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Should a life of abuse justify homicide?

Produced by Clare Friedland and Jenna Jackson
[This story was first broadcast on Jan. 21. It was updated on June 30]

(CBS NEWS) FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas -- "He was a very calm, loving person and he was an awesome Dad. That was my best friend," Jamie Hill said. "It's just really hard. Every day it's a struggle without my Dad here."

More than five years after her father, Danny Hill, was shot to death, Jamie still has questions for the person who pulled the trigger: Her own mother, Charlene Hill.

"None of it made sense at all," Jamie told "48 Hours." "Why don't you get a divorce? Why don't you, you know, just do something besides murder, murder."

"I relive that night so many times...my mind replays that night," Charlene said in tears. "Do I wish I could change it? Oh, God."

That night, a 25-year marriage came to a sudden and violent ending.

"48 Hours Mystery" built a full-scale replica of that room to try and solve the mystery of how and why Charlene Hill shot her husband Danny. Nothing is as it seemed in this case - not the characters, not their motives. "48 Hours Mystery" has been following case the since it began.

Video: Recreating the crime scene
Photos: Follow the evidence

The case went to trial not once, but twice. And nobody could ever have expected how it ended.

Before she took his life in that room... they built a life together.

"I loved Danny," Charlene told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Richard Schlesinger. "Danny will always be a part of me."

Charlene and Danny raised three children, made millions with their landscaping and storage businesses near Houston, and made plans to retire to their ranch in the Texas hill country.

"We were looking at building our house right here," Charlene explained in 2010, looking out at the undeveloped land on their ranch. "It's rough, knowing that this was our dream and he's gone."

But there were two sides to Danny Hill. While Jamie talks about the loving father, Charlene remembers the man who could also suddenly turn violent.

"He punched me," she told Schlesinger.

"Punched you?"

"Yeah."

"Hard?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Where would he punch you?"

"Well, that time he punched me in the face," she replied.

And according to Charlene, that wasn't the worst of it. Early in their marriage, she says Danny discovered she was planning to leave him.

"After knocking me around, he...tied me to a chair, and poured gasoline on me and stood there with a lighter and told me if I ever tried to

leave, he'd kill me," she said.

Over the years, Charlene's calls to 911 and trips to the emergency room were well-documented. But she always refused to press charges.

"I was afraid of what would happen if I did," she explained.

"But you needed help," noted Schlesinger.

"What are they gonna do? Arrest him?" Charlene said. "He's out within a couple of hours. Where do I go?"

Charlene claims she was never more afraid of her husband than on the night of Nov. 14, 2006, that Danny came home in a rage and that she had no choice but to shoot him in self-defense.

"I knew I couldn't outrun him," Charlene told Schlesinger.

"And what would he have done if he had got you?" he asked.

"He'd a killed me."

"You have no doubt? He would have killed you, you know that?

"Yes," she said, nodding.

According to Charlene, it was a small thing that set Danny off that night. They had recently sold their storage business to Danny's brother, Craig, and Danny had been told to remove his belongings from one of the storage units.

"He was angry, he was frustrated, he was going through all types of different emotions," she explained.

Charlene says Danny was so angry, he was threatening to kill not only the new manager of the storage facility, but even members of his own family. She thought she could calm him down by cooking his favorite meal: Chicken and dumplings.

"And you thought that would make him happy?" Schlesinger asked.

"Oh, yeah," she replied. "It would help him relax."

But, she says, that night, it didn't work.

"When I came back into the bedroom...his rage centered on me. He was angry that I was trying to calm him down," she said. "I'd seen the look in his eyes before, yes, but I had never seen it like I did that night."

So, Charlene says, she took her gun out of her nightstand and laid it on the bed.

"I thought the gun would keep him at bay so I could retreat," she said.

"It did just the opposite."

At this point, the two were standing at opposite sides of the bed. But Charlene claims Danny started coming at her.

"I didn't know how to stop him," she said.

So Charlene picked up the gun and she shot her husband three times.

After the shooting, Charlene called 911. The paramedics were already working on Danny when Fort Bend County Sheriff's Deputy Jose Trevino arrived.

"You know, he was in pain...he was moaning," Trevino told Schlesinger. "I didn't know if he was gonna make it or not at the time ... I was standing at his feet, leaned over, talking to him ... 'Danny, who shot you? Danny tell me who shot you.'"

"And what did he say?"

"He said 'my wife.'"

With his dying breath, 49-year-old Danny Hill had identified his wife as his killer. Charlene was arrested that night and charged with murder.

"It's taken a little bit of all of our souls and our hearts," said Jamie. While she admits her father was sometimes abusive, Jamie claims her mother was often the instigator.

"I was there; I lived it, and...my mom was the one that would provoke things," she said. "You could only push a dog in a corner so much until it bites back. And that's what she did."

Ultimately, it was something Charlene said shortly after making bail that her children say convinced them this was not an open-and-shut case of self-defense.

"She had said that he wasn't coming at her, he didn't put his hands on her," son Jeremy told Schlesinger.

"She said that to you? That he was not coming at her, he did not put his hands on her?"

"Yes," replied Jeremy.

"Do you remember what you said to her?"

"No, but I felt sick to my stomach," he replied. "After that was said...my brother and I knew for sure...that this was murder."

Jamie believes she knows the real motive: "She wants it all... She wants the money..."

As Charlene Hill got ready for her first trial in September 2009, she faced life in prison for killing her husband. She hired a prominent Houston defense team; attorneys George Parnham and Dee McWilliams. They argued this is a clear-cut case of self-defense.

"Imagine how scary that must've been when you're actually physically confronted with a huge, violent man -- who is not in his right mind and is threatening to kill everyone you know, including you," said McWilliams.

But prosecutors Jill Stotts and Chad Bridges said there was evidence that contradicts crucial parts of Charlene's story.

Photos: Follow the evidence

"So why is this not a textbook case of a wife who feared for her life and did the only thing she could do? Richard Schlesinger asked Stotts.

"She was an abused woman at times, but the ballistics, the forensics, the physical evidence....showed that...on that day, it wasn't self-defense," she said.

And there was some curious activity the prosecutors wanted to know about involving the couple's money: About a million dollars that Charlene transferred between accounts about a month before she shot Danny.

"Did you transfer the million dollars from the business account to an account with just your name on it?" Schlesinger asked.

"No, I did not." Charlene explained. "I transferred the million dollars from our corporate account...into a money-market account."

"So if he wanted any of that money, he could have gotten it?"

"100 percent," she said.

Charlene seemed to have an answer for everything. But investigators were convinced the crime scene told them the real story.

Charlene says she was on one side of the bed and Danny was over on the other side when she shot him. But the door to the living room was right by Charlene, and prosecutors wondered why she didn't just back out of the room and flee.

"Because of my physical condition, the injury to my leg, I can't run," she said.

Charlene insists she was unable to back out of the room because her leg had been shattered when she and Danny were in a motorcycle accident three years earlier.

"He'd a had me in two steps," she said.

And that's what this case is all about -- did she have to shoot her husband? Or was there any other option?

"If I'm Charlene, and I'm over here firing, the door's just right there. If I've got the gun why can't I just run away?" Schlesinger asked McWilliams, while backing into the living room door behind him in the replica bedroom. "Would she make the door?"

"If we're talkin' about a race to the door, I'm considerably smaller than Danny. Charlene is standing there terrified and frozen, not knowing what on earth to do," he replied.

From the other side of the room, McWilliams continued, "So I'm here."

He then moves towards Schlesinger. "And I'm trying to get out...and there is no chance of Charlene making that door, much less negotiating the turn and steps or getting out. Danny is on her in a split second."

Prosecutors believed Charlene had multiple motives for wanting her husband dead. There was the money -- the couple was worth several million dollars -- but it turns out Danny had suffered a critical brain injury in that motorcycle accident and he was never the same.

"After the accident we called him Dad Number Two because he was just 'what's this?' or 'what's that?'" Jamie explained. "And then she felt like she was having to raise another kid, because of his brain injury. And my Dad was a burden to her."

At trial, Jeremy took the stand against his own mother. He admitted that Danny beat not only Charlene, but Jeremy as well. But that the violence ended after the motorcycle crash.

"He became a big pussycat if you will," Jeremy told the court.

Watching her first born testify against her was more than Charlene could bear. And it got more difficult as Charlene's attorney confronted Jeremy with some of the Hill family's dirtiest secrets.

George Parnham: There was a time when you were in the fifth grade when your father came into your bedroom and beat you so severely, for no reason, that he knocked you out, correct?

Jeremy Hill: He punched me once and knocked me out, yes sir."

George Parnham believed Jeremy had a hidden motive for turning against his mother: Money.

George Parnham: Your mother did not have an inkling, an iota that you had gone through $1 million that day?

Jeremy Hill: Correct.

The million dollars that Charlene had moved from one account to another before the killing was moved again just after she got arrested. Charlene transferred it to Jeremy for safekeeping. He admitted he withdrew all the money and split it with his siblings to pay off debts.

George Parnham: Where did that money go to?

Jeremy Hill: That went towards paying off my house.

Charlene decided to take a chance few murder defendants ever do. She took the stand in her own defense.

She [broke down] painfully recounted the years of violence. Then she told the court about the night she shot her husband.

George Parnham: What did you do?

Charlene Hill: I pulled the Glock out of the dresser and I laid it on the bed. And I kinda stood back and I told Danny, "Don't come near me," and "We're not gonna go there."

George Parnham: Did Danny say anything when he saw the gun on the bed?

Charlene Hill: He laughed at me. And then he said, "If we're gonna do a shootout, I'm getting my gun and I'm gonna shoot you. You better shoot me [sobs].

And then prosecutor Jill Stotts had Charlene in her sights. It was an unrelenting cross-examination.

Jill Stotts: Is that something that normally would calm Danny down is showing him that you have a gun? It really wasn't to calm him down. It was to show that you had the upper hand, correct?

Charlene Hill: No, it was to tell him to back off.

Jill Stotts: Well telling him to back off is not the same as calming him down.

For two days she would not let up.

Jill Stotts: At that point could you have picked up that weapon -- even if you're pointing it at him -- and walked out the door?

Charlene Hill: No ma'am.

Jill Stotts: Why is that?

Charlene Hill: Because I believed I was in danger.

Jill Stotts: Danger of what? You have the gun?

Charlene Hill: My husband was a lethal weapon without a gun.

Charlene claimed that since Danny's brain injury, he was more violent than ever. While Jeremy may have described him as a pussycat, Charlene insisted, that night, Danny Hill was more like a wild animal.

"He was coming at me. He was going to kill me. And unless you'd been in that situation, you have no idea. It's like a grizzly bear getting ready to attack you," she testified.

With the testimony over, the drama moved to the jury room where 12 men and women began possibly the strangest, most emotional deliberations ever in the courthouse.

"Through her eyes I could relive that night. I kind of felt that, she was gonna die that night," said Sylvia Les-Sie.

Sylvia Les-Sie and Charlene Hill had never met, but Les-Sie quickly became the most important person in Charlene's life. She was a juror in Charlene's first murder trial.

Asked what it was like in the jury room, Les-Sie told Schlesinger,

"Very hostile."

The vote was 11 to 1, guilty; Les-Sie was the lone holdout. She tried to persuade the others that Charlene could not outrun her husband because of her leg injury.

"What are you all talkin' about? How can she retreat? Can't you see? Charlene was doing' this here," Les-Sie said, limping like Charlene may have.

"What did they say to you?" Schlesinger asked.

"I am sick and tired of you. I'm sick and tired of you up in here with all these different scenarios," she replied.

Photos: Follow the evidence

Bailiff Mary Charles noticed during a break that Sylvia was clearly feeling the pressure.

"I could tell that she was holding her stomach...and she looked nervous and she was pacing back and forth," Charles recalled. "She says, 'They're not gonna make me change my mind; they're not gonna make me change my mind.'"

The other jurors believed Charlene could have left the room. And no one on the jury would budge.

"This whole trial, which had taken so long, was, I guess, hanging in the balance?" Schlesinger asked Judge James Shoemake.

"Teetering on the brink of disaster at that point," he replied.

So after two days of deliberations, Judge Shoemake had no choice and declared a mistrial.

"I declared a mistrial because we had nowhere else to go," he said.

"I was shocked. I was devastated. I felt...they didn't hear the story," Charlene told Schlesinger.

Charlene Hill was a free woman, but maybe not for long. A little more than a year later, she's back in Judge Shoemake's courtroom. The prosecutors have decided to try her for the murder of her husband a second time.

"I felt like she had a very decent chance of getting a not-guilty verdict," Judge Shoemake told Schlesinger. Asked why, he said, "She would be more at home on the stand second time around."

But prosecutors are taking no chances. They want to ensure that the second jury's focus will be on science, not sentiment.

"I hope they put aside their emotions," prosecutor Jill Stotts said.

"She didn't get a buy on murder just because she was abused in the past."

So with the help of crime scene investigators and two medical examiners, prosecutors will present a case that is more heavily based on forensics. To them, the science tells the real story.

"In the end, it's the bullets that mattered," said prosecutor Chad Bridges.

At her first trial, Charlene dramatically described her showdown with Danny.

"I'm sorry, but all I can see in my mind was that he was coming after me," she sobbed on the stand.

But investigators Lester Phipps and Jeremy Goodrich noticed all the blood stains were on the opposite side of the room from where Charlene was standing and then they saw a bullet hole in the wall opposite Charlene... and just about a foot off the ground.

"I mean, I'm no CSI expert, but that would seem to indicate that it was fired from a higher angle," Schlesinger said, referencing the bullet hole in the replica bedroom wall.

"...downward towards the wall, from a higher position," Goodrich affirmed.

To the prosecution, this is crucial evidence - proving that Danny was already seriously wounded and slumped on the floor when Charlene stood over him, re-aimed and fired another round, striking him for the third time.

"What does that say?" Schlesinger asked Phipps.

"That says that he was no longer a threat," he replied.

"He was no longer a threat? He was down, he was on the ground."

"Yes sir."

"Did he fall down before you stopped shooting?" Schlesinger asked Charlene.

"I don't think so," she replied.

At Charlene's second trial in January 2011, Medical Examiner Dr. Sara Doyle testifies that not only was Danny down, he was paralyzed.

Jill Stotts: "In your opinion, what caused that injury to Danny Hill's spinal cord?

Dr. Sara Doyle: The bullet passing through his spine.

Jill Stotts: Would you be able to stand at that point?

Dr. Sara Doyle: No.

Jill Stotts: To walk?

Dr. Sara Doyle: No.

"The third shot makes it murder," prosecutor Chad Bridges told "48 Hours Mystery."

When Charlene's attorneys examined all the evidence, it told them that Charlene did not mean to kill Danny.

"If that were the case, why are there still several live rounds in the gun?" defense attorney Dee McWilliams notes to Schlesinger in the reconstructed room. "If she wanted to finish him off she sure could have. Danny wasn't dead when she called 911."

But the defense also has to explain the bullet hole that's so low on the wall.

"It could be a miss. We just don't know," said McWilliams.

Dr. Stephen Pulstilnik is the medical examiner in neighboring Galveston County. He claims the bullet hole in the wall cannot be a miss. He looked at its shape.

"The bullet hole made in the drywall is oblong. It is not a perfectly round hole," he pointed out.

That is a sign of what forensic scientists call a tumbling bullet. Dr. Pustilnik says that bullet hit the wall sideways after first passing through Danny Hill.

"Now, forensics for dummies, I mean, a tumbling bullet is just that, right? A bullet goes in, hits stuff in the body and tumbles end over end?" Schlesinger asked.

"Correct. And it does not come out necessarily nose first," Dr. Pustilnik replied.

Pustilnik set up a demonstration to prove his theory. He filled a 5-gallon bucket with internal organs and blood from a pig.

"This is sort of roughly what's inside the human body?"

"Correct."

He used the same kind of gun - a Glock model 19 -- and ammunition as Charlene Hill.

"That is not a perfectly round hole," Pustilnik said of the result. "So the bullet has passed through all those intestinal contents during its travel has rotated on its way out and made an asymmetric hole in the drywall."

"In the context of this case, what does that prove to you?" Schlesinger asked.

"That shows that that last shot was a shot that was taken while his body was down there, under the window. Not standing up, not coming at her," Pustilnik replied.

Charlene's attorneys insist that, in the end, whether or not the bullet tumbled through Danny is not important. What's important is that Charlene believed her life was in jeopardy.

"You can shoot a person as many times as is necessary to stop the threat," McWilliams said. "If you had the right to kill somebody, you had the right to kill 'em dead, dead, dead, dead."

But the prosecution is just getting started and it's going to be a tough fight for Charlene Hill and her lawyers.

It's the first question most people ask: Why would Charlene Hill stay in an abusive relationship for almost 30 years?

"There was a good Danny and there was a bad Danny," Charlene told Richard Schlesinger. "You know, you've got to remember, Danny and I worked together side by side...there were good times...but...it was a rollercoaster ride for a long time."

Even her closest friends, like Jennifer Hinch and Susan Watts, searched for answers.

"Those vows said for better and worse and she meant it and she kept 'em," said Hinch.

II think they were each other's drug, that they couldn't live without the other and didn't want to live without the other," said Watts.

Photos: Follow the evidence

And now the most painful details of this baffling and broken relationship are about to be exposed again in court by Charlene's own lawyers.

"...that her life was in jeopardy that she was in danger of serious bodily injury," defense attorney George Parnham told the court.

"Not only is she physically punished, she is mentally punished as well," Parnham told Schlesinger. "She knows full well that he has absolute control of her."

Witnesses testified about Danny's violent history.

"He started yelling and screaming and throwing things around. So Char and I hid under a picnic table..." Cindy Messina told the court.

"I was pointing at the door going... 'What are these holes in the door?' And he said 'I shot and missed,'" Hinch testified.

Another family friend, Jeff Douglas, is clearly uncomfortable as he recounts how Danny bragged to him about raping Charlene.

Jeff Douglas: He pushed her down on the bed.

George Parnham: What did he tell you?

Jeff Douglas: Well, something to the effect that, you know, after a while she enjoyed it.

Even Jeremy Hill, while testifying against his mother once again, has to admit Danny was capable of appalling violence.

George Parnham: Your father was somehow able to pick your mother up and put her into the passenger seat?

Jeremy Hill: Yes, sir.

George Parnham: What was he doing?

Jeremy Hill: He was choking her.

But prosecutors think the forensics prove, that on the night in question, Charlene was the dangerous one in that room.

"The bullets run the wrong way for this to be the what she said, the bullets run the wrong way for him to be coming at her," said prosecutor Chad Bridges.

"The bullet goes through the muscle of his upper right arm and exits his upper right arm, then re-enters his armpit," Medical Examiner Dr. Sara Doyle gestured as she addressed the court. "It goes through the right lung, the right diaphragm, the liver..."

It's not so much where the bullets ended up that's important to prosecutors -- it's where they entered Danny's body; the side of his right arm.

"So he would have to be standing facing away from her to get those.

Ninety degrees away?" Schlesinger asked Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Pustilnik.

"Ninety degrees away. Yes," he replied.

Dr. Pustilnik has studied the autopsy photos. He says Danny could not possibly have been coming at Charlene in the way she described, with his arms raised, ready to grab her.

"If he was coming at her at the time, where would he have been shot?" Schlesinger asked.

"It would be on his front surface. So, front of his chest, front of his abdomen," said Pustilnik.

"Do you remember where he was when you fired each of those three shots?" Schlesinger asked Charlene.

"No, he was just coming," she replied.

Based on the bullet wounds, Investigator Phipps says Danny had to be facing an exit, the door to the back patio. But Charlene's attorneys say Danny was threatening to go out to his truck to get a gun. And suddenly, he changed his mind.

"He goes like he's gonna go to the door. But rather than go to the door, he makes his move towards her," McWilliams demonstrated in the replica bedroom. "I think the state just doesn't believe that he actually turned to come at her...He's got wounds on his right side. Those wounds are totally consistent with exactly what we've described here."

"And you think that he got shot on his way while he was turning to come at her?" Schlesinger asked.

"Right," McWilliams replied.

Now, everyone is ready for Charlene to take the stand for the second time in this courtroom. And everyone will be surprised by how this case ends.

In a case full of gambles, Charlene Hill's attorneys are taking yet another one. They're having the jury take a field trip to Charlene and Danny's bedroom.

"Why do you want them so badly to see that room?" Richard Schlesinger asked defense attorney Dee McWilliams.

"This whole thing came down to, in that moment, in that room, could she have gotten away?"he said. "It seems to me that the best way for a person to understand that is to actually be in there, see it, see how it's configured."

"48 Hours Mystery" took one of those jurors, Judith -- who does not want her last name used - into the replica room.

Photos: Follow the evidence

"When you first came into that room, what was your goal, what did you want to accomplish?" Schlesinger asked.

"I just wanted to kind of get an idea of the size and you know, where Charlene was," she said. "It's a good-sized room but considering the conflict that was going on, it wasn't that big."

And that's exactly what the defense wants the jury to bear in mind as Charlene takes the stand. First, attorney George Parnham again has Charlene recount years of abuse, with little left to the imagination.

George Parnham: Did Danny Hill ever hog tie you Ms. Hill?

Charlene Hill: Yes.

George Parnham: Describe hog tie for me.

Charlene Hill: It's where you take the arms and tie them behind my back and take my legs and tie them and then tie my arms to my legs.

Charlene has to tell her story about that night to 12 new jurors -- about Danny's rage and what happened when she took out her gun.

"He laughed at me and said 'I'm gonna f--' excuse my language, 'I'm gonna kill you bitch. You want to have a shootout?' He was just going off saying all kinds of things," she testified.

But Charlene says she can't remember the actual shooting.

George Parnham: Do you remember how many times you shot?

Charlene Hill: No, I do not.

George Parnham: Do you remember where you shot him?

Charlene Hill: No, I do not.

George Parnham: What did you do next?

Charlene Hill: I don't know."

In another brutal cross-examination, prosecutor Jill Stotts first confronts Charlene with the physical evidence.

Jill Stotts: "So if Danny turns and leaves the door that's going out to the back yard and starts coming at you... can you explain to me how he didn't fall in the middle of the room or anywhere other than at the wall?

Charlene Hill: I have no idea.

Jill Stotts: When you shot him in the arm was he up against the wall?

Charlene Hill: You're asking me when I shot him and where, I can't tell you that. I don't know that.

Over two days, the prosecutor pounces on those lapses in Charlene's memory.

Jill Stotts: So if you remembered 18 months ago that you aimed for his arm and shot him in the arm - why don't you remember that now when I ask that question?

Charlene Hill: I don't remember thinking anything other than I'm going to die."

Jill Stotts: Can you explain to the jury why last time you recalled not only firing the weapon, but that you were standing when you did it? And this time you don't recall that at all.

Charlene Hill: No, I can't explain why.

Video: Excerpts of Charlene Hill's cross examination

In her closing argument, the prosecutor accuses Charlene of lying about her memory loss.

"Her credibility is shot," Stotts told jurors. "She forgot everything that may have made her guilty of murder. And she only remembered the stuff that would help her out. That's awfully convenient."

As the new jury deliberated over new arguments and new witnesses, both sides were worried about a repeat of the old outcome.

"This time I was really hoping they would reach a verdict so that we wouldn't have to do this again," Stotts said. "For a third time.

"We worried a lot. We wrung our hands," said McWilliams.

"We were afraid of a conviction," said Parnham.

"Show me in your mind what you think Danny was doing when she fired at him first," Schlesinger asked Judith in the replica bedroom.

"I think he was heading towards the door," she said. "And at that point he fell down...she should have left the room."

Bailiff Mary Charles was worried the jury might be having a tough time reaching a verdict when they were still deliberating at 10 p.m. that first night.

"I thought, 'Oh here we go again," she told Schlesinger. "I said, 'This case is snakebitten.' I said, 'Man, I can't believe it."

"What do you mean snakebitten?"

"We weren't getting anywhere," Charles explained. "And I said, 'We cannot try this case a third time.'"

So the next morning, as the jury resumed its deliberations, Judge Shoemake encouraged the attorneys to try to reach a plea deal. The clock was ticking with a verdict or a hung jury possible at any moment.

"The attorneys kept going back and forth, back and forth," said Charles.

About 6 p.m. that evening, there was a development.

"Both sides came in together and said, 'We have a deal,'" said Judge James Shoemake.

The tough part was convincing Charlene to go along and end the fight to clear her name. The deal: No prison time, but she would have to admit that she murdered her husband.

"Obviously, it is a gut-wrenching decision for her," McWilliams said.

"If we can reach an agreement, it's guaranteed she walks outta there. And if we don't, it's not."

"I didn't murder my husband. And to take a plea bargain saying I did, to me, was just, very hard," said Charlene.

Finally, Charlene relented. But right as she was about to sign the papers, there was a knock on the door from inside the jury room.

"...and I got a tap on my shoulder and they said, 'Judge, we have a verdict,'" said Judge Shoemake.

At that point the judge made a split-second decision. He could have read the jury's verdict -- whatever it was -- but he decided not to and to let both sides seal the deal.

"What's going on in your mind at this point while you're going through all this?" Schlesinger asked the judge.

"I'm wondering if I ever have a case that's normal" he replied.

It was a dramatic moment as Charlene, shaking, and her voice barely audible, stood before the judge and pleaded guilty to murder.

Judge Shoemake: Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason?

Charlene Hill: Yes, your honor.

"I was pretty much crying the whole time," Charlene told Schlesinger. "My attorneys were holding me up."

Judge Shoemake: And you understand you've waived every right of appeal."

And she did it just in the nick of time.

"After the plea, the bailiff handed me the verdict sheet," said Judge Shoemake.

"And what did it say?"

"Guilty."

Had he gotten the verdict even moments earlier, the judge would have had to sentence Charlene to at least 5 years in prison.

Asked how close Charlene came to going to the penitentiary, her attorney, George Parnham said, "Probably as close as a space of five seconds."

"I thought, 'Oh my God...someone upstairs is watching over this woman," said Charles.

But the jurors also felt Charlene had suffered enough.

"We all agreed that...she didn't necessarily need to do jail time, but that wasn't our call," said Judith.

So even though her plea made their verdict irrelevant, the jurors were satisfied.

"We were not unhappy that she made that decision," Judith commented to Schlesinger.

"So in a way, this sort of worked out the way you wanted it to."

"That's right."

"Are you satisfied that...justice was done?" Schlesinger asked Judge Shoemake.

"I think justice was done. I do," he replied.

Video: Hear more from Judge Shoemake

Now, with her legal battle behind her, Charlene is trying to build a new life without Danny.

"I miss him. I miss the good Danny," she said.

And it will be even tougher, because her son Jeremy wants nothing to do with her.

Asked if he loves his mother at all anymore, Jeremy tells Schlesinger,

"There's a love... But forgiveness is hard 'cause you can't forget."

But Charlene's daughter, Jamie, had decided to forgive her mother after a bitter estrangement of more than four years.

"If people hold hate in their heart it'll just sink their life down further," Jamie said, with her mother at her side. "We're here now. And that's all that matters and I'm happy, so happy. And I'm happy that we get a second chance together."

"So am I," said Charlene.

Charlene Hill is on probation until 2021.

She's required to speak before battered women's groups, but she's forbidden from ever saying she shot Danny in self-defense.

For help 24-hours-a day: National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

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