Woman's Work: Jailhouse Confessions

You want to know what made me kill eleven men. How I could do what I did and not feel remorse over the taking of human life? How a young woman just 18 years old could do all this? I guess I could tell you; mind you this is a hard story to tell. As I never planned to have to ever tell anyone. I even took measures against it; just I did not succeed in my greatest act. I don't exactly know where to start. I suppose the easiest place to start would be the summer that I turned 12, as it lays out most of the ground work for what occurred later in my life.

I remember that Mama was upset and ignored me a lot. She was working down at the grocery store all day. I was left at home to do what ever it is that normal 12 year olds do, the only problem was that I didn't know what normal 12 year olds did. I was finally at that age where a girl really needs her Mama around her. When I entered woman hood I was afraid that I was going to die. Scared, I went across the street and asked Mrs. Johnson if she could take me to the doctors. She asked me what was wrong, worried that I had hurt myself. I told her that I was bleeding, from down there. She smiled and told me I wasn't going to die. She helped me out while Mama was working. I spent most of the rest of that summer hanging around Mrs. Johnson's house, playing with two of her three boys, Jimmy and Bobby. Jimmy was 13 and Bobby was only 10. Jimmy and I often played tricks on young Bobby, it was just too easy. Mrs. Johnson's third son's name was Michele; he was 15 and too "cool" to play with his younger brothers and "a freaky girl" from across the street. I didn't really like Michele.

Well it was this summer that Mama brought home, "Uncle Phil". He wasn't really my uncle. In a few years I would come to understand that Mama was committing adultery with him. By the end of the summer Phil was living in our house. Oh, I should mention right now that I never knew my father. Mama once told me that my father was a trucker that she met when she lived in Indiana, but when she found out she was pregnant she left. With Phil in the house Mama ignored me even more than before. I was required to cook supper every night and to make sure the house was clean.

It was early fall that I asked Mama if it was normal to be hearing voices in my head still. I had mentioned the voices to her when I was probably about 8. Mama told me that I was special, that the voices would guide me as long as I kept them inside me. She said it was like having a crystal ball inside my head. She then squeezed my shoulder and asked Phil if he was ready to go out for the evening.

I cannot remember the next two years every well, the only thing I remember is the Phil left, Frank came, then Steven, then finally Travis. Imagine that it is now the summer that I was 14. Once again I am left home alone, except for Travis who didn't have a job and drank beer all day. I didn't really like Travis, but he was nicer to my than Frank or Steven. I really missed Phil, he lasted the longest out of all of my "uncles". Jimmy was now 15 and Bobby was 12. Jimmy didn't hang around his house very much any more, so I played with Bobby. I don't even remember seeing Michele at the beginning of the summer. There were no girls my age in our neighborhood, and most of the girls' mama's told them not to play with me, because my mama was not a good lady. I didn't care, I liked playing simple games with Bobby.

It was the 24th of July the day that my life changed. Michele was actually home all day. Jimmy was gone some where and Bobby and I were playing catch with a baseball in the front yard. I could see Michele watching out of his bedroom window. When Bobby saw that Michele was watching us play, Bobby motioned for Michele to join us. Michele eventually came down. We ended up playing keep away form Bobby. Bobby got mad and went inside to pout. It was this day that I realized that Michele was cute. He asked me if I wanted to walk to the old well in the wooded area behind his house. I should mention that we lived on the edge of town. The Johnson's house was right next to a dense woods. I was kind of nervous, I mean no boy had ever wanted to go anywhere with only me before, unless it was Bobby and we were chasing frogs. I could hear the voices inside my head telling me to go with him, well all of them but the one, it was telling me to run. I ignored the one voice and went into the woods with Michele. On the way to the well Michele told me that I had become pretty. I had developed into a woman over the winter. I was about five foot five already and had a large bust.

It was that day that I quit playing with Bobby and started to hang around with Michele and his friends. They were all sort of nice to me. I really liked spending time with Michele. I mean what 14 year old girl wouldn't like an older boy to pay attention to her.

Mama found out from Travis that I was spending my days with Michele and his friends. Mama told me that I couldn't hang around with older boys that it would just cause problems, and lead to trouble. Two nights later I heard something tapping on my window. Michele was standing outside my window. I could hear the voices in my head telling me to go with him, to hell with what Mama said, except for that one voice which told me not to go. Once again I ignored the single voice and climbed out the window and went with Michele. I never seemed to listen to that single voice it always just wanted to spoil my fun. It was the 18th of August, and the moon was so bright that you could see everything as clearly as you could in the day. Michele took my hand and we walked to the old well again. I hadn't noticed until that point that Michele had a backpack on. He sat it down and laid out a blanket. I asked him what that was for. He told me just to sit on and look at the stars. As we were laying back just talking he leaned over top of me and took out a bottle of wine and two little Dixie cups. He gave me some red wine; I thought that the color was a lot like blood. After about a minute Michele took my cup and threw it in the well with his. He leaned over me again, but this time he started touching me. I told him to stop but he wouldn't. I could here the one voice that I never listened to screaming at me to stop him, soon all the voices were agreeing. I yelled for him to stop again. When he wouldn't I took the wine bottle and hit him hard with it. Michele fell against my body, and we were both covered in wine. I pushed him off of me. He was still alive at this point. I was scared. The voices told me to kill him. To strangle the life from him. They were telling me that Michele would take more from me if I didn't kill him. That he would contaminate my skin. I closed my hands over his warm muscular neck. I squeezed and squeezed. When he started to struggle I sat on his chest to stop him. Then he stopped struggling. The voices in my head were happy once again. They told me that I had to get rid of the body before someone found it and got me in trouble.

I put struggled and finally managed to get Michele's body into the well. I don't think there was any water left in the well because there was no splash. I then cleaned up the broken glass and the blanket and threw it all into the well. His backpack too. I went home and climbed into my window.

The next day Mrs. Johnson came over to see if I knew where Michele was. The voices told me to tell her that I hadn't saw him since early two days before because Mama said I couldn't see him anymore.

It was assumed that Michele ran away. I started to feel kind of bad, but the voices assured me that I was just doing gods work for him. That Michele was just a piece of garbage that I had to dispose of. Once the voices told me this I no longer felt bad, I knew that they were right. Michele had tried to contaminate my skin and he deserved to die.

It would be two years before I killed again. Still living in the same house, the Johnson's still lived across the street. Mrs. Johnson became severely depressed once Michele "ran away." I stopped hanging around their house. Mama still brought home "Uncles" even though I told her that I knew that they were not my uncles and that I new she was fucking them. Travis was gone, Phil came back for about a month. I was so happy that month, I really liked Phil and he treated me like I think a father would treat a daughter. But he left, because Mama started to drink and wouldn't stop. She still worked at the grocery store during the day, but spent most of the evenings at the bar. That was where she met Ted. It was only three days after Mama met Ted that she brought him home. It was the summer again, school had just got out, I was on the Honor Roll like always. It was June 13th Mama was at work, it was early in the morning, probably close to 8:30. I hear a weird noise on my door. It is Ted he is drunk and naked. I scream, but no one hears me. Ted tells me to lay down and shut the fuck up. I push past him and run to the kitchen. He follows me and pushes me against the counter. As he rips my tee-shirt I hear the voices telling me to dispose of the Garbage! I see a big knife out of the corner of my eye. I stab him in the back. Ted starts to scream. The voices tell me to finish him. I stab him another 59 times. The voices told me that I had to get rid of the body again. The one voice that I never used to listen to that I now listen to all the time told me to put him in the well with Michele. I didn't know how I would get him to the well though.

I wrapped him up in a couple blankets and hid him in my room for the day. Since Mama was always out drinking at night I knew I could get him out of the house with no problem. I wrapped a rope around his body about where his neck was and drug him across the street to the old over grown path that lead into the woods. Dragging his heavy stiff body to the well I worked my ass off to get him into it. As I heard the thud when his body hit the skeleton of Michele I smiled knowing that I was doing what I had to.

Mama never asked what happened to Ted. She seemed to forget that she had even brought him home. I never even seen on the news that he was missing, guess no one cared for Ted. I remember thinking who would miss him with the world about to end.

I am now 16 and have killed two men. I can see the garbage of the world all over. Men leering at women in the street, men making nasty comments to girls as they walk by, pretty much men in general, the garbage was everywhere.

Later during the summer I would kill number three. He was 17 and moved in down the street with his family. His name was James. He had a sister who tried to become friends with me, but she was annoying. I let her hang around though. I mean what else was I suppose to do. School started and James was in a few of my classes. I realized right away that he was just garbage, and the voices we screaming at me to "take the garbage out." James was easily led to his death. It was after a football game. October 5th, he asked me if I wanted to go for a drive in his ford. I agreed, we drove a round for a while then I asked him to take me home. When we got there I told him I wanted to go for a walk. Unfortunately, he headed away from the woods. He wasn't making this easy for me. All I could hear was the voices yelling to take the garbage out.

We ended up in an abandoned house a couple of blocks from our street. I knew that everyone 'round our area considered it haunted and would not go in it no matter what. It was there that I killed James. There was a bored laying on the floor with rusty nails in it. As James moved ahead of me I bent over and picked up the board. As James turned around I swung the board like a baseball bat. Hitting him in the forehead with the board, the nails caused it to stick to his head. James fell to the floor his body was convulsing. I pried the board from his head. I could see the blood gushing from the hole in the center of his forehead. I had taken anatomy in high school; I guess I hit him with enough pressure somehow to pierce the frontal lobe. His body was still convulsing on the floor. I hit him once more in the middle of the top of his head, where I was guessing that the different bones all joined and the weak spot existed. Once again the board stuck. This time his body went limp. I had killed him. The voices were shouting "to the well." It was harder to get James to the well. I had to some how get him from the abandoned house two blocks to the woods. I would chop his body up using a butcher's knife, and then place the pieces inside plastic sheeting. Then I would put the pieces in some duffle bags I had and carry them to the well. One day his sister saw me carrying two bags and offered to help me carry them back to my house. It is sort of ironic that a girl who was distraught over the disappearance of her brother helped me carry his right arm and part of his torso back to my house. I tossed him piece by piece into the well then tossed the two duffels on top. I could smell a slight decaying flesh smell but I figured that if anyone went by they would just figure that an animal had died in the woods near by, if they smelt it at all. I was not sure if anyone who walked by would smell anything if they did not know what they were smelling for, I was sure that the only reason I could smell it was that I knew what was down the well.

The voices calmed down for a little but were still telling me that I needed to take the garbage out whenever I would see any men out and about. Four and five were pretty easy to find. I was 17 and wanted adventure. I was out on highway 5 trying to thumb my way to the town down the road from where I lived. A couple of college guys stopped to give me a rid. As soon as I climbed into the back of their car my voices started to tell me that they were the worst kind of garbage, and had to be taken care of. The guys, Ryan and Pat, took me to town bought me dinner and asked me what else I wanted to do. At this the voices shouted, "Kill them!" I asked if they would be willing to take me home.

Half way between the towns Ryan pulls the car over. I am sitting in the front seat, Pat is directly behind me. They pull off of the road onto an old ill-used farm approach. Ryan turned to me and told me that it was time I paid them back for their hospitality. The voices were screaming so loudly. I heard the sound of a zipper unzipping from the back. Looking back I could see Pat pushing his pants to the floor. Well, I won't go into to many details about these murders. I'll just say seat belts do not always save lives, and that cigarette lighters against flesh smell bad. I drove their car back to town and pulled into Mrs. Johnson's driveway with the lights turned off; very carefully I opened her garage and took the wagon that I used to play with Bobby with. Carefully loading each body into the wagon I would drag them to the well and get them into it. I then drove their car a way from town about five miles and walked back.

It made all of the local television stations that two college juniors turned up missing while they were taking a road trip for the weekend. They never made it to their destination and their car was found abandoned. I remember laughing thinking that I had finally started to accomplish something great. No one suspected a thing.

Dave was a challenge he was another of my "uncles." I really hated him right away. The voices warned me about him, but Mama really seemed to like him. Dave had a job and he got Mama to lay off the bottle for a while. Then I realized that he got her to quit drinking with drugs. I wasn't going to stand for that. Dave met with some simple poisoning in his supper. I won't drag you into all the sickening facts of how it all played out. I'll just simplify it to say that Dave is now in the well with the rest of the garbage. Sadly there was still too much garbage out there, and there still is.

I would see the garbage everywhere. Anywhere I would go the garbage was there. I could not escape it, no matter how hard I tried. At this point I realized that I needed to find a way to make it simpler to take care of the garbage. That was when it clicked in my head that they were just garbage and how do you take out garbage – a garbage bag.

It was my 18th birthday. I was working at the gas station on the far edge of town. I always walked to work. I could see the garbage drive up, filling their gas tanks, buying soda, and staring at me. Tim was a regular he would come in to buy a soda every day. Just a soda, never any gas or any snack food, just soda. Tim had found out it was my birthday. He asked me if I wanted to go out somewhere for my birthday, to blow this town and just be free for a little while. Tim was the worse kind of garbage, the type that made you think that they were nice and that they would never do anything to hurt you. Lies! I had thought that I could trust Tim, that maybe he was like Phil, and not a piece of garbage. Tim took me to the town down the road, the opposite way that I had gone with the two college boys. Tim was only two years older than I. He was very nice, the voices we blessedly quiet, well all but that one again. That voice was telling me to be wary. Strangely, I once again did not listen to that one voice. How foolish of me.

It was on our trip back to town that I learned that Tim was garbage like the rest. I had started to carry black garbage bags in my purse at all times. Tim reached over and touched my leg on the way home. I shrieked and he stopped, but not without comment. The voices all started to scream at me at this point to take out the garbage. I knew how to safely get rid of the body but how to take the life was the question that I now faced. I knew that I could not take Tim's life while with him in his car as to many people knew that I was with him. Tim took me home.

While out with Tim, I had learned where he lived. It is amazing what a guy will tell you if you smile prettily and bat your eyelashes. I knew that he lived alone in a small trailer on the opposite side of town from me. The night was so very dark when I knocked very softly upon his door. Tim answered and happily let me in. When I got there Tim had been readying for bed. He had a towel around his neck. It was that towel that I used to strangle him. I realized while strangling Tim that people cannot scream if you are strangling them.

As you can probably assume, I cut the body up and removed it from the house that night. I used Mrs. Johnson's wagon once again to move a body. But this time I did not return it to her garage this time.

Ricky was next; it was only about two months after I killed Tim. Ricky also was a customer of the gas station. It was about twenty min before closing time. He stopped in seen that I was the only one working and left the store. When I went outside he was in his truck and asked me if I wanted a ride. I just turned and walked away, not wanting the store cameras see me getting into his truck. He followed me from the parking lot, after about a half block I said fine and climbed in the truck, sliding right next to him on the seat. I told him to drive to my house as my Mama had left about a month ago. Which was a lie, but he didn't know that. When we got to my drive way I had already grabbed a length of rope that I keep in my purse out. After instructing him to pull into the garage, I asked him if he had ever heard of asphyxiation used to heighten the sexual arousal. I had the rope tied in a noose and slide it over his head with his consent – the fool. In the garage I cut his body up and putting it in the bags I loaded the wagon up and deposited Ricky into the well.

Strangely enough when I finally did go in the house that night all Mama's stuff was gone. She had left sometime during the day. She left a note saying that she had left with "Uncle Martin" to live in Vegas. I smiled reading her note, because I knew then that I could leave Ricky's truck in our garage and no one would wonder about it.