Omg! I am so far behind! Jodi testified! I need to follow Linda's advice and skip or skim!
I told myself I wouldn't post. I have done a very good job of keeping a day or two behind, so that I am always on a closed thread. But, many of you seem so very nice, I have actually almost caught up with the thread, so that I could interact. It helps that you cannot see me. Of course, I am recovering from a severe, chronic, systemic bacterial infection which affected (among other things) my short-term memory; point is, I don't like to leave the house much now anyway. I don't need any sympathy: the house is wonderful, my husband is a miracle, and while I am not well yet, this is my secret paradise.
I feel compelled to post because KatieCoolady told her story. Thank you so much, Katie! I never thought I would really tell WebSleuths mine, but maybe I can now. Thank you also so much OceanBlueEyes and BritsKate for talking about your stalkers and the abuse you suffered. Thank you Linda (from NJ with the ADORABLE marmalade cat avatar) and NoRestForTheWicked for defending Travis at all costs! Call it like it is! Who is dead?? Thank you Nursebeme for stepping in to stop the victim-bashing many threads earlier. I was livid. Thank you LotusPawPrint (I used to dogsit a little girl dog like your avatar and I LOVE yours!), CuckooHead, Anita Richman, TigerBalm and Minor4th for your kind words for Travis and his family and for your gentle humor. Thank you for your hilarious comments KMouse and for your thorough and patient explanations of all things computerish, TxBluesMan. Thank you for your extreme love of emus, Steely Dan..I do love animals, even the ever-famous, seal! (When I was a little girl, only the animals seemed to have soft eyes. I only trusted them until I was able to get away from my family.) Thank you Gitana1 for your careful consideration of the innumerable questions which have been asked of you. I appreciate you sharing your emotions as well as your expertise! Thank you Mormon Attorney for your insight into Travis' religion, so central in his life. Thank you PrincessSezMe for your discussion of psychopaths. I want to thank everyone else I have not thanked for the many times you made me laugh....and even if it was due to the defense's fabrications...I never once connected it to the integrity of Travis. Even in death, his beauty is UNTOUCHABLE. :tyou:
For those of you who may not believe my story, I can verify with NurseBeMe, but I do not want to share names if that is all right. It is all still too painful for me, and I will try to go as fast as I can. I hate to make a long post, but I honestly do not know if I will be able to post again. It is taking the warm rays of the setting sun, complete privacy and a glass of wine to write this. Besides, I have cleaned my house many times : ) Also, I did post on Travis' blog, the one about wanting to marry a gold-digger, one digging for the gold in his personality, that is...not that anyone would have to go far to find it. So, if you see a post there where I mention my mother, that is also me--I couldn't take the smug insults, anymore.
My mother was murdered 3 weeks before my seventh birthday. Like Travis, she had many friends and was very well-loved. She was a shining light to which people were drawn...a ray of purity in this world. She was shot 26 times. Her stalker, who became her murderer, walked around her in a circle as he fired slowly at her. I believe it took ten to twenty minutes, but unlike Travis' case, I cannot recheck the facts...it is too painful. While conversing with her, he shot off her arms and legs. Last of all he shot off her head. She was unrecognizable and her teeth had to be matched for identification of the body. There were three witness hiding outside. They were terrified and did not dare to interrupt him.
My special insight into this case is that my father was her stalker, her murderer, much to my great shame. He was an "upstanding member of society" who had no criminal record. No one (except my mother) knew him to be violent.
Now, as for all the *advertiser censored*-shaming discussion, I shall say that my mother was *advertiser censored*-shamed for divorcing my physically and psychologically abusive father when I was two. Throughout the years she was treated as a pariah for her jeans and t-shirts, long hair, interest in art, and most especially, her divorcee status. Not to make lightly of shaming people, but it was no big deal for us compared to the shadow my father cast over our lives as the stalker. Someone like that, who haunts you, turning up at her door randomly, surprising her when she was out on a date, becomes the boogeyman. He had destroyed her confidence and instilled her with a permanent sense of fear, of being hunted, for the last five years of her life. These people can be divorced, they can be broken up with, but they are very hard to get rid of. He killed her weeks before she was to fly across the country to be out of his immediate reach. Just like Jodi, he could not let his prey get away from him, whether it be physically leaving or wanting to marry someone else. Just like Travis, she did not call the police or get a restraining order. I can tell you, though, that before he would arrive to pick me up for weekend visitations, she would begin to tremble, then to shake, then to smile nervously at me and tell me everything was fine. She would steel herself to answer the door, but I could still see the very slight tremors in her hands.
I was drawn to this case because of the curdling fear in Travis' face while he was sitting in the shower. I was reading the news, skimming over the article, determined not to get involved, when I saw that picture. He was terrified and knew he would soon die. If I could undo that moment, sneak up on her, I would, but I have learned these horrible crimes can never be undone. When I saw the wounds, the overkill and then her face in her police picture, I knew. Here was a person like my father, a psychopath.
Like my father, she brought a gun to the scene. Like my father, I suspect she had thought about it often beforehand...how to wrap up that annoying loose end. She was obsessed and could find no rest until she felt she had complete control over Travis. She felt compelled to suck the life out of him.
As for the defense, in my mother's trial, the defense attorneys claimed she was a poor student (she was, she had severe untreated rheumatoid arthritis which kept her in bed 3 days out of 7). They claimed that she was bisexual. (Who knows? Not me. Men seemed to be her thing sexually.) Worst of all, to me, they said that she prostituted me out to men. She was not a perfect mother, a chronically ill woman can never be, but I would never ask for better. She was always incredibly loving, asking my father about what would happen to me as he was shooting her. (That came out in the trial.)
After he got off on temporary insanity, without spending a night in prison, I began to crumble. I had to undo the truth and tell myself each day that she had to go underground to hide from him. I waited each day to get a secret message from her...a call, anything indicating where I should run to to meet her. Living with the psychopath's family, I began to hear tidbits of the truth that seeped out over the years: he had shown his parents the ammunition 1-2 days before killing her, he had planned out his great fit of weeping for the person whom he called to "find her" and also his weak "attempt" at suicide with the gun. Even more shocking, the defense attorney had taken my mother's friend, a single mother of two, out to dinner before she testified as to my mother's character. He nuanced that he was looking for a good woman to marry, and so, when the witness testified, my mother became a horrid and irresponsible person. I even heard that the judge had accepted a familial donation although I do not know if this is true. So, while Nurmi is pretty iffy, imagine how depraved some lawyers can get.
As for me, I had always known that my father's family lied. I had never trusted them, and after her death, it became apparent that they were satisfied that they had helped him to get off, that they had pulled the wool over the public's eyes. I shortly discovered that they enjoyed any display of sorrow that I might show. I never even got to go to a memorial service for her, and I, especially, never shared my extreme grief with them. Instead, I began sleepwalking nightly, screaming in my sleep, having memory problems and, finally, I became very ill and missed six months of school.
When I was nine, I had to go to live with my father. He had convinced me, and his family thought it might help me. He was so charming. He could say anything to make you agree, and with my memory issues...I blocked out that he was the killer. He had the same eyes as Jodi, much like one of my uncles, one of my aunts and two of that aunt's children. Eyes that take it all in. Eyes that make you afraid in the dark. However, there was no violence, nothing obviously wrong with him.
Suddenly, one summer's evening, he began beating (yes, physically) and screaming at me. In his mind, something would go wrong with my actions. I had to be "corrected" and, nightly, at that. Each night, I found myself on the floor with a very sore head and ribs. Those baseboards are awfully sharp. Then, at thirteen, he was strangling me one evening, and it became clear to me. He called me by her name. He was STILL obsessed six years after murdering her. I lost consciousness but came to later. Two years later, the beatings were so severe that my body would ache for days (especially my head) and I had a premonition that he would kill me by kicking me down the concrete basement stairs.
When I went to his sisters they covered it up and told me I deserved to be punished. Afterall, he wasn't really abusing me. Luckily, my paternal grandmother helped me run away. When I went to school officials, they told me that I wasn't in the right socioeconomic class for that to be true (too wealthy), that I was too talkative to be a victim, that I must want attention. I won't bore you with the rest of the story. If you are really interested, I think all of you have inspired of me to finally write the book about the magnitude of his evil and the magnitude of my mother's sweetness.
Stalkers are drawn to especially kind people. Having had a stalker of my own in college, it is my theory that they are drawn more to people who have been previously abused and orphans or people who have lost at least one parent--people they see as more manipulatable.
So, as for the psychopath discussion, PrincessSezMe, I agree with you. My father was the apple of his mother's eye. He was adored and given special treatment. In response, my father was obsessed with his own mother. My mother resembled my grandmother physically. My grandmother got him out of military service (although he refused not to serve), paid off his credit cards when he ran up a lot of debt, hired his very expensive attorneys (with their proven track record) and even took care of his child (me) before and after I lived with him.
My grandmother would make comments, though. She never understood what was wrong with him. She said that she loved him so much as a baby because he was not like the others. I believe he was like two of the others, only more severely affected. He was too angelic; he so rarely got angry or misbehaved. His voice was soft, and he knew just how to please my grandmother. He had several siblings. I will attest that I found one of his sisters and one of his brothers to be psychopaths, as well, as very narcissicistic.
Now, for me, I find it interesting that he harmed the family pets even as a child. He never liked animals or babies. He shot my mother's dog. My pets and childhood friends avoided him like the plague. He did have close friends, but those friends were so "close" they never even knew he beat me. Still, they would write him and believed he was a great man. (These were kind, but, I'm sorry, gullible, people.) He also lied and forgot how things happened, so that his actions became the fault of others. In fact, when he would apologize, it always sounded as if he had recited the words and conversation many times to get the emotional inflection right. He seemed sorrowful at times that he could not see my beautiful mother any more, but, he never once expressed sorrow that she was dead or that he had killed her. (I knew him until I was 18 and lived with him 7 years.)
He was a superpredator. He took his prey and it would never become clear to him what he was missing from other people. He was highly intelligent, but devoid of empathy. When he would beat me, it would upset him that I would cry and seem unhappy. Geesh, huh? With a god like him paying attention to me, giving me all of his energy each night, he could never understand how I could be displeased with him. (I hid many things from him for my safety. I pretended to be retarded until I was nine.) He would tell me to stop crying and to smile. So, to save my life, I learned to rarely shed tears, never speak of my mother (even when his family insulted her because she was poor) and smile while my head ricocheted off the walls. To save his life (quality that is...he loved a cozy bed, a nice car, good computers, vacations and privacy) he always hit me under the clothing or hair line, then made sure to tell everyone I wasn't quite stable since the "death" of my mother. (And the one time he strangled me? I was so embarassed, I told everyone I hadn't showered and it was dirt! It was early in the years of my abuse.)
So, sorry to unload on everybody like that! I hope I'm not too shocking. Now that I have that out, I will never make a lengthy post again I hope. After all, my expertise is psychopaths, and not from an article, but, from years of watching six of them in wonderment. To sum it up, Jodi acts like three of my cousins, my uncle, my aunt (sister of the uncle) and my father (although he was only glib with family members). She seems to me to be put out by having to go through the trial, but willing to do what she needs to do to save her life. Like Linda says, in Jodi's mind "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do". (Thank you for all your comments, Linda (the one from NJ), I agree with 97% of them.) Still, I can distinctly see that she hates everyone who ever loved Travis. After all, in her mind, he was HERS and hers only. Hopefully, she will get the death penalty. If not, I will be disappointed, but thank heavens she won't get to be freed to influence her siblings and possibly kill or abuse again.
fftobed:
lease:
