by Christine Holmstrom
“Come
here, Marilyn, let’s look in this window.” Wedged between an untrimmed bush and
the home’s front wall, I’d motioned to my friend, inviting her to join me.
Pressing my face against the glass, I peered inside.
Drat. It was the kitchen.
From
what I’d read in the LA Herald Examiner a few days ago, a man had
murdered his wife, then his four children as they slept, right here in our
placid suburban enclave. Afterwards, he’d killed himself.
“What’s
there?” Marilyn whispered, glancing backwards to see if any of the neighbors
had noticed us.
“Just a messy table.” It sat
in the middle of the kitchen, a butter dish near the edge, the contents
slumping onto scuffed wood, victim of the valley’s summer heat.
No blood here.
We’d have to find the bedrooms
where the kids were stabbed.
Marilyn and I were both
twelve. Curious. Or maybe it was mostly me. Did I believe that viewing the
crime scene would answer the unspoken question—why? The question had taunted me
from when I could first read newspaper stories about strangled starlets,
missing children, and trussed bodies found in steamer trunks.
Horrible as these neighborhood
murders were, they provided the most excitement we’d known in quiet Canoga
Park. If we’d thought to examine our motives, Marilyn and I likely would’ve
recalled how drivers slow and stare, braking to look across the highway at
smashed vehicles, the corpses—covered in blankets—lying on a sloping hillside.
“The bedrooms must be in the
back.” Freeing myself from the clasp of the unruly shrub, I’d surveyed our
surroundings. A tall wood fence encircled the sides and back of the home—a
locked gate the only access.
“Wait, what’s that?” Marilyn
pointed to the large rust-red stain that blossomed over the asphalt driveway
leading to the two-car garage.
Could it be blood? I stopped,
transfixed. Was this where the father committed suicide?
I always wanted to know more.
Maybe that curiosity is part of the reason that I’d ended up as a correctional
officer— a prison guard—at San Quentin decades later.
After walking through the
heavy iron gates into the prison yard, I witnessed things that can never be
erased from memory. There is no turning away.
As a “fish cop”—a new
correctional officer—I was frightened yet mesmerized by stories of staff
murders. During new officer orientation, Sgt. “Flip” Fernandez recounted how
he’d been the first to find the body of Officer Richard Ochoa in the prison
laundry back in ’76. “You couldn’t even recognize him. He didn’t have no
face—it was hamburger.”
“So why would someone kill
him?” I wanted to know.
“Not sure. Ochoa was well
liked.”
“What happened?”
“Well, my guess is that Ochoa
stumbled onto a drug deal.” Fernandez frowned. “The convicts must’ve panicked.
Grabbed a weightlifting bar and…”
I held my breath, trying not
to imagine a man without a face, the torn and battered flesh, the splintered
nose, bits of pink tissue splattering his khaki uniform shirt, the pooling
blood…
It could be any of us; could
be me. Being a good cop wouldn’t save you.
During my first years at San
Quentin, the prison was a war zone. Alarms screeching, whistles blaring daily.
Shouts of “shots on the yard” as gun rail officers fired warning rounds or
tried to stop a knife-wielding assailant with a bullet. Then the piercing wail
of an ambulance racing down Sir Francis Drake Blvd to deliver the wounded and
dying to Marin General.
Once, stepping out of the
housing unit to respond to the blare of whistles, I’d flattened myself against
the wall as four officers ran past, a badly injured prisoner on their
gurney—his forehead split open, brain matter exposed.
Try as I might, I cannot erase
certain scenes. Like this one: It was late morning—a cold day. There’d been
another stabbing. I needed to ID the victim and sign the Warden’s Check-out
Order prior to transport. The inmate lay naked, except for his boxer shorts, in
the prison’s battered old ambulance. His pale belly heaved; his breath labored.
Thin crimson stripes pierced his abdomen—the marks left by repeated stab
wounds. Unaware of me, his eyes remained fixed on the vehicle’s gray metal
ceiling. He was my age, handsome—no tattoos or gang symbols on his bare skin.
Except for his longish hair, he reminded me of a man I’d once dated. I examined
the ID photo that the gate officer had handed me, verified the match. Would the
prisoner ever need it again?
There are many ways to die in
prison besides assault—accidental deaths from bad “pruno” laced with wood
alcohol or a suicide gesture gone wrong.
Or miscalculation. Like the
two inmates in Badger Section.
Walking through the sally
port—the prison’s double-gated entry—I’d nearly bumped into a lieutenant from
the Investigations Unit. In his hand he’d held a few eight by ten photos. The
bright colors drew my eyes.
“What are those?” Curious, I’d
pointed.
“Evidence.” He fanned the
glossies like playing cards. “Remember the cell fire last week?”
I’d heard about it. Late one
night two prisoners had set fire to a blanket tied on the bars of their shared
cell. Nothing especially unusual, although most convicts simply pushed a pile
of burning garbage onto the tier. Inmates started tier fires when they were
angry or drunk or just for the hell of it. The gun rail officer yelled at them
to put out the fire. They’d ignored him. By the time another cop got to the
cell with a fire extinguisher, the flames had spread. Their TV, also attached
to the bars, ignited, exploding in a shower of sparks shooting across the cell.
Decades of paint began to burn, the walls a flaming oven. By then the convicts
were screaming, hurling water at the conflagration, plunging their heads into
the toilet bowl. Some cops unfurled the unit fire hose from its red painted box
and lugged it up two flights of stairs then dragged it down the tier towards
the cell. It proved too short. Other cops were already on the tier, aiming fire
extinguishers at the blaze without success. Intense heat had expanded the cell
door, jamming it shut.
“No way could we unlock the
door,” one of the cops later said. “It was the frickin’ Towering Inferno.”
I held out my hand for the
photos. At first, I thought I was looking at an enlarged shot of two overcooked
hot dogs—the pink skin splitting sideways—tattooed with charcoal bits. Then I
noticed the blackened bunk bed and realized what I was seeing.
There was no pleasure in these
sights—only a slight salve for the curiosity that had been itching since my
childhood.
Friends sometimes asked why I
kept working at the prison. Many reasons—the adrenaline high, the glory and
notoriety of being a female correctional officer, the pay, promotional
opportunities…
Although I could never erase
what I witnessed during my time at San Quentin, I’d chosen not to turn away
either.
There was too much to see.
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