I've studied murderers for a long time.
It started when I read In Cold Blood.
I bought it for my mom when we had a field trip to Gettysburg.
The woman who sold it said someone my age shouldn't be reading it.
Of course the first thing I did was read it.
Pretty disturbing.
I'd read the Happy Hooker so sort of understood the sexual implication in it but the sheer brutality involved was what I couldn't understand.
After all these years of study I still don't. I understand motivation and all but just the love of the cruelty is beyond me.
I'm so grateful for that.
My curiosity about the cruelty others inflict increased when my cousin Vickie's close friend Karen Noble and her boyfriend Jeff Scott were murdered.
It was May 1978. It's known as The Wolf Creek Murders.
Vic and Karen were cheerleaders together , Vic was head and Karen was co-captain. I won't go into details , I can't go into details but my mom was good friends with the chief of police and she got copies of the autopsy reports.
I'm glad Karen's mom never knew what happened to her.
The details were left out of the reporting. Those pictures will haunt me forever. I didn't know Jeff that well , just that he dated Karen.
Well they talk about small town justice so what happened officially was that an old man , I think his name was George Bird but I'm not sure , anyway he was picked up and being held for the murders when he conveniently hung himself in jail. Case closed.
Bollocks , that old man could have never taken the two of them , they were both athletes and he was an old drunk who got thrown in the tank every weekend.
The town knew better.
I can't substantiate it but the rumor was that Jeff and Karen had been on top of East River Mountain and had seen a drug deal they shouldn't have.
Wolf creek is on the other side of the mountain that wasn't used all that much except for the people who rode motorcycles.
We partied up there all the time. You'd hit the last curve before the top and hear it before you saw it. There'd be two hundred people up there. The cops left us alone. We scared them.
I knew a lot of the kids who got killed driving that mountain road drunk.
We lost three in one night once.
I went to a lot of funerals when I was young.
Maybe why I hate them so much now.
What happened was that the guy held responsible , Gary Romano was found on the railroad tracks with his hands and feet tied and a bullet in the back of the head.
If you want to get rid of a body throwing them on the tracks was pretty effective.
This time though the body was found before the train came.
Everybody always thought his brother Phil was the crazy one because he had to wear these pop bottle glasses since he was almost blind and he had frizzy hair he wore long , but I partied and worked with Phil and he was cool. I was at his house once when Gary came in and they way that guy looked at you could make your blood run cold.
There's a Martina McBride song that goes maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong or maybe it's the only way.
Small town justice.
Brothers , it's strange how people can mistake them.
I knew another set of brothers this happened with.
I had classes with David Meadows and he was always so sweet and deeply religious so I would torment him by questioning the Bible.
He never got mad , he would laugh and tell me I was going to have plenty of company in Hell.
You see he believed in Heaven and Hell and right and wrong. Now his brother Bunny , real name Jerome , was a fighter. That's what Bunny did.
Every Friday after last class they gathered in the back parking lot , all the sick little lemmings wanting to see someone get the shit beat out of them , to watch the fights. They'd round out and then two would move to the middle and just start fighting. I used to get sick seeing them gather around to watch it , I never stayed , I couldn't believe the rest of them did.
I was always the odd one out.
School parking lots shouldn't have dried puddles of blood in them. I'ts not right.
Bunny was the champ. He was called that because he rabbit punched , not because of any training but because he had made a ring out of a bent up quarter and by rabbit punching he would cut their faces all to hell.
Bunny thrived on violence , all of them did but he helped me out many times when it came to race relations at school.
He took care of Carmen Hurt for me but that's another story.
Brothers so different but you have to wonder why it was David who took a shotgun and blew his wife's face off years later.
They say he caught her in bed with someone but no one will ever know because David conveniently hung himself in jail before his trial.
My brother was working for the railroad by then and he was with the search party who found her body on the tracks.
He had wrapped her in a silk quilt and laid flowers on her chest.
Remorse I suppose.
It never felt right that David with his beliefs would have condemned himself that way first with murder and then suicide but there you have it.
He gave me living hell when I cut my wrists , told me even though I hadn't succeeded I was still condemned to go to hell.
I think that's why when I took the overdose I figured what the hell I'm already done for.
Fortunately for me I got emancipated before I tried again.
Three times the charm and all that.
Another of my dark secrets exposed.
Bunny went on to become a minister.
I guess he saw the light. Brothers.
I've had three family members murdered over the years.
Charlie was killed by his lover and cut up and buried in concrete. They didn't find him for a long time. Seven years.
Gigi was killed by an insulin overdose when she wanted to leave her lover.
We never found out what happened to Jessie because his lover killed himself before they could get it out of him.
Now they say that homosexuals are more caring and all that but it hasn't been my experience over the years. We've always had gay people in our family , we never thought much about it , I mean you know uncle Charlie loves a guy not a girl.
They weren't flamboyantly gay they were just people who were attracted to their own sex.
They didn't crawl all over each other or feel the need to get in your face about it they just were what they were.
They were all murdered by their lovers when they wanted to leave. Just because they wanted to leave.
WTF is wrong with people ???
Jeez I really got off topic , back to Robert Hansen.
He would have been tickled to death to have John playing him.
He himself was a nasty little piece of work , downright goofy looking. A lot like Harvey Glatman.
That can make a person vicious.
Goofy looking guy , ugly fat woman , beware of them they have a lot of hate built up inside , and they hate everyone.
I know John is going to do a fabulous job of portraying him and I'll have to watch it but I am picturing the look on his face while he's doing what he's doing and I'm already afraid of him.
Guys with dark eyes who let the evil show are menacing and stimulating at the same time. He's taken on some dark roles lately , maybe he's got some demons chasing him too.
Maybe we all do.
Anyway he's getting a good start with Edgar Allen Poe out in April. I think he'll be wonderful. He seems to enjoy feeling tormented. Ah well he's a Cancer , he feels deeply.
I'm just happy he's got some movies coming. I feel his angst.
I hope he's worked thru it now.
More damaged People this weekend.
I don't know why I'm talking like this is the present tense.
I guess this has become my journal.
Isn't it strange that I'm more comfortable if a complete stranger reads it one day than if people I know do.
But they don't really know me.
I never tell anyone what's going on inside. I have far too many skeletons rattling around to let anyone inside.
It's been grand getting this out though. Sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode if I don't get rid of some of this stuff.
I don't hear voices , at least not yet so I guess I'm not crazy but I'm damn sure fucked up , I just hope it's not to late and I'm not fubared.
Cheers , Amelie
