Stolen Life

by Rudy Wiebe

  I have never denied that I was involved. I was angry at the possibility that this man [“Chuck” Skwarok] could be a child molester, sitting in my home, I was angry because I couldn’t talk to him about it, I was angry at myself that I had to try to convince myself to get angry or mad enough to even start to talk about it […]. And I couldn’t walk away, I couldn’t run away. It was my home. It was my children, I just didn’t know what else to do […].

  The next thing I knew all four of us were down there in the basement. And everybody was fighting and I was just standing there.

  Ernie would like bulldog him, and run him up against the wall, and then Shirley Anne […] would come up there and punch him right where his head was cut, she just made it bleed, punching him there.

  A lot of wrestling around and blood was getting all over the place, he was bleeding pretty bad from his head. And I didn’t know how bad he was cut.

  They were fighting and wrestling all over the place, it was mainly Ernie and Shirley Anne, you know that Shirley Anne, where I come from you’re taught to fight one on one, you fight until one guy says “I give up.” Everybody fights in Montana, but you weren’t allowed to pull hair after the fourth grade and if you want to fight you call that person out and meet them after school, it’s equivalent to having a gun showdown in the street. Nobody is allowed to jump in.

  I didn’t like the way Shirley Anne would sneak in there. She was evil, she knew where she was hitting, every time. I didn’t figure she had that in her. And I didn’t like it.

  Or Ernie, that he could fight that hard.

  Here it was my home, my children I wanted to protect, and now I actually didn’t want them fighting him any more—and yet I had to try and save face that I wasn’t condoning his actions by telling them to leave him alone. So in my own warped way, and I know it’s not right, I didn’t say anything in the first place. I know it’s a twisted way of thinking to somehow defuse the situation at the time.

  When Chuck was getting the best of Ernie, then Shirley Anne’d jump in there, and it just bothered me. She did all this to get us started and now she was doing this. I just didn’t like any of this.

  So I would try to break it up, and told him, “Don’t fight me,” I told him, “All I want is get you cleaned up and outa here.” And Shirley Anne was standing there like a vulture, “Go,” I says, “go get some water. We’ll wash him up.”

  She was mumbling around that she had to be sent away, but that was one of her chances to get out of the situation if she had wanted to—as she said later in court she wanted to so badly. She went upstairs and she came back, all she had was this tiny tin pot of water, what good was that supposed to do? I put a rag in there and it soaked all the water up.

  Washing Chuck, all I did was smear his blood around. I told Shirley Anne she was useless, so I went upstairs and brought a big pot of water back down. I had him cleaned off pretty good, and then he started bleeding again.

  And I felt sorry for him, I felt really sorry. I would try to hold the rags on his face where it was bleeding so it would stop, and then he looked at me.

  And there was something about his eyes, it all becomes weird, something happened inside me then and I’d look away from him, and then I would convince myself to have pity again and I’d try to help him and I would look in his eyes, and I would see that again.

  And I could smell his sweat mixed with the water. I don’t know, just the smell and his eyes, I don’t know what the hell happened, I just stood back and looked at him and all of a sudden the pity I felt was gone, and I felt anger, this real bad anger. I said something to him, something about his eyes.

  “You breathe like a pig,” I said, “you smell like a pig,” and I couldn’t understand and I says, “I can’t clean you up, you’re bigger than this!” I remember taking that whole pot of water and I spilled it on him.

  And when I did that, I flipped again—I thought, I did that? why’d I do that?—it seemed really cruel on my part to have done that and I let out a scream and I just spun around and I took off across the basement.

  And when I did that, then Ernie started fighting him again, and Shirley Anne too.

  They accused him of being an abuser, fighting and yelling, and I don’t know what it is, but I felt sorry for him again. I came in between them and I broke them up, they were pounding him and throwing accusations and at that moment I wanted to protect him and I don’t know why but I turned around and looked at him.

  And I told him, “Do you really know how it feels, to be raped as a child? Do you?”

  He didn’t answer me, and when he didn’t answer me I hit him, and I told him, “Tell me, if you know, what it feels like for someone to rape you as a child!”

  He said nothing and I screamed, and spun away from him and shot off across the basement again.

  And the other two were all over him. Ernie yelled, “I’ll show him what it’s like, I’ll show him how it feels.” I was standing there.

  Ernie was going to sexually abuse him. I was just standing there, I … I don’t know what really happened. Somehow Shirley Anne got his pants off, he was standing, his head was facing the dugout in the basement and Ernie was by the slide we had built for the kids, Chuck was bent over. He was saying,

  “No—no—no.…”

  And Ernie was working himself into a frenzy and trying to undo the string of the jogging pants he was wearing. And I was just standing there, I didn’t know what was happening, and Ernie yelled, “Take off his pants, take off his pants!”

  And Shirley Anne reached over and pulled down Chuck’s pants. Ernie was going towards him. And then I came between him and Ernie again when Ernie was pulling down his pants, and in my own way I tried to stop him.

  I told Ernie, “You don’t want to filthy yourself, you don’t want to do that.”

  And somehow Shirley Anne was standing there and she had a table [stool] leg and she was saying, “Here, use this, use this,” and Ernie grabbed it, and somehow Dwayne wound up with it.

  And I remember looking at Dwayne and looking in his eyes and I took it away from Dwayne and I told him, “I’ll do it!”

  Because I knew Ernie would’ve done it, and I knew Shirley Anne would’ve done it, so I faked it.

  I came in between them guys, and either Ernie or Dwayne was holding Chuck by his head in a headlock, I don’t remember, and Dwayne was saying something, “You can’t use that.”

  Because the leg had a plastic tip at the floor end and a screw in the other; so I knew you couldn’t use this, but I was not intending on penetrating him.

  And in the process of acting like I did, made me feel horrible. To be honest I did not penetrate him, I could never have did that or he would have bled. I just acted like I did, or otherwise Ernie would’ve raped him. I acted like I did, I took the leg and I threw the leg across the basement, “There!”

  Everybody thought that I did, but I didn’t. And I says, “Let him go, let him go now.”

  And I don’t know what happened again, someone started asking him if he was the guy going around picking up all the kids on the street. And then he started crying. Ernie said, “I knew it, I knew it!” and Wham! they were all over him again, Ernie and Shirley Anne fighting him again.

  And I never told anybody, because I could never explain my own stupid actions. It made sense to me, then, to act like I raped him, but I didn’t. Otherwise Ernie would’ve did it, I did that to stop Ernie. But for some reason every time I did something to stop it, it wasn’t final, it didn’t, it made matters worse. It’s just crazy.

  Then Ernie ran him headlong into the sewer stack. And he started bleeding more, I don’t know if it was from his head or any place else.

  But now he had no pants on, only a T-shirt. And I didn’t want to look at him [Yvonne is now audibly crying] ’cause when I look at him I hated him when I looked at his nakedness. I hated to see his nakedness. They were beating him again, and again in my own strange way, I can’t understand, but I kind of hated him now when I saw h
is nakedness, I kind of hated him.

  When they were fighting him I went upstairs and I got a knife.

  I came back downstairs and said, “We’ll just tie him up,” you know, that seemed like another way to stop it.

  When I wasn’t looking at him he wasn’t naked, but when I did look he was naked.

  And I hated his penis. [Crying] And I hated his body. And I hated men.

  And I didn’t know what the hell I was feeling and I didn’t want them to beat him.

  I didn’t want Shirley Anne to have control, I didn’t like any of it—but I was there.

  So I went over and I cut this big thick cable cord that we had for our TV […]. “Let me tie you up,” I says, “and they’ll stop fighting you.”

  So he willingly laid on the floor and I cut the telephone cord, it was the really thin thin white see-through plastic that comes from a real old phone.

  And I was over him, he was lying on his belly and I told him to put his hands behind his back. I attempted to tie him up but it wouldn’t work, I was so drunk I couldn’t keep my balance, I went back. I started falling backwards.

  And I put my hand back to stop myself, and when I did that my hand touched his naked rear end.

  And something happened to me. All of a sudden I was really mad at him again. I started saying that he’s a child molester, no good—and I put the cord around his neck and I pulled back on it real hard and it broke within seconds.

  And when it broke, I moved away and they were back on him, fighting him again. Dwayne was there but I don’t remember him, the rare time, in the beginning, he’d only fight when Chuck was getting the better of Ernie and Shirley Anne. Later on he was just there.

  Shirley Anne and Ernie were doing all the beating. I felt bad because I knew it was my fault, if I could have done something—so I suggested to them, “Let’s tie him up, let’s just tie him up.”

  So Chuck sat down by the [floor-beam support] pole which Ernie had thrown him against, he put his arms around the pole and there was an attempt to tie him with the cable cord. But it was too big, too thick, it was old, old cable cord, so you try to tie it in a knot and you would let go and it would come undone.

  Somehow while this was going on we got back on the conversation of him being the guy going around molesting all these children in the area. He wouldn’t say anything, he’d just start to cry. So I went to him.

  “If that’s you, you should get help.”

  And he said something about he would stop drinking, he’d sign himself in some place, he’d get help.

  And it was really strange, all the time through that basement I was like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When he said that I says, “You know you hurt people, you hurt children.” And it was like I was shifted into another person, but I knew I didn’t, I didn’t have multi-personalities.

  “Well, why don’t you confess,” I told him. “Why don’t you tell us? What you did? Where did you do it?”

  He just started crying then, and I started getting mad because I knew, I knew it was him. And I did something mean again—to help him be honest I took his wrist and ran the knife over his wrist and I told him, “You either make your confession now or I’ll slash your wrist.”

  That’s when he admitted that he was the guy that was abducting the children.

  I let out a scream and I jumped away from him. I threw the knife on the floor.

  And all I remember next is my old man picked up the knife, and he says, “Never, never leave that lying there!”

  When Chuck admitted it was him, all hell broke loose and Ernie started fighting him again. So I turned around and I said, “Just knock him out!”

  Because I thought if he was just out cold they would not fight him, while he’s knocked out. I told Dwa, he was going up on charges for knocking out these two police officers, Dwa was an ex-boxer, “Dwa, just knock him out,” I said, “it’s the only way to do it.” So Dwa tried to knock him out, but Chuck wouldn’t even pretend he was knocked out. He just fell over, and got back up again, he was sitting there. And Ernie lost it and said, “I’ll knock him out!” He came up with the side of his foot, hit him on the side of the head. Chuck went over, they were wrestling around.

  I said, “I’ll knock him out,” and I took the cable cord and wrapped it around his neck and he went like this a couple of times to take it off […]. When I pulled, I slipped. I was pretty drunk and soaked and wet from the water that was all over the place and when I fell over and got mad, I couldn’t pull, I was sliding across the wet floor and I did something cruel.

  I put one foot behind his head and one foot on his shoulder. And I pulled real hard for two or three seconds, and then I let go.

  Chuck started gagging, and kind of coughing. I just got up and went [away] again, I just got out of the situation.

  Ernie says, “I’ll knock him out.” Chuck was on his belly and his head was tilted sideways, but it was tilted back. Dwayne was standing on top of his back, and Ernie came and kicked him in the back of the head.

  And I heard this crack. I don’t know what it was. And Ernie kept kicking him on the back of his head, on the neck. Then Shirley Anne came and did the same thing, and I got mad at Shirley Anne and I grabbed her and threw her. And I heard a gargling sound. And Ernie got mad again, and took the TV cord that was around his neck and he just pulled it straight up, till he lifted him up off the floor by the cord that was around his neck.

  He didn’t seem to be fighting or anything. Ernie started pulling him around with it. Shirley Anne was siding with him, there was never no plan, for minute to minute or even second to second. I think Ernie was jealous because Shirley Anne was talking on the phone sexually to Chuck and since he had slept with her the night before, he would make himself look like a man for her […].

  So. Ernie was jerking him around with this cord by the neck, Dwa was still standing on him. And then Shirley Anne grabbed the cord and we were still trying to knock him out. And I said, “If you’re going to, just, if he tries to get up then you can hold on like this.”

  But what she was doing, she would choke him and stop choking him, she was supposed to be doing this to the time of his breathing.

  And Ernie was going crazier on him, and this is where I did something real stupid ’cause Ernie had another table [stool] leg and he was going to use this table leg on him and I wound up spreading his legs and Ernie shoved it all the way up his rectum.

  And when he did that Dwa said, “Chuck pissed himself.”

  Dwa said, “He’s dead.”

  I said, “No, he’s not.”

  And Dwa said, “Yes he is, he pissed himself.”

  “No, he’s not,” I said, “just watch his breathing.”

  Dwa was standing on top of him and I looked over and Shirley Anne had that cord, and she just had it tight, she was pulling on it, she had it [so] tight around his neck that she was holding it back with her weight, her body was on a tilt.

  And I told her, “Let go,” but she wouldn’t listen. I was trying to see if he was okay.

  “Shirley Anne, let go!” Three or four times I yelled at her, and she wouldn’t. Finally I got up and I just pushed her and she flew across the room, and I took the cord off him.

  Dwa was still standing on him and I pushed Dwa, I said, “Get off!” And I was standing there looking at him.

  Everything was quiet, there was no noise, no commotion, no nothing. We all just stood there and were looking at each other. I was trying to watch him breathe, and I couldn’t see it, his chest going up and down.

  Dwa said, “He’s dead.”

  But I kept saying, “No, he’s not. No, he’s not.”

  Everybody wound up going upstairs, and we started kind of panicking. Ernie started walking back and forth really fast, and I looked across at Shirley Anne. She was sitting by the sink: she was covered with blood. There was none on me, Ernie was covered in blood, and Dwa was sitting there very quiet in a kitchen chair and he had no blood on him either.

  Shirley Anne
sat by the sink on some empty beer cases and it was really weird what she was doing. She had on a red pullover T-shirt and she pulled up the sleeves and her arms were just covered with blood. Just covered. It seemed like it didn’t even faze her, she had her arms out and she’d twist them from one side to the other, she’d slink her hands, she’d kind of slap her hands together one on the other like that [slapping] and look at them. She was smiling. The longer I watched her, the more—she sat there, nothing was bothering her. I was being torn into a hundred million different pieces and she was sitting there calm, cool, collected, just looking at the blood on her arms and hands.

  Dwa was sitting across from me at the table and he was still very quiet. I couldn’t look at Shirley Anne, and I turned and looked at him, and I said, “He’s not dead.”

  Dwa goes, “Yeah, he is.” And after a minute, “Is that what everybody wanted?”

  “No.” I said. “No, he’s not.” Then I looked at Ernie: “Ernie, is he dead?”

  Ernie was pacing back and forth, really jittery. And he goes: “Yeah, he’s dead.”

  “No, he’s not.” And I looked at Shirley Anne: “Shirley Anne, is he dead?”

  She says, “Yeah, he’s dead.”

  And I said to her, “No. He’s not.”

  I couldn’t look at her any more, so I got up and I figured he was just playing like he was passed out, finally. I went down a couple of cellar steps to where the first step was missing and I squatted down there looking at him.

  I was waiting for him to move. And I kept thinking, Don’t do this, stop playing this game, and I’ll catch you, you have to breathe sometime.

  I sat there, and I was watching him. Waiting.

  In Wetaskiwin, Alberta, sometime around midnight between 14 and 15 September 1989, four people fight one man in a small basement. Within eleven hours, that man’s body is examined and verified as dead by police. At the trial in the Wetaskiwin Courthouse on 7 March 1991, Dr. Graeme Dowling, the Prosecution’s expert in the field of forensic pathology, responsible for overseeing the investigation of sudden, unexpected deaths, testifies: “It was my opinion at the conclusion of my examination that this individual had died as a result of the combined effects of ligature strangulation and blunt injuries, but that the more important of these two causes was ligature strangulation.” For the ligature (a “long, thin flexible object” like a rope or cord) strangulation to be fatal, he said it would have to be applied steadily for at least three to five minutes.