Home Invasion

In 1997, after I had already sexually assaulted and murdered two homeless Native American half-sisters (age 9 and 11), and after I had been sent back to prison for one month to await a parole hearing on a technical parole violation (I held my brother's handgun when he was showing it to me for a moment, which I only found out later counts as «possession of a firearm»), and after I was released back on parole to Seattle, Washington, I invaded a family home one evening with every intention of raping and murdering the two very young boys that lived there. Fortunately for that family the man of the house came home and walked in the front door just as I was about to kill the boy's mother by crushing her skull with a hammer. What follows is a detailed confession of this crime, and it's not for the faint of heart. If you're looking for a reason to hate me, then you'll no doubt find plenty of reasons here. But, I'm not writing this to appeal to some deep need to be hated. Nor am I writing this as some futile plea to be «understood». I'm only conveying this experience as a matter of truth, and as an expression of the darker aspects of being human, which if ignored (or worse, condemned) will only find far more detrimental ways of expressing itself.

I first spotted the boys in a Target store that I had gone to only in order to close out a Target credit card account that I no longer wanted (for some reason I needed to visit the store in person to do this, but I don't recall why). I saw the boys with their mother in one of the checkout lines and they immediately caught my attention. I didn't stare at them though, even «discreetly» from behind a display case or something, with drooling eyes the way «sexually predators» are usually depicted in most fantasy crime dramas (a.k.a. «cop shows»). Instead I just acted normal, very nonchalant; if someone were watching me at the time --- and I always assumed that someone was --- they would not have thought I had noticed the boys at all. But, in my mind I was thrilled by every glance I could afford. The boys were perfect little cuties, slender bodies, blond hair, beautiful eyes; any pedophile's dream. I was ahead of them in another line, or maybe I was just leaving the store without checking out or purchasing anything, I don't remember. But I do remember waiting in my car in the parking lot before leaving, hoping for one more glimpse of the boys.

I didn't have to wait long. They came out of the store with their mother and to my delight got into a minivan that was directly in my line of sight. I realized immediately that it would be almost too easy to follow them. The mother, like most women, was clearly oblivious to what was happening around her, perpetually distracted by whatever thoughts seemed more important to her than her surroundings (I later made the mistake once of trying to trail a man with his children in the same way I trailed this woman home, only to be lead almost directly to a police station parking lot --- clearly the man had realized he was being trailed almost as soon as I spotted him --- I got away with no trouble, but so did he). To make a long trek short, I followed the minivan for about 20 miles, mostly on the I-5 freeway. They made a stop at a McDonald's that had a «playland», where I just waited outside (and out of sight, i.e. not in the McDonald's parking lot) until they came out again, then followed them the rest of their way home.

I lost them briefly after they turned onto a residential street, because I didn't want to risk raising any suspicions by making the same turn behind her. But, it was a simple matter of driving around the neighborhood after that until I spotted the same minivan parked in front of a house on a dead-end street. Bingo!

I pulled around a corner and parked in a place that seemed out of sight from any houses nearby, and then I got out of my car and approached the house with the minivan cautiously. My plan was to make a fast survey of the house and its neighbors, so if anyone spotted me I'd be gone before the police even showed up.

The house had an open yard, but all their neighbors' houses had fences. I made my way to the backyard, which was unlit and dark. Toys and bikes were strewn around, which made it clear that the yard was the de facto abode of children, and no doubt an annoyance to be ignored by the neighbors, which the tall wooden fences and hedges seemed to confirm.

I felt completely invisible as I crept up behind the house and approached the only lit window I could see. The window turned out to be open, and as I crouched beneath it I could hear the woman inside talking on the phone. It seemed to me that she was talking to her lover, which I took to mean that she lived alone with her boys in the house. I had all the information I needed. I quickly returned to my car, watching carefully for any lights coming on, or sounds that might indicate I had been seen along the way; there was none. I then drove back to Joe and Ed's house, where I was living at the time, and went to bed; I was up past my bedtime and had to work the next day.

I don't remember how long it was before I returned with a «rape kit» that I put together just for the occasion, but it wasn't more than a week. I brought duct-tape, rope, camcorder and lotion, amongst other things that I thought might come in handy, and put all this in a school backpack for easy carrying.

This time I parked about a block away and avoided driving down the dead-end street where the house was lest someone remember seeing my car. Instead I walked past the house to make sure everything was nice and quiet, then around a corner where the street turned just before it ended. I decided to stash the backpack in some bushes so I would be unencumbered while I approached the house, in case I had to run.

I walked casually through the front and sideyard of the house and into the backyard, reasoning that if a neighbor saw me they'd think I belonged there only if I wasn't creeping around. But, as soon as I was out of sight in the backyard I crouched down low next to the house and crept up to the sliding glass backdoor, which was partly open.

I was just about to enter when I heard the boys inside roughhousing. They ran right past the open door, the older boy (about seven years old) chasing the younger (about five) then tackling him onto a couch and wrestling the way brothers do laughing and squealing with complete abandon. The couch they landed on was practically right under my nose, and I could watch them playing just feet away as I remained completely unobserved in the shadows of night outside the window.

Shortly I heard their mother call them and they both got up and ran off to another part of the house, leaving me and the open door all to ourselves. I entered the house, still only intending to scout the territory, and thinking I should go get the backpack but not wanting to «spoil the opportunity» (i.e. I knew this part of the house was presently unoccupied).

Just inside the glass door was a laundry area, with piles of clean and dirty clothes strewn about. I picked up a pair of a little boy's underpants and put them on over my head and face, but I could still see out through the leg holes. I thought this was practical and ironic at the same time. I stupidly left the mask I had brought with me in the backpack, as well as a knife I had intended to use as a weapon.

I walked through the laundry area and into the kitchen. There I found an old rusty hammer lying on the counter. Obviously I was being provided for, so I took the hammer as a weapon and proceeded cautiously further into the house.

Most of the lights inside the house were turned off, which made it easy for me to move around secure in the shadows. From the kitchen and past the main (front) entrance there was a central hallway. Down this hall I could see several open doors, but only one with the light on inside. From that door I could also hear a T.V. playing, and the boys and their mother occasionally commenting about what was on the T.V. as they watched.

I wanted to go back and get the backpack, but I clearly remember thinking that if I backed out of the house now I probably would not be able to muster the emotional energy it took to go back in (i.e. So-called «courage» --- but, I would no longer call it that). It was «now or never»; and I knew it; so I made it «now».

I simply stood up from the crouched position I was in at the entrance to the hallway, and walked boldly into the lit room, which turned out to be the master bedroom, with the hammer raised menacingly over my head ready to strike. The mother was lying on the bed with her head propped up on pillows to watch T.V. with both boys on the other side of the bed in odd positions as children do. When she saw me she screamed immediately, but then just as suddenly fell compliant and silent as I commanded her to be quiet, «or else!» It was a good thing she fell silent on her own because I had every intention of silencing her with the hammer if she hadn't.

I told her that I only wanted her car as I threw a blanket completely over the boys and told them not to move while I dealt with the mother. I ordered her out of the bedroom and back out into the living room, where I told her to get on her knees bent over the same couch I saw the boys wrestling on earlier. I used a piece of string, a shoelace I think, to then tie her hands loosely behind her back. I intended to kill her quickly, so I didn't spend a lot of time securing her.

Once she was tied I told her to not move, «or else», and then I returned to the bedroom to make sure the boys were still under the blanket. I told them, in a voice loud enough for the mother to hear in the living room, to stay under the blanket until their mother told them it was okay to come out from under it. And then I uncovered the younger (and prettier) boy and shushed him silently by putting my finger to my lips. I picked him up and laid him on the floor, unable to resist a quick look at my prize. I pulled down his pants and pulled up his shirt to expose his body quickly; I couldn't believe how gorgeous he was naked, and again, I'm not saying this to arouse myself, I'm only conveying the experience as it happened, and my reaction to it.

I fondled the boy briefly, which he seemed to oddly enjoy. I expected him to be afraid, and maybe he was, but I couldn't tell. Maybe he wasn't quite old enough to understand the threat I represented. Or, maybe he was used to being «abused». I don't know; all I know is that when I pulled down his pants and fondled him he was smiling up at me like it was some sort of game. I didn't linger though. I probably spent less than a minute total «checking» the boys. Then I covered the younger boy with another blanket, leaving his pants down for later, and returned to the living room to «finish» with the mother.

In the process of leading ehr from the bedroom to the living room she had told me that her «husband» would be back soon. I dismissed her claim as an attempt to scare me off, and ignored it. But she was telling the truth!

As I stood over her, hammer in hand, mustering my so-called «courage» to kill her (and perhaps also quickly calculating what would happen when I started hitting her in the head with the hammer) suddenly the front door behind me opened as someone with keys still jingling came in!

Without even turning to see who it was I just bolted for the backdoor, across the backyard, and in less than a minute (or so it seemed) I was at the end of the block, hiding in a shadowy flowerbed nect to another house, and watching to see if I had been seen, or followed. My car was parked just across the street from where I lay hidden, but I waited to make sure no one saw me getting in it.

After about another minute I heard a man's scream coming from the direction of the boy's house. It wasn't coherent at all, just a cathartic burst of raw emotion, no doubt frustration and powerlessness over being so violated. I assume that as soon as the man realized what was happening he must have grabbed some weapon and ran after me. But, as soon as he got outside and found that I was nowhere in sight, and having no idea which direction I could have gone, he just screamed to let me know he was there or something. I'm just supposing all this of course, but when I heard the scream I knew I had gotten away, and I remember thinking, «Now you know how it feels!» Then I got in my car and drove away with forced calmness.

As I was leaving the neighborhood I actually pulled over at one point to let a police car pass in the opposite direction with siren and lights blaring. Then after he passed me I turned immediately onto a residential street so it would look like I was «returning home» (i.e. like a local resident) and not «leaving» and parked there briefly. I still had the boys underpants that I had worn to hide my face, so I got out of the car and threw them into a dumpster behind the church. Then I got back in my car and drove home (to Joe and Ed's house).

The next day there was nothing in the news at all about the home invasion. In fact, there was never anything in the news about it at all, not even under «crime watch» in the local papers --- I checked. After my arrest in 2005 (for my current crimes) I told the FBI all about this crime (amongst every other crime I ever committed) and though they told me they «knew about it» already (I suspect they might have just said so in order to make it appear as though they knew more than they did, a common «police tactic») it for some reason never made it into the popular media reports that detailed every other crime I ever committed except this one. Because of this strange «silence» in this case I strongly suspect that the man I heard screaming that night was (or is) most likely somehow directly associated with «law enforcement». He was probably a cop, and cops know that the worst part about being a victim of a «major crime» is the media coverage. So, they routinely keep crimes like this against cops «off the public radar» to protect themselves, and their families, from the broader and more painful damage caused by the «fallout». It's one of the unspoken privileges of being a cop.

I returned to get my backpack the next night. It was very risky, I knew, but I had to get the pack before someone else found it, by accident or otherwise. I knew police procedure would be to patrol the neighborhood for a few days keeping an eye out for anyone matching the suspect's description --- in this case, white male, six foot, slender build and «on foot», which I figured they would assume since I told the boy's mother that I «needed» her car. So, instead of driving straight back to the house, I drove to a local all-night grocery store and parked amongst the other cars there. Then I crouched low in my seat and waited as I listened to a police scanner that I had «borrowed» (without them knowing) from Joe and Ed (they kept the scanner on the mantel of the fireplace in their living room, and only turned it on while they were getting high, which they did often).

It didn't take long before I heard what sounded like references to «possible suspects» matching «my» description. So I knew even more so that I was taking a big risk by just being in the neighborhood. But, I had to get that bag. I didn't think there was anything in it that could identify me, but it most certainly had my prints all over it and on the items inside.

I expected to see a patrol car before too long and I did. It came from the direction of the boy's house, so I was pretty sure why it was there (i.e. Looking for me). It drove around a corner and then passed in front of the grocery store where I was parked. Then it actually pulled into the parking lot at the last entrance, but the speed and «mode» in which it was moving (i.e. I could tell it was in «patrol mode» not «investigation mode», in other words, he was driving slow, but not «cautiously» the way cops do when approaching a possible «situation») told me that I had not been spotted. So, I watched him drive toward the front of the store, and could see that the driver's attention was on the store, not the parking lot, which appeared empty (of people). He actually drove right next to me, but by then I was crouched all the way down and completely out of sight, watching his progress in the reflection of the inside of my windshield.

He didn't stop. He just drove through the front of the parking lot and then back out onto the street and continued in the direction he had been going, away from the boy's house. I knew then that I had at least fifteen minutes (probably plenty more than that) to go get the bag before he, or anyone else, would be back. So I did exactly that. I didn't pussy-foot around about it either. I just drove directly to the house, parked in the shadow of the same hedges I had parked near on the very first night I had found the house. Got out, got the backpack, and then got the hell out of there following a route that took me away from the direction I'd seen the cop car go.

Mission accomplished.

Like I mentioned already, the home invasion was never reported in the news. Nor was I ever a suspect, as far as I know, probably not until I told the FBI about the crime (and showed them on a map where the house was). Other than the crime I am in prison for now, this was the only other «home invasion» or even «burglary» that I did after my release from prison the first time (in 1994). It was a classic «criminal learning experience» and I saw it as exactly that from the start to finish (i.e. I consciously intended to learn from it and knew I would make mistakes all along, which I carefully watched for). My biggest mistake was leaving that bag behind in the bushes. But my next biggest mistake was not surveying the house better and determining how many people would be there. There were many other lesser mistakes that I learned from, not to mention more «contingencies» that I prepared for. I read police investigation tactics, crime scene procedures, and even «Amber Alert» procedures. That's how I knew that I had gotten away with it and would never be a suspect --- as long as I killed both the children. Killing them, and their family, was never something I wanted to do; it was something I HAD to do, in order to not get caught. And not getting caught was the hard lesson I learned after being sent to prison the first time (that's the one lesson that prison always teaches, unlike what the Pharisees would have you believe).

[J.D. December 23, 2014]

P.S. I wrote this confession several months ago, but did not send it to my friends to be published because something felt «wrong» about it. I knew where it felt that way, but I couldn't put my fingers on why. It was the part where I describe molesting the younger boy in the bedroom. Something about that scene bothered me, but I couldn't say what it was.

Usually when this happens it is because something not quite honest has unconsciously slipped into what I have written. Because it is unintentional it sometimes takes me a few days to realize where the dishonesty is that is causing the uneasy feeling. In this case though, even after months, I could find nothing dishonest.

But, the feeling persisted. Until just the other day when my girlfriend asked me this question concerning another Fifth Nail confession: Do you write these confessions in order to re-live the crime through someone else's eyes?

I knew the short answer right away, «no». But, the question made me think (my girlfriend's questions often make me think, which is one of the reasons I love her). Why wouldn't I want to re-live my crimes by writing about them? Many sex criminals enjoy re-living their crimes, so why shouldn't I?

The truth is, I do. But, I do it privately and I am extremely sensitive about never letting someone else «see» me doing so. This is why I don't collect pictures of children that arouse my sexual interest (despite recent accusations claiming otherwise). It also explains my uneasy feeling about this confession.

The scene with the boy aroused me as I wrote it. And, that's why it felt «wrong». In this I wasn't being dishonest, but I was being too honest. I was «exposing» a part of myself that I don't like to expose. I don't mind telling people that I still fantasize about raping children, but I do mind making the fantasies themselves public. So, to answer my girlfriend's question more specifically, no, I do not write about my crimes in order to re-live them through someone else's eyes; and, in fact, the thought of doing so makes me uncomfortable on many levels.

Now that I understand why I felt uncomfortable about this confession I can let it go (to be published). I did not let it go now then I would not be honest (it would cross the line from not «exposing» something I feel should be private, to deliberately concealing the truth). So, I must let it go, no matter how «wrong» it feels. Being honest doesn't always mean being «right»!

[J.D. March 8, 2015]