Due Process

by Lyle O'Connor

  A few weeks passed and I saw a porcupine slowly climbing a tree just a few feet from the ground. It was a young porcupine and I had no way of knowing if it was his quills that led to my dog’s death and maybe it didn’t make any difference. Using my bow, I took aim and stuck him to the tree. Looking back I’d say that was my first taste of revenge and I savored it.

  The Avenger’s engine cooled and it was time to retire to my quarters for a good night’s rest. Seth Poole’s encounter with Walter had gone as planned and another project awaited my attention. I wasn’t born Walter but out of necessity I came forth. I am what I am, a normal average guy, that’s all. Some people will see it differently and hate me for what I am. The criticism will not disturb me. Others, probably fewer in numbers and silent, will thank me for what I am. None will understand, unless you are like me, and maybe you are.

  Chapter 2

  Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

  —African Proverb

  Events happened during my formative years that had an impact on the way I saw the world. President Kennedy was assassinated. We were on the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban missile crisis. Vietnam, anti-war marches, political corruption, Black Panthers and race riots. Social upheaval, political corruption, Mafioso, and a nationwide epidemic in drug abuse; we devoured it as it was broadcast every night during our evening meal.

  The United States Supreme Court swung the pendulum to liberalism by banning capital punishment for cold-blooded murderers. In my book, the decision to do something as callous as take another human life carried with it the consequence of forfeiting their life. Sadly, societal norms had greatly changed. I struggled to grasp the wishy-washy namby-pamby way society spewed out their “idealistic” utopist views. It was an unrealistic expectation for human behavior.

  The judiciaries’ decision to ban the death penalty nationwide and convert all death sentences to prison terms was based on their new interpretation of the United States Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. They decided execution of a murderer was cruel and unusual punishment. In their opinion, it was a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment. Apparently, for 150 years, the Congress and Supreme Court had misinterpreted the law. Now, in 1972, the Johnny-come-lately Supreme Court judges discovered the proper interpretation. It was an insult that would not go unpunished. However, it was “We the people” that were penalized for their errors.

  The lessons of life had transformed me from what I was as a child to what I am today. I did a tour in the military during the Vietnam War and once again found myself on the wrong side of public opinion. My book rapidly filled with ideas of mistrust for all politicians and government. They simply could not be counted on to do the right thing.

  I tried my hand at marriage with my high school sweetheart but we were soon separated by military deployments. We matured, grew apart with different likes and dislikes, and eyed different futures for ourselves. When the divorce was final we said our goodbyes. We never saw each other again. Somehow my memories of her are more romantic than real life, but that’s okay, I prefer it that way. As I remember her now she is young, beautiful and frozen in time.

  I wasn’t much for barracks life; however, I did discover a remarkable kindred spirit in some of the troops. My first dorm roommate was with Sgt. Stone who I called “Stoneman.” He was a Texican from what he referred to as the Armpit of Texas. It was a small dustbowl town in the Panhandle but the name escapes me. We spent hours jawing over the criminal headliners of the day. We reinforced each other’s beliefs that consequences should be imposed that would probably never happen. My opinion was always the same. Annihilate them! Thin the herd! Execution was too humane unless it was done with a Ginsu knife over the course of a week or two. I wanted them to suffer excruciating pain. In my way of thinking, atonement was necessary.

  Stoneman professed to be religious and expressed more compassion. “Give them a chance for redemption.” In my way of thinking they didn’t deserve it but I tempered to some small degree. Stoneman would regurgitate some hogwash he’d heard in church, “What if they were gonna find the Lord sometime in the future and execution takes that chance away?” My feeling was, “I don’t care,” but for the sake of conversation I offered a compromise. “If they are convicted they got ninety days for one appeal. At the end of the appeal time they swung on a rope.” Stoneman agreed, if that wasn’t sufficient motivation to find the Lord, most likely nothing in the future would ever make a difference.

  Stoneman and I took the occasional jaunt out on the town for a little well-earned rest and relaxation. We’d hook up with a couple other troops and the crew would spend the night restoring our faith in humanity one drink at a time. The good thing about “the crew” was they were nearly as opinionated as we were when it came to the topics of serial killers of the day. Frequently we toasted our first drink of the night to Utah’s firing squad that had sent Gilmore on his way to the next life. We dreamed aloud of forming a vigilante force, going inside prisons and getting some of these scumbags. Someone in the “crew” came up with the idea of keeping a file on these convicts and at some later date, when all emphasis was off these slime-buckets, we would exterminate them. The plan was simple and I liked it. What a revelation, others believed like I did.

  When my enlistment ended I returned to the ranch in Oregon. Most of my friends had left The Dalles for college, military, or employment. It was difficult to pick up where I had left off. Unemployment was high. Somehow, it was all a catalyst to seek a life elsewhere. By early, 1978, I landed a good paying job in Portland. It was aluminum factory work, repetitious, hot, and laborious. It wasn’t exciting work but my future was there. It was a relatively stable and secure time in my life. However, I was distracted by only one thing, violent crimes. I was busy cutting out articles and alphabetizing them in a shoddy filing system.

  Theodore Edward Bear, a liberal “lefty,” was a brave sort in our midst. He was a college-educated Native American from a local Oregon tribe—a fact he never failed to mention when it was to his benefit. Bear was the kind of a guy who thought of himself as being smarter than everyone else at the plant. He looked down his nose at the common working stiff, even though he was blue collar. He may have had an above-average IQ, but he was lucky to get his boots tied in the morning. Nonetheless, Theodore, whom we called Teddy, mostly because he hated the nickname, could be very persuasive when arguing a point. Usually I didn’t care about his psychotic drivel but there came a time he would be cast as my archrival and nemesis in debate.

  Almost daily at the factory break room, Teddy engaged in debate. For a few years I avoided these gladiatorial events but when Teddy fired up on criminal rights, the need to vocalize my opinion surfaced. I put forth an effort to avoid a showdown with my antagonist, but irritation set in when he garnered a small group of allies to join in the debates. We referred to Teddy and Melvin Lowe as the Duo. They were two peas in a pod.

  Lowe was a recent convert to Ted E. Bear liberalism. He was a Muslim transplant from Madagascar, who didn’t fit in terribly well at the factory. Our expectations of workers in third-world countries were that they would be hard workers. Lowe put that misconception to rest. He came from a well-to-do family and didn’t know the first thing about physical labor. His reason for coming to America was a mystery to us. I personally think he was a political activist, probably a wanted man, and a political refugee. That was just my theory.

  Marsha Mellor was an ardent defender of both Bear and Lowe, not necessarily their causes. Regardless, she was their groupie. Marsha could be counted on to add nothing to the debate besides her vote of confidence in the Duo’s position. It was inevitable that she would be tagged with a sarcastic nickname, and I’m pleased to be the first to have said it. Her lack of input and constant headshaking when the Duo spoke, favored the dynamics of a “Bobble-head.” Yes, it stuck. Bobble-head became known far and wide; at least at the factory.

  The Duo frequently tried to tag-team a debate. To me it was nothing more than a filibus
ter of stupidity. They considered themselves defenders of the weak and the poor. Loosely translated, it meant they were sympathetic to welfare proliferation, social activism, and the criminal’s plight. I was not. In fact, I was insulted by their rhetoric. Mel was good enough to pay me a compliment on a number of occasions, calling me heartless and cruel. It was actually the highlight of my day. Further, I didn’t argue his insult. I wore it as a badge of honor.

  It was during this time I begun to vividly fantasize through daydreams and nightmares of rectifying the wrongs I saw. Villains had names, and thanks to the media‘s showing of film clips and the flashing of photos across the screen, my dreams grew more intense. The more I killed the better I felt, and the more convinced I became they deserved the punishment.

  Regardless of how righteous I felt in my dreams, reality was quite different. Villains hitting the streets after a couple of years in the slammer and reoffending within months didn’t sit well with me. The only remedy that rang true to me was “the fifty-cent solution,” which was the price of a couple rounds of ammunition.

  I was obsessed. I had become a media packrat, building files of newspaper clippings on criminal activity. Periodically, I went through and attempted to organize my files to make sense of what I was doing. These clippings were helpful to support my debates with the Duo. Memorization of statistics and details from these snippets came easy. I dwelt upon them daily much like a sports fanatic can quote statistics from their favorite team. A downside to gathering information was the feeling of frustration. Arguing with coworkers coupled with the injustice of the legal system weighed heavily on me. The penalties handed out to sex offenders, child kidnappers, and other violent criminals were more like inconveniences. I found myself at times ranting and raving when violators beat the legal system through courtroom shenanigans. At times, I might have appeared out of control to my coworkers, but more concerning, was the fact that I wasn’t.

  It was true—my behavior was escalating toward the socially unacceptable. I found it more difficult to keep my dream world separated from this insane world. I enjoyed the feeling of action and my innermost being was motivated to achieve something more satisfying than dreaming.

  I praised the news media and despised them at the same time. Without them there would be little in the way of a constant catalyst to my behaviors. They saturated the airways with more and more graphic details of criminal violence. I both loved and hated it. I tried to limit my exposure from time to time, but that left me concerned with what I was missing.

  The news media were not without their hypocrisy. Their insincerity ran deep. They abused their power to exploit victims of crime and sell their spin. I held them responsible, not for reporting the news, but for sensationalizing it. Horrific crimes always made the front page of the Metro sections but rarely were the trial results plastered on the front page a year or two later. People weren’t interested in punishment—just the sensational nature of the crime. Nothing about the unjust plea deals being cut with the criminals or the early releases back into society. That was the real news. The media had been weighed, measured, and found wanting.

  I started judo while in the service and played a couple years before turning to jujitsu in 1985. I enjoyed this activity for many reasons. I had felt it was giving me an edge over my frustration and a degree of self-control. By the early ‘90s, I found more and more people who were taking martial arts for self-defense. I was a class helper and frequently spoke with parents who enrolled their children. Without question, the number one reason for bringing their kids to the class was to give them a fighting chance against a violent predator. I was paired up with a younger man, Justyn Kase, who became a close friend. He worked the retail floor as a shoplift detective, which was a bit cowboyish in a rough-and-tumble sort of way. He was the first person I had met since the military I felt a comradeship with. He was hardcore when it came to violent criminals. He was the kind of guy that was looking for an excuse to unleash hell on the bad guys. I had already found one.

  My personal contempt for the justice system continued to grow. Executions were few and far between with only a handful of states participating. Liberal newsmakers frequently covered the stories by presenting for the viewer a handful of religious zealots holding candles and singing or praying for the poor condemned murderers. Some states pushed forward with more executions while others stepped back from pursuing the deaths of even the worst offenders. A rise of anti-capital-punishment groups and civic organizations coupled with various religious activists fueled resources to overturn the death penalty. Lawyers had their own version of anti-whatever by driving the cost to execute so high through the “legal system” that it was less costly to let them rot in jail than execute them. If violent criminals actually rotted, I could have lived with it. But they didn’t, not even close.

  The Duo and I squared off many times from Robert Berdella to Arthur Shawcross. The results were always the same. No change. The villainous headliners all had one thing in common. They were serial killers who satisfied their bloodlust at another human’s expense. They enjoyed the sadistic rape and torture of their weaker victims, and still the Duo advocated for their continued existence.

  “We need to house and study them,” Bear would say, “Psychologists and psychiatrists can help us to understand them. Maybe then we can prevent the next serial killer from becoming one.” My response likewise remained the same, “All the doctors in the world will never understand or stop the next killer.” Then abruptly I added, “They need to die.” Bear, at this point, always appeared panicky. “Killing these people is not the answer! We’ll never understand what makes them killers unless we study them.”

  It took many debates to realize what drove Bear and his cronies to know “why” with such an intense sincerity; it was fear. They didn’t know what made a psychopath a psychopath. No one understood “why” or ever would, especially the professionals who made a living off studies and research. They produced books and lectured at universities and regurgitated their theories like they had the key to understanding. In the end, they offered nothing but excuses. They could not stop the next serial killer from appearing. I probably understood better than most. They didn’t have a clue what made me tick.

  Sounding like attorneys the Duo recited “excuses” as though reading from the criminal defense playbook. They regurgitated excuses but never put forward an answer. Diminished capacity because you’re a raving loony from a nut bin, had a crappy childhood, possessed by demons, or because you’ve ingested drugs and alcohol until you don’t know who you are or what you’re doing, does not excuse criminal behavior—you are still guilty. I contended it is impossible to understand serial murderers, rapists, or violent criminals with a rational mind. It’s a wiring problem and they need to be put down.

  Teddy was an advocate of the “second chance” theory for violent offenders. He was passionate and always looking to blame something other than the guilty person. I favored a zero recidivism rate guaranteed by a firing squad. If sex offenders kidnapped, raped, or otherwise initiated a violent act on one of my family members, I would want them dead, not given a second chance. I knew others felt the same way. Society could not afford “second chances” to repeat these offenses. What about my concern for the offenders? I had none!

  In 1966 Serial killer Richard Speck entered a student dorm and raped, tortured, and murdered eight student nurses in the Chicago area. He received the death penalty for his crimes. The story should have said “The End” but it didn’t. The Supreme Court in 1972 added insult to injury when they ruled capital punishment unconstitutional. They went out of their way to commute all death penalties to specific incarceration times to serve. Speck received a sentence of fifty to one hundred years. The Court changed its opinion in 1976, reinstating capital punishment. The harm and revictimization to the families of the murdered nurses were already done. In 1991 Speck died in jail. Whatever consolation, solace, and comfort were garnered from Speck rotting in jail was momentary at best. Wh
at should have been a time of closure for the families was offensively interrupted. The Supreme Court’s error was altered in 1976 but death penalties were not reinstated. Speck was not subject to the isolation of death row or having to face death looming over him. How hard could it have been on him?

  Evidently, it hadn’t been very hard. In early 1996, a videotape surfaced of Speck’s horrible life behind bars complete with sex, alcohol, and cocaine. Even in light of this video, Teddy took opposition to the death penalty. Speck voiced his sympathy for his victims on the video, “It must not have been their day.” What amazed me the most was Bear mirrored Speck in his compassion for the victims and their families. Was it possible Bear argued for what was inside him, as I did, for what dwelt in me?

  Arguing with my archrival and nemesis would continue until I decided to leave the factory in 1996. I’d grown weary of their misguided mindset and tired of doing nothing about it. If I right the wrongs, I’ll be a murderer in my own right and equally guilty of the same crime according to the law. The only exception—they are guilty criminals, not innocent victims. The difference is what makes the difference.

  Judgment is coming at the hand of man, not some god. Civilized society can never survive without it. Try as they may to secure utopia, it comes by the aid of a barbaric monster hidden in the recess of society. They simply hate to admit the need for such a creature as Walter.

  Chapter 3

  The key to success is making your dreams come true

  —Anonymous

  What’s the difference between a dream and a nightmare? My guess, the context of what the dreamer enjoyed was the greatest difference. Personally, I looked forward to sleep. It allowed me to enter the familiar territory of a dream world that I controlled completely. What was so special about my dream world? It was where imagination took on a nightmarish exercise of mental conditioning. Something I had come to appreciate.