I was on my knees in the family room of our home. It was about 5:00 am and I was reflecting on some journaling that I had been doing for the past few months. It was suggested that I think through everything that I had written down about my past memories to be sure that I had everything.
I had been through a detox facility three months earlier to get off of pain pills a few months after having major back surgery. I had been off of the pills for three months now. I had become addicted to them and now I was “cleaning house” so that it wouldn’t happen again.
Suddenly, it hit me like a freight train. My initial thought, as fear began to grip my entire being, was “Oh My God”. I said this to myself over and over again. I began to tremble as the memories returned. There were so many emotions that the feeling is almost indescribable. This moment that I was remembering was so powerful that it led me to dismiss the existence of a God, at the time. This was my darkest secret and I had buried it deep. I spent years burying this secret so it would never see the light of day. Now here it was, and I was trembling, alone in my living room. On my knees, before God. The very God that I had dismissed all those years ago, shaking with fear”¦and full of shame.
The memory was from 1987. My father and I were sitting at a table in a bar at Applebee’s restaurant drinking a couple of beers. He had some “good news” and was excited to see me. He was overflowing with excitement and pride. He had some money for me.
My father liked to surprise people with “good news” so he smiled and handed me what I remember to be about $3,000.00. I really needed money at the time so I was extremely happy to get this money. Until I found out how he got it.
I asked him how he got it. This is the question that would change the course of my life. He asked if “I really wanted to know”. And I said yes. He asked if “I was sure” as though this was something extremely sensitive and I said yes again. I think we repeated this a couple of more times. After the second time he asked if “I was really sure I wanted to know” I didn’t want to hear the answer, but couldn’t say it. That thought was frozen and I couldn’t get the words out. Part of me wanted to know (out of curiosity), but part of me already knew that this was going to be bad. Very bad. I was already feeling sick, but couldn’t show my Dad that I was beginning to panic inside. I steadied myself, focused on my beer and listened. He said he stole the money from a “couple of dirty n***** drug dealers”. Here is how he described it to me:
He said that he set them up to believe that he had a large amount of cocaine buried out in the woods. He told them it came into his possession by some sort of fluke accident and he had no idea what it was worth. He told them he didn’t know anything about drugs and just wanted to get rid of it. The price he gave them was about one quarter of what it was worth. He said they fell all over themselves trying to take advantage of him. Said they thought he was a stupid old fart, white guy that didn’t know “what he had”. This was the con. They couldn’t resist it. Of course, there was no cocaine, and my father knew exactly what they would think it was worth. This was easy, he said. He absolutely loved to play the old fart role and use their greed as motivation. He was going to pay them back for “trying” to take advantage of an old fart like him. They were the bad guys, according to him.
He said he picked them up at the airport. They were wearing a sports jump suit and wearing a lot of jewelry. Typical “N******” he said. He played up the dumb white guy role as they drove out to the woods where he told them it was buried. They walked to a spot by a pond where he said it was located and began to dig. They were all three together. As they were digging my father told them that he needed to go back to the car to get another shovel to speed things up. He casually walked back to the car and opened the trunk as they continued to dig. He said he was very calm.
He wasn’t getting a shovel. No, he had a shotgun in the trunk. He said he leaned in the trunk, pulled out his shotgun, took aim and fired killing one of the black guys. He said he dropped immediately. He then pumped and shot the other guy in the shoulder and neck area, but he said it didn’t kill the son of a bitch and he ran. The level of excitement in my father’s voice increased dramatically as he told the rest of the story. He said “shit, I didn’t kill that bastard and I thought he was going to get away”. He laughed at his inability to hit his target.
The next part was described with great pride. He brimmed with satisfaction and delight of his own intelligence at how he improvised.
He figured the other guy had nowhere to go, so he went to the car, started it and backed it out of the woods. He made sure the other guy, if he was watching, thought he fled the scene. He parked the car and began to “slip” back into the woods towards the spot that he murdered the first guy. He explained how proud he was because he used his turkey hunting experience to slip back up on the wounded number two guy. As he quietly settled in with his shotgun pointed directly at the spot where the hole was, sure enough the second guy came sneaking back to see his friend. My father patiently waiting until he returned to the spot and dropped him. This time he didn’t miss. “That dumb n***** came right back to the same spot just like I knew he would”. He was giddy and excited.
Normally he would be watching my reaction to see if I was accepting of his behavior, but not this time. He was too full of himself to worry about what I thought. He also thought it would be totally acceptable to “kill two drug dealing n****** like these two pieces of shit”. How dare they think they could take advantage of an old fart like him? He had made them pay for that and he felt good about it.
Me, I stared at my beer and desperately tried to rationalize what was happening. It wasn’t computing and I was stuck. I stared at my beer and couldn’t wait to get away from him. But for now, I had to act happy for him. He would later say that he “remembered celebrating that moment with me”. I wasn’t celebrating. I was drifting, drinking and looking for relief from this pain. I was alone on this one and couldn’t tell a soul. I didn’t know who these guys were, where they were from or exactly where this had happened. No bodies, no crime scene? No, I was in deep with no where to go. What I didn’t know was there was more to come.
After we left the bar he took me out in the parking lot to show me the cash. He opened his trunk and showed me a black bag that contained about $25,000 to $30,000 (I don’t remember the amount). I looked and mustered a smile. “Neat Dad, nice job”. I wanted to throw up, cry, call for help, and yell. No where to turn. It was me and Dad.
Looking back, I did exactly the opposite of what I should’ve done. I turned away from God instead of towards him. I’ll never forget driving home on I-4 with my mind racing. So many questions, so many thoughts. Could I stop him, who do I call, what do I do now? Then I came back to the bigger question that was on my mind. How on God’s earth could something like this happen. How could this be? I was not a faithful person, but surely this couldn’t be a planet with a God? So right there, I decided that there was no God. Couldn’t possibly be. This, I tried to rationalize was a “nature thing”. The result of evolution and us being animals. My father was simply a predator and they were his prey. For the moment, that is how I accepted it. I rationalized this over and over. No God, just nature at work and I had a weird seat that most people don’t have. He was a predator, that’s it.
Later, this experience would add to the new “character behaviors” I was developing from being around my father. This one was interesting. Somehow, I would later bury and completely delete this memory from my record. Apparently though, like a computer, it was still on my “hard drive”, I just needed to look hard for it.
Now back to the morning that I was flooded with these memories. I again felt sick, but this was a different kind of sick. The kind of sick that comes from shame and wondering if somehow you could have protected people from being hurt, but did nothing. I didn’t understand the timeline of what I knew, when and if this knowledge could have stopped him along the way.
For now, I had to put these feelings aside and just do the right thing. What happened in the past had nothing to do with what I needed to do today. I went in the bedroom and sat down with my wife. I began to tell her the story. She had always suspected that something was bothering me deep down. We had been married for 13 years and she had seen me battle countless physical illnesses including back pain, migraine headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, sleep apnea and random nose bleeds. She always thought these were caused by something “mental”. I think she found relief in this memory. It explained so many things about me that she had suspected.
We talked and I knew what I had to do. Sure it had been 17 years and my father was already on death row, but the right thing to do was to call the police and tell them my story. No choice here. I didn’t need time to think about it, only to consider who I would call.
This would be the beginning of a trip down memory lane. One that covered years of living with a sociopath. Lost memories, most buried deep inside me from as far back as I could remember. Suddenly I began to understand everything. As I began to recount my father’s behavior and crimes I also began to learn about sociopaths. It was frightening and liberating at the same time. If you have crossed paths with a sociopath or have one in your family I hope my experiences help you see that there is hope and you are not alone.
You know what Travis?
If i had not been through what I have been through I would’nt believe you! LOVE jere
Kinda makes my story seem clean and undefiled. Although I wouldn’t put it past her to commit murder eventually. She wouldn’t care either way.
I totally believe that there are twisted people out there capable of killing another human like a deer– or turkey.
I have been around many men like that throughout my childhood that my mother introduced me to.
Where are you in your healing? What did your father do to get on death-row? It’s actually a good thing that you remembered these things. Your brain is saying that you’re ready to handle the impact of it, and you’re secure enough in your relationship with your wife that you can deal with it. Good for you and keep growing!
Travis,
I am so sorry for what you have been through. This helps me a little to understand that my mom truly must have burried memories of what her boyfriend has done. I know, but no amount of reasoning with her seems to get through since he has moved in with her and brainwashed her. I pray that you continue to heal and trust that God is there for you. I will keep you in my prayers.
Nancy
Travis: You just proved my professor correct. He stated that people do evil because they do not see the overall picture, the big picture, they look at what they are doing in the myopic view point. Your father needed money in his 50s. Obvious, low self esteem at that point in his life, he couldn’t focus on the bigger picture of getting a job and starting his life over, instead, in his myopic viewpoint, he decided to con these two men. He rationalized his deed by calling them derogatory names, which vindicated (in his mind) the deed he did to them. Instead of seeing the 2nd man coming back out of compassion and concern for his friend that was shot (the 1st man), your father rationalized this behavior in a derogatory way too.
John List looked at his devastation through the same myopic viewpoint when killing his entire family, his wife, his two children and his mother.
He lost his job as an accountant. Instead of confiding the loss of his job with his family to get everyone’s viewpoint and help in this situation, he pretended nothing happened. He pretended to go to work each day so no one suspected anything was amiss. He could not see the overall picture to his predicament … his myopic viewpoint of his predicament took over … he then planned and carried out the the killing of his family so, as he stated, they did not have to change their lavish lifestyle.
He fled the state of New Jersey and showed up in another state, under a false identity. Went back to work in the same profession, married an unsuspecting woman, lived years on the lamb … when the show Americas Most Wanted posted him on their show. Neighbors, friends, co-workers, church members, all called in to report John List was living in their community under an assumed name.
After he was arrested, convicted of his crimes … they found out that the house he lived in had a stained glass window made by L.C. Tiffany worth over $150,000.00 … which if he saw the overall picture of his life at the time, spoke with his family members, maybe one of them would have mentioned “hey dad, we’re not broke, will just sell the window”. I’m sure his wife and mother knew what that window was worth?
I’m sorry for you pain Travis. People need to learn how to step back and see the overall picture and these evil deeds would never need to occur. There is always solutions to any problem, a person just needs to be willing to see life in a different way, that of being in this world, but not of this world.
Peace.
I don’tthink it’s a failure to look at the big picture- normal choices aren’t even considered.
Need money- kill is what some resort to. Need more money- kill more.
They’d have to forego their natural inclination for power and control, they don’t act for just sex or money….it’s the kick.
The joie de vivre of fornicating with the wife’s husband in the next room.
Dear Travis,
I can definitely relate to your story about your father’s pride in his voice telling how proud he was of what he had done. My own father proudly described murders he had committed, and I am not sure how much of it is true, but I do know of two men he killed (there was a witness to one) and the other though I did not witness the crime, my bio-father bragged about it, and the man did “disappear” but it was on another continent…the man was a friend of mine, and he had been killed for helping me escape my father’s clutches. Even if I had gone to the police it wouldn’t have done any good, I did the only thing I could do at the time, which was at age 19, I buried myself more deeply in hiding from my bio-father.
He died last year in June. It was a relief for me in many ways. He did his best, even with his death to “smear” me in print, and at first it made me furious, but after some thought, I realized that NO one who knew me would believe a word of it, and what did I care if anyone else did believe it?—I wouldn’t know them anyway.
For ten years after I did manage to get safely away from my bio-father’s reach, I finally came to some resolution with the trauma of it all. Until recently when I had a run in with my own psychopathic son, who is in prison doing “life” for a cold blooded assassination murder did i realize that I still had some issues to deal with concerning my bio-father, and my own upbringing by my mother (a toxic enabler of male family members) and for the first time in my life, I am TRULY FREE.
Though my bio-father raised my three half sibs (he did not raise me) two of the three turned out well, and only one of them is like him, a P, I suspect. No person who wasn’t disordered would “respect” and “emulate” my P-bio father and from the writings of my half-brother’s that I have read, I suspect he is much like my father.
When I was young and would try to tell people about my P experience with my P-biio-father, unless the person had personally known my bio-father there is NO way they would believe me. I finally stopped talking about it to anyone. Fortunately, my late husband had known my bio-father personally and I had no problem with validation or being believed. That made a big difference in my life, just having one person who would believe the tales of horror.
I ended up writing a book about it all (not for publication) for my kids mainly, but also so I could get some “order” into the tales that are so unbelieveable. Just writing it, organizing it, etc. I think helped me to pull the weeds and thorns out of my own soul where he was concerned. I no longer even care if anyone else validates my experience, because I have validated myself. But I remember the days when it was SO important to me to be validated, to be believed, and no one would, no one COULD believe such a story. If it hadn’t happened to ME, I wouldn’t have believed it, and in someways I didn’t believe it anyway.
I hear the pain in your posts, Travis. I have felt that pain, I think anyone who has had a “relationship” with a P on whatever level has felt that pain.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, in his wonderful book “Man’s Search for Meaning” which he wrote after his years in a Nazi prison camp, in which he analyzed what keeps people going, what gives meaning to life, even in the ULTIMATE P-SITUATION, as a prisoner of war, despised and starved, yet he found MEANING in that experience, positive meaning, not bitterness. To me, that meaning that he felt in the ULTIMATE P situation gave me hope, that I too could find meaning in the P-experience, meaning that would improve my life, not embitter it.
I don’t know holywatersalt: First, he clouded his judgment by viewing life through vices … ignoring the virtues in life (one knocks out the other) and then viewing this vice perception in a myopic way (another opposite myopic versus seeing the big picture).
For everything … there is it’s opposite.
Peace.
Dear Oxy and Travis: Just goes to show what free will can do! Free will that both of you took the righteous paths in life and focused on virtues … and unfortunately, free will allows others to take unrighteous paths in life and focus on the vices.
Peace to both … I know Oxy made it through her horror story, as are most of us on this blog … I hope Travis, that you too make it through.
I’m praying for everyone, you are in my thoughts nightly.
Peace and big hugs.
Oxy- Please understand my curiosity here. I’m not trying to pry, and feel free to NOT answer my question if it is too personal.
Was your father also a rapist? It just seems that if somebody is capable of murder, then it would go hand-in-hand that they molest, rape, pillage, too.
Martha Stout makes a good point in her book The Sociopath Next Door about conscience. She says that even ordinary people can lose their conscience if they start to regard others as “its” who are inferior to us. That is the only way we can justify going to war and killing people–because we have dehumanized them, as Travis’ father did with the drug dealers. This is the irony of why we can’t just round up all the sociopaths and kill them. Because we would be doing exactly what they are doing–turning them into “its”. It is precisely our compassion and conscience that prevents us from doing that, which is why we are still (as a society) at their mercy. Caring people question themselves. Caring people do not desire to take the lives of others. The story is very chilling, and I cannot imagine how alone and scared you (Travis) must have felt while your father was telling you his story. I’m so glad you had the courage to face the memory and tell your story. I hope this is the beginning of major healing for you.