An odd dance towards a murder, or a suicide by request
April 22, 2015 2:59 PM   Subscribe

This all happened a long time ago, at a time when Baker was smoking a lot of weed. All the strange interactions he had with Doc over the years have blurred together. At a certain point, things began to feel inevitable, all Baker’s small choices gaining momentum until it felt as though there were no more choices to make. And while he insists that he has no regrets about what took place later — it happened the way it should have, the way it had to — maybe if he’d made a different decision that afternoon, he wouldn’t be in prison right now. Because it can all be traced back to that very first time they met, when Doc turned to him and asked, straight-faced, as if it was the most normal thing in the world: “Have you ever thought about killing someone?”
posted by mudpuppie (7 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Woah. What a story.

Also:

The card fraud was a possible felony charge, investigators told Baker, but assisted suicide was a Class C misdemeanor in Texas. (Strictly speaking, this is true — but only if the assist doesn’t result in serious injury or death. If it does, then it’s a felony.) They told Baker they’d recommend that the DA drop the felony fraud charges if he came clean about what had really happened between him and Doc.

Regardless of your feelings about the case, what a damn dirty trick.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:29 PM on April 22, 2015 [7 favorites]


You don't make a deal. That's the lawyer's job.
posted by rdr at 5:05 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


That was quite harrowing and strange. The turn at the end, with the description of "Doc" in the grave he'd dug and what he did and what that meant to Baker, really was chilling.
posted by xingcat at 5:22 PM on April 22, 2015


Yikes.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:39 PM on April 22, 2015


While the courts sorted things out, Baker was temporarily put in the Callahan County jail, where he was housed next to a 91-year-old named Red Rountree, the nation’s oldest bank robber. Baker asked Rountree why he was still robbing banks at his advanced age. “There is no better feeling in this world than leaving a bank with their money,” Rountree said.

I met an old guy in Atlanta, who claimed to have just been released from a 20 year sentence in the Federal Prison there, for a long run of bank robberies back in the 60's. I wasn't totally sure I believed him, but he seemed like a hard type guy and he had jailhouse tattoos. I asked him, was it worth it, and he enthusiastically endorsed Rountree's view. He asked me if I had ever enjoyed intimacy with a woman on a pile of $20 bills strewn about a motel room, and vowed that he would start robbing banks again at once, if it weren't for improved counter-measures such as dye packs.

I can accept an unrepentant bank robber. But having, as your main regret for killing a man, that you missed the era of the click wheel iPod, that's the worst thing I have heard in a while.
posted by thelonius at 3:19 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


“[Doc] had no business at all being free in society….I don’t have the ability to accurately convey how disturbed he was,” he wrote. “This wasn’t a depressed gay dude. This was a really fucked up individual.” He went on at length about how Doc was a child molester and a pervert, an “absolute dirt bag” who destroyed people’s lives. (There’s no evidence whatsoever that Doc molested children.)

Your ex-boyfriend/sugar daddy may have come onto you when you were high/drunk. You may have reciprocated his advances at some point. Because of your homophobia and your stupidity, you rationalize murdering this person with a bunch of unsubstantiated baloney that they molest children and "ruin peoples' lives." No polite rejection (you keep accepting money and rides and the loan of their car), no restraining order (you could have declared him dangerous), you just..appoint yourself judge, jury and executioner? Commit homicide, attempt clumsily to cover it up, then act absolutely justified and express regret not about the death of a person, but that MP3 players are too damn advanced these days.

Do I have that right?
posted by ostranenie at 12:06 PM on April 24, 2015


Also, bitchin' Camaro, amirite brah? *high five*
posted by ostranenie at 12:09 PM on April 24, 2015


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