As she requested forgiveness from a Montana parole board on Wednesday, a woman who killed her lover and was highlighted in Netflix’s I Am A Killer documentary for the 2015 crime walked back a terrifying confession that was aired on the show.
In 2015, Lindsay Haugen, 41, entered a guilty plea to strangling Robert Mast, 25, when they were sitting in a car in a Walmart parking lot. Since 2016, she has been incarcerated for 60 years for intentional killing.
Haugen claimed that she killed Mast, whom she had known for less than a month, out of love after he stated he wanted to die in the second season of I Am A Killer, a Netflix true-crime series that features convicted murderers.
However, during a police interrogation that was captured on camera and featured in the program, she admitted to a detective that, to be honest, she also kind of simply wanted to murder someone with my bare hands.
According to the footage, Haugen told the investigator, “I guess I saw my opportunity.”
Police said Mast was intoxicated and unable to defend himself.
Haugen told a three-person panel on Wednesday that she is “haunted” by that “outrageous” comment, which she said she made in order to halt a detective’s line of inquiry.
As she appeared virtually from the Montana Women’s Prison in Billings, Montana, Haugen said, “I wish I had not said it, and of course, I didn’t mean it,” during the hearing.
Haugen said that she was “drunk and in shock” during the interrogation and that she lied because she had previously experienced male assault.
“I said what I felt the man wanted to hear in order to make the accusations stop,” she continued. “I wasn’t searching for a chance. I would never intentionally hurt another human being.
Haugen made a prepared 10-minute statement in which she admitted to the offense and conveyed her regret and remorse. However, she requested a lesser sentence, claiming to be a better person who is undergoing treatment for her alcoholism.
“I appear before you now guilty of homicide, a statement which chills me to the bone,” she stated. “I know that I don’t deserve this, but I am hoping for a chance to live in a way that is deserving of this opportunity.”
Steve Hallam, the investigator from the Billings Police Department who questioned Haugen, told the board in his statements on Wednesday that Haugen had made other ruthless confessions besides the one about her bare hands.
Before departing for Washington state, Hallam claimed Haugen allegedly disclosed in the recorded interrogation that she intended to bury Mast’s body in a remote location. According to the detective, Haugen also stated that she would not have reported the crime to the police.
According to Hallam, “Lindsay Haugen does not deserve clemency,”
Family members of Mast pleaded with the board to keep Haugen in jail.
According to Mindy Pendleton, Mast’s stepmother, who has been raising him since he was a child, her family experiences “loss and grief daily as she must live with the consequences of her actions.”
“Anything less diminished Robby’s existence and the people that love him,” she said.
Pendleton said that Haugen should not be “rewarded” for any fame she could have gained from the Netflix series because she took advantage of her stepson’s murder when she appeared on it in 2020.
“Remember the crime,” Pendleton implored the board.”Consider your loved one, your child. Imagine the suffocation, the strangling, the chokehold,” she remarked.
Governor Greg Gianforte is the only person with the power to approve or reject Haugen’s request, and the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole has 30 days to suggest something to him.
A request for comment on Wednesday was not immediately answered by a Gianforte representative. The board stated that there is no legislative deadline for the governor’s response.
The board stated that Haugen would be available for parole in September 2030 if the clemency was not granted.
According to the parole board, it received over three dozen letters against her early release and at least six letters in favor of it.
Brad Newman, a parole board member on Haugen’s hearing panel, told NBC News that clemency is an exceptional type of sentence relief that is typically not granted.
According to him, there was good reason for the board to give Haugen a public hearing even though it was not required to.
The Netflix episode did not come up during the board’s consideration of her candidacy, according to Newman.
I had no idea that Netflix had ever covered her case. I don’t subscribe as a customer. “I didn’t know that,” he said. A board member may have seen or heard about this situation, I suppose.