As she lay there, watching the pool of her own blood spread across the cold floor, she could see her boyfriend a few feet away. He wasn't moving. He, too, had been shot. She was unable to move to him, but she thought she heard him mumble something. Perhaps he was softly calling her name. "I was quiet for a second, and I said, ‘I love you, Ken.' I told him I love him," St. Matthews resident Kelly Hoffman Driggers recalled.

Shot once in the face and also in the chest, then 17-year-old Driggers struggled to survive the murderous robbery attempt. But as she lay there, she knew deep in her heart that her first love, Ken Presley, was gone.

"I was determined to stay alive. I was afraid to close my eyes," she said. "I had to live. I had to live so I could tell what happened to us."

With the exception of court testimony, in the 11 years since that day, Driggers has not spoken publicly about the events that unfolded and changed her life forever.

She is speaking out now in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that outlawed the death penalty for juveniles, which overturned the death sentence of Presley's teenage killer.

First love

Driggers, now 28, had known Ken Presley since she was about 11 years old. The polite, well-mannered young man had been a friend to her entire family.

There were times when Presley played with Driggers and her two sisters by swinging them around in a duffel bag. At that time, Driggers was a young girl who simply admired the young man as a family friend.

As time passed, Driggers continued through grade school and went on to high school while Presley left the St. Matthews area to join the U.S. Navy, serving as a submariner.

When Driggers was 16, Presley came home on three months' leave and naturally visited his second family. It was then a spark of love ignited. The pair began to spend more and more time together.

"It happened so fast, and we fell in love," Driggers said. "I loved him. He was the first person that ever believed in me. He said he knew I was a good person."

Most of the couple's time was spent enjoying long conversations together, Driggers said.

"I loved him as much as a 17-year-old could," she said. "He took his time. But when he said it (‘I love you'), I knew he meant it."

Eventually, the two found a home together west of St. Matthews. Both preferred take-out food, and neither cared much for shopping, Driggers said. But on Valentine's Day 1994, Presley had a surprise for his sweetheart.

"He took me shopping at Dillard's," Driggers said, smiling at the recollection. "He let me pick out a beautiful, frilly comforter set."

Sometimes, she remembers, prayer meetings were held at their home. A local pastor would stop off for a brief round of prayers, but there were times Presley wouldn't allow the minister to leave.

"And he'd question the Bible," Driggers said of Presley. "He had questions he wanted to understand. He was such a deep thinker. He had a deep, intellectual mind."

Night of the fallen

Wanting to earn some extra money during leave, 20-year-old Presley took a part-time job at the Blue Diamond Casino, a video gaming parlor outside St. Matthews.

On March 18, 1994, the couple got into Presley's gray Mazda RX-7. They drove into town to grab a couple of fast-food burgers, then went on to the casino.

During the drive and at the business, Driggers noticed Presley was unusually quiet. When they arrived at his workplace, they turned on a television, which was airing a documentary about serial killers.

While Presley made his rounds about the business to check the video machines, Driggers started eating her hamburger.

Not long after they arrived, 16-year-old Herman Hughes walked into the casino.

As Driggers looked on from behind the counter, Hughes asked Presley to show him the games.

"And I thought, ‘He's not old enough to be in here,'" Driggers said.

Hughes then left the store, saying he was going to get some money. When Hughes returned, he asked Presley to change a $50 bill.

"Ken came around and stood beside where I was eating," Driggers said. "Ken went into the drawer to give the change, and when we looked up, he had a gun pointed at us. Ken, he said, ‘Okay, man. Take the money.'"

As Presley emptied the cash drawer, Hughes asked for the keys to his Mazda. As Presley slid the keys across the counter, Hughes fired a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol he had trained on Presley.

"I was looking right at him (Hughes), and he shot him (Presley) in the head," Driggers said. "I yelled out, ‘Oh, my God!' And when I did that, he turned and shot me in the chest. I thought, 'Did he just shoot me?' There was a lot of blood, warm, sticky, metallic-smelling blood. I thought he'd shot me in the arm, it felt like it weighed 200 pounds."

Hughes then turned the gun toward Presley, who had crashed to the floor. He fired another shot, striking Presley again in the head.

Driggers, stunned yet conscious, slowly looked down at the hole that had been ripped into her upper right chest.

"He looked back at me, and I looked down at my chest, and he shot me again," she said.

Driggers was hit in the cheek this time, about an inch and a half below her left eye.

"This guy expected me to die," she said. "My hair was full of blood. It was just blood, blood, blood.

"There's no way I could have survived another shot. I didn't want him to shoot me again."

But Hughes fired one last time — a third shot at Presley, which hit him once again in the head.

Gravely injured, Driggers lay curled on her side, with hair covering her face. Her body was becoming numb from the loss of blood. A pool of it was spreading across the floor and away from her head. Somehow, she remained conscious.

Driggers could see her unfinished hamburger had landed in front of her face. It, too, was covered in her blood. She was relieved when Hughes turned off the store lights and locked the front door as he left.

Driggers had fallen in the opposite direction of Presley. Their shoes were almost touching. But Presley was not moving. When Driggers was sure Hughes was gone, she softly called out, "Ken? Are you alive?"

But she knew he was dead. She was too stunned to grieve, though. Her strongest instinct was survival.

"I was losing a ton of blood," Driggers said. "I thought, ‘I have got to live long enough to tell the cops what happened'."

She remained on the floor, her thoughts drifting from Presley, to his family, to her own family. She felt little pain, she said. Just numbness. She knew she had been hurt badly. But the thought of their families not knowing what happened gave her the will to live, Driggers said.

She can't recall how much time passed lying on the floor, but Driggers managed to reach up to the counter an arm's length away and press the panic button.

At the time, current Calhoun County Sheriff Thomas Summers and current St. Matthews Police Chief Capers Wannamaker were investigators with the sheriff's office. Within minutes, they arrived on scene, Driggers said. That night, they were her angels of comfort.

Other police and EMS arrived. Driggers was terrified as they began to wheel her stretcher to the ambulance.

"I kept trying to tell them I didn't want to go out there," she said. "But Thomas and Capers told me no one was out there, no one was going to get me."

Driggers was eventually placed in the intensive care unit at Palmetto Health Richland hospital, where she remained for five days receiving medical treatment.

"I'd never heard Daddy cry," Driggers said. "And it was as hard as hell to hear that."

The pain came, both physical and emotional.

"I knew Ken was dead," Driggers said. "I didn't have to ask."

She grew bitter in her hospital bed, she said, because she couldn't attend Presley's funeral. She asked those who visited her on March 21 to leave and attend the service for her.

The bullet that struck Driggers in the chest exited her back cleanly around her right shoulder blade, which doctors left open to heal. But the round that entered her cheek shattered bones, including her jaw.

Driggers' jaw was wired shut, but she was uncomfortable with the wire grill that had been created around her face. In frustration one night, she stood in front of a mirror and clipped all of the wires with a pair of scissors.

"And immediately, my jaw dropped. Not as in, ‘Oh, my God,'" she said. "But as in the bone had not grown to the titanium."

Afraid she might do more damage, a stunned Driggers held her jaw up with a pillow until she could be taken back to the hospital to be rewired.

Suffering in silence

Eleven years later, Driggers' physical injuries are barely noticeable on first glance. A 2-inch scar is visible on her chest; a small dimple marks the spot where she was shot in the face.

But inside, the scars haven't healed. She's haunted by darkness. The flash of a handgun goes off over and over in her sleep. She takes a battery of medications to combat stress and depression, emotions still unsettled more than a decade later. Thoughts of suicide have crossed her mind more than once, she said.

"Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, and I smell that blood," Driggers said. "People don't realize it has a metallic smell."

One after another, Driggers has attended appeal hearings for Hughes. Each time, there was a chance Hughes would be granted a new trial, a new sentence, a new chance to deny he destroyed the lives of several families, she said.

Having remained close to Presley's sisters, Amy and Dede, has helped her feel closer to him, Driggers said.

"They say I'm the strong one," she said. "I don't know why, but they say I'm the strong one."

'The pain is too great'

During the week-long trial in September 1995, Driggers was the prosecution's star witness. In order that justice might be served, she was forced to face her demons and share her story.

"I wanted to see (Hughes). I didn't want him to see me, but I wanted to see him," she said. "I wasn't scared. But I wanted to see him."

The strain of testimony and cross-examination weighing on her, she lost control when a photographer appeared to be taking pictures of Presley's autopsy photos. Driggers screamed out, halting the proceedings and forcing Circuit Court Judge Edward Cottingham to send jurors into recess.

The jurors ultimately found Hughes guilty of murder and sentenced him to death.

"It wasn't my fault, it wasn't Ken's fault," Driggers said. "Herman Hughes was hell-bent."

She recalls how Hughes sat emotionless as his sentence was announced on Sept. 12, 1995. She can still hear his mother's piercing scream.

"I felt sick," Driggers said of the trial results. "I just had to get out of there. I thought I'd be happy, celebrating. But I just felt sick. I realized at that moment it wasn't just my family he tore up. He tore up his family's lives, too. And I thought, ‘How could he sit there yet still have no change in his demeanor?'"

Driggers says she visits Presley's grave when she can but doesn't go often, she admits. The pain is too great.

Justice lost?

On March 1, 2005, what stability Driggers and those affected by the murder had attained was rocked by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling.

In 1995, 12 Calhoun County jurors found Hughes guilty of Presley's murder and later sentenced him to death.

But after spending nearly 10 years on South Carolina's death row, Hughes will be relegated to a sentence of life in prison.

Though Hughes was 16 when he shot Driggers and Presley at point-blank range, Driggers says his age shouldn't play a role in the sentencing of a case that's already been decided.

"Why should it? Herman Hughes has already been convicted. Why should it affect him?" she said. "I don't think so. That doesn't make logical sense."

When she learned of the opinion, Kelly said she was "mad as hell for several, several days."

"Hell hath no fury! I felt like going out and getting into a fight or tearing something up," the self-described "high-strung country girl" said. "I ranted and raved."

She said Presley's and her ordeal is a recurring nightmare that visits her sleep and haunts her days. Driggers said that with the recent ruling, she decided to step forward after years of silence and speak.

"Why? Because I'm sick of it. This is the last straw with them trying to take him off death row," she said. "I'm tired of suffering in silence, and I think people should know what kind of monsters these people are. I want to step forward to say what I know is far too painful for them (Presley's family) to say. And maybe they'll find solace in that."

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