Eddie loved that part, too. Hanging out at his own crime scenes. “Not so much to watch the excitement—cops throwing their hands up, the frustration on their faces, the hustle of going nowhere fast. I was learning my power over others. The best way to move was right alongside of you. The best way to hide is right in sight.”
* * *
“Eddie, what do you do all day to occupy your mind?” I knew, of course, that he enjoyed torturing me psychically, but I did wonder what else he did to fill his time.
He’s housed in isolation and even eats alone. Breakfast is cereal in a cup passed through a slot in the door, and maybe an apple. That’s at 5:00 a.m. Lunch is at 11:00, and is bologna and plastic-tasting cheese between two slices of bread. Dinner is at 3:00 p.m., and he gets two slices of bologna and some shredded lettuce. Once in a while, he’ll get a grilled-cheese sandwich, and on holidays, a cookie. They won’t give him a prison job, because they don’t trust him. He insists he’s too fearsome for anyone to come near him, for anyone to violate him like others are in prison all the time. He reads anything that has to do with war, murders, weapons, or history. He’s allowed one preselected movie a month, but he only watches it if it matches those interests. He reads the Bible but twists it to accommodate the devil. He said he isn’t allowed to attend the prison church. The man of the cloth will stop by his cell for a quick visit and hand him the yearly calendar, then flee.
“The church claims to help people in need,” he said. “I went because I was killing. Something was inside me, forcing me, driving me. I was only the passenger at that time . . . I went to the church and spoke, telling the priest something was inside, taking over, and soon it will be too late.”
He said he felt like he was the rot in the walls, covered with dry wall and plaster and pretty paint. But punch a hole through those layers, and they would have found him.
“I tried to get away from this, whatever this was. I took the test for the army. I failed by two lousy points. Two points—can you believe this? There were guys with visible track marks on their arms, sweating bad . . . I hated them. You could smell the fiends a mile away. Even the piss on them, it seeps through their pores. They got accepted. It was obvious I was being stopped.”
I kept listening, the little desk chair hard against my back.
“It came to me—this thing, a dark figure—when I was very young, and detached from family. Alone. I was a good candidate. I was already isolated, I guess, not really loved. I’m not making excuses.”
He kept on, talking about different things and then coming around again to religion.
“I’m just telling you the church is full of shit . . . They come by the prison to spread the word of pure bullshit. I can hear his thoughts as he walks by my cinder-block cage, doing his sign of the cross. Such lies. Hands me a calendar, of all things. The time I took from others, and the time I seem to have plenty of.” He contemplated this for a moment, then continued. “His thoughts . . . ‘I can’t wait to get out of this place, grab a beer and a sandwich.’ Father, I know what you’re thinking! He runs past fast. I call out, ‘I have sinned, Father, in the most unforgivable way. But so have you. I don’t hide behind a cross. You do, Father. Satan didn’t pound those nails in, Father. Man did!’ He took off like a little girl.”
The chair started to hurt, but I stayed still.
“Jackie, I have so much time. The devil won’t let me die. I’m not getting soft, just stating a fact. Look at me. I haven’t aged,” he laughed.
He was right. He hadn’t visibly aged at all. Compared with photos I’d seen of him from his court appearances in the 1990s, he looked just as good, if not better now. I stared at those black eyes, which bored into me. “Jackie, do you realize with your gifts what you could have done?” I did not respond. He told me to look at my hand, the one Patricia had scratched earlier. I unfurled my fist and saw now the sign of the Gemini, red and welted like a hot branding.
“You will always carry me with you,” he said. “But the challenge will be—can you stop the evil . . . hold it down? It will come to you always in the form of a sign. Oh, do you have your work cut out. Angels and demons aren’t that far apart. We are the chosen ones.”
I looked at my hand and closed my fingers tightly over the sign of my haunting.
“We are the same, Jackie. We fight for the same thing. I want it to be known that evil is pure and exists. And you fight to take it out of people. So we both know the truth.
“And yes, I’m a killer. I don’t care about humanity. I don’t feel bad for the body count—maybe a little because my plans got messed up. The devil Abaddon got mad, and, well, here I am. I don’t care about the world. I don’t care about time. I don’t care about going before a parole board. I don’t care about the families. I don’t regret a fucking thing.”
He talked faster and faster. “I do care about what weapons can cause the most damage—how many people can be taken down at once. I do like to watch the news, all the horrible things . . . I’m the man you tell your children about . . . I’m the night . . . If the world knew what you now know, I don’t think they would go out after dark . . . I like to read about the occult, because it’s as real as the nose on your face—as real as that New York City morgue, as that insane asylum. As real as over one hundred stab wounds and some shots . . . I like looking at symbols and signs on a dollar bill . . . I like candy.” He took a breath and smiled. “I like you.”
I kept my hand in a fist. Why, I asked, did he want me to tell the public about him—about his many unknown killings, about how he kept Patricia’s spirit hostage, about how he can move from person to person?
“It’s simple, Jackie. You are my confessional booth. You know what’s in my mind and body. The world should know the truth. And only you can see past the mirror into the world that waits—good and bad. You see it all. You are the twin, a victim of murder that came back and slowly remembered. Remember, nothing is by chance.”
“Are you scared, Eddie?”
“No, I’m scared of nothing. I know what lies past this life. And I know how to come back, just like you.”
* * *
After the police arrested Eddie, someone wrote a true-crime book about him and the crimes they knew of at the time. This was also funny to him, even all these years later.
“He spoke to my mother. Gave her a few bucks to go in my room and interview her. She needed the money; I don’t blame her. But if my own mother didn’t know me, what could she tell him? . . . Don’t make me laugh. So you show pictures of my room? Big shit.”
He stared at me with those unblinking eyes. “Now, if you let me into your head and write who and what I really am and all the many things I’ve done . . . if you’re able to hold my soul as you did, Jackie, now you got a fucking story to rock the hand of death . . . Live with me a few years, even a week, and you got a story no man has.”
That author never sat down with him, Eddie said.
“You had the balls, Jackie—to not just sit with me but listen for years about the faces of evil that I evolved into. You let me into your head, your safe place, to solve the puzzle. Big-shot detectives became tortured and obsessed chasing that dragon but were scared to confront me. They go by [the] textbook. You go by foot. You became me to see exactly what I have done.”
He leaned in. “You did something else, too. You unlocked the past . . . and freed the damned. Doing so, you found out who we both are. Yes, Jackie, I killed you once upon a time. When you wore a yellow raincoat.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I never wore the color yellow. It always hurt my eyes and affected my vision. And I never knew why. I always felt very protective of children, any children, and would go out of my way to help anonymously. When I worked with families victimized by crime, I would help them grieve by listening to their stories, their dreams, their heartbreaks. So many times, I would slip without realizing it and refer to myself as a victim of homicide. I w
ould see flashes of a child who looked like me, but I did not then understand who she was or why she came to me. I would stop and have to compose myself in front of my clients. I was essentially holding my own hand through these sessions.
Even though I believe in reincarnation, for many years I could not bring myself to face my own previous death. And when I finally did, at first the anger grew. Someone took my life. Someone took my parents’ world and burnt it down to the ground. I relived the pain of my death. But now I can see through the anger and the pain, and I realize that I am fortunate to know—it has allowed me to put down my heavy burden.
Jane helped show me heaven. She held my hand and reminded me how to experience only joy. It was not a word. It was a feeling, a touch, a sight like never before. I finally understood my journey, my life’s purpose. I now know that my work isn’t something that just left me in isolation from regular humanity. It was there to bring me to my own grave and then take me to a higher level. There was a purpose—not only for those I help but for me as well. I am truly blessed.
* * *
Eddie leaned forward slightly across the prison desk. “I didn’t realize in the beginning of all of this that the devil was credited. Not until I saw myself change. Something is inside of me. It was a process. I welcomed it. I [have] thought about killing myself many times. And it stops me,” Eddie said. “I don’t care what people think. I have no interest in bullshit. I don’t want fan mail. Such small minds,” he laughed. “You once asked me, Jackie, if I met that girl in a dark street or down an alley, what would I do? I was quiet, Jackie, so you could feel my answer. I would take her face off in less than a minute.”
Eddie in person was certainly honest, even more so than during our phone conversations.
“I’m no fucking joke. I’m not the one anyone wants to befriend.”
“Eddie, what do you want the world to know?”
He thought for a moment, although there was still no blinking.
“I’m not the only one. My family didn’t do this. The lack of food or money didn’t. The proof is in my hands. I made those weapons with knowledge I didn’t have. The lack of money didn’t stop me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I accepted the devil long before I knew what was happening.” And the devil, that tall man in black, had been with him ever since.
“People blame everything on poverty. I have no sense of guilt. Call me a sociopath; I don’t care. But how many would wear my mask? How many have walked down dark alleys to hear my footsteps behind them?”
I tossed another question at him.
“Did anyone ever mention an exorcism to you?”
He sat back in his chair, and his eyes went completely black. The lights began to flicker. “I didn’t think you would open such a can of worms in this lovely visiting room, with everyone at risk.” This was obviously not a subject he wanted to address, so of course, I pushed him even more. He tried to change the subject, but I eventually steered it back around.
“Kill me, rid me of my pain.” The voice that came from him was not his own. His eyes turned pleading and he grabbed my hand. “Don’t let me linger. Save my soul . . .”
Then another voice, the one I was used to hearing from him, came forth in a vicious sneer. “Your soul? What soul?”
I pulled his hand off mine. “Why didn’t those priests that tried to help you—the ones that came up to the prison and the ones you went to see—”
He interrupted me. “They couldn’t handle it. They came up and knew I needed help. Leaving was them telling the devil it won.” He leaned over and clutched at his stomach in pain.
“Did they ever come back?” I asked.
“No, never,” he said. “They came up in the beginning to Rikers Island and saw with their own eyes what was in me. They prayed over me and stopped. Just stopped and said among themselves—how could such a Bible-carrying man do such things? They questioned God! And they never, ever came back.”
Before my visit, I’d gone to the church Eddie had frequented during the years he was committing all of his crimes. And I was turned away at the door. I told the priest that I was there for Heriberto Seda, and he bowed his head and shook it. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m not in good health.” His faith was weak and fear ran through his blood. He knew what he would face if he allowed me to enter. So he asked me to leave. “God be with you. And all the angels,” he said as he did the sign of the cross. “Go now.”
* * *
It had been three hours since I first sat across from Eddie. I watched the clock the entire time, but he didn’t look at it once. We had talked about many things, and I knew that he had not accepted that I would never be his escape hatch. That I would never do the devil’s bidding. On the other hand, I knew now that I would never succumb to him. I realized that despite his terrorizing me, he would not win.
He picked his hand up off the table and held it out. “Bring your face to mine.” I heard the snort of an animal come from him, low but distinct, when I didn’t move toward him. “Are you afraid I will bite your face off?”
“No, Eddie, I’m not.” I leaned forward until I was an inch away from him. “Do it, Eddie. Do what your gut tells you.”
He touched my hair. He touched the holy water. The pain shot through his body like a bullet from a gun—I could feel it in him. His fingertips burnt. I could smell it.
“You tricked me, Jackie,” he said. He started to slide his chair back, and I grabbed his arm to keep him in place.
“It’s not me who commands you,” I said. “It’s God who commands you. Release this soul; depart to hell.” I guess I never really give up hope that someone can be saved. Maybe someday, the devil will be forced out of Eddie. But not today. As I sat there, his face changed. The whites of his eyes disappeared, his breath turned foul and his skin wet and gray. I could smell the old blood on him. We locked hands.
“No, Jackie,” he said. “It was your mother who condemned you to face evil. You will be haunted for the rest of your life.”
Evil can enter anyone’s life, but for him, I now realized that all the elements were in place long ago. The spotlight was on him, the people were fascinated and fearful, and he became a star. He liked that very much, even now.
The bell rang at that moment, just as he looked up at the clock. “Time’s up,” Eddie said. “Time, Jackie. You like that song.” I did. “Time Is on My Side,” by The Rolling Stones, has been my ring tone for more than six years, not that I’d ever told him that. He stood up, and the guards rushed over. “Is time on anyone’s side?” he said. I did not answer, just moved to the edge of the room and waited for the iron gates to open so I could leave. The guards escorted him out the opposite side. “It’s the Gemini,” he said loudly. “The twin of the other.” The door swung shut and he was gone.
EPILOGUE
Eddie tells me he can’t hear Patricia scream anymore. She has found freedom, and so he has lost his hold on her. And he is taking it hard. He used to close his eyes at night, put his hand on his chest, and listen to her. It was her screams that would sing him to sleep.
And there were others in his walls, too. He was especially fond of the dog, that little white thing whose master he had shot and wounded all those years ago. The terrified barks and cries of the dog were also music to his ears. But now that is gone as well.
When they first faded away, Eddie searched his cell. He took the pictures off his walls and put his ear as close as he could. He listened high and low and couldn’t hear a thing. This is very upsetting to him. It’s as if he’s lost an inner power that had kept him strong.
“Now they’re gone, and I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said.
He has decided he needs to move on. Change the scenery. So, he told me, he’s put in a request to transfer prisons. I don’t know if that will happen. But I do know that all it would do is move the devil from place to place. There is nowhere to hide.
But as for me, my running has stopped. I still walk through the city and wonder how many demons walk among us and who they’ve targeted. But I now know that, even if they target me directly, I have the strength to take them on and beat them. After finally freeing Patricia and facing my own past life and death, I am more sure of who I am than ever before. I am a psychic medium, and I fight the devil.
My name is Jackie.
My husband, Will Barrett, and me.
(Joanne Agnelli)
Unless otherwise noted, all photos are from author Jackie Barrett.
My daughter, Joanne Agnelli, and me.
(Will Barrett)
New York’s old Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, which now serves as a homeless men’s shelter.
(Joanne Agnelli)
The old Bellevue psychiatric ward was once home to countless souls tortured by mental illness. It is located a few blocks away from the current Bellevue Hospital Center, which is New York City’s premier public hospital.
(Joanne Agnelli)
One of the first letters I remember getting from Eddie. My hand fit perfectly in his handprint.
A photo of Heriberto “Eddie” Seda taken while he was in prison.
A letter Eddie sent me illustrating how he thinks the stars connect the two of us.
Eddie sent me the mask he wore during the rituals he would conduct before roaming the New York streets searching for people to kill.
Eddie included this letter with the mask.
The Haunting of the Gemini Page 23