"What do you mean when you say you were 'out for revenge against society'? Those people you hurt never hurt you, so why did you hurt them?" - My Mom

There is probably nobody I wish more that I could make understand why I did what I did than my own mother. But, even though it has been ten years now since my arrest, I still get questions like this from her when we speak on the phone. And I can't tell you the number of times I have tried to explain it to her. The problem is that I can't yet honestly even explain it to myself. And if I can't make myself understand, then I know I'll never be able to make anyone else understand, much less my own mother.

So, my answer to this question, like all others, is no more than my current, and most honest, attempt to express what was going through my mind when I attacked and killed those people. It's not an excuse, and it's not an explanation. It is only my own understanding, for what it's worth.

No. «Those people» did not hurt me personally. And even though I did attack them personally, it wasn't them that I was trying to hurt, nor even wanted to hurt. Attacking «them», and specifically «their children», and even more specifically, in a manner that would invoke the most fear, hatred, and disgust from society in general, was the best way I knew to hurt society the same way I felt it hurt me. I wanted people in general to feel what i felt when I was taken from my family as a kid, psychologically tortured by a bunch of depraved men who openly lusted after me in ways I had never even imagined possible, betrayed by the police who promised to «get me the help I needed», and by the therapist who tried to bribe my mother for sex in exchange for «helping her son», and then sent to prison for another fifteen years, where I was repeatedly raped by other prisoners, and denied parole simply because I tried to «help» myself solve my own sickness.

I didn't blame the judge for sending me to an adult «sexual psychopath» treatment program when I was still very much just a naive and confused kid, or for later sending me to prison even though the pre-sentencing report said plainly that I would be targeted and raped by other prisoners because of my youth and appearance. And I didn't blame the prisoners who raped me, or the guards who refused to protect me when I went to them tearfully begging and terrified. I didn't blame the therapist for trying to bribe sex with my mother, or the «sexual psychopaths» for explicitly telling me over and over that I was just like them when I wasn't like them at all (it was known even back then that adult «offenders» have well-established behavior patterns and preferences, which make them difficult, but not impossible, to treat, whereas juvenile «offenders» have only weakly established behavior patterns and preferences that are much easier to change, and hence «treat» successfully). I didn't blame the parole board for repeatedly denying my parole and secretly conspiring with prison counselors (as a lawyer later discovered in my prison records) to keep me locked up over five times longer than the «recommended sentencing range» for my crime.

No, I didn't blame the judge who sentenced me, I blamed society for demanding that «sex offenders» like me be punished ten times or more severely for touching a boy's penis than a child abuser gets for beating a child half to death and leaving him brain damaged for life (like the man who did this to my three-year-old nephew). I didn't blame the prisoners who raped me, or the guards for letting them, but instead I blamed society for paying the guards to imprison me and society again for turning away when a «child rapist» gets raped in prison. I blamed society for allowing unqualified therapists to run an experimental treatment program with no effective oversight. And I blamed society for the fear mongering and ignorance that allowed the parole board to cling to its power (and money) for more than thirty years after it was supposed to be replaced by the Sentencing Reform Act (under which I would have served three to five years at the most). 

As you can tell, by the time I finally convinced a gay man to pay for the legal work necessary to get me out of prison so he could have sex with me, I was pretty damned pissed off at society. And in my mind that not only gave me the right to hurt anyone I wanted, it made me obligated to do so (if I didn't, then I was no better than they were; cowards who expected «justice» to be served up for them by someone else).

So no, «those people» never hurt me personally. But, they were members of society, and to me that made them fair game. I know now that I was only ever hurting myself. And, I know now, that they are only ever hurting themselves when they hurt me in the first place. And, even now «they» are only hurting themselves as they attempt to hurt me even more for hurting them again. I see the «cycle of justice» for what it is, a cycle of escalating violence and self-inflicted suffering.

I exited that cycle by throwing down the rock I meant to kill Shasta with, and then surrendering to the very people who have been hurting me all my life. I exited because of the courage to love that I found in the heart of my last intended victim. If she could love me, after all I had done to her, then I could love society --- but, not «society» at all, but the people who make up society --- the «people» who never hurt me at all. 

I came to realize that the «monster» that I was out for vengeance against (i.e. «society») never existed anyplace except in my own mind. It was an illusion that my mind invented as a way to gain control over my own painful experiences. Except, of course, because it was an illusion and not real, I never gained control of anything, and only ended up losing touch with what was real, and hence, losing control completely.

My unconscious mind played all sorts of tricks on me in order to maintain this illusion of «control». And because I bowed to the authority of my conscious mind (i.e. the delusion of self-control and volition), that I had been taught all my life was king (a lie that inflicts the entire human race), I never realized that I was attacking a chimera; at least not until I finally saw that chimera for what it was, by looking through the eyes of a child, who had not yet learned to trust the «King of Consciousness» (i.e. the «Lord of Deception» a.k.a. «The Devil», metaphorically, of course).

At that moment I bowed to the True King, and no longer feared the chimera I had fought and hated all my life. I saw that the «monster» was not real, nor where my «demons». But, more importantly, I saw --- for the first time since I myself was a small child --- what WAS real! I saw the life, and the capacity for love, that stood in front of me. I saw the child, Shasta, for the first time, instead of the underbelly of a «beast» that I thought had been hurting me all my life. And once I «saw» the child, Shasta, for what she was, I could no longer hurt her. I had «no choice» (as I have said many times since) but to protect her, and take her home.

So that, mom, is why I did what I did. And it is why «they» continue to do what they do (condemn me to death). Because they see only a «monster» that their unconscious mind constructs in order for their conscious minds to believe they have some «control» over the source of their own pain and suffering. They can't see me as a human being, or the «child» that you see, because they still bow to the Lord of Deception, in exchange for their precious illusion of power and control. They don't «see» that they have no control at all, because they are attacking only a chimera in their own minds, while their world collapses around them. This is the folly of false Justice. It is not about vengeance or punishment at all. It is simply nature at work. If we blame them for wanting to hurt us then we must blame ourselves, too. That would be buying back in to the illusion --- something I'll never do again. So, I forgive, and I pray you will too. (Forgiveness is really the only way! And all of this is in the Bible, and many other books as well.)