“No you don’t. Get the fuck off my property,” she said through tightly clenched teeth.
Ignoring her words, I asked why she’d murdered my son. I threatened to go to the police to expose the sexual abuse she’d inflicted on her own daughter since she was nine years old. I called her a child molester. That stopped her cold in her tracks.
“I know everything,” I said. “The photo sessions, the sex, the abuse, everything.”
“You can’t prove anything,” she yelled.
But I could see it in her eyes. Everything Vanessa said was true.
She slammed the door in my face, and as I walked to my car the door opened again. This time Vanessa came outside to talk.
“I heard what you told her. She’s afraid you’ll go to the police.”
“Let her think that. I don’t care,” I said, pacing back and forth. I was crying and shaking. Vanessa stopped me and we hugged.
“We need to talk. There’s things I don’t understand.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Bill.”
We drove to a park a few blocks away from her house and walked in silence. Not really knowing how to start the conversation, I stopped and faced her.
“I’m dying inside. I don’t know if I can go on like this. Please, help me understand how you let this happen. How? Damn it. How the fuck did you let them murder our son? He was just an innocent baby.”
She tried to hold on and bring me close again, but I stayed stiff.
“No. Tell me. I need to know.”
She cried. Her body trembled and I felt worse for yelling at her. I drew her in close and held her until she stopped crying, and she quietly said, “I don’t know. I’ve asked myself the same question and just don’t know. I was scared and alone and she pressured me. Bill, please forgive me. It’s my fault. I killed our son.”
“No. No you didn’t. I should have been here. I should’ve protected him. I’m the one to blame. No one else.”
Victims of abuse often blame themselves for what’s happened to them. The abuser gains power over their decisions and completely dominates them. Vanessa was just such a case. I didn’t know it at the time. How could I? I took blame because it’s the father’s responsibility to protect his family, his child, and I failed.
I went home that day with a bomb ticking inside me. Every passing moment destroyed me. What do they say? “Time heals all wounds.” I’m proof that’s not always true.
Each passing day was worse than the last. My mind fractured and I lost touch with reality. Grief, pain, and death stalked and pushed me into a realm of intense psychosis. I heard and saw things that weren’t really there, things urging me on and feeding the inferno of rage growing inside me.
During one of the episodes, I sat in my workshop looking at the cradle I crafted for my son, when suddenly I heard a knock at the door. I turned and there was a little boy of about four. He stood there crying and looked up at me. “Why didn’t you protect me, Daddy?” Wounds appeared slowly on his body, then opened and bled. He screamed. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I was alone.
Anger gripped me as I grabbed the cradle and smashed it with my fists, ripping it apart. Sobbing uncontrollably, I picked up the pieces, carried them to my car, and drove to my hallowed ground. I knew something was broken inside me and I was trying to fix it. I went to the only place I felt safe—where I found peace.
I hiked hours to reach my cave. Ducking behind the waterfall, I was met with emptiness, but it mingled with the solitude I always found there. I was safe, and no one would find or hurt me there except the demons inside me. I knelt to meditate, calling my beasts and the child I once was, but nothing happened. Over the next two days I tried over and over, but still nothing came. Finally, I understood a part of me was lost—dying or already dead. I gathered the pieces of my son’s cradle and buried them inside my cave, constructing a small grave that held the only pieces of him I ever held.
On my return home I continued on a downward spiral, becoming obsessed with knowing what they’d done to my son and how his life had ended.
I went to the library with my sister. In the pages of the book, A Child is Born, I saw pictures of what my son looked like before he was murdered, and learned the atrocities he’d endured. He wasn’t just a fetus, like many would argue. He was my son, a baby, my child. He was alive. At four and a half months in-utero he was a tiny version of a fully developed infant—with fingers, toes, a tiny nose, everything human. I learned the methods used to abort babies thirteen weeks and older, and found myself sobbing into my hands. My God, he had suffered. He felt everything as he was dismembered piece by piece. The graphic realization only added to my already fragile state of mind and fed my psychosis.
Everything suffered because of this—my martial arts training, my business, everything. The only thing increasing was my hair-trigger temper. I’d always been quick to anger, but now anything set me off, as if I wanted an excuse to be consumed with a rage so intense it had a mind of its own.
It was also during that time I learned from a well-connected street source that Loretta hired someone to implement the second part of her plan—to murder me. Honestly, I welcomed it. I wouldn’t be as easy to murder as my son. I’d be ready for it, and I maintained a heightened sense of awareness. I constantly checked and rechecked everywhere I went. I doubled back to see if I was followed by Loretta’s hit man. Late at night, I walked the perimeter of my house to see if it was being watched. Some would say I was paranoid and psychotic. But it wasn’t paranoia, it was anticipation. I wanted Loretta’s contract killer to show himself and come for me because I wouldn’t be her next victim.
Though the contract killer never came, I later received confirmation from several sources that a hit man had, in fact, been hired. The sources were Loretta herself, and later, during my trial, from the mouth of one of her friends.
The discipline and control I’d possessed my entire life faded as each day passed. I didn’t care anymore. I existed in my own world, surrounded by pain and rage.
Chapter 44
Adolescence, 1983
April 24, 1983 started off no different than any other day. On the outside, I probably looked and acted much like I normally did. However, inside, the grief was unbearable, and I couldn’t make it stop. A part of me thought I deserved to suffer—ultimately I blamed myself for everything. I could only understand that I failed. I had no one to talk to about the mounting and overwhelming sense of loss and grief.
The only person I believed would understand and help me through my anguish was my father. But he was in Colombia and didn’t know his grandson was dead, and it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone. I had no one to talk to or cry with. I was alone in my sorrow. As time went by it was more difficult to speak with Vanessa about what was destroying me inside because she believed I blamed her, so I kept my heartache bottled inside, trying to hang on and get through it all.
That evening, I picked up Vanessa on my motorcycle, a 1983 Kawasaki GPz750. It wasn’t cold and I wanted to ride. I drove up her block, but she was waiting at the corner. She smiled, and as soon as I stopped she sat on the back seat and said, “Let’s go,” and kissed me.
We rode off, and at the first light we came to I asked, “Why were you waiting at the corner? Did Loretta do something?”
“No, she has one of her new boyfriends coming over and I didn’t want to be there.” I nodded. She smiled and kissed me again.
We went to a house party in Covina. A guy I’d met during a business deal invited us, and when we arrived he was out front waiting but appeared disappointed I hadn’t brought my car.
“What’s up, Bill? Where’s your ride?”
“At the house. I felt like riding tonight. This is my girlfriend, Vanessa.”
“Hey, Vanessa, what’s up?”
She nodded her greeting.
“You guys go on inside,” he said. “Make yourselves at home. Grab a beer, whatever you want. Mi casa es su casa.”
; “Right on, man. Thanks.” I needed this. I smiled for the first time in a long time.
I took a deep breath and went inside holding Vanessa’s hand. For the next few hours we listened to the live band and relaxed—just a couple of kids at a house party. Anyone who saw us saw a nice couple having a good time. No one could have guessed how things would end that night, not even us. If I had, I never would have taken Vanessa home.
We left the house party before midnight and went to a local burger joint on Arrow and Grand Avenue. We stayed around a while longer to eat and talk, then drove to a spot in the hills near La Habra where the lights of the distant city are a beautiful panoramic view. It was a quiet place where we could be alone and enjoy each other’s company.
I noticed Vanessa seemed happier than usual. We stood leaning against my motorcycle. She was in my arms while we kissed gently. She pulled away from our kiss to smile.
“Bill, I love you. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Why do you think you’ll lose me?”
“I’ve almost lost you twice now. Once when you were almost stabbed to death, and since we lost our son you’ve been different—distant and angry.”
“We didn’t lose our son. He was murdered.” My muscles tensed and anger bubbled to the surface.
“I know, and I’m sorry. But maybe you could be happy again.” She looked at me. “I think I’m pregnant.”
I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning, and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t move. I was in shock. Her words took me by complete surprise. Finally, I spoke.
“Are you sure? I mean, how long?”
“A little while. Are you happy?”
“Yes, of course I’m happy, but I’m afraid. I won’t let anyone hurt our baby like they hurt William. He suffered. He felt what was done to him. I saw pictures of how he would have looked before, and he was fully formed and alive—a beautiful child.”
I got upset. My stomach tightened, my mouth went dry, and panic set in. My mind and emotions were in overdrive, and I vowed to protect our second child. We left our spot and I drove her home. A few blocks from her house, at the light, she told me to drop her off at the corner where I picked her up. I turned my head to look at her.
“I’m driving to your house and walking you to your door just as I always have. I’m not hiding from anyone and I’m not going to let you walk home alone.”
“Please. I just don’t want to argue tonight, and I want to go to sleep.”
The last thing I wanted was to upset her.
“What if I pull over a block from your house and I walk you the rest of the way. No one will know I’m there.”
She nodded, and we headed to her house. I parked a block away in a parking lot beside a baseball field, and we walked the rest of the way.
We arrived at the house and it was dark. I walked Vanessa to the porch, and as we kissed goodnight the door suddenly burst open. I instinctively put Vanessa behind me and faced Loretta.
“What are you doing here, you son of a bitch?”
“Making sure Vanessa gets home safely.”
“She doesn’t need you for anything. Get the fuck out of my house.”
Loretta got angrier, but at that moment I didn’t really care how angry she got anymore. Vanessa touched me and I turned to her. The look on her face said it all. She didn’t want to stay there. I turned to walk away with Vanessa, and that’s when Loretta hit me on the side of the head so hard it made my ears ring. I spun around to face her and she swung at my head again, barely missing another blow. Because it was so dark, I couldn’t see that Loretta held a wooden tonfa, a type of wooden baton-like weapon used in some martial arts. As she swung at my head a third time, I caught and ripped it from her grasp.
“Big man, you think you’re something, don’t you? You weren’t so big when I killed that monster growing inside of my daughter. Do you know why I killed it?”
Loretta laughed, then spat, and I started to tick like a time bomb. Everything—all of it rushed to the surface. I was losing control, so I tried to turn and escape. But she poked me hard in the middle of the chest with her finger.
“Because it would have been just like you. Yeah, big man. One down, one to go.”
She poked me even harder again, and while she spoke my vision turned red.
“You’re next,” she said as she spat in my face.
Images flashed before my eyes. In a split second I saw the cradle I’d labored to make, I saw myself burying the fragmented pieces, touching Vanessa’s stomach and feeling our baby move, missing his first words, and all the things I imagined we’d have done together. Then all the thoughts and images of what I’d learned about how he’d suffered surged through my mind. A father never stops being a father. I started to shake, but I moved to walk away. I had to escape. Loretta slapped me hard across my face again. I heard a pop in my head and my vision went completely red. Agony, pain, rage, grief, and heartbreak engulfed me, and that’s the last thing I remember.
Over the next eight months, I was worse than ever. Not only did I fail to protect my son, I lost control and was responsible for the loss of a human life.
What happened haunted me. I couldn’t get past any of it and felt I should be punished. Those thoughts manifested during every waking moment. I started to self-destruct. My anger faced inward onto myself, and I became an even more distant loner. I couldn’t shake the guilt or shame. I searched for the person I once was, the guy who competed in disciplined martial arts competitions and reveled in stealing cars, but I only found emptiness. I was a mere shadow of my former self, and worst of all, I knew it.
In a desperate attempt to find my way back, I drove to Huntington Beach at 2 a.m. I walked to the water, taking off my shirt and shoes, and dove in. The cold water took my breath away, but a calmness set in. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I considered swimming until exhaustion overwhelmed me and allowing the ocean to claim me. I swam on, passing the end of the pier. I remembered the first time I swam that far. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Where was he? That guy I used to be? I pressed on. My shoulder muscles burned, but I needed to keep going. I needed to find my way back. Suddenly it was there. That burning anger I always relied on. My only true constant. I stopped swimming, took a deep breath, and looked back to the shore—easily half a mile. As I swam back to shore I thought of William and allowed the tragedy of it all to burn inside of me. As I reached the shore, exhausted and in agony, I accepted that I would bear the burden.
Vanessa was mistaken. She wasn’t pregnant. I think she hoped for it, and a part of her wanted to replace what was taken from us. I took it like a man who’d been chained and whipped. It was another deep gash in an already bloodied soul. Or maybe the opposite was true. Perhaps it was preparation for what was to come, hardening me, like the folds of a Katana sword as they’re bent and hammered to produce “shadows,” a process that increases its strength. Maybe it’s why I wear a ring that reads, “Soul of a thousand shadows.”
Nevertheless, I forged on. I competed in fights I should never have taken. I found a certain justice in pain, and routinely allowed myself to be hit before letting my rage surface and brutally beating my opponents.
I also resumed stealing cars at an even more alarming rate. I was undisciplined and was arrested on multiple occasions. I made mistakes but didn’t care. I’d make bail and continue on my path of self-destruction.
Late one night I was driving home from the city of La Habra when a black-and-white cruiser behind me started flashing its lights. I pulled over and two cops walked up on either side of my car. One stood on the driver’s side, the other behind the passenger side bumper with his gun drawn. I placed both hands on the steering wheel.
“Step out of the car, Mr. Noguera.”
I was relieved. For a moment I thought I was finally being arrested. It had been months since that fateful night. But that night it was about cars, specifically the beautiful ’62 convertible I drove. It was a car I’d only finished recently.
“Step out of the car, Mr. Noguera, and put your hands on top of your head.”
I did as I was told. The cop stepped behind me and patted me down, then cuffed my wrists. I was turned around as the head of the car theft squad pulled up behind us. “Mr. Noguera,” he nodded. “Good evening. This is one beautiful car.” He looked inside. “Amazing. This may be the best one you’ve put together for yourself. How many has it been? I’ve seen you with ten? Twelve?” He answered his own question. “Yes, at least. Well, I told you I’d someday catch you. And this is that day.”
I didn’t respond and didn’t care what he said. I’d beat him every time we met. Why should this time be any different?
“Take him to the station and book him. Grand theft auto. Though I’m sure it won’t hold him very long, will it, Mr. Noguera? No matter. This time the charge will stick.”
As I was placed into the back of the cruiser, a large flatbed pulled up behind my car.
“Hey, Lieutenant. Scratch my car and you’ll pay for the paint.”
“I wouldn’t dream of scratching it. Besides, I’m sure the rightful owner will love what you’ve done to it. You’re an artist, Mr. Noguera, and this is quite the masterpiece.”
I was booked and within a couple of hours released on bail. But something about the Lieutenant’s demeanor bothered me. He knew something I didn’t. I’d never seen him that confident in all the years we’d faced each other. It was as if he’d already won.
On the third day after my car was impounded, I called the Lieutenant. By law, he had five days to prove the car was stolen. If the original owner couldn’t be found, then the car would be returned to me. It was a game we’d played for years and I always won because of how difficult it was to check every reported stolen car throughout the state. I could have taken the car from anywhere, which made it that much more difficult for him.
I dialed his number, using the card he’d given me. He always told me if I ever needed to “talk,” meaning to rat someone out and save my own skin, he’d always lend an ear. That would never happen. After the second ring, he answered.
Escape Artist Page 40
