Day 12: Send a Letter to a Mass Murderer

Brittany and I already did this task back around Christmas when we were bored and hadn't actually thought about taking this book seriously yet. We were just flipping through it looking for something to do, and we ended up doing this one. I wrote to Angel Resendez, "The Railroad Killer," who killed 9 people. In my letter to him I was really mean in a sarcastic/facetious kind of way, and I kind of regretted that later because I was watching this special on the Discovery Channel about murderers on death row and their "pen pals" and how sometimes that's the only ray of encouragement/hope that they have, and sometimes people end up getting really close to the inmates. Then I felt kinda bad about what I said to Angel, so I figured that this time I would write him an apology letter. I looked him up on Wikipedia just out of curiosity, and...it turns out he was executed on June 27, 2006. So he didn't even get my mean letter. Yay.

Now I have decided to write to another Hispanic murderer...Richard Ramirez. He is known as "The Nightstalker" and killed 16 people. He, however, has not already been executed. He was known to draw pentagrams, symbols associated with satanism, on his victims and during one trial he held up his hand with a pentagram drawn on it and yelled, "Hail Satan." Not only that, but he started corresponding with a woman named Doreen Lioy by mail when he was on trial and in prison for his murders, and on the third time she visited him, he proposed to her and she said yes.

"Instead of a vicious murderer, she sees an attractive, vulnerable man who still exhibits boyish qualities. 'I never found the one who was everything rolled into one,' Lioy told the newspaper. 'It may sound strange, but that's who I believe Richard is.'" (http://www.angelfire.com/oh/yodaspage2/marriage.html) Isn't that disgusting? They got married in the prison's visitors center, and Lioy says that when Ramirez is executed, she will commit suicide. She sounds about as psycho as he is.

Here is my letter to Ramirez:

Hi Richard,

I just thought I would write a letter to say hi. Don't worry though, I'm not writing you in pursuit of a love connection or anything - I know about Doreen and how that happened and everything. Writing letters is probably one of my favorite things to do I just don't have a lot of time to do it. Do you get lots of mail? Maybe you do because of the book. You're probably wondering what "the book" is. Well, "the book" is a book that gives tasks everyday for you to complete for one entire year. Supposedly if you complete every task, the book will totally change your life. One of the tasks happens to be "Write a Letter to a Mass Murderer" and it lists several mass murderers and their addresses. You are one of them, and that is why I am writing to you today. Someone who has already completed this task and sent you a letter has probably told you all about this, but I guess I would just recap it for you.

I bet when people write you they are either A) sending you hate mail for the crimes you have committed, B) creepily seeking love like Doreen did, or C) asking you tons of questions, like "What made you murder so many innocent people?" "What is it like being on death row?" "Is prison food good?" "Do you and your wife ever get to have sex?" and other stuff like that. Well, luckily for you, I'm not going to do any of those! I'm going to talk about myself.

Tomorrow is the first day back to school for me. And not just any first day back to school, the first day back to school of my senior year. This is the last year of my secondary education. It's kind of exciting, but at the same time very nerve-wracking and sad. I'm looking forward to this year because of the freedoms it brings and knowing that these past 12 years of school are finally coming to a close. I'm also going to turn 18 within a couple months and that's another big step as well. I don't think I'll actually feel older, I'll probably just feel the same, but just knowing that I'm finally considered an adult and I'm going to be independently starting my life within the next year is so awesome. I have really come a long way throughout high school, I've matured and experienced a lot of things that have made me stronger and smarter. When I think about the progress I've made, it's really weird thinking of how much I have grown compared to how much time it feels like I've spent in high school. The time has just flown by, but the experiences that I have had and lessons I have learned feel like they've taken me a lifetime to accumulate and fully understand.

I didn't actually mean to go this deep in this letter, but it feels nice to write about this stuff. I wonder what your high school experience was like. You lived in California, right? I've never been there before. I live on the East Coast, directly opposite of California. It seems like it would be such a different world over there. I wonder what I would be like today if I had lived in California and gone to high school there. I would like to think that I would still have become the person I am today and stayed true to myself and my beliefs. I actually think I would be the exact same person I am today. I have never really been one to conform to what "everyone else is doing."

Well, it's getting late and tomorrow is, after all, the first day of school...so I really need to be getting some sleep. Thanks for listening to me Richard. I hope you and Doreen are doing well. And, I hope you have a good life...or, what's left of it.

Sincerely,
Lily

Yep. So that's my letter. Like I said, I truly did not mean to end up going that deep in the letter, seriously...why would I be telling all that to a mass murderer who probably could care less about me? He has more things to worry about, like...his pending death date. Oh yeah, and I wrote "Lily" because, I'm not going to write my real name, just in case he does escape with help by Doreen and together they go on the run in a mass killing spree across the US and trace me by my finger prints on the letter or something. I wrote Lily because I have always loved that name and I also just finished Harry Potter yesterday (REALLY good ending) and that's his mom's name. So anyways...I really do need to be going to bed now.

Here's to waking up at 6:00 am every morning for AP Calc until next June!