Run For The Border II: Canada

After parting ways with my father on our two car road trip in Colorado, I headed North, driving non-stop through Denver then into Wyoming. I didn't stop until I had reached Casper, where I found a public library so I could check the Web for news about the boy (Anthony) I had kidnapped, raped, and murdered in Southern California in early April, several weeks before. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't a named suspect. I wasn't. Then I gassed up --- I spent the night in a mostly empty park near Casper, sleeping in the car, the same car I had used to kidnap Anthony in plain sight of numerous witnesses, mostly children though --- and continued on my trek North for the border. I had told my father I planned to get a new identity in Canada, then find a job and live my life in peace there.

I left the freeway after Missoula and continued North on a State highway that connected several small towns like pearls on a string all the way to a remote border station Northwestern Montana. A state trooper flashed its light and siren behind me at one point, which made me think I was busted. But, when I obediently slowed and pulled to the side of the road he just sped past me, apparently on his way to some other emergency.

At the border I told the Canadian border guard that I was sight-seeing on my way to Seattle. I did not expect any more problem getting into Canada than I had driving into Mexico several months before. But the border guard got suspicious and told me to pull into the inspection station.

For the second time that day I though I was busted. When they searched the car they found several IDs that belonged to other people, camping gear, extra food and clothes that made it obvious I was living in the car, and a book on how to create a false identity in Canada. On top of all that I had given them my real name and driver's license, and the car wasn't registered in my name. (It belonged to a friend of mine who lived in Seattle.)

Obviously they weren't going to let me enter Canada. So after enough time waiting for them to contact the U.S. authorities, on the other side of this border crossing, they showed me what they found in my car, returned it to me (technically, nothing was illegal), then told me I was denied entry an let me return to the U.S..

Of course, the U.S. border guard was waiting for me. He came out of his booth, and seemed about to tell me something, but then the phone rang in his booth and he returned there to answer. After a brief conversation he steppe back out of the booth only to wave me on my way. No questions, no inspection, just, "go!"

So, I went. Fast! As soon as I was out of sight of the border station I floored it. I figured that the border station ha called the police in the nearest town, which was about nine or ten miles from the border crossing, with no turn offs. So the town had to be a trap. Maybe if I got there fast enough, I could take them by surprise, instead of the other way around. So, I drove at over a hundred (MPH) until I reached the first turn off the outskirts of town. The turn off was just one block before the only signal light, which I could see was red, and waiting for me. There was no other road through town, but the turn off gave me access to an alley that ran behind the houses on the main street.

I followed the alley at a crawl until I reached the cross street for the traffic signal. There was no traffic, but I reasoned that if there were a trap, it would be at either the entrance, the light, or the exit to the town. I already skirted the entrance, so now I drove across the road and into another alley, this time running behind a handful of stores that lined main-street. And sure enough, as I drove through the alley I spotted a solitary police cruiser parked between two of the buildings, facing the main intersection, no doubt waiting for me. 

I just kept driving slowly right behind the cruiser, literally less than 50 feet away. He didn't see me. Then I came out at the end of the alley into the town's one and only gas station, which sat right at the edge of town. Because a curve in the road at this juncture, I was able to continue out of town without being seen, by simply driving through the gas station, past the pumps, and then out onto the highway headed South again into the forests.

But now it would be another 20 miles or so until the next town, again with no turn offs, and this time the town was much larger with presumable many more police waiting for me. There seemed no escape. Then worse, I spotted an official Forest Service vehicle apparently coming from the Forest Service Station a few miles South of town on the same road. I watched the driver as she passed, and noticed it was indeed a Forest Service Ranger, mot likely on her way to provide backup for the sole police officer in town, still waiting to make a felony fugitive arrest at the red light.

The Ranger seemed preoccupied with her thoughts as we drove past each other on the highway. But then, at the last moment as our vehicles passed, I saw her do a double take and look right at me, and her jaw dropped. I guessed that she had already been informed of the "suspect and vehicle description", so when she saw me she realized I must have slipped past the trap.

That meant I had only seconds to make my escape good. So, I sped up again, then pulled off the road into the first clearing I came to, and headed for the trees, which happened to line the ridge o a small hill that the car ('87 Cadillac New Yorker) could climb easily enough, even off road through wild grass. I almost didn't slow down when I reached the ridge, but at the last moment I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to go flying over a ridge not knowing what lay on the other side. And that caution saved my life, because there was nothing on the other side but air!

It was a sheer cliff carved out of the hill for a railroad pass. it was a good thing I slowed to look first. I had to back the car back down the hill, and with nowhere else to hide, I got back on the road and sped South again.

Luckily I came to a dirt road turn off with a sign that read, "Public Picnic Area". I slowed and took the turn being careful not to stir up too much dust or leave any skid marks at the entrance. I hoped that with only one car in pursuit I'd have a little time to find some concealment before they could check the side roads like this one.

The dirt road continued for about a half mile until it came to a clearing in the trees by a lake, but I pulled off the dirt road and behind some trees before that. I had only managed to drive the car off road and about 60 feet into the forest. But, the cover was good, and after using a hatchet to make even more cover, and then using dark colored clothes, a sleeping bag, and anything else I could find to cover the white paint on the car, I was sure I was "invisible". So I waited.

After about an hour I heard a small helicopter in the distance, but I ha anticipate that also (I could not be seen from the road or the sky). I heard the chopper pass nearby. It sounded like it was following the highway, once in each direction. Then that was all.

No cars at all came down the dirt road, so after it started getting dark I walked out to the highway and deliberately let myself be seen by a few passing cars. I reasoned that if there was a roadblock then the drivers would probably report seeing me on foot and they'd send a car to look for me. So I scurried up a forested hill on the other side of the highway, and watched the traffic from a safe position. I saw no police or forest service vehicles go by. I reasoned that they must not be looking for me very hard. That didn't mean they wouldn't have another trap waiting at the next town. So I needed to find some other way out of the area, and out of Montana altogether if possible.

I returned to the car and pulled out my maps. One of the maps showed a single line (undeveloped road) that left the small one cap town North of me (where I had eluded the trap before). The line on the map meandered through nothingness (forest) for about 40 miles until it joined up with another highway heading West from the larger town down South where I was sure they'd be waiting for me. I decided the obscure line was my best, if not only, option.

I waited until near midnight before I uncovered the car and returned to the road. I drove cautiously with lights off back North, and found the turn off across from the gas station at the edge of town. I was never certain if I was on the right road or not. It ended up being a graveled road at least. But there were several turn off and intersections that my map didn't show. So I took a compass bearing and used the moon to help decide my way (keeping it in sight and to my right as much as I could).

After what seemed like several hours I came out onto a paved highway running East and West, perfect! I headed West, and came to an all-night gas station at the edge of a mid-sized town. There was a cop car parked near the gas station and facing the road I had just drove in on. But I didn't see the cop car until after I had already pulled into the station for much needed gas. I controlled the impulse to continue driving, and hope I'd be less suspicious if I just stopped for gas right in front of the cop. This must have worked, since I was able to gas up, buy some food, and even another map, before continuing on my way unmolested by the police.

I drove off aways and safely out of town before I stopped to check the new map. As it turned out I was already in Idaho! An not far from the interstate (I-90). I drove on into Coeur d'Alene, the same Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where I was fated to be arrested eight years later, for the crimes I'm on death row for now. But this time I just drove past the city and stopped at a large rest area near the Washington/Idaho state border, where I parked and slept, relatively safe and sound.

The next day I drove into Spokane, Washington, and called Dee, the owner of the car I was driving, and asked her if she could drive my car (an '87 Buick Skylark) which I'd left in Seattle with her, across the state and meet me in Spokane to swap cars, which she agreed to do. I met her at the bus station in Spokane, then we drove to a cheap motel and spent the night together.

The next day, after transferring all my stuff over to my own car, which was now less "hot" than Dee's car after the incident at the Border, we said our good-byes and I headed directly South from Spokane, taking highways down the "back" of Washington state and then Oregon and into Northern California, farm country. It was Mother's Day, 1997, and I remember crying for miles while I thought about my mom.

Anyway, I stuck to the back roads and highways in California as well, and made my way down to Death Valley, then drove East to Pahrump, Nevada. Not for the brothers, but because that's where my father lived. Since my plan to become a Canadian was bust, I decided to visit my dad while I figured out what to do next.

[J.D. July 28, 2020]     

Sister Sister I

After escaping the pervasive criminal element of Texas, I drove North. I remember being so tired that I must have fallen asleep at the wheel. I saw a large green highway information sign that simply vanished when I got close enough and tried to read it. So I pulled over at the next gas station I saw and feel asleep in the parking lot along the side near the bathrooms without even getting out of the driver's seat.

The next morning, I spent the last of my money gassing up and to get something to eat at the same station, then continued North until I came to a small town. I found the local Western Union office, then called my dad in Pahrump, Nevada, and asked him to wire me some money. He agreed to do so on the condition that I drive to my stepsister's house in Warsaw, Missouri.

My stepsister, Jenny, had visited me several times while I was in prison in Washington state before she moved to Missouri, so we weren't strangers. But, I had never met her three sons, who were teens at this time (13, 15, and 16, if I remember correctly). But the boys knew they had an "Uncle Jet" who had absconded and was wanted. So my stepsister insisted that if I came to her house, I had to use a different name. So, I became "the other uncle", Joshua, or just "Uncle Josh".

The agreement was that I would sleep on her sofa until my dad and stepmother could drive there from Pahrump, and then we'd "figure out" what I should do next. In the meantime I helped out as I could around the house and ended up spending a lot of time with her boys. I helped settle disputes, taught one how to "keep his eye on the ball" so he could bat with confidence, and another how to clean and prepare some fish we caught at the nearby lake. I also did repairs and ran errands.

The stress of having a fugitive living in her house took its toll on my sister. She kept insisting that everything was okay, but it wasn't. One day this stress clashed with the already ongoing stress of raising three teen boys on her own. The boys were fighting and I stepped in to break it up, which I managed to do easily enough. I not only broke up the fight, but I counselled the boys separately afterwards and managed to help them resolve their differences to the point that they were amiable again the next day. Jenny did not even learn about the fight until the next day, and when she did, she became very upset and started yelling at her boys.

At this point I stupidly told her how yelling at them was not necessary because they had already resolved their differences and learned a valuable lesson at the same time. She quieted down, thanked me for helping, then retreated to her bedroom and closed the door.

Later that evening, all three boys came to me and told me they were worried about their mother. They explained to me that she only locks herself in her room when she becomes too upset to deal with things. They said she had threatened suicide in the past under such conditions, and now things seemed worse because he wasn't responding to their knocks and pleas at her door.

So I knocked on her door also, to which I heard her reply sobbingly, "Just leave me alone, I'm having a migraine." (It seems that migraines are something that run in my step family, so I took it as a further sign of stress.) The boys wanted me to kick in her door to make sure she was not trying to harm herself. (They explained that she may be overdosing on sleeping medicine.) So, after several more failed attempts to get her to talk to me, I decided to call the Warsaw police and ask them to intervene. I remember being afraid that if the local police were aware that her stepbrother (me) was a wanted fugitive, then my presence at her house could trigger some alarms and end with my arrest. But, I was genuinely concerned for my sister's well-being and decided it would be selfish of me not to take the risk. As irrational as that may seem for someone who had just kidnapped, then raped and murdered a ten-year-old boy just weeks before might seem, it is what I actually thought. By way of explanation I might point out that I considered her and her boys to be family, and... well, it is what it was... I'm just not sure what it was. But, the risk of getting discovered and arrested at my stepsister's house seemed worth taking after all she had done to help me.

So, one officer arrived forty minutes later and after I explained the situation to him, he took charge of the situation and convinced my sister to let him in the room just to talk. He spoke to her privately for several minutes (would she tell him the truth?) and then emerged and assured me and the boys that she just wanted to rest and that she was not going to hurt herself. Then he left and the next day things returned to relative normalcy, Jenny even thanking me for being concerned enough to call the police.

My father arrived with my stepmother, Rea, and Rea's mother (my step grandmother), Bubbie. Bubbie also used to come visit me often in prison, but now she had advanced Alzheimer's and couldn't even recognize her own daughter, much less me. Rea and my dad preferred caring for themselves rather than leaving her in a nursing home. So I helped look after her as well while we stayed at my stepsister's house (my father, Rea, and Bubble all shared one of the boy's rooms while he doubled up with another brother). I also ended up helping to look after even more children after my other stepsister, Tammy, showed up with her two grade school children (a boy and girl ages seven and eight), and the frequent visits from a close family friend and young couple with three preschool girls (one, three, and four) who lived nearby. Once, while I was watching Bubbie alone, I got a call from the young mother. She was in a panic over a bees nest (hive) she had just discovered under the trailer the young family had just moved into. Her husband was at work and unreachable, so she called Jenny for help, but I was the only one home. So, I put Bubbie in the car (the same car I used weeks before in California to kidnap ten-year-old Anthony Martinez) and drove over to "rescue" her and her girls by bringing them back to Jenny's until her husband got home from work (this was the days before everyone had cell phones, of course, so we left notes to communicate).

After Tammy showed up with her kids it seemed like I had my pick of almost any age or sex of children I wanted to spend time with. And I ended up spending a lot of alone time with all of them, even baby sitting for hours alone. But, as much as I craved otherwise, I never actually "abused" any of them. I felt trusted and responsible. I even often went out of my way to protect them and keep them safe and healthy, as any "uncle" should. I honestly think I enjoyed playing --- and being accepted as --- the "good uncle" more than I would have enjoyed any sexual pleasure I may have gotten from taking advantage of the circumstances. Not that I didn't think about it or wasn't tempted. I did and I was, a lot! But, I kept my dick in my pants as they say, and my thoughts in check. I felt a genuine emotional need to protect the children at all cost, even if that meant surrendering myself to the police, which I eventually more or less did a few months later. But that's another episode.

In retrospect it seems to me that the desire to be perceived and accepted as a "good person" (whatever that is) by the people I cared about (especially family) was stronger than any sexual interests or desires I had for the children that I had contact with and opportunity to abuse. But, my desire for vengeance (a.k.a. "justice") against society was much stronger than both. I'm not saying this is "right", nor is it some sort of justification for my crimes. It simply is what it was, and that's what we all need to sort out; not just me. I can't do it by myself, which is ultimately the reason for this blog.

After Tammy showed up with her kids, she volunteered to pay everyone's way for a trip to a Christian show in Branson, Missouri. I rode in the back of the family van with her children. I didn't like to be so far away from my own car for this trip, but again I chose family over the risk.

After several weeks in Warsaw, and well after my father's arrival, they found the body of the child I had kidnapped in California and left in a secluded ravine, and it made National news again. I was up late by myself watching T.V. when I first saw the story. Of course the police claimed they were "closing in" on the suspect, and I got so scared that I left the house in the middle of the night and spent hours in the dark hiding on a nearby covered boat dock where I could see and keep an eye on my stepsister's house in case the police showed up.

My step-family heard the news also, but pretended to not pay it much attention (as I did also). But, I could tell they were absorbing and processing every detail they could and comparing it to every little clue they got from me. They'd ask nonchalantly if the car I was driving (a Chevy New Yorker) was considered a "compact", for example. I had seen the news report, so I knew that the police had determined from the tire marks left behind that the kidnapper's car was a "compact" model. Actually, the police made a lot of little mistakes like that, which ultimately led all suspicion away from me as far as my family was concerned, and later even the police themselves let me slip through their fingers, almost literally, when they arrested me months later in Kansas City and took "major case" prints in order to compare my prints with the partial print they found at the crime scene (on a roll of duct tape) after someone in my step-family told them I might have been the Martinez kidnapper. But, apparently, they did not take me seriously as a suspect and no match was made between my prints and the one found.

In the meantime I discussed with my father and step-family what I would do next. I couldn't stay at my stepsister's house indefinitely, so I convinced them that I could drive into Canada, find a job and create a new life and identity there. I even ordered a book from a magazine on exactly how to do that (i.e. create a new identity in Canada). So after several weeks when it was time for my father and Rea to head back to Pahrump, I followed them in the New Yorker to Colorado, then parted ways with a few hundred in cash from my father as I headed North and they South on their way home.

I was on the run my own again and headed for the Great White North exactly as planned. But, I didn't get far. In fact I never even made it into Canada. They stopped me at the border, but I still managed to elude them before they caught me. But that's another part of the story I'll tell another time.

[J.D. Dec. 17, 2019]