HELTER SKELTER | HARD STORY AHEAD

The Murderer Escaped Prison and I Knew He Was Coming For Me

He had already destroyed my childhood

From public information available online, here is a short snippet of information about the individual who so impacted my life. He is the subject of this memoir.

For purposes of this appeal, the facts are undisputed. In September 1986, 7 defendant fired a shotgun at a law enforcement officer. As a result of that shooting and 8 other alleged criminal acts, defendant was charged in this case with attempted aggravated murder with a firearm, first-degree burglary 10 with a firearm, and ex-convict in possession of a concealable firearm with a firearm. 11 A few days after defendant committed the crimes described above, 12 defendant kidnapped and murdered his father. Source: case appeal summation.

My boyfriend phoned me during the day, unusual for him. I was between university classes and was a paid Student Council worker. This gave me huge benefits, including a desk with a phone. He was at work, with the City of Portland.

“Zane escaped prison,” he said, “I wanted to let you know.”

Rick’s kindness in telling me wasn’t just a sharing of information. He knew that Zane terrified me. When I was barely in my teens, I was a victim of Zane’s. Thinking of him caused me trauma then, and makes me angry now. He ruined my childhood. He destroyed me in many ways.

I was spending the night at my best friend’s house, and her older brother had a nearby bedroom. It’s a long, ugly story and I have written it more than once.

I was led, like a lamb to the slaughter, to his dark bedroom. Led Zeppelin music. A small, tight cave with posters on the walls. The darkness, the smell of a boy. A model airplane. A drawer open.

The pain, and I cried. The friend of Zane’s also in the room was stunned and powerless, but I felt his hand find mine. He held my hand and comforted me in the dark as it happened.

The aftershocks were as traumatizing. Actually, worse.

The story spread around my small town like wildfire in dry grass, and I was a ruined woman.

I was a child.

It was without a doubt one of the worst periods of time in my life, as I went to trial, was judged, and then hanged in the eyes of everyone.

Zane, a long-haired guffawing asshole kid, was Zane. He didn’t even go to school anymore. He quit at sixteen, as the bad boys tended to do.

He smoked, strutted around the neighborhood, and then fell in love with my sister. He chased her around our farmhouse with one of Mom’s knives, and stole Dad’s shotgun. My father didn’t know who took it!

I didn’t either until my sister told me, years later. I don’t know why she didn’t tell Dad, but that’s another story I won’t go into.

When Rick phoned me in my student council office at my college, I felt a panic attack coming on. I didn’t even realize at the time what those were. I couldn’t breathe. The room narrowed to a dot, so I could hardly see things or people around me. The desk was like a ship I was clinging to. It felt like it could capsize with me holding the oak surface. My friend Matt said, “Hey, are you okay?” and the door clicked shut so the public outside couldn’t walk in.

I was practically catatonic. Matt rubbed my hand and said, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” I took deep breaths and knew I had to drive home.

Zane would run to my family farm to hide from the authorities, and he would kill my parents. He would kill me if I were there, but I had to go and warn Dad. My imagination went wild, and for good reason.

Zane was one of the first people I know who got into meth. I didn’t see him use it, but at some point he moved out of his family home in the country.

He showed up at his sister’s house, and he had a gun. He saw his Dad’s car in the driveway, and according to the stories and accounts — some published as court documents — he became angry.

He knocked on the door, and his father answered. His dad took one look at Zane, crazed and out of his head, and said “There’s kids in here.”

Zane told his father to come with him, and he made his father open the trunk of the car and give him the keys. He forced his father into the trunk. The skinny old guy in work pants, only moments before enjoying time with his grandchildren and daughters, was now riding in a trunk.

As it turns out, it was about a forty-minute ride back with the cold tire and the tools and garbage sacks full of cans and bottles.

At that time, his dad would have been in his fifties. He was a quiet man, and like my parents, worked to raise three teenagers. He and his wife were simply country people, and they had bought the home in the country where I used to take piano lessons.

Being in that country house felt like home to me. Not for long.

Sometimes a child is born who defies all logic. It doesn’t matter how hard the parents work, a sociopath is born and the world will suffer.

The family suffers first, and of course, the parents are miserable — “How can we help him? what have we done wrong?”

At some point, parents realize they have done nothing wrong. The child is a problem. Perhaps he has a flat affect when others are sad or in pain.He may be one of those children who bullies others. He laughs at inappropriate moments, and relishes in horrors that make others turn away.

And at some point, the parents give up. Apparently, the father had reported Zane’s drug use to authorities, and Zane went to prison for some time. For a parent to call the police on a child is a desperate act, but to protect the family and community, it had to be done.

When Zane got out of prison that first time, he had a debt to settle. He went looking for his father, the betrayer. His dad was bouncing grandchildren on his knee after a family dinner, at Zane’s sister’s house.

Not anymore. Now he was in the trunk of his own car.

Zane drove to a park in Estacada, a town on the outskirts of trees and mountains. He had a friend with him, another young man in the front seat. I think I’m remembering this correctly, but I believe the passenger wasn’t implicated in the ensuing crime.

All the way there, Zane railed about his father. He was out of his head on meth.

Once at the park, he was in a state of fury, and pulled over. It was night, and silent. It was cold. He made his father kneel on the grass, and he shot him, execution-style, in the back of the head.

Then, he made a brief exclamation.

Something like, “God help me, I’ve murdered my father.”

It’s almost like he was unaware he had done it. But he knew. His entire life was like a string of ugly dark pearls, events of cruelty.

Can I be blamed for panicking when Rick called me? At twenty-five years of age, I knew Zane would need a place to hide. His mother no longer had the country house. Of course, his father was now dead.

I raced home in my new car, my ’84 Dodge Colt. Dad and my stepmom were eating something, and the TV was blaring.

Once inside, I locked the door twice and asked them to turn off the TV. My dad thought I was worried unnecessarily.

Then I told him everything. He didn’t say another word, but just stared at me. He was ashamed I had been raped and no longer wanted to talk about it.

This was one of the most difficult issues I ever endured with my father. As I couldn’t make him understand my terror, I packed a bag and went to stay with a friend in Portland. I worried for days until Zane was apprehended and taken back to prison.

And while others go on parole after years of incarceration, this will never happen for Zane. Never. He is now in his late sixties, and has continued his reign of terror. Prison murder, attempted escapes, lies, and the continuing poor behavior of a sociopath. Or whatever he is.

He is right where he belongs.

And for that, I am eternally thankful.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you. Here’s one of my stories you may like.