Richard Stephenson - Collapse

Lolita Jefferson was never a stumbling block to her husband’s indiscretions. Many thought the woman to be mentally handicapped. This only endeared the congregation to Oswald even more. They were so proud that he could show that poor girl a good life and take care of her. It was obvious to the investigators why Oswald had married her. She was not intelligent enough to realize her husband was a pedophile, and he could control her with little effort. On the day of his murder, Oswald simply told his wife to go wait in the car and not come back inside until he came to get her. He told her that to pass the time she should pray to Jesus and petition Him to make her normal. Rather than explain to his wife what the word “petition” meant, he simply used an easier word and again told her to go the car and wait for him. His wife dutifully obeyed.

Starting about a year before his death, Oswald became more confident in his tactics and began including older boys and girls whom he thought would keep their mouths shut. He would frighten and intimidate them into silence; he knew he could do it. Once he found out how easy it was, he regretted that he hadn’t done it sooner. Richard faced an intense struggle with the knowledge that his son had been abused by this monster. His lawyer never dared tell him how often it had occurred, and Richard couldn’t bear to ask. He couldn’t very well kill the same monster twice.

Besides, Richard had his wayward wife to deal with. Monique was, in fact, cheating on Richard like he suspected. She married Bryan and within a year, Richard’s daughter was calling Bryan her “Daddy.” Richard’s sweet little princess would soon forget him. Monique had erased every trace of their marriage, every picture, every home movie. It was like Richard had never existed. Monique could have continued this charade, had it not been for their son. Bryan didn’t sign up for this kind of baggage; he looked at Richard’s damaged son and all he could think about was the gruesome murder that had occurred only months before their wedding. Bryan filed for divorce a few years later and never had contact with Monique or her children again.

His lawyer first tried to have Richard declared incompetent to stand trial based on the fact that he was insane. This went on for weeks and eventually failed. His lawyer then argued that Richard should be tried in a military court of law since he was wearing his Class A uniform when he committed the murder. Richard knew this plan was ridiculous and wouldn’t last long. To his surprise, the tactic worked twice as long as Richard thought it would. Next they tried a change of venue to a federal court since Oswald Jefferson was a disabled black man and Richard had committed a hate crime. Richard could never figure out if the hate crime due to Oswald being black, disabled, or both. The prosecutor representing the State of California looked up in utter confusion as the motion was made and asked if defense counsel was trying to help him convict his client of a completely new and unrelated charge. The judge was starting to get impatient, and Richard knew he didn’t have much time left before he must execute his plan.

Richard originally thought his best chance of escape was when they moved him from his cell to the courtroom four floors above. Each time he left his cell, four guards armed with tasers escorted him to a holding room to be placed in restraints. Two of the men pointed tasers at Richard while the other two placed him in chains. On one of his first trips out of his cell, one of the guards pointing a taser at Richard got scared when Richard sneezed and launched the two barbs into Richard’s left pectoral muscle, shocking him with fifty thousand volts. Richard’s lawyer had a field day with this and protested for a better part of a week that his client was being treated inhumanely and should not have to suffer such indignity based on his distinguished military career and being a loving father… blah, blah, blah. Richard knew it was a waste of time but welcomed the delay. Richard assumed that the leg irons he was forced to wear were a few links too short because it took him an eternity to make the trip to his seat in the stuffy, cramped courtroom. Next they placed a belly chain around his waist, fed the excess length back through a loop and padlocked the end of the chain to the small of his back. With each wrist cuffed snugly against his hips, Richard would not have been able to free himself from the painful bondage even if someone had placed the keys in his hands.

Richard knew he would have to find a way to get the guards to pull him from the cell in a hurry, ignoring critical security precautions in the process. During his third month of confinement, Richard decided to stick with the tried and true ‘Get a doctor, quick, I’m having a heart attack and need an ambulance’ escape trick. He had hoped that the lame attempt would garner some result. It did not. No one was willing to open the door to his cell unless four guards with tasers were standing right outside. Richard thought with some amusement that he could indeed die in his cell before he received emergency medical treatment.

Richard realized that he would have to take much more extreme measures. With careful thought and planning, Richard knew exactly how he was going to escape. The first phase of his plan was to break down and weep for hours on end. This part was the easiest; all he had to do was focus on the image of his trembling son sobbing in the corner and the tears flowed. The second phase of his plan required at least a week. He would need to ration small portions of his meals and hide them in his cell. When he left to go the courtroom, the guards searched his cell and didn’t really mind the extra food. No harm in letting him eat. Phase three of the plan was the most difficult. He waited until the Friday before his trial was to begin and spent the day carefully reviewing each step of his escape in meticulous detail. He would wait until 3AM on Saturday morning to execute his plot; the courthouse would be empty on a Saturday, so the building would be operating on a skeleton crew.

Friday after dinner, Richard laid in his bunk facing the wall and ate the extra food he had been squirreling away for a week. He would need his strength. At 10pm when the guards changed shifts and spent ten or fifteen minutes shooting the breeze, Richard began to tear his white t-shirt into long strips. Once that was done, he did the same thing with his bed sheet. It was pushing eighty-five degrees in the hot basement so Richard never used the sheet anyway, and the guards wouldn’t notice that it was damaged. By the time he was finished, the previous guard had left and Deputy Clements was checking his email.

At 3am, Richard rolled over and watched the guard for a full five minutes to make sure he was fast asleep. His mouth gaped wide and spittle trickled down his chin. Richard even whispered the deputy’s name. Out like a light. He quietly sat up in his bunk and placed one of the strips of bed sheet around his neck. He rubbed the torn strip of fabric vigorously back and forth around his neck, causing a serious friction burn. He didn’t stop until the skin began to slough away and he felt blood trickling down his neck. Richard stood, checked on the guard and walked over to the sink. He looked into the mirror and saw his reflection. The mirror was not made of glass, but rather highly polished, thin metal that bore a reflection. Richard had thought about using the metal somehow but gave up on the idea when he realized he couldn’t get the metal sheet loose enough without making a lot of noise. Richard tightened the noose around his neck and pulled as hard as he could. His face turned three different shades of red and he stopped once he saw the blood vessels in his eyes begin to rupture, causing red flecks of blood to litter the whites of his eyes. Richard grabbed the sink so he wouldn’t pass out. He slowly took two steps back and sat on his bunk facing the back of the cell. He did not rise again until he was no longer dizzy and the room had stopped spinning.