Saturday, February 19, 2011

Criminal, Redux

A year ago I blogged about my limited contact, thirty+ years ago, with the Green River Murderer. (Here's a link to that piece.) I opened the Seattle Times this morning to, once again, his reviled face: he's confessed to yet another murder, a woman whose bones were discovered just last month. And yet it's his mother whose face I see, she who made my life -- at age 18, 19, 20 -- a particular kind of hell. (He's about the age his mother was when I worked with her.)

A while back while dining out, Paul and I struck up a conversation with a woman who was dining, alone, beside us. She was a psychiatrist with the Washington State Department of Corrections, and this man (whose name I'll not utter) is one of her patients. Needless to say, the conversation heated up at that moment. Apparently, he sees himself as a celebrity, and struts around before her when they are in session asking, repeatedly, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

What really gets me though is that this beast receives counseling, compliments of the State of Washington. Counseling? WHAT??!! Gee. I wonder how that's working for him. Sure hope he can work out all those mommy issues.

Anyway, I'd prefer to never see his face, anywhere, again.

6 comments:

  1. I blame Warhol. What sad idiots, if the only path to their minutes of fame is through misery.

    In the 'civilised' world, the law looks after the criminal; rarely the victims.

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  2. what a dark story, T. i didnt "know" you a year ago, so just now read your earlier post. i can imagine the blood in your veins runs ice cold thinking about this, this nameless horror. and her son.

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  3. Dear T., like Susan, I had to go back and read your very, very dark post--your recall of it was amazing, and the whole thing gave me deep chills for your sake. We never know how lucky we are sometimes. Lord, lord.

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  4. Susan and Melissa, do you know the singer/songwriter Patty Griffin? Why reading your comments today, I thought of her song Be Careful -- check it out here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-uH2qtc7M

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  5. I can see counseling as appropriate if a prisoner has a chance of being released back into society. But his guy?? I cannot make sense of this. Why are taxpayers being asked to support this dick-wads counseling? We're already paying for his room and board.

    Like the judge said, "I can find no compassion here."

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