Do you ever really know someone?

This strange journey began when I was out one night in 2014 at one of my favorite local bars with a co-worker when we met this group of decently funny guys. One in particular, we’ll call him Marshmallow (because that ended up being his nickname anyway), stood out to me mostly because he was the funniest one and we just had a good vibe together. We bar hopped and ended the night with exchanging numbers and that was that.

Fast forward three years later—we’re great friends. We see each other out, I bought stuff from him more than a few times—overall, he was great company. Eventually our friendship grew stronger, and we began hanging out a lot more. I was living in this tiny one-bedroom apartment and he’d always come over and we’d smoke and have deep conversations about life and space and all these random topics (you know how it goes). Then, we’d go get some lemon pies from Whataburger. After a while we began to get intimate and took our relationship to the next step.

He was one of the smartest guys I knew at the time. He had his degree in biology and would teach me about quantum physics and quantum mechanics and I just thought he was fascinating. He was always so calm and gentle. He called me little munchkin. And he is a Sagittarius by the way. I feel like that is important to note.

He lived with his mom in some townhomes on the other side of town from where I lived. I never met his mother and only stayed at his place once. Although we spent so much time together, we never really talked about our families, I mean, I have my personal reasons and I assumed he did too. It was just an understanding between us, and I didn’t think anything of it.

One day when I was at work, I get a text from my best friend and it’s a copy of a news article with his mugshot pictured. I initially thought he got busted for a DUI or perhaps possession, so I clicked the link and it took a few minutes to load so I asked my best friend what he was wanted for.

I can still see the text. She wrote back: “FOR MURDER”

All caps. I can even hear her voice yell it at me. Then another text comes through: “HIS MOM”

I’m still at work at this point and my break is over so I head downstairs and lock myself in the bathroom while I pull up the article. Sure enough, there it was! “El Paso Man accused of decapitating mother”.

De-cap-i-ta-ted. Not just murder, he chopped her head off! Allegedly.

When I read the article he was still wanted because he fled once the neighbor came to do a wellness check. His mother needed full-time caretaking and regularly went to dialysis. Well, this time she had missed her dialysis appointment and friends and family had not heard from her in a few days. So, the neighbor, who regularly spoke with her, went over to check on her.

Marshmallow opened the door just enough to see who was there. When asked about his mom, he said she was asleep. The neighbor, who’s beyond suspicious at this point, said they wanted to see her and Marshmallow said he hadn’t heard from her in four days. He then proceeded to leave the apartment with a duffle bag in hand and hopped into his Jeep, which had a rifle in the back seat.

When cops arrived on the scene, they found the mother’s body at the top of the stairs with a small blanket thrown over the head and chest area. Her head was not attached to her body. The medical examiner’s office would later label the autopsy as inconclusive. Turns out the body had been laying there for FOUR DAYS!

Let me say this another way, Marshmallow allegedly killed his mother, cut off her head and then proceeded to stay there in the townhome for four days after the fact!

This is same person who called me little munchkin and brought me lemon pies. He made me feel like the crazy one sometimes because of how calm and relaxed of a person he was. This is someone I had in my home on multiple occasions and was sexually intimate with Yet, they can’t tell if his mother died by decapitation or if he killed her and then cut her head off!

Inconclusive.

Going back to the Sagittarius zodiac sign. I felt it was relevant because how many well-known serial killers are Sagittarius?! Not saying he is a serial killer because it was only his mom (that we know of) but still. Ted Bundy was a Sag. Smart. Charming...yet deep down, capable of unimaginable things.

I digress.

So here we are, five years later and I still have all the same questions I had back then. I've considered writing to him and actually did write a few letters out but they all just ended up in the trash because I couldn’t bring myself to really do anything.

After circling through my many unanswered questions, there’s always this last one that still sends chills down my spine each time:

Do you ever really know someone?