admit that I’ve killed, you know, 6 people by accident. That is horrible.

28:13

28 minutes, 13 secondsThat is a long time to, to, to lie about it. Do you think your, your past excuses the murders?

28:22

28 minutes, 22 secondsNo. Do you think your past trauma explains the

28:27

28 minutes, 27 secondsmurders? In a sense In a sense, it shows how damaged from the age of 8.

28:39

28 minutes, 39 secondsTo the age of 18. If none of this have happened and none of this, I was never damaged.

28:50

28 minutes, 50 secondsI don’t know what my life would have been. Isn’t it fair that the court set aside all of the things that you point to as kind of mitigating factors, your trauma, your youth, your, your,

29:02

29 minutes, 2 secondsyour, your hardship for the purpose of. Rendering a judgment, guilty or not guilty.

29:12

29 minutes, 12 secondsYou agree with that? Yeah, I said that the prosecutor done a good job because he done his job. You’re legally an adult.

29:19

29 minutes, 19 secondsWe’re all responsible for what we do. Free psychiatrists evaluated you during the trial and told the court that you’re a pathological liar with your record of lying and distortion.

29:33

29 minutes, 33 secondsHow can we believe you? She’s had a lot of years to think about this and to think what would sell.

29:47

29 minutes, 47 secondsJohnson County, Indiana prosecutor Lance Hamner represents the people of his jurisdiction,

29:53

29 minutes, 53 secondsincluding 6 members of a family burned to death when Cindy White intentionally set a house fire 50 years ago.

30:01

30 minutes, 1 secondHe says White’s belated claims that she was being abused in the home are calculated to garner sympathy. I think there’s been a lot of concern about,

30:10

30 minutes, 10 secondsuh, sexual abuse of young people, but we don’t see any evidence of that having happened here.

30:15

30 minutes, 15 secondsWhat we see is that there was an affair going on, and it looks to me like she was angry when that affair ended.

30:26

30 minutes, 26 secondsShe could have walked away. She didn’t walk away.

30:30

30 minutes, 30 secondsSetting fire to a house with a bunch of sleeping people in it is not gonna get you out any better than if you just simply walked away and called the police.

30:39

30 minutes, 39 secondsIt took her 10 years to come up with this story, and it seems awfully convenient that you’ve killed off the only two people who could rebut that.

30:54

30 minutes, 54 secondsSo um. And I’m like, if someone, one person would say, Cindy, I believe you.

31:13

31 minutes, 13 secondsI feel sympathy for you, but I still don’t know what to think because there’s been along the

31:19

31 minutes, 19 secondsway, a lot of lying, Cindy, consistently, it harkens back to That diagnosis the propensity to distort and lie and exaggerate.

31:31

31 minutes, 31 secondsTwo years before the fire, the police said they had a lot of problems with you, including 21 emergency calls involving you in 1973 alone.

31:40

31 minutes, 40 secondsOne officer said about you, she had to be the center of attention. She’s a con artist and one of the best I’ve seen.

31:48

31 minutes, 48 secondsI had to be the surge to stay away from my home.

31:52

31 minutes, 52 secondsI was faking falling off my bike so I could stay in the hospital so I didn’t have to go home. Those are the incidents? Yes, I see.

32:01

32 minutes, 1 second3 psychiatrists evaluated you during the trial and told the court that you’re a pathological liar. The most sympathetic one, Doctor Schuster,

32:12

32 minutes, 12 secondsnoted that this was a coping mechanism and a character trait. Part of her personality is that she’s a liar, he said.

32:21

32 minutes, 21 secondsMany of her distortions of the truth are defensive in nature and are based in fantasy. You lied on the polygraph you took.

32:29

32 minutes, 29 secondsYou lied at the sentencing, pleading your innocence in a dramatic outburst. The state said you and Roberson.

32:38

32 minutes, 38 secondsWe were lovers and that when you felt jilted you lashed out by setting the fire. You say it was a cry for help and a way to escape a desperate situation,

32:49

32 minutes, 49 secondsan abusive situation. Either way, an entire family was slaughtered.

32:56

32 minutes, 56 secondsWith your record of lying and distortion. From a time perhaps when you were a different person.

33:06

33 minutes, 6 secondsHow can we believe you? I can’t give you a pill to do it. There’s not enough time to try to convince you.

33:16

33 minutes, 16 secondsWhat I can say is this. I have no reason why. Back then, yeah, I did.

33:24

33 minutes, 24 secondsI did. I lied about falling off my bike, but am I lying today? No. He lied about setting fire for a long time. Yes, I did.

33:33

33 minutes, 33 secondsYes, I did. And then she finally confessed your crime. Yeah, that’s a long time to lie.

33:43

33 minutes, 43 secondsAbout something so consequential. Yeah, how do you account for that?

33:53

33 minutes, 53 secondsMaybe if I lied. And let him believe that it was the Christmas tree, then maybe I could get out.

34:03

34 minutes, 3 secondsTo get out You lied to get out, yeah. I wanted my freedom. Because I couldn’t tell the truth right then, the whole truth.

34:15

34 minutes, 15 seconds10 years into her prison sentence, White admitted that she did in fact intentionally set the fire. You do confess, why?

34:25

34 minutes, 25 secondsIt was to the point that I just couldn’t live with it. I got so tired of the vice because I couldn’t keep them straight.

34:34

34 minutes, 34 secondsI couldn’t keep him straight. And from that day forward, I have never told another lie.

34:42

34 minutes, 42 secondsWhen I Admitted To setting the fire.

34:51

34 minutes, 51 secondsAnd I knew that I’m, this is where I’m going to stay. This is, you know, until I take my last breath. I set the house afire, not meaning to kill anybody.

35:01

35 minutes, 1 secondGod knows I didn’t mean to kill him. I’m sorry, sorry.

35:11

35 minutes, 11 secondsIf I could bring back those lives, I would.

35:21

35 minutes, 21 secondsYou’ve publicly expressed remorse, you’ve publicly apologized, you’ve publicly begged forgiveness from your fallen victims.

35:32

35 minutes, 32 secondsThere is one thing you’ve never done. You’ve never Accepted your punishment.

35:41

35 minutes, 41 secondsHow many appeals and clemency applications have you made a lot, a lot.

35:55

35 minutes, 55 secondsI count at least 10 between 1978 and 2016. What does that say about your contrition or remorse?

36:15

36 minutes, 15 secondsWhen I became prosecutor in the 1990s, there was a petition for clemency that was filed by Sarah White, and we opposed it.

36:25

36 minutes, 25 secondsMy job as prosecutor is to speak on behalf of the people of the state of Indiana, our residents, and for the dead victims who can’t speak for themselves.

36:34

36 minutes, 34 secondsLance Hamner has been a prosecutor and judge in Indiana for 35 years, and throughout that time, Sarah Cindy White has been trying to get out of prison.

36:45

36 minutes, 45 secondsShe set a fire, knowing that they were asleep. Think about that for a minute. She set a fire in a house knowing.

36:54

36 minutes, 54 secondsThat they were asleep, 4 little children in that house, and they all burned to death. I don’t see how anybody gets clemency for that.

37:05

37 minutes, 5 secondsYou’ve made an admirable life for yourself in prison. 4 semesters of college at Martin, GED.

37:15

37 minutes, 15 secondsYou’re a licensed cosmetologist? Certified in health occupations, certified in accounting, certified in business math.

37:25

37 minutes, 25 secondsYou’ve learned sign language. Yes. Um, you tutor.

37:32

37 minutes, 32 secondsDeaf people, yes, you are certified in blood pressure technology.

37:38

37 minutes, 38 secondsYes, you’ve also on a regular basis engaged in various treatments and therapies on Survivor 12, and 3, incest survivors group, grief group,

37:50

37 minutes, 50 secondsanger group. One on one therapy are these in your mind.

37:58

37 minutes, 58 secondsPart of your atonement, acts of contrition. Remorse, expressions of remorse, yeah.

38:05

38 minutes, 5 secondsHow so? In order for me To move on Because I’ll never forgive myself.

38:18

38 minutes, 18 secondsI do all these things that you listed. To try to make a difference in someone else’s life, to show them.

38:27

38 minutes, 27 secondsTo tutor them, to help someone. Service to others.

38:35

38 minutes, 35 secondsI wish I’d died instead of them. I do, and it’s not the fact because I’m here.

38:42

38 minutes, 42 secondsIt’s not, it’s because, especially the kids. Don’t understand it’s the babies.

38:50

38 minutes, 50 secondsIf I could give my life for this, I would. seven year old Michael. Six year old Dale.

39:01

39 minutes, 1 second5 year old Gary. And Rita, who was just 4.

39:07

39 minutes, 7 secondsAll choked to death by that smoke and terror. If I could give my life for this, I would.

39:16

39 minutes, 16 secondsI probably did better if I, I know it doesn’t matter because they can’t come back, and it doesn’t make it doesn’t lighten the fact what I did.

39:27

39 minutes, 27 secondsCindy, if anyone else Had lit that fire and hurt them, what sentence would you give them? Life, life.

39:36

39 minutes, 36 secondsForfeit their freedom forever. Yeah, not on death row because that’s too easy. That’s too easy. Too easy.

39:45

39 minutes, 45 secondsThey need to live with it every single day, just like I do. The prison I’m in is not here on Girls’ School Road.

39:53

39 minutes, 53 secondsThe prison I’m in is, and I want that. I want this help because this is what I deserve.

40:01

40 minutes, 1 secondYou’ve publicly expressed remorse, you’ve publicly apologized, you’ve publicly begged forgiveness from your fallen victims.

40:11

40 minutes, 11 secondsThere is one thing you’ve never done. You’ve never Accepted your punishment.

40:20

40 minutes, 20 secondsHow many appeals and clemency applications of a lot, a lot.

40:26

40 minutes, 26 secondsI count at least 10 between 1978 and 2016. As early as 1978, you’ve been trying to get out after doing what,

40:37

40 minutes, 37 secondsa couple of years. So what, what does that tell us about your, your remorse?

40:44

40 minutes, 44 secondsI could still have remorse and wonder what freedom is about.

40:49

40 minutes, 49 secondsRemorse is accepting and grieving and dreading the thought of what you did.

40:59

40 minutes, 59 secondsThere are people who think that you should be released. Not, you know, more than a few, um, who think that you’ve,

41:07

41 minutes, 7 secondsyou’ve served your time. I’m doing this interview to try to help people. I’m doing this interview to stop someone before they act like I did.

41:16

41 minutes, 16 secondsThere are also people. Who believe that you do something like this, you should forfeit your freedom forever.

41:26

41 minutes, 26 secondsYou told me the same thing a few minutes ago, right? Would you believe you?

41:33

41 minutes, 33 secondsIf you were A third party looking on to the story right today, yes, you would, yes.

41:43

41 minutes, 43 secondsWould you forgive you? No. Would you free you? That’s a good question. A part of me wants to say yes,

41:54

41 minutes, 54 secondsand a part of me wants to say no. Because I don’t deserve it. What’s the part of you that wants to say yes, to have something I’ve never had?

42:04

42 minutes, 4 secondsWhat is that something? How would you put it? Freedom, freedom.

42:09

42 minutes, 9 secondsThere’s still a part of me that would love to go home to at least die outside of these prison walls. Not to die alone.

42:30

42 minutes, 30 secondsAs I left the interview and drove away from the prison, I turned my back on a woman filled with lies, regrets, and pain.

42:39

42 minutes, 39 secondsShe told me she was still contemplating one last bid for clemency. In what is now her 50th year of incarceration.

42:50

42 minutes, 50 secondsWhether or not she’s ever released, Cindy White will have to live and die with the burden of the 6 lives she took in that fateful decision a lifetime ag