My lawyer, he as much as told me to make up something better. He says to me, You got to realize that it isn't what's true that matters, it's what a jury can actually believe, and nobody's going to believe what you're telling me. And he starts telling me all these maybes, like Maybe you dropped a ring into the waterbed so you cut into it to try to get it out and maybe your daughter thought she could help you find it and when your back was turned she went into the water to look for the ring and you didn't realize she was trapped under there until too late.

But I said to him, When I put my hand on God's word and promise the Lord God that I'll tell the truth, that's what I'll do, even if it means I lose my baby, even if it means I go to jail, because my family needs the Lord now more than ever, more than they need me, so I'm not going to spit in the eye of Jesus. I will tell it the way it happened. And as for that so-called confession, all I ever said was, "Lay it all on me. I'll move out of the house so you'll know Tamika will be safe, but you let her go home to her mama and her brothers." I didn't confess to nothing, but I took all their suspicions on myself so that when I left the house they'd let her go back home. And I kept my word, I haven't come near the house this whole time, Sondra and I talk on the phone and I've talked to Tamika on the phone cause even though she doesn't talk so good she can still hear me and I can tell her how much I love her. And no matter how this trial comes out, I know that my baby said to me, one time on the phone she said, "Thank you Daddy," and I knew she was thanking me for waking up when she pounded on me and for getting her out of the water.

If I hadn't believed in the impossible then I would never have cut into that waterbed. I would have stripped off the sheet and seen there was no break in the mattress and I would've known there's no way she could be in there, and we would