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This I Believe

Today my niece, Paula, who blogs for True Woman, a Christian ministry, referred to my 30-year-old case in her well-written blog (in case you can’t tell, I’m proud of her). She referred to something I told her recently, that my doubting of my former faith began with a comment made to me by a member of our Christian fellowship during the wake of my wife and three children. He had said to me, “God must have some great work for you to do!”

The following scene is from my upcoming book, Tom Henry, in which I tell, for the first time ever, of that comment and how it affected me. The setting is Tom Henry’s prison cell, into which I had just moved because we had decided to work together to write his story. Here is that scene:

“You go to chapel for something to do, or are you serious about your faith?” I asked.

“Dead serious. I got saved at a place down home called Penitentiary Bend, believe it or not. I went there to commit suicide by running my car off the road over a cliff. I was drunk at the time. But my car skidded and got stuck in the mud and I got saved. And I’ve been saved ever since.”

“Do you think it was God that got you stuck, or you being drunk?”

Tom Henry paused a thoughtful beat. “Let me put it this way. God did it, but it was one of his easiest jobs ever! Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life could’ve arranged it.”

“Never seen it. I grew up in a house without a TV and Susie’s home growing up was the same way.”

“You didn’t have a TV?”

“No, we were a very devout church and we believed we should keep our homes free from the influences of the world. Actually, about half of us had TVs. I’d guess in a few years most will. Times change.” I remembered those good, sober, devout people. “But those folks don’t change too fast.”

“Do you still consider yourself a member?”

“No. After I was convicted of these murders, I resigned. Even then, some of them didn’t want to accept my resignation, but it was for the best. You can’t be a Biblical church and have a convicted murderer as a member!”

“What kind of church was it? I’ve heard it called a cult on the news.”

“Well, cult is a tough word to define. If it means a small religious group that’s a little bit unusual, yes. They take the Bible as the literal, inspired Word of God. They believe we’re sinners in our natural state, because of Adam and Eve’s original sin, and only the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross can satisfy a righteous God as payment for our sins.”

“That’s not unusual. My church believes that,” Tom Henry said.

“OK, then, how about this? They don’t call their buildings churches. They’re ‘meeting rooms’ or ‘assembly halls.’ And they don’t have an ordained preacher. So it’s pretty old fashioned, but not a cult. If you want a simple way to peg them, think of them as Baptists on steroids.”

“So you’re not a member, but are you still a believer?”

“That’s a good question. After being hit by this tragedy, I looked around and I noticed what appears to be blind random luck, not divine guidance, regulating human affairs. Bad luck and good luck, and you’ll never know what’s going to strike you until it does. So that’s a pretty humanistic belief. It’s certainly not faith.”

“Well, if you don’t have faith no more,” Tom Henry said, “you’re not a believer.”

“I’m still willing to get my faith back, but, to be honest, I’m angry at God—which is a stupid thing to be, I know, because by definition God is good—but it just kills me when people from my church group tell me things like, ‘God must have some great work for you to do.’

“What are they thinking? To form me to be useful for some job God had my family killed? They’re talking about children who never had a chance to grow up. They’re talking about a woman who was the sweetest, most selfless person I ever knew. And a good God had them savagely murdered so I could be prepared for some work? Are they nuts? Who would even want to work for such a God? That’s no God; that’s a beast!”

I’d uttered the last three sentences with such vehemence I was trembling.

Tom Henry sprang off his bunk. “Man, I’m sorry! I would never—I didn’t mean to get you like this!” He paused, searching for words. “You got a lot of anger in you.” He started to sit back on the edge of his bunk but before his butt hit the mattress he sprang up again. “But you can’t call God a beast!”

“I know. I got carried away. For the last year and a half I’ve had to take it and take it and take it and I’ve never had a chance to talk it out with anyone. I can’t talk to my family or Susie’s family like this. It would just kill them. Just knowing I’m losing my faith is tearing them up. So I’m really glad to have you to talk to. I hope you aren’t sorry I moved in.”

“No, Big Stuff, it’s cool. When I get to the point in my story where I tell you about how low I got before I found God, you’ll understand. But anyway, I’m glad you’re here and I’m glad to be here for you. I mean that, Bro.”

“All right. Let’s just put this down as ‘to be continued.’”

But the need to continue that conversation never arose. I’d opened my heart to Tom Henry and he’d received what I had to say, despite his obvious disagreement. A bond of understanding had been formed between two guys about as different as two guys could be.

I thank you for reading my blog. I hope you visit often.

My upcoming book, Tom Henry: Confession of a Killer, will be e-published in September.

Regards,

David Hendricks

www.authorhendricks.com

Coming Blogs

Because I’m a new author, I figured I’d better start a blog—my first book, Tom Henry, will be published in September. Normally a first blog would give readers some idea of what’s coming but, since I got derailed by a news story that struck a nerve the first time, I’m doing that here.

So what will I blog about? Well, I’ve got two rules: First, the age-old writer’s advice, “write what you know.” Second, “write what others might want to read.”

So here are my three categories of blog themes:

Editorial – These will include my take on recent events. June’s blog was an example. A news story appeared days before I wrote it, and I had an opinion on that subject based on my life experience.

Tom Henry – I’ve just finished writing Tom Henry, a book about a double murderer who escaped and lived as a fugitive for 13 years and told me his story in a prison cell—tales of murder, escape, life on the lam, and anecdotes of animals, birds, bees and snakes.

Crime and Punishment – I learned a lot, in my seven years of incarceration, about criminal thinking and behavior, as well as the thinking and behavior of the criminal justice system.

I’ll occasionally write about my hobbies and interests—things such as humor and sports, or airplanes and motorcycles.

Be on the lookout for one of the Tom Henry true stories. From a tree stand in the woods he observed a fox self-administering a flea-and-tick treatment. You’ll be amazed at what this smart little fellow did.

I thank you for reading my blog. I hope you visit often. If you have an idea for a post, please let me know.

My upcoming book, Tom Henry: Confession of a Killer, will be e-published in September.

Regards,

David Hendricks

www.authorhendricks.com

Justice for All

Just last week the news reported the resolution of a 32-year-old murder case. You may remember it as “the dingo’s got my baby” case.

In 1980 a young Australian family was vacationing in a remote area. Lindy and Michael were a God-fearing couple—devout Seventh Day Adventists—with two boys, ages seven and four, and a brand new baby girl. One night Lindy, returning to the tent, saw a wild Australian dog shaking her two-month-old baby in its mouth and running away. She screamed, “Michael, Michael, the dingo’s got my baby!” A massive search was mounted but the baby was never found. A week later, however, a bloody jump suit she had been wearing was discovered about 4,000 meters from the tent.

The rumor mill began pumping its bilge. The religious couple, seemingly a normal, loving family, was “sacrificing” their daughter. Her very name, “Azaria,” meant “sacrifice in the wilderness.” Lindy always dressed her in black. Their religion was a cult that killed infants as part of religious ceremonies. Lindy was a witch. Her demeanor was too cold, too unemotional. The family’s car was “awash in blood.” Azaria’s bloodied and torn clothing was found folded in a ceremonial manner. And on and on. Mindless piling on and, under the apparently universal notion that seeing a person down is a good and valid reason to kick them again, morbid dingo-dog jokes proliferated.

The police examined the case. Lindy was tried for murdering her daughter and, doomed by a world-famous “expert” and new blood evidence—both he and it would later be discredited—she was convicted and sentenced to “life in prison with hard labour.” She was pregnant and soon delivered the couple’s fourth child, a boy, who was taken from her and she was returned to prison. The High Court refused to hear her appeal. Lindy was finished.

Three years later an English tourist inadvertently gave his life for Lindy’s freedom. He did it by falling to his death while climbing in the area where Baby Azaria had been abducted. Searchers looking for his bones, which were thought to have been carried off by dingoes, came across Azaria’s jacket, the one Lindy had said she had been wearing, an idea the prosecutors had mocked. It was found in a dingo den. Lindy was released.

Since then Lindy has been a free woman—in the sense that she wasn’t in prison—but it took four coroner’s inquests over a 32-year period before Lindy was proffered an official apology and a correct death certificate for her then two-month-old baby, Azaria, who the day before would have turned 32.

One tweeter wrote, “Finally, justice was done.” That made me angry.

I thought of that mother of three, her horror in seeing her baby shaken in the grip of a wild dog’s teeth, her shame as newspapers ripped her dignity to shreds, her stabbing pain when comedians created laughter at her daughter’s expense, the degradation of people spitting on her in the courtroom, the finality of her conviction and denial of appeal, and her heartache after being thrown into prison for life and denied the company of her children—the two who remained and the one who was born there—and, when she was finally freed, the dull desperation of living with the knowledge that she was a national pariah.

Justice was done? After 32 years they may have stopped the bleeding, but justice for Lindy can never be done.

Thank you for reading my first monthly blog.

My book, Tom Henry: Confession of a Killer, will be e-published in September, with a paper version to follow shortly after.

Regards,

David Hendricks

www.authorhendricks.com