The following is an affidavit.  It is a written statement of facts pertaining to a particular sequence of events, which provides a narrative with a disjointed and sporadic tale.  When we write, we draw from our own experiences, creating a window to our world with our words.  This concept is illustrated in ‘Strewn along a Highway’, which is an account of my experience with suppressed memories that I found myself reliving in the spring of 1989, when the lost images gained buoyancy and appeared at the surface of my consciousness.  As the misplaced scenes from my past flashed on the screen, a story began to unfold, uncovering the answer to a mystery, which I have never revealed until now. 

 

                                    Strewn Along a Highway

 

I first learned of the bodies in 1983, through what would be the vaguest reference.  It was sometime during the school year, and I was attending junior high in Mattapoisett.  One morning, while riding the bus to school, my attention was called to a man who was standing on the side of the road along Route six at the beginning of a path, which led into the woods.  The other children were marveling at the man’s appearance.  He was an extremely large individual with an exaggerated muscular build, whose thick dark hair and beard gave him a slight resemblance to a wolf man.  However, my focus was drawn to his strangely piercing blue eyes, which captured me in their gaze.  After freezing me in his beckoning stare, he turned and proceeded toward the path that led into the woods. 

Later that day, I walked away from the school before my second to last period, and headed down Route six toward the path that led into the forest.  Journeying down that path, I encountered the mysterious figure that I had seen that morning.  He was standing by a makeshift tent, which had been fashioned out of a canvas tarp and some rope.  My first instinct was to run, but after just a few short steps, he called to me, and I was stopped dead in my tracks.  Exhibiting some kind of hold over me, I followed him into his tent where we sat on folded legs across from each other and he proceeded to tell me his tale.  He told me that he had hypnotized me years before, as part of what he described as an elaborate test.  His last words that I remember before inky blackness were, “There are going to be bodies.” 

The next day, I was brought before the school administration regarding my early departure.  Having no memory of the event at that time, I was oblivious and dumbfounded by the accusations of me leaving the school early on the previous day.  Suddenly, in the middle of the inquisition, without any explanation, the matter was dropped and I was permitted to leave, free from any repercussions for my derelict behavior.  However, I recall as I left the room, at least one school official remained outraged over the incident, and expressed his discontent before letting the matter go. 

I next heard of the bodies in the summer of 1984.  It was late at night, and I was walking toward the beach after talking at the window of a girl that I knew, when I was surrounded by a group of youths.  Seizing my arms, they told me that their friend wanted to talk to me.  I thought that I was being jumped, and I began to curse at them loudly in the night as I attempted to fight off my perceived attackers.  At that moment, the individual for whom they were holding me approached us.  He told them to release me and I immediately became relaxed.  He then took me for a walk alone down what had once been a road, but was now merely a path through some dense overgrowth. 

He told me that we were brothers, and that our mother had given birth to me when she was fourteen and him when she was thirteen.  He said that she had given us up for adoption and that I would encounter her in the near future when I moved to New Bedford, which I was set to do at the end of the summer.  He explained that I had been hypnotized as a child, to suppress any memories or knowledge of my adoption, and he described the man who I had met up with in the woods as the one who was responsible for this.  Finally, he spoke of the bodies.  His reference was more detailed, than the vague allusion that had been made by the man in the forest.  He elaborated that there would be a string of murders that was going to take place in the not too distant future.  He said that, I would hear about these bodies turning up, and when that happened I would remember our conversation from that night and his telling me about those murders.  As we parted, I once again found my mind submerged in a river of blackness.

The next day, the girl with whom I had been talking to at her window asked me about the previous night’s events.  She had heard the commotion, and wanted to know if I knew anything about it.  I had no memory of the encounter at that time, and therefore had no idea what she was talking about. 

At the end of summer in 1984, I moved to New Bedford and began attending New Bedford High.  The school eventually became a mere meeting place, where I would hook up with my friends before heading for downtown New Bedford. There we would spend our days exploring the city and experiencing the curriculum offered by its streets.  On one of those occasions, I was with two other delinquent teens, when the three of us went into city hall to get birth certificates.  The clerk who was issuing our birth certificates informed us that one of us was adopted, and that our birth mother had us when she was only fourteen years old.  Just as had been suggested it would, the memory of this event was immediately lost to me.  However, it wasn’t lost forever, and years later when the memory of the event resurfaced, my two companions from that day corroborated it.

In 1985, while cutting school in the downtown area; I finally had my encounter with the woman who identified herself as my birth mother.  I was in the New Bedford Public Library, when she confronted me in the stairwell.  She had birth records, which had been stolen from some state or local agency, listed her as my mother, and indicated that she had been fourteen years old at the time of my birth.  She also had birth records showing that she had given birth to another son when she was thirteen.  For the first time, I found that I was able to retain this information without my knowledge or memory of it being suppressed.  I also found myself overwhelmed by unwarranted feelings of hatred toward her.  She explained that these feelings were a side effect of her telling me that she was my mother.  This was all due to posthypnotic suggestions that had been placed in my mind by the man who had hypnotized me.  When we parted ways, she told me that I was to get myself suspended from school for two weeks, and meet up with her again at the New Bedford Public Library, and once again, the memory of our encounter and any knowledge of adoption were lost to me. 

Although I had no memory of our encounter, I did manage to get myself suspended from school for two weeks as she had suggested, and as though operating on some kind of autopilot, I found myself back at the library.  As before, she showed me the birth records that she possessed, and brought me to the point where I was able to retain the information regarding adoption.  And, just as before, I was overwhelmed with uncontrollable feelings of hatred toward her.

Over the next two weeks, she laid out her plans for the future to me, filling my head with the information that she chose to provide.  She told me that my being hypnotized was a form of retaliation for her having revealed to me that I was adopted during a chance meeting between us when I was just five years old.  She described the man whom I had encountered in the woods, and explained that he had brainwashed me as a child, by using hypnosis.  The hypnosis related amnesia that I suffered was a result of my mind being placed in a state where any information regarding adoption would be suppressed, and removed from my awareness.  However, she was given the power to free me from that state, although doing so resulted in feelings of hatred toward her, induced by post hypnotic suggestion. 

Then she told me about ‘the light people’, and this provided a window into what drove and motivated her.  To explain ‘the light people’, requires a brief education on the subject of hypnosis and what happens to people when they are placed in a trance.  Where, most people when placed under hypnosis will recount memories of past lives, there are some people who tell a different story when placed under hypnosis.  They describe themselves as ‘beings of pure energy’ that travel here from another world.  Entering the physical form at birth, just as any other soul, they claim to be sent here by ‘planners’ who in turn answer to ‘master planners’.  These individuals have come to be referred to by some as ‘the light people’. 

She claimed that she was one of these ‘planners’ and that the man who had hypnotized me was the ‘master planner’.  He convinced her that he had set the whole thing up as some kind of test for her.  Her task was to free me from the hypnosis without me hating her as a result.  She said that nothing in this world mattered except this test, and it was clear that she was willing to do anything to succeed.  Unfortunately, for my part, recounting tales of brainwashing, followed by stories about ‘light people’ may only serve to incite skepticism, but as integral parts of the plot, there is no way around those disclosures. 

Finally, she told me about the bodies.  Although, she wasn’t the first to make reference to the imminent murders, she was the only one who actually claimed to be the future killer.  She said that, she was going to commit a string of serial murders.  All of the victims would be women linked to drugs.  Their addictions would make them easily lured and their association with drugs would provide a level of indifference on the part of authorities in solving their murders.  She was confident that no one would ever suspect a woman of committing the killings, including the victims themselves.  Even if they were aware that women were disappearing, they would feel safe and at ease with her.  She also claimed to possess an eidetic memory and a black belt in martial arts, which would serve as vital tools in completing her task. 

She said that, as the bodies were being discovered, I would hear about it through the media, and as the story ran in the news, it would act as a key to unlock a back door that would trigger the release of my suppressed memories.  The man who had hypnotized me planted this key during our encounter in the woods, before providing the information to her.  This back door would allow her indirectly to reveal herself to me, by granting me access to those hidden memories. 

One of those days that we spent together included a meeting with her ex-husband, who identified himself at that time, as my father.  I was stunned by the uncanny resemblance that he bore to the individual who had claimed that we were brothers back in1984.  This meeting provided at least one certainty in a future sea of doubt.  There was no question that my proclaimed brother was the son of these two individuals.  Something else significant occurred during that meeting.  She grew angry with me when I openly inquired, “Does he know about the bodies?”  Apparently, he hadn’t known about them, prior to that moment. 

As our two weeks together drew to a close, there was one final task, which she needed me to perform.  Nestled among the buildings of downtown New Bedford was a small church.  It was within that church, where she sent me to enter the confessional and inform the priest of the impending murders.  With that final seed planted, our time together was done.  However, it wasn’t the last that I would see of her and, as we went our separate ways, my memory of our time together was washed away with the promise that it would one-day return. 

In 1987, I was traveling on the highway from New Bedford to Mattapoisett, when I saw a grey van parked on the shoulder.  Standing beside the van was the individual that had identified himself as my brother in 1984 when he had alerted me to the future discovery of the bodies.  The van’s driver was a man who would later be named as my alleged brother’s unwitting accomplice in a case of attempted murder.  A few days later, I saw the grey van on the side of the highway again.  Only this time, I saw my proclaimed brother running from the woods to the van in a panic. He had the unmistakable look of someone who had just been caught in the act.  He was giving the impression of his involvement in something, which had not yet begun to take place. 

As foretold, the bodies began turning up, and in the spring of 1989 while the story of a serial killer striking the New Bedford area dominated the news, I found myself overwhelmed by the return of memories that were previously lost to me.  All of those haunting images consisted of occasions where my mind had suppressed information regarding adoption.  Laced among those recovered recollections, were the chilling images of those three individuals who spoke of impending murders years before they actually occurred. 

Just as the self-professed killer had calculated, no one ever suspected a woman of committing the crimes.  The authorities were locked into a search for a male suspect, apparently misdirected by DNA evidence, which indicated that the person they sought was a male.  This distressing knowledge accompanied some of the most disturbing memories to trouble me.  In those memories, I saw flashes of myself walking out of my residence in the north end of New Bedford subsequent to some personal recreation.  Walking into the night, I curiously found myself at the head of a path that led into the woods, where I carelessly discarded the remnants of the evening’s aforementioned activities.  On at least one of those occasions, I heard the voice of someone on the path whisper to me from the darkness.  I asked who was there, but there was no answer. 

The memories of mindlessly casting DNA samples into the woods and the mysterious voice in the night weighed  heavily on my thoughts in 2000, when as a prisoner; they collected my DNA, to enter into a database for comparison with unsolved crimes.  My concerns intensified, when after the approximate one month that it would take to process my DNA and enter it into their database, authorities announced that they were reopening the investigation into the serial killings.  I wondered; was the voice in the night, the voice of an unseen killer who lurked in the shadows, acquiring my DNA to dapple on their crime scene canvas?  Although, those fears plagued me for a time, the passage of time would eventually lay them to rest.   

Now, after decades of silence, and a journey that has led me down virtually every path of an insolvable maze, I find myself standing at the threshold of the only remaining path left to travel.  It is the path of revelation.  Pulling its rusty gate free from overgrowth’s relentless grip, I begin the long walk into the unknown, by laying my cards on the table and my soul bare.  As I traveled through my life, individuals planted the seeds of revelations regarding murders set to take place in a future of their own design.  They planted those seeds in suppressed memories with the knowledge that one day those memories would resurface.  These are things that I would never have revealed, were it not presumably the will of those who made the revelations, as they continue to test authority’s resolve to keep its own secrets safe.

 

The Back Story:

It all began with a broken promise and a lie, which sent the situation into a slow, deliberate spin that, would eventually spiral out of control. On the day that I was born, my fourteen-year-old birth mother gave me to a couple who was in the same hospital after suffering a miscarriage. Her only request was that they promise to raise me with the knowledge that I was adopted. They gave her their word, and she gave them
her son.

Unfortunately, their word was never kept. Instead, they chose to conceal my adoption from me, with the claim that they would reveal the truth when I was sixteen. The first flaw in their plan appeared when I was five, and a neighbor let it slip that I was adopted. This wasn't the first time that the subject had come up, but it was the first time that I actually had some proof. Outraged over being lied to, this led to an angry confrontation between me and my adoptive parents, who quelled the situation with denials and lies, but the distrust and animosity remained, and now they had seen a preview of how I would react to the truth if it ever were revealed.

A solution was presented by a mysterious figure who had befriended them. A psychologist specializing in hypnosis, he explained that the memory of my neighbor's revelation could be suppressed through hypnosis, as though it had never occurred. It was determined that the current situation didn't justify such extreme measures, but a tempting seed had been planted. Later that year, the circumstances changed when I was brought to a small pond where my birth mother could often be found on a Sunday morning fishing with my birth father and her one-year-old son. This was where the truth finally came to light. When I approached them, she introduced me to my younger brother and identified herself as my birth mother. With those words, the plunger was pressed, and the scene exploded. In a sudden change of strategy, my adoptive parents who had always denied that I was adopted, chose this moment to admit it, and for the first time I knew, it was true because I was hearing it from them.

They lashed out at my birth mother for revealing the truth, while I lashed· out at them for lying. My birth mother was under the impression that I knew about my adoption, and she reminded them of their promise to raise me with that knowledge. They fired back by announcing their intention to tell me when I was sixteen and stated with a sense of victory that regardless of any promise, she had no right to tell me.

The next thing I knew, I was extracted from the scene and thrown in the back seat of the car, where I continued to curse them and demand to be returned to my birth family. As we drove away, it appeared that things could not have gone worse for my adoptive parents, when in fact; they could not have gone better. Now they had the perfect scenario to justify their diabolical plans, which I heard them discussing as we headed down the road. What would seem like a lightning strike response to an unexpected development was actually months in the making.

That week, I shared my tale with my friend at school, while some of the other wide-eyed children listened intently. As I recounted my adventure, I explained how my birth mother was only fourteen when she had me and rationalized that now; she was old enough for me to be returned to her. I was unaware that it was socially unacceptable for adopted children to feel this way, or of the lengths that people would go to in order to stop it.

Focused on reuniting with my birth family, I determined that there was only one thing that stood in the way. My adoptive parents showed no intentions of relinquishing me. If the problem was that they wanted to keep me, then I needed them to want to get rid of me. I set out to accomplish this through a barrage of venomous language and vicious insults intended to make them despise me to the point that unloading me back onto my birth mother would become an attractive alternative to keeping me around. This was cruel and insensitive, but it was child's play compared to what they were planning for me. Although I was successful in getting them to despise me, the plan backfired, and rather than get rid of the monster that I now presented to them, they instead sought to destroy it.

A trap was set, baited with the thing that I wanted most at that moment. My adoptive parents finally agreed to return me to my birth family, but explained that first we had to find them, so we were going to see a man who specialized in such tasks. This was my introduction to the mysterious figure who had been skillfully manipulating things as he slid us around like chess pieces on a checkered board. Posing, as someone who specialized in finding people, this man who normally donned the cloak of a psychologist, was actually nothing but a hypnotist, and his specialty was mind control.

Blinded by my excitement over the prospect of being reunited with my birth family, I trusted my adoptive parents despite their history of lies, and followed them foolishly toward a trap door, behind which a spider was waiting. There would be no reunion with my birth family. What they had in store was an unimaginable act of betrayal and the ultimate act of revenge.

When the dust settled, the little monster that I created, who demanded to be returned to his birth family, would be replaced by a monster of their own making. Through a psychological lobotomy, I would become a mindless zombie in a cage, and they would become my captors.

When we entered his office, I was amazed by his remarkable appearance. Although, he was playing the part of a locator of lost individuals, he looked the part of a hypnotist. He was a hulking figure with deceptively angelic features that were shrouded in a head of thick, dark, curly hair and beard, emblazoned by a wisp of white that shot from his widow's peak, and large, icy blue eyes that froze you in their gaze.

As a master of his craft, the task was relatively easy. Having no idea what hypnosis was, and focused on finding my birth family, I followed his instructions to relax, as my eyelids became heavy and the sound of his voice grew hollow and dim. Slipping from consciousness, I floated helplessly into a deep oblivion, and with a snap of his fingers, I was gone.

With my mind in a trance, the Svengali chess master was in complete control of my thoughts and free to wield commands in the form of posthypnotic suggestions that I was compelled to follow. First, he instructed me that when I awoke, I would have no knowledge of being adopted and no memory of any event that concerned my adoption. That information and those memories would remain buried in my subconscious just out of reach, like deleted scenes from a video that could no longer be accessed but stayed etched somewhere on the computer's hard drive.

Additionally, any future information that I was to see or hear, which related to my adoption would be automatically suppressed as well. Now, if anyone tried to tell me that I was adopted, I would be unable to retain the information and it would be forgotten the moment that my mind processed it. He also included a provision wherein I would be overwhelmed with uncontrollable feelings of hatred and anger directed toward any person who revealed that I was adopted, forcing me to lash out at them with expressions of false loathing before the memory of the entire event was suppressed and buried in my subconscious. This was retaliation for telling my adoptive captors that I hated them for lying about my adoption. It allowed them to turn the tables, so that I would now be saying those words to anyone who tried to tell me the truth.

Next, he instructed me to move my eyes all the way to the right, then all the way to the left, and then straight up and down, forming the shape of an iron cross. From that point on, anytime that I was confronted with information that concerned my adoption, my eyes would flash through this sequence repeatedly as the memory of the event was being suppressed. This simulated the rapid eye movement that is experienced during states of deep sleep and would brand the suppressed memories of actual events with the impressions of those that occurred in my dreams, making it difficult to distinguish between the two.

In keeping with the revenge theme, I was shown a mirror, and instructed to see a warped and distorted reflection. This was the face, which would stare back at me in any future images that I saw of myself. What amounted to mental disfigurement was further payback for the insults of my campaign to make them despise me. It was the psychological equivalent to pouring acid over my head and served no tactical purpose.

With these posthypnotic suggestions in play, people who knew about my adoption, no longer had the ability to reveal that information to me. Any mention of my adoption would be met with the spectacle of my eyes flashing through their dizzying sequence, followed by my declarations of hatred toward the person, and finally my suppression of the memory as though it had never occurred. This provided a source of amusement to some sadistic individuals who would openly discuss my adoption in front of me to witness the display, creating hundreds of suppressed memories for my subconscious video library.

Because this was being done to me against my will, it meant that my true self, with all of my genuine feelings and memories, was imprisoned somewhere in the back of my mind, struggling to break free. This inner conflict could lead to uprisings by my subconscious, in which my suppressed memories would begin to resurface. If I were to reach this state of awareness, my mind would no longer block out information related to my adoption, making me receptive to the truth.

In order to get me back in my cage, my antagonists would have to lure me into a prearranged situation that involved a ritual of images and phrases designed to reinforce my brainwashing by way of posthypnotic suggestion. These visions and incantations had the power to return me to that state of oblivion where my mind would instantly suppress information related to my adoption. To spring this trap, they would need me to remain in a state of uncertainty about my adoption. Disguising my resurfaced memories as dreams was a clever tactic that would certainly keep me guessing but my nemesis required the cooperation of those who knew the truth in order to subdue me in complete disbelief. Suddenly they had the ability to reveal information to me about my adoption without my mind suppressing it so; he needed to ensure that they didn't. If they refused to remain silent or perpetuate the lie, then they could end up blowing the whole caper.

The ability to bend others to his will when there was nothing in it for them was perhaps the greatest trick that the magician would pull from his sleeve. It was inconceivable to think that anyone would go along with something so immoral, when they would never be okay with it being done to them, but somehow, they saw past their consciences and became twisted servants to an evil master.

The key to making these minions abandon their morals was providing them with a means to justify their wicked actions. This was accomplished masterfully by shifting responsibility for what was being done to me onto my birth mother. The perpetrators made the case that it was her actions that forced them to take such extreme measures. They further elaborated that she was given the ability to free me from my hypnotic prison and therefore could end it at any time, although my brainwashing would cause me to hate her as a result. By casting her as the source of my suffering and the reason that it was allowed to continue, she provided an imaginary blanket of justification to spread out over all the participants, absolving them of their own guilt-ridden roles.

What started out as just a lie had become something far worse and unimaginable. Taking on a life of its own, the juggernaut would swallow everyone in its path, turning decent, honest people into cheap worthless, liars. But anything that is based on a lie has a flaw in its foundation. All lies are threatened by the truth, and like a crack, as the lie grows it produces greater weakness in the structurer making the pressure provided by the truth ever more powerful.

Although it was being sold as an act of retaliation against my birth mother for revealing the truth about my adoption, the main objective of the nefarious plot was restoration and preservation of the lie. Following their latest exploits, my captors' obsession with keeping the truth from me had taken on a whole new meaning. There was no way they could let me find out what they had done now, so they needed to take some extra steps to cover their tracks. Since the threat of me hating her was the only thing that stood in the way of my birth mother revealing the truth and breaking my chains, the puppet master provided some added precautions to keep her in check and prevent her from taking down the house of cards.

When it came to mind games, he was the king and he had something special in store for her. It involved an unusual phenomenon, in which certain people under hypnosis will claim to be traveling entities from another world that were sent here by 'planners' who in turn answer to 'master planners'. His intention was to tell my birth mother that I had revealed myself to be one of these individuals while I was in a trance and that I had identified her as one of the 'planners'.

That set the stage for his next move, which was to present her with a perplexing predicament that was right out of this world. He would spring it on her that he was actually a 'master planner' and explain that he had created this situation as an elaborate test. Her task was to free me from the hypnosis without me hating her as a result. For that to happen, she would need me to learn the truth about my adoption, but it couldn't come from her or from anyone that she told. Nor could it be traced back to anything that she did. As farfetched as it was, with the possibility of this actually being a test looming and the uncertainty of the consequences for failure, it seemed like the smart move was to play by his rules.

Having her hands tied by impossible parameters meant that she could only bring me out of it so far and the rest was up to me. I had to find the truth out for myself, so she would have to take me to a place where I could begin to look for it. To get me there, she would need to trigger the release of my suppressed memories. This would bring me to that level of awareness where my mind was no longer suppressing information about my adoption and I could actively seek the truth.

Once she accomplished this, I would be on my own. She would be forced to turn on me and I would have to find my way through the maze alone, avoiding the perilous traps that threatened to launch me back to oblivion. In my quest for the truth, I would find myself pitted against my birth mother, whose new task would be to close the door on all roads leading back to her. She would be working against me now to ensure that I didn't learn the truth from anyone that she told, or because of anything that she did.

My hope was hanging on the hearts of those individuals who had learned the truth about my adoption through my captors and my fate was resting in their hands. Two armies had emerged on the battlefield. There were those who sought to subdue me in the clutches of evil and those who fought to free me from them. Some were forced to lie by the rules of the game, while others lied by choice. In order to end the horror show, I needed the members of the wind-up infantry who fought and lied for my captors to have a change of heart. If they could snap out of their own trances, then there was a chance that they might abandon treachery and deceit for a final rally with truth and honestly redeeming themselves in the process by rescuing me from their own attack, and applying tourniquets to wounds, which they had inflicted.

It seemed unlikely that my captor's accomplices would suddenly want to save me after working so hard toward my destruction, but not all hope was lost. Beyond the bleakness and amidst the shadows, there was a small group of rebels who had crept across the lines and slipped past the sentries. These forgotten warriors were unique because they had learned the truth about my adoption from me. They were the children at school with whom I had shared my tale and witnessed my transformation into the soulless zombie with spastic eyes. There was a provision that applied to my one friend, but the others were unaccounted for. Because they hadn't learned of my adoption from my birth mother, there was nothing in the parameters to prevent them from revealing what they knew. The only provision was that their decision to reveal the truth couldn't be influenced by her. If they were able to find it in their own hearts to come forward or if I could somehow convince them to speak out, then they could be the key to unlocking everything, including my cage. Armed with the truth, these unstoppable soldiers could take down anyone or anything that stood in their way.

May 14, 1993:

In May of 1993, I was working as a long distance truck driver, and would frequently find myself in precarious places at all hours of the night where danger often lurked in the darkness. As I crisscrossed the country, and heard truck stop tales of drivers being robbed and killed, I began to arm myself accordingly. I first acquired a knife, then a stun gun, and eventually a crossbow. I kept these weapons in a black canvas duffle bag including the crossbow, which could be easily broken down for compact storage. I was aware that crossbows and stun guns were illegal in certain states, and the potential risks of possessing such items would play a pivotal part in things to come.

On May 14, 1993, I was taking a break from my perpetual road trip around the country on a stop over in Southeastern Massachusetts. While in the area, I would usually find a couch to crash on, and this night I had landed on the couch of my childhood home on Channel Street in the Crescent Beach area of Mattapoisett. I was due to head back out on the road in the morning, and hoped to get some sleep before I left. Unfortunately, because of my odd work hours and sporadic sleep schedule as a trucker, slumber sometimes eluded me, and in the predawn hours I found myself awake and standing outside on the front porch smoking a cigarette.

Earlier I had heard the sound of something scratching on the side of the house and I walked around to investigate when I noticed a skunk lumbering through the neighbor's backyard. In the first of a series of bad moves, I went to my car and retrieved the black canvas duffle bag from the trunk, which contained my knife, stun gun, and crossbow, along with some other items including a flashlight, some arrows, and a walkman style stereo cassette player. I assembled the crossbow and went to the backyard where I fired a wild shot at the skunk before it disappeared into some brush that separated the neighbor's backyard from the yard behind it. The Crescent Beach area was a grid of dirt roads, accessible by a paved main road, which ran through it. Most of the houses in the area consisted of seasonal homes that were empty during that time of year, so I was able to walk at liberty through the open yards looking for the lost skunk.

At some point, I spotted a fox, which became the new target of my pursuit. The fox kept a safe distance, but didn't flee into the woods. It wandered through yards, allowing me to stay with it for the most part and eventually luring me down the main road to a marshy area with a small creek carved through the middle of it. I don't know what drove me to pursue a skunk or a fox in the dark of the night, but I had previously only shot my crossbow at stationary targets, and this was my first attempt at using it in a hunting type situation. With crossbows being illegal in Massachusetts, there was actually less risk in carrying one at night as opposed to walking around with it in broad daylight. However, there was always the risk of encountering a patrolling police cruiser, so I mostly kept to the shadows and stayed out of sight.

Eventually, my pursuit of the fox ended and it was time to head back. In the distance I heard a loud noise that sounded like a balloon popping. I next heard the sound of a gunning motor accompanied by tires spinning on gravel and screeching loudly as they met the pavement. The commotion seemed to come from the Channel Street area and as the accelerating engine trailed off in the distance, I thought that someone had hit something with their car and was fleeing the scene of an accident.

When I reached the house, I discovered that it was on fire. It was still dark out and an orange glow had filled the night sky. Approaching through the backyard, I panicked and ran back and forth trying to decide what to do when a window blew out and flames erupted. I saw the two propane tanks on the back of the house and realized they could explode, so I retreated to the neighboring yard behind the house. At this point, I could hear fire engines approaching in the distance and saw the distinctive flashing blue light of police car lighting up the sky, allowing me to track its movements as it came down the road and turned onto Channel Street.

Suddenly, the police car's presence reminded me that I still had my canvas duffel bag containing an illegal stun gun strapped across my shoulder. I knew that I had to get rid of it, so I ran across the street to ditch it in the woods. By the time I reached my destination, I realized that I was missing something. In the commotion, I had dropped my crossbow and it was too late to go back for it. The dreaded scenario of being arrested and fired from my job, which had played out in my head since acquiring the crossbow, was now becoming a reality. Although the discovery of the fire was deeply concerning, my thoughts were consumed by the dilemma of the crossbow and how to get out of that predicament. As I tried to resolve it in my mind, I continued walking deeper into the woods, putting further distance between me and the unfolding situation.

After a period of walking aimlessly through the woods, I became fatigued. I hadn't really slept in the past forty-eight hours and was being relentlessly attacked by mosquitoes. I still didn't know the seriousness of the fire, but when I heard helicopters overhead, I thought that it was a bad sign. I had discarded my knife and stun gun in a small pond, but still had my walkman radio in my duffel bag, and learned through news accounts that there were fatalities. My concerns about the crossbow suddenly became irrelevant. I stopped at the site of my 1983 encounter with the man who claimed to have hypnotized me and spoke of the impending 'bodies'. The canvas tarp from his makeshift tent lay buried under a blanket of pine needles right where he had left it. I placed my duffel bag under the tarp and as I proceeded to make my way out of the woods, I thought about everything that he had done to me and wondered how this latest turn of events fit into his twisted master plan?

While working my way back to the scene of the fire, I encountered two State Police Detectives on the path. After an initial tense moment in which I was pat frisked, I identified myself and they said that I was the person they were looking for. I told them that I expected to see them, having heard the news reports of the fire on the radio. They asked where my radio was, and whether I had brought anything else with me into the woods. I led them to the duffel bag, which contained my walkman radio and then showed them the small pond where I had discarded my knife and stun gun. During this time, they attempted to question me about the fire. I didn't know anything about the fire other than what I had heard and seen, but was intending to come clean about my illicit activities with the crossbow. At that point, I just wanted to get out of the woods, so I told them that I would talk to them, but that I didn't want to do it there. It was then decided that they would take me to the police station for questioning.

As we walked through the woods, they continued to pepper me with questions. They said that they needed to know what happened back at the house. I told them that they knew what happened. There was a fire and the house burned down. They said that they understood that, but needed to know why the fire happened, and asked me if I was responsible for setting it? I just kept shaking my head, 'No.' and the more I became aware of what they were accusing me, the less I felt like talking to them. We exited the woods to a waiting police car that drove us to the station. When we arrived, I was given a paper to sign, which informed me of my rights during questioning. I told them that I would answer their questions, but that I wanted to exercise my right to have an attorney present. This didn't sit well with them, and while I was working to obtain an attorney through the Public Counsel Service, they were obtaining warrants to seize my clothing and search my car.

I never got a chance to give my statement. When my attorney arrived, he shut down the interrogation. He explained to me that the District Attorney had declared that the fire was arson and they had zeroed in on me as their suspect. He said that they were coming for me and it was his job to defend me. He made me assure him that I would not discuss the case with anyone and after surrendering my clothing to police; I was free to leave while the devious authorities went to work framing a case against me.

The deceptions began when the two detectives that I encountered in the woods sat down together several hours afterward and crafted an account of our meeting. Instead of sitting down separately and recounting their individual recollections while writing their own reports, these two collaborated on their statement to avoid any inconsistencies. This tactic allowed them to use their imaginations and make certain omissions without contradicting each other. Detectives routinely engage in these creative writing exercises in order to conceal violations of a suspect's rights or to bolster their case against someone they believe to be guilty. However, when people fabricate facts, they often make mistakes and leave holes in their stories. In this case, the deceitful detectives showed their hand when they wrote in the initial affidavit for the search warrant applications, 'When confronted, the suspect made the statements, "I know why you're here." and "You already know what happened.'" Later while constructing their joint report, they added, 'When asked why he didn't run, the suspect responded, "It's no fun hiding.'" This was a lie, which actually referenced a comment that one of the detectives had made. He had asked me why I didn't run and when I didn't respond, He said, "I guess it's no fun hiding. Huh?" The fact that there was no mention of the far more problematic statement in the earlier applications for the warrants exposes its origins. Such an ominous reply would have been the lead statement in their affidavit and not a mere afterthought in the subsequent report.

Three days later, I was arrested and charged with arson and murder after hypersensitive testing revealed microscopic traces of a petroleum based product on my sneakers. As a truck driver who pumped my own gas and fuel, it would be surprising if I didn't have traces of petroleum on my footwear. Anyone who uses a self-service fueling station will likely pick up traces of petroleum on their shoes through simple contact with the surface around a fuel pump and will inadvertently have drops of petroleum land on their footwear when removing the nozzle from the vehicle after fueling. As oil based products, those substances will linger.

In other results of their investigation, authorities said they found the melted remnants of a red plastic gas can in the debris around the front entryway of the house. Additionally, first responders described seeing an oily sheen on the water after the fire was extinguished and wood samples taken from scent dog alerts on the foyer and stairs leading up to the second floor, tested positive for traces of petroleum. However, a retired firefighter that lived across the street, described seeing a gas can like the one that was found, being stored in that general area in a nook beside a large wood box on the front porch, in the days leading up to the fire. Another firefighter who was active at the scene, reported entering the structure and making his way up the stairs, which would have led him right through the water with the oily sheen, contaminating the alleged crime scene by tracking trace evidence along his path.

Following my arrest, one detective found his way to the local service station to inquire if anyone had purchased gas in a red container during the previous week? This fishing expedition produced some of the most puzzling and frustrating evidence against me. The clerk reported that someone fitting my description had come into the station on May 13, and attempted to purchase gas in a milk jug. The clerk told the customer that he could not sell him gas in a plastic milk jug, and when the man asked, "Why?" the clerk explained that it was illegal. After arguing briefly and insisting that he 'needed the gas', the patron was allowed to purchase gas in a government approved red plastic container. The clerk also claimed that the customer was unable to operate the self-service pump and required assistance. After overfilling the container, he loaded the gasoline soaked item into his vehicle, which was parked around the corner. The clerk was shown a photo array from, which he identified my picture as the person who purchased gas that day.

Having worked at a gas station, I am fully aware that you cannot put gas in a plastic milk jug and would never attempt to do so. I was also completely capable of operating a gas pump without requiring assistance, and could have easily retrieved gasoline from the tank on my car if I needed it so badly. I would have accepted this as a case of mistaken identity, but I was troubled by some of the more questionable assertions made by the clerk. He claimed that he didn't know who I was and had never seen me before, despite having both grown up in a small town, and crossing paths thousands of times. He also denied seeing any news coverage of the fire or my arrest and insisted that he didn't discuss the case with anyone prior to picking my photo out of the lineup. His convenient answers made his involvement feel somewhat staged. Admitting to those things would have called his whole story into question. If he knew who I was and was aware of the fire, he would have come forward with his claims immediately and not had to identify me from a photo array. He also claimed to remember all of these details about the encounter, but couldn't remember anything about what the person was wearing.

By injecting himself into the case, he was able to ingratiate himself with authorities, who let him off the hook when they discovered him one night with teenaged boys and alcohol behind the town middle school. Eventually, his bad behavior caught up with him and he pled guilty to child molestation charges a couple of years later.

Questionable identifications aside, it was a deeply disturbing coincidence to have someone fitting my general description make such a spectacle of himself while purchasing gas at a local service station the day before I'm accused of setting a fatal fire. The description of his vehicle was even similar to mine except that, his was described as being covered in patches of rust, which mine was not. Another factor showed it was not my vehicle. The person who purchased gas had overfilled the container and placed it in their car. However, the authorities had their canine go through my entire car and found no traces of an accelerant on any part of the interior.

As the nightmare unraveled, I was brought before a District Court Judge and held without bail after prosecutors provided a preliminary presentation of their case against me. They laid out an impossible scenario, which had me pouring over two gallons of gasoline down a darkened stairway at night without splashing any of it on my clothing except for microscopic traces on my sneakers. They then hypothesized that I somehow ignited this volatile pool, although they provided no explanation for how I could have done so without being severely injured by the resulting fireball that would be sure to follow. They also implied that there was something sinister about a bag of clothes that were in my car, knowing that I was scheduled to leave on a road trip that morning. There was another item in my car that would play a much larger part in their case. Police seized a soft leather briefcase from the trunk of my car, containing written materials and recordings related to a book that I had written, which was based on my experience with resurfaced memories regarding adoption and hypnosis. I had been directed to write this book by my birth mother years earlier, unaware that I was creating evidence to be used against me in a future frame up.

In the dirtiest move imaginable, authorities revealed their intentions to deliver the ultimate act of deception. They would misuse my book, by distorting it with a false narrative in order to portray it as evidence of a motive. Prosecutors claimed that the fire was an act of retaliation for what they characterized as an incorrect belief that I was adopted and had been hypnotized as a child to conceal the information from me. The problem with this approach was that they were knowingly basing their entire case on a lie. It was a brazen move considering the number of people who knew the truth about my childhood brainwashing and could easily call them on it. There was no way that everyone of those potential witnesses would allow the authorities to proceed with such a plot.

My confidence in those potential plot spoilers was confirmed in a phone call with my attorney following that initial court appearance. Speaking to him from a jail cell, my attorney informed me that people were beginning to 'come forward'. I asked him who the people were and he identified the names of several Crescent Beach residents who I knew to have firsthand knowledge of my adoption and hypnosis. He didn't want to discuss what was said to him over the phone but, assured me that he was aware of the truth about my situation and would be coming to speak with me in person.

A few weeks later, my attorney visited me in lockup and I pressed him for the specifics of what he had learned from those individuals that came forward. He said that before he would divulge any details of their revelations, he needed to know if I was responsible for setting the fire. When I told him that I was not, he refused to elaborate further on what was revealed to him. I was troubled by the fact that he was withholding information from me and pointed out that his unusual ultimatum would call any resulting confession into obvious question. Although he kept quiet on the comments of those who came forward, he did tell me that he tracked down my alleged birth mother and learned that she was seeing a psychiatrist because she believed that she had been hypnotized as a teenager to suppress her memory of giving up two children for adoption. I didn't know what her game was but, I told him that she wasn't going to help us and he responded by insisting that she was.

Several weeks after that, my attorney filed a motion in the District Court to have the case dismissed and the judge allowed it. I walked out of the courthouse free from all charges only to be rearrested a few hours later and brought before the same judge the next day who lambasted the prosecutor for not challenging his ruling through proper appeals proceedings. He released me again from his court and issued an order barring authorities from arresting me a third time. This prompted the prosecutor to railroad an indictment against me and, after voluntarily appearing in the Superior Court, I was granted a low bail and spent the next two years awaiting trial on the street.

My attorney's success at having the case dismissed and securing my new found freedom lulled me into a false sense of security, compounded by a blind faith in his abilities, which would ultimately come back to haunt me. Behind the scenes and beyond the event horizon, pressure was mounting on my attorney to turn on me. The first warning signs of his imminent defection appeared immediately after my release, when he bunkered in his office in response to a barrage of angry phone calls from members of the commonwealth, which he likened to having opened a hornet's nest. I was unaware of the influence that the commonwealth wielded over a public defender, dependent on highly prized appointments to murder trials and unwittingly watched as their pressure campaign put him in check and ensured his cooperation with their ongoing charade.

The false sense of security blanket was snugged even tighter around my neck by conversations with some of the witnesses who had come forward with information following my arrest. When I was finally able to speak with them, two of the individuals apologized for their roles in what had been done to me and confirmed that my attorney was made aware of the truth about my adoption and hypnosis. I was given assurances that they would testify to those facts in court and expose the authorities' misrepresentation of the circumstances surrounding my childhood brainwashing. Unfortunately, there was an undercurrent of culpability that appeared when one individual expressed a fear that the authorities would arrest everyone involved as accomplices to mind control and murder. Meanwhile, the shadowy figure who had led them down this dark path remained noticeably absent. Nobody seemed to know what happened to the mysterious hypnotist who had orchestrated the evil that was unleashed on me. With a swirl of his cape, he had vanished along with his entire existence. Since there were no public attempts to locate or even acknowledge him, it was the ultimate disappearing act, worthy of his 'master planner' persona.

Despite being long gone, my nemesis' grip on the situation remained strong and was clearly visible at my trial where prosecutors laid out their case against me in the alternate reality, which he had created. Although they were fully aware of the truth regarding my adoption and hypnosis, authorities perjured themselves in open court by misrepresenting those facts as figments of my imagination. It was a new low even for these bottom feeders, which went way beyond moral or ethical violations and crossed the line to being criminal. The fact that the prosecution didn't want the jury to hear the truth about the elusive hypnotist who seized control of my mind when I was five or how he had suddenly disappeared at the same time that the fire occurred, was evidence of their own doubts regarding my guilt. If they felt that this information could  cause a jury to question my responsibility for the alleged crime, then they had already deemed it worthy of such deduction in their own minds.

The Commonwealth could never have carried out their underhanded actions without the quiet cooperation of the countless witnesses who had firsthand knowledge of my childhood brainwashing and the power to expose the truth at any  time. Their silence was crucial to the ruse and, while most made their contributions by remaining in the shadows, a handful of henchmen rallied behind the prosecutor and rather than take a stand against him, they took to the stand for him and testified against me. I was left to rely on the empty assurances of some not so former foes who were unfortunately destined to double cross me.

The sadistic game in, which participants attempt to convince someone that he is losing his mind, when in fact they have stolen it, had taken a terrible turn with the target of this treachery on trial for murder. Those left holding the ball by their lost leader, were doubling down on the madness and digging themselves in deeper when they should have been bailing. They seemed hell bent on playing this evil contest out to the end and achieving the ultimate goal of my total destruction.

Amidst the barrage of betrayal, there was no greater traitor than my own slithering attorney who allowed the prosecution's deceptive tactics despite having both the ability and an obligation to stop them. Through his unprecedented cooperation, the opposition was able to introduce hand picked witnesses and written materials, which presented proof of my personal revelations regarding adoption and hypnosis while avoiding any evidence that substantiated those unusual circumstances to be true. Instead of calling them out on the deception and revealing the truth about my childhood hypnotizing, my complacent attorney stuck to the prosecution's deceitful script and, played out his case under the same false narrative with some embellishments of his own. He basically conceded that there was no validity to my adoption and hypnosis by giving the fraudulent impression that those were merely misguided notions from years earlier, which I no longer believed to be true. In painting this false picture of the facts, he was putting words in my mouth while I sat in silence and appeared to endorse those lies.

In a trial full of fabrications, it was inevitable that some of those swirling falsehoods would be attributed to me. Although I sat silent while being buried beneath the pile of lies, I had no intention of remaining that way and planned to crawl my way out by taking the stand when the time came, and revealing the truth about the extraordinary circumstances that surrounded my situation.

There were too many unanswered questions and false allegations for me not to take the stand. I had to explain the events that led to my encounter with detectives in the woods. Although I could explain what I was doing, I couldn't answer why I was walking around with a crossbow chasing shadows in the night when the house I had been in ended up on fire. The trouble with being brainwashed is that you wind up doing and saying things, which are beyond your control and can only be explained by the one who cast the spell. 

I also had to respond to the outlandish allegation that I stumbled into the local service station the day before the fire and caused a scene while making a bungling attempt to purchase gas in a plastic milk jug. It was too much of a coincidence for someone fitting my description to have randomly incriminated me in such a way. In my experience, nothing happened by chance, and every painstaking occurrence went down exactly according to the diabolical plans of a man who had an unusual knack for making people and things go his way.

One of his primary chess pieces was my birth mother who served as the queen and played a critical role in my conviction through her treacherous contributions to the falsified and circumstantial evidence that was stacked against me. She led me to create a trail of written materials and conversations related to my adoption and hypnosis that were deceptively used to incriminate me. However, it was her brazen false statements and testimony, which openly revealed her goal of getting me convicted and demonstrated a direct involvement in my undoing.

If she wanted to incriminate me further by orchestrating the conspicuous gasoline purchase, she certainly had the means, with someone who could be mistaken for me at her disposal. Just as she influenced my older brother in his preemptive portrayal of a pseudo serial killer on the side of the highway, she could have easily sent my younger brother to participate in the performance at the local service station.

My birth mother's belief that she was being tested by the self-proclaimed 'master planner' who hypnotized me, meant that he called the shots and it was his will that I be condemned for the crimes, which I was accused. While setting me up on murder charges did not seem very sporting, it certainly wasn't surprising considering everything else that had been done to me. Seeing me sentenced to a slow, methodical death by incarceration was just the natural culmination of the evil that was unleashed on me when I was five years old.

For the hypnotist, it was never really about what he could do to me or how much I could endure. The challenge was in seeing how far he could take it, and how many rats would be willing to follow. With each line they crossed, the participants journeyed further down the dark path of a succubus who fed greedily on the souls of those he enslaved.

Unfortunately, my plan to take the stand was sidelined by a perfect storm of deception and the truth never made it to trial. The effort to prevent me from telling my side of the story was led by my attorney who was determined to keep the prosecution's false narrative in play. His insistence that I not testify was coordinated with a campaign of empty assurances meant to muzzle me.

He promised a parade of witnesses, which would include an arson investigator who determined the cause of fire to be accidental, followed by a private investigator who would testify to contradictory statements made by the gas station attendant and finally, my former boss from the service station where I once worked to refute the suggestion that I would be foolish enough to attempt purchasing gasoline in a plastic milk jug. He argued that his array of witnesses would make it unnecessary for me to take the stand and he kept his claims to call these people going right up until the end when he abruptly rested his case without summoning a single one of them to testify.

While my attorney attempted to deter me from testifying with false promises of intended defense witnesses, another factor weighed into the equation. I was in the precarious position of having to prove the truth about my adoption and hypnosis with only my words, against a backdrop of lies that were laid out by the prosecutor and affirmed by my own attorney. Although there were countless individuals who could have backed me up, none of them showed any interest in
helping me. Even those who had privately revealed the truth were reluctant to do so publicly.

Although I couldn't physically produce anyone at trial to verify that they knew the truth about my adoption and hypnosis, I did have evidence to show that such people existed. Authorities were strategically going to introduce excerpts of me discussing adoption on recordings, which they had seized from my car. I knew that one of those tapes contained a conversation between me and another individual, which not only confirmed that others knew about my adoption, it also showed that my mind was actively suppressing information related to the subject in the spring of 1989.

I alerted my attorney to the corroborating conversation, which was contained on one of the tapes and insisted that it be introduced into evidence in support of my intended testimony. I next observed the prosecution listening to the tapes in the courtroom and was later informed by my attorney that no such conversation could be found on any of the recordings. It was a devastating blow but, no surprise that the prosecutors would deny the existence of evidence, which revealed the truth when they had worked so hard to conceal it. Whether it was just another lie, or the evidence was actually destroyed, didn't matter. It meant that my only proof was off the table and I assumed lost forever.

There was one other chance to corroborate the fact that some psycho had brainwashed me but it came with a catch. If all else failed, the individuals who came forward to my attorney when I was first arrested would testify to the truth but, only in the aftermath of a conviction. This understanding was reiterated by my attorney who, after insisting that I let the trial proceed on its current course, assured me that any possible conviction would be immediately overturned by exposing the prosecution's false portrayal of the facts surrounding the case. Unfortunately, my treacherous attorney's compliance with that false narrative had painted me into a corner. With no way of forcing my reluctant backup witnesses to reveal the truth at trial, I had no choice but to let things play out on their terms and hope that they would come through for me as promised if the whole thing went south.

At one point in the trial, the deceptive tactics of the prosecution took a darker and more sinister turn when they displayed graphic photos in the courtroom, depicting postmortem thermal injuries to promote a false finding by their colleague in the Medical Examiner's Office that death resulted from thermal exposure in addition to smoke inhalation. In his report, the Medical Examiner found traces of soot in the airways and lethal levels of carbon monoxide in the bloodstream, which are consistent with death from smoke inhalation. However, he found no traces of thermal injuries to the airways, which is a key factor in establishing death due to thermal exposure. This shows that the victims of the deadly fire had already succumbed to smoke inhalation and were no longer breathing when their bodies were exposed to the superheated air that caused the horrific outer thermal injuries depicted in the photos. This evidence is supported by the first eyewitnesses on the scene who described the fire as being located on the south side of the house while all signs of life had already ceased from within. The occupants were later located in the north end of the home where, the fire eventually reached after burning for an additional twenty minutes before being extinguished.

To the friends and family members of anyone who perishes in a house fire, there is little comfort in knowing that they died from smoke inhalation when considering the horror of being trapped in a burning building. However, it is beyond callous and cruel for a prosecutor to conjure up false images of someone burning alive in order to invoke an emotional response from jurors, with total disregard for the emotions of others.

In the end, conviction was a foregone conclusion and deliberations merely a formality, judging by the two hours and ten minutes that the jury spent deciding my fate before returning to the courtroom and pulling the lever. Although the head snapping verdict was sudden and swift, there is no reason to think that further contemplation would have produced a different result considering the fact that no one can be expected to see the truth when they've been kept in the dark and told nothing but lies.

While lies provided a foundation for the jury's misconception of the case against me, it was what they didn't hear that caused the most devastating damage. The jurors never heard the truth regarding my adoption and hypnosis from any of the countless witnesses with firsthand knowledge who could have exposed the fact that the prosecution's entire case was based on a lie. There was no mention of the man who had hypnotized me or the convenient vanishing act that he pulled around the time of the fire. They never even heard about my resurfaced memories and were left with the impression that I just got it in my head one day that I was adopted and hypnotized without any explanation of what brought me to that conclusion. This was in part because the prosecutor was walking a line between presenting evidence to show that I believed I had been brainwashed without revealing it to be true while, simultaneously convincing the jury that I was crazy enough to commit murder but, not too crazy to be held accountable.

Of all the silence that stifled the truth, it was my own, which appeared the most deafening. Being duped into not testifying meant that the jury never heard any explanation for what I was doing in the woods for so long or how I ended up there in the first place. They never heard about my crossbow or stun gun because the judge suppressed those items for being prejudicial and having nothing to do with the alleged crime.

If I hadn't been sidelined, I would have brought truth and transparency to the stand, regardless of anyone's appetite for it. I would have related my experience of being overwhelmed with resurfacing memories, which revealed the hidden horrors of my past, and then I would have called out those who had corroborated the recovered recollections whether they were ready to admit it or not. I also would have admitted to the hostility that I had toward those responsible for what was done to me, despite my attorney's attempts to downplay that animosity. Although it may have made me less empathetic, it didn't set me in motion to commit murder and I had no interest in seeing anyone lose their lives. While my  antagonists had made some despicable choices, I still saw them as manipulated victims of the same evil master who preyed upon me.

I can't say if my testimony would have changed any minds on the jury. Trying to convince them of the truth regarding my adoption and hypnosis without any proof, could have just fed into the false narrative of the prosecutor and my attorney that I was deranged and delusional regarding those matters. Only the jurors themselves could say if they would have seen things differently had they known the actual truth.

Following my conviction, I looked to those individuals who had come forward to my attorney to make good on the assurance that they would reverse the conviction by revealing the truth. However, only a fool trusts in the hearts of cowards and it was soon evident that my reluctant liberators would remain in the shadows and leave me for dead. There was a brief glimmer of hope when I was visited by one of the backsliders who vowed to rescue me from my wrongful conviction and see the prosecutor charged with perjury for his criminal misrepresentations. I later learned that that he would not be speaking up for fear of reprisals. One note of interest on this particular individual is how he once showed me a letter that he wrote to investigators of the New Bedford Highway Killings in, which he described the scene of my brother running from the woods to a gray van parked on the shoulder. This confirmed my own resurfaced memory of the incident and demonstrated a willingness on the part of authorities to overlook some perceivable connections to those crimes.

I knew that I was in trouble when the individuals who were supposed to expose the truth and have my conviction instantly overturned, started talking about waiting to see what happened with the direct appeal, which was a process that could take years to play out. There was one outrageous suggestion that a belief in my innocence was the only thing stopping those unwilling witnesses from revealing the truth. As long as they were sure that the fire was an accident, they could continue to imagine that there was nothing wrong with brainwashing a child and avoid publicly having to acknowledge their own participation in the treachery. However, if it was believed that I actually had committed murder, then they would be compelled to put a stop to the disturbing mind game that could have culminated in such a crime. By this backward thinking, they would be willing to let me rot in prison for something that I didn't do while, only coming to my rescue for something that they thought I did. 

The concept of providing a confession in exchange for the truth being exposed about my adoption and hypnosis was first introduced by my attorney when he visited me in lockup following my initial arrest. At the time, I had no intention of admitting to something that I didn't do in order to trigger the truth to be revealed. However, a new set of circumstances had left me with nothing to lose and I was desperate enough to try anything that could stop the train from barreling off the cliff. I figured that I could give them their false confession and once the truth was out, I could recant. My journey down this road was short lived and I found myself unable to follow through with the plan. Even if there was a chance of making it all go away, I couldn't bring myself to claim responsibility for something I didn't do. It only had a slim chance of succeeding anyway with it's reliance on a group of individuals who had repeatedly shown an unwillingness to do the right thing. Besides, they were still putting everything on my birth mother and hiding behind the excuse that she should be the one to reveal the truth, when in fact it was the hypnotist and his helpers who had caused all the chaos.

In the years that followed the aftermath of my conviction, I've fought futilely for exoneration while those who could free me with a few simple words, have gone about their lives in complete indifference. Their silence has robbed me of twenty five years and allowed a corrupt prosecutor and defense attorney to go unchecked, creating unknown numbers of other wrongful convictions in their wake.

Although my fight for freedom has met a wall at every turn, I continue to battle the invisible dragon while blindfolded, shackled, and armed with only a quill. Through my efforts, I learned of a mystery witness who reported seeing a black car racing from the Crescent Beach area around the time of the fire. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain the name of this individual and the trail has gone cold. I also learned that the authorities had concocted a story in, which they claimed to have actually found two melted gas cans in the debris but were only allowed to present evidence of one. This was an underhanded attempt to turn supportive witnesses against me by trying to convince them that the fire was not an  accident. This type of deceptive tactic is often used by investigators to turn suspects on one another and with no public admonishments over the practice, it continues to take a toll on the wrongfully accused.

In another twist, they changed the law in 2007, making it possible for Massachusetts adoptees to obtain copies of their original unamended birth certificates. Although, this wouldn't prove that I was hypnotized, it would allow me to show that the prosecutor perjured himself regarding my adoption. In December of 2014, I applied for a copy of my original unamended birth certificate and five months later, I received an undated response from a woman of unknown title on Registry of Vital Records and Statistics letterhead claiming that no amendment to my birth record could be found. I had already confirmed the fact that I was adopted so, this was about acquiring proof, which apparently the Commonwealth wasn't prepared to provide.

One of the greatest hindrances on my struggle for freedom was imposed by my former attorney when he failed to turn over my trial file, which is an  essential tool in any post conviction campaign. Although a request for assistance from the Bar Overseers failed to produce any of the missing documents, it did prompt my former attorney to relinquish four cassette tapes that were in his possession and turned out to contain copies of the original tapes that were seized from my car. Upon reviewing the long lost discovery materials in the prison law library, I discovered that one of the tapes contained the conversation corroborating my adoption and hypnosis, which the prosecutor and my attorney claimed could not be located on the originals. Somehow, it had survived and was in my attorney's possession the whole time. Despite the efforts to cover their tracks, they had let a crucial piece of evidence slip through their fingers and right into my hands.

It's one thing to have proof but, it's another to be able to use it and in  order to do that, you need to find someone who will listen. With no other options available, I turned to the Committee for Public Counsel Services, which was the same state agency that had given me my trial attorney and continued to unleash him on unsuspecting defendants in capital cases. It was no surprise when they rejected my October 2018 request for assistance. However, I was not expecting the woman who made the call to go a step further and assert that even if I could prove that the prosecutor lied about my adoption and hypnosis, it would not be grounds for reversal because the question before the jury was whether or not I had set the fire. This mind boggling assessment gave the prosecutor a free pass to commit perjury in order to obtain a conviction at any cost.

I was confused by the Staff Counsel's conclusion because the case law states that a conviction can be reversed over the presentation of any false or misleading evidence, which might have been a factor in the jury's deliberations. Only the jury can know if they would have been influenced by the knowledge that the prosecutor deceived them. Of course, nobody wants to think that they condemned an innocent person to die in prison so it's easier to convince themselves that they made the right call. However, if even one juror acknowledged that they might have thought differently had they known the truth about my being brainwashed and the abrupt absence of the man responsible, it could overturn my conviction and give me a shot at a fair trial where the truth might actually have a chance to prevail.

Throughout my life, I was under attack from lies, which culminated in a final barrage meant to annihilate me at trial. While the lies had done a number on me, it was silence that proved to be my greatest enemy. With silence stifling the truth, there was nothing to stop the lies from flourishing. Telling 'My Story' is about breaking that silence and revealing the truth no matter what the result. An attorney would say that in the world of perception, total transparency is a risky endeavor. However, there is little to risk when you have nothing to lose.

For those who know the truth and have perpetuated the lie through either their words or their silence, I think of the twenty five years that their contribution has cost me and wonder how they are able to exist without a soul. It's been said that it's one thing to know that you can't find anyone who is willing to do something despicable for you, but if you can't find one person who is willing to do something righteous for you, then you truly are alone.

 

“Afterword”

I set out on the path of revelation with a monumental task before me. I was attempting to expose the truth of what was done to me at the same time as I was trying to change the hearts and minds of the very people I was calling out for playing a role. While it may sound simple, finding the words to tell my story was excruciating and people aren’t always receptive to the concepts of truth and honesty in a harsh universe where fear and skepticism fill the void.

Placing a message in a bottle and casting it into the sea without knowing if that message will ever reach anyone is an undeniable act of desperation. As my words float aimlessly across a chasm in hopes of being heard, somewhere out there lurks an army with the power to free me sheathed tightly at their sides. Despite astounding numbers and the truth clenched in their teeth and hands, these hollow heroes remain frozen like empty suits of armor with echoes in place of hearts. Cold blooded cowards who would lay down like desolate highways with yellow stripes down their backs, when they should stand.

Perched precariously upon a trapdoor, pending a plunge into darkness, I curse my captors and their quiet cohorts who dance before me in a sea of black holes with toothy grins and sinewy claws that scratch at the lever. Caped and cowled demons wielding spiked scythes who have declared war on my soul.

I no longer recognize friend from foe as the battle lines have blurred between my allies and adversaries who now stand united in silence. In my quest to bring the truth to light, I have descended down into the pit to reach the level of my enemies in vain attempts to draw them from beneath their rocks, only to see them smile at my suffering and take pleasure in watching me struggle against my binds as the tracks begin to rattle.

The time for providing amusement with pointless pleadings to gleeful tormentors has reached its end as the curtain closes on those wasted efforts and the remnants of my urgings finally fall silent. Whatever mysterious motivation wriggles through the minds of my enemies and drives them to inflict such sadistic evil upon me is beyond comprehension. They act as if fueled by hatred while hell bent on vengeance although it is unclear why I should be the recipient of that rage or what would possibly possess them to ever take it this far.

I’ve lost sight of everyone who had a hand in this as all lines to the past have been severed and even those who were once willing to reveal the truth and thought to be pulling for me have either gone dark or lie dormant. For now, it seems that their secret is safe and remains in the shadows, impervious to all attempts at exposure. However the strange force that somehow stifles my story is sustained by my existence, subjecting it to a shelf life, which expires when I do and guarantees that when I’m gone, there will be nothing left to stop the truth from rising. Eventually, all will be revealed, including those details of my story that were too mind boggling to mention. The only question is whether I’ll be around to see it?

At this point, it appears that my opponents have no intention of ever coming clean while I’m alive and many would probably prefer to have the truth be buried along with me as the only perceivable witness who could tie them to the crime. When the clock finally runs out on these culprits and the truth finds its way to the forefront, either through my doing or by way of my demise, there will be nowhere to hide for any conspirator whose undeniable involvement could place them in the crosshairs of public scrutiny where a minefield of questions awaits. Before they begin dancing in front of a firing squad, they should realize that it’s always better to get out ahead of the truth than to let the truth get out ahead of you. Once the truth is knocking at your door, redemption is already out the window.

With no help on the horizon from anyone whose firsthand knowledge of my situation could free me, I look to those who have no familiarity with my story and are being brought into the fold for the first time through  my induction. Unlike others who have been sworn to secrecy upon discovering the truth in the shadows, these innocent bystanders have no allegiance and are free to share what they have learned with whomever they choose. Absent any guilt or otherworldly parameters set forth by some self-professed master planner, they could provide a foothold for the truth to begin its final ascent toward exposure.

While one head of the monster already knows the truth and only needs to be convinced of developing a conscience, the other is completely in the dark and has a more difficult road to enlightenment. Unfortunately, mine is an impossible tale that is fraught with too many unanswered questions and head scratching coincidences designed to disillusion even the most open-minded individual. I understand why anyone who stumbles across my story for the first time may be skeptical since I have often wondered myself how it is even possible that something like this could ever be allowed to happen. However, I don’t have the luxury of doubt having lived through the experience and being forced to face the reality of it every day.

It’s difficult to imagine how something this vast could have permeated and corrupted so many while somehow staying below the radar, Traveling by whisper and murmur like an old-time urban legend has kept my story off the grid and allowed it to remain in the shadows where there is no way of knowing just how far the darkness has spread or how many people it has enveloped. This open account shines a light on my story for the first time in a public arena where anyone can access its raw form without the conditions imposed by filters or constraints.

When the truth is hard to swallow, people often look for the easy solution to that which they don’t understand and applying plausible explanations to an incomprehensible situation provides  an imagined sense of order to an otherwise chaotic reality. Filling in the holes with uninformed suppositions about my sincerity or my rationality only serves to discredit me and move us further from the truth and deeper into the realm of doubt where unanswered questions and false narratives become truth and revelation’s downfall.

I make no apologies for stating fact and don’t answer to anyone who has capitalized on my compromised condition for things I may have said or done while under the influence of another. My story is real and everything happened just as I described it. Many of these people are still out there and know this to be true. For the unknowing, the tendency to dismiss my disturbing tale in favor of a more user-friendly fallacy may seem like an alluring alternative to the truth but in order to defeat evil and corruption of this magnitude, we must first acknowledge that they exist.

To the skeptic, the idea of trying to change the world with only our words is like throwing darts at the moon but, for the believer, words are like a rocket ship and provide the perfect pathway to launching a revolution.

 

*Important Message:  Please Read*

Seeking witnesses:  on May 14, 1993 there was a fatal fire during the predawn hours on Channel St. in the Crescent Beach area at Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.   At that time, a mystery witness reported seeing a black car racing from the mostly deserted community of seasonal homes at a high rate of speed, while two other witnesses reported hearing tires screeching.

On the previous day, across town, another mystery witness described as a man in his early twenties with short, dark hair and possibly driving a small, beige car was observed attempting to purchase gasoline with an empty one gallon plastic milk jug at the local Mobil station.  Reportedly, this man argued with the clerk who denied his request while allowing him to purchase some gasoline in a small, red, plastic, government-approved container.

Unfortunately, I'm all too aware that it's been over 25 years, but if anyone who is reading this has or knows anyone with relevant information regarding these matters, or can dispute any of the claims made by authorities in this case, it is imperative that I speak with you.    Please contact me directly through the address/email provided by this site.

Thank you.