Question Time with Shane
Shane - After being denied psychiatric medication by ValueOptions, Shane turned to illegal drugs financed by burglaries. For stealing a few hundred dollars worth of goods, he was sentenced by Judge Ron Reinstein to eleven years. Shane is the author of the blog Persevering Prison Pages.
Shane responds to the comments on his $115,000 court victory over the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Thank you Leigh and Chris Phoenix for your encouragement and support. I appreciate your comments. All those who recognize prisoners are human beings and must be treated as such under the law are wise.
In response to Sweet Kitty’s comments, I can only say that it’s a pity you hold these feelings/ideals. What message are you teaching children? Condemnation, unforgivingness, distrust, justice for some not for others…
I commend you on your contributions to teaching kids and cancer research. If nothing more, I hope that by reading Shaun’s and my own blog, you’ll learn something you can share with a kid. Try reading some of my past entries on drugs and my childhood.
Maybe one day, when Shaun or myself are speaking to your kids at their school auditorium, you’ll shake our hand on an even playing field. Don’t be surprised if they listen to me. I’ve been in prisons, jails, done the drugs, committed crimes, survived a rotten childhood…I speak from experience and knowledge.
In closing: I committed a crime and broke the law. I’m paying for this by being incarcerated for 11¼ years. Everybody who breaks the law should pay their dues – just like I am. Nobody is above the law. Call it hypocrisy or whatever helps you sleep, but it’s the truth.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments for Shane to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
The prison blog of an Orwellian unperson. As shown on National Geographic Channel's Banged Up/Locked Up Abroad episode Raving Arizona.
Words to Live By (by Rocky)
Rocky has just under a year left to serve at Safford, Arizona. He was sentenced for two separate cases: burglary and aggravated assault.
Last September we were out on a 4 yard for our 2 hours rec. The yard had been live for days because there was a lot of black [heroin] and almost everyone had been high for three days or so. 4 yards are dangerous anyway because they house the next highest classification inmates below 5. But it seemed to be really on edge that day.
Pokey, Taz and I were just sitting around shooting the shit. We were commenting on the thickness of the air on the yard. The dope debts were heavy at the time, which caused a lot of tension between the races.
Taz spotted a Native American walking into the gym with the straight end of a shovel sticking out by his boot and the handle rising up the pants’ leg. We knew it was about to get real live. We were working our way to the entrance of the gym, about 10 foot from the door, when three guys came out, all natives. They walked by us like they were on their way out of a burning building.
Taz pushed the door open and stepped into the gym as the door closed behind him. We stayed outside the door to keep point.
No sooner did the door close behind him, I heard “Motherfucker! Motherfucker!” at the top of the lungs.
I pushed the door open to see Taz flipping and flopping, sliding around, trying to get to his feet in the biggest pool of blood I have ever seen to date. Next to him was the headless body of a Mexican in the middle of the pool of blood with his head about 10 feet away, eyes open, mouth open, and staring straight at me with an expression on his face of terror.
The three Native Americans had held this guy down and chopped off his head with the shovel. You could see the hack marks on the chest and what was left of the neck.
I turned to help Taz get up, and got pulled down into the bloody mess.
Just then a C.O. busted through the door, and said, “Spread-fuckin’-eagle on the floor now!”
I couldn’t have ran if I wanted to. It was like being in baby oil on hard wood.
They cuffed us up, and took us to SMU1 where we sat under investigation for murder for 7 months. They saw the whole thing on camera, but tried for 7 months to tie us into it. We were finally cleared.
Now if a guy gets stabbed to death in front of me in the chow line, I know to just step over the body and go eat real fast because there will be lockdown coming for sure. Now I don’t see anything, hear anything, or say anything. These are words to live by in prison.
Click here for Rocky’s previous blog.
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Shaun P. Attwood
The Occult Killer Goes to Medical with a Rash (by Occult Killer)
Dubbed the Occult Killer by the media, Brandon is serving 6 to 12 years in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. His crime: he killed his best friend in a drunk-driving accident. When police investigators discovered Gothic paraphernalia in his bedroom, they naturally concluded Brandon had committed a sacrificial murder for the benefit of Satan.
Took a little adventure for myself yesterday. I’d been dealing with this rash on my hands for a little while that looks like hives or nano-bee stings or something. It never progressed from the back of my hands, so I tried to wait it out. Though it never got worse, it persisted even over the weekend, which began to spook me, so I finally talked to my boss in the prison laundry. To keep inconvenience to a minimum, I asked to go when we were on break after 1600 count. How long could it take, right? I went up at 1630 when count cleared, blasting past the chow halls, foregoing dinner. I wanted it addressed, ASAP.
I go to the waiting room adjacent to the dispensary (where the pills are given out, as the name may suggest) and check my pass with the cop on duty. And I wait. And wait. Insulin Line is called. I know those guys take priority, so I settle in further for a longer haul. And I wait. It takes so long, the cop tells me I should go eat before they stop running dinner, which happens around 6pm.
Upon returning from my hamburger, I’m called in. A nurse gets my info, looks me over, and takes my vitals. Before I know it, I’m sitting with my arms outstretched, a cuff on my right bicep, thermometer in my mouth, and a pulse clamp on my right index finger, cables all running into a single machine. Tests complete, she removes the apparatus and we discuss the possibilities of my ailment’s origin.
Her conclusion is constant exposure to something in the workplace, be it protective gear or chemicals and detergents, has garnered a spontaneous allergic reaction. I explain I’m not the allergic type and provide the anecdote that I’ve lived around and worked in a dental lab all my life, contacting all sorts of dangerous chemicals from irritants to carcinogens, AND all manner of gloves. This being my 1st run-in with medical, I’m trying to make the best of impressions. My demeanor is calm and mild, my manner, polite, i.e. nowhere near argumentative. After her services are rendered, I thank her for her time and she asks me to wait for the doctor outside, for only he can prognose and prescribe.
In the interim, a group of about a dozen have gathered for the optometrist, who isn’t here yet. Treatment Line guys come and go. 1900 Pill Line comes and goes. I see a few co-workers who, through the glass, contort their faces and raise their arms as if to say, “What the hell are YOU doing in there?” I convey my exasperation with the appropriate exaggerated head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging that can only mean “I don’t even know anymore. I give up.”
The optometrist somehow turns up, alive, and takes guys one by one for 15-min-long check-ups. Nearly everyone is gone by the time I see the doctor after EIGHT o’clock. Mind you, I still have to check back in to work to tie up loose ends, go back to the block to cross my name off the CI out-count list so 2100 count is right, and get a shower.
Finally seeing the doctor, rejuvenates my appreciative, easy-going side. He was an Indian guy, with only the thickest of accents. He looks over the nurse’s paperwork, gives me a secondary check-up, and provides his assessment.
DR: Okay, what you will do is apply cold compress, no ice, just cold water, and then some hy-dro-cor-ti-sone cream. (turns to the nurse) Do we have hydrocortisone?
NURSE: Yes, we do. (she hands me about 10 HC condiment packets)
DR: Okay, cold compress and hydrocortisone cream, twice a day. Now, I’ll give you a script for Benadryl…
NURSE: You’ll have to come to Pill Line for that, morning, noon, and night.
DR: …50 mg, forty times a day for three days…(I knew instantly is was four, but it sounded like forty).
NURSE: We can only give it three times a day.
DR: …3 times a day for three days, okay…
The whole time this is going on, I’m imagining him prescribing me pilgrimages to the Ganges, to bathe in it three times a day for three days, or plug my nose with cotton soaked in the urine of a pregnant cow. If I wasn’t wholly ignorant of the culture, I could more accurately and descriptively make jokes at its expense.
“You will journey to the ashram, and feed the holy stale bread to the sacred rats who divinely infest that hallowed place, then your hands shall be cured of their bumpiness.”
So, in the end, I got my creams, my pill pass for Benadryl super doses, two days off work, then went about my business. They gave me one for the road, said it might make me drowsy. There weren’t kidding. Couple hours later, I wasn’t any good to anybody, slurring my words and nodding out.
The whole deal took nearly four hours, too long really. It’s their policy to cover work-related injury, however slight, but they fight you sometimes. Plus I have to hash out my pay. With a medical lay-in as I’m on, you’re compensated for hours missed at the normal rate, minus the bonus. That’s great, I don’t expect a bonus for time I didn’t put in. What they in turn will claim is because I missed more than 10% of the work month, I’ll only receive a half bonus for the hours I did work. Sneaky, sneaky. I have no control over a medical lay-in, I can’t be punished for it, sigh…
Click here to read Occult Killer’s previous blog.
Click here to read more from the Occult Killer at Prison Mom by Sue O.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for the Occult Killer to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Dubbed the Occult Killer by the media, Brandon is serving 6 to 12 years in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. His crime: he killed his best friend in a drunk-driving accident. When police investigators discovered Gothic paraphernalia in his bedroom, they naturally concluded Brandon had committed a sacrificial murder for the benefit of Satan.
Took a little adventure for myself yesterday. I’d been dealing with this rash on my hands for a little while that looks like hives or nano-bee stings or something. It never progressed from the back of my hands, so I tried to wait it out. Though it never got worse, it persisted even over the weekend, which began to spook me, so I finally talked to my boss in the prison laundry. To keep inconvenience to a minimum, I asked to go when we were on break after 1600 count. How long could it take, right? I went up at 1630 when count cleared, blasting past the chow halls, foregoing dinner. I wanted it addressed, ASAP.
I go to the waiting room adjacent to the dispensary (where the pills are given out, as the name may suggest) and check my pass with the cop on duty. And I wait. And wait. Insulin Line is called. I know those guys take priority, so I settle in further for a longer haul. And I wait. It takes so long, the cop tells me I should go eat before they stop running dinner, which happens around 6pm.
Upon returning from my hamburger, I’m called in. A nurse gets my info, looks me over, and takes my vitals. Before I know it, I’m sitting with my arms outstretched, a cuff on my right bicep, thermometer in my mouth, and a pulse clamp on my right index finger, cables all running into a single machine. Tests complete, she removes the apparatus and we discuss the possibilities of my ailment’s origin.
Her conclusion is constant exposure to something in the workplace, be it protective gear or chemicals and detergents, has garnered a spontaneous allergic reaction. I explain I’m not the allergic type and provide the anecdote that I’ve lived around and worked in a dental lab all my life, contacting all sorts of dangerous chemicals from irritants to carcinogens, AND all manner of gloves. This being my 1st run-in with medical, I’m trying to make the best of impressions. My demeanor is calm and mild, my manner, polite, i.e. nowhere near argumentative. After her services are rendered, I thank her for her time and she asks me to wait for the doctor outside, for only he can prognose and prescribe.
In the interim, a group of about a dozen have gathered for the optometrist, who isn’t here yet. Treatment Line guys come and go. 1900 Pill Line comes and goes. I see a few co-workers who, through the glass, contort their faces and raise their arms as if to say, “What the hell are YOU doing in there?” I convey my exasperation with the appropriate exaggerated head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging that can only mean “I don’t even know anymore. I give up.”
The optometrist somehow turns up, alive, and takes guys one by one for 15-min-long check-ups. Nearly everyone is gone by the time I see the doctor after EIGHT o’clock. Mind you, I still have to check back in to work to tie up loose ends, go back to the block to cross my name off the CI out-count list so 2100 count is right, and get a shower.
Finally seeing the doctor, rejuvenates my appreciative, easy-going side. He was an Indian guy, with only the thickest of accents. He looks over the nurse’s paperwork, gives me a secondary check-up, and provides his assessment.
DR: Okay, what you will do is apply cold compress, no ice, just cold water, and then some hy-dro-cor-ti-sone cream. (turns to the nurse) Do we have hydrocortisone?
NURSE: Yes, we do. (she hands me about 10 HC condiment packets)
DR: Okay, cold compress and hydrocortisone cream, twice a day. Now, I’ll give you a script for Benadryl…
NURSE: You’ll have to come to Pill Line for that, morning, noon, and night.
DR: …50 mg, forty times a day for three days…(I knew instantly is was four, but it sounded like forty).
NURSE: We can only give it three times a day.
DR: …3 times a day for three days, okay…
The whole time this is going on, I’m imagining him prescribing me pilgrimages to the Ganges, to bathe in it three times a day for three days, or plug my nose with cotton soaked in the urine of a pregnant cow. If I wasn’t wholly ignorant of the culture, I could more accurately and descriptively make jokes at its expense.
“You will journey to the ashram, and feed the holy stale bread to the sacred rats who divinely infest that hallowed place, then your hands shall be cured of their bumpiness.”
So, in the end, I got my creams, my pill pass for Benadryl super doses, two days off work, then went about my business. They gave me one for the road, said it might make me drowsy. There weren’t kidding. Couple hours later, I wasn’t any good to anybody, slurring my words and nodding out.
The whole deal took nearly four hours, too long really. It’s their policy to cover work-related injury, however slight, but they fight you sometimes. Plus I have to hash out my pay. With a medical lay-in as I’m on, you’re compensated for hours missed at the normal rate, minus the bonus. That’s great, I don’t expect a bonus for time I didn’t put in. What they in turn will claim is because I missed more than 10% of the work month, I’ll only receive a half bonus for the hours I did work. Sneaky, sneaky. I have no control over a medical lay-in, I can’t be punished for it, sigh…
Click here to read Occult Killer’s previous blog.
Click here to read more from the Occult Killer at Prison Mom by Sue O.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for the Occult Killer to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Top Ten Funny Prison Tattoos I’ve Seen (by Polish Avenger)
Polish Avenger - A software-engineering undergraduate sentenced to 25 years because his friend was shot dead during a burglary they were both committing. Author of the classic "Shit Slinger" series.
These all really exist – people put some strange things on themselves.
10) “F**** YOU” right across the knuckles of both hands. Hmm, what are you trying to say?
9) “F*** WHAT YOU THINK” in Old English letters across the neckline.
8) “F*** THE POLICE” on the back of the neck. This may affect one’s employment opportunities!
7) Barbed wire, gun towers, and chain-link fences. What, we don’t have enough to remember prison by already?
6) A person’s last name in huge letters across the back. Makes it hard to run from the police!
5) The telephone area code where you live. Did you forget?
4) The traditional hometown across the extremely tender strip above your belly button. The guy from Ohio gets off easy. God help the one from Massachusetts!
3) Spider webs – but not on the elbows like most cons. Nope, these were on the guy’s balls. Now that’s dedication!
2) An explicit scene from a porno book. Including a giant wiener. Seriously.
1) Anything misspelled. The very best was one guy with “F*** AUTHORITY” across his back in 2-inch lettering, and “F***” was spelled wrong! Ha ha ha!
Click here for Polish Avenger’s previous blog on prison ink.
Click here for some of the best stories at Jon's Jail Journal.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Polish Avenger to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun Attwood
Polish Avenger - A software-engineering undergraduate sentenced to 25 years because his friend was shot dead during a burglary they were both committing. Author of the classic "Shit Slinger" series.
These all really exist – people put some strange things on themselves.
10) “F**** YOU” right across the knuckles of both hands. Hmm, what are you trying to say?
9) “F*** WHAT YOU THINK” in Old English letters across the neckline.
8) “F*** THE POLICE” on the back of the neck. This may affect one’s employment opportunities!
7) Barbed wire, gun towers, and chain-link fences. What, we don’t have enough to remember prison by already?
6) A person’s last name in huge letters across the back. Makes it hard to run from the police!
5) The telephone area code where you live. Did you forget?
4) The traditional hometown across the extremely tender strip above your belly button. The guy from Ohio gets off easy. God help the one from Massachusetts!
3) Spider webs – but not on the elbows like most cons. Nope, these were on the guy’s balls. Now that’s dedication!
2) An explicit scene from a porno book. Including a giant wiener. Seriously.
1) Anything misspelled. The very best was one guy with “F*** AUTHORITY” across his back in 2-inch lettering, and “F***” was spelled wrong! Ha ha ha!
Click here for Polish Avenger’s previous blog on prison ink.
Click here for some of the best stories at Jon's Jail Journal.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Polish Avenger to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun Attwood
From Frankie (Letter 13)
Frankie - A Mexican Mafia hit man and leader of prison "booty bandits" who has been proposing our gay marriage ever since he saw me rubbing antifungal ointment on the bedsores on my buttocks at the Madison Street jail. He was there on murder charges he subsequently beat.
7-28-09
What’s up, Englandman?
Yes, it’s been a while my friend, but you’re not forgotten and the love will always be here. (smile)
How could I forget a hairy ass like yours?
Anyway, I’ve been real busy, going to school from 8am to 10:30am, then I go to work from 12:30pm to 8:30pm 7 days a week in the kitchen, so I really haven’t had any time for anything.
It’s not that I lost faith, I had to do something to survive in this place. I honestly stopped messing around with drugs, so now I’m living off of $12 every 2 weeks as I’m making 20 cents an hour.
At times some of my friends come by and try to put some stuff in my hands, so that I can make money, and it’s very tempting, but I continue to refuse.
I should have been out already if it wasn’t for that dope I got busted with, and when my release date came that’s when I felt it the most.
As of now, I have 16 months left on the 4 ½ years and I’m not messing that up. Unless in the next month Sept! they change the 85% release to 65% then I’ll be home a lot sooner.
My friend, I ain’t written a letter in such a long time that my hand is already hurting. Damn! I need to get back into it.
As always, I’m still the greatest in chess. Many have tried to take the crown, but haven’t been able to.
Well, my friend, I’m going to close for now. Give my L&R to your mom and dad.
Much Love & Respect,
Frankie
Click here for Frankie’s previous letter.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments or questions for Frankie to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Frankie - A Mexican Mafia hit man and leader of prison "booty bandits" who has been proposing our gay marriage ever since he saw me rubbing antifungal ointment on the bedsores on my buttocks at the Madison Street jail. He was there on murder charges he subsequently beat.
7-28-09
What’s up, Englandman?
Yes, it’s been a while my friend, but you’re not forgotten and the love will always be here. (smile)
How could I forget a hairy ass like yours?
Anyway, I’ve been real busy, going to school from 8am to 10:30am, then I go to work from 12:30pm to 8:30pm 7 days a week in the kitchen, so I really haven’t had any time for anything.
It’s not that I lost faith, I had to do something to survive in this place. I honestly stopped messing around with drugs, so now I’m living off of $12 every 2 weeks as I’m making 20 cents an hour.
At times some of my friends come by and try to put some stuff in my hands, so that I can make money, and it’s very tempting, but I continue to refuse.
I should have been out already if it wasn’t for that dope I got busted with, and when my release date came that’s when I felt it the most.
As of now, I have 16 months left on the 4 ½ years and I’m not messing that up. Unless in the next month Sept! they change the 85% release to 65% then I’ll be home a lot sooner.
My friend, I ain’t written a letter in such a long time that my hand is already hurting. Damn! I need to get back into it.
As always, I’m still the greatest in chess. Many have tried to take the crown, but haven’t been able to.
Well, my friend, I’m going to close for now. Give my L&R to your mom and dad.
Much Love & Respect,
Frankie
Click here for Frankie’s previous letter.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments or questions for Frankie to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Prison Recipe for Tattoo Removal (by Polish Avenger)
Polish Avenger - A software-engineering undergraduate sentenced to 25 years because his friend was shot dead during a burglary they were both committing. Author of the classic "Shit Slinger" series.
15 little packets of salt
1 handkerchief
High pain tolerance
Willingness to act stupid
Hooch (optional, but strongly recommended)
Get plowed on hooch. Wet the handkerchief and pour salt on it liberally. Shave the tattooed area. Rub the handkerchief on it in a circular sanding motion. The salt acts as an abrasive, and quite literally eats the skin away as you rub. Oh yeah, that old expression about “rubbing salt in the wound,” there’s a reason why they say that. Yes, as you might expect, it hurts like a purple hairy bastard!
Continue sanding for about an hour until the area is an angry beet-red color. Rinse, bandage, and prepare for a solid month of excruciating and itchy recovery time. The recovery is even worse than the sanding. In my case, every little movement of my foot caused the edge of the scab to crack open again and leak out a thick custardy pus, and the itch was maddening at times.
The tattoo itself doesn’t come off during the sanding. Planing off the skin above it has the curious effect that as it heals, new tissue from below pushes the ink up and out.
On the happy day that the godforsaken scab finally comes off, you can hold it up to the light and see the tattoo suspended in it like a ghastly holocaust item. In fact, I kept part of mine in a photo album for years until the humidity made it all gooey and stinky.
In the end, it worked for me. She was gone. Unfortunately, I had gone a bit too deep, and had a blazing scar in her place. Whoops! The fellows assured me it would lighten up over time. It has – after about five years! Today, it’s still discoloured but nowhere as disgusting as it used to be.
Ever one for irony, I wound up getting another tattoo there anyway to cover up the scar! Ha ha! But no more girls’ names – this time it’s a memorial to my real true love: the caffeine molecule! Yes, on my ankle I have the molecular diagram and chemical formula for the greatest stuff ever invented. Now that’s ink I can live with!
Click here for Polish Avenger’s previous blog on prison ink.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Polish Avenger to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Polish Avenger - A software-engineering undergraduate sentenced to 25 years because his friend was shot dead during a burglary they were both committing. Author of the classic "Shit Slinger" series.
15 little packets of salt
1 handkerchief
High pain tolerance
Willingness to act stupid
Hooch (optional, but strongly recommended)
Get plowed on hooch. Wet the handkerchief and pour salt on it liberally. Shave the tattooed area. Rub the handkerchief on it in a circular sanding motion. The salt acts as an abrasive, and quite literally eats the skin away as you rub. Oh yeah, that old expression about “rubbing salt in the wound,” there’s a reason why they say that. Yes, as you might expect, it hurts like a purple hairy bastard!
Continue sanding for about an hour until the area is an angry beet-red color. Rinse, bandage, and prepare for a solid month of excruciating and itchy recovery time. The recovery is even worse than the sanding. In my case, every little movement of my foot caused the edge of the scab to crack open again and leak out a thick custardy pus, and the itch was maddening at times.
The tattoo itself doesn’t come off during the sanding. Planing off the skin above it has the curious effect that as it heals, new tissue from below pushes the ink up and out.
On the happy day that the godforsaken scab finally comes off, you can hold it up to the light and see the tattoo suspended in it like a ghastly holocaust item. In fact, I kept part of mine in a photo album for years until the humidity made it all gooey and stinky.
In the end, it worked for me. She was gone. Unfortunately, I had gone a bit too deep, and had a blazing scar in her place. Whoops! The fellows assured me it would lighten up over time. It has – after about five years! Today, it’s still discoloured but nowhere as disgusting as it used to be.
Ever one for irony, I wound up getting another tattoo there anyway to cover up the scar! Ha ha! But no more girls’ names – this time it’s a memorial to my real true love: the caffeine molecule! Yes, on my ankle I have the molecular diagram and chemical formula for the greatest stuff ever invented. Now that’s ink I can live with!
Click here for Polish Avenger’s previous blog on prison ink.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Polish Avenger to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Smiling John (Part 7 by Smiling John)
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 6 left off with Smiling John on the run in Mexico.
I took a cab to Hermosillo Airport and charted a Cessna to fly me to San Carlos on the coast.
In the summer of 1982, I’d come here with my girlfriend’s family, and spent two weeks at the Club Med Resort.
Club Med – a fantasy Island for singles from 18 to 40 – was the perfect place to lay low. They cycled tourists on a two-week rotation every month, nine months of the year.
I arrived at San Carlos, and checked into a condo on the beach for 3 weeks, keeping to myself, swimming, surfing, snorkeling scuba diving and going into town to shop.
On 09-27-89, I woke up hearing someone in the condo downstairs rummaging around.
I grabbed my gun, tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, and found bags of groceries on the counter and suitcases in the hallway.
Realizing it wasn't a burglar, but thinking the club had over-booked the condo, I stepped into the kitchen to see Monica my fiancée, the ex prison guard.
She’d found me after the feds had booked her for aiding and abetting my escape. She’d bonded out for $2,500, and then shook her FIST/FBI tail to get down here.
After America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries ran my story, my family, parents, brother and sister all went to Colorado to avoid the media. My wife and son flew back to Chicago from Dallas to get away from reporters. Everyone that knew me had disowned me except Monica!
The first thing she said when she saw me was “Who's Patricia?”
Monica and I stayed in San Carlos for almost 1½ years. We went to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico City, Belize, Cancun, Mazatlán and Costa Rico, but never back to the States.
On April 16 199,1 I got a phone call at 4:00am for the first time in 19 months from Paul Hatcher from Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX.
I’d sent Paul a postcard in March asking for a job. At the time he was in Iraq for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
Paul told me he had a job for me for six figures in my own area of operations, meaning El Salvador and Columbia. To meet him at the Pelican Club in El Paso at 6:00pm.
One guy I could trust was Paul Hatcher. I kissed Monica goodbye. Not telling her because she would want to come.
I flew by charter from San Carlos to Juárez by Piper, then walked across the border over the bridge into El Paso. “St. Paul, Minnesota!” was my reply to the U.S. Customs guy who asked where I was from.
I caught a cab, then got out at the Pelican Club and walked towards the entrance. It was just after 6:00pm. The parking lot was crowded and people were standing around.
As I grabbed the door to enter the club I heard a bullhorn blare. “Freeze, Eastlack! On the ground!”
There were 27 undercover cops all around me. FBI, DEA, CID and a FIST SWAT team.
I was tackled, slammed and cuffed – hands, feet and waist.
“John Eastlack, you’re under arrest!” said the head FBI special agent in charge of the fugitive internal search team.
Sitting in the back of the Lear jet flying back to Tucson with 8 FBI guys, I realized just how damned tired I was...
Epilogue
Pima County Jail,
Tucson, AZ 1991
By the summer, the jury had found me guilty on all charges and the judge gave me two death sentences, one life and 365 years.
In 1994, the State Supreme Court overturned my conviction due to my judge being charged with gambling and the lead homicide detective blowing his head off with a shotgun.
By 1997, I was given a 25 to life after it was discovered I was the first and only person in the history of the United States to get his case over turned for having FAE-FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) as mitigation.
My case was soon featured on a Discovery and TLC channel documentary called The Sins of Science.
But the Arizona prison system was not done with me yet. In the spring of 1999, a corrupt major set me up to get killed by 3 members of the Aryan Brotherhood.
While in shackles and handcuffs, I was stabbed 21 times with two nine-inch shanks.
Once again, I almost died.
Since then, the years have gone by. I got my health back, work, go to school, and keep in touch with my family.
After all these years, I've never heard from Monica, Patricia, Paul and yet for the postcard, Hilda.
Life goes on.
Click here for a news story on Smiling John.
Click here for Part 6.
If you wish to write to Smiling John please email me at writeinside@hotmail.com
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 6 left off with Smiling John on the run in Mexico.
I took a cab to Hermosillo Airport and charted a Cessna to fly me to San Carlos on the coast.
In the summer of 1982, I’d come here with my girlfriend’s family, and spent two weeks at the Club Med Resort.
Club Med – a fantasy Island for singles from 18 to 40 – was the perfect place to lay low. They cycled tourists on a two-week rotation every month, nine months of the year.
I arrived at San Carlos, and checked into a condo on the beach for 3 weeks, keeping to myself, swimming, surfing, snorkeling scuba diving and going into town to shop.
On 09-27-89, I woke up hearing someone in the condo downstairs rummaging around.
I grabbed my gun, tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, and found bags of groceries on the counter and suitcases in the hallway.
Realizing it wasn't a burglar, but thinking the club had over-booked the condo, I stepped into the kitchen to see Monica my fiancée, the ex prison guard.
She’d found me after the feds had booked her for aiding and abetting my escape. She’d bonded out for $2,500, and then shook her FIST/FBI tail to get down here.
After America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries ran my story, my family, parents, brother and sister all went to Colorado to avoid the media. My wife and son flew back to Chicago from Dallas to get away from reporters. Everyone that knew me had disowned me except Monica!
The first thing she said when she saw me was “Who's Patricia?”
Monica and I stayed in San Carlos for almost 1½ years. We went to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico City, Belize, Cancun, Mazatlán and Costa Rico, but never back to the States.
On April 16 199,1 I got a phone call at 4:00am for the first time in 19 months from Paul Hatcher from Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX.
I’d sent Paul a postcard in March asking for a job. At the time he was in Iraq for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
Paul told me he had a job for me for six figures in my own area of operations, meaning El Salvador and Columbia. To meet him at the Pelican Club in El Paso at 6:00pm.
One guy I could trust was Paul Hatcher. I kissed Monica goodbye. Not telling her because she would want to come.
I flew by charter from San Carlos to Juárez by Piper, then walked across the border over the bridge into El Paso. “St. Paul, Minnesota!” was my reply to the U.S. Customs guy who asked where I was from.
I caught a cab, then got out at the Pelican Club and walked towards the entrance. It was just after 6:00pm. The parking lot was crowded and people were standing around.
As I grabbed the door to enter the club I heard a bullhorn blare. “Freeze, Eastlack! On the ground!”
There were 27 undercover cops all around me. FBI, DEA, CID and a FIST SWAT team.
I was tackled, slammed and cuffed – hands, feet and waist.
“John Eastlack, you’re under arrest!” said the head FBI special agent in charge of the fugitive internal search team.
Sitting in the back of the Lear jet flying back to Tucson with 8 FBI guys, I realized just how damned tired I was...
Epilogue
Pima County Jail,
Tucson, AZ 1991
By the summer, the jury had found me guilty on all charges and the judge gave me two death sentences, one life and 365 years.
In 1994, the State Supreme Court overturned my conviction due to my judge being charged with gambling and the lead homicide detective blowing his head off with a shotgun.
By 1997, I was given a 25 to life after it was discovered I was the first and only person in the history of the United States to get his case over turned for having FAE-FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) as mitigation.
My case was soon featured on a Discovery and TLC channel documentary called The Sins of Science.
But the Arizona prison system was not done with me yet. In the spring of 1999, a corrupt major set me up to get killed by 3 members of the Aryan Brotherhood.
While in shackles and handcuffs, I was stabbed 21 times with two nine-inch shanks.
Once again, I almost died.
Since then, the years have gone by. I got my health back, work, go to school, and keep in touch with my family.
After all these years, I've never heard from Monica, Patricia, Paul and yet for the postcard, Hilda.
Life goes on.
Click here for a news story on Smiling John.
Click here for Part 6.
If you wish to write to Smiling John please email me at writeinside@hotmail.com
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Smiling John (Part 6 by Smiling John)
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 5 left off with Smiling John on the run in Texas, finding out he is about to be featured on America’s Most Wanted.
On 09-10-89 Sunday night at 6:00pm, I got a call from Paul at Fort Bliss. He told me my story was going to be featured nationwide at 7:00pm local time on America’s Most Wanted, and that I’d made number 7 on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. I was wanted for murders in two states. Sources had spotted me everywhere from Hawaii to Miami.
At that second, Patty showed up with Lucy and Lucy’s boyfriend, Mario. We were all going to see Pet Cemetery, the new Stephen King movie.
I played it cool, keeping track of the time, planning my next move. For the past 9 days I’d been fooling myself thinking I could live the dream again.
After the movie, Patty took Lucy home, and Mario and I went to meet Hilda – a University of Texas at El Paso sorority girl and cheerleader – at T.G.I. Friday's for drinks, then to a pool hall. Eventually Mario crashed out and Hilda had her way with me in the truck, on the truck and the truck bed.
After we dropped Mario off at 4:00am, I asked Hilda if she could take me into Mexico and even down to Hermosillo.
Hilda was wild. She had an evil streak and loved living on the edge. I’d only known her for 6 hours, yet she detected I was on the run and wanted to run with me.
On 09-11-89 at approximately 08:00 hours, Hilda and I crossed back into Mexico after stopping at the Embassy Suites to get my tote and kit bag, and her UTEP sorority house.
At 2:00pm, we reached the city of Hermosillo and checked into the Azteca Hotel for 2 days.
Hilda called Mario and found out that the FBI and FIST (Fugitive International Swat Team) had raided the Embassy Suites, Patty’s house, Bonny’s house and Mario’s house all at once on 09-11-89 at 10:45am, El Paso local time.
Everyone now knew who John Eastlack was, and America’s Most Wanted had really played up the murders by making them look like assassinations because the first two victims were Lester and Kathryn Sherrill – white, Mormon, millionaires, including a superior court judge from Pima Country in Tucson, Arizona.
I had no idea, not that it would have mattered one way or another.
Now that she knew it would make her an accessory after the fact, I convinced Hilda not to toss her life away.
Hilda wanted to know who I really was and why I was in prison, so I told her. An army brat, grew up in California, Minnesota and Arizona. My mother was a doctor and father an army colonel. Grew up playing soccer and swimming, joined the army out of high school. Got out and went to prison for fraud in 1987 and escaped 2 weeks ago. She knew the rest.
She started crying, took off her Virgin Mary necklace, put it around my neck, kissed me on the lips and wished me good luck and safety, then walked out the door.
I never heard from Hilda again except for a postcard when I got off death row in 1997.
As soon as Hilda walked out the door I packed, and went out the back window 5 minutes later.
I trusted Hilda but did not want her coming back. Unlike Patty, Hilda had everything, she was just searching for something else.
I knew I couldn't take care of myself to follow a simple plan. In high school, sports, the military, prison, I had a structured environment, so I did well, excelled even. But my marriage, and relationships were all disasters. On leave I would mess up, getting involved in scams, robberies, cons or even murders. So I was far from having my shit together. I just acted like it.
I took a cab to Hermosillo Airport and charted a Cessna to fly me to San Carlos on the coast.
Click here for Part 5.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 5 left off with Smiling John on the run in Texas, finding out he is about to be featured on America’s Most Wanted.
On 09-10-89 Sunday night at 6:00pm, I got a call from Paul at Fort Bliss. He told me my story was going to be featured nationwide at 7:00pm local time on America’s Most Wanted, and that I’d made number 7 on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. I was wanted for murders in two states. Sources had spotted me everywhere from Hawaii to Miami.
At that second, Patty showed up with Lucy and Lucy’s boyfriend, Mario. We were all going to see Pet Cemetery, the new Stephen King movie.
I played it cool, keeping track of the time, planning my next move. For the past 9 days I’d been fooling myself thinking I could live the dream again.
After the movie, Patty took Lucy home, and Mario and I went to meet Hilda – a University of Texas at El Paso sorority girl and cheerleader – at T.G.I. Friday's for drinks, then to a pool hall. Eventually Mario crashed out and Hilda had her way with me in the truck, on the truck and the truck bed.
After we dropped Mario off at 4:00am, I asked Hilda if she could take me into Mexico and even down to Hermosillo.
Hilda was wild. She had an evil streak and loved living on the edge. I’d only known her for 6 hours, yet she detected I was on the run and wanted to run with me.
On 09-11-89 at approximately 08:00 hours, Hilda and I crossed back into Mexico after stopping at the Embassy Suites to get my tote and kit bag, and her UTEP sorority house.
At 2:00pm, we reached the city of Hermosillo and checked into the Azteca Hotel for 2 days.
Hilda called Mario and found out that the FBI and FIST (Fugitive International Swat Team) had raided the Embassy Suites, Patty’s house, Bonny’s house and Mario’s house all at once on 09-11-89 at 10:45am, El Paso local time.
Everyone now knew who John Eastlack was, and America’s Most Wanted had really played up the murders by making them look like assassinations because the first two victims were Lester and Kathryn Sherrill – white, Mormon, millionaires, including a superior court judge from Pima Country in Tucson, Arizona.
I had no idea, not that it would have mattered one way or another.
Now that she knew it would make her an accessory after the fact, I convinced Hilda not to toss her life away.
Hilda wanted to know who I really was and why I was in prison, so I told her. An army brat, grew up in California, Minnesota and Arizona. My mother was a doctor and father an army colonel. Grew up playing soccer and swimming, joined the army out of high school. Got out and went to prison for fraud in 1987 and escaped 2 weeks ago. She knew the rest.
She started crying, took off her Virgin Mary necklace, put it around my neck, kissed me on the lips and wished me good luck and safety, then walked out the door.
I never heard from Hilda again except for a postcard when I got off death row in 1997.
As soon as Hilda walked out the door I packed, and went out the back window 5 minutes later.
I trusted Hilda but did not want her coming back. Unlike Patty, Hilda had everything, she was just searching for something else.
I knew I couldn't take care of myself to follow a simple plan. In high school, sports, the military, prison, I had a structured environment, so I did well, excelled even. But my marriage, and relationships were all disasters. On leave I would mess up, getting involved in scams, robberies, cons or even murders. So I was far from having my shit together. I just acted like it.
I took a cab to Hermosillo Airport and charted a Cessna to fly me to San Carlos on the coast.
Click here for Part 5.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Smiling John (Part 5 by Smiling John)
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 4 left off with Smiling John on the run in Mexico.
Leaving the car in an alley, I knew it would be stolen and sold for parts in hours. I got out, and walked the strip into the exclusive Electric Q, one of the hottest clubs in all of northern Mexico. The cartels, corrupt cops, local models and movie stars all hung out there.
I walked in unchallenged by the bouncers and the VIP host with a clipboard.
Weeks later, witnesses and the club’s owners would tell the media they’d assumed I was a padrote, a hip Mexican slang word for a playboy.
I found a private booth overlooking the dance floor, entrance and exit, and chilled sipping strawberry daiquirís.
About midnight, when the club really started coming alive, my eyes settled on a woman who looked like Queen Isabella. She had long black hair with French bangs, almond-shaped green eyes, copper-cream skin and a full figure. I was floored.
Her name was Patricia and at 22 she’d just moved back to El Paso from Los Angeles after modeling for 6 years to help her father raise her two younger sisters. Maria 16 and Lucy 14.
She was sat there with a friend, Yvonne, both a league apart from the other woman in the club. Unapproachable because of a beauty most men find intimidating for fear of not measuring up.
I had a wife in Dallas, a fiancée back in Tucson, and was on the run, but all that went up in smoke as I got up and approached Patricia.
“Excuse me, do you speak English?”
Caught off guard by my question, they both looked at me as if they were expecting a punch line.
“Yes. Are you here by yourself?” Patricia asked, looking back to my booth where I’d been sitting alone for the past half hour.
I was glad they’d noticed me.
“Sit with us. My name’s Patty and this is Bonny.”
I shook their hands softly, and introduced myself. “My name is Vogue. Perry Vogue.” I said it just like James Bond, with a British accent and all. Once again I saw in the glint of their eyes that they were waiting for a punch line.
“Where are you from England, Australia?” Bonny asked.
“Actually, I'm from Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina. It's an English territory.”
Once again they seemed to be judging me, weighing my words.
“Would you like to dance?” Patty got up and pulled me onto the dance floor.
Patty and I danced the night away. We went to two more clubs The Cosmos and Sesto Senso. She dropped me of at the Embassy Suites and we made plans for dinner at 9:00pm.
Woke up at 2:00pm. Went swimming for about an hour, worked out at the hotel gym, then showered. At 4:00pm, I crossed the I-10 and went into the Cielo Vista Mall where I bought some clothes, a Gucci watch, and roses for Patty.
At 5:00pm, I showed up at Fort Bliss Army Base and went to see Paul to pick up a tote bag, weapons, an ID plus cash.
He gave me a Beretta 92F 9mm, an M16A3 rifle 5.56mm, a battle dress uniform, a PV7, a rucksack, an EBL, ammo, an MK2 vest, 8 M28 fags, a Winchester M70 bolt-action rifle, and a Med K plus a pack. He also gave me a passport stamped USA, Mexico and Argentina from the Falklands (UK) for Perry Vogue 03-14-63, 6’2” 205lbs, been traveling for 60 days, expires on 10-01-89.
This did not dent Paul at all as he constantly set up kits for the Southern Command, covering Central and South America for the CIA, NSA, DIA, DEA, SOF and even Border Patrol, Joint Task Force 3, INS, and Customs.
My long-term goals were to freelance down in Mexico with some folks I’d met during Operation Snowcap, a drug-interdiction force still running at that time.
At 6:00pm, I went back to the hotel, stashed my gear and took a nap.
Patty picked me up 9:00pm and we went to the Red Lobster, then to a point that overlooked the city lights of El Paso, where we had a drink.
The rest of the week was a blur of clubs, movies, restaurants, sex and more sex. I was so caught up in the Vogue character I actually forgot who I was.
On 09-10-89 Sunday night at 6:00pm, I got a call from Paul at Fort Bliss. He told me my story was going to be featured nationwide at 7:00pm local time on America’s Most Wanted, and that I’d made number 7 on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. I was wanted for murders in two states. Sources had spotted me everywhere from Hawaii to Miami.
Click here for Part 4.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 4 left off with Smiling John on the run in Mexico.
Leaving the car in an alley, I knew it would be stolen and sold for parts in hours. I got out, and walked the strip into the exclusive Electric Q, one of the hottest clubs in all of northern Mexico. The cartels, corrupt cops, local models and movie stars all hung out there.
I walked in unchallenged by the bouncers and the VIP host with a clipboard.
Weeks later, witnesses and the club’s owners would tell the media they’d assumed I was a padrote, a hip Mexican slang word for a playboy.
I found a private booth overlooking the dance floor, entrance and exit, and chilled sipping strawberry daiquirís.
About midnight, when the club really started coming alive, my eyes settled on a woman who looked like Queen Isabella. She had long black hair with French bangs, almond-shaped green eyes, copper-cream skin and a full figure. I was floored.
Her name was Patricia and at 22 she’d just moved back to El Paso from Los Angeles after modeling for 6 years to help her father raise her two younger sisters. Maria 16 and Lucy 14.
She was sat there with a friend, Yvonne, both a league apart from the other woman in the club. Unapproachable because of a beauty most men find intimidating for fear of not measuring up.
I had a wife in Dallas, a fiancée back in Tucson, and was on the run, but all that went up in smoke as I got up and approached Patricia.
“Excuse me, do you speak English?”
Caught off guard by my question, they both looked at me as if they were expecting a punch line.
“Yes. Are you here by yourself?” Patricia asked, looking back to my booth where I’d been sitting alone for the past half hour.
I was glad they’d noticed me.
“Sit with us. My name’s Patty and this is Bonny.”
I shook their hands softly, and introduced myself. “My name is Vogue. Perry Vogue.” I said it just like James Bond, with a British accent and all. Once again I saw in the glint of their eyes that they were waiting for a punch line.
“Where are you from England, Australia?” Bonny asked.
“Actually, I'm from Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina. It's an English territory.”
Once again they seemed to be judging me, weighing my words.
“Would you like to dance?” Patty got up and pulled me onto the dance floor.
Patty and I danced the night away. We went to two more clubs The Cosmos and Sesto Senso. She dropped me of at the Embassy Suites and we made plans for dinner at 9:00pm.
Woke up at 2:00pm. Went swimming for about an hour, worked out at the hotel gym, then showered. At 4:00pm, I crossed the I-10 and went into the Cielo Vista Mall where I bought some clothes, a Gucci watch, and roses for Patty.
At 5:00pm, I showed up at Fort Bliss Army Base and went to see Paul to pick up a tote bag, weapons, an ID plus cash.
He gave me a Beretta 92F 9mm, an M16A3 rifle 5.56mm, a battle dress uniform, a PV7, a rucksack, an EBL, ammo, an MK2 vest, 8 M28 fags, a Winchester M70 bolt-action rifle, and a Med K plus a pack. He also gave me a passport stamped USA, Mexico and Argentina from the Falklands (UK) for Perry Vogue 03-14-63, 6’2” 205lbs, been traveling for 60 days, expires on 10-01-89.
This did not dent Paul at all as he constantly set up kits for the Southern Command, covering Central and South America for the CIA, NSA, DIA, DEA, SOF and even Border Patrol, Joint Task Force 3, INS, and Customs.
My long-term goals were to freelance down in Mexico with some folks I’d met during Operation Snowcap, a drug-interdiction force still running at that time.
At 6:00pm, I went back to the hotel, stashed my gear and took a nap.
Patty picked me up 9:00pm and we went to the Red Lobster, then to a point that overlooked the city lights of El Paso, where we had a drink.
The rest of the week was a blur of clubs, movies, restaurants, sex and more sex. I was so caught up in the Vogue character I actually forgot who I was.
On 09-10-89 Sunday night at 6:00pm, I got a call from Paul at Fort Bliss. He told me my story was going to be featured nationwide at 7:00pm local time on America’s Most Wanted, and that I’d made number 7 on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. I was wanted for murders in two states. Sources had spotted me everywhere from Hawaii to Miami.
Click here for Part 4.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Smiling John (Part 4 by Smiling John)
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
So far in this story, Smiling John's rampage includes escaping from prison, eluding the police by lighting a monster desert fire, and hiding in a house where he murdered the occupants. Part 3 left off with him hitching a ride from a pervert who took him to a trailer in New Mexico. He's trying to get to the region of Texas featured in No Country for Old Men.
I wasn't sure what to make of the turn of events, but alarm bells were going off. I reached in my tote, pulled out my .45 Ruger Blackhawk and set it on my lap with my shirt covering my hand. Just as I completed this task, I heard a door open. I turned to my left, stunned, transfixed, paralyzed by what I saw.
Wearing a purple satin bathrobe, with pink fluffy bunny-rabbit slippers with the black button eyes and furry ears was a 6’ foot 10” transvestite. With long black hair down to his waist, blue eyeliner, mascara, too much red lipstick and long black fingernails, this thing floated down the hallway and into the kitchen.
Of all the things in the world to come through the door this was not what I’d expected. I was frozen. I still could not process what kind of trap I’d fallen into, and wouldn't know the full extent until 1991 when my last chance to avoid the death penalty involved confessing to these events.
The transvestite came out of the kitchen with a 4 pack of Bartles & Jaymes Blackberry wine coolers. I caught a smirk as he transfixed me with his gaze.
Setting the coolers on the coffee table, he sat on the La-Z-Boy chair’s armrest, revealing his nuts and bolts.
At the exact same moment, a gleeful character came bouncing out of the same door the transvestite had come from. It was the fat man who’d picked me up, but wearing a pair of diapers and nothing else!
I reacted in flash, pulling the .45 Ruger Blackhawk up from my lap. I shot the transvestite three times center mass, flipping him backwards over the chair into the wall where he slid down headfirst.
The smile on the diaper bandits face froze, and he let out a yelp as he turned and ran back down the hall. I fired three more times, hitting his right hip and left shoulder. He spun and crashed through the goddamned wall out into the sunlight.
I opened my bag, grabbed a box of shells and put six new ones in, then went outside. It had been 30 to 45 seconds tops, but he was gone. I could see a blood trail and tracks going east towards town.
Going back inside, I got my tote and went to the bedroom, found the keys to the Mustang, some drugs, a tripod with a cam recorder, whips, chains, dildos, cuffs, masks – a total freak show.
Wanting to get away in a hurry, I left everything as it was, and ran to the I-10 and back to the 7-Eleven. In the dumpster were the car keys. I drove on the I-10 east towards El Paso, Texas.
El Paso, TX
Friday 09-01-89 7:30pm
I arrived in El Paso and pulled off the I-10 into Sundance Mall. Parking in a crowded lot, I switched plates with another Ford Tempo and then walked into a Broadway Department Store.
I bought a set of Polo boxers, socks, belt, pants, and a tote. I went into the mall restroom, and changed. I trashed everything I had in the employees’ dumpster in the back hallway. Everything except the .45 Ruger Blackhawk. The 9mm was damaged as the oak grips had cracked from hitting the lady I killed in the back of the head.
I put the gun back in my new Polo tote with my extra clothes, went back in the mall, got a haircut, facial and manicure. Really. It had been two years in the waiting.
On the way out the mall before it closed at 9:00pm, I bought a Gucci watch, Ray-Ban sunglasses and several issues of Guns &Ammo, Soldier of Fortune, and Condé Nast magazines to catch up.
I returned to the parking lot, and drove to the Embassy Suites across from Cielo Vista Mall and the I-10, checked in for six days and paid cash under the name of Perry Vogue.
I took a shower, unpacked then got back in the Ford Tempo. I drove across the bridge and into Juárez, Mexico, leaving the U.S.A. behind. For now.
Driving down the strip full of college kids from The University of Texas at El Paso and soldiers from Fort Bliss, I saw Juárez was jumping. T&A everywhere.
Leaving the car in an alley, I knew it would be stolen and sold for parts in hours. I got out, and walked the strip into the exclusive Electric Q, one of the hottest clubs in all of northern Mexico. The cartels, corrupt cops, local models and movie stars all hung out there.
Will Smiling John behave himself in the Electric Q? If not, what do you think he’ll get up to?
Click here for Part 3.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
So far in this story, Smiling John's rampage includes escaping from prison, eluding the police by lighting a monster desert fire, and hiding in a house where he murdered the occupants. Part 3 left off with him hitching a ride from a pervert who took him to a trailer in New Mexico. He's trying to get to the region of Texas featured in No Country for Old Men.
I wasn't sure what to make of the turn of events, but alarm bells were going off. I reached in my tote, pulled out my .45 Ruger Blackhawk and set it on my lap with my shirt covering my hand. Just as I completed this task, I heard a door open. I turned to my left, stunned, transfixed, paralyzed by what I saw.
Wearing a purple satin bathrobe, with pink fluffy bunny-rabbit slippers with the black button eyes and furry ears was a 6’ foot 10” transvestite. With long black hair down to his waist, blue eyeliner, mascara, too much red lipstick and long black fingernails, this thing floated down the hallway and into the kitchen.
Of all the things in the world to come through the door this was not what I’d expected. I was frozen. I still could not process what kind of trap I’d fallen into, and wouldn't know the full extent until 1991 when my last chance to avoid the death penalty involved confessing to these events.
The transvestite came out of the kitchen with a 4 pack of Bartles & Jaymes Blackberry wine coolers. I caught a smirk as he transfixed me with his gaze.
Setting the coolers on the coffee table, he sat on the La-Z-Boy chair’s armrest, revealing his nuts and bolts.
At the exact same moment, a gleeful character came bouncing out of the same door the transvestite had come from. It was the fat man who’d picked me up, but wearing a pair of diapers and nothing else!
I reacted in flash, pulling the .45 Ruger Blackhawk up from my lap. I shot the transvestite three times center mass, flipping him backwards over the chair into the wall where he slid down headfirst.
The smile on the diaper bandits face froze, and he let out a yelp as he turned and ran back down the hall. I fired three more times, hitting his right hip and left shoulder. He spun and crashed through the goddamned wall out into the sunlight.
I opened my bag, grabbed a box of shells and put six new ones in, then went outside. It had been 30 to 45 seconds tops, but he was gone. I could see a blood trail and tracks going east towards town.
Going back inside, I got my tote and went to the bedroom, found the keys to the Mustang, some drugs, a tripod with a cam recorder, whips, chains, dildos, cuffs, masks – a total freak show.
Wanting to get away in a hurry, I left everything as it was, and ran to the I-10 and back to the 7-Eleven. In the dumpster were the car keys. I drove on the I-10 east towards El Paso, Texas.
El Paso, TX
Friday 09-01-89 7:30pm
I arrived in El Paso and pulled off the I-10 into Sundance Mall. Parking in a crowded lot, I switched plates with another Ford Tempo and then walked into a Broadway Department Store.
I bought a set of Polo boxers, socks, belt, pants, and a tote. I went into the mall restroom, and changed. I trashed everything I had in the employees’ dumpster in the back hallway. Everything except the .45 Ruger Blackhawk. The 9mm was damaged as the oak grips had cracked from hitting the lady I killed in the back of the head.
I put the gun back in my new Polo tote with my extra clothes, went back in the mall, got a haircut, facial and manicure. Really. It had been two years in the waiting.
On the way out the mall before it closed at 9:00pm, I bought a Gucci watch, Ray-Ban sunglasses and several issues of Guns &Ammo, Soldier of Fortune, and Condé Nast magazines to catch up.
I returned to the parking lot, and drove to the Embassy Suites across from Cielo Vista Mall and the I-10, checked in for six days and paid cash under the name of Perry Vogue.
I took a shower, unpacked then got back in the Ford Tempo. I drove across the bridge and into Juárez, Mexico, leaving the U.S.A. behind. For now.
Driving down the strip full of college kids from The University of Texas at El Paso and soldiers from Fort Bliss, I saw Juárez was jumping. T&A everywhere.
Leaving the car in an alley, I knew it would be stolen and sold for parts in hours. I got out, and walked the strip into the exclusive Electric Q, one of the hottest clubs in all of northern Mexico. The cartels, corrupt cops, local models and movie stars all hung out there.
Will Smiling John behave himself in the Electric Q? If not, what do you think he’ll get up to?
Click here for Part 3.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
Smiling John (Part 3 by Smiling John)
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 2 left off with Smiling John breaking into a house to avoid the police, and deciding to kill the occupants.
The old man who attacked me with the fireplace poker was just standing there and threatening me to get out of their house before he called the police.
Yes, really! At this point a kind of out of body experience came over me and I decided right then and there I was going to have to kill them. The choice was just self-preservation. They were simply a threat that had to be eliminated or simplified. I was not going to tie them up, or shoot them due to the noise. I owed them a piece of mind not to kill one in front of the other.
I hit the old man with the poker and he went down. He was bleeding from where he fell into some chairs and cut his face, head and arms.
At this point the lady said she was having an asthma attack, so I asked her husband where her inhalers were. He told me down the hall in the master bedroom on the nightstand.
As I went to get them, her husband ran out of the TV room for the front door.
I felt bamboozled.
I caught up to him and kicked him in the back, smashing him into the wall, tearing his arm and face. He then started yelling and flopping around like fish.
I'd seen all kinds of agony and death in the U.S. Army. In 1983 with “Operation Urgent Fury,” the invasion of Granada, then again in 1986 with the mobile-training teams in El Salvador, and “Operation Snowcap” in Columbia, but this was like in Blade Runner when Harrison Ford shot Joanna Cassidy the android in the back and she fell through three plates of glass and started flopping around.
It was just too weird, so I pierced him through the throat with the fireplace poker, pinning him to the oak floor.
I went back to the TV room and she was still and quiet, looking at me. “Where is my husband?”
“He's in the kitchen, getting you some water,” I told her.
I can only hope she believed me.
I then asked her if she could hand me the bowl of M&M’s on the bookshelf behind her.
As she turned, I hit her nine times in the back of the head with the butt of my gun, killing her.
Nothing seemed to be going right today.
The house was once again quiet, except for the damned phone. The cab guy had heard everything. He wouldn’t be coming to pick me up.
Hanging up the phone. I noticed for the first time that my right arm was a bloody mess and also my right rib cage.
Why, that old man had kicked my ass. I almost smiled for the first time of the day.
Cleaning myself up, and searching the house, I found about $300 cash and two cars in the garage.
I was not in fire mood, so I went through all four bedrooms, three bathrooms and turned the H2O on full blast and flooded the house.
I then got in the red Ford Tempo and drove right past the roadblock manned by two cops.
Like I said, that wanted poster looked nothing like me.
Due to the turn of events, I no longer wanted to involve Monica, Ben or Paul. So as soon as I got to the Arizona-New Mexico border, I stopped at a payphone and told everyone I fucked up and to forgot about me.
It was a tough call, but I was morphing by the hour losing my mind and myself.
09-01-89
Friday 2:00pm
Pulled up into some rundown cow town just passed the state line in New Mexico. Drove off at a 7-Eleven and trashed the car. Plates, ID, tags all went into the dumpster.
Walked into the 7-Eleven, bought some orange juice and a few bags of beef jerky, then walked out to the I-10 east and started hitchhiking.
Like a moth to a flame, a 1967 grey Ford Mustang pulled up. All smiles, I leaned in the window and told the driver I was on leave and returning to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
This fat, short, four-eyed, bearded guy gave me a shit-eating grin and said, “Hop in.”
Climbing in the passenger seat and chilling for the first time in 8 to 9 hours, I actually felt as if I’d reached sanctuary.
Looking around the car I noticed trash, beer cans, candy-bar wrappers and the whole back seat was packed with pornographic magazines.
What the fuck!
Right as I'm on the verge of adding this up, he asked if it was okay if we go back to his place. He’d forgotten something and it would just take a minute and then he’d drive me into El Paso, or he could drop me off right here on the I-10 in 110° heat and I could try to catch another ride.
He thought he was a wise guy, if he only knew.
“Sure,” I said. “I don't have to report back until 21:00 hrs.”
We drove back to that cow town, and I saw my red car still parked next to the 7-11 untouched.
He drove to the north of the town about a mile off the I-10 to a trailer park.
I saw a trailer on stilts with a staircase. About 60’x15’. He said, “Would you like to come in for a cold drink?”
“Sure. It's hot as hell out here.” I grabbed my tote bag and follow him up the stairs and into the twilight zone.
As I entered the trailer the first thing I noticed was how clean the place was.
I sat on the couch and set my tote next to me on the right side.
He then walked to the TV, put on a VHS tape, then walked down the hall, entered the last room and closed the door.
I turned my attention back to the TV and saw an underground S&M tape of two girls in a bathtub having sex with each other.
I wasn't sure what to make of the turn of events, but alarm bells were going off. I reached in my tote and pulled out my .45 Ruger Blackhawk and set it on my lap with my shirt covering my hand.
Just as I completed this task, I heard a door open. I turned to my left, stunned, transfixed, paralyzed by what I saw.
Click here for Part 2.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood
“Smiling John” Eastlack escaped from prison and was featured on America’s Most Wanted. He was sentenced to death for the murders he describes. When it was discovered that he has fetal alcohol syndrome, his sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole.
Part 2 left off with Smiling John breaking into a house to avoid the police, and deciding to kill the occupants.
The old man who attacked me with the fireplace poker was just standing there and threatening me to get out of their house before he called the police.
Yes, really! At this point a kind of out of body experience came over me and I decided right then and there I was going to have to kill them. The choice was just self-preservation. They were simply a threat that had to be eliminated or simplified. I was not going to tie them up, or shoot them due to the noise. I owed them a piece of mind not to kill one in front of the other.
I hit the old man with the poker and he went down. He was bleeding from where he fell into some chairs and cut his face, head and arms.
At this point the lady said she was having an asthma attack, so I asked her husband where her inhalers were. He told me down the hall in the master bedroom on the nightstand.
As I went to get them, her husband ran out of the TV room for the front door.
I felt bamboozled.
I caught up to him and kicked him in the back, smashing him into the wall, tearing his arm and face. He then started yelling and flopping around like fish.
I'd seen all kinds of agony and death in the U.S. Army. In 1983 with “Operation Urgent Fury,” the invasion of Granada, then again in 1986 with the mobile-training teams in El Salvador, and “Operation Snowcap” in Columbia, but this was like in Blade Runner when Harrison Ford shot Joanna Cassidy the android in the back and she fell through three plates of glass and started flopping around.
It was just too weird, so I pierced him through the throat with the fireplace poker, pinning him to the oak floor.
I went back to the TV room and she was still and quiet, looking at me. “Where is my husband?”
“He's in the kitchen, getting you some water,” I told her.
I can only hope she believed me.
I then asked her if she could hand me the bowl of M&M’s on the bookshelf behind her.
As she turned, I hit her nine times in the back of the head with the butt of my gun, killing her.
Nothing seemed to be going right today.
The house was once again quiet, except for the damned phone. The cab guy had heard everything. He wouldn’t be coming to pick me up.
Hanging up the phone. I noticed for the first time that my right arm was a bloody mess and also my right rib cage.
Why, that old man had kicked my ass. I almost smiled for the first time of the day.
Cleaning myself up, and searching the house, I found about $300 cash and two cars in the garage.
I was not in fire mood, so I went through all four bedrooms, three bathrooms and turned the H2O on full blast and flooded the house.
I then got in the red Ford Tempo and drove right past the roadblock manned by two cops.
Like I said, that wanted poster looked nothing like me.
Due to the turn of events, I no longer wanted to involve Monica, Ben or Paul. So as soon as I got to the Arizona-New Mexico border, I stopped at a payphone and told everyone I fucked up and to forgot about me.
It was a tough call, but I was morphing by the hour losing my mind and myself.
09-01-89
Friday 2:00pm
Pulled up into some rundown cow town just passed the state line in New Mexico. Drove off at a 7-Eleven and trashed the car. Plates, ID, tags all went into the dumpster.
Walked into the 7-Eleven, bought some orange juice and a few bags of beef jerky, then walked out to the I-10 east and started hitchhiking.
Like a moth to a flame, a 1967 grey Ford Mustang pulled up. All smiles, I leaned in the window and told the driver I was on leave and returning to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
This fat, short, four-eyed, bearded guy gave me a shit-eating grin and said, “Hop in.”
Climbing in the passenger seat and chilling for the first time in 8 to 9 hours, I actually felt as if I’d reached sanctuary.
Looking around the car I noticed trash, beer cans, candy-bar wrappers and the whole back seat was packed with pornographic magazines.
What the fuck!
Right as I'm on the verge of adding this up, he asked if it was okay if we go back to his place. He’d forgotten something and it would just take a minute and then he’d drive me into El Paso, or he could drop me off right here on the I-10 in 110° heat and I could try to catch another ride.
He thought he was a wise guy, if he only knew.
“Sure,” I said. “I don't have to report back until 21:00 hrs.”
We drove back to that cow town, and I saw my red car still parked next to the 7-11 untouched.
He drove to the north of the town about a mile off the I-10 to a trailer park.
I saw a trailer on stilts with a staircase. About 60’x15’. He said, “Would you like to come in for a cold drink?”
“Sure. It's hot as hell out here.” I grabbed my tote bag and follow him up the stairs and into the twilight zone.
As I entered the trailer the first thing I noticed was how clean the place was.
I sat on the couch and set my tote next to me on the right side.
He then walked to the TV, put on a VHS tape, then walked down the hall, entered the last room and closed the door.
I turned my attention back to the TV and saw an underground S&M tape of two girls in a bathtub having sex with each other.
I wasn't sure what to make of the turn of events, but alarm bells were going off. I reached in my tote and pulled out my .45 Ruger Blackhawk and set it on my lap with my shirt covering my hand.
Just as I completed this task, I heard a door open. I turned to my left, stunned, transfixed, paralyzed by what I saw.
Click here for Part 2.
Our friends inside appreciate your comments.
Email comments and questions for Smiling John to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below. To post a comment if you do not have a Google/Blogger account, just select anonymous for your identity.
Shaun P. Attwood