Sondra London

Sondra London (elestria@aol.com) is RealPoetik's special correspondant to the court system, the Discordians, and Death Row.

I thought about editing and annotating the following exchange of email,

finally decided the work spoke for itself (although I include the URL at the piece's conclusion for those of Discordian bent).

HI, SKY.... U WROTE

Elestria wrote on 12/25/97:

>sky

>

>i want to write more but i have to fly out my dear friend kerry thornley

>called me and i belive he is dying right now he wants me there

>

>i cant get a flight back until 12/31

>

>i'll be at [***] if you want to call

> Hey!

I've tried to call a few times, but just get an answering machine, I think

[***] ? Sorry to miss you. Let me know what is going on with your

friend. I was sorry to hear this.

Yours,

Sky

****

I just got back. It was intense. That number was his ex wife's work number.

It's what he gave me, but he was not in his right mind. I talked to her too

but I didn't think to verify the phone number with her. When I got to the

Atlanta airport, I kept calling that machine so his son could pick me up as

planned, but after three hours finally some beautiful Discordian people who

did not know me picked me up at the airport at midnite on Christmas nite &

took me to their home 50 miles away.

Before I could get to Atlanta his ex-wife had taken him to another hospital

emergency room, and they were there from 9:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. and all they

really did to treat him was to catherize him (he could neither urinate nor

defecate) and refer him back to the hospital that had discharged him. They

went there (after being up all night) and they yanked the catheter causing

bleeding but would not admit him. All this time I was at the Discordians'

place and could not find out anything because nobody was getting the messages

I was leaving on the work phone. They did not know where I was. I did not

know where they were. [HAIL ERIS!]

Finally the next day they dialyzed Kerry, and I took the train into town &

waited near the dialysis center and his ex-wife picked him up and then picked

me up and took the two of us out to his place and left us there.

I spent 3 day-nites alone with Kerry in his place - a tiny bare room in a

bizarre old unheated house on a wooded hillside with a waterfall and a stream

in back. He has 2 space heaters but he leaves his door open so his 10 cats

can come & go.

There is a phone but it's like a bootleg party line with some business and

you can only call out in the middle of the night or some time when you know

the business is not going to pick up the phone - and nobody can call you

there.

He was discharged from the hospital by a substitute doctor after some

ill-defined dispute at 3:00 a.m. Christmas morning; the only reason he wasn't

put out in the street without a ride was because a sympathetic nurse ignored

doctor's orders and allowed him to sleep through the night on a stretcher in

the hall. His real doctor was on holiday and could not see him until today.

Kerry is seriously ill: primary diagnosis is Wegener's syndrome (an

auto-immune disease); secondary diagnoses are chronic renal failure;

congestive heart failure; endocarditis; pneumonia; blood in his urine and

difficulty urinating; difficulty defecating; blood and mucus nasal discharge;

shortness of breath; sore mouth/thrush; bilateral conjunctivitis; dry,

cracked skin with bleeding sores all over.

He did not remember telling me "if you want to see me you'd better get here

today," or answering me when I asked, "Kerry, are you dying?" with "Well,

what do you think?"

Once I got there he kept minimizing his condition. When he called before I

left he didn't even mention the inflammation of the lining of his heart,

which I learned from his ex-wife was what put him in the hospital this last

time.

His son Kreg had told him "You're going to have to start taking this

SERIOUSLY!" and the whole time I was there he grumbled and growled again and

again about how he never wanted to see his son's face again because he never

appreciates his jokes.

He wouldn't even let me put lotion on his cracked & bleeding back that was

itching like crazy. I slept in the same bed with him and he didn't want me to

touch him even in his sleep. The first night he stayed up all night pacing

and raving. I wept quite a lot. The second and third nights I gave him 1 mg

of my own Xanax so SOMEBODY could get some rest... (that was after I heard

him say they had given him Xanax in the hospital). He tolerated it fine and

got a good rest (so did I!).

I had a couple of fights with him over the fact he won't care for himself or

allow any of the people who love him care for him; he puts those damn cats

ahead of everyone & everything.

While I was there cats shit and pissed and threw up on the floor and one

brought in a BIG NASTY RAT!!!! Kerry picked unidentified vermin off the cats

and squished them.

The fourth day I took him on a taxi-train-bus-transfer journey into what he

calls "enemy territory" - Cobb County, where they have, like, banned gays and

a whole bunch of other obnoxious stuff, and he has published many outrageous

rants against them. So he could meet the Discordians and see his own website

for the first time.

He lives over 1/4 mile out this unpaved lane. You have to walk uphill to the

real road, then another 1/4 mile to the bus stop. There was ice on that

rocky, rough road. His lungs were full. Coughing and hacking, he couldn't

walk more than 3-4 steps without having to pause and rest. Still, he refused

to let me call a taxi! Finally, I showed him my watch, that we had already

missed the bus for the second time, so grudgingly he allowed me to turn him

around and head back to the house and call a taxi to take us to the train

station.

While we waited for the taxi I sat with Molly purring on my lap as the radio

played Beethoven's Ninth - the Ode to Joy never hung so bittersweet in the

air.

I kept crying the whole time. Tears just flowing.

Standing in the wind waiting for a transfer, he turned to me and said,

"Either this bus is going to come or I'm going to die of pneumonia." I tried

to get him to turn around & go back to his place & get back in bed but he

turned fierce and abusive.

"This was a harebrained goddamned idea to come out here."

"You're right. It's my fault. Please, let's just go back."

"NO! After we came this far?"

So we continued our quixotic voyage.

We got on the bus and I sat one seat away from him with my bag between us. I

just withdrew from him.

Uncharacteristically, he reached towards me, touched my arm and smiled.

I was wary. "Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"You're not?"

"Of course not! Why should I be?"

So I scooted over and sat right next to him and then when he began to drowse

off, I put my arm around his shoulders to steady him as the bus swayed and

swerved along. He felt so frail, as if he had puffed up with anger and then

shriveled up into his pain.

At one point, he turned to me and said, "I think I really am dying this

time."

"Maybe you'll get better."

After we got there it really turned out well. We bundled him in quilts and

ensconced him on a folded-out futon in the middle of the room and he dozed

off for awhile. We brewed him some mouth-soothing slippery elm herb tea. I

had to hold the cup for him to drink it, but after that he perked up. After a

second cup he was able to have an oven-fresh biscuit and some cheese (all he

could eat for the day) and he had a real good time.

About a half dozen young Discordians arrived one by one bringing their

Principia Discordias to get autographed and to meet and converse with him.

One - Mister Antithesis - posed with him proudly displaying the tattoo on his

arm of the Golden Kallisti Apple with the Sacred Chao.

And after I showed him the website I made for him, they showed him some of

the other Discordian sites on the Web, including one of the entire Principia.

And one Discordian named Frater Flatulus Gelatinus (who had kindly summoned

Mr. Antithesis & the other Discordians to come rescue me) kept in touch by

phone... Flat was posting emails and bulletins to alt.discordia. When we

finally got Kerry up and online, Flat convened a Discordian chat room session

and Kerry got to participate in his first (and probably only) chat session.

We read the questions out loud to him and as he said his answers we keyed

them in for him.

He really rallied during that hour or so there. He was lucid and funny with

flashes of outrageous brilliance and beauty. He was as gracious and charming

as he can be at his best. It didn't last long but we had a little portable

tape recorder picking up most of the discourse.

We spent the night there together on that futon that night with the help of

another round of Xanax and the next day a Discordian grant paid for a taxi

direct to dialysis. I went with him and waited four hours lurking around

various spots trying to stay warm while writing one of my marathon letters to

Danny Rolling about this and all the other stuff that is going on (oh yeah,

BTW - the judge ruled AGAINST us today.... so much for my career.....)

After Kerry got out of dialysis he was crankier than ever and we had a big

fight because I told him the Discordians had contributed $20, enough to pay

for a taxi home from dialysis. "Thank you," he said, for the money, and then

said he was going to take the bus and walk anyway because he needed to "buy

some stuff" and he had no money. I know EXACTLY what he was going to buy. Cat

food.

I had arranged for him to go to a professor's apartment and stay there until

his ex-wife could get his son's car and drive him home. Oh that pissed him

off something terrible and he was blasting away at me, her, him and all

humankind.

He said he would be suicidal if he didn't have those cats. It was me that

gave him the first one - Molly, MY cat, who I couldn't keep because of my

fugitive lifestyle. He shaped his life around caring for her and then all the

other cats that came around. His cat entourage.

I have offered to house and care for him and so have several other people,

including his ex-wife, but nobody will take in all those cats.

He says sick people who have pets get better and old people live longer. And

his cats make him happy. He just doesn't care at all for his own physical

self, nor for all the people who love him, nor for the creative genius within

him. The drafty room, the vermin, the allergens, the careless depositing of

animal wastes... this can't be good for his physical health. But to HIM,

their company is central to his mental health.

I asked him, "if you really are dying, what do you want to do or complete or

take care of before you go?" And he said, "I just want to be sure my cats are

taken care of."

"How about your writing? Your artwork? Your works in progress?"

"Oh I don't care about any of that stuff."

I asked him if he would like me to be his literary executor, and he said he

would, so I handwrote up a statement to that effect, and when I came to the

part about the beneficiary - "Who would that be - Kreg? Or Cara?"

"No. Kreg is going to inherit some money and Cara doesn't need anything. If

anything you publish by me ever makes any money I just want it to go to my

cats."

I told him I was crying so much not JUST because of him but because when he

called me Christmas, I was already way over my limit of emotional tolerance

in my struggle with The Death Machine - starting in July when they killed

Joe O'Dell after he had been separated from me FOREVER by this millionaire

femme fatale, and then going up through now with Danny - the whole thing has

just really been getting to me, and then on top of that, Kerry drawing me

into his struggle with this other Face of Death.

I was explaining how hurt I was that the Death Machine had taken Joe O'Dell

away from me and I couldn't even say goodbye, and I was afraid that would

happen with Danny Rolling.

"Yeah, I know how you feel," he sympathized. "That was how I felt when that

dog killed Billy...." and he went on and on and on and ON! about what a GREAT

cat Billy was.... and you have to understand I've been listening to this cat

shit for about a hundred hours straight by this time, and I just said, "Yeah,

well, you know what? I'm GLAD Billy's gone, because maybe now you'll be able

to notice the PEOPLE AROUND YOU who LOVE YOU." (Hint, hint! HELLO?)

Of course I know he is dying and he is frightened and hurting. But I'm

hurting too, you know! And finally I just said "OK, FINE! Just go on & DIE,

then, dammit, if that's what you want! You just walk down that damn icy road.

And when you slip or twist your ankle and you're laying there freezing to

death because nobody is gonna go that way for DAYS, you remember ME, you

remember I'm the one that got you the damn money to take a taxi and you told

me NO!"

"I'm not going to slip. I have good shoes. Exercise is good for kidney

patients."

"I just don't want to leave you this way, Kerry."

"Then come spend the night with me again."

"No. I'm exhausted. It's freezing. I don't do weather. And I don't do

walking. It costs $10 to get down there from the train station and another

$10 to get back, and I already ran out of my own money and their money too."

"Well, all right, then." And he turned away.

"Kerry?"

He stopped.

"Goodbye?"

"Goodbye."

And he just turned and walked away.

I stood there in the wind and the snow and sobbed openly like a little child

watching him walk out of my life. Aw SHIT. It can't go like that.

I yelled, "Kerry!" and "KERRY!!" but he kept walking. So I started running,

but he was walking so slow I caught up just walking and just slipped up next

to him and put my arm through his without a word.

Without looking up, he said "You wanna come have a cup of coffee with me?"

(Crying so hard I can't speak) "Nn-hn."

"It's really good cappucino... they've got a machine at this Texaco up

here..... you'll like it...."

And I just held his arm and struggled to compose myself as we walked to the

Texaco. While we stood there in the Texaco and drank cappucino, our talk of

death and separation was subdued. I told him I was sorry I yelled at him, I

was just afraid I'd never see him again.

After then cappucino was finished we walked to the Midtown station in

silence, then stopped in front of the station. "I just want you to know that

I love you, Kerry."

"I love you too," he said with a soft sad smile and leaned towards me. We

touched foreheads as we looked deep into each other's eyes. There was one

last long hug. Then he went south and I went north.

*********

The Ancient Abbreviated Calif of California (aka Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, Ho

Chi Zen, Jesse Sump, Bullgoose of Limbo, Grand Ballyhoo of Egypt & President

of the Fair Play for Switzerland Committee) launches his exclusive

cyberdomain under the benevolent protection of his Most High Priestess, The

Erisian Elestria, with his Discordian Manifesto: The Gospel According to an

Anarchistic Robot.

http://www.sondralondon.com/new/thornley/thornley.html

*********

Please allow me to encourage you to order the Principia Discordia for $10

from its co-author at: PO Box 5381, Atlanta GA 31107.

"Only when individuals collapse - one at a time, first here and then there -

does social order then also eventually decay. Through the collapse of human

beings - a Wilhelm Reich here, a Lenny Bruce there, a Janis Joplin elsewhere

- the social order begins to crack and heave, edging toward ruin."

- Kerry Thornley

INTERVIEW 1988: BRUCE RITCHIE (Q) & OTTIS TOOLE (A)

Q You wanted to talk about the Adam Walsh casex

A That kid was snatched from a Sears about 20 miles from Miami. He was took

out of a shopping center. I would deal with Fla. Law Enforcement out of

Tallahassee on that case. I would deal with them all the way 100% because I

want to clean my system out. Since I been here, I got closer to God, and when

I was doing all this here, I was all into devil worship at the time. I was

dealing with devil worship and drinking blood and all that. See, I been doing

this stuff all my life, I didn't just start on it yesterday. I know I'm gone

put myself in more hell than I'm in now, but I want to clear my system out. I

have to take medication all the time. I have to take Thorazine and Dilantin

all the time, because I can't keep myself calmed down, so I have to deal with

that all the time too. It's ripping me apart inside and messing my mind up

more. I know if I can talk to the right person I might be able to clean out

my system.

Q What can you tell me about the Adam Walsh casex

A It reminds me of when I was a child. I was molested and raped when I was a

child. I was about six years old my own self. I told my mother and father

about it, and they just wouldn't pay no attention to it. It ain't just the

Walsh case I want to clear out of my system, it's a lot of other cases. But

that Walsh case really bothers me, since I been really thinking about it.

It'd take a pretty good while for me to go through that whole story. I can,

but it wouldn't make much sense me talking real fast. You won't be able to

get down what I'm saying.

Q Maybe we could try.

A It ain't no new case, and people keep asking me about that case.

Q It's still a mystery where his body was left.

A I can't get to all that. It ain't just something that you can dream up,

it's something that really happened. The same think could've happened to me

when I got raped when I was a kid. I'm saying to a certain extent Adam Walsh

got raped his own self. That's why they didn't ever find the remains of the

body, because I wouldn't ever tell where it was. If I don't tell them where

the remains was, I can stop them in their tracks. Because they don't really

want to deal with me, you know. I don't want to go to a jail somewhere for

somebody to treat me like I'm a dog and all that, because it really bothered

me about that case. The way it happened to him reminds me of my childhood

too. It's really a filthy killing. It ain't no killing is clean.

Q Do you want to tell me where the body is?

A His head was chopped off and throwed in that canal there right between the

118 marker and 138 marker on the toll road. Otherwise, he was molested and

chopped up, and I left some parts all through the canal, and I took some of

the parts back to Jacksonville, and I burned some of the parts. And I deal in

cannibalism too, I do. I ate some of the parts of the body, you know. And I

dumped some of the remains in the Jacksonville dump. I mostly chopped the

pieces all up in little pieces, not in big pieces. Jacksonville police don't

know they got the knife there in Jacksonville, and there was a machete too.

They don't know they got the machete. Otherwise the bayonet that I chopped

the pieces of the Adam Walsh body up with. I can't really deal with people

too much, because I don't know how to approach being around people. So I have

to stay locked down, because I can't approach the population or anybody else,

because I might go haywire again, and just start chopping up somebody. I'm

trying to keep myself away from all that, from getting involved in all that.

Q Have you told authorities now where the body is?

A No, I ain't told them, they don't know where it is. There are lots of

cases, with young people, older people, that ain't never got cleared up. See,

I ain't satisfied with it. I ain't on death row no more, and I ain't gone be

satisfied with what's going on with myself, cause I keep getting frustrated

all different times. If I was out in population, I might go haywire. I have

different people say, if they take me out, they wouldn't get no bad time, and

they wouldn't get put in the electric chair for taking me out. I have a lot

of people saying that. I had this Walsh case keeps being throwed up to me. It

ain't just now, it's been going on for a long time, they just ain't never

stopped, they won't slow down the issue, they just keep shoving and shoving,

they won't even slow down. I reckon they want to make me go off and take one

of them out the way they keep acting. Other inmates. Not only the Walsh case,

they keep bothering me about other cases, you know.

Q You sound like you just want to deal with the FDLE and you don't want to

talk to anybody else.

A Way back when I had tried on the Johnson case, killing the Johnson girl in

Tallahassee, it was kind of an accidental killing. That was the case I came

off death row on. The George Sonnenberg case. He was my ex-lover on the

street. I meant to kill him, you know, because I love seeing big fires, I get

off on big fires. The bigger the fire is, the better I like it. I really

meant to take his ass out, you know. And if I had the chance again, I'd take

his ass out again, I would. It's just the way he kept shoving on me, he

wouldn't let up, you know. He wouldn't slow up on nothing at all. And I just

got tired of him running his mouth. That's when I set the house on fire. I

went and got five gallon of gasoline and burned his fuckin' ass up in the

house. I meant to do it, you know. Because I get off on fires. They make me

get off. I been doing all this since I was a child, I didn't just start doing

it yesterday or the day before. I'm charged on a case I did way back in 1968.

I can go all the way back in my childhood. I choked a woman when I was

fourteen years old. And then Henry, you've heard of Henry Lee Lucas, well he

was my ex-lover, you know. And he told me, you tell on me and I'll tell on

you. He said, that's what I want you to do, you know.

Q Have you heard from him recently?

A Yeah, he's talking again now, in the state of Texas, he is. I got my death

sentence overturned on being a pyromaniac, that's what it was overturned on.

I got about 125 cases in the state of Florida, you know. I've been involved

in all this since I was a child, through the cult, you know. See my partner

calls it The Hands of Death, you know, that's what he calls it. He written a

book back in 1985 about it called The Hands of Death, and he got in touch

with somebody that I got in touch with, and he said he's talking more and

trying to clear up everything more and more now than what he did before,

because he said his mind is getting clear on all of it. And I want to get my

mind cleared up too. But we went through the state of Texas like a hurricane,

we did. That's the way we messed up the state of Texas when we went through

it.

Q You have said you dumped Adam Walsh's body in the canal, and you also said

you burned it in a refrigerator, and dumped it at the landfill in

Jacksonville.

A And I ate some of it too.

Q But authorities say they don't believe you because you changed your story.

A See what it is, they didn't keep lining up the whole story all the way

through. See what they did, they went back and jump on different stories. I

was going through the whole story all the way through and they chopped up

into different stories. They just didn't go all the way through the whole

case the way I was telling it. They just kept jumping around. That way they

couldn't do nothing to me on the case. It was the right case that was running

straight on through.

Q How many different locations would you say you dumped parts of his body?

A All up and down in between that freeway. And then I took some of it back to

Jacksonville and barbecued it just like ribs and ate it, ate his ribs, you

know.

Q Can the police ever find anything?

A They can take me back down there and we can start from the go and go all

the way through the case. They want to clear up the whole case, we can. But

if they want to keep bullshitting around. I'm still the number one suspect on

the case. You know in God's eyes, if you say you done somethingx let's just

say somebody's walking down the street and you say, I'm gone kill that

person, it's the same thing as doing it, because it's in your mind. See I

have got saved since I been in here, and I'm trying to clear my soul up and

I'm trying to get right.

Q How did you get saved?

A There was a guy that I got talking to, another inmate, he said Ottis,

regardless of which way it goes, you're gone go through hell. But there's

only one thing, God can forgive you and God will always love you, but men and

women will never forgive you for what you done, because they're all sinners,

but you got some that's really religious, that really believes in God. You

can't use God, you know. You can use a person, but you can't use God, because

God sees everything that's going on 24 hours a day. He's always with you and

he sees everything that is going on. You can't lie to him, because he sees

it, he's right there. So I'm cleaning myself up with God, regardless of what

other people think. They can dislike, hate, or whatever. But it's really true

about God, he can always forgive you for what you've done, but you can't

always go back and forth. See, I ain't never going back again. The way I'm

going now, I'm gone let it all out all the way, I ain't gone hold none of it

in again.

Q When did you discover God?

A Well, my friend's gone from here now, but he got talking to me, his name is

Jerry. And he wrote a lots of letters for me and I'd sign my name.

Q Gerard Schaefer?

A Yeah, Jerry Schaefer. He's the one told me I need to clean myself up with

God. I really started getting into it more and believing in it more about

three months ago. That God is the only person you can turn to that you can

really trust who will really love you. And he will look out for you. Jerry

Schaefer is my friend. He was on the same wing with me. He was next door to

me. That's when I was on M wing, and I was in Cell 5. Jerry has got

transferred down to Marion.

Q What could you say to Adam Walsh's parents?

A That I don't blame them for me destroying someone they loved in their

family, somebody that was a young, beautiful, innocent child. For a man and

woman to love that child like they did, because they really and truly loved

Adam Walsh, they did. I know I have messed up their life quite a bit by

taking someone from them that they really loved. If they hate me, I can't

blame them. But I know that God loves me, and I know God loves them, and God

will look out for them and everyone that's in their family. And I wish I

didn't destroy little Adam Walsh, their son. And I know they have been

through a lots of hell since then, by losing someone that they love. After

someone's gone, you ain't lost their love, because their love is always in

your heart. You might lose the person but you don't lose the love of the

person.

Q Can you tell me how you first saw Adam Walsh?

A He was right out there by the Sears at the shopping center, and he was

playing with a fire truck. He had a red fire engine. And I got talking to him

and he told me he likes baseball. And I sat down and talked to him a little

bit, and I said, well, I'm gone kidnap this boy, you know. I said that to

myself. I said I had some toys and candy in the car. I said well, come over

to the car and I'll give you some candy and some toys. And I snatched him up,

put him in the car, and I told him, I said all the toys ain't in my car. We

have to go to my house to get the rest of 'em. I said we won't be gone too

long. And he started whining a little bit, wanting to get out, you know. I

hit him real hard in the chest and knocked the breath out of him. Then I got

on that turnpike freeway, and got one of them tickets, and got further down

the road and I chopped his head off.

Q Was he dead by that time?

A Yeah, he was dead the way I hit him, I hit him real hard in the chest. Then

I chopped his head off. I must've busted something inside him when I hit him

in the chest real hard. But soon's I hit him in the chest, I put a blade up

to his throat and cut him inside his neck, so I reckon that went on and

drownded him inside his lungs, you know, that blood got inside of 'em. And I

got further down the turnpike, and that's when I put him face down and I took

out my machete and chopped his head off. And I used a butcher knife on him

too. I had a black knife about that long, Jacksonville police has got it. I

don't know if they turned it in or what, it was a black-handled knife. And I

even tasted of the blood too, I did. I had a 1971 black and white Cadillac,

black vinyl top, white body. They did find blood in the car, and they been so

many people hauled in that car, see.

Q Killed?

A Yeah, killed and hauled in that Cadillac. Otherwise, Adam Walsh was fucked

too, and I made him suck my dick, otherwise I put my dick in his mouth

afterwards, but I went on and fucked him after he was dead, you know.

Q You pulled over on the side of the road and cut off his head?

A Yeah, I pulled off on the side of the road and laid him face down and

started cutting him up. And I couldn't cut his head off, so I took thatx

otherwise what it is, it goes on the end of a rifle, you can call it a

bayonet or a machete, it's all about the same. I cut his head off with it,

pretty close.

Q You remember what he was wearing at the time?

A Yeah, he was wearing blue pants and a blue shirt. And he had a baseball cap

on.

Q Remember what kind of shoes?

A He had tennis shoes on, I think.

Q After you cut off his head, what happened?

A Well, I drunk some of that blood, I did. After I cut his hands off, I

scattered some of his parts about ten miles up and down that freeway. Then I

turned around on it. Then I went and got off on it. It cost me so many

dollars, I forget how many, to get off. But I gave the woman a twenty dollar

bill, and she gave me back some change. She took quite a little bit of it

out, you know. Oh, you mean when I cut his head off.

Q Yeah what parts did youx you drove up and down and scattered partsx

A Oh, I chopped his hands all up and fingers and arms and all that up. Mostly

his fingers and hands and arms.

Q Where did you keep the rest of his body?

A I kept the rest of his body in the trunk of the car.

Q Was it bleeding all over the place?

A Yeah, it was bleeding all over the trunk of the car. When I chopped his

head off, I throwed his head in the back of the car and I got blood all over

the back seat of the car. That's when I throwed his head in the canal. He was

yelling for his mommy and daddy too, you know. That's when I wouldn't take

him back.

Q So you drove on from there?

A I took the rest of it up to Jacksonville with me. That's why I said they

got the whole story turned around. See the story's going right, but they got

the story turned. They had so many different stories they was jumping from

one to the other, they didn't line it up the way I told 'em to line it up.

Q Was it night time when you dumped his body there?

A Late afternoon. It was dark when I got back to Jacksonville.

Q What did you do with the body then?

A I pulled in the yard and shut the gate. You couldn't see in the yard

because the whole yard is closed in, you know. But nobody lived in the house.

It was my mother's house, you know. That's when I burnt the rest of it in

that old icebox. I ate some of his ribs and all that. I kept burning all

different parts of it. And I kept chopping it up real little. And the next

day I just went out there and dumped his body, what was left. I kept burning

it all that night, then went out to the Jacksonville dump and dumped the

remains out there. Just give 'em a dollar and go in there.

Q How much body was left to dump? Did it look like a body?

A They wasn't too much of anything left. You could tell there was some bones

if you really looked. But I throwed that old ice box out in that big old city

dump out there.

Q Was there anything of Adam Walsh's that was kept?

A No there wasn't anything kept.

Q Why do you think that the police say they don't suspect you?

A They don't remember the fire truck. He had a red fire truck. I didn't say

nothing about the red fire truck.

Q You never told them about that before?

A Never.

Q Why didn't you tell them that before?

A Because they were so hateful.

Q Do they believe you now?

A They come back hard on me on that case, all of 'em trying to run in here on

top of me on that case, ever since they found out Lucas started talking back

and I started talking back, they keep asking me about the Adam Walsh case,

the Adam Walsh case. See, FDLE wants that case. I was there, see. They tried

to run me down and find out where I was at, but they couldn't find out where

I was at, because I done left, see. But I told 'em no, I don't want to be

messed up with murder, said I'm gone try to clean my mind up and get my mind

going right, and then if we want to talk, we'll talk. See Adams wants that

case, too. Adams, he's the deputy sheriff in Holmes County. I done two

killings in Holmes County. Yeah, I just reversed it. One was a woman, and

Henry done a woman in Holmes County. And there was a man killed in a gas

station, shot, beated with a lug wrench. Henry shot him in the head with a

.25 automatic. See me and Henry, we switch out stories back and forth, that

way they couldn't catch on. They couldn't charge Henry on different ones, and

they couldn't charge me on different ones at that time. And they was an old

woman I shot in the head with a rifle, and a young woman I shot with a rifle.

And they was one I cut.

Q You remember any locations on them?

A They was killed in Holmes County, and the man was right out from Holmes

County, and the old woman was right out from Holmes County, the old woman

shot with a rifle. The young woman was in Holmes County got stabbed with a

butcher knife. Right out from Holmes County a man got shot in the head with a

.25 automatic, and got beated in the head with a lug wrench. Then I shot the

old woman in the head with a rifle. All of 'em's in the Holmes County

district.

Q How's prison life in here?

A It's hell.

Q What's bad, what's good?

A Ain't nothing good and ain't nothing good.

Q How so?

A Well, in fact if you ain't getting fucked you getting robbed, if you ain't

getting robbed you getting beated, if you ain't getting beated you getting

stabbed, if you ain't getting stabbed you gone have to fight.

Q Do they take it out extra hard on you because of your record?

A They's lots that would like to get to me.

Q Get to you and kill you?

A Yeah. I have all kind of threats made all the time. I want to ask you

something. They was a ransom on Adam Walsh. Who in the heck's got that money,

that $5,000 ransom?

Q Good question. I don't know.

A Who's going to get it?

Q A ransom or a reward?

A A reward, $5,000.

Q Who do you think should get it? Should the Walsh family keep it?

A Well, if they get the right person, they ought to give it to the person

that done the killing, that's really stepping forward and really cleaning up

the mess that they made.

Q You think you ought to get it.

A Why not, I'm stepping forward, ain't I? Everybody wants blood money one way

or another, don't they?

Q Blood money?

A That's what you call it, ain't it?

Q You couldn't use it in here tough, could you?

A Yeah, I could use it in here. I can sell stories, can't I?

Q I don't think so.

A Why not? No, I'd like to see Walsh get the $5,000 reward.

Q Ever kill anybody in Alabama?

A Alabama? Young kid on a bicycle.

Q I read about some cases in Alabama that Lucas was involved in.

A Did you read that book Hands of Death?

Q No.

A They said it was selling for $10. Hands of Death.

Q Jerry Schaefer wrote and said you felt like you were going to die. You

don't have any serious health problems, do you?

A I'm losing weight like hell.

Q You don't have any disease, do you?

A I've got cancer.

Q Really?

A Yeah. You can put in the newspaper that I'm dying of cancer if you want to.

Q Are you really dying of cancer?

A Yeah.

Q How much longer do you think you have?

A I might live a couple more years.

Q Would you mind if I get you to sign a form so I can check your medical

records, so I can check where the cancer is?

A No, I won't release that.

Q That's fine. Do you know what kind of cancer it is?

A I've got skin cancer and cancer eating my guts. See where my skin cancer

is?

Q Uh-huh.

A See where it's eating my skin?

Q Uh-huh.

A I weigh 168 pounds. I'm losing more weight all the time. When I first got

arrested I weighed 220. I even had hepatitis. x Why didn't you bring me one

of those? Why don't you send me one of those? Why don't you correspond with

me?

Q Sure. You can't write, right?

A You correspond.

Q OK. What you've told me today is pretty much what you told law enforcement

authorities already, right? I mean you haven't really told me anything new

except the fire truck. Why is that important in the case?

A That's one of the main keys, I imagine. Oh yeah, and going across an iron

bridge on the freeway, about a hour and a half drive, where the kid was

killed at.

Q Past an iron bridge?

A Go over an iron bridge, about a hour and a half from the time you hit the

freeway to where he was killed at, down a side road.

Q On the turnpike?

A On the turnpike. Like a iron archway, not real high.

Q You had to cross over that?

A You can't tell it too much. And they got gas stations in between the

mediums.

Q So that's another key you hadn't told the investigators before.

A Um-hm.

Q You know how you can play games with people a little bit.

A See, I can't spit out the whole thing at one time.

Q So there's still more that you're not telling me, right?

A I told you I'd let you have quite a bit of cases in Florida, and I would

let you deal with the publicity on those cases that they want. I'm trying to

get some publicity myself. But I know it's going to bring some publicity to

you too.

Q Well, I think we've covered everything. Let me give you one of my cards.

A You gone correspond with me?

Q I can't find my card. I'll have to send it to you.

A OK.

Sondra London

Besides being a writer and journalists on the interesting subjects of mass

murderers, Sondra is also a champion fighter for the civil rights of writers

and publishers, both hard copy and internet. Several states have attepted

to prevent publication of her transcripts and letters from serial killers.

She has an enormous body of material, well worth looking at if you're up

for that sort of thing, and can be reached at elestria@aol.com.

The following statement was spoken by convicted serial killer Ottis Toole,

who died in prison of liver failure last year. It was videotaped for a French

documentary, but this portion of the interview was never broadcast. Print

rights belong to me because of my role in getting Ottis to talk, and it

appeared in my book, Knockin' on Joe: Voices from Death Row, published in

England in 1992 by Nemesis Books (now out of print).

- Sondra London

*************

I Couldn't Stop

by Ottis Toole

I used to hear voicesx

Right now I could go to my mother's grave and lay down on the dirt and hear

and feel the dirt vibratingx and I can hear her moving around down therex and

I know she was hearing me when I was talking to herx laying down and talking

to herx and I could feel the dirt vibratingx I used to go out there all the

timex

And I used to go with my grandmother into graveyardsx we used to dig up all

kinds of bonesx get all kinds of herbsx and she used to take the bones and do

devil worshipx she would put spells on you with the bonesx she would make

voodoo dollsx take a chicken and wring the chicken's neckx I had to do what

she saidx she told me I belonged to the devilx she'd say you do what I tell

you to dox you can't quitx you ain't never going to quitx you do what I sayx

I said, well maybe she's akin to the Hands of Death, you knowx but she was a

real witchx she wore long dressesx long hairx she covered her facex she went

through graveyardsx and barnsx putting spellsx burning altarsx she had skulls

in her housex she showed me how to take a drawer and turn it upside down and

build an altar out of itx and take hands and a knife and a cup, and put it

all up therex it was real interestingx there was no slowing upx

When I was real little, my dad put me under the clothesline and he tied these

two cats tails togetherx I was under the clothesline and these cats just

scratched each other's guts outx blood was running over the top of mex I was

yellingx I was real youngx and he was akin to the devilx and they used to

make meat with a dogx

I was real littlex he made me have sex with himx my real dad and my step

father toox so I just kept goingx couldn't stopx

I used to dress up like a girl when I was real littlex so it got wilder and

wilder over the yearsx couldn't stopx worse and worsex it just kept comingx

wide openx I didn't know what to dox stop or quit or what, so I kept goingx

doing what my grandma told me to dox

I just kept goingx sometimes she'd get a fresh bodyx and cut the head off and

allx and then she'd take the head in her hands and hold it until the skin

dried and sometimes she'd take the skin and put it up against her skinx I

don't know why she was doing thatx she'd cut the skin open and put it over

her skinx I don't know whyx she said it made her skin stay youngx I don't

know why she did itx I just did what she saidx

Sometimes she would pee in a big jar and pour it all over me and tell me it

was a way to keep the devil in mex so that's what I did when I was a little

kidx right or wrongx I couldn't figure it outx

Sondra London

The following reportage is passed on to us by Sondra London. Brandon Hambler is a real person, by the way, or at least someone says so and I have no reason to doubt it.

I eply-to: patrick@mediadinamics.com

To: patrick@mediadinamics.com (PATRICK Mailing List)

Date: 98-01-15 14:38:59 EST

===================================================

<center>

Crime Stories

Brandon Hamber

A few nights ago I thought I heard a gunshot

I read in the newspaper the next day

that the sound I had heard was indeed a gun

that was fired during a car-hijacking

and only a few dogs howled for the driver

who died face down very near to his home

the newspapers further revealed

weeks later

that the man who died face down on the tar

was frauding a company for millions

and it was his stolen wealth that had enabled him

to buy the new car

that was so attractive to a criminal

that it was worth killing for

the story went on to say

that the car had been recovered in the suburbs

on the same day as the fraudulent man's funeral

the car

which was now second-hand

was found in the possession of another businessman

who really wanted a new car with all the trimmings

but could not afford it

because his child needed private schooling

which was essential to prevent his son

from mixing with unsavoury elements

the man is now being charged with buying stolen goods

and his wife is appalled by the crime wave

and how the innocent seem to always come off second

what is more

is that yesterday

she read

that a gorilla was shot in a bizarre shoot-out

with a criminal at the zoo

so directly after attending her husband's hearing

she wrote to the newspaper

calling for the police to get tougher on crime

strangely the hijacker's wife read the letter

she showed it to a neighbour

who strongly agreed with the sentiments expressed

because recently seven houses had been robbed

in their very

street

</center>

http://www.wits.ac.za/wits/csvr/artstory.htm

Sondra London