hello, i'm andrea canning.

and this is dateline. >> my poor baby, how could this happen to her. >> he came upon her suddenly in the dead of night. 20 yards away, i realize it was actually somebody laying in the road. >> a young woman unconscious, covered in blood. >> what possibly happened to this girl and why she was out there in such a strange place all alone? >> we don't know if it is attempted murder or a fifth is just a bad accident. >> soon the sound a name, a loving family. >> we were praying like i have never prayed in my life. >> still no answers. >> somebody did that to her and they are not coming forward. >> there was a boyfriend. >> my first impression that he knew exactly that. >> he said he did not know. only she could tell them. but her memory of that night

was gone. there are no words to describe how horrible it was. hello and welcome to dateline. this is a story of a young woman found nearly dead in the middle of the road with little evidence to go on investigators need to find out what happened from the victim herself. the problem was that she could not remember. here's josh banquets with the mystery on albion road. >> how would it feel to have brutal life-altering injuries, but to have the memories of how you got those injuries wiped out the instant you receive. them how would it feel to have a golf in your mind that stands between you and justice. november 11th, 2009, 1:30 a. m. -- over the wheatfields outside pullman washington. bob katie drove home from the bar he owns, albion road was

pitch black and dead quiet. >> as i came up the road, initially what i thought ice on the road was somebody's mcdonald's bag and their drink that they had thrown out the window, i thought it was trash on the road. i wasn't going to pull out the side of the road. i was just gonna drive over it. >> as he drove closer, he saw the object in the road was not garbage at all. >> as i got maybe 20 years of way, i realized it was somebody laying in the road. >> a young woman, she could not have been more than 20 or 25 years old, barefoot and unconscious. >> bob katie parked his truck sideways in the road to shield the woman from oncoming cars. he ranted on the hill a few hundred yards until he could get a cell phone signal. >> there is a lady living --

she is breathing. i can hear her. breathe >> okay, is she awake? >> no. you gotta get a car out here quick. i had a pretty strong feeling that she wasn't going to be able to lay on the road for very long. actually your cars coming right now. it is coming up to hill. >> speeding up the hill were three emergency medical technicians. >> you look at the situation and it almost looked unreal. she was pretty much covered from head to toe in dirt, blood. >> she had a very irregular pulse. it was there but it was very weak. >> as they loaded her into an ambulance, they were full of questions. >> what possibly happened to this girl? why she was out there in such a strange place at such a strange time all alone? >> she was only wearing a shirt,

a t-shirt, jeans and no shoes. >> sheriff brad myers and his deputies arrived on the scene to find a mystery. >> what was a temperature that night? >> probably about 35, maybe 40 degrees. >> anybody walking around out there without shoes or a code, that doesn't make sense. >> that doesn't make sense, no. we don't know if it is attempted murder or if it is just a bad accident. all we know is that we have an injured female in the middle of the road and we have little evidence. soon, they had her name, courtesy of a name card they found in her pocket. it was issued to kristen grindley. investigators learn there wasn't a graduate of a nearby university with that name. they got a phone number with her parents. across the state in woodinville washington.

>> they said, i'm calling about your daughter that was in the accident. pat brinley bolted awake. what happened to kristen? >> i just remember screaming, is she alive? >> they handed the phone to me. it was the police department, saying the your daughter has been left in spokane. i prayed like i have never prayed before. kristen, hang on. i'm coming. >> when her parents finally arrived at sacred heart hospital, they were ushered into intensive care. it was shocking. chris into very beautiful girl. to see her hair all cut and matted with blood. just seeing your own child go through what that pain must have been like. it is impossible for us to take. >> i felt like i was going to collapse. >> what was your initial prognosis when kristen came? in >> pretty guarded.

dr. benjamin lang was the neurosurgeon assigned to kristen's case. >> she was in a fairly deep coma. in her cat scan, she had bruising of her brain. >> how serious a brain injury is that? >> on a scale of 1 to 10, probably like a seven. >> as christine lay unconscious in the icu, family gathered at her bedside, brother patrick, sisters kelly and shannon. >> there was one inch on her body that you could touch on her arm. the rest of her body was in bandages and bandages. blood, cuts, to. >> it was so hard to see her but, overall moreover sharing to see that she was okay that she was still breathing. >> every member of the family spent hours watching over kristen in those early days. one of them never left kristen side.

her mom pat. >> my poor baby. how could this happen to her? >> exactly what did happen here is a question that would consume not just kristen's family, but investigators and prosecutors as well. treatment of moderate-to-severe asthma.

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through >> there is no words to describe how horrible it was. from the time she was born, it was just flashing through my head, everything. everything she had done. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> kristen elizabeth grindley, adam and pat grindley's second child had been a handle from the start. >> when she first had to walk, she would get up on her feet and she would just run. >> determined toddler grew into a confident young woman. >> friendly, outgoing -- charismatic. --

positive. >> hilarious. >> kristen was always at the center of a broad group of kristen friends, always up for fine and on top of the trends. >> when twilight came out, we had this obsession with it. we all got into kristen grindley twilight, facebook, my space because of kristen. >> she started dating a fellow student name richard. he was her first steady boyfriend and christine fell hard. >> what was she saying about this? guy >> how great he was, that

she really liked when they we. >> it was nice to hear that excited about the guy. >> it was. >> they were attached to the hip from the very beginning. she wanted to marry him, have kids with him. they started planning their future. they were talking about getting married right away. >> now, just a year later, this once lively leveling one woman lay motionless in a hospital bed. >> for his father thought of her daughter as a strong willed toddler. >> kristen, i just need to get up one more time. >> family and friends started facebook page for kristen, hoping she would somehow feel the love pouring through the screen. in the hospital gift shop, her sisters bought a stuffed panda bear, one of her favorite animals. but kristen didn't notice the toy. so they clutch did themselves

on the night when it was their turn to watch over their sister 's bedside. >> you could tell that it was like when she would go through spurts of pain because she sounded like she was holding her breath or something. >> about a week into kristen, hospital stay, rick first saw a glimpse of life on his daughter's face. >> i bent over really close and said, kristen what was that? >> she just said, hurts. >> gradually, painfully, kristen grindley was finding her way back to consciousness. >> she turned her head around and said, heise. >> she goes i love you mommy. and i started to cry. it was an amazing feeling. >> so who, kristen could utter a few more phrases. it become clear to the grizzlies that her memory was shaky, she remembered who she was but not too much else. in those early days, they didn't press it. the important thing was that kristen had palpable determination to get better. kristen's swift discovery was surprising to her doctors at sacred heart and thrilling to her family and friends. sheriff's investigators were also keeping track of her progress, waiting for a sign that her memory was returning. they knew the truth about what happened remained locked inside her mine. >> we would love to have her

information if she has it. >> as christine regain her strength and her voice, the gaps in her memory became more noticeable. >> i remember talking to her and saying, kristen do you know where you are? she would say no. i say you are in spokane. >> i go out for a cup of coffee and come back. i ask or do you know where you are? are she said no. >> -- considering that kristen could not even remember where she was for one minute to the next. >> it makes your job ten times more difficult when the actual victim doesn't remember anything about the. crime >> it made this case very difficult. >> kristen's family and friend prayed her memory would heal.

with all the support for her in the hospital room and online, there was one person who hadn't visited, called, or posted on the facebook page. someone you might expect to be there at her bedside. kristen's boyfriend richard. did he know anything about what had happened the night kristen was found, bruised, bleeding and alone in the middle of albion road? >> who was the man in kristen's life? what had happened between them? coming up, one time he locked her out. i remember her crying and telling me about it. she didn't want me to tell our parents. >> when dateline. continues continues continues this isn't charmin! no wonder i don't feel as clean. hurry up dad! i'm trying! this cheap stuff is too thin!

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♪ ♪ >> 23-year-old kristen grindley was inching her way back to health after a mysterious accident in the dead of night.

all her memories of that event had been wiped away by the serious brain injury she had suffered. richard plasma, the young man with which kristen had shared her heart. hadn't come to see her in the hospital. those close to kristen wanted to know if the man kristen had once called lover her life had something to do with what was almost the end of her life. >> i had a gut, i can't explain. it i don't know why. this gut feeling in my stomach that something wasn't all right. >> richard had become the center of kristen's world almost from the moment they met at a popular campus. barr he was a tall, slim engineering student within interest in politics and big ambitions for the future. for kristen, his intensity sparked a powerful attraction. >> they started dating and we never saw.

her >> caitlin, kristen's college roommate and best friend said that as soon as the romance started, kristen pulled away from everyone except richard. >> none of her best friends that were there, every year through college, none of us really worth friends with her because she never wanted to leave. him >> retreating from the world to spend time with a new law isn't unusual but kristen's friends say her boyfriend was unusually possessive. >> he was upset with pictures on her facebook page. he sat her down and made her delete pictures that had other boys in the picture because he didn't like that.

>> in the fall of 2008, about six weeks into the relationship, kristen's dad came to visit the couple for couples weekend. >> we couldn't track him down. he didn't show up. i don't really want to go to the. game so it was the came across to me as a bit immature. >> kristen's mom path that her daughter called home devastated. >> crying on the phone, very upset she didn't understand why he wouldn't want to meet her dad. it doesn't sound like he's a

person for you. >> she said, you're right or you don't understand him? >> i don't member what she said but i just got the feeling that she liked him enough to continue. >> part of being a parent is watching your kids grow up and watching them make choices that maybe you wouldn't have made. >> absolutely. >> so you grate your teeth and say, okay, she's dating richard. >> right. >> but it may have been worse than pat new. kristen started to confide alarming details of her relationship to her sister shannon. >> one time he locked her out of his house and she ended up having to walk all the way back to her apartment. >> i remember her calling the next morning and crying and telling me about it. she didn't want me to tell our

parents. >> shannon kept her sister's confidence and kristen and richard seemed to go across there. in the spring of 2009, they moved in together to a small home just off campus. around that same time, during a visit with the grindley family, pat says richard once lost his temper and she and rick would not let him drive after an afternoon of drinking. >> he pretty much blew up at the four of us adults there, my friends were just floored. >> clearly, christian family and friends had dislike and mistrust of her boyfriend from the start. could that be the reason he hadn't come to visit her in the hospital? was there something more? was it possible that richard pasma had something to do with the events of november 11th 2009, the night she was found on albion road. that question -- from that first night, the sheriff knew the first person he need to talk with was richard pasma. >> so you get to the house, you read richard plasma? >> we did meet him. >> the share of conversation with kristen's boyfriend would start at the couple's home. and continue in an interrogation. room >> coming up >> first impressions are begin law enforcement. my version pressures where he knew exactly what happened. >> the boyfriends version of the events of that horrific night. >> where did he say he was? >> he said he had been out on albion road. >> albion road workers and was found? >> right. >> but was he the one who left her there? when dave's line continues. and prevents future flare-ups.

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was carried out by radical iran-backed militant group. republican presidential candidate, nikki haley, revealed sunday that members of the family where a victim of a smuggling attack. healy told nbc that police were called to her south carolina home and drew guns on her elderly parents. now, back to dateline. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> welcome back to dateline. i'm andrea canning. investigators held out hope that kristen grindley could tell them why she was found bloody and unconscious in the middle the road. but when she woke up from her coma, her memory of the night was blank. perhaps her boyfriend could help explain what happened. here again, josh with the mystery on albion road. >> from the time kristen opened her eyes and uttered her first word, her progress was astounding.

here she is just six weeks after she arrived at the hospital unconscious. she is smiling, moving, answering questions. >> what's the date? >> the 31st, a thursday. >> things most of us take for granted. but for kristen grindley, each felt like a little miracle. by now, kristen river could raining at st. luke's, in inpatient really politician facility. videos posted on facebook chronicled her progress. kristen exercising, playing games to strengthen eye hand coordination. simple tasks, but with kristen's injuries, they

required grueling efforts. >> you're doing great honey. >> thanks pop, i love you. >> january seems like a cloud lifted off of. her all the sudden, she was asking why am i here. >> now when kristen's searched for the life she had lived, she had only shards of memories seen through a haze. she asked her family for reminders, seeking out treasured pieces of the past. they brought her dog coda to st. lukes for an enthusiastic reunion. there was one part of the past kristen seemed much less excited about, her old boyfriend richard pasma. the lives she had filter him so strongly now seemed to have vanished along with her memory. >> she said yeah, i'm gonna break up with him. >> she kept saying, i need to break up with that dude. finally i said, who are you talking? about she said richard, i hate him, i need to break up with him. that was the first time that she even mentioned his name. >> but richard plasma's name has been at the center of the investigated by sheriff brad myers. ever since the night of november 11, just a few hours after kristen was found, the sheriff was in the doorway of the couple's home, sizing up

her boyfriend. >> first impressions of richard plasma? >> first impressions are begin law enforcement and my first impression was that he knew exactly what happened. >> he didn't say that he knew would happened. >> no he didn't. >> in fact, richard told the sheriff he'd been out searching for christian. he said he had no clue where she was. the sheriff broke the news that she had been lifted to in hospital in critical condition. >> he was overly concerned for her but didn't emotionally much level of concern. it was like a poor acting job. >> not possible this is rich's way of reacting to some bad news? >> that's all it's possible but we knew we needed to speak to him. >> sheriff myers brought him back to the station for questioning he smelled alcohol on richards breath. richard a knowledge that him and kristen had been argument jiang that day. >> they had an argument to

relationship. it was stormy times. >> they had gone out separately. when he came back home, kristen started to fight again. so at 1:30 a. m., he got in his truck and left the house alone. >> he indicated that he had reached over and looked over her shoulder, as he pulled away, he said she was in the window. >> he went for willing to blow off some steam. >> where did he say he was? >> he said he had been out on albion road. >> albion road were christian was found? >> right. >> footage backed up that part of this story. here is richard's truck driving right past the spot where kristen was found. minutes after the ambulance had

taken her away. richard told his sheriff something odd happened after he returned home. he heard someone throwing around the recycling bins in his front yard. he went downstairs to tell kristen. he said it was only then that he realized that she wasn't home. he woke her friend caitlin who was doing over that night. the two of them went searching in vain for kristen. had vandals really been in the yard that night? the sheriff said deputies back to rich's house to check it out. >> recycling bins did not appear to be moved. still covered in leaves, did not appear to have been move. >> why tell a story that could be so easily disproved? >> he is just trying to tell a story to say why it could not be--. >> --

richard pasma knew more than he was telling. and even bigger clue came from christian's friend caitlin. she told sheriff that while she and richard searched for christine that night, he told her over and over, he was scared kristen could have been in the bed of his truck. it was a very different story than the one he was telling the cobbs. >> an hour before we interviewed him, he's telling caitlin that he is afraid she fell out of the back of the vehicle. >> when you interview him, -- he never even mentioned that there's a possibility that she could have fallen out when he was four we. lanny we offer that up to him as a plausible explanation he refuted it and said there is no way. >> after 40 months of questioning, richard asked speak to a lawyer. the interview was over. the criminal investigation was just beginning. that's a knife, the sheriff ran a routine check on kristen grindley's name on a police database. >> anything interesting? >> there was one contact that she had had with campus police. she had been the victim in a domestic violence situation. >> university police made an arrest in that case. kristen's boyfriend richard pasma. according to the april 2009 reported, an officer in a university parking lot had heard a couple screaming at

each other on a stairway. i saw richard pasma strike grindley with a fully extended right arm across her face grindley recoiled in shock. i heard the sound of his hand hitting her face from approximately 20 feet. kristen's hadn't done anything about that incident but looking back, she says it confirms suspicions she'd had all along. suspicions she had asked kristen about in the months before she was injured. >> i came right and asked her numerous time, does he hit you? >> she would say? >> no. and you believe her? >> no. i just had a feeling. >> for sheriff myers, the report that richard has been arrested for slapping christian was a jarring discovery. but it didn't prove a thing.

>> just because someone has been arrested for domestic violence prior, doesn't necessarily mean that they are guilty of a heinous crime. >> richard pasma committed a heinous time on the night of november 11th 2009. or was there is some other explanation for how kristen ended up unconscious on albion road? without her memories to add the case, would the sheriff be able to piece together the answers and find justice for kristen? when datline continues. restoring what's yours.

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kristen grindley was found clinging to life on albion road, she finally moved out of a medical facility and back to her parents house in woodinville, washington. >> [laughter] >> having her home was of course a blessing. but kristen's parents wouldn't rest easily until someone was held accountable for her injuries. for the grindley family, everything pointed richard pasma to. their old suspicions about his behavior during their romance. the domestic violence arrest back in 2009 and his evasive

answers in that interview with the sheriff the night kristen was hurt. >> oh my god what did he do to? her >> what did he do the? her could not have been accident. >> never. >> they suspected richard had thrown her from the pick up truck and dumped her on albion road. they waited anxiously for the results of the sheriff's investigation, hoping for are a charge they considered tough enough. >> what would be enough? >> attempted murder. >> tim esser, the attorney richard hired says there was no reason to charge his client with anything. you might be surprised where he does place the blame. >> unfortunately, the person that caused kristen grindley's injuries was kristen grindley. >> to understand what happened that night, you need to know a side of this couple that you haven't heard from kristen's

friends and family. >> do you think richard love kristen? >> i think he does. >> he says it wasn't by choice that richard stayed away from kristen. >> he wanted to contact her, the sheriff told him not to. mr. grandly said don't never contact us again. >> they claim richard was controlling or way off base. he says christian who was the one who couldn't walk away from a fight. sheriff myers says some of the friend said the same thing. of course the friends would say that the other one in the relationship was difficult, they like to fight and would be jealous and accusatory. >> his friend said that about her? and her friends said that about

him? >> exactly. >> what about that april 2009 incident when a police officer on the campus parking lot saw richard slap christian on the face hard? esther says there is another side to that story to. >> an arrest is different than a charge. that arrest never led to a charge. >> in fact, it was kristen who askrf to have the charges dropped, saying that she started the fight. >> kristen blamed herself and said she actually hit richard first. >> absolutely. >> therefore it's okay for him to hit her back? >> of course is not okay to slap someone back. but it is presented that there is an abusive relationship and he is the abuser. i don't think that's accurate. >> as for the events of november 11th, esser says again it with kristen who provoked the conflict. he says she was being unreasonable that today, objecting to richard's father coming to stay with him even though he owned the house they were living in. after the couple parted around noon, esser says christian wouldn't let it drop.

>> from about 12 noon until about 1 am the next morning, 12, 13 hour period, she made i think something like 113 phone calls. >> she called richard 113 times? >> yeah. >> characterize someone who calls their boyfriend 113 times in one day. >> how would you characterize it? >> i am not the attorney in this case. >> i think it's pretty obvious. >> it sounds frantic, it sounds immature, it sounds like the kind of thing kids do. it also, i guess, could sound obsessive. >> i would not disagree with that. >> esser's focus on kristen's behavior isn't character assassination. it is at the heart of his theory of what caused her injuries. she was so obsessive, he says, that when richard came home late at night, she started the argument for a third time. so obsessive that when he tried to go for driving his pick up,

she sneaked into the back without him knowing it. >> she somehow managed to climb in the back of that pick up, the bed, and somehow managed to fall out. >> she must have fallen out, esser says, while richard was coasting along albion road, still not realizing she was in the truck. he says perhaps she fell because she tried to stand and was unsteady on her feet. kristen's blood alcohol test when she arrived at the hospital, showed she had been drinking that evening. her family says that played no role in her injury. esser says it did play a role. the attorney acknowledges his version of what happened that night is unusual. >> we are trying to show that something happened that is pretty bizarre. >> to support that, esser had a powerful piece of evidence, a letter kristen wrote to richard shortly before she was hurt.

i know i have a problem, kristen wrote. i need to control my alcohol consumption and i need to learn to walk away from a fight. she promises to fix a list of things, her drinking, her temper, yelling and fighting. >> we thought it was pretty significant. >> even more significant, esser says, is the lack of physical evidence against his client. the sheriff and his team had spent months combing through richard's truck, the house he shared with kristen, and the scene on albion road. but they'd come up with no blood spatters, no marks on her clothing, nothing at all to show that kristen had been in the back of the truck that night or that richard had hurt kristen in any way. >> there is no evidence that he caused the occurrence. >> no evidence that he caused her to fall from the truck or that he threw out a truck or that he did anything overtly to hurt her at all? >> correct. >> despite all that, sheriff

brett myers wasn't calling off his investigation of richard plasma. a few months after kristen returned home, meyers told her family, he was prepared to bring charges against kristen's former boyfriend. >> coming up, what could those charges be? and what does kristen herself say about that night? when dateline continues. my husband and i have never been more active. shingles doesn't care. i go to spin classes with my coworkers. good for you, shingles doesn't care. because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50. but shingrix protects.

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waited to see whether richard pasma would stand trial for playing a role in their daughters severe injuries, kristen was facing daily trials of her own. >> i've just been helping. >> re-learning the everyday tasks that could overwhelm someone with brain damage. at that time, kristen did not have the cognitive skills to drive or hold down a job, and her emotions were sometimes muted. >> it's just so great to have kristen healthy and back with us. >> but in july 2010, eight months after the accident, she and her parents felt that kristen was well enough to talk with me about what she remembered. >> i'm doing good. >> kristen was alert and engaged, though there were clearly pieces of her past she could not recall. what's the first thing you remember after the night of

november 11th of last year? >> i remember waking up and i was talking to my dad about where i was and what i was doing. >> it's like a movie, where you wake up and say where am i? >> the first thing i asked him was, where am i? why am i here? >> all that time later, kristen could only remember fragments of her life in the weeks and months leading up to november 2009. >> i kept thinking i didn't graduate, and i kept telling my parents that i had to go back to school to finish. they said no you graduated. how could i forget that? >> some of her details of her relationship with pat were fuzzy too. what did you like about him? >> i can't remember that really. >> kristen said she did remember richard hitting her in that school parking lot in april 2009. what about richard's claim that she backed up at the time, that

she hit him first? do you still think that's true, what you told the police at the time, that he hit you because you had hit him? >> i do think that happened and i don't think that happened. but i think we were arguing, so i think that's what led to the slap. >> as for november 11th, 2009, the night that left a hole in kristen grindley's life, she told me she could not remember a thing. you want to remember what happened that night? >> i do. >> even though it might be a pretty unpleasant memory? >> it would stink, but i would like just so i can remember it i think would -- just to know. >> by now, sheriff myers had spent months on his investigation. but with kristen's memory of the event gone, seemingly forever, and with no physical evidence to show richard had hurt her, the sheriff had

reached a dead end. however as he reviewed his files, the sheriff kept coming back to richard's two inconsistent stories, his puzzling statement to kristen's friend kaitlan that just maybe kristen had climbed into the back of his pick up without him realizing it, and his claim to the sheriff that he'd watched kristen standing in the doorway as he pulled away. >> so richard's stories to both be true, he would've had able to look at her, and the minute he looks away, she runs forward and secretly highs in his truck. >> somehow, she has to be able to jump and crouch down without being detected. it does not fit. >> the sheriff and his team studied that truck and richard's story from every angle. they concluded that kristen must have been in the truck that night, that richard knew she was there, and that he knew she hit the pavement with his truck cruising at high speed. they were convinced he left her

lying there, hovering near death without so much as tapping his finger three times to call 9-1-1. maybe richard fled the scene because he had somehow pushed her from the truck. or maybe he was driving drunk when she tumbled out of the back and he feared a blood alcohol test. investigators and prosecutors weren't sure exactly how their victim had been hurt, but they didn't need a definitive answer to make their next move. >> criminal charges have been filed in the case of a wsu graduate injured and left for dead last year. >> it is summer of 2010, after an eight month investigation, richard pasma was booked, fingerprinted, and charged with a felony. it was a very long way from the attempted murder charge once contemplated by kristen's family. richard stood accused of leaving the scene of an injury accident, punishable up to five years in prison. >> what did you think when

richard was charged? >> i started crying. i thought the charges weren't enough. >> still, the grindleys hoped that during a trial they might learn more details of what happened to the daughter. that's not how things unfolded. just ten days before the trial date, richard pasma came into the courtroom not to face a jury of his peers, but to enter a plea. in washington state, it is called an alfred plea. under that agreement, richard did not admit wrongdoing. in fact, he once again maintains that as far as he knew, kristen was never in his truck that night. he acknowledged, there was sufficient evidence for a jury to find him guilty of knowing kristen was injured and not calling for help. >> he was not conscious at the time. she was bleeding from her head and other injuries. >> as part of their plea deal, the prosecution dropped their request for the exceptional sentence of five years. the sentencing hearing in

november 2010 was the first time richard grindley and richard pasma were in the same rooms in the night a year earlier when their romance came to an abrupt, terrifying, and violent end. >> richard confronts me and what he did to me. that she has it changed against. [inaudible] i feel that he will hurt others what he did to. me >> richard pasma was the last to speak at sentencing. he had never talked publicly about the case and he declined datelines request for an interview. because he was taking the alford plea, essentially pleading no contest rather than guilty, he did not take responsibility for what happened on albion road. if the grindleys had been hoping to hear words of remorse, they were disappointed. >> i know you guys think that i'm not sorry, i'm sorry for all the troubles in the last year. you know. i wish this never would have happened. i hope that, after today, we

can all just move on and move in a positive light and have it all just go away. your honor, thank you. >> richard was sentenced to nine months in jail. kristen grindley will likely be dealing with the injury she suffered on november 11th, 2009, for the rest of her life. but she keeps her focus on the good things ahead. >> do you think of yourself as lucky? >> yes. >> because you're here? >> yes. ♪ ♪ ♪ i am very happy that i am okay. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am andrea canning, thank you for watching. hello, i'm andrea canning, and this is dateline.