“I don’t want her marrying no nigger,” Mike screamed at Rose, ignoring his daughter crying next to them. “She’s too young. How could you have let this happen? I’m going to call the police.”
But Mike never followed through. He simply got in his car and drove home to his new family.
Once he was gone, Marcus pulled his fiancée aside. “We have to get married quick before someone stops us,” he said. Elizabeth agreed.
A few days later, on August 19, Marcus and Elizabeth were watching TV at home and he jumped up impulsively.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to get married.”
“Like this?” she asked, looking down at her yellow cotton shorts and gingham maternity shirt and at his black T-shirt and jeans.
“Yes, let’s go.”
The two raced to San Jose City Hall, where Elizabeth saw a woman wearing a beautiful white wedding gown with lace and silk flowers and her fiancé sporting a crisp black tuxedo. It was exactly how she had pictured her wedding.
But no matter what they were wearing, Elizabeth still thought Marcus was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
So, five months pregnant, the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth stood before a judge and became Mrs. Marcus Wesson.
THE COUPLE WANTED to live on their own, but because neither Marcus nor Elizabeth had a job, they didn’t have enough money. Marcus was going to college on the G.I. Bill, and Elizabeth was busy with high school.
So Carrie Wesson offered to help the newlyweds by letting them stay at her house—after demanding to see their marriage license.
Marcus had never gotten along very well with his father. Ben Wesson had spent a lot of nights away from home drinking when Marcus was growing up. Marcus would often pick up his father from a bar or a cheap motel after he had passed out or lay injured after a drunken brawl. Ben later moved to Los Angeles, where he had a sexual relationship with a nephew and only limited contact with his wife and their four children.
Marcus resented his father and the way his behavior disrespected his mother, but Carrie was so deep into her Seventh-day Adventist beliefs that she never acknowledged her husband’s indiscretions. Nor did she consider divorcing him. She believed God would bring her husband back to her someday.
While Ben was gone, Marcus, the eldest child, took on many of the paternal duties of the household, such as making sure his siblings got off to school safely. Carrie treated him like the man of the house and often called him her “pride and joy.”
Carrie had a full-time nursing job to support their family, and she spent her free time writing a book about the Bible, hoping to share her knowledge of the Revelation with others.
Elizabeth hadn’t been to church much, so she was struck by the Wesson family’s strong faith in the Lord. Carrie and Marcus took her to church regularly and lectured Elizabeth each day about the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ. Eager to learn more about her husband’s religion, Elizabeth enthusiastically explored its teachings. Being from a broken home, she’d never felt like she had anything stable to hold on to. The church made her feel more secure. As if she belonged to something.
Despite the bad memories of his father, Marcus had a soft spot for Ben. And so, when Ben called and said he was dying, Marcus decided to take his new bride to L.A. to see if it was true. Ben had always been known to stretch the truth, and this time was no exception. When the couple showed up at his small apartment, Ben was in perfect health.
Although Elizabeth couldn’t put her finger on it, something about Ben made her feel uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be alone with him, so she stuck close to Marcus during their visit. Ben said he was working as a big-time writer at Universal Studios, but by the looks of his shabby apartment, Elizabeth doubted his claims. He also told her he had published many books, but when she pressed him about their titles, he said he wrote under a pen name and didn’t want to disclose his identity.
“You know,” he said, eyeing Elizabeth up and down and focusing on her pregnant belly, “I think I’m going to go out and marry myself a younger woman like Marcus did. Maybe have some kids with her.”
Elizabeth didn’t know how to respond, so she stayed mum. She didn’t understand why Ben was talking about women other than his wife.
ON DECEMBER 12, 1974, Elizabeth gave birth to her first child at a hospital in San Jose. Marcus named him Dorian. Elizabeth couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have such a wonderful husband and a healthy newborn son.
The fledgling family stayed at Carrie’s house for the first few months of Dorian’s life, then moved into a small cottage nearby. Marcus’s behavior changed almost immediately.
Elizabeth was a sophomore in high school now, and she was having a hard time caring for Dorian and getting her homework done, too. But Marcus was less than sympathetic. He did little to help with Dorian other than handling the discipline. From the time Dorian was born, Marcus would spank him hard with his large palm.
Elizabeth hated it, but when she tried to protest, Marcus convinced her the spankings were necessary. “He needs to learn,” he declared. “If a child is fed and changed, he has no reason to cry, and we must teach him that now.”
She figured her husband knew best and tried to get used to it. Marcus also seemed to be disciplining Elizabeth, grilling her each day when she returned from class. “Who did you talk to?” he would ask accusingly. “Did any boys try to talk to you? What did you do?”
“I didn’t talk to nobody, Marcus,” she’d say, trying to reassure him. “I promise.”
It rarely worked. He would give her the silent treatment for days at a time while she constantly pleaded with him.
“Please talk to me,” she’d say. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
When Dorian was only a month old, Marcus took his jealousy to a whole new level. Elizabeth was sitting on the couch as Marcus stared at her with disgust.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, confused.
“I can’t believe you,” he said, shaking his head. “You are thinking adulterous thoughts.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You are disrespecting me and thinking about other men.”
Elizabeth didn’t have time to defend herself before Marcus stood up and pointed toward the door. “Just get out of here,” he demanded. “Go on. Get out right now.”
She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t old enough to drive, and she didn’t have anywhere to go. Seeing how serious Marcus was, though, she figured she had to do something. So she walked over to get her newborn baby, but Marcus stopped her. “You’re not taking him or anything else,” he barked, blocking her from picking up Dorian. “Get out, now.”
Elizabeth cried and begged him to let her stay, but he didn’t budge, so she slowly walked out the front door.
It was raining hard on the coast that night, and the raindrops washed away her tears. She had nowhere to go but her mother’s house, so she began the long walk over there. At the time, the five-mile journey seemed much longer.
She was sure Marcus would realize he’d made a huge mistake and would chase her down any second to apologize. He had to know she would never even think about another man.
Instead, she made it all the way to her mother’s door-step—wet, cold, and alone.
“What’s wrong, mi hija?” Rose asked her daughter, who was still weeping.
Elizabeth didn’t want to admit there was anything wrong with her burgeoning marriage, so she walked past her mother and into the kitchen to dry off.
Twenty minutes later, Marcus drove up and walked into the house carrying Dorian. He looked down at Elizabeth, whose eyes were red and puffy and her hair still damp.
“Let’s go home,” he said in a low voice.
Even though Marcus never raised his voice when he was angry, Elizabeth knew she needed to do what he said—not just because she wanted to be with him but also because she knew no other way to live than to follo
w Marcus’s orders, just as she’d been doing since she was eight years old. In fact, she felt quite comfortable not having to think for herself or take action on her own.
So, Elizabeth stood up and followed him to the car. They never talked about it again.
Eight
The Wessons had been staying in my apartment for a month now, and we hadn’t even discussed the possibility of them moving out. What was supposed to have been a temporary living arrangement certainly wasn’t panning out that way. I considered warning my boss about my situation but decided to put it off until I knew how long they’d be with me.
The Marcus Wesson saga had died down in the media and his trial was nearly a year away, so I wasn’t doing stories about the family for the time being and, frankly, I liked having the girls with me. It was nice not to come home to an empty apartment, and Cosmo loved having an all-day playmate in Rosie. I wasn’t sure how long it would take them to get on their feet, and I wasn’t in a rush to see them go.
As much as it was becoming the norm in my life, though, I knew other people wouldn’t understand. I couldn’t take a chance that we’d be seen by reporters from other TV stations who lived in my apartment complex, so the girls and I never walked outside together during the day. When my friends came to pick me up, I ran downstairs to meet them rather than letting them come in and hang out for a while like I used to.
After the third time I did this to my friend Michelle, she got suspicious. It was June, and we were on our way to the pool in my complex.
“Okay, girl,” she said in her sassy Latina accent. “What are you hiding up there? You have a gimp in the basement or something?” she joked. Pulp Fiction was one of our favorite movies.
“Yeah, something like that,” I said, laughing.
Michelle was one of those women who knew all the gossip before anyone else. She always knew who was dating who, who was fighting, and who was breaking up.
“You are hiding something, aren’t you? I knew it!”
“Come on,” I said, dodging the question as I started walking ahead of her. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, this is going to be good,” she said, following me with her oversize duffel bag filled with beach towels, snacks, and a four-pack of bottled margaritas from the corner liquor store.
“I’ll need one of these first,” I said, grabbing one of the bottles. I unscrewed the top and took a big sip. “Okay, but you have to swear you won’t tell anybody. I mean anybody, Michelle.”
“I promise,” she said.
“I sort of have some new roommates.”
“New roommates? Who?”
I walked over to the edge of the pool at the deep end, then looked at her.
“Marcus Wesson’s family,” I said quickly, just before I dove in. I stayed underwater until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, swam to the surface to get some air, then went back under to give Michelle time to process my news. When I came up again, she was kneeling over the side, yelling at me.
“Oh no you didn’t!” Michelle screamed, wagging her index finger at me.
“They didn’t have anywhere to go! They’re really nice. You’ll love them.”
Michelle gulped the rest of her drink, set it down, then raised both hands, palms out.
“Okay, I’m over it,” she said. “Now, tell me everything!”
I laughed and told her all the positive changes I’d been noticing in the women who were living with me. How the once-silent Rosie was coming out of her shell, how Kiani was showing interest in learning new things, and how Elizabeth was opening up to me more and more about Marcus. Elizabeth and the girls didn’t tell Gypsy where they were living for the first month, but once they did, she started coming over for visits, too, although we usually missed each other because I was at work.
It felt good to share my secret with a trusted friend. Even though she was a big gossip, this time I was confident that Michelle would keep her vow of silence.
WHAT I DIDN’T tell Michelle was that the good times with the Wessons were few and far between. I felt guilty seeing them get dressed and ready each morning, having nowhere to go. I’d leave to go to work or lunch with a friend, but their only outings were weekly trips to their old house to dust or vacuum. Even though they couldn’t move back in, they still took pride in keeping the place clean because they knew they would have to sell it one day.
Kiani and Rosie had stopped working a couple of years ago because they were too busy taking care of their children. Elizabeth had never held a job and was far too traumatized to start looking for one now. So their only social outlet was an occasional visit with one of the boys.
Since the murders, their sole source of income was Sebhrenah’s tax refund check. But because it was only a few hundred dollars, they used it just for gas money.
It wasn’t costing me much more for them to live with me because they weren’t adding to my basic rent or utility costs. I didn’t mind subsidizing our daily trips to McDonald’s, In-N-Out Burger, or the Chinese place nearby. Knowing it was unhealthy for them to be cooped up in the apartment, I usually took them on a quick food or gas run before I left for work at 2:00 P.M. Sometimes, when Kiani and Rosie got out of the car, other patrons who recognized them from the news coverage would point, stare, and make comments about Marcus.
“I’m sorry for what happened and I’m praying for your family,” the nice ones would say.
But the less tactful people would ask, “How can you support your father after what he’s done to you guys?”
The girls would drop their heads and walk solemnly back to my car, feeling increasingly self-conscious with every outburst.
“Just ignore them,” I’d say.
One 90-degree day in mid-May, I watched a middle-aged man bundled up in a long-sleeved sweatshirt take a picture of the girls with his camera phone. I wanted to jump out and ask the pudgy, balding homunculus what the hell he was doing, but I refrained, not wanting to out myself as the girls’ benefactor.
As he walked proudly past my car, he looked as if he had just captured an image of the elusive Bigfoot and couldn’t wait to show his friends. When he glanced over at me, I flashed him a dirty look. He stuffed the phone into his pocket and kept on walking.
Rosie’s face was flushed as she and Kiani got back in the car.
“Alysia,” Kiani said, closing the door. “I think that short man just took a picture of us.”
“Are you serious?” I said, feigning surprise. I didn’t want to make the girls even more upset by saying I’d noticed. “What a weirdo.”
APART FROM MARCUS, Elizabeth was the Wesson family member who drew the most public scrutiny. I would sit and watch her suffer through the pain of her family’s loss each morning, then overhear strangers at the grocery store blame her for everything.
“I can’t believe the mother let that monster rape her children.”
“She’s just as bad as he is.”
“How could she defend the man who killed her children?”
The truth was, before I met Elizabeth, I, too, had blamed her for not protecting her children from Marcus, but I was beginning to understand her behavior. He had groomed her to be submissive, and she didn’t know how to challenge him. She and the girls were unaware of the extent to which he had controlled their minds for so many years, and the whole topic made them defensive.
“Alysia,” Elizabeth said. “We are not a cult. Do you realize that people think we are actually brainwashed?”
I bit my tongue. I’d learned from watching them get angry and hurt when they saw these criticisms play out on the television news. I’d also seen how silent they would become when challenged on the most minor point concerning Marcus.
Kiani and Rosie were especially sensitive when reporters mentioned that the family members had speech impediments.
“Why does everyone say we have a lisp, Alysia?” Kiani asked.
The question caught me off guard, and as I frantically searched for a polite answer, Rosie spoke up, embarrassed.
>
“I think we do have a lisp,” she said.
“No, this is just how we all talk,” Kiani replied. “Alysia, we all talk the same, don’t we?”
“You certainly do,” I said.
Elizabeth spoke in a little-girl voice, two of the boys stuttered, and all of them had a lisp. Elizabeth told me that Marcus had stuttered until he was a teenager, but he’d managed to grow out of it somehow.
I saw a TV special once about the few documented cases of feral children who had lived for years without human contact. When they were reintroduced to society, they couldn’t speak because that part of their brain had atrophied. I wondered if being so detached from society had something to do with the Wessons’ speech abnormalities. I also wondered if their speech would improve as they became assimilated into the outside world. Only time would tell.
I DIDN’T REALIZE just how detached they had been until one Saturday night about six weeks into their stay, when we were sitting in the living room and they described some of the activities they’d always wanted, but weren’t allowed, to try.
A couple of months earlier, staying home on a Saturday night would have been out of the question for me. Before the Wessons moved in, I spent my weekends going to dinner with my reporter buddies, dancing at clubs, and then heading to parties until three or four in the morning. But these days, I was just as comfortable spending quiet evenings talking with Elizabeth, Kiani, and Rosie. Little by little, Gypsy started coming over to hang out with us when I was home. We’d pass the time watching DVDs and playing games.
Although by then Gypsy had started adult education to earn her high school diploma, Rosie and Kiani had never set foot in a classroom or gotten their driver’s licenses, and none of the women had ever been to the dentist. But I soon learned Rosie and Kiani had been deprived of the chance to meet many other typical childhood milestones as well: they didn’t know how to swim or ride a bike, and they’d never been to the circus, the zoo, a concert, or out on a date. They’d never even been to a movie theater.
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