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Current mood:  enlightened Category: Writing and Poetry
As Most of you know writing True Crime is my all time favorite thing to do. It is not because I love blood and guts- or even because the criminal mind is indeed an interesting thing to examine. It is because the victims are forgotten so fast and so easily. Once the news media moves on to something else, the victims are forever lost in the purple haze called past life. This is so sad, it is almost as if they never existed to begin with. They become just a faint mist which hovers just out of reach of those left behind. Sometimes even their faces fade into that mist.
Yesterday I received a very interesting phone call from my oldest daughter who lives in Ga and is one of my biggest fans. (Go Figure) Anyway, she told me that she felt it was time to write the story of her sister in law who was murdered in Jackson County in 2000. It was listed as just a car accident, however, there is reason to believe that she was indeed murdered - She left behind two beautiful girls, who deserve to have more of their mother than just faint memories.
My son in law is finally ready for me to do this for him. His sister raised him after his parents died and her death was very hard on him. He was an angry young man for many years.
In the course of the conversation my daughter was having with my son in law and his brother about this adventure, a friend of theirs who was also there, and was a former deputy sheriff for Habersham County which is the next County west of Jackson County asked my daughter if Iwould be interested in writing about his mother who was murdered by his stepfather- not only did he murder her, he sold the body parts. It took six months to find enough parts to bury. At the time the friend was still a deputy and once the evidence proved the stepfather committed the crime, he went and arrested him.
I am already working on one from here in Fort Pierce. So that is three true crimes which I will probably be releasing in the near future.
My daughter told my son in law's brother, who was at first hesitate about this endevour, that his sister would not be exploited, that she would be given a voice and that her life would be respected. She told him about the families of my girls letting me know how much they appreciated their story being told. She is giving him Silent Scream to read. She is very proud of that book.
The point of my story is this, even my daughter, who was never a reader can see that my vicitms have a voice, they are treated with respect and dignity and the families can grieve and finally move on. This tells me that my true crime books serve a purpose for other than just entertainment.
They heal. Which is really what it should be all about. They also show the world that the victims lived on this earth. They were loved, and they had a purpose. They were not just some nameless faces in a crowd.
I knew Silent Scream was meant to be, I knew it would have an impact, even those few who have blasted it were impacted. What I didn't know was how much it has meant to so many.
How many people have been effected and the ripple effect it has created.
It seems there are so many stories out there and families want a voice for their loved ones. They want them to be remembered.
Is this the path I am to take? AM I the voice for those who can no longer speak for themselves? Is this the reason I am to write?
I don't know the answer, all I know at this point is there are voices crying in the dark to be heard. There are screams which no one hears because they have been silenced by death.
If I can give just one victim back that voice, give just one victim the chance to be noticed and not forgotten then my path will be worth it.
It is not an easy path, the victims haunt me daily, the research alone is time consuminig and most times very graphic. Tragic Death is never pretty. It is ugly- worse than ugly- it is beyond any description that any writer can produce. It is not Hollywood, blood and guts. It is real and at the end of the day the victims don't get to go home. They never are seen by their familes again. They are part of the Purple Haze of the past. A mist which is burnt away by the morning sun.
So boys and girls as you go about your day, and as you think about the mundane things of every day life, think of the victims, send me courage that I might continue to be their voice, to speak where they can no longer speak, to show the world they did at one time walk on this earth. And to give their families something to hold on to besides the brutality of their death. They deserve more. They deserve to be heard.
12:13 PM
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