Fear of Our Father

by Stacey Kananen

  That happened in 2001, and we never knew about it. We were living our happy little lives while my brother slowly went batshit crazy. Eventually, he found his way back to Orlando, where he was living when Grandpa died, in November 2002, at the age of ninety-three. He didn’t go to the funeral in Massachusetts. He was the only member of the family who wasn’t there. Susan and I didn’t locate Rickie in time to tell him of the funeral. We left a note on his trailer, but I am pretty sure we were back from the funeral before we heard from him.

  Because Mom’s name was on Grandpa’s bank account before he passed away, she got everything. It was a substantial amount, close to a quarter of a million dollars. There was nothing in his name to his other children. He didn’t have a will, but he did express that he wanted his money split up four ways between his kids. Instead of splitting it up like she should have, she kept it.

  I don’t know why she would do that to her siblings, but I also don’t know why she would keep my father’s Social Security checks for fifteen years. She never spent them, but she also never touched my grandfather’s account. The only withdrawals from it were from my brother’s computer, after she died.

  She had over $100,000 from my father’s Social Security and $250,000 from my grandfather. Plus, she had her own accounts: two money market accounts, about $60,000 apiece, and a bank account worth about $90,000. She was hoarding big-time money, I can only guess because for so many years she didn’t have any.

  That didn’t stop her from spending, though. If a whim caught her, she’d take her car in and trade it in for a brand-new one. If she wanted to go on a trip, she went on a trip. If she wanted to buy a three-hundred-dollar Disney collectible, she wrote a check and bought it. She had it made until she made the mistake of telling Rickie that she was thinking about finally splitting Grandpa’s money up for her brother and sisters.

  CHAPTER 19

  Out on Bond

  Finally, the day of my bond hearing arrived. I had been in jail for weeks and looked like hell. I had to appear in court in the grungy blue jail jumpsuit, my cheeks were sunken in, and the circles under my eyes made it obvious that I was unhealthy. I told one of the women in the dorm, “God, I need to do something with my hair,” and she said, “I can cut it. They have clippers we can use.” It cost me seven coffee packets, at twenty-five cents apiece. She did a surprisingly good job, so at least my hair looked presentable, but I still looked like a criminal on a “Wanted” poster.

  That day in court, the gallery was filled to capacity with friends from Gulf Coast Resort. I was touched and grateful to see such an impressive showing, but I was also humiliated by the reason they were there. These people were seeing me at absolute rock bottom. A news camera was set up, pointing right at me, and there was no hiding from it. I knew I was going to be on every channel that night, and now, after all of my previous efforts at keeping some anonymity, everyone in the dorm would know who I was. If I didn’t get this bond, I was up Shit Creek without a paddle.

  Diana presented her case: Up until very recently, I was considered a witness for the State in the case against my brother, a man who smeared feces on himself and whose competence was questionable; there was no evidence for me to be arrested before Rickie’s plea. The only suspicious thing in the prosecutor’s arsenal was the banking activity, but even that was only circumstantial.

  God bless Judge Marc Lubet. He saw that the State had a pretty thin case and made it clear that he thought so. However, there was enough against me for him to order a bond set at $100,000, and he ordered that I wear an ankle bracelet, at my cost. I was confined to Gulf Coast Resort, and Susan was to put the park up for collateral. I was only allowed to leave the park if and when I had to come back to Orlando for court-related appointments and hearings.

  Once he was done talking, the entire gallery burst into cheers and applause. It warmed my heart, but the judge was not amused. He let everyone know that their behavior was inappropriate for a courtroom, and one of them yelled out, “But she didn’t do it!” This disgruntled him and embarrassed me, but I was also ecstatic. I got to go home! But then I saw Cheryl, who was there to testify against me—she was livid. That’s the sad part about it. Their elation about my release was like a knife in the heart for her.

  Before I could allow myself to be too happy, Robin Wilkinson stood up and said, “Your honor, that’s okay, she can post this bond because the grand jury is going to indict her next week and she’ll be back in jail for good. We’re adding a second charge and we’re upping the ante.” She was so angry that I got a bond, so she was going for everything. She upped the charge in my mother’s death to first degree and added my father at first degree. And they were definitely going for the death penalty.

  I was back to terrified, again. Diana calmly told me, privately, “This is how it’s going to go down. The grand jury is probably going to indict you. You’re going to be back in jail. A week or so later you’re going to be back home. Don’t worry. I’ll get you a second bond.”

  I was taken back to jail to be out-processed, while Diana and Susan met with the bondsman to begin jumping through the legal and financial hoops necessary to get me out of there. I got back to the dorm and fell instantly dead to the world in my bunk. I was asleep when the five o’clock news came on. Now everyone knew what had happened: a murder suspect had been released on bond. Many of the inmates were furious because they were stuck in there for far lesser charges, and here I was, a white girl, walking out with a murder charge. One of the girls that I got along with came by and hit me on the foot and said, “My God, you’re on the news and my God, you’re in trouble. You need to come down to the dayroom.”

  Still half asleep, I said, “I’m waiting on my bond,” but she insisted, “I’m telling you now, you need to come down to the dayroom and sit with us.”

  I never came off a bunk so fast in my entire life. We made our way to the dayroom, to the table where the four of us would play cards together. Every badass woman in there walked past me and said something like, “If you’re here tonight, you’re not going to wake up tomorrow.” If they didn’t get me out by 8:00, I was there for the night, and it was already after 5:00. I was a wreck, shaking like a leaf. Finally, one of the girls I sat with said to the guard, “What’s going on? She’s got a bond and they’re going to kill her in here.”

  The guard said, “I don’t know. Let me call command and find out.” We sat and waited, and all of a sudden the guard returned and ordered, “Pack your stuff. I have to move you and move you now. Your bondsman, the GPS lady, and your attorney are in the lobby wondering why you haven’t been moved, so I’m moving you now.”

  Then the colonel of that shift came in and said to the guard, “We’ll both escort her. There’s a lot of activity out there tonight.” As they escorted me, even the staff was saying things like, “What is this country coming to, letting murderers walk the streets?” It never occurred to any of them that I might not have done it.

  Diana wasn’t downstairs when I got there. She left as soon as she knew I was finally being released because she didn’t want to get caught by the media, who went insane with this story. Imagine the headline: Sexually abused lesbian, charged with murdering both parents, arrested at nudist resort. News vans had tried to sneak into the resort when I was arrested, and a news chopper actually flew overhead to get some sort of footage because they weren’t allowed inside the gate. My story was now national news, and Diana didn’t want my case to turn into a circus like Casey Anthony’s eventually did.

  I didn’t expect to see her; she said she would call me. Susan was sobbing, of course. John Von Achen, my bail bondsman—a former player for the Oakland A’s—gave me my jacket, and Jeanice Chevere, the GPS monitoring officer, put my hood up over my head and said, “Put on this jacket and keep your head down. We’re going to be on either side of you. Just follow our lead. Don’t look up, because they’re not getting a face shot of you on these cameras.” I did exactly what they told me to do.

  We made
our way to their office building, directly across from the jail complex, and—just as Jeanice predicted—the reporters were in my face. Susan pushed one of the cameras away. The photographer got huffy and said, “Don’t touch my camera,” and Jeanice said, “Back up, you’re on our property.”

  Susan and I were blessed to get the right people, because they taught us and forewarned us about what we were facing. They were very protective of us right from the beginning. John Von Achen is Diana’s favorite bondsman, and she sends clients to him if she thinks they warrant a bond. Jeanice read my file and said, “This is ridiculous.”

  They had been following the case to some degree because it was big in Orlando. Those who worked in the law enforcement field knew that in 2003 Hussey tried to get me arrested. So what changed? One crazy man’s fabricated fifth or sixth statement was enough to get me arrested, and that’s what popped John’s cork.

  John said to Jeanice, “This is the right thing to do.” I was her second high-profile client. Her first was Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who allegedly drove across the country in a diaper to kidnap her boyfriend’s new girlfriend. If not for Diana, John, and Jeanice, I would have sat in jail for almost three years, until my trial.

  Susan and I drove back to Hudson and, the next morning, tried to live our day-to-day lives. We still had a resort to run, and everyone was stopping in to the restaurant to see me and ask questions. The remarks about my extreme weight loss and sunken cheeks started to get old, even though I knew most of them were just concerned. They just didn’t realize that they were not the first, tenth, or even twentieth person to ask me the same questions. And I still had a week of sitting on pins and needles, waiting for the grand jury.

  The day that the grand jury convened, I was swamped at work. My stomach felt shredded and my nerves were on edge. I couldn’t eat, and even my cherished morning cup of coffee wasn’t going down very easily. Just the thought of going back to jail brought me to panicked tears—but I knew that it was inevitable. Susan was watching the Internet for news, between answering the business phone and dealing with customers. She apparently missed it when it hit, because Diane came in and asked, “Have you guys checked what the grand jury did yet?” She and Susan went into the office and got on the computer.

  I was out in the restaurant juggling a delivery from the food distributor, running the counter, taking phone calls, and they were locked in the office for an hour. Finally I walked in the office and asked, “Is there something I need to know?”

  After a pregnant pause, Susan said, “Well, there’s a warrant out for your arrest. I’m waiting on Diana Tennis to call me back. You might as well go back out there and keep working.”

  What could I do? I went back to work and handled the rush. As soon as it slowed down, I came back to the office and asked, “Okay, what are we doing now?” She replied, “We have to go to Orlando. You’re going to turn yourself in.” As much as I hated the idea, it was better than having them come and get me. I didn’t want Hussey to have that satisfaction. So we drove to Orlando and went straight to John’s office.

  I begged him, “I don’t want to be in with all the people again. After the first bond, they left me sitting there waiting, and it was almost eight at night before they moved me. I got threatened all day long. It’s only been a week, so I’m sure some of them are still there. I need to go where I’m okay.”

  Bless him, he called a friend of his in the jail and said, “Look, I need her in protective custody or I’m not turning her in. We’ll go to court tomorrow, whatever it takes.” Thank God, they agreed. I said, “Okay let’s go.” John stopped me and said, “No, it hasn’t even hit the sheriff’s office yet. We don’t want to get there too early.” We were in Orlando before the official warrant hit.

  Diana already had the paperwork ready, and the judge signed that day that he’d give me an emergency bond hearing in one week, because they didn’t have to come find me.

  Although I was so grateful to John for keeping me out of the general population, I didn’t love my eight days in protective custody, because it was literally eight days in lockup: you don’t come out. I got two showers in eight days; I got one phone call to Susan, no visitation. Protective custody is supposed to mean you’re not out among the others, that they lock you in your cell every time they go to move somebody else. However, PC in Orange County means you’re in that cell all day long and you get forgotten about other than meals thrown through the slot. It was a tiny little room, about the size of the inside of a van, with a cement slab for a bed. The only good thing is you have your own toilet.

  Well, now I had two first-degree murder charges on me, was going back for a second bond hearing, and, again, the courtroom was packed with my nudist friends. Before the hearing began, the judge admonished everyone to behave, to remember that they were in a court of law. Diana laid it out for him again, the lack of evidence, the fact that a madman was the only thread tying me to these crimes, and that I was originally slated to testify against him. “Your honor,” Robin argued, “she has two first-degree charges against her. She can’t get a bond.” The judge asked, “Got any other evidence? Got something new for me?”

  The only new thing was the grand jury decision to bring me back in, so he re-released me, but upped the bond another $50,000. Susan had to come up with even more money and, thanks to the angels in our circle of friends, was able to raise it. I was going back home again. It was after that second bond hearing that I thought, I have to listen to Diana Tennis. If I’d had anybody else, I wouldn’t have been out on bond—not going from second degree to two first-degree charges with a possible death penalty still on the table. Granted, I had an ankle bracelet that cost a lot of money over the years, and we were out fifteen grand in bond money, but at least I wasn’t sitting in a jail cell waiting for my trial.

  CHAPTER 20

  Life Under House Arrest

  Once I was out on bond a second time, it was time to start working on my defense, in between putting out fires at the nudist resort. There was always some emergency—one of the rental units had a leaking ceiling, some naked drunk spilled an ashtray in the hot tub and Wendell couldn’t close it down and clean it out because he was off at Home Depot buying what he needed to fix the leaky roof, someone’s feelings were hurt at bingo the night before and the whole place was exploding with gossip—it was always something. And in the meantime, I had to try to find a way to live a normal life and run a restaurant with a GPS bracelet around my ankle.

  One thing I had to be careful of, in light of all of the frustrations that daily life was flinging at me, in addition to the tension that was building between me and Susan because I was now unable to run errands and they all fell into her lap, was the fact that I couldn’t ever show that I was upset or angry. Anyone who has ever worked in a customer service job can tell you how extremely trying it can be, and I wasn’t in a position to react like a normal human being.

  I lived those three years under house arrest very quietly because God forbid I piss anybody off. Working in the restaurant, with some of the more obnoxious customers or resort residents—because, while there were many wonderful people there, we also had our share of major assholes—sometimes I’d get really angry about something and I’d think, “God, I hope nobody thinks I’ve got a temper. That’s all it would take for someone to say, ‘I saw her throwing a fit in the restaurant. She must be capable of murder!’” Some people, who shall remain nameless, used to enjoy poking at me, just because they knew that I couldn’t react the way I wanted to. They knew they held a huge amount of power.

  On the positive side, my situation really helped me to gain a perspective on life that I probably never would have realized otherwise. Susan and I were out in front of the restaurant when one of the homeowners pulled up on his golf cart to complain about someone in the park, and I could tell that he was just trying to stir up trouble. I asked him, “Where are your facts?”

  He said, “Well, it’s more of my perception. These are just things I’
ve noticed here and there.” So I threw my leg up on his golf cart seat and I said, “You see this ankle bracelet? That’s what perception does to people.” He couldn’t get away from me fast enough. His wife made him come back and apologize to me.

  Meantime, Diana introduced me to Toni Maloney, the private investigator she always uses on cases like this. Toni was another angel added to my legal defense team. She was so kind and gentle, with a very motherly energy, and she helped me get through some of the toughest times. I sat with Toni and unraveled my whole life story.

  The one thing I always felt that I had on my side was the strong sense of integrity that I learned from my grandfather. I don’t go along with his devoted Catholic beliefs, but I do have a lot of respect for his integrity and I try to emulate it whenever I can. I’ve said from the very beginning, the truth is the truth is the truth, and I’ve never wavered from that. Susan and I took care of people at Gulf Coast Resort, and we bent over backward. I was always very straightforward and honest with them, and that might be why they supported me during my bond hearings and trial.

  That didn’t mean that we didn’t all drive one another crazy during those years that I was confined to the resort. There were some touchy conversations and sketchy moments because none of us had ever experienced what it’s like to have dealings with murder suspects and death penalty trials. People were bound to say things that were either out-of-bounds or downright inappropriate. In the course of a normal conversation, someone would say something as mundane as, “Oh, I could just kill him!” or “I wanted to strangle him!” and obviously not really mean it, because that’s just the kind of thing people say when they’re frustrated. But then they’d realize who they said it in front of and an uncomfortable silence would follow.