Sexual Psychopath "Treatment": WTMI!

After being accepted into the Western State (Mental) Hospital "SP" (sexual psychopath) treatment program at the age of seventeen (the first "juvenile" ever admitted to the "adult" sex offender program), Duncan was given regular member status and limited privileges, such as being able to walk around the ward alone (and hence shower and shit alone as well for the first time in months). More privileges were to be earned with each "step" completed, all the way up to step 10, which was "outpatient" status (step 9 was "work release", step 8 allowed you to walk the hospital grounds alone, step 4 is "escort" status where you could assume "security" and "leadership" responsibilities, and step 5 was "senior member" status, etc. etc.). The first four steps took the longest and were by far the most difficult to accomplish. The highest step Duncan achieved before he "refused treatment" and was sent to prison was step 5 ("senior member" status). He was nineteen when that happened.

Newly accepted member were expected to apply for step 1 after they came back from court. Each "step" requires a group vote and therapist's approval. The first step required members to demonstrate "responsible" sexual behavior patterns, be able to identity and begin circumventing "outlet" behavior and thinking patterns, and to write a detailed "sexual autobiography". (Remember, a regular autobiography was completed and voted on by the group as part of the three-month (OBS" evaluation period before being accepted into the program. The "sexual AB" focused exclusively on all sexual behavior, from earliest childhood memories up to and through the "outlet" (crime) behavior that landed the "SP" in "treatment").

The sexual AB would then be expanded upon and analyzed over the course of the next several steps in the program. Personal behavior and thought patterns would be teased out with the group's help, and then a system of "stop signs and controls" would be developed and implemented as a means of controlling one's "deviant" sexual behavior. (The idea was to be able to recognize personal "stop sign" behavior and thoughts, and then "control" one's behavior long before "outlet" is even considered; that's the "idea".) This mean that the "SP" (Espease) spent a lot of time in group meetings listening to and discussing each other's "deviant" sexual behavior in great detail. This was the primary mode of "treatment".

For Duncan, having almost no sexual experience to speak of (or write about for the program), this meant exposure to more sexual exploits than even the most randy and precocious teenager could even imagine. On a daily basis he was saturated (usually under significant psychological stress caused by lack of sleep and intense peer pressure to behave and even think "responsibly" according to strict rules and codes of conduct that would put most "boot camps" to shame) with constant sexual scenarios from simple fleeting voyeurism to violent and even homicidal rape. Duncan thus became very familiar with not only his own sexual thoughts and behavior, but everyone else's as well, which was required and expected so each member in the program could "police" the others and make sure "controls" were being constantly applied, and "confronting" anyone's behavior that even hinted at "uncontrolled" thought.

Here is a taste of what Duncan learned in "treatment". Lonnie liked little girls. He was a quiet but friendly "Teddy-bear" of a man who repeatedly "molested" his step-daughter (from age eight to eleven perhaps), and her friends on occasion. He would pretend to be passed out drunk on the couch when she had friends over and then his step-daughter, per his prior instructions, would get her friends to fondle and masturbate him while he pretended to remain comatose. One of her friend's spilled the beans and Lonnie was arrested for daring to have his pleasure with little girls.

Robin was a rapist, technically; though he never quite fit in with the "rapist clique". He was a small dark-haired man with a very weak-chin that he kept self-consciously hidden behind a thick black goatee and heavy mustache (at least he did until one day the group demanded that he "quit hiding" and shave; he walked away - or "escaped" - from the program shortly after that). He once super-glued a woman's hands to the floor in a dry-cleaner's business he robbed, and then raped her doggy-style while she was thus immobilized, as an after thought.

James was the next youngest member in the group after Duncan, about five years older. He was a high-school track star; popular, athletic, and good-looking, and a vanilla rapist. He got caught and made an example of for raping a girl who tried to steal him away from his girlfriend. These days it's called "date rape", but that term didn't exist yet back then, so James was just a 22-year-old who'd now be a "sexual psychopath" for the rest of his life for just trying to be "cool".

Mike liked little babies. Or at least that's what he was in the "SP" program for. His girlfriend caught him masturbating naked on the floor while performing cunnilingus on her one-year-old. You'd never guess this if you met him. He was a tall and "ruggedly handsome" cowboy type. He was the only "child molester" who hung out with the "rapist clique" in the group.

Rick was your garden variety twinky lover. He was one of the very few "patients" in the program who did not have a prison sentence hanging over his head. His "outlet" was consensual sex with an under-aged (15-year-old) boy. He was charged with something like indecent exposure, so all he got was jail time that he had already served. So if he didn't complete the program he'd go back to jail, but only long enough to see a judge, then he'd be released on probation. And that's presumably what happened after he got caught in the shower having sex with Don.

Don "raped" his younger sister; at least that's what he was charged with. Actually it too was consensual, but because he was over 18, and she was only 14, it was legally considered child rape. Don was no rapist, but he did enjoy sex just about any way he could get it, including with his own horse (he grew up on a farm and had his own mare). Unlike Rick, Don went to prison for over ten years, for having sex in the shower with Rick. After Don got out of prison, he contracted AIDS and died relatively young.

Dave was at step 10 ("outpatient" status) when I arrived at the program, so I only met him a few times when he came in for his final discharge meetings. He was "high up" in  the Roman Catholic church, and was an extremely arrogant homosexual pedophile who got caught molesting church boys (of course). And get this, after he completed the program, he went right back to serving the Catholic church and boasted at his last treatment group meeting that he was even to be promoted to some sort of regional "archdeacon" or something. Duncan was the only member in the group who voted "no" on Dave's final discharge request, not that anyone cared because he was only an OBS at the time. But he voted no because he felt Dave was the phoniest person he'd ever met and couldn't believe how blinded the rest of the group was by his religious clout; Duncan was not impressed.

Duncan was more impressed by the one "serial killer" in his treatment group named Jim. Jim killed for the first time when he was still a preteen (eleven or twelve, maybe). He killed a much younger neighbor girl because she irritated him by asking him to play with her all the time. Jim had been badly scarred as a young child when his mother either spilled or threw boiling water in his face. His mother lost custody, and Jim was being raised by his adult older sister at the time he took the neighbor girl into the woods and stabbed her repeatedly with a fillet knife. His sister found his bloody clothes in the dirty clothes hamper and turned him in to the police after the girl's body was found.

Because of his age Jim could only be held until he turned 21 by the juvenile system. At that time he was actively recruited by the Army, and received special training (that he was not permitted to disclose, not even in "treatment") on how to kill people in all sorts of ways, including his bare hands. He later used this training in a series of rapes, where he would subdue the female victim. Because of the level of violence involved with Jim's "outlet" (crimes) only "senior members" were permitted to attend meetings where he "disclosed" or otherwise discussed his crimes. And because Duncan was only a senior member for a short time before he ultimately refused treatment he only sat in on one or two such "senior member only" meetings for Jim's layouts. In one of these meetings Jim disclosed a murder he had committed but never got caught for where he literally snapped a man's neck just so he could grab and rape the man's bikini clad girlfriend. Jim was a very intense man, short but stalky with blond hair and piercing blue eyes that made the burn scar that covered one whole side of his face all the more stark. He was one of the SP program's big "success" stories (yes, a known serial killer who never got "caught" for murder, but did get "caught" and "successfully treated" for rape). Jim received his final discharge and successful completion of his "treatment" around the time Duncan was getting repeatedly raped in prison for having refused any further "treatment". Duncan spent over seventeen and a half years lock up for making another boy suck his dick in the woods, while Jim spent less than four years getting away with murder.

"I don't hate Jim," Duncan says. "I hate the system, that convicted me for rape, and then sent me to prison to be raped after filling my head with so much confusing garbage."

It took Duncan decades to even begin to sort out the madness he was subjected to in the name of "Justice" and "rehabilitation" while he was still just a "kid" himself. To this very day he is still trying to figure it out, but given his current predicament --- that is being on death row for numerous sex murders --- he's not holding out much hope for coming to any real understanding soon.

"The world is insane, not me," Duncan says. 

Sexual Psychopath "Treatment": OBS Status

When I first arrived at the Western State (mental) Hospital (WSH) Sexual (SP) "Treatment" program in the summer of 1980, I was hopeful, but not scared. I had no reason to be scared. The ward where they took me was clean and "mental-hospital-pleasant". There were other "patients" (SPs) wandering about busily, but only a couple of nurses. Everyone seemed friendly and welcoming. Even the head nurse, an obese, very business-like, middle-aged woman, took a liking to me right off because of my age. I was just a "kid" (freshly 17), literally the first and only juvenile ever admitted into the program, which was only several years old itself at the time: a new program based on an experimental treatment model that was still in the process of being expanded and adapted to the needs of the state (i.e. "institutionalized").

I was eager to get the "help" I needed to "get better", which all the adults in my life had been promising me was what was going to happen, and this was where. I still felt like a "kid", though, and most of the people I met still treated me like a kid (no doubt because of the way I looked and acted, insecure and still submissive to the "authority" of adulthood). It wasn't until I got to prison a few years later that I finally started accepting the other adults around me as my peers, and they were all prisoners and convicted criminals, of course.

The adults here at WSH were also convicted criminals, but preferred to call themselves "patients", or just "SPs". As soon as I arrived (directly from jail) and the police escort removed the cuffs I was paired up with two other SPs from the treatment group that I had been assigned to ("Aquarius Group"). There were two groups on the ward I was on (the "basement ward", which sat "in" the ground several feet but not quite beneath it), and then three more groups on a ward above us (the main "SP" ward), then two more in the "attic ward". Each group consisted of about 20 SPs (no women) and one "therapist". The therapist in my group was Gary "Mike" Shepherd, a hairy, fat man with thick-framed glasses, black hair, and beard. I met him on the first day, too, in his office, alone, where he presented himself in a very father "I'm-here-to-help-you-so-you-can-trust-me"-sort of way. I drank it all down eagerly, exactly as told, and believed it would all be "good for me". Why wouldn't I? I still had a lot of very hard lessons to learn, and "Mike" ended up being one of the hardest.

I was told that I had yet to be "accepted" for treatment. First, I had to undergo a three-month "OBS"-period. "OBS" was short for "observation". Everyone who came into the program began as an "OBS", and then progressed from step 1 to step 10, with each step granting more and more privileges (from being able to walk around the ward without being escorted - step 1 - to living and working back in the community - step 10), and denoted another "step" in treatment progress. And an SP could move forward and backwards in steps, as determined by group-votes and therapist-approval. It was even possible for a senior member (step 5 or above) to be denoted back to "OBS" status if they exhibited behavior that brought their "amenability to treatment" into question.

There were two questions that had to be affirmed before I could be "accepted for treatment": Was I a "Sexual Psychopath?" And: Was I "amenable to treatment?" The first question was a given, since everyone who came to the program was there for committing a sex crime that automatically made them a "sexual psychopath". But, for the court record, the program had a small set of criteria that it used to legally establish that a person was a "psychopath" and therefor subject to "treatment" rather than "punishment" (incarceration). The primary part of the criteria was the sex crime, but another important piece was an "established deviant sexual behavior pattern". So every OBS patient was required to write a detailed 50+ page autobiography that emphasized the sexual relationships/behavior in their life. The entire group (each member) was then required to read and comment on the "AB", and vote on whether or not it was an acceptable effort.

My AB was initially rejected because several members of the group felt that it did not talk enough about my sexual experiences. In essence, there was no clear "deviant sexual behavior pattern". My "crime" was not the culmination of a clearly evolving pattern of behavior that all "SPs" exhibited. Instead, it was a sporadic event, among other sporadic sexual events, that did not seem to relate to or derive from earlier events (see notes). In other words, they could not find a pattern to my sexual behavior, and therefor, according to program logic, I must be being dishonest and insincere about my desire to receive "treatment" for my problem.

This was the first time, and certainly not the last, that I experienced an intense fear of not being accepted by the program and consequently sent to prison where I would be repeatedly beaten and raped (as I was so often told would happen and in fact eventually DID happen 😕). So I re-wrote my AB with more sexual details, some of which I actually embellished (without being completely dishonest), according to what I was told would be "acceptable". I admitted, for example, that when I was six, and the older girls took me beneath the stairs and made me kiss their "pee-pees", that I got a "thrill" from the experience. And this the "beginning" of my "sexual deviancy" was made "clear" (for the official report to the court).

At the time, I was too naïve to even understand what a facade was, but if I had, then I would have realized that the entire "pleasant-and-friendly" demeanor of the program was just a viciously enforced front that concealed a kind of "quiet desperation" that made Henry David Thoreau's aphorism (~ "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their song still inside them.") seem benign by comparison. Every member of the program feared going to prison, and that fear was compelled onto every other member through a formal system of "confrontations" that would have made the Nazis proud. Every SP was required to carry a pad and pencil on them at all times, so that if anyone (another SP, staff, or even a visitor) "confronted" them, they could - and were required to - write it down so it could be "addressed in group" at the next meeting. Every meeting we had as a group took time to address everyone's confrontations. OBS-members invariably had the most (several per day), whereas senior members commonly could go for months with none.

A typical "confrontation" might be for "manipulating" or "minimizing". For example, if I asked someone in the T.V. room (where we could take our smoke breaks during a typical meeting), "Can you spare a smoke?" - the response would most likely be, "I'm confronting you for manipulating." And then you were expected to write down what you did and who "confronted" you, in your notebook, and then tell the group about it the next chance you got. The group would then explain to you that by asking if they could "spare a smoke", instead of asking for what you really wanted directly (i.e. "Can I have one of your cigarettes="), you were attempting to manipulate them in order to get what you really wanted. This, accordingly, was dishonest and an early step in the process of manipulation that ultimately lead to "outlet" behavior (i.e. sex crimes). The idea of "treatment" was to learn to recognize such manipulations (of self and others) as "stop signs" that could then be used to circumvent the deviant behavior pattern (i.e. "control" it). And if you insisted that you were "just asking for a smoke!" or you had more than one confrontation for the same thing, then a "treatment program" would be dictated and voted on by the group.

These "treatment programs" could be literally anything the group thought would help you understand and "control" the problem-behavior. I once recommended that a man in our group carry a pillow with him at all times, and every time someone confronted him for "anger" (which happened for him several times a day), he was required to scream as loud as he could into the pillow. The group liked the suggestion and approved it (something that rarely happened for OBS members who made "treatment" suggestions). And it worked! The man told the group a few days later that he felt foolish for having to carry the pillow, the foolishness he felt by doing so made him realize just how foolish his anger was, and he rarely got confronted for his anger again after that. Usually, though, the "treatments" consisted of "sub-meetings" on the problem-behavior.

A "sub-meeting" was a group of three or four group members (or sometimes members from other groups) that would meet during precious "free time" (thus serving as a deterrent as well) to discuss the problem-behavior. Then the SP would report back to the group on what he learned. Most "Treatment Plans" involved one sub-group, but could entail as many sub-groups on as many subjects as the group felt was necessary.

Treatment plans voted on by the group could also entail losing steps, or privileges, and of course even being placed back on OBS-status, so the man would have to prove all over from the start that he was "amenable", and then work his way up through each step all over again. The only thing worse than getting put back on OBS-status again was getting found "not amenable" and hence voted out of the program. Less than half of the OBS' who came to be evaluated, were initially accepted (found "amenable"), and then less than half of those who were initially accepted actually made it all the way to step 10 ("out patient" status) and completed the program. So there was constant pressure on everyone to "behave correctly" and not get "confronted" because that was the only way to prove that you were exercising your knowledge of "stop signs" and "controls" and hence progress through the program. At least, that was the theory.

In reality, it all became a manipulative game of the sort that would make the Devil himself blush (with pride, I suppose). Since there was never any real way to NOT manipulate other people (even simply asking for a cigarette at all could be declared "manipulative") in just ordinary social interaction, it became a game where, if you wanted to advance (to the next step), then you had to earn what was currently considered "manipulation" by the group - and in particular the most "respected" members in the group, who were those favored by the therapist (for manipulative reasons all his own that I hope to be able to explain in a coming post for this blog) - and try to convince everyone that you were not "manipulative".

And I took this game very seriously. In fact, for me (and most other SPs in the program), it wasn't a game at all. I sincerely became convinced that certain things were "manipulative" while others weren't. In other words, I learned the "rules", even when they made absolutely no sense to me at all, and honestly believed that by doing so, I was "getting better" (i.e. "treatment"). A good example of how I helped them twist up my own mind so much that it took years for me to even realize how twisted it was (and I'm still trying to UN-twist it to this day!) was the time I got confronted in group (called "a line of concern") for "sniffing butane" from a lighter. The SP who called the "line" (for short) was the same one who confronted me some time later because I playfully kissed his hand (pretending to be a mermaid - see: "The Mermaid Sex Offender") in the hospital's swimming pool. He watched me constantly, and saw me holding the lighter to my nose and clicking the gas valve over and over. He thought I was trying to get high (which is impossible with butane), but all I was doing was absentmindedly "puffing" the butane onto the skin of my nose between the nostrils where the skin was sensitive enough to feel the small cool puff of gas each time I pressed the lever. I was amusing myself by the novelty of the fact that each time I pressed the lever, there was a burst of gas strong enough to actually feel on my skin. When the "line" got called on me, and the other SP (who was in the program for having sex with under-aged "twinks" like me) explained what the line of concern was for, I relaxed, because I thought, "No problem, I'll just explain what I was doing." But, when I tried to explain I TOLD that I was "romanticizing drugs", and fantasizing about getting high. At first I denied it, and insisted that I wasn't romanticizing anything (since I wasn't even "thinking about" what I was doing) and I wasn't fantasizing about getting high because I had never snorted or "huffed" drugs to get high before, so I wouldn't even know how to "fantasize" doing so. But the group insisted, and predictably implied that if I remained "in denial" (unable to accept their version of what was going on in my mind), then that would mean I was not amenable to treatment. And since I was still on OBS status at the time, this was a very serious threat. But I couldn't just lie and tell them what they wanted to hear either. I had to be able to regurgitate the garbage they wanted me to believe in a way that convinced them that that was what I really believed. And the only way a naïve 17-year-old could do that, in a room full of expert and seasoned manipulators, was to actually convince myself that they were "right", and I was "wrong". And so I learned how to manipulate myself into believing almost anything, no matter how badly it contradicted what I directly experienced. And the way I did that was by convincing myself - at the behest of the group itself - that there were "unconscious" realms in my mind where anything can be true. And so, indeed, I was "romanticizing drugs" and fantasizing about getting high (unconsciously); and later on I DID in fact try to "molest" that twinky-loving pedophile in the swimming pool (only pretending consciously to be a mermaid while, unconsciously, my mind was working furiously to manipulate that poor man into having sexual desires for me). And thus my "treatment" commenced.

I was found to be a "sexual psychopath", and "amenable to treatment" at the end of the initial three-month OBS-period. So, after a brief return to jail, to be formally "sentenced" to the program, I was accepted as a regular group member, all the while still relatively excited about finally getting the "help" I needed. I was actually pretty happy there, despite the strange games and intense pressure to remain "amenable". For the first time in my life, I had "friends" whom I could confide in about anything! So I had access to more information than I ever thought I would ever need. In fact, quite literally, it was too much information - WTMI! (Way Too Much Information!), which I will try to explain in the next post I write for this blog ("Confessions"):

--- Sexual Psychopath "Treatment": WTMI! ---

[J.D. May 21, 2017]

Notes:
(I) Many years later, I learned that juvenile "sex offenders" in fact do not exhibit the expected "pattern" of deviant sexual behavior found in all adult offenders. Their "offenses" are almost universally the result of poor judgement and misinformation. As a result, juvenile "sex offender" are far less likely to "re-offend" even with the most rudimentary "treatment", with the exception of juveniles that are incarcerated for their crime. Incarcerated juveniles show the same recidivism rates as adult "sex offenders". This is based on numerous studies, and to me it is a clear indication that far more "juveniles" commit "sex crimes" than our system currently assumes. But, the vast majority of these "offenders" never get "caught" and end up "adjusting" their behavior before they become "repeat offenders" and thus establishing the typical "adult deviant sexual behavior pattern" that most psych doctors like to ignorantly boast is the "identifying characteristic" of adult sex offenders. That's like saying that all strong men exhibit a pattern of weight lifting; it's just rhetorical nonsense.   

Ward "W" - An Intro To Madness

"Skrik" (Edvard Munch, 1893)

After several months in juvenile detention, and a psych evaluation meant to determine how "mature" I was, I was "declined" to "adult status" and transferred to the Pierce County Jail in downtown Tacoma, WA. At the very fresh age of 17, I would now face criminal charges as an adult for rape, burglary, kidnapping, and assault.

In jail, they kept me in a cell by myself, isolated from other prisoners, and with a big sign on the door that read, "Juvenile / No Tobacco". Shortly after I got there, I started banging on my cell door and yelling at the guards to let me use a phone to call my mom. When a guard came and opened the cell door, I thought he was going to talk to me. Instead, he promptly smacked me (open-handed) so hard in the face that the blow literally knocked me on my ass. He then yelled, "You ain't in 'juvie' no more, punk! Stop banging on the door!" I was dumbfounded, but remained quiet from then on.

My father came to visit and asked me if I wanted him to bail me out or hire a lawyer - he couldn't afford both. Actually, he couldn't afford either, and ended up filing bankruptcy, so he never paid the lawyer he hired, John Ladenburg; a name I still strangely enough remember since I only met him once outside of a few very short court hearings. He was later elected District Attorney, so maybe that's why I remember him.

Ladenburg came to see me once at the jail. He asked me one question: "Did you do it?" I told him I did, and that I had confessed. He then put the papers he had with him back into an expensive-looking briefcase (which I also clearly remember, along with his expensive-looking suit), told me he'd be in touch, and left.

The next time I saw him was in court for a hearing to order a mental evaluation at "WSH" (Western State Mental Hospital).

A few days after the hearing, I was transported in the back of a van with one other prisoner to WSH. The other prisoner was going "home", as he put it, back to one of the "wards" for non-violent criminally insane. He seemed pretty "normal" to me, and after I bummed a cigarette from him, a "Kool" as I clearly remember, he even gave me the remaining nearly full pack to take with me, because he could easily get more once he got "back home", which he seemed very happy about.

In hindsight, I can understand easily why he might have been so happy to be going back to the hospital. WSH was a very pleasant place to live. Even Ward "W", the "Intake and Observation Ward", where I was taken for the court-ordered psych evaluation, was very "nice" by any standard of incarceration. It was on the top floor of a five story old red-brick building at the back of the sprawling hospital campus. It was one of the few "closed" wards at the hospital, which only meant that the single entrance door was kept locked and none of the patients were allowed to leave (unless discharged).

I was escorted inside and told to sit in a chair against a wall of the main entrance hall after the handcuffs were removed. I was left alone there until one of the nurses had time to come process me in.

As I sat there, taking in my surroundings, a young and fairly attractive female patient shuffled down the hall towards me from the main day-room area. She suddenly stopped directly in front of me and turned to face me, then asked me in a distinctly sing-song voice, "Can I have a cigarette?"

She had seen the pack of "Kool" I was holding, that the other prisoner/patient had just given me. I said, "Sure", and gave her one, lit it for her, and then, without another word, she shuffled off back towards the day-room. I soon learned the hospital parlance for the way she walked, by shuffling her feet, was called the "Thorazine shuffle". Like many of the patients on Ward "W", she was heavily sedated at all times. I also learned that she had killed her "boyfriend" by stabbing him more than fifty times with a steak knife. I consequently did not seek out her company or conversation the rest of the time I was there.

The person who "educated" me about her was another patient a few years older than myself. We were the youngest ones there. He had been admitted for evaluation by his parents for possible admission (permanently) to the hospital because of the constant hallucinations he "suffered". I don't remember his name, but I do remember that he always called me "Mr. V." from the first day we met. When I asked him why, he acted surprised. "Don't you know?" he said. Then he explained that I was plainly (to him) a "vampire". He said he could see my fangs and, at night, he watched me change into a bat and fly out of the window to go meet with other vampires. He also told me, in the same conversation, about a "magic wand" that was attached to his belly that made him do things, sometimes "bad" things. So, I didn't give much credence to the whole "vampire" thing. Years later, though, I came to realize that, somehow, he was able to "see" truths" visually that most people couldn't even comprehend mentally. I have long since had genuine respect for so-called "schizophrenics".

I spent most of the two weeks I spent there hanging out with him, playing chess in the day-room, or watching T.V. in the T.V.-room, or sometimes playing ping-pong in the game-room. The ward had its own small chow-hall where pretty darn good food was served off special hot-serving carts that came from the main kitchen. The overall atmosphere on the ward was airy and pleasant. It was co-ed (obviously), but most of the male patients ranged from completely catatonic to, well... We slept in dorms; one large main dorm for the males, and another smaller down for the females (except one woman, whose bed was in the day-room, so she couldn't kill herself).

One day, while my schizo-friend and I were in the game-room looking out the windows at the parks and trees and going-ons below (another favorite pastime), one of the "shufflers" came shuffling in, which caught both me and my friend's attention, because we were used to seeing this one just going in circles around the day-room. It was very odd to see him venture so far from his normal route, and he seemed to be on a mission as well.

And it turned out that he was on a mission. As he shuffled past the ping-pong-table, he picked up a paddle without even seeming to notice he had done so, and then he continued directly to a nearby window (three of the walls in the game-room were all windows, making it very sunny during the day) and nonchalantly broke one of the panes with the handle of the ping-pong-paddle, again barely seeming to even notice what he was doing and not even pausing or anything to contemplate what was happening.

He continued past the window, and then around the other side of the ping-pong-table, replacing the paddle on the table again as he passed, and then proceeded back out of the game-room. Out of curiosity, I decided to follow him - at a "safe distance, of course - to see what else "interesting" he might do. He made a shuffling bee-line to the nurse's station in the day-room, and I overheard him tell the nurse simply and with no inflection, "I broke a window in the game-room." I saw the nurse come out of the nurse's station and head towards the game-room, presumably to inspect the damage. But, I didn't want to risk getting involved, as a "witness" or otherwise, so I continued on my own to the T.V. room - which was in the opposite direction.

A little while later, when I ventured back through the day-room, I noticed the window-breaker doing his usual shuffle around in circles in the day-room, clearly in a deep stupor again. It seemed his "mission" (to get more Thorazine) was a success.

The only other patient I spoke to on occasion was an older (middle-aged) black man. We played chess sometimes in the day-room. He told me plainly that he was "scamming" the system to get out of prison. But, even then, I wondered if his "scam" was just part of his delusional thinking. He didn't seem very "rational" to me. One day in the T.V.-room, he pulled out his dick and asked me if I wanted to suck it. I didn't want to, but, just to be "nice", I pulled out my dick and offered it to him in kind. This made him instantly enraged. He said, "I ain't no fucking fag!", which only confused me. If he wasn't a fag, then why did he want me to suck his dick? I had lots to learn!

I remember waking up in the dorm sometime later that same night - with him on top of me, and on top of the blankets, dry-humping my butt. He wasn't hurting me, or making me uncomfortable, so I let him do his thing and then, after he finished, I just went back to sleep and thought nothing of it. I was more than used to that sort of behavior at this point in my life.

I met a couple of times with a doctor ("shrink") in one of the small offices there on the ward. I don't remember the conversations, though. But the "psych evaluation" was completed and I was returned to the juvenile isolation cell back at the old Pierce County Jail (I mention that this was the "old" jail, because the entire jail was in the city-county building, occupying only a few floors. They have long since built an entirely new jail in its own building next to the city-county building.). I even got "molested" while I was there, by a man in the cell next to mine, who liked reaching around to feel my ass through the bars at the back of the cell - yet, again, this was "normal" for me.

Ladenburg used the "psych evaluation" to convince a judge that I was "mature" enough to be evaluated for treatment at the "Sexual Psychopath Treatment Program" ("SP program"), also at WSH. So, I was returned to the hospital several weeks later for the SP program's "observation" for three months, to determine if I was "treatable". If Ward "W" was my intro to madness, then the SP program was the core curriculum, and then some!

[J.D. March 16, 2017]

Juvenile Incarceration – The Training Begins

After I was arrested, at the age of 15, for failure to appear in court after stealing a car and running from the police, I was taken to «Raymann Hall» (Juvenile Detention Center) in Tacoma, WA. There I was placed in the downstairs «general population» area with other boys, and girls (the girls slept in a separate dorm but mingled with the boys in the common areas during the day).

My first night was spent in segregation, though, because of a book of matches they found in the coin pocket of my pants after a visit with my mom. I honestly did not know the matches were even there (they returned my clothes to me without searching them very well after I was admitted). As I laid down contemplating the unfairness of it all, the bunk I was lying on started thumping a half inch or so up and down. It seemed the boy in the cell next door was jumping up and down on his bunk, which was bolted to my bunk through the wall. So I stood on my bunk and looked through a crack between the cells where the wall met the windows, and I could see him bouncing in the window.

I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was putting on a «show» for the girls in the dorm across the court yard out the window. When I looked I saw several girls crowded in one of the large dorm-room windows in the wing across the way. They were taking turns lifting their shirts and exposing their breasts. The boy next to me was exposing an erection in turn.

I don't remember if I exposed myself as well, but I probably did (it would have been the «natural» thing to do). I also don't recall if I could actually see the boy next to me through the crack exposing himself to the girls, the whole experience was brand new for me, and strangely liberating. I did not know such behavior could be accepted (among kids), and of course it thrilled me.

The next day I was put back in regular population and spent my days interacting with the other boys mostly (for the most part, the girls hung out together, as did they boys, much like high school), and at night we showered together and slept in dorm rooms with about five to ten other boys each. Other than the «exposing» incident on my first night, there were no other «sexual» situations that I recall. I got along okay with the other boys and «fit in» without trouble.

I was charged with numerous criminal traffic violations, failure to appear, and «assault with a deadly weapon on an officer of the law» in the first degree. The assault charge was obviously the most serious, and surprising. I didn't «assault» anyone! But, the police claimed that I tried to run over the state trooper when I ran the road block, and that the car I was driving was the «deadly weapon».

Of course the real reason for such a serious charge was to justify in their sacred record the fact that the state trooper tried to kill me, and very nearly did, when he fired his 12-gauge point blank at my head (and only missed by inches because I was moving about 40 mph when he fired!)

The court appointed lawyer made a plea deal to drop all charges except the assault, and reducing the assault to «second degree». This got me a suspended sentence with probation on the grounds that I be placed in a «group home» for «delinquent» boys (this was back before they started using the term «at risk» like they do today, but it was the same concept).

I was sent to Dyslin's Boys Ranch, in a semi-rural district near Tacoma. They raised cows there (mostly) and a few other farm animals on several fenced-in acres. The ranch was divided into two parts where the kids lived. The main part was called the «Front Ranch». That was where I went first. It was primarily for boys under 14 or 15 years old (pre-high-school).

Jessie Dyslin Boys' Ranch, Tacoma, WA.

The main building was just an ordinary single-story «ranch house», but with extra large common areas (kitchen, dining, living and bathroom) and a long hall/wing of bedrooms for the boys, two boys to each room, about 18 boys total. I was give one of the rooms at the far end of the hall. I don't recall if I had a room mate or not. I do remember clearly that even though I was in very intimate proximity for extended periods with a lot of younger boys, I had no sexual desires or interests in them. This is significant because, less than a year later, I «raped» a boy two years younger than me, and in «treatment» for that rape I was convinced (brainwashed, literally) into believing that my «sexual deviancy» was long-lived. The «treatment» program ignored the significance of my non-sexual proclivities while I was at the boys' ranch, and instead focused on the much earlier incidents of childhood sexual curiosity as «evidence» of my prolonged «deviance». So, it wasn't until many years later, after spending years in prison for the so-called «rape» (I made the younger boy take his clothes off and put my dick in his mouth for a few seconds, but did not even know how to tell him to pleasure me; I was still «experimenting» sexually).

There was one incident that occurred while I was at Dyslin's that had a major impact on my sexual behavior after I went back home to live with my mother. But that did not occur until I got to the «Back Ranch» where the older high-school-aged boys stayed, and it did not involve anyone actually at the ranch, boys or staff. But, I'll get to that in a moment.

I learned after my arrest in 2005 (25 years later) that there actually was a lot of «sexual abuse» going on at the «Front Ranch» while I was there. The mitigation investigators for my death penalty cases uncovered numerous criminal and civil law cases against ranch staff for abuses that occurred there for many years, around the time I was there. My lawyers tried to get me to «admit» to any abuse I suffered while I was there, but I honestly never witnessed or even suspected such abuse. But then, I was still very naïve back then, so I would have had no reason to suspect anything even if I did see something «suspicious».

The important thing for me, in hindsight, was that I clearly remember no sexual interest in «abusing» anyone myself while I was there. This became a kind of «touchstone» memory for me that helped me come to understand many year later how the System brainwashed me into believing I was «sick», «dangerous», and «deviant», when the truth was I was only confused by the many mixed signals I got from our very confused social system and culture (which I have since come to refer to as the «insanity» that infected me).

I was only at the Front Ranch until there was an opening at the Back Ranch. The Back Ranch consisted of a main house (original old farm house) and two «cottages» where the boys slept. There were only four boys in each cottage, and each cottage had two bedrooms, a bathroom, and living area. It was actually a very comfortable arrangement. Two staff members, a married couple, lived in the main house were we went for meals. We even had an old outboard motorboat that we could take to a lake (with staff), and that was how I first learned to water-ski.

I was required to attend summer «interim» classes at the local high school. I took, «chess». So, walked about a mile and a half to the school each weekday to play chess. Fun.

We had a considerable amount of freedom. If we wanted to go someplace we were only required to get permission at the time, or basically just notify the live in staff, then go. There was an «Indian Smoke Shop» (Native American-owned and operated store that sold tax-free cigarettes for $4.50 a carton) about three or four miles up a nearby road (a straight shot), and since we were allowed to smoke (even though it was technically illegal for anyone under 18) the «Smoke Shop» was a frequent destination. But, since it was so far, we always hitchhiked once we got to the road that went there. The staff condoned the hitchhiking as well. And because we were kids, we never had a problem getting a ride.

One day, on the way to the Smoke Shop, my room mate and I got a ride in the back of a canopied Chevy Luv pick-up truck. I remember this clearly because it ended up becoming much more than just a ride for cigarettes. The man driving the truck already had two boys around our age sitting in the front with him, which is why he told us to climb in the back. He drove us to the Smoke Shop, then offered us a ride back to the ranch even (he said he was familiar with the ranch and knew some of the other boys there). Of course we accepted and on the way back he offered us both money to come work at his gas station. My room mate became suspicious, but he didn't tell me why he was wary, so I accepted the offer and agreed to meet him the next day out on the road (away from the ranch) so he could take me to work.

I told the staff the next day simply that I had a work for money offer and they did not pry. The man in his Chevy Luv met me on the road as promised and drove me to a gas station in Tacoma, about ten miles away. I remember it was a full service station, and he pulled his truck into one of the service bays and closed the garage door. All of the «attendants» at the station were boys my age or a little older. The man told me to put on some overalls so I wouldn't soil my clothes while I changed oil in his car. He insisted that I remove my clothes in the stead of the overalls, so I did. He didn't stick around to watch me change, so I honestly (innocently) assumed it was all for legitimate reasons. But in hindsight I can only assume he went somewhere where he could watch me change without being seen, because he came back as soon as I'd finished changing, and instead of having me change the oil on his pick-up --- which I assured him I did not know how to do --- he changed it himself, to «show me how».

Then he said that since there wasn't much for me to do at the gas station he wanted me to come to his house and mow his lawn instead. He must have liked what he saw from wherever he was hiding when I stripped down to my underpants to put on the overalls. Anyway, I again innocently agreed. Though I was getting a little suspicious, I never felt scared or even worried.

We drove about 15 miles to his, uh, «house» in a suburban residential area, only it wasn't a house at all, it was a large trailer-home. And his yard wasn't a lawn either. It was a dirt lot with nothing but rocks and weeds. So as soon as we pulled up I asked, «How can I mow this?» and he said, «Oh, I meant 'use the weed-whacker' on it.» But, he wanted me to come inside first for a «refreshment», ... of course.

Inside he made me a cold drink, then asked if I wanted to play chess (I probably told him about my «interim» chess class, which is why he asked me to play a game with him). He set the board up on an ottoman and I sat on the floor on one side while he sat in a large leather lounge chair on the other. During the game, which it was clear to me at this point he had no interest in, he «suggested» that I might be more comfortable if I took my pants off. So I did. And yes, I realized what his real interests were by now also, but I didn't mind. People had been expressing this sort of «interest» in me all my life, so it was nothing new and certainly no surprise. So when he further suggested that I take off my underpants as well, I did not even hesitate. I just took them off, then went back to figuring out my next move on the chess board, boner and all.

He didn't «molest» me right away. Instead he just talked about all sorts of strange and confusing things I'd never heard of before. He talked about how «lucky» I was that I met him instead of someone else who liked to «abuse» boys like me by burning them with cigarettes and such. He also told me he collected pictures of kids like me and asked if I'd mind if he took my picture. Of course I didn't. So he brought out a Polaroid camera and snapped a couple of pictures of me positioned on his sofa. And then he said he wanted to take more pictures in the woods. So we got back in the Chevy Luv and drove to a secluded area in some nearby woods. There, he told me to take off all my clothes and took several pictures of me with my arms above my head and stomach sucked in like he wanted.

He «finished» by lying down on his back and having me bite his nipples, «harder, harder! Harder!» Then I felt something warm and wet against the side of my chest, and that was it. I got dressed, he drove me back to the road near the ranch, and most importantly --- to me at the time --- he paid me in cash for a full day's work, even though I was only with him for a few hours at the most. I was very pleased with myself.

The encounter «woke up» or perhaps «placed» ideas into my head that in less than a year would violently and extremely effect the rest of my life. I have never blamed this man or what he did to me for my crimes; but there is an undeniable connection between what he did to me --- especially the «strange» things he said to me --- and what I ended up doing only six months later. It's hard to explain this connection, except to say that my experience with this man raised a lot of questions in me regarding human sexuality --- and MY sexuality. They were questions that I only knew one way to answer: experimentation. And that is exactly what my so-called early «crimes» were; an attempt to find answers to questions that I did not even know how to ask!

As you might surmise, my experience at the Boys' ranch was teaching me that there were no real consequences for breaking the rules, or laws.

The Smoke Shop also sold illegal fireworks in the parking lot for the Fourth of July. (It was legal for them to be sold on «Indian» property, but illegal to take them off property. So sometimes the cops would park just off property and ticket anyone they caught leaving with illegal fireworks --- and they were all illegal because they were sold without permits.) One day, a group of us boys from the Back Ranch (all four kids from our cottage) found ourselves at the Smoke Shop after dark and after the fireworks stands were closed up for the night. We took note of the guard as we left to head back to the ranch, but then we noticed a weakness in their security. The shacks with all the fireworks were built on loose dirt. So we snuck up behind the stand furthest away from the guard, who never left his chair, and dug a hole underneath the back plywood wall. Because I was the skinniest of the four of us I got elected to climb through and into the shack. Once inside I started grabbing hand fulls of the «best stuff» and tossing them into the hole. I also tossed out several paper bags so the boys on the other side could bag up what I threw into the hole for them to grab.

We got away «clean» with several hundred dollars worth of fireworks, a bag load for each of us. We took the «back way» back to the ranch instead of hitchhiking, and when we got there we hid the fireworks... or, I hid the fireworks, again because I was the skinniest, underneath the cottage in the crawlspace. We ended up getting «busted» for having the fireworks, but by the time we got busted, there wasn't a lot left, and the staff had no idea it was actually stolen. They only admonished us for having «illegal Indian fireworks», which were against the rules at the ranch. But then they let us set off all we had left, under their «supervision» on the Fourth of July anyway.

And this was all my «punishment» for stealing a car and running from the police (and supposedly «assaulting» an officer of the law with a «deadly weapon»). I was having a blast at the Ranch. I had never felt more «accepted» anywhere before. Now, I was not only accepted, but even appreciated! The ranch even got us summer jobs that paid minimum wage (about $5 per hour) after the «interim» classes were over (the jobs were part of a «Youth Summer Employment» initiative that was paid for with State funds, so the jobs were mostly «invented» since the «employer» didn't have to pay for them). My job was supposed to be washing dishes at the Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC), the same hospital where I had been taken and stayed for a week after crashing that stolen car! But, the other workers there liked me, especially the cooks. So I got «promoted» on my first day to a «Cook V» («Cook Five»), or basically a cook-trainee.

I really liked the job. Again, it made me feel very accepted and appreciated. I worked hard and I learned a lot. Of course I was the only «kid» working there. All the other employees were mostly retired military, and old women who couldn't get a job anywhere else. They all loved me, which I liked, even if I didn't understand why at the time (in hindsight, I'd guess it was because I was very respectful of my elders, and eager to learn; I also «soaked up» all the attention they gave me, which was more attention than I'd gotten anywhere before).

There was only one other «Cook V». He was a mentally retarded man who lived with his mother. I even got along with him, though the «serving ladies» (older women) warned me to stay away from him. When I asked why (like they obviously wanted me to), they said, using a conspiratorial whisper, «Because he likes to let women pee on him!»

Well, that was certainly strange, and of course it made no «sense» to my young ears. So, the first chance I got, I had to ask him. I got my chance quickly enough, while he and I were alone working together preparing Rubin sandwiches for the grill (or something). I just came right out and asked, «Do you like getting peed on?» And his eyes lit up with unrestrained excitement and he spoke with great pleasure in his voice, «Oh, yes! I love it!» But, he didn't explain, so I pried further, and he lit up my ears by happily explaining how he saved his money to pay women (he didn't call them prostitutes, though I'm sure that's what he meant) to pee on him. He had the body of a man, but the mind (mentality) of a nine-year-old, and it was enlightening, to say the least, to hear this boy-man speak so excitedly about getting peed on, and even paying women to do it!

Sometimes, when we finished serving lunch and cleaning up early, I'd have an hour or so to kill before the ranch van came to pick me up and take me back to the ranch with the rest of the boys. So, I'd walk around the hospital, which was rather large and had its own PX (store), public pool and gym, and even a park and picnic area. It was at this park that my first real attempted «sex crime» occurred.

I was relaxing at the park with time to kill one day when a young boy, maybe seven, approached me (I did not approach him or had any ideas about approaching him when I first saw him, which is important to note since it indicates how such ideas must «evolve» and do not just arise out of nowhere, or «someplace evil»). In those days (remember, this is the summer of 1979), it was not uncommon for a curious child, especially a boy, to be seen wandering around alone. There wasn't any less «stranger danger», as there is today, perhaps even more; but people just weren't as concerned about «perverts» back then as they are today, and if a little boy did get touched or kissed on his penis, it was no big deal, for the boy or the parents. So, when the boy approached me, he was just looking for someone to play with him, and because I was the only other «kid» around, he chose me.

At first, I was distinctly disinterested in him. There was a girl my own age in the park also, and I had been talking to her. But she said she had to go home (there was a military housing area next to the hospital). So I was still thinking about her when the boy approached. And, somehow, my mind made a connection with girl-sex-man (from gas station)-boy, and I decided to lure the boy into the bushes, so I could pull his pants down and «experiment».

I got the boy in the bushes, and tried to threaten him with the cook's utility knife I carried in my shirt pocket for work. But as soon as I pulled out the knife, the boy bolted, which I did not expect. And he also started yelling, «Help!» So I bolted, too, in the opposite direction. I ended up being a few minutes late in meeting the van to take me back to the ranch for which I was again admonished; but that was the only consequence for this first attempted «kidnap and rape» (which is what it would have been if I so much as put my penis in the boy's mouth or a finger in his butt).

After spending such a summer at the ranch, my probation officer decided that I had learned my «lesson» and allowed me to return home to live with my mother. Oh, yeah... another important event that occurred while I was at the ranch was my parents getting «separated», and consequently divorced while I was there. Of course I blamed myself, even though I came to realize many years too late that I had nothing to do with it. But, when I went home to live with my mom, my younger brother moved out to go live with my father. So now my mother and I lived alone in the same house where our entire family once lived just a couple of years before (my three older sisters had also moved out by this time, the youngest off to college, and the oldest just married off and living with their new families). The guilty sense of having «destroyed my family» was prevailing for me, though I never spoke of it.

When the school year started that fall, I went back to my old high school, but had to start the tenth grade all over again because of all the school I missed over the last year. That only fed my already huge «sense of failure». This, combined with my newly learned «immunity from consequence», was a good recipe for what happened next (though certainly not the only recipe for such). I began seeking opportunities to «experiment» and learn what I could about myself sexually and otherwise. I played «hookie» (skipped school) and hid in the girls' bathroom at an elementary school once and almost got caught, but got away (again by running away, or «bolting», which always seemed to work well for me). I also threatened an entire group of five younger boys I found playing in the woods once with an ax (which I had taken from the boys themselves as they were playing with it) and made them all take their clothes off and touch each other while I touched them and masturbated. I also «molested» some even younger children that I babysat for a friend of my mother's, one even in diapers, but all I did was, again, look and touch while I masturbated. I was never inclined to do anything «violent» or «cruel» (causing pain or injury) until the fateful night that I found myself in possession of several handguns and got the idea that I could force a girl to let me have sex with her.

But, when I went looking for a girl, all I found was a boy. I literally passed him by at first. But when I saw him again a bit later, I decided to try my «experiments» on him. I threatened him with an empty gun (I had stolen ammunition, but did not bring it explicitly because I did not want to «accidentally» hurt anyone) and made him take off his clothes. I then took off my clothes and straddled his chest and put my penis in his mouth. This «experiment» did not produce «pleasure», so I masturbated as I straddled him and then ejaculated in the dirt next to his head. After getting dressed, I meant to let him go, but decided instead to «try something else» (another experiment).

I made him walk to an even more secluded location in some woods that were actually a part of the Ft. Lewis («North») military base (which is what made it so «secluded» --- we had to breech a security fence to even get into the woods, which we did by simply following a back road onto the base that had no «security gate»).

Once we were in the woods, walking on a dirt access road, I told the other boy to take off his clothes again and then leave them by the road as we kept walking. Remember here that I was «experimenting», looking for things that would give me pleasure. So telling him to walk with no clothes was an attempt to get pleasure from control and humiliation. I did not think this at the time, though. Instead, my only actual thoughts were few and «serviceable». I only thought things like, «What can I do next?» or «That wasn't any fun...» As for feelings, I wasn't scared or nervous; nor was I very excited or anxious. I just felt «normal», like this was all just an encounter with a new friend or something. I had no concern at all for any consequences, other than the embarrassment I might feel if I got found out. In my mind at the time, stealing cars and running from the police was far worse than what I was doing with that 14-year-old boy.

We eventually left the road and into the trees. I wondered, «What now?» and decided to see if hitting the boy with a fern branch would arouse any interest. It didn't. Then I lit a cigarette, and remembered what the gas station man told me about men who like burning boys with their cigarettes. So I tried that, too (by touching the cherry of my cigarette to the boy's butt only long enough to make him flinch --- i.e. I didn't hold it on his skin or take pleasure in the act at all the way I've been often accused). That didn't «make any sense» either, so I did not repeat it. In fact, I didn't repeat anything I did, because I was, remember, «experimenting».

I then told the boy to lie down and this time I straddled his face and told him to lick my butt (experimenting with humiliation and control again, which seemed to «do something» for me). Then I masturbated again and, this time, ejaculated in the boy's mouth.

After all this, I got dressed and told the boy to wait there until I was gone. But he complained that he did not know where his clothes were or even how to get out of the woods. So I led him back to his clothes and out of the woods, then again told him to wait until I was gone.

As an adult, some 30 years later, this «boy» testified at my death penalty sentencing trial that this was by far the most painful and terrifying experience of his life. At the time, I thought I was being «nice» to him, and maybe even teaching him «fun» things. Even now I can't help but wonder what sort of «sheltered life» he must have had if this was the «worst thing» that ever happened to him! If the exact same thing happened to me, I would have considered it a walk in the park and thought nothing of it. Many worse things had happened to me before then, and far, FAR worse things since. If I could have spoken my mind to him at the death penalty trial, I would have liked to say how «charmed» his life must have been. I wouldn't call it «lucky», though. I can't imagine living how in such ignorance could ever be called «lucky».

On the way home, I saw a police car parked in front of the house where I had stolen the guns and ammunition from earlier that night. So I threw the gun I was carrying, unloaded and with no clip, into some bushes before continuing the rest of the way home. And that's exactly how the police found it (unloaded and with no clip) when I showed them where to look after my arrest.

They arrested me at my house about a half hour after I got home. It turned out that the boy «recognized» my voice. It was the voice of a well-known bully who picked on him a lot (because he was smaller than most boys their age) at school. Except it wasn't my voice he recognized; it was my brother's. I had never met the boy before, but it seems my brother knew him well, and used to pick on him a lot in school (they were the same age). But, when the police came to arrest my brother, they found me instead. And, when they got me to the police station, all they had to do was promise me some «help» with my «confusion» and I broke down crying and told them everything I just relayed here (except the part about making the boy lick my ass, for some reason that was too embarrassing, even for me). As a result, they charged me with two counts of first degree burglary (because I told them I went back to the house after I stole the guns to steal more stuff, in particularly ammunition), two counts first degree rape (because I admitted to putting my dick int he boy's mouth twice), two counts of assault (one «simply» because I admitted to hitting the boy with a fern, which left no marks, and one «second degree» for burning him with a cigarette, which left a small red mark), and two counts first degree kidnapping (because I forced the boy at gunpoint to go to two different locations). I spent several months in Raymann Hall (Juvenile Detention) before they «declined» me to «adult status». My father hired a lawyer this time, John Laddenburg (who was later elected District Attorney, or some such thing) who met with me once briefly at the Pierce County Jail (where I was kept separated from the other prisoners and not allowed to smoke because I was a juvenile) and then worked out a plea agreement where I would plead guilty to one count of first degree rape, in exchange for a 20-year-sentence that would be suspended pending successful completion of a «Sexual Psychopath» Treatment Program at the state mental hospital near Tacoma (Western State Hospital).

And so began a nightmare that was far FAR worse than any I had ever even imagined before... a nightmare filled with extreme violence, perversion, isolation, sleep deprivation, stress so severe that it literally caused partial blindness, rape, and fear so great that it has brought me to my knees more than once. A nightmare that continues to this day, and from which the only real hope I have ever had has been the hope that I might wake up some day. It is this hope that I cling to even now, as I await my execution, to «set me free», at last. As much as I abhor ignorance, honesty forces me to admit that it certainly has its appeal! And yet, I would still not trade my life for the life of the boy I raped when I was 16, not even if he had never been raped. Perhaps ESPECIALLY not if he had never been raped. Such a life could never touch the «truths» I have come to know and cherish; «truths» that so few in this «charmed» land will ever come to even suspect! «Truths» that the pharisees of our day work so hard to hide, with their pretend-laws, and pretend-truths. Laws and truths that only crumble in the face of real fear, and real suffering, and real life. In the end, I have come to realize that these are the very answers I sought all along. Answers that «they» tried to hide, and still hide. Answers that destroy their illusion of «law and order» and restore natural law and order instead. Those who have truly suffered, know what I mean. Those who have not, never will. Because to know the Truth, is to suffer; and to suffer, is to know the Truth. I am only saying in my own way what has been said by all the great sages, from Christ to the Buddha. Not because I am such a sage, but only because I have suffered. And I am thankful for it.

Since I've already went and turned this «confession» into a personal rant, I may as well go ahead and say what I really think. But, before I do, I should also say, for the sake of anyone reading this with a critical bent (and I hope you are), or even those reading it with extreme prejudice (that's okay, too, and expected), that what I'm about to say is said strictly as my own honest thoughts. I do NOT think I am an «expert» or that, for any other reason, other people should think the same way I do. But, that being said, I must also assert that everything I write is what I believe to be true and real, and that is based upon careful consideration and deep contemplation upon my own experience, thoughts, and feelings in the relevant regards. I don't «know» if any of it is «true», or «false» either. But, if I ever encounter any evidence that contradicts what I say, then I will careful consider it, and its source (as I sincerely hope you are doing now), and change the way I think and/or what I believe accordingly. Now, let's get on with it...

I should start by pointing out that I don't really believe that the boy I write about raping here, nor the man he has become, has in any factual sense lived a «charmed» life. According to the Buddha, «All life is suffering.» If you understand this «truth», then you also understand that nobody lives a «charmed» life; it simply is an impossibility.

But, most people spend the vast majority of their life's energy (in the literal sense, not mystical; but, mystical, too, if you understand such things as well, or however you understand such things...) attempting to live the «charmed» life by avoiding «suffering». There are a million and more ways to do so. Many are considered «healthy», even «productive». And many more are called «addictions», or perhaps (in some cases) even «insanity» (though, in this case, that would be a tragic and misleading misnomer, even though it is what the so-called «experts» call it --- a clear and relevant example of this is the type of «insanity» that «experts» call «psychopathy» or even «sociopathy» --- but, that's beside the point).

What I think, and remember, I claim to be no «expert», nor do I presume to know the boy, or man that I «raped» as a boy, well enough to assume what I'm about to say is true. But, based on what I do know about him, and about myself, and about humans in general, it seems to me that all he is really doing by claiming that what I did to him was the «worst» and most «terrifying» experience in his life, is projecting all (or nearly all) of the suffering he has experienced throughout the course of his life (and especially his childhood, remembering how he was a small boy and frequently bullied and picked on by larger boys like my brother) onto this one «terrible» and «worst» memory. And by doing so, he has (unconsciously) made it genuinely SEEM like his worst experience. And he does this (again unconsciously) because that is what he was literally taught to do by all the «adults» in his life who saw it (unconsciously for them also) as a way to create and sustain the illusion of an OTHERWISE «charmed life».

These «adults» probably (most likely) told him repeatedly how terrible what happened to him was (how would they know if they weren't there?). And if the «post-rape» boy ever mentioned the suffering or humiliation he experienced from being picked on in school, these same adults would no doubt quickly remind him of how «terrible» a bully the boy who «raped you» was, thus shunting all that pain into an already painful memory.

I have witnessed this sort of «conditioning» so often and seen its effect play out so many times that there is little doubt in my mind that I am mistaken about it (though ready to admit if I am, in an instant, should I ever see evidence to the contrary, or better yet, stumble upon a better explanation for all the evidence I have already seen and continue to see regularly all around me!). Even at my own death sentence trial, I watched a video recording of a specially trained police «forensic» child interview expert tell Shasta (my last surviving «victim») how «terrible» what happened to her was BEFORE he even asked her what had happened! (Seriously, if you can, check the record and you'll see for yourself!)

And, after my arrest in 2005, a man in Seattle went to an address he found on the Internet for two «registered sex offenders» living together in the same house, and shot them both dead. In the police interviews afterwards, he said he did it after he read about «Joseph Duncan» (me) in the news. He said he hated «bullies», and «sex offenders» are the worst «bullies» of all. I can't help but wonder who «put» such ideas into his head, and why. (Actually, I do «wonder», but only in so much as to retain a «healthy» amount of doubt and questions about what I assume to be the «answer» --- i.e. «they» did, the «adults» and «experts» I mentioned a moment ago.)

So, that's what I think, for whatever it's worth. I don't put a lot of stock in it myself (if I did, then it would become too «burdened» by the «investment», making it to «unwieldy» for the way I like to think --- i.e. I like finding out I'm «wrong» about things so I can make «corrections», but an «unwieldy» thought is the one that is most difficult to «correct», because of my investment in it! I seriously don't like such thoughts, and fortunately, this is not one of them --- which is why I'm spending so much time disclaiming it, so I don't become «invested», by writing it down!). But, I do hope it makes someone else think about their own thoughts and ideas about such things, and maybe even question the validity in the face of this «evidence». And what I really hope is that someone, anyone, reads this, then finds a way to let me know I'm «wrong», about all of it, or just some parts. That would be the real «reward» for me, personally. Either way, there it is, no offense (I hope, also).

[J.D. January 21, 2017]

First Arrest (1979)

In January 1979, I was 15 years old. I wasn't a «street kid», nor was I very «street smart». But, neither did I respect the law, or try to stay out of trouble. I routinely trespassed through people's yards by climbing fences as though they were made to be climbed. And if I found something I wanted when nobody was watching, I'd take it. I had a paper-route and earned about $100 a month delivering about 70 papers every day. Sometimes I would break into the houses on my route and steal nick-nacks that caught my eye.

I had gotten my driver's learning permit and knew how to drive better than most (it seemed to come natural). So if I found the keys in a car when no one was around, I'd take it for a little «joy ride», but always returned it no worse for wear minus a little gas. At least until one day in late January.

There was a couple of cars that some nearby homeowner parked in the back of a utility office parking lot where my paper-route drop-box was located. I found out they had the keys in them, so I started «borrowing» them for fun sometimes before or after delivering my papers, but never for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, and I always returned them as close to the way I found them each time. Until one time I didn't.

I had gotten into an argument with my mom and left the house with my empty paper-bags (cloth bags that I used to carry the papers over my shoulders with large pouches in the front and back) so my mom would think I was going to go deliver papers. It was late in the evening, but she didn't know my schedule, so this ruse worked.

I was on foot (I don't remember why) and I had no papers to deliver or anything to do. So, I walked to a new friend's house (from school). Nobody was home, so I broke in, naturally, and put anything I found that looked «interesting» inside the paper-bags. I remember taking a large bottle of Seagram's Seven (alcohol) and a stash of about $20 in quarters that I found.

Then I walked to the «Tom Boy» (convenience store) near my paper-box and bought some candy. I knew the owner's grown son, who worked at the store as a clerk, and lived in the house that his father also owned just behind the store. Since he wasn't working that night I figured he must be home, so I decided to see if he'd let me in for a few hours to kill some time.

He was home, but when he opened the door, his large long-haired setter came rushing at me and chased me off the porch barking and nipping at me. The store owner's son told me someone had recently broken into his house while the dog was home alone, and he thought by the dog's reaction that it was probably me (it was – I broke in and stole several pot plants that were growing under lights in the basement; the dog didn't bother me then though, not like it was now).

So I left, and walked to the paper-box more out of habit than anything else. Then I remembered the cars parked nearby and took one.

I drove about three miles toward my high school (Lakes High), and stopped at a 7-eleven store about a block away from my school and bought a burrito and a Big Gulp. While I was there some «friends» (kids I knew) from school saw me and asked where I got the car. They were «hoods» («stoners» who were known for getting in trouble) whom I normally never associated with. In order to impress them, I told them the truth; I stole it. Three of the four, boys my age, decided to go joyriding with me. The fourth said he was on probation and could not risk the trouble. So we left him at the store.

We drove around, taking turns behind the wheel, running over mailboxes and stop signs for fun. We did this for about an hour, until someone ran over some large rocks that we didn't see hidden in the shrubs around the base of one of the mailboxes we ran over. I could have been the one driving, but I honestly don't remember. But the car started lurching up and down as though the axle had been badly bent. So we parked it in an empty church parking lot, wiped it down for «prints», then walked to a nearby duplex where two of the boys I was with lived. We sat in the living room and smoked some pot as I recall, but before long the boys who lived there said they were going to bed so me and the other boy had to go.

I left, and parted ways with the other boy who I think must have gone home. I walked to the same 7-eleven where I had picked up the other kids, but there was no on else there at this hour (about five or six a.m.) except the clerk. I was very tired (sleepy) and had no place to go. I was several miles from home and didn't feel like walking so far while I was so tired. So I walked back to the duplex where the brothers lived, hoping they'd let me sleep on their couch (there were no «adults» in the house at the time) at least. But, when I knocked, nobody answered.

So I walked back to the 7-eleven (only a few minutes away on foot) and on the way this time I saw a Ford Pinto (seriously!) running with nobody in it as it sat in an apartment parking space; apparently warming up (it was a frosty morning). I looked around and couldn't see anyone watching the car as I walked by. But I kept walking to the 7-eleven, which was just next to the apartments where the Pinto was parked.

From the 7-eleven I watched the car for a few minutes, then decided to go for it. It would be an easy ride home. I'd only have the car for a few minutes, then I'd ditch it long before the police came looking. That was the plan.

I walked over, got in, and just as I was backing out I saw the curtains part in the window for the apartment directly in front of the car. It seems someone was paying attention and heard me get in and start to pull away. But it didn't matter, my plan was only to have the car a few minutes. I'd be home and in bed before the police even finished taking the report.

And in fact I did make it home as planned. I ditched the car next to the elementary school a block from my house. Then I walked home. But as I tried to sneak in quietly so as not to wake my mom, the «plan» suddenly went South.

My mother wasn't asleep. She had been up all night waiting for me so she could finish the «lecture» I had run away from in the first place. But now she was even more heated than ever after my long unexcused absence. In hindsight, I understand how worried she must have been. She had even been out driving around for hours looking for me. But at the time all I understood was her fury; and she terrified me.

So, before the front door even closed behind me I was back outside and running away, again, quite literally. I ran back to the Pinto, got in and drove off toward the freeway (I-5).

I got on I-5 North. My childish inclination was to drive up to Canada, where I'd heard kids like me could live on the streets unmolested by the police. (I honestly was not worried about any other sort of «molesters», and would have even welcomed such, if I had even known they existed. It would have been far preferable to the «hell» I called home.) But, before I even got to the next exit I noticed the fuel gauge was on «empty». So I pulled off to get some gas with the remaining quarters I had stolen earlier.

I pulled into a gas station just off the freeway, and got out to pump the gas. But, in those days you had to choose «leaded» or «unleaded», and I wasn't sure which type of gas the Pinto took. So rather than asking, or otherwise looking like I didn't know what I was doing, I got back in the car and drove off. My intention was to park someplace nearby and try to figure out what kind of gas I needed.

I drove up the road about a quarter of a mile then into a mostly empty Fred Meyer department store parking lot. The sun had just come up, so it was light enough for me to get out and look for a sticker or something that said «leaded» or «unleaded». Then as soon as I got out to look I remembered my Dad telling me that all small cars take unleaded gas. So I decided it must be unleaded. But, as I turned to get back in I saw a police cruiser driving past the parking lot, and the cop riding shotgun was pointing at me!

I learned later that the gas station attendant had a police scanner, and had heard the report of a stolen Pinto. So when he saw me pull in then pull out again he called the police. It took no time at all then for a nearby cruiser to find me by simply driving in the direction that the attendant said he saw me go.

I got in the Pinto and drove toward the lot exit away from the cruiser which had pulled into the lot and then got behind me and flashed its lights. As I exited the lot I hit the gas. I have no idea what I was thinking. I doubt if any «thoughts» would have made any difference at this point. My «instinct» was to run away from «danger». And cops were very dangerous!

So, I «floored it», as they say. But, in a Pinto that basically meant making a lot of engine noise (whine) but not going anywhere very fast. I still clearly remember topping out at around 80 mph, and desperately straining with my will to make the car go faster even though it felt lie the car itself was going to shutter to pieces at the speed I was already going.

I could see the cops directly on my tail in the rear-view mirror. They seemed calm and relaxed. I often imagine that they were discussing their wives or something during the chase. I was just another joyriding punk to them, and I wasn't going anywhere.

This continued for only a couple of minutes, if that. I ran one red-light, which they made a big deal out of in their police reports later. (They seemed more concerned about charging me with traffic violations than they were about the stolen car --- in fact, I was never charged with stealing the car at all because the guy I stole it from, the same guy who saw me drive off from his apartment window, did not want to press charges because I was «just a kid».) I drove straight, running on pure instinct, go go go! Run run run! I didn't realize until much later that I was instinctively heading for «home».

They stayed on my tail while they radioed ahead for a road block. I didn't see the other cruiser (a «State Trooper» if I recall correctly) until he crested the top of the train overpass and pulled his car across both lanes to block the top of the bridge. It was already too late for me to turn; there weren't any turn-offs, and the cruiser behind me made sure I couldn't turn around. But I spotted an opening between the guardrail of the bridge and the front of the Trooper's car, the service lane, and it was just enough for the Pinto to squeeze through.

As I approached the road block I saw the Trooper get out of his car brandishing a shotgun, and take up a position behind the front hood pointing the gun in my direction. I did have a thought at this point, and I remember the thought. I thought, «He won't shoot because I'm unarmed.» I learned that from T.V..

But, he did shoot, at nearly point-blank range as I drove directly in front of his cruiser to get past him. And he was aiming for my head! I remember hearing a loud «bang»! And then the side driver's window next to my head was just gone and there was broken safety glass all over the dash and in my lap. I couldn't believe he just shot at me! That was the second thought I remember having during the entire chase, «He shot at me!»

I continued though. The other cruiser was too wide to fit through the opening as I had, so there was a few seconds of reprieve while the trooper got back in his car to back it up so the city cruiser could continue the chase. But I didn't get any further than the next intersection, where I wrapped the Pinto around a utility pole, and my face around the steering wheel. I was unconscious when they caught up to me and called an ambulance. I remember having one more thought, though, just before I passed out and went into shock from the injuries (carved in right cheek and half my face-flesh torn off --- I still have the scars, of course, but they're not that bad considering) I didn't realize I was even injured at all. I just remember looking at the hood of the Pinto crumple against the utility pole and thinking, «I'm caught!» It was a very instinctual kind of thought; something like a gazelle might think, if it could, after being tripped by a leopard and feeling its fangs sinking into its neck. There was no more fear. And no more thoughts, though the police reported that I told them my name, address, and even what hospital I wanted to go to (the Army hospital, since my dad was still active in the service at the time). I don't remember telling them anything.

I do remember being put in the ambulance, and I remember them cutting off my clothes. But, I was in shock, so these were kind of weird, detached experiences. It was like watching it happen to someone else, only from inside that person's body. I didn't come out of shock --- i.e. I didn't feel any pain --- until the doctor started cauterizing my face wound closed to stop the bleeding. That woke me up!

I was in the hospital for a week, and then released on a «medical»-PR (so I never actually got arrested or had to go to jail). While I was on medical-PR, after a month or so, after I had gone back to the hospital to have the tubes and balloons removed from my face (that were holding my face bones in place as they mended), I took my parents' station wagon without permission, and crashed it too, while playing hooky from school with my future brother-in-law's younger brother, Craig, who was my age. I ran away again, and hung out with Craig (who was also a «run-away»), until the night police showed up at Craig's girlfriend's house while we were there, invited by her father to watch a brand-new program on T.V. for the first time called «Scared Straight».

I was arrested for «failure to appear» and taken to the juvenile detention center, where all the kids were required to watch «Scared Straight» (a program that despite its popularity has been shown to consistently increase recidivism rates for those kids who participate!).

On my second day of detention they gave me my «street clothes» back and moved me to the «downstairs» (minimum security) section. My mother came to visit, and after the visit they found a book of matches in the coin pocket of my jeans that I honestly did not realize was there. I got put in «segregation» because of the matches, and thus my experience with «criminal justice» began, and has long since continued to be all about «misperception».

[J.D. Jan 15, 2015]