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]
