After pausing a moment for effect, the judge announced his decision. “I hereby sentence the defendant, Richard Straub, to death by lethal injection. The date of the execution is provisionally set for May 15. Until that date, you will be detained on death row in solitary confinement at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence, Arizona.”
“Mr. Straub,” the judge continued, “you have murdered your own flesh and blood without showing any remorse. All this just for riches! I would imagine your counsel will appeal this judgment, but this court believes you will never see the light of day again. Even if higher courts overturn the death penalty decision, this sentence represents life imprisonment without any chance of parole. You will not get less than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Additionally, I am sentencing you to five years in prison for each separate crime of assault with a deadly weapon on three other individuals, plus another five years for perjury. ”
The judge was quite sure the appellate court would uphold theconviction for such a cold blooded, calculated, and inhuman act of cruelty, but he was taking no chances.
After hearing the verdict, as the bailiffs handcuffed him and grabbed his arms to take him away, Straub began screaming. “I’m innocent, please, I’m innocent! I didn’t kill my brother, I didn’t murder Rabbi Bloom!”
After the verdict, a reporter assigned to interview some of the jurors outside of the courthouse was lucky enough to catch the lone holdout for a minute.
“Yes,” explained Juror Five, “I was the lone holdout because they never proved that Straub actually pulled the trigger. But after I went back over all of the indirect evidence that pointed to Straub, I changed my vote to guilty. There just wasn’t any other plausible explanation for what happened.”
The truth was he never really changed his mind; he just got tired of the seemingly interminable struggle with the other jurors and the loss of income the trial was costing all of them. Still, Juror Five got his fifteen minutes of fame, even though it didn’t last five minutes.
As the bailiffs took Straub to his cell, he struggled mightily to prevent himself from throwing up, while sobbing like a newborn baby that had just been slapped on its bottom to begin its first breath. Richard Straub had finally realized the verdict for killing his twin brother would result in his last breath. The irony was lost on him as the bailiffs dragged him away.
Among the last to leave the courthouse was Carol Jacobson, who had attended the proceedings with rapt attention. She did a joyful, girlish skip as she crossed the street to the parking lot. Looking furtively around before getting into her car, she mumbled a faint “Yes.” After starting the engine and turning on the air conditioning, she pounded the steering wheel, exclaiming, “Yes, yes, yes!”
“I never imagined it would play out like this,” she said to herself, as she recalled the time that Straub had come to work on their landscaping. She was amazed at how much Straub looked like Neil, and had showed him Bloom’s photo in the Sedona paper, inadvertently setting Straub’s whole plan into motion.
No one else knew it at the time, but Neil had responded to her worries about Jules catching them in their affair and dumping her back on the street, by assuring her that he would make her his sole beneficiary. His estate was probably worth at least two million dollars. She remembered the old Billy Holiday song, “God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own.” She had escaped a background of poverty by marrying Jules and becoming his “trophy wife.” Now she didn’t need him anymore. No more bullshit about Jules taking those enigmatic ski trips. Ever since she found that receipt in his coat pocket from the Mustang Ranch outside Las Vegas, she realized those trips were really about sexual tourism and gross infidelity.
She was free now and could do whatever she wanted. To hell with Jules. She truly did have fond feelings for the Rabbi, but perhaps now more in death than in life. “I should send that guy Straub a birthday card,” she said out loud, and peeled out of the parking lot to a whole new future.
Epilogue
The Backstory of Richard Straub
John and Eileen Straub, who could not have children of their own, adopted Richard Straub at the age of two. He was so cute as a young boy they called him “Dickie.” They intended to raise him as a good Jewish boy in Dallas, Texas. At five years of age, they took him to synagogue every Saturday, exposing him to Judaism and the Hebrew language. They were loving and well off, fine people, but being in their early twenties, also very naïve. They never filed wills, even though they now had a child. They were so young they believed themselves to be invincible. They weren’t.
Six months before his bar mitzvah, when Dick was twelve years old, his world came tumbling down. His parents died in a car crash, and that’s when he learned that they were not his natural parents. He was not aware he had been adopted. Other than Richard, his parents had no next of kin on record. Both had been teen runaways, eloping and changing their real names so their parents could not find them to stop their marriage. Richard immediately became an atheist, believing that no righteous God would have killed his parents or treated him so poorly. Isn’t God supposed to be good? he thought.
As a result, Richard became a ward of the state, making him fearful and miserable. He had no idea what his future would bring. Now what the hell is going to happen to me? he thought. I’ve already cried my eyes out and I can’t cry anymore. Who will take care of me now? What does it mean to be a ward of the state? Am I going to have to move and lose my friends?
As a ward of the state, he was assigned to a Child Protective Services (CPS) office. They tried extremely hard to get him adopted, but very few people wanted a twelve-year-old boy; they wanted an infant.
Fortunately, CPS was able to place him as a foster child with a lower-income Jewish couple. This satisfied the agency, since they knew his deceased parents were Jewish. Unfortunately, soon thereafter he was shifted from his new home to one foster home after another, at least four times, through three different states. These foster families were low-income people who accepted him strictly for the government’s stipend, which ranged between $480 to $700 per month, depending on the state and age of the child. In addition to the welfare they collected, they didn’t need to pay for Richard’s health care costs because he was covered by the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program.
They also lied to the state that Dick (his preference over Richard) was disabled, by being mentally underdeveloped for his age. A total fabrication, but they got away with it. There was no prerequisite that they must show love or give hugs and kisses to their foster child. And none did. At fourteen, he had his first encounter with the law when he was picked up for vagrancy and misdemeanor theft after he took a banana and an apple juice from a supermarket.
His last foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz, lived in Sedona, Arizona. Though they believed they were good although not practicing Jews, the foster father turned out to be a mean alcoholic and beat Dick mercilessly if he didn’t finish his supper, didn’t use proper table manners, or any other minor irritation. There were even times when they didn’t feed him for days, except for bottled water and some small dishes of rice or noodles. In their warped minds, they were saving money the kid would have just pissed away, and besides, he deserved it.
Dick became extraordinarily discouraged and angry, and ran away from their home at the age of seventeen. He learned how to steal food and dumpster-dive behind restaurants for edible food that diners couldn’t finish or didn’t like, all to survive. With practice, he was able to get past the stench and flies to reach the food without retching. He slept on park benches and washed himself at local McDonald’s rest—rooms. He hated all the foster families he had lived with and decided to keep his original family name of Straub.
He joined the army at eighteen and became PFC Richard Straub. Nine months later, he was sent to the brig for punching an officer. Ultimately he received a dishonorable discharge for being an untrainable wise-ass, starting brawls, refusing KP duty, and failure to follow orders.
After his military screw-up, his life became even more difficult. He took various odd jobs but failed to remain employed longer than two months before getting fired or quitting. He was often arrested for misdemeanor crimes such as breaking and entering an empty home, claiming he just wanted to stay dry during the rains. He didn’t want anyone to know he was homeless.
He was once arrested on a felony charge for car theft, fingerprinted, and had his DNA taken. The judge, noting the fact he was in the passenger seat when the theft occurred, found him not guilty without prejudice, but did not expunge his record.
This rotting life continued for over six years, but his luck improved considerably when he got a job at Greenery Landscaping. There he just had to dig flowerbeds, trim bushes, pull weeds, plant trees and other such chores without asshole bosses looking over his shoulder. He had just turned twenty-five.
If the homeowner wanted a cobblestone driveway built, Dick was the donkey who pushed the heavy wheelbarrows with stones to their spot, turned the wheelbarrow upside down where directed, and placed them in the style of a European cobblestone street. He liked working with his hands and was paid$11 per hour, which amounted to just $23,000 per year. He received no health benefits. He got no paid time off, even for holidays, when he didn’t work. Certain weeks he would get some overtime, but not enough to bring him above the poverty level, even with the occasional tips he received from customers.
He felt that $11 per hour was low, but at least it was better than minimum wage. After all, he had no college degree and had an arrest record. His pay permitted him to obtain a one-room loft in one of the seedier parts of Sedona and keep enough food in his refrigerator so he wouldn’t starve.
He kept the job at Greenery Landscaping for approximately eighteen years. He was now forty-three and well worn. He had lots of long hair and some of it stuck out from the sides of his head. He had grungy facial hairs, looking more like a large goatee than a full beard. The top of his head was thinning prematurely and almost all gone; what hair he had left he brushed as a comb-over to try and hide his bald spot. The sides drooped over his ears.
His car was a real piece of junk and needed a new transmission, which he couldn’t afford, so he left it parked on the street in front of the building he lived in. One night, while it was parked outside, the car was totaled by a hit and run driver. He couldn’t afford to buy another car but fortunately, Dick’s boss permitted him to use the company’s green pickup truck to and from work, provided he returned with it the next day.
His boss also provided him with a smart phone so that he could be reached when away on a job. Dick had learned how to use the computer in the office, at first when he needed to look up directions to a new customer, and later how to get answers to practically any question on Google. Now he could do both, even on his phone.
Dick Straub, was not aware that he had a twin brother, until one fateful Monday morning. He was working on a retaining wall at the Jacobson estate when the wife of the couple came outside to bring him a soda and showed him a copy of the local newspaper, which featured coverage of a banquet for a popular local Rabbi named Neil Bloom.
“Look at this,” she said. “You look a lot like our Rabbi. Isn’t that interesting!”
Not very much, he thought.
The next day, Dick went into his boss Joe Rung’s office to pick up his assignments for the day. He noticed the same Sunday edition of the Sedona Times Herald sitting on Rung’s desk along with other office papers and invoices. It was open to the story about the Rabbi, with a headline reading “Rabbi Honored at Fete Last Night,” along with the photo he saw before that, well, really did look like him. The image of the Rabbi smiling brightly, receiving all these honors and awards, gave Dick Straub uneasy feelings, leaving him flustered and mystified.
He then read the article. “Last night at the St. Germaine Golf Club a marvelous feast was held in honor of Rabbi Neil Robert Bloom by the local chapter of B’nai Brith, the Jewish charity. Over 2,300 people joined in this fete for the Rabbi in celebration and gratitude for his service to the community and as a philanthropist, not only for Jewish organizations but also for many other worthy charities, such as the Red Cross, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Catholic charities. They gave him a plaque which honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award as an honorable and distinguished religious leader.”
I look like just that son of a bitch, thought Dick, but he’s fucking rich while I live in a shithole. I just don’t get it.
He showed Joe Rung the photograph in the paper and asked him to “look at it closely.” Rung stared at the picture, with a puzzled look on his face, and finally asked Straub
“What is it you want me to see?”
Dick asked, “Don’t you think the guy receiving the award in the photograph looks a lot like me?”
This made Rung a little nervous, knowing Dick was a rough character with a quick temper. Though generally he had a quiet demeanor with customers, Rung was secretly a bit afraid of him. Cautiously, Joe answered, “Well, Dick, if you shave off the beard and mustache and get a haircut, I think I can see a resemblance between you and the guy in the photo.”
That was enough validation for Dick Straub to form his plan.
A month later he put his plan into motion. He began attending the Rabbi’s weekly services and for months not a single person noticed, indicated ,or implied to him that he looked like Rabbi Bloom. All they saw was a Charles Manson look-alike attending services. No big deal, what with all the hippies in Sedona, many of them trust-fund babies from rich families.
He learned how the Rabbi approached the bimah wearing a talis and a yarmulke, how he started his services, and when he needed to say a prayer for certain occasions. Rabbi Bloom and Dr. Google taught him what he would need to know, what to say, and what to do to be a Rabbi himself. Over months of attending Bloom’s services, he even befriended a few of the congregants by their first and last names.
Straub even brought in his smart phone while pretending to worship, making video recordings of Rabbi Bloom conducting services so he could better imitate him.
After one of the services, he went home and did exactly what his boss had hinted at. He shaved his face completely and went to a barber to have his side hair trimmed short behind his ears. Then once back home again, he used some shaving cream and took a razor from a package he purchased at a local pharmacy and shaved the top of his head. He shaved a wide space all the way near down the back of the head leaving about two inches of hair just above the collar. He even removed the stubble, making him look bald. After all, that’s how the Rabbi’s head was, but he didn’t want the barber to see the resemblance.
As he checked his makeover in the mirror of the medicine cabinet back home, he stared at himself with an almost orgasmic smile and whispered to his mirror image, “Well hello, Rabbi Bloom!”
The next day, Straub began his search for a Rabbi to teach him Hebrew. He wouldn’t look in Sedona because he feared the resemblance might be noticed. He looked at several listings on the web and found Rabbi Isaac in Scottsdale, who offered the service mainly for young people. He wrote Rabbi Isaac’s phone number on a small yellow sticky-paper, removed it from its pad, and placed the yellow sticky with the phone number on his nightstand.
A few days later, he noticed the yellow sticky note on his nightstand and it reminded him to call Isaac. He called the Rabbi from his cell phone and asked him if he still gave Hebrew lessons. Isaac replied that he was retired, but still gave private Hebrew lessons. The man on the other end of the phone sounded too mature to be a kid seeking bar mitzvah lessons. The Rabbi was perplexed and cautious, not wanting to be another person training a potential homegrown terrorist. Rabbi Isaac’s fearful imagination, and good business sense, led him to think, I’d better ask some questions first. He asked Straub, “Why are you asking for Bar Mitzvah lessons?”
Dick replied, “Well Rabbi, my parents separated when I was twelve-years old, an
d I never got a bar mitzvah at thirteen like all other Jewish boys. I’m in my forties now and my parents have been deceased for a few years. I want to get this done so that I can be recognized as a Jewish man by my contemporaries.”
That sounded plausible enough for the Rabbi, so he agreed to the lessons at $50 per hour. Three times a week, if Straub could afford it. He asked the Rabbi if he would accept $35 per hour cash. The Rabbi, feeling the man’s distress said, “Yes, thirty-five dollars cash per hour is fine. However, I must be paid at the end of each lesson. You should not let it all accumulate until the end of your lessons.”
Straub asked his boss Joe Rung to give him as much overtime work as he could, without telling him why he needed the money. Rung was happy to do it, since many of his projects were behind schedule. Dick was thrilled to agree to the Rabbi’s terms and showed up on the day he was supposed to at Isaac’s home in Scottsdale.
After Dick finished with his work for the day, he drove the ninety-plus miles to and from the Rabbi’s home for each lesson. He sat somewhat near the Rabbi, but didn’t want to get too close to him so as not to offend him with his landscaping odors.
After six months, with lessons just twice a week, Straub felt that he now had enough Hebrew lessons to get by and knew enough to fake his way through any Jewish ceremony and conduct Sabbath services. Six months was also all he felt he could afford.
One week later, Scottsdale held its semi-annual gun show on Saturday and Sunday, Independence Day weekend. The show was guarded at the front doors of the massive Scottsdale Exhibition Center by both state and local police, which made Straub a little nervous. When he went indoors, he saw the booths of hundreds of weapons’ dealers. On display was every kind of weapon a person from the NRA or the armed forces could want: rifles of every kind and caliber, shotguns, pistols, military grade AR-15s and even bazookas, among hundreds of other weapons that should never be on the street. He found one dealer selling a .45 caliber Glock which caught his eye, noticing it had a silencer.
A Hole In One Page 22