Breaking his Silence to the Police.

After 18 years, David confessed his Crime.

David Samuels had been born to a low-income family in Villanueva, New Mexico. He was an avid swimmer and long-distance runner. His house was small, his clothes shabby and shameful to him. He felt ready to break away from this lifestyle.

At age seventeen, David found the key to help him escape from his limitations. He had a youthful body built for speed, and he could run like the wind. His athletic gift gained him a chance to the Junior Olympics tryouts.

All the regional fastest sprinters would be at these trials. He thought about his skimpy attire. How could he walk in rags among the best & brightest?

His thoughts drifted towards the warehouse, where he did a few odd jobs for cash. Mr. Daniels, who paid him, had always pulled a thick wad of bills from his back pocket to pay him for a job completed. The payment was in cash- and the man was always alone. Those facts suggested particular unpleasant possibilities in David’s mind.

An idea formed in David’s mind- a picture of Mr. Daniels coming into the warehouse the next morning, the image of a shadowy figure lurking behind the door with a bat, knocking Mr. Daniels unconscious & sprinting out the door with the money.

It was an ugly scene. But the image of himself at the trials wearing bright, stylish clothing fresh from the best store in the town was a higher motivation.

The next morning at five o’clock, David was on his way to the warehouse. He eased behind the door and waited.

Mr. Daniels strolled through the warehouse with a coffeepot in his hands. David crept towards him from behind. David swung the bat and struck Mr. Daniels's head, knocking the man to the floor. Then he knelt and thrust his hand into the unconscious man’s pockets, pulled out eighty dollars, and hurried away.

That afternoon David was on his way to the Junior Olympics. He knew nothing of the ambulance that rushed Mr. Daniels to the hospital, nor did he know that Mr. Daniels would die that night. The next day at the trials, he learned it all from the news. That was the beginning of his nightmare.

David’s performance was less than exceptional at the trials. He came in sixth at the 200-meter sprint, a race that he had always won at school.

With the athletic trials over, it was time to go home.

Back in his hometown, he tried to pick up his life and popularity as an athlete. But it was no good now. His loss at the trials & his big secret isolated him. He had to face it- he was an unrecognized murderer!

He lost his focus on swimming and track. David’s good grades plummeted. There is no escape from the awful chaos in his life.

David resorted to alcohol. He drank often and heavily, seeking blessed oblivion to block out memories, even if only temporarily.

Somehow he made it through high school. He kept running to put miles between himself and the terrible event. He thought marriage to his high school sweetheart would help him forget.

The marriage lasted three years, producing nothing good. The union never had a chance. The young bride could not understand her husband’s bleak, morbid moods. She filed for divorce, packed up her belongings, and moved away.

David moved back with his Dad in the old family home, but it was another dead end. He and his father could not get along. So he became more & more dependent on alcohol. He would occasionally sober up to move to another city for new jobs, new starts. The star athlete was always running, but there was no finish line and no trophies, just a dark endless track and a cup of sorrow.

The bleak face that greeted him in the mirror had thirty-five years on it now. There was no trace left of the athletic seventeen-year-old.

He wandered through the streets like a crazy man, mumbling bitter words to himself. The murder all those years ago was still on the books as unsolved. No one suspected the identity of the assailant. Everyone had forgotten, except David himself.

One night, walking in the alleys, he felt the burden of the murder- or at least of knowing it alone is unbearable. He wanted to end it all; then there would be peace. There would be no more knowledge.

Deep inside, something directed him to suicide, but he could not do it. It seemed the only right thing to do is to let everyone know of his crime. So David found his feet changed direction, leading him to police headquarters. There, before the clerk, David cleared his throat and stated that he came to confess to Mr. Daniels' unsolved murder, which occurred eighteen years ago.

Guilt is an invisible giant with immense power and the heaviest of all burdens on the mind. There is no solution but to offload it to find relief and peace.