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rabbitcruiser · 12 days

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Willow Creek Picnic Area and Beach, CA (No. 1)

The California state legislature passed a law in 1915 that allowed the state to use convict labor under the control of the State Board of Prison Directors and prison guards. In 1918, state highway engineer Lester Gibson led a mule pack train along the Big Sur coast to complete an initial survey to locate the future Coast Highway. When the convict labor law was revised in 1921, it gave control of the convicts and camps to the Division of Highways, although control and discipline remained with the State Board of Prison Directors and guards. The law helped the contractors who had a difficult time attracting labor to work in remote regions of the state.

The first contract was awarded in 1921. The contractor Blake and Heaney built a prison labor camp for 120 prisoners and 20 paid laborers at Piedras Blancas Light Station. They began work on 12 miles (19 km) of road between Piedras Blancas Light Station near San Simeon and Salmon Creek. Most of the road lay within San Luis Obispo County. As they progressed, the work camp was moved 9 miles (14 km) north to Willow Creek and then another 10 miles (16 km) north to Kirk Creek. When the section to Salmon Creek was completed, the crew began work on the road north toward Big Creek.Looking north toward Big Creek Bridge with Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve above the highway

Contractor George Pollock Company of Sacramento started construction next on one of the most remote segments, a 13 miles (21 km) stretch between Anderson Canyon and Big Sur in September, 1922. The region was so remote and access so poor that the company brought most of its supplies and equipment in by barge at a sheltered cove near the middle of the project. Machines were hoisted to the road level using steam-powered donkey engines.

Construction required extensive excavation utilizing steam shovels and explosives on the extremely steep slopes. The work was dangerous, and accidents and earth slides were common. One or more accidents were reported nearly every week. Equipment was frequently damaged and lost. In one incident, a steam shovel fell more than 500 feet (150 m) into the ocean and was destroyed.

Overcoming all the difficulties, the crews completed two portions of the highway in October, 1924, the southern section from San Simeon to Salmon Creek and a second segment from the Big Sur Village south to Anderson Creek. When these sections were completed, the contractor had used up all of the available funds and work was halted.

California Governor Friend William Richardson felt the state could not afford to complete the 30 miles (48 km) remaining, including the most difficult section remaining between Salmon Creek and Anderson Canyon.

Source: Wikipedia

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recentlyheardcom · 6 months

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COALINGA, Calif. (AP) — A California inmate accused of attacking Paul Flores this summer, shortly after Flores reported to prison to serve his conviction for murdering college student Kristin Smart, strangled his serial killer cellmate two years ago, officials said.The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation this week identified inmate Jason Budrow as the suspect in the Aug. 23 attack on Flores at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles.The department declined to share information about how Budrow allegedly was able to get to Flores or whether it is investigating how the attack happened on the agency's watch in light of Budrow's previous behavior while incarcerated.“CDCR is limited in the amount of information it can provide on incarcerated people’s housing for safety and security reasons,” the agency said in an email.Budrow is serving life without parole for fatally strangling his girlfriend in 2010 in Riverside County. In a jailhouse interview that year with The Press-Examiner, he described himself as a “Satanist” and sported a “666” tattoo above his right eye. He also was convicted in 2006 of sexually assaulting a teenager.In 2021, Budrow strangled his new cellmate, serial killer Roger Reece Kibbe, who was known as the I-5 Strangler in the 1970s and 1980s. Kibbe strangled and raped at least seven women — several of them in the Sacramento and Stockton areas along Interstate 5 — and cut his victims’ clothing into odd patterns.The killing of Kibbe in Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Sacramento, earned Budrow another consecutive life sentence. An autopsy revealed that Budrow, then 40, strangled the 81-year-old Kibbe in their cell.In a letter to The San Jose Mercury News, Budrow wrote that he killed Kibbe on the day they became cellmates, though he had planned the murder for months after he saw a TV special about him and had sought to share a cell so he could carry it out. Budrow wrote that although he wanted a single cell, he was on “a mission for avenging” Kibbe's victims.Budrow told the newspaper that he had carved “a crude inverted pentagram" into Kibbe's body.He was put into the prison's Administrative Segregation Unit — a single-person cell, like he wanted — before being transferred to Pleasant Valley. Budrow was placed in restrictive housing there, which under state law is reserved for prisoners who “may pose a risk to others or to themselves, or whose behavior disrupts the safe and orderly functioning of the facility,” according to the corrections department.The state would not say whether Flores was also in restricted housing at the time of the attack, which occurred somewhere between the recreational yard and the medical clinic. Authorities also haven't disclosed a possible motive.Flores was hospitalized in serious condition for two days before he was returned to the prison, state officials said. After the attack, Budrow was found near the scene with some sort of prison-made weapon and surrendered to prison staff, authorities said.Prison officials have recommended that prosecutors charge Budrow in the attack on Flores. The Fresno County district attorney’s office has not yet been given the case for review, spokesperson Taylor Long said in an email Friday afternoon.Flores was only transferred to Pleasant Valley the week before the attack to serve his sentence of 25 years to life in prison for killing Smart. His attorney, Harold Mesick, didn't immediately respond to a Friday request for comment.Smart, then 19, disappeared from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo on the state’s scenic Central Coast over Memorial Day weekend in 1996. Her remains have never been found, but she was declared legally dead in 2002.Prosecutors say Flores killed Smart during an attempted rape on May 25, 1996, in his dorm room at the university, where they were first-year students. He was the last person seen with Smart as he walked her home from an off-campus party.

Flores was arrested in 2021 along with his father, who was accused of helping to hide Smart’s body. Flores was convicted of first-degree murder last year. A separate jury acquitted his father, Ruben Flores, of being an accessory after the fact.

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denverworksheet · 11 months

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Report: Four of California's prisons ranked worst at handling COVID, care for inmates

A new report from UCLA dinged Chino, Solano, Chuckwalla and Mule Creek as the 4 prisons with the most signs of unconstitutional conditions during the pandemic.

from California https://ift.tt/LrBc6Th

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alaminshorkar76 · 1 year

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#IFTTT #Blogger

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briefnewschannel · 2 years

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‘They Like When They Get to Pepper Spray Us’

Group therapy cages for inmates at Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento. Photo via U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California During Tashon’s incarceration, prison staff used one word so often to describe him that it became routine. He heard it while having a breakdown in his cell. He heard it when he requested an appointment with a psychologist or asked to be sent to the Psychiatric…

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dykevillanelle · 2 years

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savannah "dykevillanelle"'s 2021 reading list

books read: 86 pages read: 26,910

top 5: 1 (best). Gideon the Ninth / Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) 2. Lolita in the Afterlife (edited by Jenny Minton Quiqley) 3. Carceral Capitalism (Jackie Wang) 4. Detransition, Baby (Torrey Peters) 5. Plain Bad Heroines (Emily M. Danforth)

bottom 5: 1. The Other Woman (Sandie Jones) 2. Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) 3. Haunted (Chuck Palahniuk) 4. Come With Me (Helen Schulman) 5 (worst). The Mask of Sanity (Hervey M. Cleckley)

full list and my ratings under the cut:

Plain Bad Heroines (Emily M. Danforth) ★★★★★

The Honey Month (Amal El-Mohtar) ★★★★★

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Ibram X. Kendi) ★★★★

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (C. Riley Snorton) ★★★★★

The Milk Lady of Bangalore: Adventures With My Milk Lady (Shoba Narayan) ★★★

Mules and Men (Zora Neale Hurston) ★★★

Ring Shout (P. Djèlí Clark) ★★★★★

The Friend (Sigrid Nunez) ★★★★★

The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love (Sonya Renee Taylor) ★★★★

Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero) ★★

Fade Into You (Nikki Darling) ★★

Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of LGBT Latino/a Activism (edited by Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, Uriel Quesada, & Letitia Gomez) ★★★

The Fifth Season (N.K. Jemisin) ★★★★★

Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado) ★★★★★

Clock Dance (Anne Tyler) ★★★

The Other Woman (Sandie Jones) ★★

The Obelisk Gate (N.K. Jemisin) ★★★★

The Windfall (Diksha Basu) ★★★

The Freezer Door (Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore) ★★★★

Carceral Capitalism (Jackie Wang) ★★★★★

Watchmen (Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons) ★★★★

Lolita in the Afterlife (edited by Jenny Minton Quiqley) ★★★★★

The Stone Sky (N.K. Jemisin) ★★★★

The Mask of Sanity (Hervey M. Cleckley) ★

Grand Union (Zadie Smith) ★★★

In West Mills (De'shawn Charles Winslow) ★★★

The Farm (Joanne Ramos) ★★★★★

Jane: A Murder (Maggie Nelson) ★★★★

Inside This Place, Not Of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons (edited by Ayelet Waldman & Robin Levi) ★★★★

Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction (edited by Sabrina Chap) ★★★★

Other Voices, Other Rooms (Truman Capote) ★★★★★

Moses, Man of the Mountain (Zora Neale Hurston) ★★★

The Weight of Ink (Rachel Kadish) ★★★★★

Two or Three Things I Know For Sure (Dorothy Allison) ★★★★

Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States (Carl A. Zimring) ★★★★

The Grass Harp and Other Stories (Truman Capote) ★★★★

Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case (Debbie Nathan) ★★★★

Without a Net: The Female Experience Growing Up Working Class (Michelle Tea) ★★★★

The Devil Finds Work (James Baldwin) ★★★★

Seed Sovereignty, Food Security: Women in the Vanguard of the Fight Against GMOs and Corporate Agriculture (edited by Vandana Shiva) ★★★

Women, Race, & Class (Angela Y. Davis) ★★★★★

Mermaid in Chelsea Creek (Michelle Tea) ★★★★★

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (Harriet A. Washington) ★★★★★

Freshwater (Akwaeke Emezi) ★★★★★

Summer Crossing (Truman Capote) ★★★

The Adventure Zone: The Crystal Kingdom (Carey Pietsch, Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy) ★★★★★

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (Zora Neale Hurston) ★★★

Women, Culture & Politics (Angela Y. Davis) ★★★★

Superior: The Return of Race Science (Angela Saini) ★★★★★

In Cold Blood (Truman Capote) ★★★

The Keeper of Lost Things (Ruth Hogan) ★★★★

The Chosen and the Beautiful (Nghi Vo) ★★★★★

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) ★★★★

On the Come Up (Angie Thomas) ★★★

Capitalism: A Ghost Story (Arundhati Roy) ★★★★

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (Angela Y. Davis) ★★★★

The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures (Noelle Stevenson) ★★★★

The Travelers (Regina Porter) ★★

Mister Impossible (Maggie Stiefvater) ★★

Honey Girl (Morgan Rogers) ★★★★

The Daylight Gate (Jeanette Winterson) ★★

Women in the Qur'an: An Emancipatory Reading (Asma Lamrabet) ★★★

Music for Chameleons (Truman Capote) ★★★★

Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture (Angela Y. Davis) ★★★★★

Trans Love: An Anthology of Transgender and Non-Binary Voices (edited by Freiya Benson) ★★★★

The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin) ★★★★

Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues (edited by Adria Y. Goldman et. al.) ★★★

The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues (Angela Y. Davis) ★★★★

Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA (Erin E. Murphy) ★★★★

Detransition, Baby (Torrey Peters) ★★★★★

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O'Connell) ★★★★★

The Magicians (Lev Grossman) ★★★

decolonizing trans/gender 101 (b. binoahan) ★★★★★

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) ★★★★★

Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) ★★★★★

Come With Me (Helen Schulman) ★★

Geek Love (Katherine Dunn) ★★★

The House That Race Built: Original Essay by Toni Morrison, Angela Y. Davis, Cornel West, and Others on Black Americans and Politics in America Today (edited by Wahneema Lubiano)

The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones) ★★★

Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote (Truman Capote, Gerald Clark) ★★★★

The Call (Peadar O'Guilín) ★★★★★

An Untamed State (Roxane Gay) ★★★★

Haunted (Chuck Palahniuk) ★★

Anger is a Gift (Mark Oshiro) ★★

Ayiti (Roxane Gay) ★★★★★

Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive (Kristen J. Sollee) ★★

#bookblr #books #angel.txt

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floydscoffee · 5 years

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Inside This California State Prison’s Massive Production Roastery

The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA), which oversees more than 100 industrial enterprises within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations (CDCR) prison system, has been operating a production coffee...

https://dailycoffeenews.com/2018/08/15/inside-this-california-state-prisons-massive-production-roastery/

#California/Pacific #Craft/Operations #Macro #Roasting #california #California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations #California Prison Industry Authority #Mithat Karakundakoğlu #Mule Creek State Prison #prisons #Ramazan Karakundakoğlu #Toper

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finishinglinepress · 2 years

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FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: Fourth World Woman by Lara Gularte

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/fourth-world-woman-by-lara-gularte/ RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

Lara Gularte lives and writes in the Sierra Foothills of California. She is El Dorado County Poet Laureate 2021-2023. Her book of poetry, Kissing the Bee, was published by “The Bitter Oleander Press,” in 2018. Nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, Gularte has been published in national and international journals and anthologies. Her poetry depicting her Azorean heritage is included in the The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry, and in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada. She is affiliated with the Cagarro Colloquium: Azorian Diaspora Writers, at the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI), California State University-Fresno. In 2017 Gularte traveled to Cuba with a delegation of American poets and presented her poetry at the Festival Internacional de Poesia de la Habana. She’s a proud member of the esteemed, “Escritores Del Nuevo Sol.” Gularte is a creative writing instructor for California Transformative Arts at Mule Creek prison.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Fourth World Woman by Lara Gularte

Gularte’s identification with herself through the natural world and through the lives of others with whom she feels more than just symbolic empathy, provides us with something unique to the usual landscape that poetry’s created in our late 20th and early 21st century: passion. Engaged to the particular, Gularte brings us closer to a world we all rarely have time to visit and she accomplishes this not with elaborate description or pretention of any kind, but with an immediacy that reveals something heretofore unseen or unheard. You don’t stand still in these poems nor does their steady pace hurry you in any way. Each word matters and, without getting in their way, they allow us the opportunity to experience what we never knew was there.

–Paul B. Roth, The Bitter Oleander Press

Plant, wildlife and human converge into one unified voice of nature and spirituality in Lara Gularte’s Fourth World Woman. The poet easily travels between dimensions and species, as ancestors drift through the pages. She manages to write from several layers at once, combing the depths of imagination while describing sensitive emotions involved in a mastectomy. She waits for the test to come back negative/while death leans into the side of the house…. Her face at the open pane, half here and half there –/where her mother ghosts among the trees. Readers will find themselves entranced and unable to resist following Gularte to glimpse heaven and the afterlife when, the moon throws a rope down for her to climb.

–Patty Dickson Pieczka, Beyond the Moon’s White Claw

Lara Gularte‘s Fourth World Woman is both a wild read and a surrealistic delight. Inhabited by creatures from the natural and geophysical worlds—doves, a giant fish shape, wolves, even the moon and clouds—the poems surprise with some deft shape-shifting: a dead dove comes alive, a “brown bear bellows/from the voice of an old woman,” and clouds are transformed into “a sky of old shoes.” But there’s a purpose to the flash and sleight of hand. Whether the startling poetic landscape is navigated by an unnamed “she” or by a first-person narrator, Gularte takes on issues like border crossings, family separation, the pandemic, the 2018 Camp Fire in California, and, ultimately, mortality. As she writes in “Leaves,” “the distance between now/and my future shortens . . .” The most personal poems in this collection—”The Close Sky,” “Transcending My Daylight Body,” and “Beauty”—are probably the strongest. You will be deeply moved by this book.

–Nancy Vieira Couto, Carlisle & the Common Accident

Please share/please repost [PROMO]#flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry

#poetry #preorder #flp authors #flp #poets on tumblr #american poets #leah maines #women poets

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coochiequeens · 3 years

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Kelly Blackwell longs to escape her life as a transgender woman in a California men’s prison, where she struggles every day to avoid being seen in her bra and panties and says she once faced discipline after fighting back when an inmate in her cell asked for oral sex.

After more than 30 years, and two decades since Blackwell began hormone therapy, her chance to leave arrived last fall when groundbreaking legislation gave transgender, intersex and nonbinary inmates the right, regardless of anatomy, to choose whether to be housed in a male or female prison.

The demand has been high, with 261 requests for transfers since SB 132 took effect Jan. 1, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. It’s the start of a hugely sensitive operation playing out in one of the largest prison systems in the country.

“I won’t be around predatory men and I won’t be around staff that frown upon trans women,” Blackwell, 53, said in a phone call from Mule Creek State Prison, east of Sacramento.

But more than two hours away, at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, there’s fear. Inmates say guards have warned them that “men are coming” and to expect sexual violence.

“That if we think it’s bad now, be prepared for the worst. That it’s going to be off the hook, it’s going to be jumping,” Tomiekia Johnson, 41, said staffers have told her. “They say we’re going to need a facility that’s going to be like a maternity ward. They say we’re going to have an inmate program where inmates become nannies.”

Just over 1% of California’s prison population — or 1,129 inmates — have identified as nonbinary, intersex or transgender, according to the corrections department, populations that experience excessive violence in prison. A 2007 UC Irvine study that included interviews with 39 transgender inmates found that the rate of sexual assault is 13 times higher for transgender people, with 59% reporting experiencing such encounters.

So far, the prison system has transferred four inmates to the Chowchilla women’s prison, approved 21 gender-based housing requests and denied none. Of the 261 requests, all but six asked to be housed at a women’s facility.

Prisons spokeswoman Terry Thornton said in a statement that COVID-19 precautions have slowed the transfers and that officials could not estimate how long a transfer might take under normal circumstances, citing bed availability as a factor.

The Times spoke to more than a dozen inmates in women’s and men’s prisons to understand how the new law is playing out. Although advocates and inmates say the transfers have been received well, several claim that misinformation spread by prison staffers is stirring up transphobia and that more must be done to educate inmates.

Some prisoners are also concerned that inmates are making false claims about their gender identity in order to transfer to women’s prisons and say staffers have told them that this has slowed the process.

Thornton told The Times that the prison system had facilitated a town hall discussion with the Inmate Advisory Council at Chowchilla and with trans women at San Quentin State Prison. The meeting and ongoing discussions “have helped to dispel any fears,” she said, adding that allegations of staff misconduct are taken seriously and investigated.

When asked whether inmates in the men’s prisons trying to manipulate the transfer system has been a significant issue, Thornton said that “a person’s gender identity is self-reported and CDCR will evaluate any request submitted by an incarcerated person for gender-based housing.” She said that the prison system has requested several million dollars from the state to help implement the law.

In recent years, Connecticut and Massachusetts have passed similar legislation as the California law, which also gives inmates the right to be searched and addressed based on their gender identity. The laws help put states in line with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, which prohibits housing decisions based solely on an inmate’s genitalia and requires agencies to consider on a case-by-case basis whether a placement would ensure an inmate’s health and safety. Despite PREA, advocates say that it’s rare for transgender inmates to be relocated.

The new California law follows other changes in the state’s treatment of transgender prisoners. In 2018, a law took effect removing obstacles for prisoners to change their gender and name. And in 2015, California became the first state to create policy for transgender inmates to apply for state-funded gender-affirming surgery. According to the prisons agency, from January 2015 through February 2021, 65 out of 205 requests for surgery were approved and nine were completed.

Under prison policy, transgender and intersex people — the latter being a term used to describe conditions in which a person is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of “female” or “male” — are placed, to the extent possible, in certain prisons to ensure they can receive certain medical and mental health treatment. With the new law, all inmates will be asked upon admission about their gender identity, their pronouns, whether they prefer the female or male search policy, and if they want to be housed in an institution that aligns with their gender identity, according to the corrections department.

Inmates can request transfers to their correctional counselor, which are then considered by a committee that includes the warden, custody, medical and mental health staffers, and a PREA compliance manager. Staffers review the inmate’s criminal record, health needs, custody level, sentence and safety concerns.

Michelle Calvin said inmates welcomed her with care packages when she transferred in February from Mule Creek to the Chowchilla prison. But there was also tension. Inmates in two rooms refused to have her as a roommate.

“There’s a lot of women here that accept me; there’s some that do not,” said Calvin, 50. “There’s going to be adversity everywhere and I understand that.”

Tyeasha Moore, housed a few doors down from Calvin, quickly warmed up to the newcomer. Calvin was “more than willing” to answer her many questions, including why she chose to come to the prison, and if other inmates would follow.

But Moore, 43, said that she has also heard staffers question inmates housed with Calvin, asking whether she has exposed herself, explained her sexual behavior to them or said things that made them uncomfortable. She said the questioning has fomented anxiety and false rumors that Calvin is in a relationship.

The prison system said that it has provided training to staffers statewide on working with transgender, intersex and nonbinary inmates, including information on safe housing, search procedures and pronoun usage. But advocates say it hasn’t been effective enough.

Mychal Concepcion, a transgender man in the Chowchilla women’s prison, said widespread panic about the transfers stems largely from staffers who ask inmates, “What are you going to do when the men get here?”

“The complaints from the cis [gender] women here are that these are men coming here and they’ve been traumatized by men and so they shouldn’t have to live with them,” said Concepcion, 51. “I have repeatedly said that they’re women, but their anger gets directed towards me.”

Johnson, the inmate who said staffers had told her to expect violence with the transfers, said that she has survived domestic violence from a man and that it would be triggering to live with transgender people who haven’t had gender-affirming surgery.

“I do think they should be safe, but it infringes on my right to be safe as well,” she said.

Tiffany Tooks, a transgender woman in the Chowchilla prison, has also been trying to address concerns. She transferred from Mule Creek in 2019 after having gender-affirming surgery.

“For me, it was everything,” she said, explaining how the inmates received her well after she opened up about her experiences from more than 20 years in prison — which included being raped and hearing inmates make sexually degrading comments when seeing her in the shower. “I feel it’s my duty to help the women that are coming here so they are not misunderstood.”

Tooks said that in early March, she participated in a meeting with the warden, prison staffers and other transgender inmates to address inmates in the men’s prison trying to transfer under false pretenses.

“The idea was how do we determine who really are transgender inmates coming into the prison system here and the fear of the women here who were afraid and still they are afraid that male inmates will infiltrate this prison system and cause problems,” she said.

Several transgender inmates at men’s prisons hold that the issue is prevalent.A transgender woman at a men’s prison, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said that she knows at least five inmates who have applied to transfer under false pretenses and that staffers have asked her to help identify such inmates.“

They wanted me in a confidential setting to tell them who is transgender and who is not, so they can block some of these guys from going to the women’s prison,” she said. “I told him I don’t have a problem with it…. We feel they’re climbing our backs.”Jasmine Jones, a legal assistant at the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project, which provides supportive services to inmates, has been in touch with several dozen inmates in the women’s facilities with concerns about the transfers, explaining to them that she was raped several times in prison and attempted suicide four times.She said that her story has resonated with many but that she’s still concerned about inmates posturing as nonbinary or transgender. Jones said the law should have first focused on those who have transitioned or are in the process of transitioning before allowing for others to transfer.

But Jen Orthwein, an attorney who represents transgender inmates and worked on the bill, said that not all inmates want or have access to hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery, and that “any expression of femininity in a men’s prison places people in danger.”At Mule Creek, Blackwell said that when she was approved to transfer she felt relief but also worry about entering a new environment.She said it hurts to know that some are anxious about her coming over and asserted that transgender women have no plans to be predatory.“They don’t want to do things like that because that’s been our life,” she said. “All we’re really hoping for is connection and compassion.”

If 1,129 inmates are trans, non-binar, whatever why don’t they just build a third facility? This was just a biased article, those poor imprisoned transwomen and the actual women are being worked into a frenzy by the guards. We’re the crimes of the transwoman mentioned?

#California #women’s spaces #women in the prison system

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yan-dear · 5 years

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The Manson Family: Where are the Family members now? (1/2)

As members of Charles Manson's messianic cult, several of the so-called Family committed murders at his request.

Mostly young women from middle-class backgrounds, they were convinced to join his Californian desert commune.

Radicalised by his obsession with an imagined upcoming race war, Family members would kill nine people in the summer of 1969.

His vision did not materialise, and he and his followers were tried for their crimes. But where are they now following their cult leader's death?

Susan Atkins

Atkins was convicted and sentenced to death for her part in the killings known collectively as the Tate-LaBianca murders. Like Manson himself, her sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 when California's Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.

During the trial she admitted stabbing Sharon Tate to death, saying she did not know why she did it. At the time she said she had no guilt, but later showed remorse for her actions.

Atkins died in 2009 from brain cancer, weeks after having a request for parole because of her illness denied.

Patricia Krenwinkel

Krenwinkel, now 71, has become California's longest-serving female prisoner, after admitting her part in the killings aged just 21.

She testified that she joined the group and left her past life behind just three days after meeting Manson in the 1960s.

In her testimony she admitted direct involvement, including stabbing victim Abigail Folger 28 times.

She has been denied parole 14 times, most recently after her lawyer claimed Manson had abused her before she committed the crimes.

Leslie Van Houten

Van Houten, who took part in the LaBianca murders, was recommended for parole earlier this year. At just 19 at the time, she was the youngest to participate in the killings.

On January 30, 2019, during her 22nd parole hearing, Van Houten was, for the third time, recommended for parole. On June 3, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom overruled the parole board's recommendation, and a previous decision was overturned in 2016 by California Governor Jerry Brown.

He insisted the 68-year-old still posed "an unreasonable danger to society".

Sharon Tate's sister has regularly spoken out against possible paroling of members of the Family.

Responding to news of Manson's death, she told US news channel ABC that she was not relieved because she considered the others "much more dangerous individuals".

Charles 'Tex' Watson

Originally from Dallas, he left college and moved to California, where he lived with other Family members at the Spahn ranch.

He was said to be the leader of the women at the Tate-LaBianca murders, declaring: "I am the devil. I am here to do the devil's business".

He fled to Texas, where he resisted extradition for trial for nine months, so was not tried alongside Manson and the three women.

He was also sentenced to death but had his sentence revised to life imprisonment. He remains in Mule Creek prison near Sacramento after repeatedly being denied parole.

He fathered four children with his ex-wife during conjugal visits in prison. According to the LA Times, behind bars he has become a minister and earned a degree in business management.

#the manson family #manson #charles manson #serial killer #murder #murderer #cult #murder cult #tcc #true crime #crime #criminal minds

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allureofcrimemurdermystery · 5 years

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Serial Killers who were active in the same place.

Los Angeles, U.S.A

The 1980s were a dangerous time in Los Angeles. There were three serial killers on the loose, all preying on women. Michael Hughes, Lonnie Franklin Jr. (also known as The Grim Sleeper), and Chester Turner all committed their murders primarily in the 1980s, although the Grim Sleeper took a break and went back to killing in the 2000s.

Hughes sexually assaulted his seven victims before strangling them to death and dumping them in various areas around the city. He was caught in 1993 and is currently on death row. Franklin was apprehended in 2010, and was sentenced to death for the murders of 11 victims, all women who were raped, shot, and then dumped in back alleys. Turner also killed 11 women by strangling them to death. He was caught in 2003, and is on death row alongside Hughes and Franklin.

LONG ISLAND

In the early 1990s, people living on Long Island had the right be scared. There were three serial killers active during the period - Joel Rifkin, who murdered at least 16 women between 1989 and 1993; Robert Schulman, a former postal worker who killed five sex workers in a five-year span starting in 1991; and Colin Ferguson, who killed six people on a commuter train in 1993.

Rifkin picked his victims up on Long Island and in the city - similar to Schulman - and is suspected to also be the Gilgo Beach Killer. Schulman was caught after a person saw him dumping a body from his brother's Cadillac. Ferguson shot and killed six people on a commuter train, injuring 19 others.

Rifkin was sentenced to 203 years in prison back in 1994, Schulman received a death sentence in 1999, and Ferguson was sentenced to 315 years in prison. Schulman died in 2006 of undisclosed causes, and Rifkin will be up for parole in 2197. Interestingly, Rifkin and Ferguson were housed at the same prison—Attica Correctional Facility. The two got in an argument over the telephone and they allegedly bragged to each other about how many people they had killed.

New York City, USA 🌃

New York City is known for its cultural institutions, interesting history, and, of course, its serial killers. Richard Cottingham and David Berkowitz, both were active in the city back in the 1970s. Cottingham, also known as the Torso Killer, has six confirmed victims - all women - but he claims to have killed between 85 and 100. He mutilated the bodies of his victims, often leaving just a torso behind.

Berkowitz, aka the Son of Sam, shot 14 women with a .44 caliber gun during his murderous spree, killing six and wounding eight. Cottingham is currently serving the first of several life sentences, while Berkowitz is up for parole every two years, but each time, he tells the parole board he shouldn't be released. Berkowitz became devoutly religious in prison and has taken responsibility for his crimes, saying “In all honesty I believe that I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life.”

SANTA CRUZ, CA, U.S.A

In the early 1970s, Santa Cruz, CA, had not one, not two, but three serial killers lurking about. One was Edmund Kemper, a Department of Transportation employee who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a youth. He killed at least six women, all of whom were hitchhikers that he picked up at the side of the road, as well as his mother and one of his female friends. He was caught in 1973, and has been incarcerated in the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, CA, ever since.

While Kemper was killing young women, Herbert Mullin was on a killing spree of his own, believing that each death helped him prevent earthquakes. In all, he committed 13 murders. His victims ranged in age from four to 72, and were mostly men. Mullin was caught in 1973. He pled guilty, and received a sentence of life in prison. He is currently at Mule Creek State Prison, where he will be up for parole in 2021.

And to round out the Santa Cruz killers was John Linley Frazier who, in 1970, killed five people. Frazier attacked and killed ophthalmologist Victor Ohta, his wife, their two sons, and his secretary after spiraling into a rampage. Frazier said he was an agent of God. He was arrested and sentenced to death in 1970. In 2009, he hung himself in his prison cell.

Wisconsin, USA.

When most people think of serial killers in Milwaukee, Jeffrey Dahmer is the first person to come to mind. Dahmer is best known for his cannibalisation of his victims, all of whom were male. He killed at least 17 between the years of 1978 and 1991. While that was going on, Walter E. Ellis, another Milwaukee resident - murdered seven women over a 21 year span - 1986 to 2007.

Ellis raped and strangled his victims, and was caught in 2009 thanks to a series of DNA matches. He died in South Dakota in 2013 while serving out the life sentences that were handed to him. Dahmer died in prison in 1994 at the hands of a fellow inmate.

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aeneasx · 5 years

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Here’s Which Notorious Serial Killer You’d Be, Based On Your Zodiac Sign

check rising sign and mars sign

Aries

(March 21st to April 19th)

Paul Knowles (Born April 17th)

Also know as “The Casanova Killer”, Knowles was a serial strangler convicted of killing at least 18 people in 1974, despite his claims to have murdered at least 35 individuals. Impulsive and hotheaded, Knowles committed all of his murders within one year. In typical Aries fashion, Knowles demonstrated a lot of tenacity and drive in the beginning of his killing career, but grew too sloppy and overly emotional to have the ability to carry out his crimes without being caught. He was arrested after attempting to crash his car through a police blockade, was chased on foot, and then was apprehended by a civilian with a shotgun.

Taurus

(April 20th to May 20th)

H. H. Holmes (Born May 7th)

Leave it to a Taurus to go so over the top they create an actual Murder Castle. H. H. Holmes, sometimes referred to as “America’s First Serial Killer”, was a serial killer and con-artist in Chicago around the turn of the 19th Century. Overly ambitious, money hungry, and a bit on the dramatic side, Holmes would lure people into his murder castle (filled with secret passageways and hidden rooms) where they would never be heard from again and Holmes would attempt to collect their life insurance policies. Although he was only pinned to around 5 murders, many people suspect he actually killed closer to 200 people.

Gemini

(May 21st to June 21st)

Jeffrey Dahmer (Born May 21st)

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who notoriously raped, murdered, and mutilated 17 men and boys from 1978 until his arrest in 1991. Dahmer was also a necrophile and cannibalized some of his victims, as well as preserved body parts and bones from the bodies of the young men who he murdered. Charming and personable, Dahmer was able to lure the young men back to his apartment and often convinced them to pose for photographs before the nightmare began. But the true shift in personality from a Gemini like Dahmer came in prison where he fully committed himself to Christianity and completely atoned for his crimes before being bludgeoned to death by another inmate. Pretty big personality shift from someone who kept an alter of body parts in their home as a shrine to themselves…

Cancer

(June 22nd to July 22nd)

Genene Jones (Born July 13th)

Biography Genene Jones is a suspected serial killer thought to be responsible for the deaths of up to 60 infants while she was a licensed vocational nurse between the 1970s and 1980s. Cancers are known for their big hearts and wanting to take care of people, but Jones’ heroine complex took her to a murderous level. Jones would inject infants with lethal doses of succinylcholine in order to get them close to death with the intention of reviving them for praise and glory. After being convicted for the death of 15-month old Chelsea McClellan, she was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Leo

(July 23rd to August 22nd)

John George Haigh (Born August 10th)

Only a dramatic, attention seeking Leo would end up being someone known as “The Acid Bath Murderer.” John Haigh was a serial killer in England between 1943 and 1949. Haigh would bludgeon or shoot his victims before dousing their bodies in sulfuric acid in order to destroy the evidence. He would then cash in on their belongings by forging papers and selling what he could find for substantial amounts of money. But like Leos typically do, he became so excited about his sinister plan he misunderstood a key detail. Haigh believed that under corpus delicti if there was no body he couldn’t be convicted of a crime. This was not the case and there was enough evidence to sentence him to death by hanging in 1949.

Virgo

(August 23rd to September 22nd)

Rodney Alcala (Born August 23rd)

Known as a “killing machine” by many, it’s no surprise that someone as methodical, careful, and tactical of a killer like Rodney Alcala is a Virgo. Alcala would kidnap victims after luring them by promising to take their photograph and enjoyed “toying” with them before they died. He would strangle them to the brink of death only to revive them and torture them all over again. Alcala was convicted and sentenced to death for 5 murders, but new victims continue to be revealed while he has been on death row. Hundreds of photographs of naked men and women were found in a storage locker in Seattle, and many are believed to be victims of Alcala. Some believe Alcala was responsible for upwards of 130 murders.

Libra

(September 23rd to October 22nd)

Patrick Kearney (Born September 24th)

Patrick Kearney, also known as “The Freeway Killer”, is an American serial killer who hunted young men in gay bars and along freeways in California in the 1970s. Kearney would shoot his victims before dismembering and mutilating their bodies, sometimes even beating the corpses as a way to “release his rage.” Libras often have trouble with saying no and with their self-control, and Kearney took this to the extreme with his inability to satiate or control his murderous and necrophilic urges. However, also like Libras, Kearney was eager to come clean when caught and immediately confessed to all of his crimes in order to avoid the death penalty. He is currently serving 21 life sentences at California State Prison, Mule Creek.

Scorpio

(October 23rd to November 22nd)

Charles Manson (Born November 12th)

Charismatic, captivating, and ultimately completely self-serving and terrifying when crossed, it’s no shock that one of the most notorious cult-leaders, Charles Manson, is a Scorpio. Leader of the infamous Manson Family, Charles Manson lead his “family” around California in the 1960s, and eventually ordered several gruesome murders between July and August of 1969. Manson believed in what he coined “Helter Skelter” which would be an apocalyptic race war. He believed the murders would spark this war. Since 1989, Manson has been single cell-housed in the Protective Housing Unit at California State Prison, Corcoran.

Sagittarius

(November 23rd to December 21st)

Ted Bundy (November 24th)

Arguably one of the most famous serial killers to have ever existed, Ted Bundy was a rapist, necrophile, burglar, and murderer known to have killed at least 20 people during the 1970s. That being said, like most Sagittarians Bundy was prolific and grandiose, so it’s heavily suspected that he murdered far more people than he ever copped to. Sagittarians are also incredibly unpredictable, which is evidenced in the fact that Bundy did not have simply one method of murder. If he wanted to kill someone, he would find a way to do it. After escaping prison twice (again, so Sagittarius of him to not go down without a fight), Bundy was eventually captured and convicted in Florida, where he was eventually executed by lethal injection.

Capricorn

(December 22nd to January 20th)

William Bonin (Born January 8th)

Described as “the most arch-evil person who ever existed”, William Bonin was a serial killer who preyed on and murdered 21 young boys and men between 1979 and 1980 in Southern California. Expertly careful and practical like a true Capricorn, Bonin created a perfect murder/torture venue in the back of his Ford Econoline van. Bonin removed all of the inside handles from all of the doors aside from the driver’s side in order to minimize the chance one of his victims could escape, and would kill them inside of the van before dumping their bodies along various highways in California. The only reason Bonin was caught was because someone heard him raping and strangling a 17-year-old boy in the back of the van, which lead to his arrest. Bonin was the first person to be executed by lethal injection in California in 1996.

Aquarius

(January 21st to February 18th)

Robert Hansen (Born February 15th)

Detached, unpredictable, and incredibly secretive, Aquarians make the perfect serial killers. This is why it’s no surprise that someone who enjoyed literally hunting people was Aquarius Robert Hansen. Hansen would kidnap women and after raping them, set them loose in the Alaskan wilderness where he would hunt them down like animals. He’s known to have murdered 17 women, but is suspected of killing at least 30. As part of his plea bargain Hansen helped locate the bodies of other victims, and was eventually sentenced to 461 years in prison.

Pisces

(February 19th to March 20th)

John Wayne Gacy (Born March 17th)

A Pisces is a natural dreamer and can get caught up in their own imagination, so it’s no surprise that Pogo the Clown aka: John Wayne Gacy ended up being the sinister side to this sign. Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered 33 young men and boys and buried many of them in the crawl space of his Norwood Park home. Like a highly emotional Pisces, when it was evident police were cornering in on him Gacy gave a rambling, drunken confession to his attorneys. Gacy remained on death row for 14 years before being executed in 1994.

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bluepenguinstories · 5 years

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Intention Headaches Chapter Five

Author's Note: All rhymes are unintentional. Anyone making a reference to Mark Twain will be shot on sight.

For Annie, Who Got a Leg Up in the Arms Race

Down the chute, a rabbit's hole of catatonic cold steel, a metallic, far-reaching tunnel in which she took a fall, far below. She didn't quite make her landing, not the pageantry coaches would hope from a human prized possession.

She awoke beside a raggedy man, scattered on the floor in a cell unused for ages, all she could see with her weary eyes was a pile of bones, his bones. She moaned because her left leg, no longer functional. Fractured and fragmented, the segments, joints, now disjointed. Beside her, the man, his bones near him, spoke:

“What is your name?” He was a head and a torso, though torso with bones beside the casing of an upper body. Same for the legs, but she tried to pay no mind to the old bones.

“Annie,” was her reply. “Animal crackers in my soup, hee-hee, hoo-hoo,” a laugh and a howl and a toot from the man, adorned, a raggedy hat. “Are you an orphan, too?” Annie shook her head. An orphan, not yet was what her head said without realizing that at a certain age, the death of a parent is a natural case of inevitability and not a case of orphanage.

Howls as well from the pain she was in. Trouble, bare, lonesome. Movements a torture.

“Annie, are you okay?” He asked her. And no, she would say. It was her leg. He would say: What a sorry state, Annie and her leg and this old bag of bones.

It was her turn to ask who it was she shared a cell with in a long abandoned encampment for imprisonment, now a relic or a reminder of how even new technologies reach old age.

“Why, I'm the gaoler.” Yes, outside. Guards and guardians. Relics. The whole lot of them. Crime is a relic, so is the punishment.

She found her footing, also in pain was her foot; a sprain, her ankle yet she inched her way to the top until she stood on her two legs (one broken) and faced the man in rags to ask but one thing:

“Are you with the church?”

His eyes lit a signal flare, lithium or mercury, Annie didn't see what the difference would be. Annie, you are hurt, soothing words spoken by a face, tall and pious. You need healing.

He picked himself up as well a literal and figurative gesture. Severed hand picked up the arm bone, the leg bone connected to the hip bone and the torso, oh the torso. No, never matter, never mind the basics. Just a fully formed figure, flesh and bone.

Man stood tall, hand bony and skeletal reaching back to his back and digging within, pulling out a spine – a torso now slumped over, slouched without. Able and moving with wire. Meanwhile, arm holding the spine, spine now a whip, a weapon which in his words, could be used for healing. As he put it, “the church heals by killing.” So she knew, it all wrong. Annie bolted, more of a limp, pain all along the way. Annie searched for some sort of safety, a skeletal protection.

Somewhere, much further below Annie and the saintly man, came a tortoise and a porcupine, arrived by elevator ride. Having taken hostage guards, runners of relics, at gunpoint. Porcupine and Tortoise, engaged in a mission to seek a map buried within the walls, engaged in conversation.

“I think Sylvie and I are on the rocks” whined Porcupine, holding the ice.

Tortoise was nary a speaker, instead a man whose purpose was to carry baggage. Mule-man, mealy-mouthed, some may call him. Porcupine paid no mind.

“So get this: she asked, 'are you having an affair?' and my response was, 'if you mean if I have love for another woman, the truth is that in my heart is every woman.' She didn't seem to like that answer.”

“Uh-huh.” Was a tortoise-shell reply. Tortoise knew that the lack of reply was a bad reply, so set down supplies and got down on one knee to meet the Porcupine's callous feet.

“No need to lick my boots,” Porcupine surmised. “I just need a good listener. We make a great team.”

Kindred Plath spirits marched, hostage in hand Tortoise with bag on back. Porcupine with the piercings. Large room, empty space, came into view. Each of them stopped, including the guards. One guard warned of the warden. Another, the pet. On the far side of the room, an old dog's carcass.

Porcupine warned to the guard that anything less than silence and it was lights out. Fluorescent room, despite outside, pure blackness. Inside solar power from an artificial sun, somewhere in the center of it all. Somewhere never to be visited.

Tortoise must have wondered what the map was for and the purpose for the mission, but that wonder faded. All a Tortoise needed was to get a mission done because any deed given was a deed needed indeed.

Porcupine and Tortoise in synchronization kicked the two guards and barked not minding the carcass of the dog on the far end. Instead, making a demand: “If you don't tell us the location of the map” but instead of detailing the threat, the animal friends noticed the door they came in, now barred shut by a steel grating, and in front of that a wreath of blue flame, a denial of exit.

III

Annie found refuge in the remains of an old storage closet, with cracked glass yet soundproof walls. So lucky if it were bulletproof, yet out of luck if not boneproof. Not to dwell on the damage dealt, instead to assess the current situation, Annie insisted.

Outside the functional but damaged walls, all through the halls erupted cracks and hisses, the rattling of a spine dancing across the floor and making its damages known to all through the empty halls. Annie heard:

“Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?” Laughter from the man who couldn't quite keep it all together, and just as well, continuation. “Will you tell us that you're okay, Annie?”

She would not tell him a single word. Instead, she muttered about her mother, seeing the status on the hologram monitor above her arm the unfortunate news about her leg. “Mother is not going to like this,” she muttered.

“Damn right, I'm not!” Sexton's leader appeared as the image on a screen, floating above her right arm. No static, crystal clear, as if listening to a waterfall, a stream, or a pebble drop in a creek. “I made you into the perfect daughter and you go and damage your leg? Now how are you supposed to use it?” On the screen, she could see her mother shaking her head in disapproval and frustration.

“Sorry, it was a miscalculation.” Indeed, within her left leg, the hydraulics were jammed. None of the shells within her lower left leg could be fired were the leg to be detached. She shook her head and tossed the leg aside, hoping to a higher being that the one with the church had not heard.

“You just discarded your leg, you ungrateful child!” Her words were steam, heat, unbalanced kinetic energy. “You were always my favorite, you know?” Annie felt the shake, the reminders of the marks. “I touched you up so good, you know.” “I never wanted you to!” Shots fired from the daughter. “Better than with my husband, even.” Mother shook her head with a carcinogen smile. “Should have only been your husband!” “The utter disrespect!” Mother, shocked. “You were always the best, he was defective.”

She shut off the transmission. Just a reminder of who she was; her leg, replaced countless times. So she would make do with one while she carried out the mission. From a young age, tenderness an abrasion. Her leg, felt to the tip-top until it became replaced with a weapon.

“Annie, you are hurt. You need healing,” came the words of a figure who used hurt for healing. Murder for comfort. So Annie emerged, clung to the walls with her left arm hobbled and meeting the one who wished to heal her. How for so long she had longed to seek refuge in the church yet now she would keep to the long adage of sending bullets.

Left arm, reaching for the goal; little dislocation of right arm a little detachment, a little wince of pain, but a click, all it took for the transformation. Elbow folded, a little place to rest her left hand on. She pressed the top of her right arm, now an arm and the beep was heard, signaled that the artillery was ready.

Return to pageant, crack of a whip, the grin on an unbalanced man. Dancing from one side of the wall to the next, rapid-fire magazines shot from the fingers of her right arm in her left hand. No landing on the other end of the wall, a slip to the floor, one leg not enough and not a bullet landed, the whip having danced and deflected.

Raggedy-man bare, not quite holding standing. Annie, on the floor knew as the pitch-black jacket, tattered hat, old bones approached she may meet her end. So with the rest of her magazines, she aimed for the spine in particular, and in response to the call, a crack and an explosion as the whip, or spine, shattered. Church man, upper half

He smiled, still animated. Head not supported, skull rolling away. “It is time to transfer these old bones to new ownership” such saintly words, sprinkled with sparse oxygen, low rasp. She watched as old bones separated from skin and gasped as all, save for a spine, floated off into the distance, animated by a blue flame and carried themselves away, somewhere far.

Flesh rotted, falling off, charitable invertebrate joining in the fall. Towering were bones, much larger than a man's, let alone a pooch or what ever may have been left. Still, a ribcage, supporting what ever there was to support. Human skull? Poking through carpentry of the decayed flesh. Whatever didn't work would be made to work and the result was at least twenty feet, a carcass only acting as a tanned hide, a little fur on the back of a beautiful and rotting beast, blue flame surrounding.

“What is that thing?” Tortoise. Unknowing. “Warden's dog!” Outcry, a simple guard. “Guard dog on duty,” Shook head of nettled cacti.

Cactus/Porcupine and Mule/Tortoise threw prison guards to the wolves warden's pet. Stone incisors, human teeth, or canines lurched down and took the two in the jaws in a single chomp. Screams and howls alike as blood dripped down and sprayed about. Mule unloaded cargo, brought out shotgun. Porcupine made do with signature pistols. Three animals about to make adversarial dance.

Around, a pounce. Frolic through flame, two kindred Plaths unload excess; Tortoise loads and unloads shell after shell, firing away at the fire and the flame, erupting, heat contained to a single room, no fire caught, all floors and walls, fireproof to a fault. Contrary is the flesh, easy enough to catch. Careful of the heat, the stench, and the teeth.

More shells unloaded by Tortoise. Needles shot from a haystack of bullets by Porcupine. Spiky plant reached an agreement, head turned toward Tortoise, look of approval, thumb-up.

“What makes you so resilient?” Piercing question. Swipes and bites avoided, more shots fired. “I just want a place to stay,” slow response. “Nice!” More movement, no progress. “I draw my strength from respecting women!”

Heat. Dead heat. Enough activity to know that this was all a roundabout. Circles and circles spinning and spinning, clockwise and counter or otherwise somewhere, all doing the same set of actions, with only thing seeming certain was an eventual end to it all. Breaths drawn Some swipes from skeletal paws, landing on the sides of the two, flesh torn with claw marks of pure marrow. No end, or right around the corner, the face of Annie, who always did get her gun.

Dead leg had been picked up somewhere along the way. She had both arms. Her will to go on was stronger than the ability to walk on one leg

So when she ventured down to find a way out of the mess and the smoke trails that led to commotion, she met the two meter tall dog, or however high the creature could have been had anyone brave enough cared for measurements.

Beast, animated by whatever sorcery had no sense of others' scent, had to judge by movement. But with all the commotion from stray parts of a rival gang, the dog was ripe for picking off any way Annie saw fit. Anyway, Annie saw fit to throw her leg the dog's way. All to give a dog a bone.

Leg in the air, just don't care enough about details, yet be remiss to mention how Leg was shot from miniature clips blazing away from four (maybe five) fingers across every inch of the creature's hide and unhidden away, the empty carcass. Once the illusion is pulled an explosion is made, distilled extinguished, drawing inward, or an implosion; flames, no more. Yet endless clouds of smoke and dust to which Annie drew orgasmic.

Inhale, beautiful breaths drawn in her nostrils agreed, flared up, but only a second. One second more, and she thought how nice it was that aside from a sly dog and a member of the church assassinated that a rival gang lost two of its greats. But as the smoke dissipates, her eyes red as the heart in overdrive. While charcoal, they remained as a reminder to serve that she couldn't achieve such a full sense of satisfaction.

“At least my mission was accomplished” were her words, a note to self. No specific tone, just a reminder. For the remainder of this reminder, she made a wonder of what it could mean from here on out. Whether to exist as a daughter, or as someone who finds her targets and discards the rest.

Porcupine and Tortoise coughed, then shared a good laugh from noticing supplies and shards gone, time elapsed and lapsed for no other reason than that being just what time does. Whatever miracle the two happened to stumble upon the two looked and saw the legend, a Sexton.

“Annie, got your gun?” Porcupine, although awry was a friend to all who could be attributed to female in any way, shape, form, relation, distance, or definition. “Always,” Annie, cold from the flare, unable to relish such dramatic feats without a flair, for the dramatic happenings which plagued the mechanic prison would haunt her (if but a lesser degree than her mother).

Porcupine turned to Tortoise: we should go. Tortoise to Porcupine: No. Porcupine: Map was her leg. Gone now. Tortoise: That makes no sense. Could have stolen long ago. Porcupine: Yet not now. Tortoise: But our mission, failed. Porcupine: For the best. Plaths, too, must know failure. Tortoise: What of our place? Heads shaken. Two already knew, place to stay. Tenure. However, hits must be taken. Less food, less supplies. Less entertainment.

Lies here relics of a prison. Lies, Porcupine told. Map lies in the center. Map was a jewel, hidden inside. No leg, Porcupine knew this. What is known is that contents could not be kept. Not content to keep them. Already seen, and so many piercings – human had to wonder what the homeowner's association wanted during that mission.

Why Annie, although success was given, a truth. Also, assassinated holy relic, person of power, literal and figurative. Meanwhile, Syd saw it once before: schematics of the city. Homeowner's association already knew all this. Hints of a self-sabotage from the higher ups. Suspicion from one who had loved the system up until some things stopped adding up.

Three, humans from different forms of pain and pleasure, seekers for extending life through tasks sent whenever, on a tight or loose schedule. Three, laughing. Or angry. Confused. Understanding of the life they lead. However, how to get out...

Inching out and following hallways through rooms. Foes, friends, no just humans took flight with a crawl, baby steps. Loss yet continuation of life on its way. Ever forward, until one exclaims:

“Hey look! There's stairs!”

All this time, could have taken the stairs out. So down each flight until met with a door and the buzzer beside buzzes until a ring and a ding, and with a click, slides open dead night or freedom.

#intention headaches #poetry #prose #anne sexton #sylvia plath #tortoise #porcupine #crime fiction #cyberpunk #gothic horror #horror #surreal #writing

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academyoftheheartandmind · 5 years

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Canyon Views

By Tom M. McDade

The timbre of Cheyava Falls,

Quaking aspens, cliff

Roses, fern, and currant

Bushes, pinyon, scrubby and

Prone ponderosa pine

Clear Creek Trail,

Heat, thirst, heart attack

Angel Window–arch natural

Cape Royal Rock–Geodesic

Service marker, hefty fine

Or prison, damage or theft

Famous mule rides down

Zigzag switchbacks

Chopper and airplane wrecks

Deer and turkey flocks

Navajo…

View On WordPress

#academy of the heart and mind #academyoftheheartandmind #Canyon #desert #Life #nature #Poem #poems #Poetry #Tom M. McDade #view #Views

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cloudwomensquarterly · 5 years

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Approaching the Last Season and She Enters an Inuit World - Two Poems By Lara Gularte

APPROACHING THE LAST SEASON

Time to live with wings.

Tips pierce her skin, she bleeds.

Moon fills the room with primal shining

as dying stars rest on her breasts.

She's half dressed,

head tucked under a pinion.

In a breeze her future

passes through the window.

Flutter of trapped wing beats

in her rib cage.

The hand inside herself

reaches out,

plucks her from the earth,

tosses her into sky.

First published in the The Bitter Oleander

SHE ENTERS AN INUIT WORLD

She escapes into the wild to get away from people. The animal inside gnaws her ribs to free itself, as the mountain rises off its haunches, and thunder growls in greeting. Ache of bone, marrow of memory, pain cleaves, pulls her into the primal gene pool.

In sleep she dreams of finding eggs in high grass. At midnight the moon devours the mountain raw. The sky holds stars of animal skulls, skeletons of old friends. The savage of her heart wakes. The buck tilts its rack, and she's at his throat.

She lives for flesh off the bone. With only spirits in a soup pot, she wakes each morning hungry.

In the meadow she's on heels and paws, wrapped in pelts, her knapsack stuffed with animal tracks, crouched over old bones, mud, and ash.

Darkness gathers in the grass. The wind blows dust, turns the landscape imaginary, a doe invisible. The sun leaps from the paws of a mountain lion, its warm mouth on her neck. As the cat's grip tightens, she looks up at herself in the sky.

First published in The Bitter Oleander

Lara Gularte lives and writes in the Sierra foothills of California. Her book, “Kissing the Bee,” was published by The Bitter Oleander January 2018. Her writing may be found in The Gavea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry, and in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada. Her work can be found in anthologies as well as various literary journals. Literary critic, Vamberto Freitas reviewed her work in Acoriano Oriental and Nas Duas Margens.She is a poetry instructor for the California Arts-in-Corrections program at Folsom, and Mule Creek prisons. In 2017 she traveled to Cuba with a delegation of American poets and presented her poetry at the Festival Internacional de Poesia de la Habana. She is an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine.Link below to Amazon Books, Kissing the Bee by Lara Gularte

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Where Is He Now in 2021? Robert John Bardo Today

Robert John Bardo Today Wiki -

Robert John Bardo Today Biography

Robert John Bardo is serving a life sentence today for the murder of the actress Rebecca Schaeffer. He was 19 years old and an obsessed fan of the actress when he fatally shot her on her doorstep, the Los Angeles Times reported shortly after her death in 1989. Bardo became a fan of the 21-year-old actress after she got her "big break" on the CBS television show. My sister sam, ME! Reported online. He wrote her letters and sent her small gifts for about two years before paying a private investigator to find out where she lived, according to the article. Schaeffer's fledgling career ended abruptly on July 18, 1989, at age 21, when he opened the door for Bardo, who thought he was handing out a script for The Godfather III to his West Hollywood home, the article said. His life and death are being examined on a repeat episode of ABC. 20/20, which airs at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, August 20, 2021. Bardo suffered serious injuries in prison when another inmate stabbed him multiple times Bardo was an inmate at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County, California when another inmate stabbed him and inflicted 11 stab wounds and stab wounds in 2007. according to CBS News. Investigators told the news outlet at the time that they did not know what triggered the attack. "We have several high-profile cases, so we cannot conclude whether his notoriety was a factor in the attack," said the prison sergeant. Chris Weathersbee told the news outlet. Mule State Creek Prison is a maximum-security prison for inmates with "sensitive needs," the article said, such as high-profile criminals, gang members, and sex offenders. The article did not name the suspect and said he was "a 49-year-old inmate serving an 82-year sentence to life in prison for second-degree murder."

Later, Bardo was returned to prison after receiving treatment at a hospital, the article says.

Bardo wrote in a letter that he had 'an obsession with the unattainable' and that he had to "eliminate" what he could not achieve. Marcia Clark reflects on the prosecution of the Rebecca Schaeffer murder case: "I didn't know what else to say, other than that I am going to fight so hard to bring her killer to justice." "Your Biggest Fan": The 2 hour 20/20 encore special airs tonight at 9 | 8c in ABC. https://t.co/aztaOD7tVR pic.twitter.com/ulo03enEua - 20/20 (@ ABC2020) August 20, 2021 Read Also: Who is Yossef Kahlon? Wiki, Biography, Age, Family, Arrested, Charged, Investigation Bardo wrote letters to Schaeffer for about two years, but their content did not arouse suspicion. investigators told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. Detective Dan Andrews, an investigator at the time, said the letters were "typical fan letters" that included descriptions of himself, questions and comments about the performance, and questions about her. He also contacted his agents, but Bardo told the Times that the content of their conversation was "just like the letters" and "just inquisitive." Schaeffer herself thought the notes and gifts were "sweet." ME! Reported online. They were mailed to the studio lot where "My Sister Sam" was filmed, the article said. However, a letter Bardo sent to his sister in Knoxville, Tennessee, shortly before the murder, had a more "sinister" tone, the Times reported. Marcia Clark, who was a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney at the time of the murder, paraphrased a portion of the letter to the Times as the murder investigation unfolded. "I have an obsession with the unattainable and I have to eliminate (something) that I cannot achieve," the letter read, according to the Times. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK Read the full article

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