The woman sat on the wooden bench, a tissue crumpled in her fist as her daughter read a statement she was too choked up to voice.
Georgia Hellams listened as her own words were read aloud about what started out as an ordinary day on June 4, 2011.
What was supposed to be an idyllic camping trip beside the Broad River turned into a nightmare.
And on Monday, Harry Jones, 50, pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping, assault inflicting serious bodily injury and assault by strangulation.
A trial was scheduled to begin, but Jones accepted a last-minute plea deal.
'If that's love, I don't want any more of it'
Assistant District Attorney Sally Kirby-Turner said two weeks before the 2011 camping trip, Hellams and Jones split up and Hellams went to stay with her mother near the beach.
Before the Memorial Day weekend, the two reconciled and decided to go camping together, Kirby-Turner said.
The two had a few beers and spent the night at the campsite.
Everything was fine until the following day when Jones decided to go fishing and Hellams stayed at the campsite.
About 4 p.m., Jones returned.
Hellams said, when Jones came back, she saw the devil in his eyes.
The two got into an argument about food contamination when Jones tossed a fish into a cooler with some chicken.
When Hellams went inside the tent, she said Jones followed her.
What followed was a beating that spanned 10 hours, according to court testimony.
Hellams said he dragged her to his car and drove her around town. Every time she tried to get out of the car, he would hit her.
Eventually, he took her to his mobile home where he continued to beat and strangle her.
Hellams said, in the course of the night, he slammed her into the hood of a car, dragged her through barbed wire and left permanent scars on her body.
"You told me I was going to die, and that you didn't know what to do with my body," her daughter read aloud in the courtroom. "Well, I lived. I can't believe that I loved you and was blinded to the fact that you're a monster."
Hellams said Jones cracked her skull, shattered her nose, broke five ribs, and a collar bone and punctured a lung.
She said he tried to rip her face apart.
At one point, she said he threw the car keys on the ground and forced her to look for them, kicking and beating her as she searched on her hands and knees.
"If that's love, I don't ever want any more of it," she said in her statement.
Jones tied her up at his house, she said, and about 2 a.m., he laid down beside her on the bed and passed out.
She was able to break free and run to a nearby friend's house where she pounded on the door, screaming for help.
"They were terrified," Kirby-Turner said.
When EMS and law enforcement officers arrived at the house, she said they found Hellams curled up in the fetal position on the floor, hysterical.
"I learned the hard way that you have the devil in you," Hellams wrote in her statement.
'Mentally, I will never be the same'
More than a year later, she still struggles with physical reminders of the assault, including loss of vision in one eye.
She said Jones put his hands around her neck and choked her until she lost consciousness, causing a hemorrhage in her eye.
When she awoke, he was on top of her, still beating her.
Scars mark her body from where he dragged her through a barbed wire fence. She said she still has permanent knots on her face.
Her daughter said she didn't recognize her mother when she saw her lying in the hospital bed.
Some wounds aren't visible.
"Mentally, I will never be the same," she said.
She said she wished she had known about Jones' past, about the other women he had beaten.
All the others had taken him back, she said.
"I want you to know you have beat and tied up the wrong woman," Hellams said. "I hope no other woman's blood is shed because of you."
'He wants this chapter in his life behind him'
Jones was sentenced to seven to nine years in prison and two to three years suspended sentence that will become active if he violates his five-year probation.
He was ordered to pay about $11,000 in restitution.
Jones, dressed entirely in white, hands cuffed, declined to make a statement in court.
Hellams said he recently sent her a letter from jail asking her not to testify against him. He said he planned to sue law enforcement and the two could split the proceeds.
John Church, Jones' attorney, said his client has expressed remorse for his actions.
He said Jones had been drinking and doing drugs that day and has memory loss about the incident.
"He's a very emotional person," Church said. "By no means is he a brutish type of person."
He said Jones is well-educated and does expect punishment for his actions
"He wants this chapter in his life behind him," Church said.
As he was led out of the courtroom, a woman sitting behind him wiped away tears.
"I think he didn't get enough time but I'm glad it's over so I can go on with my life," Hellams said. "He almost broke me mentally. If he had broken me mentally he would have won."
Reach reporter Rebecca Clark at 704-669-3344 or rclark@shelbystar.com.