After Shoplifting Scandal, Former TV Anchor Learns to Forgive Herself

As Savannah Guthrie of the TODAY show asks, should one mistake define your life?

In February 2012, Martha Vazquez, a beloved Tucson, Arizona news anchor, shoplifted a blouse. The incident ended her television career. In her first interview after the events, she spoke to Guthrie, a former news colleague at KVOA.

"I think I wanted to stop the madness, the unhappiness, and I didn't know how to do it myself," she said to Guthrie about why she shoplifted, when Guthrie said it did not seem like something Vazquez would do. Vazquez said she had been depressed about the pressures of getting older in a career that she says has a "shelf life" for women.

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"Instead of saying goodbye to KVOA and having a lovely farewell, that's the way I did it," she said of the shoplifting incident. "I will regret that to the die I die," she said. After the much-publicized incident she fell into a deep depression, and at times thought suicide would spare her family the embarrassment.

Her husband suggested they move, and the family went to Washington State, where she sought help from therapy and was able to "forgive" herself. "It was the spark that gone dark in my life," she said, and she regained it by seeking help.

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Vazquez is now back in the Tucson area, and she wants to open a hyno-therapy franchise, which helped her recover.

"We all make mistakes - one bad chapter does not end the story," she said.

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