For Pete's Sake

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Jolynn,

As children, you were kept sheltered as best as we could. Now you are an adult who seems to be driven by others and/or self-serving misleading agendas.

After hearing you out, please hear me out. I'm addressing your emails now and the ignorant inaccuracies you stated and came across with in ways as to be just thrown at me like rocks hurled at a wounded animal in a cage, coupled by at times with what appears to be a self-serving fit of tantrum, so much that at first made me question if this was actually my daughter(s) sending it. After everything and now this, my heart is broken once again having to defend in this email that now is inevitable.

Amazing how for all these years I did exactly what you defined as a real father, which that is just one example of how I protected you. Personally, never spoke of the sad truths out of love and misguided loyalty to protect your mother's dignity even after death while being forced to listen to and defend against lie after lie being spoken of me by strangers, as well as your mother's family.

I find no comfort in you confessing to me that you and your sister Becca do not believe me to be guilty of the very crime I was convicted for, but in essence, you feel I should continue to suffer because I failed to offer you guys more or enough emotional support as a parent, somehow now deeming me a bad person you don't like. That is twisted and heartless that you have found some way to justify that although not guilty of an actual crime, that it was warranted somehow to rob me of my life because you are now convinced I am too aggressive or spent too much time caring what people thought or trying to clear my name and prove my innocence instead of showing love?

Well perhaps you were too young to remember, or chose not to, but even with being aggressive and focused on trying to prove my innocence for the first 10 years I took the time to write and draw pictures for each of you independently at least 3 times a week coupled with all the phone calls and visits that Grandpa made sure he produced you for. You and your sisters were given and had everything you wanted and needed financially growing up given to you by Grandpa and I, funds were left in place and I went without and took nothing just to make sure the survival and lives of my daughters was available so Grandpa could raise MY daughters.

None of you lacked for anything your entire life except for having your parents. That part NOT my choice, NOT my doing, NOT my fault! Shame on all of you for hurting me and forcing me to waver from integrity and actually now say it but, your mother's choice to do what she did, to allow her addiction to be more important than all of our love and us as a family, left all of us here in pain and at a loss, not just you, but more so me with the biggest losses of all.

How did Grandpa and I contribute to your success?

How bout having a beautiful, clean, safe, drug and alcohol-free home to live in until you guys were of age and set out into the world to start your lives?

How bout giving you good structure and instilling morals in you allowing you to have the strength not to fall susceptible to alcohol and drug abuse?

How bout making and giving you stability and all the capability to have a full education?

Yes you did the work as a good kids and students, that part we couldn't do for you but, ask any person that didn't achieve their full potential, major reason for that would be lack of a stable foundation and home life.

Nobody said any of you had a perfect life, and especially under the circumstances, but as I have told you before, unfortunately Ashlee had it the hardest and worse being the oldest, always expected to help out and protect and take care of her little sisters, having to make sure nobody bullied the two of you, all throughout her life being attacked or picked on for no other reason then who her father was, that has always hurt me even caused me to make mistakes, some no different than most parents, but I gave my apologies for any mistakes I may have made, but apparently it wasn't good enough and never will be.

I have never disrespected you. I have expressed all my pride in you, shown you encouragement and support as best as I could, I never abandoned you, and I didn't provoke this situation or need for your father to act as he is being forced to. What brought this on? Who should you really be blaming?

How bout your Aunt, your uncle, your now husband, your friends and all the ignorant people of that county who have no lives and want to do nothing but tell lies, ignore the fact that an innocent man was convicted, and ignorantly rally together in support of the architects of this wrongful conviction and do so by throwing threats and obscenities at my wife and I in regard to something that is and has been nothing more than a wrongful conviction of an innocent man for 22 years and growing.

If everyone's conscience is as clear as mine, and my conscience is clear because God, your mother, and my mother know the truth, if this conviction is so righteous as everyone seems to profess, then I ask, what is everybody so afraid of in me fighting to prove my innocence?

Why is everybody so afraid of the truth, the actual truth of how they took a tragic accident/situation and turned it into a murder against a man they didn't like, and hid the sad truths?

The very same sad truths being spoken of that were overlooked on purpose, not to protect your mother, me, or my children, but solely for the purpose of enabling an overly zealous, power-hungry prosecutor to secure a conviction and make a name for himself and his bunch of small town good ole boys with nothing more than their desire to advance their careers.

The very same people that did so by manipulating people, bullying them, planting evidence, hiding evidence, both then and still now, denying me access to evidence that would prove my innocence.

Truth be known, believe it or not, there are people of that county who are still good people and know the truth of my innocence and how wrong this conviction is and how it was obtained, but are too afraid to speak up because they are outnumbered by the haters and bullies of that county that some literally have expressed that in me proving my innocence would serve no purpose other than to make their taxes go up, yet I'm called a selfish monster?

Go back and read the Father's Day post that I knew nothing about at the time, didn't ask her to do, and in all candor, wish she hadn't for the only reason because Father's Day has become a very painful day for me over the years in knowing how my ability and responsibility to be the father I was and wanted to be had been robbed from me.

However, setting aside my personal feelings, I can't be upset with Heather and cannot find fault in her right and desire to express herself truthfully from her heart.

So could you logically explain to me how my wife Heather, in showing love to your father, her husband, justified by her knowledge of truths kept hidden and or yet to be known by others, how does her being entitled to her merely expressing that I was a good father justify your husband to conduct himself in such an classless and disrespectful manner towards MY WIFE and to play a role such as he did in speaking of me and on matters he knows nothing about?

And maybe you are unaware of the other texts threatening her, and the taunting and malicious stuff said by Tammy, which by the way, serves what purpose to do any of what she did?

Is she even aware that you and I have had contact not so long ago?

So please get your facts straight and stop acting appalled and off of nothing but unnecessary emotions before you come at me.

Ironically, Heather did the same as she has for 5 years now, what was different this time?

Heather has sent me both sides and truth be known, in reading some of the thoughts and how ignorant and classless they are expressed and in the language used by the cruel people of that county, and now, I guess "your family" as you stated, I can't help but to shake my head in pity for all of you as I sit in disbelief thinking to myself, "yeah, and they call me the heartless evil monster, the animal in a cage".

My wife from what is being provided to me has done nothing wrong, nor did she ever say nasty, or disparaging things about you or your sisters, can you say the same?

So for you to make such a misleading statement is without validity and honor.

And you should be ashamed of yourself, how dare you in such poor taste use Willy as some sort of intentional disrespect towards me.

Once again you made an untrue, malicious comment only to try and unjustly hurt me and accomplished nothing but to highly disrespect your mother.

Seems like all of you and your mother's side of the family want to ignore the true and actual facts and blame me for everything in an attempt to avoid their own guilt and culpability.

No matter what you say, or how Grandpa expressed, he never lied and did so, not out of malice, but his love for you girls, and look how you show your "unconditional love" back to him.

He was and felt compelled to protect you and your sisters, yet I see how little his love and sacrifices made meant to you and Becca and how he is being treated now.

You all know for a fact that I, your father, no matter what my feelings were and my reasons for having such feelings, never said a nasty disparaging thing about a single member of your mother's family to either of you while growing up.

What are you truly trying to accomplish?

But once again shame on you for putting me in a position where I have no choice but to compromise my integrity in order to fend off these self-serving thoughts of yours and now first time allegations being made.

Truth be known, and it is on record, Willy broke your mother's heart because he wanted and chose to go live with your grandmother, Uncle and Aunt and his reasons gave were that he couldn't take your mother's drinking anymore, the unsafe driving, the embarrassment of it in front of his friends and in public, her sneaking, and when he saw something, expecting him to hide it and not to say anything to me and G.G., and because of her drinking, how this forced him as the oldest to have to take care of you girls and felt the responsibility of those and basic chores shouldn't be his while I was on the road working.

Your grandmother and Aunt Wendy coddled him and told him he could live with them and they would look after him, while in their now care and custody for a lack of better term is when he started hanging out with the wrong kids was given poor advice and far less supervision allowing him to fall victim to peer pressure and start experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

Already having a predisposition through DNA to substance addiction, is where his unfortunate downfall started and ended in his demise.

So although it broke my heart to know all of this and be unable to do anything to get him the help he needed because of the position I was placed in, don't you try to put that coffin on my conscience.

And in all candor since you wanted to make such a statement, I question as to why didn't your grandmother, Uncle, or Aunt get him the help he needed to save him?

So if keeping my daughters sheltered, giving them structure, counseling them in ways to not allow them to experiment with drugs and alcohol, not allowing them to dress too revealing for their age, not allowing them to wear make-up at too young an age, not to date at too young of an age, making sure they had all the capabilities and encouragement to pursue their educations to the fullest while affording them all the opportunities including vehicles to drive, all while my family was having to endure what was done to them and forced to go through was wrong, then I reluctantly apologize and concede to your now complaints that you now feel towards Grandpa and I.

No narrative has changed from the last visit/physical interaction we had, which by the way wasn't our last interaction, nor has my sentiment expressed to you that day changed.

I genuinely apologized for any mistakes I may have made as a parent and pretty much as an ambassador for your mother for 2 reasons because, although they say children are very resilient, it highly upset me that MY children had to go through even a second of anything other than that which resembled the fairytale perfect childhood I had set out in life to give them, and in knowing the people that actually owed apologies would never give them to any of you, I offered.

How dare you, the only half-truths ever spoken by me were done so as an adherence to, misguided or not, some bond and code of loyalty and respect to your mother held by me to cover for her mistakes and to protect my children from hard to hear and or embarrassing truths.

You and your siblings should have never been subjected to any mistakes made by your mother or I, no different than I should have never spent a day behind bars and lost my entire life for a trumped up crime that never occurred.

You're an adult now? You want to hate me? Well then hate your father for thinking he was doing something honorable by covering for your mother which in essence, because of my love and devotion to her, pretty much cost me my children, my family, my dreams, my future and my entire life as I once knew it.

After seeing now the way my children are conducting themselves, one of the most frustrating things has become in knowing, if I would have been totally honest with the law and told them fully and immediately what your mother did, not only would I have never spent a single day in jail, they would have never been able to lie and exploit this tragedy in the ways they have, and that isn't exclusive to just the judicial and law powers that be.

One would think that the children of a man that claims to be innocent and the significant history of such a case would, once reaching maturity and adulthood, step back and say, hey, what's wrong with my father's case that he wound up with 3 trials and has never wavered for 22 painstaking years?

So quick to criticize, has any of you even questioned an unbiased lawyer or legal scholar of sorts on behalf of your father as to what's the percentage of a defendant to receive 3 reversals and why would this happen?

Asked what are the procedural roadblocks placed before a defendant trying to prove their innocence?

So sorry you feel I owe you an apology for being too passionate and aggressive in trying to prove my innocence to an extent that you and Becca feel I failed in the giving enough in the emotional support department and somehow this, after any and all the positives I have done, both as a free man and as a prisoner of injustice, somehow this makes me a person you do not like and justifies the mindsets now portrayed.

I find it amazing how as you were growing up, I as a parent always afforded my children with the open door policy of being able to come to me with anything and feel free to question or discuss anything with me and on quite a few occasions I remember you doing so.

If you chose not to act upon this more than you did, or didn't find more need to, then how do you justify blaming me now in the way that you are because I am torn in remembering the dedicated private phone calls to each of you, in which each of you at different times did act upon.

I did do the best I could to give you all the guidance and answers you sought after, as well as find the resolution or logical explanations as to that which was troubling or concerning you at the time.

So as an adult now, could you please enlighten me since you can speak from first-hand knowledge and personal experience(s) even remotely close to mine suggesting that you have even walked in my shoes and have done to you exactly what has and is being done to me for 22 years now and counting?

Tell me please, what would you have done, how would you have handled everything?

Tell me please because I will be the first to admit that I have yet to come across a manual entitled, how is the perfect innocent man wrongfully convicted of a crime supposed to act all awhile knowing everything and everyone that was being torn from him for something he didn't do and worse yet, merely because of the choices made by not him, but by another?

Tell me, what is the right answer, what did you do?

How did you deal with the pains, the fears, the confusion and uncertainty?

How did you deal with the always present pitfalls and dangers present every minute of every day because of the environment you were now forced to exist in?

How did you deal with having to witness the horrors of a jungle and slaughter house combined at times on a daily basis?

How did you deal with the long dark lonely nights locked in a cage surrounded by cold steel walls, especially the nights you forced yourself to sleep with nothing in your belly because you had nothing?

How did you deal with missing your children immensely, yet not being able to explain why you weren't with them because you couldn't understand why yourself?

How many screaming matches did you have with God questioning him as to why this was being allowed to be done to you?

How did you deal with your friends and family dying one by one but you couldn't be there properly and respectfully?

Left to deal with the grief of the loss in isolation. How did you fight off the reaper every time he came while questioning if you even should, knowing it would be that much painless to just give up?

How did you deal with the shame inflicted upon you and the anguish it caused in knowing your character was being unjustly assassinated, your honor and integrity destroyed just because someone else felt they could, and definitely not because of something you did?

So where is and has been the very same unconditional support and understanding you feel deserving of, for me?

So you or anyone else can keep your self-serving threats of restraining orders to yourselves, especially when it comes from people who know nothing about the law, pretty much no different than they know nothing about criminal law and the truth of my case, they know nothing about civil law, because in order to accomplish such a thing, I would have to have done something wrong and I have done nothing wrong to anyone or any of you warranting such treatment or necessity for such.

You all have broken my heart once again, and for what good reason, do you not have consciences anymore or has your Aunt succeeded in brainwashing you of that as well?

Am I not human, made of flesh and bones and feelings as well?

What's the sense of asking such a question, none of you could even explain the logic of why you have no understanding or compassion of or towards grandpa and why you find intentionally hurting him is or was okay but rest assured, in me now knowing your true thoughts and feelings as expressed, I as a good man and father no matter how bad it hurts have been left with no choice but to make the sacrifice, as well as respect your wishes and desires as I always have, and in doing such, whether in the event of me proving my innocence or walking out of these walls for any reason, not seek any of you out, so in saying this you all can knock the self-serving drama and charades off.

Although I am extremely confused as to why any of you have taken the position it appears that you have, what you are all doing is nothing more than a waste of time because none of you seem to understand, I never disillusioned myself into believing I was ever walking out of here, not at least until I proved my innocence and cleared my name, more so not for me but, more for the sake of my daughters having the peace of mind in knowing their father wasn't the animal everyone spent all these years trying to convince you I was, it appears I lost all of you to that battle because now it has been made clear to me that that doesn't matter to any of you.

So you and Wendy can run your little smear campaigns asking for people to hate me but once the truth comes out of my innocence how will any of you take back the damage that has been done?

I know you guys were too young to remember but, since your Aunt Wendy is so fond of telling stories, why don't you ask her about the story of how she ruined your mother's 9 years of sobriety and pretty much ruined her sister's life and future.

Your mother's and my life and marriage was perfect until she decided to force your mother to relive parts of her traumatizing past that she wasn't prepared to deal with.

And for what, money your greedy aunt felt she was deserving of from a no good child abuser and pedophile.

As for my current wife Heather, none of you took the time to meet and get to know her so to say she is a stranger to any of you was at your doing.

I get it, you guys feel I betrayed your mother and feel that I should have died here broken-hearted before I let another woman love me or I love that woman.

Well I am of the firm belief that once again there are higher powers at work that sent Heather to me 7 years ago and one of those powers is your mother herself.

So no, Heather and I are legally married and have been so for 5 of those 7 years now contrary to what your husband thinks and I could only hope that your husbands love you as much as Heather loves your father.

So no matter what you may think ask yourself this question, if my father is such the bad person that all my current family has made him out to be, how is it he seems to be blessed with good people that keep him close and have taken on the painstaking chore of looking at all the facts and evidence to see this case for exactly what it is and believe in him and his innocence?

Perhaps too many of you are blinded by misplaced hate and self-serving agendas to allow you the same open mind and rational thinking of these unbiased people that support me, but nonetheless, that by no means justifies your words or actions no matter what the cause.

How does one end a missive such as this spiritually draining one that offered me no comfort nor closure other than to say, I wish for you all the best that life may have to offer.

Always your Father