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imagine-the-fanfics · 7 years

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Everything Stays

A/N: I was listening to this song when I was getting ready for the day and I got the BIGGEST urge to write this. I couldn’t think who to write it about, but shout out to @kenobislittlepadawan for suggesting the wonderful Obi-Wan! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! It’s a college AU. (I’m really feeling AUs right now.) The flashbacks are italicized, since they’re flashbacks. Just wanted to make that clear! This one is long, so I put it under a “read more” to keep your feeds clean!

The coffee shop on campus was a usual hangout for more than just the artsy student. It was a safe place for everyone. Tonight the open mic night had it to standing room only. This wasn’t an uncommon sight, but it was unusual for open mic nights. Everyone clapped and snapped their fingers as the person before you stepped down from the stage.

Now it was your turn.

You grabbed your acoustic guitar that was leaning against your chair and you made your way onto the stage, moving the stool closer to the mic.

“Can everyone here this okay?” You asked, strumming a few random notes. Some people gave you a thumbs up and you looked around the room. “There’s quite a crowd tonight. Let’s take a second to thank Common Grounds for hosting this event, and everything the do to make campus life interesting.” There were snaps and claps for a brief moment and you took a deep breath. “I’ve only got one song tonight, and it’s a cover. I’m not sure how many of you are fans of the show Adventure Time?” You listened to the brief snaps and then someone shouted something about the theme song. “No, It’s not the theme song. I can do that really quick though, I don’t think the people in charge will mind me wasting an extra 30 seconds.”

You played the opening fanfare and then smacked your guitar for the fist bump.

“Adventure Time~ Come on grab your friends; we’ll go to very distant lands with Jake the Dog and Finn the Human. The fun will never end~ It’s Adventure Time~!” You grinned as the crowd sang with you. “You guys are amazing. I’m loving the energy.” You adjusted the microphone slightly. “There we go, that’s better.” You muttered.

“Okay. So. This song is sung by my favorite vampire queen during one her arcs. It’s called ‘Everything Stays’ and it’s my favorite from the show.” You looked into the crowd, a smile formed as you noticed your old friend Obi-Wan Kenobi drinking a cup of something. “ I want to dedicate this to an old friend of mine that I haven’t talked to since high school. He’s here tonight, and I’m hoping he’ll realize this is for him. I miss you.” You leaned back and took a deep breath, letting the song wash over you.

“Let’s go in the garden; you’ll find something waiting”

It was summer time. A cool breeze shaking the leaves of the tree you had climbed. You took a bite out of an apple you had picked on your way up, looking out over your backyard. It was a standard sized yard for the town you lived in, nothing too grandiose like the doctors in the area, but more yard than the kids in the subsidized housing had. You smiled lightly, thankful for what you had. Even as a child you were a thankful person. You had your moments, obviously, but still.

“Y/n!” A familiar voice called up to you. You glanced down and grinned.

“Obi!” You called, taking another bite. “One sec! Let me climb down!” With that you disappeared into the tree, climbing your way down, jumping from the lowest branch and landing with a soft thumb. “It’s so nice to see you!”

“Yeah! How has your vacation been so far?” He asked before the memory started to fade.

“You’ll find something waiting”

You held your best friend as his sobs shook his body. You were both in junior high school now. Starting to blossom into the adults you would eventually become. Thank the maker for puberty. Always a storm.

Which did not make the loss of a beloved animal any easier.

You rubbed his back, tears falling from your eyes as you looked down at the dog that had just been put to sleep. You whispered words of kindness in his ear to try and ease the pain he was experiencing. “I’m so sorry.” You muttered.

“Right there where you left it, lying upside down.”

Suddenly you were at a playground, sitting on a landing connected to the monkey bars that your friend was playing on.

“I don’t understand the homework.” You grumbled, looking up from your textbook to see your friend hanging upside down. “Math is dumb. I hate school.”

“This is where you remind me that we’re lucky to be able to go to school.” Obi grinned. “Feels good to say it to you.”

“Hush your mouth!” You snapped. “Can you help me?” Your gaze returned to your textbook and you heard a thud as your friend hit the ground.

“Yeah! It’s easy stuff.” He sat next to you. He leaned over and started explaining the concept, pointing at the book to help show what he was referring to.

“When you finally find it.”

High school sucked. Especially when you couldn’t find your shirt when you were already late.

“Do you need help?” Obi-Wan asked from the doorway of your room, watching you sort through clothes on the floor and on various surfaces.

“No. I’ll find it. You should probably get going, though. Don’t want you to be late, too.” You moved to your closet. “Dammit!” You grumbled, running and hand through your hair.

“I’m fine.” He came in and sat on your bed, leaning against the wall. “Besides, the view is worth it.” He grinned.

“Pervert.” You threw the shirt in your hand at him, smirking before turning back to a pile of clothes sitting on your chair. “FOUND IT!!” You shouted, pulling it from the pile and pulling it on over your head.

“You’ll see how it’s faded.”

A few different scenes flashed through your head.

“Want to come over after school, Y/n?” Obi leaned against the lockers next to yours, watching you with a careful eye.

“I can’t. I’m going to the movies with the S.O. tonight.” You replied, barely thinking about it while you shoved the items you needed into your backpack. “That and I’ve got a killer homework load tonight.”

“It’s all good!” Obi-Wan replied, raising his fist for a fist bump. You didn’t notice for a moment, but then touched your fist to his. You shrugged your backpack onto your shoulder.

“Catch ya later!” You walked backwards away from him, giving a light wave before turning around.

Another time was when you were sitting on your front porch, watching traffic when you saw Obi-Wan riding his bike.

“Obi-Wan!” You called, waving.

He gave you a smile and continued to ride. This caught you by surprise, because normally he would at least stop and say hi instead of just cruising by. You dismissed it as him being in a rush, but later it was confirmed that wasn’t the case.

Incidences like these, evidence of your fading friendship, became so frequent in high school and should have been red flags, but that wasn’t the case. By senior year you rarely spent time together outside of class, let alone after school or on the weekends.

At one point you had been inseparable, but that was no longer the case ever since freshman year of high school.

“The underside is lighter when you turn it around.”

You were devastated by the loss of your beloved grandmother, and the funeral had been especially difficult for you. You sat outside on your front porch, in a basic black dress and a blue hoodie, crying.

“Everything okay?” A voice asked. You looked up and saw it was Obi-Wan. His bike was parked at the end of your driveway and he was starting to sit next to you.

“No. Grandmother died.” You said plainly, wiping the tears off your face with the sleeves of your hoodie.

“Oh.” An uncomfortable silence filled the air for what seemed like hours. “I’m sorry.”

“It would have been nice to have had a friend.” You stood up. “I’m going inside.”

“Oh. Okay.” Obi-Wan’s feelings were obviously hurt, but he didn’t want to upset you further. “I’ll see you around, okay? Don’t be a stranger.”

“Right back at you.” You let the door slam behind you.

“Everything stays right where you left it.”

Homecoming was here, and you had been nominated to Homecoming Court. This surprised you because you weren’t very popular at the school, and part of you wondered if they were going to pull a Carrie on you and pour red liquid all over you. You shook the image out of your head.

You stood in the middle of the gymnasium floor, waiting for the announcement of the king and queen with a passive interest.

They called your name.

You snapped your head to the Principal and gave him a puzzled look. He made a soft gesture to come over and you did.

“And your homecoming king… Obi-Wan Kenobi!”

You froze.

The crowning went s it normally would, and you smiled and thanked everyone as appropriate. You even gave Obi-Wan a celebratory hug, and, for a moment at least, everything felt like it had when you were kids and he was your best friend.

“Everything stays, but it still changes.”

As per your schools traditions, there was a king and queen slow dance. You were nervous, but excited about being able to talk to Obi-Wan again. The two of you met on the dance floor. Your hand went on his shoulder, and his on your waist, while your other hands found each other. Your bodies started to move to the music and smiled.

“Hello, again.” He greeted.

“Hello.” You continued to dance together. “I’ve missed you.”

“Well that’s sweet of you.” He teased, sending you out for a spin before pulling you closer to him again.

“Do you remember when we were kids? We used to be so close.” A frown crossed his lips as you spoke. “Why don’t we go back to that?” The song ended.

“Things… Things are different.” He admitted with a sigh.

“Not that different. We could be that close again if we tried. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like that.” He didn’t respond, but his hand left yours and fell off your hip. “Let’s try.”

“I can’t, Y/n.” His reply was soft, almost like he was ashamed. A silence fell over you, the music’s pounding bass felt like the only thing keeping your heart going.

“Why?” You asked.

“Like I said, things are different. You’re different. I’m… Different.” Shock set in.

“Have we changed that much? I thought we were still…” You paused. “Can we try, at least?” Obi-Wan shook his head.

“Ever so slightly”

Graduation. Finally. The last four years felt like an eternity, but they were finally over.

-*-

“Daily and nightly”

Graduation brings celebrations, and you were at a party held by the school at the local bowling alley. There was music pulsing, the sound of bowling balls crashing against pins and sending them flying. You looked around and basked in the joyous atmosphere of the celebration.

“In little ways”

That was when you saw him sitting at the bar, drinking what you assumed was a coke or some other sort of pop. You walked over and sat next to him, bumping him with your shoulder lightly. He smiled at you and returned the bump. The two of you sat in silence for a while before you leaned your head on his shoulder. He let out a soft sigh and rested his cheek against your head.

“When everything stays.” The final notes hung in the air as people snapped and clapped. Obi-Wan was watching you with a puzzled look. “Thank you very much, everyone. Hope you have a great night.” You got off the stool and went back to your chair.

“Still like apple cider?” Obi-Wan asked, handing you a cup, steam wisping from the drinking hole in the lid. You gave a nod and he sat across from you, setting the cup on the little table between your chairs.

You smiled lightly and the two of you began to chat and reminisce.

#obi-wan kenobi #obi-wan #obi-wan fanfiction #obi-wan one shot #star wars #star wars fanfic

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toldnews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/united-states-of-america/her-father-was-executed-for-murder-she-still-wants-to-know-if-he-did-it/

Her Father Was Executed for Murder. She Still Wants to Know if He Did It.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — April Alley had last spoken with her father when she was a girl of 10, so there was plenty of catching up to do when they met about 15 years later, in the noisy visiting area of a prison in Nashville.

She told him about her life as an adult: college, marriage, a home near Louisville.

Her father, Sedley Alley, talked about being a convicted murderer on death row, and the haze of his ragged years as an alcoholic and drug addict.

Near the end of their meeting, she posed the question that had shadowed her since childhood. Was he really a killer who had raped and impaled a young Marine?

“I asked him, ‘Did you do that? If you did or not, you’re still my dad and I love you,’” Ms. Alley recalled.

His reply was the same opaque answer he gave psychiatrists after his arrest in 1985, and continued to give to anyone who asked, right until his execution in 2006. He did not know.

“He said, ‘If I did do it, I deserve what I get,’” Ms. Alley said. “‘But I don’t remember doing it.’”

On Tuesday, Ms. Alley, 43, asked a judge in Memphis to grant her what the courts had refused her father during his lifetime: DNA testing of evidence from the murder. She realizes the results might cement her father’s guilt, giving her an answer that he could not — or would not — provide.

“I don’t want it to be like that — that he actually did it,” Ms. Alley said. “But it would almost make it easier. Because the thought of all of that happening for no reason doesn’t sit well with me at all.”

Mr. Alley went to his death based on scant physical evidence and a confession that he claimed he had been forced to give.

Five years after he died, the Tennessee Supreme Court said that denying his request for DNA testing had been a mistake.

Ms. Alley has become executor of his estate and “now stands in the shoes of her father, seeking the truth,” her petition for testing says.

The kind of post-mortem inquiry she seeks is “incredibly rare,” said Brandon L. Garrett, a professor of law at Duke University.

“The prisoner is deceased, the case is closed and the evidence is destroyed,” Professor Garrett said.

Sometimes, though, evidence is preserved. Ever since the Alley trial in 1987, the Shelby County clerk has kept exhibits that include the victim’s underwear, a pair of red briefs apparently worn by the attacker and a 31-inch tree branch.

Mr. Alley’s DNA was harvested while he was alive and is still in storage, according to Kelley J. Henry, a federal public defender who represented him in his last years.

If the testing goes forward and unambiguously points to someone other than Mr. Alley as the killer, it could become the first time DNA has exonerated a person put to death in the United States.

For nearly two decades after Mr. Alley’s arrest, no one disputed in court that he was the killer; his original lawyers argued that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2003, new lawyers said a fresh investigation raised serious doubts about his guilt that only DNA tests could resolve.

Prosecutors said that the request was a stalling maneuver, and that even if someone else’s DNA were found, it would not clear Mr. Alley. They prevailed.

The murder occurred one night in July 1985. Lance Corporal Suzanne Collins, 19, left the barracks at Naval Air Station Millington, just outside Memphis, to take her daily 10-mile run. She had just finished nine months of avionics training.

Around 11 p.m., two fellow Marines running the other way crossed paths with her. Moments later, they dodged a station wagon swerving along the road, in the same direction that Corporal Collins had been running.

After it passed, they heard a woman hollering, “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!” They ran toward the shouts and saw a car, which they believed was the same station wagon, stopped on the side of the road. It sped off. A second car came their way and they tried to wave it down, but the driver did not stop. They ran to the gatehouse. A guard sounded an alarm for a possible abduction.

About an hour later, just after midnight, Mr. Alley was stopped near the base driving a rattling 1972 station wagon. A Navy investigator noted that he had no visible injuries.

Mr. Alley, then 29, was not in the service — he had been discharged some years earlier for drug and alcohol abuse — but his wife was in the Navy. After she was questioned, the investigators concluded that the jogging Marines had heard the Alleys squabbling, not an abduction.

At that point, no one knew Corporal Collins was missing. The alert for the station wagon was canceled. The Alleys were sent home for the night. A patrol kept an eye on their house.

The next morning, Corporal Collins’s body was found in a park.

She had been struck 100 blows and strangled. The attacker had stripped a tree branch of twigs, sharpened the tip, then drove it through her body.

Mr. Alley, who had no criminal record, was promptly arrested. Over a period of hours, he denied knowing anything about the woman and asked for a lawyer.

But then, investigators said, before consulting anyone, he proceeded to volunteer that he had sideswiped Corporal Collins while driving drunk, accidentally stabbed her in the head with a screwdriver — both details untrue, the medical examiner testified — and staged the crime scene.

Mr. Alley would later claim the investigators had turned on the tape recorder only when he said what they wanted to hear, not during the browbeating that led up to his statement. The authorities said they had merely asked him what happened.

They also said he showed them where Corporal Collins’s body had been found, but a transcript of a recording of the car ride does not indicate that he gave any directions.

Mr. Alley’s lawyers were unable to get information from him about the crime, so he was turned over to psychiatrists. One wrote that he “did not seem overtly delusional, except in his assessment of the police tactics and his belief that they would have beaten him if he had not confessed to the crime, said they could have gotten away with it because they were the police.”

The physical evidence in the case, analyzed with the primitive tools available in 1985, was suggestive but far from conclusive. On the driver’s door of the station wagon, authorities reported finding Type O blood, the same as the victim’s and Mr. Alley’s. Paper napkins from Danver’s, a regional restaurant chain, were on the floor of his car as well as near the body, the investigators said. Also in the car was proof that he had been in the vicinity of the crime: an air conditioner pump that had been installed earlier in the day at a house near where Corporal Collins had been running. Plainly, Mr. Alley had stolen it.

However, no traces of Corporal Collins — no fingerprints, hair or blood — were found inside his car or, for that matter, on Mr. Alley. No physical evidence showed he had been in a prolonged struggle with a 19-year-old Marine in excellent condition.

April Alley spoke to a reporter last month in Louisville, where she works in human resources for a hospital. As a teenager, she said, she was turned against her father by a hostile relative.

In her 20s, she reconnected with him at Riverbend Maximum Security prison. He was frank about his drug and alcohol use, she said, and told her that he had confessed under threat. She became inclined to believe him.

In 2003, an investigator, April Higuera, turned up an undisclosed handwritten note by the medical examiner estimating that Corporal Collins died after Mr. Alley had been sent home and kept under police watch.

Ms. Higuera also located a romantic partner of Corporal Collins who drove a station wagon and was about the same height, 5-foot-8, as a man seen near the abduction. Mr. Alley was eight inches taller.

Citing these discoveries, Ms. Henry, the lawyer, said: “We tried every way possible to get back into court and to get DNA.”

Across the country, views on post-conviction DNA testing have changed as more wrongful convictions have come to light. All 50 states now give prisoners some access to DNA testing, though the hurdles vary.

If the evidence is tested, the results could be compared to a national registry of DNA collected from offenders and unsolved crimes, and to genetic genealogy databases, said Barry C. Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project.

The case was reopened by the organization after Mr. Scheck received a tip that a man charged last year with murder and rapes in Missouri had also been stationed at Millington base for some of the time Corporal Collins was there. (Military records show that the man had been sent to a base in California before the murder.)

As Mr. Alley’s execution approached, he tried to forbid April and his son, David, from attending. They insisted, and just after 1:30 a.m. on June 28, 2006, took seats at the front of the witness room.

Blinds were still shut on the viewing window, but audio was already being piped in. They heard him coming.

“Chains clanking,” Ms. Alley said.

When the blinds opened, Mr. Alley lay on a steel gurney. An intravenous line ran from a wall into his right arm. He turned to his daughter and son. They stood and pressed their hands to the glass.

Someone yelled that they were blocking the view.

#hausa news sokoto #miss usa e news #usa news blog #usa news in gujarati #usa news john mccain #usa news pl

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husheduphistory · 7 years

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What’s in a Name: Dr. Linda Hazzard and her Horrific Path to Health

In September 1910 Claire Williamson glanced down at a newspaper and caught a glimpse of something that would change her life forever. Born in 1877, Claire and her older sister Dora were orphaned at a young age and their well being was placed in the hands of their wealthy grandfather. Thanks to their fortunate family ties the sisters spent their lives the way others could only dream with money, traveling, and houses dotting different parts of the world. However, one thing they could not outright purchase was health, which this newspaper ad promised could be found within the pages of a certain book. Although not stricken with any major medical ailments, the sisters were followers of alternative medicine and were willing to go to any length to obtain optimal health. The author of the book was Linda Burfield Hazzard and not only did she have a written guide to offer, but she had a place. A retreat. A haven. Hazzard’s Institute of Natural Therapeutics was located in Olalla, Washington and the Williamson sisters became her official patients in February 1911 after traveling to Seattle from their home in Australia. They were excited to begin the regime. It would be the biggest mistake of their lives.

Dr. Linda Hazzard was born in Carver, Minnesota on December 18th 1867 and although her title gave the impression of training in the medical field, the truth was that her patients were in the hands of a maniac. A fierce supporter of alternative medicine, Hazzard had no formal training, no medical degree, and was only able to call herself a doctor due to a loophole in licensing laws in the state of Washington. In the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution Americans as a whole were ingesting more food and gaining more weight. According to Hazzard, the root of all disease was food, especially over-consumption, and she believed the path to health lay in limiting intake in order to let the digestive system "rest".

Linda Hazzard

Calling herself a "fasting specialist", Hazzard developed a rigid system of restriction aligned with her philosophy of "Appetite is Craving; Hunger is Desire. Craving is never satisfied; but Desire is relieved when Want is supplied". It is this belief that was emphasized in her 1908 book Fasting for the Cure of Disease, the book that brought the Williamson sisters and hundreds more to Washington looking for a better life.

The setting for Hazzard's practice was ideal for keeping prying eyes out and holding secrets in. Nestled in the village of Olalla, Hazzard and her patients were surrounded by the Pacific Northwest forests and were left alone to partake in the "most beautiful treatment". The hunters, loggers, and fishermen in the region did not intervene with the collection of cabins and cottages on the property and preferred to stay out of the way of the persuasive, forceful, and intimidating "doctor". The compound was called Wilderness Heights and when the Williamson sisters arrived they were greeted by Hazzard who immediately confirmed all of their medical woes but promised them that they could be cured.Their new path to health was just beginning but before joining Hazzard in Wilderness Heights, they had to rent an apartment in Seattle for the first stage of their treatment.

Had the sisters spent time in the compound first maybe they would have caught on. Perhaps they may have had a chance to escape or to run into one of the local hunters who would tell them the truth. Wilderness Heights was well known to the locals, but under a different name, Starvation Heights. Sometimes in the woods they would find themselves crossing paths with a skin and bone shadow of what was once a human being staggering through the trees. The authorities in Washington could do nothing because technically Hazzard was a licensed health practitioner but "doctor" Linda Hazzard was actually a serial killer and her method of choice was convincing people to starve themselves to death.

Hazzard and her beloved dog

The plan given to the Williamson sister by Hazzard defied sanity, but they charged into the treatment head on. The first component was their food intake which the "doctor" cut down to one cup of broth made from canned tomatoes no more than twice a day. Eventually they may be able to eat a piece of fruit, but only occasionally. The second part were the enemas. The sisters voluntarily took part in two-hour long procedures while standing in a bathtub fitted with canvas supports meant to catch them when they fainted. Lastly, there were the massages, brutal rituals where they were roughly manhandled and punched by Hazzard with her bare fists while she repeatedly yelled "Eliminate!" at their withering bodies. The sisters took the torture without complaint. In their minds Hazzard was unbelievably attentive and was taking her time out to provide this rigorous treatment for them promising it could cure everything from stomachaches to cancer. Besides, something the strict and difficult had to be beneficial. Two months later the sisters were allowed to join Hazzard and her husband Samuel at Wilderness Heights. They weighed seventy pounds each and had to be taken there on a stretcher.

At the time they were admitted the Williamson sisters were Hazzard's only patients but they were not the first by far. Dozens of people went into the compound and never came out, enough that the state was slowly starting to take notice. One of the "doctor's" first unfortunate patients was Daisy Maud Haglund who died in 1908 at the age of thrity-eight after fasting for fifty days under Hazzard's watch. Two others, Mrs. Elgin Cox and Ida Wilcox also died in her care the same year. In 1909 Blanche B. Tindall and Viola Heaton fell victim to Hazzard while Eugene Stanley Wakelin was found dead on her property from a gunshot wound to the head which she claimed was suicide. In 1910 Maude Whitney and engineer Earl Edward Erdman died with Erdman leaving behind a diary that included excerpts documenting his slow starvation that killed him on March 28th:

February 1- Saw Dr. Hazzard and began treatment this date. No breakfast. Mashed soup dinner. Mashed soup supper.

February 5 through 7- One orange breakfast. Mashed soup dinner. Mashed soup supper.

February 8- One orange breakfast. Mashed soup dinner. Mashed soup supper. February 9 through 11- One orange breakfast. Strained soup dinner. Strained soup supper. February 12- One orange breakfast. One orange dinner. One orange supper. February 13- Two orange breakfast. No dinner. No supper. February 14- One cup of strained tomato broth at 6 p.m. February 15- One cup hot strained tomato soup night and morning. February 16- One cup hot strained tomato soup a.m. and p.m. Slept better last night. Head quite dizzy. Eyes yellow streaked and red. February 17- Ate three oranges today. February 19- Called on Dr. (Dawson) today at his home. Slept well Saturday night. February 20- Ate strained juice of two small oranges at 10 a.m. Dizzy all day. Ate strained juice of two small oranges at 5 p.m. February 21- Ate one cup settled and strained tomato broth. Backache today just below ribs. February 22- Ate juice of two small oranges at 10 a.m. Backache today in right side just below ribs. February 23- Slept but little last night. Ate two small oranges at 9 a.m. Went after milk and felt very bad. Ate two small oranges 6 p.m. February 24- Slept better Wednesday night. Kind of frontal headache in a.m. Ate two small oranges 10 a.m. Ate on and a half cups hot tomato soup at 6 p.m. Heart hit up to ninety-five minute and sweat considerable. February 25- Slept pretty well Thursday night. Ate one and a half cups tomato broth 11 a.m. Ate one and a half cups tomato broth 6 p.m. Pain in right below ribs. February 26- Did not sleep so very well Friday night. Pain in right side just below ribs in back. Pain quit in night. Ate 1 and a half cups tomato broth at 10:45 a.m. Ate two and a half pump small oranges at 4:30 p.m. Felt better afternoon than for the last week...

In 1911, The same year that the Williamson sisters came under the control of Hazzard, the "doctor" killed five people: Frank Southard, C.A. Harrison, Ivan Flux who came to America from New Zealand to buy a ranch, and former state legislator Lewis Ellsworth Rader who also owned the property that Wilderness Heights was built on. All of her victims came to her with money and they all died financially drained. In May 1911 Claire Williamson joined the ranks of the dead.

When the sisters first arrived at the compound they shared a small cabin with Hazzard insisting that their weakness and rapidly increasing frailty was a sign that they were healing and that treatment was going well. Eventually Claire and Dora were separated with Claire being moved into the Hazzard's cottage and when the "doctor's" husband Samuel approached her asking to sign some paperwork her mental state was so deteriorated that she agreed without knowing she had just signed away control of her entire estate and legally placed it in the hands of the Hazzards. The horrors of Wilderness Heights may have continued longer had it not been for Claire somehow sneaking a cable message to the sister's childhood nurse in Australia. Margaret Conway received the message but the few words were so nonsensical and unhinged that she immediately set out for Seattle to see what was going on.

One of the small structures on the grounds of Wilderness Heights

Conway was met in Vancouver by Samuel Hazzard who informed her that Claire had died. He brought her to the Butterworth Mortuary where her body was being kept but when Conway laid eyes on the body she did not recognize her. The face and hair did not look like the Claire she had known but the mortuary insisted that it was indeed her. Conway traveled with Samuel back to Wilderness Heights where the shocks continued. Upon meeting Linda Hazzard she was greeted by her wearing one of Claire's robes and writing in one of her notebooks. Hazzard explained that the cause of Claire's death had nothing to do with her fasting, it was because of medication she was given as a child that shrunk her organs and caused cirrhosis of the liver. She knew this because she conducted all of her patients autopsies herself inside a bathtub. As for her explanation as to why she was wearing Claire's clothing the "doctor" casually explained that Claire had signed over her estate so the pair helped themselves to everything she owned, including the gold fillings in her teeth.

The horrors only increased when Conway visited Dora in her cabin. The surviving sister weighed only fifty pounds and could not sit down without intense pain. Her mental state was also shattered and in her delirium she had signed over her estate and granted power of attorney to Samuel Hazzard. The pair were also appointed on paper as being Dora's guardian for life. Dora's lips could no longer cover her teeth, her bones protruded, and her backbone could be felt through her stomach. But, she insisted to Conway that she wanted to finish treatment.

Being a servant there was little Conway could do to force Dora to leave but once she left Wilderness Heights she contacted John Herbert, a Portland lawyer and the sister's uncle. When Herbert arrived at the compound he begged for Dora's release and he ended up paying the Hazzards one thousand dollars before they would let her go. He arranged for her to travel back home to Australia where she would need to be cared for for the rest of her life. With his niece back home he turned his attention to taking down the "doctor".

Dora Williamson shortly before leaving Wilderness Heights

Many of the deaths as the hands of Hazzard did not fully come to light until Herbert involved the British Vice Consul C.E. Lucien Agassiz who got the authorities to finally take a look at the happenings at Wilderness Heights. Upon being investigated it was discovered that anywhere from twelve to forty people may have died under her eye and in almost all of the cases Hazzard drained them financially before they finally expired. On August 15th 1911 Linda Hazzard was arrested and charged with first degree murder in the starvation death of Claire Williamson.

Mugshot of Linda Hazzard

The trial of "doctor" Linda Hazzard began in January 1912 inside the county courthouse in Port Orchard, Washington. Spectators crammed in and around the building to hear the horrors of Linda Hazzard first hand from the nurses and servants who tended the patients, Margaret Conway, and the star witness Dora Williamson. The treatment of Claire Williamson was examined alongside what the prosecution called "financial starvation" pointing to forged documents and papers signed under suspicious circumstance that gradually drained the estates of the formerly wealthy sisters. Hazzard angrily defender her treatment and position claiming that never once had a patient of hers died because of fasting, it was all due to unrelated medical conditions. On top of the actions of herself and her husband were the allegations that the Hazzards were working with the local mortuary and that the body shown to Dora was not that of her sister, but of someone else in order to hide her totally emaciated state. To Hazzard the accusations of murder and the trial were a personal attack on her as someone who was not the norm being a woman who practiced alternative medicine. She viciously condemned beliefs against her, grew angry when not referred to a "Dr. Hazzard", and commented that "“I intend to get on the stand and show up that bunch. They’ve been playing checkers but it’s my move. I’ll show them a thing or two when I get on the stand.” She never did get on the stand. The evidence against her was overwhelming and she was formally convicted of manslaughter. On February 4, 1912 her medical license was revoked and she was sentenced to two to twenty years of hard labor at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.

Hazzard only served two years in prison before she was released. She quickly fled to New Zealand after being offered a deal by the governor where she would be pardoned if she left the states and did not return. Shockingly, she did return in 1920, loaded with money, and she went right back to Olalla, Washington where she built a new state-of-the-art health center that she called a "school of health". The building was considered to be the most impressive in all of Olalla but residents avoided in at all costs remembering the staggering near dead and murder trial only a few short years earlier. And yet, Hazzard still had a handful of patients, one of which was Leonard Ritter who died after fasting for eighty-four days. Hazzard was fined $100.

The sun room at Hazzard’s “school”

By the 1930s Hazzard had become little more than a recluse living with her husband in their small cottage in the woods near her "school of health" that was now devoid of patients. In 1935 the entire structure burned to the ground leaving only concrete ruins, some of which are still standing. In 1938 Hazzard, now in her 70s, fell ill and looking to prove her own methods once and for all she undertook her own fast. She lay in bed for weeks sipping broth until she eventually died of self-starvation in the very same building where she had killed Claire Williamson so many years before.

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Want more? Read more! Starvation Heights by Gregg Olson (1997).

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