This afternoon I dug out my plastic tote that contains all my mementos from my dad and stepmom. It has a pair of ridding boots (he bought me when we went down to visit my aunts and uncles when I was 10), Easter bunny (received in my last care package), couple pictures, a couple letters I saved that my stepmom wrote me when she would send me care packages, a couple news articles that I found, all the letters (envelops included) and pictures he sent me from jail.
I started reading through things, and wow it's tough. All these years and it still stops my heart when I read my father's name in the same sentence as murderer. The first thing I read was an article from their local newspaper, in college I actually called the newspaper (back then, not as many things were on the internet) and asked to have any articles sent to me and the woman kinda gave me a hard time and asked why I wanted them, when I told her I was his daughter she asked for my address and ended the call. As I was reading the one letter I had to turn away from my husband so he didn't see the tears well up in my eyes. I've gotten myself so far past all this by hiding, not letting people see me break down for the most part. Obviously that was not the right way or 11 years later I wouldn't feel the need to rehash everything, but as a teenager with limited resources I did what I knew best, smile and keep moving, cry in the shower. I am gonna do my best to go through this in one shot but I may have to break this up into to two posts just for my sanity. When I had packed all this stuff up I had the good sense to put everything in order, so that should help the process. I am not giving out all the details just yet because I am still not ready for everyone to know that he is my father and my father did this, I was very lucky that it happened in a state very far from my home and the media did not bring it up here
The first letter I received from my dad was May 12th 2002, a month after I found everything out and almost a year before he was officially sentenced. Everything was very matter-of-fact what the weather was like, what the food was like, his next court date and him possibly being able to get out for a little while. His bail was set at $1.5 million, no one was getting him out, not that we thought he would run (he had had plenty of time to run before going to jail) but no one in his family could afford it.
The second letter (don't worry I'm not going to go through everyone or I might be here for a week), on May 26th, was again very matter-of-fact, weather and food. He had some concern about his flowers, he loved gardening and took pride in being able to grow his flowers in the hot dry climate. He mentioned to stay away from my stepmom's family because they weren't being very nice. At some point that summer my car window was smashed and we received a lot of hang ups, probably due to the druggy burnout loser son of hers. He goes into great length about my future career, for a long time I wanted to be a criminal lawyer, he tells me that I shouldn't go down that path and that I should do something that will make me happy and someone else happy because that wont. I didn't choose that path, I went into the social welfare field but that's another post.
July 7th, asking about my summer plans, talked about how boring it was and what he's been reading, saying he wasn't sure what was going on in the media about what happened, saying he understood why I hadn't written back to him but one day he would be able to explain what happened that night and he wasn't a monster.
July 24th, he actually wrote a letter to myself and my mother (which of course I snatched, after she read it). My mother had written him first, this was the time my mother was pushing me very hard to communicate with him so I guess she took it upon herself to communicate. In my letter he wrote about me working at the pool, my name "change" Jenny to Jenn, about me still not writing and being angry which was fine but one day we would be able to sit down and he would tell me his side and I would see it wasn't as horrible as the media was making it out to be. My mother's letter was about how his other kids don't want anything to do with him, asking if we've had any trouble with the druggy burnout loser, talking about my boyfriend breaking up with me over him, and that my uncle had to brief her on things that might come out in court because they will be very surprising to her.
October 5th, he again sent a letter to my mother and myself. All still the same things, actually repeats himself a lot. Asked me to look up a book and take a look at a picture in it, which I did but don't really remember it guess I should do it again.
For his birthday in November I finally decided to respond, I sent him a card with a couple updated pictures of myself, he hadn't seen me since I was 15 and I was getting close to 18. He responded November 25th, happy that he finally heard from me, talked about his Thanksgiving, asked how school was going, his cricket friends he had made. My mother's letter was full of the same things, he noted that I looked like I was putting on a little weight. I gained 60 pounds from the time I found out until the time I graduated. It was a mixture of my mother pushing me to diet so I was hiding food from her and everything that was going on. I hated being home and would spend as much time at work or school or with friends, I also ate most of my food out. However I was not turning to alcohol or drugs.
March 3 2003, after he took the plea deal. He had moved from the county jail to a prison after being sentenced and went over some of the rules on what can be sent and what couldn't. He begged me to write back, about whatever I wanted we could get into the heavy stuff whenever I was ready for it (now that trial was over he could discuss things). He talked about taking the sentence he did was the best decision for everyone, that the amount of time he got wasn't bad and that because of the deal he was placed in a better jail. My stepmom's family, was pushing for the death penalty. He told me that provided he had good behavior, which he should, that in 90 days he would be able to make a phone call and 120 days he would be allowed visitors.
Me trying to hold on to anything I could dealing with him, I kept copies of the letters I sent him (not all but some). My first real letter was April 4th 2003, I wrote about what was going on in school, my job teaching lifeguarding, and I asked him to tell me about what happened. April 15th his response, lost the nerve to tell me what happened but he would try the next week. He told me he was proud of me for getting into a good university, working and keeping good grades despite what was going on. Another common thing he asked for was everyone's addresses and phone numbers, the problem was I either didn't have them or they asked me not to give them to him.
April 21, I discussed the war going on (for some reason in my mind it was almost over ?!?!?!), told him about a tattoo I had gotten for my stepmom, it is a purple rose with a teardrop coming off the stem. For prom the year before my boyfriend got me a purple rose (prom was shortly after I found out about what happened) and for some reason the rose lasted for weeks which is not common for dyed roses. I took it as a sign of strength for me, plus purple was my favorite color so I wouldn't have to be forced to explain it to everyone, and the teardrop was for my stepmom. Later my dad told me that before my stepmom died she did some strange things one of which was pulling up all of his plants and replacing them with purple roses, that purple and roses were her favorite thing. Strange how things workout. At the end of my letter to him I explain why I haven't sent him the addresses and numbers for my siblings, that they didn't want to have anything to do with him.
May 6th, the explanation...
"First of all I want you to understand that I am completely responsible for what happened. There were no outside motives, nothing to do with money (there isn't much anyway) or affairs (hers or mine) or anything else like that. Basically this is about two people who just never should have been together on that day.
To give you a little background, stepmom (keeping names out of this) and I hadn't been seeing eye to eye for quite a while. I don't know if you noticed anything different when she last came up to visit but she was not herself those last few months. The 9-11 attack had really upset her. We hadn't heard from druggy burnout loser for a few days after and when he did call he only made things worse. The Holidays were absolutely miserable, she cried most of Thanksgiving when we were not at uncle's and threw a temper tantrum when it was time to go there at Christmas.
As January and February came and went things went from bad to worse. She had managed to get herself fired from her job and wasn't interested in looking for something else. All she seemed to want to do was make messes in the house and disappear when I was home from work so that we couldn't talk. I wanted her to try some professional help but she wanted no part of it.
If you remember at the time my company was on shift, 12 hour days 3 one week and 4 the next. It was my turn to work the friday, saturday and sunday from 6am to 6pm shift. I had one person out for saturday and sunday vacation I think so I was left with just 3 people including myself and we had some large jobs to do, one of which did not turn out well. Despite the fact that increasingly stepmom preferred to be home alone she didn't like it when I worked the 3 days straight. I still don't know why.
On saturday I came home about 7:15pm to an empty house, all the lights on doors front and back unlocked. I took a shower and dressed in clothes to go back outside. I took a walk around but could not find her. When I got home she was waiting by the cars and I didn't see her. She was locked out and angry, she hit me with Pops stick in the area between my shoulders. It scared me more than hurt because I was busy unlocking the door and didn't hear her. She then hit me 2 more times in the arms but not effectively. Then she stopped and it seemed like until just then she had not known who I was. The outside light was off. She was really scaring me at this point all wild eyed and sweaty looking so I just got my breath back and tried to calm her down. When she calmed down and we were back inside I asked her what was up and she said that she thought I was a robber coming out of the house and she wanted to stop me. As upset as she was I just let it go, we ate our dinner and went to bed. I had been sleeping on the couch most of the time since Christmas because she said I disturbed her sleep. Needless to say I didn't get a good nights sleep.
The next day at work was a disaster. Nothing I did worked out right. I even left my slim fast in the truck so I had to drink it warm at lunch. There was a very heavy fog on the way home so I was running late. On sundays I would usually stop in town to pick up something to eat and a movie but almost everything was closed except the sandwich shop and I did not know what she might eat. I tried to call home but there was no answer. When I got to the house once again it was wide open with all the inside lights on but no body home. I closed but did not lock the doors, took a shower and once again dressed to go outside. I let anger get the best of me at this point turned the TV on and sat on the couch. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is getting hit this time to the side of the head. By the time I got up and turned around she had hit me 3 or 4 times but once again nothing life threatening. I reached out while standing by the lamp in the living room and took the club away from her. She turned and now out the door still holding the dogs leash. The light was off outside so I couldn't see anything but I heard a loud thump. When I went to the door she was trying to come back in. She was bleeding apparently she had run into the central porch post in the dark. When I tried to pull her hand away to see where she was hurt she screamed to "get away from her" and started to hit and scratch me on the arms. She was very angry. I put the club on the picnic table and followed her inside still trying to see where she was hurt but she beat me to the bathroom and slammed the door.
I went to the bedroom to look at myself in the mirror (face) but I wasn't hurt. She left the bath and went outside calling for the dog. I let her go hoping she would calm down. Then she came back in swinging that damn club. I'd almost thrown it into the woods, I wish I had. She hit me again I took it away and for some reason hit her back several times, unfortunately.
From then on most of what happened is still something of a blur. I know I slipped and fell myself on my back and probably went out. The next time I looked at the clock it was after 2am. I'd been on the floor next to her for some time because my clothes were stuck to the floor. I could hardly stand up straight so I knew my back was out but at that point I already knew she was dead. I panicked, totally lost it at that point. All I could think about was hiding what I had done from the world.
I could barely move her but I knew I had to do something before daylight. I got her into the tub and cleaned up the house as best I could. Then I put her in the jeep and went out to the spot where I'd left her. Two weeks later when I took the cops out there at first I had no idea what they meant when they said she wasn't complete. It wasn't until several weeks later that I'd realized what I'd done in the tub that night. I still don't know what I did with the rest of her. I must think about it a thousand times a day but I still can't remember I'd like to, for somebodys sake.
For the following two weeks I tried to hide from the truth. I must have lied to everybody about what had happened. I'll never be able to forgive myself for what I did and I certainly don't expect anyone else to.
I feel very grateful for the sentence I got, not so much for myself, but maybe I can do some good somewhere to make up for what I did. That's why I took the plea bargain. Just so I wouldn't hurt anyone anymore."
Ok that's enough for me. It's 3am and I doubt I'll be able to get much sleep the rest of the night but my emotions need a break. I had to remove all emotion to get through this, my next blog will do more letters and go into some of my emotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment