Conquering Darkness Memoir of the Serial Killer's Wife

by Crystal Reshawn Choyce-Lige

  What could I say?

  Well, William got the chance to meet Mr. Big. He also wanted to know why Crystal had chosen him. I laughed to myself. I did not answer him.

  Don’t flinch, buddy! That was my thought.

  38

  Deeper

  This next chapter was the most difficult to write.

  Crystal and I had to remember things that would take us far back into our past lives with William.

  Sometimes, we had to go inch by inch.

  Sometimes, it was only safe to take giant leaps past memories that were sticky enough to keep us up all night.

  But, we are resilient creatures.

  We are from Mary Ernestine James.

  We had no choice but to keep moving.

  We had to keep moving so that

  We can own some semblance of peace

  In our present and in our future lives.

  39

  The Making of a Serial Rapist and Killer

  THE IMPACT OF WILLIAM’S CHILDHOOD OF ABUSE, WE BELIEVE, IS AT THE CENTER OF all the evil that claimed him, emasculated him and made him a coward and an enemy to all women. Trial transcripts revealed that William’s mother not only beat him to the rhythm of her sick pleasure, but she also took the young William with her on her sexual rendezvous with other men. Even as a young child, he had to know that his mother was betraying the father he loved. THEN, he must have begun incubating a secret hatred for the woman who gave birth to him. It is also true that William couldn’t stop loving his mother and wanting her love and praise. Everybody knows that there is a “thin line between love and hate.” Hello sisters!

  Even more bizarre was the fact that William’s mother chose to beat him while she was scantily clad; she wore see-through nightgowns. She chose to snatch him out of his sleep once he had gone to bed. When William moved into the stage of puberty, he was still getting beat. The brutality continued as he began developing into a young man with sexually maturing desires and fantasies. Perhaps his chance to be a “normal” young man with “normal” desires was profoundly interrupted, maybe even terminated.

  What we believe he experienced during the beatings was both pain and excitement. The pain came from the lashes, or the blows William received as his mother struck him and verbally debased him. The pleasure, we must deduce, came from seeing his mother half-dressed; it must have aroused the young boy in some way. He had to be so conflicted, so confused.

  About a year after William and I were divorced, he told me something that I knew he wished he could take back. I honestly wish I had never heard it. It happened that the subject of his childhood came up; we were talking on the phone. He rarely gave up any details about his childhood other than he hated cats and he had fun at the parties his aunts would give.

  Then, Out of Nowhere William said— “I used to wonder what it would like to have SEX WITH MY MOTHER.”

  William’s words became offensive sounds in my ears. But— there was an innocent lining in his tone. It was like he almost forgot that he was speaking something that was taboo, ugly, or vile. It didn’t matter that is was just a thought.

  I didn’t know what to say accept, “Are you serious?” Are you f**kin, f**kin serious?

  There was a moment in my head where belief and disbelief intersected.

  I didn’t want to accept what I was hearing from my former spouse, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I could entertain that his sick statement may have been born out of the very dysfunction I believed existed in his home. And even though he admitted to having a sexual fantasy about his mother, it may have been normal within the context of a young boy misdirecting, or not knowing what to do with his raging hormones that were laying side by side with his mother beating him. His mother was probably a ½ symbol of love in William’s eyes. It may not have mattered that she defied the norms of what parent-child love should be or how it should manifest.

  But—what the hell?!

  I was sitting down in my Concord condominium and William was at home in San Leandro when the shocking conversation began. There was a proverbial moment of silence and then my confusion became magnificently quantifiable. I had so many questions and yet, I did not know how to ask them. But I almost got one out. “What are you saying…are you saying that you actually wanted…?” I couldn’t go on.

  William seemed to gasp. “…it was just a thought, Alice.” He spoke softly.

  I didn’t want to accept his weak retraction, but I had no choice. I already knew that the most impossible thing to try and make William do was to try to force him to talk when he didn’t want to. For my own sanity though, and because he was my daughter’s father, I needed some clarification.

  First, I thought that maybe William was drinking while trying to figure out why he and his mother’s relationship had been so up and down, or why she always pushed him away when he tried to show his affection for her. And if he was feeling some recent rejection from his mother, it could have been that imagining a taboo intimacy with her might have made him feel like he was getting even. It was a hard thing for me to think about.

  No matter what William’s socio-sexual pathology, or whether his diseased mind contributed to his inability to resist the bombardment of psychotic fantasies begging to become real, the fact remains that there had to be a maddening theme growing and then prevailing throughout his life, thereby dictating an immoral and murderous agenda to kill and rape. This was the long-term impact.

  I think that the —I want to love you but you make me hate you relationship— William had with his mother ultimately contributed to shaping him into a physical and mental monster. At the age of ten, William knew he wanted to hurt women. This was another thing I learned during his trial. He began to cultivate his desires by reading “True Crimes” magazines; it was an outlet for his early anger. But just looking at a magazine could not sustain his budding desires to hurt women.

  When I saw the pictures of the crimes scenes from the murders William was convicted of, I found it ridiculously difficult to abstain from drawing uncanny parallels between the gory scenes in the magazines he was said to have read and the crime scene photographs which were submitted as evidence against him during the trial proceedings.

  Many nights after finding out about the crimes William was first charged with and then convicted of, I would just lay awake inside the darkness of my room with so many questions in my head. Was I also a factor in William’s life of being a monster just as his mother most likely was? I have no doubt that William felt that I betrayed him when I refused to sleep with him without a condom, and then later, I refused to sleep with him at all. That decision came in the early eighties after I continued to contract a number of sexually transmitted diseases; which by the way, he vehemently denied being the source of. But if he could put me and his mother in the same light as abandoners, then he could not appreciate his own betrayal day in and day out when he sought prostitutes to act out his sexual compulsions and fantasies. Perhaps this is the nature a true sociopath— nothing matters except what benefits or serves them.

  The First Murder

  I think that when William knew our separation in 1988 was imminent and that our marriage was beyond repair, he raped killed Victoria Beck, April 3, 1988. This first murder— that we know of— was committed just a few blocks from his family home where his mother and father still live. I distinctly remember the time as being one of great tension in our home. William and I were sleeping in separate rooms and I had asked for a divorce on more than one occasion. His behavior was getting increasingly bizarre as he stopped bathing again and he became glued to the television set in the privacy of his room as he watched X-rated movies. This is all he did when he wasn’t at work or out prowling the streets with a gun in his pocket.

  After the 1988 murder, William and I separated and at the time, I had no clue about the secret he kept during and after my departure. When I think about how William continued to rape for years and years, and fined tuned his stalking and striking skills, I know I can
be sure of two things: he did not want to get caught and the anger he was harboring must have continued to build up inside of him. But he had to know how to be careful because it took more than a decade for the police to catch him. And the constant denominator in his life was always his mother.

  I can’t imagine that William could ever kill his own mother, but he managed to find a suitable way, through his developing paraphilia, to avenge the boy inside him who was wronged. He could also simultaneously satisfy his sadistic cravings that were driven by hideous fantasies; those that were pushing to become reality. It was a criminally insane and complex proposition that must have stirred William into an inescapable and mad world.

  The Second Rape

  The rape in December 14, 1994, terrifies me because my best friend was born on December 14; in a different year, of course. She and William, like me, were both born in 1953 and their actual birthdates were only five days apart. Each year, I would acknowledge to William that my friend’s birthday was only five days before his. I did it to remind myself to call her; she lived in another state. But the reminder annoyed him. William claimed he hated my friend with a passion; he thought she was a bad influence on me. That was never further from the truth! And if he raped the woman to symbolically lash out at my friend in absentia, I must wonder if he ever thought about hurting her. Further and most significantly, William convinced himself that my friend was partially the blame for ending our marriage. But he still persisted to ask me why I left. He didn’t have a clue, and I think it’s because he didn’t want to accept any blame.

  It is also interesting that on the date William murdered the first victim in 1988, my very same friend was in town from Chicago. William claimed he didn’t want to see her so he disappeared for the entire weekend. Strange. It was the first time that he was gone for a whole weekend; I had no knowledge of his whereabouts. He did not call home even once to let me know where he was. I almost called the police because I thought something bad had happened to him. Additionally, William’s relationship with his mother seemed strained beyond repair during this time. They were barely speaking and he didn’t want her to come to our home.

  Second & Third Rape and Murders

  And if in fact the two rapes and murders William committed in 1997 on July 2 and August 11 had anything to do with his relationship with his mother, as I suspect they did, the center of his madness is more than implied. By this time, William’s second son had been born. His mother was probably on him to get married; she wouldn’t want to look bad in the eyes of the church. But clearly, William was defiant on this point. He never married Lisa, the mother of his two boys. I’m sure this situation must have strained the already under pressure relationship between mother and son. I believe this ultimately caused William’s anger and fantasies to propel him into a mindset where he could only release his anxieties and pursuing mania by raping and killing.

  On December 19, 1998, William’s forty-fifth birthday, he would lash out at the mother of his two sons. He threatened Lisa with a gun. When the police came, they took custody of the gun. It was the one registered in my name which at one time of purchase, was Alice Choyce. The police later returned the gun to Lisa after giving the couple time to cool off. What did they know? They thought Lisa was me. I don’t know for sure what happened to the gun after that. But, William had already used it to kill three women by that time. The gun was therefore not available to the prosecution as part of the evidence against him during his capital murder trial. My testimony was subpoenaed to establish custody of the gun during the times of the murders for which William was accused.

  40

  A silent Cry for Help?

  WE STRONGLY BELIEVED THAT WILLIAM CHOSE TO MOVE HIS family to Stockton, CA in 1995 to either to resist the urge to kill in Oakland again, or to look for a new, fresh killing ground.

  ONLY HE KNOWS FOR SURE.

  What I do know for sure it that William would sometimes show up at my door in the middle of the night. This was two years after we divorced; I lived in Concord. He would knock and when I opened the door, I saw a man who looked tired, confused and wounded. I didn’t know what to make of it then, but now I believe that he may have been trying to fight the urge to rape and kill. Most nights, he would fall asleep on my couch. He was gone by morning. There was no explanation.

  William did the same thing when I was living and going to school in San Diego. It was 1974. We hadn’t spoken in months and yet, he came without announcing his visit. He had driven from Monterrey where he was stationed. It was during the weekend. When he begged me not to send him away, I let him stay. For some reason, I knew it wouldn’t be a good thing for me to stay in the room with him or to sleep with him. When Sunday came and it was time for him to leave, he looked so scared. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t, but I have my suspicions.

  41

  A New Day- A Reflection

  FAST FORWARD TO FEBRUARY 2000— IT HAD BEEN SEVEN YEARS SINCE I LAST SAW WILLIAM. I had learned how to forgive those who trespassed against me. And because I am a Christian, I couldn’t justify a reason to hate him for all time. It was a new day. Our daughter had her first child. Reluctantly, Crystal gave me permission to take her daughter to see the man she said she never wanted to see again in her life. I did not question her feelings. They were valid.

  When William was holding Paityn Ali, our grandchild, it was like the miracle of life impressed him as never before. He was so goo-goo eyed. He looked like he did when he first held Crystal nearly twenty-six years earlier. For a minute, I thought about how he betrayed Crystal’s trust and how he had turned into a monster on her many times. And he had to know that Crystal, his own daughter, never wanted to see him again. He had to know that being able to see his grandchild had everything to do with the forgiveness that was in my heart. Forgiveness was only partially within reach of his daughter.

  We visited for about an hour at William’s parents’ home. He boasted that he would love to take his granddaughter camping in his brand new van. He said he would take her to Disneyland with his two sons. I knew that would never happen, but I didn’t see any benefit in hurting his feelings. I would let him be content with his fantasy, although I thought that it was more than he deserved.

  Near the end of our visit, William gently wrapped Paityn up as he held her and walked down the stairs. For a moment, happiness seemed to possess him fully. He was so anxious to show me his new green and striped van. We walked over to it with his two sons in tow. The van was beautiful and had almost all the comforts of home. I was impressed.

  After the viewing and before he put Paityn back in my arms, I tried to hug William; I was in the moment of joy for my new granddaughter, who I knew, might never see her grandfather again. But I would at least be able to tell her, one day, that her grandfather held her close. And the other reason I tried to hug William was because he looked so abundantly sad when our visit was nearly over.

  In one moment, I felt a careful closeness to William which I think was attributable to our shared status as grandparents. I wanted him to feel that he could be happy about the offspring of his only daughter even though she had turned against him for good reason. I wanted him to understand that new life brings new opportunities for forgiveness and emotional restitution. BUT WILLIAM WENT IMMEDIATELY STIFF AT MY TOUCH. It was like I had shot him in the body with a numb gun. And in the moment that I felt his rigidity, I knew that there was something terrible behind it like I knew there was something was terrible behind him going out at night with a gun when we were together. Even when I tried to shake the jolting feeling, I couldn’t. That moment troubled me and I was too frightened to tell Crystal anything other than that Paityn and I had had a good visit with William and his parents.

  …

  I HAD NO IDEA THAT THE NEW GREEN VAN WILLIAM WAS BRAGGING ON HAD BEEN PURPOSELY RIGGED UP TO LURE, SNATCH, TORTURE AND RAPE WOMEN IN THE SAME COMMUNITY WHERE HE GREW UP. How could he have designed a mobile room for such a thing and then get excited at the pro
spect of having his grandchild in it?

  I also had no idea that William had already raped and killed three women and that he was still on the prowl; it was his secret that would stay as such for one more year.

  William touched my granddaughter with the same arms that pulled the trigger of a large caliber weapon that was used to threaten, murder and silence his victims.

  How could I know that there was going to be at least three rape victims in William’s future… after he had touched his granddaughter? How could I have known that a prosecutor in the San Joaquin County had refused to bring charges against William after he snatched a woman off the streets, and raped her in a Stockton home that he shared with his family? He would be set free to rape and murder two more times. How in the hell could I have known such evil? What’s wrong with our criminal justice system?

  During the closing arguments of his trial, Thomas Testa, the prosecutor, noted that William knew what he wanted to do. He told one of his surviving rape victims that she was going to die. He must have felt like he was God.

  So, that well-intentioned meeting with William in 2000 would haunt me just the same as when I had wondered around San Francisco during the time I was married to him. I know now that I was haunted by the evil that he could not be dispossessed of when he came home to me. And so, I inhaled the noxious fumes of his murderous and secret world. It infected me with tormenting doubt. It suffocated my spirit which was never at peace when I was with him.

  WHEN I HUGGED WILLIAM IN FEBRUARY 2000; EVERYTHING EVIL THAT WAS IN HIM JUMPED ONTO ME, A LION ON ITS PREY.

  Every woman he had already murdered reached out to grab me when I was close to him. They were already ghost by then, but they were a powerful force that wanted me to feel their pain. But, all I could feel was my own painful confusion born anew.