“Once upon a time, Tina Antwistle meets her prince charming, Louis Deleg.”
“They were going to always love each other. There was no doubt about that.”
“Coming down that aisle with that smile on her face, she was really happy.”
“But this fairy tale becomes a nightmare in an instant.”
“I had this sick gut feeling something’s not right.”
“[screaming] It was a fast and extremely violent attack.”
“This cannot be happening. Oh my god.”
“It was unreal.”
“For this couple, the honeymoon is over.”
“Tina Antwistle has dreamed about this day.”
“It’s her day finally. She’s 30, a single mom with the experience of tough times and bad relationships that single moms sometimes have.”
“When you’re a single mother, your life is so hard. It’s so easy to have a rescue fantasy, the thought that some prince charming is gonna come in and make everything just a little better.”
“Tina has found her prince charming.”
“And today they’ll marry. It’s cool outside in Port Jervis, New York. But inside, the church is full of warmth as the bride drifts along to meet her groom.”
“To see her coming down that aisle with that smile on her face, I knew she was really happy.”
“Welcome family, friends, and loved ones.”
“She cried the whole entire time.”
“Even when they were at the altar and they were saying their vows, she was crying, you know. She was just happy.”
“I do.”
“Tina’s fallen for the boy next door.”
“Literally, she’s marrying her handsome neighbor, Louis Deleg.”
“I do. Do you promise?”
“Tina’s relationship with Louis was built on love.”
“She believed, like fairy tales, that this man’s going to come and whisk her away. And I guess that’s what her fairy tale was about, finding happiness.”
“You may kiss the bride.”
“But just a few hours later at Tina’s house, things take a very dark turn. [screaming] That night, about maybe 12:00 in the morning, I hear a bunch of screaming and yelling. [screaming] I looked out and I seen all kinds of people. I mean, there was a lot of people out on the street.”
“A 911 call comes in at 10:01 a.m.”
“I said, ‘We need somebody at 10 and a half First Street. I’m not really sure what happened.'”
“In the chaos, nobody’s sure of anything.”
“Soon, the little white house on the quiet dead-end street is awash in blue and red.”
“We had to secure the crime scene and we had to get family members to leave so that we could secure it. EMS was tending to a male subject who was laying on a stretcher in front of the residence.”
“It’s crazy, but it’s the groom, Louis Deleg. He’s wounded but alive.”
“Things get even worse inside. A trail of blood leads to an upstairs bedroom where a woman lies.”
“She was covered with blood and she was wearing her wedding dress.”
“It’s impossible to think, but it’s Tina, barely alive.”
“It’s a small, tight-knit community, and you tend to get to know many of the residents by first name. I had personally known Tina and her family um for, you know, several years. It was shocking to see her laying there with her wedding dress.”
“How could a wedding party turn into a violent crime scene?”
“Ironically, Tina had moved to Port Jervis from her hometown of Passaic, New Jersey to escape a violent past.”
“My dad wasn’t a typical dad. He was abusive mentally, emotionally, physically. So, we clung together to get through that, me and my four siblings.”
“Tina was able to find calm in the storm of her hostile environment through the love of her siblings. You know, they all were in this together, but they stuck together. They supported each other, and they consoled each other.”
“She carves out a new home in the rural New York town.”
“And eventually, because we’re a close-knit family, we followed one by one by one. Before you know it, we all were up here.”
“Surrounded by her four siblings, her mother, and new friends, she finds a job, a cozy home.”
“Good. Just going shopping.”
“She falls in love a few times and has three kids. But the relationships never work out. That is until Louis Deleg moves in next door.”
“Born in Ecuador, he too has family in Port Jervis.”
“Can you help with that?”
“No, we’re good.”
“And he would often see her dragging the garbage cans out or shoveling her sidewalk and he always offered to help. But Tina is very independent. She didn’t want help. She was in the midst of building Tina’s life with her children without no men involved. None of that nonsense and she was doing fine. It’s hard for a woman who’s been in so many abusive relationships to trust, to accept love, accept kindness, and know that that’s okay.”
“Still, she notices how sweet Louis is with her kids. He doesn’t have any of his own and loves spending time with them.”
“What are you doing over there?”
“Nothing.”
“They take trips to the zoo, to ball games, to the beach.”
“Okay. What’s the whole commotion out here?”
“I’m checking somebody out.”
“No, like Tina, Louis is all about family.”
“Looking at this little cutie up there, I guess. I’m looking at the kids.”
“She kind of said, ‘Wow, you know, you don’t find a lot of men who want to be bothered with somebody else’s children.’ I think that’s what made Louis grow on Tina because Tina always said, ‘If my children like him, then he has to be a decent person.’ And the children loved Louis. They loved him. At first, this scared her because this can be very unfamiliar, this kind of kindness. But eventually, she warmed to him.”
“Slowly, Louis wiggles his way into her heart.”
“You want to go for a walk?”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“When I saw Tina and Louis for the first time together as a couple, they were walking and they held hands. Well, you can see it in their eyes. You know, they were always affectionate towards each other.”
“But before she even slips out of her wedding gown, the happiest day becomes the worst.”
“Her brother Frank is stunned when he hears someone stab Tina. Stab.”
“Come on.”
“Then things get blurry. Everything goes into a haze after that.”
“He sees his sister bloodied on the floor and then a shocking sight. Lewis’s brother, Angel, holding a knife. He attacks. Angel flees with Frank on his heels.”
“Frank was running up and down the street. I mean, he was screaming. He was very, very upset. And he was trying to chase somebody. I don’t remember who he was chasing because there were so many people.”
“They disappear into the darkness. No one knows what’s going on and everyone’s panicked. Then suddenly, a body falls from the second-floor window. It’s the groom, Louis. He’s unconscious and covered in blood. It’s not long after that the cops arrive. Has the angel stabbed both the bride and the groom?”
“At this point, it was complete confusion. It was complete chaos.”
“It’s a crazed whirlwind outside, but inside a quiet tragedy is unfolding.”
“When the fireman, the EMS worker, came in and said to me I had to leave, that’s when I grabbed her hand. Tina never liked to be alone.”
“How do you get up and walk away?”
“That’s somebody I loved all my life. I grew up with her. Taught her shoes, her ABCs, colors, stars, moons, cartwheels, you know, jump rope. How do I walk away from her?”
“Only 10 hours after the wedding, the bride struggles for life and the groom is rushed to the hospital. Everyone else is numb. How can this be happening on a wedding night?”
“To see Tina put that wedding dress on in the morning and look so pretty and so happy. For what?”
“On the happiest day of Tina Antwistle’s life, she exchanges vows with the man she loves, Louis Deleg, the father of her newborn daughter.”
“Do you promise to love or honor?”
“Everything is perfect until the unthinkable.”
“Oh my god.”
“I see she’s got a gash in her head. I seen she’s got cuts like where she might have tried to like protect herself. Now I see blood all over the room.”
“Oh my god. What happened?”
“She’s scared. She’s confused. She don’t know what’s going on. She keeps looking at the crib.”
“Her three-month-old is curled up, sleeping there, just out of reach. I see that she’s worried about her kids cuz she keeps pushing that one leg to get to that crib. And finally, I said to her, ‘Tina, don’t worry. I’ll take care of your kids. You don’t have nothing to worry about.'”
“It seems to be the one thing Tina needs to hear before she lets go.”
“She looked at me and that one tear please came out her eye and I knew inside. And it was her last breath.”
“As Tina dies, her champagne pink gown is soaked crimson with blood.”
“Who could have imagined this happening? It’s an enormous amount of grief and pain to lose a loved one, but especially in such a violent way. And then to have it in such a public place as your own wedding. This is a tragedy. My heart aches for this family, especially the children.”
“The multiple stab wounds and the multiple locations of her stab wounds indicated that it was a fast and extremely violent attack that was launched upon her. The person who stabbed Tina wanted her dead. Wanted to shut the life out of her forever.”
“This scene was a very bloody scene. There was blood on the walls of the stairwell. There was blood on the sidewalk. There was a broken glass from a shower stall. And of course, the bedroom where we located Mrs. Antwistle was filled with blood as well.”
“To be your husband.”
“It’s the antithesis of everyone’s dream wedding.”
“It was just like a split-second reaction that it went from the best day of Tina’s life to the end of Tina’s life. I just kept saying to myself, ‘This cannot be happening.’ It was unreal.”
“What is real is the warm romance Tina and Louis share as soon as they start dating.”
“It made you want to run out and find a relationship because you wanted to feel what Louis and Tina felt at that time. So, it was special.”
“Being part of a blended family is always a challenge, especially when you’re talking about disciplining and parenting somebody else’s kids. But Lewis did it easily. He just found this way of sliding into the family, becoming part of the family overnight.”
“They never forget the kids and the extended family are their priority. Tina would always want to be around the kids. You know, Tina threw all kinds of pool parties.”
“She was very boisterous and she lived life and that’s how it was. It was like she would just get us all together and we would have fun.”
“Tina’s idea of family goes way beyond bloodlines.”
“She’d give you the shirt off her back. You know, she fed the neighborhood. Every night was dinner at Tina’s house. Whether it was on the grill or in the oven, Tina always made sure of that.”
“On Valentine’s Day 1997, after dating 2 years, Louis pops the question.”
“Tina, will you marry me?”
“Of course.”
“Lewis did everything to assure Tina that he was safe, that he would protect her, she could trust him. He was finally the good guy for Tina.”
“They soon learned they’re pregnant.”
“They were ecstatic. Lewis didn’t have any children, so this was going to be his first. Tina already had children, but because this child was made from love, because there was love there, she was ecstatic.”
“He wasn’t the perfect man. He had his flaws, but he was a good man with a good heart, and that’s what Tina was looking for. But now she’s dead and he’s injured and their families are desperate to know who did this.”
“We found the weapon located in a recyclable trash bin which was located next to the residence.”
“Who dumped it there?”
“Within an hour, they find the groom’s brother, Angel, hiding outside. He’s the one Frank saw with the knife and fought. He admits he did have the knife, but his explanation brings even more disturbing questions.”
“He claims Lewis, the groom, had the knife first.”
“What are you doing?”
“I saw Louis at the bathroom and he was with knife. He was trying to cut his neck and I said, ‘Louis, please stop. Stop.’ And he stopped and I tried to grab his knife.”
“According to Angel, when he took the knife from Lewis, Frank saw him holding it. [groaning] He says he was afraid, so he ditched his bloody shirt and hid.”
“Is it just a crazy cover story?”
“No one can believe the groom could have been involved in the attack.”
“I’m like, you know, how is this possible?”
“He was always quiet and shy. He never he never even had a speeding ticket, you know? I mean, come on.”
“Still, even in the best relationships, the closest friends and relatives might not know the whole truth. You know, I don’t know what happened behind closed doors. Nobody knows what happens behind closed doors.”
“Tina Antwistle is killed on her wedding night next to the crib where her newborn daughter is peacefully sleeping.”
“This was supposed to be a happy moment for a newlywed couple who also had a very, you know, a young child together, a 3-month-old baby.”
“All of Tina’s kids are in the house. All right. Nice and quiet in here. Okay, guys. Here.”
“They don’t know it yet, but their mother is gone. Mommy’s with the…”
“Tina had moved to Port Jervis so her kids would be surrounded by natural beauty, not violence. Right. The irony is sickening.”
“A place where she found peace and tranquility is a place where she found her death.”
“It’s the first murder in Port Jervis in over 3 years. So, it hits everyone hard.”
“Observing the victim, deceased, lying there in her wedding dress and her young newborn child laying asleep, you know, next to her in the crib. It was it was very distressing to see that.”
“Wedding guests tell police what happened after the reception.”
“Because I guess Tina was that happy. She didn’t want the day to end. So we all go back to the house and we just turn on the music there and the party just continued. There’s English music here, Spanish music here, kids running around, people talking, laughing, joking.”
“I was sitting in the kitchen having a grand old time. As far as I know, everything is beautiful. Everything’s beautiful.”
“It’s the one day Tina should be selfish. But Tina’s always thinking of others, so she spends part of her wedding night trying to play matchmaker.”
“Tina’s best friend, Mary, apparently thought Lewis’s cousin was good-looking.”
“How are you?”
“Good.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“She playfully chats up the cousin, trying to set him up with Mary.”
“Really?”
“But Lewis gets jealous.”
“Lewis was upset with Tina because Tina was talking to one of Lewis’s cousins, trying to set him up with one of her friends. People do it all the time. But Lewis thought that it was a slight.”
“What do you think? What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you doing?”
“It’s awkward, but not terribly unusual.”
“We did have jealous tendencies, but was I ever hear him verbally abusive? No. Physically, no. Mentally, no way.”
“Tina has had practice in talking Lewis down, but she doesn’t want to do it in front of everyone.”
“Let’s go talk upstairs. Okay. I saw Tina go into the bedroom with Louis and she didn’t look happy anymore.”
“Tina and Lewis were bickering. But what every couple bickers, you know.”
“No one worries too much. Surely the couple will work it out with a kiss as they always do.”
“What are you doing out there?”
“It’s absolutely normal for couples to argue. In fact, it’s abnormal for them not to argue because what is a couple and what’s a relationship? People, two sets of needs coming together and ultimately there going to be a few clashes.”
“They were going to always love each other and it was always going to be forever. There was no doubt about that. And everybody who saw them or knew them knew Tina and Lewis was meant to be always and forever.”
“Lewis is drawn to Tina the first moment he sees her.”
“She was beautiful. She was nice, personal, everything. She was beautiful. She was a good mother, good friend, good daughter.”
“Do we only have to go on this?”
“He does his best to take some of the weight off the single mom’s shoulders.”
“I buy some clothes, sometime toys all the time. I go to parks with kids, everything.”
“Lewis persevered even before she had a romantic relationship with him. He kept trying to be helpful. He kept trying to show her that he was a good guy. Lewis was not about to give up. Good single mothers are always putting their kids first. So, finally having a guy around to be helpful probably gave her a little space to start caring for herself, a little space for her to relax. And then when she found out he had romantic intentions, it probably felt pretty good to Tina.”
“The wedding preparations continue. Tina doesn’t want to walk down the aisle wearing white. She’s had kids and treasures tradition. It’s a mark of her sweet old-fashioned humility.”
“So, she decided champagne pink because it’s a mixture between pink and a mixture between gold.”
“The sisters go searching for the perfect dress.”
“We’ve been a million places, tried on 3,000 dresses, and she was just not happy. Finally… oh my gosh.”
“She was like, ‘This is the dress.’ And when she turned around to show me and I seen her body just like glow, I was like, Tina, you’re right. You found the dress.”
“It was lace and she had all kind of embroidery in the front. It came like tight here and a little bell. Tina looked amazing in it.”
“In that moment, everything seems to be falling into place for Tina. But 10 hours into her marriage, she’s arguing with her new husband in their room.”
“Is this something beyond normal jealousy?”
“I have this sick gut feeling. Something’s not right. Look at my mother. I look at my sister. Where’s Tina?”
“We all sense something. It’s that sixth sense when they say women have that. We do have that.”
“Tina and Louis are in the bedroom and we hear all this banging.”
“Lisa tries the bedroom door, but it—it won’t open. She knows her sister never locks her room. Something’s definitely wrong. So, I’m banging on the door. Banging on the door. Banging on the door, and then the door opens.”
“She’s the first one inside. As Louis’s brother, Angel, has claimed, ‘The groom has the knife.’ [panting] I see him standing in the doorway of the bathroom. I see the blood on his white shirt, and I see the knife in his hand.”
“Oh my god, what happened?”
“Lisa and Billy Lynn try their best to save Tina. There’s so many cuts like all over her body. I can’t possibly try to cover them all and stop them from bleeding.”
“The shocking secrets surrounding the vicious attack are about to unfold. In an instant, horror takes over the joyful life that Tina Antwistle has carefully built for herself and her kids. She has such a hard life from a childhood to adulthood. She was finally happy.”
“As the big day approaches, Tina’s plans for her dream wedding are coming together.”
“She didn’t want nothing store-bought cuz anybody can do that.”
“Tina, I mean, how many of these things do I have to make?”
“Are you complaining?”
“Okay, that’s very nice.”
“Tina persuades her sister to help her make everything by hand. I’m just messing with everything.”
“Nice. You’re my maid of honor. You will sit here with me, Lisa, and you will help me do this. I don’t like God. But we did many bottles of wine, laughing, joking, talking about the wedding. She was literally with her hands fashioning a new life for herself. And she was doing it with the other women in her life who supported her, the women who are helping her make this a perfect wedding day.”
“But her sister starts to get the feeling that despite what everyone sees as a perfect relationship on the surface, something just seems off.”
“I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You know, you can back out of this anytime that you want. You’re not obligated to marry that man.’ But she didn’t back out. ‘Whatever is going to be is going to be,’ she would say.”
“Her friend Billy Lynn has always had her doubts.”
“It’s a bad thing to say that Tina was a really good friend of mine, but when it came to this guy, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I guess Lewis always struck me as like he was just trying to hide something or gain something.”
“Tina, it’s not too late to change your mind. No, you shouldn’t be ashamed if you do.”
“I asked Tina if she knew what she was getting into, and she said yes.”
“No, it’s going to be okay. I’ll be fine.”
“Tina saw something in Lewis. I didn’t see it.”
“Can you believe? And they have noticed.”
“Although Louis has never been violent, he has shown a jealous side.”
“We’re sitting on the porch and some guys are walking up the street and you hear voices. The natural thing to do is to look. Not that you’re looking at the men or the boys or whatever, but you hear voices. You look, she looks, and he’d be like, ‘Oh, what are you looking over there for? You looking at the men? You like those guys?'”
“What are you talking about? No.”
“Usually everyone laughs these moments off. But now there’s some doubt. Was Louis’s jealousy an ominous red flag? One of the most dangerous places for a woman to be is in the arms of a jealous man. And I know young girls sort of laugh this off. ‘Oh, he’s just jealous.’ No, but they don’t understand the psychological forces beneath this. This person could have a passionate attachment disorder and try to completely control her and do anything to keep her near and always worry that somebody or something could take her away. And this could be really dangerous.”
“But Tina believes it’ll all be okay, especially when she gives birth to Jessica on January 11th, 1998. Delighted to be a mommy again, the couple sets March 28th as their wedding date.”
“Tina’s dream for her wedding was to have her family present, to make it short, sweet, and simple. And that’s what Tina got. We went there early in the morning and decorated—just a table cake, you know, streamers. We put tablecloth, the centerpieces that she made us work so hard for, you know, but it was beautiful cuz you walked in and you can feel that everything was made out of love and that’s what it was. Think of the meaning of this. How much energy she put into creating this beautiful wedding. It was something she gave herself, but it was really a symbol of how much she loved Lewis and holding on to him.”
“In their vows, Lewis promises to love and protect Tina forever.”
“Did he take his vow of protection too far?”
“Thank you for coming. Thank you.”
“We leave the church and we go to the reception hall. Tina looked very happy, you know, laughing and kissing her husband, Lewis.”
“Attention everyone. Hello. All right, we’re going to have the first dance now. And I’d like to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Deleg to the dance floor.”
“Surrounded by family and friends, Lewis guides Tina in their first dance as husband and wife.”
“You can see him glow when he takes Tina out to dance for their wedding song. You can see the happiness in both of them.”
“Everybody seems to be having fun. Everybody’s laughing and eating and drinking and dancing.”
“But then Tina’s new husband, Lewis, spends his wedding night in the hospital. He doesn’t realize he’s now a widower. Until Port Jervis detectives break the news.”
“When we advised Lewis that Tina was deceased, he had asked us, you know, how did that happen? And we explained to him that she died as a result of her stab wounds, and he stated to us his exact words were, ‘Oh.’ And at that point, he remained pretty quiet and and just emotionally um flat.”
“Detectives asked Lewis for his story.”
“The truth about what happened to these two newlyweds behind closed doors will soon be revealed.”
“We were just having an argument.”
“Tina Antwistle marries Lewis Deleg at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 28th, 1998. She’s pronounced dead 10 hours later, stabbed to death.”
“Police question her new husband, who family members say got jealous after the reception and argued with Tina in their bedroom.”
“Lewis explained to us that Tina was making disparaging remarks that were very hurtful to him.”
“He claims Tina’s the one who pulled a knife.”
“He says as they struggled over it, his hands got sliced up before he wrestled it away. He complains that Tina hurt his feelings with her cruel words, and he has no feelings for her now.”
“Here, the couple had just gotten married practically 10 hours before this assault, and now he’s explaining to us that he just lost all feelings and sentiment towards his wife. So I thought that was a very peculiar choice of words.”
“He says he stabbed his wife twice, but the evidence tells another story.”
“Tina was stabbed multiple times. She had injuries consisting of um stab wounds to the top of her left breast and underneath her left breast. She had a stab wound to her eye. She had lacerations on her face. She also had a stab wound on her lower abdomen and a stab wound on her back by her shoulder area.”
“My sister suffered. She had many wounds. She suffered.”
“We placed Lewis under arrest for second-degree murder at the hospital. Um, he was then guarded by police authorities.”
“Finally, he spills it all.”
“This argument was different. It wasn’t about how are we going to raise the kids? How much money should we put as a down payment on a house? This argument was fueled by jealousy and it became angry very quickly.”
“What are you doing?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw everything. My cousin.”
“It spirals out of control.”
“I—I saw it.”
“Somewhere along the line, she took a ring off and she must have threw it at him.”
“I am not taking…”
“Oh, you’re going to take it.”
“You need to get out OF MY HOUSE. TAKE YOUR RING AND GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, you know, and told him, and I believe this, to get out her house. Take him and his family and get out her house. And I think maybe that pushed him over the edge.”
“You got to remember, Tina was a very strong woman. I mean, she’d been through some harsh relationships, but she was a fighter. So, when he got into conflict with her, she did her usual, put her back up and basically said, ‘Hey, I don’t need you.’ And she took that ring off and she threw it on the ground. This could be what set him off.”
“PICK UP THAT RING.”
“YOU GET OUT OF my sight. Take this.”
“I do believe he hit her. And I do believe she got up and hit him back.”
“Lewis knows Tina keeps a knife in the dresser.”
“He um opened the knife and then he menaced um Tina with the knife by pointing it at her uh making statements like, ‘Do you want a piece of this? Do you want this?'”
“Tina pleaded with Lewis not to do anything stupid for the sake of the children, including his baby girl asleep in the crib just feet away.”
“But he strikes. Over and over and over, Tina does her best to fight back, but she loses. How could he do this? As Frank and Angel struggle with the knife, Lewis flees like a coward out the bathroom window.”
“Tina gave that man a fight for his money and he had the weapon. She fought for her life.”
“The family buries Tina on April 1st, 1998. Her eulogy delivered by the same pastor who officiated at the wedding just 4 days before.”
“It’s just—you can’t even read it in a storybook, you know? It was just the same people that you saw at the wedding laughing and picking on each other and making fun of everybody. You see the same people 3 or 4 days later and they can’t stop crying.”
“When it first happened, I couldn’t get up. I’d get up and I’d take a breath and I would feel like I didn’t have that right, that I shouldn’t be taking that breath cuz she couldn’t take one.”
“This is called survivor’s guilt and it’s really common. It can happen with emergency room workers. It can happen with people in combat who watch their comrades die. It can be debilitating. You spend your whole life thinking, ‘Why didn’t it happen to me? Why did it have to happen to them?’ You start to feel guilty for living.”
“And the kids, her children, what do you tell them? At 10, 5, and three, 2 months old? What do you tell them? Her own daughter doesn’t know anything about Tina.”
“My son, he’ll never get to see Tina.”
“Lewis pleads guilty to second-degree murder and is sentenced to 20 years to life. He’s currently serving his sentence at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York.”
“He still insists he never wanted to hurt Tina. That’s hard for me to understand.”
“I’m not—not remember that everything what happened. I wasn’t to try to kill somebody. I feeling bad because I lost—I lost my heart.”
“Tina’s family still isn’t buying it.”
“They’re happy he has to live with what he did forever.”
“I’m glad they took him to the hospital. I’m glad they saved his life and I’m glad he’s in prison because he’s getting what he deserves.”
“Any man who puts their hands on a woman is a coward. Any man that uses a weapon against a woman is a worse of a coward.”
“I still have that rage, that anger, that insulting just feeling that you did that while I was there.”
“I don’t get how you are such a quiet person and then in 10 hours or 11 hours you become a murderer. How does that happen?”
“Even now, after all these years, it still doesn’t make sense.”
“I heard till death do us part, but I thought that was God’s choice, not the choice of man.”
