Final Statement

I was abandoned as a baby. Left in a dumpster by a terrified girl who was too young to have given birth. She didn’t realize a security guard saw her hanging around the dumpster, watched as she drove away in her beat-up Station Wagon, and took note of her license plate number. He investigated the dumpster, but she had hidden me beneath some cardboard boxes, so he missed me. It wasn’t until the next day, when an employee opening the store behind which the dumpster sat heard my wails, that I was discovered.

Because of the security guard’s diligence, the police found my mother in a matter of hours. She was placed into a juvenile detention center for child endangerment. I was placed in the custody of my grandfather and grandmother. It turns out, there was a reason my mother was terrified to let her parents know she’d been pregnant and had a child. I learned this as I was raised in the same strict household my mother was.

Her time in juvenile detention wasn’t even a year, but once she was released, she took off, leaving me with her parents. I’ve only seen her twice more in my lifetime—once on my eighteenth birthday and once at her funeral. She died of an overdose on August sixth. I was given her belongings; there weren’t many. A few articles of clothing, a phone, a wallet, a purse, and a diary. The diary tells a story of a deeply disturbed girl who escaped her demons through drugs.

I’m only telling you this to explain why I am the person I am today. My grandparents raised me under a strict Christian roof. My grandfather was not a nice man; I have the scars to prove it. My grandmother was a sickly woman who was almost always locked away in her room. I have few happy memories with her. My grandfather never laid a hand on her, though. When she passed, away and I discovered her body, he blamed me. I have the scars from that day, too.

The Rocky Mountains were basically my backyard and I often found solace in them. I killed my first squirrel in them when I was seven, my first rabbit when I was eight, and my first deer when I was ten. After that if we didn’t have meat on the table it was always my fault and I paid the price. It didn’t take long to learn the tricks so my prey never even heard me coming.

It is in these same Rockies you see me now, as I record my story. This path I’m following is one I’ve travelled many times before. To the soul who finds me, I am sorry for what you’ll see. If you keep watching this video, you’ll see why I had to do it.

Hunting in the Rockies was my favorite way to pass the time. At least twice a month I would bring home a deer. When we had extra meat my grandpa gave it to poor families in his congregation. He was a pastor, you see. If they didn’t have meat to eat, that was also my fault. As I grew older, I spent more and more time in the Rockies.

You see this tree here? See the marking I carved? This is where I killed my first deer. I was too young to haul it out myself, so I ran home and got my grandpa to come back out with me. I was so excited and thought he would be so proud of me. In his own way, he was. But at the same time I had inconvenienced his day. After that I learned to haul the deer out on my own. It took several trips, but I never had to ask him for help after that day.

I learned to enjoy the process of taking apart the carcass. It was an effort of survival, but it was also an education I couldn’t get at school. Sure, I learned your typical education, mathematics, reading, history, science. But at school I also learned I wasn’t like the other kids. I was different. And I hated that I was different. But in the Rockies, while taking care of the deer I had just shot, I could be who I truly was, and no one was around to judge me. In the process of taking care of the deer, I learned anatomy of the deer, self-reliance, and hard work. I learned tenacity pays off and I learned to appreciate where my food comes from.

It was these lessons that helped me make my first human kill. I knew the process would be different, but in a way it’s also very similar. And let me tell you, the taste of deer cannot compare to human. That might sound grotesque, but it is a fact.

At age twenty-five I was ready. I hunted my prey, just as I had at least twice a month for the past fifteen years. This time, though, my prey walked on two legs. As a hunter for survival, you get to know the other men in the area who are also hunting. I had spent many mornings with this man, listening as he told me disgusting stories of how he treated the women in his life. He was a vile, loser of a man, who didn’t deserve the oxygen he consumed.

So, I planned. It took me the better part of a year to concoct my strategy, but when I did it was perfect. Nothing will ever compare to the moment I took him from behind and wrapped my arm around his neck. Within seconds he was unconscious. I took him apart, just as I had so many deer in the past, and stored him in my freezer, all except for one piece. That piece was served with a mushroom gravy, and let me tell you, it was delectable.

Now thirty-three years old, you see me walking to my inevitable end. It was my eighth victim who brought about my demise. I was unaware, but he had grown suspicious of my actions. He documented his suspicions with his police officer friend. It wasn’t until his dying breaths that I learned of this. So, once I buried him six feet in the ground, I planned my last trip into the Rockies. I figured I had two days until his friends discovered him missing, so I set my affairs in order, collected the few things I would need, and headed out.

Ah, we’ve arrived. This clearing here is where each of my victims are buried. You’d call them victims. I call them scum of the earth, and in the earth is where they now reside. Each one of them, you’ll find, is an abuser of women or child. Or both. Each a waste of a human being. So you see? I’m not all bad. I won’t lie, I did enjoy taking their lives, watching the light leave their eyes as I strangled them. But I didn’t take them for sport. I protected others from them. You see these markers here? It shows the date I killed them. One a year, on the same day. August sixth.

They are buried in a circle, you see? I planned to make circles of them around this entire clearing. It’s fitting, though, that only one circle was made. Here I will end my days in the middle of them. This water bottle I have here? It’s laced with cyanide. Cheers.