"Thank you for joining me on this beautiful day in New Jersey. I'm on assignment today, out here in Raritan, New Jersey at the local cemetery, where I have met with Jon and Beth Bongiovi. I'm here with them today to talk to them about the release of a video that captured a brutal assault that Beth suffered at the hands of a former colleague and ex boyfriend, Dalton Patterson.
Jon and Beth reached out to me, to help them get their story out and once I seen the video, the brutality and the horror I knew that I needed to help them. This video was released to news media's that profit from others misfortune and grief. They are predatory and only tell the most gruesome side of the story. Which brings me to this cemetery in Raritan, to let Jon and Beth tell their side of the story."
The camera pans back and captures Jon and Beth sitting graveside, in director chairs, of the 3 children that they have buried there. Beth is in a flowing floral sundress, Jon is in blue jeans and a tshirt and as soon as Savannah starts to talk with them, Jon's nervous ticks kick in.
"We are here today in the cemetery where I watched Jon and Beth lay to rest, 3 of their children, whom they lost at the hands of Dalton Patterson, either directly or indirectly." Savannah smiles at the couple, feeling an immense pride in being asked to help them, "Jon, Beth - thank you for asking me to do this with you, for you. I can only imagine how hard this is for you, and I can't even fathom losing a child. And you lost three. My heart still goes out to you."
Jon clears his throat and shifts in his chair, "Thank for doing this for us. You are the only one that we know that could pull this off, tell our story our way."
"It's my pleasure Jon. Beth how are you doing?" Savannah glances her way, giving her a gentle smile. A short pause, "Thank you for letting me do this."
Beth smiles to her friend, "I'm doing good, with the exception of dealing with this media nightmare."
Savannah gives her a half smile, that looks more like a look of concern, "Shall we get started?"
Both Jon and Beth nod.
"Beth, what's the first thing that you want to say regarding the video that was released?"
"I want to say that the video is 100% accurate. Everything in the video was as it shows. He raped me, beat me, trashed my house, he broke my spirit, he made me think that my husband would never touch me again. He shattered what I thought of the world, he tormented us for years but even he couldn't break us." her words fail off with each one that she says. "He couldn't beat us."
Jon slides his arm over her shoulder and pulls her in tight, remembering that they are on live TV. He shoots Savannah that crooked half smile that is as fake as fake can get, and Savannah knows what it means. She's known Jon and Beth long enough, been around them enough to know what their body language says. "Jon, what are your thoughts about that video being released?"
"I can't really share with you my actual thoughts of it, as we're on live tv. The idea behind this interview is to tell the fans what happened, before they see the video so they have the premise in mind. He's doing this just because he's evil and takes pleasure in hurting her, in hurting us and our family."
"That's apparent." Savannah replies, "What do you want your fans to know about that night, or those nights, rather?"
"He brutalized her and beat her until he had had enough." Was all he could say before Beth interrupted, knowing that she needed to; she could feel his anger tense in his arm.
"What we want them to know is that he raped me and terrorized our family for years. He was the mastermind behind several cruel acts and if he didn't do it himself, he had others do it for him." she needed a breath. "He was able to manipulate a woman into killing our daughter. He was able to control and deceive Dorothea. He thought he was untouchable."
Jon jumps in, "But he wasn't. And those that helped him, those that aided him were all brought to justice as well."
Beth nodded in agreement, "What I want the world to know, more than anything is, with the love of Jon and our family I was able to heal and recover from all of that, and even though that monster did unspeakable things, he didn't break me and he didn't break us."
"Would you say that it's brought you closer?" Savannah gently asks.
"It could have gone either way." Jon fesses up. "You hear about it sometimes; couples that lose a child ending in divorce. We can admit, there were times that we were touch and go."
"Meaning?" Savannah questions, "You and Beth were heading toward divorce?"
"He blamed me, I blamed him. It was ugly." Beth starts to open up, "We have never outright said to each other that we blamed the other, but over time we realized that we were blaming each other subconsciously. I blamed him for the one night stand and he blamed me for bringing Dalton into out lives."
"But you knew Dalton before you knew Jon." Savannah states, in the form of a question.
"She did know him before she met me, but that's not the point." Jon starts to get defensive. "And over time we learned that Melissa, or Dani what ever her name was, she was all part of Dalton's plan."
"What was Dalton's plan?"
Jon leans back, resting his right foot on his left knee, posturing away from Beth, but not intentionally. "His plan was to have her or destroy her." His arrogance showing in his posture, looking into the camera, "So when the coward didn't get what he wanted, he had to hurt her and then he called it love." The stink eye set in, slightly.
"So he wanted Beth and when he couldn't get her, he decided to hurt her?"
"We later found out that he had plans to kill us all, one by one." Jon divulges facts not yet known to the public. "That was never revealed in court, but we learned that he planned to take her kids from her, one by one. Then he was going to take my kids and then me - leaving her with no one, but HIM in his mind."
The camera pans to Beth and freezes on her face. The lens so clear it catches her eyes well up with tears. Her right one twitching a little. "We're guessing he thought that eventually I'd go back to him to make him stop with what he was doing?" Beth questions, out loud trying to make it make some kind of sense to her, "He thought I'd go running to him after McKenna died." Her head drops.
"McKenna" Savannah starts to smile, tears filling her eyes, "I remember the day that we met for coffee in the city, do you guys remember?"
They both nod their heads yes.
"I can still see Jon holding her. Even though she wasn't brand new, he held her like she was going to break. But the look in your eye Jon," the camera zooms in on him, "that look in your eye, I think I've only seen it one time since then."
"We've been through alot." he replies.
"You looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered in life."
"She kind of was." his eyes start to tear up. "She was the one that cemented my love for Beth, my dedication to Beth. After we lost the twins, I had no idea which way was up. I needed to grieve, I needed to help my wife grieve along with my other children - I was a walking disaster. And when we found out that we were pregnant with Kenna, my heart out poured like never before. She got all the love that I had to give to the twins, but couldn't. She was the light in the darkest of storms and when we lost her, I really lost my way."
"I could tell that she was special to you. I could see that she had your heart."
"She still does. They all do. Each of them has their own little place and my love is open ended. I will love them until the day I die." that one lone tear rolls down his cheek, catching both Beth and Savannah by surprise. "It's never easy to lose a child and we have lost three."
"What do you think when you hear those words, Beth?" Savannah takes the attention off of Jon, like a seasoned journalist would do. "Do you have anything you'd like to add to that?"
Beth wiggles in her chair a bit, lost back in the part where they blame each other. "It breaks my heart to hear his heart break and when he talks about the twins, about McKenna I can't help but feel guilty, can you understand that?" she looks to Jon for an answer more than she did Savannah. "Because of me, he did all of that."
"You truly can't blame yourself Beth, you had no idea what he was capable of." Savannah states, leaning over and placing her hand on Beth's knee. "You never could have known he would turn into such a monster."
"He was, wait, is the devil." Jon reiterates.
"He found us one time when we were in Greece and from that moment on, we should have had around the clock security" Beth starts to open up. "Jon and I had broken up and I needed some rest, so I booked a trip to Greece - having no idea Jon and the band were there. When I learned that they were, I attended the show and the rest is history. Dalton caught us together and that's when his hell fire started to rain down."
Savannah had no idea about this. "He caught you?"
Beth nodded, accepting that they would leave nothing out. The world is better hearing it from Jon and Beth than they did Dalton or anyone in his circle. "Dalton planned on meeting me there, but I went a couple of days before him. Whether Jon and I were on a break, broken up or whatever, once I had seen him it was over. I knew, as I have always known that he's the one for me; he's my person."
"And when she says he caught us, he literally caught us in her room." Jon had to chuckle, remembering how funny it was at the time. He never like Dalton and never hid that fact. "He seen Beth laying there covered in just a sheet and I could see him turn 15 shades of red."
"What happened then?" Savannah has to know. In her brain, she's getting details from Jon that no one else knows - not only is she breaking a story, but she getting even juicer details. She's in journalist heaven right now. "How did he react?" She leans back and soaks up what she's going to hear.
"He got loud, insulted her but left without incident. For a second, I felt bad for the guy but that quickly passed."
"And from there, that's when all of this started?"
Again, both nod their heads.
Jon goes on, "Beth felt terrible, as that's the way that she is. She never wants to hurt anyone and genuinely feels bad when she does."
"But was that bad enough to put her through what he put her through? He hurt her badly, in many ways, unspeakable ways. Do you really think that's what set him off? Is that what made him put his plan of action in place?"
"Best we can figure." Beth adds, "When he put it into place is no longer relevant."
Jon gets back into the conversation, "Regardless of what we had done, nothing warranted to terror he put her through."
"That's not what I'm saying." Savannah corrects herself, "Something made him do what he did. It obviously started from jealousy and being jilted, right? In preparing for this interview, I was able to get some court documents and court transcripts, from visitor logs and such. He's boasting in one interview that he needed to be sure that Beth would never be able to forget how sweet the love that they made was. Were you intimate with him on a consensual basis, Beth?"
"NEVER!" she replies.
"You dated, but were never intimate?" she clarifies.
"I never had consensual sex with him, ever. Not once!"
