Live to Tell: Sole Survivor

Summary

Podcast Summary

48 Hours: "Live to Tell: Sole Survivor"

Release Date: May 28, 2026
Host: CBS News
Episode Overview:
This powerful episode of 48 Hours recounts the harrowing true story of Robin Doane, the lone survivor of the brutal murder of her family in rural Texas. Through Robin’s firsthand testimony, law enforcement interviews, and investigative reporting, the episode explores the trauma, investigation, and aftermath of a crime that shook a community—and highlights the resilience and courage of a young girl left to rebuild her life from tragedy.

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Main Theme

The episode stands as both a gripping crime investigation and a deeply personal survivor's story. It details the random and senseless massacre of Robin's family, her experience surviving and ensuring justice, and the lingering impact on her life. The narrative spotlights themes of trauma, loss, the pursuit of justice, and the role of community and law enforcement in supporting survivors.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night of the Attack

• Robin’s Recollection
  • Robin, age 10 at the time, recounts the terrifying night: awakening to gunshots, her mother’s screams, and the realization that the violence in her dreams was horribly real.
    • “I was 10 when all this happened. I was so young and so little.” (01:27)
  • She describes hiding in bed, being grazed by bullets, hearing her brother Zach’s final moments, and playing dead for over two hours before calling 911.
    • “He fired two rounds off at me. I had one of them graze my left leg and my left arm.” (02:38)
    • “I played dead for two and a half hours. I was just like, I can't just lay here. I need to do something.” (03:09)
  • Her 911 call is haunting, underscored by her fear and desperate hope her mother is still alive.
    • “I want my mom. I want my mom.” (03:59)
    • “It felt so long before they got there.” (04:51)

2. Crime Scene and Immediate Aftermath

• Law Enforcement Response
  • Officer Chad recalls the urgency and heartbreak upon arriving, securing traumatized Robin in his patrol car while the home was cleared.
    • “This child on a phone about a shooting… As distraught as she was, she's very articulate.” (05:21)
  • The scene is described as a quintessential “All American family,” shattered by senseless violence: Brian (stepfather), Michelle (mother), and Zach (brother) all killed, as well as the family dog.
    • “Mom, dad, children getting ready for the birth of a child… Whoever entered… immediately went to shooting.” (06:00)
  • Robin continues to hope for survivors as the reality sinks in:
    • “I wanted all of my family to walk out of there, okay, just like I did.” (06:49)
• Aftershock and Shelter
  • Robin is placed in a safe house with remaining family during the uncertain investigation.
    • “You had to be buzzed in. There were cameras all outside of it. I understood that it was for my own safety.” (11:49)

3. Investigation

• Evidence and Motive Search
  • Investigators are initially stymied: no DNA, fingerprints, or motive. Speculations include a mistaken drug hit, but all leads go cold.
    • “We had the show casings, we have a lot of blood evidence... It wasn't a burglary.” (13:54)
• Break in the Case
  • A seemingly unrelated murder in Missouri gives investigators the clue they need: shell casings and ammo traced to Levi King, a known felon.
    • “The shell casings... were of a strange, I believe, like a Russian ammunition.” (17:57)
    • “We had a warrant signed for Levi... that warrant was issued in the computer for nationwide pickup.” (19:28)
• Levi King’s Confession
  • King, found in a stolen truck at the border, calmly confesses to two earlier murders in Missouri and then admits, “there’s four more in Texas.”
    • “He described that even hours later, he could still smell the gunpowder, the sweat and the blood, describing it as a feeling... better than any drugs he'd ever done.” (21:40)

4. Trial and Justice

• Prosecution and Defense
  • King is eventually sentenced to life in Missouri and faces a death penalty trial in Texas. The legal teams spar over whether King is a monster or a product of a deeply troubled upbringing marked by abuse, mental illness, and violence.
    • “First thing we had to figure out how to do was to turn Levi from a monster into a human being.” —Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer (27:18)
• Robin’s Testimony
  • Now a teenager, Robin bravely testifies against King, confronting her family's killer in court:
    • “I was going to be sitting in front of a murderer who had killed my loved ones and to testify. I didn't want to, but I knew that I needed to for my family's sake.” (30:00)
    • She describes King’s cold, blank stare: “The stare that I got back was the worst feeling of my entire life.” (31:03)
• Verdict and Sentencing
  • Ultimately, a single juror holds out against the death penalty, resulting in a sentence of life without parole.
    • “Just the look on Lynn's face that almost looked like that she had failed us, but she really didn't. Lynn Switzer fought for my family, and that's something I will never be able to thank her enough...” (34:36)

5. Survivor’s Struggle and Recovery

• Ongoing Trauma
  • Robin shares the lasting impact: insomnia, nightmares, hypervigilance, and grief.
    • “I really don't want to go to sleep anymore... I'm too scared.” (35:42)
    • “The fear is still there, and it's still very real.” (35:49)
  • She struggles with anniversaries and daily reminders, never feeling fully at home again after the loss. Her relationship with therapy is ambivalent; she prefers directness and support from family and law enforcement.
    • “If I wanted to talk to someone, I'll talk to my family. Or put a law enforcement person in front of me. I'll talk to you. But a psychiatrist, no, thanks.” (38:08)
• Support System
  • Law enforcement and members of the community rally around Robin, treating her like family, setting up a scholarship, and remaining in contact through her milestones.
    • “The heroic things that Robin did to survive that day and to survive that incident will always stick in my mind.” —Law Enforcement Officer Chad (39:05)
    • “They carried big guns, but they have big hearts. When you go through things as traumatic as this experience was, you have a bond.” —Prosecutor (39:55)
  • Robin’s adopted mom, Denise, and investigator friends become her core support:
    • “I call Denise, my adopted mom. I look to Denise for everything, whether it be homework, a new boyfriend...” (41:47)

6. Reflection and Resilience

• Robin’s Outlook
  • Despite ongoing pain, Robin strives to live without bitterness, choosing forgiveness and positivity.
    • “I did forgive Levi King because... it was my sense of peace and it was my sense of this is how I was raised, and this is my family coming out.” (31:54)
  • She embraces leadership and expresses hope her survival has a greater purpose yet to be revealed.
    • “I could honestly not tell you why I was left, why I was the only one that survived... I don't know what my purpose is, but it's going to be great when it comes.” (42:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I want my mom. I want my mom.” — Robin Doane, as a child on 911 call (03:59)
• “I played dead for two and a half hours. I was just like, I can't just lay here. I need to do something.” — Robin Doane (03:09)
• “Once we leave the corrals and that moment's over, the switch flipped again, and it was right back to reality. And she's immediately back to crying and cold. And she grabbed my forearm.” — Law Enforcement Officer Chad (08:22)
• “She has this positive outlook on life. She has one of the most caring hearts that anyone could ever see.” — Denise (Adopted Mom) (42:02)
• “You ask the question, why? And that's the question that sometimes haunts you forever... We may never know.” — Investigator (32:25)
• “Maybe if I get married one day and have kids, if it's to help my kids get through life or help other people in the world, I. I don't know. I don't know what my purpose is, but it's going to be great when it comes.” — Robin Doane (42:33)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:54–04:51 — Robin’s account of the night and aftermath of the murders
• 06:00–07:22 — Law enforcement’s first observations at the scene
• 14:06–19:40 — Investigation, Missouri murders, arrest, and confession of Levi King
• 27:18–31:54 — Trial, defense and prosecution arguments, Robin’s testimony
• 35:42–36:54 — Robin on lasting trauma and daily life
• 39:05–41:47 — Support from law enforcement and her adopted mother
• 42:33 — Robin’s closing reflection on her survival and hope for the future

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Conclusion

“Live to Tell: Sole Survivor” is an unflinching, emotionally charged chronicle of crime, resilience, and community, foregrounding Robin Doane’s journey through unimaginable loss toward hope and healing. The episode not only presents the meticulous investigation but offers a rare, intimate portrait of what it means to survive and seek purpose after tragedy.

Transcript

[Robin Doane]

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[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Do you know why you're here today? To talk about what happened this morning? I have a question. Do I really have to talk about what happened this morning again? Because I've told people and I've told people and it just crushes me every time I say it. So I can't really. I can't really talk about that again. 911. What is your emergency? There was a shootout in my house, and I don't know who's dead. And I'm scared after that.

[Robin Doane]

I was 10 when all this happened. I was so young and so little.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Is there anybody up in the house with you? No. I think I'm the only one alive I want now. But I'm scared. I want my mom.

[Robin Doane]

I lived with my mother. That's Michelle Conrad. I lived with my stepfather, Brian Conrad, and then my older brother, Zach Doan. I had a dog named Molly, and my stepdad Brian was a farmer. And then my mom was also six months pregnant.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I so hope my mom is not dead.

[Robin Doane]

That night I was having a nightmare. And I remember, like, hearing the gunshots in my dream. But, like, when I woke up, it didn't end. The gunshots were actually going off in my house. My mother started screaming, screaming and screaming and screaming. I jumped out of my bed and I went and crouched down by my door. That's when I had heard footsteps. It was very loud. He was stomping. I just remember popping up as fast as I could and just taking two leaps back into my bed and just freezing. He fired two rounds off at me. I had one of them graze my left leg and my left arm. He turned to my brother's room, and I just remember gunshots going off and my brother moaning. I played dead for two and a half hours. I was just like, I can't just lay here. I Need to do something. So I just proceeded out the door and started dialing 911.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Can you just throw somebody out here? Somebody's coming. Somebody's coming.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

I just couldn't get there fast enough.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I'm cold. I'm very cold.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

I could not get there fast enough.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I heard my mom scream.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

What in the world could have taken place? And why is she the only one on the phone?

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I want my mom. I want my mom.

[Narrator]

Robin's home in Pampa, Texas, is literally in the middle of nowhere. So you have to wonder, why this family? Why this farmhouse? Whoever the shooter was, whatever his reason for gunning down an innocent family in cold blood, he probably didn't count on one thing. He left behind a witness.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

It's on Highway 70. It's about 13.3 miles out from the bowling alley. I have a purple shirt on. I have purple pants on.

[Robin Doane]

It felt so long before they got there.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Okay, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

[Robin Doane]

I just kept looking and looking and looking and hoping to see, you know, someone coming to my rescue.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

All I want right now is my blanket and my pillow.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

I'll never forget when I turned down

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

the driveway, I see him, I see him.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

This child on a phone about a shooting. She ran straight to me. I hugged her. As distraught as she was, she's very articulate. Just telling me in absolute detail what was going on and what she heard and everything.

[Robin Doane]

He told me everything was going to be okay. They were going to figure it out.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

We're obviously not going in the house with her. I got to secure her somehow out here in the middle of nowhere. So I put her in my patrol car and locked it

[Robin Doane]

all. The cops had their guns drawn, and they were going to clear out the house to make sure no one was in there and to go see who was alive and who was not alive.

[Investigator]

Any crime scene that you go into, you know, it's the ultimate who done it. One comment we made when we first got there is this is like the all American family. Everything was in place. The coffee was set to come on the next morning. Mom, dad, children getting ready for the birth of a child. The east door to the residence had been kicked in, and whoever entered that residence at that time immediately went to shooting. Brian had been shot three times, and Michelle had been shot six times, and the dog had been shot twice.

[Robin Doane]

I guess I kept playing games with myself in my head, when is my mom gonna walk out of there? When is Brian gonna walk out of there? Where's Molly? I wanted all of my family to walk out of there, okay, Just like I did.

[Investigator]

How that bullet missed Robin, I do not know. It struck a little drawer next to her bed. Zach had been shot three times. Laying in his bed appeared. Zach never woke up, and Zach never knew what hit him.

[Robin Doane]

I would never ask the question, who's still alive? I wouldn't do it. Like, I just. I just wouldn't do it.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

Chief deputy looked at me, and we looked at each other, and he said, go be with that little girl. And. I just wanted to take care of her best I could. I said, is there anything I can do for you, Robin? And she said, I want to feed my animals. And I said, I fed animals before. Let's go feed animals. Maybe it's just pure survival, you know, coming from one situation that's just so traumatic to a diversion.

[Robin Doane]

I just remember him helping me feed. I laughed at the amount of alfalfa hay he tried to give my goats because he. It was like, in a large amount. And I said, no, no.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

She just blew me away. She completely flipped a switch and was absolutely bragging about her animal got first or second in this, and her brother got first and second with his animal. Once we leave the corrals and that moment's over, the switch flipped again, and it was right back to reality. And she's immediately back to crying and cold. And she grabbed my forearm.

[Robin Doane]

Finally, I kind of got the courage to just come right out and say, mom and Brian aren't. Aren't gonna walk out of there, are they? Broke the law enforcement people's hearts when they had to tell me no that they weren't walking out of there. I was the only one that could walk out of there still alive. Zach never woke up, and he never. He never knew what was going on. So I'm thankful that he didn't have a chance to hurt. I'm really thankful for that. Right after it all had taken place, I went to my great grandma's house. It was just family after family after friends after people, and everybody was crying, and, you know, people were yelling at the top of their lungs, saying, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? And I couldn't answer questions because I was just scared.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I really don't want to go to sleep anymore. Okay. It makes me to where I'm too scared, and I really don't want to go to sleep. Okay. So, okay.

[Robin Doane]

I got put in a room with one of the advocates at the bridge. There was a microphone in the room, and there was A camera in the room.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

He shot my room and missed me. And so I had to proceed like I was dead two whole hours.

[Robin Doane]

Everything was videotaped to make sure that they had it for evidence and stuff like that.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Did anybody say anything? Could you hear anybody talking? Nobody talked.

[Robin Doane]

They asked me, what do you remember? Can you describe what he looked like?

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I don't know this for sure, but I thought I saw a white, white, white eyes. Okay.

[Investigator]

My question to the other investigators was I need to know if she heard shots and if so, approximately how many shots did she hear?

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

And when he shot, I saw a flash.

[Investigator]

She never hesitated in her answer. Of 15 shots and through the course of the crime scene investigation, 15 fired rounds were found inside the home. Something that you'd hope no 10 year old getting woke up at 3 o' clock in the morning would have indelibly burned into their memory.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I can't talk about it. It's too heartbreaking.

[Prosecutor]

One of the things that our officers were very concerned about was the safety of Robin. Because you have to remember at this point we had no idea who had done this, why it had happened, or where those people might possibly be.

[Robin Doane]

They put us in a shelter kind of thing. It was my biological dad, my stepmom at the time, my stepsister at the time, and myself. You had to be buzzed in. There was cameras all outside of it. I understood that it was for my own safety. I was not allowed to leave except to go to the funeral.

[Investigator]

We knew there would be an outpouring of the community at the service and indeed there was. Everyone loved the Conrad's. They were what we would call in the panhandle, salt of the earth kind of people. They were real people that we loved and cared about and they cared about others.

[Robin Doane]

I just remember sitting there and I would just look at one casket and I'd look at the second casket and then I would turn and I'd look at the third casket and I would do it all over again. It wasn't fair to sit there and look at that.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

I was at the funeral. We did have surveillance set up at the church, just looking for suspicious people. No leads were developed through the funeral services.

[Investigator]

The anxiety and fear among the community went through the roof. People were afraid that there was somebody on the loose that could actually come into their home and do the very same thing. So people were certainly making sure their doors were locked. People who kept guns in their homes were making sure they were close by. We're trying to let the evidence speak to us. We had the show casings we have a lot of blood evidence. We found several shoe prints. There were some tire tracks that we located on the property.

[Narrator]

What investigators didn't have was any DNA or fingerprints. They knew it wasn't a burglary, so they had to look for another motive.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

There was one theory that it was a drug hit that had got the wrong house. All the leads were hitting dead ends.

[Investigator]

There was no rhyme or reason for why this may have happened. We all sat around and wondered, wow, who did this?

[Podcast Host Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Robin Doane]

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[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

We had no clue who this was. There was no reason for it. Who would do this to this family?

[Family Member of Victims]

I received a call from a family member trying to reach out to my mother but was unable to do so. So I called the house and my mother's cell phone. Didn't get an answer, but wasn't alarmed at first. Around lunchtime that day I decided to leave work and drive to the house to see if I could find them. Once I get to the house, a relative is standing outside and he tells me that my mother and grandfather had been murdered. My mom was a very loving and caring mother and was my best friend. And my grandfather was always supportive, always there for me. I just recently lost my father as well. You definitely feel like you've lost everyone in your life.

[Deputy Investigator]

Orli McCool and Don McCool were the two victims in the house. A relative found Orly McCool lying in the floor with blood. And once I stepped in, I found a bullet casing and saw a shell lying on the floor and saw Ms. McCool downstairs.

[Detective]

The shell casings that were there were of a strange, I believe, like a Russian ammunition. And it wasn't something you buy at Walmart or somewhere like that. It was a different kind of ammo.

[Deputy Investigator]

We were looking at the ammo, the shell casings, and one of the other deputies there that does a lot of the crime scenes and said, I just took a burglar report from the night before from Scott King, just lives down the road. Mr. King had reported that his son Levi had come into the house while he was gone and broke into his gun safe and stole several guns. And some of the ammo was the same kind.

[Narrator]

Once investigators had recognized those shell casings, they had their suspect, 23 year old Levi King. Law enforcement knew Levi King well. He had been in prison for burglarizing a neighbor's home and then burning it down. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but he served less than three before he was sent to a halfway house. He disappeared from that halfway house and was on the run just a week before the bodies of the McCools were found.

[Deputy Investigator]

So we started trying to piece stuff together. One of the family members also said that the orly and Don McCool's pickup, Dodge Dakota pickup was gone. So it was entered into the computer system nationwide as stolen.

[Detective]

We had a warrant signed for Levi at, I want to say, like 11 o' clock that night. And that warrant was issued in the computer for nationwide pickup.

[Family Member of Victims]

None of us knew why this had happened. It did feel completely random. Law enforcement had kept us abreast of the situation and had informed us that they had identified Levi King as a suspect. He needed a way to, you know, escape the area. And so they believed that he had targeted my grandfather's house as well as the truck for transportation.

[Deputy Investigator]

Levi King was found in the truck by the Border Patrol in El Paso. He admitted having guns in the back. Well, that drew their attention. They ran the tags, found out that it was a stolen truck with a possible suspect from a murderer inside. So they Detained him there at El Paso PD and actually interviewed him.

[Narrator]

So El Paso police held in question Levi King until the Missouri investigators could arrive. Just 15 minutes into that interview, Levi King calmly confessed to killing Orli McCool and his daughter in law Dawn. But he couldn't fully explain why.

[Robin Doane]

Before I even realized it, I mean, I just. Pointed at Adam and fired.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

How many times did you fire?

[Robin Doane]

Just once. He spun and fell over. You walk by to the door and you see this woman. Why? Explain to me why you shot at her. I was scared. I was. I mean, I didn't know what was going to happen to me. You know, I was panicking.

[Detective]

We get to El Paso pd, we are met by the detectives that are working the case. I observed Levi standing there, knew him, said his name, he knew who I was. We both acknowledged each other. We loaded him up and the pickup up and headed back towards Missouri. During a conversation with Levi, he described that even hours later, he could still smell the gunpowder, the sweat and the blood, describing it as a feeling that was probably better than any drugs he'd ever done. I want to say within the next week or two, I had been told by a couple of the detention officers there in the jail that Levi had asked to see me and speak with me. We got him out of the cell, took him to the outdoor exercise yard, and somewhere in that conversation, within the next few minutes, Levi made the statement, you know, there's four more in Texas.

[Prosecutor]

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[Robin Doane]

Another pina colada? Yes, please.

[Prosecutor]

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[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Fantastic.

[Prosecutor]

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[Podcast Host Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Prosecutor]

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[Robin Doane]

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[Prosecutor]

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[Podcast Host Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Prosecutor]

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[Podcast Host Lloyd Lockridge]

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[Detective]

At a point in time, Levi King says, you know, there's four more in Texas. I didn't know whether to believe him, to not believe him. He'd been in our jail for approximately two weeks, and nobody was hunting him, nobody was questioning him. So I don't know why he made that statement. Describing the location of the murders. He talked about the big cross in Texas. I knew exactly where he was talking about. There's only a couple that are that big that stand out like that.

[Narrator]

So Don Ruby reached out to investigators near that cross in the Texas panhandle to see if there were any open homicides. There were the murder of Robin's family. It didn't take long to piece everything together. After killing the McCools and driving 500 miles, Levi King decided it was time to kill again.

[Prosecutor]

The phone call that we received from the Pineville Sheriff's Office in Missouri blew open the case for us. We find out that Levi had gone in and killed orly and Don McCool and taken their vehicle and driven down through Oklahoma to Interstate 40. At some point in time, Levi decides that he's going to exit the interstate and looks over and sees the farmhouse belonging to the Conrads and pulls in, kills Brian and Michelle and some, and shoots at Robin, thinking he's killed Robin. If there was ever a case where a man deserved to die, it was Levi King.

[Narrator]

But first, Levi King would have to face justice in Missouri for the McCool murders. There, he took a plea deal to avoid execution. He agreed to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. In Texas, he also took a guilty plea, but the DA refused to take the death penalty off the table.

[Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer]

The purpose of this trial is, was only to see what sentence he was gonna get. It was about whether he was gonna be executed or whether he was going to go back to Missouri and spend the rest of his life in prison.

[Robin Doane]

I was 14, about to turn 15 when trial was taking place. I understood that we were in court for the death penalty. You know, I told them, okay, he did this to my family. So, yeah, okay, go for it.

[Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer]

Always in death penalty cases, what you don't want the jury to be stuck with is this picture of a person as a killing entity, an evil entity. First thing we had to figure out how to do was to turn Levi from a monster into a human being.

[Robin Doane]

Are you Levi Alexis King? Yes, sir, I am.

[Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer]

Levi had been bipolar at least since adolescence. At varying times, he had other diagnoses for depression, for bipolar with some amount of psychosis and then, I believe at some points in time, he had a schizophrenia diagnosis.

[Narrator]

Levi King was one of seven children. Early on, he showed signs of serious antisocial behavior, setting fires and killing animals, and drug use in his home was rampant. His father introduced him to hard liquor and marijuana. And by his teens, Levi King had moved on to meth and heroin and the place he called home. You'd have to see it to believe it.

[Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer]

The environment in which he grew up in and just the overwhelming poverty and despair. Until we went up there and actually walked around in it, you just could not get a feel for it. It was truly frightening. The first thing you noticed was just filth. The insulation was just black and melted. There was one wall that just had this massive display of ceremonial knives and swords. There was lots of guns and knives. And, you know, regardless of whether they had food or not, they had money for ammunition.

[Prosecutor]

The defense did a very good job to paint Levi as this poor, pathetic, mistreated, sad little person. There's a whole lot of other people out there in this world that have grown up in the same type of environment that Levi did or even worse than Levi did, and they don't go on killing sprees. Levi King kills people because he likes the spirit of blood. He kills people because he likes that smell of gun smoke. He doesn't care.

[Robin Doane]

I was going to be sitting in front of a murderer who had killed my loved ones and to testify. I didn't want to, but I knew that I needed to for my family's sake. I was the only one that got to walk out of that house. They didn't. And they needed a voice, too.

[Investigator]

Before she goes in to testify. She's absolutely scared to death. I just look at her and I said, robin, we've got your back. Go do what you need to do. Tell the truth, and just realize we're right outside this door. He will never get to you.

[Robin Doane]

I tried to avoid looking at Levi King as long as I possibly could. And finally, I couldn't resist the urge anymore because I wanted to see who had actually done this. And so I looked at him, and the stare that I got back was the worst feeling of my entire life.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

He.

[Robin Doane]

He is very cold. He's very blank. And essentially, it just felt like he was staring a hole right through me.

[Prosecutor]

When Robin testified. The hard part about Robin testifying was to see the pain that that precious little girl had to go through and endure, and then to see her say, I've endured this, but you're not taking my life away. From me. I am not giving you that kind of control.

[Robin Doane]

I don't want to live with being bitter and being angry all the time for what had happened. I did forgive Levi King because me forgiving Levi King, it was my sense of peace and it was my sense of this is how I was raised, and this is my family coming out.

[Investigator]

We present the evidence, the defense has their time to present their case, and we asked 12 people to make a very, very difficult decision to either take or not take a man's life. You ask the question, why? And that's the question that sometimes haunts you forever. Why? Why this family? Why this day? Why this time? We may never know.

[Prosecutor]

Probably the hardest part for people to deal with on these types of crimes, the randomness of it, the lack of motive, is to understand that there truly are people out there who are just plain evil. Levi King is one of those people. I'm asking 12 people to sentence this man to death.

[Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer]

This was a horrible crime. And we knew we had to be honest with the jury. We tried to get to him and say, look, he will never walk as a free man ever. That that is punishment, and he will never harm anyone else again.

[Prosecutor]

For years, I lived and breathed this case. And despite your best efforts, you don't always get it right. The jury deliberated for approximately seven to eight hours, and they came back and said that they wanted to give him life without parole. One of them wanted to give him life without parole. The rest of them wanted him to have the death penalty.

[Defense Attorney Lynn Switzer]

I credit that with giving the eventual one holdout enough strength to hold out. I don't think we ever believed we'd get a life verdict. I thought the best we would get would be a hung jury.

[Robin Doane]

Just the look on Lynn's face that almost looked like that she had failed us, but she really didn't. Lynn Switzer fought for my family, and that's something I will never be able to thank her enough. And all the law enforcement that was involved and sat on the stand either way, ultimately, I'd still won and my family had still won. The Levi King would be extradited back to Missouri to serve that sentence. So I was fine with him being in Missouri because Texas is my state. I don't want you back in my state. You've already done your damage here. Pampa is home. It's where my mom and Brian and my dad all raised me. So to leave, I felt like I was being a coward and I was running from my problems and running from what happened. It's not saying That I want to stay there forever, because I don't.

[Prosecutor]

Robin tries very hard to not be a victim, but occasionally I see glimpses of that scared little girl in Robyn.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

I really don't want to go to sleep anymore. It makes me to where I'm too scared, and I really don't want to go to sleep.

[Robin Doane]

The fear is still there, and it's still very real. I really hate being alone because I feel like that's when my mind wanders the most. And I think the worst thoughts of what if I could have done this? Or what if I could have done that? Should I have gone and woke up Zach?

[Denise (Adopted Mom)]

I think it impacts her every day. Robyn has to deal with nightmares still. She has to deal with repetitive memory of what happened to her. She told me all the time she remembered her mom screaming. There were times when she'd text me at night and say, you know, I hear things going on. And she was very, very scared whenever noises would happen. And just because she doesn't show it on the outside, I think that she obviously has to deal with it on the inside.

[Robin Doane]

I am very superstitious.

[Denise (Adopted Mom)]

I guess.

[Robin Doane]

The day that everything happened, I had on socks and I had on long sleeves and long pants. I will not sleep in long sleeves, long pants, or socks now. I will not sleep with my door open because I feel like there's a figure of a person standing in my doorway. I'm scared of the dark when I walk into the house and I know that I'm there by myself. I will go through every single nook and cranny in the house to make sure that there's no one in there. The dates that are really hard are birthdays. Zach's birthday, Mom's birthday, Brian's birthday. Even my birthday is hard because I don't like celebrating it without them. I just have those days where I want my mommy or want my stepdad or want my brother and want things to go back to the being normal, and you just can't help but burst out into tears.

[Narrator]

Robyn is 21 years old. She's lived off and on with her biological father and an aunt and now lives with friends. No place has felt like home since the day Levi King walked into her life. Robin briefly tried counseling, but she didn't find it helpful.

[Robin Doane]

I felt like I didn't need to talk to someone. If I wanted to talk to someone, I'll talk to my family. Or put a law enforcement person in front of me. I'll talk to you. But a psychiatrist, no, thanks. I don't need someone to pat me on the back and tell them, you know, ask me, well, how do you feel? I don't need that. I don't expect you to pity me, and I don't want you to, because that's not how I am. I want to be just like everybody else.

[Narrator]

So how does Robyn move past the memories of that horrible day? There's a group of people determined to help her. Maybe the only people who really understand what she's been through.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

The heroic things that Robin did to survive that day and to survive that incident will always stick in my mind.

[Investigator]

When that investigation was through, we weren't through. The law enforcement community surrounded Robin. We wanted to give her a mechanism of people that she could go to if she had questions, if she had issues, if she just wanted to talk. Everybody in the law enforcement field got together and raised funds to start a scholarship program for her. I'm thrilled to death every time that phone rings and I see Robin's name on it. It's always with a sense of joy, because she has a special place in my heart, and she always will.

[Prosecutor]

They treated her like their little sister. They just had big hearts. They carry big guns, but they have big hearts. When you go through things, as traumatic as this experience was, you have a bond. And I connected with her.

[Law Enforcement Officer Chad]

We did keep in contact. And later on, when she turned 16, Robin invited me to her birthday party. You know, I revisit that place. And I've always had this hesitation. Is seeing me a happy day or a tragic day?

[Robin Doane]

I have had a really good relationship with Chad. When I hug him, every time I see him, it's that same hug I got the day that he came, and he was the first one to me. And it's just the most heartwarming. It's like a safe place. I don't let what happened keep me down. No, no, sorry. That's not me. That'll never be me. I played basketball. I played volleyball. I played softball, ran track. I was a cheerleader. I like being a leader.

[Robin Doane (child voice or emotional state)]

Okay, bye.

[Denise (Adopted Mom)]

We have had a lot of moments, Robin and I, that we have been together. For prom, she came and got ready at my house. I was, of course, there for her graduation. Just things that I know that she's gonna need a mom for. She says that her mom won't be there for her wedding, and I just want to be there for her.

[Robin Doane]

I call Denise, my adopted mom. I look to Denise for everything, whether it be homework, a new boyfriend. Oh, my gosh. I don't know what to wear today. To school, every little thing to every major thing. That's when I look to Denise.

[Denise (Adopted Mom)]

She has this positive outlook on life. She has one of the most caring hearts that anyone could ever see. And I believe that Robyn needs to be in a field with caring and helping people.

[Investigator]

I made the statement many times back then, and I still make it today. And I hope the good Lord keeps me around long enough to see why he kept Robin Doane on this earth. Because it's got to be an incredible special reason, and I hope I get to witness that.

[Robin Doane]

I could honestly not tell you why I was left, why I was the only one that survived. I couldn't tell you whether it be I'm able to tell people there's nothing that you can't get through. Maybe if I get married one day and have kids, if it's to help my kids get through life or help other people in the world, I. I don't know. I don't know what my purpose is, but it's going to be great when it comes. To.