This is the one where a murderer writes me back.

Posted March 3rd, 2010 by Mike Lawson

Holy shit, she wrote me back.

25 words of backstory: in the 3^rd grade one of my classmates was brutally murdered by a lady that is now sitting on death row waiting to be executed.

I’ve been obsessively Googling names involved with the crime in the past few years, and recently came across the address of the murderer.  I decided to write her a letter and I asked for a pen-friendship, never mentioning the relationship I had with her victim.

She wrote back.  She wrote a five page letter and included a picture and she kissed the paper where she signed her name.

In her letter she only briefly mentions the crime that got her where she is.  She said:

Had a bad habit.  I loved heroin and P.C.P.  I always wanted to be gone.  Far away mentally.  I’ll tell you why later.  I’m not one who blames crap and why I did what I did on my family.

Why I did what I did.

Julie commented on the blog post I wrote about the letter I mailed, and asked me what I was hoping to get out of this.  She said:

It’s not insane but it is out of the ordinary. I do have a question for you though. What would you like to get out of it? I get the weird thrill of wanting to write a murderer. It’s like wanting to take a stick and poke a bear. But what do you do after? What if she writes back? I’m sure these are all things you’ve already considered. Just be careful and don’t follow the rabbit too far down the rabbit hole.

Julie gives me way too much credit.  “I’m sure these are all things you’ve already considered.”  Not exactly.  But she is right about the bear metaphor.  In fact, this is a lot like poking a bear with a stick.  I’ve sat around and poked this bear all different ways – Googling names, looking people up on Facebook and Myspace – and it wasn’t until I poked the bear in the proper place that I got any reaction.

I guess I never really received the closure I was looking for.  Sure, my elementary school put the group of Autumn’s friends through some therapy sessions.  We planted a tree and had a dedication ceremony.  I’ve read all of the newspaper articles about the crime.  But since the 4th grade, I’ve never really had a conversation with anyone that went through this with me.

I’m not in touch with Ana Nguyen or Joshua M.

I guess I’m just looking for some dialogue on the topic.  And with this new pen-friend, it doesn’t look like she’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.

And part of me – the liberal anti-death penatly side, is worried that this woman is rotting in a jail cell and unable to communicate her remorse to people that want to hear it.

I’m going to continue writing to her.  I’ll post more when more happens.