Kyle Box has been locked up inside the Jefferson County jail for almost two years.
The now-20-year-old was 18 when he says a misguided plan to buy marijuana kicked off a series of events that cost a Watertown man his life and left Box facing 25 years in prison.
"That was really the only reason why I did it," Box says of coming up with a plan to offer sex to someone to make money. "I think if I was sober, I would have never done anything like that."
It started with an ad placed on Craigslist. Box says he was struggling to find work and prostituting himself was a way to get money fast.
He says 62-year-old Randy Bent responded to that ad, and Box says he immediately had second thoughts.
"Well, I was very hesitant from the start and anxious," Box said from the Jefferson County Jail. "Once we got to the house is when I had severe doubts. I told him I wanted to leave and I wanted to go home."
That's the million-dollar question: Bent picked up Box in Carthage and drove him to Watertown. It's 20 minutes away. If he wanted to leave, why didn't he?
He had numerous opportunities. He could have used his phone. He could have run to a neighbor's house for help.
It's a question no one, including the jury at his trial, could or can understand his answer to.
"I didn't know where I was in Watertown. I was scared and I wasn't thinking. I was intoxicated. I was smoking and drinking for three days straight," Box said, as he's said before.
Box's version of the events that followed changed numerous times during his interrogation by police, and Box himself admitted to TWC News that he lied to police several times.
But he says the final version he gave police and what he's telling us now is true. Box says at first, Bent wasn't threatening. It was when he asked Bent to just drive him home things escalated.
Now even the psychologist that testified on Box's behalf says he doesn't believe Box's claims of self-defense. Neither did a jury.
But Box insists a struggle led to a knife he says he carries everywhere, falling out of his pocket.
"When he was pulling at my pants and it fell out was when he grabbed it and took the blade out to threaten me, telling me he was going to rape me basically," Box said of Bent.
That's when Box says he was able to wrestle the knife away from Bent. He says he stabbed him but Bent came back at him, threw a chair in his direction ... and then everything else from there is a blur.
"I said I remember hurting him and stepping away from him. He continued to attack me," Box replied, adding he didn't remember the next 45 stabs, either.
"My lawyer asked me in the jail. I told her all I could remember was one or maybe two times," Box said.
Box claims he eventually snapped back into reality. Realizing what had happened, he admits to trying to cover it up. Wanting to go home, see his girlfriend and family, he started a fire in a tissue box and threw the box on on Bent's body.
"I was extremely fearful over everything. I was still in high school. I had a girlfriend. I was worried about my life. I didn't honestly believe that people would believe anything I say," Box said.
Box says the nightmares of March 8, 2015 will haunt him forever. But he also says he will not stop fighting for the punishment that he believes fits the crime, telling us Bent would absolutely be alive today had he not attacked Box or had not escalated things further.
He says that punishment should not be murder, which is the charge he'll be sentenced for Friday, but rather manslaughter.
TWC News will be there when Box is sentenced on Friday. We'll have that story and much more from Box himself on why he feels the murder charge isn't right. We'll also hear from those who say Box deserved the punishment he got and maybe more.