Even Ted Bundy Had Friends

In my previous posts, as I have taken on this blog adventure, I have talked about some of the cases I have seen that have been humorous to me.  As I mentioned in my first post, I am doing this in part to vent, in part as a survival mechanism and because it is required for my class (smiley face emoji that I do not know how to add).  The reality of it is much of my job is not only difficult to deal with but can take its toll.  I literally witnessed a three year old little girl that had been murdered by her step farther and buried in the back yard removed from the ground more than two years after her death.  While I am not comparing my position as witness to the poor officers who had to dig her up, this type of work can take its toll.  I can only pray that one day I will forget her autopsy that I had to witness.  

Anyway, my point is this, not every aspect of my job is light hearted and sometimes it can be hard.  No one wants to hear about the hard times, so I am going to blog about them so it does not bottle up.  Hence you are not getting a funny and light hearted post today.   

One of the challenges that I face is that in every prosecution is that while much of the community

sees me as the hero of the story, the one fighting for truth justice and to keep the streets safe; the rest of the community sees me as the evil corrupt overzealous prosecutor with a personal agenda.  In other words, the people love me until I start prosecuting one of their family members or friends.  Little known fact, after joining a church group in Salt Lake City, many of Ted Bundy’s friends from

church protested his arrest.  They made appearances and wrote letters in his support because he was their friend and Ted just would not do such a thing.  Even murders have friends who want to believe they are innocent.     

To illustrate this, I share an experience I had when I was a prosecutor at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Mesa, Arizona.  I was assigned a child abuse case where the mother of the three year old victim filled a bathtub with scalding hot water and then held her little boys feet where they cooked in the water.  Once his feet were done, she did the same to his penis.  This was a punishment for wetting his pants.  The boy learned his lesson as he had third degree burns covering his feet and up past the ankles as well as second degree burns on his penis.  The injuries were so severe that doctors has to filet the feet open so the infection and swelling would not tear his feet apart.  He will never recover from the disfigurement associated with the injuries to the more sensitive part of his body.  The level of depravity associated with this crime goes beyond my comprehension.  

While I was not the original prosecutor on the case, I was assigned the case a few years after the crime to defend a request by the defendant to be excused from probation.  

Now the reason that I am sharing this is because of a conversation I had with my sister regarding that case.  Shortly before Christmas my sister and I went to go do a little Christmas shopping.  While in the car, and making casual conversation my sister brought up this case, well at least the version of the case that she heard.  Purely by chance, the monster that inflicted this abuse upon her son attended the same church as my sister.  

Not knowing that I was involved with the case, my sister started telling me of the atrocity’s being perpetrated by the County Attorney’s Office on this lady that she knew and asking if there was anything I could do to stop it.  As she explained to me “There is a lady in my ward that is being prosecuted by your office and they won’t let her see her kids or be with her family just because her little boy turned on the hot water in the bathtub when she was not looking and got a little burned.  What are you guys doing over there?”  

I explained that her story did not sound right and that we would not be prosecuting a case with those facts.  I did not even recognize the case that she was describing was my case until she told me the defendant’s name.   Once she mentioned the name and I made the connection I about flipped my lid, I was so angry.  That this woman would have the audacity to do what she did and then attempt to paint a picture for her friends as if she were the victim was beyond my comprehension at that time. 

I quickly explained the real facts of the case and offered to show my sister the pictures of the little boys feet, which she declined.  She, of course agreed with me that prosecution was not only appropriate but that this woman should not see the light of day.  

My take away from this experience is that almost everyone charged with a crime claims to be innocent and tells people that they are being railroaded and that the system is rigged.  Their friends then believe them… regardless of the facts.  Again, look at Ted Bundy, he convinced hundreds.  

There have been innocent people accused of crimes, and my worst nightmare is that I would somehow ever convict one, but those are very few and far in between.  Just keep in mind that before you jump on the police and prosecutors are corrupt bandwagon when you see a Facebook story that the writer has an agenda. 

I learned that I had to grow a thick skin, heck even my own sister was ripping me and my office for prosecuting this case.  It is just too bad she did not have the real facts of the case initially.  

So, what’s my point to this whole blog, you know besides the school credit?   The simple answer is that there are two sides to every story, every author, including me in this post, has an agenda.  Just remember that when reading posts on Facebook or in the news to be objective and notice the biases of the authors, and before you repost that story on the corrupt cops, or the overzealous prosecutors make sure that the atrocities that you are now sharing with your family and friends are actually true.