Saturday, June 19, 2010
4:10 AM
The Stuff of Which Nightmares Are Made
TOP: Recks BrynleeeBOTTOM: Jean Leroi Hawrt
(spelled incorrectly on purpose in hopes of keeping search engines from randomnly pointing strangers to my blog)
Sadly, not all of my childhood memories are happy ones. I grew up in a town that houses a state prison which means that escaped convicts were a regular way of life for our citizens. They don't get out very often these days but back when I was a child, they got out quite a lot and when they did, our town was always put on high alert. My grandparents owned and lived on property that was directly across a dirt road from the prison property so my Grandpa carried a gun with him 24/7 because they frequently had escapees prowling through their yard, attempting to get into the house and/or steal one of his trucks.
Here, in town, which is adjacent to the opposite side of prison property, the radio stations always sent repeated warnings out over the airwaves, reminding all of us to lock all windows and doors, and to be aware of our surroundings when we had to be outside. I can't speak for all of the kids in the town but for me, the prison situation made for some very scary childhood times. Nightmares were a way of life for me because of the stories I grew up hearing about the evil people who inhabited that place.
I was a free-spirit kind of kid. I ran all over our neighborhood freely because back then, (as far as we knew, anyway) kids could do such things. The kind of crimes we hear about in the news today were completely foreign to us back then. There were kidnappings, of course, and I was terrified of that but in general, kids could feel fairly safe roaming the neighborhood because lots of adults sat out on their porches and everybody knew everybody. No matter where we went, there was almost always a few adults within shouting distance of our play area. But when a convict escaped, the adults pretty much stayed indoors and we kids were warned to do the same. So if anyone did venture out, it was more than a little nerve-wracking. Knowing that my grandparents had experienced escapee run-ins made it all the more so for me.
Fortunately though, the majority of convicts who escaped during that time period were low-to medium risk offenders, who were far more interested in getting as far away from town as possible than they were in attempting to harm or abduct someone. Definite silver lining in an otherwise dark and frightening cloud. But there were two very dangerous escapees from that time period who were exceptions to that norm in every way, shape, and form. They were extremely dangerous, evil men who escaped at differing times, leaving not only our city, but the whole state gripped with fear. They managed to remain on the run for quite some time, and while out, one of them invaded a Girl Scout camp, and raped and murdered three young girls. It was a very scary time because law enforcement relentlessly pursued them but, for days, weeks, and months, stayed one or two crucial steps behind them. Prince Kit, who was just a small boy at the time, lived in a city north of here, and even he and his family had a very frightening "when I think what COULD have happened" experience with one of the two men. Law enforcement tracked the most dangerous of the two (Hart) to the barn that sat on the property next to their home in M*******. When LE searched the barn, they discovered evidence that lead them to believe that Hart had not only been in there but had vacated the barn only moments before their arrival. There is no telling how many hours he sat out there watching Prince Kit's family, waiting for just the right moment to rob and likely, kill them in order to obtain money, shelter, and a car. Even now, as I type this, I feel chills running up my spine. I was terrified of that monster and realizing how easily he could have harmed the man I love more than life, itself both saddens and enrages me.
Both of these evil men were eventually apprehended and both also eventually died in prison (one died just recently in 2009) but I have never forgotten the reign of terror they injected into my childhood (and everyone else's lives) and although I haven't had nightmares that are specifically about them in several years, I do still have similar nightmares that cause me to wake up in full panic mode and the experience of living so close to evil definitely shaped the fear-ridden, obsessively cautious adult I am today.
*related: A couple of different convicts escaped one night and ended up trying to break into Reana's parent's cars. They were hoping that one of them would have the keys inside, according to the best guess wagered by police later. Reana was spending the night at our house that night so we missed the commotion but they told us the next day that both of our 10-speeds had been taken across the yard but then dumped by the street. The police hypothesized that the convicts had considered trying to get away on our bikes but decided against it at the last minute since traveling on the streets would make them far too visible to the general public and the people who were searching for them. Even though we missed the whole episode, it still unnerved us and we stayed that way for several days afterwards even though they caught the escapees. Neither of us had ever experienced having convicts come to our house before. That made the proximity between our homes and the prison a lot too close for comfort but like all people who live in this town, we eventually got over it. Such things have always just been a way of life. I never got over my fear of the specific two convicts I talked about early in this post though. When the last one of them died last month, I was relieved. It's not as though I've been living in constant fear as an adult or anything but still, somewhere in the back of my mind, his presence has always been there. It's been a lot of years since I first heard the two names that I feared so much. So even though I had long learned to put it out of my mind for the most part, hearing that the last one was finally, irreversibly gone gave me comfort.
Anyhow, that night back in the 70's when the convicts wandered into Reana's yard, the police and highway patrol followed shortly after. Fearing that the guys may have broken into the house and taken hostage or harmed the family inside, the police pounded on the doors and windows in attempt to get someone to unlock the doors and let them take a look around. For several minutes, Reana's mom refused to allow her dad open the door because she thought a knock on the door by police in the middle of the night could mean only one thing, - that Reana had been seriously harmed or killed while spending the night away from home. She said she didn't want to hear that news so she couldn't bring herself to answer the door. Finally, level heads (Bill's, lol) prevailed and they opened the door to a crowd of police officers who were just about to break in thinking the lack of answer to their knocks indicated a possible hostage situation. It's kind of funny now but back when it first happened, it was pretty creepy stuff.