The Confession

I remember the first time I struck my wife. It was after the birth of our first daughter. I had just got promoted to Minor Crimelord, where I was given a new level of respect. It was around 2am, just getting off work, and when I arrived home, my wife is awake and was ready to chew me out.

“Lee! What’s going on? You said you would take the night off so I could get some sleep. But instead, I am waking up to a crying two-year-old and you missing!”, she said with an attitude.

I was trying to explain to my wife that I was forced to go in, but I’m glad that I did because that heist I had just pulled off led to a pretty big promotion. But it’s like she wasn’t hearing me. She just kept going on and on. And, in the mist of me trying to keep my composure, my wife let something real reckless slip from her mouth. And when I heard her say it, it was like that scene in a movie where everything slows down around a particular character, so that they can have a moment of silence to think.

“I am a Minor Crimelord. Who, in the world, does she think she is talking to? I cannot have my soldiers out here thinking my woman run this relationship. I need to nip this in the bud right now!”, I thought.

So, I looked at her, with that “are you crazy?” face. And then, I slapped those words out of her vocabulary. I slapped her so hard, she fell to the floor. She looked up at me, with tears running down her face.

I say, “I’m sorry Jazz. But you need to know your place. Do not ever talk to me like that again. Are we clear?”

She nodded in agreeance, and I went to bed. I could hear her in the bathroom crying. I initially felt bad. I had never laid hands on any woman ever. But I couldn’t let what she said just slide and continue to let her think that was okay and it wasn’t. What if we were out in public, especially with this new reputation I need to uphold, I was not taking any chances.

By the tenth time, I started to see it more as an addiction. I got this weird high from beating her. It felt amazing and honestly, I did not want to stop. She made herself an easy target, so I took advantage. She better had hoped I had a good day on the job. By that time, I was going through a career swap. We had a guy on the inside, undercover, in the police department. He made a stupid move and got his cover blown. But don’t worry, he knew the routine. Go to the safe house, destroy all documents regarding your fake life, completely remove any features that altered your appearance, and lay low. He was out and the Boss put me in.

“You have proven yourself and you clearly know how to get things done. I need you to go in and be a dirty cop. Be smart, pay attention, and don’t get caught”, he said.

“For how long?”, I asked.

He said to me, “This is a lifetime gig son. As soon as you are eligible to retire, that is your opportunity to get out the force. But until then, I need you to make sure this organization can handle business without having any interruptions. Do the job, work cases, and arrest suspects, but at the same time, keep the boys off our toes.”

So, I enlisted in the police force. I worked and trained like I wanted to be a real cop. I made it all the way to Senior Detective. The Captain saw in me what the Boss did.

“Sunny, you got spunk and I like it! And that bust you had last week was freaking incredible. You know, Johnson was on that case for three years, but could never arrest the big kahuna,” Captain said.

He had me thinking I could go straight. But I could never go straight. As soon as they find out who I really am and the things I have done, I know it’s over for me. They gone lock me up and throw away the key. Anyway, I played my role and I played it well. You could even say I played it a little too well. I say this because I did let those cases get to me. I felt the anger building up inside. I thought I had seen and done some crazy and reckless acts. But you see more unbelievable and heinous acts in the Narcotics and Violent Crimes Unit, compared to just being a criminal. My wife literally did not stand a chance.

At first, I had convinced myself that I was fine. There was no way I was letting police work get to me. This wasn’t even a real job for me. My main job was to keep the force off my organization’s tail during transporting and distribution season. That was the job. But now, I see how it has taken a toll on me. I had even begun drinking on a regular basis, approximately six times a week, always after work. This may be obvious, but, being drunk made it a lot easier for me to go home and lay hands on my wife.

I remember, one time, just after closing a case involving a druglord selling drugs to minors and getting them hooked. I guess I still had some pent-up anger from playing bad cop. Interrogation was so hard to do. When the suspect finally confessed, he also spoke about another gruesome, awful rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl that happen about eight months ago, still an ongoing investigation. He offered information for a deal. It made me sick to my stomach. Once I was off duty, I went to the bar, up the street from the precinct. I wanted to take off the edge because I was pretty riled up. Sitting at the bar, in my own head, my thoughts were starting to get to me, and it made me so angry. So, a few drinks turned into more than a few drinks. When I made it home, my wife was in the living room, watching tv. I also sat down and watched tv. She gets a phone call, gets up and go into the kitchen. I was intoxicated and about to pass out. I could still hear though. And what I heard was a man’s voice on the other side of that phone. And it was like I had blew a fuse. I immediately got up and went into the kitchen.

“Who is that calling you at ten o’clock at night?”, I loudly asked as I attempted to snatch the phone from her hand, but it slipped from my hand and had a crash landing on the floor.

She was freaked out, clearly petrified, and immediately started crying. I loudly asked again. She was stuttering, trying to tell me who it was, and with all that anger I had, I slapped her with full force, and she fell into the refrigerator and on to the floor.

She began begging and pleading,” Please stop!”

I raised my hand, as if I were going to hit her again, because I was going to hit her again. I was. But I stop. I stopped because our now six-year-old came into the kitchen, holding our two-year-old. Our two-year-old was crying and had awoken our six-year-old.

“The baby won’t stop crying.”, said Jaleea.

I looked at my daughters and then looked back at my wife, with that “you lucky” face. She put the girls back to bed and I went to bed. Come to find out, it was one of the fathers of my oldest daughter’s playmate. His oldest daughter, who was fourteen, went missing about two nights ago, and he was just looking for information. I’m pretty sure that was the only time I actually felt bad over the course of a few days. My daughters witnessed a scene that did not have to take place that night. I was drunk and out of control.

Now, I know what you must think. How could I have two daughters and still go home and beat on my wife, who is their mother. The truth is, and please believe me, deep down inside, I really did care for and love my wife and my daughters. But I had so much anger and rage, that I couldn’t control and didn’t know what to do with and taking it out on her was the easiest way for me to release all of it. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop. Whenever I was having a bad day and about 75% of the times, I had come home drunk and out of my mind, relieving myself on my wife, it just felt amazing. And whenever I was beating on her, not once, did I ever think of my daughters. It was like they didn’t even exist, which, I guess, made it even easier to choke her out or break her bones.

I had one talk with my baby girl. She came into the kitchen one night to tell me that her mother was in the bathroom crying. A few minutes prior, my wife and I were having a conversation that led to me slapping her across the room.

Leeona say, “Mama crying again daddy.”

And when she said it, you can kind of hear a little anger in her voice, which made me laugh a little bit. I thought it was cute. Our daughters were adorable.

“Why mama always cry?”, she asked.

And yes, I immediately came up with some bizarre reason why her mother was crying. I lied because I had developed new fears that were bound to come into my path one day. Those fears being that my daughters, when they aged up, finding out about the abuse I put their mother through. I loved them so much. I didn’t want them to hate me. But I knew that day would come soon. The future is always a lot closer than we think. And because I had no intentions on changing my behavior, I prolonged their love for me for as long as I could.

I always told both of our daughters how beautiful they were and to always bring positivity into the world. They were smart and strong. And no matter where I was in life, I would always love them. I told them to never be like me or their mother because we were weak and broken. Always do better, always be better.

So, I explained to her that her mother was sick, and it made her really sad, all the time. But, in reality, it was me who was sick and needed help. I suppose, you can say that those cases got to me. Working my actual job was a heck of a lot easier than working those cases. I only had, maybe, three or four times where I needed to go through major loops to get the boys off my organization’s head. Other than that, I always misplaced a piece of evidence or two, anything that would have brought my organization’s name back into the picture. It was flawless. And no one, not one person, ever figured me out. But like I said, I played my role, and I played it really freaking well.

The very last time I struck my wife, the day was so beautiful. The sun was shining bright, and that cool breeze felt incredible. I left for work that morning, went to the bar afterwards, and came back home that night. I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I had got that feeling you get when someone is trying to sneak up on you. Not realizing my wife was slowly approaching behind me with a knife in her left hand and a knife in her right hand, I turned around just in time to dodge her attack. I was in disbelief. She really tried to stab me. So, I tried deescalating the situation.

“Jazz, what are you doing?”, I asked.

“I can’t do this anymore, Lee”, she cried, “You have hit me almost every single day for the past ten years, but not today!”

She charges and swings at me with the knife in her right hand, but I caught her arm. So, she comes at me with the knife in her left hand. Using my other hand, I caught that arm too. At this point, she is using every inch of force in her body to plunge both knives into my chest. Also, at this point, I am realizing that my wife is a lot stronger than I thought. Apparently, over the years, my wife also built up some anger and that night was the night she was going to take back her life.

“It’s the same thing, every single day! I don’t want to wear any more casts or buy new scarfs. My girls will never see me like this again. You won’t let us leave, so you must go,” she said.

She kneed me in the groin area, causing my grip on her arms to weaken and I fell to the floor, on my knees. She stood over me, breathing heavy. Then starting screaming, and with both knives in her hands, she was going to drive those knives into my back and probably would have kept stabbing for a number of times. But working as a cop, I had learned how to react quickly. So as soon as I seen her arms high in the air, ready to come down with some powerful gravity force, I, also with heavy force, side pushed her legs, causing her to fall sideways to the left. The knives were knocked from her hands when she fell.

As she laid there on the floor, she looks at me and said, “I meant what I said. I am out of here. I’m not afraid of you anymore. I am taking my daughters and we are never going to see you again.”

I supposed that was the wrong thing to say to an angry drunk because, sure enough, I snapped.

I looked at her and said, “You gone do what?”.

“You heard me. The entire world is going to know about you. The entire world is going to know that you are a manipulative, controlling, abusive woman beater!”, she responded.

After a few other choices of words from my wife, I got on top of her and began choking her. I let my wife harsh choice of words get to me. She was going to expose me and my organization. But more importantly, she was going to take our daughters away from me. I couldn’t let that happen. She struggled and tried to get loose but, I continued to choke her until she wasn’t moving anymore. I got up and went upstairs to make sure our daughters were still sleeping. I, then, went back into the kitchen and stood there for about ten minutes. Then, I checked to see if she had a pulse. There was no pulse. I grabbed the vodka from the refrigerator because I needed to take a second and think. After taking four shots, looking at the knives that were still on the floor, I thought about the saw I had in the garage. That was my plan. I picked her up and hid her in the trunk of my car.

The next morning, I sent our daughters off to school and I went to the precinct. I temporarily stole one of the lab techs IDs to get inside the lab. From previous cases, I knew the lab had sodium hydroxide. Bingo. I finished my shift, went to the bar, and then went home. I needed to keep up my daily routine. The girls were sleeping, so I immediately got to work. With the garage covered in tarp, I begin dismembering my wife, cutting off her toenails, feet, legs, arms, hands, fingernails, and ultimately her head. With some buckets, already in the garage, I put the pieces of my wife inside and used the sodium hydroxide to dissolve her. I had to get completely rid of the body.

I felt awful, but I did what I had to do. She was going to take so much away from me, and I just couldn’t let that happen. But in retrospect, my reactions and horrific acts of how I disposed of my wife’s body got me the death penalty. I lost everything, including my daughters and their love for me. I was completely exposed. How I got caught don’t matter. I’m just here trying to clear my conscious. I am completely sober now. Tomorrow is my day and I wanted to repent and ask for forgiveness, so that the good Lord would allow me to cross those golden gates.

I will admit that my wife finally standing up for herself, I never thought I would see the day. I truly thought I had her under my control and that I would get away with using her as a punching bag. I am really glad that she did not go down without a fight. When I met her, she was strong and always fought for what she wanted. It was one of the reasons why I fell in love with her. The very last thing my wife said to me was that one day, all my wrongs would catch up to me and that I would die in prison. I guess she was right.

“Lord, I know I do not deserve your mercy or your good grace, but Father I am asking for your forgiveness and to please have mercy on my soul. In Jesus name, I pray, Amen.”