Criminal Intent

During the time I was with Mr. Wrong, my drinking had gradually increased over that year to the point that it was causing problems with my job and my family. Of course, regardless of whether I was drinking or not, there were going to family problems. Mother was FINALLY divorcing Walter! Yes! It only took her 22 years! That's my Mama. She's where I got the pit bull trait from. But this incident finally broke my mom's pit bull grip!

Crazy Uncle Tommy, his sweet wife, Maxine, my mama and I had been out to dinner. They dropped us off in the driveway but stayed to make sure we made it in the house safely. I was living a block away in a small apartment.

Walter had been in and out of the house on a particularly terrible manic episode. He was walking around knocking on neighbors' doors at 5:00 AM for no reason other than to say “Hello!” And of course he was running around with his would be gangster friends and his would be gangster friends. He would have been much better if he was not drinking while taking his medicine. That fact made him a scary freakazoid! But, mother and I had no idea how scary he could really be.

We noticed something was amiss as soon as we opened the door. By this time Tommy and Maxine were in the house with us. Several pieces of furniture were missing or destroyed. The microwave was gone as well as my mother's jewelry box that contained priceless, sentimental pieces of jewelry of my Mamaw's as well as some rather expensive pieces of Mother's. My Mamaw had give my mother a beautiful tea serving cart for her first Mother's Day. It was gone.

We called the police, of course, quickly determined that there was no forced entry so we immediately knew it was Walter who was supposedly gone on a fishing trip that weekend. Yeah, right!

What the police discovered next was something we were in no way prepared for. The attic door in the ceiling of the hallway was open 3 – 5 inches. Upon closer inspection the office saw a shotgun pointed straight out of the opening of the of the attic door. Somehow there was a piece of thin rope rigged between the gun's trigger, a nail on the attic door and the air conditioner unit so that when the door was opened it would blow the head off whoever opened it, most likely my mother. The police officers (there were many at the house by that time) had some extremely long wire cutters and they were able to dismantle the carefully rigged rope without the gun going off. Whew!

After all this terror I stepped outside for some air. It was at this time that I finally noticed that my brand new 1987 Mazda RX 7 was gone! I had left it parked in the side driveway and left my keys on the kitchen counter. I called to tell a friend who lived in my apartment complex to cry about it! My new car – gone. Walter had stolen my car that he found for me and helped me buy in the first place! None of this was making much sense.

A few minutes later my neighbor/friend called to say that my car was in the parking lot with a lot of stuff in the back. The keys were in it and the door was locked. Luckily I had another set in my purse. Crazy Uncle Tommy took me down there and sure enough, there was my car. Curiously Mom's sterling silver tea service, tray and all, was sitting in the back.

O.K., folks, follow me now. This is what we have come to believe although when confronted the next day he would not admit it: Walter and his criminal buddies set the whole thing up to look like I had robbed and murdered my own mother. He never counted on me being with her though. In his plan, she would walk in alone, survey the damage, call the police, and her curiosity would get to her about that attic door so when she pulled it down – BOOM! It would have killed her instantly. He had a $250,000 life insurance policy on her. And by taking my car with “stolen” merchandise and setting it up in my apartment's parking lot the finger would have been pointed at me for responsibility for her death. He would collect big and I would go to jail for the rest of my life or worse/

He denied it all the next day while he stumbled around drunk slurring his words. We moved Mom out that afternoon.