by RJ

"Videotapes. Snuff films. The killing of Stacy Moskowitz is on film. It draws a high price. The sick bastards. But this is 'busines.' The whole Moskowitz killing was orchestrated. The whole 'capture' was..."

Also, "snuff films" on videotape. And that, sir, is *proof*. This is not just sick. It is big business. Someone has gotten rich off the bloodshed, and I can back every single word. I'll give you facts.

From: The Ultimate Evil, by Maury Terry, 1987 Doubleday and Company, Inc. Garden city, NY pages 380 and 385.

"Now in a nutshell, the Son of Sam killings, the .44 killings in New York City, are linked in a hard way with this organized crime cult -- which is what I'm gonna refer to it as... In addition, they link the Manson killings to this same group. And they point out that both Manson, *and* David Berkowitz, the man convicted in the Son of Sam killings...

In a subsequent assassination, Lucas and Toole were dispached to murder the ``money man'' at the Chihuahua ranch, who was considering`retiring'' from the kidnaping and ``kiddy-snuff'' business."

http://www.totse.com/en/religion/satanists/ussatan.html

There is disinformation that snuff films are only a legend. The Italian police had no difficulty apprehending a Russian selling snuff films of children.

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4070446,00.html

FORWARD

While we ignore this disgusting business, the wealth and influence of the snuff film producers and merchants grows every day..

The system is perpetuated by medical and liability insurance industry money laundering. This system has one Achilles' heel, exposure. Exposure of this money laundering system will cause its demise.

My sister and brother-in-law arranged 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders in North Austin, Texas. Along with my father, they are responsible for many similar murders and staged fatal accidents. I have spent the last five years of my life attempting to avoid being part of their business. I did not become fully aware of their activities until 2000. I do not expect to live much longer.

Three young men have been wrongfully convicted for the Yogurt Shop Murders. Information about their cases is located at: www.texas-justice.com. I don't know how many more are suffering in prison, for my family's other crimes.

SNUFF MONEY LAUNDERING

DAVID

David Grisham was John Grisham's younger brother. We met in 1975, when my sister and future brother-in-law were making wedding plans. I was twenty. David was seventeen.

We met at my parents' home near Rock Hill, South Carolina. My parents owned a forty acre farm. There was a small river that curved around the farm and formed most of the boundary. There was also an oxbow marsh where the river had once run.

"It would have been nice to have a brother." I told David. I had grown up with two sisters. Glenda was my older sister, and Emily was two years younger than I.

"Yea, it's great!" David exclaimed.

David's demeanor told me his bond with his older brother John was very important to him. John, on the other hand, was aloof to David. John was much more focused on his relationship with his future bride at the time.

Emily had called me few months earlier.

"How would you like to have a younger brother?" she asked.

This was Emily's way of telling me of her engagement to John, I thought. After years of torment, I would understand the malice behind that question.

Nine years later, my mother told me about David's death.

"He died in an automobile accident. He had been married for three months. It wasn't really an accident, though. It was suicide."

There was a sound of resentment and belated acceptance in her voice. We were outdoors, and alone. My father was out of earshot.

At the time, I was not aware of the motive behind David's death, although I suspected it involved an insurance settlement. I did not know that John had used the emotional leverage of his elder brother status to coerce his brother to take his own life.

David's beloved bride had completed the process of brainwashing Danny to end his life. She, John and Emily had been David's sole human contact during his three month "honeymoon." David's human desire to be loved and accepted would be indulged only when he cooperated with the program. Like Patty Hearst and subjects of cult programming, David had been surrounded by people bent on controlling him.

Six months after David's death, my sister's third and final child was born. He was named David.

At the time, it seemed strange to me that a man would commit suicide, so soon after being married. Strange things were happening in my life, as well.

I was not aware of my family's heinous activities at the time. The worst thing that I believed my father had done was to vote for Richard Nixon. Although the genocide of Vietnam continued under Nixon's reign, it now appears that his resignation was engineered by covert, regressive forces like the CIA.

History may vindicate Richard Nixon, but my father's descent into evil continued. My father became an extension of a monstrous killing organization. He masterminded dozens of deaths. He became a man who could kill his own children.

During my childhood and teenage years in the 1960's and early 1970's, I would often ride with my father during his work day . He was a District Forester for an international lumber company.

One conversation with my father struck me as very strange. I mentioned the 1960 U-2 incident to my father. Gary Powers had been shot down over Soviet territory, in a spy plane.

"It cost us a lot of money to get him back. He was ordered not be captured alive," My father explained. "He was being very well paid for the risk he was taking. His family would have been well taken care of."

It sounded as if my father knew the incident had been planned. Years later, I learned all that was needed for Powers' U2 to stall was a half empty oxygen supply canister. Gary Powers stated that he was shot down because of information supplied by a defector to the Soviet Union. That defector was a US military radar operator named Lee Harvey Oswald. Years later, Gary Powers was killed in a helicopter crash.

My younger cousin, Preston, joined the Army in 1977. I wanted nothing to do with the military, having grown up viewing photographs of the My Lai massacre. I did understand the laws of supply and demand, however. Preston joined when the "All Volunteer Army" was desperate for recruits.

After four years in the Army, Preston became a police officer in Charlotte, NC. Preston had two favorite political jokes. The first joke was "The thermostat isn't the only thing Nixon wished he could turn back to '68."

"What did Ted Kennedy say when asked about being nominated as a Presidential candidate?" was Preston's second joke.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

I relied solely upon mainstream media for information at that time. Twenty-five years later, I learned that professional swimmers could not duplicate Ted Kennedy's alledged swim across the Chappaquidick.

My father had also "explained" the Chappaquidick incident to me. "He got that girl pregnant! She threatened to go to the press, so he killed her."

The last time my father and I rode together was during my third year in college. He told me about the accidental death of a worker at the wood yard.

"He was only nineteen years old!" my father said. "He was crushed between two railroad cars."

"That's too bad. That must have been a very large insurance settlement." I said. I was in my second semester of business law, and wanted to show off my understanding of how the world of business operated. I did not understand the implications of my own words.

That was soon after my father had received an exceptional promotion. He had reported to the head of the timber department. The boss's chair became vacant when his corpse was removed to an ambulance stretcher by emergency medical technicians. My father's superior was pronounced DOA from a massive heart attack. He was 47.

Several years later, my father was removed from the same position. He was given another job change, to Timber Procurement Coordinator. He explained to me how he could expect to "live a lot longer" by accepting the demotion.

My father's military career resulted in the historic upward mobility of the World War Two veteran. My father was the son of a Swedish immigrant. My grandfather worked as a union carpenter, in the Chicago suburbs. His other son became a union carpenter, too.

My father took advantage of the opportunities of war. The Army supported him through two years of college. This spared him the period of World War Two when US casualties were highest. His surveying classes laid the foundation for his Master Of Forestry. The Army's college program was terminated in early 1944. More replacements were needed for combat.

I often heard the story of my father being hospitalized for an unexplained stomach ailment, in 1944. His hospitalization spared him the suicide attacks of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. Another uncle of mine was fortuitously wounded in his foot at the Battle of the Bulge. He was evacuated when it appeared his unit was about to be surrounded.

My father never told me about his Army surveying experience. He did tell me that he was in an occupied area of Germany that was given over to Soviet control.

1973

I went to the last mass Vietnam antiwar demonstration, opposite to Nixon's 1973 inauguration parade.

"Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. NLF is going to win." We chanted. (For the younger generation, the NLF was the National Liberation Front. It was the political arm of the Viet Cong, enemy of the South Vietnamese and United States military forces in the Vietnam War.)

Men who were born in 1953-54 have an odd niche in history. We were the first eighteen year olds allowed to vote, and the last to register for an active military draft. I completed the necessary paperwork to register for the draft as a conscientious objector. I did not, and still do not, believe that it is right for a human being to take another person's life. My genuine personal beliefs became both my undoing and salvation, almost thirty years later.

I had no intention of going to the Vietnam War even as a conscientious objector medic. Although you may not accept my point of view, I do not believe in war. That was during the last year of the draft, and there were few draftees.

The Vietnam War finally ended. I believed that the people and government of the United States had learned their lesson. Arrogant ambitions of world domination by the United States were a thing of the past, I believed. The draft and war ended. I became just another pot and tobacco smoking, beer drinking decadent slob.

1975

I was apathetic and cynical. Some of my values must have remained, though. Ten years later, my wife would describe me as someone with 'hippie values."

Like my father, I muddled through college with mediocre grades. I graduated in 1976, without a job. There were several suicides of new college graduates that year. They were despondent from seeking nonexistent jobs. I finally found a career as an assistant department manager in a department store. Before that year, the department store chain had required only a high school education for new managers.

I became part of a new phenomenon in the economy of the United States. I was underemployed. I struggled to concentrate on supervising the bored department employees. I tried to forget the higher level of thinking I had been exposed to in college. I read and wrote letters for my illiterate boss. I struggled on the small salary that retail management provided in the late 1970s.

My brother-in-law's career went differently. When John graduated from college, my father found him a job on the labor force of Thomison Industries. Under the dictates of its Canadian union contract, Thomison Industries was the highest paying employer in the county. Two years later, Tom became a sales representative for a friend of my mother. John developed a very successful career in sales.

John had met my sister when they were college freshmen. Joan had been Emily's best friend, since the eighth grade. John was engaged to Joan, when he was introduced to my sister.

John and Emily started a family early. Emily had her first child six months after she and Tom graduated from college. They were both two years younger than I.

1978

I left the store management position in 1978 and moved back into my parents home, commuting to work in Charlotte.

I left the confinement of retailing. I worked on commission, cleaning carpets and upholstery Charlotte, North Carolina. The freedom of the cleaner's van was exhilarating, compared to the confinement of the crowded discount department store.

With a shortened work week, and weekends free, my use of marijuana and alcohol escalated. Although I had personal use of the carpet cleaning van, I avoided using it while intoxicated.

A friend of mine, in Rock Hill, was not so careful. In 1979, he began serving an eight year term for manslaughter. He was drunk and high, when he killed the child on a bicycle. Since my friend was driving a vehicle owned by his employer, the lawsuit was for more than a million dollars.

I enjoyed my commission cleaning job. Working on commission, I could earn my keep in less than the standard forty hours. I wasn't saddled with the mandated forty-eight boring hours of storekeeping. This worked well, until "Supply Side" economics whittled down my rewards and energy. The customers expected more and more for their dollar, while I received less and less. It was as if an unseen hand was limiting me to subsistence earnings.

I regularly mailed my resume. I applied for sales jobs appropriate for my education. The usual reply was that " a better qualified applicant was selected."

The unseen hand was attempting to push me toward pursuing a Masters of Business Administration Degree. The unseen hand did not recognize that my undiagnosed ADD made the calculus prerequisites an almost impossible obstacle. I did not recognize that the same "unseen hand" might also give me undeserved passing grades.

I answered an advertisement for a roommate in Charlotte, and left a message. My mother was quick to bring me the telephone when my call was returned.

I moved into the two bedroom apartment with Randy, the next week. Jane and her sister, Nancy, lived next door. Jane and I soon became friends, sharing our fondness for marijuana together. Eventually, we shared our fondness for sex as well.

Six months later, Jane and I moved away from each other. The apartments we had lived in were converted to condominiums. Our affair was on and off for two years. Whenever I wanted to sow wild oats, I would stop seeing Jane. Somehow, fate would bring about a chance meeting. We once chanced upon each while fueling up our cars. We lived miles apart, and there were dozens of gasoline stations in the area. Fate brought us together again!

Jane had been even more sheltered than I was from e world events and popular culture of the 1960s. The eldest of three children, she was often held responsible for her two younger sisters. Jane was sheltered from the Cold War conflict and social upheaval of the 1960s. She wasn't sheltered from her father.

Jane's father's history was much like my own father's. Carl was the son of skilled laborers, but in a small southern town. The war and GI Bill allowed him education and upward mobility, in an era when war and upward mobility were synonymous. Carl's engineering and electronics education allowed him to enjoy the data processing boom, beginning with the first UNIVAC computers. His exceptional income gave him absolute power over his family. His wife, Beverly, obeyed his every whim. She didn't question him wanting to be alone with one of his two daughters every Saturday afternoon. She didn't question the bloodstains or the semen on the towels, either.

As her parent's marriage crumbled, Jane assumed more responsibility for her siblings. Beverly was spending more and more time at the new Mall, spending more and more of Carl's paycheck. Jane was left to mind her sister and brother. Unable to punish them, she learned to control them with a scowl and angry mood.

Jane told me about the abuse. She told me that it was more about power, than sex. It did not appear to me that the abuse had caused any psychological damage. That was when I believed the standard authorities of psychology. I did not know about Operation Bluebird, the CIA experiments with deliberately molested children. I did not know about the deliberate molestation of children by satanists to attain power over them.

My mother was ecstatic when I told her of my marriage plans with Jane. We were married in 1981. Jane was obliged to become my wife.

1980

In 1980, my father urged me to come with him to a family gathering at my uncle's house. My father picked me up at my home in Charlotte. We took the three hour drive to my uncle's home outside of Raleigh.

My relatives were the only people I knew at the gathering. Two cousins, my sister and father were the only familiar faces there. The was great discussion about the failed hostage rescue attempt in Iran. There was also a lot of snickering. Years later, I understood that they were reveling in the staged downfall of Jimmy Carter's presidency.

My sister told an anecdote that everyone at the whole gathering laughed about.

"Mother called me last month. She was crying 'your father... your father'" My sister said, imitating my s sobbing mother."

My sister groaned with an anxious tone. "I thought 'Oh no.'"

My sister smiled as she said, "Your father had to bury Charley today."

Charley was an old horse that grazed in the pasture in front of my mother's house. Everyone, except me, chuckled and smiled at this humor. The story seemed mildly funny to me, but hardly worth telling.

1983

I was home when the telephone rang.

Jane told me. "Richard, I'm all right, but I've been in an automobile accident. Your cousin Pressley was there to write the accident report. It wasn't my fault, but the Pinto is totaled."

"We just had the engine rebuilt in that car! It can't be replaced." I lamented.

"It will be all right." Jane said.

We had purchased the small Pinto for $400. It cost another $1000 for a friend of Jane's to rebuild the worn out engine. With that small investment, I had expected to have a reliable car that would last for years.

1985

"Where am I?" I asked

"You are in the hospital. You have been in an automobile accident. We haven't been able to locate any of your family. Here is a telephone. Is there someone you can call?" the nurse told me.

My head was throbbing, and my ribs had stabbing pains. Jane and I had just moved into a new mobile home, on the outskirts of Charlotte. I did not have my new telephone number or address with me, so no one could contact Jane. I called her, and told her where I was.

The nurse also gave me contact information about the accident. I was to contact the police officer who filed the accident report. It was my cousin, Pressley.

The accident had happened on my home from work. I was trying to make something of myself. I was working fourteen hour days, on a bread sales route. Tired and frustrated, I ran a stop sign while driving home in my car.

Jane joked for years about the incident. We had made love that morning, before I left for work. She joked that we would never make love before I left again.

1988

Twelve years after college, I was driving a bakery delivery truck. I had been passed over for promotion to route supervisor.

The gas fumes of the truck made me feel nauseous and confused on occasion. This had also happened a few times before, when I used the carpet cleaning chemicals.

I had been in another automobile accident, six months earlier. I was driving back to the terminal, in Harrisburg, NC. My side of two lane Highway 49 was blocked by a car making a left turn. The car in front of my did not have its left turn signal on. It was as if the three people in the car wanted me to hit them.

While I was waiting for the car in front of me to move, a frantic housewife slammed into the back the bread route truck I was driving. The housewife was driving about fifty miles per hour. She looked up from the soft drink in her hand and saw the back of my truck. There was only six feet of skid marks. Her nose was crushed by the steering wheel of her car. Fortunately, that was the extent of her injuries.

The driver's seat of my step van rested on a hollow metal post, four inches in diameter. The seat was whipped back and forth by the force of the collision. Fortunately, I was wearing my seat belt. My head missed a metal post by a couple of inches. I was glad to be alive.

The highway patrolman who wrote the accident report asked the witnesses if they had seen me slam on brakes. He asked me the same question. It took some convincing, but the officer finally wrote the housewife a ticket for "unsafe movement." The accident was her fault.

The officer asked me if I needed an ambulance, or a ride to the hospital in his patrol car. I declined. With the seat somewhat repositioned, I managed to bring the truck back to the terminal. The terminal was on the other side of Charlotte, eighteen miles away. I had finished his deliveries, and had been on my way back to the terminal, when the accident happened.

The other route salesmen were very surprised to see me return to work the next day.

"You could have retired!" one of the other route salesmen said.

"They can't tell if you are really hurt or not with a back injury" a salesman, nicknamed Froggy, said. "No one would have questioned your being hurt, with the way that seat looked."

"You don't know how many times I've been sitting a stop light, wishing that would happen to me," chimed in another route salesman.

"My friend Tom Hopkins got hit like that, and he didn't work for four years. Everywhere he went, he wore that neck brace." Froggy laughed.

It was the next morning, while the other salesmen and I were loading the trucks. My supervisor was going to assist me that day. Except for some soreness, I didn't feel very bad. With the debts that Jane and I had, I could not afford to stay home. I would have to be out a week, before Workmen's Compensation kicked in at two-thirds of my regular pay. No way!

The third day after the wreck, I really did begin hurting. It was a hot burning pain in the lower back, below the belt line. I had a very sore left shoulder, with some burning and tingling in the left arm. There was a lot of pain from what I would learn was sciatica, a painful nerve running down the outside of my left leg.

An insurance adjuster had been calling me at work. She had been implying that if I didn't settle the personal injury claim immediately, I could be fired from my job

I was in serious pain. The chiropractor recommended by a friend of Jane required that I have an attorney on file, in order to be treated. He referred me to the firm of a young attorney. The young attorney would accept the case on assignment. The law firm he represented would receive forty percent of the insurance settlement proceeds. .

"This statement means that if there is any evidence of fraud, we will discharge ourselves from representing you and your claim. But, looking at you, I don't think that will be a problem," the young attorney said.

The chiropractor and attorney assured me that my injuries were limited, since I had not left the accident in an ambulance. They also assured me that it wasn't unusual for symptoms of a back and neck injury to manifest themselves days later. Ralph was beginning to develop a large constellation of symptoms.

After three weeks of treatment with the chiropractor, my pain was much less severe. The low back burning and pain were gone. The strange tingling and burning in my left arm and leg remained. The chiropractor released me, stating that he "could not justify further treatment."

The chiropractor did suggest that my problem might be stress related. He suggested psychotherapy. He told me that my attorney could argue emotional trauma, as a reason for my symptoms and a way to get a higher settlement. Emotional trauma wasn't the reason for the pain.

A few days after being released from the chiropractor, my back pain was worse. I told my attorney that I was not fully recovered from the accident. The attorney implied that I might be malingering. Furious, I dismissed the young attorney and found another attorney. The other attorney was an old litigious dog. He referred me to a well-known orthopedic clinic, and the surgeon who operated it.

My former attorney was enraged. He couldn't believe that someone would have the audacity to dismiss him. Especially after he had explained to me about the close relationship he had with insurance adjusters. I had made an enemy. Or enemies.

Jane worked in an insurance office herself. Her friend Samantha worked in insurance claims. Jane told me that a $50,000 contingency reserve had been placed to cover my injuries from the accident. I ignored this information. I knew that I would never receive that much money.

When the new orthopedic surgeon examined me, I described all of my symptoms to him. He asked me if I left the accident in an ambulance. I told him no.

"Just shook up!" the orthopedic surgeon declared.

He said that I could not be hurt too seriously, since there was no medical justification for surgery. The surgeon said that the chiropractor's previous x rays were not very good, so he made his own. I couldn't tell the difference.

After being treated by the surgeon for three months, I was released. I complained to the surgeon that I was still in pain. I expressed fear that I might be becoming addicted to his medications. I tried to be as honest as possible to the surgeon, not wanting to be considered a fraud case.

The chiropractor had mentioned that I could claim that emotional trauma had caused my symptoms. There was only one problem. I really hurt like hell. He didn't want a therapist trying to convince me that my pain was psychological. (Later, I would learn that all physical pain takes its toll on the health of the nervous system. Biochemically, pain and emotional stress are virtually the same. Pain is stress, and stress irritates pain.)

I have always been a loner, and hadn't thought it to be such an abnormal state. I am an independent thinker as well. I learned about pain management. I purchased an inexpensive biofeedback device, and learned to bring chronic pin under control. Eighteen years after that accident, I am still in chronic pain. It isn't severe, as long as I ignore it.

The biofeedback training was useful for managing chronic pain. The relaxation training helped me to overcome the addiction to the orthopedic surgeon's prescriptions.

Although I seemed to have a good marriage, Jane and I were not soul mates.I joked about my parents' attitude toward my lack of children. They didn't care about me at all. All they were interested in was when I could supply them with grandchildren.

My career failures did not bother me. At least I was working outside and on the road. I was away from the mind set of the 1980's office workers who were flocking in to Charlotte. Charlotte was becoming a regional financial center.

I thought the brick walls surrounding the new developments were ludicrous. The walls appeared to be defense fortifications for the new homes being built. These homes were not the split-levels and one story ranch homes built during my 1960's childhood. These were three and four story palaces with five, six or more bedrooms.

1990

I became a father! Jane and I joked that another couple our age had recently become grandparents, so it was time to start a family. My daughter, Shirely, was a joy. We were together during nearly all of my waking hours, when I was not at work.

1992

I muddled through life, while my sister and brother-in-law were masters of it. After ten years of sales work in central Texas, John built a home on the face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was 50 miles from Asheville. John commuted by air to his sales appointments during the week.

I had very little contact with my sister, during this time. I did receive a round robin letter in the mail. It was circulated by Emily, for all of our other eleven cousins. We could each tell our personal stories. We could write whatever they wanted to about their lives. John said he might use it for a group biography one day. Embarrassed with my failures, I didn't submit anything. I sensed there was something malevolent about Emily's motives for the letter. Instead of mailing it to the next cousin on the list, I left it in a closet for a year a half.

Eventually, my father confronted me about the letter. I had forgotten all about it. He was quite angry, and insisted that I bring it to him immediately.

I remained in Charlotte. I lived about an hour's drive from my parent's home. My father still liked me to visit, in spite of his prodigal son's failures. He always inquired how my work was going. Strangely, he seemed to encourage my mediocre route sales career, especially driving a company vehicle.

My independent research led me to the conclusion that I have adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I managed to get an appointment with a Doctor Saxon, who specialized in Adult ADD.

1993

I remember Bobby. We worked together at a pizza delivery store. We both drove our own cars, earning an adequate living from wages and tips.

I had left the bread route sales job two years earlier. The work hours had only increased, while the pay remained the same.

Bobby taught me how to change the front brake shoes on my car. Instead of spending over a hundred dollars on brake "service," I could replace the front pads with better quality parts for twenty dollars. With better quality pads, the braking ability of the car was maintained.

Bobby had worked as an automobile mechanic. I didn't ask why he was working as a lesser paying pizza delivery man. I assumed he liked the daily cash, and freedom from supervision.

" How old do you think I am?" Bobby asked.

"You look like you are about twenty-eight." I answered.

Bobby smiled, "I'm thirty-four. I used to make a lot of money. Now, I don't make as much money. I'm divorced, with two kids."

A week after we changed the brake shoes, I saw Bobby and his ex-wife in the pizza store parking lot. I was too far to hear their conversation. I could see the hostility on his ex-wife's face. Bobby filled in the lines of a check, and gave it to here. His hands were shaking.

Two days later, Bobby, the manager and I were closing up the store. It was 2 AM, Sunday morning. I was in the back of the store, washing dishes. I overheard Bobby and the manager talking in the office.

Bobby had been asking to write a bad check to the store, for that night's deposit. He had said that he could make it "good", by depositing his cash from the next day's tips.

"It will work!" Bobby exclaimed. He was frantic.

"No, Bobby, I can't do it." the manager said.

The manager knew that he would be fired, if the check was returned by the bank. He had no choice, except to refuse Bobby's request.

The next Tuesday was my day off. When I returned on Wednesday, Bobby was absent. I asked where he was.

"He's dead." another driver told me.

"What happened?" I asked. Bobby had appeared to be in excellent health.

"Bobby had been paying too much in child support. He had been writing bad checks, to different stores around town. He was served with several warrants when he was arrested. He hung himself in jail, using his shoelaces." the other driver explained.

"I can't believe it. He didn't appear to be depressed." I said.

"They should have taken his shoelaces when he was put in jail. It was his first time being arrested." the other driver said somberly.

Bobby could have had his child support payments reduced, proportional to his present income. That didn't seem to matter. Social Security benefits for Bobby's two children made him worth more dead than alive. Bobby's ex-wife prospered from his death.

1997

I was working on a surveying crew. My childhood days of playing in the briar patches of exurbia became important experience for the job. I had spent many days in the woods with my forester father, locating and marking old property lines. My Attention Deficit Disorder gave me a certain knack for the field work, which often required intuitively finding property line corners.

"Good!" Bob shouted into the two-way radio.

I began pulled my feet from the ankle deep mud, and moved to the location for my next "shot." I was holding a prism rod. Bob's instrument shot an unseen laser beam into the prism. The instrument read the reflection returned from the prism.

Bob and I had a friendly, antagonistic relationship. He was several years my junior. A native of Pennsylvania, he had a disdain for southerners. We frequently had lunch in small town restaurants, on the outskirts of Charlotte. We parked our Chevy Suburban next to Ford pickups with Confederate flag decals in the rear window. My revenge was to introduce Bob to the locals as a native of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

There were several occasions when Bob would approach me on the subject of fatal accidents. He did this in open, remote locations, where there was no possibility of being overheard. He told me about a highway construction project he worked on, in the Pennsylvania mountains.

"The backhoe operators had the most dangerous job. The mountain was so steep, the backhoes were chained to trees to keep from going down the mountain. Five deaths were estimated into the bid for the contract. These deaths were calculated in the contractor's insurance premium. If only three backhoe operators were killed, they wouldn't be keeping up the quota." Jim told me. He emphasized the word quota, and waited for my response.

"That's stupid." I said. "There is no reason that adequate safety measures could not have been taken, to prevent loss of life."

"I can't do this." Bob muttered.

Bob became the last person in my life that I would call my friend.

Bob and I were assigned to work on a large subdivision development, on the north side of Charlotte. We had to drive the Suburban from the surveying office, located on the southeast corner of the city. A much needed interstate beltway was still under construction. We were forced to take Harris Boulevard.

Bob usually drove the thirty-two miles on the divided, four lane road. It was not an interstate highway. Harris Boulevard was a hazardous, improvised beltway. It meandered around the edge of Charlotte, with heavy traffic congestion and several stoplights.

Bob liked speed. He zoomed on Harris Boulevard, usually at fifteen to twenty miles an hour above the forty-five fifty-five mile an hour speed limit. Bob was able to drive to and from the construction site in as little as thirty-five minutes. He took risks I was unwilling to take.

Bob had been teaching me how to operate the surveying instrument. I had been studying some surveying texts at home. Bob was assigned a different "rod man". I was offered an promotion to instrument operator!

I was expected to drive the Suburban alone, though. My crew mate would be a college student, out of school for the summer. He lived near the construction project, and it was pointless to require him to drive his car to and from the surveying office.

All of my preparation would finally pay off! I began my trip from the office an hour before I was expected to arrive at the construction site. Traffic congestion and caution forced me to be late. Since Bob had always managed to arrive on time, it appeared that I wasn't really motivated about the promotion.

The next day, I was Bob's rodman again.

(In hindsight, I know now that I was expected to crash the heavy Suburban into the vehicle of someone like David Grisham. I should be in the Guiness Book of World Records for safe driving!)

When Jane and I first met, Melissa was her best friend. The both worked at the same property and casualty insurance agency. The office was located on the southeast side of the downtown business district. That was a prestigious location.

Melissa's four bedroom house was in the affluent suburb of Mint Hill. Melissa's husband had become a succcessful cafeteria manager. Melissa did not work anymore. Her daughter was completing her high school education. Melissa spent her days in grandmotherly bliss.

Jane and I were at jobs all day, with no prosperity to show for our labors.

One day, Jane asked me to go to her friend, Melissa's house. I went to pick up Shirely. Jane and I had frequently visited Melissa's family, when they lived in Charlotte. But, distance and other interests had separated Jane and Melissa. Jane's new best friend was Alicia.

Changes in their lives separated them. They remained in contact with each other. Melissa's sixteen year old daughter had the indescretion not to use birth control. Melissa became a grandmother, at the same time that Jane had Shirely.

Melissa answered the door, and took me to Shirely. My daughter was in a large room, which had been turned into an improvised day care. There were two other ladies there, friends from Melissa's church. Like me and Melissa, they were also in their forties.

About ten children, from infants to toddlers, were in the room. Some playing on the plush, green carpet, while two infants were sleeping in cribs.

Melissa introduced me to her two companions.

"You are in grandmother heaven!" I remarked to Melissa.

"Children and dirty diapers everywhere." she said.

"Do you know what happens to most missing children?" Melissa asked. She continued, before I had a chance to answer.

"You know that most missing children end up in snuff movies. That is why they are never found. That's what happened to Adam Walsh, even though they found his body." she said.

I took my daughter and left . I pondered the strange conversation all of the way home. Melissa was matter of fact about children being murdered for entertainment. There was no anger in her voice. Melissa sounded like she was sharing an urbane insight, instead of a disgrace. Her two friends had big smiles on their faces, while Melissa talked to me.

That was the only time I went to Melissa's home in Mint Hill. Melissa and her family had lived in Charlotte, before the move to Mint Hill. Jane and I frequently visited them, when they lived in Charlotte. But, distance and finances had separated Jane and Melissa. Jane's new best friend was Alicia.

I tried to discuss our mounting credit card debt with Jane. It would be impossible for us to overcome the snowballing effect of compund interest. I told it looked like the only way was to declare bankruptcy.

Jane said we just had "bad luck. I needed to learn to cooperated with the system more, and we would start having good luck. Then, our debts could be easily repaid."

She emphasized the word system as if it were a code word, with a double meaning. Her reply sounded like an irrational, emotional resistance to the obvious. The only way to correct our situation would be to declare bankruptcy.

Jane wanted me to visit a marriage counselor with her. She said that she was "falling out of love" with me. She said that a friend had recommended Cindy. Cindy was a marriage counselor and a hypnotherapist. She had practiced for years in California, before coming to Charlotte.

Cindy told me that she used to live and work in California. She said that business used to be very good for her there. I asked Cindy why she left. Cindy said that times had changed in California. Cindy began the counseling program. She never mentioned California again.

Cindy was strange. She had at least two different office locations. I asked Cindy for a business card, which she was very reluctant to give. She referred to the names of her businesses as "just something I go by." I couldn't find Cindy's name or businesses anywhere in the Elizabeth telephone directory.

Cindy said that she used "whatever works. There really isn't any specific school of thought that I adhere to. I have twelve years of experience in marriage counseling. I've learned what works and what doesn't."

I went to only one appointment with Cindy. Jane had already been to an appointment with Cindy. Cindy had said that my Prozac probably would not interfere with her program, but that the Dexedrine might. Cindy said that hypnosis would be beneficial.

I didn't like Cindy. She had a certain air about her, like she saw me as an object. There was something reptilian about her emotions. Everything she said and did seemed cold and controlled. Since most of Jane's arguments with me had been about money, I couldn't understand paying one hundred and fifteen dollars an hour for Cindy's services. Jane received only fifty percent reimbursement from her insurance benefit package. My job's benefits didn't cover marriage counseling and hypnosis.

Jane continued to see Cindy. Jane became very different. Her sex drive had increased dramatically. Jane's speech was almost robotic, as if she were programmed. It was as if someone else was speaking through Jane. It didn't sound like the Jane I knew.

Jane's insinuations that she wanted a divorce did not have the intended effect. Jane thought that the threat of divorce would make me severely depressed. Instead of despondency, I was secretly elated. I could leave Charlotte!

I was left out of the Internet boom economy of the 1990's. Although we had a computer in the home, it was not connected to the Internet. Jane said that she didn't want our daughter exposed to the pornography. I was unaware of the wealth of information and accurate news that would have been available.

I was also unaware of the controversy surrounding the wrongful convictions of three young men in Texas. It would be another two years before I discovered my family's role in history.

Charlotte's supply side service economy for the banking industry created poverty for the general population! It appeared to me that the banking interests might actually be influencing the practices of Elizabeth's non-banking businesses! A company that offered its employees an opportunity to earn overtime, at one and one-half times their standard wage, usually announced within a month that it would no longer do so. It appeared to me that the information about the payroll, was finding its way into the wrong hands. Offending businessman were being pressured no to "overpay" his employees!

I did not occur to me at that time that my own Social Security number might be the "leak". Although I do not consider myself an important person, my family's role in world events has been significant.

I had learned that the further away from Charlotte I went, the higher the average wages! Charlotte's banking industry thrived on the work of housewives. They were forced to build careers at the banks, to compensate for their husbands' lack of compensation.

I managed to survive that week, somehow. There was more than the usual amount of exposure to commuter traffic, while working on the survey crew. Every day, we were assigned highway work. Bob's caustic voice blared constantly on the two way radio. The thrill of danger pumped much needed adrenaline into my system. The stress and challenge of the traffic increased my will to survive.

On the following Saturday evening, Jane said that she wanted to talk with me. Jane asked me, "How would you like to make your daughter rich?"

Dazed, but skeptical, I asked, "That would be wonderful, but how? I've seen enough of fly by night, commission only, sales jobs."

"Sheila has introduced me to a huge network of people in insurance fraud. You wouldn't believe how many people there are!" Jane said.

"Like whiplash? But I've been through that hassle, with the wreck I was in. I really don't want to go through that bull shit again." I replied. "Besides, if we file for bankruptcy, we will be fine. It's just all of this high interest credit card debt that keeps us broke."

"I know how we could pay off all of our debts, and make our daughter rich. The network of insurance fraud people doesn't bother with whiplash. Too many questions." Ralph said.

"You're right. Aren't you tired of all the hassle life has given you? We could end these problems. The people in the insurance fraud network want real fatalities." Jane said.

"But we don't have enough life insurance to pay off our debts." I said.

"I know that already. This group of people is very well organized. They do car accidents. They handle everything. But, they only want people who can give them valuable claims." Jane said.

"Oh, like your father? He's rich and old. But, how would they set it up? Besides, we don't need the money that bad. Even if it looked like an accident, it would still be murder. I can't do it. I don't want to spend eternity with Hitler." I said.

"Oh no. At my father's age, it wouldn't be worth much. If something happened to you, we could collect for all of your future income, until Shirley becomes an adult. They want people who have decided to end their miserable lives. Even if they were just hurt, once they got in the ambulance, it would be all over. Besides, when you die, you automatically go to heaven. Pleeeeeeease!" Jane pleaded.

Groggy and confused, I could only repeat, "But I don't want to spend eternity with Hitler."

My spirituality extends far beyond fire and brimstone. I am a Unitarian Universalist. Whether Heaven or Hell, or karma, the result is the same. Sending my spirit on an eternal journey in the company of mass murderers is not my agenda.

The conversation ended. Jane knew that the hypnotic programming was not always one hundred percent effective. I was not willing to fully embrace the idea of sacrificing my life for anyone's fortune. It remained to be seen, what degree the post hypnotic suggestions would be effective.

As Cindy had guaranteed, I had absolutely no memory of his missing weekend. I would block the previous conversation with Jane about causing my own fatal accident for two years. I would not remember many of the things that Jane said, while the posthypnotic suggestions remained partially effective.

Jane asked me how I was feeling at work.

"Not too bad. Traffic is hell, but it keeps me hopping." I replied.

"So I guess you're able to work safely, without any chance of an accident?" Jane said.

"Yea, there's no chance of an accident. I care about Shirely too much to let that happen." I said, beaming with paternal pride.

My mother told me the news of the suicide of my childhood friend, Bill Jefferson. The son of a dentist, my socially ambitious mother had encouraged the friendship. While I was experimenting with marijuana and some LSD during my late teens, I remembered my friend Bill using hypodermic syringes. During his thirties, Bill had been in a detoxification center twice, addicted to crack cocaine. At the age of forty, with three children and an estranged wife, Bill removed most of his head with a shotgun blast.

"Such a waste!" Jane sighed when I told her about Bill Jefferson.

During the middle 1990s, I had been undergoing a metamorphosis. I found myself rejecting the materialistic values of the time. The next generation seemed preoccupied with causing their comrades to fail, in the mistaken belief that this would help them to succeed. I reverted to my core values; belief in freedom, peace and Christian values.

I began to realize that many of the successful and prosperous people of the United States were frauds. They had gained their wealth at the expense of the "downsized" and underemployed members of my generation.

My generation was being punished for rejecting the Vietnam War. My younger sister and cousins had not been contaminated by the questioning of authority that the Vietnam War era bred. Those who were just a few years younger were given the reigns of power by his parents' generation. The younger generation did not question authority. They did not question the assassinations of the 1960s. They did not care.

It is also true that there were, and are, dissidents among my younger peers. They were not handed economic power from the generation who had fought World War Two. That was reserved for those who believed that war and corpses created prosperity.

1998

I found a better job, just in time to preserve my marriage. Rick Hall, an Assistant Project Engineer with Striate Engineering, called me for a job interview. Rick had received one of my unsolicited resumes in the mail. Rick said that he was very excited about having someone like me come to work for him. Rick told me that he had already done a background check on me. I was just what Rick was looking for.

Rick told me it was an opportunity for "upward mobility." As an Engineering TestTechnician, I would be provided with a pager, company gasoline credit card, and a company pickup. The pickup would be available for limited personal use, as well.

I expected Jane to share my excitement for my new job. We wouldn't have the expense of maintaining and insuring my ten year old Dodge Colt car. I would have a full benefit package, and a better income soon.

I was elated about finding the new job. I thought I might earn back Jane's respect. My marriage could be saved!

Jane seemed unimpressed, when I told her the news It seemed as if she already knew about the new job. She seemed disappointed.

My new job would be to test soil and concrete on construction sites. You, the reader, have probably seen a long depression running through developed land or a paved parking lot. This is the result of loose soil filled in above a utility line that was excavated. The replaced soil was not compacted. The loose soil settled, and created the depression. Soil and concrete engineering technicians are responsible for monitoring the compaction of loose fill soil to prevent settling. We also tested the strength of concrete.

Solid compaction is usually measured with a "nuke." This is a device, does something similar to an "x-ray" of compacted soil. It has a radioactive tip, placed into the soil. Although the level of radiation, and amount of material was minimal, the device fell under the regulation of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in certain states. North Carolina is one of those states.

Rick had managed to lose one of the nuclear devices. That meant that Striate Engineering lost its license to own and operate nukes for soil testing. It was necessary for Striate technicians to use more primitive and time consuming manual equipment. This made it necessary to hire more technicians. Without Rick's negligence, I would not have been given a job.

Rick had learned to manage his fleet of five pickup trucks, routing them around the Charlotte region. His technicians learned to maneuver in traffic much faster than the ten miles an hour above the posted speed limit that local law enforcement allowed.

One evening, Jane and I were having one of our usual terse discussions. I was talking about how my brighter career opportunities. There were more opportunities, by becoming an engineering technician.

Jane was musing, lost in her own thoughts. She told me my career didn't matter. She said she was glad that he had been given the use of a company truck.

I said that I could understand she wanted a better life, but our combined incomes were more than adequate for our family. I said that I didn't foresee us becoming rich, unless a miracle happened.

"Unless it happened in the company truck!" Jane blurted with excitement. She quickly ended the conversation. She asked me to wash the dishes and mow the lawn.

It was two year's since my first "lost weekend." I had the same experience, again. I didn't remember anything, after eating the supper Jane prepared on Friday night. I awoke Sunday evening.

I was becoming aware that people were trying to kill me, on the road while I was at work. I saw grinning young men in "muscle" cars, everywhere I drove. I sensed the strange emotional states of Jane and Rick. They were distant and preoccupied when they spoke to me.

One day, while driving, someone stepped out into the street and took my picture!

Seeking answers, I called my cousin, Pressley. I explained all of the bits and pieces of information I could recall. My memory of the conversation with Jane, regarding the insurance fraud network, had been blocked by posthypnotic suggestion.

"Sounds like there must be some illegal dumping going on. I don't want to talk about it. You should call my supervisor, Frank Johnson, tomorrow morning. Tell him what you just told me." My cousin said.

I wrote down the telephone number of Frank Johnson. In my hectic workday, I forgot to call. It didn't seem to matter so much. Now I had a clue about what was going on. Illegal dumping.

Strange things were happening. On the Tuesday following my last lost weekend, I went to pick up Shirely at school, in the Striate Engineering pickup. At three different intersections on the way to the school, grinning young drivers of high horsepower cars pulled along beside me. They came from intersecting side streets. They escorted me to the school, on the four lane road with its forty-five miles per hour speed limit.

I picked up my daughter at the school, and we began the drive home. Another "muscle car" pulled beside us. The driver looked into the car, and saw my daughter. He looked surprised. Then, the driver looked at me. The driver grinned, nodded his head and sped away.

At the Striate office, the next day, one of the senior engineers spoke to me. Although I had never met the man, he spoke as if he knew me well. The senior engineer asked me how I was faring in the hot May sun. I said I knew how to protect myself from hot weather. The engineer said that was good, since it took about five days to get used to it.

I was perplexed by what the engineer said. Hot weather began in early April, in Charlote's latitude. The anesthesia from my lost weekend was still wearing off.

Life was becoming more and more unreal. On that same evening, I was in my driveway at home, cleaning the Striate pickup. It was dusk, about seven PM. A Charlotte Water Department service man was working three houses up the street. He was pushing a very long, snakelike wire down into the water line. I estimated that the man had pushed enough wire into the line to reach my house! The man noticed my interest in him, and stared back with a frightened, reptilian scowl.

On Monday evening, two weeks after the last weekend of hypnotic programming, the secretary at the Striate office telephoned me with specific instructions about the next day's agenda. By 8 am, I was to be at construction project in Concord, thirty miles north of Charlotte on I-85. I was instructed to perform some soil compaction tests, and leave the project no later than ten-thirty AM. Then, he was to go to the Striate office, to pick up directions to a project near the Charlotte airport. The Charlotte Airport was located on the Southwest side of Elizabeth, on Interstate 85.

I was expected was to arrive at the airport project at exactly twelve noon. I was to walk down into a deep trench excavation. The trench was being refilled with soil, where a buried sewer pipeline had been placed. I was to go into the trench, and obtain a fifty pound sample of the soil at the bottom. This was to be done while the earth moving crew and project superintendent were out to lunch.

(It is standard safety procedure, on construction sites, to not enter a trench more than four feet deep. If a cave-in occurred, the pressure of the soil on a trapped man is often fatal.)

The Striate secretary reminded me that I should have my pager on at all times.

I sensed evil surrounding me. The instructions from the secretary were strange, and unnecessary. I went to the project in Concord, as I had been ordered. There was something diabolical in the way I was ordered to detour from Interstate 85 on my way to the airport. At the Concord project, there seemed to be something demonic in the faces of many of the construction workers. I couldn't understand why.

I left the project in Concord at ten thirty, as planned. The project was on the other side of Concord from Interstate 85. Like many small cities in the "New South," the growth of Concord's prosperous population and automobiles exceeded the infrastructure of roads and utilities. The road around Concord, from the construction project to Interstate 85, was a jumble of chaotic traffic. Road and utility construction projects impeded my way. The had originally been a horse and wagon route from outlying farms to churches and stores.

It was almost eleven-fifteen when I reached Interstate 85 in Concord. I had more than an hour's drive, directly on Interstate 85, to the construction project near the Charlotte airport. Detouring by the Striate Engineering office, and returning to Interstate 85 would take an extra forty minutes. So, I decided to go directly to the Charlotte airport vicinity, and call for directions when I got there. Surely, someone could explain the location to me over the telephone in less time than it would take to get the directions from the office in person.

The secretary had sounded matter of fact, to me, in the way that she told me about coming for the directions. This almost seemed odd, given that it was such an unusual request. The Striate field technicians were chronically late, but I was told to take an unnecessary detour.

If I had gone to the Striate office for directions, I would pass through the intersection of Interstates 77 and 85 South in Charlotte. At this location, the merge lane from Interstate 77 became a third lane for Interstate 85. One half mile further south, Jetty Road had an interchange with Interstate 85. The entrance ramp for Beatties Ford Road merged directly into the third lane of Interstate 85.

The Straite Engineering office was located two miles west of the intersection of the two interstates, just off Interstate 77.

I approached the Interstate 77 and 85 cloverleaf. Although it was noon on a weekday, there was no traffic near me. I saw, in my rear view mirror, a cluster of cars that seemed to be blocking traffic from behind me. As I passed under the Interstate 77 bridge, a tractor-trailer approached in the left lane. It was traveling at least twenty miles per hour faster than my sixty. It screamed past me, then pulled right into my lane in front of me. Then, it slowed down to match my speed.

Another tractor-trailer approached me in the same manner. It pulled beside me, and matched my speed. It was easy to read the "Ace Truck Renting and Leasing" sign on the side of the trailer.

A third truck approached, and maintained a position behind me in the same lane. Because I had not detoured by the Striate office, I was not in the merge lane from Interstate 77. Instead, I was in the center lane of Interstate 85. The merge lane, from Interstate 77, was on my right. The passing lane of Interstate 85 was on my left.

A faded yellow pickup truck entered the scene from the merge lane of Interstate 77. There was no other traffic near me. The escort cars a half-mile behind me was blocking any potential witnesses from the scene.

I realized that something was very wrong with the situation. My healthy paranoia was heightened, from all of the other strange occurrences that had been happening.

I came to the underpass from Beatties Ford Road. I saw a tractor-trailer coming down the ramp, into the merge lane from Interstate 77. I thought that there was a comfortable margin of safety between me and the merging tractor-trailer, at first. Then, I realized how fast the truck was traveling. With my pickup's windows rolled down, I could hear the screaming truck racing down the ramp. The truck would reach the base of the ramp when I did! I was surrounded, and headed for a collision course with the merging truck! I could see that my right of way wouldn't matter very much, since my pickup could be smashed in a sandwich with four tractor-trailers!

The drivers of the trucks must have expected something different from me. I downshifted the manual transmission of the truck. This mean the other drivers didn't see brake lights, although my truck's speed slowed. . Before the pickup and the tractor-trailer behind me could react, I slipped between them. There was just enough room, straddling the white line that separated the lanes, for me to escape.

I attempted to catch up with the cluster of trucks. I hoped to get the license plate number. Then, I saw the driver of the other pickup extend his arm up, out of the window. The driver of the pickup rotated his arm, with his forefinger extended. With that signal from the pickup driver, the trucks sped away before I could make a positive identification.

I took the next available exit from Interstate 85. I was pumped with adrenaline, wanting to report the incident. They were trying to kill me, because of what I knew about illegal dumping! I knew that the Charlotte cops couldn't do very much, and that the situation exceeded their jurisdiction. So, I drove the Straite Engineering truck to downtown Charlotte. He stopped at a pay telephone booth, and looked up the address of the Charlotte office of the FBI.

The FBI office was located in one of the many bank owned office high rise buildings in downtown Charlotte. I parked the truck on the street, looking all around. I trotted to the office building where the FBI office was. None of the would-be assassins from the illegal dumping operation were following me.

I went to the fourth floor office of the FBI. Inside the office door was a small room. There was a barred window, about a foot square, on the right side of the room. There was a woman behind the bars, sorting mail. I went to the window, and told the woman that I needed to speak to an FBI agent. I had information about illegal dumping.

A young man came out of the doorway that was beside the barred window. I told him that I had some information about illegal dumping, and that somebody was trying to kill me because of it. I said that I was interested in the witness protection program.

The young man went back behind the door, telling me to wait right there. Soon, another young man appeared. He was very sharply dressed. He said that he was a special agent for the FBI, and showed his identification. He patted me down, saying that it was necessary to search him for weapons. The first young man, the special agent and I went into another room..

There was a large table in the middle of the room. The special agent said we could speak freely inside the room. I described the incident that had just happened on Interstate 85. I told about the construction project on the North side of Charlotte, where I believed illegal dumping was happening. (There was an old dump on the site. The rubbery texture of the soil indicated that waste oil had been dumped there.)

The agent listened to my report, and asked about my job. I produced one of Rick Hall's business card. The special agent took the business card and left the room.

When the agent returned to the room, he thanked me for coming to him. He told me that the meeting was over, and that it was time to leave. I asked the agent how to get in touch with him, and what I should do. The agent repeated that I should leave.

In spite of my delusion about illegal dumping, I was becoming aware that many of my adversaries were civil servants for various government agencies. I was wondering what to do next when I reached the street. I was planning to go to the Charlotte Observer to tell my story to a reporter. Standing outside the street door of the office building, I could see the Charlotte Observer building. Between me and the Charlotte Observer building was a gauntlet of public servant vehicles. There were police cruisers or ambulances at every street corner between me and the Charlotte Observer building.

I returned to the Striate Engineering pickup and drove away from the Observer building. There was one way that I knew to create a record of the incident on Interstate 85. I drove to the main office of the Charlotte Police Department.

The officer behind the desk, at the Charlotte police department, told me to wait there. Then, he told me to go to another office, across the foyer. I went there, and explained my story. The officer asked to see my identification, and I gave him my driver's license. The officer keyed the license number into the computer. He appeared surprised when there was no criminal record.

The officer explained that I would have to wait there, for an on duty patrol officer to take my statement. I waited for twenty minutes. Full of agitation and fear, I said that I was going back to the Striate office with the pickup. I said that I would stop at a police station on the way and give my report.

I headed back in the direction of the Striate office, and stopped at a police station on the route. The officer behind the foyer window said that it was a shift change, and that she could find me an officer quickly.

I met the officer in the parking lot. I described how the trucks surrounded me on Interstate 85. I told about the speeding truck on the ramp at Jetty Road. I made certain that the report included the driver of the pickup truck rotating his arm, with his index finger extended, to signal the other drivers.

Unfortunately, I included my belief that someone was trying to kill him because of my knowledge of illegal dumping. I showed the officer Rick Hall's business card. The officer kept pointing to the business card, and asking me if I had the names of any suspects. I said that he had nothing conclusive.

So, on May 23, 1998, I made a police record of a staged fatal accident attempt. I described a deliberate attempt to cause a fatal accident.

I returned to the Straite office at around three-thirty that afternoon. Rick Hall and the chief project engineer, Bruce Johnson, were waiting. There was a meeting in Rick's office.

Bruce Johnson told me he didn't know anything about the incident on Interstate 85. He said the first that he had heard about any problem was when the supervisor of the airport project called at two o'clock, wanting to know where the engineering technician was.

Rick asked me where I had gone. I told him about going to the FBI office in downtown Elizabeth.

"I know," said Rick. "Where did you go after that?"

I told Rick and Bruce about filing the incident report.

"An incident report!" exclaimed Rick "But, that's a public record. This is our first job for this new client. Their account could be worth millions to us. We don't want anything to jeopardize our relationship with this client."

Rick emphasized the word, client. It seemed to mean something particularly important, that I was expected to understand.

"By the way, how did you manage to avoid an accident?" Rick asked.

I told Rick and Bruce how I had downshifted the truck and maneuvered between the tractor-trailers.

I sensed peril, there at the Striate office. I felt that I had to appear to be willing to cooperate with Rick, if I wanted to leave the building alive.

"What can I do to help win this new account?" I asked.

"Well, for one thing, you can stop acting so afraid at construction sites. Is there a site where you can be relaxed? Is there somewhere that you can concentrate on your work, and not worry about what is going on around you?" Rick asked. His panting voice was raspy. He emphasized relaxed, with a big smile on his face.

"I doubt it, after what I have been through today. I will try to not appear to be so paranoid. But, there is no way that I will let my guard down." I said.

"You need to understand that, no matter what we do, we would be particularly ungrateful if you went to the media. This would ruin Striate Engineering's relationship with the new client. Striate's relationship with this new client is very important to us." Rick finished.

"We can't allow our technicians to take off in our trucks when they are on the way to assignments." Bruce began. "You are to be suspended tomorrow, without pay. You can take the truck home for transportation tonight, but you have to bring it back tomorrow morning. We need it to cover the jobs you will be missing." Bruce explained.

I went home to Jane. He began telling her about what had happened to him that day. It seemed as if she already knew. She was furious.

"Why don't you just leave!" she said.

Why didn't I leave? I still wanted to be there for Shirely. I didn't know where to go. I didn't have any close friends to move in with. Besides, I was completely exhausted from the day's stressful events. In hindsight, it would have been better to leave. I learned to leave cities on a moment's notice, two years later.

I returned the truck the next morning. There was no one there to take me back home. So, I began walking the seven miles to home.

I had begun to realize that secrecy was the primary tool of my adversaries. I was very afraid that something might happen to me on the way home. So, I walked down the grassy median of the boulevard in front of the Striate Engineering office. I was visible to all four lanes of traffic on the road. If they were going to kill me, it would have to be in the open, in front of witnesses.

On the walk home, I saw several cars drive by, slowly. The drivers were talking on their cell phones. I turned off the four lane highway, and cut through the parking lot of a grocery store. One of the engineers from Striate just happened to be going into the store. He asked me if he could give him a ride home.

I started to get into the car. Still full of paranoia, I declined. I began walking down the two lane road that led home.

There was a construction crew, laying pipe for a water line on the two miles that I had to walk on the two lane road. Construction equipment filled one lane of the road. The construction crew was controlling the one lane of vehicle traffic. It was odd, but it seemed as if the traffic was being diverted to make my walk home seem safer.

I reached another four lane road that led home. I began musing about what Rick Hall said about going to the media. I wondered what media, and how, I could tell my story to. I walked across Interstate 85, on a bridge for the four lane road. The area was filled with fast food operations and convenience stores with coin operated telephones.

I went to one of the telephone booths and looked up the local telephone number for the Sierra Club. I would tell them about the illegal dumping! I had found someone who could do something about all of the strange events going on in my life.

When I went to the telephone booth on the street corner, there was suddenly a hive of traffic activity around me. A van pulled beside the curb, near the telephone booth. The van's roof bristled with radio antennas and a satellite dish. A concave radio receiver turned toward me.

I had second thoughts about calling the Sierra Club. Maybe there was something else going on, not related to illegal dumping? My cousin's credibility, as a member of law enforcement, was now questionable. I sensed an air of evil around Jane, Rick Hall and many of the other people I had been in contact with.

Life with Jane was becoming very strange, too. There was swelling and tenderness of Jane's vagina, after a "casino" trip. She had been debauched beyond comfort. I still did not remember anything about insurance fraud. The hypnotic programming was still effective. I still could not understand the cause of my troubles. So, I grasped at any explanation to make the situation plausible. Freud called paranoia a search for order. I was searching for order in a paranoid situation. I understood that diabolical forces were at work.

So, that was it! Jane was involved in satanic activity! Whatever demonic cult that she was involved in must have wanted me out of the way. I was interfering with the agenda. Years later, I did find some vague references to cults involved in fatal accident insurance fraud. These were from cult deprogrammers.

Something else, very strange, had happened two weeks before this day. I was walking up the street, bringing Shirley home from a playmate's house. A dead cat lay in the road. It was wrapped in a red plastic mesh wrap. I looked up and saw a Charlotte Animal Control vehicle driving away.

One evening a week later, Shirely called Jane and me to the back door foyer area. There was our six month old pet beagle. The usually gentle and playful dog was snarling and growling. I leaned down to examine the dog, and it snapped at me. Jane thought that the men were just being fearful, and reached out to pet the puppy. It bit her finger, drawing blood.

I called Animal Control, and an officer came to their home. The Animal Control officer said that it appeared that the dog had distemper. The disease is not communicable to humans. The puppy would be euthanized by Animal Control. It would probably die in a few days, anyway. There would be an autopsy examination, since there was the possibility of rabies.

Jane cleaned her wound and treated it with antiseptic and a bandage. The Animal Control officer told her that she would be informed if there was any need for her to undergo treatment for exposure to rabies.

I returned to Striate Engineering the next day. Jane brought me in her car. She was much more content than she had been the night before last. She even gave me a rare kiss good bye.

Rick gave me what appeared to be an all day assignment at a large construction site. I went to the site and began my day's work. At ten-thirty, I received a page from Rick. I was to finish whatever work I was in the middle of, and go to a different project on the other side of Charlotte. I was to arrive at the other project at precisely twelve noon. I was to get another fifty pound soil sample from the bottom of a deep trench.

Rick's tone was matter of fact and calm, as if he were trying to convey the attitude that there was nothing unusual about the assignment. OSHA regulations forbid entering a trench more than four feet deep, without the sides being shored up. I realized I could be in the trench, getting a soil sample, when an equipment operator returned from an early lunch. The operator might start pushing soil back into the excavation, burying me alive.

The project superintendent would be at lunch while I was being buried alive.

I completed the report for the tests already taken at the project I was to leave. I loaded the equipment onto the truck, and left the site to go to the other project. Part of the route to was on Interstate 85. The closer I came to the entrance ramp to the interstate, the more I knew something was wrong. On the way there, I lost my nerve.

I didn't know what to do or where to turn. I should have tried to disappear somewhere else in the United States. I didn't know anyone, or anywhere else to go. I wanted to keep my job and be with my daughter. I knew that something terrible would happen to me if I followed Rick's instructions to go to a certain location, by a certain route, and arrive at a certain time.

I stopped at a fast food restaurant, near the entrance ramp to Interstate 85. There was a pay telephone booth in the parking lot. I made a long distance call to Rock Hill.

"Dad, I think that Jane has a murder contract on my life." I said.

"Where are you?" my father asked.

I told my father where I was. I was afraid to take the Striate Engineering truck back. In fact, I was afraid to do anything.

PART THREE

An hour and a half after the telephone call, my parents arrived. The first thing my father asked was if I was taking any drugs. I told him I did not take recreational drugs.

I poured out my confused story to my father. Meanwhile, my mother was calling someone on her cell phone.

A few minutes later, a Charlotte Police officer arrived. He wanted to talk to me, alone. We went inside the restaurant and set down across from each other, in one of the booths. I attempted to be as coherent as possible. The officer was only interested in my propensity for violence. We returned to the parking area, where my parents were waiting in the car. The officer spoke to them and left.

I had the presence of mind to call the Striate Engineering office and tell Bruce Johnson where I was. I told them that I would stay there until someone came to get the pickup.

Bruce and the secretary arrived. Before he left with the pickup, Bruce told me to call him about getting his job back after I "got myself straightened out."

Not knowing what else to do, I began walking toward the Interstate 85 ramp. I had decided to start hitchhiking toward the Pacific Northwest. I knew I had lost my job and marriage. At forty-four years old, starting over somewhere else was better than staying there.

My father began walking along beside me. He was pleading with me to stay.

"You're not my father!" I said over and over. I was aware of my father's facade. I sensed that his father might be in league with my enemies. I also sensed that my father wanted to keep me alive.

My mother drove up in the car, with Jane beside her. Jane got out of the car, and walked toward me with outstretched arms. The woman who had abused me wanted a public hug.

"You're not Jane!" I shouted. I sensed her false air. It seemed like a demonic spirit possessed her. Jane and my mother left.

I was getting tired. All I wanted was to go somewhere I felt safe. I wanted to get away from Charlotte and Jane.

My father finally persuaded me to come to my parent's home for the night. I got in the car, and rode to Rock Hill. On the way, my mother blurted out that my father should remove the special telephone line from their speaker telephone. The line was connected to my sister's home, a hundred miles a way. My mother said to me that she hoped that he could "get better, and expose them for the frauds that they are!"

MY father told my mother not to say any more to me about "that." Both of my parents tried to talk to me, but told me that they couldn't make sense out of anything that I was saying. I knew they were lying.

I did say something about Satanism. MY father whipped his head around from the driver's seat and looked at me. "What makes you think that there is any Satanism?" His eyes flashed.

I suggested that they get in touch with my sister as an "interpreter." Since we had spent our childhoods together, perhaps she could understand what I was trying to say. My parents repeated that they could not understand him.

Emily was contacted. Since it was late afternoon, nothing else would be done that day. I was hoping that I could simply stay in Rock Hill. I could start life over there, and still be close enough to Charlotte to see Shrilly often.

I spent the night in a guest bedroom in the basement of my parents' home. There was a small bookshelf standing against the cinder block basement wall. It was filled with old books, and a stack of Boy's Life magazines from my childhood. On top of the bookshelf was an open wire bound notebook. It appeared to be full of notes from the short story writing classes my had taken at a local community college. The teacher had been a part time retiree, who was noted for her volunteer efforts to teach writing to inmates of a nearby prison.

In the middle of one page was something written in a different handwriting from the rest of the entries in the notebook.

"Let the unreal seem real.

Let the familiar become unfamiliar.

This leads to a trust accident."

Considering all of the strange things that had been happening to me, this inscription didn't surprise me. What excited me was that it might be the first concrete evidence of a conspiracy to cause me to die in an accident. I tore the page from the notebook and carefully folded it into my wallet.

We left in the early afternoon of the next day, to meet my sister. Very little was said on the journey. Emily had been on the telephone all morning, trying to find a psychiatric facility for me. She had finally located one in Asheville. Emily's home was located on the way to Asheville, about a hundred miles from Charlotte. It was fifty miles to Asheville, from Emily's home in Tryon.

I rode in the back seat of the car, on the way to Tryon. My mother said that my father and she had something to argue about. They spoke in metaphors.

My father said, "I am a hawk, circling in the sky. I see a tiny sparrow sitting on a tree branch. I am about to swoop down and eat the sparrow."

MY father also told about a river rafting trip he had taken with Emily on the "Little Devil" River. My father told me that he had to be careful, coming down the other side. He said there were some tricky places there.

My mother warned me that they were going to get Emily's assistance, and to be careful of the "Little Devil." She told me that sometimes people who pretended to be my friend really were not.

I wondered what subliminal messages must be played on the speaker telephone beside my parents' bedside. What could cause my conventional, proper parents to speak in strange, occult metaphors? Nothing more was said about disconnecting the special telephone connection to Emily's house.

The argument between my parents seemed to end when my mother said she was afraid of the possibility of violence. They would take me to a hospital.

They met Emily at a fast food restaurant in Tryon. Emily pretended to be glad to see me. Emily chatted with our father about her children. Emily and my father were very excited about the future career opportunities for Emily's daughter's new husband. The daughter had left college to be married, and was in training to operate a pizza delivery franchise.

For some reason, Emily had great difficulty in finding a treatment facility for me. Emily and I rode in her car to Asheville. Our parents followed in their car.

On the way to Asheville, Emily assured me that she was on my side. She listened as I attempted to tell about a murder contract on my life, perpetrated by Jane. Emily sounded very sympathetic and understanding. I thought that her husband John might give some credence to the murder contract theory. I didn't say anything about the note I found.

My family was alarmed at my statements that Jane was trying to have me murdered. I wanted somewhere to recuperate from the abuse I had suffered, and the devastating conflict of emotions and loyalties. I had wanted desperately to succeed at Striate Engineering. My intuition screamed that Rick Hall's demands for me to be at a specific location at a specific time, were malevolent. It would be impossible for me to succeed at the life I had wanted to live in Charlotte.

My family wanted to hear that I did not believe that Jane was involved in a contract on my life. I said I believed that Jane wasn't trying to kill me. I said it so many times, that I began to believe it myself. At least, I learned to block out the memory from my conscious mind. Besides, Jane was in Charlotte, and I was one hundred and fifty miles away in Asheville.

I knew, intuitively, not to say anything about my suspicions about mind control. I didn't say anything about the note I found. I didn't say anything about the dead cat, left by Charlotte Animal Control, or the beagle with distemper.

Jane, Sheila and Cindy were in a very secure position. After all, the majority of the US public stil doesn't believe the assassins of Robert Kennedy, John Lennon or Ronald Reagan were by brainwashed robots. Why should they believe that many unreported criminal activities, such as staged fatal automobile accidents, could be the result of hypnosis and brainwashing? A perpetrator creating such a crime without publicity could operate without fear of law enforcement. Who would believe that Cindy was hypnotizing depressed fathers to cause their own fatal automobile accidents? Anyone who reported this kind of activity would be labeled insane.

I met new people in Asheville. I moved in to the spare bedroom of my friend Donna's home. I met Donna after she had been released from a hospital. Donna had been depressed, after being beaten by a man that she had been married to for a few months. It was her fourth marriage. She was a few years older than me. Although I liked Donna's friendship, I was not sexually attracted to her.

I did have an affair. Beth had worked for twenty years at a paper mill about thirty miles from Asheville. She had retired with full insurance benefits.

The first weekend that I spent with Beth, I realized that she was heavily addicted to pain relieving medication for the back problems that had developed while she was working in the paper mill.

After three weekends with Beth, I lost interest. I liked sobriety, and she was stoned on prescription meds.

But, the first kiss with Beth had been magical! After eighteen years of fidelity to Jane, her spell was finally broken. The first kiss with Beth brought excitement and confidence back. I wasn't afraid to stand up to Jane. I found I didn't care about Jane anymore. Shirely was still important.

Donna had not understood of the economics of psychiatric hospitalization. Her doctor had treated her with electro convulsive therapy. This is also referred to as ECT or "shock tretment." Banned in some states, it is proven to cause permanent brain damage. Although her first electro convulsive therapy session worsened her depression, her doctor continued to administer ECT.

Donna was never the same person, after ECT. She had a talent for painting, before the ECT. One painting had won first prize at a regional fair . After ECT, she never painted again. She couldn't remember how to mix colors or paint to express depth of perception. Her short term memory was obliterated. She needed someone to drive her around Asheville in her car. She could not drive. She found herself getting lost and not knowing where she was. She had lived in the Asheville area her whole life.

Her mind was too obliterated to testify against the ex-husband who beat her. That may have been the objective of her "therapy", anyway.

There was something unusual about Donna's psychiatrist office. He practised with three other psychiatrists, a clinical psychologist and two psychotherapistis. For some reason, they found it necessary to employ a clerical staff of nine! The accounting/bookkeeping department had more staff than the clinical department!

After the month of outpatient therapy, I found a job very close to the trailer I shared with Donna. I did not have a car. The job paid well enough to support me, and allowed me to send a monthly child support stipend to Jane. The job was in a warehouse, where there was no possibility of a fatal "accident."

I had also arranged to make a weekly telephone call to my daughter. I believed I was on my way to rebuilding my life.

Someone else had other plans. Donna's attorney advised her to evict me. Donna's estranged husband might use my cohabitation as a defense, in her lawsuit against the man who abused her.

I moved into an ancient boarding house, near downtown Asheville. Asheville had one-fifth of the population of Charlotte, and no suburban development. Asheville's downtown area could be traversed on foot.

I kept suspicions about an agenda to kill me to myself, to the point where I almost believed I was safe.

My father informed me that I had come into a small inheritance. My grandfather's second wife had left a small sum, to be divided among thirteen cousins. My uncle in Raleigh distributed the funds.

Instead of receiving a check from my uncle, my parents paid me $1500 cash. They had convinced my uncle that I was mentally ill, and that they should handle the distribution. My mother's hands shook when she gave me the money.

At the time, I didn't recognize the flim flam. My father had been generous to me in the past. My parents were quite well off.

I bought a used oversized Chevrolet with the money. I was attracted to the ancient behemoth of a car, instead of smaller deathtrap with better gas mileage.

I found a job working at a foundry, making parts for railroad equipment. It was a third shift job, working ten and eleven hours at night, for six days per week. I suddenly found himself with a good income, for a change.

There was one oddity at the foundry, that I noticed immediately. There were extensive safety procedures and devices around the equipment that could cause an injury. Where there was the potential for a fatal injury, however remote, there was no protection. The fatal hazards were positioned where it would require an almost intententional act to be killed. Or, a push from some walking by.

One night, a small fire in the plant forced everyone inside to go out. I never went back in.

I had weekly telephone calls to Shirely. Jane talked to me during those telephone calls. Often, she would talk more than my daughter. On one of these calls, she mentioned she knew the exact amount of Social Security benefits that she and Shirely would receive if I died. During another telephone call, she told me how disappointed she was that I had left the job at the foundry. I had not told Jane about leaving the job.

The used car made it possible for me to have a monthly visitation weekend with my daughter. Once a month, I made the two and a half hour drive to Charlotte. My parents were kind enough to allow my daughter and I to stay at their home, during these weekends.

Jane wanted to talk to me, when I returned Shirely on Sunday night. Jane talked endlessly about her friend Alicia, and her doctor husband. I asked her why she was so fascinated by her friend, Alicia's, husband. Her answer didn't surprise me, although he didn't completely understand it.

"You became less interesting to us. We've become more interested in him." She blurted.

I remembered that response.

After four months in the boarding house, my friend Donna asked me to move back in with her. Donna had made her first court appearance in the battery case against her estranged husband. He arrived in court with another ex-wife in tow. There never was a cohabitation issue.

I went from temporary job to temporary job. After about three weeks, on the temporary jobs, I would receive notice that the assignment had ended. I had to convince myself that there was nothing to be concerned about.

I learned that members of the syndicate believed that I had consented to the suicide accident attempt on Interstate 85 in Charlotte. I had chickened out at the last second of the staged accident attempt. It would upset my commitment to causing my own death, if I had to discuss details with anyone. It would be better if my death were a surprise, without conscious knowledge. Besides, didn't it show my acceptance of the need for secrecy, if I didn't discuss the plot to kill me?

The hypnosis must have been effective, they believed. I had no recollection of being hypnotized. The uneducated members of the syndicate didn't know that posthypnotic suggestions to forget are a common parlor trick. Overcoming the strongest instinct, the will to survive, is very difficult through hypnosis. My will to survive is allied to personal beliefs. I was not willing to die for what I do not believe in. I am willing to die for what I do believe in.

I moved to Greenville. Greenville is only an hour's drive from Asheville.

I bought a used lap top computer. Ten years behind the times, I finally had Internet access. Living alone, it didn't take long to find the chat rooms and personal ads. I checked the personals for the Greenville area, for interested women between forty and fifty. The database search yielded eighty names! I was no longer chained to Jane.

I emailed and talked on the telephoned to several of the women. They were all an improvement over Jane's tyrannical nature. I never found romance, until I called Bianca.

The smile in her photograph caught my eye. She looked like she just wanted to make someone happy. Bianca was everything her smile promised. She lived near Woodruff, a small town twenty miles south of Greenville. He husband, Joe, had died four years earlier. She had placed her Internet ad just two weeks before I found it.

Bianca said that she had posted her ad for about two weeks before she met me. I loved her melodious voice on the telephone. On their first date, we drove around Greenville. We dated and talked until two AM. I enjoyed every minute with her.

I had been an avid fisherman, in my childhood. Jane enjoyed fishing, too. Our third date was a fishing expedition. Bianca even baited her own hook! I was in love.

I had learned, years before, that catching smaller fish, on light tackle, could be almost as exciting as catching big fish on big tackle.

Bianca exclaimed several times that day, "I like catching small fish!"

Bianca had a home on the five acres she had inherited from Joe. Joe had worked at Bevalique Manufacturing, in Spartanburg. Bianca explained that she and Joe had loved each other very much. They had raised a son, Brad, who lived with her.

Brad was lazy. I laughed to myself that Brad qualified for a disability for laziness. Lonely for love, I overlooked Brad. Not only was he unemployed, but he did none of the household chores. Bianca worked all day, and did the cleaning and cooking in the evening.

Joe had worked grueling twelve hour shifts at Bevalique. These were rotating shifts, eight days on first shift, eight days on second and eight days on third. After four days off, the cycle resumed. Bevalique was the highest paying manufacturer in the Spartanburg area. Bevalique also had a high ratio of management personnel, to oversee the labor force. Joe and the other manufacturing employees had to produce enough to support themselves and their overseers.

Joe had been a blue collar baby boomer. The high unemployment of the 1970s had made him voraciously hungry for an opportunity. When Bevalique opened up its manufacturing operations in Spartanburg in 1982, he jumped at the chance. Neither he nor Bianca ever questioned the price that prosperity might have.

Joe was a functioning alcoholic. He drank beer constantly during his free time. The intermittent layoffs from Michelin provided more opportunity to drink. Bianca didn't care. She had been raised in a Spartanburg textile mill village. Although Bianca usually had a job, Joe supported the family.

Joe did his own mechanical work on old cars at home. He tried to interest Brad. Brad wasn't interested in any sort of work, no matter how valuable.

Brad's laziness and Joe's drinking made them aloof to each other. There were several occasions when Joe was expected to pick Brad up from school, during a layoff. Free time and alcohol led to several occasions when Joe was late picking up Brad. A teacher would have to stay late at the school with Brad, until Joe arrived.

After ten years at Bevalique, and thirty years of drinking, Joe fell ill. Ultimately, he lost over half of his pancreas, and a section of his small intestine. He was totally incapable of having the physical stamina to continue working. He attempted to return to work, after the surgery. He applied for Social Security disability benefits. They were denied.

Two months after Joe's second operation, he went to a scheduled visit with his doctor. Bianca went with Joe. Joe had been complaining to her of pain in his left shoulder and arm. A year earlier, Joe had been rushed to the Spartanburg Hospital emergency room. He had a mild heart attack, then. It had during been his last attempt to return to work.

Bianca sat with Joe, as Joe told his doctor about the pain in his left shoulder and arm. The doctor told Joe that he was just getting old, at forty-three years old. The doctor told them that Joe's pain was merely arthritis.

Three days later, Joe's body was delivered to the morgue at Spartanburg General Hospital.. The cause of death was a heart attack. Joe's pain in his shoulder and arm were classic symptoms of a heart attack.

Joe's doctor performed the final examination of the body. Joe's doctor told Bianca that he had examined his medical records for Joe, and everything was in order. The doctor said that there was nothing that he could have done.

Three years after Joe's death, Bianca had recovered enough from her grief to be emotionally prepared for a malpractice suit against Joe's doctor. I encouraged it, and inquired with an attorney on her behalf. The Statute of Limitations had elapsed on her malpractice case. Friends had told her before there was no question about the doctor's negligence.

While Joe was still alive, Bianca and Joe had secured the services of an attorney for the denied Social Security benefits. Joe had been out of work almost two years. The same week that Joe died, Joe's Social Security Disability claim was finally approved. Bianca was told not to cash the first check, which arrived a week after Joe died. The attorney's fees approximately equaled the previously unpaid Social Security benefits. Bianca received three hundred dollars for Joe's eighteen months of disability.

Joe's doctor had allowed Joe to die, but only after all of Joe's and Bianca's savings were depleted. Joe's insurance paid only eighty percent of his massive medical expenses. Was it just an odd coincidence that the doctor allowed Joe to die when the money ran out?

I was blissfully blocking out all of the strange things that had happened to me. In spite of the incidents at work that summer, I didn't want to believe that my own life was for sale.

Bianca made me forget even more. I moved in with Bianca, and we fell in love. Joe had respected and loved her. Bianca had been spared the pain of a bad relationship, unlike Jane and me. Bianca was a strong willed, self sufficient person. She understood people very well. She had a mind of her own.

I still did not recall Jane's request that I kill myself in a staged, fatal accident. I thought that I was safe, not living in the same state as Jane. Then, strange things began happening at work, again.

I went to work for a grading contractor. Instead of testing soil compaction, I was responsible for doing the work.

Sometimes, my work required me to be on foot, with heavy earth moving equipment moving around me. The earth moving equipment operators remarked about how adept I was at being aware of the location of the moving heavy equipment, while I was on foot.

I was disappointed, working for the grading contractor. I was given very little opportunity to gain experience operating the heavy equipment. The grading contractor also raced his own stock car. He had run in several NASCAR races. He had not won any races, or any prize money.

On my first day there, a bulldozer operator came to work very excited. There had been an accident on Interstate 85, the day before. There were four deaths! The bodies had been burned beyond recognition. Another operator said that the bodies would have to be identified by dental records. The grading contractor smiled at the bulldozer operator.

My primary duty for the grading contractor was to check grade. I measured the elevation of soil being placed and compacted, and calculated the amount of additional fill necessary to meet the specified elevation.

I also operated the compaction equipment, when needed. The equipment consisted of a vibrating rolling drum, attached in front of a tractor unit. By rolling the equipment over loose soil, the soil was compacted. This prevented settling of the soil, after a building was constructed on top of it. The reader has probably seen a parking lot with a crevice in it that follows a utility line underneath the pavement. This depression is the result of not compacting the soil that was replaced above the utility line.

The grading contractor gave me very little work from Monday to Friday. Then, on weekends, I was kept very busy. The superintendents for the general contractors of the construction projects would not be at the construction sites during the weekends. The superintendents were responsible for the safety of the site.

I didn't know at the time, but the absence of the general contractor's representative made the general contractor liable for negligence. There would be no limitations on the amount of a lawsuit if I were killed. Workmen's' Compensation limitations would not apply.

On one of these Saturdays, I was working at a large commercial project. The grading contractor had asked a subcontractor to assist in completing the work. The subcontractor owned a small earth mover, called a Bobcat. My job was to operate the roller, compacting the fill soil.

The subcontractor was cold and steely eyed. He didn't shake hands when I introduced himself. I noticed that the seat belt of the roller would not unroll, so I couldn't use it.

It is very important to maintain some level balance between the rolling drum and the tractor unit, operating a roller. If the drum were to suddenly tilt sharply, it could flip the roller over. A man would be crushed, if he fell in the path of the tractor unit's fall.

At several locations that day, the subcontractor placed loose soil three feet deep, besides previously compacted soil. This created the appearance of safe level ground, which was actually very hazardous. One wheel of the roller's axle would be on solid ground, while the other would sink down two feet. This could cause enough tilt to turn the roller over.

There were several times when I nearly turned over. This happened where the Bobcat operator had placed loose soil had been placed beside compacted soil. The subcontractor had leveled the ground, to make it appear consistent.

Another near miss happened when the subcontractor told me to back up quickly over a mound of earth. The was a deep crevice in the mound, filled with loose soil. I backed up slowly and carefully. I managed to avoid turning over the roller.

My cautiousness prevented an accident. At that time, I believed that the subcontractor was simply a rival for available work. I had thought the highway incident had been due to illegal dumping. I will never forget the cold look in the Bobcat driver's eyes.

A few days later, I was working with Doug, the grading contractor's nephew.

"You can lose, but you can't win." Doug said. "I don't need to work. I can live on forty dollars a week if I have to. But, I like to hunt. I just spent fifteen hundred on a new deer rifle and scope. You see that hill over there?" Doug asked.

"Yes," said Ralph. They were looking at a hillside, three-fourths of a mile away.

"I can drop a deer from here with that rifle. Yea, I can drop him from here," said Doug.

Doug continued. "You can lose, but you can't win. I went to high school with a boy named Bobby Abernathy, down in Newton. He is a paraplegic. He was in a wreck.

He done it right, too. He locked her down in front of a dump truck with a full load. Snapped his lower vertebrae. He works his ass off, too. Does carpentry in a wheelchair. Works harder than the son-of-a-bitches that can walk. Yep, he done it right. Locked her down. Remember to lock her down."

The day after the conversation with Doug, I was told to drive "Old Red." Old Red was a small pickup truck with a one hundred gallon tank of diesel fuel located directly behind the cab. When I got in the pickup, the seat belt wasn't working. The seat belt would not unroll from its retainer, the same way that the seat belt had not worked on the roller.

I was told to drive the pickup to a project along Interstate 85, which connected Spartanburg and Charlotte. I drove carefully, avoiding situations where I could be wedged in between trucks. I arrived at my destination safely. The rest of the grading crew was already waiting at the site. They were surprised and irritated when they saw me.

Without giving me a reason, my parents told me that I could not come to visit them any more. Pam threatened to have me prosecuted for kidnapping, if I brought our daughter over the state line to my home in South Carolina. This meant that I would have to rent a motel room, somewhere near Charlotte.

I picked up my daughter on Saturday morning. It was summer. We spent the day in the motel swimming pool. We played the game of shark and fish. One person would be a shark, attempting to tag the other. When that person, the fish, was tagged, he would become "it."

"Here fishy, fishy. I wont hurt you. Come to my little cove and play with me. I'll be your friend. Oh, please fishy fishy. Wont you come and play with me?" Shirely said. She was having fun, and sounded very convincing.

I brought Shirely home on Sunday night. On my way home to Spartanburg, I thought about how Shirely and I had played. There was something about Shirely's demeanor, while we played shark and fish. I couldn't quite grasp the situation, but there was something about Shirely's attitude that bothered me deeply. I knew that her attitude was a reflection of the emotional environment at home, with Jane.

The following weekend, I made my weekly Sunday night telephone call to Shirely. After I spoke with Shirely, Jane said that she wanted to talk to me.

Jane said that on my next visitation, I was to come alone. I could meet her and Shirely at a roller skating rink. My police officer cousin, Pressley, would also attend.

Jane said that she thought we had an agreement for more child support than I had paid that month. I had been paying handsomely for child support, when I was earning a good income. But, my income had decreased sharply. I paid a reasonable proportion of my income.

The conversation over the telephone, with Jane, became a heated argument.

I blurted to Jane "Fuck your agreement!"

"No, fuck you..." Jane said, in a low, guttural tone. There was a deathly air in her voice.

The deathly tone of Jane's expletive left no doubt in my mind of her intentions. All of my repressed memories began to come back to my consciousness. I remembered the day with the Bobcat operator, when I had to constantly avoid being killed. I knew then that the grading subcontractor's booby traps had nothing to do with work rivalry. The subcontractor had been sent there to kill me!

The incident on Interstate 85 in Charlotte had the same common denominator. I was in the Striate Engineering pickup truck, on the highway. Workmen's' compensation limits did not apply there either.

I remembered how Jane had asked me to cause my own fatal accident! I remembered her telling me about a "huge network of people involved in insurance fraud."

Sitting across from Bianca at the supper table, I poured out his story. Bianca listened and believed. I didn't know about the hypnosis, yet. But I did know about the staged accident attempts in Charlotte and Spartanburg. Each one had the same common denominator, a company vehicle! I remembered when Jane had blurted out "Unless it happened in the company truck!"

It was like a contract! The contract called for me to die in a company vehicle. I explained to Bianca: this was murder, made to look like suicide, made to look like an accident. I also explained my other personal beliefs. Staged wars, staged terrorism, staged assassinations and staged fatal accidents were all the same sort of thing.

Bianca told me about Joe. Joe liked to go hunting. Joe had always told her that: if you were hunted by an enemy, not to be the hunted. To turn on your enemy and become the hunter. I made up my mind, then, to be the hunter the fatal accident syndicate. No matter what they sacrifice, I wanted to expose them.

Whatever programming I had been given had diminished my fear of death. I was terrified of dying for the benefit of the fatal accident insurance fraud syndicate, and Jane. I wasn't willing to die to pay for Jane's gambling habit. My life for a bingo game!

I began researching the Internet for clues. Perhaps there was a "national security" connection to all of this. I searched for documentation or acknowledgment of the crime of fatal accident liability insurance fraud, but came up empty handed. How could there be such a total blackout of this information? I knew that there was a huge network of people involved in insurance fraud, but the "free press" of the United States ignored it.

I left the job with the grading contractor, to accept manufacturing work through a temporary employment agency. After work, I used Bianca's computer to contact law enforcement nationwide about Jane and the contract on my life. But nothing happened. I sent Jane a letter, telling her how I had become aware of the contract on my life. I thought that surely the syndicate would not be interested in killing me, when I could leave a written record of the conspiracy behind.

I web surfed for hours on Bianca's computer. I emailed my story to every contact that might be interested. One such contact was a web site that purported to be a national clearinghouse for fraud information. There was even a fraud hot line.

A contact from the fraud information clearinghouse called me the day after I sent an email. The lady who called wanted all of the details of the suspected contract. I was excited that at last there might be a professional investigation. I lamented to the caller that I was most upset that my death would finance more killing. I heard the woman snicker.

I remembered what Rick Hall had told me, the day of the police report in Charlotte. Rick said that they would be "particularly ungrateful" if I went to the press. Publicity must be the only weak point, I thought. This manuscript is a product of that idea.

Ralph called the Spartanburg office of my congressman. The congressional office assistant was very cooperative, and interested in my situation. The congressman's assistant listened, as I told about my frustration with law enforcement. The assistant said that someone else, who worked in the congress man's office, knew about the fatal accident fraud organization. He said that she would have someone for me to contact the next day.

I called the congressman's office the next day. The assistant gave me several telephone numbers, leading to the head of the State Highway Patrol. I thought that surely the Highway Patrol would want to prevent highway fatalities. I called the telephone number. I was then directed to Colonel Little's office. I spoke briefly to Colonel Little, then faxed him my story.

When I drove to work the next day, I never saw so many Highway Patrol cars! But, that didn't make any sense. If the Highway Patrol was truly interested in investigating the syndicate, why were they swarming around me on the Interstate? Or, were they buzzards, waiting to see who could be first to collect the bonus for filling out the successful fatal accident report?

I faxed my reports to the Spartanburg office of the FBI. I did not receive a response.

The state governor's victim assistant program offered to help crime victims and stimulate action by law enforcement. The director was kind enough to listen to me, and read the four page story I faxed to her. She called the Spartanburg office of the FBI, to inquire about my file.

I called the director of the victim assistance program back the following day. Her voice quivered, as she told me what had transpired. She explained that the FBI was required to maintain meticulous and secure records of all information it received. She told me that the FBI offices of the FBI had no record of my faxes.

So, I faxed my story to the press. I sent my story to all of the major newspapers in the region. I also sent my story to the national press and media. But, nothing happened. I made certain that Jane knew about the many files that existed with law enforcement agencies and the media. Surely, she would give up on the murder contract now.

My sister, Emily, sent me an email. I had contacted the security department where Jane worked. I warned them that Alicia had malicious plans for her depressed husband, the doctor. Emily was furious that a security guard at Jane's office building was investigating my allegations. (I wondered what had happened to all of the other law enforcement agencies I had contacted.) She told me to stop my "ridiculous campaign against Jane."

I told Bianca about the email. They talked about the risk I was taking. If someone suspects that family members are conspiring to use devious means to kill them, then that person must be paranoiad!

I wondered how many murders within families modern United States psychiatry must be an accessory too. Beginning with the Biblical Cain and Abel, murders between family members have been part of human society. There are many historical and literary precedents of family members using devious means to murder each other for financial gain. Yet, in our "enlightened" modern era this kind of suspicion is met with an appointment for a psychiatric evaluation.

Even if I had been aware of the two weekends of hypnotic programming, it would have been a sure sign of insanity to report it to the press or law enforcement. Despite research which validates my experiences, any statements alluding to the criminal use of hypnosis would have subjected me to ridicule. I still did not remember being hypnotized, but the post hypnotic suggestions had not been powerful enough to override my will to survive.

My anger from knowing that my life had been managed by the syndicate kept my adrenal glands pumping. I was aware of the conspiracy, and would not allow myself to be blindly manipulated into a staged accident situation. I thought.

A new coworker arrived at work. The new coworker was an exceptionally muscular young man. He stared at me often, as if analyzing my movements. One day, the muscular young man walked by, talking to someone else that knew.

"Aint no way, here. The street is too far away," the muscular one said. The pair walked away.

The companion of the muscular young man worked in my department. She brought her Bible to work. She studied her Bible during lunch hour.

She began a conversation with me and the supervisor. She began talking about parachuting.

"Aint no way I could jump out of an airplane. I would be too scared on my own. I would need someone to push me, and to pull my rip cord. How about you? Don't you need someone to push you out of the plane?" she asked me.

I realized that she was part of the syndicate. I answered no, I didn't need someone to push me out of a plane. Filled with rage, I told her not only would I jump, but pull the other person out with me. I would pull my rip cord, and let go of the other person. They would fall without a parachute. I would be happy to land beside the flattened remains of my assailant.

The young woman who asked the question looked at me. She held her hands together, as if she were in prayer. "Shush!" she said.

I didn't care about my pacifism very much, then. I realized that the syndicate wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.

I knew I couldn't blame all of my failures on the murder contract. Alicia's new husband was a doctor, earning over a hundred thousand dollars a year. But, the doctor was a more "interesting" target for murder than I was. The doctor didn't need to die "in a company truck!"

I called the state Department of Insurance, Fraud Investigations Division. The agent was very interested in what I had to say. He listened as I told my entire story. I mentioned that the hypnotherapist/marriage counselor, Cindy, might be involved.

"I sure would like to talk to that hypnotherapist," the agent told me over the telephone.

He instructed me to send my four page story to him in the mail. He told me to be sure to use registered mail, and to mark the envelope "Personal and Confidential, Agent Donald Mathison."

I followed the agents' instructions. I called the agent's office a week later. The secretary said that the agent was in a meeting. She said that he had left a message. She told me that the crimes he was reporting were outside of the jurisdiction of that department.

I called Crime Stoppers. I was referred to a Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department detective. The detective seemed very interested in my story. He was especially interested in what had prompted me to become aware of the conspiracy to kill me. Strangely, the detective groaned when I told that he had been referred to him through Crime Stoppers.

The next day, I was driving to work on Interstate 26. I was traveling at seventy miles per hour. A gasoline tanker truck approached at a much faster speed. It pulled along beside me and maintained my speed. After about two miles of this, the tanker pulled in front of me. The tanker was uncomfortably close to the front of my car. I slowed down. to fifty-five miles per hour, and the tanker maintained the same close distance ahead of my car. Curious, I increased my speed gradually. The tanker maintained the same distance from me. I slowed again, and the tanker slowed, too. For fifteen miles, the tanker stayed close in front of me. The tanker maintained varying speeds. I turned off the Interstate at my exit.

The gasoline tanker truck had behaved exactly like the three trucks in Charlotte. The truck behaved exactly as I described the Charlotte incident to the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office detective. Exactly.

I tried to call the detective during my lunch break that day. I wanted to report the incident with the gasoline tanker. The detective wasn't in, but his secretary was.

"Detective Jones has been expecting your call. He will be glad to talk to you about whatever it was that you thought you saw today. Leave me your number, and he will call you back," the secretary said.

I explained that I didn't want to be interrupted at work. I said that I would call again.

I didn't call back. I understood it had been a staged situation on the highway. It was staged to discredit my story about the incident in Charlotte. The situation on the highway was staged to make me look foolish and paranoid. No one would use a gasoline tanker in a staged accident. The driver of the truck would be immolated, along with the intended victim. Even an empty tanker has enough gasoline fumes inside to cause an incendiary explosion!

So, the cops were in on it! They had created a situation where I would appear to be a raving lunatic, for reporting the attempts on my life! Without public knowledge of a crime, the crime becomes a police racket. A career cop has to cooperate with the corruption, to rise in the ranks. If a street level cop speeks up, he is silenced by his superiors.

The warehouse where I was working was a minimum wage safe haven. There was no possibility of being killed. I even began toying with a manuscript, to tell my story. I felt secure and brave.

I was curious if any one else might be aware of the fatal accident insurance fraud organization. I struck up a conversation with one of the truck drivers, who pulled into the loading dock. I asked the driver, who called himself Solomon, if he had ever heard of a staged fatal accident. I said that I wanted the information for a book I was going to write.

"Do you mean when cars pull close in front, beside and behind my truck? They squeeze you in, so that you have no where to go?" Solomon asked.

"Yes, The driver in front slams on brakes and gets killed, doesn't he?" I asked.

"The car in front of the truck gets right up under the cab. These accidents are almost always fatal." Solomon replied.

"Who do you think is behind this? Is it the insurance companies?" I asked.

"High level corruption. You write your story, and try to get on the news. I wish you luck. But, this operation is backed by high level corruption. That's why there is never any publicity." Solomon finished.

The driver would not tell me any more. I loaded his truck, and the driver left the warehouse.

Another warehouse worker took an interest in me. Young, and very muscular, he smiled and acted friendly. He was usually in the company of one of the other young men at the warehouse. They often looked at me, whispered and laughed to each other.

The muscular young man approached one day, and began a conversation. He started to offer me a cigarette. Then, he said that he knew that I didn't smoke. He said he knew that I used to smoke, but had quit years ago.

The young man began talking about my opportunities. He wanted to know if I would be interested in making four or five times as much money as I was making now. The young man told about a truck driver he had spoken with, who made twenty-five dollars an hour. The truck driver had said that wasn't enough.

Instead of avoiding the subject, I began talking about the contract on my life. I said I wasn't interested in making more money. That would only be more incentive to kill me. A high income would make it profitable for me to be killed while driving my own car, instead of a company truck. I knew that now I could drive my personal car without being harassed. If I made more money, that might not be true. It wouldn't be necessary to be driving a vehicle that belonged to a corporate "deep pocket." I would be the dead, deep pocket.

The muscular man asked