I had visited my father on Death Row before, but this trip was different. I was traveling to Union Correctional Institution with two homicide detectives with the intent to record a conversation with my father about two murders he described to me years earlier.
Actually the main purpose of this visit was to get him to tell me about another murder, one that he never confessed to me, but one that I know he committed. It was his first victim, but they still have not found the body. It was an old friend of my fathers that disappeared after meeting with my dad, but this is a story for another day. It is so hard to write about my father’s activities simply because of the number of victims and crimes. I mentioned this because I thought my father might talk about it if I asked him so that is why I went up there, to help solve another crime. The two murders I knew about were secondary.
The drive up to Death Row was a two hour trip, but the detectives were extraordinarily nice. They were compassionate and I felt they understood my situation. We talked a lot about sociopaths and how much damage they do to their families. They mentioned that the families of the sociopath (perpetrator) are often the forgotten ones, so to speak. Most of the attention in our society is about what damage is done to the victim’s family, but there are two sides as many of us know all too well.
On the way up I was very calm. I prayed a great deal about this day and spent some quiet time early in the morning before leaving the house. The thought of facing my father and trying to get him to talk about these murders was frightening and I knew it was something I could not do on my own. It is interesting that I can find the greatest peace when I recognize circumstances are well beyond my control and I am able to surrender the outcome to a higher power. That is what I did before I left the house.
As I have mentioned before I idolized my Dad growing up and still continued to communicate with him and occasionally (every few years) visit him on death row. I would also write him to tell him about my accomplishments looking for his approval, even after all he had done. This is the most baffling part of all. I can’t explain the mixed emotions, just share my experience. It was almost like I completely compartmentalized things. On the one hand he was still my father, but on the other he was a cold blooded killer.
For those of you that have children that are being influenced by another parent that is a sociopath I can tell you that I knew right from wrong and knew something was wrong deep down. I always knew this and the more my father did others wrong the deeper this divide became. I do think it was always there it just took time and I am grateful for those around me as a young adult that simply showed me the right way to live.
Anyway, when we arrived at Death Row they brought us right in and took me to a private room that is used for inmates to meet with their lawyers. They placed a wire on me and a recorder under the chair, and then sent for my father. He did not know I was coming and I wasn’t sure how he would react to me being in this “special” room, but again, I put my Faith in another father that I had come to rely upon and didn’t concern myself with worry or circumstances, I simply stayed focused and calm.
He was shocked to see me, but also excited. It reminded me of how he had conned so many people before going to prison. He would make them feel so excited about a deal that they failed to look at or recognize things that they should have been paying attention to. Meetings like this just didn’t happen unless you were a lawyer, but I told him that I had met a powerful organization that was out to get bad cops regardless of whether they thought the person committed the crime. He had always said that the police in his case fabricated some of the evidence to convict him and I told him this group agreed.
I told him I could help him, something which I had not done in the 15 years he had been on death row, but I needed some security so I could feel safe. I had always told him that I wouldn’t help him because of the publicity that it might bring, but that wasn’t true, I didn’t want him out. Like so many of his cons before I was in this room for the complete opposite reason that he was so excited about. I was here to see that he never had a chance to get out, period. There was little chance of this anyway but he was optimistic about his appeals.
We talked for a while and when I told him that I needed to have information that would make me feel safe if he got out before helping him, his whole demeanor changed. He sat back thought about it and smiled. He looked right at me with his cold eyes and said “I get it, blackmail”. Odd as it sounds he seemed extremely proud of me for doing this; it was like I was now playing his game. He was suddenly very engaged, this was fun for him.
I am not sure how to tell this story without making it too long. We spent about two hours together and he repeated everything I told the homicide detectives, basically word for word. He also talked about the woman he killed that placed him on death row, a conviction he was still denying to others and a case that was under appeal. I think the thing that stood out the most is the excitement in his voice and mannerisms when he talked about the murders. He was proud of it, except for getting caught of course, which he referred to as “stupid mistakes, sloppy”. (He would not confess to the murder that I was hoping to get him to talk about, apparently killing a friend was not something he thought I could handle).
I left Death Row knowing that I had done the right thing. I still had some mixed emotions though. Even after seeing my father excited to talk about murders that he committed I still felt sorry for him and I also knew what was coming his way.
I felt a great deal of pain about how he was going to feel when he found out that I betrayed him. I was his favorite kid and now I was about to become his worst enemy. But, this is what separates me from him. I thank God that I have these emotions and that I can feel compassion for others, even when some people don’t think they deserve it.
They did bring charges and my father sent me some threatening letters. He turned on me as I expected but it was ok. In fact, I think it helped to see him direct his evil behavior at me and my family. This brought some closure and removed all doubt about what he was capable of.
A little over a year ago he plead guilty and was given two more life sentences. There was some TV coverage and a few articles in the newspaper but nothing major.
Now this experience allows me to help others. It is a gift that I am grateful for. I would not change anything in my past. I think everything we experience in life has great value if we are willing to learn from it and use it to help others.
Although I have enjoyed writing these stories I prefer to move on to something that might be more helpful to those of you that might have questions that you think my experience can help you with. If so, please comment and I’ll be more than happy to share my experience in future posts.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights and your story. It is so good to know that there is light and healing, and that you have benefited from the difficulty.
Your articles are an inspiration.
I am grateful to hear from the side other then the victim. I too have had great tragedy in my life and have a child who killed someone and my side is never told. The side of what happens to the rest of my children or how to cope after media coverage is never told publicly. No one feels empathy for us. I found this site because to top eveything off I also got involved and had a child with a sociopath.
Dear janetf: We understand that you have your side to your story. No one is disputing that.
We have many bloggers on this site that had to deal with murder in their families.
I’m sure when Oxy or some of the other’s logs on, they, along with the rest of us, will gladly blog with you.
Peace to your heart and soul … we do understand that there is a reason for every action in life.
Dear Travis, Thank you for sharing your story, and your feelings with us. I too know what it is to visit someone in prison. Your “betrayal” of him (as he saw it) took courage and righteousness. I know it isn’t easy.
Janet, as you know, I have a son in prison for a cold blooded murder, planned well in advance with total detachment for revenge against her for “ratting him out” for a crime they were both involved in. At the time he went to prison, I was more devestated than I have been in my life before or since, even with the tragic and sudden death of my husband, or the long and drawn out death from cancer of my beloved step-father. Nothing ever gave me as much pain as the knowledge that he had killed a girl, and that he had “totally ruined his chances” at a normal life on the outside of prison.
You are right, there were conscious thoughts at the time in my head that I would gladly trade places with the mother of the murdered girl and have my son in the grave and hers in prison for the murder. Society comforts the families of the victims, but society scorns the parents of the perpetrator. We are condemned for being “bad parents” and “not raising them better.”
My son’s crime was news only in another state and not near where we lived so very few people in the community had any idea of the crime. That was some comfort, if you can call it that because I didn’t have to wear a paper sack on my head to go to the grocery store.
Parents of murdered children have support groups, but I have never heard of a support group for the parents of the murderer. I know there are some groups for the families of inmates, but they are “few and far between.”
If you look at the number of inmates at any give time in the US (and it runs into the million + numbers) 20% of them are psychopoaths, so that means that at least 200,000 inmates are psychopaths, not all murderers of course, and probably another 200,000 are “almost psychopaths” and not likely to reform or be helped in any way by the prison experience, so if you think of the numbers of the parents of this huge number of dangerous personality dysfunctional people, there are a great deal of people suffering. Even if all of these people only had one parent who is not a P themselves, still there are hundreds of thousands of devestated parents like us, grieving for the child in prison.
I’ve sort of “compartmentalized” my son, into the young and wonderfully fun and bright child, and that child is GONE, just as if he was dead and buried. I cannot reconnect with him anymore than I can my late husband on a physical level.
The “Man” (a stranger) that was his organ recipient is not someone I know. The “Man” in prison for murder is a violent psychopath that I cannot know, or grieve for, or pretend that just because he received my “dead” son’s “organs” that he is in any way the child I loved, the infant I gave birth to.
I can deal with the pain of the loss of my son in this way, maybe it is a healthy way, maybe not, but it helps me cope. I still have many fond memories of the child and the infant son. He was a joy. But he is GONE, never to return physically in this world. I can remember the child and laugh, and recall fun times, just as I can think about my late husband and the things we used to do and enjoy those times again in memory. I don’t think about the “man” much, and I don’t equate him at all with the child I lost and buried in my heart, any more than I think about my P-XBF in a loving way. They are just someone I met a few times, but not anyone I care about or miss, or want to be around at all. They are just people I have to keep an eye on because they are viscious predators. But I no longer live in terror, just caution.
Travis, I can only imagine your pain and turmoil turning your father in. I have great respect for you. Thanks for sharing your story. I hope to hear more. Have you considered writing a book?
OxDrover – I am very grateful for your story as well. It’s all relative, I guess. I have a 13 year old wonderful daughter and as a parent I cannot imagine what that would be like. My kid is normal but we are very aware that this trait is hereditary and have done quite a bit of research on how to handle this (with our kid’s children).
Your comments made me think of my grandmother. She was mostly in denial. Whenever she mentioned my Dad’s name it was with a question mark…you could hear it in her voice. It was sad because all of us dealt with it differently and mostly individually so she passed away without ever coming to terms with it. You are very couragous and your story helps me understand how she felt.
Acceptance is the key. However we all do that I think it is up to us, but ultimately that seems to be the pathway to freedom. As long as I tried to understand everything, why me, how could this happen, etc. I could not be at peace. This lesson has helped me in so many other areas of my life that I am grateful it happened. There is good in every situation, sometimes I have to look for it, but if I do, I will always find it. Always.
Travis: You’re another one that needs to view this site to pat yourself on the back as you walk the path of freedom for your soul.
http://www.pathways-to-peace.com
View the presentation. Turn your speakers on ” let the presentation load ” then make sure you click volume on in the lower left corner.
Peace.
Travis, my biological father was a flaming psychopath with at least two murders to his credit that I am SURE of. Neither of which I would have been able or the police able to prove as both that I KNOW of took place outside the US. He “admitted” to others but in vague ways and who knows if he even did them, he lied about everything.
My son, who never met my biological father, is so much like him it is scary. He has even started to look something like him and have the same expressions and the same hand writing as well. As a young child and even up until well past adolescence he didn’t LOOK LIKE my bio father, and in fact, my older son who is not personality disordered looks much more like my father as I do. If you put our photos together as young children except for the clothing you couldn’t tell us apart. Body build, facial features, etc. very much alike.
But my psychopathic son as a child and early adolescence looked more like his father’s side of the family. His other grandfather was also a psychopath, but not a criminal, just an abusive man to his children and his wife.
When I would go to visit my son in prison, it was almost like going to Oz or something. The SOUNDS, the heavy metal doors clanging shut and the razor wire and towers gave me the chills. I also noticed that my sons eyes did not make eye contact with me during a contact visit, they were continually darting around the room with hypervigilence. When I visited through the “phone booth” type of thing he did make eye contact, but he was locked inside and there was no danger he was going to be attacked.
There was a time I thought that if he had been sentenced to die that I could not have survived it, but I have come to a different feeling now. I know there are years and years on “death row” and sometimes even then, they are given life without parole. I’m not sure how I feel about the death penalty with all the people who are having DNA evidence prove them INNOCENT and they are being released from death row after many years. Of course there is no way to give them back that time of misery when they were innocent and looking at death eventually in prison.
During the years that I visited him fairly regularly I got to know the parents of some of his friends in prison, and it was interesting to see the different manners in which they dealt with it. Some, of course, even though the evidence was OVERWHELMING still believed their sons were innocent. No one in our family has ever thought he was innocent of any of his felony crimes.
I never hired an attorney for him or paupered myself for his defense. I figured if he did the crime, the public defender would do as adequate a case as a hired attorney and frankly I didn’t want him to get out if he was guilty. I raised my sons with the expectation that there were consequences for behaviors; at school, at home and in life.
I also never went bail for him. In Florida except for murder a juvinile would be released without bail to the parents, but he jumped it and ran. They brought him back and he did a few weeks in juvy, then they released him on probation to himself (he had turned 18 then.) He went back to TExas and within a few months was arrested again for a home invasion robbery. Florida was going to come get him after he was released on parole in Texas, but they missed some deadline to press for this so were unable to get him back. He served 2 yrs of a 5 yr sentence on the home invasion robbery and was only out 5 months before he killed the girl and was arrested the next day.
It seems strange to me that the Ps seem to have to TELL SOMEONE about their murders, like it isn’t any good if they don’t have someone to ADMIRE their “accomplishments.” Most of the time people get caught more for running their mouths than for anything else, at least it seems so. My son had to BRAG about what he was GOING TO DO (kill her) then come back after the fact and BRAG about what he did to her to her friends and hand them her personal items. He is still BRAGGING about how “horrible” it was. To me, I think to try to scare me, and to his “friend” (the Trojan HOrse Psychopath) to impress him.
EVeryone he has “bragged” to has “betrayed” him in the end. Very few people will keep that kind of a secret, or not use it for their own ends (blackmail) and not many people are “impressed” except other psychopaths and those can’t be trusted either. The bragadocio of the psychopaths though, like they must have that audience of approving “followers” seems to bring them down more than anything when it comes to criminal activity.
The police used his mouth as their biggest weapon against him, by putting a cop in the cell with him and he told the cop he had done it, and then asked the cop after the cop was released, over a monitored phone where the body was so the cop would go “move it for him.”
You know, I can’t understand why they would think that a person they met in jail for a few days would be willing to risk a murder charge for them—DUH! ???? But they don’t seem to have in many cases very much insight into “trusting” others. My son prides himself though on the “code of the inmate” and the “Never rat anyone out” even if they put you on the “rack” but I know that this “mythical” code is that, nothing but a myth! As long as you can get away with it without being discovered you are safe. Yes, the other inmates will retaliate if you are known to be a rat, but in reality THEY ALL ARE and will do whatever it takes to protect their own butts and the PERCEPTION that they stick to “the code.”
I actually think that my son thinks of himself as a success, and that the continual petty intrigues and smuggling of contraband is “entertainment” for him, gets his “juices flowing” to manuver and manipulate both other prisoners and the guards.
I ended up not only the child of a murderous psychopath but the mother of one too, so I do think I have “seen the clouds from both sides now.”
I’ve still got the entire 20 years of correspondence from him, but the letters I wrote to him are all gone as far as I know. They are all packed away. From time to time I have thought about destroying them, but have never done so, but have no desire to re-read them either. I’m not sure why I am saving them. Several people have suggested that I write a book about his life from my perspective as comfort for other parents of psychopaths, but I’m pretty sure at this point I will not do that. I think it would take too much out of me. I did write a book about being the child of one and had intention to have it published (I had a publisher) but in the end, I decided not to. So I only have a couple of copies of it for my kids and step kids. There’s no longer any desire to “have the world” to know. I think just the writiing of it at that time in my life, helped me resolve the worst of the issues I had about him. He had published a 1200 page tome, very little of which was not fiction, about his life and the first 7 chapters were damning to me, but not one word of which was true. I was so irate at the time about that (that was his point I am sure) that I wanted to tell the truth myself. But ultimately I realized that A) No one who knew me would belive one word of it and B) no one who knew him would believe one word of it and C) what did it hurt? LOL
When his next to the last wife divorced him she stated her reason that he was trying to get her to sleep with his business associates so he could blackmail them. My husband and I were defintely two people who BELIEVED HER. He tried the same thing with me. In his book, he damned anyone who had ever stood up to him, so it wasn’t just personal to me. He truly thought he was THE smartest individual in the world and the only one who had the right attitude about anything, yet, he STILL DESIRED, NEEDED, the adoration of the “stupid unwashed mases of worthless humanity” that he felt the rest of the human race was. He did end up with one son “created in his own image” though, and the other three of his children were “within normal limits.”
Wini – thank you for the link, I really enjoyed it. Absolutely beautiful. Very timely as my wife just showed me the “interview with God” yesterday.
And thank you again OxDrover, that’s a powerful story. Thank God you are here helping others by shareing your experience. I could definitely identify with most of what you wrote, but especially the description of visiting someone deep inside an institution. Visiting Death Row was very similar. It always felt excellent to leave there… Travis
Travis: I’m glad your wife showed you the Interview with God … that was awesome too.
I like to read all the positives sites on the net … makes me feel good that at least we are on the right path … even if a lot of people in the world thinks we are wasting our time being responsible people in todays world.
I know for me personally, people ask me why bother, why not join in? aka to get along you have to go along … I can’t. I just can’t sell my soul, no matter how easy it would be on me to do so! I think it does matter to be responsible for your words and your action and to ensure peace prevails.
Peace.