Ripped from the headlines!

"Seasonal Yellowstone employees fired for abusing park's natural features"

At times, I don't pretend to understand human nature. I don't pretend to understand what made these men think it would be okay to pee in Old Faithful. I have been to Yellowstone NP several times in my life. Never once did I think old Faithful was a toilet. Never once did I feel it would be okay to be disrespectful of Mother Nature that way. All I can do is shake my head and wonder.

If you haven't read the story behind the headline, here is a link http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/05/seasonal_yellowstone_employes.html

There was this one guy

I have mentioned on my blog before about my time on eHarmony. Today I want to talk a bit about one of my (too many) eHarmony matches.

He was from an eastern state, some 900 plus miles away. He was the one that initiated contact with me, by sending the first round of questions for me to answer. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but all of my eHarmony matches were starting to look the same, no matter what their name was or where they were from. To me they looked like the same guy, wearing a different shirt. Not him, he was bald and had dark brown, almost black, eyes. That was refreshing, someone that didn't look like anyone else.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the eHarmony process, so I'll give a little background. People are matched based on the 29 dimensions of their personality. That is determined by a long questionaire filled out at the time you first become a "member". Of course, everyone that answers the questions is honest (hold on, I coughed so hard I have water coming out of my nose). Okay, all better. Once you are matched with someone, eHarmony notifies you of the match. Either person can initiate contact, by sending the first round of questions. These are closed end, multiple choice questions. Next, there is the list of "must haves and can't stands". Those are things the other person is looking for in a "mate". Things they must have in a person, and things they can't stand! Then another round of questions, this time in open form, where you write essay answers. After that, if you make it to "open communication", Dr. Warren (the founder of eHarmony), sends you a warning to be careful, blah, blah blah. Open communication means e-mailing each other through eHarmony. Or, you can "fast track", which means you get the warning and start to communicating without the other stuff.

Anyway, back to him. He must have liked my answers, because we made it past Dr. Warren's warning to open communication. I liked his answers too, he seemed like a nice enough guy. After a few e-mails, I asked him if he wanted to communicate outside of the confines of eHarmony. He "suggested" that I do a Yahoo! search of his name, and decide if we would continue to communicate. I have to tell you, that was a first. I was curious. I knew our relationship wouldn't go any further, because I had no desire to move to the state he lived in. I always wanted to "go west young woman", to the mountains and the big sky. Like I said, he seemed like a nice guy. Intelligent, multiple degrees, no children, didn't want children, we had some things in common.

So, I Yahoo!ed him. When his name came up, I felt the blood drain from my heart, literally. I mean for more than a beat, there was NO blood in my heart. He had spent most of his life in prison, for killing three people when he was 19. Not an oh oops, I accidentally killed these people. No, he had, according to all of the articles I read, and I read every article I found, tied up, tortured and killed two people. A husband and wife. In cold blood. Shot at point blank range, in the head and face. The third person was killed when he came to investigate the "noises" he heard from the others being killed.

I found and read the original newspaper article from the night of the murders. I also found his mug shot picture. He and an accomplice broke into a home, with the intent of stealing. When the husband and wife woke up to investigate the noise, he tied them up. He beat them until they told him where they kept their stamp and coin collection. Then he shot them, point blank, in the head and face.

Shocked? I was too. Angry? Yep, me too. Wondering what he was doing on eHarmony? Another yep, me too. Did I stop communicating with he? Nope. I was curious. I have written in other posts about my law enforcement background. I was curious if there was such a thing as rehabilitation for someone that commits multiple murders. I was curious what made he tick.

So, he and I continued to communicate. He told me how he was down on his luck since getting out of prison. How he didn't have a car. How he didn't have a job. How he had to walk to see his parole officer. I told him how I had spent many years working for police departments, to deter him from asking me for money, or help, or whatever.

He would answer any question. I asked a lot of questions. At one point, he gave me his phone number. He told me to call anytime I felt like talking. That was not unusual really, a lot of my matches gave me their phone numbers once we got to open communication. I will be honest with you, e-mailing a person that had killed was not so bad. I could handle that. I had taken all the steps to protect my identity. I wasn't worried about that. I felt safe he was not going to break his parole to track me down in Wisconsin. BUT, calling someone that had murdered people and hearing their voice was something I could not do. Nope, I wasn't that curious.

Besides, there were things about him that irked me. He had told me he volunteered at a church. One of his supporters was a priest. His multiple degrees were in theology and religion. He "bragged" about having slept with three married women since he left prison. Said that was the only way for him to go, because he wasn't ready for a relationship. He encouraged me to come visit him. Wow! Here's me thinking, 'Oh sure, I'm going to go all the way to where he lives for a nooner, I don't think so!!'

Things irked me about his crime too. It wasn't enough that he had tortured and killed the poor husband and wife for their coin and stamp collection, he left some of the proceeds by their bodies!! He didn't even take it all!! When he was caught a few blocks away, he fought with police! He was sentenced to 25 years to life, and thought he should get out after 25 years, because the judge didn't say he would have life (a technicality?).

Did I write to eHarmony about him? No, I didn't. Why? Because, he had been honest. He didn't try to hide his past. He left the decision to communicate with him further up to me. Apparently tho, one of his other matches did write to eHarmony, because eHarmony sent me an e-mail advising me not to have contact with him. Then his profile was deleted from eHarmony. I stopped writing to him because I was no longer curious.