Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

One of the people he had met since coming to prison, was a man who was measuring his life in days, hours and minutes. His name was Bob and he had been convicted more than a decade before of killing several young men and boys, then leaving their bodies along the side of one of Southern California’s major highways. On the yard, Bob was a polite conversationalist, aware of other people’s feelings and the need for courtesy and respect. Bob and Lee would have long, intense discussions on several subjects. They often slowly walked around the yard, talking about their similar religious beliefs, supernatural subjects, the uselessness of the death penalty, and why death should not be feared. That last subject was becoming increasingly important to Bob as each day passed. The reason became apparent when the second week of February arrived. The last day Lee saw him, Bob immediately called him to the side of the yard. He was very agitated and began asking question after question, querying once again about Lee’s beliefs in life after death. Lee had experienced two separate Near-Death Episodes and had talked to another person who had witnessed one herself. He disliked talking about them, though. Not because he was afraid of what he had seen, but because he knew the ridicule and criticism he had received in the past, and would more than likely receive in the future. However, Bob didn’t ridicule him. He was very interested in finding out every aspect of those three episodes which Lee could recall from his memory. They sat in one corner of the yard and spoke quietly to each other, Lee going over and over every point which Bob was unsure about. When their yard time was over for the day, they shook hands and Bob whispered quietly to Lee…

“I don’t have much time left. I’ll see you on the other side when the time comes.”

Lee didn’t quite know what to say, but just then it was his turn to leave the yard.

Just over a week later, on February 22, 1996, thirteen minutes past midnight, television stations broadcast that Bob had been executed in the San Quentin death chamber. Lee had heard several of the broadcasts following Bob’s death and was very upset. Once more, tears began to fill his eyes; they didn’t, however, fall this time. There were people who were attempting to describe what type of person Bob was. Those people didn’t know him the way Lee did. Lee knew that they were wrong and felt they were only beating their chests like some gorilla in a forest, trying to gain status in the eyes of others. Lee had very strong feelings about the death penalty and the execution death of anyone. It was wrong, regardless of any rationalizations. Lee found that many of the prisoners tried to rationalize their reasons for killing someone. Those reasons and rationalizations were still called murder by society. But an execution of a prisoner was nothing more than a different kind of rationalization for killing someone. Murder, by society’s own definition. That, among other reasons, was why Lee felt that society was inhumane, sick, morally decadent, and decling very rapidly. He had met a couple of prisoners who believed there was nothing wrong with the death of the person or persons they killed during the commission of their crimes, because society saw nothing wrong with executing prisoners.

Lee also had some strong opinions as to why there was so much crime these days, as opposed to when he was growing up. He felt that if certain steps could be set into motion, then most of the crimes could be stopped before they were even thought of by the perpetrators. But then, who was he ? Who would possibly take his ideas seriously. As far as society was concerned, Lee was nothing more than an evil, cruel and indifferent man, an illiterate monster, intent only on causing pain to others. Little did society know how wrong they were. He had attended college under the most difficult of circumstances and gotten both his associate degree and a bachelor’s degree in the combined fields of Sociology and Psychology.

Just under three months after Bob’s passing, another prisoner was put to death in the execution chamber, the second person to die of lethal injection in California. Lee didn’t personally know Danny Williams, but that didn’t lessen his disbelief in the practice of executing prisoners. He still felt pain at the death of a living being, any living being, whether human or animal. Life was precious to Lee. That society could toss these lives away so callously, just reinforced his feelings about the decline of today’s society.

After those two deaths, Lee began to feel even lonelier. Sure, he had a television, books, writing supplies, pen-friends in Southern California, Florida, Australia, England, and Ireland; he even knew several people that under different circumstances he would call friends—both among fellow prisoners and some of the guards. Still, he was feeling lonely. But he knew that coping with that loneliness was a sign of strength. He turned that loneliness into productive thinking, creative writing. If nothing else, being in prison gave him an opportunity to think and create. But with the thinking, came the memories. Memories of his ex-girlfriend, his wife and daughter, his co-workers, his work, his neighbors and friends; going to Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Sequoia National Park, and to beaches along the southern coast of California. Memories of raising chickens, ducks, and quail from their eggs in an incubator. Memories of traveling to many beautiful places, taking photographs and displaying them proudly. All of which were now just memories that brought him happiness in his dreams and tears when he was awake.

He often had trouble sleeping at night. He never went to sleep before midnight, usually staying awake until two or three in the morning, writing or reading, listening to music on one of the prison television channels. On the days that he did not go out to the exercise yard, he slept late, just like he did on his days off before being arrested. He’d wake up for breakfast, then would lay back down and sleep. Wake up to take a shower and shave, receive a sack lunch, then go back to sleep again. He’d finally awaken for the day around three in the afternoon, staying awake until those early morning hours. For the most part, he kept his silence, speaking only when someone else spoke to him first. He kept his eyes open and his mouth closed, did what he was told to do, and wouldn’t let anyone talk him into doing anything he could get into trouble for.

Finally, Lee obtained the phone numbers for several family members: two of his three brothers, the eldest of his three sisters, and his mother and youngest sister. He placed calls to each of them, hoping to re-establish some kind of familial relationship with them. He had made the same request of both brothers, only one: would they please send him a couple dollars worth of stamps so he could continue writing letters? Both brothers promised him that they would send stamps. But neither followed through on their promises. He made the same request of his sister and got the same result. His mother and youngest sister were more receptive. They sent what they could. Some stamps, a quarterly care package. It wasn’t much, of course. His mother was on a fixed income. But she wanted him to keep calling her to let her know how he was and what was happening with his case. She always accepted the collect charges when he called. But he wouldn’t call her more than once a week, unless it was an emergency, because he didn’t want her phone bill to get too high.

That phone, however, was in the name of a third brother, the brother that had been circulating lies about Lee and attempting to build his own reputation up on other lies; the opportunist. For one reason or another, that brother put a collect-call block on their mother’s phone so Lee was no longer able to call her. This was Edward, the brother who made promise after promise to make sure Lee would be taken care of and would want for nothing in prison. Promises that he broke as soon as he made them. Promises that Lee now believed Edward had never even intended on keeping. Edward claimed that his own marriage ended because Lee was found guilty of the crimes filed against him. In actuality, Edward’s marriage ended because he molested his wife’s baby sister, going to jail and being put on probation because of it. Edward also claimed he was a partner in a non-alcoholic, teenage night club that was shut down because of Lee’s troubles. In actuality, he was not a partner in the business and it folded because it was in the wrong location. All Edward was doing was trying to divert the blame from himself and build himself up in the eyes of others at the expense of everyone else. Something he had been doing all his life.