alive, but still not free

Nicole Addimando’s Sentencing Statement

I am so sorry for the pain — the deep, devastating loss that so many people feel as a result of my action.

I’m sorry for the broken hearts and families that will never feel whole again.

I’ll live with this — what I did and didn’t do — for the rest of my life.

I wish more than anything this ended another way. If it had, I wouldn’t be in this courtroom.

But I wouldn’t be alive, either.

I wanted to live, I wanted this all to stop.

I was afraid to stay, afraid to leave, afraid that nobody would believe me, afraid of losing everything.

This is why women don’t leave.

I know killing is not a solution, and staying hurts. But leaving doesn’t mean living.

Often we end up dead, or where I’m standing.

Alive, but still not free.

—Nicole Addimando, Feb. 2020, before receiving a life sentence in prison