In Their Eyes

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Editors

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Deliberations

Chapter 2: The Conversations

Chapter 3: The First Verdict

Chapter 4: Jan's Defense

Chapter 5: Josh's Secret Love

Chapter 6: The First Murder

Chapter 7: First Murder Debate

Chapter 8: True Love / False Love

Chapter 9: The Second Murder

Chapter 10: Thoughts and Reflections

Chapter 11: The Third Murder

Chapter 12: Personal Realities

Chapter 13: The Twenty-Year Lie

Chapter 14: A Recall from the Prosecutor

Chapter 15: Morning of the Third Day

Chapter 16: Déjà Vu

Chapter 17: Understanding Life's Travels

Chapter 18: The Verdict

Chapter 19: In Your Eyes

In Their Eyes

Trent

Copyright © 2023 Trent

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 978-1-68498-061-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-062-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Editors

I cannot give any credit to any one person for the editing. By being a first-time writer with very little recourses, many eyes helped to edit the book. I only hope we got it right. Thanks to everyone involved. You know who you are. Thanks for everything.

To my oldest living relative,

Your presence has always been strong and dynamic.

The respect you command was unprecedented,

Not because you showed a presence of anger

But because you commanded respect for a true strong woman of your time.

Your strength and image have never changed as long as I can remember.

Your presence has been in my thoughts my entire life.

I have always seen your face and heard your voice.

With twelve kids, you have earned the right to have the last command.

We will all remember your quotes and question your hard family decisions.

Your memory, as well as your bloodline, will live with me as well as others who are a part of me.

Thanks for being a part of giving me life.

To my grandmother Elizabeth Paul (Big Girl),

Please accept my dedication to you (In Their Eyes).

I am very proud to be a part of your world.

This dedication was written on September 4, 2010.

Trent

Your very first grandchild

I can't see the sun, but I can feel the warmth on my skin. Finally, I feel good about myself.

Prologue

See you later, Jan. This man will take you back. This will take some time. So if you need anything or just want to talk, call me.

Thank you so much!

As Jan began to walk down the long corridor, she began to reflect on what brought her to this point in her life. She remembers the horrible pain she always felt when she started to think about her childhood. She would always feel this very sharp, piercing pain in her side. It seemed to grow as she grew and became so strong that it nearly blinded her. In fact, she has felt this pain just about every day of her life, except right now in this very place. She finally feels good about herself. But why?

As Jan continues to reflect on her life, she is finally speaking (in her mind) with a voice of compassion for her mother as well as for herself.

Momma, even though I cannot see the sun, I feel the warmth on my skin. Oh, how wonderful it feels to me! Finally, I feel good about myself! I fought so many of your battles in my mind.

Momma, did you ever look deeply into my eyes and see the pain I was in? I was sad throughout most of my childhood. I can only remember being happy a few times. The rest of my childhood was some of the worst times of my life. There were so many things going on in the house. Why couldn't you see that it was destroying me inside? As I look back over my life, I see my confusion and lack of knowledge of myself. This hurt me as a child but even more as I grew into an adult.

As a little girl, I would wonder how you could continue to take the blows to your body. You were so disrespected. Momma, if, as a child, I could understand that something was truly wrong, why couldn't you? Please, Momma! Help me to under­stand why we continued to live as we did. Why didn't you ever demand respect as a woman or even as a human being?

You know, Momma, when I think about my experiences while I was growing up, I realize now that I never knew what really love was. I never saw love displayed at home, and that hindered me in every aspect of my life. I read many books about it, and I saw love portrayed in the movies and on television. But I never felt it or saw it between you and my father. The atmosphere in our house was filled with so much hurt and pain, and I even felt that it was directed toward me. That scarred me for life.

Momma, I often wondered if you loved me. Even now, I am not quite sure you did. But with God's help, I now believe that, in your own way, you did love me. At least, I believe that you cared about me but were just mixed up most of the time. You were just trying to figure out a way to save yourself because of all the pain you had endured trying to feed the ego of a violent man, a parasite, a rapist. As I sit here today, Momma, I can still feel your pain as if you were sitting right beside me.

Jan begins to wipe the tears from her eyes as the memories flood her mind like a dam that had finally burst.

Oh, Momma! If only you could have thought to give me some hugs or kisses, maybe, just maybe, it would have made me feel safe and loved by you in spite of all the pain and hurt present daily in our house.

Remember when the ambulance was at our house? You slapped me with such force just because I continued to ask you how you could have slipped down the stairs. I believed then—and I still do believe—that he pushed you down the stairs. He should have gone to jail! You knocked me down, making me afraid of both of you. I was afraid of him because of the pain he inflicted on you, and I was afraid of you because you became a puppet my father manipulated. You only served one master—my father. He held the strings to your life. I believe it was too late for you at that point. You had become brainwashed. You would hurt anyone trying to pull at those strings.

Tears keep running down Jan's cheeks as she remembers being happy about winning an award for her writing.

That day, I needed to talk to you about coming to school for a luncheon at which I would receive an award. The question was never asked because of what happened to you. You never knew about my award. For years, that award gave me peace and a bit of happiness when I needed strength to move on.

Momma, I was so angry with you, not because you hit me, but because you should have gone to the hospital. You did not want to answer questions about the incident. You tried to avoid having to answer questions about the other bruises and marks on your body. Some were old, but many were recent. Yes, Momma, I saw all the marks at some time or another. You could never make me believe that you had slipped and had fallen down those stairs. You had been going up and down those stairs all your life.

Momma, remember when you were talking on the phone to Auntie, your sister? Father started to beat you while you were on the phone. Other family members constantly asked you why you continued to stay with him. Your sister would ask you all the time why you never did something about it. When my father realized what the conversations were all about, he stopped everyone, even your sister, from calling or coming over.

Momma, when you got sick and went to the hospital, why did you go back to the house? It was a chance for both of us to get away. You went back, and I never saw you again. Why did you continue to stay with the Beast? I have always wondered why you never left. I believed that, for some reason, you felt that this was your destiny, the life you should be living. It appears to me that you became immune to the torturous physical and mental pain the Beast, my father, had inflicted on you.

Momma, did you really love my father, or did you just settle for this type of life? Was there ever anyone else in your life? Somebody who loved you and respected you? Did your mother have the same problems when you were a child? These questions run through my mind. How you could love or even respect my father when he mentally and physically abused you? He called you those horrible names, which are still so vivid in my mind today.

Momma, when you thought I was asleep, I was not. I saw and heard things a young girl should never have to. He did things to you, terrible things, I still recall even now. It is hard for me to remember these events without gasping for breath. Yet if I do not try to remember, I will only hurt myself even more than I have already done.

I can remember sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework and watching you cook this wonderful dinner. You tried to make sure it would be ready when my father came home from work. Oh, Momma, I can remember the wonderful aromas of your baking. You were an excellent cook. No one could outdo you when it came to cooking. I recall that you were very happy when you were in the kitchen baking. You and I would laugh and talk, but everything changed one horrible, unforgettable evening. I could not have known our lives would never be the same after that evening.

That evening, my father did not come straight home from work, and you were trying to keep the food hot. You knew he would have a fit if the food was not to his liking. I could see the nervousness on your face. You were actually sweating. I remember asking you if I could help. You said to me, "You cannot help me. No one can help me.

I thought that was a strange thing for you to say.

My father did not come home until very late. Hours had passed. I was asleep in bed but was awakened by loud noises. I got out of the bed and walked to the door. As I eased the door open, I saw you handing my father a tray of food. All of a sudden, he threw it at you. You screamed, and your face had turned a very bright red. I realized the food had burned you. The food you had taken such care to prepare, trying to make sure he would have a nice meal to come home to, was now all over you and the floor.

As I stood in the doorway, I felt such anger toward him. For the first time, I wished him dead. I then heard him say, Pick up the food, you silly, backward bitch! He repeated those words several times. I saw you run to the kitchen, get a broom, and start mopping and cleaning the food off the floor. However, it was not enough for him. He told you to get on your knees and scrub the floor where the food had been. Then I heard him yell at you to get into the bedroom.

I heard you plead with him, Please do not do this. Nevertheless, he proceeded to have sex with you. I locked my door, Momma, and got into the bed. I pulled the covers over my head, trying to drown out those awful sounds of you crying, screaming, and begging him to stop. I was so scared for you. I just started crying myself because I could not help you. I could not go back to sleep. I was up all night. I knew that I would never be able to sleep through the night again.

The next day, after my father had gone to work and you were in the kitchen, I went into your bedroom. I stood there in shock. There was blood all over the sheets and the floor. I ran to the bathroom and turned on the water. I put a towel over my mouth and screamed until I almost passed out.

Momma, I remember the constant arguing and fighting. You would not fight back, and it would always end with him having sex with you. I even remember one time that I got enough nerve to run up to him and ask him to stop hurting you. You told me to go back in my room. You later said that I was being disrespectful. I could not understand how you could defend his actions, but you did. Momma, did you even know what I was going through? I remember you always cleaning up the house and cooking, but it was never good enough for him. He always found fault with everything you did.

Momma, I never trusted anyone. I never let anyone get close to me. I had no friends in school even though I was one of the smartest students there. I never joined any clubs. I kept to myself. I was alone, and I didn't have anybody, not even you. I did not trust the people at church even though you took me to Sunday school and morning services. There was nothing they could say to me. You never knew how much I hated those people! I knew that most of them were aware of the mental and physical abuse you were going through because you wore sunglasses and big hats most of the time. This was not for style; it was to cover up the bruises inflicted on you by my father. Nobody did anything to help us; even the pastor turned the blind eye to your obvious suffering.

We never talked much as I got older. However, what I do remember is the talk we had when I started my menstrual cycle. I thought I was dying, which is the normal reaction of a scared and confused little girl. I remember you saying, I am so sorry you have to go through this. Your life will never be the same, and you will never be happy. When I tried to question you about the statement, you told me to stop asking you so many questions. I never asked you another question about such things again.

Momma, you never congratulated me on my grades in school. You never came